Spike on Strike

by Sarcasmo

Rating: everyone
Tags: Slice of Life, My Little Pony: Friendship is Magic, Spike, Comedy, Twilight Sparkle
Length: 27204

Spike has had it. It's not his fault the library is a shambles. But he's not gonna take the blame. Until Twilight starts appreciating him, he goes on strike.

Spike has had it. It's not his fault the library is a shambles. In fact, he tried his very best to save it.

And now he's supposed to take the blame? Not this time! Until Twilight starts to fully appreciate his worth, Spike goes on strike!

He will not falter! He will not give in! He will stand his ground!
...if at the end of it all there is still some ground left to stand on.

Published 2013-04-28 18:50:01 UTC
Last updated 2013-07-04 02:55:12 UTC

1st Act

Spike grumbled a little. He tossed and turned two more times, but no matter what he did, he couldn't get back into that comfy spot. While he had involuntarily left, his comfort had stayed in dreamland. Now it taunted him from above as the gatekeeper that wouldn't let him back in.

The sleep in his eyes gave him a nasty itch that grew too strong to ignore. Eyes still shut, he picked at it with his claws. He had gotten rid of the greater part, when a realization blew his eyes wide open: why hadn't the alarm woken him?

He had slept in, came the horrid conclusion. With one big jump out of bed he was practically halfway down the stairs. He wouldn't be able to properly chew his breakfast if he wanted to make up for the time lost. And he'd have to make up or Twilight would be furious. And Twilight would be disappointed in him. She would give him a scolding and a proper punishment and that look of disapproval she tended to get at times like these. Twilight... should and would have woken him up once she had noticed that he was still asleep. But she hadn't. Because, he realized, she wasn't even there.

He remembered. Now Spike remembered what exactly was going on: Twilight had left the library before sunrise to catch the first train to the Crystal Empire. There she needed to pick up a number of books from the Empire's library, specifically copied for her and of classified content, if he had understood her correctly, and she wouldn't be back until five. That's why he hadn't set the alarm. That's why he had been able to sleep in. Today, he would have the entire day to himself.

Once he would finish his chores that is. When she got back, Twilight was sure to check on him, and if she wouldn't be satisfied with what she found, she would surely decide she couldn't leave Spike on his own ever again. But still, with himself in charge there were certain corners he could cut, for instance merely sweeping dust under the carpets or behind the shelves. If all went as planned, he'd be done in time for lunch.

A merry tune on his lips and a smile in his heart, preparing his breakfast became more of a dance than anything. Bowl, milk, and his Sergeant Sapphire cereals (the only brand-name cereal containing natural gemstones) seemed to fall into place on their own as he fantasized about his afternoon plans.

He two-stepped to the breakfast table, the bowl in his claws a makeshift dancing partner, when he found the nasty surprise Twilight had left for him. In the middle of the table, almost in exact geometrical alignment, lay a note. It read:

Spike,

I forgot that I had an order of 50 quills from Quills & Sofas ready to be picked up at 1 p.m. Would you be so kind to pick them up for me? And don't let the store owner talk you into buying another sofa. Under no circumstances do we need another one.
Also, I wasn't able to finish going through all the outdated books in the basement to see if I categorized any of them incorrectly. If you would be so kind to do that for me, that would be great.
Remember to eat healthy (no, ice cream does not constitute healthy) and take care of yourself and the library. I trust you completely. I should arrive at the Ponyville station at 4:36.

Love,
Twilight

Spike sighed heavily. Six hundred forty-seven characters had ruined his afternoon fun-time in the blink of an eye. These additional chores were sure to take all day. That just wasn't fair!

However, if he was going to be busy with his duties all day anyway, there was no point in rushing things; he could take his dear time having breakfast. Still somewhat cheerful, he started picking out the purple gems from his cereal to save for later.

* * *

The basement smelled of dust, dirt, and musty pages. Visually, it seemed to be mimicking the design of an ancient, only recently discovered crypt. Essentially, the dust lay so thick it had formed into an entire landscape of little dunes. When Twilight had been down here (if she had been down here at all), she hadn't bothered to clean up in the slightest; that was another task which would fall to Spike. There was no way he could even think about sorting the outdated books without dusting off a little (or even a lot) first, if for the fear of suffering from silicosis alone.

It wouldn't be any change, of course, as he had been busy cleaning house the entire morning, just like he expected, with only occasional interruptions when he had to tend to the regular librarian duties of loaning books. He hadn't even bothered to put down the feather duster when he got down to the basement, and decided to put it to work right away.

The first sweep sent cascades of dust falling down in every direction. It was as if the dust had been part of a fragile ecosystem that was rapidly falling apart due to Spike's violent intrusion. But it didn't deserve any better. Spike was willing to mercilessly wipe out every last grain if he had to.

Every sweep made good progress, but he didn't even manage to finish the first shelf, when all of a sudden a voice called out from behind him: “Hey Spike! What'cha doing?”

He fell over backwards, sending half the cascade right back upwards in the process. Once he had collected himself, he looked up at the eyes of an upside down Sweetie Belle. “Oh, hi Sweetie Belle! I was just...” He interrupted himself to let out a sigh. “...going to dust off and sort all the books down here.” Before he continued, he turned around and got up. “And what about you? What are you doing here?”

“We came here to pick up a book for Zecora,” Sweetie Belle explained. “We want to give earning our potion mixing cutie marks another shot. Zecora agreed to help us, but she said she doesn't have any books on the basics anymore. So she sent us to pick some up.”

An eerie chill crept down Spike's spine, freezing each vertebra individually. “We? Us? You mean Apple Bloom and Scootaloo are here with you? And they're still upstairs? Unsupervised?”

“Yeah!” Sweetie Belle answered. “They were already searching for books when I went looking for you and Twilight.” She rubbed her front hoof a little. “I'm sure you wouldn't mind, but I felt we should properly borrow the books from the library and not just take them ourselves.”

Spike barely listened to her response. That eerie chill forced him to run upstairs and check for any remnants of a library still left on the first floor. As he peeked behind the basement door, he was almost overwhelmed by the sight. Only slowly could his eyes and feet wander towards the epicenter of chaos, from which came the gruesome chorus of destruction.

“This one?” – “Nope!” – *thud* – “This one?” – “Nope!” – *thud* – “This one?” – “Nope!” – *thud*

“What are you doing!?” Spike shouted, much more shocked than angry, at one Scootaloo climbing the half-empty book cases and one Applebloom watching from below.

“Hi Spike!” Scootaloo greeted as she jumped back down from the shelves. Sweetie Belle, having come up alongside Spike, also took her place next to her fellow Crusaders.

Apple Bloom went on to explain: “We were just looking for some books. Zecora...”

“I know that! Sweetie Belle told me,” Spike interrupted. “But did you really have to trash the entire place in the process?”

Only now did the three Crusaders bother to look around and become aware of standing knee-deep in a sea of books that had flooded the ground. The entire scene wouldn't have looked much different if a tornado had raged through the library, browsed every single shelf, and carelessly discarded any book it hadn't liked.

Scootaloo was the first to speak. “Sorry, I guess. We didn't really pay much attention to anything we didn't need.” The others made a quick apologetic gesture.

“But we're gonna help you clean up,” Apple Bloom said, already picking up a number of books, shoving them back into the shelves. “Promise!”

“Who knows,” Sweetie Belle added, “maybe we'll even get cleaning cutie marks! Or librarian cutie marks!”

A sigh of relief, along with most of his deepest worries, escaped Spike. “Thanks, girls. I don't know if I could do it on my own. You know, Twilight would be furious if she...”

Just at that moment, the front door opened. Spike instinctively shrunk, trying to hide himself within himself. He didn't dare to take a glance over his shoulder to see the disgruntled face of his friend and employer behind him.

But he couldn't stay like that forever; the problem wouldn't go away by itself. He drew himself up, turned around, and stared into the disapproving eyes of Zecora. She didn't need any more than a first impression to piece together the situation. She walked over to the three Crusaders and, her sullen face towering above them, began to speak: “When you come to me with a notion, you can't run off and cause commotion! If you don't stop your misbehaving you'll never get what you are craving. Now do show Spike some courtesy and offer an apology.”

“But we already did!” Scootaloo argued. “We even promised to clean up with him!”

Zecora answered her with a smug smile: “That I did not know. But then, it does not hurt to do so again.”

None of the Crusaders had any response to that, so they all just faced Spike and hung their heads. “We're sorry,” they all said in unison.

Zecora nodded her approval. “Well said, but there's a brew awaiting, and there's no need for more berating. So grab all things you need to pack, for we must hurry and head back.”

That was something that perfectly suited the Crusaders' books. Immediately, they made for the door. “Sorry, Spike,” Apple Bloom repeated once more while parting. “And I hope you don't mind us taking this here book.” She held up a copy of A Basic Course in Brewing.

“No, go ahead,” Spike responded, hanging his head. He was a little grief-stricken, but he had to accept his fate nonetheless. Having somepony to help him clean up sounded too good to be true anyway.

Noticing his woe, Zecora couldn't just leave the poor little fellow alone. None of this appeared to be his fault; he simply ended up with the short end of the stick. She walked up to him, lifted his chin with her hoof, looked him deep in the eyes, and shot him a warm smile. “I'm sorry I couldn't prevent this tizzy, but I myself was pretty busy. But please, young Spike lift up that chin. Though it is a big mess you're in, I would think, from what I have seen, that you'll get this place sparkling clean."

The good intentions were plain to see, even for Spike, but Zecora's words didn't fully comply with them. Nevertheless, it was enough to put a smile back on the little dragon's face.

Satisfied with her success, Zecora turned to leave and check on the Crusaders; it was better to keep a constant eye on them. Only when she was in the doorway did she stop to speak her parting words: “I hope you get to tidy fast, as one o'clock has already passed.”

Spike indeed had to get a move on if he wanted to finish in time. It might be cutting it close, but by his estimate he could manage to do so. Plus, despite all this work he still had to remember about the errand Twilight had...

“No, no, no!” He darted out the door as fast as his claws could fly. He managed to cross half of Ponyville in under a minute, overtaking Zecora and the CMC in the process, and with a dive, he landed in the entrance of Quills and Sofas.

“I'm... here... pick... quills... Twilight...” His words came with the rhythm of waves breaking on a shore.

Davenport, proud owner of Quills and Sofas, looked down at him from behind the counter as he picked up his clipboard. “Let's see,” he said in that rhetorical way meant to exude authority and activity. “Ah yes, here it is. An order for fifty quills and a sofa by Twilight Sparkle, to be picked up by either herself or her assistant Spike.”

“Exactly!” Spike replied, still working on an inner check list in which he had moved from the first point 'getting up' and the second 'catching his breath' to the third 'getting the order done'. “Wait, did you say fifty quills and a sofa?”

“Yep!” Davenport announced. “That's what it says on the form: fifty quills and a sofa.”

This, of course, had to be a mistake; a simple mistake Spike would be sure to sort out in no time. “I'm pretty sure the order was just for fifty quills.”

Davenport eyed his customer warily. “And I'm pretty sure the order was for fifty quills and a sofa,” he grunted.

Spike was turned feeble by the situation he found himself in. “But Twilight explicitly told me not to pick up another sofa. She would get furious if I came back with one.”

“Why would she be furious?” Davenport asked, all his previous hostility replaced with that coaxing charm of a proper vendor. “When she lays her eyes on this beauty, she will fall in love with it immediately. Here, just give it a try.” Like a sack of flour, he heaved Spike into the air and onto the sofa in question.

It really did feel good. The way the armrest yielded to his claws, the way the backrest supported his back, the way the cushions tended to his behind – it was incredibly comfortable. It was a good sofa. No, he'd go farther than that: it was a great sofa. Twilight was sure to love...

He shook his head to come back to reality. There was no way Twilight would be taking this whole thing affirmatively. She would insist on not having wanted the sofa in the first place and maybe even force Spike to pay it off himself. She might even withhold his allowance for a couple of weeks.

“No, I can't,” Spike eventually said. “I can't bring this sofa back to the library.”

“Why not?” Davenport asked incredulously. “Isn't it comfy? Isn't it sturdy? Isn't it the greatest sofa you ever had the pleasure of sitting on?”

“It's not about the sofa,” Spike said. What little poise he had was slowly being gnawed away, like a cracker in the hands of a rodent. “It's about the original order which was only for fifty quills. I can't come back with any more or any less.”

“Look, kid,” Davenport began, his coaxing charm flipping back to the previous hostile behavior, “I'll put it bluntly: either you walk out of this here store with fifty quills and a sofa, or you walk out with nothing at all. I won't have Twilight come over here tomorrow to complain about a messed up order. I don't do part orders and I won't start now.”

Spike's words, as well as his confidence, failed him. He didn't have the nerve to fight the store owner any more; all that was left for him to do was choose the lesser of two evils. He left the store with as many words out of his mouth as quills in his pockets. With his head parallel to the ground, he trudged home.

* * *

When Spike scuffed through the door, he was greeted by the literary mayhem that had awaited him ever so patiently; or maybe not so patiently, since he felt it had grown even further and devoured the last visible remnants of the floor in the meantime. He was looking at a never-ending meadow of books, single pages sticking out like flowers; flowers which attempted to cause an allergic shock.

It was more hopeless than ever. With less time for the deed and a seemingly grown disorder, there was no way he could be done before Twilight got back. And he had neither had time to clean up the basement, nor managed to fetch the quills from the store. That would be three strikes. Three strikes! The magic number that automatically made any mishap ten times worse.

Spike couldn't help again envisioning all the disappointment and the fury, the horrible, horrible fury that would be writ large in Twilight's face once she returned. He tried his best to suppress these thoughts, but they kept coming back, growing more and more vivid on every iteration.

The image became unbearable. He had to get rid of it, by force if necessary, and one of the scattered books would be his perfect aid. He picked it up and slammed his head into it.

The trick didn't work, partly because the slam was much too gentle, as Spike was afraid of hurting himself, partly because it was a foolish idea that could never have worked in the first place. He opened his eyes and took a look at the book cover. It read A Gardening Guide for Growing with Gallantry. If memory served, Twilight had had a small debate on whether the book belonged in the gardening or the etiquette section. Eventually, she compromised on putting it in a shelf within the gardening section where it was visible from any point of the etiquette section. Spike still remembered the exact place and quickly walked through the room to put the book where it belonged. Over there he picked up another tome. This one belonged in the bottom shelf two bookcases to the left.

He repeated this process over and over. Like an automaton, he bustled about the room, slowly conquering the limitless sea of book. He didn't even notice that, all at once, the dreaded thoughts had vanished. He had successfully drowned himself in work, or rather backstroked through his work in delightful bliss. When he eventually looked up at the clock and then around the room to see how much cleaning he had done by now, hope started to bud that there might still be enough time to at least return the library to its pre-Crusader-state before Twilight would arrive. For the last hour Spike doubled his efforts.

He was just about to put away the very last tome, when he heard the door hinges squeak behind him. He couldn't stop now, so very close to the finish line; he'd have to complete his task right away. In a fit of panic, he quickly shoved the book into the empty space in the shelf before him.

That proved to be a grave mistake. The force of his shove toppled the bookcase, causing it to slowly shift its center of mass to the back, eventually reach the wall behind, bounce of said wall, and rock right back at him, looming ever so eerily.

For just a moment it seemed like the shelf would hold. It was frozen in place. It had managed to defy gravity. But only up to the point until it didn't and it finally tipped over. To add insult to injury, it not only emptied its entire content onto Spike, but also managed to spread the dust he had hidden behind it across half the library.

All the noise did not pass by the incoming Twilight. Taking in the condition the library was in, she walked over to her assistant, who had managed to stick his head out of the pile of books. “What's going on in here?” she asked as her magic helped him out of his confinement.

“It was... I-I-I...” Spike stuttered, desperately trying to catch the right words as much as the ground below his feet.

Twilight didn't wait for a proper answer. All the disappointment Spike had previously imagined became a reality in her facial contours. Yet, there was no fury.

“Spike, we talked about this,” she began in a patronizing tone. “Just because I'm not around, doesn't mean you can shirk your responsibilities. I thought you knew better than that. You're old enough; I expected you to be more mature by now. You have to realize I won't always be around for you. At some point, you have to learn to take care of yourself.”

“But I... But before...” Those randomly uttered syllables didn't make a good case for Spike.

“Did you at least pick up the quills like I asked you to?” Twilight asked. There was an expecting glimmer in her eyes, a glimmer of hope that was his chance at redemption – a redemption that was just as impossible to get as the actual quills had been earlier.

“I tried, but... They were... The store was...” It was as if his vocal chords had conspired against him. They tried to form every appropriate, viable sentence at once, ending up with nothing but complete nonsense.

Twilight looked him deep in the eyes. “Oh Spike!” was all she said. It was all she needed to say. Those words stung hard enough for Spike to feel nothing but shame.

Twilight turned his back on him. After a small pause she began talking again. “Tell you what: we will pick up the quills together tomorrow morning. Tonight however, you take this broom –” She levitated said item right into his claw. “– and make up for your misconduct by cleaning the library right now. If you do a proper job, I will desist from giving you any punishment. And after that you are going to take a bath, because I can smell from here that you didn't bother to take one this morning.” Twilight turned back around and shot Spike a smile, proud of her Solomonian judgment.

Spike was much too ashamed to accept his punishment just like that. Although it didn't feel like shame any more; it felt like something completely different now. It felt much more intense and much more animating. What he had thought to be shame had all along been pure, unadulterated anger.

It had come, he realized: the fury Spike had dreaded so much. Only that it wasn't Twilight's, but his own. His blood was boiling, his intestines were twirling, and his toes were curling upwards. Some frail voice, one last remaining bastion of reason, begged him not to do it, to reconsider, sleep over it, or do anything else, but it was already fighting a losing battle. Spike's mind was made up. He took the broom in his hand and violently dashed it to the ground.

“I quit!” he squealed with mighty force. Granted, it was a very manly squeal, or at least an above-average manly squeal, that only barely deserved the name.

Twilight was completely petrified. She blinked multiple times in rapid succession, but the image before her refused to change: it always remained the same discarded broom at the same trembling feet of the same recalcitrant little dragon. Being fully occupied with hanging agape, her mouth only managed a small break to form a single word: “What?”

Spike crossed his arms. “I said I quit! You can do your stuff yourself!”

The shock was just as great the second time around. Twilight decided to get a hold of the situation the only way she knew how: by lecturing. “Now Spike, listen: You have to...”

“No, you listen!” he yelled. “I've been dusting the entire library, survived an attack from the Cutie Mark Crusaders, and dealt with the world's most obnoxious sofa salespony just for this!? I'm not working my butt off all day to have you come in and scold and patronize me! If that's what I get, I'm outta here!”

It was all much too surreal. Twilight was unable to fully grasp everything he said; why, she didn't even chide him for using the word 'butt'. She was only focused on saving the situation by somehow calming down her assistant. A thousand ideas were flashing through her mind, but none of them were any help. They either all let him get away with his unacceptable behavior or they would always risk aggravating him even further. Only one thought Twilight had to carefully isolate from the others provided a solution to the problem, and even better yet, an explanation for it. With the insight, a smile crept onto her face.

“Oh, I get it,” she announced. “You think I'm mad at you. You think just because of your little misdemeanor I'd dismiss you as my Number One Assistant. But that's just silly, Spike. Granted, I'm a little disgruntled by the looks of the library, but that's nothing to speak of. Just because you made a mistake, I won't stop loving you. Didn't you learn that the last time? Believe me, you'll always be my Number One Assistant, no matter what!”

She stretched out a hoof, sure to have made peace. She wasn't too sure what she was going to do with it, maybe a pat on the shoulder or playfully ruffle his scales a little, but it didn't matter since she never got that far. Before she reached him, Spike cast her hoof aside.

“No, Twilight,” he said, as he lowered his head. His face was a black shadow, like a moon in a lunar eclipse. “You just don't get it.”

Perfectly calm, he walked out the door with small, slow steps, leaving behind a Twilight that was much too startled to run after him.

2nd Act

Fluttershy was already a little uneasy when she set out for the library and it was all due to her unexpected house guest. The creature had been washed ashore by the basin in front of her house last evening, and since it had looked very down on its luck, she had naturally taken it in and vowed to nurse the poor thing back to health.

She had to rack her brain for quite a while to identify the bizarre animal as a platypus, a creature she had only seen in a book once, by chance. But having never met a real life platypus, she hadn't the slightest clue on how to take care of it. She had taken a wild guess that, since it looked like a beaver, it would most likely eat tree bark. When it refused, she had tried feeding it birdseed, because of its beak, but to no avail. Afraid it might starve if she didn't do something, she had decided she would need to find some additional information on its kind in the Ponyville Library the next morning.

She figured the chances of finding a book on platypuses to be rather slim, which only fueled her unease even more. That she saw Spike crawling out of a tent on the front lawn once she had reached the library didn't exactly help to calm her down either. Still, as a good friend of his, she felt it was her duty to find out what's going on.

Spike was so busy with his morning stretch and yawn, he didn't even notice Fluttershy until she was right in front of him. “Good morning, Spike,” she said.

“Hey, Fluttershy!” he quickly but politely greeted back. “What are you doing here?”

“Um, I just wanted to pick up a book from the library,” she replied. Her hoof drew a little circle on the ground. “I hope you don't mind me asking, but is there a reason why you're sleeping in the front yard?”

“Oh!” Spike scratched the back of his neck. “It's just that Twilight and I had a little... argument yesterday. Then I kinda walked out on her and didn't want to go back. Fortunately, Tent Peg allowed me to borrow one of his tents for the night, as long as I took the one with the advertising cover on the outside. He said it would pay him back with the additional business it would give him.” He pointed to a store on the far side of the lawn by the library. In front of it, an earth pony could be seen, politely waving at Fluttershy and Spike while still marveling at the ingenuity of his latest marketing campaign.

“Oh my!” Fluttershy said, covering her mouth. “And you didn't have a chance to talk to her since?”

“No, I didn't. I just got up a few minutes ago and... Well, to be honest, I don't really know what to do or what to say after what I did,” Spike admitted. He took a good look at the still not open for business library door. “But I guess there's no helping it. I'll just have to swallow my pride and apologize.”

He took no more than his first step before he turned back around. “Unless...” He gave Fluttershy a perfidious look.

She didn't like the sound of that at all. “Unless what?”

“Unless you go in for me and talk to Twilight first,” Spike suggested. “You know, to see if she's mad at me or if she's totally calm and willing to make up just as badly as I am.”

Fluttershy's entire body rocked back like a roly-poly doll that never made its way back up. “T-t-talk to Twilight for you?” It was like a request to fight Nightmare Moon again. “I can't, I just can't! I'd have no idea what to say. What if she's still mad at you and then gets mad at me? What if she isn't mad at you, but I make her mad again?” She was visibly fighting the urge to fly away. “I'm just not good at handling conflict. I think it would be better if you went in yourself.”

“Pe-leeease, Fluttershy!” He knelt down before her with folded claws. “Please, please, please! I just don't know how she'll react to me. If she's still mad, I have to know. I'm sure she won't get mad at you just for asking.”

“But I...” She lost her words. On his knees the baby dragon looked much tinier than usual, while his big, pleading eyes had disproportionally grown. There was no way in Equestria she could have said no to that. So she didn't. “Fine, I'll check on her for you.”

“Really?” There was a bright glimmer in Spike's eyes. He jumped up and rushed over to hug Fluttershy. “Thanks, Fluttershy! You're the best!”

She shot him a smile and gently patted his head, before she walked to the library door as promised. One last deep breath, then she entered.

“I'm sorry, we're not open yet. If you could come back...” Twilight interrupted her default reception. “Fluttershy! What are you doing here? Can I do anything for you?” she politely offered.

“Well, I came here to borrow a book...”

Fluttershy made a pause too long for Twilight not to interrupt: “Of course you would. Are you looking for a book on something specific? Do you know the title? Or the author?”

Fluttershy flinched just a little. “Actually, when I came here I met Spike and...”

“You did!?” This time there was no pause; Twilight was merely too worried to let her friend finish. “Where did you meet him? Is he alright?”

“Oh, he's doing fine,” Fluttershy answered.

Twilight allowed herself to sigh. “That's a relief. I was a little worried he'd run off into the woods again and get himself into all kinds of trouble. But when I checked, there didn't seem to be any footprints leading into the Everfree. He must have learned his lesson the last time.”

“Actually, he spent the night in a tent in front of the library,” Fluttershy said.

“He did?” Twilight cocked her head as if it helped her thoughts trickle down and make room for more information. “I guess he just needed some time to clear his head, didn't he?”

Fluttershy slightly nodded her head. “Oh, yes! He told me he was sorry and that he wanted to make up.”

Twilight gave a big and wide grin. “That's wonderful! I guess I might have overreacted a little too. Maybe I shouldn't have been so harsh on him just because he takes the day off when I'm not around.”

“I think you should tell him, not me,” Fluttershy suggested.

“You're right,” Twilight said. “I should and I will.”

She walked over to the door and upon opening was already approached by Spike, one of his ears leaning towards her. The innocent face he was making was just a bit too innocent to be innocent.

“Hi Twilight!” he sweetly greeted.

“Hi Spike! Fluttershy said you had something to tell me.”

“Yeah.” Spike constantly shifted back and forth like the pendulum of a metronome. “Well, I kinda got a little hot-headed and did something I shouldn't have done. And I'm sorry for what I did. I shouldn't have just walked out on you like that.” His eyes and arms were offering a reconciliation-hug, which Twilight gladly accepted.

“And I'm sorry too,” she said, hooves still wrapped around him. “I shouldn't have been so abrasive just because you didn't sweep the library once. It doesn't matter if you take a day off every once in a while. But it's much appreciated that you apologized for the state you left the library in.”

Spike very abruptly and forcefully freed himself from the hug. “Wait a minute. You do realize I'm only apologizing for walking out on you, not for the state the library was in.”

Twilight offered him a kind smile. “I already told you it doesn't matter. You can skip work and have some leisure when I'm not around, as long as you don't make a habit of it.”

“But I didn't!” he half-yelled at her. “I've been cleaning all day, working til my claws turned sore.”

“Really?” Twilight raised an eyebrow at him. “Then why did the library look like it did when I entered? Did it just magically fall into disarray the second I arrived?”

“Actually it did!” Spike argued. “I only blew up all that dust when I toppled over the bookshelf.”

Twilight's eyebrows turned to furrowing. The rest of her expression quickly caught up to an overall very stern and disapproving look. “You know, slacking off is one thing, but I won't have you lie to me just like that.”

“But I'm not! I've really been spending all day cleaning!”

“You mean because your previous track record has been so immaculate?” Twilight shouted. “Because I haven't returned to a squalid library dozens of times before? Or was it like the time the wind knocked over the plates in the kitchen? Or the time a big spider spilled ink all over my letter? Or my personal favorite, the time a ghost walked into the library and ate all the chocolate?”

“I never said the ghost ate all the chocolate,” Spike explained. “I said I saw a ghost and was so scared that I ate all the chocolate. But you would know that if you would bother to listen instead of jumping to conclusions all the time!”

Twilight had lowered her head to shoot Spike a piercing gaze, but it automatically raised as she wrinkled her nose. “Frankly, I don't like you're tone, Mister. You stop that at once or...”

“Or what? You're gonna make me clean the library!?”

“Obviously I can't, or we wouldn't be having this conversation in the first place! Or perhaps you don't know how to do that, since I've seen you cutting more and more corners recently. Scrap paper doesn't just disappear because you stuff it into excess bookshelves!”

“There we go again! Just because you find some papers in a shelf you jump to conclusions. Ms. Jumps-to-conclusion thinks she knows it all! Ms. Know-it-all!”

“I'm not a know-it-all! If I were, I would be the first to know, since I'd know everything by definition!”

“That's exactly what a know-it-all would say!”

Unwilling to concede even in the slightest, both of them had moved closer and closer to each other until they had now reached the point of literal headbutting.

“You know,” Spike began, “if you don't appreciate what I do around here, maybe I shouldn't stay around anymore. You never give me a break, you never say thank you, and you don't even let me go to those events you make me organize. Like that Booktober-fest. I'm good enough to write up and deliver all the invitations, but when I want to attend you're all like: 'No, Spike. Some of the books are inappropriate for your age. You're still a baby dragon after all.' ” For the last part, he poorly mimicked Twilight's voice.

“If you don't want to be treated like a baby, maybe you shouldn't act like one!” Twilight answered. “You always shy away from responsibility, lay the blame on everything else, and come up with ridiculous excuses.”

From there, their argument descended into petty, incoherent accusations they dug up from months ago. They didn't bother to listen to each other in the slightest anymore, and it was only a matter of time until they would both get tired.

“What do you think, Fluttershy?” they both yelled in a sudden break as they turned their heads sideways. But Fluttershy didn't respond. Because Fluttershy wasn't there any more. She had fled the scene well over a minute ago.

* * *

The rest of the day didn't go any better. Presented with a diversified supply of fruits and vegetables, the platypus only nibbled on some and left the rest untouched. It took a couple of bites more out of one of the apples and the single cabbage head Fluttershy had in her house, but the amount was far from sustaining a proper, nutritious diet. All the platypus did was treading the small margin of food that was barely enough to keep body and soul together. Fluttershy had to admit it to herself: there was no way around getting some help from one of the books in Twilight's library.

When she prepared to leave the next morning, she tried to calm herself with the thought that it had been an entire day since she had seen the two of them. There was some hope that Spike and Twilight would have managed to sort things out by the end of the day and were getting along as good as ever. When she saw a hot-headed Spike arguing with Rainbow Dash and Pinkie Pie in front of the same tent as yesterday, that hope was completely extinguished. Afraid of being drawn into the conflict once again, Fluttershy decided to first assess the situation from afar.

Spike's voice was the first she could clearly make out booming across the lawn. “... I mean, am I crazy for thinking like that?” he said.

“Of course not. It's crazy not to think like that!” Rainbow replied. “You can't just let her walk over you like that. Think about all the things you had to do for her: How many times did you have to sweep her floors?”

“Yeah,” Spike instinctively answered.

“And how many times did you have to pick up her orders from stores on the other side of town?”

“Yeah!”

“And how many times did you have to pack her bags for a picnic or a journey or a science... thingy.”

“An expedition,” Pinkie aided.

“Yeah, that,” Rainbow picked up. “How many times did you have to prepare one of her expeditions?”

“Way too many!” Spike was completely pumped by now. He looked eager enough to take on a manticore by himself, one claw tied to the back.

“And what did you ever get in return?” Rainbow asked expectantly.

The question remained pending in the air like the morning's last dewdrop on the edge of a leave. It seemed his wasn't the kind of eagerness practical for answering questions.

“Um... shelter, a bed, two hot meals a day...” he began after a moment of deliberation.

It was hard for Rainbow Dash to keep her composure at that. “No!” she yelled. “I mean yes, you did get all that, but that's not what's important. What's important is what you didn't get, but you should have gotten! And that is appreciation! That is respect!” All the important words were accentuated by stomps on the ground. “It's time for a change. Until Twilight pays what she owes, you should go on strike.”

Pinkie Pie bounced up and down at the notion. “That's a great idea, Dashie! We should get started right away. We need to paint some picket signs and write some protest songs and, ooh, we should set up concession stands, lots and lots of concession stands, with balloons and confetti and...”

“Pinkie!” Rainbow Dash interrupted. “It's not supposed to be a funfair. A strike is serious business.”

Pinkie Pie's bounciness succumbed to gravity and sobriety. “So, no balloons?”

“No balloons.”

For a moment Pinkie lost herself in thought. She was running through a dozen ideas a second, her pupils flying around like juggling pins. “You know,” she said, “I could bring some more serious balloons if that's...”

Rainbow's hoof spent a visit to her forehead. “Fine! You can bring some balloons. Just make sure you don't overdo it.”

“Can I ask something?” Spike said, catching the attention of both of his friends. “What's a strike?”

“A strike?” Rainbow Dash struck a pose. “A strike is the ultimate weapon for all working ponies. It's when you lay down your tools and tell your boss you had enough. So far and no further. You and your fellow ponies cling together, camp out in front of the library, and together you pressure Twilight until she gives in and admits she was wrong. You know, strength in numbers and all.”

Spike held a claw to his lips. “I don't know. I want things to change, but doesn't that all sound like a bit... much?”

Rainbow swayed her arms defensively. “No, it isn't. If Twilight won't listen to you, you have to show her that you're serious. That you're determined. You have to really take a stand, once and for all.” She leaned in for a whisper. “Just between you and me: Twilight can be a bit on the stubborn side from time to time.”

She got back up. “Come on, Pinkie, back me up on this, will you.”

Pinkie stepped in right away. “She's right, Spike. If work isn't fun anymore, you'll just get sad and grumpy and depressed, and by then you won't get any work done anymore. Then all you can do is liven things up with some music and cake or anything else that makes you feel happy again, and have as much fun as possible. And if Twilight won't let you have some fun at work, she needs to be told that she's being a mean old, grumpy meanie-pants.”

“Yeeeah, kinda like that,” Rainbow said, turning back to Spike. “So, what do you say? You up for it?”

Spike scratched his head awkwardly. “Well, if you say it's a good idea... Alright. I'll give it a shot.”

“Great!” Rainbow flew to Spike, grabbed him from under his arms, and lifted him into the air while turning around. “And the first thing we gotta do is...” She stopped, dropping Spike the short distance to the ground. “Is that Fluttershy?” she asked.

Spike dusted himself off. “Where?”

“Over there. Hiding in that bush.”

“Oh yeah, I guess it is.”

Instinctively, Fluttershy retracted into the bush, but she knew her efforts to hide were futile; she could feel her pink mane distinctly sticking out. Slowly; she stepped out and walked to her friends.

Rainbow Dash asked the obvious question: “What were you doing hiding in the bushes?”

“I, uh...” There was no comfortable answer. Fluttershy decided to at least opt for something that wouldn't lead to any follow up questions. “I just didn't want to interrupt.”

“You wouldn't have,” Rainbow replied. “We were just talking about what Spike should do about all this. Did he tell you what Twilight did?”

“We talked about it yesterday. He told me a little bit,” Fluttershy said softly, cutting herself off time and again with a mumbling whisper.

Rainbow took a step towards Fluttershy. “So you already told him how unfair she is. That things can't go on like this. That things need to change. Didn't you?” she said, pressing forward with the slow but unstoppable force of a glacier.

“N-no, I didn't,” Fluttershy bashfully admitted. She tried to slowly take a step back, away from her friend.

“But you are going to support Spike on his strike, won't you?” Rainbow drew even closer.

“I don't know,” Fluttershy whispered more than anything. There was a slight whimper that had crawled into her words. Rainbow Dash didn't seem to notice.

“But you have to agree Twilight isn't treating him right.”

Fluttershy merely gulped and nodded slightly.

“And you agree that things have to change,” Rainbow continued.

Fluttershy's head moved so feebly, if Rainbow hadn't wanted to see a nod in it, there was no way she could have.

“Then you just have to support Spike in his strike and join the picket line. You just have to.” This was nothing short of a direct order.

Fluttershy completely stiffened. She felt like a damsel in distress from those adventure flicks Pinkie liked so much, helplessly tied to the railroad tracks with Rainbow Dash being the oncoming train. Eventually, her legs gave in and she slumped to the ground.

The lawn below was a far worse hiding place for a fully grown mare than the bush had been, but Fluttershy tried nonetheless. If at least there had been a hole in the ground in which she could have hidden her head, she could have regained some of her easiness. But there wasn't, so her hooves covering her eyes had to do. Like an ostrich sticking its head into the sand, she hoped not seeing the problem could make it go away.

She didn't move a single muscle until she felt a warm hoof resting on her shoulder. When she opened her eyes again and raised her head, she stared into the now much less intimidating face of a smiling Rainbow Dash.

“Is there something we can do for you, Fluttershy?” Rainbow asked. “Like, what you came here for in the first place.”

Fluttershy put her front hooves back on the ground and lifted herself back up. “Actually, I came here to borrow a book,” she said calmly.

“Then why don't you go ahead and do so,” Rainbow offered. “I'm sure we can figure this stuff out on our own. And after that you can just come support Spike whatever way you want.”

Fluttershy returned the smile. “Thank you, Rainbow Dash.”

“Aw, don't mention it.” Rainbow let go of her friend and turned her attention back to the others. “Like I was saying, the first thing you gotta do is get the word out. Make ponies know what you're fighting for. And, of course, you have to let Twilight know that you're out here.”

Fluttershy took one final glance at her friends, before she entered the library. Everything would turn out just fine without her, she hoped.

She immediately heard Twilight's voice coming from the inside. “... I mean, am I crazy for thinking like that?”

Applejack responded: “Aw shucks! I know the little guy means well and all, but I know how much a hoofful he can be when he ain't even trying to. You sure this ain't just one big misunderstanding after another?”

“Positive,” Twilight replied.

“Then I don't see no other way either,” Applejack said. “I guess you really gotta wait it out. Spike's a bright little dragon. He's gonna come to his senses. He can see he did something wrong.”

“I'm afraid I'll have to agree with Applejack, dear,” Rarity said to Twilight. “He might be my little Spikey-Wikey—” She pinched the cheek of an imaginary Spike only she could see. “—but he too must learn to take responsibility for his mistakes and that a certain dedication to your work takes precedence over silly little quarrels and needless tamper tantrums. If I had run off every time a design turned out to be an eyesore, or ended up being destroyed by Opal, or whenever I had to work all through the night to make some last minute changes a customer demanded, which ended up turning a beautiful dress into an atrocious crime against fashion, why, the Carousel Boutique would certainly not be the thriving enterprise it is today. And especially with a business as … struggling as yours, everypony has to pull together.”

“Struggling? What's that supposed to mean?” Twilight asked.

Rarity went over and tried to give her friend her most comforting smile. “Don't you remember what I told you when we took a peek at your accounts last week. Well, no offense, darling, but I don't think your bookkeeping skills exactly match your book keeping skills.”

Fluttershy decided this was as good a moment as any to walk in on her friends. She couldn't hide for long anyhow – the moment she would be discovered was likely to be as uncomfortable as the last time – and this way she could hope to stop a possible argument between her friends before it had even begun.

“Um, hi girls,” she greeted them and they all greeted back.

“We were just talking about the argument Spike and Twilight had yesterday,” Rarity informed. “Oh my poor Spikey-Wikey! Where did we go wrong that you would degrade yourself to such repulsive acts of crudity.” She swooned a little, just for show. “But I remember: Twilight told us you were there, weren't you?”

Fluttershy nodded. “Yes I was,” she said.

“So what do you think about Spike's behavior yesterday?” Twilight asked. “Wasn't he just impossible to deal with?”

Fluttershy averted her gaze to the ground. “I guess he was kind of a little rude,” she admitted.

“Just like I said!” Twilight held her head up just a little higher than was appropriate.

“But I don't think he meant to be,” Fluttershy quickly added. “I think he really wanted to make up with you. I'm sure if you would talk to him and apologize—”

“Apologize!? Me!?” Twilight's glare was so fierce, it could have given the Stare a run for its money. “He was the one who walked out on me! He was the one who refused my apology! He was the one who didn't respect me as his elder! Why should I be the one to apologize?”

Fluttershy carefully took a step away from her friends. “I guess that's true, but...”

“Now wait just a minute,” Applejack chimed in. “If Spike's the one who walked out on Twilight, I reckon he better be the one apologizing first, don't you think? That's only fair! Otherwise, he might be getting the wrong ideas.”

“I guess he should,” Fluttershy admitted. She tried to measure the distance to the door, but it felt a world and a half away.

“Then it's only appropriate for Twilight to wait for him to come to her,” Rarity said. “He has to learn his lesson at some point. What else could she possibly do?”

“Yeah, what should I do?”

“What's she supposed to do?”

“I... I...” Staring into the demanding eyes of her friends, Fluttershy felt even worse than before. Tied to the tracks, it wasn't just one, but three oncoming trains approaching her simultaneously, threatening to collide on top of her in a giant fiery explosion, with no possibility for escape.

She collapsed to the ground and started to weep. “All I wanted to do is get a book from the library, because there was this poor little platypus at my doorstep, and it looked like it hadn't eaten in days, and I tried to feed it, but it wouldn't eat anything, and I was afraid it might starve, and I couldn't let that happen, and... and...” All other words were swallowed by her sobs as she continued to drown herself in tears. Her friends could only watch in shame.

“We're terribly sorry, darling,” Rarity said for herself and the others. “We never meant to pressure you like that.”

Applejack offered to give Fluttershy a hoof up which she gladly took. “I guess we just got a lil ambitious about this here thing, is all.”

Twilight came trotting back with a book floating beside her. “I got a copy of Exotic Animal Anatomy. I'm sure it can help you with your platypus problem.”

They all walked over to the door to see Fluttershy off.

“Th-thank you, Twilight,” Fluttershy stammered. She still hadn't fully calmed down. “I'm... I'm sorry to have troubled you like that.”

“Don't mention it. We're the ones who should be sorry. We should have never dragged you into this.” Twilight opened the door for her friend. “Once you've taken care of that platypus, you have to tell us all about it.”

“I will,” Fluttershy promised. Everypony said their goodbyes and Fluttershy took flight, hoping the rest of the day would go more smoothly, as that was all the commotion she could take for one day.

On the ground, Spike, Rainbow Dash, and Pinkie Pie also took notice of what was going on.

“There she is,” Rainbow pointed out. “Twilight, Spike's got something important to say to you.” She reached her hoof around and pushed the assistant right in front of the assisted.

“Twilight...” Spike began, followed by a long pause. Twilight looked at him with wide eyes. She was just as curious what he was going to say as he himself was.

He scratched his head, but there weren't any words hiding up there. He kicked the ground, but there weren't any words down there either. He turned his head to where Rainbow Dash and Pinkie Pie were standing and Rainbow threw a shoving motion in his direction.

Spike closed his eyes and took a deep breath. Without opening them again, he let out a gush of words all at once: “Twilight, until you show me the respect I deserve, I'm going on strike!”

He reopened his eyes and took a good look at Twilight, who was still watching him as curiously as before.

“Suppose I would listen to you,” she asked factually, “how exactly am I supposed to show that?”

Spike stared at her wide-eyed. He turned back to his friends and saw Pinkie pointing at two one-bit coins she was holding in her hoof.

“Maybe you could...” He shook his head and began once more. “With the respect you owe me, I want you to raise my allowance.”

“We could try raising your allowance,” Twilight agreed, “and if, but only if, you prove responsible and don't waste it on junk food, or use it as junk food, I might think about raising it permanently.”

Spike turned to his friends once more, but they didn't seem as impressed with his success as he was. They were gesturing him to push even further.

He turned back to Twilight. “And I demand the weekends off,” he said.

“What!?” This request caused a storm of indignation in Twilight. “You use every chance you can to ditch your work and you think about getting off two days a week!? Well, I demand you start doing any real work around the library in the first place!”

“This is not how this works, Twilight!” Rainbow Dash had immediately flown to Spike's defense and was already butting heads. “All you do is work him like a slave and never let him catch a break. I won't have you talk to him that way!”

“And I won't have you incite Spike to a strike with all this nonsense about Twilight being a slave driver,” Rarity chimed in, just as aggravated as the others. “It would figure that the pony most apt at dozing off and avoiding work at all costs would put him up to this.”

“And just what's that supposed to mean?” Rainbow asked incredulously.

“Exactly what you think it means,” Rarity replied coldly.

“Well, figures you would defend Twilight, since you've been working him just as hard,” Rainbow accused. “You've been treating him like a slave just as much!”

Rarity put a hoof to her chest. “Treating him like a slave? Moi? Why, I've never heard such preposterous accusations.”

“Spike told us all about what you made him do.” Rainbow Dash lifted him up into the air and in front of Rarity. “Go ahead, Spike. Tell her.”

Spike melted into pudding right in Rainbow's arms. Even with that angry scowl on her face, Rarity looked so magnificently beautiful, with her elegantly styled mane and her bright azure eyes. He got completely weak in his knees, elbows, the rest of his arms and legs, and just about any other part of his body, including his tongue. He couldn't have told her she was out of milk, much less accuse her of being a ruthless slave driver trying to work him to death. All he was capable of was staring at her in awe and worshipping her in quiet. If at that moment she had asked him to climb the peak of Mount Olympus and steal fire from the gods themselves, he would have happily obliged.

Seeing him out cold for the most part, Rainbow decided to let Spike down and get back to doing the talking for him. “He told us how he had to clean your attic by himself, how you used his body as a pin cushion, and even about that one time when he had to imitate a hat rack just so you could see what it looks like.”

“Why those were just simple deeds when he wanted to give me a hoof,” Rarity defended. “He always seemed positively delighted and I never forced him to do anything.”

“Sure doesn't sound like what Spike said,” Rainbow said. “Sounds to me like you were only using him whenever you needed some cheap labor.”

“That is complete and utter rubbish.” Rarity placed her hoof on the door. “And neither me nor Twilight nor Applejack will have any more of this. Go ahead with your silly little strike; you'll see that it won't get you anywhere.”

“Oh, is that so,” Rainbow taunted. “If you wanna play rough, you're gonna get rough.”

“I'd love nothing more than to play rough!”

“You don't even know rough!”

“Then why don't you show it to us?”

“Oh, we will show you rough.”

“I can't wait for it.”

“Fine!”

“Fine!”

“Fine!”

“Fine!”

With that, Rarity slammed the door shut in both their faces.

Rainbow Dash snorted, as she turned and trotted away. “Come on, Spike, Pinkie Pie, we got work to do.”

3rd Act

Drawing attention to the case of Ponyville's neglected dragon assistant had been a tremendous success. If by the passionate appeals of Rainbow Dash, the accounts of the dragon in question himself, or simply through the grapevine, by the end of the day all of Ponyville had learned of the strike taking place in front of the Ponyville Library.

And many had joined the picket line. They had grabbed their tents and sleeping bags (or more accurately, bought them on the spot) and set up camp right next to Spike's. When Tent Peg's Camping Emporium had reopened the day after, it had been spitting out customers by the minute.

While Spike and Rainbow Dash had been busy recruiting new members, Pinkie Pie had felt responsible for keeping up the camp's morale. She was able to provide the protesters with a supply of signs, paints, and string instruments as endless as her own cheerfulness. On top of that, she also catered to the needs of the proverbial stomach any army is bound to march on.

“...And I made sure everypony got at least a muffin or a donut or a slice of cake or a treat of the same level of sugary goodness,” she proudly reported to Spike once she had finished her round.

“Did you save any for me?” Spike asked worriedly.

“Of course I did, you silly-nilly. I even prepared a cupcake especially for you.” She grabbed the very last treat from the tray behind her. “It's a chocolate-strawberry-vanilla cupcake sprinkled with diamond dust and baked with a blue topaz inside.”

Spike's eyes sparkled as much as the pastry. “And it's just for me?”

Pinkie nodded. “It's your special you're-leading-a-terrific-strike cupcake. Enjoy!”

He took it from her hooves and swallowed the entire thing in a single bite. “It's amazing! Thanks, Pinkie Pie,” he said with his mouth full.

“And you've earned it,” Rainbow Dash said. “Look at what you managed to achieve in a single day.”

Spike waved his hand dismissively. “I didn't really do much,” he said. “And what I did, I could have never done without you.”

“Yeah, you're right,” Rainbow agreed. “We were pretty amazing.” She laid her hoof on his shoulder. “And you just wait and see: with support like this, we'll win in no time. Rarity will be sorry for calling this strike silly and meaningless.” She grabbed him more tightly. “Oh, we're so gonna show her.”

“And then Twilight will take me back and treat me with more respect?” Spike asked.

“Huh?” For half a second, Rainbow merely looked at him quizzically. “Oh, sure. She's gotta crack any minute now. I mean, can you really imagine her running the whole library by herself? I bet she doesn't even know how to do half the stuff you usually do for her.”

“Well, I was always the one to keep track of all the books on reshelving day. And re-reshelving day. And re-re-reshelving day. And I-can't-believe-I've-been-rearranging-these-books-so-many-times-what-was-I-thinking day.” He took a long look at the library. “Come to think of it, I'm the one who always has to get the books for the customers.”

“That's because she can't even do it. She needs you. She depends on you. She can't even last a minute without you.” Rainbow Dash grinned maliciously. “Without you, I bet she's going crazy in there.”

Spike's gaze swayed downward for a moment, and when he looked back up at Rainbow, tears were dwelling in the corners of his eyes. “But not the bad kind of crazy,” she quickly added. “The good kind. The kind that makes you apologize to your friends.”

Her words were about as convincing as the sales pitch of a door-to-door peddler.

Lucky for her, they were distracted by the approach of an unfamiliar pony looking like a door-to-door peddler. “Excuse me,” the stranger said, “mind if I ask you a question?”

“Of course not,” Pinkie chirped. “Shoot!”

With a face as straight as a piece of duct tape right from the roll he said: “Is this the protest against the tyrant Celestia, demanding her immediate resignation from office, freeing ponykind from her shackles once and for all?”

The question left all three of them flabbergasted. “What in Equestria are you talking about?” Rainbow asked. “Why would there ever be something like that.”

“Yeah,” Pinkie added. “What could anypony possibly have against Celestia?”

“I have my reasons,” the stranger simply said. “But I don't know you well enough to tell you. So I presume this squabble is about something completely different?”

“You bet it is!” Rainbow answered. “This is the strike of my good friend Spike. To get some respect as an employee of the Ponyville Library.”

“Oh,” the stranger said. “I guess I was just a little confused, because of the sign.”

“What sign?” they all asked.

“That sign over there,” the stranger pointed out.

Pinkie might have provided the wood and the paint, but not the words for the protesters. Those ultimately chosen by them were, to all three of them, very unexpected.

Many of the signs were indeed expressing their support for Spike, with lines like 'All work deserves respect!' and 'Hang in there, Spike!'. Others like 'Stop the destruction of the environment! Ponykind must learn!' and 'Smash the apple monopoly! Buy carrots!' seemed to miss the point entirely, or even stir up unwanted controversy regarding the strike. In this regard, the particular sign the stranger was referring to couldn't be merely called inappropriate, it was more of a deliberate attempt to light a match next to a powder keg. It read, 'Down with Celestia, down with fascist oppression!'. It left all three with only more flabbergasted.

“Dashie?” Pinkie Pie whispered to Rainbow Dash once she had regained her tongue.

“Yes, Pinkie?”

“I think there's something wrong with the strike, but I can't quite put my hoof on it.”

Rainbow took a step forward. “There definitely is,” she admitted. “But it's nothing I couldn't fix.”

She leapt off the ground and hovered at an altitude that allowed the entire camp to see her. “Excuse me, everypony!” she shouted across. “There seems to have been a misunderstanding. This is a strike to get Twilight Sparkle, the head of the Ponyville Library, to pay my friend Spike more respect. To anypony who isn't here for that: I appreciate your time and effort, but would you be so kind to just scram?”

An elderly stallion from the back spoke up: “I thought this was a protest against those ludicrous licorice prices!”

Rainbow flew back down. “Well, it's not,” she told him. “So if you could just...”

The stallion didn't care. “Those darn licorice makers! They think they can charge whatever they want. Who's supposed to pay for all that!?” He flailed his hoof about while he spoke. “Why, when I was a colt, you could walk to the store and buy a hoofful of licorice wheels for a penny! And a pack of gummi bears! And you'd even get money back!”

Rainbow Dash tried giving him the sternest expression she had in her repertoire, which was somewhat ineffective, as she tried addressing the camp as a whole. “Look, it doesn't matter what you think or what you want or what else is wrong with this world. Either you're here to support Spike, or this is the wrong place and the wrong time, and you should get lost.”

A stallion stepped up to Rainbow Dash, his headband unable to keep strains of his long, unkempt green mane from flying all over his face like the chains of a starting swing ride. He looked at her with eyes red beyond his irises. “But there are things that totally need to be said; things, like, that need to be changed. Like the destruction of mother nature by ponies all around Equestria. Every day the Clousdale weather factory is totally polluting the ocean and corporations are cutting down thousands of acres of trees. Like, nopony ever asked the trees if they wanted to be cut down.”

“What does that have to do with anything!?” Rainbow yelled at him furiously. “If you wanna save trees, fine. But why don't you do it somewhere else; somewhere where ponies actually cut down some trees.”

“But this is, like, a library,” the Headband defended himself. “They're, like, cutting down hundreds of trees to make these books. Nopony ever asked the trees if they wanted to be turned into books.”

Rainbow ground her teeth at him and made no effort to hide it. This had reached a level of pointlessness far exceeding a discussion about licorice prices. “The paper for the books doesn't come from the library itself,” she said, very slowly. “Additionally, you may have noticed that this library is built into a tree. An actual live tree, which it saved from being cut down this way. You can't possibly have a problem with that.”

The Headband didn't move. “Nopony ever, like, asked this tree if it wanted to have a library built into it,” he said.

Before Rainbow could do anything foolish, a mare approached her from the midst of the camp. “He might be brisk about his position, but he definitely has an important point, my rainbow-hued comrade.” Her left hoof pulled Rainbow into a tight embrace, which gave her an uncomfortable taste of the former's bright red coat. “This is about far more than just the injustices a local librarian imposes on her assistant. This is about standing united against the iron hoof of the bourgeoisie trying to crush the working class and enslave us all like a bunch of mangy dogs.”

Rainbow Dash successfully slipped from under her arm. “Look...” she started, but could not think of a proper response.

This the Red Coat knew how to capitalize. “Do you now see, comrade?” she asked. “Have the scales finally fallen from your eyes? How we must defend ourselves against the fascist, oppressive plutocracy enforced by the head of the snake itself, the ruthless and undisputed despot called Celestia?”

“Um, I don't really understand what's going on,” Spike piped up, looking as lost as a coin behind a sofa cushion, “but I don't think we need to defend ourselves against Celestia. I never heard her do anything to anypony.”

The Red Coat shot him a belittling smile. “Oh my little friend, you're still so young and still so gullible.” She pulled him into the same one-armed bear hug Rainbow had been caught in. “One day you will grow up to realize that the Royal Guards are just a cover up for a humongous surveillance apparatus, monitoring our every move and manipulating our every thought with their propaganda.”

“They are?” Spike asked, eyes full of wonder and worry.

“They most certainly are, comrade. And whenever they spot the slightest signs of opposition, they stomp it into the ground with the full force the military can provide.”

“They do?” Spike said, fighting for air. He wouldn't have thought it possible, but the Red Coat managed to hold him even tighter.

“Sure they do,” the Red Coat said, letting Spike back down. “They want you to believe that they're your guardians and protectors, but in truth it's all just a conspiracy to keep the public in the dark about the fascist atrocities the so called 'Princess' Celestia commits every day.”

“Wow!”

Spike was still marveling at these revelations when Rainbow yanked him out of the Red Coat's grip. “Spike, can I talk to you?” She didn't wait for a response and started dragging him towards the other side of the lawn.

“Listen,” she began once they were out of earshot from the others, “this is your strike and you're in charge, but if you ask me, you should get rid of these wackos as soon as possible.”

Spike raised an irritated brow at her. “But didn't you say I should get all the help I can? Didn't you talk about strength in numbers? Shouldn't that number be as high as possible?”

Rainbow bit her stuck-out tongue, but that didn't hurt as much as the words it would have to form. “Yes, I did say that,” she said. “But I was wrong. It's not about just getting as many ponies on your side as you can. You only want those that care for what you're doing.”

Spike scratched his head “They seem to be caring plenty about what I do. They're even supporting some of my claims I never even heard about.” Spike raised his arms as if trying to hold the entire world. “And they're teaching me so much. I didn't know anything about the pollution by the Cloudsdale weather factory. Or Princess Celestia's fascist atrocities. I still don't even know what these words mean.”

“They mean that they don't know what they're talking about,” Rainbow replied. “That's why you shouldn't listen to them. And that's why you shouldn't let them join your strike. With those... It may look like they're helping, but they're really just helping themselves.”

“But they are helping,” Spike defended. “They wrote all those signs and they set up all those tents and they even helped me write a protest song. You wanna hear?”

“Do I?” a pink bolt of lightning, formerly known as Pinkie Pie, said, with a grin that wouldn't take no for an answer.

He ran over to his tent as fast as he could, his friends following close behind, and grabbed a guitar (courtesy of Pinkie Pie) from the inside. Since his arms where much too short to properly reach most of the guitar's neck, he applied a capo about halfway down the strings, which gave the instrument more of a ukulele sound than anything else. He struck his claws down the strings, and satisfied with the tuning, started to sing with a voice that carried over the passion from his heart:

“Come gather round fillies, it's high time ye learn

'bout a dragon on strike with a valid concern.

I can tell that I'm worth so much more than I earn,

for I earn only blame and neglect.

Here I stand and demand for the tables to turn

to a side that provides some respect.

Now hear me you ponies of unwritten name.

There are plenty of you who have suffered the same.

At times you may feel like we're losing the game

and you feel like our foe is too tough.

But united we stand, still defending our claim,

and we'll win, for we're calling their bluff.

So we'll march day and night, every minute and hour.

They have the books, but we have the power.

So we'll march day and night, every minute and hour.

They have the books, but we have the power.”

As his fingers struck the final chord, he reopened his eyes and looked up expectantly at the judgment of Rainbow Dash and Pinkie Pie.

The latter eyed him carefully, like an art critic checking a masterpiece for signs of forgery. “That,” she deemed with small pauses between every word for dramatic effect, “was fantastic! I absolutely loved it! And I think it would be even better with some maracas and some...”

Above their heads, a window to the library rapidly swung open. “Will you shut up!” the voice of Twilight Sparkle roared down to the camp below.

“Never!” the entire camp shouted back up in return.

The window shut once again, and on the other side, Twilight returned to her writing desk, looking through a stack of papers right away. “They're always doing something,” she complained. “If it's not singing, then it's dancing, or yelling their slogans, or something equally noisy. How's a pony supposed to think with all that racket!?” A strand of hair above her right eye popped out of her mane like a jack in the box, and many others looked ready to follow. “I swear, they're doing all of this just to irritate me!”

Standing behind her, Applejack and Rarity exchanged a worried look, uncertain if Twilight had been addressing them or talking to herself.

“Twi,” Applejack said, “you feeling alright?”

Twilight turned to her friends, her left eye twitching like the lights of a cheap Las Pegasus neon sign. “Of course I'm feeling alright! Why wouldn't I!?” she said, her words twisted by the sarcasm oozing off her lips. “Because I'm looking for my copy of The Grand Theory of Thermodynamics in Enchantments and have no idea where I put it!? Because I can't send this letter to Princess Celestia, since not even the snail mail comes around here anymore to pick it up!? Or because I've run out of quills and whenever I try to carve one of Owloysius's shed feathers into shape, they just break off!?” To demonstrate her point, she took one of the previously broken off feathers and broke it a second time in a different place.

It was awful. Every word she said, every move she made, only made Twilight look even more exhausted. The bags under her eyes were big enough to be rented out as birthday bouncing castles. Applejack couldn't take it anymore. “You don't look too right to me. I think you should take a break,” she suggested.

Twilight rummaged around her desk. “I can't! There's too much stuff to do. I still have to sort my papers for the essay Princess Celestia is waiting for, I have to go through the outdated books in the basement, and I still haven't compiled the list for the pending late fees for this month. And on top of that, it's like cleaning this place takes all day alone.”

Rarity walked over and placed a comforting hoof on her friend's shoulder. “I know it's hard, darling,” she said, “but you must persevere. You mustn't let them get to you like that.”

Twilight didn't even bother to turn around at that.

Rarity retracted her hoof. “And we'll be here for you every step of the way,” she said. “If we can hold out just a little longer, this affair will dissolve into nothingness, and Rainbow Dash will have to admit once and for all how silly her idea was in the first place.”

Again, there was no visible reaction from Twilight.

Rarity attempted to lead the way with a smile of her own. “Of course once this strike business is behind us, I'm sure Spike will forget all about it and everything will go back to the way things were.”

At these words,Twilight turned around and was able to almost, but not quite, wipe the frown off her face. At least a little bit of her stress seemed to slowly evaporate.

But every inch Twilight's frown lost, its cousin on Applejack's face recompensed. “Rarity, can we talk in the kitchen? Now!?” she said, already leading the way while making sure to hide her face from Twilight. Rarity had no choice but to obey.

Once Rarity had followed behind her and she had made sure the door was closed, Applejack decided to give it to Rarity straight. “What do you think you're doing?”

“Whatever do you mean?” Rarity answered innocently. “I'm trying my very best to comfort her and lift her spirits.”

“But look at her!” Applejack almost shouted, but managed to restrain herself. “She can't keep it together as is, and you're telling her to go through with this!?”

“Of course I do. By showing her as much support as we can, I'm certain she can hold out much longer than they can, and we will emerge victorious from this. There's no need to worry about Twilight. Why, it's only been one measly day and...”

“Exactly!” Applejack interrupted. “It's been one day and she's already looking like this! What'll she look like tomorrow? Or the day after that? Or next week? She needs to end this, right now!”

“And what are we supposed to do?” Rarity bit back. “Just give up? Just let Rainbow Dash get away with this? No, we need to hold out and teach her a lesson. We need to...”

“I can't believe this!” At this point, Applejack didn't bother to keep her voice down anymore. “You hearing yourself!? Twilight's a nervous wreck and you're only talking about Rainbow Dash! Are you really willing to risk her health over some stupid argument you had!?”

Rarity blew out her cheeks. She looked at Applejack with a look that could kill, ready to jump down her throat in an instant. Applejack's allegations had been as infuriating as they were insulting. She couldn't let something like that go, and although it left her temporarily speechless, she prepared to fight back, to defend her actions, and to argue Applejack's accusations into the ground.

But she never did. Because she couldn't. Applejack's allegations might have been infuriating and insulting, but they had to be, because one thing they were not: false. Just getting a single second to think about it, she knew her friend was right. She had been advising Twilight for all the wrong reasons and the strike had to stop.

“I'm sorry,” Rarity said, facing the ground. “I don't know what I was thinking. This isn't doing anypony any good, most of all Twilight. We must end this before it's too late.”

Applejack smiled at her. “Glad you're back to common sense.”

Rarity lifted her head back up. “I think it's best if we go talk to her right away,” she said.

“Alright,” Applejack said, opening the kitchen door. “I bet if she hears from both of us, she'll be back to normal in a snap.”

But coming back to the writing desk and seeing a frustrated Twilight scribbling away at her notes with the repeatedly broken quill didn't make her so sure anymore.

“Twi,” Applejack began,” we talked and...”

“Yes, I heard,” Twilight hissed. “And just as loud as those protester down there. Thank you so much for that!”

Applejack didn't react. “Sugarcube, we're really worried about you. We don't think you can take much more of this strike.”

“What!?” Twilight spun around as quickly as the throwing arm of a catapult. “So this is how it's going to be? When times get hard and things get tough, you just turn your tail and run? And not only that, you try to take me with you? You try to stab me in the back and turn me into a coward?”

“Twilight, please! It's nothing like that!” Rarity chimed in. “But this whole ordeal is turning you into a mess. Have you looked into a mirror lately? Your once neat and plain, yet somewhat charming coiffure has turned into something I couldn't fix in a day-long make over session.”

Twilight didn't need to look. She could feel the tangled ends of her mane all over her head. She could figure that it was in as much disarray as her brain below. Any thought she was trying to form went all over the place, eventually generating nothing but a headache. She rubbed her head to make it go away.

“I... I... I...” she said, but the next 'I' didn't make what she was trying to say any clearer than the previous one, neither to her nor the others.

“Alright,” she began after a while, “I'll admit I have been feeling a little stressed lately, but it's nothing to worry about. All I have to do is finish my chores, and you'll see, I'll be feeling much better.”

“No, you won't!” Applejack reckoned. “The state you're in, you won't get anything done. You'll be all stubborn and reckless, and you'll only get more and more angry and frustrated. I beg you, sugarcube, just stop now. It ain't worth it.”

“I'll be fine!” Twilight assured. “I appreciate the concern, but I know what I can handle. I can see that I should be careful not to work myself into the ground, but I'm sure I'm not in over my head on this one.”

Twilight tried to comfort her friends with a forced smile, which only made things worse. But still, when Twilight didn't want to see reason, there was little her friends could do about it.

“You sure?” Applejack asked.

“I'm sure.”

“Are you really sure,” Rarity pressed.

“Yes I am.”

“Are you absolutely, positively, one-hundred percent—”

“Yes, I am one-hundred percent certain I'll be fine,” Twilight said, and she really meant it. In her lifetime, she had dealt with much more stressful situations than this one and had always prevailed, one way or another. She was sure this time would be no exception, and she wanted her friends to realize that.

But her legs betrayed her. They started to shake violently, like a jackhammer on the loose, and just like a jackhammer on the loose, that wasn't a state they could sustain for an extended period of time. Applejack caught her before she could fall.

“Thanks,” Twilight said as she regained her footing.

“Don't mention it,” Applejack replied as she let go of her friend.

Rarity had stared at the situation worriedly “Will you now consider?” she asked.

Twilight took a good look into the pleading eyes of both her friends and they helped her form a decision. “I can't,” she said. “If I quit now, Spike would pick up all the wrong signals from this. I can't have him think you can run away when dealing with a problem. I can't have him think this is the way grown ups are supposed to handle their disputes instead of talking about them. If I quit now, what would stop him from trying this again and again and again?”

“If that's your decision, we'll support you all the way,” Rarity replied. It was at least a somewhat reasonable course of action for Twilight, but it still left a very sour aftertaste in Rarity's and Applejack's mouth.

“But you're right about one thing,” Twilight began, sending at least some relief their way. “I really do need to take a break. I think I'll lie down for an hour or two.”

“Good call,” Applejack said. “We'll stay here and take care of the library for you. And if you need anything, you just call us.”

“I will. Thanks,” Twilight said already moving towards her bed. Once she had gotten some sleep, things would surely look much less bleak.

* * *

Meanwhile on the front lawn, Rainbow Dash had been unable to effectively argue her case to Spike.

“I'm not telling you to abandon the whole thing and send everypony home,” she told him. “But those nut jobs – you have to get rid of them. They're no good for you. I can feel that.”

Spike chewed on his knuckle. “I don't know,” he said. “It doesn't feel right to only send them home and keep everypony else. And besides, wouldn't they get mad? Wouldn't they tell their friends to leave as well? Wouldn't the others see and think they're next? Or that I don't appreciate their support and hard work? Wouldn't the others leave as well and leave me all by myself?” In hypotheticals the young dragon proved once more to be second not even to Twilight.

“They won't leave you,” Rainbow assured. “And even if, maybe that wouldn't be such a bad thing. Maybe this strike was a little rash. Maybe we should go back to square one and try talking to Twilight again. I bet she's cooled off by now. What do you think?” she asked hopefully.

“No!” Spike said, without taking a second to consider. He crossed his arms, but quickly released them again. “I can't quit now. If I do, I won't have gained anything and everything will be just like before.”

“But Spike—”

He stopped her with the palm of his claw. “I know. Stopping the strike doesn't mean things will go back to the way they were. We can still talk to Twilight and maybe she did change her mind.

“But maybe she didn't. And if that's the case, what am I supposed to do? I can't just call off the strike and call it back on again whenever I feel like it.” He looked at Rainbow Dash with the determination of a mountaineer starting his ascent. “I have to go through with this.”

“No you don't,” Rainbow said. “I can tell you: no matter what happens, Pinkie and I will always stick by your side. Somehow we'll find a way.” Her earnest expression left no doubt about the sincerity of that statement.

“If you go on with this strike, something bad will happen,” she continued. “I just know it. Those crazy protesters – they're trouble. And they're gonna get you in trouble.” She walked a step closer to him. “And trust me, I know a thing or two about trouble.”

But it was too late; something wicked was already on its way in the guise of an angry mob of smaller, yet comparable size realtive to the picket. At its head marched Mayor Mare with two other town officials and two Royal Guards. It was the corresponding warm front to Spike's cold front and their imminent collision would resolve the only way it could.

“Who's the one responsible for all this?” Mayor Mare asked once she and the others had reached the center of the camp.

In an instant, Spike could feel a thousand hooves pointing his way, with Mayor Mare following the lead.

“So you're the one in charge,” she pointed out. She looked back to the official to her left, who stopped adjusting her pince-nez and gave the mayor a scroll.

Mayor Mare unfolded the scroll and began to read: “It has come to my attention that, on the lawn in front of the Ponyville Library, there is an assembly of demonstrating nature that, under city ordnance, paragraph seventy-three, section eleven, subsection two, has not been registered in town hall a week prior to the gathering, and is therefore illegitimate. It is to be countermanded, and all participants are to disperse immediately.” Over the scroll, she demandingly looked into Spike's eyes.

And she wasn't the only one. Every hoof pointing had been replaced by two eyes looking. They all awaited the decree of their king and his, essentially, life or death decision for the strike.

He looked around for anything that could help him or anypony with a piece of advise and, pushed aside by the incoming mob, he found Rainbow Dash. She didn't say anything and she didn't need to. He could easily read her mind. It read, do it.

She definitely had a point. What she had said had come true. It might not have been the fault of those protesters in particular, but the appearance of Mayor Mare with two Royal Guards in tow definitely meant he was in trouble and it was likely to get worse from there. He didn't even know what they would do if he resisted. The guards might even throw him in jail. It was a completely needless risk. And yet...

“No!” he declared.

An incredulous silence befell the entire lawn. Nopony could believe his ears.

“What did you say?” Mayor Mare asked. The entire mob as well as the camp leaned in to listen more closely, almost certain they had misheard him before.

“I said no!”

Their king had spoken and his subjects met him with exuberant jubilation. They gathered around him, lifted him up in the air, and carried him shoulder high. Many expressed their acclaim with exclamations like 'That's right', 'Stick it to her', and 'United we stand'; a couple of protesters in the back could even be heard shouting 'Down with licorice prices!' over and over again. All in all, the camp made one thing very clear: all of it wouldn't budge even an inch.

From the midst of the mob, a stallion in a suit stepped forward, his overly gelled mane bouncing back and forth like a bowl of jello. “Ha!” he announced. “You asked for it. Guards, go ahead and seize them. All of them!”

The guards exchanged a brief awkward look. “We can't,” one of them said.

“What do you mean, you can't?” the Gel-Mane asked. “They're breaking the law! Just lock them up!”

“We can't,” the guard repeated, “because, while municipal law applies, we actually do not have the authority to execute it. All we can do is tell them to stop. If they don't obey...” He rubbed his hoof awkwardly, which looked pathetic for a guard.

The Gel-Mane angrily threw a hoof in the air. “That's just typical for Celestia's socialist secret police; overruling laws whenever they feel like it and protecting defiant, ungrateful whelps from the righteous indignation of ponies with common sense.”

He stepped forward and looked at the protesters like one would observe plants in a horticultural show. “I could buy and sell all of them,” he yelled. “Why, they should be grateful I don't decide on taking a crossbow to hunt them down for sports like the primitive animals that they are!”

The guard stepped and held the Gel-Mane by his shoulder. “Sir, what you just said can easily be interpreted as a threat, for which I would have to arrest you. I therefore must ask you to retract that statement.”

The Gel-Mane was beside himself. He muttered various demeaning comments about Celestia's socialist police into his boots before eventually giving it a rest. “Fine!” he agreed as he walked back into the mob without ever actually retracting anything.

Now Mayor Mare's assistant with the pince-nez piped up: “But we can't let them get away with this. Otherwise ponies will stop abiding whatever law they feel like and we'll descend into a world of chaos and anarchy, with ponies locking themselves in their basement, attacking all travelers who try to seek shelter from the storm, as they roam the streets and rummage the garbage cans for food, fending of ferocious animals for a single scrap of bread.” She brought her hooves to her head suppressing a scream. “Can't you imagine the horror!?”

“But what can we do?” the guard asked into the crowd.

That was indeed a good question which was met by much murmuring all around.

“I know,” a voice emerged from the mob's midst, “we should go to Tent Peg's Camping Emporium and set up our own camp, protesting their protest.”

More murmuring went through the crowd, which quickly dissolved into approval. The entire mob, including Mayor Mare and her officials, turned around and rapidly moved towards the Camping Emporium. One pony in the middle of the crowd seemed particularly eager, pushing and shoving all others aside, eventually making its way to the top. He was the first to enter the store and immediately took his rightful place behind the counter, ready and eager to serve his first customer.

4th Act

With the insights found in Exotic Animal Anatomy, Fluttershy had finally been able to figure out what her new platypus friend was missing. As a carnivore, it needed a supply of flies, worms, and shrimp in its diet, which around Ponyville it could have never gathered on its own. One of Fluttershy's most important tasks as an animal caretaker was collecting all carrion and distributing it among all creatures in need, thereby avoiding any jealousy over food and simultaneously avoiding wild scavenging from the predators of the Everfree.

But with Fluttershy's knowledge about its actual dietary requirements, all its health problems were a thing of the past. In only two days, the poor thing had recovered to full health and was now as up and about as one would imagine an up and about platypus to be (which was roughly halfway between an up and about beaver and an up and about duck). It went right to happily running up and down Fluttershy's cottage, its bizarre appearance and behavior serving as a source of inspiration for the Cutie Mark Crusaders.

“Look at its tail!” Apple Bloom said. “Just like a beaver. You think we should try our hooves at a lumberjack cutie mark again?”

“I don't know,” Scootaloo replied. “Your sister made it very clear she never ever wants to see us near an axe again.”

“You guys!” Sweetie Belle squealed over her book. “It says in here that platypuses are excellent swimmers and divers. I bet if we watch it and copy its movements, we can easily get our diving cutie marks!”

Startled by the loud scream, the platypus ran off across the cottage, with the Cutie Mark Crusaders immediately in hot pursuit.

“Come back here, you rascal!” Apple Bloom yelled after it. “Don't you know we gotta watch your movements?”

After a sharp turn to the right, the three chased it below the living room table, sending the entire thing toppling. Applejack held the table down with only minor annoyance, instead concentrating her full attention on Rarity and Rainbow Dash.

“You know, I got just as much time as you do,” she told them. “So why don't you get this over and done with already?”

Both remained in their seat, forelegs crossed and staring at each other with venom in their eyes.

“Come on, Raaainbow Dash, Raaarity,” Pinkie Pie said, stretching both their names extra sweetly. “You know you want to.”

Still, Rainbow and Rarity just continued their hard-line stare at each other.

“Would you do it,” Pinkie asked them both, “for a cupcake?”

As this invoked no reaction from either one, she had to up the ante. “Would you do it for two cupcakes? Or three? Or a cake baked just for you, with a hoofmade thank you card with lots of glitter? How about five minutes alone at Sugarcube Corner, with all the candy, dough, and frosting we have, no questions asked?”

“This is getting absolutely ridiculous!” Rarity was the first to yell. “I might as well just get this behind me.”

She repositioned herself, chin resting on her hooves, and individually pressed each and every word out of her mouth. “You are not a lazy sloth and I apologize for calling you such a thing.”

Rainbow kicked back in her chair, blew a strain of mane out of her face, and said equally forcefully: “I'm sorry for calling you a merciless slave driver.”

“You see? Was that so hard?” Applejack asked with a smug grin. “Now all you gotta do is say it again, and this time, you mean it.”

Furious words of protest spouted endlessly from Rarity's and Rainbow's mouths, but fell on completely deaf ears. Just like when dealing with her sister's antics and the inevitably following complaints, Applejack ignored everything they threw at her and waited the whole thing out, until they were tired from their yapping.

Once their bickering had died down to little more than panting with tongues like dry sponges, Applejack started again. “RD, why don't you start us off here,” she suggested.

“Fine!” Rainbow said. She needed a moment to get herself back into an upright position. Once she had done that, she continued: “I know Spike is your friend just like any one of us, and you would never do anything to hurt him. Even when he does things for you, you make sure it's something he likes doing and it's nothing he couldn't take. I'm sorry for suggesting otherwise.”

“Alrighty!” Applejack said. “Rares, how about you now?”

Rarity bashfully looked Rainbow in the eyes. “You might not generally be the most diligent pony.” Rainbow glared at her, to which she blushed a little. “But I know that when it comes to something that you're passionate about, or something that matters to your friends, you'd move heaven and earth to make it happen. I have no right to call a pony like you lazy.”

They finished with a smile and an 'apology accepted' given to each other.

Pinkie Pie immediately pulled both of them into a group hug. “Isn't it great!?” she said. “Now we're all friends again!”

“Not quite, Pinkie. The difficult part's still ahead of us,” Applejack noted. “And we still got no plan how to go about that. Twilight thinks she's stuck in this thing and that there's no way out of it. We tried to show her there is, but she just won't listen.”

“Tell me about it,” Pinkie Pie said, hug released, her head slumping into her hooves. “Spike doesn't listen to anything we say; not to Dashie when she tells him to give up the strike, not to me when I suggest obvious improvements to their protest songs with the use of rhythmic background instruments...”

Rainbow grunted angrily. “There's gotta be something we're missing, some way how we can make Spike and you can make Twilight see how silly they're both acting,” she said.

“Maybe we could devise a clever ruse of some sort,” Rarity suggested. “Something that would force them to approach one another.”

“Yeah,” Rainbow jumped in, “I could totally see that working. We could tell them, like, that the other one is really, really sick; so sick in fact that we don't know if they'll make it through. And the one thing they wanna do before anything happens is make up with each other.”

Rarity excitedly clapped her hooves together. “I see, I see! And once we get them into the hospital, we get them into a room, lock the door behind them, and not let them out until they have talked things through. It's ingenious!”

“Um...”

So far Fluttershy had silently sat in a corner, tending to a grumpy Angel, who felt he didn't get the attention he deserved ever since that platypus moved in. She had offered her cottage as a neutral ground for an open discussion, despite wishing not to get dragged into any of this, but had reached a point were she couldn't keep quiet anymore.

“I have an idea,” she said. “Why don't Pinkie Pie and Rainbow Dash go talk to Twilight, and Applejack and Rarity meet with Spike. That way, they get the opinion from the other side and realize that they're not alone with wanting the strike to end.”

All four of her friends stared at her in awe. “I mean, if you don't have any better ideas,” she quickly added.

“That's a great idea!” Rainbow Dash commended, flying over and lifting her friend into the air. “And you could come with us and serve as a sort of mediator and –”

Fluttershy let out a barely audible squeak, and Rainbow let her back down.

“Or you can just stay here and hold the fort while we go talk to them,” Rainbow said as she gave Fluttershy a pat on the back, allowing her friend to calm down again.

“I say we go for it,” Applejack proclaimed, holding her outstretched hoof above the center of the table. “Who's with me?”

The three others acceded, placing their respective hooves on top of Applejack's and breaking the huddle with a zeal worthy of a hoofball championship team.

“Let's see if we can't fix that mess in the library,” Applejack finished.

“What mess in the library?” Apple Bloom asked. She, along with her fellow Crusaders, had completed a couple of laps around the cottage, eventually having landed back under the living room table, from where all three were poking their heads out.

“Twilight and Spike had a big fight a couple days ago,” Applejack explained, “over some mess he made or didn't make in the library. Anywho, now Spike's moved out and hosts a strike, so we gotta sort things out and get them to talk again.”

All Crusader ears drooped to the floor. “Oh,” Apple Bloom replied.

“Oh? What do you mean, 'oh'?” Applejack knew that kind of 'oh' very well. It never meant anything good.

The Crusaders retreated to a quick consultation below the table. When their whispering ceased, they stuck their heads out again. “Promise you won't get mad,” Apple Bloom pleaded.

“Oh, I promise I will get mad!” Applejack announced.

They made another retreat with more inaudible whispering, except for a couple of no's and but's. When they were finished, the three Crusaders came out from under the table and placed themselves opposite their judge and jury.

“So, you know the mess in the library you were talking about,” Apple Bloom began. “Turns out, it could have been...”

“..it might have been...”

“...it probably was...”

“..all our fault,” the three of them said.

“What!?” Rarity yelled.

“We didn't mean to!” Sweetie Belle said, raising her forelegs defensively.

“We were only looking for a book,” Scootaloo explained, “and well...” Her eyes swayed to the ground. “We kinda found more than one.”

“And you weren't planning on telling us!?” Rarity shouted. She had scrunched up her nose into a scowl and Applejack didn't look much different. Even Rainbow Dash and Pinkie Pie joined in, making up the four diverse faces of one very angry totem pole.

“We didn't think it was such a big deal,” Apple Bloom defended. “Spike told us he could handle it.”

Spike. Instantly, the word entered their collective consciousness.

“If the Crusaders caused the mess, that means they have nothing to fight over,” Rainbow Dash pointed out. “We have to tell them right away!”

“Then what are we waiting for?” Applejack said. “Let's move!”

In a fraction of a second, the four of them were out the door, leaving Fluttershy alone with the Crusaders. Angel sitting on her back, she moved to the door frame to gaze after her friends.

Meanwhile, the Crusaders sniffed their chance. On silent hooves, they tip-toed over to the door. Carefully, step by step, they gained more and more ground, so much they could smell the fresh air already. The only thing standing between them and their freedom was one quick squeeze by Fluttershy's side. Apple Bloom had almost made it, already placing one hoof on the grass outside.

“Oh no, you don't,” Fluttershy said without bothering to look. It send all three of them right back inside, sitting down on the couch, waiting for their rebuke.

* * *

After the formation of the second camp, the protesters had started a collection for one of the big tents in Tent Peg's shop, modeled after the war tents used by Romane generals in ancient times, to be set up right in the center of their camp. Without nomination, Spike had unanimously been elected as commander-in-chief and moved into the war tent. This had made him responsible for all the camp's endeavors to secure the perimeter and the protesters weren't too shy about ideas.

They had started by digging a trench to separate their side from the newly formed mob camp, reinforcing it with wire in front which, although pretty low on its barbs, still managed to make its point of 'Keep out!' to the ponies on the other side. The second camp had answered with a trench of their own.

The next step had been the formation of guards. At any point, at least four volunteers were on patrol, looking for any signs of suspicious behavior and barring any pony from entering the campsite unregistered. Once the first watch tower was set up, they were joined by two sentries on top, and like many other protesters, the Red Coat had still more plans to expand upon the camp's defensive means.

“I estimate the second watch tower to be build before sunrise. The mayor will never be able to keep up with us.” The Red Coat was glancing back and forth between her spread out map and her various notes. “If we are willing to work through the night, I bet we can set up a palisade before they finish their second tower.”

“A palisade!? Now hold up.” Spike looked at her warily. This would be were he would finally draw the line, or rather undraw the big red line where the palisade was going to be, which she had already sketched on their map of central Ponyville. “Didn't you say I had to authorize these things?” he asked.

“Of course, comrade,” she replied. “After all, you are the strike leader.”

“Then I say we don't build it,” Spike said, attempting to put all the authority he had into his voice. “I was already skeptical about the trenches and the patrols, but I just know that this is too much.”

The Red Coat replied to him solemnly: “You might think it unnecessary, but we need the palisade to keep up with the mayor and protect us from her goon squad.”

Spike threw his arms up in the air. “But they never did anything to us! They didn't try to attack us or invade us or anything. All they did was build some stuff on their own. Why do we need protection against that?”

“Ah!” the Red Coat exclaimed in the same way a teacher commends the intelligent question of one of his students. “But you see, comrade, the only thing that kept them from attacking were the preemptive measures we had taken. If it were not for the trenches and the barb wire, they would have run us over long ago. And you can be sure they are already plotting a way to disable our defenses and strike us where it hurts. That is why we constantly have to improve the camp grounds and eradicate any flaws still left.”

Spike grabbed his temples. He wanted to reply something to this, but once more, his brain was twisted into a pretzel by the Red Coat's strange, but indisputable logic. Still, this wasn't about whether he could refute her claims, this was about whether he would be convinced to go along with the plan, which he still wasn't.

“No!” he declared. “I still say we don't need it, so we won't build it.”

The Red Coat shook her head in a slow, pitying manner. “My little friend. Still so young and so naïve.” She rolled up the map along with a couple of her notes and moved toward the tent flap. “I'm sure you will come to your senses and agree with me eventually. Then you'll be glad I had this already started now,” she said in passing.

She was almost outside when Spike yelled after her: “Wait!”

Surprised, she turned around and eyed him curiously.

“I...” he began only hesitantly. “Can I do anything to help?”

“I don't know,” the Red Coat answered before deliberating a little. “I think we are okay. You just do whatever you want. It's your strike after all.”

“Then I guess I'll just clean up a little,” he said to nopony, as she was already out the door.

He looked glumly to the ground and sighed. Cleaning would not be an option either. He didn't have a broom, a duster, detergents, or anything else. Apart from that, what was he going to clean? The grassy ground below? Sweeping up all the dirt would, by definition, be impossible.

All he could think of doing was move back to his sleeping bag and hear his fellow protesters work, while he desperately waited for the strike to be over. He closed his eyes, when the tent flap opened and revealed two incoming ponies.

“Rarity! Applejack!” Spike said happily as he ran over and clutched both of them into a hug. “Boy, am I glad to see you.”

“So are we,” Rarity replied, petting his head gently.

Applejack however didn't seem so glad. “You mind telling us what the hay is going on?” she asked. “Why were them friends of yours interrogating us for some fifteen minutes before letting us in?”

Spike let go of his friends. “They did?” he asked, sucking the tip of his claw.

“They have been imposing on us with all kinds of odd questions and requests,” Rarity explained.

“Like what?”

“Like 'are the two of you or have you ever been members of the Canterlot Royal Guards?' and the quite similar 'are you spies, and if so, who are you spying for?', before they demanded for us to prove our harmlessness. We asked them how we were supposed to do such a thing, to which they did not have an answer. So they let us through and told us where to find you.” Rarity shook her head disapprovingly. “You know, darling, apart from being boorish and unnerving, I don't think they're doing a very effective job.”

“Which begs the question,” Applejack added, “why'd you tell them to hassle ponies like that in the first place?”

“I didn't,” Spike said. “In fact, I was against it, but somepony came up and suggested we need a patrol in case...” He bowed his head in shame, anticipating how ridiculous what he said next would sound. “In case spies would try to infiltrate the strike.”

“But why did they do it if you asked them not to?” Rarity asked.

“Well, I kind of agreed to it once they explained their reasons to me,” he admitted, head still lowered. “It sounded sensible at the time.”

“Then why don't you tell them to stop right now?” Applejack asked.

“I tried!” Spike yelled. His response had the energy of a tiger backed into a corner. “Believe me, I tried.”

When he had calmed himself a little, he turned his back on his friends. “I have told the others to stop several times, with the patrols, with the construction work, but they never listen to me. They just continue and tell me how important and unavoidable these things are. And whenever I say something back to them, they come up with some argument or explanation that shows me I'm wrong, until I run out of ideas.

“And I don't know what to do about it. I know this isn't the way to go, even when they say otherwise, but they won't stop until I can prove it to them.” Spike's gaze slowly rose to the top of the tent. “I bet Twilight would know what to do,” he said dreamily. “I could always count on her helping me out, when I was in a pinch.”

“Then why don't you simply ask Twilight for help?” Rarity asked.

“I can't do that.” Spike wasn't voicing his opinion, he was stating a cold-hard fact. “What am I supposed to tell her? Twilight, would you please come and fix this so I can go right back to striking and fighting against you?”

“Then just don't go back to striking,” Applejack advised.

“I can't do that either. If I just mess up more and more and don't take responsibility for my mistakes, why should Twilight give me the respect I want? I can't let her swoop in and correct the mistakes I made. That would be exactly the kind of slacking off she's been accusing me of.” Spike's head fell over like the top of a forgotten flour sack leaning against the wall of a pantry. “Maybe this was exactly what she was talking about.”

“But you never did anything wrong,” Rarity pointed out. “We know that now. Sweetie Belle and the other Crusaders confessed to vandalizing the library.”

“Once they knew they got you in trouble, they couldn't keep quiet,” Applejack said. “I think you shoulda told Twi immediately. I bet you, she would've dropped it right then and there if you had just told her.”

Spike jumped up. His little dragon heart proved much too small a vessel to contain all his emotions. Like a teakettle forgotten on a stove, everything was boiling over and out of his mouth. “Look, it doesn't matter how the library got trashed. This is about something different. This is about... this is about... I don't know!”

He screamed out in rage. His whole body shook like the bells of an alarm clock at wake up time. The only thing that remained unshaken was his voice. “This is about all the dust in the basement! This is about getting those stupid quills from stupid Quills and Sofas! This is about having to do all my chores every day, even when Twilight isn't even around at all!”

“Whatever do you mean?” Rarity asked. “Do you not want to work for Twilight anymore?”

“No!” He took a deep breath and said: “I don't mind cleaning up, I don't mind cooking her meals, and I don't mind fetching all the books for her. In fact, I like it. I like every part of it. I absolutely love being Twilight's assistant, except when I don't. Do you know what I mean?”

His two friends looked at him oddly. “I'm afraid I can't follow you, sugarcube,” Applejack said.

“What I mean is, most of the time everything is fine, but sometimes I feel like I can't take it anymore. I feel like... I don't know!” He didn't have any hair to tear out, but he tried nonetheless. “I can't even explain it to myself. How can I think of explaining it to you?”

His eyes closed, he walked right past them. “I'm sorry,” he declared in passing. “I think I need a moment alone.”

“Wait, Spike! Stop!” Rarity shouted. Spike stopped, but didn't turn. She continued: “Is there anything we could do for you? We would be really glad to help out, even with the tiniest favor you could think of.”

Spike remained still as a rock. “No,” he said.

Applejack wouldn't accept his answer. “We could talk to them patrols for you and tell them to stop their hassling if you want to,” she suggested. “Twilight never has to know. We'll keep it to ourselves. Pinkie Promise!”

“Please don't.” His voice was barely above a whisper, slowly traveling the room like dandelion seeds scattered by the wind. Without a word of goodbye, he walked out the tent.

Rarity exchanged a worried look with Applejack. “I can only hope that Pinkie Pie and Rainbow Dash had more luck than us.”

* * *

When Rainbow Dash and Pinkie Pie opened the door to the Ponyville Library, surprise and shock sprang them right in the face. They almost had to close the door and enter a second time, just to make sure what they were seeing wasn't just a temporary trick of the mind. What they saw was a library that had given up on existence and accepted an untimely demise into a desolate ruin.

In turn, the spiders in the corners, sensing this moment of weakness, had taken their chance to conquer the building for themselves. With the help of their allies dust and mold, they had made great progress in their conquest, and continued to do so with successful campaigns, capturing all the bookshelves one cobweb at a time. That was until the two sudden pony intruders destroyed half of this morning's work with a sweep of their hooves.

“Twilight? Are you in here?” Pinkie shouted, trying to shake off the remnants of a destroyed spider web, only to get caught in another. It was hard to believe a pony could live under these conditions, even for a day.

“Twilight, we know you're in here,” Rainbow announced. “So why don't you make this easy for us and come out on your own. We don't want to drag you out, but we'll do what we have to.”

When there was no answer, Rainbow Dash took to the air, careful not to turn her coat into more of a sticky mess. She quickly scanned between all bookshelves on the first floor and found nothing. This was to be expected, as she figured Twilight's hiding place to be somewhere upstairs anyway. She beelined for the bedroom.

There was nopony in Twilight's bed, but it was evident somepony had been sleeping in it pretty recently. Quickly piecing together all the knowledge she had as a tracker, Rainbow followed the lead into Twilight's study where she, sure enough, found her target. In there, Twilight sat in an armchair facing away from the door, aimlessly staring out the window.

“There you are,” Rainbow said as she walked in front of her friend. “Why didn't you respond to us? We just want to talk, you know.”

Twilight didn't reply. She continued to silently stare into the distance.

Unsure what to do, Rainbow took a step back and looked around the room. It wasn't as bad as the rest of the library downstairs, but it was already evident that the spiders had no plans of sparing this room. “You mind telling me what happened in here?” she asked. “I've never seen your place like this. It looks like it's been abandoned for years.”

There was still no reaction from Twilight. At this point, it was impossible to tell if she was even still alive.

Rainbow waved a hoof in front of her face. “Hello? Equestria to Twilight, is anypony in there? We have great news to tell you. News that will end this strike immediately.”

“Uh-huh,” was all Twilight said, which by itself wasn't much, but after the previous drought seemed like an oasis of talkativeness in the desert.

Under all circumstances, Rainbow wanted to keep the conversation from running dry, but she was stopped by Pinkie Pie bursting through the door.

“Girls, I did it. I did it!” she proclaimed. “Seven at one blow! That's gotta be a record.”

“What are you talking about?” Rainbow asked.

“I wiped away seven spider webs with a single blow,” Pinkie answered, figurative suspenders proudly pulled. “I was like, 'woosh', and when I turned around I had seven different webs sticking to my hoof.” She aided her recount by making the necessary sweeping motions.

When Pinkie saw that Rainbow wasn't impressed in the slightest, she shifted her attention to Twilight. “Hey Twilight, what are you looking so glum about? Did anything happen that made you all mopey?” she asked.

“Of course something happened, Pinkie!” Rainbow snapped at her. “Spike is still out there, organizing his strike. Of course that's gonna make her mopey.”

“But didn't you tell her the great news that will end this strike immediately?” Pinkie asked with genuine confusion.

“Not yet—”

Pinkie didn't let her friend finish. “Can I tell her?” And before Rainbow answered, she already jumped to Twilight's armrest. “We just came from Fluttershy and the Cutie Mark Crusaders confessed to everything!”

“Uh-huh,” Twilight replied. She sounded cold and empty.

“Well, they didn't confess to everything,” Pinkie continued,” but they did confess to making a mess in the library, and said that they're sorry. Well, they didn't say they're sorry, but I'm sure they are and I'm also sure that if they were here right now, they would tell you how sorry they are and would want to make it up to you.”

“Uh-huh.”

“So if the Crusaders trashed the place, that means Spike never did anything wrong,” Rainbow said. “It was all a big misunderstanding that's now resolved. Although you probably have to apologize to him.”

She leaned closer to the statue that was Twilight. “There's nothing wrong with apologizing. Everypony makes mistakes, even me. Although my mistakes are usually pretty awesome mista—” She cut herself short, realizing her boasting wouldn't be very helpful in this situation. “I mean, there is always something you can learn from making mistakes and that is pretty awesome too.”

“Uh-huh,” Twilight said. Every repeat only became more alarming and more aggravating.

Rainbow Dash tried again. “Don't you get it? You never had anything to fight about. There is no reason to fight anymore.”

“No, you don't get it!” The suddenness of Twilight's word had sent both her friends flying back a step. She sat up a bit, but for the most part her body remained as stiff as before. “Spike is down there, protesting me against all odds. The mayor came to him and told him to stop, but he didn't. The Royal Guards came to him and told him to stop, but he didn't. He's determined to go through with this, no matter how much trouble he gets in.”

Twilight looked Rainbow sharply in the eye. “What does that tell you about me? What does that tell you about how much he resents working for me? What does that tell you about how poorly I've been treating him?”

Her head dropped limply to her chest. “He should never come back to me,” she said. “I don't deserve him as an assistant. I'm a bad pony.”

"Twilight..." Pinky whispered. It deeply hurt hearing her friend say all this. The feeling of abandonment was one of her biggest fears. All too fresh were her memories of when she had doubted her friends and feared that the deep bonds that connected them had broken. At those times, it was her best friends that got her out of her depression, by reassuring her that their friendship was strong enough to overcome any obstacle. It was her wish, no, her duty, to do the same for Twilight now when she needed her.

She carefully chose her words. “Twilight, I—”

“That is complete baloney, and I won't let you talk about yourself that way!”

Rainbow Dash had rammed her hooves into the sides of Twilight's armchair and practically snorted all her words. “Spike resenting you? You, a bad pony? That's the stupidest thing I ever heard! That's the stupidest thing you ever said! You are two of my best friends. You are best friends with each other, and so much more. He loves you, Twilight, and you love him!” She swallowed a little bit, but raged her way right through the awkwardness. “You belong with each other! You need each other! You're like...” She paused a moment to think up the perfect comparison. “You're like Daring Do and adventure. You can't imagine one without the other. Why, without adventure Daring would be only... I don't even want to think about it! Just like I don't want to think about you without Spike. You're the perfect team, if I've ever seen one.”

Twilight didn't respond. She remained frozen in her armchair, eyes closed, rapt in thought. “I think I prefer to be alone right now,” she said eventually.

A surge of magic swept across the study, picking up Rainbow Dash and Pinkie Pie, sending them flying out the room. The same surge slammed the door shut right behind them.

Rainbow Dash was immediately up, hammering on the door. “This conversation's not over! Open up, Twilight!” she demanded. When no response came, she tried pulling the door knob with her hooves, she tried gnawing it with her teeth; she put her whole body into it, but the door wouldn't budge an inch.

“Open up, Twilight!” she repeated. “I'm not kidding! If you don't, we're gonna... we're gonna...” She stopped and went right back to chewing her way through the door knob.

From behind, Pinkie Pie placed a hoof on Rainbow's shoulder. “I have an idea,” she said. “Let me try.” Rainbow politely made way.

Pinkie got up on her hind legs and made a few warm-up exercises on the spot. She followed up with IT band stretches, one front hoof on her hip, the other up in the air, first left, then right. Relaxing her muscles afterwards, she was all set to go and stepped in front of the door.

She spat in her right hoof and left hoof, rubbed them together, lifted them up in the air and yelled: "Open sesame!" as loudly as she could.

The scene was as spectacular as it was futile.

She dropped down on her hooves again. “I really thought it would work,” she said. But since it didn't, it left them with a question neither one knew the answer to.

“What do we do now?”

* * *

For the remainder of the day, Applejack and the others ran back and forth between the camp and the library. The first few times, the patrol still pestered them whenever they reentered the campsite, until Applejack gave them just a little piece of her mind, which shut them up for good.

Every half hour a pair of his friends would enter Spike's tent. Their attempts to reconcile him with Twilight encountered silent resistance, when they found him lying on his sleeping bag, arms and tail curled up in a ball, as he let their words wash over him, break on the shore, and dissipate into nothingness. He didn't feel like talking. He didn't even feel like listening. He felt like lying down and wishing for all his problems to disappear at the wave of a magic wand.

When nightfall came, his friends ceased their visits. Maybe it was because the day had tired them out too much or maybe it was because they had given up on him. He didn't know and he didn't have the capacity to give it any thought. All Spike registered was that he was now alone with plenty of time and space to think.

He thought about what he had told Rarity and Applejack earlier. He still didn't know what he was trying to say. He only felt unrest because the same problem, the source of his unhappiness, was still out there, needing to be fixed. And it wasn't just Twilight and the library; he had the very same feeling when thinking about the camp and his relation to the other protesters. Despite working so closely with them, he felt as if they completely ignored and mistreated him. He felt very much like striking against them too.

Through the tent walls, he could hear the camp's construction work continuing deep into the night, the rattling and hammering outside a constant taunt to his situation. It became unbearable to listen to. He got up from his bed and walked outside. The campsite, the library – he couldn't stand to be around it any longer. Without another thought, he ran off into the night as fast as his little feet would take him.

5th Act

The nightlife of a small, rural town like Ponyville could never compare to that of a glamorous metropolis like Manehattan, but seeing it completely drained of life altogether was an absolute new to Spike. He figured far more than half the town must have been gathered in and around the two camps, leaving not a single house on his way with as much as a candle burning by the bedside. The idea of running into another pony was absurd, which was something Spike couldn't have welcomed any more.

When he had left the camp, he had run straight forward, never looking back, until he reached the edge of the Everfree Forest, a place he had learned not to aimlessly walk into.

But with the campsite behind him and the Everfree in front of him, he faced the problem of where he actually wanted to go. If he turned left, he knew he would reach Fluttershy's cottage within a couple of minutes, but that was no place he wanted to be. He didn't want to talk to any of his friends before and he still didn't feel up to it. He wanted to be alone until he could figure it all out, even if he had no idea what 'it' even was. Without any alternative, he headed right.

He slowly circled around Ponyville, with a scenery of never-ending meadows to his left, illuminated by the moonlight. Out here, far away from the noise of relentless construction work, everything felt so tranquil, felt so peaceful. All was plain and easy. It felt exactly like life in a small town should feel like. He was so enticed by the sights and sounds around him, he hadn't even notice he had already walked to the other side of town.

He had reached Pony Hille, the largest elevation in and around Ponyville. The last time he had been here was still fresh in his memory; he could still taste the home-made triple-decker nut-crazy vanilla cream cookies on his lips.

It had been the night of the centennial meteor shower commemorating... some obscure ancient holiday only Twilight could remember, but that was worthy enough to have hundreds of golden streaks gracing the sky. Or at least half a dozen. That was how many Spike had seen before falling asleep from countless tiring hours of labor. But those half dozen meteors had packed quite a punch. Compared to them, the current night sky almost seemed mundane. To watch the sky more clearly, he lay down on the grass below.

It wasn't a fair comparison by any means. Each night sky had been individually crafted by Princess Celestia (and now that she had resumed her old duties, Princess Luna), giving it its own indescribable fleeting charm. Each was a unique gift to the world, deserving of having the picture it painted savored.

Yet, some small part of him still longed for the meteor shower. If it was up to him, he would have chosen the glamorous celebration of lights that came but once in a hundred years over the low, modest glimmer of tonight. But it wasn't up to him. He would have to make do with what he had.

To pass the time, he played a game: in his mind he moved the stars around the celestial canvas to see what kind of exciting patterns he could paint. He moved dozens of them, then hundreds, the first ones already moving out of their selected place on their own, when everything was wiped away in an instant.

“Rough night, huh?”

Spike jumped up at the sound of the voice. “Twilight!”

Only at the last second could he restrain himself from running over and clinging to her for dear life, intending to never let go. “Twilight,” he repeated in a much more somber tone, putting a lid on all his emotions. “What are you doing here?”

“I couldn't sleep, so I decided to take a walk,” Twilight said. Like an uneven chain of dominoes, each word only slowly toppled the next. “I remembered the last time we had a big fight. It was after the meteor shower.”

A low breeze blew over the hill, coating it with silence in its wake. Spike's and Twilight's eyes were locked on each other. All else around them lost its importance. The leaves halted their rustling, the grass blades stopped their bending, the stars ceased their twinkling. The world held its breath as it awaited what would happen next.

Twilight's gaze broke first and slowly drifted to the ground. She closed her eyes. “I'm sorry,” she said, clearly and firmly.

The world released its breath with a gust of wind, causing an excited swish from the grass below.

Twilight had cast the die. She had spread her apology out like a blanket and it was up to Spike to decide whether to comfortably wrap himself up in it or tear it to shreds, like he had every right to do. Her fear for the worst prevented her from watching as her mind went through every possible outcome.

“Twilight?”

At the sound of her name her ears and head perked up. In front of her, almost within hoof's reach stood Spike. Despite having walked all the way up to her, he still seemed as small as if he was still on the other side of the hill.

He looked at her with shiny eyes. “I don't want to fight anymore.”

She bridged the gap between them and swung her hooves around him. “Neither do I, Spike. Neither do I,” she whispered into his ear. “I'm so so sorry for having put you through all this.” She lightly rested her head on his shoulder as he did the same.

With the hatchet buried, they relished their moment of bliss, trying to make up the past days spent apart in a single minute. Even after the minute had passed and their felicity was starting to ebb off, they did not let go. Once they did, they would have to talk it all out; something both of them dreaded deeply. They knew somepony would have to take the blame and neither was willing to do the blaming. The longer they could stall that moment, the better.

They could feel their arms slipping. Whether it had been seconds, minutes, or hours, their embrace had reached its inevitable end and they quickly withdrew, just enough not to fall back into their hug. Already they longed for a helping hoof to guide them through the uncharted territory before them. Neither had any idea what to say.

Eventually, Spike was the first to speak. “Twilight?”

"Yes, Spike?" She stared at him fearfully and expectantly, while he couldn't bear to look her in the eye.

“What am I to you?” he asked.

Twilight responded like a shot. “What you're to me is my Number One Assistant! Whenever I need anything, you're immediately there to help me. Most of the time I don't even have to ask. You remind me when I've forgotten to eat in a long study session, you deal with me when I have one of my panic attacks, and you always help me with my reports. You always take me seriously and you never let me down. I don't think I could possibly wish for a better assistant than you.” She hung her head. “I know I don't show you how much I appreciate you enough. I'm sorry for that.”

“But...” Spike lifted his head up briefly, catching a glimpse of Twilight's expression, but quickly drew it back to the ground. “But is that all?” He couldn't help staring at her out the corner of his eye.

“Of course not!” Her response came as fast as the last one. “You're also a great friend to me. When I spend time with you and Rarity, and Fluttershy and Rainbow Dash, and Applejack and Pinkie Pie... I can't think of anything I love more. Every day has been a delight ever since you hatched on the day of my entrance exam. And growing up with you under the same roof with the same mother taking care of us, you've been like a little brother to me. What I'm trying to say is...” She looked deeply into his eyes which by now were staring at her intently. “What I'm trying to say is, you mean the world to me.”

For a moment Spike shot her a smile, but it fell to the ground along with his head. He looked even more depressed than before.

Twilight was seized with panic. “Did I say something wrong? Did I forget anything?” She reached out a hoof for his shoulder. “Because I swear I—”

“No, that's not it,” he said, looking back up. “It's just that... What if there's a moment when I can't be your friend and your brother and your assistant at the same time?”

“What do you mean?” she asked.

“Like, when your friend Spike wants to go visit a friend, but you need your assistant Spike to do something for you.”

“I never really thought about it.” Twilight took a moment to consider the question. “I guess I would try to evaluate the situation as a whole and then rank all possible scenarios in a chart, based on urgency, availability, past experience, and other things. Of course I would also think of a backup plan and most likely a backup plan for my backup plan, if things really go wrong. If I had them available, I would also look into some double-blind crossover studies of...” She interrupted herself. She delved into the kind of answer she used to give her teachers during oral exams, and she was pretty sure that wasn't what Spike wanted to hear. “I guess I'd try to decide on what's best for all and act from there,” she said, smiling at him.

Spike processed the answer in his head. “So what you're saying is you would find the best solution.”

“Exactly!”

“But...” He chewed the tip of his claw, but it wasn't enough to keep his mouth occupied. “But in the end you get to decide, right?”

Her pupils grew to the size of saucers. “What are you saying?” she asked, leaning a little closer. “Do you mean my wrong decisions were what made you unhappy?”

“No! Or maybe... I'm not sure.” He contorted his face a little bit. “I guess what I'm saying is that whenever we're together, you're in control. Whenever you need me as an assistant, you make me your assistant. Whenever it suits you that I'm your friend, you make me your friend.” He sighed, giving himself a second to get a better grip on what his words would be. “Like that time when you celebrated your birthday in Canterlot. You needed somepony to watch the library while you were gone and you simply assumed I would do it. Don't get me wrong: that private little celebration we had when you came back was fun, but I still wish you would have asked.”

He buttoned his lips for a moment, avoiding eye contact. “Even when you were away in the Crystal Empire, you made me work the library all day. I mean, I didn't mind helping out a little, but I would have really liked to do something else with the rest of my day.”

At her assistant's revelation, countless thoughts criss-crossed Twiligth's mind, like the flakes in a jarred snow globe. There had to be some explanations somewhere, some explanations for how she got started on doing this, how she could keep that behavior up for so long, and how she never noticed what she was doing. But before she could fully ponder these questions, there was something far more urgent to do.

“I don't know what to say...” She reached out for his claw and found it. “I never knew you felt this way. I just assumed you'd think the same way I do and wouldn't mind watching the library while I'm gone. I'm sorry. I should have asked.”

“Oh, forget it.” Spike let go of Twilight's hoof and threw down his arms. “I shouldn't even have started with all this. It was stupid.”

“No it wasn't!” Twilight protested. “If you're not happy with the way things are, then we have to do something about it. There's nothing stupid about that.”

Spike looked up. Twilight was absolutely right. His bashfulness was completely uncalled for. They would find a way to get through this. He was sure of it. They always did.

A small smile started to show on his face, when a worrisome thought entered his mind. “But you're not gonna dismiss me as your assistant, are you?” he asked, panic-struck. “That's not what I meant. I still want to stay your assistant in some way. And your friend. And... your little brother.” He blushed a little as he mentioned the last point.

Twilight stopped him with a hoof to his lips. “Don't worry,” she said comfortingly, “I would never ever lose you as an assistant, friend, brother, or anything else.”

“But then what are we gonna do?” he asked, hardly any less worried than before.

“Well, the problem lies in the ambiguity of your role around me,” she pondered. “So all we have to do is make sure to find a fixed set of rules for when you are to act as my assistant and for when not to.”

“And how would we do that?”

“For starters, I could treat you like an official employee of the Ponyville Library, which means that when it's closing time, you're not my assistant anymore and get to do whatever you want.”

Spike positively beamed at this suggestion. It sounded like the greatest idea since hay fries with ketchup. “Can we really do that?” he asked with sparkling eyes.

“Of course we can,” Twilight answered. “But this also means you have to show up on time every day.” She shot him a sincere look. “You have to show that you're a responsible and mature dragon who can handle his duties. No more sleeping in and no more naps at work, you hear?”

Spike gulped. “O-okay,” he said a little hesitantly. “It think I can handle it.”

“Of course you can.” Twilight went over to ruffle his head a little which he answered with a hug. It felt much different from the one before. Without a haunting specter hanging over their heads, they could really enjoy their embrace to the fullest.

“We should really head back now,” Twilight noted after a minute. “The sun's already coming up and your first shift starts in a few hours.”

“Aw, man! Do I really have to?” Spike asked as they broke their hug.

Twilight giggled at him. “Alright. I guess I can make do without you for today. I don't think I'll get much done anyway.”

She had to stifle a yawn. “Still, I think we should head back and catch a little sleep.”

“Agreed!”

Spike already turned to go when Twilight stopped him with a hoof. She lowered her back and he gladly hopped on, resting comfortably. After only a couple of steps, he fell asleep.

* * *

Spike was awakened very rudely and abruptly when he fell off of Twilight's back. After he got back on his feet and dusted himself off, he saw his former ride having become a scream frozen in time. Twilight's pupils were the size of bowling balls. Her jaw had dropped so far, Spike was tempted to stick his claw in between, just to see if she would even notice. She didn't look like she'd be rejoining this world any time soon, and when Spike followed her gaze he understood why. The campsites had changed quite a lot since he had run off.

When the morning's first rays had reached over the horizon, the protesters' camp had quickly come to life. Despite the fact that many had worked all through the night, only with the break of a new dawn could the countless pending construction plans be fully tackled. Most of the protesters went to work straight from their bedside.

It was only by chance that one mare went to get the obligatory clearance from their leader, only to notice that Spike was missing from his tent. Naturally, ponies started looking for him everywhere, but it soon became evident that he no longer was within in the camp. And however symbolic his role as a leader had been, his sudden disappearance gave reason for great discomfort around the protesters.

Panic began to spread. With no official leader to guide them, with the fear of a descent into anarchy staring everypony bluntly in the face, within a few minutes everything had descended into anarchy. Everywhere ponies screamed their lungs out, broke down crying, or hid themselves inside their tents, stockpiling their supplies, for they feared the end of the world, or at least the end of the protest, had come.

But just as quickly as the panic had spread, it dissolved once a simple rumor went around: the rumor that Spike's disappearance was due to a foalnapping by the mob camp. The protesters' fear turned into hatred that bundled itself into a thirst for revenge. Without thought, countless ponies jumped the trenches, jumped the wires, jumped all their installed defensive measures for a full frontal assault on their enemies' base.

Already being on high alert, the bureaucrats in the mob camp didn't take any time to perform a counter maneuver of their own: they jumped their own trenches and dashed towards their attackers, into the no-pony's-land in between.

The two fronts clashed and the wave of ponies was pushed high into the sky. As soon as the ponies up front had coupled with a respective partner of mutual agitation, the pair was quickly shoved to the side, to the back, or into any other direction, to quickly make room for those who yet had to find a proper sparring partner. Only once everpony had acquired a personal opponent did the fighting duets turn into fighting orchestras, with everypony against everypony in a classic free-for-all.

Some ponies knew karate, others knew enough ca-razy to more than make up for it. All around, heads were noogied, rumps were bitten, and manes were tugged. The general battle strategy was to look for some stray limb or loose strand of mane and yank it, push it, punch it, or do whatever seemed most appropriate given the circumstance. Everything was so chaotic and violent, many ponies who felt sore from the fighting had significant problems notifying the others they were calling a time out.

But atop the raging chaos beneath, some distinct ponies stayed levelheaded and opted to take the lead. They were calling out left and right, trying to implement their strategies on the battlefield.

The Gel-Mane became the mob camp's self-appointed commanding general. He had long formed an emergency plan to be carried out in a precarious situation like this that was sure to give them the upper hoof.

At the start of the brawl, he had instructed for cauldrons, which had already been filled up with the vegetable stew that was supposed to serve as the camp's lunch, to be heated by all the magic and firewood available. As soon as the first bubbles started to show, they were all hauled to the trenches, where several unicorns took control to levitate them over.

With a booming voice, the Gel-Mane gave his order. At his command, his troops withdrew back into their camp, leaving behind a bunch of puzzled protesters. Before any of them had figured out what to do, the cauldrons were already hovered above their heads and their contents were quickly spilled on top of them.

The lukewarm liquid didn't exactly hurt anypony (except for one who managed to get some of it into his eyes and up his nose), but the zesty soup felt very icky and yucky as it stuck to their coats, which was more than enough to break the protesters' fighting spirit.

But the protesters and their group of commanders had not remained idle for this whole time and were well-prepared for a counterattack.

While the other side had brewed their stews, they had rapidly gathered and tuned any instruments they could find. The Headband was conducting a choir that had formed in a line facing the mob camp, which used their side's magical feats to focus and amplify the sound of their instruments. Within half a minute, their stentorian chant ringing across the battlegrounds exacted revenge for the previous stew attack.

As a matter of prudence, the protester had protected themselves with cotton balls in their ears against what was a disharmonious cacophony. Apart from the fact that only a few of the singers had mastered their instruments, they never agreed on a single song to sing. The result was an aimless chant, ranging from hymns on love and friendship, to pleas for the importance of saving trees, to pillorying of Princess Celestia's fascistic tendencies. Like they expected, it was far more than any sane pony could take.

But unlike they expected, the mob camp was not beaten into submission. Instead of breaking the bureaucrats' fighting spirit, the protesters managed to raise it, to stir them up more than they ever had been. With hate-filled vigor they lunged at the protesters' base, determined to put an end to the piercing banshee shrieks once and for all.

At the start of the assault, the protesters immediately lost half their ground. Without the incentive of relentless pain pushing them forward, they just didn't have the brute force to keep their attackers at bay. It was only a matter of time before they would falter.

And just as the mob camp had created the first breach in the protesters' defensive line, Spike and Twilight Sparkle happened to walk in on the scene, causing the former to slump and the latter to slack-jaw.

“Snap out of it, Twilight!” Spike pleaded. “We need to do something! We need to fix this! Please, use a freezing spell. Or a silence spell. Or your fail-safe spell. I don't care what spell, but you've got to make them stop!”

Attempting to shake her body out of her vegetative state left her completely unfazed. He tried pulling her ears, tugging her tail, and pushing her sides, but her body remained solid as rock, unwilling to budge the slightest bit. It looked like Twilight was out of this one. He was on his own.

He sat down and leaned against Twilight's hindleg. What could he do by himself? He couldn't even stop the protesters that had supposedly accepted him as their leader from digging trenches. And now he was supposed to stop ponies on a mad rampage who had opposed him from the very beginning? It was hopeless. He knew, without Twilight's help he wouldn't get anywhere.

“I... I... I...”

Spike looked up in confusion. He had heard right. It really was Twilight. It really was Twilight making these strange, diffuse sounds.

“I... I... I...”

At every iteration a tiny speck of life seemed to return to the unicorn. Her mouth was moving already, her muscles started to untense – soon, very soon she would be able to form coherent sentences again.

“I... I... I don't think that will be necessary. Look!”

Spike followed her hoof. Twilight was pointing to the middle of the field, where a bright white light had appeared. It began to spread across the ground until it had engulfed the entire battle scene.

Twilight turned to Spike and shot him a smile. “I believe everything is under control. So I suggest going back to the library and catching some well-deserved rest. What do you say?”

Spike didn't answer; he just jumped on Twilight's back. She was right of course: everything was under control and they did need, and deserve, a good sleep. They could just let the white light handle the situation.

The white light continued to grow, creeping up the legs of all the ponies present. Nopony dared to fight it. In fact, everypony was much too startled to do anything about it. They simply waited until it had captured them all.

Once it had, the white light proceeded by lifting the ponies off the ground and slowly moving them to their respective side of the field. It gave a moment of time to the ponies who had been picked up upside-down to put themselves into an upright position, before it gently dropped them to the ground and retreated back to its center.

As it piled up, the light grew in intensity, brighter and ever brighter, until it was impossible to look at. It exploded in a big flash, leaving everypony temporarily blinded. Once they regained their sight, they found the light replaced by none other than Princess Celestia, standing proudly and immediately addressing the crowd.

“I heard about a dispute dividing almost the entire town of Ponyville, but this wasn't quite what I had expected,” she said. She spoke in a calm, motherly tone, not showing any signs of anger, gloom, or disappointment.

She found a forgotten cauldron lying carelessly on the battlefield and started to inspect it. “Pushing each other around, pouring stew on top of each other, deafening each other with music... My little ponies, don't you think this has gone just a little bit too far? Don't you feel just a little bit silly? Aren't you just a little bit embarrassed?”

Celestia looked around the crowd, but everypony dodged her gaze. They all suddenly considered it much more important to spot something strange in the sky, to attend to a sudden itch they felt on their foreleg, or to whistle the innocent little tune they happened to remember that moment.

Celestia tried once again. “Aren't you sorry for what you did?”

Everypony was. They all looked at her, bowed their heads, and loudly shouted or quietly mumbled one apology or another.

“Don't apologize to me, my little ponies,” Celestia pointed out. “Apologize to each other. You were the ones who got hurt, not me.”

The crowd did as it was told. Everypony turned at least to their right and left neighbor and asked for forgiveness – forgiveness that was given generously.

Celestia responded with a gentle smile. “I know there are certain disagreements in every group of ponies and that when dealing with these disputes, tempers can get quite flared. But I also know that a group of ponies can always talk everything through like the sensible adults that they are.”

She took a small pause to let her eye wander around the crowd once more. “If we approach each other with an open mind, I am sure we can set aside our differences and find a compromise we're all content with,” she said. “I think it's best we take a little time out of our day, right now, and thoroughly discuss anything that you might find irk- or worrisome. Don't you agree?”

They all did. Countless nods in her direction celebrated the idea of solving their problems in a reasonable fashion, instead of trying to punch them away in a giant scuffle.

Celestia's smile grew warmer. She felt proud of her subjects, proud that despite their fighting earlier, they could return to a peaceful coexistence, handling everything in a civilized manner, treating each other with the dignity and respect they deserved. It was amazing how much a few words of reason and a little bit of coaxing could do.

“Now,” she began once the crowd had calmed down, “I suggest we begin with the first point on the agenda right away. It is a point that I fear has been ignored far too long. It has caused much grief and worry for the ponies of Ponyville and it is of utmost importance to be resolved once and for all. What I'm talking about, of course, is the current height of licorice prices.”

Gratuitous Epilogue, Just For Cheap Dawww's

Gratuitous Epilogue, Just For Cheap Dawww's

A few days later, everything had gone quiet in and around the library once again, as was appropriate for a place such as this.

Of course there was some noise that would never disappear completely, for instance the tick-tock of the clock, the clatter of dust slowly trickling off the shelves, the sound of the local librarian turning the pages of the book she was reading, the hushed whispers of spiders in the corners plotting their next takeover, and most notably, the joyful whistle of a little dragon assistant sweeping the floors.

Spike's tune and enthusiasm were contagious. Instead of being swept, the dust danced beside him, following him along as if he were their pied piper. Twilight couldn't help shooting him a casual glance every now and then and smile at the pure bliss he displayed.

But she quickly returned her attention to the books scattered across her desk. She couldn't allow for any distractions; she still had some work ahead of her.

After they had whipped the library into pre-strike and pre-Crusader shape in just two days, they had been able to finally rummage and refurbish the basement. The hidden gems they had found down there had made Twilight feel like a foal on Hearth's Warming: she couldn't wait another second to browse and categorize every one of them.

But filling the bookshelves with oldly new books meant she had to sort out and find a place for the newly old books; a matter she initially wanted to have finished by the end of the day.

Although, with things running as smoothly as they did lately, she could always put it off until tomorrow. They had practically worked off their entire week's schedule already. Back together, she and Spike worked like a well-oiled machine designed to solve any problem that walked their way.

No, for today she would give the whole thing a rest. She quickly gathered the books and levitated them downstairs.

“Spike,” she called while on her way, “would you please get me a quill and some paper and put it on my desk?”

“Sure thing!” Spike responded.

Twilight had already decided what she would do with the rest of the evening, something she had put off far too long: she would write up a friendship report. With all that had transpired, she had learned more than enough to fill a single letter. Princess Celestia would surely be delighted to hear from her. She hadn't had any chance to talk to her after her sagely wisdom had resolved the protest situation and she hadn't written a friendship report in forever. Why, Twilight hadn't even sent her the paper on thermal enchantments she had promised her almost a week ago...

She immediately dropped all the books and sprinted back upstairs. Sure, the Princess probably wouldn't mind getting Twilight's studies a little late or even a lot late, but this time things were different. She hadn't even started. If her mentor knew she would only start her research at the last moment, a proper scolding and punishment would be sure to follow.

She turned for her study and went right for her writing utensils. Fortunately, the quill, ink, and paper she needed were already provided on her desk.

“We have an emergency, Spike!” she announced as she hastily scribbled something. “We have to get to work right away. I need you to bring me every book on enchantments and thermodynamics we have. And I will also need my compass and ruler. Probably some candles too, since I'm going to be up all night. Of course, you will have to help me go through all those books and –”

“Um, Twilight?” Spike interrupted weakly.

Twilight turned around, unwilling to waste any more time on this than necessary. “What is it?”

He pointed at the clock behind him. “It's five,” he said. “I'm done for today. And I was planning to go to Sugarcube Corner and get myself something sweet.”

“But my studies!” Twilight snapped at him, shooting him a nervous glare. “And all those books! Browsing them on my own would take forever. I need you! I...”

When she saw Spike cringe before her like a fox hiding from a farmer, Twilight stopped. She could see him being torn and she was the one tearing at him. She slowly shook her head.

“You're right,” she said, turning her back to him. “I've got no right to keep you here. It's quitting time and you've earned yourself some leisure. I shouldn't have asked you. I shouldn't have pushed you like that. I'm sorry. I'll figure this out on my own. You go and have fun at Sugarcube Corner.”

And she really meant it. She was happy for him. She wanted him to have fun, even if some part of her insisted on keeping him here. A part of her was even mad at him for bringing up the end of his workday in the first place. And she was mad at herself for thinking this way. He had done so much for her today already and she had taken him for granted once again. It was no wonder that, when given the choice, he would rather go to Sugarcube Corner than help her out. If she were treated this way, Twilight would likely do the same. She could feel tears forming in the corners of her eyes.

“Twilight?”

The cold sensation of his claw on her shoulder felt like an icepack for a misdiagnosed fever. Twilight quickly snuffled and wiped a pair of tears away with her hoof. “What is it?” she asked, trying to keep her voice straight.

“If you really need my help, I can stick around for a little bit longer,” Spike said.

Twilight turned around. “But it's five o' clock,” she protested. “It's after hours. You should go out and enjoy yourself. I can't keep you here for a personal project of mine. I don't want to force you to work as my assistant.”

“I didn't say I'd work as your assistant. I said I'd stick around to help,” he pointed out. “Not because you want me to or because you ordered me to, but because I want to. Just because it's after hours doesn't mean I have to leave.”

He smiled the smile of magician who had just finished his trick. “I might be done working as your assistant for today,” he declared, “but as your friend, I'm willing to do overtime.”