Spike’s Amazing RaceBy The Accursed One Thanks to a couple of my friends for helping. (You know who you are.)***
Ponyville’s resident dragon woke up one morning in the Golden Oaks Library, a beam of sunlight illuminating his purple-scaled face. When he groggily arose from his bed, he noticed a long-haired bovine animal in front of him—a yak. After Spike saw the yak, he shrieked at a high volume.
“Who, and more importantly, WHAT are you?!” Spike asked the yak, shocked at its sudden appearance.
“You know, you should introduce yourself before asking that,” the yak said. “But I am Igaluk, a yak from the nation Quyana. It lies north of your country.”
It took Spike a moment to register what he had been told and the creature before him, as he had never seen a yak before, and was surprised it could speak. He walked out of the library as calmly as he could, and tried to find Twilight, who was nowhere to be found in Ponyville.
’Wait... Twilight left, she should have probably left me a note...’
After Spike got back to his oaken home near the outskirts of Ponyville, he looked around the desk for a note. When Spike finally saw the folded piece of paper after five minutes of furiously searching the desk, and messing it up in the process, he opened it.
“Spike, if you are reading this note, then it means you messed the desk up in the process of searching for a note I left you. I will tell you where I went in a second note that will only be revealed once you clean up the mess you made.
~Twilight Sparkle”
After Spike cleaned up the large mess he made in record time, he found another note that had been under an encyclopedia. ’Why did I not see this before?’ he thought.
The second note read:
“Spike, thank you for cleaning up that mess. Now, since you’ve found the right note, I’m going to send you on a little quest to find out where I am. This quest will take you around Ponyville, having you find clues and going to various places. If you’re wondering why I’m making you do this instead of just outright telling you where I am now, it’s because you’re getting a little... pudgy... and need exercise. Also, your first clue: “Roses are red, violets are blue, where Roseluck sells is your next clue.” Remember that, if you fail to obtain a clue, your journey is forfeit. Also, if you get the final clue before I get back at noon tomorrow, I’ll take you out for ice cream.
~Twilight Sparkle”
Spike was offended at Twilight’s note, so he tore it into fifteen pieces and threw each one in a random place where Twilight would never find them. Or, to a normal pony, Spike just threw them all in a trash can. He started heading towards the market square, and entered the flower shop.
“Sorry, little Spike, but I’m about to close up shop. But you’re welcome to stay and chat, if you want to. Oh, before I forget, Twilight gave me a clue to give to you. You have to answer this question first, though. She told me to ask you this: ‘When you first arrived in Ponyville, who was first to greet you?’” Roseluck asked Spike.
“Um, this one is obvious, I think... Pinkie Pie, right?” Spike answered Roseluck’s question nervously, hoping he didn’t get the answer wrong and thus forfeit his journey.
Roseluck simply nodded and gave Spike his next clue, “In this place, cookies and cakes abound. In the twins’ residence is where your next clue is found.” After she gave the clue, Roseluck nudged Spike out of the door and finished closing up her shop before she went to get her lunch.
After his hasty exit, Spike pondered his clue, then went to Sugarcube Corner. On his way across the town square, a pink blur crashed into him from above.
“Hello Spike, I’ve been wondering where you were! Why not come inside for some food? My treat! Well, they’re definitely my treats, I baked them! Also, what are you doing? I’m just telling you to come inside the shop!” Pinkie Pie was as energetic as usual, and seemed happy that she encountered her favorite dragon friend.
Spike and Pinkie walked into Sugarcube Corner, where Pinkie bounced behind the counter, grabbed a tray of cupcakes with yellow and red-striped frosting, and bounced back over to the table where Spike was sitting.
“Okay, Pinkie, calm down for a second. I’m trying to find clues to know Twilight’s location. And it’s honestly a race against time. I have until noon tomorrow to find out where she is, and I heard you-” Spike got cut off mid-sentence by Pinkie Pie, who had appeared suddenly behind the dragon, making him jump.
Pinkie quickly interjected, “A race? Is it amazing? I know these cupcakes are! And I have a clue for you, and a question! Your question is whether or not Gummy is a crocodile! No, wait, that was something his vet asked me. Oh yeah! The question I was told to ask you was this: “Find the pony who does not fly, her clue will be found nearby.” Oh ponyfeathers! I told you the clue! Well, bye!” After she finished her pseudo-speech, Pinkie put a cupcake in front of Spike then wished him luck.
As Spike left Sugarcube Corner, he tried to take a bite of the cupcake. His draconic teeth could barely puncture the plastic, as it was tougher than the toughest gem, and he immediately threw the “cupcake” in the nearest garbage can. He then headed towards Fluttershy’s cottage on the other side of Ponyville.
When he arrived at the timid pegasus’s home, Spike called out for his animal-loving friend. When he finally found her, Fluttershy was giving food to her chickens, carefully making sure that they each got the same amount of food. “Hey Fluttershy! Pinkie told me that you’d have a clue for me!” called Spike to the yellow Pegasus.
Fluttershy yelped and headed back inside her cottage. She knew what the dragon was there for, and went to her desk to grab the envelope. It was gone. “Angel Bunny, did you see that red and yellow envelope on my desk? I need to give it to Spike,” said Fluttershy to her quite bossy rabbit.
Angel simply pointed to the mailbox, but the flag was down. It was too late for Spike.
...Or so it seemed...
Not wanting to give up hope this time, Spike rushed to Fluttershy’s mailbox and opened it, thinking it might not be too late. When he saw the familiar red and yellow striped envelope, a large smile crept its way upon to the baby dragon’s face. He might still find out where Twilight was. So the dragon walked to Fluttershy, opened the envelope, and handed her the contents.
“What’s the question?” He asked, sounding very elated.
“Um, here it is. What is the most infamous group of fillies in Ponyville?” Fluttershy asked, somewhat eager to get back to feeding her animals.
“Oh, that one’s ea-” Spike got cut off again, this time by the three fillies in question. He only groaned in response.
“WE ARE THE CUTIE MARK CRUSADERS, ON A QUEST TO FIND OUT WHO WE ARE! AND WE WILL NEVER STOP OUR JOURNEY, NOT UNTIL WE HAVE OUR CUTIE MARKS!” The fillies Apple Bloom, Scootaloo, and Sweetie Belle all sang loudly in unison, scaring Fluttershy again.
Spike just chuckled after that and told his friend, “Well, I guess that answers your question, Fluttershy! I’m going with option B: The Cutie Mark Crusaders. And yes, it’s my final answer.”
To which the startled Pegasus simply replied, “Okay. Here’s your clue. The Pegasus that naps all the time, with her, your clue you will find. Good luck, you have about seventeen hours left in your challenge.”
And with that, Spike started getting hungry. He decided to go home for the night since it was going to get dark soon anyways, and the fact that it’s hard to think on an empty stomach. Twilight’s dilemma with the tickets to the Grand Galloping Gala a while ago taught him that. And so he went home, made some dinner and went to sleep.
*****
On the second day of his epic quest, Spike woke up at an early hour to get the maximum amount of time for figuring out the answer to Twilight’s location before she got home at around noon. He made a small breakfast of toast and eggs before heading out to find the pony he was looking for. “The Pegasus who naps all the time... This one has to be a giveaway... Rainbow, maybe? Possibly Pound Cake, he naps a lot. Wait, the clue said ‘with her,’ so Pound is out of the equation, and that leaves Rainbow. Now time to find her,” he thought out loud, receiving glares from some ponies in the town square.
“You rang?” the cyan mare called down to Spike as she kicked a cloud apart into slowly dissipating cloudlets. She was still working on clearing the sky to make it partly cloudy for that day’s weather, working at a leisurely pace instead of her rather quick pace she employed on a normal day, just so she could make sure there was the right amount of clouds remaining in the sky.
“Yeah, I did. I heard from Fluttershy that you would have a question and a clue for me. Do you?” the purple dragon asked.
“Not just that, Spike. There’s this thing called a road block that I’m to have you do. To get your question and clue from me, you’re going to have to race the clock. You have to run from your home to the town hall and back. In under half an hour. Don’t worry, it’s not too far,” Rainbow seemed to be holding back laughter at her joke, though thinking she might have gone a little too far with it.
As Spike started getting ready to run, Rainbow told him that it was just a joke, and that Twilight would never do that to him. He just groaned and went to go inside his house, thinking that Twilight had just sent him on a wild goose chase, and crestfallen about him not going to buy an ice cream cone on the very hot day. Little did he know, though, that Rainbow wasn’t joking.
Rainbow knocked on the library’s wooden door, yelling for Spike to come out of the house, “Hey Spike! I actually have your clue! But here’s your question: What animal had Applejack saved you from, and you returned the favor by saving her from?”
The dragon answered Rainbow’s question and received his clue: “Where you started, there you go back. Your final clue is with the yak.”
Knowing where he had to go, the young dragon headed up to the guest bedroom in Twilight’s house and asked the yak, “Hey, I heard you have the final question for me. What is it?”.
The yak merely said, “What is my name, and where does my species hail from? The answer is somewhere in this library if you do not remember. Here is a hint: I am a yak.”
Receiving his penultimate quest, Spike immediately went to look around the library for the book on species not native to Equestria: the Encyclopedia of Species on Equus. When he found it on Twilight’s desk, the book had a bookmark on the first entry starting with the letter Y: Yak. “How convenient!”
The entry stated:
The yak is a sentient and literate species living in the nation of Quyana, a snowy land in the northernmost part of the continent. They are a generally peaceful, herbivorous people and are quite religious. Like their southern neighbors, the ponies of Equestria, they believe in a solar and a lunar deity, and those who share names with the deities are revered as priests. Their deities are Akycha, the solar god, and Igaluk, the lunar god. Most yaks live in small tribes composed of a few families, each tribe headed by a priest. The tribal leader can be identified by their somewhat odd white fur, as the leaders of tribes have painted their fur white to symbolize their connection to the heavens.
Putting the book back, Spike went back upstairs to the yak. Silently observing that the yak had white fur, Spike decided to take a stab at the question. “Okay,” Spike answered, “I know you’re a yak from the nation of Quyana, and you seem to be a leader or a priest. The encyclopedia had in it that most are named after one of their deities, so your name is either Akycha or Igaluk. I’m gonna go on a hunch here and hope it’s the second one. You are Igaluk, a yak from the northern ice plains of Quyana.”
Igaluk was silent for a minute, making Spike nervous, then replied, “You are correct, young one. I lead my tribe in worshipping the deities of my people. Your final clue, the one that will tell you the answer, is this: ‘With this clue, your game will stop. Your final destination is the ice cream shop.’”
After realizing where to go at the end of his journey, the small drake went outside his door, but not before thanking the yak for the clue. On his way to the ice cream shop, Spike pondered his whole journey, and what he discovered along the way. He had learned about a whole species unknown to him, he learned to pay attention when looking for notes from Twilight, and he learned to pay attention when someone talks to him, as it could be important later on. But most of all, Spike learned that he needed to exercise more due to Twilight’s second note to him.
All this pondering made the journey to the ice cream shop seem like seconds instead of minutes. Upon arrival at The Cone Zone, Ponyville’s local ice cream joint, Spike immediately saw a certain purple unicorn. He rushed over to the mare in question and hugged her, before sitting down in a booth across from his librarian friend. Ordering a chocolate milkshake, Spike proceeded to ask Twilight what had happened while she was gone.
“Well,” Twilight said, “the first thing that happened after I went to Canterlot was witness a volleyball tournament near a public pool built a few weeks ago. Afterwards, I went and played in one of the games, my team won. Then, I talked to the Princess about all the lessons I’ve learned about friendship and stayed overnight in Canterlot to catch up with her and visit my parents. In the morning, I went to the train station and went to Ponyville. After arriving there, I headed to the ice cream shop to wait for you. If you didn’t arrive by noon, I would have went home. But you made it an hour in advance, so congratulations, Spike! You win!”
And so ends our story of Spike’s amazing race against time.