Cooling Down

Chapter V: The Hero, The Doctor and The Traitor

“Look! There’s the three of them! After—“

“Oh no, you don’t…” I whispered. I grabbed the mare by the hip and covered her mouth before she actually called for backup… I retreated back and hid inside the dumpster, but before we actually hide in the dumpster, the mare bit my hand and escaped my grip. I grabbed my baton in the split-second and hit the mare in the head. Then she fell down in a thud.

“Not on my goddamn watch, bitch… This time, I won’t hesitate to beat all of you down unconscious…” I hissed at the mare. Her hair was almost recognizable to me, it was Derpy. Oh shit… Now I feel bad for hitting her since the Doctor is here.

I checked her pulse, “Thank God, she still breathing… I thought I hit her hard in the head… Come on, let’s go before any other mares find us.”

“Yeah… Sure th—“

“Derpy! Where are you?!” Another mare called out. Luckily, we escaped before we got spotted.

We stopped in the roof of a building. I placed down the Doctor on the ground and let him rest for a bit while. I looked at Spike to see that he was irritated and impatient.

“He’s totally eager to fuck Rarity, isn’t he?”

‘It’s not like that. I made a promise to Twilight that I’ll protect Spike from those lusty mares, even though it’s from her.’

“Hey, Ryan… Before you go, can you promise me something?” I stopped at the front of the door.

“Keep Spike safe from being raped, will you? Even though I lose control and try to take his virginity…”

I looked at her and gave her a sweet smile, “Sure thing, I’ll do it. You can count on me.”

“Thank you, Ryan…”

“You’re welcome…”

“Very well… Oh shit, Doc’s waking up.”

I looked to see that the Doctor is waking up, thank God. When the Doc opened his eyes, he thought we were mares and tried to escape, “Doc! Doc, it’s us. Ryan and Spike, calm down!”

“Ryan? Spike? Are you the human that saved us from the nightmare unicorn?”

“Yeah, it’s me. Calm down and tell us what happened to you. We just saw you walking towards us and you fell down unconscious. Not to mention a scared bunny in my shirt pocket…” I asked.

“Uhh… It all happened so fast… I just came back from Gallopfrey and then…it happened…”

I arrived back in my home. I was tired and exhausted from the adventure then I was thirsty, so I went in the kitchen to grab a glass of water. But then I saw her just standing there, wearing lingerie.

“Derpy? Derpy, what are you doing here? Aren’t you supposed to be delivering mails today?” I asked.

She wasn’t answering, but when she did, it was something I have to take to my grave.

“Doctor… Please, make me feel good.” She said seductively. I was verily confused at the moment she said those words.

“What? What are you saying?” I asked once more. But then she giggled and laughed hysterically, her current behavior made me frightened of her as she walked towards me.

“Derpy? Derpy, stay away from me! AGH!” I lost balance and suddenly she pinned me down on the floor.

She gave me a seductive yet frightening look, “Please, doctor… I need it… Hihihi…” She giggled.

I was shivering in fear; the only way to escape was…THE SCREWDRIVER!

I quickly grabbed the screwdriver in my pocket when suddenly it let out a flash, stunning Derpy as I escaped from her grip.

I went outside of my house, only to find out going outside was a HUGE mistake to do. A horde of mares greeted in front of me and I have nowhere to go. I was really confused at the time, I knew it’s mating season already but this wasn’t any normal mating season. It was monstrous! It was horrifying.

“I tried my best to escape from them, and so I did. But I was almost completely destroyed, and then that’s where you found me.”

“That’s pretty fucked up…” I said.

“How about you? What happened to you guys?” he asked.

“A bunch of close calls. Turns out they still have a mind, a conscience, something to fear and something to listen. Words may or may not be the best weapon, but it helped. Right now, we needed to grab a suit which Rarity made for me. An invisibility cloak, which is conductible so both me and Spike can be invisible. But right now, the boutique is roamed by those mares and I can’t get past them somehow…”

“Wait, I have to give something to you that’ll help.” He reached towards his left pocket and gave me a potion of some sort. I took it from his hand and took a closer look at it; it’s encased in a golden bottle with an hourglass as its cap.

“What is it?” I asked.

“It’s a time vigor. I made it when I was still in Gallopfrey, you’ll be able to manipulate time. But its abilities are limited; you can only use them after 2 minutes. After that, time will go back to normal. Then, it has to recharge in 30 seconds so you can use it again.”

“Time manipulation powers? Oh sweet, this is going to be kickin’!”

“Thanks Doc, I’ll use it wisely.” I said. I opened the bottle and drank every single drop of it. It tasted sweet as honey going down…

“Well, that tasted— AGH!”

I suddenly felt weak and hot, like I was having a fever. My vision turned really blurry and I was starting to get dizzy. I feel to my knees and saw that time was slowing down, and going fast alternately. It was weird yet disturbing.

Everything went back to normal after that after effect. I shook my head and said, “Holy shit…That’s fucking weird. So, what can I do with these abilities?” I asked Hooves.

Hooves stood up and cleaned himself as he cleared his throat, “As far as I can tell, you have the ability to initiate zero state. You have the ability to stop time while remaining outside of the effect. Some of those abilities are Time Rush, you can rush through time and becoming just a blur to everyone. You can use it to confuse or strike your enemies without them seeing you. Come on, try it.”

I took what Hooves said and focused on my abilities. I closed my eyes and concentrated. As I opened them up, I dashed through and saw that time slowed down. I stopped behind Hooves and the time went back to normal.

“This is so fucking awesome. Dude, we should use this more often!”

‘I KNOW!’

“Sweeeeeeeet…. I’m liking this thing!” I said.

Spike looked behind him, looking shocked and surprised. “Whoa! I didn’t even see you move!”

“Niiiice… What else, Doc?” I asked.

“You can also stop time in a focused area, freezing objects and opponents. In that ability, it’ll give you time to escape or beat them. Come on, try it on that mare below.”

I peeked on the edge of the roof to see Lyra Heartstrings below with Fluttershy and Bon-Bon. It wouldn’t hurt to mess one of them girls, now would it?

I concentrated my abilities once more and focused on Lyra. Suddenly, she froze and a time-kind-of-area-thingy appeared around her. I looked at my side to see a can on the ground. I grabbed the can and threw it to her (Thankfully, no one saw us throwing the can.) and it froze near her. Now this… this is useful.

I unfroze Lyra and then the can hit her. I laughed.

“Man… This is so awesome! I love this so far! Thanks Doc, for this.”

“That’s not all. There’s also called “Extract from zero state”. You have the ability to extract people and objects from zero state. In layman’s terms, you can extract a person from the time effect. For instance, when you stopped time, only you can move outside the effect, right? Now, you can also remove someone from the time effect just by touching them. Come on, stop time then hold both me and Spike’s arm.” He said.

For the final time, I concentrated on my powers and stopped time. I walked towards Hooves and Spike.

“This is so fascinating…”

I held both of their arms and then they finally moved without returning time back to normal. “See? Told you.” Hooves joked. I returned time back to normal and thanked the doc for the potion.

“Thanks, Doc. This’ll help me.”

“Please, call me Time Turner or just ‘Turner’. And uhhh… No, thank you for saving me.”

“Thanks, Turner. Come on, I’ll just drop you off somewhere safe so we can go our way—“

“Wait! I’ll come with you!” Turner pleaded. Well…

I pondered for a moment, “Sure thing. We all know that no one is safe from those mares. We need to cooperate as long as we can if we want to live, unless someone gets a funny idea about messing with us. Understood?”

“Yeah…” Spike nodded.

“Crystal clear.” The Doctor followed.

“Good. Let’s go, we’re wasting time here.”

We dropped off the roof by hanging on the ledges and landed on ground zero safely. Einstein was right, time is relative to the observer. When you're looking down the barrel of a gun, time slows down. Your whole life flashes by, heartbreak and scars. Stay with it, and you can live a lifetime in that split second.

“Quick, we need to head for the front door of the boutique. Hold my hand THEN run on my signal. On the count of three… 1… 2… 3—“

“Where do you think you’re going, hunk?” a feminine voice called out behind us. I looked behind us and saw a group of the mares on both sides of the alleyway, we were surrounded.

“Got any better ideas?”

‘I got a few…’

Since I have the power to stop time, I used my abilities to rush through time. I quickly ran through the mares fast enough to be just a blur to them. Thankfully, they didn’t see me since I was so fast.

We ran as fast as we can through the boutique’s door. I quickly went inside and closed the door, and at that point, I became weak and tired.

“Doc, *pant* *wheeze* what’s with the side effects?” I asked.

“Oh yes, I forgot… When you use your abilities too much, your energy will deplete and you’ll be tired and exhausted. SO… don’t use them too much…”

After minutes of breathing time, we stood up and explored the place. “Why is it so dark here anyway?” Spike asked, confused.

Truth to be told, the place was dark. Hard to see without a light. But then, I saw a faint light near the fitting room. “Come on, there’s a faint light near the fitting room. Let’s go inspect.”

Stealthily walking towards the fitting room, we made it. We took a peek inside the fitting room and saw a several candles standing in a circular position. A pentagram in the middle and a book in a stand in the middle. This is verily of what some satanist or a cultist would do…

I entered the room. The hot air inside was like an invisible wall, thick with incense and something else, a sickly sweet smell that made you gag. This was the rotten core of the Big Apple of Sweet Apple Acres. Rarity lurked somewhere ahead, like a spider at the center of his web waiting.

“What the hell is this? A ritual of some shit?”

‘I don’t know, and I don’t like the look of it. The heat must’ve mentally damaged mares, since they’ve been either without sex for a long time or crazed by sex. Either way… This is something to be reckoned with…”

There was a table near us with a note laying there. I walked towards it and looked, the table was scattered with notes of demented arcane nonsense written in… lipstick? A mishmash list of demons, devils and dark gods evoked. She even mentioned Tirek and Discord as two ever living gods of Equestria… And Celestia and Luna as the Gods of Gods.

"Are you serious? She couldn’t even defeat Chrysalis!"

'Never mind… it’s probably nothing.'

A torn note lay next to that weird stuff. Rarity WAS crazy alright. The note had been torn to pieces, glittery pink finger prints all over them. I assembled those notes and read it. I felt like I was hit by a .50 caliber magnum bullet in the chest, because what I saw was unbelievable.

Spike…

Spike…

Please come to me…

I want you…

I need you…

Make me feel good…

I miss you…

I love you…

I—…

I pushed the pieces of paper away. Rarity WAS crazy alright… I never got to finish the paper, it was almost too horrifying and disturbing for me to finish.

“Ryan? What’s wrong?” Spike asked. I looked at him with a horrified look. I shook it off and answered, “It’s nothing. Don’t worry about it… Let’s investigate this place first before we get my suit. Try to get as much info as you can.” I ordered.

The room was stacked with light reading such as "Necronomicon," "Witchcraft," and "Paradise Lost"...Old exotic titles like 'Malleus Maleficarum' and 'De Umbrarum Regni Novem Portis'... Books with pentagrams on their covers, all dealing with the occult and the infernal, lying between stacks of horror videos and a couple of Ouija Boards. This was beyond demented.

After Y2K, the end of the world had become a cliché. But who was I to talk, a brooding underdog avenger alone against an empire of evil out to right a grave injustice. Everything was subjective. There were only personal apocalypses. Nothing is a cliché when it's happening to you.

A piece of torn paper fell onto my hand. I looked to see a sentence written on it…

Spike… I want you to fuck me…

Rarity's fantasies has gone far enough and I refuse to see anymore. A sudden surge of anger bursted inside of me. I tried to hold it in as best as I could. I raised the paper over the nearby candle and burned it…

“Spike already did his part to make YOU LOVE HIM… and you want him back. Heh, over my dead body…”

“Oh well, well, well… Look who’s here… Hihihihi…” a female voice giggled somewhere inside the room. I don't know about angels, but it's fear that gives men wings.

The candles suddenly were blown off. The room was so dark, it was almost zero visibility inside. The feeling of darkness was nostalgic, somehow back when I confronted Twilight made its way to my memories. I chuckle silently…

A light suddenly lit up from above, and shone on a familiar woman sitting on a fancy chair wearing only her black bikini and black stockings. Rarity's appearance had triggered a dislocation. Schizophrenia. I felt elation, but with it, fear that all the past evils had come along for the ride.

“What do you want from us, Rarity? Sleep in bed with you?” I asked bitterly. Fraternizing with the enemy. I had stepped over the edge. The cartoon moment when the gravity waits for the coyote to realize his mistake before the plunge.

“Well… Don’t you think you’re a little too quick in this, hm? What do you think, Spike? Do I look wonderful to you?” she asked.

Her words made me grit my teeth in anger. Yet, Spike answered while gawking over Rarity, “Wonderful? YOU LOOK SEXY!”

I chimed in and interrupted, “That’s enough. Rarity, where is IT…”

“Oh… you mean that? Here…” She grabbed my suit from the back of her chair and threw it to me. “I don’t see where or what can you do with that old thing. But I don’t care…” She mocked. She doesn’t know I’m going to use this for stealth purposes. The only thing I could take seriously was the thought of Rarity taking it seriously. She had been spending a lot of time getting intimate with the guy downstairs.

“Come on! We have to leave now, we already got what we came for.” We walked out but noticed that Spike isn’t following us.

“SPIKE! I said we’re leaving.” I said to him persuasively. Then… Spike answered me in a traitorous tone. “No… I’m not coming with you.” He said. His feet start to drag on the floor, walking towards Rarity. He then held Rarity’s chin and looked into her eyes.

“What?”

“Spike, what are you saying?” Hooves asked.

“I’m staying here… I won’t be going with you. I’m staying with her…”

“What are you, crazy? What the hell do you think you’re saying?”

He tore his gaze away from Rarity and glared at me with his cold, dead eyes. “I’m tired of you, being the hero in every single situation you are in. You always get the attention of every mare and pony because YOU’RE SO SPECIAL. The FIRST HUMAN ever lived in Equestria.”

This was the first time I ever saw Spike angry and rant about something. I might have laughed, if I had remembered how. I had known there'd have to be a catch in it somewhere, and this one was the Empire State Building of catches. Spike’s eyes were as cold as the devil’s heart. And then he started this idiotic monkey talk. Straight from a bad dream... mine.

“How do you sleep at night, huh? I think you are the only male virgin in Pony Ville…”

Oh that’s right… He doesn’t know me and Fluttershy slept in bed together back when I first met Dark Fusion.

“…and every mare wants to sleep in bed with you. And GUESS WHAT?! I’m going to tell you this right now that you’re a pathetic human being. AN ATTENTION WHORE.”

His words were as painful as a spear, his insults I had borne as best as I could.

“Every year, every male in the whole Equestria gets the chance to participate in the heat with the woman they chose. So why don’t you participate too? It isn’t bad to do that! That’s how nature works! And I want to know why you treat this like some sort of zombie apocalypse. Because I know that in your mind, that you want to shove your meat stick on their little virgin holes, why don’t you?”

The bomb ticking in my head was about to explode. Spike turned out to be a cardboard cut-out traitor. A stupid guy turning over sides for the “good things” the other side will give him. A cowardly dragon fleeing to them, scared of us because we were losing.

“What? You think this is some sort of easy game for little kids? YOU’RE NOT A LITTLE KID ANYMORE, SPIKE THE DRAGON. Look outside and you see the whole of Equestria in chaos and madness. I told you, this heat is abnormal than before. RAY, MICHAEL AND RAZOR DIED TO SAVE US! I am not a fool to just join them and fuck them till I fucking die! Spike, you'd have to be a first-degree fool to fall for a woman who rejected your feelings, comes back to you with open arms only to put a gun to your face and pull the goddamn trigger. It’s too dangerous!”

“Since how is helping a woman in need dangerous?! I’m here to help them, not to be against them!”

“Helping them? You’re sacrificing your own life for the sake of them! Even though you die being dehydrated, they’ll still look for other males to fuck! We’re the prey and they’re the predators. NOTHING CHANGES. Everything we did was for the greater good. EVERYONE WILL DIE! Once every mare empties the whole of the male population in less than a week, they’ll go crazy without sex and they eventually die. NO MORE PONIES. NO MORE EQUESTRIA. Is this what you want? The end of time? You’re too young to die, you still have many things that you want to do in your life. You can’t just throw that away. I didn't deserve to walk away because there are no happy endings. You fuck her, she gets pregnant. And what would you do?” I asked persuasively.

Spike was an idiot for saying all those things to me. He doesn’t even know what he’s talking about.

“Nothing. See? It’s a battle between life and death. Survival and destruction. Your choice.”

Rarity stood up and went near Spike, she was like the devil with a good offer on her hands. “You can’t win this one, Ryan…”

That sentence was always the same, “No… but I can damn make sure NONE OF YOU do either. So what? You coming with us? Or not?” I asked.

Spike stood there for a minute, and finally he spoke, “No… I’m still staying here. I’m sorry…”

He made his choice, I can’t stop him anymore. “*Sigh*… Come on, let’s go Doc…”

“But what about him? He can’t just sleep with them in bed! He’ll die of dehydration!” he exclaimed.

“Death is inevitable. Our fear of it makes us play safe, blocks out emotion. It's a losing game. Without your head, you are already dead. He made his choice, Doc… Let’s go, we’re leaving.”

Angel’s grips tightened on my shirt pocket, he was scared… Afraid that she (Fluttershy) would do her previous acts again…

“Oh, Ryan? I forgot. Pinkie says thank you for that electric toothbrush you gave her. Even if it was from Mr. Cake, it still smelled enough like you to ease her needs.” She spoke. Rarity pointed to my shirt pocket where Angel Bunny is currently residing, “And… Fluttershy’s looking for that.”

“Gross. Pinkie masturbated to you? Holy shit…”

“I don’t care…” I said in a calm yet tense voice.

Before I leave Spike, I left him a final message, “Throw the rules out the window, odds are you'll go that way too. In a nightmare, every choice you make is a wrong one. I would wake up at night, afraid that day was a dream I'd forget. I am afraid. But I start again from the beginning, trace my own steps to the scene of the crime. But there are no choices. Nothing but a straight line. The illusion comes afterwards, when you ask "why me?" and "what if?". When you look back and see the branches, like a pruned bonsai tree, or forked lightning. If you had done something differently, it wouldn't be you, it would be someone else looking back, asking a different set of questions. I made Twilight a promise, I promised her to keep you safe. Keep you from being raped by… whoever it is. And I failed…”

“Wait… you promised her… to keep me safe?” Spike asked.

“Yeah… But I broke that promise. All because you wanted to be with Rarity. It seems that helping her was more important than yourself. We’re all going to die anyway, there’s no question. It’s a stalemate, Spike…”

“Goodbye, Spike. You’re a noble dragon…”

I continued, “Well… I’m gonna miss you, Spike. We all will… Rest in peace and goodbye…” I said one last time before I leave the boutique.

Me and Doc left them. I wore the suit and turned on the active camouflage, and then we went out and proceeded to the train station.

“Come on, Doc. We need to—Doc?”

Hooves’ expression seemed to be looking at something horrifying, I looked to the direction he was looking and saw a familiar face… STONE COLD DEAD ON THE GROUND.

A bomb went off in my head. The “bullet” lodged in my brain moved a fatal, microscopic distance.

“Big…Mac?”

Meanwhile…

“Now… shall we go upstairs and do what you came here?” Rarity allured Spike. Yet Spike was standing there, dismayed from the words that Ryan had said. His final words haunted him,

“…Rest in peace and goodbye…”

“Oh Spikey Wikey… Come on, join me… I’ve been wanting to do it with you for a long time…” Rarity seductively asked. But Spike didn’t answer, suddenly, he came back across a couple of flashbacks.

Spike and Ryan had a few moments of glory between them. A gold hearted friend anyone could ask for, the best in Pony Ville … good-hearted macho bullshit like that. Spike would have given anything to have him here as his moral supporter or as his best friend. No such luck. No luck at all.

“I’m sorry, Rarity. But I guess things have changed… Ryan was right, right about everything. If I did get you pregnant, then I would have taken full responsibility for it. But I’m still a young teenager… I’m not ready for those things yet. I don’t want to die yet, I have not come this far to die now. And you… I know you, Rarity… You’re too smart to do this stupid thing. That’s why… I’m going with him. To stop this nonsense after all.”

Rarity stood there, dumbfounded. “So… this is how it’s going to be, huh? Hihihi…”

“Huh?”

Suddenly, Rarity used her magic to encase Spike in a magical field. “IF I CAN’T HAVE YOU… THEN I’LL FORCE YOU TO MAKE YOU MINE! HAHAHAHAH!”

“AHH! HELP!”

Spike had tried to run from it, edit it out. He was captured by his own love. He was a fool...