It took Spike no time at all to stroll through town. He took the long way around to the Carousel Boutique, because Pinkie Pie, although spontaneous, did not lie to her friends, and if she did, it usually was harmless. So to think that she would lie about having to keep the supposed ‘intel’ secret was something Spike had to keep in mind. Along his trek, he spotted a few ponies congregating next to a nearby building on his path. He kept to the shadows, jumping between backyards of ponies’ properties, before finally reaching his destination. With a few quick tap-tap-taps on the door, Spike notified Rarity of his presence as the door.

Or so he thought. He stood there for quite some time, before knocking again. He gave the door a few more stern taps, before growling in frustration. Unfortunately, on his growl, he kicked the door off its hinges. It was about time that door swung open and—

The dragon had stepped into the house and noticed something was off. Inside, he noticed that Rarity had not cleaned the living room table. Nor had she even cleaned the dishes in the kitchen sink. Those were two things that were unlike Rarity, as she strove for perfection in both her work and her life. There would be no reason for her to keep simply tasks like this unattended.

So he cleaned off the table, washed her dishes, and set the cake on the counter, like any good dragon would do, before setting off to find her. He tried upstairs, and found no evidence of any unicorn with a bit too much bounce in her mane. He looked back downstairs to see if she somehow passed him when he checked the upstair rooms. No dice there: the rooms were the same as always, except they were much cleaner due to Spike’s expertise.

So where could this unicorn have gone?

Suddenly, Spike jumped. The stairs had just creaked, and he was not on them.

“R-Rarity?”

He looked near the staircase and spotted a white door with a golden knob on it. Spike looked at the new door with a bit of intrigue. How could he have not seen such a thing? Did Pinkie Pie hit his head too on that hug of hers? Or did that crazy pony squeeze him hard enough to point of stopping his blood from flowing correctly to his brain?

He shrugged and reached for the knob, only to smash his fingers into it.

Spike winced, but somehow, the door just creaked open.

With a tilted head, Spike ducked into the depths of the new passage underneath Rarity’s staircase. He had no idea what was in store, but if it’s anything like Rarity, it’s probably some underground sweatshop where ponies begged to be freed for the sake of returning to their families.

But Spike couldn’t get ahead of himself. Rarity was a generous gal, not some slave driver, right?

He shook his head and continued down into this secret passage. It was very narrow and dark, with very few dull lights guiding his way. And the stairs were rickety. Spike was afraid he would possibly get himself killed on these weak boards; they sounded like they would give way and make him fall to his death. He could imagine that she also would have a sharp spike at the bottom of this stairwell, a place where his body would lay, as he writhed in pain and screamed in agony from the impalement of—

“Ohhh… touch me there, darling!”

He was about to take another step down, but that made him stop in his tracks, frozen, unable to comprehend that the mare that had captured his heart at a young age moaned like that. And Spike’s inner Death was not happy about hearing someone else… do her like that. So much that it sparked in his greed, something that he had not felt for a long time.

It made him race down the stairs, thirsty for blood of the pony that tried to tango with his muse. Tango with the mare of his life. Tango with—

“O-Oh, h-hey, Spike!”

Stunned was the most underwhelming word to use in this predicament. She was… actually, Spike had no clue what she was doing. But it wasn’t what he was thinking.

He was way off.

“Rarity, why are you…?”

Rarity, covered in what looked like cream, smiled at him. “Spike, I’m… sorry, you had to see this. I thought I made sure Pinkie would be much more discreet with our deals, but if she sent you, that means the other runner couldn’t make it.” She frowned. “I assume you would like to talk about this?”

“I… don’t know if I want to, Rarity,” Spike replied lamely, kicking one of the… empty bottles out of his way. He approached the cream-covered mare and tilted his head.

“I know, I know, dear, this may come as a shock to you. Yet again, Pinkie Pie was not thinking about the cause,” Rarity said. She growled in frustration, her eyes boggling. “Oooh that mare! I will have to discuss with her our terms of this agreement we have!” She sighed and put a cream-free hoof on Spike’s shoulder. “Dear, would you please help me pick up some of these bottles? I don’t want this place to be all dirty after what I’ve done.”

Spike gulped and nodded. He stepped away from her and started collecting a bunch of those empty bottles like the one he kicked. He wasn’t sure what they were used for, but he was curious as to why she would do such a thing. And why Pinkie, of all ponies, made him deliver something that he wasn’t supposed to know about. Maybe she just assumed that Rarity would be upstairs, knitting a dress, or downstairs eating some grub. But no… not like this; Pinkie didn’t account for a mare dressed in black with cream all over her.

Once the task of collecting stray bottles were done, the two walked up stairs, with Spike trailing behind while Rarity led the way. He didn’t want to be near her after seeing her doing… that with all that cream. He wasn’t used to seeing her so vulnerable, but at the same time, he was… indifferent to the whole thing. He couldn’t judge her for it because he had no idea what he had saw. But he knew one thing.

Black was Rarity’s color. Nopony else’s.

Mindlessly, Spike had wandered into Rarity’s kitchen. She was up there with him, smiling all the while. She had put her assortment of empty bottles on the table, so he decided to do the same.

“Thank you, Spike,” she said. “I’m grateful for your assistance. You truly are a great helper.”

Spike felt his heart throb at the compliment. “I’m always willing to help you, Rarity!”

That, made her frown for some reason. Spike had no idea why. She liked when he helped, didn’t she?

“I am aware of that, dear. I just… wish it didn’t have to be for this. You’re still young. You didn’t need your innocence ripped apart like that.”

The word ripped made him twinge for a second, but it also made his stomach churn. That wasn’t normal. “My innocence? What do you mean?”

Rarity blushed and looked away, her eyes peering at the bottles. “I… really do enjoy cake.” Then, she spotted the box and gasped. “Is that the cake!?”

Spike bobbed his head. “Yep! Pinkie said it was a very top secret thing that I should make sure no one else saw!” He watched her open the box with glee smeared on her face. “What’s so important about the cake?”

“It’s not the cake, dear! She just uses that as a codename.” She turned and smiled, her magic carrying several new bottles full of… “Buttercream is so delicious. Have you tried it?”

Spike facepalmed. “Rarity, so what I saw wasn’t what I really saw, was it?”

“I… don’t follow, Spike,” Rarity replied, twiddling her hooves.

“You don’t have like buttercream like that, do you?”

She made Spike’s confusion a reality. “I do. It’s feels so good when I rub it all over my p—”

“Don’t even say it,” Spike said, shoving his arm out and looking to the ground. “I’ll just take my leave and keep my dignity somewhere locked in a castle far, far away.”

The twiddling buttercream gal looked down at the ground in front of her hooves, a red blush still tickling her cheeks. “You’ll keep this a secret, right?”

Spike imagined Rarity being a vanilla type of mare. But he had never wanted to see this. “I’ll just bleach my brain clean of what I saw. No pony will know.”

She squee’d and hugged him close to her chest. “Thank you, Spikey! I’m so glad we’re friends!”

“Y-Yeah, friends.” He pushed her away and stepped towards the exit. “Make sure you wash up so… no one else sees you like that, okay?”

She nodded and clapped her hooves together. “Don’t worry, I’ve done this before, and—” She gasped. “Oh, can you do something for me?”

“Let me guess, this leads to another errand that may make me want to kill myself more—”

“Nonsense, I’m not into deathplay,” she replied, nonchalantly flipping her forehoof at him. “It’s more like a delivery to a customer of mine. She’s…” Rarity’s voice trailed off, her eyes flickering upstairs. “Pardon me, Spikey. I need to get the dress that you will need to give to my… informant.”

“Informant, I thought she was the customer?”

Rarity laughed rather forcibly. “Ha, ha, you don’t know the business of secrecy, do you Spike?”

“I think I just saw it fail for the first time,” Spike said, his voice dripping depression. “But maybe yours will do better?”

Her horn sparked to life. “You know it!” Her eyes shimmered in the blue sparks. “It’ll only take me one minute. Stay put, will you?”

“A-Always,” Spike reassured her. His voice nearly fumbled, like a horrible possession in a hoofball game, except his stomach was speaking something fierce, while his lungs were trying to recover from the tackle.

Fortunately for him, Rarity paid that no heed, like usual. She ta-ta’d her way up the stairs, shimming just right for him to see her tail flick the railing. He wasn’t sure if that was intentional, or if she’s still recovering from her massive buttercream high. Spike assumed the latter, but yet again, it could be just to make him think she’s a killer buttercream queen with a sweet tooth that’s a bit too explosive for his tastes.

He nodded, and leaned against the wall. “Hope I can vacate this from my mind so I don’t have bad dreams about her drowning herself in chocolate or something.”

And then he would have to call the emergency services, because she drowned in a supposed mudslide.

That made him shiver.

“Dear, are you alright? Is it cold in here?”

“N-NO!” he shouted, his voice cracking. “I mean, no it’s not cold and I’m fine.”

“Oh,” Rarity replied lamely. She carried a dress in her magic. “Then take this to my customer. She’s very… bombastic, if you will.”

“If she’s anything like Rainbow Dash, I’d be shocked,” Spike replied, leaving Rarity blushing in his wake. “She is? Equestria is doomed.”

Rarity shook her head. “Spike, she’s not! It’s… complicated. Just meet her at this address,” she said, floating a piece of paper to the dragon’s free claw. “The time indicated will be when she arrives. She’ll be looking like she’s lost, when really she’s aware of her surroundings. Ask her how are the clouds in Cloudsdale. If she says that they’re always drifting, you’ll know she’s the one, okay?”

“Okay, I trust you, Rarity.” Spike slung the dress over his shoulders. “So, I’ll be seeing you sometime?”

“Yes… in different circumstances, I hope. Tell Twilight I said hi, will you?”

Spike nodded. “Of course.”

“Ta-ta, for now,” Rarity said with a brief wave. “Time to go take a long shower.”

That emphasis on long made Spike’s legs turn into jello. “Y-Yeah, y-you do that,” he sputtered, before rushing out the door.

Rarity could only smirk at the dragon’s speedy departure. “I’ll do more than just that.” She licked her lips. “Another round for mama!”

She sashayed up the stairs, leaving a bunch of empty bottles on her countertop and a dragon on a goose chase to find a mare fit for a frilly dress.

Author's Note

This is the most absurd the story gets. Get ready for the next couple of chapters. Shit’s about to get serious.