A Spiked Life

Chapter 9 - The Realization
by LightningStrike34

Scootaloo's POV
After Sweetie Belle asked me to walk over to her house to play I heard her speak up as she asked, "Hey Scootaloo? Where do you live, are your parents nice?"

I was a bit caught off guard before replying, "Y-yeah of course they are, It's just-" I sighed, "They're not around all that often from all the work they have to do."

Sweetie Belle asked curiously, "What kind of work do they do? Do they enjoy it?"

"You better believe they enjoy it, they travel the world to the most farthest and dangerous places in Equestria fining rare exotic plants and fighting off fearsome creatures like the Cragadile. Their work really helps pony science and medicine a lot, I can't even begin to imagine actually being there with them."

Sweetie Belle looks at me in disbelief, "That sounds waaaay too good to be true, you sure you're not just making that up?"

"I AM NOT!" I replied angrily as Sweetie Belle looked at me cautiously before we calmed down, "I-I'm sorry Sweetie, I really shouldn't have yelled at you like that, I-It's just that I can't stand it whenever I tell a pony about my parents they think I'm just lying to make me sound cooler."

Sweetie Belle replies, "And I guess I'm sorry too Scoots, I guess I didn't realize how insensitive I was being towards you like that, can you forgive me?"

She gave me a look that resembled a begging puppy as I replied to her, "H-hey don't give me that look, no fair!" Her eyes puffed out a little more, "Ugh fine! You're forgiven okay? Lay off the pity face."

Sweetie Belle looked up in thought before asking, "Speaking of your parents, who do you live with if they're away most of the time? A foalsitter?"

"I live with my Aunts, they love me just as much and I love them in return. You'll never find another couple like them, that's for sure."

Sweetie Belle had an interested look on her face, "You live with a lespony couple? That's so cool! I wish I could meet them."

"They're out working right now," I said. "they won't be back until later in the day."

Rarity overhears our conversation as we head closer to her home saying, "Don't you have anypony regularly watching you? It seems irresponsible to leave a filly like yourself without some adult supervision."

I responded, "I can take care of myself just fine," I sigh. "but my aunts don't seem to think so. Stupid foalsitter..."

Sweetie Belle overhears me asking, "And where are they now?"

Just as I was about to speak I heard the familiar voice of the aquamarine unicorn shouting at me, "SCOOTALOO! You are in so much trouble!"

Panicking, I shouted before jetting off on my scooter saying, "Whoops, gotta go! See yaaaa!"

Spike's Perspective
I was internally freaking out before calming myself back down thinking, 'Maybe it was just the one book, the can't all be like that right?' Looking through a few more books they both had the exact same unreadable text as I started freaking out again, 'Shitshitshitshitshit, it's all in that exact same font as that stupid book back home! What is this writing?!'

I saw that Twilight had finished cleaning up the mess from earlier as she called out to me in concern, "Spike? Is everything okay?"

I lied, "Uh, yeah I-I'm okay. I just thought that I uh, stepped in something."

Twilight giggled, "Well, considering everything is all fine and well for now, you just put those books up on the shelf over there." She pointed to one of the half-empty shelves as I made my way there speaking, "You want me to just put them up there as is?"

Twilight replied, "I don't want you to just stack them in there all willy-nilly Spike, please try to arrange them in alphabetical order alright?"

'Oh shit, I'm so fucked.' I-I'll get right on that." I gave a nervous chuckle as I made my way back over to the box as I looked them all over.

When I laid them all out in a straight line there were seven books in total, one being the book with the aforementioned vine as well as several others with all of them having completely different cover art than each other.

The second one appeared to be roughly the size of a guidebook with an astrological cover, the third one had cover art of an orange pegasus with a multicolored grey mane wearing an explorer's outfit riding on a vine away from a crocodile, the fourth book had a stereotypical sheet white ghost floating in front of a Jack-O'-Lantern. 'I guess these ponies must celebrate Halloween too.' I thought.

The fifth book's coloring reminded me of the U.S. Navy's Blue Angels as I saw what appeared to be a bronze medallion of a lighting bolt with wings on the side of it.

The sixth one was a brown colored book with a yellow plate on the front as well as yellow bands along the side of it, opening up to one of the random pages I finally found a picture in it as I looked it over gleefully. There was a picture of a pony with seven different markings along her body as it laid out in perfect detail, one marking was on her face, two were on her legs, three on her body and one was on her tail. Closing it I looked over towards the remaining book.

The last book was brown in color with bronze bands on the side, looking at the cover there was a picture of two overlapping pillows on it, the one in the back was a light yellow color, while the one in front was periwinkle.

After I had finished mapping out each and every book here I pondered what to do next, 'I know she wants it arranged alphabetically but considering I can't read anything in here for shit so I'll have to do the next best thing and hope I get it right.'

~9~

It did not go right as well as I'd hoped, while I did get some of them right I had gotten most of them wrong. Twilight was upset that I had failed a 'simple' task as she said she would finish up the rest of it as she told me to go do whatever I felt like, after walking around the Library I found a kitchen as I saw a fridge and a table with four chairs around it.

When I went to open the fridge I found... nothing, I sighed as I made my way out and towards another room that looked to go down a ramped stairway.

Being curious I made my way down as I saw a mostly vacant basement area with what appeared to be another ingrained bookcase as I was halfway down the rampway groaning, "Great, more crap I can't read." I groaned again, "Crap. Crap. CRAP! Why can't I say Crap?!"

Twilight's voice sounded out from upstairs a bit muffled, "Spike, are you okay? I thought I heard you yelling."

I raised my voice in response, "I'm okay! I just thought I saw a bug." I could hear the sound of hoofsteps rushing towards me as I saw Twilight with her mane all frizzy.

Before I had a chance to comment on her appearance she had a manic expression on her face as she said, "WHERE?!"