Backfireby Zoom zoomChaptersPrologueA request The Day BeforeThe Day AfterWe Dun GoofedExplainationsTwilight's Feelings, Spike's Mistake (Fixed)Invitation (Fixed)Wishful TalkingDinner DilemmaRealizationDirtBeware the BumblesReboot InfoSorry But I just can'tPrologueSpike was sitting at the bar inhaling one doughnut after another. Pony Joe had decided it would save time to simply give him an extra large batch. That way, he would have time to attend to the other customers without having to get into their usual fight about Spike getting too much sugar. Unlike when spike had stormed in during the Grand Galloping Gala, Twilight was not going to be there to stop him. Spike had come to Canterlot because of business involving his pet who was still at the castle or something with Princess Celestia. So Joe was forced to call upon a mutual friend to pick up spike after he passed out during his 40th one. The dark orange unicorn didn’t look pleased to be called at this hour. He didn’t like being up during the night much at all in general and usually was well into dreamland by now. He was blinking his drooping, sky blue eyes trying to stay awake as he tussled his brown mane, which was shaggy for a lack of brushing. “Sorry to have to call you for him Wishful Thinking.” Joe’s apology didn’t sound that good to anyone thanks to being so busy with the other customers and being alone in the shop that night. Wishful looked down at Spike, who was covered in jelly from a few that rolled off the plate when he passed out. The sugar coma was clear to him so he just looked back up to Joe, blinked again with a yawn as he looked around. "What's with all the couples around here?" he said without a hint of longing Joe would expect from most ponies in Wishful's position. "The place is packed." “You kidding?” Joe replied, “Hearts and Hooves day was today. Every eatery is packed.” “Really?” stated Wishful in surprised, “Never kept up with the holiday but I figured this place isn’t that romantic.” “I’ll ignore that comment.” Joe said with a scowl. “Look. Can you just take Spike? This mess is bad enough as it is with just me and I can’t have people slipping on him when I’m not looking.” Wishful looked down at Spike. The sugar coma was clear to him so he just looked back up to Joe. “I can help, you know.” He yawned again. “Just promise to unwish in the morning when I come by.” “Really?” Joe said with excitement, “You’d use your magic for this. Thanks you’re a life savor. I’ll even pay.” “I’m too tired to discuss this so just make it already I’ve gotta get back to bed.” Wishful lifted Spike onto his back as he said this so that Spikes belly rested on his back. “Great. I wish I had enough help to make this night go as smoothly as possible.” The orange unicorn’s horn glowed as Joe said this and every pony watched as four earth ponies that looked like wishful appeared out of nowhere with Donut Joe aprons on. Two them began cleaning up Spike’s mess quickly and the others went to table to get orders so Joe could focus on making the right donuts. “Thank you so much Wishful,” Joe’s thanks was barely audible as everyone started shouting at the waiter ponies to get their attention. “Don’t mention it.” Wishful said yawning again. “Just make sure you undo it in the morning or I’m gonna need to charge you.” “You got it.” Joe said with a smile as he went back to work. The sounds died down as Wishful walked down the block back to his apartment with Spike on his back. “That’s your second favor SD. You only have one more left to call me in on.” He knew Spike couldn’t hear him but he still said it to keep himself awake long enough to get back inside. As he entered his apartment he looked around for what he expected. While he was gone four mares had broken in and taken his bed and couch. He knew it would happen since it wasn’t like he was going to get four helpful colts of his own cleaning up his place when it didn’t need it and robbery was common in the neighborhood lately. Spike puked on the floor and rolled off Wishful’s back into the stuff. Wishful sighed. “Happy Hearts and Hooves Day to me.” He’d get a call that his stuff was found in the morning like he always did anyway so he throw Spike in the shower and turned in on before plopping down himself to go back to dreamland. The Screams of surprise from Spike giving him at least one thing to be happy about. A request A request “Ug, not this again.” Wishful Thinking was starting on the last of his boxes as he talked to his guest. “What’s this, like the fifth time this year you complained to me about this girl?” He set up the various items in his box, cheap trophies that were for participation in an awry of activities with his name on them. He figured something should go on the mantle by the fireplace even if it wasn’t impressive. Wishful was careful not to bring up the fact Spike was a dragon and this girl he kept going on about was a pony. Logic dictates that it will never work due to the fact she’d grow old and die before Spike was even halfway to his full growth. He’d made the mistake of bringing this up before and despite Twilight Sparkle, spikes guardian, agreeing with him that it wasn’t healthy; even she went into a long speech with him about love transcending such matters and blah blah blah. “But I got her a gift and everything,” cried the dragon as he swept the floor covered with streamers into a nice pile. “And she didn’t even react. She was all over this other guy at the party.” “Let me guess,” replied Wishful in a dull tone. “He was a white unicorn with a lot of money.” “How…” Spike began. “I had a guess. I haven’t even met this girl of yours and you’ve talked about her enough that was a simple guess. If that girl, Pinkie Pie was it, throws another party for me I’ll make sure no white colts are allowed.” “That’s no good,” said Spike, “You’ll hurt some pony’s feelings.” “Whatever. I was only offering for your sake. Seems to me SD, that you should just bite the bullet and ask her out. Do or die. If she rejects you that’s it, you move on. Simple.” “NO!” Spike shouted. He suddenly turned red as he continued, “I mean how could I risk losing the love of my life. She’s...” “The most beautiful pony in Equestria,” finished Wishfu mimicking Spike’s voice. “I know. You say at least 4 times every time you talk to me. Just do it dude, and if it doesn’t work just stay friends. Simple.” “I already tried that,” said Spike. “I thought I was going to die once and tried to say it but she cut me off and stopped me.” “What?” replied Wishful in amazement as he stopped what he was doing and picked up spike to put on his dining room table so they were at eye level before quoting a favorite book of his as he did now and then. “This I simply must hear.” When Spike was finished with his tale of nearly destroying ponyville, Wishful had a wide grin on his face. “Oh she defiantly likes you.” “What?” Spike's confusion was made even worse by his friend's laugh. “And the fact you can’t see it is the reason you guys are not good for each other yet.” “How would you know? You’ve never dated anyone.” Wishful Scowled, “True, but if I was in your position I would have been trying again when all the destruction was cleaned, to impress her. You just rebooted because you didn’t want to risk your friendship with her. She obviously has the same thoughts and cut you off before it could threaten your friendship with her.” “That doesn’t make any sense," replied Spike scratching his head. “Well she doesn’t like you as you want, but it’s a good starting point is what I meant.” Wishful returned to his boxes lifting Spike with his magic and placing him outside his house. “Now go on and tell the girl how you feel. Make it nice and emotional and all that.” “Wait,” said Spike figuring things out, “You’re not trying to get rid of me now that I helped clean up the house are you?” Wishful laughed with a hint of guilt, “of course not. I just want to see two lovers be together. Now go on.” And with that he slammed the door on Spike. And it slammed open again with Spike pushing it so, breaking the door hinge in the process. “That reminds me.” Wishful cringed, he knew what was coming. The reason he and Spike had so many talks about Spike’s love life was because Wishful would always try to steer the conversation away before it got to this point. “I wanted to call in my last favor.” Wishful could hear the glass breaking in his mind. Now there was no way he could convince Spike otherwise. He hated using his special talent. The bright single white star on his flank was only good as a decoration, much like his trophies, as far as he was concerned. “I need you to grant me a wish.” And there it was. Wishful still tried, “SD, you know what happens when I use my magic. Either the same thing or the opposite happens to me. Sometimes even worse than the wish I grant.” “I know. But I really need something. It’s not like I’m going to wish for her to love me or anything I promise.” Spike seemed to be telling the truth. But ever since the banjo incident Wishful was skeptical. “And I promise it won’t be like the banjo incident.” Spike insisted. Wishful muttered about Spike being some kind of mind reader before thinking it over. After some time he finally started bashing his head against the chimney hard until a small trickle of blood dripped from his temple that he hit. “What’s that about?” Spike asked. “Punishing myself early for agreeing to do this,” Wishful said with a scowl. Spike’s happiness was nearly uncontainable as he ran in to hug his friend in thanks. Fire shot from his nose as he tried to keep his mouth shut. “Two things though.” he added through slight choking sounds. “Anything man,” Spike replied. “First, I want you to really think this through. Most of my wishes get unwished pretty fast and we need to think of a good one that won’t have any really bad side effects to me. So, no wishing for money or power or crap like that. Got it?” “Got it,” Spike said with a frantic nod. Wishful nodded and continued, “and second: You’ve done enough stuff with Ms. Sparkle to know that you need to be focusing when magic is used on you. Dragons have a natural resistance to magic they don’t allow so if you don’t stay focused I can’t guarantee the result. Understood?” “Understood,” Spike agreed though Wishful could tell Spike had already begun to day dream again about this Rarity. So he slapped in across the face. “I’m serious. This is a magic even Ms. Sparkle wouldn’t dare try without combining powers with BOTH of the princesses. I can’t have you phasing out like that if I’m going to give you an actual wish that isn’t something material.” Spike rubbed his cheek and nodded slowly this time. “I understand.” “Good. Then tomorrow night come by here and wake me up. My powers work best when there is a wishing star around and I don’t know how much we’ll need to do whatever you are going to do. I’d ask what the wish is but if you told me it of no use.” And with that he sent Spike off as the sun started to dip. Wishful crawled into his bed not worrying about it since as long as Spike kept what he told him in mind that would be no issue. And besides odds were like most things he his magic did that were not his idea, the pony in question would regret it in 24 hours, and even he could live with some bad things until then. And he’d get Spike off his back and be even with him again. He hated owning favors anyway. It was a win-win situation. What could possibly go wrong? The Day BeforeThe tinkle of a music box chimed. The like fire bird next to it sang along with it for extra effect. Spike rose from his bed slowly to notice that despite the pleasant noise Twilight snored loudly on her own bed. She had a lot of work to do all that night even after showing up to the welcome party for Wishful with which she had done all in her power to avoid him after her greeting. And after giving Spike more of an earful for insisting he would help clean up instead of Pinkie she was likely drained with a full nights work. Spike wasn’t sure why Twilight didn’t like Wishful outside the fact he never said her name and even when addressing her would just call her TS to her face with little respect. The two were basically the same age after all and Twilight didn’t even dislike Trixie that much. Pushing that thought out of his mind he focused his attention to the music box. A land dragon like himself and a sky dragon danced in the center as it chimed. The inside was customized by the giver with a double lid that could open to hold gems. Rarity had filled them with baby blue sapphires she had left over from an order and a small white diamond acted as the lifting piece to the compartment. She had given it to him for Hearth’s Warming Day along with other various custom gifts to all her other friends. Spike liked to think however that his took especially long and a lot of care. The baby phoenix by the music box chirped up to its master. Spike had trained Peewee to open the box for him when it was time to get up. Taking one of the baby blues into his mouth and savoring it as long as possible before closing the box and going downstairs to get started on his work. He had a lot to think about to get this wish right. Wishful wasn’t the type to kid around. “Okay maybe he is”, thought Spike, “but he never kids about his powers.” The Work would not take long today. It was the day the library was closed and everyone was taking their pets out for a play date. Peewee was still too young to fly but it was his favorite day of the week so he couldn’t disappoint him. And he’d get to see Rarity again before going to Wishful’s. It would help him consider exactly what he wanted. Wishful Thinking stretched as he winked and started to make breakfast for himself. He wasn’t worried about messing up the wish magic. He didn’t practice it much on this scale, but he used the magic in his horn for nearly anything so he was about to gauge his powers nearly as well as Twilight Sparkle did. Twilight, Wishful wondered himself why she didn’t like him despite how friendly he tried to be in the past. Even at the welcome party she was only there because she wanted to keep an eye on Spike. “What am I to her?” he thought, “The way she acts it’s like I was going to hurt him or something.” He got a vague memory flash of his younger self, this constantly happened every time he even thought of Twilight for too long. Memories of some of the dumbest things he ever did in magic kindergarten to try and get her to recognize him as a rival. That was before he got his cutey mark and found out his talent was to make other’s dreams come true. Before he granted his first wish without knowing the consequences of his spell. Before he had been saved by Spike, which had started them being friends. He pushed it out of his mind. The colt in him was still furious that the pony he most wanted to overcome not only did so much better than him in life, but the fact she didn’t even think his own magic was worth learning so he could hold it over her head. He was more mature now, and with that he had granted many wishes and learned much more about his wish making spell. By the time Twilight and Spike had left to live in pony-ville Wishful had become so jaded he started to hate his powers since he knew his own wishes couldn’t be granted by this spell and anyone who needed more than some passing help with a wish would always want to undo the work and energy he used to grant it. A meaningless effort, that’s all it was to anyone. And in return he had gotten nothing. It was only because of the fact he assisted a wonder bolt by chance without his magic that he even had the money to move to this town with not much of a night life so he could find it easier to sleep early. He’d need to find a job soon but for now he could relax as he had to get used to the new surroundings. After breakfast he went to his bookcase. He’d forgotten to get a new book to celebrate his new house. So not wanting to waste the trip he got out one of his favorites: “Treasure of the Lost Lamp.” He related a lot to one of the characters in this one, a genie that couldn’t have a real life and was forced to grant wishes for all time without even the choice of whose he granted. The end was the best in that the old stallion that found the lamp used his last wish to grant the genie his freedom. In return the genie was powerless, but he now had a life and friends, something Wishful was a little short on. Not everyone was like Spike, most ponies he befriended only did so for a wish, but Spike was different. He stayed his friend even after a wish went wrong. It had been the time he and Spike had found out about a dragon’s magic resistance. Something Twilight already knew and yelled at Wishful for not knowing before trying whatever it was he tried that caused the mess in her room. And Spike even tried to help however he could with fixing things, when that blasted Twilight didn’t keep him under her hoof for assistance herself. That was the other reason he moved here, to be close to his only other friend. Another stupid flash, this time to Twilight and his magic kindergarten teacher yelling at him after his first wish granting. What was it again? He couldn’t remember that part. His life consisted of what he was doing now that he had sort of quit trying to make wish granting a job and didn’t bother telling anyone what the cutie mark was about. Avoiding the night so his powers wouldn’t be enhanced and thus he’s be more tempted to grant under Luna’s moon, not trying to befriend others himself anymore since wishing was all they would be after in time, and hiding in fantasy books that didn’t really give him anything but a wish that his own talent was something, anything but what he got. Wishful finished his book quickly; of course he had since it was his millionth time through so he was just reading his favorite scenes. With nothing else to do he decided he might as well get any shopping he needed out of the way first and then start looking for work. Finishing with a stop by the library to get a Daring Do book he may have missed so he had something new to read at least. Peewee chirped happily on Owlowiscious’ back. The Owl had taken a habit of letting the little phoenix ride his back on the way to the pet play date, echoing his master as she carried Spike too as he looked through various notes in Twilight’s saddlebags. Peewee loved to feel the wind on his face. The only thing he loved more than this was Spike, so of course he couldn’t wait till he could fly. His ride landed in a tree and Peewee hopped off as he always did so Owlowiscious could play with Twilight. Spike took him from the branch and thus the fun would commence. Peewee still noticed how Spike’s heart wasn’t into playing with him today. The poor guy had Rarity on the mind again. Twilight Sparkle and Rarity were always higher then Peewee on the love scale that was Spike, but he was still higher than everyone else and was perfectly happy with that. Every now and then Spike would stare at Rarity as they played before turning his attention back to him; which is why Peewee had guided the play date so that Spike could be closer to Rarity more and more. Opal had already learned not to mess with him the last time he tried this. Granted it meant Rarity was mad at Spike for a week but all was well in time. Opal wasn’t even freaked this time and just ran up a tree to which Peewee gave chase since even an idiot could see what Peewee was doing and decided to further things along. Lucky for Peewee Rarity was oblivious and Spike was dumber than a bag of hammers in front of Rarity. The two bumped into each other giving chase to the tree and fell over. “Oh Rarity I’m so sorry,” came Spikes clammy tone as he helped her up. “Oh it’s quite alright Spike,” replied Rarity shaking her head and fixing her mane. She coughed and Spike released the hand he had forgotten was still holding onto the hoof he had lifted her from. Peewee took this as a clue to jump onto Rarity’s snout. Causing Spike to again worry but Rarity just giggled. “Oh hello cutie.” Spike removed the baby phoenix from her nose before biting the bullet and asking now that they were face to face. “So Rarity how was that guy you were with the other night?” Peewee jumped onto Spikes head and looked around. The other five mares had looks of both curiosity and shock. Rarity seemed to freeze in place for a moment before replying. “Well if you must know. It didn’t go very well. He already had a mare…..and two colts.” Peewee wasn’t paying attention after that. It was too confusing with all the ponies suddenly moving and talking over each other. All he could see was that Spike was sort of relieved, but mostly concerned and hung his head and just listened more intently to Rarity’s tale. Boring. So Peewee just played with the other pets he could until everyone decided to go home. Wishful Thinking finished his shopping easily. He even had a few places he could scout for work. Pinkie Pie had actually said she’d help find the perfect job for him when she had time tomorrow since she had to babysit the Cake’s twins that night. Combined with talking a bit to the townsfolk who didn’t ask about his mark at all he was delighted how friendly everyone was. “Maybe I was just freaked, he thought, after all everyone in class knew my talent because I was the first to get it in class and used it to become popular. Didn’t really work out but new place new start. Things are looking up for once.” And then he went to the library. True he should have known it was closed. But he figured Spike would be there and it would be a simple task to borrow a book to read a bit before resting up. He had gotten there just as Twilight and Spike had gotten back from something. And Twilight didn’t seem too happy, bad sign. “I can’t believe that guy,” she was exclaiming. “How could he fool her like that?” Spike wasn’t talking much. “What’s up?” Wishful was honestly curious by nature anyway and he figured it had something to do with this girl, Rarity was it? But that was only a guess, and an unfair one at that. Twilight finally noticed him. Was it just Wishful seeing this or did Twilight’s mood suddenly go from miffed to furious? “AND YOU!” “Me?” Wishful wasn’t sure what was going one but the colt in the back of his mind was loving any reason to have himself be the cause of her pain no matter how small. “Why exactly are you here?” Twilight’s tone was off. Wishful may have avoided her after magic kindergarten but he knew her well enough to see something was off. But the colt in his head plus trying to figure this wasn’t very easy to balance for him. “I just wanted to borrow a book. That’s no way to talk to a customer TS.” “Don’t abbreviate my name you cur!” At that Spike joined in if only for a bit, “what’s a cur?” Before Twilight could say it Wishful did with his eyes narrowed at his childhood rival, “It means a contemptible stallion.” “Contempi-what?” This time Twilight was first, “Contemptible means he’s a very bad guy.” “Exactly why I ask what make me a cur?” Wishful made sure to roll the r for no reason since he knew Twilight liked perfect diction. Twilight’s eye twitched before she sighed and gave up. Storming off into the tree. “Okay seriously,” said Spike. Whatever was on his mind had apparently left him in Twilight’s outburst out of nowhere. “What is up with you and Twilight? She wasn’t like this before we moved here.” “With my luck I used my magic to have someone get along better with his girlfriend, so in return my magic had the great fortune of making the one mare who already didn’t like me get irrational or something. My best guess anyway. That or I somehow timed moving here with that time of the month.” “What time of the month?” “Wait you seriously live with her and you don’t know?” “Well she does get really hot all of the sudden every month and tells me to visit the princess and you. But she hasn’t had time to send me off lately.” He face hoofed. “Well that explains some of the extra hostility, but how am I supposed to grant you a wish to make a girl like you better when you don’t even know about them going into heat.” “Hey trust me, if it was that important I’d know what you’re talking about I think.” “Point taken.” Wishful gazed at the door and then at Spike. “Guess it isn’t a good idea to go in there. Is there anything new that came in since last month in the fiction section?” Spike thought before answering. “Not really, sorry.” “Meh, that’s alright.” He noticed the little bird on Spikes Tail. “What’s that?” “Oh,” Spike replied as he took the little fire bird from his tail. “This is Peewee. He’s my pet phoenix. Guess I forgot to introduce him to you the last time I came up the Canterlot. Can’t exactly bring him to a party with his size.” Peewee proceeded to job out of Spike’s grip and chirped up at Wishful. Wishful smiled and handed him a bit of bread he had gotten while shopping. The little guy could barely balance as he walked to the library door. “SPIKE!” called Twilight, “get in here we have to organize these books by tonight. And tell that jerk outside to go home.” Wishful rolled his eyes and told Spike he’d meet him later tonight. And then with a voice loud enough for Twilight to hear he said, “And when she passes just slap her ass. Girls love that.” “Okay, who were you trying to annoy more?” asked Spike shaking his head and closing the door to the library. Wishful chuckled as he heard Twilight asking what he was telling Spike so loud the entire town might here. So he headed home to clear up his backyard for tonight. This wish had better be good, he thought to himself. The Day After“Twilight I don’t have time for this. Move aside.” “No, I’m not letting your weird spell work on Spike.” “If you’d take a minute to get out of my way I’ll do it for you.” “Likely story for a magic drop out.” Twilight seemed to feel sorry about that last comment but had to focus her efforts on spike. “No you’re doing it all wrong. Listen to me!” “I won’t let you hurt my little Spiky Wikey.” Came a new voice. “Who the hay are you?” “Rarity?” muttered Spike. “Ah crap.” A flash, darkness, and the sound of Twilight’s loud snoring. Spike yawn and fumbled. How odd his alarm didn’t wake him this time. He got up and looked. There was no music box on his night stand. Spike cried out, waking Twilight from her sleep. “What? Is something the matter?” She was almost in as much of a daze as Spike was turning her head in all directions. “The music box Rarity gave me. It’s gone!” Spike was panicking as he galloped around the room…..galloped? Twilight rubbed the sleep from her eyes, “Spike what mu-“ She was cut off by Spike’s obvious squeals of delight at something as he raced to a mirror. Purple coat, short green spiky main and tail and an emerald flame cutey mark looked back at him. It worked. He’d wished to be a unicorn and it worked. Twilight Sparkle finally got out of bed to see him and looked down. “What exactly has you all hyper? I thought you were depressed.” Something was off, height wise he wasn’t as tall as Twilight. He wasn’t exactly the size of Sweetie Belle though. Almost somewhere in the middle. That awkward time where a pony isn’t fully grown but is out of schooling with Cheeralee. “I gotta see Rarity,” he exclaimed as he run out the house leaving the door wide open. Twilight tried to call after him. Half confused herself what was going on. Even though the body should have been new to him, it felt like he’d had it just as long as his dragon one. He galloped so fast. He even tried to wink a few times on the way just to see if he could use magic too. He could and he appeared and disappeared as if it was second nature. This was great. Wishful’s magic really was the best. Not a trace of him being a dragon remained on him. He could even see the townsfolk who were up in the morning whispering to each other as they say him. “No doubt they love my new look,” he thought, “well it’s not like they know it’s me. Only Twilight would have seen it before with Wishful explaining everything.” He reached Rarity’s place in no time, yet if felt like an eon before he got to knock at the door. As he did he suddenly realized he didn’t have a reason to stop by. “Come on Spike,” he thought to himself, “think of something. Anything will do.” Sweetie Belle answered the door. At first Spike would have asked why she was there but he smelt the vague scent of burned food on her so it must have been for that reason. “Guess I still got my dragon’s senses.” Sweetie Belle didn’t wear the same happy face he usually saw when he was around her. “And what do YOU want?” Spike was taken aback at Sweetie Belle’s tone but still replied. “I uh, came here to see Rarity.” He could feel the air around him tremble when he said that. Sweetie Belle’s horn glow brightly and he suddenly realized so was his own horn. He was good enough at magic that he was blocking whatever Sweetie Belle was doing with ease unconsciously. Sweetie Belle finally gave up, her voice cracking as she yelled at Spike. “Why would my sister EVER want anything to do with you after what you did to her last night?” “Last night?” All he did last night was get Wishful to use his magic and woke up now. “When did I see Rarity last night?” He only vaguely remembered Rarity showing up in his dream he just got out of. “Oh!” Sweetie exclaimed suddenly trying to copy her sister’s face when annoyed but looking more like a confused mouse to Spike than angry, “how dare you say that you cur!” “Oh now that word makes sense,” said Spike absently as he tried to push Sweetie Belle out of the way. He succeeded due to his superior size but not without difficulty as Sweetie pushed back with all her might and magic to try to force him out of Carousel Boutique. Spike heard Pinkie Pie screaming something in the distance but ignored it as he pushed hard. He had waited too long to go home empty handed. Well empty hoofed now but same difference. “Sweetie Belle?” the sweetest voice in the word. “Are you down there?” Finally, there she was. Slender white legs were all he could see, but he felt every more attracted to her than before. Perhaps because he was not the same as her and didn’t have that species hump. Wait, this walk was very weak. She was only doing it a little but it was shaking with each step. Then he saw, the messy mane far more in tatters than he had ever seen. The amount of water on her face, she was covering for the fact she most only have recently stopped crying all night. That guy from the other night, she was crying all night because of that guy. Spike felt the fire spark from his horn slightly at the sight of her. Whoever would do such a thing to his love doesn’t deserve to live. It was only then as he noticed the blue in her coat around her eyes crack as she looked at him. A plethora of fledgling emotions surfacing on her face to contort it into something he had never seen before. She soon suppressed it like a master and whispered carefully so it was barely audible, “Get out.” Spike was in shock. That must have been wrong. Suddenly things he wasn’t paying attention to crept into his mind and it was left there. Sweetie Belle was finally able to move him now and combined with Rarity’s magic he was out post haste. The door slamming in his face. She was mad…at him. But he didn’t do anything with her yesterday, how could he have done something to get her mad? Let alone something on this level that she would not want to see him and have such obvious sighs of crying. He was in shock. His entire body trembled and the very thought he could do something to her emotionally scarring. Something that was worse than when he became a greed filled monster that would do this. His shock however was cut short and he jumped back to attention as he heard a loud boom from the distance. Something fell in front of him as raining bits of wood came down on the rest of the town in front of him. The something was a book, it wasn’t one Spike read since he didn’t read often since he had his fill with the ones Twilight gave him for his birthdays. Faust read across the cover. It was one of Wishful’s favorite books. Wishful Thinking...that was it. He would know what was going on much more than Spike could after all. Spike looked in horror. The Rainbow mushroom cloud was there in the direction of Wishful’s house. Then it was Wishful’s book. Spike rushed to their as fast as he could, the closer he got the more he heard something odd. Rainbow Dash he sort of expected become of the Atomic Rainboom, but Pinkie’s voice could also be heard in the area. Both were calling out Wishful Thinking’s name in anger. “Where are you!” screamed Pinkie. “You can’t hide forever!” screamed Rainbow Spike stopped when he got near ground zero. Pieces of Wishful’s house lay everywhere. Even inside trees like a knife drove into them only instead this was a plank of wood. “Wishful,” he called but not too loud. He got the feeling he shouldn’t let the other two ponies he could hear hear him. “Keep Quiet Spike,” Wishful’s voice from behind a tree was in a rasp. “That pink haired one is nearby.” Spike approached the tree talking lower, “Thank Celestia I found you Wishful. I got to talk to you about last night. What Happened?” “Trust me,” said Wishful from behind the tree, “when I figure that out you’ll be the first one to know. But for now we have a bigger problem.” “A bigger problem?” Spike looked around before Wishful the unicorn came out from behind the tree. Why were the other girls after him to this point? Then he saw Wishful. “Yeah, a considerably bigger problem.” Said the voice of the dark orange dragon winged Pegasus pony known as Wishful Thinking. “I can’t undo this wish.” Suddenly Fluttershy came into view, a look of pure fury on her face. “I found you!” “Gallop,” cried Wishful pushing Spike forward. “Gallop for your life.” We Dun Goofed“I wish I was the perfect colt for Rarity.” “Wait, stop….Crap.” Wishful Thinking’s voice echoed. “What do you think you’re doing to Spike?” “Rarity?” Wishful’s voice carried but was muffed more as it went on. “Oh not now. I don’t have time to talk about this right now I have to focus.” “I’m not letting you go any further.” Wishful opened his eyes. He stretched as usual for himself before going down to make himself breakfast. In retrospect he would likely find it funny he was halfway through eating before he figured out he had just made and ate breakfast with his hooves alone. This was odd because he never used his hooves if he could help it or was reading a book. He looked himself over as he headed for the only mirror in his house which was still not packed out, but he unpacked it yesterday didn’t he? That was when he noticed the thick scaled edges of his new wings. The foldable parts of the wings were still flesh. Only the tips gleamed with a tiny bit of purple to offset his orange coat that had spread over them. A closer look showed they were a type of jewelry and when he removed them he could see why. Without them his wings were unnoticeable against his flesh and looked rather scarred under one of them. He wondered how he got that one, must have been interesting. Still he’d been turned into a Alicorn before because of a dumb wish to turn someone into an Earth pony a few years back so he wasn’t about to freak out. That is until he saw his reflection in the mirror. No horn. HE had NO HORN. Wishful Thinking stared at his reflection, this had never happened. He always had a way to undo his wishes. The power to undo the wish had be the same amount he put into it. Even the few times he helped Pony Joe he didn’t need much energy. But this wish was different. To get past Spike’s dragon natural resistance he had hit him with everything he had. And it would take the same effort to undo it. Meaning the only way he could plausibly undo this wish now is to…..no he couldn’t do either option yet. “That’s right”, his inner colt told him, “and you can get used to being a Pegasus. The wings are pretty cool, and Spike likely got what he wanted. Maybe this won’t be so bad.” That was the good thing about being who he was. He never panicked for long. Oh it lingered, he’d likely resent Spike a bit for the rest of his life but as long as Spike was happy he’d be fine with it as a whole. He’d helped his friend have his dream and that was all he needed to not lose it. Well that and reading Brother Ursa. That would let him get some of his anger with Spike out of the way since it was about a Pony who was turned into an Ursa Minor that had to take care of a smaller one as repentance for the wrong he did. He had finished one of his favorite parts when there was a knocking on the door, but not from his front door. He opened to back door to see that Pony who throw the welcome party for him a two days ago. Pinkie Pie’s wide grin faltered when she saw Wishful Thinking. “Guess I can’t be surprised,” he thought. “Just yesterday I was a unicorn and here I am a Pegasus now.” From there things got weird though as Pinkie Pie fired confetti in his face with enough of a blast to send him sprawling to the other side of the house. The sound called Rainbow Dash who seemed to be fine until again she saw Wishful Thinking. He wasn’t sure how he got out of the house, or why it was so suddenly destroyed. The pieces of his life were falling one by one. But all he could think was, “yeah, that seems about right.” And things only got worse when he noticed Spike in the distance. Obviously something had gone wrong on his end as well. “Just peachy.” Spike made a mental note to himself. He much preferred running as a pony than most anything besides eating a fire ruby and his friends. If only this running wasn’t caused by he and Wishful Thinking running for their lives and three angry mares chased them he’d be in heaven. Rainbow Dash was the closest to them. It was Wishful who notice that, as fast as the two were moving, the fastest pony in the land would have caught them by now. He wasn’t sure if Spike was the one keeping her away or what but at least he wouldn’t have to worry about that sonic rainboom thing again. Wait, how did he know that was the name of that move? Wishful tried opening his wings. If anything else he may be able to get away easier and Spike wouldn’t be chased; after all the three were only after him. Much like Spike with running in a new body, Wishful didn’t even have to think about it to spread his wings and take fight. The wind felt really good. Unfortunately Spike wasn’t free from pursuers. The Mares that were whispering to each other earlier were now joining in the fray and after Spike. Shouting how he was the enemy of all mares. Wishful did a simple dive to pick up Spike. He seemed light as a feather in his hooves. Unfortunately, or fortunately it suddenly caused a lot of them to fight for some reason the instant he was seen. “Day just keeps getting better and better.” It was then Wishful got an idea. “Spike, can you wink?” “What?” it was hard for Spike to hear with all the galloping. They would be in the forest soon enough if they just passed over Fluttershy’s house. “Wink,” Wishful repeated, “can you wink us somewhere far from here?” “Well I-I can try at least,” Spike said hesitantly. In the flash of green both were gone. And with that the three mares suddenly stopped what they were doing. Fluttershy was the first to speak, “W-where did he go?” Rainbow Dash snorted, “He winked out with Spike the coward. When I get my hooves on him I’m going to show him how to really be a man.” “Yeah,” Pinkie Pie said skeptical, “But you just blow up his house right. Didn’t that get it out of your system? I’m still trying to figure wiger why I was so mad even after that.” “He’s always had that effect on mares,” said Rainbow starting to relax, “Right Fluttershy?” “Oh yes,” Fluttershy agreed, “girls either love or hate the guy when they first meet him. Lucky for him Cloudsdale has a higher colt to filly ratio, took me forever to be calm enough to have a normal conversation with him. But after what he did I just can’t hold back anymore. ” She dropped her head. “I sort of feel bad about this but it’s that weird feeling. I just can’t control it.” Rainbow Dash rubbed the back of her head as her own head cleared. “I know what you mean. Guess I did go a bit far there. It isn’t smart to talk to him in pony though. Guess I’ll have Ditzy Doo deliver my apology. She always was the only pony I know who wasn’t affected by it.” “Must be the eyes,” said Pinkie. Her two friends looked at her. “What? I meant she can see through magic. So of course it must not affect her.” The two continued to stare but nodded their agreement. “Hey what do you say we go to my place for some cupcakes then? It’s always good to have a treat to cheer you up.” So they went off. They appeared in the library. Once Wishful realized this he started shaking Spike. “Are you serious? Of all places you pick here?” “W-wh-what’s the p-p-p-pro-bl-em?” asked Spike through the violent shakes. “Twilight already can’t stand me,” He said in frantic shaking of Spike, “If she gets near me, in whatever happened to me she could kill me.” The little colt in his head was arguing that it meant more pleasure, but reason and fear teamed up in his head to quickly stamp that out. As if summoned, Twilight entered the room as Wishful was at the peak of shaking Spike. He noticed and immediately stopped with a cry of panic. He didn’t have a horn anymore. He couldn’t fight Twilight when he did have magic, now he’d be helpless. “I can explain,” he said waving his hooves in front of himself as Twilight stared at him. Eyes wide Twilight rushed him and Wishful covered his face with his hooves and his stomach with his new wings hoping it would be quick. Twilight forced his hooves away with magic. “Just perfect,” he thought closing his eyes. “Celestia must hate me too if this is my life.” Instead of a hit, he was met with a kiss. A full on one he only read about in the romance novels for mares he read when he didn’t have a good fantasy book to try, her tongue invading his mouth and probing. He was in complete shock. Even the colt in his head seemed to give an image of his smaller self smacking himself across the face repeatedly trying to wake up. “This is not happening.” He thought, “Something very wrong here.” But as his brain started to calm from the shock of this and his body started to enjoy the pleasure he understood what was going on. Only some small pieced of the puzzle now escaped him. Spike shook his head as he looked at Twilight invading Wishful’s mouth in horror. What was going on? Twilight finally released Wishful, saliva running from both of their mouths as she hugged Wishful and said in a seductive, “Where have you been all my life?” Wishful’s head didn’t move for a long while as he just sat there, eyes unblinking. Finally his eyes moved as he looked at Spike, closed his mouth. Trying not to swallow Twilight’s mouth juice was impossible without spitting it on the mare so he gulped the sweetness down and said in a monotone voice that trailed off, “Spike…..” “Yeah, Wishful?” replied spike half curious half disgusted by the site. “We dun goofed.” Explainations“Okay how did this happen?” Spike asked pacing around the room. “Because we both didn’t think about wording,” Wishful answered simply. He was trying to use his wings to push Twilight off him but apparently that wasn’t going to happen any time soon as it only made her grip his wings instead. Spike was slow on the uptake, “Wording?” “Okay the wording was your fault. My fault was in not explaining the importance of wording. Figured that was part of the ‘think carefully’ assumption one should make with wishes in general. Oh and I guess it’s sort of Twilight’s fault too since she super charged you.” Wishful had said that to try and get Twilight to have some other emotion so he could get her to stop clinging to him, but instead all he got was her kissing one of his wings while rubbing a hoof affectionately on his chest and saying, “whatever you say honey.” “Ugg,” both Spike and Wishful said at once. “No Wishful,” Spike finally said recovering. “I mean what was my wording problem.” “Well-“Wishful was going to answer but Twilight had gone in for another kiss. Before she had the element of surprise, now she had the element that Wishful’s body really REALLY liked that kiss last time. The heat took him in again and this time he pressed into her, his mind filling with thoughts that would usually be enough to put him to sleep at night. Spike finally used his magic to grab Twilight by the tail to hold her in the air and smack Wishful with his own tail screaming at both of them. “SNAP OUT OF IT!” Wishful shook his head to get out of his daze, Twilight however was fighting Spike. “Let go Spike. He’s mine.” With the creep factor back, Wishful was able to think of something. “Um, Twilight?” he tried to make his voice sound as sweet as possible. “Yes sugar bear?” Twilight’s voice really came off wrong and Spike had to hold on to make sure she stayed back and was gagging. “You could make an anti magic field right, one that blocks all magic around you? I mean you are the best magic user ever right?” Wishful did his best to copy the look Twilight was showing him looking into his eyes earlier, “You should use it then. That way we can be together?” “What the hell man?” Spike shouted still trying to hold the obviously talented Twilight back with his own magic. Twilight nodded at Wishful’s idea and used the spell. It was similar to her and Shining Armor’s force field spell but with more energy put into dispelling the magic in the bubble then repelling anything. It filled the entire house and Twilight plopped onto the floor with a thud. When she rose Twilight shook her head and was suddenly horrified. “What, what just happened?” Wishful didn’t miss a beat, “You entered a room with obvious magical influence that caused you to enact all of your pent up sexual tension. What would your coltfriend think?” Twilight clammed up. “If you’re wondering how I know you have a secret lover, it’s due to the fact you didn’t attempt going any further. Getting it regularly means you don’t need it.” “No it doesn’t,” said Twilight panicky, “I mean I never did that with anypony and I don’t have a lover and, oh Celestia what have I done?” After more pacing she ran out of the house tears filling her eyes. Spike felt sort of bad about this but Wishful was wearing a big grin giving his inner colt a high hoof. Spike looked at his friend in disappointment until Wishful looked at him and simply stated: “Was.” “Huh?” “Your wish problem,” he said dully. “You used the word was. Past tense.” Now Spike finally got it. His wish had made it so that he HAD been with Rarity. “But then, why don’t I remember any of it?” “Fail safe for wishing. We keep our memories and have none of this reality. That way we can undo the wish since we remember our old lives. Normally if things go well, and it usually doesn’t, I then grant a wish that take those memories away. However, the Backfire due to that is pretty bad.” Spike was still confused, “How so?” “It wasn’t simply turning you into a pony,” answered Wishful, “That ‘was’ screwed everything up. You were never a dragon thanks to this wish. I’m not sure on the details but I am certain that is the case. So without knowledge of any other differences in our own lives, we can’t be sure about the kind of ponies we were before this point in our time. So as another fail-safe I focused on I made sure your life has morphed to be more the same you always had it with the only differences being your wish’s conditions. Unfortunately before everything was set that girl you have a crush on interrupted me.” “Wait…” Spike interrupted before Wishful could continue. “Rarity came to stop the wish?” Wishful gave it some thought, “I think so. Never met her before, that and she didn’t give her name. White Unicorn with gems on her flank so I guessed it was her. Twilight tried to warn me before not to keep going, you got distracted when Rarity showed up so I tried to stop the spell before the magic set in for you. Then Twilight stopped me and tried to do it herself and we have this mess now.” “Alright,” said Spike comprehending, “but what about you? How did my wish do that magic to get ponies to hate you?” “That I’m still figuring out. The Pegasus thing I get. As for the flesh wings it was because I always admired the night guards I guess. But if my life has been different since I was born why do I have the exact same cutie mark?” “Well,” said Spike, “You’re still the same pony. So you’d still have the same talent, and that is granting wishes right? Did you ever consider your talent didn’t need that spell? I mean at least here?” Wishful was taken aback. Perhaps Spike had something there, but now wasn’t the time to think of it. “First thing I have to do, after I find a place to stay, is figure out how to get rid of this wish magic. Aside from getting Celestia to teach Luna and Twilight to use it and combining their powers during a comet there has to be some other way we can put as much juice into undoing it.” “Well obviously you can stay here,” said Spike easily. “I can talk to Twilight about it. But why did you say only you? I can help too.” “True,” said Wishful now distracted and looking through some books on the self labeled Magical Studies. “However I think you’re better off trying to patch things up with Rarity. Based on the town’s reaction you must have done something really bad. Plus if you can get back together with her I won’t have to keep studying to undo this. Win-win.” Spike shook his head, “No it isn’t. You’d be stuck without magic and living in a world without these weird feelings that come over ponies.” “You let me worry about that when the time comes,” said Wishful. “For now how about we sort of make this a race? It will get both of us to try harder. After all you nearly got what you wished for. Are you really going to give up when you’re this close to being with Rarity?” Spike thought for a moment and then a smile crossed his face. “I suppose not. I’m in if you’re serious.” They shook on it. Something nagged at the back of Spike’s mind as he did so though. It was like he was forgetting something. Something he used to wake up to. “Well,” he thought, “I can just talk it over with Wishful and Pee Wee later. I wonder where he ran off to anyway. Ah well he’ll be fine till I get back later.” (Author's Note: I can't believe no one noticed this yet after all these chapters what the huge backfire is to this wish yet. Spike yes but the audience? Guess it wasn't explained enough. Hopefully this extended and fixed cut helps.) Twilight's Feelings, Spike's Mistake (Fixed)Twilight slowly trotted to help clear her head and consider what had happened since the start of the day. First there was Spike, who was depressed because he had broken up with Rarity only the night before waking with seemingly no memory of it and babbling about things she didn’t understand. He had a music box? The weird part was Twilight sort of remembered one but couldn’t place how or why it wasn’t there anymore. Likely it was one from when the two were still very young and she just forgot about it over time. Why Spike wanted to know where it was now of all times was lost to her. Then there was that orange flesh winged Pegasus stallion that came back with Spike when they suddenly winked into her personal collection of books she had from Canterlot. Thinking about it, he wasn’t especially attractive and yet she had thrown herself at him like a school filly on a hit pop star only without the security to keep them apart. He mentioned some kind of spell as if he was versed well in magic too, but he was a Pegasus pony. How had some pony who shouldn’t know that much about magic suddenly know what to do to get her out of the trance that spell, whatever it was, caused? The solution seemed obvious, the “want it need it” spell, but if that was the case why wasn’t Spike affected by it? Her train of thought was interrupted by seeing Applejack and Big Mac pulling a truck load of Lumber across her. Applejack was straining with what seemed to be easy enough for her to have gotten without Big Mac’s help. Curious Twilight asked, “What are you two doing?” Applejack replied after seeing Twilight in hard breaths. “Oh… hey.... Twi…. sorry…. I… can’t…. talk…. much. RD… said…. she…. needed… help…. repairin’… some…. damage…. she… did…. lickity… split.” Her knees started to buckle a bit as she said this, “Me and Big Mac were in such a rush getting everything and finishing our Applebucking I forgot to pace myself. I’d kindly accept a little help if ya don’t mind.” Twilight decided to use her magic to try and lighten the load. It didn’t help much, but it kept both earth ponies in a good pace with far less strain. “So what did she do?” Applejack was able to speak normally now, “Broke this new feller’s house, that orange pegasus that came in from Cloudsdale last night.” Twilight was taken aback, but not enough to stop her magic as Applejack continued. “Apparently he’s some old friend or something with some weird spell on him. You can ask RD and Fluttershy for the details since I didn’t care to keep up with it much.” With that Twilight made up her mind to find out everything she could about what was going on before returning to her home. She was sure Spike and Wishful would be there anyway. And if she knew more about Wishful, maybe she could help him. For a moment she felt his taste him her mouth and blushed at the memory but shook it off and focused again to take even more weight off. Wishful sighed. None of the books he found helped. “That just leaves the two options I have left to undo this, neither of which is very good. I’d have to convince Twilight, both princesses and at least one other mage to help with supplying the power, and given how mares react to me lately and the likelihood of finding a mage even close to them in power it’s going to be hard. The other option though, it’s easy. I could get it done simply enough. All I’d need to do is-“ He cut himself off and slammed his head into the wall, “NO! Neither Spike nor myself could live with the price….well actually I could at least but I can’t put Spike through that. Not yet anyway.” Owlicious awoke then and looked at the orange pegasus. It hooted happily at him and dropped a book in front of him. Wishful hesitated but opened the book and skimmed through it having nothing better to do as he waited. His eyes landed on a particular paragraph on Dragon winged pegasus ponies and he read out loud: “While only on a small scale a Dragon Winged pony can actually cast a magic spell once a day. This makes up for their in inability to recover damage to their wings as quickly and Feather Wings. Said spell can in fact be stored for more power and be very powerful if held back for a full cycle of the moon thanks to a degree spell made by Nightmare Moon before her fall as Dragon winged pegasus were her most loyal subjects. To this authors knowledge, Celestia has not undid said degree due to the max power of said spells too be low thanks to them not being able to train it like a Unicorn and natural evolution causing cases of Dragon Wing to be so rare it is only a one fourth chance of occurring if all four of the grandparents of said foal had the recessive gene and passed it to their children, with a male pegasus and a female unicorn. Thus making it very unlikely more than a half dozen natural born Dragonwings exist at one time.” Wishful read over it a few more times before deciding. “It’s worth a shot,” he told the owl as it hooted in agreement. Wishful spread his wings out as he focused and closed his eyes. When he opened them he was on top of the book. Only about half as far as he was able to wink before, but that wasn’t the point. He COULD do magic. If he waited till the moon cycled around once and a starry night when a shooting star came he could make most of the magic up for the spell. But he frowned, it still meant he’d need Twilight’s help since she super charged his original wish magic and the two princesses just in case he wasn’t strong enough and needed them too. Wishful hung his head. He couldn’t dare ask any of them for help. Celestia maybe, she was always known to be a kind and helpful ruler. But there was no way Twilight would let herself be taken by whatever got her to fawn over him before and now he’d likely be on even worse terms with her after all this and not their history together. Heck since she was Celestia’s student that meant she may even stop Celestia from even seeing him or taking him seriously. But worst of all was Princess Luna. The fact was that in his old reality with Spike as a dragon he avoided the night. In a way his powers were partly because of her in both this world and the last. And in both cases she would be the type to have nothing to do with him out of principle that he seemed to not respect anything she did to go as far as to ensure he slept through the night. Of that he was sure both versions of himself kept as baring changes on a grand scale from him being a unicorn, his life and personality should be the same. “Well I’m not going to get anywhere thinking about it now,” Wishful told the owl. “Guess I might as well sit back and read until Spike or Twilight show up to kick me out of here.” He glanced up at a volume marked “The Dragon King” and started reading it as he waited for some pony to return to the house. “That’s just,” said Twilight is shock, “impossible.” Rainbowdash and Fluttershy were taking some clouds to shape a roof for the house they had partly destroyed. The lumber Applejack brought wasn’t enough to fix everything so they were patching up some of the parts they had to cover from the weather with clouds until then. “It’s true,” said Fluttershy handing a torn up picture album to Twilight. It showed Wishful and an older male unicorn that must have been his father waving happily. “Wishful was always a good friend whenever he could come to school. He even dated Ditzy Doo for a while, but it was pretty much only because she didn’t have any issues emotionally with him like other mares and that eventually led to a pretty bad break up. They are still sort of friends though which is why we use her as a go between when we need to talk to him.” “But,” said Twilight still confused, “how was he able to stay in school without you all attacking him or loving him then? By the sounds of it he’s always had this.” Rainbow Dash chimed in, “Oh that’s because of his dad. Up to our last year at school he would always put Wishful in an anti magic field. It only broke every time wishful tried using his dragon wing magic to help some pony. Problem was when he found his cutie mark was in helping other ponies he kept using it whenever he couldn’t find some other way.” “So his father,” It was starting to come together. “What about his mom then? And where is his father now?” Fluttershy took over as Rainbow suddenly winced at the questions. “Oh I don’t know. Wishful’s father had a hard enough time finding work when he moved to Cloudsdale so I never talked to him and Wishful never wanted to talk about it. After his dad died in our junior year he really didn’t talk to any pony and just became a hermit since he didn’t have the magic to make a field for himself. Poor guy probably spent most of the time not trusting in any mares because of that spell, and Ditzy said he blamed himself for his dad’s death since he would make the barrier despite being tired many times.” Twilight felt kinda sorry for Wishful, but in the back of her mind she thought that something was off about the fact his mother wasn’t in any of the pictures she could see. She’d have to ask him about that. “But why are you asking about him all of the sudden?” Fluttershy’s question had caught Twilight off guard. “Well,” she said trying to think but with no good way to say it just told the truth. “He kind of decided to hide at my place. He and Spike seem to talk like they were old friends and everything.” Rainbow arced and eyebrow, “Wait that means you saw him. That means you beat him up or did you….” As she trailed off a smile mischievous grin came over her face as she looked at Twilight who was starting to panic. “No I’d never!” That came out so quick Rainbow was laughing as was Applejack who was listening the entire time without saying anything. Twilight blushed. Pinkie snickered, but was busy helping Big Mac with holding the board to repair a wall. She would have been more talkative if her coltfriend had not kissed her every time she was about to chime in and melted like glue from it and only said anything as to confirming to him that her reaction was angry and not lustful. “That is still creepy,” Applejack said mouthing the lovey dovey couple the last board they had to fix into place. Big Mac smiled and gave his lover another kiss out of usual brotherly annoyance to Pinkie’s excitement. “Well,” said Rainbow, “at least I won’t have to feel bad about him not having a place to stay. Twilight can keep him for a bit till were done. And if it’s so imposing I’ll even pay for it. Take responsibility and what not.” “I didn’t agree he could stay,” said Twilight, “But it is true that I can block that spells power. And who knows I might be able to undo it with enough research.” “If you two will ever get out of bed,” said Rainbow slyly. Twilight shook her head, “I told you it isn’t like that. That spell did that to me, I’m not going to let that happen again.” “Sure you won’t,” said Rainbow stretching the sentence as long as possible. Twilight just gave up and started to walk home. Spike wondered around aimlessly. He wasn’t sure what to do. Sweetie Belle and Rarity were both so mad at him he couldn’t go back to talk to them until he knew what he did to Rarity. Plus all the mares in town seemed to be giving him a mean look now that they were corrected that they were not to run him out of town. This was going to be hard, and apparently Twilight didn’t know either so he had to find someone to talk to. Begrudgingly he decided it was best to ask Sweetie Belle’s two best friends. They were easy enough to find and as he expected when he approached they scoffed at him. “Oh kay,” Spike finally said with a deep breath. “I wanted to ask you two if you could remind me what I did wrong with Rarity. I’m kinda fuzzy on what happened the last few days.” It was half true, but he couldn’t say it was for most of his life after all. The two ponies started at each other for a moment then back at Spike. Applebloom broke the silence, “you really don’t know?” “Honest,” Spike said giving a Pinkie Promise. He apparently didn’t do this much in his new life because he poked his eye too hard and had to hold it for a bit. Scootaloo answered, “It’s because you two-timed her. Duh.” “Two-timed?” Spike was really surprised. Of all things that was the last thing to come to his mind as to what he could have done wrong. Granted it wasn’t past him to do it by his greedy nature, but for Rarity he fought his nature all the time. Before either of the two could elaborate however a streak flew into Spike and hugged him. Spike looked down and the filly in horror and thought. “Please tell me this isn’t the ‘other mare’. Please any pony but her.” Diamond Tiara beamed at him in her hug and said, “Sorry honey bun. But I had to tell that mean old lady you were mine. You’re not upset are you?” Invitation (Fixed)Twilight sighed. The sound of Pinkie Pie’s feet as she hopped up and down behind her made it all too obvious she was following her.“What is it?” Pinkie bounced over her friend and plopped in front of her. “Wanna hang out tonight?” “That’s it?” Twilight said with a raised eyebrow. “I’m sorry but I don’t see why you would bother taking this long and following me to ask me that.” “Yeah,” said Pinkie rubbing the back of her head, “Mac and me, or is it me and Mac?” “Mac and I,” Twilight assisted “Yeah that. Anyway Mac and me haven’t gone on a double date yet and we thought it would be fun. And I gotta make it up to Wishful Thinking for messing up his house any soooo, two birds with one stone right?” Twilight’s realization caused her to bite back her rage at her friend’s inference again. “I don’t have interest in Wishful like that,” she growled. “Ah come on,” said Pinkie, “I know you haven’t had a date yet in your life. You already kissed this guy, and it’s a double date so you can just treat it as going out with friends if you don’t wanna be lovey dovey. It’s a win no matter how you look at it. Plus you’d be helping me out as a friend.” She added some puppy dog look to this last word. “Pleeeeeeaase.” Pinkie’s logic was sound and she was making that face no one had resisted. Even Big Macintosh who had seen this face countless times fell for it. “On one condition,” It came out of her mouth faster than she could control. “We have to make it a real group thing. We invite Rarity too.” Twilight couldn’t take her little brother with them. Spike needed to really consider whatever it was he had done to Rarity. She wanted to believe in her brother sure, it was why she didn’t judge him to his face when he announced being into a school filly when he was still on break from his magic classes. But the fact he had done that to one of her best friends still didn’t gel with her. Pinkie nodded, “of course. But why is Rarity upset anyway?” “I’ll explain on the way,” answer the lavender unicorn. “We better go talk to her about this first.” Rarity washed her face and did her best to make herself presentable. Her own emotions did take president, but with Sweetie Belle coming over more often she needed to make sure she had the money to visit the spas, feed her sister and herself, and stock her materials. Granted more orders were coming in ever since Twilight’s birthday party a few months back, but it would do her no good if she didn’t complete said orders on time since the business world isn’t kind to those who were unable to deliver on their word. She took a deep breath. She had sent Sweetie Belle away as she entered her bathroom and she suspected the child was still lurking in her workplace not allowing herself to leave Rarity in such a state. Rarity liked that about her sister, it was one of the few things they had in common. But with Sweetie’s luck she would never get her work done and she hoped her sister would leave when seeing she was at least attempting to get over her heartbreak. As she thought, Sweetie Belle was standing outside the bathroom when she got out. “I know,” Rarity told her sister, “I look horrid.” “No,” Sweetie said simply and turned to leave her sister. “You sure you’re going to be alright?” “I’ll be perfectly fine,” she said rubbing her cheeks against her sister. “Now go on. You need to have fun and I need to get to work or else I will have to spend the next three days pulling all nighters to finish.” As Sweetie left, Twilight and Pinkie came in through the opening door. “Help her out please,” she said to them as she galloped off. Pinkie, who had been fully informed of what happed to Rarity by now nodded at the filly and went off to talk to Rarity. Twilight stopped her and the two watched as Rarity got into her zone and worked on her newest dress. Wishful’s laugh echoed through the house. Spike rolled his eyes and let him finish as he held his sides and started banging the table. “You said you wouldn’t laugh.” “You said it was serious,” said Wishful between snorts as he tried to control himself. “I am serious.” Spike put as much of a forceful tone to show this as he could and Wishful finally stopped. “Okay,” said Wishful standing himself up and doing his best to calm his laughs, which wasn’t working. “That just raises more *snort* questions. Seems the more we find out about this version of our lives the more confusing it is.” “Actually this one isn’t so confusing,” said Spike nonchalantly. “I was just telling you so that you may help me figure out what to do next.” “That I can do,” The Dragon Pegasus, “When you *Pbbfflliitt* explain how that makes sense to you.” “Well remember the story I told you the other day?” Spike’s friend nodded and he continued, “Well that was also the day I was reminded not to let greed control me. It was likely that if I wasn’t destroying half of Ponyville I would not have kept to it so well.” “Still not following SD,” said Wishful. “She’s one of the richest ponies in town. It is likely this version of me who never had the problems that stood in the way of me dating Rarity, never learned this. So while ‘I’ was a perfect gentlecolt and everything Rarity would want, I was still me besides that.” Wishful finished finally controlling himself, “Meaning you went after this filly because you could get more stuff and money and thus two timed because this version of you still have to follow the rules of your wish till this point. Well this is most troubling.” Then he grabbed the copy of “The Dragon King” he was reading with his wing claws and started skimming. “Hey,” shouted Spike making a green flame show up between Wishful’s face and the book without burning either. Wishful jumped back, “What was that for?” “I came to you for help!” shouted Spike, apparently having a slight mood enhancement from his hormones before controlling himself again with heavy breaths. Still being a baby dragon at the time he had yet to grow into having this happen to him slowly and wasn’t able to cope as well as a normal teenager, which is saying something considering the average teen. You know what, he was normal never mind. “As it so happens I was helping you, but even if I wasn’t it would be counterproductive to my goal of undoing this wish anyway.” He trotted over to the dropped book and picked it up saying, “I remember reading a chapter concerning something similar in this story. Give me a moment and I’ll get back to you on it.” Spike sat and waited as Wishful quickly skimmed the book. After some time Wishful smiled and exclaimed, “Ah ha. I knew it was in here. The main character Celinbum ends up with two dragon prospects for a wife but can only choose one. However the one that is less off leaves on her own thinking she isn’t worth her love’s affections.” “So what happens?” asked Spike interested. “She was right,” Wishful said simply. “What?” “Celinbum marries for money and the kingdom lives happily ever after. They never meet again and Celinbum is okay with this because he likes gems more than lovers. Guess the pony author is in that camp that makes generalizations on dragons.” “How the moon was that supposed to help!?” “It doesn’t,” replied Wishful with a manic grin. “I just really wanted to relate this to something.” “Of course,” said the unicorn teen. “You decide to revert back to being a troll when I need to know how to break it off with Diamond Tiara and get Rarity back.” Wishful raised an eyebrow, “you didn’t break it off with that filly already?” “Well I didn’t have time to think about it,” said Spike. “I was too much in shock to say anything and then she goes and kisses me. MY first kiss. Do you have any idea what it’s like to have that thrown on you?” Wishful gave him a bewildered look, “you saw me have the same problem only a few hours ago. Geez, you’re worse than my little sister.” Now it was time for Spike to be confused, “You have a little sister?” “Sure,” said Wishful putting down the book, “She and my mom moved to Fillydelphia after our parents divorced and Dad got his job in Cloudsdale.” “Don’t you mean Canterlot?” “No, I didn’t move to Canterlot till…” Wishful’s thoughts trailed off as he tried to remember. Somehow it wasn’t as cloudy now. “…till I granted my father’s wish.” Before he could go more into this, Pinkie Pie burst into the room with Twilight. “Hey Wishful Thinking, that is your name right?” She then started talking even faster and faster. “Do you prefer Wishful or Thinking, or WT? OOO WT makes you sound like a big time producer. Mine just sounds like a disease. PDP, yuck, so you can call me Pinkie. Anyway….” Neither of the Stallions could figure out what the heck Pinkie Pie said after that. She seemed to go on and on about something involving Wishful and some other ponies like a party. The only thing that was clear was her attitude changing as she spotted Spike. Definitely negative. Thinking he got the gist of it Wishful agreed but asked, “How am I supposed to leave here anyway? I mean Twilight’s good but it’s not like she can make one of these all over town like Shining Armor.” “I can give you a bubble for yourself if I look it up,” said Twilight. “Rainbow told me how your dad did it for you all the time. If a regular unicorn can make magic good enough for containing whatever it is, than I should be able to pull it off without any issue once I know what I’m looking at.” “Alright…” said Wishful a little confused, “So where are we going.” “The Mareiott,” said Pinkie. “It’s not really my style but I wanna try something so Rarity can feel comfortable.” “Sounds good,” said Wishful faking through it, “But what about Spike then?” “He’ll need time to think about what to do next,” said Twilight staring at her little brother. “But I have,” said Spike, “I’m getting Rarity back and fixing everything.” “Oh nononono,” said Pinkie, “That is too soon. Let her have this night out with us tomorrow first. Some space can work wonders sometimes. If you go in there now she’ll just reject you again for stirring up her feelings without getting a chance to see what it is like to go out without you.” “I agree,” said Twilight, “Besides you have been falling behind in your summer studies. I’ll have to tutor you all day tomorrow and leave homework to do while we’re out.” “Ah come on Twilight,” said Spike with a groan. “No buts. See you tomorrow Pinkie.” Pinkie let herself out as Twilight shut the door behind her with magic. Wishful lamented the fact he couldn’t do that kind of magic anymore without blowing his once a day use if the winking didn’t count which it likely did. “So,” said Wishful both trying to keep things from being awkward and keeping Twilight and Spike from having a meaningless fight. “Where should I sleep?” Wishful TalkingRarity was still very much behind on her orders. She had considered cancelling the outing with her friends, but somehow Pinkie’s assistance earlier had made it so she didn’t have to go out to buy material at least. Still even if she worked herself hard enough to finish she wouldn’t be able to finish all of her work in time, she’d be far too tired to go. Still she had to do this and on she worked on gown after suit after gown for various fashions she had been working on that were ordered in bulk. She had just finished stitching her fortieth gown when a rapping had been spotted by her ears and her attention was brought to the door. This was strange since the moon was so high the entire town besides some night guards and hooligans would be out at this time. Hooligans that would love nothing more than to take advantage of a mare in the biblical sense. Rarity gulped, this wasn’t going to end well. “Excuse me,” the voice of a stallion on the other end of the door asked, “I need to talk to you for a moment if you would please. It will be just for a moment.” She didn’t recognize it. But with such a voice that seemed to have no malicious intent behind it she couldn’t be sure it was someone after her for her body. “Go away,” she shouted to the door. “Come back at normal hours.” “Believe me I would,” said the stallion on the other side, “but let’s just say if I don’t I won’t be able to get any sleep. I really must confirm something with you and it has to be face to face. Could you please open up?” In this time Rarity had levitated a frying pan to her side and gotten closer to the door in case the hooligan was going to burst through her door. “Very well,” she responded, “But I warn you I’m armed and I will not hesitate to defend myself and call for help if need be.” She used her magic to open the door and when she did the door swung open and the orange stallion closed the door behind him as he entered. He didn’t speak at first and just stared at Rarity. His leathery wings seemed to be trying to stretch but were pulled close and closed over his body. “Um,” Rarity began staring at the colt and lowering her frying pan. The stallion backed up as she did and confused she tilted her head. “You said you needed to speak with me?” The stallion blinked a few times and tilted his own head. “So you don’t have any sudden urges after looking at me?” Rarity shook her head feeling slightly insulted. Did this colt think she was that attractive? Or was this supposed to be some kind of confusion with some other pony who looked like her? This colt was a strange one. “Yes, excellent then that makes things so much easier. It means you really do still love Spike.” “Well of course,” Rarity began before catching herself. “Wait why would you want to know? How do you know him?” “Old friend of his from Canterlot,” he explained, “the name is Wishful Thinking. And to make a long story short, I had to make sure there was hope for my friend before I had him try to make up with you. This entire day has been chaos for me.” “He never told me he knew one of Luna’s royal guards,” said Rarity curious. “Knowing him he’d be bragging all about knowing you when he was trying to win me over before.” Wishful laughed, “That’s true. But Spike doesn’t like to talk about the adventures we had when I was foalsitting him.” “Oh,” replied Rarity with a smile. “Then it was very nice to meet you. But what do you mean by make things up to me?” “You can’t really think he’d leave you for a girl that young right? The guy ended up leading her on or something I’m sure. All day he’s been so distraught over what happened he even forgot it happened. Entire thing wiped from his memory.” “That does explain things,” she said thinking back to that morning. “But it explains them a little too well.” Her eyes narrowed on her guest. “Why did you have to come tonight?” “Like I said,” he explained, “long story.” “I have time when it comes to my friends and Spike,” Rarity said simply. Blue magic filled the room as a table and set of chairs were elevated into the room to be set in front of the white unicorn. Rarity took a seat and urged Wishful to follow. “Please proceed.” Spike woke from his slumber with a long yawn. Outside he could see it was still well into the night. “Great,” he thought, “my brain won’t even let me get some sleep.” He stretched and trotted out of his make shift room Twilight had forced him and Wishful to take for the night. His “sister” was looking through a group of books. It took a grunt from Spike to get her to notice he was there. “Oh hey,” her voice still showed signs of being tired. “Why haven’t you gone to sleep yet Twilight?” Spike shifted slightly as he said this. Despite Wishful’s attempts he and Twilight still had a huge fight before he had stormed off to bed. Twilight it appeared stuck her nose in a book and didn’t sleep at all yet. “I figured it would be better to look up the spell I need to help Wishful get around. Still I do find the entire thing odd now that I had time to think about it.” Twilight still wasn’t looking at her younger brother as she said this. “I mean why would he not have a way to stop this himself when he moved here? I mean if I was Wishful I’d just become a hermit.” “I don’t think so,” said Spike. He looked over at a copy of a book he remembered from Wishful’s collection that Twilight also had but not for the same reasons. “Do you know this story?” He tossed the book to his sister, a copy of “The Monster in the Bell Tower”. “Of course,” Twilight replied looking at the book. “But what does this have to do with anything? It’s just a story about a disfigured pony raised to believe the villain of the story is her only friend until she makes one a few chapters in and learns better.” “For the smartest pony in the kingdom your dense sometimes…sis,” he said trying his best to be familiar with the term. “The pony in this story thought at some point it would be better not to ever have friends and just spend her days doing her job in the bell tower and interacting only with those she had to. But in the end even before she made a friend she was living a boring miserable life. You may not know him as well as I do but could you say honestly he was the kind who wouldn’t enjoy a little risk in his life?” As if called, Wishful had just reentered the library on his own. “Sorry,” he said with a slight yawn, “I had to get some fresh air after being cooped up all day.” Spike was about to ask why he was even out of bed when Twilight came rushing to Wishful’s side and nuzzled him. Wishful took that in for a moment of enjoyment and then turned to Spike. “When did the anti magic bubble go?” “Guess Twilight didn’t renew it since she didn’t think you’d leave the room tonight. Like I told her you wouldn’t.” Twilight cooed into Wishful’s ear which finally got him out of his comfort zone. He stammered, “Tw-Twilight dear. I think it would be best if you went to bed.” “Only if you come with me to help me lose some energy,” she replied winking at him. Wishful gulped and tried his best to act for this. Spike could tell there was a good hint of disappointment as he did so and that made him mad at his friend. “All good, but I’d rather have a go when we’re more alone for the night.” “Oh you’re shy,” she said rubbing against him again. Wishful forced himself away from the purple mare and she took the hint. “Alright, I guess it is a bit soon for the two of us. Better off after our date tomorrow, then we’ll have known each other for two whole days. Oh it already feels like I’ve known you forever.” “Sure,” Wishful answered with a slight chuckle. “Sure you have.” “Well then, good night.” She gave the last two words a seductive tone and blew Wishful a kiss as she went up her steps and into bed. Wishful let out a slow breath. Spike pushed him down, but not enough to make a sound that would call Twilight. “In our room, right now.” Wishful followed muttered, “I only have so many times I can say no Spike.” “That doesn’t give you a right to use this Wish Backfire to take advantage of someone close to me Wishful.” “I know that,” Wishful replied closing the door to their room. “But more importantly I have something to tell you.” “Yeah what is it?” Wishful thought for a moment. Then as if deciding not to said, “I think I have a plan to get you and Rarity back together.” “That’s it?” said Spike curiously. He knew Wishful was hiding something. “As far as I’m sure of that you need to know,” Wishful corrected. “I can’t give you information that would worry you until I’m sure about everything. For now I think you should tell me how good you are at a tango.” Spike looked back at his friend confused, “A what?” Wishful groaned as he let out a breath. “It’s going to be a long night. We're lucky, in a few minutes I can use a spell again so practicing an all night will be easy. Just follow my lead on this.” With that he took his young friend by the hoof and pulled him into a dance as Spike protested. Earlier: Rarity paid close attention to the orange stallion’s story as best she could. Wishful was still not sure how much he could make up, after all in this case the truth would seem far more unbelievable and like he was lying to save his friend. However Rarity wasn’t buying any of it in the slightest. Finally he got to why he had to come over. “It struck me when Spike reminded me I used to live in Cloudsdale with my condition. I started to remember a bunch of stuff I couldn’t before. My ‘curse’, if you will, messes with the emotions of a mare. They are frustrated at me when they are not sure of their own feelings for someone somehow, which everyone usually has, or attracted to me if they have pure intents with others like with what happened with Twilight. That’s why that was so rare. But by that logic, someone in love and I mean truly in love with no wavering emotions or hidden emotions is unaffected. You are normal. Meaning even after this entire episode, Spike is still just as much in your heart as before.” “Sure,” said Rarity not believing any of this, “Like I could trust someone who would even allow cheating rumors to go around.” “Exactly my point,” he said with a smile, “You don’t believe it, but you’re not affected. You trust him in your heart and you can’t allow that. So how about this, I’ll set it up so you and Spike can be alone to talk and you can finish it if you really want too. I’m just hoping this will help.” “Like I would believe such a story,” Rarity screamed and lifted the Pegasus out of her house. “Leave me alone. I have to get back to work.” With that she slammed the door. “Great,” Wishful said to himself as he trotted off. So much for saving his friend’s relationship, still he got to figure out his assumption was right and it would help with getting them together. He opened his wings to see if any power returned to him. It was a little power left over from misjudging the wink and likely the last night counting too. Just enough to give Spike’s girlfriend a little energy boost to keep the spirits up. His plan relied on her going to this outing more than himself. Afterward he started back for the library. “Did it not go well my nephew?” The sweet voice came out of the night. Wishful groaned as he turned to the mare. “Not really. More importantly how did you find me?” “As soon as you returned to your true form my sister and I were able to sense you once again.” “How nice,” he said, “even if you are back now I’m still not joining you. My father and I already told your sister that.” “You miss our intent my nephew,” said Luna simply. “We are here to offer you our assistance in returning you to your times of peace as your father intended. However we require something in order to do so. So for that purpose we have come to tell you how to set things right.” “I’m listening.” Dinner Dilemma“Oh wow!” Four of the ponies cried in awe at the restaurant. High ceilings and decorations that had no use were everywhere here. “I can’t believe it,” noted Rarity, “this place seems just as grand as the dining halls in Canterlot.” The rest of the group nodded slowly in agreement with a small “Eeyup” from Big Mac. No one bothered asking how he would know considering he never went whenever the girls had gone before. “I have to admit Pinkie,” said Twilight gazing around her, “This place is far higher class than I would normally think you’d be up for. Every other time you took us out it was to a rave or some weird celebration most people wouldn’t here of outside some small town.” “I have to agree,” Said Rarity, “this all seems a bit too un-Pinkie of you for lack of a better term. Sorry if that hurts your feelings darling, but you must admit this place doesn’t exactly scream a good old fashioned Ponyville style of fun.” Pinkie Pie frowned at this. “I may be a party pony, but that doesn’t include one kind you know. After the incident at the Gala and Rarity’s birthday I decided to look into why so many high class ponies were into this boring stuff. Turns out its only boring because for them it’s like a Ponyville party is to us, fun and everyone wants to be there. But in return every now and then you have to go to one from the other side just for some variety. How else do you think I got everything set up so well for your brother’s wedding?” Pinkie had said all of this without getting angry, depressed, or even talking fast. Twilight was taken aback by all of it. Pinkie somehow even gave off a completely different demeanor here. She wasn’t acting like she normally did. Both of her friends were not sure if this was a good thing or a bad thing because of this. “Well come along my friends,” said Pinkie starting to trot, “and Big Mac.” “If it’s alright with you, can Rarity and I hang back a bit,” questioned the muffled voice of Wishful in his little magic bubble. “I’m already getting a few people eyeing me now and I wanted to talk about something with her before me get too many curious looks and approaches at the table.” Pinkie nodded and Big Mac and Twilight joined her as she trotted carefully to their table. Rarity watched them carefully before saying simply, “Was Pinkie affected by this curse of yours darling?” Wishful blinked. “Now that you mention it she has. But from what Twilight told me, and the little time I’ve known her, that can’t be possible. Unless…” “Something is causing her to waver on her feelings for Big Macintosh,” Rarity said with a frown. “She’s been under some stress lately ever since she heard someone in her family was killed. Apparently she was close to that pony and instead of going to the funeral she just up and stayed here to continue our small partnership. Now we have all the free time in the world and she still doesn’t bother with dealing with it. I’m not sure what to do since there isn’t really a way we could convince her to see a psychotherapist and Big Macintosh doesn’t see it at all. The poor guy is so in love he’s too blind to Pinkie’s needs still.” “You could just talk to him about it thought,” suggested Wishful. “He likely should be able to convince Pinkie to do something at least. Big Mac doesn’t strike me as the sort of guy who would let this fly if he knew about it. Talking about things is always the best way to handle it you know.” “Perhaps,” said Rarity, “but we should at least wait till tomorrow so we don’t spoil what happiness she may get out of tonight. It’s so funny sometimes watching her nearly melt when they have any physical contact.” Then she remembered Wishful’s talk last night and sighed, “I’m sorry I didn’t believe you earlier, it was all so outlandish. But when Twilight showed up with you and you told her about that double wake spell I was convinced.” “Yeah about that,” said Wishful carefully, “Don’t go too far tonight without Twilight or Pinkie. That spell is pretty good but it comes at a price. You’re up for half a day longer than you should be but in return you sleep for twice as long as normal without any way of waking up. And the effect only compounds the more it’s used. Heck after last night Spike and I will be out for a full day I dare say.” That got Rarity’s attention, “Why would Spike need such a spell?” Wishful just smiled and tried to imitate a character from one of Spikes comics they used to read together. “It’s all part of the plan. But that need not concern you for now. Let’s go join the others before Pinkie starts trying to hook me up with Twilight again.” “You mean you’re not going out with Twilight now?” “Nah, last night she still acted like she was in love with me when I got in without this bubble. That means she has no mixed or confused feelings about anypony, least of all me. Her intentions with me are purely platonic. I admit a part of me is disappointed in that, but there isn’t anything else I can do about it.” “You’re pretty honest are you not?” “Partly, but most of this is because Spike’s watching us from that window over there and Twilight put and honesty charm on me before we entered.” He inclined his head to the glass wall where it was clear the purple colt was pressing his face to get a better look inside. “He still thinks he has to do something besides apologize at this point. I even got him all tired from my magic so he’s the only reason he’s still moving around now because he thought I tricked him.” Rarity giggled, “Well I dare say this is a decent sort of revenge if he thinks you are my date. He’s so cute when he’s jealous.” She entered Wishful’s bubble with little effort and rubbed up against him pretending not to see Spike. Both laughed at seeing his reaction which involved him banging on the glass enough for security to have to take him away. “I’ll have to go see him after this little dinner thing Pinkie dragged us to then.” “Well then let’s go and see if we can’t help Pinkie out.” As Twilight had guessed, this dinner was totally boring. She wasn’t used to dinner being this quite. Sure she had grown up in Canterlot, but the only times she didn’t eat alone before coming to Ponyville were when she ate with Princess Celestia and her family. In the former case it was due to being with the Princess that she was so excited and nervous that she couldn’t see it as boring. In the latter it was so rare that she had lots to talk about, especially with Shining Armor. “You know Twiliy. If I didn’t know any better I’d say you had a crush on the poor guy. You’ve done nothing but talk about him nonstop since you came to visit.” Wait a minute. What was that? That memory didn’t make any sense. “The only guy I even interacted with while studying were my brothers,” she thought. “But wait, then why do I only remember times I spent with Shining? Wouldn’t all three of us have hung out too? What’s going on here?” As her mind tried to make sense of this, she found herself looking at her other four companions. Indeed, it looked more like she was the extra wheel then Rarity in this group date. Wishful and her were talking up a storm about Spike, but still having fun because of it. Wishful really had barely said a single word to her at all since they had picked up Rarity. She found it, odd. There was this pulling in her from seeing this when normally she’d just be happy that Wishful found someone to interact with that his magic aura wasn’t effecting. All of this didn’t add up, and the focus of all of this was Wishful Thinking. “So,” said Pinkie finally getting her attention off Big Mac to ask, “What are the two of you so cheery about?” Wishful stopped for a moment and thought before replying. “I have a story I can tell all of you. It has a purpose but you have to be willing to hear it. Everyone interested?” Even Rarity seemed to be taken aback by this, meaning she wasn’t talking about this story with Wishful. That got both of the other mares interested as well. They all agreed with Big Mac giving his usual Eeyup. “Very well then,” said Wishful clearing his throat. Pinkie, being a bit more like herself, shoveled the rest of her food into her mouth so she wouldn’t be eating during. He did his best to imitate an old narrator as he began: “This story starts out with a very simple start. A young pony, trapped in a boring life with little to no fun things to do. This pony had few friends growing up, and only truly found her call when she got her cutie mark. I’ll let you all decide what that mark was because in the grand scheme it only matters that because of this mark the family she had found they had to send their child away to pursue her dream. For a long time the mare did, with many ups and downs along the way. But then one day something happened to a family member most dear to her. Her relative had died, and had been slowly dying for years now and she never knew.” At hearing this story Pinkie’s eye narrowed. Big Mac noticed this and kept his eyes on her as Wishful continued. “The mare knew it was best to just deal with the issue head on. But she couldn’t, I mean how could she? True she did have friends, but to her they were too far away to ever talk about it. So she spent her days making everyone else around her happy instead, granting every pony’s wish to the best of her ability one by one. And to this day I’ve no idea if she will ever come to terms with what she is hiding from-“ Pinkie rose and Big Mac held her back. Wishful cocked and eyebrow with a smirk, “Something wrong Pinkie? I know I’m not very good at telling stories, but I think you should like me finish. Because the story is one most ponies, myself included had at some point. Why else would I have been so broad about it? That is unless there is something YOU wish to tell someone?” Pinkie didn’t respond to that and instead trotted away, her boyfriend following. Twilight rose to follow as well but Rarity stopped her. “Let them be Darling. Wishful was just helping her in an odd way, at my request of course.” “You wanted him to get her mad?” “Not exactly,” replied the unicorn. “But we can hardly do anything about that now. We can talk to her later. Right now it’s best for Big Mac to help however he can first. I can’t say the ends justify the means though.” Both mares looked at Wishful who was had gone back to eating. Twilight banged the table hard to get his attention. He didn’t bother to look up. “Is that how you treat my friends? What kind of Stallion are you?” “Well if you could recall you’d know,” he said simply. “Not that it will matter soon. I’ll be out of you and Spikes hair in the morning. Just trust me. I know what I’m doing.” “Okay,” said Twilight, “Now you’re really not making any sense.” She pressed herself into the bubble not caring what the magic aura did to get him to look her in the eye. Rarity or Wishful would push her away if anything happened anyway. “Despite what you may think, I’m your friend too Wishful. Otherwise I would never have let you stay in my house last night. So explain to me everything right here and now.” Wishful would have likely would have told her, what was eating at him needed to be said. Unfortunately two things stopped him. The first was Pinkie running out which caught attention away from Twilight for a second as Big Mac pursued. The other was that he was knocked clean out by Twilight’s hoof bucking his face and sending him sprawled onto the floor. Angry like he had never seen in her before in her eyes. RealizationHours had passed since the incident that caused Wishful to break one of his wings and the arrest of a certain purple unicorn who had caused a chain reaction that got him into the fix. True she wasn’t the one who did break his wing, but a night in jail was still the penalty for such actions in Ponyville. The other purple unicorn, the younger brother of the incident causer, was only taken in for minor disturbance of the peace and trespassing. Being a still legally a minor by about a year he would have been let go to his guardian soon after arriving…if she wasn’t sharing his cell. Spike and Twilight sat with their faces in their hooves. The night had turned into one of the worst they had ever had. Twilight had a few bruises and a left eye to remind her never to talk to Wishful like that again. The only good thing about it was that they were together, but even then they couldn’t look at each other. Spike finally broke this with his notice of the bell tower tolling midnight. “Why did you end up here?” Twilight still didn’t look Spike in the eye. “I sorta… bucked Wishful Thinking in the face and that spiraled into a giant brawl with every mare in the restaurant after his magic bubble popped.” Spike’s eye alighted, “Really? Good. The guy deserves it for what he did to the two of us.” Twilight cocked an eyebrow. “What are you talking about?” “Wishful is such a back stabber. Guy goes and said he’d help me get back with Rarity, but then uses that night to make his own moves on her and I get arrested for listening to him. He told me to come in through the kitchen entrance and surprise her. I was the one surprised though. I bet he’s still laughing at making me learn some stupid dance moves in one night.” “Uh Spike,” his sister attempted to correct. “Wishful was actually telling the truth. If memory serves you didn’t go to the kitchen and I noticed you looming over the grounds after seeing him talking to Rarity. Then you were arrested because you were looming around and creeping everypony out. Least that’s what the officers were laughing about.” “Wait really? Bah, you’re just trying to cover for him. What was the point of having him grant my wish anyway? When I get my hands on him I’m gonna-“ “Wait Spike what are you talking about?” Spike told his sister everything then. About all he knew about the wish backfire and everything he and Wishful had discussed to that point. At many points Twilight wanted to argue how that didn’t make any sense, but as the narration went on she remembered the little things that were bothering her and everything she was thinking about. All of it would add up if Spike was correct. “But that means you were never my little brother,” Twilight said trying to find some way this couldn’t be the case. “We’ve known one another too long for that not to be the case.” “Well you sort of were before I wished myself like this,” Spike replied. “But honestly it’s hard enough to think how Shining Armor didn’t notice you not hanging out because he was so focused on his own goals at the time. But if I was really your little brother instead of your assistant you would never have had the issues with making friends you did before you met everyone in Ponyville.” “Hey,” said Twilight offended, “I don’t have issues making friends.” “Yeah now you don’t,” he said simply, “but trust me if this wish didn’t change that aspect too much you avoided social interaction like it was the plague. Heck, I think the only guy beside me and Shining you even talked to more than once a year was Wishful when he came to hang out with me. And that includes your own father.” Twilight grimaced as she made a mental note to send a letter to her father and catch up with him. “Still I can’t believe he’d do anything with Rarity. I mean they were friendly sure but-“ Spike blinked, “Wait you said you bucked him in the face. But you’re not mad at him? Does that mean you…?” “Suddenly switched to being mad instead of that embarrassing love struck act when I looked at him? Yeah. Though I don’t understand how that happened. Logically something had to change in him or me but nothing I noticed.” “Guess we’ll have to ask him in the morning,” Spike commented as he lay back on his cell bed. “We can both go by then at least.” “You’re right,” she replied. She didn’t want to mention what Wishful had said to cause the entire incident in the first place. She relaxed herself as well though. The swelling in the black eye stopped by the magic she put into it. The sooner she was asleep the sooner she’d be out of this cell and could get Wishful to explain. Elsewhere, Wishful was packing his things. The time had finally come to do as he was told. And as he left he was again visited by his aunt. “I’m sorry I cannot accompany you my nephew,” the dark alicorn said with a bow. “But I am needed to assist my sister now. Trails were backing up horribly when she was the only ruler. I do wish you had a friend or two to take with you however. Could you not get some male ponies to assist?” “Unfortunately,” Wishful said with his head low as he used the claws on his wings to grab his bag, “In light of recent developments that would be more a detriment to me. The more that come with the worse it will be. And my only male friend now is so mad at me and kinda ignorant he wouldn’t be of any help anyway. I’ll be fine on my own if I just keep to not being noticed by others and only revealing myself to males I need information from.” “Very well nephew,” said Luna as she flapped her wings to begin her journey home. “Be careful, and if ever you need me or my sister simply use your magic again. We can sense when you do after all.” “I’ll keep that in mind,” he said bowing and starting to flap his own wings. He took one last look at Ponyville and remembered some of his favorite times both real and fake that he had with Spike. He turned, only to see a white unicorn cut him off at the pass. “Forgive me if I’m wrong here,” she said looking at him. “But I seem to recall I’m a friend of yours who isn’t affected at all by this curse of yours. I may not have known you long, but I can hardly allow somepony I know who is a friend of my boyfriend and my own friend as well go off on some quest with no assistance.” Wishful shook his head, “No. You’re better off just staying here with your own friends and Spike. I can handle this, I sort of have to.” He began walking but she cut him off again. “Why can you not at least wait till morning so that Spike can go with you then?” “Because,” he answered. “If he does come I’ll be too tempted to take the easy way out of this mess I’m in. Spike may be my best friend but unlike you and your friends, that for me has it’s limits.” “What are you talking about?” “Simply put,” he said with a sideways glance. “If I succeed or not Spike is better off. See I’m sure by now while I can’t go into detail you know what my magic is and why it must have done for Spike. You are not affected by my magic. Meaning instead of Twilight YOU would have all your memories of the time before this wish. Seeing me should have started returning them.” Rarity just stared at the colt. Not saying a word so he continued. “The only other way to get this wish undone with no issue and faster is with the death of the caster or the castey.” “I still don’t understand,” said Rarity. “Why even bother then. You seem able to live out your life alright. And Twilight could one day-“ “She won’t,” he said simply. “There is more to it than that. But as for why I have to do this, it is because you and Spike seemed to have forgotten a little something I noticed from the start but couldn’t get Spike to just throw away his wish. A little birdie told me.” Realization loomed into Rarity’s face. Wishful had expected this since Rarity didn’t show any signs of remembering till now. He trotted past her for a bit, checking his injured wing. Then he felt a pull on his tail. “Will I remember any of this when the wish is undone?” “Don’t know,” he replied. “Never had a half tag along before on one of these. If you’re not near me or Spike when it is done I’m guessing not.” “Then you can count me in,” claimed Rarity. “Spike will be heartbroken when he finds out. I can’t allow such a thing to happen without doing all I can to help. It solves so many issues with this one action of helping you I would be daft not to.” Wishful wanted to yell at her to stay. But he did need the help. With no way to fly and no magic it would be difficult for his none earth pony body to get this task done. “Very well,” he agreed. “But we leave now.” “In light of what you just told me I couldn’t possibly agree more,” she said. “But could we at least delay it a tad so I can pack my own things too and leave a note to Twilight?” “Hurry it up then,” he said trying not to sound too agitated. With that the unicorn bolted off to her home to prepare for the needed journey. Dirt“Look!” Wishful finally had to shout out to Rarity, “I told you to stay home for a reason. How is the hell do you expect to help me on a quest if you can’t even deal with this?” The act of shouting had hurt his wing a little but not enough to cut him off mid sentence. He was looking over a rather tall but easy enough to climb cliff face looking down as his white unicorn companion who was standing perfectly still. “I told you,” called Rarity, “I simply refuse to climb up such a dirty mountain side. My mane would get all messy. Why can’t you just carry me up?” The orange pegasus just rolled his eyes and shook his hurt wing side back at the mare in an expression to show the obvious issue with that even if he didn’t have to fly her up. “Oh come now, your wing should be fine by now. Unicorn magic and natural healing should have it so you can at least move around a lot with it by now.” “Firstly,” replied Wishful trying to hold back his contempt for the mare, “Flesh wings are very different from feather wings. Feather wings can regrow missing plums fast and heal much faster. That putting aside the point I should at least be glad I didn’t put holes in it as it would take months to repair that even with unicorn magic. Secondly, my case is so rare the doctor likely didn’t treat me correctly and just used magic like I was a normal pegasus. And lastly, get your butt up here or I’m leaving you!” “You wouldn’t dare leave a lady is such a place,” called the white unicorn. “I thought you were the best friend of my little Spikey. He wouldn’t leave me here to fend for myself.” At this Wishful just looked up and squinted. “We aren’t even out of eyeshot of Ponyville yet. You have magic and can fend for yourself just fine. I’m not Spike and you were the one that insisted on coming along.” Then he actually thought about this for a second. He was just bluffing but when he realized something he started backing up out of eyesight and proceeded to make smaller sounds to appear to have left Rarity. As soon as he went quiet completly he heard a quick pace of hooves on dirt and Rarity appeared over the cliff calling out, “Wait for…“ She looked down at Wishful who gave her a grin. “…me” “Glad you could finally join me up here,” he said with a laugh as he got up. “I figured you out already. You’re just faking me out to stall me so Spike and Twilight can catch up. Well if you do that again I will really leave you alone. Got it?” Rarity did her best to giggle it off. “Oh I wouldn’t dream of such things. I’ll have you know I really do hate dirt very much and simply had to figure out a way up. It isn’t my fault it would have gone faster if you had carried me.” “Uh huh,” commented Wishful looking Rarity over. “Is that why you have all that dirt under your hooves now then?” Rarity looked down and began to scream. Wishful immediately found out he was wrong about Rarity and took cover from the impending screech and the white unicorn tried desperately to take out the dirt but to no avail. “Oh alright fine,” Wishful finally said holding out his good wing and holding one of Rarity’s hooves. It began to glow slowly and soon enough the dirt all fell out into a pile on the ground that Rarity immediately avoided as she went to her bag Wishful had carried up and pulled out her hiking boots to protect them from further dirt. When she was finally calm she realized what Wishful had just done and turned to him in shock. “Why did you do that? You can only use magic once a day and you waste it on such a petty thing I didn’t even ask of you?” At this Wishful wagged his flank, “It’s what I do. Besides you have magic enough for the both of us if you focus. Nightfall will be around soon enough. I shouldn’t need it that much. Besides once we get all these jewels I should be just as good as when I had a horn.” Rarity swallowed back the notion of getting a rare gem from this quest as just asked exactly what it was about. Wishful explained, “Basically each of the Kingdoms used to have some stone that let none magic uses use magic. Works wonders for the Griffins but getting their help will be last on our list if we wanna live. So I figure of the ones my aunt told me about, the one the unicorns hid away somewhere in these caves long before she firs took power sounded promising. With just that one stone even you should be able to do basic magic Twilight does that you can’t every day. So with you Twilight or even me going out with all the stones I should be able to power an unwishing. But like I said with this kind of risk and likely long trek it would be WAY easier just to off Spike, and if it wasn’t for a few other friends I’d likely do so at some point.” Rarity replied instantly, “I highly doubt that Wishful. I may not have known you long but you are not one to just betray a friend like that.” “Maybe,” said Wishful simply, “but in one of my books I used to have there was a story where to save himself, a pony nearly killed his wife. In our darkest hours we come to know the real us. I’ve heard of Spike in such dangers before with his adventures with you and Twilight. I’ve had no such things. For all even I know, when the time comes and I have to pick…I may just be willing to sacrifice you, Twilight, and Spike to get what I want. It isn’t likely, but you never really know. I suggest you keep that in mind, it’s going to take a few days to get to this cave and I can’t have you trusting me too much. Otherwise my choices will be all the harder.” Rarity didn’t follow but finally asked one last question, “Very well. But if I may ask, why do you even wish to go back to your normal life this badly? I mean it is noble to do this all for Peewee, but if the purpose of the quest is lost by betraying Spike why would you even go?” “Cause while part of me wants to make sure we get back to where Peewee is okay,” said Wishful simply, “there is also a part in me that wishes to get back what I had lost. I can also use these magic stones to grant my own wishes for once if I get them Miss Rarity. For the first time in my life I could be selfish, and that scares me a little. If I didn’t have that part of me that wants a wish for himself I couldn’t even bring myself to go. And that part may be the end of you all. I hope you are satisfied with my answer, because this is your last chance to leave.” He began to look down, hoping this would finally get him alone. It was so much easier to have thoughts of just ending everything faster when he was alone with his own mind telling him how rational it would be to either get rid of Spike or himself and save everypony this useless and likely fruitless journey. Rarity just strolled up to Wishful and gave him a little push to shake him out of his stupor. “Nope,” she said, “I think I’ll stick around. You are not the kind of pony to betray, this I’m sure. And to make sure of that fact I’ll follow you until you are at least ready to join up with my Spike again and have him help YOU for once.” Wishful said nothing and just looked down disappointed in himself as he and Rarity continued their trek. (Author's Note): Since the next part is going to be long and I don't want too much of a cliffhanger if I stop in the middle when I do get to a spot. I decided to put this short part....holy hell how did that become average Backfire lenth? I did work one out now since I'm trying to get a few other stories done first. I plan to have the next chapter up by the end of the year but for now have fun with this if you can. Best wishs MasterofLag Beware the BumblesThe high winds and cold were till hitting the two purple unicorns despite their magic. “Sheesh,” remarked Spike as he tried to push through the heavy snow, “your boyfriend really has a thing against us going through here.” Despite them both at the point they needed to focus fully on the task at hand Spike felt a crash of his magic force field against his sisters that nearly floored him. “I told you it isn’t like that,” called Twilight. “Just cause he’s a guy that isn’t related to me that I care about doesn’t automatically make him my boyfriend. Otherwise I’d be dating Big Macintosh for years.” She emphasized this with another bump. Spike stayed true and bumped back with a smirk. “Who said I was talking about Wishful? I was speaking of your old filly crush on Jack Frost you moron.” Which was in fact true, Spike’s first memories where of Twilight trying to show him how Pegasus ponies may have gotten their powers over winter because of a head elf creature that was in charge of whistling it up for centuries before weather manipulation become the norm in Equestria. Twilight blushed at the memory. She had been such an optimistic fool back then, well more so than now anyway. There was even the one time she had ignored her studies to make sure she could catch the first snowflake of the season, thinking that because elves needed to be believe in to live and no pony she knew believed in Jack meant that he would be grateful and give her a present for her belief. It didn’t help that Shining Armor seemed to enforce that along with her dad as they tricked her into thinking the first fallen snow was for her somehow. Still even now that was why winter was her favorite time of the year, and why she only had Winter Gear on when it came time to clean it up or look normal to other ponies. Magic was simple enough to keep her warm and the less between her and the winter winds the better. Spike wasn’t sure how his sister pictured Jack Frost, and he personally thought of a short little guy who likely would just get annoying after a while, but that wasn’t the point. He had tried getting Twilight’s mind off Wishful and Rarity for the first time in the three days they had been chasing after them and failed. Seeing the trail they were taking, Twilight had determined if they went over this mountain they’d be able to meet them at the first destination obviously on Wishful’s list. Leave it too his sister to know what Wishful was going after even if she wouldn’t tell him. Not like he had a stake in this that could be, you know, important. “Hurry up Spike,” called his sister. “If we take too long we’ll lose the advantage of cutting the mountains in the first place.” Spike responded after spitting out a lump of snow that was freezing his tongue. “I know you can’t teleport us the entire way but why can’t you make a field to at least keep this wind from blowing in our faces? It’s kinda hard to see.” Actually it was because he was sick of using his own magic to keep him warm but he didn’t want to come off as winy. Besides if he did say the truth, Twilight would be a good sister and never let it go in front of Rarity. So yeah a lying we go. “Because then I’d be too tired to walk and you’d have to carry me,” lied Twilight. She was still embarrassed about the emotional erection she was basically having with high cold winds blowing in her face. But it wasn’t all a lie, if she did protect them till they got down then by the time they did catch up to Wishful and Rarity she’d need a huge rest. And she doubted Spike would carry her at all once he was reunited with Rarity. Which left Wishful to be her carrier if that happened and well she could have that now could she? The two ponies became so caught up in the member of the first party that they wanted to see most that they didn’t noticed the thunderous steps for some time that were following them. Had they been good to notice this, Twilight likely could have subdued the thing easily or at least been able to get them out of there fast. But they didn’t, and their stalker was able to follow them and take note of how the female unicorn had the stronger magic. When the creature finally decided to bound after the two it was loud enough that both ponies noticed instantly but it was too powerful and was already in mid air and about to crush Twilight when they turned their heads. Both instinctively blasted the thing with magic but its hide took them like it was nothing. Sharp blue claws sprang for the female unicorn, Spike changing his blast to his magical fire which only seemed to combine with the icy wind instead. For an instant he was flashing his horror of his sister’s dead body before him, but the green winded blast struck the claw and took both it and the creature ten feet away from Twilight. Only grazing her cheek and giving her hair that same look from when he had accidently breath in her face a few times in the past. The creature rose slowly. Its blue skin mostly covered by snow white fur that nearly made it impossible to see in the winds. But as it turned said wind dyed down just enough for this not to be a problem and the two ponies could get a look at the thing that stoop well ever ten feet tall. Spike thought to himself that if there was a Jack Frost, the guy just did everything he could to help the two out so he had better take advantage of it. Twilight however stood unmoving, her encounter had freaked her out so much that she stayed there shaking in place, her brush with death making her unable to do anything short of keeping herself from releasing her bowls. Spike didn’t have time to snap her out of it. So instead he did what he knew she and Wishful would do in this situation. He focused and summoned up the biggest blast he could to shoot at the creature, he hoped if it didn’t stop it at least he could drag Twilight out the line of fire and escape with her. This charge took time he didn’t have though, and he had to watch as the creature made its horrible cry and showed its line of razor sharp teeth. At that moment as he also noticed Twilight’s cheek start to drip red blood, he remembered what this creature was. Wishful had talked with him about it once back when the two were hanging out in Canterlot and he was looking through Wishful’s old reports in magical creature’s class. Wishful laughed at the weirdness of this particular creature. “The Bumble,” he nearly laughed. “He’s gotta be my favorite ‘dangerous creature’.” Wishful had used air quotes at this and talked in a mocking tone. “Thing’s a freaking pussycat if you knock out the teeth. But it’s immune to the effects of magic so only force can touch it, they are usually super hungry since they live in the mountains with so much cold nothing big enough to ever satisfy it ever lives there. It looks intimidating but like I said, it’s a kind creature at heart. I mean how can a creature who can bounce off from any part of its body be anything but something fun? Thing has more stories about it helping ponies and being non-destructive than domesticated dragons like yourself SD.” “Hey,” called Spike somewhat offended. “I’m not domesticated. I can be just as tough as a wild dragon if I wanted to.” He blew out a patch of green fire to show this. Wishful just rolled his eyes, “sure you can. Still one of these days if I got a pet I’d want a defanged Bumble. Since I’m not a unicorn like most of the ponies around here it would give me some status and I could have a friend who’d be a sort of bodyguard too. Long as I kept him well fed anyway.” He chuckled and put the paper away. “He wasn’t a unicorn,” was Spikes mental note to this memory as he finished his charge. The Bumble had opened its claws again to take Twilight. Spike did his best to aim at the teeth of the creature and sent a blast of green force from his horn. He missed and only got it in the face but it was enough that the Bumble flew back again, but this time off the side of the cliff face they were on and a good thirty feet down so it would take time to climb back up. Spike scrambled to grab his sister’s mane and pull hard. Twilight finally yelped at this and regained herself somewhat. “Wh-what in the hoof was that!” “Tell you later,” he yelled still trying to pull her mane in his teeth. “We better get out of here before it-“ But the creature wasn’t gone for very long at all. The thing sailed from the ground as if it were made of cloud and landed in front of the two unicorns. It roared at them and blood trickled from its nose and mouth, it had lost the majority of its top front teeth. It was furious at the male unicorn. “I mean how can a creature who can bounce off from any part of its body be anything but something fun?” “If I live through this,” Spike told the memory of Wishful. “I’m going to tell you how.” With Twilight still out of it and he counted into a charge at the beast putting all he could into it. At this point the cold winds blew yet again. Spike thought he could hear a laugh as he pressed into the Bumble who wrapped its arms around Spike, trying to crush him as the two fell off the mountain’s deeper side. One that even if the Bumble bounced off of, he could never climb back up again. He saw hundreds of feet fly by him as they fell. And the last thing he heard was Twilight’s cry for him as he passed out from the sight and his bones starting to give into the Bumble’s grip. Author's Note I wanted to go further in this chapter, but that would require going back to Wishful and I wanted a chapter with just Spike and Twilight for once. Hope you enjoy, and see you guys at this story next year as I try to get new stuff or my other stories out by the end of the year. Another fun fact was the Jack Frost thing, it was going to be its own story but I had to change it since I didn't have the time to make yet another one shot that would likely turn into an ongoing thing in the time I had left. Reboot InfoBasically because I know nobody reads the Blog I'm putting the news up here. I'm finally going to Reboot this story, though not in the way you may all want it. Basically I've been struggling with how to make this story work and fighting starting yet another story instead after reading the and finding problems with a certain Fanfic that uses a 7th element of harmony. so thanks to all this and being on a Les Mis and Sweeney Todd kick of sorts, guess what? Wishful Thinking is getting rebooted as the Element of Hope with obvious nods to such things and his first solo "episode" as it were when it comes to that will be a simplier version of Backfire since it allows an established way to make Wishful's issues funny instead of needlessly stupid or overdramatic ALONG with Spike. You can find the link to it here if you wanna fav at all since it may be a bit before I release anything since I really wanna finish Cog in the Machine first and I have Power Rangers to work on here too. The Password is Backfire Lastly, because of this being an AR story I figure what better way to figure out plans for how I'm going to have Wishful have a romance than seeing how you guys want it. So feel free to comment suggestions on a better love interest than just bothering with what I have in mind right now of Applejack or Keeping the Twilight thing. I'd perfer to work it with a background character, but too many to choose and it doesn't lend much to interacting with them outside this friend circle when I make Alternate chapters of episodes. Thanks for Reading. Sorry But I just can'tWell here we are, If you guys don't follow me you may notice I tend to do this and I've tried my hardest with ensuring this story didn't stop. But yeah I think it's time to put old yeller out to pasture. Along with finding out the fate of Peewee, which was of course the reason Wishful was going to bother. And the complications from my other story Love of the Draw being a series where way more work is needed when I do work on it than any other fic, I have to cut this line. Outside the last chapter with the Bumble, I pretty much was coasting each chapter with this story since the chapter "We Dun Goofed" The story got more complicated and I didn't actually plan a full on ending outside the fact it was going to end with Wishful just up and dying and Spike forgetting all of this. I felt that ending sucked so I tried just winging it till something else came. But with other stories needing my attention this one that his only a half formed idea is sort of hard to bother with. All I had was introducing a Cyborg Pony next chapter and some interactions between Spike and Rarity, the Twilight thing was supposed to just have the complication of Twilight feeling off about the Cyborg and stuff but again too complicated and maybe I can use the cyborg another time. Sorry for all who followed, but with no real ending, Peewee in the show completely gone thus nurfing this a bit even if I had it take place before that episode, and that entire Alicorn Twilight thing also mucks up this thing, not because she becomes an Alicorn but It would mean delaying till season 4 to see how the entire princess thing works and yeah not doing that. No point sending my focus back here when I can just work on fixing my other hiatused stories that do have real endings planned. Thanks for being my first followers, all of you since this was my first fanfic in so long. And thank you.
PrologueSpike was sitting at the bar inhaling one doughnut after another. Pony Joe had decided it would save time to simply give him an extra large batch. That way, he would have time to attend to the other customers without having to get into their usual fight about Spike getting too much sugar. Unlike when spike had stormed in during the Grand Galloping Gala, Twilight was not going to be there to stop him. Spike had come to Canterlot because of business involving his pet who was still at the castle or something with Princess Celestia. So Joe was forced to call upon a mutual friend to pick up spike after he passed out during his 40th one. The dark orange unicorn didn’t look pleased to be called at this hour. He didn’t like being up during the night much at all in general and usually was well into dreamland by now. He was blinking his drooping, sky blue eyes trying to stay awake as he tussled his brown mane, which was shaggy for a lack of brushing. “Sorry to have to call you for him Wishful Thinking.” Joe’s apology didn’t sound that good to anyone thanks to being so busy with the other customers and being alone in the shop that night. Wishful looked down at Spike, who was covered in jelly from a few that rolled off the plate when he passed out. The sugar coma was clear to him so he just looked back up to Joe, blinked again with a yawn as he looked around. "What's with all the couples around here?" he said without a hint of longing Joe would expect from most ponies in Wishful's position. "The place is packed." “You kidding?” Joe replied, “Hearts and Hooves day was today. Every eatery is packed.” “Really?” stated Wishful in surprised, “Never kept up with the holiday but I figured this place isn’t that romantic.” “I’ll ignore that comment.” Joe said with a scowl. “Look. Can you just take Spike? This mess is bad enough as it is with just me and I can’t have people slipping on him when I’m not looking.” Wishful looked down at Spike. The sugar coma was clear to him so he just looked back up to Joe. “I can help, you know.” He yawned again. “Just promise to unwish in the morning when I come by.” “Really?” Joe said with excitement, “You’d use your magic for this. Thanks you’re a life savor. I’ll even pay.” “I’m too tired to discuss this so just make it already I’ve gotta get back to bed.” Wishful lifted Spike onto his back as he said this so that Spikes belly rested on his back. “Great. I wish I had enough help to make this night go as smoothly as possible.” The orange unicorn’s horn glowed as Joe said this and every pony watched as four earth ponies that looked like wishful appeared out of nowhere with Donut Joe aprons on. Two them began cleaning up Spike’s mess quickly and the others went to table to get orders so Joe could focus on making the right donuts. “Thank you so much Wishful,” Joe’s thanks was barely audible as everyone started shouting at the waiter ponies to get their attention. “Don’t mention it.” Wishful said yawning again. “Just make sure you undo it in the morning or I’m gonna need to charge you.” “You got it.” Joe said with a smile as he went back to work. The sounds died down as Wishful walked down the block back to his apartment with Spike on his back. “That’s your second favor SD. You only have one more left to call me in on.” He knew Spike couldn’t hear him but he still said it to keep himself awake long enough to get back inside. As he entered his apartment he looked around for what he expected. While he was gone four mares had broken in and taken his bed and couch. He knew it would happen since it wasn’t like he was going to get four helpful colts of his own cleaning up his place when it didn’t need it and robbery was common in the neighborhood lately. Spike puked on the floor and rolled off Wishful’s back into the stuff. Wishful sighed. “Happy Hearts and Hooves Day to me.” He’d get a call that his stuff was found in the morning like he always did anyway so he throw Spike in the shower and turned in on before plopping down himself to go back to dreamland. The Screams of surprise from Spike giving him at least one thing to be happy about.
A request A request “Ug, not this again.” Wishful Thinking was starting on the last of his boxes as he talked to his guest. “What’s this, like the fifth time this year you complained to me about this girl?” He set up the various items in his box, cheap trophies that were for participation in an awry of activities with his name on them. He figured something should go on the mantle by the fireplace even if it wasn’t impressive. Wishful was careful not to bring up the fact Spike was a dragon and this girl he kept going on about was a pony. Logic dictates that it will never work due to the fact she’d grow old and die before Spike was even halfway to his full growth. He’d made the mistake of bringing this up before and despite Twilight Sparkle, spikes guardian, agreeing with him that it wasn’t healthy; even she went into a long speech with him about love transcending such matters and blah blah blah. “But I got her a gift and everything,” cried the dragon as he swept the floor covered with streamers into a nice pile. “And she didn’t even react. She was all over this other guy at the party.” “Let me guess,” replied Wishful in a dull tone. “He was a white unicorn with a lot of money.” “How…” Spike began. “I had a guess. I haven’t even met this girl of yours and you’ve talked about her enough that was a simple guess. If that girl, Pinkie Pie was it, throws another party for me I’ll make sure no white colts are allowed.” “That’s no good,” said Spike, “You’ll hurt some pony’s feelings.” “Whatever. I was only offering for your sake. Seems to me SD, that you should just bite the bullet and ask her out. Do or die. If she rejects you that’s it, you move on. Simple.” “NO!” Spike shouted. He suddenly turned red as he continued, “I mean how could I risk losing the love of my life. She’s...” “The most beautiful pony in Equestria,” finished Wishfu mimicking Spike’s voice. “I know. You say at least 4 times every time you talk to me. Just do it dude, and if it doesn’t work just stay friends. Simple.” “I already tried that,” said Spike. “I thought I was going to die once and tried to say it but she cut me off and stopped me.” “What?” replied Wishful in amazement as he stopped what he was doing and picked up spike to put on his dining room table so they were at eye level before quoting a favorite book of his as he did now and then. “This I simply must hear.” When Spike was finished with his tale of nearly destroying ponyville, Wishful had a wide grin on his face. “Oh she defiantly likes you.” “What?” Spike's confusion was made even worse by his friend's laugh. “And the fact you can’t see it is the reason you guys are not good for each other yet.” “How would you know? You’ve never dated anyone.” Wishful Scowled, “True, but if I was in your position I would have been trying again when all the destruction was cleaned, to impress her. You just rebooted because you didn’t want to risk your friendship with her. She obviously has the same thoughts and cut you off before it could threaten your friendship with her.” “That doesn’t make any sense," replied Spike scratching his head. “Well she doesn’t like you as you want, but it’s a good starting point is what I meant.” Wishful returned to his boxes lifting Spike with his magic and placing him outside his house. “Now go on and tell the girl how you feel. Make it nice and emotional and all that.” “Wait,” said Spike figuring things out, “You’re not trying to get rid of me now that I helped clean up the house are you?” Wishful laughed with a hint of guilt, “of course not. I just want to see two lovers be together. Now go on.” And with that he slammed the door on Spike. And it slammed open again with Spike pushing it so, breaking the door hinge in the process. “That reminds me.” Wishful cringed, he knew what was coming. The reason he and Spike had so many talks about Spike’s love life was because Wishful would always try to steer the conversation away before it got to this point. “I wanted to call in my last favor.” Wishful could hear the glass breaking in his mind. Now there was no way he could convince Spike otherwise. He hated using his special talent. The bright single white star on his flank was only good as a decoration, much like his trophies, as far as he was concerned. “I need you to grant me a wish.” And there it was. Wishful still tried, “SD, you know what happens when I use my magic. Either the same thing or the opposite happens to me. Sometimes even worse than the wish I grant.” “I know. But I really need something. It’s not like I’m going to wish for her to love me or anything I promise.” Spike seemed to be telling the truth. But ever since the banjo incident Wishful was skeptical. “And I promise it won’t be like the banjo incident.” Spike insisted. Wishful muttered about Spike being some kind of mind reader before thinking it over. After some time he finally started bashing his head against the chimney hard until a small trickle of blood dripped from his temple that he hit. “What’s that about?” Spike asked. “Punishing myself early for agreeing to do this,” Wishful said with a scowl. Spike’s happiness was nearly uncontainable as he ran in to hug his friend in thanks. Fire shot from his nose as he tried to keep his mouth shut. “Two things though.” he added through slight choking sounds. “Anything man,” Spike replied. “First, I want you to really think this through. Most of my wishes get unwished pretty fast and we need to think of a good one that won’t have any really bad side effects to me. So, no wishing for money or power or crap like that. Got it?” “Got it,” Spike said with a frantic nod. Wishful nodded and continued, “and second: You’ve done enough stuff with Ms. Sparkle to know that you need to be focusing when magic is used on you. Dragons have a natural resistance to magic they don’t allow so if you don’t stay focused I can’t guarantee the result. Understood?” “Understood,” Spike agreed though Wishful could tell Spike had already begun to day dream again about this Rarity. So he slapped in across the face. “I’m serious. This is a magic even Ms. Sparkle wouldn’t dare try without combining powers with BOTH of the princesses. I can’t have you phasing out like that if I’m going to give you an actual wish that isn’t something material.” Spike rubbed his cheek and nodded slowly this time. “I understand.” “Good. Then tomorrow night come by here and wake me up. My powers work best when there is a wishing star around and I don’t know how much we’ll need to do whatever you are going to do. I’d ask what the wish is but if you told me it of no use.” And with that he sent Spike off as the sun started to dip. Wishful crawled into his bed not worrying about it since as long as Spike kept what he told him in mind that would be no issue. And besides odds were like most things he his magic did that were not his idea, the pony in question would regret it in 24 hours, and even he could live with some bad things until then. And he’d get Spike off his back and be even with him again. He hated owning favors anyway. It was a win-win situation. What could possibly go wrong?
The Day BeforeThe tinkle of a music box chimed. The like fire bird next to it sang along with it for extra effect. Spike rose from his bed slowly to notice that despite the pleasant noise Twilight snored loudly on her own bed. She had a lot of work to do all that night even after showing up to the welcome party for Wishful with which she had done all in her power to avoid him after her greeting. And after giving Spike more of an earful for insisting he would help clean up instead of Pinkie she was likely drained with a full nights work. Spike wasn’t sure why Twilight didn’t like Wishful outside the fact he never said her name and even when addressing her would just call her TS to her face with little respect. The two were basically the same age after all and Twilight didn’t even dislike Trixie that much. Pushing that thought out of his mind he focused his attention to the music box. A land dragon like himself and a sky dragon danced in the center as it chimed. The inside was customized by the giver with a double lid that could open to hold gems. Rarity had filled them with baby blue sapphires she had left over from an order and a small white diamond acted as the lifting piece to the compartment. She had given it to him for Hearth’s Warming Day along with other various custom gifts to all her other friends. Spike liked to think however that his took especially long and a lot of care. The baby phoenix by the music box chirped up to its master. Spike had trained Peewee to open the box for him when it was time to get up. Taking one of the baby blues into his mouth and savoring it as long as possible before closing the box and going downstairs to get started on his work. He had a lot to think about to get this wish right. Wishful wasn’t the type to kid around. “Okay maybe he is”, thought Spike, “but he never kids about his powers.” The Work would not take long today. It was the day the library was closed and everyone was taking their pets out for a play date. Peewee was still too young to fly but it was his favorite day of the week so he couldn’t disappoint him. And he’d get to see Rarity again before going to Wishful’s. It would help him consider exactly what he wanted. Wishful Thinking stretched as he winked and started to make breakfast for himself. He wasn’t worried about messing up the wish magic. He didn’t practice it much on this scale, but he used the magic in his horn for nearly anything so he was about to gauge his powers nearly as well as Twilight Sparkle did. Twilight, Wishful wondered himself why she didn’t like him despite how friendly he tried to be in the past. Even at the welcome party she was only there because she wanted to keep an eye on Spike. “What am I to her?” he thought, “The way she acts it’s like I was going to hurt him or something.” He got a vague memory flash of his younger self, this constantly happened every time he even thought of Twilight for too long. Memories of some of the dumbest things he ever did in magic kindergarten to try and get her to recognize him as a rival. That was before he got his cutey mark and found out his talent was to make other’s dreams come true. Before he granted his first wish without knowing the consequences of his spell. Before he had been saved by Spike, which had started them being friends. He pushed it out of his mind. The colt in him was still furious that the pony he most wanted to overcome not only did so much better than him in life, but the fact she didn’t even think his own magic was worth learning so he could hold it over her head. He was more mature now, and with that he had granted many wishes and learned much more about his wish making spell. By the time Twilight and Spike had left to live in pony-ville Wishful had become so jaded he started to hate his powers since he knew his own wishes couldn’t be granted by this spell and anyone who needed more than some passing help with a wish would always want to undo the work and energy he used to grant it. A meaningless effort, that’s all it was to anyone. And in return he had gotten nothing. It was only because of the fact he assisted a wonder bolt by chance without his magic that he even had the money to move to this town with not much of a night life so he could find it easier to sleep early. He’d need to find a job soon but for now he could relax as he had to get used to the new surroundings. After breakfast he went to his bookcase. He’d forgotten to get a new book to celebrate his new house. So not wanting to waste the trip he got out one of his favorites: “Treasure of the Lost Lamp.” He related a lot to one of the characters in this one, a genie that couldn’t have a real life and was forced to grant wishes for all time without even the choice of whose he granted. The end was the best in that the old stallion that found the lamp used his last wish to grant the genie his freedom. In return the genie was powerless, but he now had a life and friends, something Wishful was a little short on. Not everyone was like Spike, most ponies he befriended only did so for a wish, but Spike was different. He stayed his friend even after a wish went wrong. It had been the time he and Spike had found out about a dragon’s magic resistance. Something Twilight already knew and yelled at Wishful for not knowing before trying whatever it was he tried that caused the mess in her room. And Spike even tried to help however he could with fixing things, when that blasted Twilight didn’t keep him under her hoof for assistance herself. That was the other reason he moved here, to be close to his only other friend. Another stupid flash, this time to Twilight and his magic kindergarten teacher yelling at him after his first wish granting. What was it again? He couldn’t remember that part. His life consisted of what he was doing now that he had sort of quit trying to make wish granting a job and didn’t bother telling anyone what the cutie mark was about. Avoiding the night so his powers wouldn’t be enhanced and thus he’s be more tempted to grant under Luna’s moon, not trying to befriend others himself anymore since wishing was all they would be after in time, and hiding in fantasy books that didn’t really give him anything but a wish that his own talent was something, anything but what he got. Wishful finished his book quickly; of course he had since it was his millionth time through so he was just reading his favorite scenes. With nothing else to do he decided he might as well get any shopping he needed out of the way first and then start looking for work. Finishing with a stop by the library to get a Daring Do book he may have missed so he had something new to read at least. Peewee chirped happily on Owlowiscious’ back. The Owl had taken a habit of letting the little phoenix ride his back on the way to the pet play date, echoing his master as she carried Spike too as he looked through various notes in Twilight’s saddlebags. Peewee loved to feel the wind on his face. The only thing he loved more than this was Spike, so of course he couldn’t wait till he could fly. His ride landed in a tree and Peewee hopped off as he always did so Owlowiscious could play with Twilight. Spike took him from the branch and thus the fun would commence. Peewee still noticed how Spike’s heart wasn’t into playing with him today. The poor guy had Rarity on the mind again. Twilight Sparkle and Rarity were always higher then Peewee on the love scale that was Spike, but he was still higher than everyone else and was perfectly happy with that. Every now and then Spike would stare at Rarity as they played before turning his attention back to him; which is why Peewee had guided the play date so that Spike could be closer to Rarity more and more. Opal had already learned not to mess with him the last time he tried this. Granted it meant Rarity was mad at Spike for a week but all was well in time. Opal wasn’t even freaked this time and just ran up a tree to which Peewee gave chase since even an idiot could see what Peewee was doing and decided to further things along. Lucky for Peewee Rarity was oblivious and Spike was dumber than a bag of hammers in front of Rarity. The two bumped into each other giving chase to the tree and fell over. “Oh Rarity I’m so sorry,” came Spikes clammy tone as he helped her up. “Oh it’s quite alright Spike,” replied Rarity shaking her head and fixing her mane. She coughed and Spike released the hand he had forgotten was still holding onto the hoof he had lifted her from. Peewee took this as a clue to jump onto Rarity’s snout. Causing Spike to again worry but Rarity just giggled. “Oh hello cutie.” Spike removed the baby phoenix from her nose before biting the bullet and asking now that they were face to face. “So Rarity how was that guy you were with the other night?” Peewee jumped onto Spikes head and looked around. The other five mares had looks of both curiosity and shock. Rarity seemed to freeze in place for a moment before replying. “Well if you must know. It didn’t go very well. He already had a mare…..and two colts.” Peewee wasn’t paying attention after that. It was too confusing with all the ponies suddenly moving and talking over each other. All he could see was that Spike was sort of relieved, but mostly concerned and hung his head and just listened more intently to Rarity’s tale. Boring. So Peewee just played with the other pets he could until everyone decided to go home. Wishful Thinking finished his shopping easily. He even had a few places he could scout for work. Pinkie Pie had actually said she’d help find the perfect job for him when she had time tomorrow since she had to babysit the Cake’s twins that night. Combined with talking a bit to the townsfolk who didn’t ask about his mark at all he was delighted how friendly everyone was. “Maybe I was just freaked, he thought, after all everyone in class knew my talent because I was the first to get it in class and used it to become popular. Didn’t really work out but new place new start. Things are looking up for once.” And then he went to the library. True he should have known it was closed. But he figured Spike would be there and it would be a simple task to borrow a book to read a bit before resting up. He had gotten there just as Twilight and Spike had gotten back from something. And Twilight didn’t seem too happy, bad sign. “I can’t believe that guy,” she was exclaiming. “How could he fool her like that?” Spike wasn’t talking much. “What’s up?” Wishful was honestly curious by nature anyway and he figured it had something to do with this girl, Rarity was it? But that was only a guess, and an unfair one at that. Twilight finally noticed him. Was it just Wishful seeing this or did Twilight’s mood suddenly go from miffed to furious? “AND YOU!” “Me?” Wishful wasn’t sure what was going one but the colt in the back of his mind was loving any reason to have himself be the cause of her pain no matter how small. “Why exactly are you here?” Twilight’s tone was off. Wishful may have avoided her after magic kindergarten but he knew her well enough to see something was off. But the colt in his head plus trying to figure this wasn’t very easy to balance for him. “I just wanted to borrow a book. That’s no way to talk to a customer TS.” “Don’t abbreviate my name you cur!” At that Spike joined in if only for a bit, “what’s a cur?” Before Twilight could say it Wishful did with his eyes narrowed at his childhood rival, “It means a contemptible stallion.” “Contempi-what?” This time Twilight was first, “Contemptible means he’s a very bad guy.” “Exactly why I ask what make me a cur?” Wishful made sure to roll the r for no reason since he knew Twilight liked perfect diction. Twilight’s eye twitched before she sighed and gave up. Storming off into the tree. “Okay seriously,” said Spike. Whatever was on his mind had apparently left him in Twilight’s outburst out of nowhere. “What is up with you and Twilight? She wasn’t like this before we moved here.” “With my luck I used my magic to have someone get along better with his girlfriend, so in return my magic had the great fortune of making the one mare who already didn’t like me get irrational or something. My best guess anyway. That or I somehow timed moving here with that time of the month.” “What time of the month?” “Wait you seriously live with her and you don’t know?” “Well she does get really hot all of the sudden every month and tells me to visit the princess and you. But she hasn’t had time to send me off lately.” He face hoofed. “Well that explains some of the extra hostility, but how am I supposed to grant you a wish to make a girl like you better when you don’t even know about them going into heat.” “Hey trust me, if it was that important I’d know what you’re talking about I think.” “Point taken.” Wishful gazed at the door and then at Spike. “Guess it isn’t a good idea to go in there. Is there anything new that came in since last month in the fiction section?” Spike thought before answering. “Not really, sorry.” “Meh, that’s alright.” He noticed the little bird on Spikes Tail. “What’s that?” “Oh,” Spike replied as he took the little fire bird from his tail. “This is Peewee. He’s my pet phoenix. Guess I forgot to introduce him to you the last time I came up the Canterlot. Can’t exactly bring him to a party with his size.” Peewee proceeded to job out of Spike’s grip and chirped up at Wishful. Wishful smiled and handed him a bit of bread he had gotten while shopping. The little guy could barely balance as he walked to the library door. “SPIKE!” called Twilight, “get in here we have to organize these books by tonight. And tell that jerk outside to go home.” Wishful rolled his eyes and told Spike he’d meet him later tonight. And then with a voice loud enough for Twilight to hear he said, “And when she passes just slap her ass. Girls love that.” “Okay, who were you trying to annoy more?” asked Spike shaking his head and closing the door to the library. Wishful chuckled as he heard Twilight asking what he was telling Spike so loud the entire town might here. So he headed home to clear up his backyard for tonight. This wish had better be good, he thought to himself.
The Day After“Twilight I don’t have time for this. Move aside.” “No, I’m not letting your weird spell work on Spike.” “If you’d take a minute to get out of my way I’ll do it for you.” “Likely story for a magic drop out.” Twilight seemed to feel sorry about that last comment but had to focus her efforts on spike. “No you’re doing it all wrong. Listen to me!” “I won’t let you hurt my little Spiky Wikey.” Came a new voice. “Who the hay are you?” “Rarity?” muttered Spike. “Ah crap.” A flash, darkness, and the sound of Twilight’s loud snoring. Spike yawn and fumbled. How odd his alarm didn’t wake him this time. He got up and looked. There was no music box on his night stand. Spike cried out, waking Twilight from her sleep. “What? Is something the matter?” She was almost in as much of a daze as Spike was turning her head in all directions. “The music box Rarity gave me. It’s gone!” Spike was panicking as he galloped around the room…..galloped? Twilight rubbed the sleep from her eyes, “Spike what mu-“ She was cut off by Spike’s obvious squeals of delight at something as he raced to a mirror. Purple coat, short green spiky main and tail and an emerald flame cutey mark looked back at him. It worked. He’d wished to be a unicorn and it worked. Twilight Sparkle finally got out of bed to see him and looked down. “What exactly has you all hyper? I thought you were depressed.” Something was off, height wise he wasn’t as tall as Twilight. He wasn’t exactly the size of Sweetie Belle though. Almost somewhere in the middle. That awkward time where a pony isn’t fully grown but is out of schooling with Cheeralee. “I gotta see Rarity,” he exclaimed as he run out the house leaving the door wide open. Twilight tried to call after him. Half confused herself what was going on. Even though the body should have been new to him, it felt like he’d had it just as long as his dragon one. He galloped so fast. He even tried to wink a few times on the way just to see if he could use magic too. He could and he appeared and disappeared as if it was second nature. This was great. Wishful’s magic really was the best. Not a trace of him being a dragon remained on him. He could even see the townsfolk who were up in the morning whispering to each other as they say him. “No doubt they love my new look,” he thought, “well it’s not like they know it’s me. Only Twilight would have seen it before with Wishful explaining everything.” He reached Rarity’s place in no time, yet if felt like an eon before he got to knock at the door. As he did he suddenly realized he didn’t have a reason to stop by. “Come on Spike,” he thought to himself, “think of something. Anything will do.” Sweetie Belle answered the door. At first Spike would have asked why she was there but he smelt the vague scent of burned food on her so it must have been for that reason. “Guess I still got my dragon’s senses.” Sweetie Belle didn’t wear the same happy face he usually saw when he was around her. “And what do YOU want?” Spike was taken aback at Sweetie Belle’s tone but still replied. “I uh, came here to see Rarity.” He could feel the air around him tremble when he said that. Sweetie Belle’s horn glow brightly and he suddenly realized so was his own horn. He was good enough at magic that he was blocking whatever Sweetie Belle was doing with ease unconsciously. Sweetie Belle finally gave up, her voice cracking as she yelled at Spike. “Why would my sister EVER want anything to do with you after what you did to her last night?” “Last night?” All he did last night was get Wishful to use his magic and woke up now. “When did I see Rarity last night?” He only vaguely remembered Rarity showing up in his dream he just got out of. “Oh!” Sweetie exclaimed suddenly trying to copy her sister’s face when annoyed but looking more like a confused mouse to Spike than angry, “how dare you say that you cur!” “Oh now that word makes sense,” said Spike absently as he tried to push Sweetie Belle out of the way. He succeeded due to his superior size but not without difficulty as Sweetie pushed back with all her might and magic to try to force him out of Carousel Boutique. Spike heard Pinkie Pie screaming something in the distance but ignored it as he pushed hard. He had waited too long to go home empty handed. Well empty hoofed now but same difference. “Sweetie Belle?” the sweetest voice in the word. “Are you down there?” Finally, there she was. Slender white legs were all he could see, but he felt every more attracted to her than before. Perhaps because he was not the same as her and didn’t have that species hump. Wait, this walk was very weak. She was only doing it a little but it was shaking with each step. Then he saw, the messy mane far more in tatters than he had ever seen. The amount of water on her face, she was covering for the fact she most only have recently stopped crying all night. That guy from the other night, she was crying all night because of that guy. Spike felt the fire spark from his horn slightly at the sight of her. Whoever would do such a thing to his love doesn’t deserve to live. It was only then as he noticed the blue in her coat around her eyes crack as she looked at him. A plethora of fledgling emotions surfacing on her face to contort it into something he had never seen before. She soon suppressed it like a master and whispered carefully so it was barely audible, “Get out.” Spike was in shock. That must have been wrong. Suddenly things he wasn’t paying attention to crept into his mind and it was left there. Sweetie Belle was finally able to move him now and combined with Rarity’s magic he was out post haste. The door slamming in his face. She was mad…at him. But he didn’t do anything with her yesterday, how could he have done something to get her mad? Let alone something on this level that she would not want to see him and have such obvious sighs of crying. He was in shock. His entire body trembled and the very thought he could do something to her emotionally scarring. Something that was worse than when he became a greed filled monster that would do this. His shock however was cut short and he jumped back to attention as he heard a loud boom from the distance. Something fell in front of him as raining bits of wood came down on the rest of the town in front of him. The something was a book, it wasn’t one Spike read since he didn’t read often since he had his fill with the ones Twilight gave him for his birthdays. Faust read across the cover. It was one of Wishful’s favorite books. Wishful Thinking...that was it. He would know what was going on much more than Spike could after all. Spike looked in horror. The Rainbow mushroom cloud was there in the direction of Wishful’s house. Then it was Wishful’s book. Spike rushed to their as fast as he could, the closer he got the more he heard something odd. Rainbow Dash he sort of expected become of the Atomic Rainboom, but Pinkie’s voice could also be heard in the area. Both were calling out Wishful Thinking’s name in anger. “Where are you!” screamed Pinkie. “You can’t hide forever!” screamed Rainbow Spike stopped when he got near ground zero. Pieces of Wishful’s house lay everywhere. Even inside trees like a knife drove into them only instead this was a plank of wood. “Wishful,” he called but not too loud. He got the feeling he shouldn’t let the other two ponies he could hear hear him. “Keep Quiet Spike,” Wishful’s voice from behind a tree was in a rasp. “That pink haired one is nearby.” Spike approached the tree talking lower, “Thank Celestia I found you Wishful. I got to talk to you about last night. What Happened?” “Trust me,” said Wishful from behind the tree, “when I figure that out you’ll be the first one to know. But for now we have a bigger problem.” “A bigger problem?” Spike looked around before Wishful the unicorn came out from behind the tree. Why were the other girls after him to this point? Then he saw Wishful. “Yeah, a considerably bigger problem.” Said the voice of the dark orange dragon winged Pegasus pony known as Wishful Thinking. “I can’t undo this wish.” Suddenly Fluttershy came into view, a look of pure fury on her face. “I found you!” “Gallop,” cried Wishful pushing Spike forward. “Gallop for your life.”
We Dun Goofed“I wish I was the perfect colt for Rarity.” “Wait, stop….Crap.” Wishful Thinking’s voice echoed. “What do you think you’re doing to Spike?” “Rarity?” Wishful’s voice carried but was muffed more as it went on. “Oh not now. I don’t have time to talk about this right now I have to focus.” “I’m not letting you go any further.” Wishful opened his eyes. He stretched as usual for himself before going down to make himself breakfast. In retrospect he would likely find it funny he was halfway through eating before he figured out he had just made and ate breakfast with his hooves alone. This was odd because he never used his hooves if he could help it or was reading a book. He looked himself over as he headed for the only mirror in his house which was still not packed out, but he unpacked it yesterday didn’t he? That was when he noticed the thick scaled edges of his new wings. The foldable parts of the wings were still flesh. Only the tips gleamed with a tiny bit of purple to offset his orange coat that had spread over them. A closer look showed they were a type of jewelry and when he removed them he could see why. Without them his wings were unnoticeable against his flesh and looked rather scarred under one of them. He wondered how he got that one, must have been interesting. Still he’d been turned into a Alicorn before because of a dumb wish to turn someone into an Earth pony a few years back so he wasn’t about to freak out. That is until he saw his reflection in the mirror. No horn. HE had NO HORN. Wishful Thinking stared at his reflection, this had never happened. He always had a way to undo his wishes. The power to undo the wish had be the same amount he put into it. Even the few times he helped Pony Joe he didn’t need much energy. But this wish was different. To get past Spike’s dragon natural resistance he had hit him with everything he had. And it would take the same effort to undo it. Meaning the only way he could plausibly undo this wish now is to…..no he couldn’t do either option yet. “That’s right”, his inner colt told him, “and you can get used to being a Pegasus. The wings are pretty cool, and Spike likely got what he wanted. Maybe this won’t be so bad.” That was the good thing about being who he was. He never panicked for long. Oh it lingered, he’d likely resent Spike a bit for the rest of his life but as long as Spike was happy he’d be fine with it as a whole. He’d helped his friend have his dream and that was all he needed to not lose it. Well that and reading Brother Ursa. That would let him get some of his anger with Spike out of the way since it was about a Pony who was turned into an Ursa Minor that had to take care of a smaller one as repentance for the wrong he did. He had finished one of his favorite parts when there was a knocking on the door, but not from his front door. He opened to back door to see that Pony who throw the welcome party for him a two days ago. Pinkie Pie’s wide grin faltered when she saw Wishful Thinking. “Guess I can’t be surprised,” he thought. “Just yesterday I was a unicorn and here I am a Pegasus now.” From there things got weird though as Pinkie Pie fired confetti in his face with enough of a blast to send him sprawling to the other side of the house. The sound called Rainbow Dash who seemed to be fine until again she saw Wishful Thinking. He wasn’t sure how he got out of the house, or why it was so suddenly destroyed. The pieces of his life were falling one by one. But all he could think was, “yeah, that seems about right.” And things only got worse when he noticed Spike in the distance. Obviously something had gone wrong on his end as well. “Just peachy.” Spike made a mental note to himself. He much preferred running as a pony than most anything besides eating a fire ruby and his friends. If only this running wasn’t caused by he and Wishful Thinking running for their lives and three angry mares chased them he’d be in heaven. Rainbow Dash was the closest to them. It was Wishful who notice that, as fast as the two were moving, the fastest pony in the land would have caught them by now. He wasn’t sure if Spike was the one keeping her away or what but at least he wouldn’t have to worry about that sonic rainboom thing again. Wait, how did he know that was the name of that move? Wishful tried opening his wings. If anything else he may be able to get away easier and Spike wouldn’t be chased; after all the three were only after him. Much like Spike with running in a new body, Wishful didn’t even have to think about it to spread his wings and take fight. The wind felt really good. Unfortunately Spike wasn’t free from pursuers. The Mares that were whispering to each other earlier were now joining in the fray and after Spike. Shouting how he was the enemy of all mares. Wishful did a simple dive to pick up Spike. He seemed light as a feather in his hooves. Unfortunately, or fortunately it suddenly caused a lot of them to fight for some reason the instant he was seen. “Day just keeps getting better and better.” It was then Wishful got an idea. “Spike, can you wink?” “What?” it was hard for Spike to hear with all the galloping. They would be in the forest soon enough if they just passed over Fluttershy’s house. “Wink,” Wishful repeated, “can you wink us somewhere far from here?” “Well I-I can try at least,” Spike said hesitantly. In the flash of green both were gone. And with that the three mares suddenly stopped what they were doing. Fluttershy was the first to speak, “W-where did he go?” Rainbow Dash snorted, “He winked out with Spike the coward. When I get my hooves on him I’m going to show him how to really be a man.” “Yeah,” Pinkie Pie said skeptical, “But you just blow up his house right. Didn’t that get it out of your system? I’m still trying to figure wiger why I was so mad even after that.” “He’s always had that effect on mares,” said Rainbow starting to relax, “Right Fluttershy?” “Oh yes,” Fluttershy agreed, “girls either love or hate the guy when they first meet him. Lucky for him Cloudsdale has a higher colt to filly ratio, took me forever to be calm enough to have a normal conversation with him. But after what he did I just can’t hold back anymore. ” She dropped her head. “I sort of feel bad about this but it’s that weird feeling. I just can’t control it.” Rainbow Dash rubbed the back of her head as her own head cleared. “I know what you mean. Guess I did go a bit far there. It isn’t smart to talk to him in pony though. Guess I’ll have Ditzy Doo deliver my apology. She always was the only pony I know who wasn’t affected by it.” “Must be the eyes,” said Pinkie. Her two friends looked at her. “What? I meant she can see through magic. So of course it must not affect her.” The two continued to stare but nodded their agreement. “Hey what do you say we go to my place for some cupcakes then? It’s always good to have a treat to cheer you up.” So they went off. They appeared in the library. Once Wishful realized this he started shaking Spike. “Are you serious? Of all places you pick here?” “W-wh-what’s the p-p-p-pro-bl-em?” asked Spike through the violent shakes. “Twilight already can’t stand me,” He said in frantic shaking of Spike, “If she gets near me, in whatever happened to me she could kill me.” The little colt in his head was arguing that it meant more pleasure, but reason and fear teamed up in his head to quickly stamp that out. As if summoned, Twilight entered the room as Wishful was at the peak of shaking Spike. He noticed and immediately stopped with a cry of panic. He didn’t have a horn anymore. He couldn’t fight Twilight when he did have magic, now he’d be helpless. “I can explain,” he said waving his hooves in front of himself as Twilight stared at him. Eyes wide Twilight rushed him and Wishful covered his face with his hooves and his stomach with his new wings hoping it would be quick. Twilight forced his hooves away with magic. “Just perfect,” he thought closing his eyes. “Celestia must hate me too if this is my life.” Instead of a hit, he was met with a kiss. A full on one he only read about in the romance novels for mares he read when he didn’t have a good fantasy book to try, her tongue invading his mouth and probing. He was in complete shock. Even the colt in his head seemed to give an image of his smaller self smacking himself across the face repeatedly trying to wake up. “This is not happening.” He thought, “Something very wrong here.” But as his brain started to calm from the shock of this and his body started to enjoy the pleasure he understood what was going on. Only some small pieced of the puzzle now escaped him. Spike shook his head as he looked at Twilight invading Wishful’s mouth in horror. What was going on? Twilight finally released Wishful, saliva running from both of their mouths as she hugged Wishful and said in a seductive, “Where have you been all my life?” Wishful’s head didn’t move for a long while as he just sat there, eyes unblinking. Finally his eyes moved as he looked at Spike, closed his mouth. Trying not to swallow Twilight’s mouth juice was impossible without spitting it on the mare so he gulped the sweetness down and said in a monotone voice that trailed off, “Spike…..” “Yeah, Wishful?” replied spike half curious half disgusted by the site. “We dun goofed.”
Explainations“Okay how did this happen?” Spike asked pacing around the room. “Because we both didn’t think about wording,” Wishful answered simply. He was trying to use his wings to push Twilight off him but apparently that wasn’t going to happen any time soon as it only made her grip his wings instead. Spike was slow on the uptake, “Wording?” “Okay the wording was your fault. My fault was in not explaining the importance of wording. Figured that was part of the ‘think carefully’ assumption one should make with wishes in general. Oh and I guess it’s sort of Twilight’s fault too since she super charged you.” Wishful had said that to try and get Twilight to have some other emotion so he could get her to stop clinging to him, but instead all he got was her kissing one of his wings while rubbing a hoof affectionately on his chest and saying, “whatever you say honey.” “Ugg,” both Spike and Wishful said at once. “No Wishful,” Spike finally said recovering. “I mean what was my wording problem.” “Well-“Wishful was going to answer but Twilight had gone in for another kiss. Before she had the element of surprise, now she had the element that Wishful’s body really REALLY liked that kiss last time. The heat took him in again and this time he pressed into her, his mind filling with thoughts that would usually be enough to put him to sleep at night. Spike finally used his magic to grab Twilight by the tail to hold her in the air and smack Wishful with his own tail screaming at both of them. “SNAP OUT OF IT!” Wishful shook his head to get out of his daze, Twilight however was fighting Spike. “Let go Spike. He’s mine.” With the creep factor back, Wishful was able to think of something. “Um, Twilight?” he tried to make his voice sound as sweet as possible. “Yes sugar bear?” Twilight’s voice really came off wrong and Spike had to hold on to make sure she stayed back and was gagging. “You could make an anti magic field right, one that blocks all magic around you? I mean you are the best magic user ever right?” Wishful did his best to copy the look Twilight was showing him looking into his eyes earlier, “You should use it then. That way we can be together?” “What the hell man?” Spike shouted still trying to hold the obviously talented Twilight back with his own magic. Twilight nodded at Wishful’s idea and used the spell. It was similar to her and Shining Armor’s force field spell but with more energy put into dispelling the magic in the bubble then repelling anything. It filled the entire house and Twilight plopped onto the floor with a thud. When she rose Twilight shook her head and was suddenly horrified. “What, what just happened?” Wishful didn’t miss a beat, “You entered a room with obvious magical influence that caused you to enact all of your pent up sexual tension. What would your coltfriend think?” Twilight clammed up. “If you’re wondering how I know you have a secret lover, it’s due to the fact you didn’t attempt going any further. Getting it regularly means you don’t need it.” “No it doesn’t,” said Twilight panicky, “I mean I never did that with anypony and I don’t have a lover and, oh Celestia what have I done?” After more pacing she ran out of the house tears filling her eyes. Spike felt sort of bad about this but Wishful was wearing a big grin giving his inner colt a high hoof. Spike looked at his friend in disappointment until Wishful looked at him and simply stated: “Was.” “Huh?” “Your wish problem,” he said dully. “You used the word was. Past tense.” Now Spike finally got it. His wish had made it so that he HAD been with Rarity. “But then, why don’t I remember any of it?” “Fail safe for wishing. We keep our memories and have none of this reality. That way we can undo the wish since we remember our old lives. Normally if things go well, and it usually doesn’t, I then grant a wish that take those memories away. However, the Backfire due to that is pretty bad.” Spike was still confused, “How so?” “It wasn’t simply turning you into a pony,” answered Wishful, “That ‘was’ screwed everything up. You were never a dragon thanks to this wish. I’m not sure on the details but I am certain that is the case. So without knowledge of any other differences in our own lives, we can’t be sure about the kind of ponies we were before this point in our time. So as another fail-safe I focused on I made sure your life has morphed to be more the same you always had it with the only differences being your wish’s conditions. Unfortunately before everything was set that girl you have a crush on interrupted me.” “Wait…” Spike interrupted before Wishful could continue. “Rarity came to stop the wish?” Wishful gave it some thought, “I think so. Never met her before, that and she didn’t give her name. White Unicorn with gems on her flank so I guessed it was her. Twilight tried to warn me before not to keep going, you got distracted when Rarity showed up so I tried to stop the spell before the magic set in for you. Then Twilight stopped me and tried to do it herself and we have this mess now.” “Alright,” said Spike comprehending, “but what about you? How did my wish do that magic to get ponies to hate you?” “That I’m still figuring out. The Pegasus thing I get. As for the flesh wings it was because I always admired the night guards I guess. But if my life has been different since I was born why do I have the exact same cutie mark?” “Well,” said Spike, “You’re still the same pony. So you’d still have the same talent, and that is granting wishes right? Did you ever consider your talent didn’t need that spell? I mean at least here?” Wishful was taken aback. Perhaps Spike had something there, but now wasn’t the time to think of it. “First thing I have to do, after I find a place to stay, is figure out how to get rid of this wish magic. Aside from getting Celestia to teach Luna and Twilight to use it and combining their powers during a comet there has to be some other way we can put as much juice into undoing it.” “Well obviously you can stay here,” said Spike easily. “I can talk to Twilight about it. But why did you say only you? I can help too.” “True,” said Wishful now distracted and looking through some books on the self labeled Magical Studies. “However I think you’re better off trying to patch things up with Rarity. Based on the town’s reaction you must have done something really bad. Plus if you can get back together with her I won’t have to keep studying to undo this. Win-win.” Spike shook his head, “No it isn’t. You’d be stuck without magic and living in a world without these weird feelings that come over ponies.” “You let me worry about that when the time comes,” said Wishful. “For now how about we sort of make this a race? It will get both of us to try harder. After all you nearly got what you wished for. Are you really going to give up when you’re this close to being with Rarity?” Spike thought for a moment and then a smile crossed his face. “I suppose not. I’m in if you’re serious.” They shook on it. Something nagged at the back of Spike’s mind as he did so though. It was like he was forgetting something. Something he used to wake up to. “Well,” he thought, “I can just talk it over with Wishful and Pee Wee later. I wonder where he ran off to anyway. Ah well he’ll be fine till I get back later.” (Author's Note: I can't believe no one noticed this yet after all these chapters what the huge backfire is to this wish yet. Spike yes but the audience? Guess it wasn't explained enough. Hopefully this extended and fixed cut helps.)
Twilight's Feelings, Spike's Mistake (Fixed)Twilight slowly trotted to help clear her head and consider what had happened since the start of the day. First there was Spike, who was depressed because he had broken up with Rarity only the night before waking with seemingly no memory of it and babbling about things she didn’t understand. He had a music box? The weird part was Twilight sort of remembered one but couldn’t place how or why it wasn’t there anymore. Likely it was one from when the two were still very young and she just forgot about it over time. Why Spike wanted to know where it was now of all times was lost to her. Then there was that orange flesh winged Pegasus stallion that came back with Spike when they suddenly winked into her personal collection of books she had from Canterlot. Thinking about it, he wasn’t especially attractive and yet she had thrown herself at him like a school filly on a hit pop star only without the security to keep them apart. He mentioned some kind of spell as if he was versed well in magic too, but he was a Pegasus pony. How had some pony who shouldn’t know that much about magic suddenly know what to do to get her out of the trance that spell, whatever it was, caused? The solution seemed obvious, the “want it need it” spell, but if that was the case why wasn’t Spike affected by it? Her train of thought was interrupted by seeing Applejack and Big Mac pulling a truck load of Lumber across her. Applejack was straining with what seemed to be easy enough for her to have gotten without Big Mac’s help. Curious Twilight asked, “What are you two doing?” Applejack replied after seeing Twilight in hard breaths. “Oh… hey.... Twi…. sorry…. I… can’t…. talk…. much. RD… said…. she…. needed… help…. repairin’… some…. damage…. she… did…. lickity… split.” Her knees started to buckle a bit as she said this, “Me and Big Mac were in such a rush getting everything and finishing our Applebucking I forgot to pace myself. I’d kindly accept a little help if ya don’t mind.” Twilight decided to use her magic to try and lighten the load. It didn’t help much, but it kept both earth ponies in a good pace with far less strain. “So what did she do?” Applejack was able to speak normally now, “Broke this new feller’s house, that orange pegasus that came in from Cloudsdale last night.” Twilight was taken aback, but not enough to stop her magic as Applejack continued. “Apparently he’s some old friend or something with some weird spell on him. You can ask RD and Fluttershy for the details since I didn’t care to keep up with it much.” With that Twilight made up her mind to find out everything she could about what was going on before returning to her home. She was sure Spike and Wishful would be there anyway. And if she knew more about Wishful, maybe she could help him. For a moment she felt his taste him her mouth and blushed at the memory but shook it off and focused again to take even more weight off. Wishful sighed. None of the books he found helped. “That just leaves the two options I have left to undo this, neither of which is very good. I’d have to convince Twilight, both princesses and at least one other mage to help with supplying the power, and given how mares react to me lately and the likelihood of finding a mage even close to them in power it’s going to be hard. The other option though, it’s easy. I could get it done simply enough. All I’d need to do is-“ He cut himself off and slammed his head into the wall, “NO! Neither Spike nor myself could live with the price….well actually I could at least but I can’t put Spike through that. Not yet anyway.” Owlicious awoke then and looked at the orange pegasus. It hooted happily at him and dropped a book in front of him. Wishful hesitated but opened the book and skimmed through it having nothing better to do as he waited. His eyes landed on a particular paragraph on Dragon winged pegasus ponies and he read out loud: “While only on a small scale a Dragon Winged pony can actually cast a magic spell once a day. This makes up for their in inability to recover damage to their wings as quickly and Feather Wings. Said spell can in fact be stored for more power and be very powerful if held back for a full cycle of the moon thanks to a degree spell made by Nightmare Moon before her fall as Dragon winged pegasus were her most loyal subjects. To this authors knowledge, Celestia has not undid said degree due to the max power of said spells too be low thanks to them not being able to train it like a Unicorn and natural evolution causing cases of Dragon Wing to be so rare it is only a one fourth chance of occurring if all four of the grandparents of said foal had the recessive gene and passed it to their children, with a male pegasus and a female unicorn. Thus making it very unlikely more than a half dozen natural born Dragonwings exist at one time.” Wishful read over it a few more times before deciding. “It’s worth a shot,” he told the owl as it hooted in agreement. Wishful spread his wings out as he focused and closed his eyes. When he opened them he was on top of the book. Only about half as far as he was able to wink before, but that wasn’t the point. He COULD do magic. If he waited till the moon cycled around once and a starry night when a shooting star came he could make most of the magic up for the spell. But he frowned, it still meant he’d need Twilight’s help since she super charged his original wish magic and the two princesses just in case he wasn’t strong enough and needed them too. Wishful hung his head. He couldn’t dare ask any of them for help. Celestia maybe, she was always known to be a kind and helpful ruler. But there was no way Twilight would let herself be taken by whatever got her to fawn over him before and now he’d likely be on even worse terms with her after all this and not their history together. Heck since she was Celestia’s student that meant she may even stop Celestia from even seeing him or taking him seriously. But worst of all was Princess Luna. The fact was that in his old reality with Spike as a dragon he avoided the night. In a way his powers were partly because of her in both this world and the last. And in both cases she would be the type to have nothing to do with him out of principle that he seemed to not respect anything she did to go as far as to ensure he slept through the night. Of that he was sure both versions of himself kept as baring changes on a grand scale from him being a unicorn, his life and personality should be the same. “Well I’m not going to get anywhere thinking about it now,” Wishful told the owl. “Guess I might as well sit back and read until Spike or Twilight show up to kick me out of here.” He glanced up at a volume marked “The Dragon King” and started reading it as he waited for some pony to return to the house. “That’s just,” said Twilight is shock, “impossible.” Rainbowdash and Fluttershy were taking some clouds to shape a roof for the house they had partly destroyed. The lumber Applejack brought wasn’t enough to fix everything so they were patching up some of the parts they had to cover from the weather with clouds until then. “It’s true,” said Fluttershy handing a torn up picture album to Twilight. It showed Wishful and an older male unicorn that must have been his father waving happily. “Wishful was always a good friend whenever he could come to school. He even dated Ditzy Doo for a while, but it was pretty much only because she didn’t have any issues emotionally with him like other mares and that eventually led to a pretty bad break up. They are still sort of friends though which is why we use her as a go between when we need to talk to him.” “But,” said Twilight still confused, “how was he able to stay in school without you all attacking him or loving him then? By the sounds of it he’s always had this.” Rainbow Dash chimed in, “Oh that’s because of his dad. Up to our last year at school he would always put Wishful in an anti magic field. It only broke every time wishful tried using his dragon wing magic to help some pony. Problem was when he found his cutie mark was in helping other ponies he kept using it whenever he couldn’t find some other way.” “So his father,” It was starting to come together. “What about his mom then? And where is his father now?” Fluttershy took over as Rainbow suddenly winced at the questions. “Oh I don’t know. Wishful’s father had a hard enough time finding work when he moved to Cloudsdale so I never talked to him and Wishful never wanted to talk about it. After his dad died in our junior year he really didn’t talk to any pony and just became a hermit since he didn’t have the magic to make a field for himself. Poor guy probably spent most of the time not trusting in any mares because of that spell, and Ditzy said he blamed himself for his dad’s death since he would make the barrier despite being tired many times.” Twilight felt kinda sorry for Wishful, but in the back of her mind she thought that something was off about the fact his mother wasn’t in any of the pictures she could see. She’d have to ask him about that. “But why are you asking about him all of the sudden?” Fluttershy’s question had caught Twilight off guard. “Well,” she said trying to think but with no good way to say it just told the truth. “He kind of decided to hide at my place. He and Spike seem to talk like they were old friends and everything.” Rainbow arced and eyebrow, “Wait that means you saw him. That means you beat him up or did you….” As she trailed off a smile mischievous grin came over her face as she looked at Twilight who was starting to panic. “No I’d never!” That came out so quick Rainbow was laughing as was Applejack who was listening the entire time without saying anything. Twilight blushed. Pinkie snickered, but was busy helping Big Mac with holding the board to repair a wall. She would have been more talkative if her coltfriend had not kissed her every time she was about to chime in and melted like glue from it and only said anything as to confirming to him that her reaction was angry and not lustful. “That is still creepy,” Applejack said mouthing the lovey dovey couple the last board they had to fix into place. Big Mac smiled and gave his lover another kiss out of usual brotherly annoyance to Pinkie’s excitement. “Well,” said Rainbow, “at least I won’t have to feel bad about him not having a place to stay. Twilight can keep him for a bit till were done. And if it’s so imposing I’ll even pay for it. Take responsibility and what not.” “I didn’t agree he could stay,” said Twilight, “But it is true that I can block that spells power. And who knows I might be able to undo it with enough research.” “If you two will ever get out of bed,” said Rainbow slyly. Twilight shook her head, “I told you it isn’t like that. That spell did that to me, I’m not going to let that happen again.” “Sure you won’t,” said Rainbow stretching the sentence as long as possible. Twilight just gave up and started to walk home. Spike wondered around aimlessly. He wasn’t sure what to do. Sweetie Belle and Rarity were both so mad at him he couldn’t go back to talk to them until he knew what he did to Rarity. Plus all the mares in town seemed to be giving him a mean look now that they were corrected that they were not to run him out of town. This was going to be hard, and apparently Twilight didn’t know either so he had to find someone to talk to. Begrudgingly he decided it was best to ask Sweetie Belle’s two best friends. They were easy enough to find and as he expected when he approached they scoffed at him. “Oh kay,” Spike finally said with a deep breath. “I wanted to ask you two if you could remind me what I did wrong with Rarity. I’m kinda fuzzy on what happened the last few days.” It was half true, but he couldn’t say it was for most of his life after all. The two ponies started at each other for a moment then back at Spike. Applebloom broke the silence, “you really don’t know?” “Honest,” Spike said giving a Pinkie Promise. He apparently didn’t do this much in his new life because he poked his eye too hard and had to hold it for a bit. Scootaloo answered, “It’s because you two-timed her. Duh.” “Two-timed?” Spike was really surprised. Of all things that was the last thing to come to his mind as to what he could have done wrong. Granted it wasn’t past him to do it by his greedy nature, but for Rarity he fought his nature all the time. Before either of the two could elaborate however a streak flew into Spike and hugged him. Spike looked down and the filly in horror and thought. “Please tell me this isn’t the ‘other mare’. Please any pony but her.” Diamond Tiara beamed at him in her hug and said, “Sorry honey bun. But I had to tell that mean old lady you were mine. You’re not upset are you?”
Invitation (Fixed)Twilight sighed. The sound of Pinkie Pie’s feet as she hopped up and down behind her made it all too obvious she was following her.“What is it?” Pinkie bounced over her friend and plopped in front of her. “Wanna hang out tonight?” “That’s it?” Twilight said with a raised eyebrow. “I’m sorry but I don’t see why you would bother taking this long and following me to ask me that.” “Yeah,” said Pinkie rubbing the back of her head, “Mac and me, or is it me and Mac?” “Mac and I,” Twilight assisted “Yeah that. Anyway Mac and me haven’t gone on a double date yet and we thought it would be fun. And I gotta make it up to Wishful Thinking for messing up his house any soooo, two birds with one stone right?” Twilight’s realization caused her to bite back her rage at her friend’s inference again. “I don’t have interest in Wishful like that,” she growled. “Ah come on,” said Pinkie, “I know you haven’t had a date yet in your life. You already kissed this guy, and it’s a double date so you can just treat it as going out with friends if you don’t wanna be lovey dovey. It’s a win no matter how you look at it. Plus you’d be helping me out as a friend.” She added some puppy dog look to this last word. “Pleeeeeeaase.” Pinkie’s logic was sound and she was making that face no one had resisted. Even Big Macintosh who had seen this face countless times fell for it. “On one condition,” It came out of her mouth faster than she could control. “We have to make it a real group thing. We invite Rarity too.” Twilight couldn’t take her little brother with them. Spike needed to really consider whatever it was he had done to Rarity. She wanted to believe in her brother sure, it was why she didn’t judge him to his face when he announced being into a school filly when he was still on break from his magic classes. But the fact he had done that to one of her best friends still didn’t gel with her. Pinkie nodded, “of course. But why is Rarity upset anyway?” “I’ll explain on the way,” answer the lavender unicorn. “We better go talk to her about this first.” Rarity washed her face and did her best to make herself presentable. Her own emotions did take president, but with Sweetie Belle coming over more often she needed to make sure she had the money to visit the spas, feed her sister and herself, and stock her materials. Granted more orders were coming in ever since Twilight’s birthday party a few months back, but it would do her no good if she didn’t complete said orders on time since the business world isn’t kind to those who were unable to deliver on their word. She took a deep breath. She had sent Sweetie Belle away as she entered her bathroom and she suspected the child was still lurking in her workplace not allowing herself to leave Rarity in such a state. Rarity liked that about her sister, it was one of the few things they had in common. But with Sweetie’s luck she would never get her work done and she hoped her sister would leave when seeing she was at least attempting to get over her heartbreak. As she thought, Sweetie Belle was standing outside the bathroom when she got out. “I know,” Rarity told her sister, “I look horrid.” “No,” Sweetie said simply and turned to leave her sister. “You sure you’re going to be alright?” “I’ll be perfectly fine,” she said rubbing her cheeks against her sister. “Now go on. You need to have fun and I need to get to work or else I will have to spend the next three days pulling all nighters to finish.” As Sweetie left, Twilight and Pinkie came in through the opening door. “Help her out please,” she said to them as she galloped off. Pinkie, who had been fully informed of what happed to Rarity by now nodded at the filly and went off to talk to Rarity. Twilight stopped her and the two watched as Rarity got into her zone and worked on her newest dress. Wishful’s laugh echoed through the house. Spike rolled his eyes and let him finish as he held his sides and started banging the table. “You said you wouldn’t laugh.” “You said it was serious,” said Wishful between snorts as he tried to control himself. “I am serious.” Spike put as much of a forceful tone to show this as he could and Wishful finally stopped. “Okay,” said Wishful standing himself up and doing his best to calm his laughs, which wasn’t working. “That just raises more *snort* questions. Seems the more we find out about this version of our lives the more confusing it is.” “Actually this one isn’t so confusing,” said Spike nonchalantly. “I was just telling you so that you may help me figure out what to do next.” “That I can do,” The Dragon Pegasus, “When you *Pbbfflliitt* explain how that makes sense to you.” “Well remember the story I told you the other day?” Spike’s friend nodded and he continued, “Well that was also the day I was reminded not to let greed control me. It was likely that if I wasn’t destroying half of Ponyville I would not have kept to it so well.” “Still not following SD,” said Wishful. “She’s one of the richest ponies in town. It is likely this version of me who never had the problems that stood in the way of me dating Rarity, never learned this. So while ‘I’ was a perfect gentlecolt and everything Rarity would want, I was still me besides that.” Wishful finished finally controlling himself, “Meaning you went after this filly because you could get more stuff and money and thus two timed because this version of you still have to follow the rules of your wish till this point. Well this is most troubling.” Then he grabbed the copy of “The Dragon King” he was reading with his wing claws and started skimming. “Hey,” shouted Spike making a green flame show up between Wishful’s face and the book without burning either. Wishful jumped back, “What was that for?” “I came to you for help!” shouted Spike, apparently having a slight mood enhancement from his hormones before controlling himself again with heavy breaths. Still being a baby dragon at the time he had yet to grow into having this happen to him slowly and wasn’t able to cope as well as a normal teenager, which is saying something considering the average teen. You know what, he was normal never mind. “As it so happens I was helping you, but even if I wasn’t it would be counterproductive to my goal of undoing this wish anyway.” He trotted over to the dropped book and picked it up saying, “I remember reading a chapter concerning something similar in this story. Give me a moment and I’ll get back to you on it.” Spike sat and waited as Wishful quickly skimmed the book. After some time Wishful smiled and exclaimed, “Ah ha. I knew it was in here. The main character Celinbum ends up with two dragon prospects for a wife but can only choose one. However the one that is less off leaves on her own thinking she isn’t worth her love’s affections.” “So what happens?” asked Spike interested. “She was right,” Wishful said simply. “What?” “Celinbum marries for money and the kingdom lives happily ever after. They never meet again and Celinbum is okay with this because he likes gems more than lovers. Guess the pony author is in that camp that makes generalizations on dragons.” “How the moon was that supposed to help!?” “It doesn’t,” replied Wishful with a manic grin. “I just really wanted to relate this to something.” “Of course,” said the unicorn teen. “You decide to revert back to being a troll when I need to know how to break it off with Diamond Tiara and get Rarity back.” Wishful raised an eyebrow, “you didn’t break it off with that filly already?” “Well I didn’t have time to think about it,” said Spike. “I was too much in shock to say anything and then she goes and kisses me. MY first kiss. Do you have any idea what it’s like to have that thrown on you?” Wishful gave him a bewildered look, “you saw me have the same problem only a few hours ago. Geez, you’re worse than my little sister.” Now it was time for Spike to be confused, “You have a little sister?” “Sure,” said Wishful putting down the book, “She and my mom moved to Fillydelphia after our parents divorced and Dad got his job in Cloudsdale.” “Don’t you mean Canterlot?” “No, I didn’t move to Canterlot till…” Wishful’s thoughts trailed off as he tried to remember. Somehow it wasn’t as cloudy now. “…till I granted my father’s wish.” Before he could go more into this, Pinkie Pie burst into the room with Twilight. “Hey Wishful Thinking, that is your name right?” She then started talking even faster and faster. “Do you prefer Wishful or Thinking, or WT? OOO WT makes you sound like a big time producer. Mine just sounds like a disease. PDP, yuck, so you can call me Pinkie. Anyway….” Neither of the Stallions could figure out what the heck Pinkie Pie said after that. She seemed to go on and on about something involving Wishful and some other ponies like a party. The only thing that was clear was her attitude changing as she spotted Spike. Definitely negative. Thinking he got the gist of it Wishful agreed but asked, “How am I supposed to leave here anyway? I mean Twilight’s good but it’s not like she can make one of these all over town like Shining Armor.” “I can give you a bubble for yourself if I look it up,” said Twilight. “Rainbow told me how your dad did it for you all the time. If a regular unicorn can make magic good enough for containing whatever it is, than I should be able to pull it off without any issue once I know what I’m looking at.” “Alright…” said Wishful a little confused, “So where are we going.” “The Mareiott,” said Pinkie. “It’s not really my style but I wanna try something so Rarity can feel comfortable.” “Sounds good,” said Wishful faking through it, “But what about Spike then?” “He’ll need time to think about what to do next,” said Twilight staring at her little brother. “But I have,” said Spike, “I’m getting Rarity back and fixing everything.” “Oh nononono,” said Pinkie, “That is too soon. Let her have this night out with us tomorrow first. Some space can work wonders sometimes. If you go in there now she’ll just reject you again for stirring up her feelings without getting a chance to see what it is like to go out without you.” “I agree,” said Twilight, “Besides you have been falling behind in your summer studies. I’ll have to tutor you all day tomorrow and leave homework to do while we’re out.” “Ah come on Twilight,” said Spike with a groan. “No buts. See you tomorrow Pinkie.” Pinkie let herself out as Twilight shut the door behind her with magic. Wishful lamented the fact he couldn’t do that kind of magic anymore without blowing his once a day use if the winking didn’t count which it likely did. “So,” said Wishful both trying to keep things from being awkward and keeping Twilight and Spike from having a meaningless fight. “Where should I sleep?”
Wishful TalkingRarity was still very much behind on her orders. She had considered cancelling the outing with her friends, but somehow Pinkie’s assistance earlier had made it so she didn’t have to go out to buy material at least. Still even if she worked herself hard enough to finish she wouldn’t be able to finish all of her work in time, she’d be far too tired to go. Still she had to do this and on she worked on gown after suit after gown for various fashions she had been working on that were ordered in bulk. She had just finished stitching her fortieth gown when a rapping had been spotted by her ears and her attention was brought to the door. This was strange since the moon was so high the entire town besides some night guards and hooligans would be out at this time. Hooligans that would love nothing more than to take advantage of a mare in the biblical sense. Rarity gulped, this wasn’t going to end well. “Excuse me,” the voice of a stallion on the other end of the door asked, “I need to talk to you for a moment if you would please. It will be just for a moment.” She didn’t recognize it. But with such a voice that seemed to have no malicious intent behind it she couldn’t be sure it was someone after her for her body. “Go away,” she shouted to the door. “Come back at normal hours.” “Believe me I would,” said the stallion on the other side, “but let’s just say if I don’t I won’t be able to get any sleep. I really must confirm something with you and it has to be face to face. Could you please open up?” In this time Rarity had levitated a frying pan to her side and gotten closer to the door in case the hooligan was going to burst through her door. “Very well,” she responded, “But I warn you I’m armed and I will not hesitate to defend myself and call for help if need be.” She used her magic to open the door and when she did the door swung open and the orange stallion closed the door behind him as he entered. He didn’t speak at first and just stared at Rarity. His leathery wings seemed to be trying to stretch but were pulled close and closed over his body. “Um,” Rarity began staring at the colt and lowering her frying pan. The stallion backed up as she did and confused she tilted her head. “You said you needed to speak with me?” The stallion blinked a few times and tilted his own head. “So you don’t have any sudden urges after looking at me?” Rarity shook her head feeling slightly insulted. Did this colt think she was that attractive? Or was this supposed to be some kind of confusion with some other pony who looked like her? This colt was a strange one. “Yes, excellent then that makes things so much easier. It means you really do still love Spike.” “Well of course,” Rarity began before catching herself. “Wait why would you want to know? How do you know him?” “Old friend of his from Canterlot,” he explained, “the name is Wishful Thinking. And to make a long story short, I had to make sure there was hope for my friend before I had him try to make up with you. This entire day has been chaos for me.” “He never told me he knew one of Luna’s royal guards,” said Rarity curious. “Knowing him he’d be bragging all about knowing you when he was trying to win me over before.” Wishful laughed, “That’s true. But Spike doesn’t like to talk about the adventures we had when I was foalsitting him.” “Oh,” replied Rarity with a smile. “Then it was very nice to meet you. But what do you mean by make things up to me?” “You can’t really think he’d leave you for a girl that young right? The guy ended up leading her on or something I’m sure. All day he’s been so distraught over what happened he even forgot it happened. Entire thing wiped from his memory.” “That does explain things,” she said thinking back to that morning. “But it explains them a little too well.” Her eyes narrowed on her guest. “Why did you have to come tonight?” “Like I said,” he explained, “long story.” “I have time when it comes to my friends and Spike,” Rarity said simply. Blue magic filled the room as a table and set of chairs were elevated into the room to be set in front of the white unicorn. Rarity took a seat and urged Wishful to follow. “Please proceed.” Spike woke from his slumber with a long yawn. Outside he could see it was still well into the night. “Great,” he thought, “my brain won’t even let me get some sleep.” He stretched and trotted out of his make shift room Twilight had forced him and Wishful to take for the night. His “sister” was looking through a group of books. It took a grunt from Spike to get her to notice he was there. “Oh hey,” her voice still showed signs of being tired. “Why haven’t you gone to sleep yet Twilight?” Spike shifted slightly as he said this. Despite Wishful’s attempts he and Twilight still had a huge fight before he had stormed off to bed. Twilight it appeared stuck her nose in a book and didn’t sleep at all yet. “I figured it would be better to look up the spell I need to help Wishful get around. Still I do find the entire thing odd now that I had time to think about it.” Twilight still wasn’t looking at her younger brother as she said this. “I mean why would he not have a way to stop this himself when he moved here? I mean if I was Wishful I’d just become a hermit.” “I don’t think so,” said Spike. He looked over at a copy of a book he remembered from Wishful’s collection that Twilight also had but not for the same reasons. “Do you know this story?” He tossed the book to his sister, a copy of “The Monster in the Bell Tower”. “Of course,” Twilight replied looking at the book. “But what does this have to do with anything? It’s just a story about a disfigured pony raised to believe the villain of the story is her only friend until she makes one a few chapters in and learns better.” “For the smartest pony in the kingdom your dense sometimes…sis,” he said trying his best to be familiar with the term. “The pony in this story thought at some point it would be better not to ever have friends and just spend her days doing her job in the bell tower and interacting only with those she had to. But in the end even before she made a friend she was living a boring miserable life. You may not know him as well as I do but could you say honestly he was the kind who wouldn’t enjoy a little risk in his life?” As if called, Wishful had just reentered the library on his own. “Sorry,” he said with a slight yawn, “I had to get some fresh air after being cooped up all day.” Spike was about to ask why he was even out of bed when Twilight came rushing to Wishful’s side and nuzzled him. Wishful took that in for a moment of enjoyment and then turned to Spike. “When did the anti magic bubble go?” “Guess Twilight didn’t renew it since she didn’t think you’d leave the room tonight. Like I told her you wouldn’t.” Twilight cooed into Wishful’s ear which finally got him out of his comfort zone. He stammered, “Tw-Twilight dear. I think it would be best if you went to bed.” “Only if you come with me to help me lose some energy,” she replied winking at him. Wishful gulped and tried his best to act for this. Spike could tell there was a good hint of disappointment as he did so and that made him mad at his friend. “All good, but I’d rather have a go when we’re more alone for the night.” “Oh you’re shy,” she said rubbing against him again. Wishful forced himself away from the purple mare and she took the hint. “Alright, I guess it is a bit soon for the two of us. Better off after our date tomorrow, then we’ll have known each other for two whole days. Oh it already feels like I’ve known you forever.” “Sure,” Wishful answered with a slight chuckle. “Sure you have.” “Well then, good night.” She gave the last two words a seductive tone and blew Wishful a kiss as she went up her steps and into bed. Wishful let out a slow breath. Spike pushed him down, but not enough to make a sound that would call Twilight. “In our room, right now.” Wishful followed muttered, “I only have so many times I can say no Spike.” “That doesn’t give you a right to use this Wish Backfire to take advantage of someone close to me Wishful.” “I know that,” Wishful replied closing the door to their room. “But more importantly I have something to tell you.” “Yeah what is it?” Wishful thought for a moment. Then as if deciding not to said, “I think I have a plan to get you and Rarity back together.” “That’s it?” said Spike curiously. He knew Wishful was hiding something. “As far as I’m sure of that you need to know,” Wishful corrected. “I can’t give you information that would worry you until I’m sure about everything. For now I think you should tell me how good you are at a tango.” Spike looked back at his friend confused, “A what?” Wishful groaned as he let out a breath. “It’s going to be a long night. We're lucky, in a few minutes I can use a spell again so practicing an all night will be easy. Just follow my lead on this.” With that he took his young friend by the hoof and pulled him into a dance as Spike protested. Earlier: Rarity paid close attention to the orange stallion’s story as best she could. Wishful was still not sure how much he could make up, after all in this case the truth would seem far more unbelievable and like he was lying to save his friend. However Rarity wasn’t buying any of it in the slightest. Finally he got to why he had to come over. “It struck me when Spike reminded me I used to live in Cloudsdale with my condition. I started to remember a bunch of stuff I couldn’t before. My ‘curse’, if you will, messes with the emotions of a mare. They are frustrated at me when they are not sure of their own feelings for someone somehow, which everyone usually has, or attracted to me if they have pure intents with others like with what happened with Twilight. That’s why that was so rare. But by that logic, someone in love and I mean truly in love with no wavering emotions or hidden emotions is unaffected. You are normal. Meaning even after this entire episode, Spike is still just as much in your heart as before.” “Sure,” said Rarity not believing any of this, “Like I could trust someone who would even allow cheating rumors to go around.” “Exactly my point,” he said with a smile, “You don’t believe it, but you’re not affected. You trust him in your heart and you can’t allow that. So how about this, I’ll set it up so you and Spike can be alone to talk and you can finish it if you really want too. I’m just hoping this will help.” “Like I would believe such a story,” Rarity screamed and lifted the Pegasus out of her house. “Leave me alone. I have to get back to work.” With that she slammed the door. “Great,” Wishful said to himself as he trotted off. So much for saving his friend’s relationship, still he got to figure out his assumption was right and it would help with getting them together. He opened his wings to see if any power returned to him. It was a little power left over from misjudging the wink and likely the last night counting too. Just enough to give Spike’s girlfriend a little energy boost to keep the spirits up. His plan relied on her going to this outing more than himself. Afterward he started back for the library. “Did it not go well my nephew?” The sweet voice came out of the night. Wishful groaned as he turned to the mare. “Not really. More importantly how did you find me?” “As soon as you returned to your true form my sister and I were able to sense you once again.” “How nice,” he said, “even if you are back now I’m still not joining you. My father and I already told your sister that.” “You miss our intent my nephew,” said Luna simply. “We are here to offer you our assistance in returning you to your times of peace as your father intended. However we require something in order to do so. So for that purpose we have come to tell you how to set things right.” “I’m listening.”
Dinner Dilemma“Oh wow!” Four of the ponies cried in awe at the restaurant. High ceilings and decorations that had no use were everywhere here. “I can’t believe it,” noted Rarity, “this place seems just as grand as the dining halls in Canterlot.” The rest of the group nodded slowly in agreement with a small “Eeyup” from Big Mac. No one bothered asking how he would know considering he never went whenever the girls had gone before. “I have to admit Pinkie,” said Twilight gazing around her, “This place is far higher class than I would normally think you’d be up for. Every other time you took us out it was to a rave or some weird celebration most people wouldn’t here of outside some small town.” “I have to agree,” Said Rarity, “this all seems a bit too un-Pinkie of you for lack of a better term. Sorry if that hurts your feelings darling, but you must admit this place doesn’t exactly scream a good old fashioned Ponyville style of fun.” Pinkie Pie frowned at this. “I may be a party pony, but that doesn’t include one kind you know. After the incident at the Gala and Rarity’s birthday I decided to look into why so many high class ponies were into this boring stuff. Turns out its only boring because for them it’s like a Ponyville party is to us, fun and everyone wants to be there. But in return every now and then you have to go to one from the other side just for some variety. How else do you think I got everything set up so well for your brother’s wedding?” Pinkie had said all of this without getting angry, depressed, or even talking fast. Twilight was taken aback by all of it. Pinkie somehow even gave off a completely different demeanor here. She wasn’t acting like she normally did. Both of her friends were not sure if this was a good thing or a bad thing because of this. “Well come along my friends,” said Pinkie starting to trot, “and Big Mac.” “If it’s alright with you, can Rarity and I hang back a bit,” questioned the muffled voice of Wishful in his little magic bubble. “I’m already getting a few people eyeing me now and I wanted to talk about something with her before me get too many curious looks and approaches at the table.” Pinkie nodded and Big Mac and Twilight joined her as she trotted carefully to their table. Rarity watched them carefully before saying simply, “Was Pinkie affected by this curse of yours darling?” Wishful blinked. “Now that you mention it she has. But from what Twilight told me, and the little time I’ve known her, that can’t be possible. Unless…” “Something is causing her to waver on her feelings for Big Macintosh,” Rarity said with a frown. “She’s been under some stress lately ever since she heard someone in her family was killed. Apparently she was close to that pony and instead of going to the funeral she just up and stayed here to continue our small partnership. Now we have all the free time in the world and she still doesn’t bother with dealing with it. I’m not sure what to do since there isn’t really a way we could convince her to see a psychotherapist and Big Macintosh doesn’t see it at all. The poor guy is so in love he’s too blind to Pinkie’s needs still.” “You could just talk to him about it thought,” suggested Wishful. “He likely should be able to convince Pinkie to do something at least. Big Mac doesn’t strike me as the sort of guy who would let this fly if he knew about it. Talking about things is always the best way to handle it you know.” “Perhaps,” said Rarity, “but we should at least wait till tomorrow so we don’t spoil what happiness she may get out of tonight. It’s so funny sometimes watching her nearly melt when they have any physical contact.” Then she remembered Wishful’s talk last night and sighed, “I’m sorry I didn’t believe you earlier, it was all so outlandish. But when Twilight showed up with you and you told her about that double wake spell I was convinced.” “Yeah about that,” said Wishful carefully, “Don’t go too far tonight without Twilight or Pinkie. That spell is pretty good but it comes at a price. You’re up for half a day longer than you should be but in return you sleep for twice as long as normal without any way of waking up. And the effect only compounds the more it’s used. Heck after last night Spike and I will be out for a full day I dare say.” That got Rarity’s attention, “Why would Spike need such a spell?” Wishful just smiled and tried to imitate a character from one of Spikes comics they used to read together. “It’s all part of the plan. But that need not concern you for now. Let’s go join the others before Pinkie starts trying to hook me up with Twilight again.” “You mean you’re not going out with Twilight now?” “Nah, last night she still acted like she was in love with me when I got in without this bubble. That means she has no mixed or confused feelings about anypony, least of all me. Her intentions with me are purely platonic. I admit a part of me is disappointed in that, but there isn’t anything else I can do about it.” “You’re pretty honest are you not?” “Partly, but most of this is because Spike’s watching us from that window over there and Twilight put and honesty charm on me before we entered.” He inclined his head to the glass wall where it was clear the purple colt was pressing his face to get a better look inside. “He still thinks he has to do something besides apologize at this point. I even got him all tired from my magic so he’s the only reason he’s still moving around now because he thought I tricked him.” Rarity giggled, “Well I dare say this is a decent sort of revenge if he thinks you are my date. He’s so cute when he’s jealous.” She entered Wishful’s bubble with little effort and rubbed up against him pretending not to see Spike. Both laughed at seeing his reaction which involved him banging on the glass enough for security to have to take him away. “I’ll have to go see him after this little dinner thing Pinkie dragged us to then.” “Well then let’s go and see if we can’t help Pinkie out.” As Twilight had guessed, this dinner was totally boring. She wasn’t used to dinner being this quite. Sure she had grown up in Canterlot, but the only times she didn’t eat alone before coming to Ponyville were when she ate with Princess Celestia and her family. In the former case it was due to being with the Princess that she was so excited and nervous that she couldn’t see it as boring. In the latter it was so rare that she had lots to talk about, especially with Shining Armor. “You know Twiliy. If I didn’t know any better I’d say you had a crush on the poor guy. You’ve done nothing but talk about him nonstop since you came to visit.” Wait a minute. What was that? That memory didn’t make any sense. “The only guy I even interacted with while studying were my brothers,” she thought. “But wait, then why do I only remember times I spent with Shining? Wouldn’t all three of us have hung out too? What’s going on here?” As her mind tried to make sense of this, she found herself looking at her other four companions. Indeed, it looked more like she was the extra wheel then Rarity in this group date. Wishful and her were talking up a storm about Spike, but still having fun because of it. Wishful really had barely said a single word to her at all since they had picked up Rarity. She found it, odd. There was this pulling in her from seeing this when normally she’d just be happy that Wishful found someone to interact with that his magic aura wasn’t effecting. All of this didn’t add up, and the focus of all of this was Wishful Thinking. “So,” said Pinkie finally getting her attention off Big Mac to ask, “What are the two of you so cheery about?” Wishful stopped for a moment and thought before replying. “I have a story I can tell all of you. It has a purpose but you have to be willing to hear it. Everyone interested?” Even Rarity seemed to be taken aback by this, meaning she wasn’t talking about this story with Wishful. That got both of the other mares interested as well. They all agreed with Big Mac giving his usual Eeyup. “Very well then,” said Wishful clearing his throat. Pinkie, being a bit more like herself, shoveled the rest of her food into her mouth so she wouldn’t be eating during. He did his best to imitate an old narrator as he began: “This story starts out with a very simple start. A young pony, trapped in a boring life with little to no fun things to do. This pony had few friends growing up, and only truly found her call when she got her cutie mark. I’ll let you all decide what that mark was because in the grand scheme it only matters that because of this mark the family she had found they had to send their child away to pursue her dream. For a long time the mare did, with many ups and downs along the way. But then one day something happened to a family member most dear to her. Her relative had died, and had been slowly dying for years now and she never knew.” At hearing this story Pinkie’s eye narrowed. Big Mac noticed this and kept his eyes on her as Wishful continued. “The mare knew it was best to just deal with the issue head on. But she couldn’t, I mean how could she? True she did have friends, but to her they were too far away to ever talk about it. So she spent her days making everyone else around her happy instead, granting every pony’s wish to the best of her ability one by one. And to this day I’ve no idea if she will ever come to terms with what she is hiding from-“ Pinkie rose and Big Mac held her back. Wishful cocked and eyebrow with a smirk, “Something wrong Pinkie? I know I’m not very good at telling stories, but I think you should like me finish. Because the story is one most ponies, myself included had at some point. Why else would I have been so broad about it? That is unless there is something YOU wish to tell someone?” Pinkie didn’t respond to that and instead trotted away, her boyfriend following. Twilight rose to follow as well but Rarity stopped her. “Let them be Darling. Wishful was just helping her in an odd way, at my request of course.” “You wanted him to get her mad?” “Not exactly,” replied the unicorn. “But we can hardly do anything about that now. We can talk to her later. Right now it’s best for Big Mac to help however he can first. I can’t say the ends justify the means though.” Both mares looked at Wishful who was had gone back to eating. Twilight banged the table hard to get his attention. He didn’t bother to look up. “Is that how you treat my friends? What kind of Stallion are you?” “Well if you could recall you’d know,” he said simply. “Not that it will matter soon. I’ll be out of you and Spikes hair in the morning. Just trust me. I know what I’m doing.” “Okay,” said Twilight, “Now you’re really not making any sense.” She pressed herself into the bubble not caring what the magic aura did to get him to look her in the eye. Rarity or Wishful would push her away if anything happened anyway. “Despite what you may think, I’m your friend too Wishful. Otherwise I would never have let you stay in my house last night. So explain to me everything right here and now.” Wishful would have likely would have told her, what was eating at him needed to be said. Unfortunately two things stopped him. The first was Pinkie running out which caught attention away from Twilight for a second as Big Mac pursued. The other was that he was knocked clean out by Twilight’s hoof bucking his face and sending him sprawled onto the floor. Angry like he had never seen in her before in her eyes.
RealizationHours had passed since the incident that caused Wishful to break one of his wings and the arrest of a certain purple unicorn who had caused a chain reaction that got him into the fix. True she wasn’t the one who did break his wing, but a night in jail was still the penalty for such actions in Ponyville. The other purple unicorn, the younger brother of the incident causer, was only taken in for minor disturbance of the peace and trespassing. Being a still legally a minor by about a year he would have been let go to his guardian soon after arriving…if she wasn’t sharing his cell. Spike and Twilight sat with their faces in their hooves. The night had turned into one of the worst they had ever had. Twilight had a few bruises and a left eye to remind her never to talk to Wishful like that again. The only good thing about it was that they were together, but even then they couldn’t look at each other. Spike finally broke this with his notice of the bell tower tolling midnight. “Why did you end up here?” Twilight still didn’t look Spike in the eye. “I sorta… bucked Wishful Thinking in the face and that spiraled into a giant brawl with every mare in the restaurant after his magic bubble popped.” Spike’s eye alighted, “Really? Good. The guy deserves it for what he did to the two of us.” Twilight cocked an eyebrow. “What are you talking about?” “Wishful is such a back stabber. Guy goes and said he’d help me get back with Rarity, but then uses that night to make his own moves on her and I get arrested for listening to him. He told me to come in through the kitchen entrance and surprise her. I was the one surprised though. I bet he’s still laughing at making me learn some stupid dance moves in one night.” “Uh Spike,” his sister attempted to correct. “Wishful was actually telling the truth. If memory serves you didn’t go to the kitchen and I noticed you looming over the grounds after seeing him talking to Rarity. Then you were arrested because you were looming around and creeping everypony out. Least that’s what the officers were laughing about.” “Wait really? Bah, you’re just trying to cover for him. What was the point of having him grant my wish anyway? When I get my hands on him I’m gonna-“ “Wait Spike what are you talking about?” Spike told his sister everything then. About all he knew about the wish backfire and everything he and Wishful had discussed to that point. At many points Twilight wanted to argue how that didn’t make any sense, but as the narration went on she remembered the little things that were bothering her and everything she was thinking about. All of it would add up if Spike was correct. “But that means you were never my little brother,” Twilight said trying to find some way this couldn’t be the case. “We’ve known one another too long for that not to be the case.” “Well you sort of were before I wished myself like this,” Spike replied. “But honestly it’s hard enough to think how Shining Armor didn’t notice you not hanging out because he was so focused on his own goals at the time. But if I was really your little brother instead of your assistant you would never have had the issues with making friends you did before you met everyone in Ponyville.” “Hey,” said Twilight offended, “I don’t have issues making friends.” “Yeah now you don’t,” he said simply, “but trust me if this wish didn’t change that aspect too much you avoided social interaction like it was the plague. Heck, I think the only guy beside me and Shining you even talked to more than once a year was Wishful when he came to hang out with me. And that includes your own father.” Twilight grimaced as she made a mental note to send a letter to her father and catch up with him. “Still I can’t believe he’d do anything with Rarity. I mean they were friendly sure but-“ Spike blinked, “Wait you said you bucked him in the face. But you’re not mad at him? Does that mean you…?” “Suddenly switched to being mad instead of that embarrassing love struck act when I looked at him? Yeah. Though I don’t understand how that happened. Logically something had to change in him or me but nothing I noticed.” “Guess we’ll have to ask him in the morning,” Spike commented as he lay back on his cell bed. “We can both go by then at least.” “You’re right,” she replied. She didn’t want to mention what Wishful had said to cause the entire incident in the first place. She relaxed herself as well though. The swelling in the black eye stopped by the magic she put into it. The sooner she was asleep the sooner she’d be out of this cell and could get Wishful to explain. Elsewhere, Wishful was packing his things. The time had finally come to do as he was told. And as he left he was again visited by his aunt. “I’m sorry I cannot accompany you my nephew,” the dark alicorn said with a bow. “But I am needed to assist my sister now. Trails were backing up horribly when she was the only ruler. I do wish you had a friend or two to take with you however. Could you not get some male ponies to assist?” “Unfortunately,” Wishful said with his head low as he used the claws on his wings to grab his bag, “In light of recent developments that would be more a detriment to me. The more that come with the worse it will be. And my only male friend now is so mad at me and kinda ignorant he wouldn’t be of any help anyway. I’ll be fine on my own if I just keep to not being noticed by others and only revealing myself to males I need information from.” “Very well nephew,” said Luna as she flapped her wings to begin her journey home. “Be careful, and if ever you need me or my sister simply use your magic again. We can sense when you do after all.” “I’ll keep that in mind,” he said bowing and starting to flap his own wings. He took one last look at Ponyville and remembered some of his favorite times both real and fake that he had with Spike. He turned, only to see a white unicorn cut him off at the pass. “Forgive me if I’m wrong here,” she said looking at him. “But I seem to recall I’m a friend of yours who isn’t affected at all by this curse of yours. I may not have known you long, but I can hardly allow somepony I know who is a friend of my boyfriend and my own friend as well go off on some quest with no assistance.” Wishful shook his head, “No. You’re better off just staying here with your own friends and Spike. I can handle this, I sort of have to.” He began walking but she cut him off again. “Why can you not at least wait till morning so that Spike can go with you then?” “Because,” he answered. “If he does come I’ll be too tempted to take the easy way out of this mess I’m in. Spike may be my best friend but unlike you and your friends, that for me has it’s limits.” “What are you talking about?” “Simply put,” he said with a sideways glance. “If I succeed or not Spike is better off. See I’m sure by now while I can’t go into detail you know what my magic is and why it must have done for Spike. You are not affected by my magic. Meaning instead of Twilight YOU would have all your memories of the time before this wish. Seeing me should have started returning them.” Rarity just stared at the colt. Not saying a word so he continued. “The only other way to get this wish undone with no issue and faster is with the death of the caster or the castey.” “I still don’t understand,” said Rarity. “Why even bother then. You seem able to live out your life alright. And Twilight could one day-“ “She won’t,” he said simply. “There is more to it than that. But as for why I have to do this, it is because you and Spike seemed to have forgotten a little something I noticed from the start but couldn’t get Spike to just throw away his wish. A little birdie told me.” Realization loomed into Rarity’s face. Wishful had expected this since Rarity didn’t show any signs of remembering till now. He trotted past her for a bit, checking his injured wing. Then he felt a pull on his tail. “Will I remember any of this when the wish is undone?” “Don’t know,” he replied. “Never had a half tag along before on one of these. If you’re not near me or Spike when it is done I’m guessing not.” “Then you can count me in,” claimed Rarity. “Spike will be heartbroken when he finds out. I can’t allow such a thing to happen without doing all I can to help. It solves so many issues with this one action of helping you I would be daft not to.” Wishful wanted to yell at her to stay. But he did need the help. With no way to fly and no magic it would be difficult for his none earth pony body to get this task done. “Very well,” he agreed. “But we leave now.” “In light of what you just told me I couldn’t possibly agree more,” she said. “But could we at least delay it a tad so I can pack my own things too and leave a note to Twilight?” “Hurry it up then,” he said trying not to sound too agitated. With that the unicorn bolted off to her home to prepare for the needed journey.
Dirt“Look!” Wishful finally had to shout out to Rarity, “I told you to stay home for a reason. How is the hell do you expect to help me on a quest if you can’t even deal with this?” The act of shouting had hurt his wing a little but not enough to cut him off mid sentence. He was looking over a rather tall but easy enough to climb cliff face looking down as his white unicorn companion who was standing perfectly still. “I told you,” called Rarity, “I simply refuse to climb up such a dirty mountain side. My mane would get all messy. Why can’t you just carry me up?” The orange pegasus just rolled his eyes and shook his hurt wing side back at the mare in an expression to show the obvious issue with that even if he didn’t have to fly her up. “Oh come now, your wing should be fine by now. Unicorn magic and natural healing should have it so you can at least move around a lot with it by now.” “Firstly,” replied Wishful trying to hold back his contempt for the mare, “Flesh wings are very different from feather wings. Feather wings can regrow missing plums fast and heal much faster. That putting aside the point I should at least be glad I didn’t put holes in it as it would take months to repair that even with unicorn magic. Secondly, my case is so rare the doctor likely didn’t treat me correctly and just used magic like I was a normal pegasus. And lastly, get your butt up here or I’m leaving you!” “You wouldn’t dare leave a lady is such a place,” called the white unicorn. “I thought you were the best friend of my little Spikey. He wouldn’t leave me here to fend for myself.” At this Wishful just looked up and squinted. “We aren’t even out of eyeshot of Ponyville yet. You have magic and can fend for yourself just fine. I’m not Spike and you were the one that insisted on coming along.” Then he actually thought about this for a second. He was just bluffing but when he realized something he started backing up out of eyesight and proceeded to make smaller sounds to appear to have left Rarity. As soon as he went quiet completly he heard a quick pace of hooves on dirt and Rarity appeared over the cliff calling out, “Wait for…“ She looked down at Wishful who gave her a grin. “…me” “Glad you could finally join me up here,” he said with a laugh as he got up. “I figured you out already. You’re just faking me out to stall me so Spike and Twilight can catch up. Well if you do that again I will really leave you alone. Got it?” Rarity did her best to giggle it off. “Oh I wouldn’t dream of such things. I’ll have you know I really do hate dirt very much and simply had to figure out a way up. It isn’t my fault it would have gone faster if you had carried me.” “Uh huh,” commented Wishful looking Rarity over. “Is that why you have all that dirt under your hooves now then?” Rarity looked down and began to scream. Wishful immediately found out he was wrong about Rarity and took cover from the impending screech and the white unicorn tried desperately to take out the dirt but to no avail. “Oh alright fine,” Wishful finally said holding out his good wing and holding one of Rarity’s hooves. It began to glow slowly and soon enough the dirt all fell out into a pile on the ground that Rarity immediately avoided as she went to her bag Wishful had carried up and pulled out her hiking boots to protect them from further dirt. When she was finally calm she realized what Wishful had just done and turned to him in shock. “Why did you do that? You can only use magic once a day and you waste it on such a petty thing I didn’t even ask of you?” At this Wishful wagged his flank, “It’s what I do. Besides you have magic enough for the both of us if you focus. Nightfall will be around soon enough. I shouldn’t need it that much. Besides once we get all these jewels I should be just as good as when I had a horn.” Rarity swallowed back the notion of getting a rare gem from this quest as just asked exactly what it was about. Wishful explained, “Basically each of the Kingdoms used to have some stone that let none magic uses use magic. Works wonders for the Griffins but getting their help will be last on our list if we wanna live. So I figure of the ones my aunt told me about, the one the unicorns hid away somewhere in these caves long before she firs took power sounded promising. With just that one stone even you should be able to do basic magic Twilight does that you can’t every day. So with you Twilight or even me going out with all the stones I should be able to power an unwishing. But like I said with this kind of risk and likely long trek it would be WAY easier just to off Spike, and if it wasn’t for a few other friends I’d likely do so at some point.” Rarity replied instantly, “I highly doubt that Wishful. I may not have known you long but you are not one to just betray a friend like that.” “Maybe,” said Wishful simply, “but in one of my books I used to have there was a story where to save himself, a pony nearly killed his wife. In our darkest hours we come to know the real us. I’ve heard of Spike in such dangers before with his adventures with you and Twilight. I’ve had no such things. For all even I know, when the time comes and I have to pick…I may just be willing to sacrifice you, Twilight, and Spike to get what I want. It isn’t likely, but you never really know. I suggest you keep that in mind, it’s going to take a few days to get to this cave and I can’t have you trusting me too much. Otherwise my choices will be all the harder.” Rarity didn’t follow but finally asked one last question, “Very well. But if I may ask, why do you even wish to go back to your normal life this badly? I mean it is noble to do this all for Peewee, but if the purpose of the quest is lost by betraying Spike why would you even go?” “Cause while part of me wants to make sure we get back to where Peewee is okay,” said Wishful simply, “there is also a part in me that wishes to get back what I had lost. I can also use these magic stones to grant my own wishes for once if I get them Miss Rarity. For the first time in my life I could be selfish, and that scares me a little. If I didn’t have that part of me that wants a wish for himself I couldn’t even bring myself to go. And that part may be the end of you all. I hope you are satisfied with my answer, because this is your last chance to leave.” He began to look down, hoping this would finally get him alone. It was so much easier to have thoughts of just ending everything faster when he was alone with his own mind telling him how rational it would be to either get rid of Spike or himself and save everypony this useless and likely fruitless journey. Rarity just strolled up to Wishful and gave him a little push to shake him out of his stupor. “Nope,” she said, “I think I’ll stick around. You are not the kind of pony to betray, this I’m sure. And to make sure of that fact I’ll follow you until you are at least ready to join up with my Spike again and have him help YOU for once.” Wishful said nothing and just looked down disappointed in himself as he and Rarity continued their trek. (Author's Note): Since the next part is going to be long and I don't want too much of a cliffhanger if I stop in the middle when I do get to a spot. I decided to put this short part....holy hell how did that become average Backfire lenth? I did work one out now since I'm trying to get a few other stories done first. I plan to have the next chapter up by the end of the year but for now have fun with this if you can. Best wishs MasterofLag
Beware the BumblesThe high winds and cold were till hitting the two purple unicorns despite their magic. “Sheesh,” remarked Spike as he tried to push through the heavy snow, “your boyfriend really has a thing against us going through here.” Despite them both at the point they needed to focus fully on the task at hand Spike felt a crash of his magic force field against his sisters that nearly floored him. “I told you it isn’t like that,” called Twilight. “Just cause he’s a guy that isn’t related to me that I care about doesn’t automatically make him my boyfriend. Otherwise I’d be dating Big Macintosh for years.” She emphasized this with another bump. Spike stayed true and bumped back with a smirk. “Who said I was talking about Wishful? I was speaking of your old filly crush on Jack Frost you moron.” Which was in fact true, Spike’s first memories where of Twilight trying to show him how Pegasus ponies may have gotten their powers over winter because of a head elf creature that was in charge of whistling it up for centuries before weather manipulation become the norm in Equestria. Twilight blushed at the memory. She had been such an optimistic fool back then, well more so than now anyway. There was even the one time she had ignored her studies to make sure she could catch the first snowflake of the season, thinking that because elves needed to be believe in to live and no pony she knew believed in Jack meant that he would be grateful and give her a present for her belief. It didn’t help that Shining Armor seemed to enforce that along with her dad as they tricked her into thinking the first fallen snow was for her somehow. Still even now that was why winter was her favorite time of the year, and why she only had Winter Gear on when it came time to clean it up or look normal to other ponies. Magic was simple enough to keep her warm and the less between her and the winter winds the better. Spike wasn’t sure how his sister pictured Jack Frost, and he personally thought of a short little guy who likely would just get annoying after a while, but that wasn’t the point. He had tried getting Twilight’s mind off Wishful and Rarity for the first time in the three days they had been chasing after them and failed. Seeing the trail they were taking, Twilight had determined if they went over this mountain they’d be able to meet them at the first destination obviously on Wishful’s list. Leave it too his sister to know what Wishful was going after even if she wouldn’t tell him. Not like he had a stake in this that could be, you know, important. “Hurry up Spike,” called his sister. “If we take too long we’ll lose the advantage of cutting the mountains in the first place.” Spike responded after spitting out a lump of snow that was freezing his tongue. “I know you can’t teleport us the entire way but why can’t you make a field to at least keep this wind from blowing in our faces? It’s kinda hard to see.” Actually it was because he was sick of using his own magic to keep him warm but he didn’t want to come off as winy. Besides if he did say the truth, Twilight would be a good sister and never let it go in front of Rarity. So yeah a lying we go. “Because then I’d be too tired to walk and you’d have to carry me,” lied Twilight. She was still embarrassed about the emotional erection she was basically having with high cold winds blowing in her face. But it wasn’t all a lie, if she did protect them till they got down then by the time they did catch up to Wishful and Rarity she’d need a huge rest. And she doubted Spike would carry her at all once he was reunited with Rarity. Which left Wishful to be her carrier if that happened and well she could have that now could she? The two ponies became so caught up in the member of the first party that they wanted to see most that they didn’t noticed the thunderous steps for some time that were following them. Had they been good to notice this, Twilight likely could have subdued the thing easily or at least been able to get them out of there fast. But they didn’t, and their stalker was able to follow them and take note of how the female unicorn had the stronger magic. When the creature finally decided to bound after the two it was loud enough that both ponies noticed instantly but it was too powerful and was already in mid air and about to crush Twilight when they turned their heads. Both instinctively blasted the thing with magic but its hide took them like it was nothing. Sharp blue claws sprang for the female unicorn, Spike changing his blast to his magical fire which only seemed to combine with the icy wind instead. For an instant he was flashing his horror of his sister’s dead body before him, but the green winded blast struck the claw and took both it and the creature ten feet away from Twilight. Only grazing her cheek and giving her hair that same look from when he had accidently breath in her face a few times in the past. The creature rose slowly. Its blue skin mostly covered by snow white fur that nearly made it impossible to see in the winds. But as it turned said wind dyed down just enough for this not to be a problem and the two ponies could get a look at the thing that stoop well ever ten feet tall. Spike thought to himself that if there was a Jack Frost, the guy just did everything he could to help the two out so he had better take advantage of it. Twilight however stood unmoving, her encounter had freaked her out so much that she stayed there shaking in place, her brush with death making her unable to do anything short of keeping herself from releasing her bowls. Spike didn’t have time to snap her out of it. So instead he did what he knew she and Wishful would do in this situation. He focused and summoned up the biggest blast he could to shoot at the creature, he hoped if it didn’t stop it at least he could drag Twilight out the line of fire and escape with her. This charge took time he didn’t have though, and he had to watch as the creature made its horrible cry and showed its line of razor sharp teeth. At that moment as he also noticed Twilight’s cheek start to drip red blood, he remembered what this creature was. Wishful had talked with him about it once back when the two were hanging out in Canterlot and he was looking through Wishful’s old reports in magical creature’s class. Wishful laughed at the weirdness of this particular creature. “The Bumble,” he nearly laughed. “He’s gotta be my favorite ‘dangerous creature’.” Wishful had used air quotes at this and talked in a mocking tone. “Thing’s a freaking pussycat if you knock out the teeth. But it’s immune to the effects of magic so only force can touch it, they are usually super hungry since they live in the mountains with so much cold nothing big enough to ever satisfy it ever lives there. It looks intimidating but like I said, it’s a kind creature at heart. I mean how can a creature who can bounce off from any part of its body be anything but something fun? Thing has more stories about it helping ponies and being non-destructive than domesticated dragons like yourself SD.” “Hey,” called Spike somewhat offended. “I’m not domesticated. I can be just as tough as a wild dragon if I wanted to.” He blew out a patch of green fire to show this. Wishful just rolled his eyes, “sure you can. Still one of these days if I got a pet I’d want a defanged Bumble. Since I’m not a unicorn like most of the ponies around here it would give me some status and I could have a friend who’d be a sort of bodyguard too. Long as I kept him well fed anyway.” He chuckled and put the paper away. “He wasn’t a unicorn,” was Spikes mental note to this memory as he finished his charge. The Bumble had opened its claws again to take Twilight. Spike did his best to aim at the teeth of the creature and sent a blast of green force from his horn. He missed and only got it in the face but it was enough that the Bumble flew back again, but this time off the side of the cliff face they were on and a good thirty feet down so it would take time to climb back up. Spike scrambled to grab his sister’s mane and pull hard. Twilight finally yelped at this and regained herself somewhat. “Wh-what in the hoof was that!” “Tell you later,” he yelled still trying to pull her mane in his teeth. “We better get out of here before it-“ But the creature wasn’t gone for very long at all. The thing sailed from the ground as if it were made of cloud and landed in front of the two unicorns. It roared at them and blood trickled from its nose and mouth, it had lost the majority of its top front teeth. It was furious at the male unicorn. “I mean how can a creature who can bounce off from any part of its body be anything but something fun?” “If I live through this,” Spike told the memory of Wishful. “I’m going to tell you how.” With Twilight still out of it and he counted into a charge at the beast putting all he could into it. At this point the cold winds blew yet again. Spike thought he could hear a laugh as he pressed into the Bumble who wrapped its arms around Spike, trying to crush him as the two fell off the mountain’s deeper side. One that even if the Bumble bounced off of, he could never climb back up again. He saw hundreds of feet fly by him as they fell. And the last thing he heard was Twilight’s cry for him as he passed out from the sight and his bones starting to give into the Bumble’s grip. Author's Note I wanted to go further in this chapter, but that would require going back to Wishful and I wanted a chapter with just Spike and Twilight for once. Hope you enjoy, and see you guys at this story next year as I try to get new stuff or my other stories out by the end of the year. Another fun fact was the Jack Frost thing, it was going to be its own story but I had to change it since I didn't have the time to make yet another one shot that would likely turn into an ongoing thing in the time I had left.
Reboot InfoBasically because I know nobody reads the Blog I'm putting the news up here. I'm finally going to Reboot this story, though not in the way you may all want it. Basically I've been struggling with how to make this story work and fighting starting yet another story instead after reading the and finding problems with a certain Fanfic that uses a 7th element of harmony. so thanks to all this and being on a Les Mis and Sweeney Todd kick of sorts, guess what? Wishful Thinking is getting rebooted as the Element of Hope with obvious nods to such things and his first solo "episode" as it were when it comes to that will be a simplier version of Backfire since it allows an established way to make Wishful's issues funny instead of needlessly stupid or overdramatic ALONG with Spike. You can find the link to it here if you wanna fav at all since it may be a bit before I release anything since I really wanna finish Cog in the Machine first and I have Power Rangers to work on here too. The Password is Backfire Lastly, because of this being an AR story I figure what better way to figure out plans for how I'm going to have Wishful have a romance than seeing how you guys want it. So feel free to comment suggestions on a better love interest than just bothering with what I have in mind right now of Applejack or Keeping the Twilight thing. I'd perfer to work it with a background character, but too many to choose and it doesn't lend much to interacting with them outside this friend circle when I make Alternate chapters of episodes. Thanks for Reading.
Sorry But I just can'tWell here we are, If you guys don't follow me you may notice I tend to do this and I've tried my hardest with ensuring this story didn't stop. But yeah I think it's time to put old yeller out to pasture. Along with finding out the fate of Peewee, which was of course the reason Wishful was going to bother. And the complications from my other story Love of the Draw being a series where way more work is needed when I do work on it than any other fic, I have to cut this line. Outside the last chapter with the Bumble, I pretty much was coasting each chapter with this story since the chapter "We Dun Goofed" The story got more complicated and I didn't actually plan a full on ending outside the fact it was going to end with Wishful just up and dying and Spike forgetting all of this. I felt that ending sucked so I tried just winging it till something else came. But with other stories needing my attention this one that his only a half formed idea is sort of hard to bother with. All I had was introducing a Cyborg Pony next chapter and some interactions between Spike and Rarity, the Twilight thing was supposed to just have the complication of Twilight feeling off about the Cyborg and stuff but again too complicated and maybe I can use the cyborg another time. Sorry for all who followed, but with no real ending, Peewee in the show completely gone thus nurfing this a bit even if I had it take place before that episode, and that entire Alicorn Twilight thing also mucks up this thing, not because she becomes an Alicorn but It would mean delaying till season 4 to see how the entire princess thing works and yeah not doing that. No point sending my focus back here when I can just work on fixing my other hiatused stories that do have real endings planned. Thanks for being my first followers, all of you since this was my first fanfic in so long. And thank you.
