“Oh no, no, no, NO!” Spike repeated to himself as he ran in the direction of the Carousel Boutique. Smoke was pouring out of the ground floor windows, glass littered the street from where the heat inside had blown them out of their frames. Around the boutique, many of the ponies from Ponyville’s fire house were directing the stream from their hoses into Rarity’s shop, slowly pushing back the flames as they fought to escape to the outside.

“No!” Spike half stumbled, half flew around the boutique. He still hadn’t gotten used to his new wings, and due to Twilight needing him at the palace library more and more frequently, his lessons with Rainbow Dash in how to use them had been sparse indeed. Even if they testified that he was now on the cusp of officially becoming a full adult, the great leathery limbs still seemed to trip him up at the worst of times, like right now as he came upon the sight of an ambulance parked in front of the boutique.

“Rarity!” Spike cried. From where she was raggedly holding an oxygen mask to her face, the white unicorn turned and promptly dropped the mask as the shock caused her to go into another coughing fit.

“*cough*… oh Spike… *cough*… I’m… I’m so sorry…” Rarity wheezed as tears ran from her eyes. “Sweetie Belle... she…*cough*”

“Miss Rarity, please! One breath at a time… we’ll fill in your friend here.” One of the ambulance crew gently insisted as he picked up the mask and placed it back over the unicorn’s muzzle. “That’s it… breathe slowly…”

Spike’s heart leapt into his throat. “Is… is she alright?”

The paramedic pony nodded softly.

“She just inhaled a bit too much smoke. Luckily she was near the front door when the fire started, so she got out safely.” The red earth pony assured as Rarity gasped for oxygen. Spike’s worries were momentarily dashed.

“What happened here?” He demanded as the firefighters put down the last of the blaze.

“*cough*… kit-kitchen… *cough* Sweetie Belle was… *cough*…” Rarity fought to get the words out, but her voice was still too weak, not that Spike needed to hear anything more. The mere concept of his marefriend and the word ‘kitchen’ being used in the same sentence pretty much told him how bad this was.

“Sweetie Belle is in there!?” He asked in a panic. One of the firefighters turned and promptly reached out to grab the dragon as he charged for the smoking boutique.

“Whoah… WHOAH! Easy there sir, we’ve almost got the fire out! One of our boys is in there now searching for any other ponies.” He said while trying to not get yanked off his hooves as Spike fought against his grip. Even if he was still shorter than most dragon’s his age, Spike seemed to have bloomed mostly everywhere else, including his strength. As the firefighter holding him promptly found himself being dragged behind the dragon, his colleague tried to pitch in and hold Spike back. Spike simply bore the weight of the two ponies without breaking his stride, not even when a third and fourth firefighter tried to tackle him and stop him from charging into danger.

“S-Seriously… I’m fireproof! I’ve got a better chance of getting her out of there than you do!” Spike growled as he tried to shake off the rescue ponies. Despite the ambulance staff’s protests, Rarity pulled the oxygen mask off and ran over.

“Spike… *cough*… SPIKE!... *cough* don’t! You… *cough*… I need to… *hack*… you don’t know!”

That seemed to finally do the trick. Spike stopped and turned as the mare he trusted almost as implicitly as her beloved sister stumbled up to him, one hoof pressed to her throat as she continued to raggedly cough.

“Know? Know what?” He demanded. Rarity held up her hoof as she hocked a sickly wad of phlegm onto the ground.

“Sweet… *cough*… Sweetie… is fine… she’s… *hack*… she’s…” The unicorn’s beautiful features screwed up as her throat burned from breathing in the hot smoke.

“She’s what?” Spike yelled, then immediately regretted it as Rarity collapsed into another fit of coughing.

“Hey guys, I found her! Alert the… uh…”

All eyes turned to see a fifth firefighter stepping out of the smoking boutique, a steaming bundle of burned blankets on his back.

“Uh… what’s going on out here?” He asked upon seeing his colleagues all holding onto to different parts of the shocked purple dragon.

“Sweetie!” Spike bolted forward, throwing the four other ponies across the street as they lost their grip on him. “Is she… what happened?”

The firefighter cautiously held up a hoof and bid for Spike to stop.

“Looked like something very nasty happened in the kitchen there. Possibly a gas leak that got ignited when the stove was turned on, or something similar. Poor girl got the worst of it. Had to soak some of the fabric sheets lying around the place with water and bundle her up so she wouldn’t burn me while carrying her.” The stallion said somberly. Spike’s face slowly lost its purple color, turning almost white with fright.

“Is she…” He repeated dumbly. The firefighter frantically shook his head.

“She’s alive… I think. Let me get her to the ambulance crew…” The stallion pushed past Spike. “And then maybe to a mechanic.” He added in a confused tone.

Spike mutely followed behind, not even registering the chatter as the firefighter relayed his findings to the medical ponies. The latter duly levitated the bundle onto a stretcher and delicately began peeling back the burned fabric.

“Word of advice, you might want to notify the hospital to have their maintenance team and tools on standby. Seems the rumors around town were right after all.” The firefighter said with a bewildered shrug. Spike turned and stared in likewise puzzlement as the body of his beloved mare was revealed.

Whereupon the puzzlement reverted back to outright shock.

“S-Sweetie? What… the…”

Before the dragon lay a being who could best be described as a facsimile of his marefriend, in the sense that the hair, coat, horn, cutie mark, and other identifying features were all present, but on a body that was clearly not that of Sweetie Bell. Beneath the sickening black crust of burned flesh and muscle shone an expanse of what appeared to be white metal. Beyond the gore of scorched tissues and dried blood, wires, circuits and mechanical joints were visible. Dumbly, Spike turned to look at his sweetheart’s eyes, and immediately felt his stomach flip. The actual soft starry orbs he loved getting lost in had melted out of their sockets, revealing the shine of glass lenses, mounted atop what looked like some manner of highly advanced camera apparatus modelled in the likeness of a robotic eye. Neon green light shone from within the lenses, flickering wildly as if to signal that life still beat within the shell of… whatever the heck this thing was.

“Sweetie? What… is…” Spike breathlessly asked as the paramedics unwrapped the rest of the blankets and looked in amazement.

“Well I’ll be… so these do exist after all!” One of the ambulance crew exclaimed as he gently touched Sweetie’s exposed metallic flank. He promptly yanked the hoof back upon finding it was still almost glowing hot from the fire. “Guess we’re going to see if this one is as durable as legends would state. Get her in the ambulance. I’ll have somepony notify Princess Twilight.”

For the second time that day Spike came to a dead stop as the right combination of words snapped him back to full alertness.

“Princess… Princess Twilight? Uh, I can do that.” He said. The paramedics turned and looked at him. “That is… uh… if you’d kindly tell me just what in Tartarus is going on???” He demanded.

From where she was being helped into the ambulance, Rarity weakly raised her hoof.

“T… *cough*… Tell Twilight… *cough*… then meet us at the hospital. *Hack*… I’ll… explain everything then.” She promised.

Author's Note

So, as 'Scaleless' continues to give me issues, I thought I'd try another idea I mentioned in one of the groups I belong to here. It seems very few folk have done a Spike x Sweetie Bot pairing, as in the comic I took the cover art from is almost the only example I could find.

Being who loves his robots, and honestly wanted to give a non-Rarity Spike pairing a try, this just demanded to be done.

So here we are. A series of currently undetermined length where Spike finds himself dating a robot.