At the crack of sunrise, with a bright shiny rainbow in the sky above the morning dew, Twilight was sleeping in her room and dreaming of organizing another section of the library and finding new things to study, but suddenly in her dream a smoke cloud appeared and clouded the ceiling. She looked up with confusion?
"What is that? Where did it come from?" She asked herself and tried to open a window, but they wouldn't budge. She then got the idea to fan the smoke away with her wings, but her efforts were in vein because it only got bigger and filled the room. She then started shouting for help and then suddenly she was surrounded and panicked.
"Spike? Spike! SPIIIIIKE!" She shouted and suddenly woke up with sweat on her head and sneezed with her room as black as night. She could only assume she was in the middle of the night, but she started coughing and looked up. "What in the world?"
Her room was filled with smoke to the point that she could inhale it and cough, but it wasn't gonna kill her. She tried fanning it with her wings and when it worked, she knew she was awake and laughed at the dream logic.
Course she did wonder where the smoke was from and made her way down the stairs to find Spike and Starlight. She made her way from her room to the smoke filled halls of her castle. She could try flying through to save time, but she would likely get light headed up that high with the smoke or she'd fly right into a wall. She would've ran through the halls to find the fire for the smoke, but she had a hunch of where it came from.
She made her way to the door and heard sneezing, burning, and coughing as the smoke escaped it. She was sure that whatever was behind the door would be the greatest opponent of her day. She opened the door, heard a giant sneeze, and found a green light shining at her. She slammed the door in an instant, with herself out of breath.
"Sorry!" A voice called out from the room, so when Twilight was sure it was clear she bolted in to see the smoke emerging from a basket on the other side of the bed and she uncovered the blanket.
"Hey, Twilight. Can you get me some ice cream?" Spike said as Twilight looked down at him, with a red glowing nose, red eyes, eye crust, and some flaming hot snot dripping from his nose burning into the ground.
"Oh no! It's...It's...Fire Flu!!!" Twilight yelled loud enough for everyone to hear her in Equestria.
7 minutes later
Spike had a blanket around him sneezing and burning whatever Twilight tried to put in front of him, tissues, books, candles, he even burned the blanket he was clinging onto, so he grabbed another one from a pile.
"This shouldn't be possible. This wouldn't be possible. This can't be possible!" Twilight shouted as she read about 6 pages of information at once. 'How is this happening?!"
"What's happeni-! Achoo!" Spike sneezed another fiery blow as big as his head. Twilight grabbed a few items and hid behind a table that now had a giant burn mark.
She put an ice cube on his head and it evaporated to steam in under a 2 seconds, she put some ice in his mouth and it melted away in his breath, she put a thermometer in his mouth and it exploded on contact with his tongue,
"Spike, I know I love to share facts like a walking textbook, but I hate to say that you've got fire flu!" She shouted in panic.
"Tire Stew? Sounds like a bayou breakfast item." Starlight walked down the stairs to meet them and yawned. "Good morning."
She walked over to Spike and smiled at him. "How's my favorite drag-"
'Get away from him!" Twilight blurted out and Starlight jumped 6 feet back. She asked why and Twilight shuddered. 'He's got the fire flu, a sickness that only affects dragons, but virtually makes them walking flamethrowers."
"Sounds normal." Starlight said "What's the main difference?" She asked and ducked when he sneezed, nearly roasting her like a marshmallow.
"If he sneezes near you, he'll be much faster to burn the mane off any pony around him." Twilight flipped through pages of a book. In a desperate attempt to find a cure or remedy. 'Spike, try holding in your sneezes."
"i can't. I tried that this morning and...it didn't come out any better." Spike blushed at the thought and his head hurt worse from blushing. He rubbed his head and walked to the freezer for some ice cream.
"You know I visited a few dragons during my weeks in hiding. I asked them about Fire Flu while i just sat and used magic to disguise myself as a dragon." Starlight said.
"Really? That's perfect." Twilight said with a smile. She grabbed a pen and some paper for her research. "What did you learn?"
Spike had grabbed a bucket of ice cream, but kept sneezing it all away until he melted almost half of it down. Then, he got an idea and grabbed the whole thing and opened his mouth.
"Only a few things like when it comes to eating..." She said and rubbed her head. "Never over stuff on cold food, otherwise..."
Spike swallowed as he managed to fit the whole supply down his throat and licked the inside of the container for any remains and sighed in relief, feeling cool, but then he started to feel a ton of smoke building up in his mouth and his stomach started glowing a very sharp shade of red.
"Ah! Quick!" Starlight panicked and grabbed Spike with her magic and ran for a chimney nearby and put his head in it to face the top of it and he let loose a mighty burp that shot green flames high enough to reach the clouds from the castle.
"Eeyooooooow!!!!" A voice shouted from the top of the castle. A scream and rapid sounds of flight sounded off as some figure above the air was going absolutely mad and she landed on the ground in a wave of dirt.
"Frozen food overload sparks a natural reaction to increase flames in a dragon." Starlight said as Spike got out and had an even shinier nose. "Sorry for the chimney sweep, Spike."
"I'm just glad Santa and Mrs. Clause didn't try to come down." He rubbed his head, suddenly a door in the castle slammed open.
"Hey, you burned my buns! These!" Derpy Whooves shouted and had a box of sandwich buns roasted black and turned around to show burn marks on her tail and flank. "And these buns!"
Later, Twilight Sparkle gave Derpy a burn healing treatment spell on her body and gave her some bread too and the trio moved to the living room
"I don't get it. Fire Flu is supposed to be the dragon equivalent of the pony flu. Why would it take up now if Spike has had his shots and hasn't been around many sneezing dragon flowers?" Twilight said.
"It comes with age a bit, 9 out of 10 dragons deal with it in their lives and have it when going through puberty." Starlight said.
"So, Spike is just going through puberty a bit?" Twilight asked
"Somewhat, dragon puberty usually just comes when they're older than him. At least 16." She said. "How old is he?"
Twilight a deep breath and the sound of a melted table collapsing in the back drowned her out.
" Wow, No kidding? Alright, the only way to help cure a sick dragon like this is to try and cool him down in many ways" She said.
First Attempt: Bathing
Twilight filled the bathtub with cold water and gently lowered Spike in and he fought back a bit. "Yikes, Twilight! That's cold!"
"Sorry, Spike, but we need to help you or you'll burn most of the stuff here." Twilight said. She dipped him into the water and he smiled.
"Hey it's not so bad. it actually feels a tiny bit warmer...warm...hot...cooking...boiling!!" He said as the bathroom got coated in a giant amount of steam. The sound of bubbling water and sizzling erupted as the door slammed open and they all walked out with Spike covered in sweat and Twilight and Starlight wrinkled up.
"That didn't work." Twilight said and then passed out.
Next Attempt: Eating in Moderation
"That fire in him is like a wild oven, if we try and cool it down slowly, it'll help put down the illness." Starlight said as she grabbed a cold glass of lemonade. It then evaporated away as he only breathed on it.
She then grabbed a spoon of ice cream and it melted before it even reached his mouth. She then tried again and repeated the same problem 5 times. She groaned and exited the room. "Give me a minute."
Twilight looked back and tried to run some water from the pipe into Spike's mouth, but it only just came out as a burp of steam. Then they heard a whistle from outside the room. Starlight levitated a large ball of cold ice cream above her head
"Open wide, Spikey!" She smiled and Twilight jumped out the way as Starlight loaded Spike with vanilla ice cream fast enough to avoid it melting. "That should do it!"
"Wait...didn't you say not to over load him?" Twilight asked. Starlight looked confused then her pupils shrank in surprise.
"Horse biscuits!!! Hurry!" Starlight shouted as she rushed to move Spike to an open room and a loud roar of flames sounded the coast was clear.
"How do you get brain freeze with Fire Flu?" Spike rubbed his noggin. Starlight looked in the room and gasped.
"What's wrong?" Twilight asked.
"Nothing! Let's move on!" Starlight gave Spike to Twilight and sent them into another room as she barricaded the door behind her and covered the door with magic so it would remain unseen. "Twilight is gonna kill me for burning her Daring Do collection, unless Rainbow gets me first."
Final Attempt: Let it burn
"So to express the flame buildup should finish the job?" Twilight asked.
"Yep. Naturally expressing the locked up heat should levitate Spike's internal engines of their excess temperature measurements." Starlight said.
"So you'll trigger the immune response and urge the excess storage of flames to leave and-" Twilight was interrupted by a purple claw on her muzzle.
"In English!" Spike yelled and sneezed onto the floor causing a hole to melt into the floor.
"We're gonna make you sneeze it all out. But no more ice cream, we've almost burned the whole palace." Starlight said.
"Almost?" Spike looked up and saw burn marks on every fabric, wall, and piece of furniture in the castle and a few melted crystal walls. "Sure. Let's get this done."
So with some room at the top of the castle, the trio sat in the sunlight and let Spike sneeze as he needed and it seemed to be working since his sneezes started weakening, but someone knocked on the door. Fluttershy was outside.
"Hey, Twilight. Would you mind turning down the heat." Fluttershy asked as she panted and sweated. She then wiped her brow. "Everyone in town is...sweating their...hearts out."
At first, Twilight was confused, but the she put it together and realized her mistake. The fire from Spike's sneezing would just shoot a large amount of heat into the air sparking a wave of heat to fly around Ponyville and she could see sweaty ponies far off waiting to buy lemonade. In a flash, she teleported back to the top of her castle and told Spike to stop.
Later...
"Well that's it. I'm out of ideas." Starlight said. "I already tried magic and that only heightens the flu causing madness. What are we gonna do?"
Another knock on the door and Twilight went to answer and found Derpy Hooves returned once again. She had a package on her head atop an umbrella hat.
"Package and letter for Spike the Dragon from Princess Ember." She smiled and drank a bit of lemonade in her satchel.
Twilight thanked her and took the package to the kitchen and gave him the package. "What could it be I wonder?"
Spike used his claws to rip it open and he pulled out the letter on some old paper. He read it aloud. "Dear Spike..."
Dear Spike,
I've gotten a case of the Fire Flu in my spare time from one of the goons in my kingdom. It takes a few months to develop and it comes by surprise. Naturally since I caught this, I thought you might have found the same thing too and I doubt the butterfly kisses and sugar snacks your pony friends would give would've been any help.
So since you helped me get the throne I sit on, I decided to send you this elixir to cure you in about 3 days, because dragons have found this medicine only last year. Yes, it tastes horrible, but it's the best flavor we could have made for this. So I wish you the best.
-Princess Ember
P.S I hope you enjoy this paper, because I've sneezed and burned over a hundred of these things and had to resort to some aged junk.
"Well that sounds wonderful! I wish we would've found this earlier." Twilight said as she looked around to see her castle in a near smoldering ruin state." Twilight said.
"What took them so long to send it I wonder?" Starlight asked and wondered to herself.
"I think it's because we never gave her our address." Spike said as he uncorked the green tube of liquid. He chugged it down and turned green as he tried to keep it down from coming back out.
"I would have sent this sooner, but it's hard to find anyone to travel so far and it was stupid trying to figure out where you live in a mail system like this." Twilight read a bit more of the letter and groaned.
It took a few days, but eventually Spike was healed up to the point her felt as fresh as ever. Naturally, Twilight made sure to send letters back and forth to help register this cue for other dragons in Equestria.
Understandably, Spike had to stay home for the next few days, because he would sometimes go on a sneezing fit and burn someplace to the ground if he wasn't careful. Pinkie didn't speak to him for a good 12 hours after he accidentally melted a chocolate pony statue to the ground. He was practically banned from 1/2 of Ponyville so he just stayed home with Starlight taking care of him as the others went on adventures.
The mayor put in a new policy that if Spike ever caught Fire Flu again, he was to be bed written to a hospital room near the fire department for the sake of everyone around him. Course, the fire department never felt like they were needed more.
As for the castle, Twilight called in a favor and Shining Armor and Princess Cadence sent a few building crystals and Twilight learned a few spells to increase flame resistance in the castle. Sadly one thing remained the same...
Twilight and Rainbow mourned the loss of their Daring Do collection, so Starlight and Spike made sure to lay low for a few weeks.
Author's Note
Hope you enjoyed it. Leave a comment
