The "Spike" Incidentby RalfilChaptersChapter 1: The IntroductionsChapter 2: The Gingerbread ManChapter 3: Apples to ApplesChapter 4: DreadChapter 1: The IntroductionsI wasn't sure what knocked me out, but when I came to it was to the sound of a concerned girl's voice. That was all I could tell at first. Slowly things became a little more clear and I could eventually tell what she was saying. “Are you alright Spike?” I briefly wondered who she was talking to before I was nudged by what I guessed was a foot. I groaned as I became aware of my muscles. I was sore all over. “Oh thank goodness. I was worried about you. How do you feel?” I figured she was talking to me now. I still didn't know who this 'Spike' was though. I answered with perfect honesty to the question, “Soooo sore.” I groaned again. The girl chuckled for some reason as I said that. “Well I guess that's to be expected after being practically buried in books by a certain pegasus.” I could tell she said that part through gritted teeth. My mind was still catching up to what she had just said when another girl piped up. “Hehe,” she said nervously, “sorry about that kid.” At this point I finally strained my eyes open with a question that effectively summed up my state of mind, “What the heck are you talking about?” What greeted my eyes was probably the last thing I was expecting. I found myself staring at a pair of disproportionately shaped ponies who were purple and blue. Secondly I noticed that the purple one was apparently a unicorn and the blue one was a pegasus hovering in the air. Any response to my question was completely ignored as I looked at my surroundings. I saw that I was in some sort of library with a wood theme going on. There was a large pile of books to my right that had a hole as if something had been pulled out of it. Then I looked down at myself. At some point I had evidently gotten much smaller and lost my clothes. In addition to this I had been transformed into a green and purple dragon or dinosaur. I wasn't quite sure which one yet. As I raised a hand full of claws to my face and flexed it I was startled out of reverie by the purple one shaking me with one of her front hooves. “Spike! Aren't you going to say something? Rainbow Dash asked you a question!” I looked at her dumbly. I was a bit of a reader myself and had spent some time preparing for theoretical scenarios where I somehow entered a book or story. It was always fun to use my imagination for that. However, I never really expected anything of the sort to happen. Not to mention that I had no idea what was going on here. I blinked and responded with another question, “Who's Rainbow Dash?” The expression on her face quickly changed from agitated due to frustration to concerned. She leaned forward and pressed a foreleg to my forehead. The blue pony stopped flapping her wings and sunk to the ground with a much more surprised look on her face. “Oh dear. Spike? What's the last thing you remember?” “Who's Spike?” The unicorn backpedaled rather quickly and sat down in shock as she stared at me. She looked like she was trying to talk as she opened and closed her mouth repeatedly. Clearly she wasn’t expecting me to say that. Her face reminded me of something that I immediately decided to mention to her in hopes that it would stir things along. “Has anyone ever told you that you look like a fish when you do that?” The purple pony blushed and stuttered at this while I sat there waiting. I figured an explanation would surely come soon enough. The pegasus appeared to still be in shock. She hadn't even budged when I made the fish comment. The unicorn finally shook her head and pointed one of her hooves at me. “Spike is your name. Now-” “No it isn't.” I interrupted. “What?” “My name. It isn't Spike.” “What?” I sighed and slapped my palm onto my face in exasperation. I slowly dragged it down to look at the pony staring quizzically at me. I sighed again and decided that we were going nowhere fast with this. “Okay. So, nice to meet you. My name is Sean. I have a few guesses as to what's going on here.” I held up a claw. “One, I'm hallucinating or unconscious. This is most likely from my point of view.” Another claw join the first. “Two, I've been shunted into some alternate universe slash reality slash planet and taken this body from its previous occupant, presumably this Spike you mentioned.” I held up a third claw in finality. “And three, I am Spike but have somehow undergone a memory and likely personality rewrite through some means as yet undetermined.” I shrugged. “In any case, I would like to get this resolved quickly. I'm just grateful that we can speak the same language here.” The unicorn's jaw had slowly dropped lower and lower as I monologued. I had been looking around a bit while I talked. At this point I stopped and stared her directly in the eyes. “So, I have three questions I need to know the answers to right now. What am I? Where am I? And who are you two?” The unicorn decided that this was the perfect time for her to take my previously occupied place as the unconscious individual in the room. My palm and faced decided in return that this was the perfect time for them to get reacquainted. I clenched my teeth, which I noticed fit together rather well at this point, and muttered a few things under my breath which were definitely not anything I would repeat in polite company. Finally glancing at the pegasus again I decided she was probably the more intelligent one if she was still conscious even with that dumb look on her face. I weighed my options and realized that trying to act like a rational being wasn't getting me as far as I had thought it would. The blue pony seemed to still be in a daze, so I couldn't just talk to her the same way I had approached the unicorn. It would get even less results. I considered walking out of wherever I was, but figured that would just end up with me being more lost than I already was. I thought about a couple of other equally bad ideas before settling on just snapping her out of it the quickest way I could think of. I calmly walked up to the pegasus and looked into her eyes. They were clearly still staring off into the distance as they slowly blinked. I walked around to her side and poked her lightly out of politeness, “Hey, you still there?” No response. I prodded harder. Still no response. I drew back my arm a bit to jab really hard, but then took a look at my hand. Those claws could definitely pierce skin if I wanted them to. My hand fell to my side as the other went to my chin. An idea exactly how to do this blossomed forth in my mind. I had absolutely no doubt it would work. Their actions so far had already shown that they had at least basic social interaction like what I was used to. I walked further away from her head, but stayed right next to her body. I raised my hand up and prepared mentally for the consequences of what I was about to do. My hand came down and slapped her flank as hard as it could. To say there was a reaction would be an understatement. To say that it accomplished getting me someone to talk to would false, unfortunately. She jumped up in the air with quite the yelp. I must say it was very feminine. I had been hoping for indignation so that I could talk to someone who wasn't asleep. Angry people tend to be more likely to cause physical harm, but less likely to allow themselves to lose consciousness because of something as stupid as someone else needing their help. Sadly, having the blue pony be furious at me would have to wait, as I had forgotten she had wings. If you think about it, anything with wings is going to use them when startled. Combine it with a surprised jump of the magnitude I had just initiated, and you have the perfect formula for a head hitting the rafters and blacking out. With my first two encounters asleep on the floor in front of me I absolutely lost it. I was really struggling to stay logical at that point. It's likely I had already lost that ability as evidenced by my insane decision to slap the rear end of a sentient female. Fists clenched at my sides I raised my head and screamed in frustration. Chapter 2: The Gingerbread ManAfter shouting how ridiculous my situation was for about ten minutes I was able to calm down again. I could see that both ponies were unconscious, but still breathing. I decided to wake up the first one I had seen. I could only hope that she cared about "Spike" enough to not hurt me for the method I was going to use here. There are a lot of safe ways to get somebody's attention when they are wake. Some may cause discomfort, but none of them will cause injury. I only knew one way to wake someone up quickly without endangering them. I could always clamp my hands over her mouth and nose for a couple of seconds, but I figured that might be dangerous considering neither of us was human at the moment. I've never completely understood why that works anyway. Before I forgot, I poked at one of the places I had been sore on earlier while underneath the books. Yep, still sore. That eliminated this being a dream. I started looking around for what I would need to wake her up. On closer examination of my surroundings, I found that this was a fairly small library by my standards. I could only imagine that it was a privately owned one rather that being public like I was used to. Either that or this place just didn't have very much literature. Yes there were a lot of books. Every wall had shelves packed with them. I was used to city libraries however. I glanced at the slow breathing forms next to me. The definitely weren't going anywhere soon. I figured they could wait while I did a small amount of intelligence gathering from the titles at least. I strode over to the shelves and brushed my fingers across the spines in front of me. For the most part the books seemed to be written in English, though the organization was not exactly what I would have expected. Some people don't organize their books at all, while others use a fairly simple method such as size or author to know where to put things. There was a system here. I just didn't understand it. I finally settled on pulling out a history book of some kind that seemed fairly new. Its pages were still very crisp. Sitting down I placed "The History of Equestria for Foals" in my lap and opened it up. I figured a children's history book would be the best place to start for this. I smirked when I saw that it even came with pictures. Evidently I was in a nation that had been formed after some sort of magical ice age. Besides that, either the rulers passed down their names every generation, or they were incredibly long lived. One of the two co-rulers who were evidently in charge of the day and night cycle had been forced to banish the other a little over one thousand years ago. The banished one had returned in recent years, and the book gave the feeling that her banishment had just been a really long time out. It also showed pictures of the ponies who had helped calm her down. I looked up at the two ponies still on the floor. It was definitely them. When I saw their names I couldn't help face-palming again. "These names are absolutely ridiculous." Even with the weird naming conventions I had seen in the book, there was no excuse for the puns in front of me. I couldn't call them Rainbow Dash and Twilight Sparkle even in my head with a straight face, so I thought up a couple of nicknames based on our very limited interaction so far. I felt the names fit perfectly with the style in general that these ponies used for naming each other. I wandered around for a bit before finally finding the kitchen, leaving Rainbow Scared and Twilight Stupid on the floor. Thankfully, this place had enough modern technology for a faucet in the sink for water. I grabbed a tall glass and filled it as high as I could with ice cold water. It had required a little effort since the sink was higher than I was tall, but claws make it very easy to climb wooden surfaces. Now that I had it, I needed to get back down without spilling it prematurely. I looked at my tail, which had mostly been relaxed the whole time, and wondered if it was prehensile. After a while of prodding and stretching it I was able to wrap my tail around the glass securely for the trip down. Entering the main room of the library again, I contemplated how mad Twilight Stupid would be when I did this. I figured there was no way I could accurately estimate that and dumped the water on her head. Her shriek was quite ear-rending. I didn't need to wonder how upset she was any more. That was for sure. If it had been a prank I would have been rolling on the ground laughing my butt off. In stead I calm stood there not trying to hid the glass in my hand. Once her breathing calmed down for a moment I asked, "You done yet?" Her head whipped around to face me, and her eyes went directly to my hand. She realized very quickly what I had just done, and her eyes narrowed into slits. Seeing that was a mixture of uncomfortable and funny considering that her eyes took up almost half her face. "Spike," she said, "did you just dump water on me?" "I don't know who this 'Spike' is, but if you are referring to me then yes, I poured this water on you." "Why?" There was a dangerous tone there that I failed to notice. "I needed you to wake up. I'm not sure I want to just go outside when I doubt I'm even on the same planet I was on earlier." I replied offhandedly. "What?" Confusion was evident. "You keep on using that word. I do not think it means what you think it means." "What?" Confusion was replaced as the dangerous tone returned. "Ah well," I continued, oblivious, "I suppose I'll just have to look elsewhere for intelligent conversation. As absolutely riveting as this has been, I don't think you seem to have the mental capacity to really understand what's going on here." I failed to notice her horn light up with a purple glow as I paced back and forth talking. "I mean, come on! It's pretty obvious that the best possibility to work from here is that I've possessed this body some how." I looked down now that I realized my feet weren't quite touching anything. What I could see of my body was now glowing the same purple as her horn. "I think I'm quite capable of understanding that you poured ice cold water on me and don't see a problem with it." I stared at her for a moment, gears turning. I asked my brain what was going on. *ERROR: GRAVITY NOT WORKING* Well, that wasn't good. I settled on it being either telekinesis or magic. Either way, I reacted by screaming, "Evasive action!" and throwing the glass at her head. She was startled enough that she stopped doing whatever she had been doing to hold me up in the air. I fell with a thump to the ground before scrambling up and making a break for it. I knew where the kitchen was, and I had seen a window there with an easily opened latch. In the kitchen I climbed up the counter and dove out the window as soon as it was open. It was one of those ones that you have to prop open, so it slammed shut behind me. I started booking it as fast as I could to get away from the building. Now, the body I was in was clearly not in shape. This kept me from running without pain, but anyone who has run cross country knows that it's more of a mind over matter sort of thing to keep going when you tire easily. Thankfully I was able to duck into an gap between two homes before she was able to get outside even. I saw her streak past me yelling for "Spike" and looking quite furious. I chuckled under my breath as I hid behind a trash can, "Run, run, run as fast as you can. You can't catch me." I finished the saying in my head as I took this opportunity to look around the town from where I was. What I saw was definitely not what I had expected. Chapter 3: Apples to ApplesHaving successfully evaded Twilight Stupid I now found myself outside in an alley. I peeked out again to make sure she was nowhere to be seen before walking out. I looked around too see what held up with what I had read in that history book earlier. It didn't take long for my eyes to start hurting from the colors. I had never seen such vivid colors before in real life. I had to squint a bit as I wondered again where this was. I knew that it wasn't the Earth I knew, and judging from the colors I could guess that this experience wasn't something having to do with time travel either. There was no way that Earth would ever produce colors like that naturally. Of course, when I mention these colors I'm not just talking about the plants. I saw a lot of ponies walking around of all sorts of warm colors. It felt like I had stumbled upon an Easter parade. Plus their houses were ridiculously decorated. I was quite surprised that there would be so many window-shutters alone with heart-shaped cutouts like that. The history book had hinted at a few things that I thought would be odd like the names for some of their holidays, but this was really starting to look a little too much like a fairy tail land for my tastes. I walked out tremulously as I continued to take it all in. I was mildly surprised that none of the ponies seemed even remotely shocked at my appearance. However, I supposed that it somewhat made sense if I was in a borrowed body that they would be familiar with it. A few even smiled and waved at me. I took that as an indication that I could go about a little more brazenly without too much trouble. I had a basic history of the country at least. I decided to go with the assumption that this really was a land with magic in it if it had been formed as a result of being forced out of their previous domain by spirits controlling what amounted to the north wind. The ponies were doing pretty well for themselves in that respect now. They had a lively flora and fauna from what I could see. There were plenty of songbirds chirping and spinning around in the air. The flowers were vibrant. The sky was clear. In fact, as I looked up at the sky I noticed that there were a few Pegasi moving the clouds away. Now that was interesting. I considered the implications of a creature able to manipulate the weather were quite important. How they were able to do so while still being able to interact with solid objects was beyond me. I could only imagine it had something to do with magic. Perhaps physics just worked differently here. Now there was an interesting idea. I was so busy thinking about this that I was surprised when I walked right into something. I looked down from the sky at what I realized was a cart for selling carrots. The pony running it didn't notice me as she was haggling with a customer. I looked around a bit more and found that I was now in what I guessed was the market square. Evidently there were quite a few ponies selling their goods here. One had a trio of ponies selling flowers. As I took in the sights, smells, and sounds of the marketplace I was hailed by quite a few of the ponies. None of them seemed overly interested, so I responded with a hand wave and a smile. I definitely didn't want to make a faux pas by not knowing their names and saying the wrong thing. It was interesting to see that all the ponies paid for their purchases with golden coins. I would have expected a copper, silver, gold system honestly. I kind of hoped they at least had different denominations of those golden coins. It would be ridiculous to have to carry around a whole bunch of them for larger transactions. Judging from how much the food was being settled for, I estimated one of the basic golden coins at a value of about fifty cents in American money. One pony noticed me eyeing her stand as I watched her sell apples to a brown coated stallion with an hourglass on his flank. She looked like one of the elemental guardians I had seen a picture of in the library book. "Well howdy there Spike!" she exclaimed as the stallion walked away with his purchase. "You come fer some apples?" Great. Another pony who wanted to actually talk to me, or at least wanted to talk to this "Spike." I briefly considered going the route of pretending to know her, but quickly discarded it as untenable. There was no way I'd be able to hold up a charade like that for long on an unfamiliar planet without claiming amnesia. Vocabulary alone would probably give me away. "Nope. I'm exploring the strange new world I find myself in. It seems that I'm in possession of Spike's body and have no idea where his consciousness is." I said all of this with a straight face looking at the apples. They were unreasonably colored. All of them were fully red or green. No splotches of either in between. It was odd and idealized, just like a lot of this world. She blinked in surprise, taken aback by my answer which had clearly not been what she was expecting. "What was that sugarcube?" I smirked. It was already obvious from the stetson on her head that she was a country mare. Still, it was nice to hear some of my hometown origins in her speaking. You know how funny it is when someone with a remarkably large vocabulary uses works like "ain't" and "ya'll" on a regular basis? It's hilarious to throw some people off with it. I decided to implement that trick right away. It would work even better for shock value if this "Spike" wasn't one to use country vernacular. "Well," I started off, laying a thick drawl on my words, "Ah don' exactly remember what happened before ah got here, but it was rather shocking to spontaneously find mahself under a pile of library books and introduced to a couple of mythological creatures. Evidently ah've taken the body of this 'Spike' but have no idea whether it was something on his end, my end, or both that caused this." I paused and reverted to my regular accent, which most would describe as being from the Western portion of the U.S. Having parents from either side of the country definitely resulted in a bizzare speaking pattern. "It'd be really awkward if this turned out to be a body swap. A kid from a world like this would likely be scared out of his wits." The pony in front of me, whom I had mentally dubbed as Apples, was by this point looking at me with an expression that was clearly not amused by what I had said and didn't seem all that convinced. It was all in the half-lidded eyes and flat-lined mouth. Oh well. It had been at least worth a shot to hope that someone would believe me. "Spike. Ah don't fully understand everything you said, but ah don't take to kindly to yer mocking me like that." And now I had ticked her off too. Maybe I was a little more stressed at the situation than I thought if I was being rude enough to elicit a reaction like that without realizing it. "Right. Sorry about that. Take it up with the purple unicorn. She'll probably swing by looking for me. Whelp! I'm off." I turned and jogged away hoping her duty as a salesperson held her at the stall. "By the way," I called over my shoulder, "I like the hat. Stetsons are cool." Thankfully that left her confused enough that I could get away easily. As I left the square I felt a chill run up my spine. I'd never really felt something like that before, so I was caught unawares as I pondered whether it was a muscle memory or a fear instinct of the creature whose body I was inhabiting. I was very startled when something moving very fast and sounding like a small motor hit me from behind. I'd like to say that I did an amazing back-flip through the air and landed in a cool three-pronged pose, but that would be lying my head off. Rather I was hurled into the air before landing in a moving vehicle uncomfortable on my back with my tail pinned underneath. "Gosh. Are you alright Spike?" I looked up into the helmeted faces of two ponies. For some reason that chill had returned with a vengeance. But there was no way it had anything to do with the smiling, innocent faces of children. Right? Chapter 4: DreadI found myself hurtling around in an uncovered, unsecured, makeshift vehicle without so much as a helmet to protect myself. It was not the most encouraging thing ever. With no safety to speak of in my situation I held on tight to the sides of the little red wagon. Me landing in it hadn't slowed it down in the slightest. Now, it's not that I'm afraid of going too fast. I absolutely love roller-coasters. What I don't like is that feeling you get when you have absolutely no control over the situation and start to slide sideways. Have you ever drifted on an icy road before? Well apparently you can do that on a dirt road as well. The only problem with doing it on a dirt road is that it definitely does damage to your surroundings as well as the vehicle if the wheels are primitive enough. Needless to say, the drifting was more than a little bumpy. In fact, the entire ride was bumpy. More than bumpy, it was downright dangerous. I was also spouting several words that meant absolutely nothing when strung together like that and sounded like complete nonsense. Not being one for outright cursing, I had developed the habit of using the largest words I could find as substitutes. Sometimes they had harsh enough syllables to sound like I was speaking German. The wide eyes of the two young ponies standing above me let the small part of my mind that was still rational know that they had definitely never heard several of those words. By the time we finally came to a stop I had stopped spouting off words and simply was holding the sides hard enough that my claws left deep indentations in the metal. I was staring at the sky in a bit of a stupor as the clouds hung there, not moving. I was shifted from my conscious, yet seemingly catatonic state by the feeling of a hoof poking me in the face a few times. "Hey Spike?" I turned my head slowly to face the small unicorn. "Are you alright?" I looked around, focusing mainly on making sure my body was still intact.Thankfully, it was. I turned back to faced her and gave a small nod. "Oh good." She looked over her shoulder. I couldn't see what she was looking at because my head was still below the edge of the wagon. "By the way, what does neologism mean?" I blinked. I hadn't remembered using that word in particular, but it could have been one of them. I coughed. I was in that state where you're too shocked to do much, but will still carry out simple instructions that someone else gives you without thinking. "It means 'a made-up word' if I remember correctly." My voice cracked a bit as I continued, "Why do you ask?" "Well, it was the last thing you said before you started saying complete gibberish. Before that what you were saying at least sounded like words." She smiled. "And I'm pretty sure you mispronounced a few of the ones that were words." I was about to respond indignantly to that, but one of her friends called her away. I took the opportunity to sit up fully and take a look around at my surroundings. There wasn't a whole lot to see nearby besides the tree-house the small unicorn went up into. I had absolutely no idea where I was in relation to my starting point earlier, but that probably didn't matter too much anyways seeing as how I had no idea where that was in the first place. I hopped out of the slightly mangled wagon and looked at the more distant area. It seemed I was now on the edge of an apple orchard. That wasn't too bad. At least I could grab something to eat. That was if I could eat apples in this new body. I took a look at my claws again. They were not an expected addition to my physique. Nor was the tail. I was about to run off when I was nearly deafened by three voices that were way too loud to be coming out of bodies that small. "CUTIE MARK CRUSADER DRAGON TAMERS YAY!" It took me a moment to realize that I was a dragon, and that they were probably about to come after me. By then it was too late. I turned around to see three small fillies who were still big enough to tackle me coming at me with a net held between the unicorn and pegasus. A small squeak of fear escaped my open mouth when I saw the chains being carried by the final member of their group. It didn't take long before I found myself covered in a net and chained to the ground. I found myself wondering how they were even able to carry a chain that heavy. I couldn't move much at all. Especially with them sitting on me on top of all that. The pony that had seemed normal in comparison clearly had what might be considered a ridiculous strength stat. I was very worried for my safety and looking for any way out of this. "So what do we do now?" said the pegasus. "Ah don't know. What are dragon tamers supposed to do?" replied the one with a giant bow in her hair. "Well, you were a lion tamer temporarily when you had cutie pox. Maybe it's like that." It was at this point that I started to worry for my dignity instead of my safety. I'd been to a circus before. While I didn't find it particularly impressive, I did know that only a non-sentient being would be willing to be trained like that. The good thing though was that I now knew for a fact that I was a dragon (at least from the ponies' point of view). Seeing as how I'd been an avid reader before coming to this place I had an extensive knowledge of many different kinds of dragons. Unfortunately, I had absolutely no idea what kind of dragon I was. I mentally started narrowing down the possibilities a little while the ponies on top of me continued discussing my fate. I definitely wasn't a wyvern. They had wings and two legs. I probably wasn't a sea dragon. Those had a tendency to only be able to live in the water. After that I was stumped. One of the problems with having a lot of knowledge about a fictional creature is that there are a lot of different interpretations of what it should look like as well as its attributes. I had absolutely no idea which ones applied to me. Wait. I realized right there that almost every incarnation of dragons I'd ever read about could breath fire of some kind. The only problem was figuring out exactly how I was going to do that. I didn't have much time as one of the foals had left at some point and was now coming back with a whip and a chair. I could understand being able to find a chair. That's a pretty normal item to have lying around. What scared me was the whip. Something like that does not bode well. She spat it out and her friends picked me up still wrapped up in the net. Some how they had also arranged a primitive miniature circus ring around me. They had also set up a few of those rings you see animals jump through, only these ones were constructed from thin branches tied together. I really hoped they didn't intend to light them on fire. "Where the junk did you get a whip?!" I finally let out the question that was making me sweat. On a side note, finding out that I could sweat was interesting as far as my new anatomy went. Reptiles normally don't do that. Then again, reptiles normally don't have sentience either. If they did, there would likely be a lot more fearful sweating every time one came into contact with a large group of humans. There's plenty of people who like to eat lizards. I hear they make for pretty good jerky. I tuned back in just in time to hear the filly's reply. "My room of course." I was not reassured in the slightest by that answer. Why would a child who wore bows in her hair have a whip in her room? For that matter, how was she even picking it up? She carried it there in her mouth, but now it was being held in her hoof. Regardless, I knew one thing for certain. This couldn't end well.
Chapter 1: The IntroductionsI wasn't sure what knocked me out, but when I came to it was to the sound of a concerned girl's voice. That was all I could tell at first. Slowly things became a little more clear and I could eventually tell what she was saying. “Are you alright Spike?” I briefly wondered who she was talking to before I was nudged by what I guessed was a foot. I groaned as I became aware of my muscles. I was sore all over. “Oh thank goodness. I was worried about you. How do you feel?” I figured she was talking to me now. I still didn't know who this 'Spike' was though. I answered with perfect honesty to the question, “Soooo sore.” I groaned again. The girl chuckled for some reason as I said that. “Well I guess that's to be expected after being practically buried in books by a certain pegasus.” I could tell she said that part through gritted teeth. My mind was still catching up to what she had just said when another girl piped up. “Hehe,” she said nervously, “sorry about that kid.” At this point I finally strained my eyes open with a question that effectively summed up my state of mind, “What the heck are you talking about?” What greeted my eyes was probably the last thing I was expecting. I found myself staring at a pair of disproportionately shaped ponies who were purple and blue. Secondly I noticed that the purple one was apparently a unicorn and the blue one was a pegasus hovering in the air. Any response to my question was completely ignored as I looked at my surroundings. I saw that I was in some sort of library with a wood theme going on. There was a large pile of books to my right that had a hole as if something had been pulled out of it. Then I looked down at myself. At some point I had evidently gotten much smaller and lost my clothes. In addition to this I had been transformed into a green and purple dragon or dinosaur. I wasn't quite sure which one yet. As I raised a hand full of claws to my face and flexed it I was startled out of reverie by the purple one shaking me with one of her front hooves. “Spike! Aren't you going to say something? Rainbow Dash asked you a question!” I looked at her dumbly. I was a bit of a reader myself and had spent some time preparing for theoretical scenarios where I somehow entered a book or story. It was always fun to use my imagination for that. However, I never really expected anything of the sort to happen. Not to mention that I had no idea what was going on here. I blinked and responded with another question, “Who's Rainbow Dash?” The expression on her face quickly changed from agitated due to frustration to concerned. She leaned forward and pressed a foreleg to my forehead. The blue pony stopped flapping her wings and sunk to the ground with a much more surprised look on her face. “Oh dear. Spike? What's the last thing you remember?” “Who's Spike?” The unicorn backpedaled rather quickly and sat down in shock as she stared at me. She looked like she was trying to talk as she opened and closed her mouth repeatedly. Clearly she wasn’t expecting me to say that. Her face reminded me of something that I immediately decided to mention to her in hopes that it would stir things along. “Has anyone ever told you that you look like a fish when you do that?” The purple pony blushed and stuttered at this while I sat there waiting. I figured an explanation would surely come soon enough. The pegasus appeared to still be in shock. She hadn't even budged when I made the fish comment. The unicorn finally shook her head and pointed one of her hooves at me. “Spike is your name. Now-” “No it isn't.” I interrupted. “What?” “My name. It isn't Spike.” “What?” I sighed and slapped my palm onto my face in exasperation. I slowly dragged it down to look at the pony staring quizzically at me. I sighed again and decided that we were going nowhere fast with this. “Okay. So, nice to meet you. My name is Sean. I have a few guesses as to what's going on here.” I held up a claw. “One, I'm hallucinating or unconscious. This is most likely from my point of view.” Another claw join the first. “Two, I've been shunted into some alternate universe slash reality slash planet and taken this body from its previous occupant, presumably this Spike you mentioned.” I held up a third claw in finality. “And three, I am Spike but have somehow undergone a memory and likely personality rewrite through some means as yet undetermined.” I shrugged. “In any case, I would like to get this resolved quickly. I'm just grateful that we can speak the same language here.” The unicorn's jaw had slowly dropped lower and lower as I monologued. I had been looking around a bit while I talked. At this point I stopped and stared her directly in the eyes. “So, I have three questions I need to know the answers to right now. What am I? Where am I? And who are you two?” The unicorn decided that this was the perfect time for her to take my previously occupied place as the unconscious individual in the room. My palm and faced decided in return that this was the perfect time for them to get reacquainted. I clenched my teeth, which I noticed fit together rather well at this point, and muttered a few things under my breath which were definitely not anything I would repeat in polite company. Finally glancing at the pegasus again I decided she was probably the more intelligent one if she was still conscious even with that dumb look on her face. I weighed my options and realized that trying to act like a rational being wasn't getting me as far as I had thought it would. The blue pony seemed to still be in a daze, so I couldn't just talk to her the same way I had approached the unicorn. It would get even less results. I considered walking out of wherever I was, but figured that would just end up with me being more lost than I already was. I thought about a couple of other equally bad ideas before settling on just snapping her out of it the quickest way I could think of. I calmly walked up to the pegasus and looked into her eyes. They were clearly still staring off into the distance as they slowly blinked. I walked around to her side and poked her lightly out of politeness, “Hey, you still there?” No response. I prodded harder. Still no response. I drew back my arm a bit to jab really hard, but then took a look at my hand. Those claws could definitely pierce skin if I wanted them to. My hand fell to my side as the other went to my chin. An idea exactly how to do this blossomed forth in my mind. I had absolutely no doubt it would work. Their actions so far had already shown that they had at least basic social interaction like what I was used to. I walked further away from her head, but stayed right next to her body. I raised my hand up and prepared mentally for the consequences of what I was about to do. My hand came down and slapped her flank as hard as it could. To say there was a reaction would be an understatement. To say that it accomplished getting me someone to talk to would false, unfortunately. She jumped up in the air with quite the yelp. I must say it was very feminine. I had been hoping for indignation so that I could talk to someone who wasn't asleep. Angry people tend to be more likely to cause physical harm, but less likely to allow themselves to lose consciousness because of something as stupid as someone else needing their help. Sadly, having the blue pony be furious at me would have to wait, as I had forgotten she had wings. If you think about it, anything with wings is going to use them when startled. Combine it with a surprised jump of the magnitude I had just initiated, and you have the perfect formula for a head hitting the rafters and blacking out. With my first two encounters asleep on the floor in front of me I absolutely lost it. I was really struggling to stay logical at that point. It's likely I had already lost that ability as evidenced by my insane decision to slap the rear end of a sentient female. Fists clenched at my sides I raised my head and screamed in frustration.
Chapter 2: The Gingerbread ManAfter shouting how ridiculous my situation was for about ten minutes I was able to calm down again. I could see that both ponies were unconscious, but still breathing. I decided to wake up the first one I had seen. I could only hope that she cared about "Spike" enough to not hurt me for the method I was going to use here. There are a lot of safe ways to get somebody's attention when they are wake. Some may cause discomfort, but none of them will cause injury. I only knew one way to wake someone up quickly without endangering them. I could always clamp my hands over her mouth and nose for a couple of seconds, but I figured that might be dangerous considering neither of us was human at the moment. I've never completely understood why that works anyway. Before I forgot, I poked at one of the places I had been sore on earlier while underneath the books. Yep, still sore. That eliminated this being a dream. I started looking around for what I would need to wake her up. On closer examination of my surroundings, I found that this was a fairly small library by my standards. I could only imagine that it was a privately owned one rather that being public like I was used to. Either that or this place just didn't have very much literature. Yes there were a lot of books. Every wall had shelves packed with them. I was used to city libraries however. I glanced at the slow breathing forms next to me. The definitely weren't going anywhere soon. I figured they could wait while I did a small amount of intelligence gathering from the titles at least. I strode over to the shelves and brushed my fingers across the spines in front of me. For the most part the books seemed to be written in English, though the organization was not exactly what I would have expected. Some people don't organize their books at all, while others use a fairly simple method such as size or author to know where to put things. There was a system here. I just didn't understand it. I finally settled on pulling out a history book of some kind that seemed fairly new. Its pages were still very crisp. Sitting down I placed "The History of Equestria for Foals" in my lap and opened it up. I figured a children's history book would be the best place to start for this. I smirked when I saw that it even came with pictures. Evidently I was in a nation that had been formed after some sort of magical ice age. Besides that, either the rulers passed down their names every generation, or they were incredibly long lived. One of the two co-rulers who were evidently in charge of the day and night cycle had been forced to banish the other a little over one thousand years ago. The banished one had returned in recent years, and the book gave the feeling that her banishment had just been a really long time out. It also showed pictures of the ponies who had helped calm her down. I looked up at the two ponies still on the floor. It was definitely them. When I saw their names I couldn't help face-palming again. "These names are absolutely ridiculous." Even with the weird naming conventions I had seen in the book, there was no excuse for the puns in front of me. I couldn't call them Rainbow Dash and Twilight Sparkle even in my head with a straight face, so I thought up a couple of nicknames based on our very limited interaction so far. I felt the names fit perfectly with the style in general that these ponies used for naming each other. I wandered around for a bit before finally finding the kitchen, leaving Rainbow Scared and Twilight Stupid on the floor. Thankfully, this place had enough modern technology for a faucet in the sink for water. I grabbed a tall glass and filled it as high as I could with ice cold water. It had required a little effort since the sink was higher than I was tall, but claws make it very easy to climb wooden surfaces. Now that I had it, I needed to get back down without spilling it prematurely. I looked at my tail, which had mostly been relaxed the whole time, and wondered if it was prehensile. After a while of prodding and stretching it I was able to wrap my tail around the glass securely for the trip down. Entering the main room of the library again, I contemplated how mad Twilight Stupid would be when I did this. I figured there was no way I could accurately estimate that and dumped the water on her head. Her shriek was quite ear-rending. I didn't need to wonder how upset she was any more. That was for sure. If it had been a prank I would have been rolling on the ground laughing my butt off. In stead I calm stood there not trying to hid the glass in my hand. Once her breathing calmed down for a moment I asked, "You done yet?" Her head whipped around to face me, and her eyes went directly to my hand. She realized very quickly what I had just done, and her eyes narrowed into slits. Seeing that was a mixture of uncomfortable and funny considering that her eyes took up almost half her face. "Spike," she said, "did you just dump water on me?" "I don't know who this 'Spike' is, but if you are referring to me then yes, I poured this water on you." "Why?" There was a dangerous tone there that I failed to notice. "I needed you to wake up. I'm not sure I want to just go outside when I doubt I'm even on the same planet I was on earlier." I replied offhandedly. "What?" Confusion was evident. "You keep on using that word. I do not think it means what you think it means." "What?" Confusion was replaced as the dangerous tone returned. "Ah well," I continued, oblivious, "I suppose I'll just have to look elsewhere for intelligent conversation. As absolutely riveting as this has been, I don't think you seem to have the mental capacity to really understand what's going on here." I failed to notice her horn light up with a purple glow as I paced back and forth talking. "I mean, come on! It's pretty obvious that the best possibility to work from here is that I've possessed this body some how." I looked down now that I realized my feet weren't quite touching anything. What I could see of my body was now glowing the same purple as her horn. "I think I'm quite capable of understanding that you poured ice cold water on me and don't see a problem with it." I stared at her for a moment, gears turning. I asked my brain what was going on. *ERROR: GRAVITY NOT WORKING* Well, that wasn't good. I settled on it being either telekinesis or magic. Either way, I reacted by screaming, "Evasive action!" and throwing the glass at her head. She was startled enough that she stopped doing whatever she had been doing to hold me up in the air. I fell with a thump to the ground before scrambling up and making a break for it. I knew where the kitchen was, and I had seen a window there with an easily opened latch. In the kitchen I climbed up the counter and dove out the window as soon as it was open. It was one of those ones that you have to prop open, so it slammed shut behind me. I started booking it as fast as I could to get away from the building. Now, the body I was in was clearly not in shape. This kept me from running without pain, but anyone who has run cross country knows that it's more of a mind over matter sort of thing to keep going when you tire easily. Thankfully I was able to duck into an gap between two homes before she was able to get outside even. I saw her streak past me yelling for "Spike" and looking quite furious. I chuckled under my breath as I hid behind a trash can, "Run, run, run as fast as you can. You can't catch me." I finished the saying in my head as I took this opportunity to look around the town from where I was. What I saw was definitely not what I had expected.
Chapter 3: Apples to ApplesHaving successfully evaded Twilight Stupid I now found myself outside in an alley. I peeked out again to make sure she was nowhere to be seen before walking out. I looked around too see what held up with what I had read in that history book earlier. It didn't take long for my eyes to start hurting from the colors. I had never seen such vivid colors before in real life. I had to squint a bit as I wondered again where this was. I knew that it wasn't the Earth I knew, and judging from the colors I could guess that this experience wasn't something having to do with time travel either. There was no way that Earth would ever produce colors like that naturally. Of course, when I mention these colors I'm not just talking about the plants. I saw a lot of ponies walking around of all sorts of warm colors. It felt like I had stumbled upon an Easter parade. Plus their houses were ridiculously decorated. I was quite surprised that there would be so many window-shutters alone with heart-shaped cutouts like that. The history book had hinted at a few things that I thought would be odd like the names for some of their holidays, but this was really starting to look a little too much like a fairy tail land for my tastes. I walked out tremulously as I continued to take it all in. I was mildly surprised that none of the ponies seemed even remotely shocked at my appearance. However, I supposed that it somewhat made sense if I was in a borrowed body that they would be familiar with it. A few even smiled and waved at me. I took that as an indication that I could go about a little more brazenly without too much trouble. I had a basic history of the country at least. I decided to go with the assumption that this really was a land with magic in it if it had been formed as a result of being forced out of their previous domain by spirits controlling what amounted to the north wind. The ponies were doing pretty well for themselves in that respect now. They had a lively flora and fauna from what I could see. There were plenty of songbirds chirping and spinning around in the air. The flowers were vibrant. The sky was clear. In fact, as I looked up at the sky I noticed that there were a few Pegasi moving the clouds away. Now that was interesting. I considered the implications of a creature able to manipulate the weather were quite important. How they were able to do so while still being able to interact with solid objects was beyond me. I could only imagine it had something to do with magic. Perhaps physics just worked differently here. Now there was an interesting idea. I was so busy thinking about this that I was surprised when I walked right into something. I looked down from the sky at what I realized was a cart for selling carrots. The pony running it didn't notice me as she was haggling with a customer. I looked around a bit more and found that I was now in what I guessed was the market square. Evidently there were quite a few ponies selling their goods here. One had a trio of ponies selling flowers. As I took in the sights, smells, and sounds of the marketplace I was hailed by quite a few of the ponies. None of them seemed overly interested, so I responded with a hand wave and a smile. I definitely didn't want to make a faux pas by not knowing their names and saying the wrong thing. It was interesting to see that all the ponies paid for their purchases with golden coins. I would have expected a copper, silver, gold system honestly. I kind of hoped they at least had different denominations of those golden coins. It would be ridiculous to have to carry around a whole bunch of them for larger transactions. Judging from how much the food was being settled for, I estimated one of the basic golden coins at a value of about fifty cents in American money. One pony noticed me eyeing her stand as I watched her sell apples to a brown coated stallion with an hourglass on his flank. She looked like one of the elemental guardians I had seen a picture of in the library book. "Well howdy there Spike!" she exclaimed as the stallion walked away with his purchase. "You come fer some apples?" Great. Another pony who wanted to actually talk to me, or at least wanted to talk to this "Spike." I briefly considered going the route of pretending to know her, but quickly discarded it as untenable. There was no way I'd be able to hold up a charade like that for long on an unfamiliar planet without claiming amnesia. Vocabulary alone would probably give me away. "Nope. I'm exploring the strange new world I find myself in. It seems that I'm in possession of Spike's body and have no idea where his consciousness is." I said all of this with a straight face looking at the apples. They were unreasonably colored. All of them were fully red or green. No splotches of either in between. It was odd and idealized, just like a lot of this world. She blinked in surprise, taken aback by my answer which had clearly not been what she was expecting. "What was that sugarcube?" I smirked. It was already obvious from the stetson on her head that she was a country mare. Still, it was nice to hear some of my hometown origins in her speaking. You know how funny it is when someone with a remarkably large vocabulary uses works like "ain't" and "ya'll" on a regular basis? It's hilarious to throw some people off with it. I decided to implement that trick right away. It would work even better for shock value if this "Spike" wasn't one to use country vernacular. "Well," I started off, laying a thick drawl on my words, "Ah don' exactly remember what happened before ah got here, but it was rather shocking to spontaneously find mahself under a pile of library books and introduced to a couple of mythological creatures. Evidently ah've taken the body of this 'Spike' but have no idea whether it was something on his end, my end, or both that caused this." I paused and reverted to my regular accent, which most would describe as being from the Western portion of the U.S. Having parents from either side of the country definitely resulted in a bizzare speaking pattern. "It'd be really awkward if this turned out to be a body swap. A kid from a world like this would likely be scared out of his wits." The pony in front of me, whom I had mentally dubbed as Apples, was by this point looking at me with an expression that was clearly not amused by what I had said and didn't seem all that convinced. It was all in the half-lidded eyes and flat-lined mouth. Oh well. It had been at least worth a shot to hope that someone would believe me. "Spike. Ah don't fully understand everything you said, but ah don't take to kindly to yer mocking me like that." And now I had ticked her off too. Maybe I was a little more stressed at the situation than I thought if I was being rude enough to elicit a reaction like that without realizing it. "Right. Sorry about that. Take it up with the purple unicorn. She'll probably swing by looking for me. Whelp! I'm off." I turned and jogged away hoping her duty as a salesperson held her at the stall. "By the way," I called over my shoulder, "I like the hat. Stetsons are cool." Thankfully that left her confused enough that I could get away easily. As I left the square I felt a chill run up my spine. I'd never really felt something like that before, so I was caught unawares as I pondered whether it was a muscle memory or a fear instinct of the creature whose body I was inhabiting. I was very startled when something moving very fast and sounding like a small motor hit me from behind. I'd like to say that I did an amazing back-flip through the air and landed in a cool three-pronged pose, but that would be lying my head off. Rather I was hurled into the air before landing in a moving vehicle uncomfortable on my back with my tail pinned underneath. "Gosh. Are you alright Spike?" I looked up into the helmeted faces of two ponies. For some reason that chill had returned with a vengeance. But there was no way it had anything to do with the smiling, innocent faces of children. Right?
Chapter 4: DreadI found myself hurtling around in an uncovered, unsecured, makeshift vehicle without so much as a helmet to protect myself. It was not the most encouraging thing ever. With no safety to speak of in my situation I held on tight to the sides of the little red wagon. Me landing in it hadn't slowed it down in the slightest. Now, it's not that I'm afraid of going too fast. I absolutely love roller-coasters. What I don't like is that feeling you get when you have absolutely no control over the situation and start to slide sideways. Have you ever drifted on an icy road before? Well apparently you can do that on a dirt road as well. The only problem with doing it on a dirt road is that it definitely does damage to your surroundings as well as the vehicle if the wheels are primitive enough. Needless to say, the drifting was more than a little bumpy. In fact, the entire ride was bumpy. More than bumpy, it was downright dangerous. I was also spouting several words that meant absolutely nothing when strung together like that and sounded like complete nonsense. Not being one for outright cursing, I had developed the habit of using the largest words I could find as substitutes. Sometimes they had harsh enough syllables to sound like I was speaking German. The wide eyes of the two young ponies standing above me let the small part of my mind that was still rational know that they had definitely never heard several of those words. By the time we finally came to a stop I had stopped spouting off words and simply was holding the sides hard enough that my claws left deep indentations in the metal. I was staring at the sky in a bit of a stupor as the clouds hung there, not moving. I was shifted from my conscious, yet seemingly catatonic state by the feeling of a hoof poking me in the face a few times. "Hey Spike?" I turned my head slowly to face the small unicorn. "Are you alright?" I looked around, focusing mainly on making sure my body was still intact.Thankfully, it was. I turned back to faced her and gave a small nod. "Oh good." She looked over her shoulder. I couldn't see what she was looking at because my head was still below the edge of the wagon. "By the way, what does neologism mean?" I blinked. I hadn't remembered using that word in particular, but it could have been one of them. I coughed. I was in that state where you're too shocked to do much, but will still carry out simple instructions that someone else gives you without thinking. "It means 'a made-up word' if I remember correctly." My voice cracked a bit as I continued, "Why do you ask?" "Well, it was the last thing you said before you started saying complete gibberish. Before that what you were saying at least sounded like words." She smiled. "And I'm pretty sure you mispronounced a few of the ones that were words." I was about to respond indignantly to that, but one of her friends called her away. I took the opportunity to sit up fully and take a look around at my surroundings. There wasn't a whole lot to see nearby besides the tree-house the small unicorn went up into. I had absolutely no idea where I was in relation to my starting point earlier, but that probably didn't matter too much anyways seeing as how I had no idea where that was in the first place. I hopped out of the slightly mangled wagon and looked at the more distant area. It seemed I was now on the edge of an apple orchard. That wasn't too bad. At least I could grab something to eat. That was if I could eat apples in this new body. I took a look at my claws again. They were not an expected addition to my physique. Nor was the tail. I was about to run off when I was nearly deafened by three voices that were way too loud to be coming out of bodies that small. "CUTIE MARK CRUSADER DRAGON TAMERS YAY!" It took me a moment to realize that I was a dragon, and that they were probably about to come after me. By then it was too late. I turned around to see three small fillies who were still big enough to tackle me coming at me with a net held between the unicorn and pegasus. A small squeak of fear escaped my open mouth when I saw the chains being carried by the final member of their group. It didn't take long before I found myself covered in a net and chained to the ground. I found myself wondering how they were even able to carry a chain that heavy. I couldn't move much at all. Especially with them sitting on me on top of all that. The pony that had seemed normal in comparison clearly had what might be considered a ridiculous strength stat. I was very worried for my safety and looking for any way out of this. "So what do we do now?" said the pegasus. "Ah don't know. What are dragon tamers supposed to do?" replied the one with a giant bow in her hair. "Well, you were a lion tamer temporarily when you had cutie pox. Maybe it's like that." It was at this point that I started to worry for my dignity instead of my safety. I'd been to a circus before. While I didn't find it particularly impressive, I did know that only a non-sentient being would be willing to be trained like that. The good thing though was that I now knew for a fact that I was a dragon (at least from the ponies' point of view). Seeing as how I'd been an avid reader before coming to this place I had an extensive knowledge of many different kinds of dragons. Unfortunately, I had absolutely no idea what kind of dragon I was. I mentally started narrowing down the possibilities a little while the ponies on top of me continued discussing my fate. I definitely wasn't a wyvern. They had wings and two legs. I probably wasn't a sea dragon. Those had a tendency to only be able to live in the water. After that I was stumped. One of the problems with having a lot of knowledge about a fictional creature is that there are a lot of different interpretations of what it should look like as well as its attributes. I had absolutely no idea which ones applied to me. Wait. I realized right there that almost every incarnation of dragons I'd ever read about could breath fire of some kind. The only problem was figuring out exactly how I was going to do that. I didn't have much time as one of the foals had left at some point and was now coming back with a whip and a chair. I could understand being able to find a chair. That's a pretty normal item to have lying around. What scared me was the whip. Something like that does not bode well. She spat it out and her friends picked me up still wrapped up in the net. Some how they had also arranged a primitive miniature circus ring around me. They had also set up a few of those rings you see animals jump through, only these ones were constructed from thin branches tied together. I really hoped they didn't intend to light them on fire. "Where the junk did you get a whip?!" I finally let out the question that was making me sweat. On a side note, finding out that I could sweat was interesting as far as my new anatomy went. Reptiles normally don't do that. Then again, reptiles normally don't have sentience either. If they did, there would likely be a lot more fearful sweating every time one came into contact with a large group of humans. There's plenty of people who like to eat lizards. I hear they make for pretty good jerky. I tuned back in just in time to hear the filly's reply. "My room of course." I was not reassured in the slightest by that answer. Why would a child who wore bows in her hair have a whip in her room? For that matter, how was she even picking it up? She carried it there in her mouth, but now it was being held in her hoof. Regardless, I knew one thing for certain. This couldn't end well.
