"You got red on you."
DID YOU KNOW: fake blood is actually really easy to make. In fact, here we find Spike, a cheeky little fellow, making his own fake blood. It is his own recipe, perfectly edible, non-toxic to all the fillies and colts, and PERFECT for Nightmare Night parties.
All it takes: red and blue food coloring, water, chocolate syrup, corn syrup, corn starch, and a little bit of flour. Mix these in just the right amount and let it sit at room temperature for several minutes to get some really good tasting, really convincing blood.
Spike stands here in the kitchen of the library tree house, making his own brand. He adds a little… something extra. It is his own firebrand hot sauce, the stuff he pours over gemstones for that extra buck in the mouth. Of course he isn’t going to be eating this fake blood. The sauce is there to give it a sort of shimmer and sparkle that dragon blood has.
But it isn’t anywhere near Nightmare Night, so why would Spike be making this fake blood? As if to answer your asinine question, Spike speaks to himself in what can only be described as a maniacal banter.
“Oooh this is going to get Twilight, soooo good!” He muses to himself and lets out an evil laugh that echoes throughout the room. Owlowiscious, who sits on the counter next to the mixing bowl, peers into the bowl with curiosity. The owl waits for Spike to turn and grab the hot sauce, and then, when he is turned away, steals a taste of the strange smelling goop. The owl quickly spits it out and lets out a hoot of distaste.
“Hoo!” Bleats Owlowiscious.
Spike, mistaking the owl’s hoos as a question, responds, “What do you mean ‘who?’ Twilight Sparkle… you know, the pony you’ve been living with for the past… EVER.”
Spike turns back to the owl and eyes the red stain on its beak.
“Hey, save some for the prank.” He says and bats away the owl, sending it fluttering across the room. The owl finally settles down and lands back down near the bowl and continues to watch Spike intently.
Spike pours liberal amounts of a thin, shiny liquid out of the sauce bottle. He looks at Owlowiscious with a wicked glare and says, “Yes, that should just about do it. This will teach her to recklessly teleport wherever she wants!”
Owlowiscious looks at Spike with a lack of interest and throws another “Hoo” at him.
“I just told you it was Twi… Oh forget it.” Spike says and then gives Owlowiscious another sinister smile and says, “You want to help me?” The owl responds by hooting again and flying away from Spike.
“Fine then see if I care,” shouts Spike after Owlowiscious then grumbles “stupid bird.”
Spike is hard at work cooking up a prank for Ol’ Twilight huh? That sounds interesting. Hey, careful with that stuff, you know those stains are nearly impossible to get out of a pony’s hair.
Spike looks at the bowl of thick gooey fake blood. He takes a whiff of it, smelling the chocolate syrup and firebrand and sighs contentedly, obviously proud of such a convincing (and tasty smelling) blood. He dips a claw in and tastes it, spitting some of it back out of his mouth.
“Yuck, too much hot sauce. Oh well, it’s not supposed to be eaten anyway. Now time to set up my spiel”
So what does “setting up my spiel” consist of exactly, Spike? Well apparently, DOUSING the ENTIRE Library shelving area with his fake blood. What are you doing Spike? Geez how many bowls of that stuff did you make? That at least has to be three liters…
“Haha yes!” he shouts, almost madly, “Now when Twilight appears here, she is going to think she accidently killed me!”
Spike continues to talk to himself, his monolog reaching nobody but himself and Owlowiscious. He throws the bowls of fake blood all over the room, glazing everything in a shiny but dark red goop that slowly oozes down the walls and spines of books.
The smell of chocolate syrup lingers, but the effect is still pretty convincing. The place looks like a hoofing crime scene, and a grizzly one at that. Something you definitely would not want to walk into. Spike paints a big circle pattern with the goo around the room, making it look like a paint bomb had gone off. That way it would give the impression that what ever Twilight had teleported inside of was now in every corner of the room. He wasn’t exactly sure where Twilight would teleport, not to the precise inch, so he made the center of the fake explosion ambiguous. All that was really clear was the expanding pattern.
That should fool Twilight.
But it isn’t good enough for Spike, he makes his way to a closet. When he opens it, he pulls out a purple dragon costume, the same one he had worn for last Nightmare Night. He proceeds to claw it to shreds, discarding the eyes back in the closet because they don’t really look like his own. He takes scraps of the purple fabric and sticks it to the goo on the walls and books and ceiling. He takes some of the fake scales and peels them off of the shredded fabric and scatters them around the room as well.
When Spike feels that he has sufficiently mutilated his costume he stands back to admire his work. Standing in the center of the room, a toothy grin slithers onto his face. He is proud of his work.
Yes, that is much better than your last attempt to fool Twilight, what with the ripped up fake mouse and ketchup.
The room glows red and Spike even draws the curtains on the windows to dim the light leaving an eerie green tint on everything. The mixture of red and green is perfect and Spike seems to agree as he lets out a nastily evil laugh.
Owlowiscious flies around the room, surveying the set up Spike labored for. Spike offers an arm for Owlowiscious and the owl takes the offer, landing softly on the scaly dragon arm.
Spike turns his head towards Owlowiscious and says, “Now it’s ready. Time to watch and wait."
The owl merely hoos in agreement and the two walk over to the closet where the shredded dragon costume lays.
Backing up further, here is Spike writing… what appears to be a very serious yet somehow tongue-in-cheek letter to the princess.
Spike lifts the quill, steam practically spewing from his ears. Almost comically, a vein on his temple is popping out in anger. Yet he grins with upmost satisfaction as he drops the quill to meet the parchment. His methods of writing are ingrained in him and he begins to write his mind into the paper:
“Dear Princess Celestia,
I am writing to you because a certain friend of mine has become ~~hoofing~~ reckless. Twilight, YOUR faithful student, needs to be taught the dangers of teleportation. Just earlier today, she nearly killed me by teleporting to the space I was about to walk. Just POOF and there she was, acting like she hadn’t done anything wrong. Then she disappeared before I even had a chance to ~~hoofing~~ complain.
What I ask is simple. Will you help me teach her a lesson that she will never forget? If you agree, all I ask of you is to help distract her while I set up her lesson.
Please, Celestia, it has gotten out of hoof.
Spike"
Angry much?
Several of the words are scratched out in frustration. The ink on the paper cuts through because of how hard he pressed down with quill. He holds up the letter and rereads it several times. Then he rolls it up, purses his lips and blows on it, letting out a few small green flames. The fire immediately incinerates the paper.
Spike begins to pace around the room, nervously awaiting a response. Only minutes later he is greeted with the churning feeling in his gut and soon after belches out a letter from the Princess. He unrolls the letter.
It is addressed to Twilight. He skims through it. It is a letter inviting Twilight to come meet with Celestia. Immediately.
Spike grins from ear to ear.
"Twilight!" Spike shouts, loud enough for the whole of Ponyville to hear, "I have a letter for you from Celestia!"
We will back up one more time. Hours before Spike writes his letter to Celestia, we find Spike in the kitchen of the boring old treehouse holding a gallon of ice cream.
Just earlier Spike had scrapped together enough bits to buy his own tub of his favorite ice cream. Now, he is home alone and ready to enjoy a completely guilt free tub of iced sugar.
Jolly ol' Spike holds his rocky rhode close to his body. He cradles it tenderly as if he were holding a small child. The bucket of chocolate and marshmallow is dear to Spike and it is obvious as he pops off the lid. His eyes brighten up even more and he squeals in excitement. "You look delicious." He says to the ice cream. Not even bothering to get a spoon to eat it with, he digs his grubby little claw into the ice cream and shovels it into his mouth, feeling the hammer smashing force of a brain freeze pound through his head. Clenching his teeth and squeezing his eyes shut barely helps him deal with it, but as soon as it fades he takes another handful of cold and stuffs it into his face with fervor.
Another few bites later and Spike has succeeded in making a mess of both himself and the floor beneath him. Chocolate ice cream is smeared all over his mouth and a puddle of it has collected at his feet. But he shows no signs of letting up. He seems ready to eat the entire container. He goes to dip his free hand in again but something else happens. An explosion of purple and white light erupts from the very air in front of him. So close in fact that he can actually feel the power of the magical burst suck him in for a brief moment as if there had been a miniature black hole.
And out bursts Twilight. The light fizzles away and Twilight is bursts forth searching frantically around the kitchen for something or another, Spike has no idea what. Actually, Spike is so startled by the whole materialization of Twilight that he falls backward onto his back, sending the ice cream flying in the air. The ice cream comes down hard on his head open-side first, getting what was left of the ice cream all over the top of his head and the floor.
Twilight runs around the room, trying to find whatever it is she is looking for, while Spike struggles to get the tub off his head.
Spike is furious. He finally manages to pry the darn thing off himself and is about to give Twilight a piece of his mind, but to his increasingly angry astonishment, she has already teleported away. Apparently, she had found what she had been looking for, and was already gone. JUST LIKE THAT, GONE... With NO consideration for Spike and his wasted ice cream.
Needless to say Spike is pissed. He wipes the chocolate and marshmallow from his eyes and grabs the now empty tub.
"Ah darn it Twilight!" he shouts at the absent pony and throws the empty container at the last spot he thinks Twilight was. Then he speaks lower to himself in an melodramatic and sinister voice, "Oh Twilight, I am going to make you PAY for this." And he shakes his sticky, clenched claw in the air.
This is the final straw for Spike.
Now finally we find Spike here hiding in a broom closet.
Spike here waits for Twilight. His head boils with anticipation. Owlowiscious stands on his shoulder while Spike leans against the cracked open door. He can just see out into the room through the crack and it is enough to tease his building excitement all the more.
Spike catches a rather strong whiff of that firebrand hot sauce and eyes the books covered in fake blood. A moment of clarity ascends upon him and offers a very sobering image of Twilight yelling at him for ruining the library books. This immediately breaks his melodramatic craze. Spike feels the beginnings of panic loom around his stomach. He looks over at Owlowiscious and whispers, "Maybe this wasn't such a good idea."
He opens the door and steps out, Owlowiscious still fastened to his shoulder, and looks at his handiwork. One of the many fake scales he had pasted to the wall with the goo falls off and lands on the red-slicked floor with a light tap. "Twilight's going to kill me." Spike says to Owlowiscious. "Ah! what have I done?"
There is a knock at the front door, a loud thud that jolts Spike into attention, sending Owlowiscious buzzing around the room. Without thinking, he dives for the closet, the owl right behind him and shuts the door. The knock repeats, this time harder, but muffled behind the closet door.
"Who could be at the door?" Spike wonders aloud, "I put the closed sign up, didn't I? Ugh, NOW'S NOT THE TIME FOR VISITORS."
The thudding sound pounds again against the wood of the front door, and again it's harder and louder. But soon after, an even louder noise cracks from the chocolate-blood stained living room. Spike hears it and knows what it is. It is Twilight, she is back from Canterlot, and, as expected, she teleported directly home.
By now, Spike is up against the closet door. He keeps the door cracked just enough for him to see but not be seen. And he sees Twilight explode into existence right there in the room before him, in all her purple, self-righteous glory.
Spike says to himself, trying to reassure himself that he is doing the right thing, "Look at her, so reckless..." the words never actually leaving his mouth, only to be left hanging off his lips. Owlowiscious jumps up to Spike's head to get a better view.
This is it, the moment Spike has been waiting for...
Twilight opens her eyes, having closed them to focus on her warping spell. Immediately she notices the oddly dim and oddly red room around her. There is red... stuff... all over the place. Smeared on the books, pooled on the floor, some is even strewn about the ceiling. It even reaches the front door, all the way across the room. Something that looks like a purple dragon scale falls off the ceiling and lands on the floor near her and she jumps away from it, unable to comprehend the mess before her.
The loud pounding at the front door doesn't even penetrate Twilight's awareness. She is too focussed on what she sees, mouth slack and eyes slowly widening. Not even the thought of ruined books snap her out of her morbid curiosity.
Yes, Twilight, that is exactly what it looks like.
Another purple piece of something, slathered in the lustrous dark red goop falls from the ceiling. This one lands softly on her head and sticks to her mane. She takes it with the glow of her magic and examines it. It is hard to make out in the dim light of the room, but to her, it looks like a hunk of dragon skin. It takes her mind a second to process the information.
She stands there, holding the skin-like material, and then a realization hits her. Her mouth begins to tremble, and her legs start to shake. One of her eyes twitch and she looks around the room. She sees that she is standing in the middle of what looks like an explosion. An explosion of blood. She pieces the information together: She killed Spike.
The sudden shock of this sends a brick of emotion and terror through her body, so hard in fact that she finds it hard to breathe. Her chest heaves trying to keep up with the stress of the shock and the new pain that lodged itself right where her heart should be. The pain explodes through her and she collapses on the ground, eyes still open, convulsing, and unable to make a sound. Her horn stops glowing and the piece of dragon skin hits the floor next to her. She bucks the air, gasping for breath and searching for something to help the pain.
After several moments she stops. All in all this happens in about thirty seconds.
That is when Spike, the real Spike, bursts from the closet, wearing a grin of satisfaction, a grin of achievement. Owlowiscious sits on his shoulder as they approach the motionless Twilight.
"That'll teach ya!" Spike heaves verbally at Twilight, who doesn't react, doesn't move, doesn't say anything back. And then he laughs hard and says, "It worked so well! Look Owlowiscious, she fainted... HAHAHA." and ignores the pounding at the front door.
He lays a claw on Twilight and Owlowiscious takes off from his shoulder to fly around the room.
"Hey Twilight... Y'alright?" He says to the still motionless lavender mare, and shakes her gently... only for her to roll over with no effort, completely slack, and eyes still partially open. The face of death.
The face is enough to freak Spike out and he scrambles to get away.
With chills down his back, he says to himself and Owlowiscious, who by now has landed on Twilight's chest, wondering why she isn't moving, "By Celestia what have I done?!"
He feels a heat churn in his gut. It is a letter from Celestia. He belches it out cleanly and catches it out of the air.
He unrolls the paper, and reads it, still ignoring the now slamming sound at the front door.
"Dear Spike
Gotchya
Celestia"
Spike drops the letter, eyes twitching in terror. He looks up, to the front door, just in time to see it get kicked down. And in rush several royal guard ponies, fully clad in armor.
