Spike opened the door to his and Twilight's old room. It had been so long since he had been home. Everything looked so much smaller to him but the nostalgic musty scent of old books was still strong. It was clean and organized in only the way Twilight could organize things. With a grin, he looked at his little bed underneath the window and realized just how much bigger he had gotten. Walking around, he made his way to the old bookshelf where he took out the book that contained the legend of Nightmare Moon, flipping through it as he remembered the events that led him to Ponyville and all the things that had happened since. The dragon laughed quietly as he put the book back and looked outside. Already, Rainbow Dash was flying around in the sky, likely trying to figure out where the best places to start up for her Rainboom would be given the magic bubble shield's constricting walls.

Or, knowing Dashie like he did, trying to find a nice cloud to sleep on.

The dragon felt an odd tingling in his shoulders, one that he had been feeling for a long time. Every dragon he had ever seen had wings. He longed to soar in the clouds, racing in the winds next to Rainbow Dash, playing with the birds next to Fluttershy, and floating alongside Pinkie Pie whenever she was using one of her various contraptions to fly. Maybe he could fly Twilight to Canterlot once he was big enough; she didn't see the Princess or her family much at all anymore.

But he couldn't fly. He could, however, teleport objects with his fire breath, which was still pretty cool.

---

Spike found himself, about a half hour later, getting a hug from the Sun Princess herself, something she had never quite been able to do before with the large difference between his former height and hers.

"My goodness, Spike. You've certainly… grown."

Spike was wise enough to realize that she spoke with a very slight edge of caution in her voice. The dragon was sure she had heard about his rampage through Ponyville, and given her relationship with Twilight Sparkle, the details before it. Which, naturally, happened to be the rapid growth spurt born by greed. Spike understood the hesitation, but he wouldn't lie. It did kind of hurt. He smiled reassuringly, though.

"No worries, Princess! It's all natural this time! I promise that the only time you'll hear the words 'Spike want' is when I make it down to Joe's Doughnut Shop for doughnut happy hour!"

The pair laughed, Celestia noticeably relaxing a bit. The Sun Princess and the dragon were both out on the balcony where Celestia kept her magical telescope. She had been on it when Spike joined her, searching around frantically.

Now that he thought about it, he'd never seen her use the telescope that heavily, but the air felt charged with the physical deity's magical power as if she had been using it to boost the telescope's capabilities. With that in mind, he frowned.

"All right, I've eased your worries, maybe you can ease mine some. What's with all the security?" Spike asked. He was fairly grateful for his enhanced senses and the dreamdragon that haunted his psyche. He really had matured over the months. Last year, he wouldn't have really even noticed the extra security and wouldn't have thought much about it due to sheer naivety.

Celestia turned to look at her city, a grim look on her face.

"Not too long ago, we received a threat. A message appeared one night in my throne room, revealing inside information very few ponies could possibly know about the inner workings of the city guard and other details. As you know now, my niece Cadence and Twilight's brother are getting married very soon, and I have lived long enough to know that such things are no coincidence. I've had Shining Armor producing his barrier magic, almost nonstop for two weeks. I feel horrible for it, but Shining Armor is the only one that can produce the shield at the power it is now. Even I cannot mimic a pony's special talent magic. I fear that it's putting a strain on him, though."

Spike's brow furrowed, in worry. This was troubling. But that didn't explain why they hadn't received notice about the wedding beforehand. Shining Armor wouldn't have hidden it from his sister unless there was something else going on. Looking at his mother-figure, the dragon decided to voice his question.

"So why… didn't we know about the wedding earlier? If the threat only came a week ago, Cadence and Armor should have sent word to Twilight ages ago."

Celestia had an answer, though.

"To be honest, it surprised me. Shining Armor only proposed two weeks ago. They have been together since a few months before you and Twilight left for Ponyville, but for the wedding to be as rushed as it is… The enthusiasm of youth, I suppose. The two are deeply in love, after all. It's rather adorable."

Spike smiled and nodded. That made a little more sense now, he supposed.

The Sun Pony and the dragon made some more small talk until Celestia needed to return her focus to her duties. Spike excused himself, and headed back to his room to contemplate all that had happened today. And figure out what he was going to do with Fluttershy. And see if Twilight Sparkle had, in an act of sisterly rage, teleported her big brother into some strange alternate dimension where everyone was gender switched and he was some kind of female dragon named Barbara.

"I gotta stop reading before I go to sleep."

A quiet, feminine chuckle echoed through his mind as he waited for his oldest companion's return.

---

As it turns out, Twilight had had quite an interesting experience with both her brother and her sister-in-law-to-be. Shining Armor did indeed show signs of stress, manifesting in the form of what Twilight said to be headaches. Spike knew from personal experience with Twilight what magical exhaustion could do to a pony, as the young unicorn had often overestimated her stamina when it came to her magic in her early years learning from Celestia. Magical exhaustion was a pain in the rear, and thankfully he'd never had it due to his own magic being contained to magical fire breath. That wasn't the weird part, though. The odd thing was apparently Princess Cadence's behavior. From what Twilight said, her personality had shifted a full 180 degrees and in the worst possible way. She insisted on being called by her name, Miamore Cadenza, for one. She was fairly cold and outright almost mean to Twilight as well. That wasn't like her. Not at all.

The two talked about it and while Twilight seemed to just think she had grown into some evil mare trying to take her brother away from him, Spike uneasily reassured her that ponies sometimes did change like that. Maybe she had had something happen to her in the months they had been away from Canterlot and she was stressed out to the max. While it seemed to be the most logical reason for the personality change, and logic being something that Twilight held above all else most times, it didn't sit right with dragon nor unicorn.

"There's just… too much going on for it to be a coincidence. From what you heard and noticed about Princess Celestia and what I learned about Cadence- excuse me, 'Miamore Cadence', and my brother… it kind of seems too much to just be a coincidence," Twilight said, a frown marring her face. Spike nodded.

"I kind of feel you're right, but I don't even want to think about something attacking Canterlot, and even If Cadence has something to do with it, you can't go accusing her of it without rock solid proof. Princess Celestia loves us both dearly, but I don't think she'd appreciate us accusing her niece of planning a coup."

Twilight sighed. She seemed to accept how crazy her theory was sounding and gave it a rest.

The unicorn and dragon made some more small talk, relaxing the unicorn and letting her push aside her crazed suspicions of her former babysitter and now future sister in law. They began planning various details about the wedding, scrapping them, then coming up with different plans in true Twilight brainstorming fashion. Eventually, Twilight came up with a schedule for planning her wedding organization plans over the next couple of days, pressed into the decision by a tiring dragon. The pair eventually drifted off to sleep, leaving an exciting day behind them so they could be ready for the one ahead.

---

Spike opened his eyes and out of practice, looked to see if he was in the usual void that surrounded him when he felt like he did at the moment. There was no void; he was actually in a room and one that he recognized as Rarity's bedroom. Instantly, he got up, removing himself from the red covers as he began to search for his favorite not-oddly-somehow-related-to-him unicorn and found her in the kitchen making a large breakfast. She had her hair in a messy ponytail and had a simple pink apron around her as she hummed a tune, pancakes and fried eggs on the oven. At least it was familiar territory this time and not some cryptic-ish conversation with some odd female hallucination of himself that somehow made him more powerful at the weirdest times. He could deal with dreams of Rarity. Spike was fond of those. Sometimes they were together, like he wanted. Other times they were just hanging out, being friends. They'd work on dresses and suits and just have fun. On occasion, one would be a little more...steamy, but he was a growing male and such things were to be expected. This looked to be a mixture of all three. He deduced- and here he decided that he needed to stop hanging around Twilight so much as he was analyzing a perfectly good dream while still inside it- that he had obviously spent the night in her bed, and she was making breakfast, so that made this sort of romantic. Rarity noticed him and sauntered over to him, kissing him on the cheek.

"Good morning, Spikey-Wikey," the purple maned unicorn said with a wink and a flirty tone, "did you sleep well?"

Deciding to play along and have fun with his lucid dream, he simply nodded cheerfully.

"You're looking lovely this morning, oh most beautiful unicorn in all of Equestria."

The dream-Rarity rolled her eyes with a smile at Spike's cheesy line before returning her attentions to breakfast. He sat at her table and just watched her work. Spike loved to watch her work at anything. To him, Rarity looked amazing at all times, but he was most fond of the intense look she had when she devoted her attention to something and getting that something perfect. Growing up with Twilight had given him an appreciation of what a pony's work ethic could be. Even though it was a dream, or perhaps especially because it was a dream, Spike watched her work. His trance was broken, though, as the unicorn finished cooking. With her magic, plates, cutlery and cups flew out and landed on the table. He noticed, however, that it was set for three. Just as he was about to ask, sudden movement from the arch that connected Rarity's kitchen with the rest of her home caught his eye. A somewhat disheveled Fluttershy stood there, yawning cutely, before noticing Spike. She blushed heavily, squeaked, and dove out of the way.

The implications of this did not go lost on Spike, who's mouth dropped as a blush found its way on his cheeks. Mental images of what could have happened in the night before this dream assaulted him, and then the dragon woke up with a jolt.

---

Spike felt sudden nervousness as he approached Fluttershy's door. The dragon once again realized just how little he saw his friends outside of working with them or as a group and promised himself he would try and do better to remedy that. It had nothing to do with the fact that he was still thinking about that dream or the steamier dreams that came after. Heavens no. Fluttershy was NOT a fixture in his fantasies. She was too sweet and pure for that sort of thing, especially for ones involving the unicorn fashionista.

The dragon growled at his brain which conjured saucy images for him, betraying him.

He did figure he could cut himself some slack. He was for all intents and purposes a teenager, and if dragonic adolescence was anything like equestrian adolescence it was to be expected that his hormones were stronger than he was used to. Taking in a deep breath, he knocked on the door. Waiting for a minute, he heard faint sounds of movement and the door opened. The yellow pegasus stood there.

"Um. Hi Spike! Did you sleep well?"

Spike blushed slightly. Had she read his mind? Oh boy, was this day going to be fun...

---

Hey, guys. I'm sorry about the wait. Hopefully you won't have to wait so long for the next one. It's been a crazy hectic month for me. I had to help smuggle a friend to Texas, work weeks of 60+ hours, and train for a tae kwan do demo. What little time I had free I devoted trying to come up with my own direction to the story and I finally have one. This story will soon take a radical turn which I think you all will like a lot. Basically, I've got a major story arc planned out and it literally starts as soon as RCW is over. There will be new abilities for Spike and even the Mane 6, more background ponies, shipping, new OC's, timeskips, character death, and Braeburn Apple.

Anyways. As for this chapter, I tried to stay as faithful as I could, but I feel as if a more intelligent (and more important to canon) Spike would have been able to be the voice of reason he's supposed to be for Twilight. Seriously, if anyone should have figured out that Cadence wasn't really Cadence, it is Twilight. I mean, just look at her little Sherlock episode with Pinkie. She has detective skills, but she let her emotions get the better of her. Now that she's reigned in her temper a bit, perhaps things will be different? Anyways, read and review, please. Your support is what keeps me writing. This is definitely the longest fanfiction I've ever written, the longest I've stuck with, and the one that I want to be as good as possible. I'm fairly nervous as how the last half of the chapter's going to go over with you all. So yeah... feel free to ask any questions! Just try to make it to where I actually can. While I don't mind unsigned reviews, I can't exactly get back to you, can I?