Upon eavesdropping on a conversation between Rarity and Twilight Sparkle, Spike discovers what his "true love" really thinks of him, and after reminiscing on his thoughts about it, he slowly begins to drift away from his friends. With sorrow and despair in his heart, Spike runs away from home, and runs into an old enemy that tries to help him out.

However, after realizing what she has done, Rarity begins to realize and discover that she has feelings for Spike after all, but can she save him before it's too late?

Salty Shores is a small mining town on the eastern coast of Equestria. One night, each of its salt reactors explode in quick succession, destroying the mines and much of the town.

There are no survivors.

The only suspect, labeled “dangerous” and “violent,” is placed under the care of an old scientist, working through the goodwill of the Equestrian Institute for the Sciences. Their guard, a young stallion of dubious origins, carries a shadowed past whose secrets even he cannot know.

A clinical case of psychopathy becomes something far more disturbing. A clean hospital becomes a place of darkness and despair. And in the place where it all began, Salty Shores quietly sits, burning in the embers of its own dead.

There is something lurking beneath the shores of Equestria. And now, it has begun to stir.