//------------------------------//
// Chapter II: Unkown creature 
// Story: Living Fossil 
// by WhatamIsupposedtoputhere 
//------------------------------//

Twilight hurried over to the map room, meeting both Spike and Starlight on the way.

"Spike? Starlight?" Questioned Twilight.

"Yes Twilight?" replied Spike somewhat nervously.

"I thought one of you had made that noise." said Twilight.

"Funny, I was thinking the exact same thing." Starlight said with some concern in her voice.

"So if none of us made the noise, then who or what did?" said Spike with creeping dread in his voice. All three of them rushed over to the map room and slammed the door open.

Upon entering, they all saw something that had completly caught them off gaurd. Everything was as it should be. Both Twilight and Starlight were confused while Spike was simply filled with relief.

"Well it seems like nothing was wrong then." said Spike with certainty.

"Then what created the noise?" Twilight questioned. "For all we know whatever made the noise is in here or in another part of the castle." With that sentence, Spike's face whitened and his heart filled with dread and fear.

Seeing her friend like this, Starlight stepped in and said "Hey, for all we know it could have simply been a bug that flew in here and accidentally triggered one of Pinkie's confetti traps which then failed and created the noise we all heard."

"You think so?" said Spike with some of the color returning to his face.

"I know so." relpied Starlight.

"I wouldn't be too sure about that." exclaimed Twilight. "Look!"

On the ground, behind the map, they saw a strange creature. After a glance they shunned their eyes for expectations of the worse, yet they couldn't keep their eyes off it for long. After a closer look thay had no idea of what it was. It was scaly, long, had claws like a dragon, but unlike dragons, it was cold to the touch. It also had a strong looking head, distinct from the body, with eyelids that were closed tight.

The creature opened it's mouth and all three of them took a step back for they saw rows upon rows of teeth, two in particular looked extremely nasty. They were thin, with serrations along their edges, and looked as if they could fold out when the mouth was opened fully to become about the height of the average ponies head. It looked as if it would hunt and kill large animals with those fangs yet the body told a different story. A story that it would hunt smaller prey, in which case the size of the fangs would be absolute overkill.

"Maybe it's some kind of snake?" said Starlight in bewilderment.

"But I don't know of any snakes with arms and with such a disproportionate head to the rest of the body." replied Twilight in equal bewilderment.

"Well whatever it is, it's definetly big enough to eat us!" exclaimed Spike from behind his chair. Twilight rolled her eyes after looking at Spike's location.

"Right now it's asleep and couldn't harm a fly." said Twilight in a reassuring tone.

"But it could wake up any moment and eat us!" replied Spike with fear in his voice.

Before Twilight could try to reassure Spike again, the creature lifted up it's head and let out a bloodcurdling cry. All three of them screamed in terror as the creature's fangs unfurled from it's gaping mouth.