As Spike began to wake up, he could feel hard metal underneath him. ‘Huh, guess I must have rolled out of bed,’ he thought, slowly stumbling to his feet, eyes closed. He began doing stretches to try to make his joints and back feel less stiff. Only then did he open his eyes, seeing himself in his and Twilight's room on the Aurora. Only now it was totally trashed and the walls were charred from flames.
Suddenly, the events of the previous day came back to him and all the thoughts and emotions that came with it slammed into him like the Friendship Express. He slowly sat back down to try to process everything that he was remembering and how to deal with all the information. He knew they needed to get out of the Aurora, but he didn't know what to do after that. He knew they should be fine as long as nothing too bad happened to hurt them or sabotage their food and water supply.
As Spike was having a mental breakdown, Speedy slowly began to wake up, having always been an early riser. As she sat up, she noticed Spike separated from the sleeping pile of ponies with his knees on his chest. As far as she could tell in her still sleepy state, he was just trying to calm down after having woken up in a familiar, yet unfamiliar, area. She sat up and spoke to Spike in a hushed tone, "How are you doing?"
Spike let out a half crazed chuckle, "Well how do you think I'm doing? All of my friends besides Fluttershy are dead, Twilight, who was like a sister to me, is dead, and we are stranded on a remote planet way outside of Equestria controlled space. I'd have to say I'm just peachy!" Speedy began feeling very sorry for Spike. She hadn't realized just how much he might have been going through, or how the death of all his friends would affect him.
Speedy didn't have a lot of friends, but the ones she did had stayed back on Equus, where they didn't have to deal with the outside looking like dandruff in a black mane. Occasionally you would see other planets, but you usually only saw planets that were near the one you were travelling to. It also didn't help that they had their own jobs and lives that didn't belong on a spaceship, such as a window cleaner or a taxi cart puller.
She decided that maybe it hadn't been such a great idea to get mad yesterday because he was mourning the death of his friend. She stood up and moved closer to him, wrapping him in a hug. Spike was surprised by the action, but returned the hug after a moment. As they were hugging, Speedy could feel her coat getting slightly wet where Spike's face was, as well as light shaking coming from the young dragon.
After about 10 minutes of hugging, Spike finally separated himself from Speedy. He looked at her with bloodshot eyes and thanked her, "It was the least I could do. I didn't even consider how this trip might be affecting you. I shouldn't have yelled at you and Fluttershy yesterday while you were mourning your friend's death." As Speedy finished her apology, she heard Fluttershy and Swift begin waking up.
Fluttershy sat up and stretched out her back, wondering at what point she had fallen out of bed. As she looked around and realized where she was, she began hyperventilating and looking around wildly. She calmed down when she saw Spike and Speedy a few feet away, but jumped slightly when she felt a hoof on her back. She turned to see Swift giving her a calming smile.
After everypony was awake and ready to begin leaving, Spike began to address the others, "So I'm not sure about the rest of you, but I'm definitely ready to get out of here. Does anypony know if there is anything we need to gather before we leave this place for good.?" After everypony agreed that there was nothing else needed, they began making their way back to the PRAWN Suit Bay.
As they worked their way back through the ship, they would hear the groaning of metal and crashes as parts fell off. They eventually made their way back to the outside and we're standing in front of the bridge. They elected that Spike would go first, followed by Fluttershy, then Speedy, and lastly Swift. They began crossing with little trouble, only having to slow when Fluttershy got halfway across and looked down, causing Speedy to have to lift her with magic and move her across.
As they worked their way back to the Seamoth, Spike pointed out something that caused the others to stop in their tracks. "Uh, does anypony else notice a lack of those spider things?" Everypony began to look around in search of any spider things. They quickly realized that there were no spiders around and began to load up the Seamoth with the new and old supplies.
Even though everypony had slept well enough, none of them felt like swimming back to their base, so they elected Fluttershy would pilot the Seamoth, Speedy and Swift would hang onto the sides of the Seamoth, and Spike would use the Seaglide to get back. Spike decided to travel as light as possible and only carried the scanning tool and the Seaglide for his trip back to base.
After making sure everypony was ready, Fluttershy went full throttle on the Seamoth in an attempt to get back to their base as fast as possible. Spike was quickly left behind, but he was okay with it, seeing as how he volunteered to use the Seaglide instead of Swift.
As Spike began nearing the hole he had originally used to get inside, an extremely loud roar blasted through the water, violently shaking him and scaring him beyond anything else. He wildly began looking around for the source of the noise, but couldn't seem to find it. He then pointed the Seaglide in the general direction of the base and began going that way. He kept looking around to try to see what had made the roar. He suddenly saw something below him.
It looked like a giant snake, but it appeared to have giant spikes poking out of its face. At first, Spike thought it was about 10 or 15 feet in length but was quickly corrected when he realized how far it was. Suddenly, a previous conversation with Swift passed through his head and he froze in fear. This was the creature that Swift had been describing. Spike knew he had to get away as fast as possible.
Spike quickly put the Seaglide into it's fastest setting, allowing him to rocket off and about three-fourths of the speed of a Seamoth. He noticed the water slowly getting clearer, so he looked back to see if the creature was following him. What he saw absolutely terrified him. The creature had followed him and was gaining on him.
Spike quickly dove down and watched the giant creature swim by over him, unable to perform precise turns. Spike began making his way to the odd looking mushroom forest nearby. He got underneath one of the lower mushroom caps and looked back at the horrific water-snake. It appeared to look at the mushrooms and roared in rage, but quickly lost interest in Spike and began to swim back to wherever it came from.
Spike sighed in relief and quickly made a break for the surface. He broke the surface of the water and began to look around. He noticed that he wasn't actually that far from the Aurora. He dove back into the water and swam towards the mushrooms and began to scan them. He looked around as he did so, only now able to admire the area around him.
Spike noticed that the mushrooms appeared to grow just like trees, but instead of tons of branches and leaves, they split only a couple of times and ended in big mushroom caps. There appeared to be giant spots with teeth along the side, but upon closer inspection, they appeared to be some sort of leech. Along with the mushroom trees, there were some lightly transparent, blue stingray like creatures that would swim around. The stingrays moved so gracefully that Spike was enraptured by their movements, only being brought out of his stupor by a voice yelling into his head.
"SPIKE?! ARE YOU THERE?! CAN YOU HEAR ME?!" Speedy's voice came bursting through his radio. He yelled in pain and responded.
"Yeah, I can hear you just fine, though now I have a ringing in my ears that wasn't there before."
"Where are you, it's been almost half an hour since we left and you still aren't back. We've been worried sick that something happened."
"Well… Something did happen. I was swimming out of the hole in the Aurora when a violent roar blasted through the water. I eventually spotted that fish that you and Swift warned us about. It chased me into this weird mushroom forest, but it lost interest rather quickly. I've been doing some light exploring of the area to see what deterred the creature, but the most I can guess is that it prefers hunting in large, open areas. I'll be heading back to base now."
"Okay, just… Please be careful. Let us know when you're close." Spike then began to point his Seaglide in the general direction of where he should have been going to get back to the base. The ride was mostly quiet and boring, but Spike was still paranoid and distracted that the giant fish was following him. He only stopped thinking about the fish when he almost swam into a pillar of rock, signaling he was close to the base
Spike turned on his radio and alerted the other he was almost there. They quickly replied with various things implying that they were happy he was safe. As Spike continued on, he found the base and went inside, only to be tackled and hugged by the others. "Woah, calm down, I'm fine now," Spike said as he attempted to stand back up."
Fluttershy was the one to start the conversation first. "Please don't ever do that again. I don't want to lose another friend." Spike was thrown off for a moment, curious why they were freaking out so much.
"You don't have to worry about me, really. I'm fine now. The fish just gave me a bit of a scare," Spike said, trying to downplay the fact that he was almost eaten whole by a fish. In reality, he was still a little shocked about how close he came to meeting death.
"Don't go scaring us like that. We were worried sick about you," Speedy said. None of them had been able to do anything except pace around, sit, and worry about whether or not Spike would make it. For how little time Speedy had known Spike, she was still concerned about whether or not he would survive.
"Did you have a death wish messing with a fish like that? That thing could have swallowed you whole!" Swift said. When Swift mentioned having a death wish, Spike visibly winced, but only Swift seemed to notice. Spike wondered if Swift had known what Spike had been thinking a few days prior while Swift wondered if Spike really did have a death wish.
After a couple minutes of back and forth chatter and promises to never go near the fish again, Speedy decided now was as good a time as ever to ask a question that had been pestering her since they were on the Aurora, "Hey Spike, do you think you could explain to us how you saved the Crystal Empire now?" Spike agreed to explain how he saved the Crystal Empire to the group, including commentary from Fluttershy.