Chapter Seven:Pegasus Protection
" Fluttershy, stay behind me! I have to protect you!" Spike ordered.
She nodded her head, and cowered behind him. At this moment, the door gave way and fell over, revealing several ponies that were gray in color, with glowing red eyes. All three of them were familiar faces. Rarity, Applejack, and Pinkie Pie, were there to greet them. Fluttershy and Spike were both surprised to see their friends at the door, as all three advanced, snarling at them.
" Girls, it's us! What are you doing!?" Fluttershy shrieked, stepping to the side and barely dodging Rarity, when she lunged at her. Right now, she was being very unlady-like. Spike was fending off Applejack and Pinkie Pie at the same time, and he knew he couldn't keep them away forever. Spike formulated a plan between blows, and risked a glance at Fluttershy. The pegasus was pleading with Rarity to stop, and dodging her attacks.
"Fluttershy, they aren't our friends! Something's wrong with them! I don't want to hurt them any more than you do, but we need to do SOMETHING!"
" I know, Spike, but I don't have any ideas!" She responded, unsuccessfully dodging Rarity's next attack, getting knocked back into the wall with a loud crack!
Spike witnessed it, and was thrown to the floor by Applejack. The previous plan was for Fluttershy to fly over them and out the door was scrapped, and he was hard-pressed to think of another one. But right now, all that mattered was getting to Fluttershy. Spike jumped to his feet and pushed Aplejack and Pinkie Pie away from him, then he ran over to where she was, just in time to block one of Rarity's attacks, shielding Fluttershy who was still dazed on the floor. It was then that Spike remembered the artifact hanging at his neck. He had no idea how to use it, but he tried.
" I don't know how you work, or exactly what you do, but I wish you could buy us some time!" Spike pleaded.
The horn reacted to his words and shined brightly, then only the slow ticking of a clock could be heard in the silence that followed. Spke opened his eyes, unaware that he had closed them and before him, was a wondrous sight. The frist thing he noticed, was that everything had just...stopped. Rarity was frozen in mid-strike, and Pinkie Pie and Applejack were frozen in mid-step. He could also feel a strange warmness in his right hand, so he looked behind him at Fluttershy and blushed, realizing he was holding her hoof. He didn't remember grabbing it, but he helped her to her hooves.
" Uh, Spike, what's going on?" She asked, having recovered from the attack.
" I'm not exactly sure, but I think I just froze time," Spike reasoned, " That means that the legend is true!" He smiled widely, in excitement. She smiled back, and then blushed heavily, just now noticing that they were holding hands and hooves.
" Okay, but why are we holding hands?" "Not that I mind, of course." She added almost inaudibly, but the dragon still heard it. He voiced his opinion on the matter.
" I grabbed your hoof, because I wanted to make sure you weren't affected when I casted the spell." She pointed out that they should get going before it wore off, so they exited the room, continued down the hallway, and turned to the left at a divergence of paths. They had just found a ladder on the wall leading up to a trapdoor, when a whirring noise was heard, along with a series of rapidly approaching hoof-beats. Spike had just openedit and crawled through, Fluttershy close behind, when their attackers rounded the corner, and caught sight of them. They quickly closed the door and moved a desk on top of it, so that nopony else would be able to get through. " See? I told you that we wouldn't get lost!" Spike declared, grinning, ignoring the bangs and shouts from below.
Fluttershy couldn't help but wonder how he was able to think about something like that, at a time like this, but his happiness was contagious. Soon, they were both smiling and laughing like a pair of idiots, relieved that they had somehow survived. Spike had a feeling that this wasn't the last they would see of their so-called 'friends'. He had only completed round one of pegasus protection, and more were sure to follow.