> Spikenautica
>  by PhysicistBrony
> --------------------------------------------------------------------------

> Chapter 1: The beginning
> --------------------------------------------------------------------------

As Spike strolled through the halls of the Aurora, he let his mind wander. He let random thoughts just come and go as he strolled to his destination. One thought that kept popping into his head was the conversation he had with Pinkie Pie. He was still confused about what she had meant.

A sudden wailing alarm broke Spikes train of thought. It took him a second, but he suddenly realized what the alarm meant. Something bad happened and the ship needed to be evacuated immediately. Spike took a quick look at the nearby sign and say the he was heading in the right direction. He then began running toward the life pod bay.

Quickly running down the hall, Spike's only objective was to reach the life pod. Nothing else mattered at the moment, just reaching that pod and getting off the ship. After hopping inside, he peaked out of the hatch to see if anypony else was scrambling towards his life pod. Suddenly, the Aurora began to shake and he slipped off the ladder and hit the floor with a thud. He quickly stood up and flung himself into one of the seats and began the ejection process. He quickly strapped himself in and pressed launch. As his life pod begins hurtling towards the planet, he looks out of the top hatch to get one last look at the Aurora.

Suddenly a massive green beam connects with the Aurora, causing it to explode and blast chunks of the ship in all directions. Spike's life pod begins to shake violently from the shockwave and almost immediately after the shaking began, the fire extinguisher flew off the wall, followed by a panel on the wall. Spike's eyes widened in fear as the panel and fire extinguisher shot around the life pod. Before he could even comprehend what was about to happen, the panel flew at his face, knocking him unconscious.

Spike slowly opens his eyes, head pounding and ears ringing. He groggily looks around and sees a blinding orange light. His eyes shoot open when he smells smoke and realises his life pod is on fire. He frees himself as quickly as possible to grab the fire extinguisher and quickly puts out the fire. "Man, that could have destroyed the life pod," thought Spike.

Spike pulls out his PDA and begins to power it up."This PDA is booted up in emergency mode. It's purpose is to help you survive on an alien planet," Spike hears the PDA say. "You have suffered mild head trauma. This is considered to be an optimal outcome," the PDA states. 

"Well at least I didn't die," Spike says to himself. He proceeds to examine the life pod for any breaches. Aside from some scorch marks, he sees nothing of concern and is satisfied with the condition of the life pod. He decided he might as well see what the area around looks like. "Can't hurt to see my surroundings," Spike mutters.

Spike proceeds to open the top hatch of the life pod and climb out. After climbing out, he is in shock at the huge thing of metal sticking out of the water in the distance. "The Aurora suffered extreme hull damage from an unknown source. Zero life signs detected," the PDA tells Spike. Spike could hardly believe that the Aurora was even able to be damaged, no less destroyed.

"Ok, well it looks like there is no land anywhere nearby, so I might as well see what I've got in the life pod." Spike says as he starts to climb back into the life pod. After opening the onboard storage compartment, he found some water bottles, some nutrient blocks, some flares, and a wetsuit. After finding the food and water, Spike realized how thirsty he was, so he immediately drank a bottle of water to quench his thirst.

After a quick examination of the wetsuit, he realised it was made for a pony, not a dragon. "Well, it's a good thing the fabricators are designed to turn any wetsuit into a wetsuit suited for any species" Spike muttered to himself. He grabbed the wetsuit and put it through the fabricator to make it for a dragon. "Well, I guess it's time to get my feet wet," Spike thought to himself after he put on the suit.

Spike opened the bottom of the hatch and was greeted by a giant eyeball staring up at him."AAAAGH!" Spike yelled while jumping back, "What is that thing?!" The fish quickly swam away, but Spike wasn't sure if he wanted to get into the water with that thing. "Well it's either that or I can die of dehydration, so I guess I'll join the fish," said Spike. He quickly hopped in and looked around, noticing that the fish had swam away, but saw just as many weird looking fish swimming just out of his reach. He quickly decided to head back inside and check what his fabricator could make.

After going through his fabricator, he realized that he was going to need some titanium before he could build anything. He quickly departed and looked around, but only found metal salvage that came off of the Aurora as it crashed. After bringing back all the salvage he could get his claws on, he sighed with frustration at the fact all he could find was old metal. He quickly remembered that the metal salvage could be broken down into titanium. He proceeds to start breaking down the salvage until he had so much titanium he couldn't hold it all.

"I regret grabbing all that salvage," Spike thought, "Now the storage compartment is almost full of titanium." After consulting the fabricator again, he came to the conclusion he would need some batteries to make some more tools. After embarking from the life pod, he went to go looking for copper and some colorful, acidic mushrooms. Little did he know, there was a giant figure slowly becoming aware of his presence.
> Chapter 2: What to do
> --------------------------------------------------------------------------

After a good hour long search, Spike found some copper and some, appropriately named, acid mushrooms. Once he was back in his life pod, he breathed a sigh of relief. "Man, some of the fish here are so freaky looking," Spike said, "I mean one of them looks like a boomerang and another looks like it's made of bags of air." Once Spike was done muttering to himself, he started to get to work making batteries and any other tools.

"Finally, a scanner, I need to see what the PDA's naming system comes up with for these fish." Spike said while depositing his leftover materials into storage. He quickly left the life pod and proceeded to scan different fish. "Let's see, I scanned a Peeper, a Bladder fish, a Spadefish, and a Boomerang. I wonder how that one got its name." Spike thought to himself, "Man, I don't think the PDA could have thought of more generalized names." After looking over the PDA, he realized that Bladder fish could be used as a natural filter to make water, so he went out and tried to collect some. He only managed to get 2 after half an hour of chasing them.

He quickly turned them into bottles of water and had a drink. After finishing them, he quickly realized that it was becoming night time. "Wow, did I really spend all day collecting that stuff?" Spike said with a yawn. "I should probably get some sleep." He quickly laid down and tried to sleep on the ground, but quickly realized that the seat would be much more comfortable than the floor.  After some quick adjusting, Spike managed to sleep for a few hours.

Almost as soon the night started, it ended, and Spike was forced awake by the extreme brightness. "Mmm, 5 more minutes Celestia." Spike mumbled while trying to smack away the sunbeams. After officially waking up, all of what happened the previous day came rushing back to Spike. "Oooohh no, what happened to everypony." Spike said to himself, pacing around the life pod, "I need to see if anypony else survived the crash." He moved over to the built-in radio and saw that it was broken, but not broken beyond repair.

Spike quickly realized how badly he needed that repair tool he had been putting off building. After eating a small breakfast of cooked Peeper and a water bottle, Spike left his lifepod to find some materials. After finding a small cave, the PDA told Spike that there were small deposits of sulfur inside, meaning if he collected it, he could make a repair tool. Spike started to swim into the cave, and after swimming past a small red plant, he heard what sounded like grunting and then a kind of screaming. "What in the-'' Spike turned to see a small, red, one-eyed fish swimming at him. Spike started wondering what the fish was doing, before the fish suddenly exploded right in front of him.

Spike yelled in pain as the explosion caused him to slam into the cave wall. He quickly recovered his senses and went back towards the entrance of the cave. With the help of his flashlight, he spotted the plant he passed, which had a small deposit of yellow powder sitting inside. Spike deduced that the fish had come from the plant, due to its explosive ability. He quickly scanned the plant, which was labeled as a Sulfur Plant, took the sulfur, and made his way back towards the life pod.

After returning he quickly checked himself for any injuries, but besides a tear in the arm of his suit, he was fine. "It's a great thing I have these scales," Spike thought, "Otherwise I might have become fish food." He quickly went to the fabricator and made the repair tool. After he grabbed it, he started to repair the area where the panel had flown off the wall. Spike knew that if he repaired it, he could get a scan of the planet he was on.

After he repaired the exposed wiring and put the panel back on, he moved to the radio while the life pod did it's scan of the planet. After repairing the radio, he played the only message on it. "This is Aurora. Emergency distress beacon received. Rescue teams will arrive in 9...9...9...9...9 hours."

"Well that's just great, isn't it." Spike grumbled after the message played. "Well now what am I going to do?" Spike said. "I have hardly any food and water, nopony is able to come rescue me, and I don't even know if any other life pods were deployed." Suddenly, the light on his radio started to blink, meaning a message had come in. He jumped up and pressed the play button.

"It's Pinkie Pie, from Sugarcube Cafe. So what's going on? One minute I'm baking another delicious cake, and then BAM, sirens go off, everypony is running and screaming. So I thought we were playing tag and decided to hide in this life pod, but then-" Pinkie inhales deeply "- I was launched onto the planet, but I was almost crushed by a chunk of the Seamoth bay, so suddenly I realized that this wasn't a game, but I can't get a hold of anypony, but if I could I would probably tell them about how I was baking a cake and then BAM everything started happening all at once, but of course I don't know where anypony is,... Oh wait whoever can here this is listening to me talk, so obviously somepony is there,-" another deep inhale, "So I guess if you can hear me I'm in a sandy area with colorful red grass and, ooooh, what are you?" Pinkie is heard moving away from the microphone, "Hi there pretty fishy, my name's Pinkie Pie, so what are you doing, oooh are you playing tag with the smaller fish, can I join???" "Coordinates attached to message, uploading to PDA"

Spike couldn't believe what he had heard. There were other ponies that had escaped the Aurora! "Thank Celestia, somepony else is alive!" He said while starting to pack food, water, and any other essentials for the trip to Pinkie Pie's life pod. He was unaware of the danger that was waiting for him there.
> Chapter 3: Pinkies fate
> --------------------------------------------------------------------------

"Okay, let's see. What do I need to bring?" Spike muttered. After grabbing his flashlight, scanner, food, and water, he was ready to depart. Spike left the pod in a hurry as to make sure that Pinkie was alright. He checked the coordinates from Pinkie's message, then began to swim in the general direction of Pinkie's location.

Spike soon realised how far the swim would be and how his tank could only hold so much oxygen. "Shoot," said Spike, "If I leave with only this much, I won't be able to even save enough energy for the journey back." Spike decided to explore a short distance to see if he could find some other resources.

Soon after starting his exploring, Spike found a small chunk of the Aurora that had broken off while the Aurora was falling. "Well that's convenient," Spike thought. He started to swim towards the wreckage to see if he could recover anything. As he started to approach it, he saw that there were a lot of boxes outside of the wreck. He then swam towards the boxes to see if they had anything inside of them.

After he approached, he saw that a few had the fronts busted open and had different tools in various states of disrepair. He quickly grabbed out his scanner and started scanning the tools, not realizing that he needed to do that to recover lost blueprints. He scanned 3 seaglide pieces, 2 mobile vehicle bay fragments, and 4 grav trap fragments. After all that scanning he realized that the scanner turned excesses scanning into raw titanium that he could use to build some of these.

Spike started to return to his life pod, but stopped when he looked to his right and saw a huge kelp forest. He started to surface to allow his tank to refill, but then started towards the forest. He swam towards one of the kelp plants that had giant yellow things growing out of it. He scanned the yellow things and the kelp itself, then grabbed a "Seed cluster", as the PDA called it, and began to leave.

Suddenly Spike hears a roar and looks behind him to see a purple and white fish with an elongated snout start to swim towards him. He quickly looked around for a weapon, but only saw some salvage next to him. He quickly picked it up and tried to use it as a shield. The fish quickly bit the shield, and without breaking it, yanked away the shield from Spike and began to swim away.

Spike looked on in confusion, but decided not to press his luck, and then started to swim back to his life pod. After a short swim back, Spike climbed up into the life pod and breathed a sigh of relief. "Whatever that thing was, I don't think it wanted me so much as it wanted the metal salvage," Spike chuckled. Spike then remembered he was on a mission to find Pinkie Pie and anypony else out there.

He stood up and went over to the fabricator and checked to see if he could make more supplies for the journey. To his surprise he had a few new recipes to make, like the seaglide. He realized that with a seaglide, he could go help Pinkie, even if it meant he would have to swim normally on the return trip. He then began to look at what resources he would need to build it.

After checking, he was so glad he grabbed that seed cluster because he needed vehicle lubricant to build it, and the seed cluster made a natural lubricant once put through the fabricator. Then he grabbed a spare battery, some copper to make wires and a chunk of raw titanium. He started by putting in the copper to make wires, then put everything in to make the seaglide. "The seaglide will increase your effective exploration range. For your safety, pack extra supplies for long journeys, and stay within 5 km of the nearest life pod or habitat," the PDA told Spike.

"Well it's a good thing Pinkies life pod is only 500 meters away," Spike said with a happy tone. He then grabbed some extra food and water in case Pinkie needed it and started thinking about what else he should bring. "Well I won't need any raw materials like titanium or copper, so I'll put those away," Spike said while doing said action, "Though I should grab a medical kit, just in case one of us gets hurt." After grabbing his things he opened the bottom hatch and hopped in the water.

He grabbed out his seaglide and started to make his way towards Pinkies life pod. He soon realized just how diverse the ecosystem was here after almost having run into another kelp forest, seeing so many different fish, and seeing just how different all the animals were. While passing through the kelp forest, he grabbed a few more seed clusters so he could make more supplies. He then continued until all the kelp just kind of stopped like a wall and gave way to an open area full of rock towers and red grass, just like Pinkie had said.

After taking in the huge grassy area, he remembered why he was there. He set out towards Pinkies life pod, but stopped when he saw the sand shifting below him. He quickly played it off as his eyes were playing tricks on him, and after looking around, he saw Pinkies life pod. He then continued on his way towards the life pod, only to stop and stare in horror at the life pod.

There was a huge hole broken in from something out in the grassy area. It looked as if whatever did that decided to leave it alone once it was done. He quickly swam inside and saw a few items and a broken seaglide sitting in the corner, a PDA on the floor, but no Pinkie Pie. He grabbed the spare resources, then grabbed the PDA and played the recording on it.

"... Where is everypony, I thought they would come for me by now," a very sad sounding Pinkie pie says.

Pinkie is then heard talking in a weird french accent, "Well I believe that something bad happened to them, or maybe they don't like you anymore."

Pinkie is then heard talking in a slightly gruff voice, "Yeah, maybe something bad did happen, but my cousin Mr. Turnips told me about the time they abandoned you and Gummy when you tried to throw Gummys after party"

"Well that was just a big misunderstanding Mr. Chewy and Monsieur Aquis, I forgot about my own birthday party and they were planning a surprise one for me," Pinkie says in her normal voice

"Maybe, but that was no excuse for them to avoid you all day," Pinkie says in a New Jersey style accent.

"Well maybe not all day Ripples, but it was a reason for them to stay away for a bit, right?" Pinkie says normally.

"Well I say they abandoned you this time because they think you aren't worth rescuing," Pinkie is heard saying in a sophisticated kind of way.

"W...why would they think I wasn't worth saving? They're my friends, I would save all of them if I could," Pinkie said.

"But it's been a while since we crashed here, and only we have been here for you, not those other ponies," said Ripples.

"Yeah, if they wanted to rescue you, they would have been here by now, so obviously they don't want to rescue you." Said Mr. Chewy

"I… I can't believe that. We are friends. They wouldn't leave me... right?" Pinkie mutters.

After listening to the recording, Spike wished he could have made it sooner. He could have helped her, but he was too busy worrying about his well being to think about how Pinkie might be suffering. "Man, if I had arrived sooner, maybe I could have reassured Pinkie Pie instead of her going crazy and talking to these objects," Spike said with a heavy sigh.

Spike was suddenly thrown out of his mind when a small roar was emitted from outside. Spike hurried outside just in time to see some sand settling back down to the seafloor. "What is going on with this sand out here?" Spike muttered.

Suddenly the sand next to Spike exploded upwards. Spike quickly swam to the left, away from the sand and looked at the settling sand to see some type of shark thing swimming at him. "AAAAAAGGHHH!!!" Spike screamed at the top of his lungs as the shark swam at him, mouth wide open and teeth bared.
> Chapter 4: Distractions
> --------------------------------------------------------------------------

Spike slowly climbed back into his life pod after his return trip. "That-" Spike said, "-is not something I want to run into again." He laid on the floor for a few minutes until he got the energy to get up address his injuries. He then stood up and walked over to the medical fabricator and pulled out the kit.

He started to apply the medical kit to his injuries. "That shark got me pretty good," Spike was thinking while applying a bandage to his bleeding arm. The scales on Spike might be strong, but the shark had powerful jaws and sharp teeth. It managed to land a bite on Spike's arm when it surprised him.

After the shark attack, Spike quickly started swimming up to the surface. The shark lost interest soon after Spike proved to be more agile than it. Spike soon broke the surface of the water and checked himself of any other injuries. After finding nothing of concern, he started for the life pod.

"Increasing radiation levels detected. This increase is consistent with damage to the Aurora's drive core sustained after crashing," the PDA stated. "WHAT!?" Spike yelled, "I not only do I have to deal with killer fish, I also have to deal with radiation!!" Spike felt like this entire world was against him. Not only were there multiple predators, only water as far as he could see, and there was nopony else alive, but he also had to deal with radiation from the ship.

Spike was thinking about those events as he finished bandaging his wound. Spike still couldn't believe all that was happening to him. He quickly decided to distract himself by trying to build more tools. "I think the next tool I should focus on is the habitat builder," Spike said while going through the fabricator recipes.

"Ok, I'm going to need a wiring kit, a computer chip, and a battery," Spike said while grabbing out the battery needed. He soon realized that to gather table coral for the computer chip, he would need a knife. "Let's see, the knife needs one silicon rubber and one titanium," Spike said. "Heh, it's a good thing I already have seed clusters to make into silicon rubber," Spike thought as he put the seeds in the fabricator.

He quickly built the knife and departed from the life pod. He looked around for a minute before finding some table coral. As he started slashing it and gathering chunks, he looked up and saw a big fish with a polka dot ball for a tail.

"Now what in Celestia are you?" Spike wondered. The fish seemed to be minding its own business and seemed rather peaceful, so Spike decided to swim closer. As Spike drew near, the fish started to shake its tail and swam away after releasing ten greenish-yellow orbs into the water. Spike grabbed one and began to examine it, when all of a sudden, they all started to explode and the gas leaked into Spike's oxygen tank.

Spike started to cough viciously, quickly surfacing and taking off his diving mask so he could breathe oxygen. "*Cough Cough*- Uh, what- *Cough Cough Cough"- was that?" Spike said while trying to clear his lungs of the gas. "Well whatever that was, it didn't want me to get close, so maybe I'll just avoid them from now on," Spike thought with this new found knowledge.

After a few more minutes of clearing his lungs, he started to swim towards a cave to look for silver and gold. As he descended, he remembered that exploding fish he encountered on day one, so he was rather cautious of the cave. "I really hope that I don't have to deal with that explosive fish or any new carnivorous fish I haven't encountered so far," Spike said as he slowly descended into the cave.

After looking around he saw quartz, limestone deposits, and a lot of plants, but no sandstone deposits. He soon started going deeper to try to find at least a few deposits. After a few minutes he had to leave to get oxygen, but only found quartz, titanium, and copper to take back. "Where are all the stupid sandstone deposits," Spike grumbled angrily.

Spike then remembered the only place he had seen large amounts of sandstone deposits in one place. "Oooohh no no no no, I'm not going back there yet, not after that run in with the shark," Spike stated to himself very adamantly. After thinking about it, Spike thought that he saw some in the kelp forest before that weird fish attacked him. He remembered that when it attacked, it preferred the metal salvage over him, so when he left, he grabbed a piece to offer it.

After a short swim thanks to his seaglide, he arrived and started to look for sandstone. After a quick surface search, he didn't see any obvious clumps, so he started to descend into a nearby cave. "Caution, a common complication for cave fibers is a loss of direction, followed by drowning," the PDA stated.

"Wow, real helpful aren't you, you hunk of junk," Spoke thought bitterly. He started going in to find a clump of sandstone sitting next to the entrance. "Well isn't this nice," Spike said as he started to break it open, "I found just what I was looking for with almost no trouble." After breaking it open with his knife, he grabbed the chunk of silver that fell out.

Spike realized he spent so much time underwater that he was about to drown, so he quickly surfaced to get oxygen. As he surfaced, he came to the realization that he needed a bigger oxygen tank so he could dive longer. He opened his PDA to look at what was needed for the high capacity oxygen tank. "Okay," Spike said, "I need two glass, one titanium, my oxygen tank, and one silver, but hey I already have half of the materials needed."

He started his search for quartz so that he could make glass for his upgrade. Spike soon found the four pieces of quartz that he needed and started back towards the life pod. After arriving he quickly put the quartz into the fabricator to make glass, then all of the materials into it to make the High Capacity O2 Tank. "Thank goodness I have this. Without it, I wouldn't be able to make it any further than the entrance of that cave.

He soon returned to the cave and started his search for sandstone. After a few minutes and the sound of a knife breaking rocks, Spike started the trip back to the life pod three pieces of gold, two pieces of silver, and two pieces of lead richer than when he had got there. On his way back, Spike contemplated whether or not escape was even possible from this planet.

"Well for one thing, there has to be a way off this planet. I mean how is it possible that nopony could escape from here. Then there is the fact that the Aurora was shot down by something, so obviously somepony lives on this planet." These were all the discussions going through Spike's head as he nearer the life pod 

Spike climbed into the life pod, grabbed out a Peeper he caught, cooked, and ate the fish, then drank a bottle of water. He then put the silver into the fabricator to make a wiring kit. He proceeded to put the wiring kit, the computer chip, and the battery into the fabricator to make the habitat builder. "The builder tool is designed to build habitats in extreme environmental conditions," the PDA stated.
> Chapter 5: The island
> --------------------------------------------------------------------------

"Well this sucks," Spike muttered, "I can't even build a multi-purpose room because the PDA's data is corrupted." After he built the tool he had started to go through what he could build, but there were a lot of missing blueprints. All he was able to build were hallways, solar panels, and a few accessories, such as a chair and a trash can.

He started to think of how he would build a base without multi-purpose rooms when his radio started to blink. He moved over to it and pressed play. "This is Officer Twilight. The Captain is gone so I have taken command. The last thing the captain did was give me directions towards dry land for us to rendezvous at. Everyone try to regroup at these coordinates."

"Rendezvous coordinates corrupted, life pod transmission location updated to PDA."

Spike stood staring at the PDA with wide eyes. Twilight had survived, and there was dry land in this planet of water! "I have to find her life pod to see if she is ok," Spike said, rushing to open the hatch.

"Maybe if I hurry I can find Twilight before something happens to her," Spike said as he pulled out his seaglide and made his way to the coordinates. As he was making his way there he heard a loud moaning noise similar to a whale.

He immediately stopped and looked around and saw a huge fish thing with tentacles sprouting from its back. He was immediately frozen in fear of being attacked, but after a few minutes saw that it wanted nothing to do with him. He started to leave but stopped when he saw a second one. He decided he could spare a few minutes to scan the fish and look at it.


Spike began to swim closer when he saw they had very colorful backs. As he approached he saw that it was really covered in plants and barnacles. He moved in closer just to have a thorn quickly stab into his side. He moved away as another thorn shot past him. He looked around and saw that a plant was shooting thorns at him.

He removed the thorn that hit him and swam away from the plant. He was on the other side of the fish when he began scanning it. After a minute the scanner was done scanning and showed Spike it was called a Reefback Leviathan and was peaceful. He quickly read that he could break open the barnacles for a few materials.

He decided he would have to come back to the Reefbacks later for more materials and a chance to study the thorn plant. He began to make his way towards the transmission location of Twilight's life pod. As he was swimming he noticed the area starting to become slightly barren with towers of smooth rock surrounding the edge of a 100 meter drop.

He surfaced to refill his air tank and began to dive straight towards Twilight's life pod. Using his seaglide, he was able to descend faster than with just his head. After moving forward and down he began to notice it got way darker. Once he was close to Twilight's life pod, he almost burst into tears immediately.

Twilight's life pod looked similar to what had happened to Pinkie Poe's life pod. The only exception was that Twilight's appeared to be blown outward, not inward. He swam closer and saw a PDA inside, so he grabbed it hoping that Twilight's death was a quick one.

"To anybody reading this, you have obviously followed the distress beacon on this life pod contrary to my orders. I want everyone to meet up at these rendezvous coordinates on the nearest land mass. Good luck and be safe, Twilight Sparkle. P.S. I will be blowing a hole in the side of this life pod, nothing came and ate me."

Spike was filled with joy when he read the ending. "This means that Twilight is ok! I have to go to the rendezvous coordinates immediately." He noticed that the coordinates were almost straight above him. "Are you kidding me!? I just came all the way here to find out the dry land is right above me!?" Spike thought absolutely brimming with anger.

He made his way up but quickly stopped when he saw a few glowing pink blobs on the underside of the landmass. He decided against scanning them because he was about to run out of O2. He decided to go straight to the rendezvous and went into the center of the floating island.

He ascended the water and was met with the surprise of a hollow area with different tunnels leading out of the area. He soon spotted a blue glow nearby and went to it. He saw it was a PDA, so he played the message that was recorded on it.

"Twilight, we need to teleport back to the Aurora to use the long range comms and get in contact with everypony."

"Starlight, we can't just teleport there, we don't know what the inside looks like, we might try teleporting inside the comms room and instantly be impaled or crushed by debris thats filling the room, so stop charging your spell."

"Fine, how about we swim? The front of the ship looks open, so we can swim inside there."

"Shouldn't we wait a little longer Starlight? There might be somepony on the way and if we leave, it will look like they got left behind."

"I know that's why I'm going to leave my PDA here so they can listen to this conversation."

"Wait, you've been recording this entire time? Well then Spike, if you're listening to this, remember, stay calm, I will find you after we come back. Okay Starlight, let's go."

[Received emergency message from Officer Twilight 2 hours after transmission]

"My PDA intercepted a transmission from Alterra HQ. Seems they sent a data package to the Aurora. Starlight and I were intercepted by a huge predator before we could make it into the Aurora. Consider us lost at sea. Spike, if your listening to this, I'm sorry I failed you. I love you and you need to keep going on without me. Don't give up. Twilight out."

Spike couldn't even tell what he was feeling after he finished listening to the message. He was mad at whatever forced them to crash, he was depressed that Twilight died, and he was happy there might be a chance for escaping because of the data package on the Aurora. He chose to focus on being happy that there was a chance of escape, even if he never got to see Twilight again.

He got back up and decided to look around the island for supplies. As he made his way up, he began to scan different plants. "Let's see, we have Bulbo trees, a Jaffa cups, a Voxel shrubs, Speckled rattlers, and a lot of other plants too." Spike said as he walked across the island. He looked around and saw two mountains with peculiar looking tops. "I should go up there and see how large the island is and how far I can see."

Spike began to make his way up the mountain with the conveniently made path leading up the mountain. As he approached the top he saw that there was a structure near the top. He began to run towards the structure but slowed as he got closer.

The structure was completely rusted inside and out. He started to walk inside when he realized that he didn't have a bulkhead blueprint, so he spent a minute scanning the door, then went inside to explore. From what he could see, it was used to study some plants; some from the planet, others from different ones. He grabbed a few fruits off of the "lantern" tree to eat and take back to plant. He looked around and found a PDA on the floor, so he picked it up and played the recorded message.

"This is the first time in months I've seen the sunlight. After how long we spent in the deep, I'd been wondering when I would get to see it again. Now that I'm back up here, it's rather hard to enjoy the view alone. Father was right, we shouldn't have gone that far down. They did not want us down there."

"Despite my research, the illness is getting to me. Worse yet, the visions are getting worse and harder to believe they are hallucinations. Iron Whooves and father are now a part of the ecosystem here. It's comforting to know that I will be joining them when I go. Until then… there's always the view."

Spike was thoroughly confused by this discovery. "Were there other ponies here besides ones from the Aurora?" Spike began to wonder, "and if they were, why did they leave?" Spike began to ponder this as he made his way down and around to reach the other mountain.
> Chapter 6: Something great
> --------------------------------------------------------------------------

Spike soon began to approach the building on the other side of the island. As he got closer, he noticed that the building was in a similar state as the last one, completely rusted. He was rather surprised that the glass observatory was even rusted. As he climbed in, he was met by two pots with food inside.

He grabbed a few Chinese Potatoes and the Marblemelon so he could grow more. He pulled out his scanner and began to scan most of the things in and around the building. After he was done he had scanned 2 different plant pots, a spotlight, a chair, a desk, and the observatory. After looking out of the observatory, he saw a huge landslide and a multi-purpose room half buried under the landslide.

"Wow, somepony else was living here before I got here," Spike said looking at the structure. Spike immediately ran from what he assumes was an observation outpost, and started down towards the base. He ran as fast as his claws could carry him, but slow enough that he wouldn't trip and fall down the mountain. As he got closer he saw that the base seemed to be mostly unburied, but completely rusted through.

When Spike was about to walk in, he saw some weird looking, one eyed, four legged creatures running around the building. He decided he would try to avoid them because they were probably hostile. "My luck is that they will try to devour me alive," Spike thought, even without realizing how true his statement was.

He decided to walk around and up a broken off tube so he could reach the upper level. As he walked up, he had to walk across the top of the building to walk into the remaining area. He walked in and saw a data box and a small storage box on his right with a ladder in front of him. He opened the data box to find the blueprints for swim charge fins, fins that would charge whatever tool he was holding. Sadly, he needed a modification station to build them.

He then decided to go down and look around and only saw a small storage box with a bottle of water. He then noticed the way to the multi-purpose room was blocked by rubble, so he would have to walk outside and get in through the busted open window. As he went around to get in, he saw an outdoor growbed with more Marblemelons and Potatoes. He scanned the growbed, grabbed some food, and turned to the multi-purpose room and went inside through the window.

As he walked in, he saw a purple tablet sitting on a desk. He was surprised by this because it looked way more advanced than any tech Alterra owned. He scanned it and grabbed it to see the PDA next to it. He grabbed and played the message on the PDA.

"What is that thing?" An older male voice is heard saying.

"I don't know. I found it outside, in the sand." A feminine voice is heard saying.

"Part of another ship?"

"None I've ever seen."

"It's not even scratched." A younger male voice is heard saying.

"Don't fool with it, it might be valuable." The older man is heard saying.

"Calm down Metal Torgal, if it was going to crumble to dust it would have done so when I picked it up.

"It's glowing." The younger voice is heard saying with much curiosity.

"We are not the first ponies to come to this planet." Metal Torgal is heard saying.

"Ponies. Maybe. Could be aliens. Could be a super smart seamonsters for all we know. One thing I know is we aren't about to find out sitting up here." The female is heard saying before the message ends.

"Wow, this is actual alien technology! Twilight would love… to…" Spike said before getting sad again. He quickly begins leaving so as not to dwell on Twilight's death too much. He quickly makes his way back to the hollowed out area he came in from, and jumps into the water with his seaglide in his claws. He decided to scan the giant blobs in the underside of the island and then left for his life pod with new intent.

On his way back, he was passing through the kelp forest place and saw a big piece of metal. As he got closer he realised that it was a part of the Aurora. After swimming towards it, he saw parts of different blueprints he was missing, so he began to scan them. After he was done, he had unlocked the mobile vehicle bay, the Seamoth, the grav trap, and ⅓ of the modification station.

After half an hour of swimming because his seaglide battery died in the kelp forest and he didn't have a spare, Spike arrived at his life pod. He began to climb in and look at the parts needed for the mobile vehicle bay, and saw he needed 1 power cell, 1 lubricant, and 1 titanium ingot. "Okay, I've got enough titanium stored to make 3 ingots, so that won't be a problem. The problem is making 2 batteries, mostly because I don't want to use charged ones, so I'll use my 2 dead ones, and I need to go grab some kelp seeds to make the lubricant," Spike said to himself.

As he was talking, Spike began to leave the life pod and make his way to the kelp forest. When he approached, he slowed down and grabbed a chunk of metal on the ground to use as a distraction for the metal eating fish that attacked him the first time he went there. "Let's see, there should be some seeds relatively close by," Spike thought as he started to move towards the forest again. Soon after he got inside, he saw some seed clusters and grabbed one.

Almost as if the seed cluster were it's babies, the metal eating fish came swimming at him hoping for lunch. As the fish neared, Spike shoved the metal out in front of him as an offering. The fish slowed down, confused at the actions of it's purple lunch handing over metal. The fish took the metal and swam away, thinking it would come back and it's lunch would still be there. Sadly for the fish, Spike had no intentions of sticking around and becoming lunch, so he began to swim back to the area his life pod landed in.

As Spike made his way back, he began to think of names for the different areas he had explored. He decided to name the area his life pod landed in "The Shallows" because most of the area was not any deeper than fifteen meters. He named the kelp forest, what else, the "Kelp Forest" for quite obvious reasons. He then thought about what to name the red grassy area, but soon realised that if he didn't collect more copper and acid mushrooms, he wouldn't have enough batteries to power anything so he put the naming on hold.

He then made his way over to an area with some limestone deposits and began to break them open to collect some copper and titanium. After collecting that, he came across some salt and decided to grab it, just in case he needed it. He made a pit stop to grab some mushrooms, and then made his way back to the life pod. As he entered, he realised he was hungry after not having eaten for a few hours, so he grabbed a Peeper, cooked it, and then ate it.

He then got to work on building some batteries, three to be exact. He then converted the titanium into an ingot, and immediately put the seed clusters into the fabricator to make the required lubricant. "How does the seed cluster make both the lubricant and the bottle?" Spike wondered as he watched the lubricant being made. He then put his dead batteries into the fabricator with the leftover piece of silicon rubber from when he made his knife.

After making the required components, he put everything into the fabricator and began to make the Mobile Vehicle Bay. After a few seconds, the fabricator was done fabricating it. He then proceeded to grab the MVB (Mobile Vehicle Bay) and went outside to deploy it. After he deployed the MVB, he climbed on and checked to see what he needed to build the Seamoth.

"Let's see, I need 1 titanium ingot, 1 power cell, 1 lubricant, 2 glass, and 1 piece of lead," Spike stated while thinking about how similar the materials needed for the MVB and the Seamoth were. He jumped back into the water to collect some more copper, and even grabbed a few extra pieces for later use. Then he started to swim towards the Kelp Forest to collect more seed clusters. When he arrives, he sees the metal eating fish swimming around, so he makes a wide arc around it to the nearest seed clusters.

After grabbing some seeds, he starts heading back, only to hear a roar behind him. He looks back and sees the metal eating fish start swimming at him. He quickly pulls out his Seaglide and dives for one of the caves. "Well it's a good thing I need another piece of lead anyways, so I just have to find some sandstone deposits to break open," Spike thought while swimming as fast as the Seaglide would take him. He enters the cave and is met with a drooping purple thing.

Spike was unsure what it was, so he left it alone and continued his search for sandstone deposits. He soon found a few, but only 1 contained lead, but he only needed one piece, so it was ok. He then swam back to the entrance, being wary of the drooping plant, and saw no sign of the metal eating fish anywhere. He then quickly swam out and to the surface and found himself looking at the Aurora. As he was looking at the Aurora, his PDA began to state something.

"Damage to the Aurora drive core will cause a quantum detonation in approximately 1 day," the PDA stated, much to Spike's irritation and worry.

"Man, now I have to worry about the Aurora exploding?! I don't even know if I can fix it," Spike said while swimming back to his life pod and wondering what to do because of the Aurora. As he neared his life pod, he slowed down and put away his Seaglide so he could conserve battery. After reaching the life pod, Spike climbed in and put all the materials he needed through the fabricator so he would have the proper materials to build a Seamoth.

Once they were done, he climbed up and out of his life pod, only to leap at his MVB. He climbed onto the MVB and put in the necessary materials to build a Seamoth. As the MVB began to build the Seamoth, his PDA started talking. "The Seamoth is a fast and safe mode of transportation. Just remember that swimming is good exercise for you too," the PDA stated.

*Sploosh* The Seamoth had just landed in the water. Spike decided to go for a trip to the Kelp Forest to grab more seeds, but wanted to pack and eat food before leaving. As he climbed in his life pod, his radio began to blink. He walked over and played the message, doubting that anypony was still alive.

"Um… He-Hello? Can anypony hear me? I'm so scared, I can see so many sh-sh-sharks swimming around, but my l-life pod sunk, so I c-can't talk to them. Can anyone hear me? I'm in an area surrounded by g-glowing blue bushes. I have e-enough food for a few d-d-days, but I won't last much longer without oxygen. P-please somepony, help me. *EEEP*" Fluttershy was heard saying before something hit her life pod and the transmission cuts out.

"Sweet Celestia, Fluttershy is in danger, I have to help her, the stupid seeds can wait. I don't want to lose another friend," Spike said while rushing to grab some food, water, and a medical kit. He quickly disembarked from the life pod, he jumped into his Seamoth and took off for the blue bush area that Fluttershy was in. He was determined and didn't even realise which direction it was, so he stopped and checked which way it was. Once he corrected his course, he took off, and nothing could stop him from reaching Fluttershy's life pod.

After a 15 minute journey, Spike saw some of the blue bushes. "I can wait to scan those until Fluttershy is safe," Spike said while looking for Fluttershy's life pod. He soon saw some of the shark Fluttershy had talked about and made a wide arc around them. He soon saw a life pod that had sunk to the Sea floor, and Spike prepared himself for the worst.

After a quick swim around the life pod, he only saw a little damage to the outside, caused by a rock that had fallen off a cliff above the life pod. He then got out of his Seamoth and swam up to the upper hatch and looked inside. Inside he saw Fluttershy pacing around, nibbling on a nutrient block, and what looked like muttering to herself.

He knocked on the hatch, but got the wrong reaction from her. She looked up and screamed in fear not realising it was Spike who knocked. She quickly hid behind the ladder and stared in fear at the hatch. He decided that knocking wouldn't work, so he quickly climbed inside, trying to keep as much water out as possible.

Fluttershy screamed even louder and pressed herself against the back wall and shut her eyes in fear. "I thought you weren't afraid of me," Spike said jokingly. Fluttershy's eyes flew open as she recognized Spike's voice. She launched herself at Spike and hugged him hard to make sure he was real.

"Spike, is it really you?" Fluttershy asked, still unsure whether or not she was imagining him. "In the scales," Spike said while grinning at Fluttershy. Just then a loud this was heard outside, causing Fluttershy to Yelp and hide behind the ladder again. Spike looked out the hatch to see a shark swimming around to make another charge at the life pod 

"Fluttershy, I'm really happy to see you, but we need to leave now. That shark is going to keep attacking the life pod until it bursts open and it can eat us. You can get in my Seamoth, I will use my Seaglide, and we can both go to my life pod because mine is floating," Spike said in a rushed and scared manner. Fluttershy merely nodded and began to make her way towards the hatch. Suddenly the life pod was shaken again and the shark started to swim away. "NOW!" Spike yelled as he opened the hatch and they both swam out.

Fluttershy made a made swim for the Seamoth and climbed in. Spike pulled out his Seaglide and began to swim back to the life pod with Fluttershy close behind him. After a few minutes, they both slowed down as they approached the life pod. Spike signaled for Fluttershy to get out of the Seamoth and get in the life pod.

"Okay, now that we are here, I need to tell you something Shy," Spike said sadly. "What is it Spike?" Fluttershy said curiously. *Sigh* "Pinkie Pie, Starlight Glimmer, Twilight are.. are.." and then Spike broke down into tears after finally letting Twilight's death catch up with him. "Oh my, I.. I can hardly begin to understand how you must feel Spike," Fluttershy said as she starts to hug him. Then she begins to cry because of the loss of their friends, and they stay there for hours, just crying and hugging each other.
> Chapter 7: Reactions
> --------------------------------------------------------------------------

"Emergency, quantum detonation has occurred in the Aurora drive core. A supercritical state will be reached in T- 10, 9, 8, 7, 6 ,5 ,4 ,t-three, t-t-t-two…*static*"

*BOOOOM*

"AAAGH!!" Spike and Fluttershy scream at the same time. They had been sleeping somewhat peacefully before being woken up by that boom. They begin to feel the area around them start shaking. "For your convenience, the radiation suit had been added to the fabricator blueprint database," the PDA states.

"Oh no. Fluttershy? Did you get any messages on your radio or from your PDA while you were stuck?" Spike asks slowly looking at the hatch above him. "Um, no, I don't think so," Fluttershy said staring at him. "Well I think the Aurora just exploded," Spike said looking at Fluttershy with worry, "What are we going to do?"

"Well, um, we could build the, um, radiation suits so we can get to the Aurora, if that's ok with you," Fluttershy said nervously. They both looked at each other remembering the previous day's events. "I think I'm going to get started on those suits. Do you want to come with me? There are some amazing creatures, even if they are meat eaters," Spike said while standing up.

"Hm, well I don't think I'll be much help. I can't swim very well," Fluttershy said, slightly ashamed of herself. "It's ok Fluttershy, I shouldn't be out for super long, just enough to find… um, hold on," Spike said, walking over to the fabricator to check the blueprint for the radiation suit. "Okay, I only need 4 pieces of lead and 4 pieces of fiber mesh for both of us," Spike said looking back at Fluttershy.

"Well, um, if it's not a bother, do you have any food left. I am a bit peckish, if it's ok with you," Fluttershy said while hiding behind her mane. "It's no bother Fluttershy, but I don't have any food besides fish, so if you don't like it, I can go get some fruits and vegetables," Spike said. "Oh, well, um, I guess I could eat some fish, if it's not a bother," Fluttershy said with worry in her voice.

"It's no problem at all," Spike was saying, "I'll just hop out and grab some nearby fish and maybe some titanium while I'm at it so I can start building a temporary home." Fluttershy then looks at Spike and says, "Um, where are the fruits and vegetables? Don't they, um, grow on land?" Spike then smacked his forehead realising that he could build his own base on the island. "Yes they do grow on the floating island, but I've only been there once. I went because I...I was following Twilight's l-last transmission," Spike said on the verge of tears.

"Oh dear, I'm sorry Spike, I-I didn't know. Please don't be mad at me," Fluttershy said while hugging Spike. "Don't worry Fluttershy, I'm not mad. I'm just… sad that I couldn't see Twilight again. I think I'm going to go get the supplies and some food now," Spike said moving towards the bottom hatch. "Oh, please don't be gone too long. I don't want you to get hurt."

"I shouldn't be gone too long, I'll come back in a few minutes with some fish to cook," Spike said just before jumping into the water. Spike then swam around for a few minutes collecting some fish. He ended up grabbing more Bladder fish than intended, but knew he should make extra water while he was at it. He then swam back to the life pod and went inside.

"See, I told you I would only be gone a few minutes,"Spike said walking towards the fabricator and cooking some fish. Fluttershy was in the seat for the life pod watching Spike cook the fish and deciding she would live if she needed to eat them and not fruits and vegetables. "Here," Spike said handing Fluttershy a fish and a bottle of water, "I figured you might be thirsty too, so I got you a bottle of water." "Thank you Spike." "So, are you going to be ok if I go out for a few hours? I need to collect the supplies we need for those radiation suits," Spike asked Fluttershy while they were eating. "Oh, um, I should be fine for a few hours, but, um, do you think you think you could tell me where that island is? I want to collect some of those fruits and vegetables, if that's ok with you?"

"The island is southwest," Spike said pointing, "but there are a few structures there that have food near and around. Everything should be safe to eat because I had some and I'm fine, but it might be because I'm a dragon, so be careful eating it." "Ok, I will fly that way while you collect the supplies," Fluttershy said, excited to have some fruits and veggies.

"Okay, goodbye Fluttershy, I will see you later," Spike said with a wave. "Bye Spike," Fluttershy said, returning the wave. Spike then went out the bottom hatch while Fluttershy went out the top hatch. Spike then decided he would go to the red grass area for the sandstone deposits that may or may not contain the lead he needed.

After climbing into the Seamoth, Spike took off for the newly named "Grassy Plateaus". After arriving, Spike got out and made sure to keep an eye out for the sharks that roamed around. As he was looking around for sandstone, he came across a chunk of the Aurora and decided to go inside. On approach he noticed one of the sharks swimming nearby, so he knew he needed to be cautious.

When he approached, he saw some junk sitting outside and a doorway inside and decided to go inside first. He went inside and immediately saw a part of a battery charger, a part of a modification station, and a few stasis rifle parts. After scanning them, Spike made his way to the surface so he would suffocate. After surfacing, he looked over at the Aurora in complete shock.

The Aurora had already crashed causing it to be in bad shape, but this was a whole new kind of destroyed. "Sweet Celestia, how is it even possible for the Aurora to be that destroyed," Spike spoke to nopony in particular. The Aurora had most of the front blasted to reveal only framework while the fin on the back had collapsed backwards onto the thrusters. To top it off, most of it was on fire, which surprised Spike as to how the metal itself was burning.

"I hope nopony was onboard when it exploded," Spike thought to himself, "I don't even think Celestia could have survived that." Spike then chose to dive back down to find some sandstone. After an two hours of searching, Spike slowly made his way back to the life pod loaded down with silver, gold, and lead given by the sandstone deposits. When he arrives he hadn't expected Fluttershy to be back yet, not realising that he had been gone for hours.

"Hi, Fluttershy- *oof*" Spike got out before being tackled into a hug by a crying Fluttershy. "Thank goodness you're ok, I thought something might have eaten you, and after what happened on the island, I realised how dangerous this place was," Fluttershy said, tightly hugging Spike. "What happened at the island?" Spike said, worry filling his voice.

"Oh those awful little creatures wouldn't listen to me when I said I wasn't going to hurt them. They had the same thought process as a fish. They wouldn't talk at all and just jumped at me. I managed to get away unhurt, but I didn't get much food while I was there. Oh no, I didn't leave you any food, oh please don't be mad at me Spike." Fluttershy said while hugging and crying into Spike.

"Hey, it's ok, I don't need that food as much as you do. I can eat fish remember, I'm a dragon, we can eat meat, and gems for that matter," Spike said, starting out serious and ending with the thought of a bowlful of tasty gems. "Well, um, i-if it isn't a bother, could you get some more fish? I am feeling a bit peckish," Fluttershy said nervously behind her mane. Just then Spike's stomach growled loudly, letting them both know it was time for dinner. After they calmed down from laughing, Spike left to get fish, returning mere minutes later with a few peepers.

After dinner, they both decided to call it a day and stay in the life pod. Spike decided to use the time to go through the onboard storage and sort everything, making a list of supplies on his PDA. Fluttershy sat on the chair watching and slowly drifting off into sleep. Half an hour passes before Spike is done and when he turns around, he sees Fluttershy asleep in the seat, so he grabs a spare piece of silicon rubber and uses it as a pillow and slowly drifts to sleep.

Spike is then woken up by a scream that could only be described the epitome of absolute terror. He quickly looks around the life pod to see Fluttershy on the ground shaking violently. He quickly moves over to her. "Fluttershy, are you ok! What's wrong? Are you hurt?" Spike asks rapid firing questions at her.

She looks at him with eyes filled with fear and simply says, "I-I-It was j-just a-a-a n-n-n-nightmare. N-nothing t-t-to worry a-a-about." "Fluttershy, do you want to talk about it? We don't have to if you don't want to," Spike said with concern in his voice. "I.. Not r-right now. Um, d-do you want to sleep in t-the chair? I can't imagine how uncomfortable the metal floor must be."

"No, you can have it, I can sleep on the floor." Spike said slowly standing, bringing her with. He walks over to the seat and gently sits her down. "We can talk about your nightmare in the morning." Spike said while walking back to his rubber pillow and still slightly warm spot on the floor. "Oh, um, ok then, goodnight Spike." "Goodnight Fluttershy, see you in the morning."
> Chapter 8: Nightmares
> --------------------------------------------------------------------------

"*Yaaaawn*, uh, I need to make a better bed. My back is killing me," Spike said stretching and rubbing his back. He looked over at the seat to notice Fluttershy was not sleeping, but hunched over quietly crying into her hooves. Spike quickly jumped up to comfort Fluttershy saying, "Fluttershy, what's wrong? Are you ok?" Fluttershy looks up, startled by Spike's sudden movement towards her.

"Oh, I-I-I'm fine Spike," Fluttershy said through sniffles. "No you're not Fluttershy. You woke up last night screaming in terror, and now I woke up to you crying on the floor. I might not be Applejack, but I can tell when somepony is lying about certain things. So can I ask again, what's wrong?" Spike said, giving Fluttershy a small lecture.

"Oh, I don't want to bother you with it." Fluttershy said, hoping Spike would drop the topic. "Is it about what happened yesterday?" Spike asked with concern, "Everything is going to be alright. We will make it through this." Fluttershy then looked at Spike with red, puffy eyes and started to tell him about her nightmare.

"Well, I guess the nightmare started on the Aurora, but it was minutes before the disaster, it was kind of like reliving that day. So I was doing a routine maintenance check on the east side of the ship making sure life pods were functional and stocked. I happened to be in my life pod when the alarms started to blare and the screams of everypony. I quickly got into the seat and closed the life pod as somepony tried to get in. I tried to open the life pod to let them in, but then a huge green beam pierced the hull, automatically ejecting the life pod and leaving an innocent pony to die on the ship."

Then my nightmare shifted to my time stuck in the life pod. I had to be confined to a small space with food and water, but no contact with anypony, especially my friends. I also saw random fish swimming over head, but they didn't look friendly at all, so I kept the light level lowered, but could have sworn I saw a pony swimming around above the life pod, but was unable to let t-them in and save them," Fluttershy said, barely containing tears.

"Hey, hey, calm down, it's okay. I'm here for you. Nothing's going to hurt you in here." Spike said in a soothing voice while hugging her. They sat there hugging for a few minutes while Fluttershy collected her thoughts. "Ok, um, I'm ready to continue, I think," Fluttershy said, pulling back slightly to look at Spike.

"So after I couldn't open the hatch, I saw the face of the swimming pony. It was the face of the pony that I couldn't save, but she already looked like she had been decaying. I then began to scream and woke up screaming. That was the truly terrifying part of my dreams. The other part, which happened after we went back to sleep, was very sad."

So after I fell back to sleep, my dreams were relatively happy. I started dreaming of memories with our friends, like the day we went to the Grand Galloping Gala, even though that ended up not being the night we wanted. Slowly, my dreams became worse, like when we didn't take Twilight seriously about not writing her friendship report."

"Well, you have to admit, that was a pretty unbelievable thing to be freaking out about," Spike cut in. "Well, um, either way, it wasn't nice of us to ignore her problem. Eventually my memories turned to nightmares by having Twilight and you leave us because we didn't take her seriously, then Applejack ditched us because she let working on the farm take over her life. Then it was Rarity because she discovered her prince charming and moved to Canterlot, then Rainbow Dash left because the rest of us w-weren't cool enough for her. T-Then.. Then Pinkie left me because I didn't want to party everyday, so then I was left without friends."

"Oh, Fluttershy, that sounds horrible. You need to know none of us would ever leave you, especially me. Do you remember how you reacted that first day Twilight and I came to Ponyville? You were absolutely amazed at meeting a baby dragon, and this baby dragon wouldn't leave the nicest pony in all of Equestria all alone, even if it meant leaving Twilight," Spike said, hoping to cheer up Fluttershy.

"R-Really Spike?" Fluttershy asked, trying to get reconfirmation from Spike. "Really Fluttershy. Now, what do you say I go get us some food?" "Oh thank you Spike. Is there anything I can do to help?" "Well," Spike began, "Do you think you could take the fabricated med kit from the machine and put it with the rest in storage. Then if you want to, you could reorganize the stuff in there. I didn't really bother with organization so much as making sure all materials were together."

"Oh, I can do that. You go get some food, I'll just sort this now." "Okay, I should be back in a few minutes." Spike then departed from the bottom hatch in search of some fish while Fluttershy reorganized the storage on board the life pod. After a few minutes and one screaming suicide bombing fish later, Spike returned with some fish and a few quartz from a nearby cave.

As Spike boarded, he saw Fluttershy looking through the storage, still sorting the different resources. Spike moved over to the fabricator and began to cook the fish. After a few minutes, Fluttershy was done sorting and Spike was done cooking, so Fluttershy grabbed two bottles of water and Spike gave her a fish, and they began to eat, enjoying each other's company before they got back to work.

"Well, I should probably head out and get some kelp vines to make the fiber mesh for those radiation suits," Spike said while standing up. "Oh, well, I think I might stay here. I don't know where else I would go," Fluttershy said, feeling slightly useless. "Well, I could help teach you how to swim, and then you can start building a base for us to live in instead of this life pod," Spike said while moving towards the hatch. "Oh, well I don't want to waste your time on teaching me how to swim. I'm sure I will figure it out."

"No, if you can't figure out how to swim good enough through water, you might drown. Then I would be left all alone and knowing I could have helped you, but didn't," Spike stated, "That's why I'm going to go get resources for the rad suits and a set of fins for you to use." "Oh no, I don't want to be a bother. I could just, um, stay here and organize the storage some more," Fluttershy said, hoping to avoid getting into the water.

"Well I don't know where else we can build a base besides in the water or on that island with carnivorous, one eyed, four legged murderers," Spike said, hoping Fluttershy would agree to swimming lessons. "Well when you put it that way, I think I want to learn how to swim, if that's ok with you." She said, thinking about the evil creatures. "Ok then, it's decided. When I get back, we are going to begin the process of teaching you to swim." With that, Spike opened the hatch and got into the water.

"Oh, I do hope I will be able to learn how to swim fast," Fluttershy thought. "I really hope that I can teach Fluttershy how to swim in a short amount of time," Spike thought at nearly the same time as Fluttershy.
> Chapter 9: Preparing
> --------------------------------------------------------------------------

"How in Celestia am I going to teach Fluttershy to swim? We don't even walk the same way, no less swim the same." Spike began pondering this as he started nearing the Kelp Forest. As he got closer, he saw the metal eating fish farther in the forest, so he stayed at the outer edge of the forest. He began to cut parts of the kelp plants off, and pretty soon, he had his claws full of kelp.

Spike slowly began to make his way back towards the life pod and started doing small calculations while swimming. "Let's see, I grabbed four kelp samples and I need two kelp samples for one fiber mesh. That means I need to make another trip to the kelp forest and then I will have enough fiber mesh for both of the radiation suits." Spike slowly made his way back to the life pod, grabbing a few fish on his way in. He opened the bottom hatch and climbed inside to see Fluttershy sitting in the seat looking through her PDA.

"Hey Fluttershy, what are you looking at?" Spike asked while fabricating the fiber mesh. "Oh, um, I'm looking through the checklist of our supplies. I made a copy for my PDA, if that's ok with you." Fluttershy said, hoping Spike was ok with her copying the list. "It's fine Fluttershy. It's a good thing you did, because with you having a checklist, we both know how much stuff we have."

"Ok, so I have to run out for some more kelp, then I will have our radiation suits ready." Spike said, readying to leave again. "Ok. Um, Spike?" "Yeah?" Spike said, turning to face Fluttershy. "Do you think you could grab some silver while you're out too? I might be able to make us portable radios to talk to each other while we are underwater and at great distances from each other." "Fluttershy that's a great idea! I will try to grab some, then we can talk while I'm out, just in case you need anything." Spike said, excited that Fluttershy was going to build a portable radio set so they could talk underwater.

"Well, um, you might want to go then. The longer it takes, the longer you have to wait for the portable radio." Fluttershy said. "Ok, I'll be going then." Spike then climbed out of the bottom hatch, hopped into the Seamoth, and started towards the Kelp Forest. Fluttershy used some of the titanium to fabricate a casing for the radio's and some copper to make tiny speakers and microphones.

"This is going to be awesome!" Spike said, barely able to contain his excitement, "We will be able to talk to each other underwater and over long distances." Spike was so excited he didn't even realize he had driven almost half a kilometer into the Kelp Forest. He quickly stopped and climbed out to start the process of cutting up the kelp. He soon had all the kelp he needed, but as he started climbing into the Seamoth, he heard a roar behind him.

Spike quickly turned the Seamoth around to see the metal eating fish opening its jaws to bite said vehicle. Spike quickly started backing up, but soon ran into a column of rock, allowing the predator to get closer. Spike decided last second to ascend and dodge the fish. As Spike shot up, the fish didn't have time to turn up to give chase, and slammed into the rock, knocking loose a few teeth in the process.

Spike quickly broke the surface of the water and after landing back in the water, hightailed it back to the life pod. He slowed down as he neared the life pod, laughing in relief. "Wow, that was close." Spike said, as he stopped the Seamoth and began climbing out. He then climbed back into the life pod, noticing Fluttershy taking a nap in the chair. He tries to be as quiet as possible while using the fabricator, but the fabricator had other plans, and decided to be loud as usual.

Fluttershy bolted into an upright position, almost falling out of the chair. "*EEEEEK* P-p-please don't eat m-me!!" Fluttershy yelled, not realizing it was Spike using the fabricator. "Fluttershy, calm down. It's just me. See, I'm not going to eat you." Spike said slowly, trying to get Fluttershy to calm down. "Oh dear, I'm sorry Spike. I was sleeping and then heard a loud noise and got scared thinking a fish was trying to break open the life pod and eat me."

"It's ok Fluttershy. I scared you awake by accident, and you freaked out. It's a completely normal reaction." Spike said, reassuring Fluttershy. "So, um, did you grab that silver? I have the casing and the microphones built, but I need the silver to wire it." "Oh sweet Celestia, I totally forgot to grab silver while I was out. I can head out again and go find some of you want, or I can stay for a bit longer and we can have lunch." "Oh, lunch sounds like a good idea. I am a bit peckish myself." Fluttershy said while moving towards the storage container.

Fluttershy opened the container and grabbed out two fish and the last bottle of water. "Oh dear… We only have one bottle of water left." Fluttershy said, worry evident in her voice. "Oh, well you can have it Fluttershy. I can go and grab another Bladder fish and make a bottle of water when I get back." "Oh no, I couldn't possibly take it when you have been going and collecting all these different things for building and offering to teach me to swim. I would feel so horrible for making you go without water, so please, just take it." Fluttershy said with a voice showing immense sadness and pleading.

"Fluttershy, you don't have to feel bad. I'm letting you have it because I'm able to swim and grab another fish for water. I need to head back out for more supplies anyway, so I'll grab a Bladder fish, come back, and have a drink. Do you think you can accept that?" Spike said, hoping Fluttershy wouldn't dehydrate herself just to make sure he was ok. "Oh, um, fine, I guess I will take this bottle of water, but I won't drink until you bring back that Bladder fish and have a bottle of water to drink too, and that's final." Fluttershy states, leaving no room for arguing.

"Fine, I'll be back in a few minutes with some more fish to refill our small stockpile. Then I'm going to start working on those radiation suits." Spike said opening the bottom hatch to leave. "Well stay safe." Fluttershy said, waving a good as he climbed into the water. Spike began looking for as many Bladder fish as he could find. He soon found four Bladder fish, two Peepers, and a Gary fish. Spike made his way back to the life pod and climbed inside.

"Ok, I'm back Fluttershy, you can drink your water." Spike said as he started fabricating all the Bladder fish into bottles of water. "How does the fabricator even make the bottles to hold these liquids anyways?" Spike wondered as he finished fabricating the last bottle of water. "Ok Spike, I'll drink my water now that I know you aren't going without water too." Fluttershy said as she opened the bottle and drank the water.

Soon they finished their meal and Spike got to work on the radiation suits. Spike started putting the kelp into the fabricator to make the fiber mesh and grabbed the lead from the storage container. He soon made one pegasus radiation suit, one dragon radiation suit, and one pair of pony swimming fins. "Ok Fluttershy, I made everything I needed to. Now we can start on your swimming lessons." Spike said with confidence on the outside, but worry on the inside.
> Chapter 10: Lessons
> --------------------------------------------------------------------------

Spike and Fluttershy both stood inside the life pod wearing their new radiation suits. "Um, I-I'm not sure about this Spike." Fluttershy whispered. "Come on, you can do this Fluttershy. It won't be that scary once we start." Spike said calmly, trying not to scare Fluttershy even more. Slowly, Fluttershy began to climb out of the hatch with Spike swiftly following.

Once in the water, Spike swam in front of Fluttershy and attempted to show her how to paddle underwater. Just as she was about to move, a Peeper swam right in front of her and she started trying backpedaling to escape from it, but didn't succeed in more than an inch or two of backwards movement. Spike swam over and grabbed Fluttershy's hoof and dragged her to the surface. "Fluttershy, you can't scream and run from every fish you see. Besides, you already know about Peepers. Why were you so scared of it?." Spike asked. "O-oh, um, i-it was bec-cause I didn't s-see it there." Fluttershy said while shaking from the jump scare given to here by the Peeper.

"Ok, well now that we are above water, do you think you can show me how well you swim on the surface?" Spike asked, hoping she could at least swim above water. "Um, ok. I think I can swim decently above water." Fluttershy said as she began to swim around. "Ok, at least she can swim above water. That should make teaching her below water swimming easier." Spike thought as Fluttershy slowed her swimming. "Ok, it's good to see you can swim on the surface because that means it should be easier to learn to swim below water. Not that I would have a problem teaching you to swim above water." Spike quickly added.

"Ok, let's try to swim underwater. Your fins should make it easier to swim rather than just using your hooves." Spike said as he slowly started to go under the water. Fluttershy soon followed him, both forgetting the fact that they couldn't talk to each other. "Ok Fluttershy, try moving your leg like this." He said as he moved his arm to his side and went from in front of him to his side, propelling himself forward. "Um, I can try." Fluttershy then copied his motion and moved forward a little bit.

Spike then motioned for Fluttershy to surface to get more air. "Ok, so you can swim like that, but you need to work on how much power you put behind your stroke." Spike said after pulling off his mask. "Oh, I think I can try that." Fluttershy said as she started putting on her mask to go below again. As they went back under, Spike was watching Fluttershy to make sure she could at least swim well enough to practice on her own. He eventually signaled for Fluttershy to swim back to the life pod and climbed inside to wait for her.

"So," Spike said after Fluttershy climbed in, "I'm going to head back out for that silver you need. If you want, you can keep practicing, but you don't have to if me not being here will make you uncomfortable." "Oh, I think I might wait for you to get back so I can prepare the rest of the parts for when you get back." With that, Spike opened up the bottom hatch and climbed out, leaving Fluttershy to prepare the radio pieces.

Spike then climbed into the Seamoth and began to pilot it towards the Grassy Plateaus to find the sandstone deposits. After about four minutes, Spike was at the edge of the Grassy Plateau, ready to search. He then remembered the shark thing that lived there and was hoping he could find sandstone away from the sand the sharks dug in. He also decided on a whim to name them "Sand Sharks" due to their hunting strategy involving digging through the sand.

"Oh geez," Spike thought, "I'm starting to sound like the PDA." He then started searching the different columns of rock for deposits, but only found limestone deposits, except for one sandstone deposit that had a piece of lead inside. "Wow, thanks for the lead that I don't need anymore." Spike then climbed into his Seamoth, drove over to a nearby cave system, and began to venture inside.

After a few minutes he needed to turn on his lights because it was so dark. As he went deeper, he saw a purplish glow coming from deep within the cavern. Once he reached his max depth, he noticed the glow was coming from big purple mushrooms. "Artificial structure detected somewhere within this cave system." His PDA stated as he got close to the mushroom.

"Wait, you're telling me that somepony built a base all the way down here? That seems like way too much trouble. What if it's other survivors! I need to come back here later." These were all running through Spike's head as he started swimming back to his Seamoth after he realized he couldn't stay in the cave long. He then began to ascend out of the cave and started to search for more sandstone.

After he drove towards another column, Spike began to search around for sandstone while also keeping an eye out for Sand Sharks. After a quick search, he found a gram total of two silver, one gold, and one titanium. After he climbed into the Seamoth, he began to drive back home when the sand underneath him suddenly burst and a sand shark tore a small chunk out of the right side of the Seamoth. It wasn't enough to stop Spike, but he knew he would have to repair it after he got back to the life pod.

After another four minute journey, Spike soon pulled up to the life pod and climbed out. He quickly assessed the damage on the life pod and decided that after a quick use of the repair tool it would be fine. After doing the aforementioned action, Spike collected a few fish for dinner after having been gone so long. He climbed into the life pod to find Fluttershy sifting through the storage unit and grabbing a fish to cook.

"Hey Fluttershy, I'm back." Spike said while putting a fish through the fabricator. "*EEEEEK* Spike, don't scare me like that," Fluttershy said while trying to calm her rapid heart rate, "You know how easily scared I am."

"Sorry," Spike said sheepishly, "I didn't mean to scare you. I was just letting you know I was back." Fluttershy quickly calmed down and looked at Spike. "It's ok, I just wasn't expecting you to be back just yet. Oh, are you hungry? I was just about to cook some food for myself." Fluttershy said, not noticing the cooked fish Spike had just made.

"Um, I thought it was obvious I was hungry. I did just cook a fish." Spike said with a deadpan expression on his face. "Oh, um, sorry. I didn't notice." This time, it was Fluttershy's turn to feel sheepish. "It's alright Fluttershy. You were busy trying to calm yourself after I scared you. It's nothing to apologise for." Spike said reassuringly. "So, how about we eat and then you can finish those portable radio's while I tell you about my own discovery."
> Chapter 11: Kindness
> --------------------------------------------------------------------------

"Wait, your telling me that somepony built a base down in those dark and spooky caves?" Fluttershy asked, finding it hard to believe somepony would want to. "Yeah, the PDA told me that there was an artificial structure located somewhere within that cave system. I didn't see it though because the Seamoth can't go further into the caves than at the entrance and my oxygen tank was draining faster than normal, probably due to an increase in pressure." Spike was saying all this while watching Fluttershy slowly put together a set of portable radios for them to use.

"Hey Fluttershy?" Spike asked with a sudden idea having come to mind. "Yes?" Fluttershy said distractedly. "So, how did you get onto the Aurora? I always thought you were good at taking care of animals. What kind of job did you have that needed that?" Spike asked, knowing that at least some of you readers might want to know as well. "Oh, Twilight and I managed to convince Celestia to let me onboard. As for the job I had? Well, I have had to build so many houses and such for the different animals I sheltered, so I have experience with building. That was enough to land me a job working on repairs for the ship along with doing maintenance checks." Fluttershy said while turning to face Spike to explain properly.

"That.. actually makes a lot of sense to me. Twilight wouldn't want to only have some of her friends go and not all, just like with the Gala tickets when we first got to Ponyville." Spike said with a slight shudder, remembering the mob of ponies chasing them around that day. "Oh, um, I'm still sorry about that. I shouldn't have been trying to win Twilight's ticket by doing a favor for her." Fluttershy said, shame evident in her voice. "It's ok Fluttershy," Spike said, "Twilight and I forgave you already. You don't have to keep apologizing for it."

"So anyway, how are those radios coming along? Once you're done we can probably go to sleep and continue practicing tomorrow." Spike said with a yawn following his proposition. "Oh, I like that idea, just let me connect this, aaand, done. Now these should work, but I'm not sure how far the range is yet, so I might make some more modifications to it later." Fluttershy said while carefully placing the radios into the storage unit for safe keeping. Fluttershy then looked at Spike and said with a stern voice, "Now, tonight, you are going to sleep in the chair because Celestia knows how bad the metal floor is messing up you back."

"Fine, but by tomorrow night, I should have some of a base built for us, so I might have at least a bed in there, and if I don't have one, then you will be sleeping in the chair. It seems fair that we can trade spots every night, right?" Spike said moving over to the chair. "Ok, I think that could work, if you don't mind that is." Fluttershy said, suddenly having all of her confidence drained after Spike agreed. They both started to get ready to sleep when Spike realized something. "Um, I think I'm going to head back out for a minute. I forgot to grab something earlier." Spike said quickly departing from the life pod. "What could Spike have forgotten? He seemed like he had everything he needed earlier." Fluttershy thought as the life pod was soon plunged into an almost eerie silence.

Spike quickly climbed into the Seamoth and took off towards the Kelp Forest. "I can't believe I forgot that we used the last of the silicon rubber. Without that, Fluttershy won't even have a makeshift pillow to use tonight, unlike how I got to use one when I slept on the floor." Spike said. He soon could see the outline of the kelp vines and turned on the headlights before climbing out so he could see as he worked. He quickly grabbed three seed clusters for two makeshift blankets and a makeshift pillow/mat for Fluttershy. He then climbed back into the Seamoth and took off back to the life pod.

After getting back to the life pod, Spike turned off the headlights and exited the Seamoth. He then climbed back into the life pod to see Fluttershy already sleeping like a rock. He turned to the fabricator and managed to make all three pieces of silicon rubber without waking up Fluttershy. He then slowly lifted Fluttershy's head and slid a rolled up piece of rubber under her head to use as a pillow and then laid another piece over her body to use as a blanket. Spike's intention when he made the third piece of rubber was to use it as a pillow, but using it as a blanket sounded much nicer.

Soon sleep quickly overtook Spike as the day's exhaustion finally caught up to Spike. He and Fluttershy both managed to have a relatively easy time sleeping without any major nightmares waking them up. Soon morning arrived and Fluttershy woke up, looking around and trying to remember why she was covered with a big piece of rubber. She then realized that she fell asleep while Spike was out and Spike made her a pillow and blanket from the rubber to use while she slept on the floor.

Fluttershy decided to start cooking some fish and prepare a meal for when Spike woke up. She pulled out the fish and started to cook them, and by cook, it meant putting them through the fabricator so all the inedible parts were removed and the remaining parts were cooked to perfection, according to the designer of the fabricator. Soon Spike was waking up because he could smell the cooked Peeper and soon was standing and stretching. "Good morning Spike. I got breakfast ready for us while you were still sleeping." Fluttershy said, giving Spike one of the cooked fish. "Thanks Fluttershy. So, I think I'm going to go back to the island-" Fluttershy gasped "-and get some of the fruits and vegetables that grow there."

Fluttershy then began shaking her head no. "No Spike, I can't let you go to that island again. There are too many mean creatures there that might eat you, and then I'd be all alone." Fluttershy said, starting stern, but quickly turning it into sadness. "Fluttershy, I can't imagine how sick you are of eating Peepers over and over again for every meal, but I am starting to get sick of fish. I would like a change of food, but I don't think I can go gem hunting underwater or without a gem finding spell. Besides, I can always just avoid the creatures. They seemed to keep their distance the last time I was there." Spike said, countering Fluttershy's reasons, leaving Fluttershy quiet while she internally debated on whether or not she wanted Spike going.

"Fine, I'll let you go, but we need to make sure that we save some of the seeds from the plants so we can try to avoid going back to the island for more plants later." Fluttershy said, finally agreeing with Spike's reasoning. Spike quickly agreed to Fluttershy's term, and after eating, departed from the life pod. He soon turned around and climbed back inside. "Oh, back so soon?" Fluttershy asked, wondering why he almost immediately came back inside. "I think now would be a good time to try out the range on those portable radios." Spike said while opening the storage unit and grabbing out the radios.
> Chapter 12: The base
> --------------------------------------------------------------------------

Spike was soon on his way to the island for food that he knew Fluttershy would enjoy. "*Blip* Spike, can you still hear me? *Blip*" Fluttershy's voice was heard saying through the small radio Spike had now implanted into his diving mask he wore all times, except when he was in the life pod. "Yep, I can still hear you clearly." Spike responded, happy that the radio's had such a great signal range. Spike was around half a kilometer away from the life pod and could still hear Fluttershy as well as he could when they tested it when he was just outside the life pod.

"*Blip* Um, well that's good. How far are you from the island? *Blip*" Fluttershy asked. "I'd say about another half a kilometer and I should at least see the island." Spike responded while staying on the lookout for enemies as he passed through a Kelp Forest. They stopped talking so Spike could concentrate on avoiding being detected and arriving at the island safely. After around 15 minutes, Spike could see the island and, now that he knew what they were, the small observatories on the mountains.

"Ok, I've arrived at the island." Spike told Fluttershy through the radio. "I will be heading back in around 15 minutes, so it should take around 45 minutes before I get back to the life pod." Spike then climbed out of the Seamoth and made his way around the island to find the small rusted out base sitting in the landslide. "*Blip* Ok, well, stay safe. Please don't let those mean creatures eat you. *Blip*" Fluttershy responded, with worry filling her voice. "Don't worry, if they try to attack me, I'll blow some fire at them as a warning. They might be mean, but I don't think they're stupid."

Spike then proceeded to walk upto the exterior growbed and start grabbing potatoes and marblemelons. As he was grabbing them, he noticed one of the four legged creatures was covered in glowing green bumps. "Uh, Fluttershy? Have you seen any creatures with glowing green bumps all over their bodies?" As Spike waited for an answer he grabbed out his scanner and slowly scanned the creature from as far away as possible. "*Blip* Yes, but it was on one of the shark things that were attacking my life pod. *Blip*"

After Spike finished scanning the creature, he got two notifications from his PDA. He finished grabbing the food and made his way to one of the native fruit trees and grabbed some of those. After he was done, he made his way back to the Seamoth and started towards his life pod. After what felt like a three hour journey, but was only 30 minutes, Spike made it back to the life pod eager to read about the new creature.

Spike climbed out of the Seamoth and into the life pod so he and Fluttershy could talk about where their base would be. "So, I think we should build our base close to the Grassy Plateau because of how often I go there for resources." Spike said, hoping Fluttershy would be okay with his idea. "Oh no no no, we can't live there. We should live here in this shallow area where there are no mean creatures." Fluttershy's said, hoping to persuade Spike to her idea. "Well, there are actually two mean creatures here. One of the fish literally explode just because I go near it and the other shoots balls of gas from its tail if I get too close." "Oh, um, I didn't know about those creatures. Maybe we can look at where you want to build the base?" Fluttershy half whispered in fear of the two protective fish that live in the shallow area.

"Ok, I can start building our base and you can collect the materials needed for it. That is, if you're comfortable swimming by yourself." Spike hoped that Fluttershy would be able to swim well enough and would be confident enough to swim on her own. "Um, I can try, but if something goes wrong, will you come back as fast as possible?" Fluttershy asked, hoping for reassurance from Spike. "Yes, if anything goes wrong, I will be back as soon as the Seamoth will go." "Ok then," Fluttershy said, "I will start collecting the materials you need while you go start building the base, if it's ok with you, that is."

Spike then grabbed all the titanium in the storage unit, a few pieces of quartz, and some spare copper. He then told Fluttershy that all she would need to crab was titanium salvage, which there was plenty still lying around. After they both put on their masks and check to see if the radios worked, they parted ways, with Spike climbing into the Seamoth, and Fluttershy looking around for salvage.

After a few minute long journey, Spike arrived at the edge of the Shallows that met the Grassy Plateau and chose a depth of about 50 meters, that way it was not too deep down, but still close enough to the Shallows in case he needed to swim away into safer territory. He then climbed out of the Seamoth and grabbed out the habitat builder and set it to start building a multi purpose room. Spike had always been fascinated by how the fabrication technology worked; whether he was cooking food, making bottles of lubricant, or even now, when he was building a multi purpose room from the same beams that were used in a fabricator. Spike soon had the room built, so he started working on a hatch and a power source.

Spike then used the builder to put the hatch on the side facing the Shallows, that way if he was trying to get inside to escape, they might go into the Shallows looking for him. After he built the hatch, he climbed into the base to see if everything was structurally sound or if he needed to do anything else to the room. "Warning! Emergency power only! Oxygen production offline!" The base told him as he entered. "Ok, so I do need to power the base, but what power sources do I have available?" Spike thought as he exited the base and entered the Seamoth so he could replenish his oxygen.

As he sat inside, he scrolled through the recipes of his habitat builder looking for a power source of some kind. "Ah ha!" Spike exclaimed, "I can use solar panels to power our base. Hopefully they will get enough sunlight this deep." Spike then climbed out of the Seamoth, swam over to the top of the base, and started constructing a solar panel on top of it. Even from outside, Spike heard the base tell him, "Power restored! Oxygen production online!"

Spike then entered the base and started looking at things he could build when something caught his eye. "Well look at that," Spike said, "I can build a fabricator for the base. We won't ever have to go back to the life pod again." Spike started building the fabricator, until he ran out of materials. "What am I missing?" Spike thought, looking at the blueprint again. It turns out that Spike had forgotten a coral plate, which he had never collected in the first place.

"*Blip* Hey Spike? Are you going to come back soon? It's been a long time since you left. *Blip*" Spike then truly realized how long he had spent at the base: nearly an hour and a half while he was building and thinking about what to build in/around the base. "Don't worry Fluttershy. I'm heading back right now. I just lost track of time, that's all." Spike said as he started exiting the base and entering the Seamoth. He was soon on his way back to the life pod, excited to tell Fluttershy about the bit of progress he had made.

When he arrived back at the life pod, he jumped out of the Seamoth and quickly scrambled into the life pod, anxious to talk to Fluttershy. After Spike had climbed inside, Fluttershy looked over at him with a big grin on her face. They both started to try to tell each other their exciting news. They eventually settled to have Fluttershy go first, because they both more or less already knew what Spike's news was.

"Ok, um, what happened was I was just looking around for salvage I could just pick up, but instead I found a chunk of rock that had copper slightly sticking out. So I started hitting the rock, and after a few breaks, I broke the rock off the copper and brought it home." She stopped for a second to regain her breath, because she wasn't Pinkie Pie after all. "Then, I managed to find a few different chunks of salvage, and I caught a Bladder fish that swam in front of me, though it wasn't easy because of my hooves." Spike then congratulated her on her accomplishments. Spike then began to tell Fluttershy about his progress and his animal friendly power source.

"Oh, it's good that you built a good source of power that's animal friendly. No matter how mean the fish are, I just couldn't live in a base that harmed animals." Fluttershy said once Spike was done explaining. "Though, did you ever build those beds?" Fluttershy asked, hoping that Spike had, or at least had the materials. "Oh no, I totally forgot to grab the materials needed for beds. I can go do that now, then we can transfer everything over to the base when I get back." Spike said as he started to climb out of the life pod.

Spike climbed into the life pod and raced towards the Kelp Forest to grab some kelp for the fiber mesh. Spike soon slowed down as he reached the edge of the forest. He then climbed out of the Seamoth and started cutting out samples of the kelp. Once he had enough, he hopped back into the Seamoth and raced back to the life pod to help transfer the supplies from life pod to base.

Shortly after arriving, Spike climbed out of the Seamoth and into the life pod so he could grab materials and get Fluttershy. After a short conversation, Fluttershy grabbed as much as she could and Spike grabbed the rest, seeing as how he seemed to have almost limitless pockets to carry anything with. They agreed that Fluttershy would take the Seamoth while Spike would use the Seaglide to get to the base. Spike uploaded the location to Fluttershy's PDA, so she could tell where she needed to go.

They both started to go to the base, but Spike slowed so he could look for coral plates to build the fabricator with. His searching was soon rewarded as he saw a cluster of table coral, which was swiftly broken down into smaller chunks to be used for fabricating. Spike then resumed his journey, hoping he could catch up with Fluttershy, or at least make it before it got dark. Spike soon found himself right outside the base with an empty Seamoth sitting outside.

After Spike entered the base, he dropped everything he was holding with the stuff that had been dropped by Fluttershy. Spike then started to build a large locker for them to store everything so it wasn't all over the floor. Somehow, Spike found himself with a cleaner room on an unknown planet than his room at the library back in Ponyville. The thought of Ponyville reminded Spike of Twilight, which he almost broke down on the spot by thinking of her. Spike quickly regained his composure and finished building the fabricator, and then started on a radio for their base.

After finishing the radio, Spike used the fabricator and made the fiber mesh needed for the beds. Then Fluttershy began to make dinner for them while Spike built the beds for later use. Sadly, Spike didn't have the recipe for a table, but had one for a multitude of chair styles. He then built a chair for Fluttershy and a chair for himself, then sat down while Fluttershy walked over with their food and water. After a short exchange of thank you and your welcome, they started eating, but to Spike's surprise, there was only fish in Fluttershy's meal. "Hey Fluttershy? Why aren't you eating any fruits or vegetables? I went to the island just so I could get some for you." Spike asked, confused by Fluttershy's actions.

"Oh, I decided to wait until we had some planted so we could grow more." Fluttershy answered, hoping Spike would have an indoor grow bed ready by tomorrow. "Ok, fair enough." Spike said, dropping the matter entirely. They were soon finished eating and both of them were exhausted from the days work. They both said their goodnights and went to sleep in their own beds, both of them loving the feel of the bed beneath them compared to the seat or the metal floor of the life pod.
> Chapter 13: Hearth's Warming
> --------------------------------------------------------------------------

After a relaxing night of sleep, Spike and Fluttershy woke up ready to start the day. They quickly arranged a small breakfast of fish and water, with Spike promising to have the grow bed built before they ate lunch. After they finished their breakfast, Spike and Fluttershy left to collect the much needed titanium to build more sections of the base, along with interior designs. They decided they would explore the Shallows for titanium salvage, due to it being shallow and relatively safe.

*Blip* "So, um, how much salvage do you think is still lying around down here. I searched for about an hour, but only found the one piece and the copper. *Blip*" Spike pondered Fluttershy's question for a little while, but couldn't think of a good answer. "*Blip* I'm not totally sure how much is left. I found quite a bit on my first day here, but other than that, I haven't been looking for it. I ended up finding so much, I haven't felt a need to actively look for any more. *Blip*"

After a short search and not having found any salvage, they decided to go to the Kelp forest. Shortly after arriving, they came across a wreckage site. Spike then remembered that these areas had varying amounts of salvage and plenty of scannable items. "*Blip* Fluttershy, let's surface for a minute so we can refill our oxygen, then we can search the wreck. *Blip*" After they both surfaced, the oxygen tanks filled themselves while Spike and Fluttershy discussed what they would do at the wreck.

"Okay, so usually these wrecks have a bit of salvage at them, so we'd better look around. Though do try to be careful of any sharp edges. The last thing we need is for you to cut yourself, mostly because it could get infected." Spike and Fluttershy then dove back down and separated so Fluttershy could scavenge for metal salvage and Spike could scan any items. While Spike was scanning, he wondered if the scanner would allow him to scan Seaglide parts, even though he already had the blueprint.

Spike then swam over to a Seaglide fragment and began scanning it. It scanned twice as fast as normal, and after it was done scanning, the fragment broke down into some titanium. "*Blip* Fluttershy? I believe that I have found the greatest source of titanium ever. These old fragments can be scanned and broken down into titanium pieces. *Blip*"

"*Blip* Oh, that's good. I found two chunks of titanium myself. Do you think we have enough? I don't like all the kelp. It reminds me of the Everfree Forest. *Blip*" Spike stopped and did the math to see if they would have enough titanium. "Hmmm, Fluttershy has 2 pieces of salvage, which means 8 pieces. I scanned 3 parts, which is 6. So that's 14 pieces. I think we have enough," "*Blip* Ok Fluttershy," Spike said, "We have enough titanium for now. We can head back to the base. *Blip*"

They both proceeded to start swimming back to the base. After an uneventful swim back (Ha, you thought I was gonna have them get attacked) they both went inside and started on their own separate chores. Spike started by building a new section to the base, which was going to be used for growing food. Fluttershy started making lunch with, yet again, Peepers and bottles of water. "Um, I really hope I don't have to eat fish for much longer. It's starting to taste really gross." Fluttershy said with a queasy look on her face. "Don't worry Fluttershy, today should be the last day you have to eat fish," Spike called from the other room, "We should have plenty of Lantern fruit and Marble Melons by tomorrow. Consider this my Hearth's Warming Day gift to you."

Fluttershy looked up with a start. "Oh dear, I completely forgot about Hearth's Warming Day! That would make today Hearth's Warming Eve!" Fluttershy sank to the ground crying. "Oh no, I didn't even get you a gift. Please don't hate me." Fluttershy said through sobs. Spike ran to Fluttershy to comfort her. "Fluttershy, why would I hate you? You've just been caught up with the whole near death experience with those shark things. I only remembered because my PDA reminded me. Didn't you get a reminder?" Spike asked while comforting Fluttershy.

"*BEEEP* Today is Hearth's Warming Eve. Do you have a gift ready? *BEEEP*" Both Spike and Fluttershy looked at each other, staring for a second before bursting into a laughing pile of scales and feathers. "Well *Hahahaha* I guess there *Haha* is your reminder *Hahaha*" Spike said in a laughing fit, while also trying to stand. After they calmed down, they sat on their respective beds and had lunch, both stuck in their own thoughts.

After they finished their meal, they started talking to each other about what to do. "So, um, is there anything else that we need to do for today?" Fluttershy asked, hoping she would have time to get a gift for Spike. "Well, I can't think of anything super important that we need right now, but I was going to head out and collect some stuff to make more water. The Bladder fish can only make so much water, and we need more of it anyway." Spike explained. Fluttershy seemed to visibly relax, knowing she would have a little time to get a present ready for Spike.

Spike then started to get ready to leave. "I'm not sure how long I'll be gone. Just make sure to stay safe. Also, I'm going to be leaving the Seamoth here in case you need it." After that, Spike exited the base, leaving Fluttershy to plan what to get Spike. "Hmmm, I should probably get him something he doesn't have, but I'm going to avoid that island. There are too many of those mean creatures there," Fluttershy then stood up and started to pace around the base, "But I do want to get him something nice. Oh, does he have any gems?" With that, Fluttershy ran over to the storage locker and started looking. After a thorough search, Fluttershy saw no gems and immediately knew what to get him.

"Yay, now I can go get him gems for Hearth's Warming Day." Fluttershy grabbed the flashlight out of the locker, then climbed out of the base and into the Seamoth and then started to drive towards the area where her life pod had fallen. After yet another uneventful trip to the crash site of her life pod, Fluttershy parked the Seamoth just above it's crush limit and began to swim down to the entrance of a nearby cave. As she swam closer, she saw a few rocks shining up at her. "Oooh, there are some jems, I hope." Fluttershy thought as she swam closer.

As she started swimming closer, she saw a small fish out of the corner of her eye. "Oooh, what a pretty fish. I can look at it after I grab these gems." She quickly grabbed the rocks and started to swim over to the fish. It then opened up it's fins and made them make hypnotic motions, but Fluttershy just simply looked at it. "Well aren't you one pretty little fish. Well goodbye then, I need to get back to the base to get Spike's gift ready." With that, Fluttershy turned around and started to swim away, leaving one very, very confused fish just staring at it's lunch just swimming away.

After Fluttershy swam back to the Seamoth, she climbed in and started to drive back to the base, only to have one of the sharks bite into the left side of the Seamoth. "AAAAAAAAAAAAÀAAAHHH!!" Fluttershy screamed as the shark bit into the Seamoth, but it almost just as quickly let go, seeing as it did just cause the metal to jut out and stab the inside of its mouth. Fluttershy then rushed out of there as fast as possible, leaving the shark behind. She soon got back to the base to see Spike pacing around the base muttering to himself.

"Oh no, Oh no, Oh no! Where did she go!?" Spike said to himself as he paced back and forth. Just then Fluttershy climbed into the base with something tucked behind her wing. "Oh thank Celestia, there you are! Where were you?" Spike asked as he ran over to hug her. "Oh, um, I was out getting something, but I was delayed because, um, i was attacked…" Fluttershy whispered. Spike then looked at her in surprise. "You went out on your own? Good job on having the confidence, but you should have at least told me or something? Anyway, what was that last part? I didn't hear it because you started whispering."

"Um, I said I was attacked on my way back by a shark." Fluttershy said with a cringe, just waiting for Spike to tell her and kick her out. "Are you ok?! Were you hurt?! Where did it bite you?!" Spike asked as he started to look over her for wounds. "Oh, um, I was in the Seamoth when it attacked. It bit open the left wing of the Seamoth. Do you, um, think you can repair it?" Fluttershy said timidly, hoping Spike wouldn't be mad that the Seamoth was damaged because of her. "Oh thank Celestia you weren't hurt," Spike said as he visibly calmed down, "Don't worry Fluttershy, I can fix the Seamoth. This wouldn't be the first time a shark took a bite from the Seamoth."

After they both calmed down, Spike went out to fix the Seamoth while Fluttershy went and hid the gems under her bed, hoping Spike wouldn't smell or find them. After Spike came back inside, he started the process of turning the materials he gathered into bleach, then into bigger bottles of water than normal. "Hey Fluttershy? Do you know how the fabricator makes the bottles that the water goes in? I have never been able to figure it out." Fluttershy looked over at Spike and said, "I think it might have something to do with a spell, but other than that, I have no idea."

After their short exchange Spike and Fluttershy had dinner and decided that it would be a good idea to call it a night. After they both climbed into bed, they called out goodnight to one another and fell asleep. After about an hour, Fluttershy made sure that Spike was asleep and then began to grab the gems out from underneath her bed and wrap them up in a piece of silicon rubber, that way it looked partially like a wrapped gift. She then put Spike's gift underneath her bed again and went back to sleep.

"*BEEEP* Today is Hearth's Warming Day. Make sure to spend today with your friends and family, as long as it doesn't interfere with any important survival plans. *BEEEP," both Spike's and Fluttershy's PDA stated as soon as 8 a.m. rolled around. As soon as the message was done playing, Spike and Fluttershy climbed out of bed and took a moment to wake up. Spike then remembered the grow bed and ran to get some fruits for Fluttershy to eat for breakfast. Fluttershy then got up and grabbed out her gift for Spike and put it on his bed for him to open while she got the water ready for breakfast.

Spike came running back into the main area with fruits for Fluttershy when he saw the piece of silicon rubber sitting on his bed. He then put the fruits down and moved over to his bed to see what the present was. "Uuh, Fluttershy? Is this a present for me?" Spike asked cautiously. "Um, yes, that is for you. I want you to open it now, before we eat breakfast." Fluttershy said as she walked over carrying only two bottles of water. "Wait, what would she grab only water? She knows that the fruits are for her," Spike wondered as he carefully opened the package, making sure not to destroy the silicon rubber.

As he opened the package, he could smell something he hadn't smelled for a while. "Are these…?" He started, "Where did you get these!? I haven't found any rubies as long as I've been here." "Well, I went to the area where my life pod crashed-" Spike looked up in concern, "-and found a cave that had a few of these just sitting out in the mouth of the cave. After I started heading back, I saw this cute little fish that made hypnotic movements with its fins, but it was harmless. After I had gotten into the Seamoth, that awful shark attacked me and then I drove back here." Fluttershy explained all while remembering her trip to get Spike his new luxury.

After Fluttershy's story, they decided to eat breakfast and enjoy a peaceful day of talking to each other and reminiscing about life before crash landing on this watery planet. They enjoyed not having to worry about the other one getting hurt, while also enjoying their Hearth's Warming Day gifts. Spike enjoyed his rubies, which he cherished and ate slowly throughout the day. Fluttershy enjoyed her fruits, which she munched on during each meal time. Most importantly, they cherished their time together and enjoyed the companionship of having somepony to get to spend time with.
> Chapter 14: Sadness
> --------------------------------------------------------------------------

After a peaceful night of sleep and breakfast, Spike and Fluttershy were ready to start their day. "So Fluttershy, do you want to come with me to the Aurora?" Spike asked, very nonchalantly. Fluttershy whipped around and gave Spike a look that said "are you crazy?" and then started shaking her head quickly. "Oh nonononono! I don't want to go anywhere near that burning radioactive wreck. Why would you even think of going there?" Spike looked at Fluttershy with confusion on his face.

"Um, so we can repair long range comms and try to contact the nearest place with anypony who can rescue us? Fluttershy if I had a choice I wouldn't go anywhere near that ship, but if we want a chance of being rescued, we need to get on that ship." Fluttershy thought about this for a minute, then answered with a firm voice, "Fine, but I'm coming with. I know the ship's layout well enough and any technical issues we might encounter, like broken doors, I can fix enough for us to be able to get in."

"Ok then, we are going to go to the Aurora today." Spike said with determination. As they started to grab stuff to prepare for the trip, Spike noticed they didn't have a radio built in their base yet. He then grabbed out the habitat builder, one piece of titanium, and one piece of copper. He then built the radio right next to the locker on the right side of it. As soon as he was done building it, the radio started to flash, showing that it had received a message. Spike then quickly pressed play and Fluttershy came over to listen to the message as well.

"Playing pre-recorded distress call."

"Is there anypony out there?" The voice of Applejack was heard clear as day. Spike and Fluttershy looked at each other, relieved to find out that their friends had made it off of the Aurora safely.

"Ah got Rarity with me, but we can't get to the meet up point because of the radiation and havin' no suits to swim through it with."

"If anypony is listenin', we could really use some help. And a way to get Rare's to stop whinein'… sorry complainin'.

"Transmission coordinates corrupted, downloading picture of the area around the life pod."

Both of our survivors looked at each and came to a silent agreement. They would put off their journey to the Aurora so that they could save Applejack and Rarity. Though Spike was hoping that by saving Rarity, he could try to woo her with his heroism, not that he didn't care about Applejack, but wooing Rarity was slightly more important to him. Fluttershy only cared that both of their friends would be alive and uninjured, or at least hadn't torn each other apart from their extremely different viewpoints on almost everything.

As they prepared to leave, they decided that Fluttershy would drive the Seamoth and Spike would hang onto the back, that way he could see behind them for any danger. As they were leaving, Spike pulled up his PDA to give Fluttershy a general direction after looking at the clue left by the message. "*Blip* Ok Fluttershy, we need to head towards the front of the Aurora, but still to the side of it. We should see the life pod inside of the red grassy place. Does that make any sense? *Blip*" After Fluttershy answered with a simple yes, they started to make their way over to the general location of where the life pod should be.

During their trip, Fluttershy would occasionally bring the Seamoth just under the surface, that way Spike could refill his oxygen tank. As they began getting closer to the Aurora, Spike could hear faint roaring, but looked around and saw nothing. "Meh, it was probably some fish stuck in a cave." Spike thought, actually hoping he was right. Pretty soon, Fluttershy stopped the Seamoth and so that they could discuss the plan for finding Applejack and Rarity.

"*Blip* Ok Spike, I think we are nearing the area that Applejack's life pod went down. Are we going to stick together or are we going to split up to look for them? *Blip*" Spike thought for a minute and then decided that they would stay together. Fluttershy then dove back down with the Seamoth and they both started to look around for the life pod, hoping to possibly see one of their friends swimming around.

After around half an hour of searching, Fluttershy finally spotted the life pod resting on the floor of the endless ocean planet. Sadly, there was a giant hole blown out of the life pod, meaning something horrible must have happened. Fluttershy quickly drove the Seamoth to the life pod and got out so that she and Spike could search for any signs of their friends. As they were looking around, Spike saw the all too familiar blue glow of an abandoned PDA.

Spike quickly grabbed it and told Fluttershy to get into the Seamoth and have them both ascend. After breaking the surface Spike played the message so Fluttershy could hear it as well.

"Rare's, you gotta calm down. Does it look like we're dyin'?"

"It doesn't matter, I still want to know when we are getting rescued."

"Well the Aurora crashed, so I don't think we're gettin' help anytime soon."

"Well then what Applejack? Are we supposed to just sit on our flanks and wait until somepony comes to save us?"

"No, we're gonna go to the meet up point Twilight set up for us, but we're gonna need proper protection from the radiation in-between here and there."

"Well don't expect me to go swimming out there. My mane would never get back to normal. Ugh, this is The! Worst! Possible! Thing!"

"*Sigh* Don't worry sugarcube. I'll go out."

Spike and Fluttershy looked at each other and could imagine the whole conversation going down. "Well," Spike started, "at least they started to make radiation suits, but what happened to them?" Fluttershy then nervously pulled out another PDA she had found sitting in the life pod, right next to a chunk of lead. "Well, I found this sitting inside the life pod. Maybe it can tell us?" With that, Fluttershy played the recording.

"*Sound of somepony entering the life pod* Now what in tarnation are you doin'?!"

"Oh, well you were gone so long, I was going to use the flare and see if I could get someponies attention."

"Stop wavin' that around. I'm here, am I not?"

"Well, I don't know how to put it-"

An explosion is then heard and the recording cuts out. Spike and Fluttershy stare at the PDA in utter shock. "N-no… it can't be…" Spike trails off. They then start the journey home and arrive back at their base silently just sitting inside not saying a word. Fluttershy glances over to see Spike hunched over and shuddering. "S-Spike? Are you ok?"

Fluttershy slowly goes over to Spike to give him a comforting hug. As Fluttershy got closer, she could hear silent sobbing from Spike, further causing her to want to comfort him. She slowly wrapped him in a hug and tried to comfort him. "W-why… why is i-it nopony besides you and me made it?" Fluttershy barely heard Spike ask, but unable to think of an answer.

Slowly, the events of everything that happened began to weigh on Spike and Fluttershy and neither of them could handle it much longer. The two of them spent the rest of the day hugging each other and crying over the loss of their friends and family. Spike was extremely saddened by the loss of Twilight and Rarity while Fluttershy was equally saddened by the death of all of their friends this far. Slowly, Spike and Fluttershy cried themselves to sleep, still hugging each other, just like the day Spike rescued Fluttershy; only having each other for support.
> Chapter 15: Spike's Flashback
> --------------------------------------------------------------------------

Spike was standing behind Twilight, looking over her shoulder to see what she was working on. "Hey Spike?" Twilight abruptly asked, "Do you think you could go get me something to drink?" Spike quickly told her yes and ran off to get her a bottle of water from the cafe.

As he made his way through the ship, he started thinking about the mission they were sent on. He was curious about why it was so important to explore this far into space. "I think that over 200 light-years of distance is far enough. What could be out there that is so important?" Due to Spike being absorbed in his thoughts, he ran into somepony on accident. "Oh no, I'm sorry. Are you ok?" Spike asked in a worried tone.

"Oh, I'm fine thanks for asking. I should have been watching where I was going. Say, what's your name? I haven't seen you before. My name's Swift Sweep. I'm one of the janitors for the east side of the ship." Swift Sweep was a light brown earth pony with lime green eyes. After a quick inspection, Spike noticed that Swift Sweep was in fact carrying around a broom with him. "Well it's nice to meet you Swift Sweep, my name is Spike. I work for Twilight in the Bridge. I was just on my way to get her something to drink." Spike explained.

"Well don't let me keep you then. Wouldn't want you to get in trouble. It was nice meeting you Spike." With that, Swift Sweep and Spike parted ways. After a couple of minutes, Spike finally found his way into Sugarcube Cafe. As he walked in, Spike saw Pinkie standing behind the counter taking somepony else's order. That was the cool thing about Sugarcube Cafe. It was an exact replica of Sugarcube Corner, meaning you would put in an order and Pinkie Pie would make the order fresh from ingredients grown on the ship.

After the other pony was done ordering, Spike walked up to the counter to get Twilight her drink. "Well hi there Spike. What can I get you today? Maybe a sapphire cupcake?" Spike shook his head and started to answer when Pinkie Pie cut him off and started talking again. "No? Well how about a triple chocolate cake? Or maybe a rainbow cupcake? It has cherry, orange, banana, lime, blueberry, and grape flavors all in one cupcake." Pinkie Pie rambled on for about 3 more minutes before Spike held up his claw to get her to stop talking.

"Pinkie, all I need is a drink for Twilight. Do you have something she might like?" Spike asked politely, hoping he could finally get her drink. "Okie Dokie Lokie! One bottle of apple juice coming right up." With that, Pinkie pronked to the back so she could get a bottle of freshly squeezed apple juice. After about three seconds, Pinkie jumped up from beneath the counter and hoofed over the apple juice. Spike and Pinkie said goodbye and Spike started his way back to Twilight. 

As Spike was walking back to the bridge, he passed by the gym and could see Rainbow Dash flying laps around the room, barely sub-rainboom. He starts to walk away when Rainbow Dash flies over to him and starts talking. "Hey Spike! What you got there? Oh, you got me something to drink? Thanks." Rainbow then snatches the apple juice from Spike and chugs it in only two seconds.

"*Sigh* Actually that was for Twilight. She sent me to go get her a drink so she could keep working. Now I'm going to have to go back to Sugarcube Cafe and get another bottle." Spike said, slightly exasperated at having to walk all the way back to Pinkies to get Twilight another drink. "Oh, I'm sorry. I didn't know it was for Twilight and I was really thirsty. Uh, do you want me to go grab another one and bring it back here? I could probably do it in just a minute." Rainbow asked, boasting about her speed at the end.

"Uh, sure. Thanks." Answered Spike, glad that he wouldn't have to make the trip all over again. With that, Rainbow Dash took off for the Sugarcube Cafe, staying sub-rainboom and reaching it in just under 20 seconds. Spike just kinda stood outside the gym waiting for Rainbow Dash to return with the apple juice. It had been about a minute since Rainbow Dash had left, when suddenly she returned, panting like she had just flown around Equestria at sonic rainboom speeds.

"Here *pant* you *pant* go Spike *pant*." Rainbow managed to huff out, then sat down on the bench in the gym. Spike then wondered how he had missed the bench, mostly because he wished he could have sat down to wait. Spike and Rainbow said their goodbyes while Spike started making his way back to the bridge. He finally managed to make it there without anything happening to him or the juice. He walked over to the spot where he had left Twilight and put down the bottle for her to grab.

Twilight took notice of Spike returning and after checking the time, realised it had taken him almost half an hour just to get a bottle of apple juice. "Uh, Spike? Why did it take so long for you to get a bottle of apple juice? Sugar cube cafe is only like an eight minute walk from here." Spike then started to tell Twilight all that happened on his epic quest for a bottle of apple juice. After he told Twilight, she knowingly nodded, simply saying, "That does sound like something those two would do."

Twilight quickly resumed her work, occasionally sipping at her juice while Spike watched, not quite understanding the charts that Twilight was looking at. He then decided to go see if any of their other friends needed help, letting Twilight know as he walked away. Spike was making his way down the hall when he saw a familiar light brown earth pony. "Oh hi, uh, Swift Sweep was it? Nice seeing you again." Sweep looked up and smiled at Spike saying, "Well hey there. Nice to see you as well. Do you need anything in particular?"

"Oh, no, I'm fine. I was actually on my way to see some of my friends to ask if they needed any help. Uh, do you need any right now?" Spike asked, wondering if the janitor was able to keep up with the work of having to clean the east side of the ship all by himself. "Oh no, I'm fine. You go see your friends and help them. I'll be just fine. I'm almost done over here anyway, then I'll be off duty for the rest of the day while somepony else takes over." After their short exchange, Spike and Sweep said goodbye and parted ways, leaving Spike to see if any of his other friends needed help.

Spike started with making his way to Rarity's onboard clothing shop. Her shop wasn't quite the Carousel Boutique, but it was close. Spike hurried over to where Rarity was working, hoping he could try to woo her with how helpful he was being. As he walked in, he saw Rarity patching up a ripped suit meant for working on the onboard farm. From the looks of it, somepony had trouble with controlling how often they wore the suit, using the worn out holes in the hooves to tell him that.

"Hi Rarity. Did Applejack wear out her farming suit again?" Rarity looked up, startled by the sudden intrusion. She quickly calmed down when she saw Spike walking into her work area. "Oh, you know Applejack. She never does anything outside of working on the farm and helps defeat whatever problem we have. Honestly, how long does she plan on working without any breaks? She's going to work herself to death at this rate." Spike just listened as Rarity ranted on about the well-being of one of her closest friends.

Eventually Rarity stopped ranting and asked Spike what he was doing there. "Oh, uh, did you need any help? I'm not needed in the bridge right now, so I have some free time on my claws." Spike said, explaining his being there. "Well thank you for thinking of me first to help, but I only have Applejack's suit to fix and then I will be done for now. You should go see if any of our other friends need help. Celestia knows how quiet things have been since we launched."

Spike was slightly disappointed that he wouldn't get to help Rarity, but he figured some of his other friends might need help with their own tasks. He started making his way to the onboard farm where Applejack was working, when suddenly a very loud alarm started to blare from the speakers in the halls. Realizing what the alarm meant, Spike took off for the life pod bay, hoping he could get into one and escape. As he was running, he tried not to think of anything other than the life pods, only the life pod.
> Chapter 16: Fluttershy's Flashback
> --------------------------------------------------------------------------

Fluttershy was close to getting the last water pipe properly aligned when Applejack shouted behind her. "Hey, are ya almost done? Ah need to get back ta waterin' the plants." Fluttershy let out a quiet "eep" and jumped, smacking her head on another pipe right above her. "Ouch," Fluttershy whispered under breath while keeping her tears at bay. She slowly extracted herself from the wall and looked at Applejack.

"Um, I'm almost done, but I still need a minute, uh, if that's okay with you." Fluttershy said, hoping Applejack would wait a little bit longer. Applejack looked a little annoyed at how long it was taking, but understood why something like this couldn't be rushed. "It's alright Sugarcube, ahm just eager to get back to work is all. Take yer time. Don't want nothin' to be out of place or broken." Fluttershy inwardly sighed in relief, glad that Applejack wasn't going to yell at her or be mad.

Fluttershy then crawled back into the wall so she could finish aligning the pipes and tightening them into place. As she worked, she started reflecting on the reasons why she was even allowed to come with. She thought that the main reason was because Twilight might have requested it, otherwise somepony else might have been chosen in her place. She had to take a crash course in simple maintenance, such as pipe alignment and rewiring, just so she could legally qualify for a low level maintenance job.

Soon enough, Fluttershy was done tightening the pipes, allowing water to smoothly flow through them. She quickly wormed her way back out of the wall and replaced the panelling to its rightful place. "Okay Applejack, it's all fixed. You should be able to get back to watering the plants." Fluttershy said, turning to her friend. "Thank ya so much. Celestia knows how bad those pipes might have gotten without you fixin em. I guess I'll be getting back to work then. See ya later Sugarcube." Applejack said as she trotted off, eager to get back to work.

Fluttershy smiled and turned back towards the maintenance crew quarters and started walking. She quickly arrived and started to put away her tools when somepony else walked in, ready to start their shift. Fluttershy turned to walk away from the locker when she bumped into the pony. "Oh dear, I'm so sorry. I didn't mean to run into you." Fluttershy said, cringing behind her mane, waiting to be yelled at. "Oh goodness, I must apologize, I was so lost in my thoughts I didn't even see you. My name's Speedy Screwdriver. What's your name?"

Fluttershy looked at the pony before her. She was a light red unicorn mare with a purple and blue mane. She was wearing a similar outfit to Fluttershy, but had a badge stating she was the maintenance crew manager. "Oh, um, my name is Fluttershy. I'm so very sorry for running into you." She said, almost dropping to a whisper. Speedy looked at Fluttershy and noticed just how shy and scared she was.

"Don't worry about it. I am just as much at fault as you are. If even more at fault than you are. I walked into you while you were turning around." Speedy said, hoping to put the scared pegasus at ease. She could visibly see Fluttershy relax a bit, but could tell she was still nervous. "Well, I don't know about you, but I need my tools so I can go fix some broken pipes down the hall. Got a call in from Applejack about it."

Fluttershy looked up in confusion. "Um, I already took care of that though?" She suddenly got a very worried look on her face. "Oh no! It's broken already, isn't it? I just knew I wouldn't be able to fix it." Fluttershy said, sinking to the floor in shame. Speedy quickly moved over to hug Fluttershy. "Hey, calm down. I got the call almost 10 minutes ago and because I didn't see anypony fixing it, I thought it hadn't been done yet. If you said you fixed it, I believe you fixed it. Do you want me to go make sure that it's secured properly?"

Fluttershy slowly nodded, so Speedy then walked out of the room to go check the pipes. Fluttershy slowly climbed back to her hooves and started towards her locker again to double check if her tools were in their proper places. After a couple of minutes, Speedy came back with a grin on her face. "Well, from the looks of it, everything is just fine. If I didn't know better, I would say you've been doing this for years." Fluttershy blushed at her comment and hiding behind her mane bashfully, while also grinning internally at the fact she could secure pipes like a pro.

Speedy then walked over to her own locker and started to pull out a few different tools to get ready for her shift. As she started pulling tools out, Fluttershy decided it would be a good time to leave and take a break. As Fluttershy walked out, she bid farewell to Speedy Screwdriver and started for Sugarcube Cafe to get lunch. Just as she was walking in, Rainbow Dash blew through the door, quickly said something to Pinkie, and was back out the door in ten seconds flat.

After getting over her dizziness from having the air around her distorted, she walked up to Pinkie to order her food. "Well hiya Fluttershy, what can I get you?" Pinkie asked, seemingly not as super energetic as usually. "Oh, can you, um, make me a hayburger and hayfries for lunch? I didn't get that big of a breakfast this morning because one of the toilets got busted and I had to go fix it."

Pinkie looked at Fluttershy in shock. "Don't you know how important breakfast is?! You can't just skip out on the most important meal of the day! I am going to make you that hayburger and hayfries with something extra." Fluttershy was suddenly worried about what sort of thing Pinkie was going to add to her meal. "Oh, um, you don't have to do that for me." Pinkie suddenly picked up Fluttershy and put her into a seat and then rushed into the back to make Fluttershy's food.

Fluttershy sat in silence for a minute, unsure as to what had just happened. Suddenly Pinkie Pie was standing next to the table that was magically covered with Fluttershy's order and a rainbow colored cupcake. "See, I told you I would get you something extra with your order! This cupcake is one of my bestest creations yet, probably better than the chimmy-cherry-changa, if I do say so myself, which I'm not sure if I do." Pinkie suddenly had a curious look on her face as she looked at Fluttershy. "Can you try my new cupcake to see if it's better than the chimmy-cherry-changa?" Pinkie asked with as much politeness as possible and adorable puppies eyes that only a heartless monster couldn't fall for.

Of course, Fluttershy fell for it because she isn't a heartless monster, so she grabbed the cupcake and slowly took a bite out of it. Her mouth was then taken aback by the sudden burst of cherry, orange, banana, lime, blueberry, and grape flavors that exploded into her mouth. Fluttershy quickly scarfed down the rest of the cupcake, then gave Pinkie a sheepish look, because not a lot of ponies just scarf down food in front of another pony and don't feel embarrassed. Pinkie started back, unfazed by Fluttershy's scarfing of the cupcake. "Soooo, what do you think? Is it better than the chimmy-cherry-changa?"

"Um, well, the chimmy-cherry-changa isn't bad, but it only has the cherry taste, but this has so many different flavors in it. I would say that the rainbow cupcake is a little bit better than the chimmy-cherry-changa." Pinkie Pie then grinned and ear to ear grin with wide open eyes. "Oh, yay! This is great! I have to make sure the Cakes have access to the recipe when-" Suddenly Pinkie's tail twitched, followed by her front right hoof shaking, followed by a full body shudder.

"Uh, Pinkie? What Pinkie Sense was that?" Fluttershy asked in concern. Pinkie was also very concerned about this new combo, because she had no clue as to what it was about. "Hmmm, I don't know. Maybe you should go make sure everything is ok with Twilight." Pinkie said with a very serious expression. She then turned back into her normal energetic self with a big grin. "Well, I have a cake to bake. Can you tell me what if anything is wrong once you check?" Fluttershy nodded, then walked out of the Cafe with intentions of returning to finish her lunch.

As she started towards the Bridge to talk to Twilight, the ship started to violently shake, knocking Fluttershy off balance. She quickly stood up, just to cringe back at the sound of sirens wailing all across the ship. She heard the Captain announce that everypony should make their way to the life pods immediately. She quickly took off for the life pod bay and climbed into the nearest life pod once she arrived. She quickly pressed the launch button and sent herself hurdling into the planet's atmosphere.
> Chapter 17: Dark thoughts
> --------------------------------------------------------------------------

Give up… that's all Spike wanted to do. He felt like he couldn't carry on any longer and that the death of his friends was too much for him to handle. Their deaths were a burden he felt like he was carrying alone. He knew he wasn't truly responsible for their deaths, but he thought about all the many ways he could've prevented at least one of their deaths. He could have gone back to help Twilight get to a life pod and she would still be alive with him, not dead and eaten by a sea monster. He could have run back to Rarity and helped her, but he instead chose to run away and leave her for dead, a selfish action, no doubt, but he had been focused on his own survival. So much for always being a friend to Twilight and the others. Some friend he was

Then again, Fluttershy made it. He didn't help her, but here she was, comforting him in his weakest moment when he should have been there for her. He had managed to save at least one of his friends. He had helped her and supported her when she needed it most, and he couldn't give up now. Though, what would be the point of going on, just to suffer the same fate as Pinkie Pie or Twilight? They could both just give up and let the fish have another meal. Though they probably wouldn't be able to eat Spike all that well, given his almost impenetrable scales, but he could still let them try. It would be a much faster death than dying from old age surrounded by fear, water, and paranoia.

Just then, Spike noticed a flash of red in the darkness of the habitat. He slowly looked up, not sure what to expect. "Maybe it will be a warning about how the habitat is going to collapse and crush us both." Spike thought, not sure if it was wishful thinking or just his tired mind not realizing that would mean death. Luckily, or unluckily, depending on how Spike decided to look at it, it was not an emergency light. What it was instead was the light on the radio, meaning a message had come in. Spike thought for a second and decided it would be best not to answer it, lest it be another life pod that would lead them to the death site of more friends. He just leaned back into Fluttershy's hug and tried to sleep some more, but the flashing red light made it rather difficult.

Eventually, Spike fell back into a heavy slumber, only for Fluttershy to wake up shortly thereafter and notice the flashing red light. Though she decided against standing up just yet, mostly because if she got up, she would wake up Spike. She was also afraid that the message would lead them towards another destroyed life pod and dead pony. She felt as though the only reason she was continuing on was to help Spike get through this. Not that she would have gone and killed herself, no, she didn't have the guts for that. What she would have done is stopped caring about her safety and would have probably gone into dangerous areas hoping a fish would eat her while she had her back turned.

The more she thought about it, the more she began wondering why none of her other friends had survived. Applejack would've been able to help him with gardening and keeping the mean fish at bay. Twilight might have had a couple of breakdowns, but she could have used her magic to help Spike survive. She didn't know if Rainbow Dash had died or not, but even she would have been able to help because she had a lot of practice flying, so she could fly pretty far around to look for islands. Pinkie Pie would have been able to cheer up Spike when he was down and she could cook very well. Even Rarity could have helped Spike, though most of her help would have been emotional, because Celestia forbid Rarity get her mane a little wet instead of dying.

All she had been was a burden. She hadn't even been able to swim that all that well until he spent time and taught her. He took time out of his agenda to go get fruits for her to eat because she didn't like the taste of fish. He had decided to sleep on the floor of the life pod instead of her, and when she did, he went out and risked his life to try and make her comfortable. All she had done for him was damage the Seamoth, waste his time on swimming lessons, consume the food and water he went out and gathered, and bothered him with all of her fears. She was older than him for crying out loud! She was supposed to take care of him, not the other way around.

Fluttershy was quickly snapped out of her very dark thoughts by the sound of her rumbling stomach, which apparently decided to have a conversation with Spike's, because his stomach growled shortly after. Turns out skipping a meal can cause somepony to become very hungry. Fluttershy then decided it was time to get up, because dying from starvation when it was avoidable was not how she felt like going out. She started to stand, but was held in place by Spike, who muttered something like, "What's the point?" before slipping back into the realm of dreams.

Fluttershy looked at Spike, curious about what he had meant by that. She started to lightly shake Spike, attempting to wake him up. "C'mon Spike, it's time to wake up and eat." Fluttershy whispered into his ear. Spike quickly mumbled about wanting more time to sleep in. Fluttershy tried again, shaking him lightly and whispering slightly louder, "Spiiike. It's time to wake up." He then replied with, "Twilight, reshelving can wait. I'm tired." followed by light snoring. Fluttershy decided it would probably be best if she just laid him down while she got something to eat.

She slowly managed to get him to loosen his grip, then laid him down on his bed and made her way into their garden room. She then started to pull some of the fruits out and replant the seeds, that way they wouldn't run out of food. She then made her way back to her bed and started eating the fruits, being careful as to not have any of the juice fall onto the sheets. Celestia knew how hard it would be to wash a fruit juice stain off of her blankets without soap. "Wait," Fluttershy thought with disgust, "Without soap, how are we supposed to have clean sheets and blankets? The saltwater of the ocean will only ruin the sheets."

With that on her mind, Fluttershy slid to the floor to eat her fruit, that way there was zero risk of dirtying her sheets. As she ate, Fluttershy stared at the blinking light, almost hoping it would stop through sheer mental power, but knowing it wouldn't actually turn off until she had answered it. So she finished her food, stood up, and walked over to the machine to answer it. As she pushed the button, she turned down the volume on it so that Spike wouldn't get woken up by it. The poor baby dragon had been having a really tough time dealing with the death of their friends, not that Fluttershy wasn't, but she knew that death was just another stage in the circle of life.

The radio then started playing a pre-recorded message from another life pod in the area. "Hello? Anypony there?" Fluttershy didn't recognize the voice, but whoever it was a stallion, but didn't sound very alarmed, more confused than anything else. "Uh, if anypony is receiving this, my sister and my life pod crashed down into what looks like a forest made entirely of sea kelp, but it's way too big to be from Equestria. I'll see if I can attach the coordinates to this message, so if there aren't, blame it on my lack of skill with these things. That was always more of my sister's thing." A noise is heard in the background and another voice mumbled something that Fluttershy couldn't make out, but it did in fact sound feminine.

"Ok, the coordinates should be attached to the message. My and my sister are doing fine, but really don't like the sea kelp, so if you have a better area, could you come get us? Heck even if you don't, some company wouldn't hurt, so just come here and we can all help each other. That would be greatly appreciated. Well, uh, goodbye then, and good luck with your own survival if you don't come for us." A voice is heard in the background yelling at the speaker. "Ok ok jeez, just come for us please. I don't think I can stand being stuck with my sister as the only other pony on the Celestia forsaken planet. Don't get me wrong, I love her and all, but interacting with only one other pony can drive a stallion crazy." The message then ends, followed by Fluttershy's PDA downloading the coordinates of the life pod.

"Well, if they are really as well off as they say, then they should still be alive. I'll go get them while Spike's sleeping." Fluttershy then quickly wrote a message on Spike's PDA stating why she left the habitat and took both the Seamoth and the Seaglide. As she climbed into the Seamoth, she got a little concerned about whether or not the other ponies would still be alive when she got there. She was depending on their survival, mostly because she didn't want to have to find the dead bodies of somepony she might have seen on the Aurora, and because it might raise Spike's spirit to know that somepony else had survived.

She then started to make her way towards the coordinates, listening to the soft him of the Seamoth's propeller and the water zooming past the window. She found the hum to be rather relaxing and started to unwind. As soon as Fluttershy thought the trip would be peaceful, a roar loud enough to shake her Seamoth, cut through the water and caused her to jump as high as the Seamoth would allow her. She quickly spun the Seamoth around, but didn't see the cause of the roar, so she turned the right direction and continued on her way trying to get to the coordinates as fast as possible.

As she got closer to the coordinates, paranoid thoughts began to float through Fluttershy's mind. "What if that message was from a week ago and now a big scary sea monster ate them?! What if the kelp is poisonous and they died from that?! What if-" Fluttershy's thoughts were soon cut off by the splash of orange and white in a landscape of green. Fluttershy was surprised to see the life pod was fully intact, if not sunken, but was even more surprised by the familiar face that greeted her when she approached the life pod. To say that the other pony was surprised to see Fluttershy would be like saying that Twilight could cast a spell. Very underrated descriptions of the true potential of the statement.
> Chapter 18: The new survivors
> --------------------------------------------------------------------------

After some introductions and a short rest, Fluttershy and the two other survivors got geared up to leave. Fluttershy gave one of the survivors the Seaglide while the other one would hold onto the back of the Seamoth. After everypony was ready to go, Fluttershy began to lead the way back to the habitat. For the most part, the trip was uneventful, minus the sightings of a couple of the metal eating fish. Though now that Fluttershy looked closer, the fish weren't eating the metal, they were actually chewing on it, kind of like a beaver does with wood. The biggest difference between the two is that beavers chew wood to shorten their teeth while these fish did it to knock old or broken teeth loose to make room for new and better ones.

After studying the metal biting fish, Fluttershy and the others continued to make their way to the habitat. As they got closer, Fluttershy could see Spike pacing around inside until he noticed them, but then he just ran up to the hatch and had a huge grin on his face. He was obviously very happy that Fluttershy had returned with another survivor, but unaware that there were actually two of them. Fluttershy and the survivors had just climbed into the habitat, when Spike suddenly embraced Fluttershy. "Oh thank you Fluttershy for going out to get them! I was so worried that nopony else had survived." His face then made a frown and his voice turned serious. "You could have woken me up when you went to help them though. It would have been nice to see them when we got there, but more importantly, you could have gotten hurt. I was having a panic attack that you might have just up and left me."

Suddenly, one of the survivors cuts in, "Spike? Is that you?" Spike then turns to finally look at the other survivors.

"Swift Sweep?! You're alive?! Dude, that's awesome!" Swift Sweep and Spike then began to talk about how they had made it. Turns out, once the alarms began to wail, Swift Sweep took off for a life pod and jumped in, not paying attention to the other passenger. Coincidentally, his sister Swift Sweep had jumped into the same life pod as he did, so they were able to at least be together when the life pod ejected, although they didn't realize this until they had hit the ocean.

Due to their landing sight, they had been able to see the island that Spike found the collapsed shelter. Swift Sweep and Speedy Screwdriver had already been to the island to assess the habitability of it, only to realize that the creatures living there, or "Cave Crawlers" as the PDA named them after scanning, were carnivores and would have eaten them if they stayed. After a short sweep around the outskirts of the island, they found an outdoor frowned garden full of potatoes and melons that they decided to harvest, but sadly, they couldn't replant any seeds due to the damage the grow beds had received over the course of who knew how long. They soon had to rely on another source of food besides the potatoes and melons and quickly learned that the kelp is perfectly fine to eat, but doesn't taste all that great. So they had been eating mostly the kelp to survive while inserting small amounts of potatoes and melons into their diets. They had actually just run out of water a day before Fluttershy rescued them.

Soon enough, Swift was done telling their story, with Speedy having commented on certain parts of the story, like how Swift had not tried to fight the Cave Crawlers. im reality he had run away screaming like a little filly, not that she had been much better. Spike soon got to telling his story of tragedy and happiness, like the death of his friends, but finding Fluttershy alive. After they finished exchanging stories, Spike and Fluttershy gathered up some melons and potatoes and made a small feast for all of them to share so they could relax.

"So," Spike began, "Is there anything you guys forgot to grab from your life pod? I can take Swift with me and we can finish grabbing everything." After she was done chewing her mouthful, Speedy began to respond.

"Well, I personally don't have anything that I need, but there were a few resources left in the storage unit that we couldn't grab, but I can go get it when we are done eating."

"No, you two just got here. I need a reason to go out for a little bit. I'm starting to feel cramped just staying inside. We also need to discuss something when I get back though." Nothing more was said on the matter as they finished eating. Spike was done eating before everyone else and started getting ready while they finished up the feast. He began to leave when he felt a hoof on his shoulder. Spike turned to see Swift Sweep stopping him from leaving. 

"Spike, I'm going with you and you won't change my mind. You and I need to have a little discussion away from the others." Spike decided not to argue because the conversation probably wouldn't be that bad and began to leave, only to turn around at the last second and grab the two portable radios so he could talk to Swift while underwater and at a distance if they got separated. After Spike gave Swift the radio, they were both ready to leave and decided that Swift would drive the Seamoth and Spike would use the Seaglide. The journey to the life pod was mostly uneventful, minus some sightings of the metal biting fish. When they arrived, Swift and Spike both climbed into the life pod and Spike began going through the storage and grabbing everything.

'Spike, how are you really holding up?" Swift asked. Spike stopped rummaging for a minute and turned around. 

"I'm doing fine. I just wish we were back home, safe and sound." Swift gave Spike a look of doubt, knowing somepony doesn't go through what he did and still be mentally stable. Against his better judgement, Swift decided to leave Spike alone and finish up with grabbing everything. 

"If that's what you want me to believe, that's fine. I ain't gonna force you to talk about anything you aren't comfortable talking about." Spike decided not to comment on that and kept grabbing everything he could. Soon enough, they were on their way back to the base with loaded pockets and hoping that nothing had gone wrong with the girls.

When they got back, they found out that Speedy and Fluttersh had foraged some other resources, like the acidic mushrooms and copper to make some spare batteries. Spike and Swift began sorting everything they had brought back and put them in the proper places. Turns out, when you work for Twilight your entire life, you get pretty good at organizing and keeping things neat and tidy. Sadly, all good things must come to an end eventually.

"Okay, is anypony intending on going to the Aurora with me?" Spike announced once everything was put away. It got so quiet, they could hear fish swimming outside the base. "Nopony? Okay, then I guess I'll be going by myself then." Spike proceeded to start gathering supplies when Fluttershy snapped out of her state of complete shock and tried to stop him. 

"Um, why are you going to the Aurora? We're perfectly fine here. Or could you at least wait a day or two? We finally found somepony else alive on this planet and you want to go to that burning radioactive wreck?"

Spike looked at Fluttershy and said, "Well we've got to go there eventually. No point in waiting. Having them here is all the more reason to go. They have experience with mechanics and the ship's layout. I understand you have some experience with mechanics as well Fluttershy, but you mostly did smaller things, like repairing doors and fixing pipes. From what I've heard, Speedy Screwdriver was the head mechanic onboard the Aurora, meaning she might be able to help fix the quantum drive core, which would make it slightly safer around here not only for us, but for the animals, and the long range comms, which will allow us to get ahold of somepony back in Alterra HQ. Swift Sweep over here was a janitor on the ship, meaning he knows most of the ship's layout and can guide us through it. As I said, you have mechanical skills in fixing doors, so you can help us get through the broken doors. Lastly, I am-er was Twilight's assistant, meaning I have access to some of the more restricted areas of the ship, such as the Officer's and Captain's quarters. All in all, having everypony here makes one heck of a team to explore the Aurora."

The rest of the crew was speechless. They hadn't even thought of all of these reasons as to why they should go to the Aurora. It just seemed like a suicide mission to them. "Well I'll be," Swift Sweep began, chuckling lightly, "you've just about thought of everything for this mission, haven't you? I take it you've been planning to go there for a while now, haven't you?" Spike and Fluttershy looked at each other before Spike spoke.

"Well, actually, the idea originally came from Twilight. She and Starlight tried to get to the Aurora to fix the long range comms, but, well, they didn't make it. After that, it was a matter of time before I found Fluttershy and we started planning a trip there after it went nuclear. Now that we know you two are ok, we are going to have to bring extra supplies and rations, as well as make two more radiation suits. Do you think you two can help me get the supplies for the suits?"

Swift spoke up, "I can help you gather some of the stuff needed. I just need to know what all we need and where to get it." Spike grinned, happy that they might finally get help for getting off this planet. Things seemed to be going his way.

Then Speedy spoke up."Well I might not be as useful for gathering the resources, but I might be able to jury-rig some extra plating on the Seamoth so it can survive some of the rough attacks from these filthy creatures and their incredibly sharp teeth." 

"Hey, they aren't filthy! They just need to eat and feed their families!" Everypony turned to look at Fluttershy, surprised at her outburst. Fluttershy then lived up to her name and began hiding behind her mane. "Well, um, I didn't mean to be rude. They just, uh, need to eat, just like you. Even, um ,even if that means hunting us." 

Everypony then turned back to their conversation and they began talking more about what they would be doing and how long it would take. They figured that making new plating for the Seamoth that would make them more resilient was important and would take the longest, so they prioritized gathering resources for that above all else. Then they decided it would be a good idea to make the radiation suits for Swift Sweep and Speedy Screwdriver. After that, they would have a good night's sleep and head to the Aurora tomorrow. After the plans were made everypony split up and the hunt for resources began.

Spike and Swift decided to start getting the resources for the Seamoth, which would turn out to be three ingots worth of titanium, so they didn't bring all that many supplies with them, allowing for maximum capacity on titanium and scrap metal. While they were out looking for titanium, Fluttershy was going to make proper ration sizes for the trip allowing them to be able to eat just in case it took longer to fix everything than they planned. Speedy decided to start making sure they had enough batteries for tools and that the Seaglide and Seamoth were in top condition. The last thing anypony was thinking about was just what was awaiting them near the Aurora.
> Chapter 19: Preparations
> --------------------------------------------------------------------------

Spike and Swift decided to begin their search for titanium inside of the nearby Kelp Forest. It seemed like the logical option because if the resident fish chewed on metal, it would make sense that they would store some of that very metal in and around their territory. It had a bit of risk, with these fish being very territorial, but the potential reward was greater than the danger. That is, of course, if they actually did store metal in their territory. This plan was mostly speculation and not based on real facts, but that's all they had to work with right now. 

Spike started the Seamoth while Swift started the Seaglide, and soon enough they were at the Kelp Forest. They parked their vehicles outside of the forest so they didn't have to worry about getting stuck in the kelp and letting the resident fish take a few bites out of their vehicles. When they swam in and started exploring, they noticed just how dense some areas could be, even blocking out the sun with how close together some of the kelp was. While it wasn't an issue for Spike because he could move the kelp and keep swimming, it was a problem for Swift because he could only do one or the other. 

They decided that they could save time if Swift kept a lookout for fish while Spike dove down and collected metal scrap. While Spike was scanning the sea floor, he noticed what looked like a couple of big, sharp teeth sitting next to a small pile of salvage near a small cave entrance. He quickly scanned a tooth and promised himself he would read the entry when he got back to the base, but in the meantime he was going to take the salvage and teeth back to the Seamoth. As he picked up the salvage and teeth, a huge cloud of sand was produced, leaving Spike almost completely blind. Spike began swimming upwards to get out of the cloud so he could get to the Seamoth to drop off the stuff when he heard Swift shout, "Behind you!" through the radio.

Spike quickly turned around with a decently sized piece of salvage in his hands and thrust the metal forward, eyes shut tight. What Spike didn't realize was that it wasn't a metal eating fish chasing after him, but rather a small red, ball shaped fish. When Spike thrust the metal at the fish, it launched the fish backwards and caused it to explode far enough from Spike that he only heard the boom from it's explosion. When Spike heard said explosion, he opened his eyes in surprise and saw a large amount of bubbles slow rising to the surface. He sighed in relief, knowing how painful that would have been.

"... Well then. I think I just started playing tennis with an explosive fish, but thanks for the warning." Spike jokes, but slightly shaken. He was a little concerned about how the fish exploded when he hit it, but remembered that that particular fish would explode while attacking other creatures, though they only seemed to target him, which seemed a little rude.

Swift barked out a laugh. "It's only tennis if somepony can serve it back, and besides, if I didn't call out a fish chasing after you, I would be pretty bad at the only job I've got." They then began to load what salvage Spike had found so far into the Seamoth so Spike could search for more without having to carry it. Over the course of the next two hours, Swift and Spike only had one encounter with a metal eating fish, which was resolved by giving the metal, but they had found plenty of other chunks of salvage. Soon enough, they were on their way back to the base so Speedy could modify the Seamoth.

After returning to the base, Swift and Spike brought the salvage inside to start deconstructing it into raw titanium so they could further craft it into bars. Speedy happened to trot into the room just as Spike finished making the bars. "Great!" Speedy said, "Now I can get to work on that armor plating." Speedy took the bars and exited the base to get straight to work on the extra armor plates. Spike and Swift stopped to get some lunch, then went back out to look for some kelp and lead. They decided to split up this time, thinking it would be smarter to have Swift look for lead and Spike collect the kelp.

As Spike began to approach the Kelp Forest, he decided to get kelp from the edges of the forest instead of risking going inside. He pulled out his knife, wary of cutting his suit, and held it against the stem of the kelp, ready to get the job done quickly. He suddenly cut the stem as he flinched at the sound of an unusually loud roar, this one unlike any of the others he had heard so far. Spike froze, terrified of the sound, yet curious of what kind of a creature could make such a loud noise. Spike then grabbed the kelp and started swimming back to the base, curious if anypony else had heard it. As he began to get closer to the base, he noticed that the Seamoth was floating barely above the seafloor with a few large, black, partially welded plates of metal on and around it. Once he climbed inside the base, he saw everyone else gathered on the beds, with Speedy and Fluttershy looking at Swift with concern.

After they had departed, Swift had even less of a distance to travel than Spike, so he reached the Sandy Plateau before Spike was even out of sight. He knew from Spike that sandstone deposits would form on the sides of the pillars. He found a couple of deposits soon enough, but only one of them contained lead, so he had to keep searching. While searching, he heard a faint roar that chilled him to the bone. He was familiar with the roar, but was unsure what it was doing anywhere in hearing range. With a bit of worry, he started to search faster, scared that the creature the roar had come from would find him. After his first, and hopefully last, encounter with that beast, he knew no creature would want to come face to face with one. 

He got a bit luckier later on his search and was able to find the rest of the lead he needed. He then began heading back to the base quickly as he could so he could warn Speedy and the others that one of those beasts were nearby. He made it back to the base before Spike did and immediately after he arrived, he forced Speedy into the base. "What is going on?" Speedy asked while Swift was retrieving Fluttershy.

"Hold on. We're gonna wait for Spike to get back before I explain." Swift then had Fluttershy sit on her bed while Speedy and himself got situated on Spike's bed. A minute or so after they all got situated, Spike climbed back into the base, a look of confusion on his face. "Good, you're back. Come sit down." Swift motioned for Spike to sit on the other bed with Fluttershy. Spike sat down ready to ask a couple of questions, but as he opened his mouth, Swift cut him off. "Now I'm sure you're all confused about this, but the most important thing is that we stay calm."

Speedy turned to her brother and cut in. "Okay, would you just tell us why we are all here? I kind of need to get back to adding the plates onto the Seamoth." Swift looked at her with fear clearly visible in his eyes. Speedy seemed confused about what could be scaring him so badly, but she seemed to understand why he was scared after a moment. "Wait, it didn't… follow us, did it?" Swift was about to answer, but then Spike cut in.

"Ok, something is bothering you two, but what is it? What is this it you're referring to? Why should we be concerned about it following you? You tell us to stay calm, but I'm more worried because you're avoiding telling us what is scaring you." Spike ended his little rant with a little frustration in his voice, but soon calmed himself down. Everyone seemed a little bit taken aback by Spikes outburst, but Swift quickly snapped out of his stupor so he could answer Spike.

"Okay, so there's this beast of a fish out there and this thing is easily twice as long as our base with both rooms. I've seen this thing tear apart one of those floating reef fish things like the fish was a cracker. It has these four large hooked mandibles on its face that it uses to latch onto prey with, not too different from how an ant uses their mandibles. It has a huge mouth full of teeth that are sharper than your claws. It has four large black eyes that are like soulless orbs. The most terrifying part of it is the enormously large roar it gives off when hunting. I heard it while looking for lead and decided against staying out much longer. The last thing we need is for that beast to make one of us it's next meal."

Spike seemed to pale more and more with each passing detail while Fluttershy had already passed out after the connection was made between ant mandibles and its mandibles. Swift and Speedy were obviously scared of this thing, and Spike was too, but Fluttershy was obviously downright terrified of it. With this a crude depiction of the creature burned into his head, Spike knew he would be paranoid anytime he even left the base now.

"Um, okay then. Well, now that we know this, um, thing is and what it looks like, we can be more careful while exploring. Do you know anything else about this creature? Areas it frequents for food? Preferred food? Any possible predators?" At the last one Swift Sweep barked out a laugh.

"Ha, like anything could eat one of those. That beast was almost as big as the ones in that dragon migration from last year." At the comparison to a creature he had seen before, Spike knew that this creature meant business and would probably be able to eat them in one bite. Still, he knew that if they lived in fear of this thing, they would never get back home.

"Well regardless of how mean this thing is, we still need to complete our mission. Get to the ship, repair the long range comms, get back here, and wait for help to arrive." Spike only wished he was as confident as he had hoped he sounded saying that. They all heard a light groan coming from next to Spike and looked over to see Fluttershy starting to wake up. Spike moved to comfort and help her as she started to sit up.

"W-what happened? Oh dear, I didn't fall asleep while you were talking, did I? Oh I'm so sorry." Fluttershy was stammering out until Spike stopped her. He explained how she had passed out after Swift described how terrible the creature was and that they kept talking about what they had to do. "Well, um, I agree with Spike. We do need to fix the long range communications, if that's okay with you."

"Ok, well now that we know a little bit more about what's out there, how about we go and finish getting ready? The sooner we leave, the better." Everypony agreed with Spike, so they all went their separate ways. Speedy went back out to finish the modifications to the Seamoth, Fluttershy went back to preparing rations of food for everypony and Spike started making the other two radiation suits with some help from Swift.

Not long after they parted, Fluttershy went outside to help with the Seamoth because she had nothing else to do. As she got out, she looked over and saw Speedy struggling to hold one of the plates in place as she tried to weld it. Fluttershy swam over and pushed the plate over the spot Speedy was trying to push it to, surprising Speedy in the process. "Weren't you making the rations?"

"Oh, I finished that already. I thought I could help you, but if you don't want me to, I'll go." Speedy shook her head and thanked Fluttershy for the help. They continued welding the plates into place and making small talk, like what their lives were like back in Equestria.

Turns out that Speedy and Swift were from Manehattan and grew up helping out the family restaurant. Swift would usually handle the cleaning of the floors, such as sweeping, mopping, and getting scuffs out. Speedy had always had an easy time understanding how to fix something, so she would help fix the blender, sinks, and oven. Of course, she only fixed these with one of her parents present.

Soon enough, they were finished welding the plates on the Seamoth. They swam back a little to admire their work, noticing it still looked a little crude, but it was the best they could do with limited tools and supplies. They swam back inside and saw that Spike and Swift were sitting on the beds, with all of the rad suits folded next to them. "Okay," Spike said, "If you're done with modifying the Seamoth, I think we should head out and explore the Aurora.
> Chapter 20-1: The Aurora
> --------------------------------------------------------------------------

After the decision was made, everypony decided it would be a good idea to wait until the next day to go to the Aurora. Everypony was feeling tired from all the work, except Fluttershy, so they decided to go to sleep. They doubled up on beds, with Spike and Fluttershy sharing one bed while Swift and Speedy shared the other. After a restful night's sleep, everypony woke up, only to discover Spike had rolled off the bed in his sleep.

"Well, I guess we were all really tired if I managed to roll off the bed and none of us woke up." Spike said, amused how even he hadn't woken up after hitting the hard, metal floor. They all got a bit of a laugh from it, but were soon enough eating breakfast and talking about how they were going to get to the Aurora. The main part of the discussion revolved around everypony's positioning.

Fluttershy wanted to pilot the Seamoth, but so did Speedy. Swift wanted to at least have the Seaglide to use. The ongoing theme for positioning was that Spike would be swimming, as having appendages to make scoops would allow him to naturally swim the fastest, because they all knew hooves didn't allow for very fast swimming. They eventually decided on having Speedy drive the Seamoth, have Swift hang onto the antenna on the back of the Seamoth, Fluttershy would use the Seaglide, and Spike would swim as fast as he could. They figured Spike would arrive later than they did, so they planned to stay at their landing site on the front end of the Aurora.

Once they had positioning all figured out, they began packing the rations into the Seamoth. Spike had decided that his rations would go with them because he didn't want to be weighed down by the food. They then began packing tools, including flashlights, repair tools, scanners, and survival knives. After the Seamoth was sufficiently loaded, everypony got into position and Fluttershy, Speedy, and Swift were on their way to the Aurora while Spike began the long swim there.

Spike knew that he would lose sight of the others shortly after their trip began, so he made sure that Speedy had a radio with her so she could relay information back to him. Like where any predators were and if they were getting delayed. As Spike was swimming, he heard a small roar, but looked down and saw one of the sharks from the Grassy Plateau was hunting a variety of fish. He didn't see any reason to concern himself with that, so he kept on swimming.

The swim was mostly uneventful up until he started nearing the Aurora. As he got closer, the water changed drastically from a clear blue sea to a brown, murky water, almost as if somepony were constantly shifting tons of sand on the seafloor. He ended up having to surface so he could see the Aurora, and soon realized he was way closer to the back than he had intended to be. He quickly corrected his course and began swimming, staying near the surface of the water so he wouldn't get turned around.

He noticed that it was considerably later in the day than he thought it would be by the time he arrived. As he got closer to the front of the ship, he felt himself shaking and a horrible groaning noise came from his right. He quickly looked over and saw a wall of metal. He then thought about how the groaning noise could have been something shifting in the Aurora, but the idea that the entire ship might fall apart on top of them scared him.

Spike started swimming as fast as he possibly could, hoping to get to the landing site soon. He quickly reached the gap in the front of the ship and swam inside. He spotted the Seamoth parked just in the water line and saw three pony shaped figures throwing what looked like giant four legged spiders. He suddenly realized that it was Swift, Speedy, and Fluttershy fighting off the spider-like creatures from the floating island. It looked like Swift and Speedy were fending them off with the survival knives, but there were still a couple that slipped past and tried to get to Fluttershy.

As soon as he knew that they were in trouble he began swimming even faster to try to help them.When he got to the scuttling creatures, he immediately grabbed them and tossed them further up the ship. He then blew a small blast of fire at those remaining, and watched as they quickly scurried off, desperate to avoid being roasted alive. As the last of the spider things disappeared, Spike turned to his fellow survivors and asked how long they were under attack.

Swift decided he would tell Spike, as Speedy was occupied with comforting a very scared Fluttershy. "Well, when we got here, everything looked fine, minus the fires and debris. We parked the Seamoth and we started to get everything unpacked from it, when one of those creatures decided to come over and investigate. We had my sis throw it back to where we saw it come from. It then went back and found a bunch more to attack us with. We've been fighting them off for almost 15 minutes . . . I don't think that we could have lasted much longer without you."

Once Swift was done debriefing Spike about how unloading went and how well they held off the spider things, they both went to comfort Fluttershy to make sure they were ready to continue further into the ship. As they approached, they saw Speedy hugging and quietly talking to Fluttershy in an attempt to calm her down. Speedy appeared to be doing a decent job of calming Fluttershy down, although it was still clear how shaken up she was.

Spike walked up to her and started to talk to her. "It's OK Fluttershy. You're safe now. They won't be coming back anytime soon. None of them will hurt you while I'm around. None of us are going to be hurt by them. I know you're scared, but we do have to get moving so we are less exposed to the elements." Fluttershy nodded and slowly got up, not making a sound the entire time.

They all began to grab the supplies that they needed for venturing inside and sorting out who needed what. Spike and Speedy were in charge of the flashlights. Speedy and Fluttershy were in charge of the repair tools. Swift and Spike carried the rations for everypony. Lastly, Fluttershy and Swift carried the scanners. After they made sure they were properly geared up, they mentally prepared themselves to begin the trek into the Aurora.

The start of the trek began with climbing up the slope of metal that curved around to a doorway. As they were climbing up, they noticed a couple of small crates that appeared to be openable. Spike made a slight detour to see if he could open the crate. To his and everypony else's surprise, the crate soundlessly opened up, revealing a nutrient bar. Spike grabbed the nutrient bar and talked with the others, deciding that they would open any other crates they found.

They continued the climb, occasionally seeing a spider thing crawl under some metal or scurry away from them, in fear of the purple and green one. Fluttershy was shaking almost the entire walk up slope, fearing one of the spider things would attack them. Spike noticed this and put his hand on her side, causing her to "eep" and look over to see Spike. She slowly called down, but was still worried about the spiders attacking her.

After a five minute hike, they made it to the top of the slope, only to notice that the only way to reach the door was by crossing over a fallen support beam. They all had uneasy feelings about crossing it, but they all knew they would have to. Fluttershy felt the most at ease out of all of them once she remembered she could just fly over the gap, and that if she fell, Speedy would catch her. Swift was the first to cross over, then Fluttershy, followed by Speedy, meaning Spike was the last one to cross over. As he was about to walk across, he heard Fluttershy shouting at him to turn around.

Spike whirled around and came face to face with five of the spiders ready to attack him. Spike momentarily froze, allowing either the bravest or the dumbest spider to leap at him. Spike quickly threw his arms up, hoping he could stop it from hitting his face. The spider then clamped onto his arm and bit down. Spike noticed a slight pinch, but was otherwise relatively unaffected. 

Now that Spike knew he wasn't in danger, he noticed something odd about this particular spider. It seemed that it was covered in giant green polka dots, even over what looked like its eye. Though Spike thought the weirdest part was that the dots seemed to move and shift. Spike was very unsettled by the look of it, so he quickly pulled it off and tossed it away. He then blew another small thing of fire at the spider, causing them to scurry away in fear.

Spike then turned back to the beam and quickly crossed over it. Once he got to the other side, he was swiftly tackled by Fluttershy. "Oh goodness, I thought you were going to get hurt! Are you ok? I thought I saw one of them bite you! Do we need to stop to look at the wound?" Fluttershy managed to force out in a single breath. It was eerily similar to how Pinkie Pie could have an entire conversation in one breath. Spike assured her that he was fine. He explained how they couldn't get through his scales, but he did have a small rip in his suit that would need repairing.

Once Fluttershy had a good look at the spot Spike was bitten, she assured everypony that his scales were in fact unpierced. They continued walking towards the door, only to notice that the flames they thought were near the door were actually in the door frame. "Well now how are we supposed to get through?" Speedy asked, unable to see a way around the problem. Spike and Swift started looking around, but Swift was the one who spotted the fire extinguisher near some debris.

"Hey, that fire extinguisher might be of some use." Swift said, walking over to it and picking it up in his mouth. He then stepped in front of the fire and began dousing the flames with monoammonium phosphate to put it out. After he was sure the fire was smothered and it was safe to move through, he set the fire extinguisher to the side, finally able to talk again, "Well now that that's out of the way, we can continue onward."

Everypony gathered back together and trekked into the ship, only to stop at a T-shaped hallway. Left seemed to go down into the ship while the right seemed to go to a small commander's room, but it was blocked by fire. They all decided that stopping in the commander's room would be first, then they would go further into the Aurora. Spike turned around and went back for the fire extinguisher and grabbed it. He then walked over to the flaming doorway and started drenching the fire with monoammonium phosphate. After the fire was extinguished, Spike tossed the now empty fire extinguisher into the corner to be forgotten about.

Everypony decided it would be Spike and Speedy that went into the room to explore because of how small the room was. After they went inside, Speedy immediately ran over to the console in the back of the room and began downloading the message on it. Spike started looking around and found a couple of batteries, an abandoned PDA, and a poster of a PRAWN suit. He grabbed all of the batteries and the poster, but only moved the info from the PDA to his own. After looking through the files, the only one worth noting was the "Note to Self" file, which contained the password for the Cargo Bay 3 doors.

"Hey Speedy. How's that terminal coming along?" Spike asked, curious about what was on the console.

"I just finished downloading the files on here. I'm just gonna shut it down now and be done with it. Did you find anything useful?" Speedy responded, just as she powered down the terminal, saving the ship's power and extra 0.00000000001% total power withdrawal.

"I found three batteries, a poster of a PRAWN suit, and a PDA with the code for the door leading to Cargo Bay 3." After that, they left the room to see what Swift and Fluttershy had been doing. Turns out there had been an abandoned PDA in the hallway they hadn't noticed along with a broken Propulsion Cannon they scanned for the blueprint. Once they gathered up all of their loot, they continued down the last section with a sign labeled "CARGO BAY 3".

Once they got to the end of the hallway, they encountered their next problem, debris blocking the pathway. Most of the debris was smaller stuff, like a bench or a crate, but it was the ginormous crate that made up the majority of the blockage. "Well how are we going to get around this one?" Swift asked, hoping somepony else had an idea. They all thought for a minute before Spike formulated a plan.

"So, what if Fluttershy flies onto this big crate and I help lift Swift and Speedy up there, and then you guys pull me up?" The plan seemed like it would work, so everypony got into their positions. Fluttershy flew up to the top of the crate and waited for Swift and Speedy. The first problem they encountered was how they would position themselves to allow Spike to lift them. The first idea they tried was stacking a crate onto a bench and using it like stairs, but Spike would stand next to the crate to assist in getting the other two ponies up.

That's where they encountered the second problem. Spike just simply wasn't tall or strong enough to lift a pony over his head efficiently. Try as he might, he couldn't seem to lift Swift or Speedy up enough to have Fluttershy grab them. They decided they would have Swift help the others up and then he would get pulled up. This method worked a lot more efficiently than the original plan. Once it came time to lift Swift up, Speedy used her magic to pull him up while Spike and Fluttershy grabbed his hooves and pulled.

Soon enough, Swift was also on the crate and they were ready to move on. Luckily, the side of the crate facing the Cargo Bay had a ramp made from various crates and desks that they could walk down. After a short walk, they came to a locked door requiring a four digit pin to enter. Spike pulled out his PDA and looked back into the "Note to Self" file from before. He then typed the numbers 1-4-5-4, and the door slid open with a slight hiss, "Viola,"  Spike said with a big grin on his face, "We can now continue onward."
> Chapter 20-2: The Drive Core
> --------------------------------------------------------------------------

"Viola, we can now continue onward." Spike said. Everypony peered through the doorway, only to be met with a terrible sight. Most of the crates in the Cargo Bay were smashed or broken, and the ones still intact were permanently broken shut. The area leading into the lower parts of the ship were accessible by lift, but the lift was currently at the lower end of the ramp.

On the other side of the door was a set of stairs they could take down to the floor. The stairs went straight left, hit a small platform, and turned back to the right. It had some fire burning on it, but nothing they couldn't walk past. The stairs did appear to have some rails missing, but they would be able to walk all the way to the floor with no problems.

The group began to walk down the stairs, being extra careful to avoid the flames they passed. Once they reached the ground, Spike told them to fan out and look for any openable crates or other valuable resources. Speedy split off to go look at some of the crates under the stairs, only to find a small crate with a water bottle and a big cargo crate with a broken Cyclops engine inside. She pulled out her scanner with excitement and began scanning the engine. Once she was done, she quickly pulled out her PDA to see what they would need for the engine, only for all the excitement to drain away when it said she had to scan two more parts.

Swift split off to investigate next to the stairs on the left side. He only found empty crates and a single openable crate with a battery inside. Spike had split off to look at the lift to see if it could be activated. He was quickly disappointed that the terminal to use it was broken. As he looked down the slanted shaft, he was even more upset when he looked past the lifts location to see water covering the lower level. There wasn't enough water to hinder walking once they passed the pit the lift sat inside, but it would still be annoying to trudge through. He looked back up to call everypony over, but saw that Fluttershy had followed him while Swift and Speedy were already on their way to the lift.

"So, we won't be able to use the lift to get up and down, but we should be able to walk down there. Be wary of electrical wires and fish, we don't know if they eat meat or not." Spike told everypony once they got close enough. They then began a slow descent down the ramp, stopping when they reached the lift. "We should rest here for a bit and eat. We don't know when we'll be able to stop again." With that, Swift and Spike began pulling out some rations and water, just enough for everypony to not be hungry. They decided they would leave enough rations that if they had to spend the night, they would be able to eat in the morning.

As everypony started digging in, Fluttershy looked over the side of the lift to watch the fish. They seemed to be about 5-6 inches long and had four tentacles, but without sucker cups; a small opaque sac at the end of its body; no visible eyes; and a couple of teeth. Fluttershy slowly started to reach over the side of the lift to give the creature some food. "Come on little guy, you can have it." Fluttershy saw one of the creatures turn and start swimming at her. She got excited, thinking maybe some of these creatures understood her.

When the creature reached Fluttershy, it shot its tentacles out and wrapped around her leg. Fluttershy then felt a sharp stabbing pain in her arm and let out a yelp, attracting the attention of the others. The creature appeared to be sucking her blood and putting it into the small sack at the end of its body. Fluttershy screamed and tried tugging it off to no avail. Spike quickly ran up and grabbed the creature, digging his claws into its side, causing it to release Fluttershy. He then tossed the fish back into the water, where four more of those fish swarmed it, slowly draining it's blood.

Fluttershy stared at the fish in shock and horror. She couldn't believe that she almost got all her blood drained from her body just because she was trying to be nice. If it weren't for Spike, she might not have known what to do and the creature would just keep sucking up blood until it was full or she died. She then turned to Spike, giving him a huge hug while crying and incoherently thanking him. Spike accepted the hug, still shocked from the fish he saw.

After about 10 minutes, Fluttershy finally calmed down and thanked Spike again, but vowed to never go near that water again. Spike perfectly understood her concern, but he knew they still needed to get to the Drive Core to fix it. He announced that he would be going alone from this point on. "Are you crazy!? Those fish are gonna drain every last drop of you until you're just a husk!" Swift yelled at him, concerned that Spike was going to die.

"Well, um, as much as I don't want you to go alone, it's our best option." Fluttershy said, with Swift and Speedy looking at her in shock. She looked at them to explain her reasoning. "Well, you see, those fish latch on and pierce the skin. Spike should be fine because he has scales that are really hard to pierce. He also has his claws that he can use to fight them off if they swarm him."

"Hold on everypony. I have an idea that might just work." Spike announced to the group. He then turned towards the water and began spewing fire just at the surface, one of the creatures ended up getting burnt by the flames and swam off, alerting the other that the area was officially deadly. Spike saw that the water almost instantly cleared out, allowing them to get into the water without worrying about getting sucked dry. He turned back to the group and announced his success.

"Now that was impressive. I'm just hoping they'll stay away." Swift said, actually impressed by Spike clearing out the fish. Even though the water was cleared of the blood-sucking fish, Fluttershy was still adamant about staying out of the water. The party was unsure of what lay ahead of them, but they knew they would have to be careful.

"Ok, so Fluttershy wants to stay here, but we all know that we have to repair the Drive Core, otherwise the water will become too contaminated with radiation. I still plan on forging ahead, but I would like it if Speedy came with me. Swift, would you be ok with staying here with Fluttershy?" Spike said, hoping what damage had been done wouldn't be permanent. Swift nodded and answered Spike with a yes while Speedy began mentally preparing herself for the trek ahead. Once everypony was situated and tools were swapped around, Spike and Speedy hopped into the water.

Spike quickly led the way towards the more shallow water where they would be able to stand, but we're still in view of Fluttershy and Speedy. As they reached the shallow area, Spike noticed a door to their right labelled Seamoth Bay. Spike motioned for Speedy to follow him towards the door. The floor slanted down as they moved, forcing them to slow down as the water went from shin height to thigh height.

Once they reached the door, Spike tried to pull open the door for a few minutes before he heard a sparking noise coming from his right. He turned to see Speedy working on a panel next to the door that was obviously broken. Once she finished fixing it, the door opened seamlessly. She turned to Spike with a grin and said, "Sometimes when a door doesn't open, you need to do a little bit more than tug harder." Spike grinned sheepishly back at her, embarrassed that he hadn't noticed the broken panel. Or the fact that the door opened inwards.

Once all that was dealt with they wadded into the Seamoth Bay, where there was an abandoned PDA, lots of water, a broken Seamoth being held up by some mechanical arms, and a wall of rock at the back which reduced the size of room to about 10 meters long. Spike moved towards the PDA while Speedy went to the broken Seamoth. Spike picked up the PDA and looked at the recorded message. It appeared to be the log book for a VR game. From what Spike remembered, they were often used to simulate survival scenarios. This one seemed to take place on a small island, but there weren't any details besides what the characters did. Suddenly he heard Speedy squeal and quickly turned his body to see her holding a small cylinder in her magical grip.

When Spike had moved to the PDA, Speedy had moved towards the broken Seamoth. She immediately started scanning the pieces, hoping to get some titanium for later. After she was done, she had four pieces of titanium added to her load. She looked around for anything useful and saw a console-like machine that had been connected to the mechanical arms.

As she moved towards it, she saw a familiar sight. It was an upgrade module for the Seamoth. These things were usually very helpful, easy to produce, and allowed the vehicle they were put in to be better than normal. This particular upgrade module allowed the Seamoth to dive even deeper than before. She quickly pulled it out with her magic and let out a squeal of joy, causing Spike to whip his body in her direction. "Speedy, what did you find that caused you to squeal like that?" Spike asked, curious about this cylindrical object.

"Only the best thing I could have found! This here is a pristine condition Seamoth Depth Module Mk 1! The fact it's in such good condition is a great surprise! This will allow us to dive even deeper in the ocean! Imagine how many more resources have just become available to us! We can dive further into caves and ravines now without the worry of being crushed under pressure!" Swift ranted. Spike now understood just how important that module was.

"Hey, this means we can explore that one mushroomy cave I found. When I started entering, my PDA told me there was a pony-made structure down there. Well, enough on this topic, is there anything else here of value?" Spike said, peaking Speedy's curiosity. He promised to explain the cave later, but they needed to focus on their mission. They then left the Seamoth Bay and made their way down the hallway to their right.

As they moved down the hallway, it tilted even more than the last one, causing them to have to swim to the other side. As they reached the other side, they noticed how close some of the fire was to blocking off their path. Speedy managed to pick up some of the water in her magic and dump it onto the fire, allowing them safe passage through the rest of the hallway.

Spike and Speedy moved through the hallway and found themselves before a doorway leading into a huge room. Spike had thought the Cargo Bay was big by having it's size spread horizontally, this room was about twice as big with most of the room being submerged in water. Though the main attraction, the Drive Core, was actually four big, sleek pillars of machinery arranged in a box-like shape where the pillars were the corners without walls connecting them, only broken catwalks between them. What Spike did notice was the multiple breaches in the surface metal of the Drive Core.

"Well, here we are, the Drive Core." Speedy said, a twinge of pride in her voice. "And to think, when I helped build it, I was told we would never have to worry about it breaking. How ironic I'm also the one repairing it." Spike also thought it was ironic, but also was astounded by his luck that he was repairing the Drive Core with one of its builders. Just then, a small beep came from Speedy's PDA holster.

"The drive core shielding sustained internal damage during collision.
Do not attempt repair without appropriate qualifications." Speedy's PDA stated. "Warning: local radiation at maximum tolerable level." With those messages out of the way, Spike and Swift knew that they had to get to work. They decided that Spike would repair the Drive Core from in the water while Speedy would repair the top parts. They parted ways and Spike dove into the water and then pulled out his repair tool.

Spike quickly noticed the blood-sucking fish swimming in the water with him, and almost immediately regretted jumping straight into the water. The fish seemed to ignore him for now, so he swam to the front left pillar and began inspecting it for breaches. He only found two, and patched them up when he found them. He then swam to the back left pillar and began inspecting it.

All of a sudden, a huge piece of molten metal plunged into the water mere inches away from his position. Spike turned in shock and saw not only a cloud of bubbles from the metal cooling, but he also saw one of the blood-sucking fish coming towards him. He drew in a breath to use his fire when he remembered he was underwater and wearing a mask. He settled for grabbing it when it got close enough, surfacing, and tossing it away from him. Using that strategy, he was able to get the fish away from him, get more oxygen, and check on Speedy.

When he was done tossing the fish away, he looked over and noticed that she was already working on the back right pillar. "How many more breaches do you think there are?" Spike called over, hoping there wouldn't be many more.

"I don't know, I've only fixed four breaches so far, so I think most of them are underwater. This is the last pillar I'm working on, and there is no way this much radiation is leaking from four breaches up here." Spike nodded and dove back under while Speedy got back to repairing the breach. Spike dove back down and finished his fifth breach and moved onto the pillar that Speedy had been working on.

The rest of the process of repairing the breaches was monotonous and boring. Spike just kept moving between pillars while avoiding the fish and using the repair tool. After every last breach was repaired, Spike and Speedy met back up at the entrance of the room and looked back at the Drive Core. They both felt a twinge of pride knowing they were helping save the planet and the fish, but most importantly, they were increasing their own odds of survival.

They started to head back to the other when Speedy remembered something she had found. "Oh, before I forget, I found another one of those upgrade modules! This one is for increasing the energy efficiency of a Cyclops! Now if we build a Cyclops, we won't have to worry about how often the Power Cells need recharging."

"That's great! Although that leaves one question. If we are planning on building a Cyclops, where are we gonna get the blueprint for one? I didn't even have the Seaglide blueprint when I first checked the Life Pods fabricator. Are supposed to find a bunch of wrecks with Cyclops'?" Spike said, still confused on the details of acquiring the Cyclops blueprint.

"I'll explain the specifics of obtaining the blueprint later. For now, let's get back to the others and start heading back to base." Speedy said, starting to walk back down the hallway. Spike followed for most of the trip, but stopped once they got to the intersection.

"Do you think we should go down that hallway?" Spike asked, pointing down the one hallway they hadn't been down. Down the hall was a closed door with a sign next to it reading “LOCKER ROOM”. Spike was pretty sure there might be something worthwhile in there. He started walking that way before he heard Swift and Fluttershy talking.

"Hold on, you're telling me that Spike saved the Crystal Empire? No way. No offense to him, but didn't Princess Cadence have a hard enough time just keeping Sombra out of the city? How did Spike manage to save the Crystal Empire?" Swift was asking Fluttershy, both of them unaware that Spike could hear them.

"Well you see-" Fluttershy and Swift gasp, "Twilight and I went up a huge staircase and found the Crystal Heart. When Twilight went to grab it, Twilight got trapped and dropped the heart just outside the cage. She had me take it and return it to its rightful place, but I fell while escaping Sombra's magic. I wouldn't have survived if Princess Cadence hadn't flown to my rescue. Then we flew back down to the ground and activated the Crystal Heart. After that, the Crystal Ponies built a statue of me and made me the hero of the Crystal Empire."

Swift was blown away by the fact that this small dragon, not even a teenager yet, managed to play such a big role in the saving of the Crystal Empire. Fluttershy was worried that Spike would be mad that they were talking about him without him knowing. Speedy was just as surprised as her brother to learn what the dragon had done. Spike was patiently waiting for somepony to move so he could try talking them into going to the Locker Room.
> Chapter 20-3: The Scavenging
> --------------------------------------------------------------------------

After Speedy and Swift got over the shock of Spike being the savior to an entire empire, they quickly began to overwhelm him with questions about what the empire was like, as well asking for further details about how he had managed to save the Crystal Empire. They each got about three questions out before Spike told them to wait until they got back to their base. "In case you all forgot, we are literally standing in the burning wreckage of the largest ship ever commissioned by Celestia for interstellar travel. Besides, there's something else I want to check out." Spike then told them about the other hallway that led to the Locker Room.

Everypony was ok with going through to explore, Fluttershy still had some reservations about going. "I don't want to set a hoof in this water, not after that fish bit me," Fluttershy said, determination on her face. Spike was about to try to convince Fluttershy to come with, when he suddenly face-clawed after remembering a very important detail about Fluttershy's body.

"Can't you just fly over the water until we reach the locker room?" Spike said. Fluttershy suddenly stopped moving, then she slowly turned to the left to look at her wings. She then turned back to Spike and the others with a sheepish grin. "Well, that settles it. You can now come with us. You'll only have to be in the water for a little while so we can travel through the Locker Room, then you'll be fine to stay out of the water." Fluttershy sighed and agreed to fly over the water until they reached the Locker Room.

Everypony began moving towards the Locker Room door with Spike in the lead. Soon enough, everypony was in the water with masks and oxygen tanks active and trying to figure out how to go through the door. "From the looks of it," Speedy began, "We won't be able to just repair a panel and open the door. We might just need to blast our way through this thing." Everypony else looked at Speedy like she was crazy, curious about where she would get explosives. Not only were explosives hard to obtain in Equestria, but the doors were designed to withstand minor explosions and stray spells.

"Blast our way through? And just how would we do that?" Swift asked. Speedy chuckled and motioned Spike to move away from the door. She then brushed her purple and blue mane to the side and started to charge a spell and lowered her horn to the door. It slowly started to get red hot where her horn was touching and the redness slowly began spreading across the door, releasing huge amounts of bubbles towards the surface. After a minute or so, the entire door just started melting and Speedy had to keep moving and brushing her mane aside as the door melted down and started cooling. After another minute or so, Speedy had completely melted the door into a pile of cooling metal on the other side of the door.

Everypony went back temporarily to refill their tanks. "How did you do that!?" Spike asked, his voice filled with amazement. Speedy chuckled and explained how all unicorn technicians were taught a heating spell to get through broken doors, and to do emergency welding. Fluttershy was curious why they didn't give out tools for that.

"Well, what do you think the repair tool and laser cutter are for? They teach unicorns the spell, so that way we can do that stuff without the use of tools. Sadly, I think pegasi are just out of luck. I think it's possible an earth pony could kick through the door, but it would be very, very difficult." Spike, Swift, and Fluttershy were appalled at the idea that a pegasus could get trapped in a room and have no way out.

They decided that was a good time to cut the conversation and continue onward, so they pulled their masks on and swam through the door. As they were swimming through, Fluttershy stopped and stared at one of the lockers. When Spike swam over to it, he saw "FLUTTERSHY" printed on the door. "Do you want to grab anything from inside?" The purple dragon asked, almost hoping there would be something helpful inside.

"Yes, but only one thing." Fluttershy said, proceeding to open the locker and pull out a cracked picture frame. Upon closer inspection, Spike saw the picture of a particularly evil and cute bunny. "The only thing worth taking is my picture of Angel, to remind me of why we need to get home." The rest of the crew was happy that Fluttershy had a defined purpose for continuing on. 

After a couple of minutes of going through lockers and grabbing essential supplies, they gathered up four water bottles, three batteries, and an extra repair tool; courtesy of Speedy Screwdriver's locker. They then swam into the next area, which was a small hallway leading left towards a door on the right side of the hall. As they approached the door, Speedy readied a repair tool to fix the wall panel and open the door. It only took a minute before the door opened and the crew had access to the PRAWN Suit Bay.

The moment they stepped into the PRAWN Suit Bay, Spike was glad he was a dragon. He could feel a little warmth, but he was sure the fires in there were making everypony else sweat. Spike got that confirmed when Speedy said, "Let's hurry up in here and get out. I feel like I'm being baked alive right now." Spike took out his scanner and began scanning some of the PRAWN suits that were laying around.

Fluttershy and Swift decided to try going to the upper levels, which was fine with Fluttershy, but Swift had to walk all the way across the room to reach a ramp he could go up. Once they reached the upper levels, they went into a hallway leading further into the ship. Once they were making their way through the hall, Fluttershy stopped and almost cried.

Standing off to her left was a gingerbread house-like room with a sign half hanging off with only " UG RC  B   C FE" visible on it. "No…not Pinkies cafe…I didn't even get to say goodbye…" Fluttershy trailed off and began sobbing. Swift walked over and sat down next to her, holding her in a tight hug in an attempt to comfort her.

It was about ten minutes later that Spike and Speedy had finished exploring the PRAWN Suit Bay and decided to follow Fluttershy and Swift. As they got to the second level and entered the hall, they found Fluttershy sobbing in front of a cafeteria while Swift hugged her. Spike ran up and Swift backed up a little to give Spike room to comfort Fluttershy. "Fluttershy, what's wrong? Did something happen?" Spike asked with worry evident in his voice. Fluttershy merely pointed a hoof at the sign and curled into a sobbing mass of yellow and pink.

Spike looked in the direction and saw the dilapidated sign and his heart sank. He didn't look at it long, for the tears in his eyes made it very hard to see at all. "No…" was all Spike managed to whisper before he sank to the ground and wrapped Fluttershy in a hug, unsure if it was to comfort her or himself. Swift and Speedy decided that Fluttershy and Spike had obviously personally known the baker of Sugarcube Cafe, so they let Spike and Fluttershy mourn their death.

"Ok, this has gone on long enough!" Speedy shouted, startling everypony. "We have been sitting here for almost an hour now. Unless you two forgot, this is a very dangerous place. Everything is on fire, many parts of the ship are falling apart, and there are carnivorous spider things onboard that want to eat us. If you two want, we can build a shrine or something to dedicate the lives that were lost in the crash, we can, but we need to get moving now." Everypony stared at Speedy in stunned silence as she marched into the Cafe.

Swift then apologized to Spike and Fluttershy about Speedy's behavior. "She doesn't like to sit still and wait, so I think it was making her angry that she was waiting and unable to do anything about it. I'm sure she'll apologize later." Speedy then walked out of the Cafe with a few bottles of water and instant cake mix. She looked at Fluttershy, then turned towards Spike.

"Let's keep moving," was all she said. The group then continued down the hall, passing busted and scorched walls with burning support beams over their heads, until they reached the Personal Cabins of the higher ups, such as captains and navigators. Spike perked up when they reached a door with a design made from a compass encased in a four-pointed star, but quickly deflated when he realized he'd forgotten the code.

"I'm sorry, I used to know the password to Captain North Star's room, but I only remember the code to the room Twilight and I shared. Hopefully there will be something useful inside." Everypony decided it would be a good idea to search through Twilight's room and the other open Cabins. Spike walked over to the door with Twilight Sparkle's cutie mark and entered the numbers 2-0-1-0, causing the door to slide open and reveal a very disorganized room. Spike subconsciously thought about how crazy Twilight would act if she saw the mess.

Spike and the others walked into the room, with Fluttershy hesitant to invade her friend's personal space. Dead or alive, it was still Twilight's stuff. The thought that she would never see Twilight again weighed heavily on her. She decided she would wait outside the room and explained her reasoning if anypony asked.

Spike knew the room well enough that he could have navigated it with his eyes closed. That is, if the room didn't look like a tornado had ripped through it. He started sorting the stuff on the floor into three piles, the first pile for important stuff they couldn't grab, like books; the second pile for important stuff they could grab, like pictures and spare batteries; and the third pile for useless items, such as broken lab equipment.

Swift, Spike, and Speedy spent about 10 minutes carefully sorting the stuff on the floor and another five for the stuff on the desk and beds. After the room was thoroughly searched and sorted, Spike began going through everything to see what they could grab. He made his way through most of the second pile until he finally reached a picture frame. He slowly picked it up and began tearing up at what was in the frame. The picture was of Twilight surrounded by all of their friends, including himself.

Spike began sobbing again, which drew Fluttershy into the room. Upon reaching Spike, Fluttershy saw the picture and began to weep against Spike. Spike and Fluttershy hugged each other tightly, soon feeling another pony begin hugging them. Swift could understand the pain they were experiencing and decided they needed a lot of support to get through their tragedy.

Speedy wasn't one much for emotional support, so she decided to begin scavenging the rest of the cabins while Swift comforted them. She moved from cabin to cabin, tearing through lockers and drawers, leaving big messes in her wake. She was on a mission to find as many useful things as possible in the shortest amount of time. She had accumulated quite a few water bottles, some various sealed packets, a lot of batteries, and other various items. It was more than she expected to find, but she was happy with what she did find.

Speedy eventually made her way back to the cabin where she left the others, and found them napping in a pile on the floor. She almost shouted in outrage, but could feel herself getting more and more tired by the second. The day’s physical activities, and emotional roller coaster having taken their toll, even on her. She pulled out a fire extinguisher she had found in one of the cabins, and began putting out the blazing fire outside the room to reduce the risk of them dying. She then laid down on the hard metal floor, using Swift as a pillow, and began to drift off to sleep.
> Chapter 20-4: Returning
> --------------------------------------------------------------------------

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.