Omigosh! I was lookin at the reviews on and I noticed that today is the monthiversary of my story *squee*

Happy monthiversary to you and you today

I can't believe you're already a month old time sure flies doesn't it well it seems like only yesterday you were born. But now you're a month old today, hey!

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Spike wandered through the streets. Nopony was in sight, they had already left when Luna announced that there was a strong chance the town would be destroyed. He scuffed his feet as he walked and kicked a small pebble. The ground was still covered with puddles, though many no longer were stained with ashes. The pebble landed in an almost clear puddle with a quiet splash. The ripples spread out making the edges of the puddle ripple against the surrounding dirt.

Spike sighed; he wasn't used to being alone. There was always somepony with him that he could talk to, even if it was just Twilight. The silence that filled the town pressed against his ears, it felt almost as though somepony had tied a cloth around his head and was tightening it.

A strange pulsing beat echoed around him, he tried running when he first heard it, but he found that the faster he ran, the faster the beat sounded. He was forced to stop after a short time and found the beat slowed to its original pace. It seemed to get quieter the longer he listened, but he notice a sound behind the louder, more pronounced pulses; it made him think of rushing water. "Is that-" Spike remembered something he had learned from Twilight shortly after moving to Ponyville.

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'Hey Twilight,' Spike yelled, he was waving around a large orange shell. It was spiral shaped and had tiny knobs covering its otherwise smooth surface. 'What is this thing?'

Twilight sighed; she had been hoping to spend a peaceful afternoon studying the tidal pools. Pinkie had suggested a trip to the beach since it was starting to get hot and everypony had agreed. Most of them were off splashing around, but Pinkie was sitting in an excavation she had somehow dug into a sand dune. It had been made to look like some kind of shrine and there was a large statue made out of shells. Twilight shrugged and walked over to the small dragon, Pinkie was being Pinkie and everypony else was swimming so she would have to look at shells with Spike.

She floated the shell over to her ear and listened closely. The soothing sound of crashing waves came in one ear. In the one she had the shell over, a similar sound could be heard.

'What are you listening to?' Spike asked looking at the shell confused.

'Nothing, it's just that I've read that you can hear the oceans in these. It's a conch shell, probably a Lobatus gigas.' Twilight launched into a complicated explanation of how they were formed and what they were used for. Spike ignored most of it and looked at the shell he took back while Twilight began drawing diagrams in the sand. 'True conches are marinegastropodmollusks in the familyStrombidae, specifically in the genus Strombus and other closely related genera such as Eustrombus.'

'Hear the ocean?' He placed the opening of the shell against his ear and could hear a loud rushing noise, like a swift river. He closed his eyes and tried to focus on just the sounds. It did sound a lot like the huge amount of water in front of him. He looked at the hell in his hands, 'this is so cool!'

'I know,' Twilight exclaimed, 'most ponies just see them as regular old shells. They don't take the time to learn about the different kinds and shapes and-'

'No Twi,' Spike said, cutting her off before she got too excited, 'I meant the sound not… whatever that is that you were drawing.' A huge mass of lines filled the sand depicting different shells and their makeup, both structurally and chemically and even a few pictures of happy faces poking out of the shells.

Twilight looked sad, 'nopony ever wants to learn about this stuff,' she grumbled.

'That's cuz it's boring.' Spike began rubbing his claws along the edges of the shell; the bumps and ridges tickled the cracks between his scales.

'Yeah,' Twilight asked, a small glint in her eyes, 'well then maybe I shouldn't tell you about the pearls.'

'Wait, these things have pearls?' He saw a way to get Rarity's attention. No mare could resist a huge claw-made pearl necklace.

'Yeah, they sometimes make pearls; the really valuable kinds, like the pink and black ones.' This was true, but Twilight tried to hint that such pearls were common.

'You're not messing with me are you?' Spike asked, feeling uneasy about the grin he could see Twilight holding back.

'Spike,' she said, getting herself under control, 'would I lie to you?'

'Well you did tell me that you knew what you were doing and that you could make a sandwich without burning down the kitchen.'

'That wasn't a lie. I just miscalculated how strong that spell would be. There's a difference.'

'Whatever Twilight,' he said, walking away, 'I'm gonna go find some pearls. Later.' He spent the rest of the day digging up shells and breaking them open. By the time they were ready to go home, Pinkie had joined in and together they had found a small fortune in pearls.

Twilight was rather irritable the entire way back. She had been hoping that Spike wouldn't find any and that she could have laughed at him digging for hours, nopony calls her boring, but instead he and Pinkie found enough to get Spike a kiss on the cheek from Rarity. Spike walked along, the bag of pearls slung across his back. He had several shells in his claws and he kept switching between them, trying to see which one sounded better.

She had an idea. It wasn't very good but it was all she had. 'Spike, you know you can't actually hear the ocean. It's really just the blood in your head.'

'What?' Spike looked at the shells, a frown on his face, 'then why can't I hear it right now?'

'Because the shell focuses the sound to where you can hear it.' She continued talking, using as many big words as she could. She used her magic to keep Spike awake and listening the whole two hour trot back to the library. By the time they were back, Spike's voice was hoarse from yelling to everypony they passed that he needed help and wouldn't they please save him?

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Every detail of that painful talk had been burned into his mind. That entire night Twilight had smiled and mumbled in her sleep. Spike kept catching phrases like, 'not boring' and 'kumquat bagels'. His brain hurt for days.

He finally recognized the sound following him though, it was the silence. It had gotten so quiet that his pulse sounded loud to him now. That's why it was becoming less and less noticeable. He let out a deep breath and swiped a claw across his forehead. He was safe…-ish. At least, he wasn't being followed by some huge monster or goblin army with drums or clowns or anything like that.

Spike looked around, the growing shadows seemed to taunt him. He could see daces in some of them. They reached out with their shadowy tendrils eager to bite the young dragon and feast upon his flesh. He screamed and ran away. His jumbled mind had just enough presence to remember that Rarity, Sweetie Belle and Scootaloo were in the library. He found himself turning his steps to run there.

The library was different. He couldn't tell how though. By the time he had reached it, he had slowed to a walk; he was just too tired to do much more. The sun was beginning to set and it changed the shadows, made them seem almost alive. All of the buildings were deserted, nopony else was in town, but something seemed different about the library. Its windows seemed to watch him; their darkness filled the young dragon with a sense of unease. The door was slightly open, but so were the others around him. Why then was he afraid to approach.

As Spike neared the door, all of his senses told him to run, hide, to flee from this place. His body told him evil was present, but he knew Rarity was supposed to be hiding in the library and he'd rather die than leave her again. He pushed the door open wider cautiously, expecting an attack, but nothing happened. Spike wandered through the library, he could feel something watching him; its glare boring into him with every step. He faltered and let is foot down without moving forward. He nearly fell and there was a loud crunching sound, like jumping into a pile of leaves. Something wet covered his foot. The cold slimy feeling slipped between his scales and the smell that rose up set off an alarm in his brain: DEATH-DARKNESS-FLEE-UNSAFE!

He shook his head. Rarity was here and he was going to get her before he went anywhere. Reaching over, he turned on a nearby lamp and looked to see what he had stepped in, though his instincts already had told him almost everything he needed to know.

The claws of his feet had sunk deep into the middle of a large red chunk of meat on the floor. The large number of brown feathers told the rest of the story; Owlowiscious was dead. A strange singed smell hung in the air, nearly overpowered by the stench rising from the dead owl's pierced organs. Blood had pooled across a wide swath of floor and Spike could feel the corpse stiffening as he stared in horror. If he didn't pull his foot out soon, it probably wasn't coming out.

Spike found it odd that he wasn't crying. He usually got so emotional whenever something really big happened. He realized his limbs felt heavy and his head seemed very distant. 'I'm in shock,' he thought as he looked around. Everything seemed to take on a dreamlike quality. He recognized the symptoms from when Twilight had gone crazy about pony biology, but it seemed different from what he'd expected. It was almost like he was asleep.

He pulled his foot out of his late friend and continued on. If something had happened to Owlowiscious, then something even worse could be happening to Rarity. Or already had. The thought was enough to make him rush onwards.

Spike had checked every room several times and was going back through for a fourth time to make sure he hadn't missed anything. Sobbing began echoing from upstairs in Twilight's room and Spike froze. 'Who could be here? Could I have missed a room?' The crying sounded familiar, but it wasn't anypony Spike had been listening for. The princess had said she was gone, that the monster, whatever it was, had taken her and there was no hope for her. They had gone to the clearing and tried to confront the creature but instead a deranged, corrupted form of Applebloom burst out of the trees and threw Spike dozens of miles easily and almost instantly.

He slowly walked up the stairs, careful to keep them from making any sound. He crept over to the door and placed one claw on the handle. Careful to keep from making any noise, he twisted it slowly and began inching the door open.

A yellow pegasus sat on the bed, head in her hooves. She was crying deeply and her pink mane was disheveled, several patches in it seemed darker than usual and there were several burns on her skin.

"Fluttershy?" Spike said, his heart beginning to climb to his throat, "I-i-is that you?"

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Pinkamena watched from the shadows. Spike was back in town; he was alone and seemed nervous. "Time to have some fun," the shadow pony said, its fangs bared in a nightmarish semblance of a grin.

She twisted her hooves; they appeared to rip open and long barbed claws shot out. She clenched these new talons and they extended even farther, rough fingers forming at the bases. Pinkamena looked at her new claws and smiled, "time to play Spikey." She raised her arms straight out to the side and felt each claw hook into the fabric of the shadows around her. Twisting in a flurry of motions, Pinkamena assumed full control of these primitive shadows; their struggles did little against the supreme will power of Pinkie's darkness. The shadows morphed into the figures of nightmares, faces and demons shown to Pinkamena long ago by Nightmare Moon; the faces of their allies in a world long dead. The shadows began reaching for Spike, their claws extended, grasping for the living flesh.

Pinkamena followed him easily; his heartbeat was a deafening thunder in the ocean of silence that was Ponyville. His fear rose from his tracks in great waves, but something else was there too. "Loss?" the great demon asked itself quietly, "What could be the youngling's regrets?" Thinking back, Pinkamena remembered what Pinkie had found out while disposing of Fluttershy. "Ah yes, maybe we can have fun after all."

Not long after, Pinkamena was back with a freshly made Fluttershy costume. "Some of our best work," she said with a nod of appreciation. Even with all the abuse Fluttershy had taken, her skin still looked almost flawless. The only problems were size differences in the head and neck that required some small holes and the burn marks where she had cauterized her wounds after being released. "Let's see if it can fool the short one."

Pinkamena shrunk down to Pinkie's size and slipped the costume on. She climbed in through the window of the library and lay on the bed. She fell into character quite easily; she'd had a lot of time to see into the pegasus's mind during their encounters. She sobbed loudly, trying to seem as pathetic as possible.

The footsteps below stopped and she could almost hear his questions. Slow footsteps sounded on the stairs, to her sensitive ears it sounded like he was stomping. He moved to the door and opened it slowly. Pinkamena gave no sign that she'd heard him. She continued the act, trying to stay in character for as long as possible.

"Fluttershy? I-i-is that you?"

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"Oh Fluttershy I'm so sorry!" Spike threw himself at the bed. All of his regrets came flooding out. All of the times she had taken such good care of him when he got sick, all of the kind smiles, the gentle laughs; he knew now that it was more than her usual kindness, she had truly cared. But he hadn't noticed. He hadn't even tried to look for any signs. He knew he shouldn't blame himself, but it was hard to after hearing her cry about it. "I didn't know you felt like that about me. I heard you and Rarity talking about it and I listened in, but before I could talk to you about it you disappeared and then there was that huge fire and the princess said you were ponynapped and oh my gosh I'm so sorry."

"Oh, don't cry Spike," Pinkamena said in a flawless imitation of Fluttershy, "it's okay. I forgive you. I'm just sorry that I didn't say anything to anypony." She reached into the mass of pink hair that curved around Fluttershy's delicate face and pulled out a small golden heart. "Can I show you something Spike?" She asked, her voice filled with Fluttershy's gentleness, her own cold tones hid deep beneath the caring.

"What is that," Spike asked. He still had his arms wrapped around Fluttershy. He really hoped she had forgiven him for rejecting her, even if it wasn't on purpose. He could almost remember seeing something like it when he had been watching Rarity and Fluttershy talk at the boutique.

"It's just something that I've always kept with me. I got it after the party Pinkie threw when you guys moved in. I hope that's alright with you." She opened it and saw the picture of Spike on Fluttershy's back. They were both smiling but Fluttershy looked happier than anypony could ever remember her. Spike noticed this now and buried his face in Fluttershy's mane.

"I'm so sorry," he said, "can I ever make it up to you?"

"Just come with me," Pinkamena said with Fluttershy's gentle tones, "I know the prefect thing for you to do."

They left the library and reentered the streets. Spikes fears had been forgotten, his concern over not finding Rarity where he should have and finding Owlowiscious dead were gone, Pinkamena had made sure of that the same way constrictors would mesmerize their prey to feel no fear before they could strike it.

Spike was so happy. He had apologized to Fluttershy for ruining her happiness and now he could go make things better. He just wished he had known about this before everything had gotten so bad, he could have made her so happy. She deserved it after all. "So where are we going Fluttershy?"

"Oh, you'll see soon enough. Just be patient… um, please?"

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Ugh, sorry it took so long. I kept getting distracted. Okay so I don't know If this is good news or bad news but I will not be able to finish this story over the weekend like I had hoped. It may just make it through to next weekend, though I can promise that it probably won't get much farther.

Remeber I want to hear as much about this as you will tell me.

TELL ME ABOUT MY STORY PEEPS!

(also give me your thumbs) Next Chapter: A Game of Death Estimated time remaining: 2 Hours, 30 Minutes