Unfortunately for Katie, the Beholder struck first, lifting a tentacle and swatting at her once she came close. At the last second she stabbed it with her front claws and cemented herself with frost before it could fling her elsewhere, and the Beholder roared as it started shaking its attacking limb madly. Spike quickly realized she would not be shaken off so easily as she bucked at the tentacle she had taken hold of, using her rear claws to further glue herself in place.

This only caused the Beholder to shriek again, and it slithered away from the chasm before it started bashing Katie in the stone floor in an attempt to make her let go. NoLegs dove towards the monster, conjuring a shield with a single spike in its center and a spear with two rectangle-esque protrusions as soon as he got within range. He wasted no time stabbing the tentacle that held Chocolate and used the shield to smack the Beholder inches from its large eye simultaneously.

The Beholder roared and tried to swat at NoLegs, who merely teleported to Spike, though not before shoving his shield into the massive, tri-irised eye square in the centermost pupil. An unearthly scream rent the caverns as the monster's central eye began oozing blood, caving inward slightly thanks to being poked. It ceased flailing Katie about, instead shifting a few tentacles to cover its wounded eye.

Katie turned to Spike, who cringed as he spotted rivulets of viridian blood oozing from her forehead, nostrils and split grin. "You gonna hang there and do anything other than staring?" she hissed, her tone somewhere between pained and irate.

Spike narrowed his eyes a little and called back, "I'm not the one getting a concussion here!"

"You said you took several blows to the head with a halberd's ass to be knocked out! Get down here and do something already!" Katie replied, before the Beholder ceased covering its eye and resumed bashing her into the floor again once it realized it was more or less in the clear, this time hard enough to make her bones audibly snap in places.

NoLegs waved his tail and telepathically told Spike, "She's gonna be a stain on the floor if we don't do something soon. I'll distract the abomination, and you get her out of range."

Spike turned to the tendril wrapped tightly around Chocolate just in time to see a second horn pierce through the limb from within, which only caused the Beholder to wail once more and undulate its tentacle just enough that four crystal hooves poked out through the gaps not long after. It also lifted Katie into the air, and Spike grimaced as he spotted the ice she made already flaking away. Once the ice fell off entirely, it wasn't long before it successfully flung Katie away, turning one smaller eye onto her as she crashed head-first into a wall, though all this did was make her slump upon landing with a sickening crack.

That was when the beast turned to the wall, followed by shifting its several eyes in Spike and NoLegs' direction. It gave a hissing growl, the sound something between a kettle hissing and liquid gurgling, before its central eye began to glow a bright white. The aura took on a red fringe, and NoLegs's eyes widened as it started to gather energy. Seizing Spike in his magic, NoLegs darted to the floor and veered around the Beholder so sharply and so suddenly that Spike couldn't even stick his claws onto the floor to slow down his own momentum.

Just a second later, the air was filled with the sound of a very strong hum, followed immediately by a reddish-white beam of pure energy hitting the area just where they were with enough force to shake the whole room. Spike twisted and watched as NoLegs continued to drag him to safety. He found himself letting off no more than a squawk of dismay as the Beholder twisted to reorient its beam in a sharp diagonal strike, moving so fluently and so fast it was a miracle the strike only barely missed hitting Katie's limp form by mere centimeters.

NoLegs hissed and continued to madly drag Spike along, all the way behind one of the columns as the beam came on their heels, only stopping as their makeshift shield took the impact in their stead. Spike chanced a glance around the bend of the column, gawking as the beam finally faded, revealing molten rock forming in a smooth, jagged line that was fast hardening. NoLegs teleported over to Katie and magically pried her from the wall, catching the Beholder's attention and causing it to twist away from the column.

The Beholder also failed to notice more crystal bits detaching themselves from the column Spike was hiding behind, instead taking its time to charge its central eye for another dose of eldritch-grown laser beams. On top of that, it didn't notice Chocolate wriggling his hooves with all his might, though Spike certainly did. NoLegs teleported away with Katie before another beam could connect, which oddly enough caused the beast to remain fixed in place.

Spike took that as his cue. He rushed up behind the Beholder and quickly scaled up its back, using its own stones as leverage as he got to the tentacle holding Chocolate in place. He inhaled deeply before exhaling out a small stream of green flames that was no thicker than his arm, aiming at the tentacle's base for all it was worth.

The Beholder's reaction was to scream again, fling Chocolate away, and rear up on its supporting tentacles in a crude imitation of a pony preparing to start bucking whilst misdirecting its beam towards another crystal in the process. Spike jumped ship once he caught a dancing crystal bit in the corner of his eye, and not a moment too soon; the instant he launched was the instant the bits started homing in on the tentacled abomination with a vengeance.

Flames exploded, lightning crackled, frost erupted all around the Beholder without pause nor mercy. It roared as its flesh sizzled in places, as currents ran throughout its body, as frost heaped up on top of that to further slow it down and amplify the pain tenfold. Its own beam shorted out, and its tentacles began flailing every which-way they could go, though this only had the added effect of getting stray pebbles flung into every single eye it had. This, effectively, kept it in place for the moment, though not without its reservations.

Spike took the chance to seek shelter behind the crystal column again, finding that NoLegs had reappeared behind it and was doing a quick check-up on Katie, who herself was bleeding in several places. Even her eyes were producing viridian rivulets at this rate. Her wings were now no more than tatters just a few inches long, with several strands clinging uselessly to fraying gossamer veins. Her legs had twisted such that her hooves were facing up with the cannons facing down, several gashes littered her body and one such cut even revealed that several ribs had caved in at some point during her thrashing.

To add insult to injury, her split grin had widened considerably, to the point that the chitin on her lower jaw was peeled off and making it so her expression was anything but. In spite of this horrendous setback though, Katie was making an effort to stand. Contorted as she was though, she could not manage it, even with the remnants of her wings buzzing feebly.

NoLegs had to magically hold her in place just to keep her from breaking something else. "By Godcat's teats, you're fucked up. What made you think hanging on was a good idea?" he telepathically scolded her, only to flinch as one hoof immediately twisted to properly reorient itself with a snap.

"This… isn't the worst condition I've been… in," Katie grunted, eyes narrowing as another hoof started rotating to fix itself.

"Yeah, but… you can't fly now," Spike pointed out with a grimace, frowning as Katie shook her head fiercely, sending droplets of blood everywhere.

Katie gave a disgruntled grunt at that, wincing as her second hoof popped back in its proper place whilst a third started its bout of rotation. A pulse of blue mana shot across her back and her wings, but it was unusually thick and fringed at the edges by bright pink. "I'll live," she hissed.

Spike's frown deepened when the explosions filling the cavern ceased, along with the Beholder's wailing tantrum. He chanced a glance around the column again, finding it frozen solid in a thick rime of frost, one that crackled and caught fire here and there. He gave a low whistle at the sight, and retracted his head at the very first crack in the ice. He turned to NoLegs and asked, "Should we leave, or finish the job?"

An aura embraced his head and NoLegs telepathically murmured, "Depends on how pissy it gets. What's its status right now?"

"Uh… cracking ice cube," Spike answered, crossing his arms. "That's partially on fire."

NoLegs nodded slowly and gave a low, drawled out meow. "Yeah… I think we should finish the job," he replied. The group's attention was immediately snapped by a brisk, almost harried clip-clopping that fell a little too heavy, and their gazes fell to the only other possible source as he came to hide with them behind the column.

Katie was the first to address Chocolate, though not before wincing as her third hoof finally affixed itself with a pop, "Need something, Crystal Pegging?"

Chocolate flinched, his orbs momentarily dimming. "Are you going to stand there and dally with your hooves up your ass, or do something about Mr. Ice Cube over there?" he snarked back.

"Believe me, I tried harder than you did," Katie hissed, wincing again as her fourth hoof started to go one way, only to then turn back with a series of snaps.

"And where did that land you, hrrrrm?" Chocolate taunted, canting his head slightly.

Katie perked her ears and lifted a front hoof to gesture to the centimeters-long space between the tips. "About this close to wedging all four hooves up your glassy ass," she sneered.

Chocolate gave a dry chuckle at that. "Good luck with that. My asshole is now probably hard enough you'd need a power drill just to penetrate it," he jeered with a note of amusement in his tone.

"Says the stallion who complained about tentacle fondling earlier," Katie shot back in an equally dry and somewhat-amused voice. "You're a bigger boob than Prince Blueblood."

"By the way…" Spike interjected just as the sound of something large breaking filled the cavern, followed immediately by another piercing wail that came from the other side of the column and then the very floor shaking with the aid of several tremendous impacts. "What say you we put our differences aside for now, until Mr. Eldritch Grumpsworth is dealt with?"

NoLegs nodded and hopped around the column, which unusually gave way to a series of violent, loud pops that could easily be mistaken for gunshots permeating the immediate area. Spike followed suit, leaving Katie and Chocolate to sit there and have a staring contest.

Once they went out of sight, Katie made to stand again, taking extra care to keep her last hoof up from the floor, wincing as her legs started wobbling dangerously the moment she'd tried. On top of that, at least one leg formed several unnatural bumps along its length that shifted and sent pain through her nerves in ways they should not have been able to, though only now did she seem to notice it. This was only apparent thanks to how tightly her chitin clung to the bones to begin with.

"Regardless, you seemed to have learned your lesson. I don't entirely trust you yet, but you're not trying to wring my neck either," Katie murmured, flinching as her fourth hoof finished righting itself into place. She set it down, her stance more akin to a drunken sway than a slight lurch, and it was not helped in any way by the floor trembling every few seconds. She spread her legs out to better distribute her meager weight, slowly turned and started to trudge after Spike and NoLegs, wings ceasing their buzzing as another pulse of mana shot across her back.

Chocolate's orbs widened, and for some seconds his jaw went slack before he reeled it in. "Does that mean… you forgive me?" he asked in a disbelieving voice, his query halting Katie in her tracks.

Katie twisted her head to level a flat look at Chocolate. "That's not my job to. You're asking the wrong being," she stated in a level tone. "Though in a way, I suppose I could. You hadn't wronged me in a particularly profound manner. If anything, I wronged you, but we'll save that discussion for later."

She twisted her head back around and continued plodding back around the column, finding that the Beholder had broken out of its frosty prison. It was now too busy wailing and trying to slam Spike and NoLegs through the floor with its many tentacles to really notice her. On top of that, it was also firing off smaller blasts of light from its main ocular in a manner that reminded Katie of Lance shooting with his gunblade. Although, the Beholder was firing at a much faster rate, and its results were decidedly more explosive—pebbles and chunks of molten rock were going everywhere at this point.

Even its attempts to whap its adversaries and rain exploding light on them failed, as they merely side-stepped out of immediate range and prepared a spear with… what seemed to be emerald fire gathering at its blade-point. With the monster's fussing, firing and constant swatting attempts that kept Spike and NoLegs backing up until they were forced to the furthest wall, she honestly couldn't tell what they were doing. They may as well have been trying to perform a samba for all she knew.

Katie ambled well away from the Beholder, or at least as much as her legs would let her before they gave out and slipped from beneath her once she got a few feet from the crystal column. As she fell, her shoes scraped loudly against the floor and made Chocolate wince at the sheer shrillness of the cacophony, but that was enough to make the Beholder cease its tantrum momentarily and turn to her. It began advancing towards her slowly, its central eye once more aglow with an unholy and building light.

That, in turn, was all the initiative NoLegs needed. Using his magic to keep the green flames suspended around the tip of his spear he charged forward and stabbed the Beholder in its central eye from the side before it could stray a few feet from him. That one strike was all it took to make it pop entirely and unleash a torrent of bubbling blood towards Katie. The monster reared up as green flames, interspersed with several exploding red lights, erupted from the now-empty cavity. With the monster distracted, Spike came in and grabbed a tentacle, making sure to dig his claws into the flesh for as solid a hold as he could manage.

He started to pull, making it back up from NoLegs, who wasted no time removing his spear in the process, and towards the chasm at the far side of the makeshift arena. The Beholder, though, made to grab anything and everything it could to keep from going over the edge. Whatever pebbles it could grab slipped, any crystal it could touch shot sparks and flame and frost to make it yield, and it only further injured itself every time a tentacle came anywhere near its nonexistent central eye.

This only made Spike double his efforts and dig his feet into the stone with each step, his claws starting to tear at the tentacle he clutched as he inched himself and the Beholder closer and closer to the brink of darkness. Jagged rocks didn't stall him, magma patches did not burn his feet as he stepped into them on his way, and whatever scorch marks were already present failed to make him pause for even a second. They did, however, end up burning their benefactor enough to coerce it to rear up, making Spike's work just a smidgen easier.

The Beholder was making a desperate effort to keep a solid footing, still flailing with all its might. Though with the blood pooling from its eye, the flames and magma that ravaged it, the crystals using their magic every time it got a hold of them, and the fact that a baby dragon was doing the primary tugging, it was for naught. All it could do was struggle and flail, wailing without pause as it went to its doom.

Spike let go of the tentacle at the last second, though not before using its own torn flesh to serve as an anchor onto a crystal that instantly froze it in place. He wasted no time running to the front of the monster and glaring at it the moment it righted itself and focused all of its other eyes onto him, feebly tugging at its frozen tentacle for all it was worth.

Everyone, even Chocolate, turned or poked out of their hiding spot as the staring contest lasted for all of three seconds. "Bon voyage, you mutated snail," Spike hissed before inhaling deeply and puffing out one last jet of fire in the massive cavity where the central ocular used to be. That forced it the rest of the way back, made it snap the crystal to which it had been affixed, and sent it over the edge in one sharp jerk of motion. And once the Beholder had jumped, its pupils dilated as it realized it made its last and gravest mistake. It could not reorient itself in time, and dropped down below.

With one last explosion that briefly illuminated the chasm and a deafening scream that made everyone flinch as their ears started to ring, the Beholder was effectively finished. Nobody dared peek over the chasm, though, instead taking their time to regather behind the column. NoLegs simply teleported himself and Spike to the column, and made his shield and spear vanish, now that they were no longer needed.

Katie opted to stand again, her legs still unsteady but now capable of more solid footing thanks to a lack of ground shaking tantrums. She took a few minutes to walk over to the group, and an awkward silence held for a few seconds once she reached the others and parked her posterior on the floor. NoLegs took away her shoes and made them vanish as well, but other than that the silence held until someone spoke.

"So," Katie began, orbs locking onto Chocolate as NoLegs magically lifted a leg to start scrutinizing it, "what brought you here?"

Chocolate shrugged. "I should be asking you the same thing," he said in earnest.

Katie, NoLegs, and Spike all exchanged glances and shrugged at each other before turning back to Chocolate. "Let's start this off simple: have you seen Shining Armor at all?" Spike asked, crossing his arms with an expectant look on his face.

At that, Chocolate nodded. "Yes. Before I wound up here, I saw him going door to door once the sun set," he answered.

Katie canted her head. "And how'd you end up here?" she asked.

Chocolate's face hardened, and his mouth clenched into a thin, barely-noticeable line for a few seconds. "I saw… a tall, black form with a gnarled horn," he began in a low voice. "It trotted through the forest on the other side of the closest frozen town like it owned the place. I tried to follow it, but could not get close enough to see anything distinctive, horn aside."

Katie's eyes narrowed, partly because of another wince as mana pulsed along her lower jaw and chitin started to reform in angry, spindly webs, and partly because of two words that Chocolate had uttered. "Gnarled… horn?" she repeated slowly.

Chocolate nodded again, and his orbs dimmed to such a dark red-orange they were starting to blend in with the black of their canvases. "Yes. Gnarled as in twisted like a… closest thing I could think of would be a bent coat-hanger," he replied. "The owner of that horn had the temerity to enter someone's house uninvited, so I followed it and…" He abruptly stood up, snatched Katie with a hoof, and planted her on his back in one fluid motion. "I believe it's just something you must see with your own eyes. I'll take you three there myself, free of charge."

~-—-~-—-~-—-~-—-~-—-~-—-~-—-~-—-~-—-~-—-~-—-~-—-~-—-~-—-~-—-~-—-~-—-~-—-~

Chocolate carried Spike, NoLegs, and Katie on his back on his way out of the crystal-filled caverns and back to Whitefall Town. His trot was brisk, despite his legs being cannons-deep within the still-building snow, and it took him less time to actually pass two houses than it did for Katie to pass just one. Speaking of, Katie eyed the tracks he left in his wake, which had the same deep indents and flattened bottoms.

Which made her brain go into a tizzy once she realized she got unwittingly led into a deathtrap, by someone who likely could not have known he himself was going into said deathtrap until his little accident with the Beholder. She turned to face the back of Chocolate's head and began rattling off queries, "So… what happened after you left the house? How'd you piss the Beholder off? Did the thing you said had a gnarled horn speak at all, or just grunt like a beast?"

"It… lead me to the, uh…" Chocolate's trot slowed a bit as he thought of how to best finish his reply.

NoLegs waved his tail and told Chocolate telepathically, "The tentacled thing is what a Beholder is."

Chocolate nodded and finished, "Well, it lead me to the Beholder in some lava-filled room, had the gall to buck it upside the head, and pointed a hoof at me when it looked at him. And I found that crystal is melted by lava, so I could not reach the Beholder unless the lava was willing to part. So it crossed over to me, and… suffice to say it only got angrier once it actually reached me," he answered. With a shrug and a sharp turn between the first row of houses on the right that cropped up, he added, "Son of a bitch must've known I was trailing him."

NoLegs sighed and waved his tail again. This time, his mental voice filled Spike and Katie's heads, "Well, shit. Got no way of verifying whether or not he really didn't piss the Beholder off…"

Katie groused in a hissing, low voice with narrowing eyes, "So, that means we'll have to take it at face value…" Her eyes widened seconds later, and she lifted a hoof to her recovering chin to start rubbing it, though she was mindful of the regrowing chitin that wasn't yet finished. "You said 'son' earlier…" she noted.

Chocolate nodded again, his trot quickening once more. A house was starting to crystallize into view, and Katie turned back to find the rest of Whitefall vanishing with distance. "Yes. He looked the Beholder in the eye and shouted 'he did it!' when blaming me for kicking it awake, and in a voice so deep I almost thought the Beholder itself was talking," he stated. "Never before have I heard a baritone that low."

Katie nodded in understanding and dropped her hoof. She watched as NoLegs hopped on Chocolate's head, canting her head at the display before leaning as much as she could to the side to see what had caught his eye. There was a porched and despairingly small house sporting an overhang and windows boarded up from the outside, splintering with age all over. The overhang was sagging dangerously to one side, bringing a good portion of the house itself with it. Oddly, three forms were outside the house, under the overhang, distantly chatting beneath a bright magenta light.

Katie tried to peer closer, only to find magic embracing her head and an image flooding her mind. Shining Armor, Alexander, and a unicorn stallion with a short tail and burn-marks on his posterior were standing in a two-to-one formation, only apparent thanks to the bright magenta light emitting from the tip of Shining's horn. She pricked her ears to listen when Chocolate stopped just a good thirty feet shy, and almost instantly picked up on their chatter.

"... so you're saying he kidnapped you, locked you in this ramshackle shed, and made up some story about horsey hives?" Shining began in a low, calm voice that had an angry undertone.

Another voice Katie didn't recognize, presumably belonging to the unicorn with the burn-marks on his rear, replied, "Yeah. He said he was gonna scapegoat the hell out of a nonexistent issue and goad some poor bastard into that rabbit hole. And then somepony made out of black crystal got me out."

Shining's voice lowered to a murmur, though Katie could still make out what he'd said next, "Much like how Napkin goaded me and one of my guards into thinking that somepony wanted the Fantasians booted from Mythos…"

Alexander chimed in, "On that note, sir, are you well?"

"Well… as well as anypony can be after being abducted, locked up, and not fed for three days straight. Is there any food? I'm starving," the burn-marked unicorn replied with a shrug.

"We'll take you to the food, but… did you get anything on what your abductor looked like? Anything at all?" Shining asked.

"Nada. He stuck a bag over my head first chance he got," the burn-marked unicorn answered, his words accentuated by a loud gurgle. NoLegs magically nudged Chocolate closer to the trio, just as they got out from under the ramshackle overhang and began trotting away.

NoLegs telepathically told Chocolate, "If you're worried about him kicking your ass, I'll get him to lay off. Deal?"

Chocolate nodded and trotted to Shining with a brisk pace. The two groups met up within a few minutes, and once they did, Shining wasted no time letting his eyes narrow and giving Chocolate the gimlet eye. He opened his mouth to speak, before NoLegs embraced his head in magic and chimed in, "Can it wait for a few minutes? Chalkstick here wants to show us something."

Shining clenched his jaw and nodded. "But only a few minutes," he relented.

The third unicorn, a lad sporting a suspiciously brown mane and beige coat, turned to Chocolate and let his eyes widen. "Hey, he's the pony who got me out of that house!" he exclaimed.

Chocolate nodded and trotted past him and Alexander, marching right up to the house. "Well… it was nothing," he replied, going up to the door—or rather, where one should have been under the overhang. Instead there was just an empty, splintering space leading into a darkened room that seemed to beckon them.

He waited for NoLegs to conjure a light with his tail before stepping inside, right into a desolate living room sporting several broken furnishings caked in dust, with most of the furnishings so dilapidated and abused it was hard to tell what they originally belonged to. Chocolate looked down, and Spike and Katie followed suit to find five sets of prints, one of which sported digits and pads in place of hooves. Two went in, leading to a splintered, already-opened and half-broken door at the back of the room, and three were going out from that same door.

Chocolate cantered after the two going in, making sure to never let his hooves stray onto the tracks, trotting up to the door and into the next room without pause. Inside was a cramped room no more than three yards in length and width, though it housed a sagging chair surrounded by ropes that frayed at their ends, as well as puddles of days-old urine and excrement. The group, save Chocolate, wrinkled their noses at the stench that wafted from the chair's surroundings before turning their attention to the farthest wall.

Written on that wall with some sort of red substance was a message, although it was in unusual characters that looked more like runes and hastily scribbled on top of that. Katie's brow furrowed as NoLegs started levitating himself to hover to the message, casting it in a stark relief under his light. Soon, his voice filled their heads.

"When the moon shimmers, when the stars gleam, when the forest flourishes and the wind whistles without care, take heed: hope will shine like crystal. To whom it shines, it shall bring untold joy. To whom it passes by, ill omens will befall…" NoLegs trailed off before looking down and finishing, "To whomever finds this message: I will take that hope for myself. Mark my words. I shan't be stopped, no matter the cost. I will burn all of Fantasia, and all she has built, if I must. Ill omens will befall those who seek to radically alter Fantasia. Joy will come to those who preserve it." He floated back and resettled on Chocolate's head.

"Whatever the Tartarus does that mean?" Chocolate asked, averting his orbs to look at NoLegs cross-eyed.

"Honestly, I've no clue," Katie replied with a shrug. "Sounds like argle bargle to me."

"It reads like an ancient legend or something. Maybe Lazzy knows something about this… what say we ask him tomorrow?" NoLegs piped up, getting two nods from Spike and Katie almost instantly.

"Sounds like a threat if you asked for my input," Spike interjected with a frown. "But… who wants to radically alter Fantasia?"

Katie shrugged again and chittered in swarm tongue, "Framalg aulsch mastrælta."

"I don't get what you just said, but okay," Spike sighed. He turned to Chocolate and asked, "Is this what you wanted to show us?"

Chocolate nodded. "I figured one of you would be adept in translation work… but I never guessed it'd be your pet cat," he admitted, turning around and trotting out of the house before rejoining Shining and his group. NoLegs magically embraced everybody once they regrouped with an aura that then grew into a flash of light. The light not only came and went with a loud pop, but revealed they were all the way back at the church's dining room as soon as it dissipated.

Then, NoLegs grasped Shining and Alexander's heads with his magic and telepathically told them all he knew of what the hell was going on. The whole process took a few minutes, and Shining and Alexander had to silently consult Katie and Spike by mouthing queries, only to find them nodding fervently once they'd asked. Even Chocolate was in on it, nodding whenever Shining and Alexander asked him something.

Once that was said and done, NoLegs teleported himself and the rest of the lot into a guest room, before hopping off of Chocolate's head and onto a table and curling up to doze. Shining spoke up once the spots stopped dancing in his eyes, and when he did it was for everyone involved, "So… we've all been roped again?"

Chocolate nodded. "And this time, it seems I was dragged into it as well," he chimed in. He trudged to a corner, laid down, and nestled his head between his forelegs. "I'm going to sleep. I've got nothing else to do."

Katie curled up on Chocolate's back, while Spike crawled off. She yawned widely and shut off her orbs. Spike walked over to Shining and sighed, his shoulders slumping as post-battle exertion finally kicked in. "So… what now?" he asked, turning to the unicorn with the burn-marks.

Shining turned to Spike and patted his head with a hoof before turning to Alexander, who turned back and nodded. "We'll help this sod raid the fridge before hitting the hay. Let's talk about this tomorrow," he replied, his gaze averting to the sod in question as his stomach began gurgling again.

Spike nodded, stretched his arms, and yawned widely. "Alright. Sounds like a plan to me." He turned to Chocolate and Katie before adding, "I'll get them a blanket before hitting the hay myself." With that, he wandered out of the room.