"Oughh." Spike groaned as his eyes slowly fluttered opened.

For what had to be the second or third time today, Spike awoke from unconsciousness with a painful ache in his head. His vision was fuzzy and unfocused, only allowing him to distinguish two moving shapes that seemed to be hovering above him.

He could feel the grass underneath him as he lay there almost motionless, though his upper half felt like it was being held up by somepony. Two warm pillows supported either side of his head.

"Spike?" One of the fuzzy shapes over him said, it's voice familiar.

As things finally came into focus, the two fuzzy shapes hanging over him were revealed to be the concerned faces of two mares, namely both Twilight and Fluttershy. They were huddled over him and were clearly deeply concerned. Twilight appeared to be sitting on her knees to his right while Fluttershy was seated somewhere behind him.

"T-twilight?" Spike croaked as a sudden surge of pain from the right side of his skull making him wince.

"Oh thank Celestia you're okay!" Twilight sighed with relief, letting out a breath she'd apparently been holding. "You are okay, right?!"

"Uhh, yea... I think so. Where are we?"

The last thing he could remember doing was leaving the castle to search for them, though it seemed like he'd done that already. He took a moment to check his immediate surroundings, hoping that he might recognize something to jog his rattled memory. They were atop a grassy cliffside, surrounded by layers of dense fog that swirled tightly around them.

'We must be near the castle then...' Spike thought, having seen fog like this in front of the castle from the throne room window.

As he looked around, he saw Applejack standing nearby, glaring up at a Rainbow Dash with a suspicious squint. The pegasus in question hovered high above and was clearly trying to avoid making eye contact. Spike then heard Pinkie's giggles to his left and spotted the mare messing around with some of the fog. Somehow, she'd managed to draw tiny pictures in the clouds with a pointed portion of her mane.

But then, just as Spike was about to turn back to answer Twilight, he happened to glance up at Rainbow again. She too happened to turn towards him at the same time and the two suddenly locked eyes. It was at that moment that Spike's memory cleared and he remembered the events that eventually led up to him being rendered unconscious by a forceful kick to the side of his head. A tinge of red rose to his cheeks as he remembered the exact situation that he'd found the colorful pegasus in at the time.

Twilight didn't seem to notice the brief and wordless exchange between the two of them as she went on to explain what was going on.

"We all just made it to The Castle Of The Two Sisters, but you somehow disappeared a while ago, during the rockslide." Twilight began. "Rainbow Dash says she found you just lying over here while she was fixing the bridge for us. Do you remember how you ended up out here?"

But before Spike could answer, Rainbow Dash, who must've overheard Twilight's question, threw him a warning glare. Her expression seemed to promise a slow death should he dare to say anything about what he witnessed.

As he thought of how to answer Twilight's question, something did cause Spike to pause. Despite very distinctly remembering catching Rainbow Dash while she was in the midst of having an accident, her shorts looked completely dry.

'Huh? How'd she do that?' Spike thought, briefly wondering if he had just imagined it all. Though, her warning glares were telling him otherwise.

Regardless, Spike honestly wasn't too eager to tell Twilight about their little encounter. He was pretty sure that he'd also been at full mast at the time too...

"Gah!" Spike suddenly yelped, sitting straight up and bringing both his hands down to shield his crotch, having just realized that he was probably still naked. As well as potentially still 'showing off' too.

Yet, instead, Spike was surprised to discover that he actually was wearing something, though it didn't feel like anything he'd ever worn before. Moving his hands away cautiously, he found himself wearing some kind of intricately designed loincloth, made up of various large leaves and small strips of fabric, all sewn together with some long strands of grass. The lack of a large bulge and the uncomfortable aching in his groin thankfully confirmed that he wasn't currently 'showing'.

"Oh! Um, about that." Twilight said, realizing why Spike had just reacted the way he did. "When we found you, you were a bit, uh... naked, so I asked Rarity if she could make you something to wear." She explained, looking off to the side and awkwardly fiddling with one of her bangs.

"Wait, Rarity?" Spike asked, having yet to see the mare since being taken by Nightmare Moon.

"Yes, I certainly do hope you like what I was able to put together for you." Rarity's voice spoke up behind him. "I'll admit it's far from my best work, and I did have to make quite a few... drastic, but necessary, sacrifices from my own wardrobe in order to craft it."

Walking out in front of him, the white unicorn revealed herself. Spike was forced to suppress a startled yelp as he saw what the fashionista was wearing, or rather, what she wasn't.

The beautiful dress she'd had on during the celebration was gone, instead replaced by some kind of tight grass-made bikini composed of leaves, grass, and a few very tiny scraps of fabric. It left almost nothing to the imagination, barely even covering her more 'sensitive' areas whatsoever. Her arms were folded up underneath her breasts too, pushing both up slightly. Yet, despite her exposed body, Rarity didn't seem nearly as bothered by her nudity as Spike would have expected her to be.

"I l-love it..." He mumbled quietly, though it was fairly obvious that it was not his own outfit which he was currently in awe of.

Twilight cleared her throat a bit louder than was probably necessary.

"I know you don't really need to wear clothes, given your scales," She explained, "but in the past, you were usually more comfortable wearing something than nothing, so I figured you'd appreciate it... W-why were you naked anyway?" Twilight asked, stuttering for a moment as she noticed two tiny streams of smoke leaking from his nostrils as his eyes wandered over Rarity's body.

By now Applejack, Pinkie, and Rainbow had all made their way over and now all six mares waited anxiously to hear some kind of explanation. With a nervous gulp and while doing his best to not get distracted by the gorgeous mostly naked mare standing before him, Spike went on to explain his side of events.

He told them everything, from his rough awakening in the castle throne room, to his decision to go out hunting for them a few minutes ago. They all showed considerable surprise as he told them about Nightmare Moon, though Spike found it a bit weird. Evidently, despite the alicorn's efforts, they weren't even aware that she'd been stalking them this whole time.

Just as Spike had predicted, Twilight's mini freak out as he described his discovery of the castle's archives was just as adorable as he'd hoped. Luckily, the others were able to calm her down long enough so that he could finish his story. Still, Spike couldn't help but find how excited she'd gotten incredibly cute.

There were, of course, a few things Spike decided to leave out. Namely, the actual 'punishment' which Nightmare Moon had given him, as well as the real reason that they had found him laying out here unconscious. It was during these moments that Spike noticed Applejack giving him a strange look, though she never said anything.

"-And that's the last thing I remember," Spike said, finishing his tale. "I guess Nightmare Moon must have knocked me out and left me here... for some reason." He suggested, rubbing the sore side of his head awkwardly while trying not to shrink under another one of Applejack's odd glares.

"Hmm... well, I'm not too sure what Nightmare Moon might have planned for us, but we need to find the Elements Of Harmony before its too late!" Twilight said, getting up and tapping her chin thoughtfully. "We should definitely hurry. If Spike is right about the old ponish book in the castle's archives, then I should be able to decipher them and maybe find something useful. Spike, do you think you'd be able to take us there?"

He nodded as he too stood up, hoping that he could remember the exact route back through the dark halls. It was much easier to get lost in there than one might think. Granted, it had been a bit easier for him. He could see much better in the dark than most ponies, but he still had to be careful to not walk face-first into a wall from time to time.

Looking down to where he had been laying a moment ago, Spike was again confused. It was barren of any kind of pillows or cushions for his head to have been resting on. In fact, now that he thought about it, the only thing that had been behind him at the time was... Fluttershy.

The yellow pegasus had stood up at the same time as him, now standing just a small distance away while lightly brushing some dirt off the chest of her... hoodie. She noticed him staring and smiled back sheepishly, blushing and giving him a little wave.

'...Those weren't pillow cushions...'

As Spike led them all through the dark and dreary halls of the abandoned castle, an eerily silent atmosphere was giving everypony the creeps. It didn't help much that most of the structure was falling apart, with plenty of large holes in the walls and the tall arched ceilings. Gusts of cold wind would occasionally whip through them, making ghoulish howls that echoed throughout the long hallways.

Just behind Spike, Twilight followed closely, using her horn to create a light so that they could see where they were going. At the same time, she looked around eagerly for any signs that they were nearing the archives. Fluttershy, on the other hand, was almost petrified. She tightly hugged Spike's arm, leaving his forearm nestled snuggly between her breasts as she clung to him as though he were one of her favorite stuffed animals.

Applejack, Rarity, and Pinkie were keeping close by, hoping to avoid becoming separated in the surprisingly catacomb-like halls. Rarity would occasionally gasp out in horror, startling the group. Though generally, it was usually just because she'd spotted one of the heavily tattered banners that hung down from the walls.

Rainbow Dash, meanwhile, had been flying high up, near the top of the arched ceiling. She'd kept mostly to herself ever since they'd entered. As she flew, her expression would contort as she battled strange images and emotions that fought against one another in her head. Occasionally, she would glance down at Spike, a conflicted expression dominating her face.

Ever since their little 'encounter' by the bridge, Rainbow had been unable to get the whole event out of her mind. Mental images of the muscular green and purple drake, standing only a few feet behind her, with his large barbed shaft pointing right at her, had been burned into her subconscious.

'I get that he's supposed to be a dragon and all that, but... why did he have to be so... big.'

Admittedly, Rainbow Dash had overreacted a little bit. But from a combination of embarrassment, sheer confusion, and the shame of getting caught wetting herself, she'd instinctively twirled around and roundhouse kicked the dragon in the side of the head. It wasn't often Rainbow actually got caught having an accident, much less by a naked and very erect dragon.

After hearing his side of the story, she could at least understand why he had been walking around butt-naked. Though, it was fairly obvious that her accident had been the reason he was so... 'hard' when he found her.

After rendering him unconscious, Rainbow ended up using one of the nearby fog clouds to quickly dry herself off before tieing the last rope to fix the bridge across the ravine. It was a little trick she'd learned a few years back, following a different accident. Funnily enough, it was the friend who witnessed her having said accident that ended up showing her the trick. It worked well enough, though the smell of urine still lingered around her and there was now a slightly yellow-tinged cloud floating around in the Everfree Forest.

'Still, Spike must be made of much tougher stuff than I originally gave him credit for. My leg is still tingling from that kick...'

The last time she'd kicked anypony that hard they'd been out for hours, yet Spike had probably only been unconscious for five minutes at most. Still, she couldn't help but feel an iota of pride from now being able to say that she had technically knocked out a dragon with just one kick.

Glancing back down at him again, she grimaced at the way Fluttershy was clinging to the dragon. Part of her wanted to fly down there and separate them... yet another, far more suppressed, part of her subconscious was wishing that she was the one holding him like that...

Twilight stood frozen with excited awe-filled eyes as Spike pushed opened the ancient archive's large doors, revealing the treasure trove of knowledge hidden behind them. The castle's archives were even larger than Twilight had imagined, with bookshelves going all the way up to the ceiling. There had to be thousands of different books, sacred scrolls, and numerous other magical tomes stocked in each of the shelves, none of which had been read by anypony for centuries at least.

"I-i don't, I-i can't..." Twilight stammered, overwhelmed by the sheer amount of long-lost knowledge only a few feet in front of her.

Before the others even had a chance to get a good look into the room, Twilight was gone in a flash, reappearing a moment later next to one of the largest bookshelves. Several different books were carefully floated out from their places as Twilight eagerly began examining them. From ancient historical texts to cheesy romance novels, this place had it all.

In all her excitement, It actually took Twilight a minute to finally notice that the others were trying to get her attention. Apparently, whenever one of them had gotten close to her, she'd just teleported away. Twilight blushed, embarrassed by how distracted she'd allowed herself to get... as well as the fact that she was just the tiniest bit wet...

"Now, where did I leave that bo- Aha! Here it is." Spike called out. "Hey Twilight, here's that book I told you about!" He exclaimed, pulling out a large dusty book from under a desk. "I must have accidentally dropped it when Nightmare Moon, uh, found me here." He said, for some reason glancing nervously at a nearby chair.

As he had told her, the cover did indeed depict the same five gemstones that were described in the book from ponyville's library. Holding both next to each other with her magic, she was about to open the new one when she noticed something was different. One of the gems displayed on the front of this new book captured her attention. It was one that had not been described in the other book. It appeared to be some kind of purple star, resembling her own cutie mark.

'Could it be that this is the missing element the other book mentioned?' She thought.

"Uh, Twilight?" Spike said, nudging her after she had been staring at the books' covers for almost a full minute.

"Huh? Oh right! Well um, let's see..." Twilight said, opening the new book to the first page.

She was met with a page absolutely cram packed with old Ponish scrawlings, all horn-written rather than typed on a modern typewriter. Twilight's face brightened as she began to recognize a few of the words and the letters. Unfortunately, as Twilight tried to make out the exact meanings of the sentences, she started to have trouble. The hornwriting was almost impossibly messy. But, with a fair bit of difficulty, Twilight started to translate the ancient text.

'It might be a while before I can attain anything from this mess. Who in Equestria even wrote this?!'

Over the next few minutes, it became more and more obvious that progress to decipher the book's text would be a very slow process. Applejack, realizing they should probably not be standing around doing nothing, suggested that she and the others go explore the castle and let Twilight concentrate. After all, it was possible that they might find the elements hidden somewhere or even just lying around.

The others agreed and followed Applejack as she turned to exit the room, though Spike was hesitant to leave Twilight all by herself.

"Are you sure you'll be okay here, Twilight?" He asked, deeply concerned.

"I'll be fine Spike, don't worry," Twilight assured. "Plus, I agree with Applejack. I think it's a good idea for you to take a look around the rest of the castle. After all, this book could end up being a dead end."

"Well... okay, just be careful..." Spike cautioned before turning to hurry and join the others.

Spike and the girls decided that they would split up into two separate groups so that they could more efficiently search the rest of the castle. Rainbow Dash, Fluttershy, Pinkie, and Rarity went one direction, towards an area of the castle that Spike had yet to go through, while he and Applejack went the other way.

The others expressed some concern about the imbalance between the two groups, especially Fluttershy. But for some reason, Applejack was determined that this was the best way to do it. Spike had already peeked into a few rooms between here and the throne room, but it had been pretty dark at the time so he might have missed something important.

Thankfully, Twilight was able to cast a mobile version of her light spell for each group before they left. It would last for about an hour before they'd have to come back, which with how creepy this castle was, was not necessarily a bad thing to Spike. He and Applejack's light ball, weirdly enough, had floated up and stuck itself to the top of one of his head spines. Twilight tried recasting the spell, but for some reason, it refused to do anything else. Twilight eventually put it down to it being because of his dragon heritage, which now that he thought about it, would explain a few other things Spike had been thinking recently.

Dragons apparently had something of a natural resistance to many magic spells, something Twilight had plenty of experience with while Spike was growing up. Most little things, like levitation, still worked fine, but more complicated spells would simply fizzle away instantly or do something strange and unexpected when casting on him. Unfortunately for Twilight, this often meant that if she had a spell she wanted to test out, she had to cast them on herself rather than him. Her Canterlot friends usually weren't too keen on being her test subjects either, well, with one exception.

Still, this did provide an explanation as to why his clothes had been burned away when he was taken by Nightmare Moon. He must have reacted badly to her spell, frying his clothes off in the process, despite the alicorns experience with magic. It likely also had something to do with why his Dragonfire was so effective against Nightmare Moon's restraining spells.

Regardless, with an albeit awkwardly placed light spell, he and Applejack left to go searching around. Unfortunately, neither of them noticed as, right before they had fully closed the large doors into the library, something slipped quickly in through the top of the doorway...

So far during their search, Spike and Applejack had yet to find anything that he hadn't already seen. Most of the rooms that branched off from the main hall were small and usually empty, with seemingly no discernable purpose. It was almost like some of the rooms hadn't even been fully built yet.

It wasn't until Applejack found a small room with an odd symbol over the door that they found something potentially interesting. The symbol was that of a pin or clip, but as to what that could mean Spike, had no idea. Opening the door, the odd room initially looked much like the others they had seen and was mostly empty and barren. However, in the center of the room was a lone empty wooden table. There was nothing on the table itself but there were a few very faint stains that seemed to dot one end of it.

In the far right corner of the room, there also appeared to be a stack bundled white fabric. It looked like it used to be clothing of some sort but had had since deteriorated over time and were no longer recognizable. The two of them searched for a little longer, but while certainly weird, nothing in the room could really help them. Spike had been about to leave and continue looking around when Applejack suddenly spoke.

"So..." She began, causing Spike to turn and find her with her hands on her hips. "Are you gonna tell me what actually happened between you and Rainbow Dash back at the bridge?"

"W-what?!" Spike gasped, not expecting her to so abrubtly ask something like that. "I-i mean, w-what do you mean what happened?"

"I think you know what I mean." She stated firmly, giving him a stern look.

"I-i told you, Nightmare Moon must have-"

"Rainbow Dash pissed herself in front of you, didn't she?" Applejack interrupted.

"W-what?! No! That's not what, uh, that's-"

"You know, you don't have to lie to me, Spike. I can tell you clearly aren't very good at it anyway. It ain't really in your nature."

Spike struggled to come up with an excuse or explanation to prove the apple farmer wrong, but after a few moments, he went silent as he realized it was pointless to try and deny it.

"...Y-yea, she did." He eventually admitted.

"Ah, thought so." Applejack said, a rolling her eyes and pinching the bridge of her nose. "That mare just cannot handle even the slightest amount of embarrassment."

"You won't tell that her I told you, will you? I think she might actually kill me if she found out." Spike begged.

"Ah, don't worry none. I just wanted to know for sure myself." Applejack assured. "Somthin felt mighty fishy about that whole situation and Rainbow was acting pretty fidgety, even before she went over to fix the bridge for us. Then, after I saw that strange yellow-colored cloud and caught a whiff coming from her, it didn't take long for me to connect the dots. I've seen her use that little cloud trick of hers before." Applejack explained.

"...and um, she was actually the one who knocked me out," Spike added sheepishly.

"Yea, I had a feeling that might have been the case." Applejack sighed. "That feather brain has a bit of a tendency to overreact, especially when being caught in a situation like that."

"Well...that whole 'getting knocked out' thing probably could have avoided..." Spike began, blushing as Applejack gave him a curious look. "When I stumbled upon her, all hunched over...I may have just watched for a minute before actually saying something to her..." He admitted shamefully.

'Please don't think Im a pervert! Though I think I might be one anyway...'

"Oh really now?" Applejack said, a knowing grin spreading across her muzzle. "I suppose that'd explain why you were hard as a rock when we found you lyin out there."

"I w-what?!" Spike shouted, suddenly imagining all the others, particularly Twilight, finding him lying on the ground, his dick sticking straight up into the air, exposed in all its glory.

"Heh, Nah, I'm just messing with ya. Though based on your reaction, I think I know why you had been watchin."

"Oh, heh, well um..." Spike murmured quietly, blushing intensely.

"Anyway, I just wanted to warn ya. I have somthin of a knack for spottin when ponies are trying to lie to me, and while I know that it wasn't a big deal this time, but if there's one thing that I absolutely cannot stand, it's liars."

Applejack seemed to be about to bring up something else, but then seemingly decided not to as she noticed the shameful face Spike was making. And then, she cracked a smirk.

"At the same time, I have made it my personal policy to always be completely honest with everypony I meet, especially my closest friends." Applejack said. "And if I'm being completely honest, I don't think I could hold it for any longer than I already have~."

'Huh?' Spike thought, confused as to what she meant.

His inquiry was answered a moment later as he saw a dark spot begin rapidly growing outwards from the crotch of Applejack's tight daisy dukes. Spike stood there open-mouthed as the farm mare proceeded to openly piss herself in front of him, the tell-tale yellow liquid pouring down her legs like a waterfall before pooling in and around her leather boots. A chuckle finally brought his attention upwards and he found Applejack looking at him with a confident smirk.

"Think of this as a bit of encouragement for bein honest with me in the future." Applejack continued, her shorts almost completely soaked with piss at this point. "Ahh~ That feels nice. Been holdin all this in for a long while now. Heh, I guess I'm just better at not showin it than Dash is."

"Uhuh," Spike mumbled mindlessly.

As the last of her bladder dripped from her shorts, Applejack glanced down and chuckled as she noticed something.

"Say, you may also want to do somthin about that before we have to go and meet back up with the others." She said, gesturing down.

Spike's face turned even brighter red than it already was as he saw a very pronounced bulge had formed under the front of his loincloth. It didn't take a genius to guess the cause of it...

Author's Notes:

Fun Fact Of The Chapter: As of the release of this chapter, I am finally done with all my college classes until next fall. FREEDOM!

(P.S. Expect much more productivity from me as a result of this)

Also, as of this release, I have finished going back and revising all the previous chapters. Plot-wise everything is the same though there are a few more details. I have also amped up some of the more 'interesting' scenes. You know the ones. Check em out if you haven't already.