As Starlight waited for Spike to return, she started thinking about what Twilight did and the horrible thing that she told Spike. They very thought of her throwing Spike out of the castle just made her feel sick.

"How could Twilight do this? I thought she was the Princess of Friendship, not some snobbish aristocrat who just gets angry at every little mistake. So much for love. At least I have Spike and Trixie now. We should have the most best of times now that we're free from our reins. At least until Spike gets over the fact that Twilight doesn't wanna see him again." Starlight thought as she took a bite of some marshmallows.

All of a sudden, she heard a monstrous noise.

"RRRRRRRRRRRAAAAAAAAAAAAAUUUUUUUUUUGGGGGGGGGGHHHHHHHHHHHH!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!"

"Spike?" She wondered.

"RRRRRRRRRAAAAAAAAAUUUUUUUUUGGGGGGGGHHHHHHHHH!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!"

"Spike! Trixie, you stay here while I find Spike! I have a bad feeling something's happened to him..." Starlight said frantically.

"Yes... do that..." Trixie said, still feeling sleepy.

Hearing the noise again, she got out of her seat and went further into the cave. Using her horn to spark a light, she underwent an investigation to find out where Spike went off to. She looked everywhere across the cavern to see where Spike was, but came up short of answers. At least until she found his footprints.

"Where were you touring, Spike?" Starlight wondered.

She followed his footprints to see where he and what he was doing. She could only hope that he wasn't getting into trouble, but it would have been nothing short of an understatement since he normally gets in trouble half the time when he was with Twilight Sparkle. However, she was willing to do something about it while the latter stood by the sidelines. He may have been a mischievous dragon, but he was never cruel nor was he the least bit egregious. She could only think of the happy time she would spend with since they left Ponyville. A thought she completely nourished.

"Spike?" she called out.

Just then, she heard chomping. She moved closer to see who it was. The chewing sounded like that of a manticore gnawing away at the remains of a freshly-killed creature. The grunts sounding like a changeling getting ready for its prey on a potential victim. When Starlight got closer, she noticed something. It looked to be some sort of fully-grown dragon covered in black ooze. The growling sounded completely unnatural as if it were a hellish creature that came from the depths of Tartarus. It's spikes were completely pointy and sharpened that they resembled the tips of a saw-blade. It's claws so razored that they almost resembled swords and scythes. Its tails was so pointed that it mirrored a spearhead. But one thing that threw Starlight off that it didn't have wings, giving her the suspicion that it could be Spike. She moved in closer to see who the mystery creature was.

"Spike...?" she asked as she moved forward.

She started sweating from this unnerving feeling that started to unravel across the cavern, After moving a little closer, she put her hoof on the creature's shoulder to confirm if it was Spike. Just then, she heard the low growling coming from the creature. She moved in closer to see what the creature was hiding...

SLASH!!!!

The creature cut Starlight's left cheek, sending her flying back to the far end of the room, hitting a wall. She fell to the ground, struggling to get up. After a couple seconds of recovering, she glowed her horn in preparation for an attack.

"What did you do to Spike!" Starlight furiously asked.

Instead of answering, the creature breathed a fireball at Starlight who activated a forcefield to protect herself. Just then, the creature charged in front of her and punched the field, breaking it. Coordinating its movements, it moved its left hand and grabbed her throat, strangling her in the process.

"Who... are... you...?" Starlight asked as she was struggling for breath.

Not answering her question, it continued to choke her until she started to run out of breath. Just as it was about to snap her neck, he felt something hit the back of its head. It rubbed the back of its head to soothe the pain that it felt. It turned around and saw that it was Trixie.

"Put. Her. Down." Trixie warned as she levitated most of her bag of tricks.

The creature growled at her as it lunged towards Trixie with Starlight in hand. She used her magician's hanker-chief to blind the creature for a brief moment. It had a hard time seeing, so it let go of Starlight and tried getting the hanker-chief off its eyes, giving her time to regain her breath. Trixie levitated Starlight with her magic and proceeded to escape. But just as soon as she was ready to leave with friend in hoof, it charged at the two ponies with all the speed and rage that it had. But before it could pounce on Starlight, she fired a beam of magic at the creatures face, knocking it back. The creature roared as the two ponies escaped from the cavern.

"YOU WILL PAY FOR WHAT YOU HAVE DONE TO ME!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!" the creature angrily shouted before it left deeper into the cavern.

Starlight and Trixie managed to leave the cavern just when it reached around 1:00 AM. Trixie panically shook Starlight as she tried to figure out who the creature was.

"STARLIGHT! WHAT'RE WE GONNA DO NOW?! THAT THING BACK IN THE CAVERN COULD BE SOME SORT OF ANCIENT CREATURE THAT WAS BANISHED A LONG TIME AGO AND WOULD MOST LIKELY WANNA TAKE OVER EQUESTRIA!!!!! IF WE DON'T DO SOMETHING, WE COULD BE LOOKING AT AN INFINITE AMOUNT OF YEARS WITH TYRANNY AND CHAOS!!!!!!! JUST HOW ARE WE-!"

Just then, Starlight slapped Trixie across the face in order to get her to calm down. After catching her breath and getting off the ground, she looked Trixie straight in the eye and said,

"The first thing that we're gonna do is that we're gonna figure out who that creature is and then we're gonna see if we can stop this thing."

"We?" Trixie asked as she sweated.

"But I have a good feeling that I know who it is..."

"Huh?" Trixie asked as they stared off into the cavern.

They may have survived the first battle, but that was only the beginning of a war that was about to occur. They may have no idea who the creature is, but Starlight can be certain that the creature was familiar. The aura and the unease that spread from itself gave her this cold chill running down her spine as she was now determined to get to the bottom of who the creature is and what happened to Spike.

Author's Notes:

This is a shift to a different POV. I want to try this with different characters in this story to see what their view on things are. It's also to add some depth to this story that I'm writing. So yeah. Starlight doesn't know that Spike is the creature.