Spike felt like he had been wandering for hours. Or was it just minutes? Maybe days? No, couldn't have been that long... could it?

Spike trudged on, taking care to avoid any wandering Diamond Dogs but with the vast network of tunnels it was easier to do so than he thought. However, the size of the complex proved to be a double edged sword; true, he had no trouble avoiding the dogs, but it also meant it would take much longer to find Flitter, never mind also finding the exit.

'Stupid dogs... they could at least have a map or signs posted somewhere.' Spike thought. On more than one occasion Spike found himself in the same cavern, proving that he was going in circles at times. The Diamond Dogs had also apparently never heard of clocks as there was absolutely no way of keeping track of time in the dark tunnels. The closest thing Spike found to a time-telling device was the age of the feces he found occasionally scooped into the corner of some caverns, proving that these dogs didn't care much for hygiene either.

Growing more and more depressed, Spike stopped in one dead-end cavern and sat down in a corner, burying his head in his arms as he tried to suppress the urge to give up. Thinking that he was way in over his head, he thought about going for help as searching the tunnels would be much easier with the help of the guards in Ponyville. He soon remembered that that option was impossible, as he didn't even know how to get out of the tunnels. He sighed, thinking that coming down here on his own was a major mistake, and the only way for him to get out would be to either wander aimlessly for Luna-knows-how-long or ask one of the Diamond Dogs.

Suddenly, his ears picked up a strange noise. It was faint, almost impossible to hear, but the noise caught Spike's attention. He stood up and strained his ears, walking down the tunnel and coming to a split. He froze in place and prayed the noise went off again, and after a few moments of silence he heard... cheering? He followed the source of the different sound, every now and then hearing it grow louder and louder. He came to another cavern, this one with four exits; the tunnel he just came out of and three more leading to unknown places. Spike swore under his breath as the noise seemed to bounce around the cavern, making it impossible to tell where it was coming from. 'It's too confusing. I need a loud sound to be able to tell which way to go!' he thought. He pondered trying each tunnel, but the fear of getting lost and losing his only lead was too much of a risk to take.

Suddenly, a piercing scream shattered the quietness, the sound amplified by the tunnels' echo effect. Spike's mouth dropped, not because of the volume of the scream, but because he knew who that scream belonged to.

"Flitter!" Spike yelled, looking down the tunnel the scream came from. Another high pitched scream came and Spike ran as fast as he could towards the sound. "I'm coming! I'm coming, Flitter!" he yelled again.

As he raced down the tunnel another sound began to reach his ears; the cheering was back and growing louder, accompanied by more screams and cries from Flitter. Spike felt a pain in heart and pushed himself to run faster, and as he rounded a sharp corner the end of the tunnel came into sight. 'Almost there...' he thought, panting as he gave one last burst of speed and burst out into the cavern. The bright lights in the open space made it easy for Spike to see what was going on; all around the large cavern were close to seventy Diamond Dogs, forming a circle around four figures in the middle of the room. One of the figures was his marefriend, the love of his life, Flitter. She was laying on her back, tears streaming down her face as she saw her dragon and called to him. "Spike! Spike, help me! Please, Spike, they're hurting me!" On either side of Flitter's head were two Diamond Dogs, and Spike immediately recognized them from his previous encounter with the subterranean canines; they were Spot and Fido, two of the pack leaders. Spike also recognized Spot as the dog he had chased down the tunnel earlier today. Both Diamond Dogs had their cocks out and were jerking themselves off over Flitter's face, their precum already drooling down onto her muzzle.

Spike's gaze finally fell on the last figure in the room; Rover, the alpha-dog. Spike's mind immediately tried to deny seeing what was going on in front of him, and for a while his hearing cut out completely. But reality began to slowly come back, and Spike was forced to look down, past Rover's grinning face and his paws holding on to Flitter's waist. His hips were moving back and forth in slow, deep stroked, and every time he pulled back Spike could catch a glimpse of something penetrating Flitter's body... something streaked with red... something with blood on it...

Reality finally hit Spike hard, almost as if a asteroid had hit Spike directly in his now broken heart. Flitter's screams finally registered in his ears, and he felt his heart further crushed as she cried for him.

"Spike! I'm sorry! Help me, it hurts! Spiiike!"

Rover turned his head and saw the little dragon standing there in shock. He and his two companions made no moves to stop their actions and smirked as Spike fell backwards in his state of shock. Flitter continued crying out for help, but Spike's hearing was fading out and his vision was beginning to blur, and soon it began to fade to black.

"Flitter, no.... I was too late." he murmured to himself as the eight Diamond Dogs closest to him moved in to capture him.

Twilight carefully navigated her way down further into the Diamond Dogs' tunnels. She had easily 'persuaded' the guard posted at the entrance to the tunnels to let her in and to give her the directions to where any ponies they may have captured would be held. 'I don't like having to threaten to do it, but saying you'll castrate some creature works better than most other methods.' Twilight thought.

As she took the last turn before she was due to reach the final cavern she began to hear multiple shouts and screams coming from somewhere. A green light seemed to flicker somewhere in the distance but it stopped just as abruptly as it had started. Suddenly a handful of dark figures could be seen flooding the tunnel and Twilight gasped as she saw a crowd of Diamond Dogs rushing at her. She backtracked to the last cavern she went through and lowered her horn, prepared to take on the massive horde of dogs running towards her. However, something seemed off by their advance, and she soon realized that they were not running to attack her in anger and spite, but they were running away from something, screaming and yelling in fear and terror. To prove her right the dogs all ran past her, ignoring the purple alicorn and dispersing down the multiple side tunnels that the cavern had.

Twilight was now thoroughly confused by these events, but she knew one thing for certain; whatever these Diamond Dogs were running away from must be bad news, and she swore that a few of them had burn marks over parts of their bodies. Twilight cautiously reentered the tunnel and worked her way down to where the green glow was now back, the light flickering as if something was on fire. Soon she saw that once again she was correct; a wall of green flames was preventing her from entering the cavern that lay on the other side of the flames.

Getting through the fire was no problem; a simple spell could break the wall of fire and allow her to walk through a hole in the wall. What had Twilight's gut in a knot was the color of the fire; they were green. A very familiar green. "Oh no... Spike!" Twilight gasped. She quickly cast the spell and jumped through the hole she made and stared in horror at the chaos that had taken place all around the cavern.

Green flames created a ring around the entire cavern, stopping any remaining Diamond Dogs from escaping. Twilight guessed that the few that she saw earlier were the lucky ones who managed to escape somewhat unscathed. The burnt remnants of at least a dozen bodies littered the areas where Twilight guessed the other exits were. Scattered around other areas of the cave more bodies littered the floor, but these bodies weren't burnt. Twilight winced as she saw that these dogs were killed in another gruesome way; more specifically, they had been torn limb from limb and the various body parts had been tossed around haphazardly. Twilight felt sick and thought that there was no way that anypony could match the body parts back together correctly, so horrible was the scene. Closer to the middle of the room were only three bodies, and Twilight could have sworn that the bodies looked familiar. While these bodies were more intact, Twilight had to quickly look away once she saw that only their genitals had been ripped away, and the trail of blood leading up to their mouths hinted where the missing organs had been stuffed before some creature had snapped their necks, leaving their heads angled in a grotesque manner.

Twilight finally gazed at the middle of the room, where a small dragon knelt down beside the pegasus that had been missing. The area all around them strangely appeared clear of blood, but as Twilight cautiously stepped over the mutilated corpses and splatters of Diamond Dog blood she saw that there was indeed a small amount of blood in the middle of the cave; a small pool building under Flitter's body, coming from her lower lips...

Trying not to startle him, Twilight slowly approached Spike and called out to him softly. "S-Spike, are you okay?" she asked.

Spike shook his head no, his head hung low as he sniffed back a torrent of tears. "I was too late, Twilight. I couldn't stop them. I couldn't... stop them..."

Twilight turned her attention to Flitter. The young mare's breathing was normal but she was unconscious, not to mention the blood still slowly coming from her crotch was worrying. "Spike, we have to get her out of here and to the hospital." Twilight said.

Spike just nodded and stood back as Twilight gently levitated Flitter's body onto her back, ignoring the fact that she was getting smears of Flitter's blood on her body. "Come on, Spike, let's get out of here." Twilight said. Spike nodded again and followed Twilight out of the cave, and within a few minutes all three were back outside in the cool night air.

Waiting above ground was Princess Luna and another ten guards. Once Twilight fully emerged four of them rushed over and removed Flitter from Twilight's back and rushed the pegasus back to the hospital while another two escorted Spike to the same place, wanting to make sure the dragon was mentally and physically sound.

Luna peered into the dark tunnel's entrance and frowned. "We stopped the Diamond Dogs that survived as they fled. They told us that Tartarus himself was down there, and he was bringing death to all of them. I can smell pain and death, but you must have seen it first-hoof. They were not lying, were they?" she asked.

Twilight shook her head. "No, they are right. I found almost all of them dead. It... they were all... it was horrible." she said. "I... I think Spike did it. But... that would be impossible. He's too small to do something that horrible."

"There is one way." Luna said. "There are times that, when provoked enough, a dragon will enter a state of absolute anger and violence. It is called Dragon's Rage, and almost no pony has ever seen a dragon in this state and lived. They will kill any creature they see and destroy anything in their way."

"But... how was Flitter left alive? You don't think... Spike wouldn't..." Twilight gasped, hoping she was wrong.

Princess Luna calmed her by placing a hoof on her shoulder. "No, dragons have never been known to do that while in their rage. I'm afraid the Diamond Dogs were responsible for that. But when a dragon enters their Dragon Rage, it's usually because they have had their pile of treasure stolen from them, and they will stay in their rage until they get their treasure back. But in this case, Spike can never get the treasure he, and Flitter, lost today."

Author's Note

Yup... I'm going to Hell for this one...