The news about Spike’s incident soon reached all his friends, who quickly went to the hospital to check on him.

Twilight smiled weakly when she saw her friends, including the Cutie Mark Crusaders there.

“How is Spike doing? Will he be okay” Fluttershy asked.

“The doctors are still treating him. I hope I didn’t get here too late.” Twilight explained looking at the floor.

“Don’t worry, Twilight, I bet Spike will be as good as before soon. I’ll prepare something special for him when he wakes up.” Pinkie Pie tried to cheer her friend up.

Twilight thanked her friend, but her attention turned to rarity who asked what was in everypony’s mind there: “Twilight, how did this happen? You told us Spike got seriously hurt at Everfree Forest. What creature would do this?”

“I’m sure no critter I know of would do such a thing unprovoked. I know Spike wouldn’t do anything bad to them either…” Fluttershy said.

Applejack rolled her eyes and said: “Yeah, right. Tell that to Timber Wolves. They would attack you just for passing by near them.”

Twilight had to interrupt her friends debate by saying: “I’m sure It’s not something from the forest itself. I mean, it had huge black tentacles. I’m fairly sure I have never seen or read something like it before.”

“If it had tentacles, did you see the main body? I mean, what it looked like?” rainbow sash asked.

The lavender unicorn sighed and replied: “No…When I saw Spike, I focused on bringing him here as soon as possible. I couldn’t give this creature a chase…” then turning to the Cutie Mark Crusaders, twilight added: “I think you should stay away from the Everfree Forest for the time being, fillies. It’s too dangerous to go play there or even visit Zecora.”

The three fillies looked at each other worried, but then they remembered what that strange stallion had told them earlier.

“Hey, I think I what what this things is! I mean, I know somepony who knows what attacked Spike?”

“What are you talking about, Apple Bloom? “ Her sister asked raising an eyebrow.

“Well, you see, when we were going home after buying the things you and Big Mac wanted, we saw a weird stallion yelling at the trees…” Apple Bloom started.

“Yelling at the trees? Looks like someone escaped the sanatorium.” Rainbow Dash said chuckling at her own comment.

But Sweetie Belle rolled her eyes, like the others, and continued: “After that he passed out of hunger and we too him to Apple Bloom’s house. Then we started to talk to him and he told us he came here to hunt a ‘thing’. He never said what it was, thou. But he said it was dangerous.”

“So, it’s some kind of monster that lives on trees?” Rarity asked trying to check how weird that sounded. But again, she lived in a town were demigods popped up causing mayhem quite often.

Twilight mused at that for a while. It did sound like whatever this colt the fillies encountered was after the same thing that hurt Spike. But she had to make sure of it first. “How does he look like? And what’s his name?”

Scootaloo then said: “He said his name is Cielo Gris. He has black mane and grey fur…We couldn’t see his cutie mark because he wore a cloak…But his horn was cut in half.”

“Somepony cut his horn off?” Fluttershy said cringing at her own words. It sounded like something very painful.

“We don’t know. But my guess is that this ‘thing’ was responsible for it.” Apple Bloom said shrugging.

“So, are always going to call this thing a ‘thing’ from now on?” rainbow dash asked. It was simply too weird for her.

“I guess. I mean. Until we know what we are dealing with, at least.” Rarity added.

Twilight then approached the fillies and lowered her head and asked: “Do you know where this Cielo Gris is? I would like to talk to him.”

Sweetie Belle then said: “Well, we tried to talk to him about letting you help him to hunt it, but as soon as we mentioned that you were the Elements of Harmony he got a bit nervous and stormed off the house. He even used magic on Apple Bloom’s brother for him to not stop him from fleeing.”

“Ain’t that suspicious?” Applejack said not liking one bit that a shady character were in her house and possibly brining danger to her family.

Twilight mused about it for a minute. She was almost sure that this Cielo guy was after the same thing that hurt her friend. By what the girls had told them, this creature likes to stay on trees, so that would be a good place to start looking. But then her expression became annoyed given the fact that Ponyville was pretty much surrounded by trees.

“I guess, we should look for this Cielo. Maybe he can point us what this creature is and how can we fight it before it hurts somepony else.” Twilight said.

Applejack then asked the lavender unicorn: “Don’t you think you should be here, sugarcube? We can drop the fillies at their homes and then try to look for this stallion.”

“Maybe, some critter in the forest had seen him. I can go check with them.” Fluttershy suggested.

“And I’ll sky patrol. A cloaked pony walking around isn’t exactly hard to miss.” Rainbow Dash said.

Twilight smiled a little and said: “Thanks, girls, but I’ll help too. The doctors are still treating Spike and I doubt they would let me see him now…I need to focus on something at the moment. And if we all search, our chances of finding him will increase.”

All mares nodded and agreed with her. Soon they left the hospital to try search for Cielo. Twilight, Rarity and Pinkie walked together asking pretty much every pony they saw if they had seen a pony that fit with the description Cutie Mark Crusaders gave them.

Meanwhile, Applejack made sure to get her sister, Sweetie Belle and Scootaloo safe at their homes before joining Twilight and the other. Rainbow Dash scouted the skies as Fluttershy tried to see if any animals had seen Cielo.

Hours passed by as they searched. Some ponies did see a cloaked stallion running around earlier, but they had no idea where he was heading specifically. Not even the animals could help Fluttershy.

“Well, it seems that our search wasn’t very fruitful” Rarity commented as the six mares walked back to the hospital.

Pinkie sighed as she said trying to cheer the others: “Well, I hope at least they let us see Spike now. Maybe he woke up.”

Twilight raised her head at the comment. She had been feeling down because she got nowhere closer to solve the mystery. But if Spike got better, then maybe she could sleep a bit easier that night.

When they got to the hospital, Twilight went straight to find the doctor who treated Spike. Thankfully he did have some good news for her.

“Well, Miss Sparkle, your friend had his four limbs broken, we had to perform surgery to tend them, but I believe they’ll recover if he rests. We’ve placed them into casts to prevent any further damage. We have to change the casts after some time to change the bandages, but it’s nothing complicated.” The doctor, who had yellow fur and brown mane, started.

The Elements of Harmony sighed collectively in relief, but before they could ask if Spike had woken up, the doctor continued: “As for his head, he had a minor concussion. He’ll recover, but he has yet to wake up. I think a couple of days of rest will suffice for him to wake up.”

This was a mix of good news and bad ones. Twilight wanted to talk with her little brother and apologize for making him go to the Everfree Forest, but at least he was out of danger. “Can we see him?” she asked with expectant eyes.

The doctor smiled softly and said: “Yes, you may. I’ll take you to his room.”

Then the six ponies followed the doctor to the third floor of the hospital and they saw he purple dragon sleeping on the bed. He had some bandages around his head and four white casts around his limbs. He also had an intravenous tube into his right cast. The tube was connected to a plastic bag contained a clear liquid which had some nutrients for patients who have no condition to eat on their own.

As they rushed to his side, the doctor said: “I’ll leave you alone for now. But remember to not do anything to disturb his rest and call us if anything happens.” After that the stallion left.

Pinkie Pie didn’t waste time and started to place a few ‘Get well’ balloons tied on a chair next to the bed. The others thought of asking where did she got the balloons from, but they knew better than question Pinkie’s antics.

“Man, whatever that thing was, it must have one heck of a strength. Aren’t Spike’s scales strong?” Rainbow Dash commented cringing a little bit.

“Yes…Poor Spikey-wikey…I can’t wait to put my hooves on the creature that did this to him.” Rarity said angrily.

The others shared Rarity’s feelings. They couldn’t believe that something would do such a thing to a child. ‘Whatever it was, it must be intelligent. It pretty much tortured Spike for Celestia knows the reason…I need to stop it before it makes another victim.’ Twilight thought.

“Well, I’m going to prepare some sapphire cupcakes for him once he wakes up. Nobody deserves hospital food.” Pinkie Pie said stretching her tongue to emphasize her point.

It drew a few giggles out of her friends. She couldn’t bear to see them sad. It also hurt her to see Spike in such a state, but she was sure he would recover soon and she would help him feel better or her name wasn’t Pinkie Pie.

Applejack then looked through window at the room and noticed that the Sun had already set: “It is getting a bit late, I need to go home and check on Apple Bloom. Will you be okay, Twilight?”

The lavender unicorn moved her gaze from her assistant and replied: “Yes. You girls, can go home. I’ll stay here with him. If anything happens I’ll call you.”

They said their byes, but before they left, Twilight said: “I think it’ll be better if you avoid going near trees. I know it sounds strange, but it’s better to avoid this creature as much as we can.”

Then they agreed with Twilight and wished her a good night.

The unicorn was now alone in the room watching her little brother sleep. His little chest rose and fell. She couldn’t help, but to feel guilty for his current situation. She hoped he would forgive her for not following his advice earlier.

She just stood there watching him for about an hour when her stomach growled. She hadn’t had anything to eat since lunch.

Twilight then got near Spike and gently kissed his forehead. “I won’t take long.” She told him before going to get something for her to eat. When she left the room, she turned off the lights and closed the door behind her

The room was dark and quiet. A few minutes later, a black shadow then emerged and slowly entered through the half open window. The shadow then turned into a big mist and positioned itself next to Spike’s bed.

One tentacle came out of the black mist. The creature considered immobilizing the baby dragon, but decided it was unnecessary, given the fact that Spike’s arms and legs were in a cast, thus he couldn’t move even if he were conscious.

The tentacle slithered into his mouth, gagging him. The unconscious drake made a few sounds and twitched as a couple of smaller tentacles shoved themselves inside of Spike’s nostrils, completely shutting off his hair. The dragon squirmed and tried to breath, but it was futile.

The entity, wanted to kill him as fast as possible without making too much noise or mess to not attract unwanted attention. It tried to have fun before, but since Spike was unconscious, torture him was meaningless, so he decided to finish the job quickly and move to his next victims.

It considered killing Spike without leaving traces and then hide inside of the room to attack Twilight while she cried over the corpse wondering why Spike died so ‘suddenly’.

‘One by one. They’ll all perish…’ it mused in its own mind.

The baby dragon’s body moved desperately trying to breath air without any success. Spike made some noises, but even in his current situation he couldn’t wake up.

Spike’s struggles were slowly ceasing because of the lack of the oxygen

If it had a mouth, it would be grinning widely as the dragon slowly died. However its pleasure was interrupted when it heard a yell.

“LET HIM GO!” Twilight yelled as rays of purple magic cut through the tentacles. She didn’t care what she was staring at. The room was dark, but she could see that whatever it was in front of her was hurting Spike again and she wouldn’t allow it.

What was detached from those ‘limbs’ simply became pure smoke. Spike coughed and inhaled really hard at the same time.

Twilight’s eyes were full of anger at the sight of this being trying to murder her friend again. Her horn glowed a very bright purple color and was ready to attack the entity again, but it fled through the window as fast as it could.

She shot a magic flare at the creature before it completely fled. The blast hit it and broke the window. The black mist fell over with the blast.

She then quickly trotted to the broken window hoping to see the ‘thing’ unconscious in the ground, but it was gone…

End of chapter 5

Author's Note

Author notes:
1)English is my second language. Forgive me for any mistake.
2)I don’t own My Little Pony