When morning came to, the girls woke up as Ol' Spire left them to go and hunt for food. Scootaloo stood up and stretched, looking around. The sun had just started peaking over the horizon and the migration had ended. The fire pit was put out and the marks of last night's battle left scars scattered throughout the area, including the dead Daimyo Hermitaur. It seemed like nothing, save a few Banabra, touched it since the fight.

Suddenly, something snapped in Scootaloo's mind.

“Girls! Where's our ride?”, she asked. Applebloom, Babs, and Sweetie looked at the dock where the boat was supposed to pick them up when a rowboat came into view.

“Took 'em long enough”, Applebloom grumbled. The boat held three ponies. Two were a couple of burly, brown earth ponies rowing it, and a white unicorn tied up, looking extremely pissed.

“Where in Equestria were you!?”, Scootaloo shouted out.

“Sorry ma'am!”, one of the brown colts called out, “We're on a shortage of boats! Some are in repair, and the remaining few are being used for other hunters. Sadly, the only one big enough was a private boat that could only leave the docks with its owner.”

“This little prick would rather us kill him than use it to help out-”

“Some low-life peasants that make a sad excuse for a living!!!”, the white unicorn shouted. The girls noticed an enchanted ring on his horn that kept his magic at bay.

“Yyyyeeah, so we compromised”, the other colt chuckled.

“Let me out you-!”, the unicorn continued to cuss and shout until Sweetie Belle finally got sick of his voice and used a silencing spell on him, but as he continued to try and complain, everypony could still imagine his insufferable voice.

“I bucking hate you, Blueblood”, Scootaloo grumbled, stepping into the boat.

“Whachya gonna tell the chief when we reach the village?”, Babs asked, jumping in, 'accidentally' dropping one of her dung bombs. Blueblood sniffed once, then hurled over the edge. When he saw that a tiny bit of vomit hit the edge of his boat, his nose started bleeding, a vein started throbbing in his temple, then he fainted.

“Chief Twilight Sparkle?”, one of the colts laughed, “She was the one that gave us the magic inhibitor and rope in the first place! She said that she'd just let us take the boat, but because Blueblood bought it for himself, there was a DNA enchantment in it that wouldn't let us leave without him. So, this was the next best thing.”

“Can we go now? I fell his snobbyness crawling up my spine”, Sweetie Belle complained, then nudged his unconscious body away from her.

“Girls!”, Twilight cheered, hugging the crusaders, “I'm so glad your back! Anything interesting happen?” Twilight didn't wear anything too fancy. Mostly just a regular, purple dress, a brown cape to cover her wings, and a pair of sandals. She left the better clothes and armor to the hunters. Her hunting days were over, but that didn't stop her from teaching Scootaloo how to hunt. And she was really proud when Scootaloo started teaching the other girls too.

“Twilight! You'll never believe it!”, Sweetie Belle squealed and started jumping up and down. Blueblood walked in on the conversation, in front of the crusaders, just interrupting them.

“Excuse me ch-”, Blueblood started, but Twilight quickly teleported him at the docks, dropping him in the water.

“C'mon girls, lets continue inside the library”, Twilight said, as if nothing happened.

When they entered the library, Sweetie Belle started jumping around again, squealing and giggling in delight. She jumped around so much, Twilight put a suspension spell on her to keep her from doing any damage, but Sweetie Belle's attitude wasn't fazed at all.

“Spike will you make us some tea?”, Twilight asked her dragon assistant. There was no reply.

“Spike!”, Twilight snapped. Spike came tumbling down the stairs, and landed face first into the ground. He was wearing a dirty apron, along with a brown, long sleeve shirt and black pants. Spike had grown a bit, as well as the crusaders. Once he hit puberty, Spike finally got a growth spurt, and his voice sounded a little less... falsetto. He never grew wings, but he didn't mind that. The spikes on his head and back had sharpened to a bit more of a point, and his ability to breath fire increased to the power of a Rathian. He even tested it out himself. The only thing about him was his teeth didn't grow very sharp due to living with omnivores. With the help of the town dentist, Colgate, he grew more accustomed to eating plants and meat than jewels. In times like these, eating precious metal was almost a waste. But he still got to have some pieces of old accessories or some rare ores that hunters would donate for him.

If there was one thing ponies admired him for, it was his muscle strength. Even though he's not as strong as other dragons, his strength increased dramatically, past that of an earth ponies strength after they drink a mega demondrug. They also admired him for his smithing. He even made armor out of his own shed scales. Of course he never wore it since his newer scales were much stronger, but the armor made a nice decoration piece.

“Ugh, why does morning have to be now?”, he grumbled, getting up off the ground. When he saw the crusaders, his face immediately brightened. “Hey girls! You finally made it back!”

“Spike, tea, please.”

“Oh, of course, it'll be right up.” Spike hurried to the kitchen.

“So, what happened on your quest? I know it's just a gathering quest, but anything can happen out there.”

“Ooooooooh! Twilight! You'll never guess what happened!”, Sweetie Belle exclaimed, “It was so scary, then awesome! We made a new friend!”

“Really? Out there? Where is this little filly? Why didn't you take him or her with you?”

“First of all, he's a lot older than us, that I can tell for sure”, Scootaloo said.

“And he's a great swimmer”, Applebloom added, “And really strong.”

“We've made friends with a Leviathan!”, Sweetie squealed as Spike walked in.

“Wait, what?”, Twilight and Spike asked at the same time.

“That old Lagiacrus that sleeps on the big rock spire out on the island”, Sweetie Belle continued, “We call him Ol' Spire. At first, we just thought of the name and though he was just there because he never bothered us. But then, there was this swarm of Banabra, one grazed Scootaloo's arm, and a Hermitaur burst out of the ground!” Sweetie made big hand motions, imitating the Hermitaur, “And we thought we were goners. Scootaloo's arm was paralyzed, I'm still new to this, Applebloom's weapon was dull, and Babs was already busy with the Banabra. We thought we were toast when it started preparing its Jet blast attack, but suddenly, Ol' Spire charged in and attack the Hermitaur! They had an epic battle, but our friend completely DESTROYED that overgrown hermit crab. Then we made friends with him and got to sleep under his hood. Urgh! I wanna see Ol' Spire again so we can ride his back while he swims!” Sweetie bit her shirt in anticipation and impatience.

“Woah there”, Twilight said, “You're saying that a Lagiacrus saved you? Intentionally?”

“That's totally awesome!”, Spike exclaimed, high fiving the crusaders. “You have got to show me Ol' Spire. He sounds totally awesome!”

“This is an amazing breakthrough”, Twilight stated, “Becoming friends with a Leviathan. I knew that Wyverns, Leviathans, and Elder Dragons have more intelligence than most monsters, but this... this is just amazing! Do you girls mind taking us along to interview with the L-... I mean, Ol' Spire?”

“We can take ya' ta' meet 'im, but ah don't think this needs ta be an interview”, Applebloom said.

“But...”

“Twilight, please”, Sweetie asked, “We don't think it's a good idea to start doing that just yet. I mean, we've only just met him yesterday, and that was because he saved us, but we need him to know that he can trust us.” Twilight looked disappointed first, but then understood how important their friendship with Ol' Spir is.

“Alright girls, I promise I won't turn this into another one of my experiments, but I hope you do understand why I want to change into armor first. It's not your friend I'm worried about, it's just been so long since I've been outside in the wilderness, I might be a little rusty when it comes to hunting.” The crusaders nodded and Spike jumped in joy.

“Woo! I'm gonna be a bucking Lagiacrus!”

Twilight came out wearing some more protective gear. Her entire armor set was made from crystals crafted by the crystal empire, but Twilight had painted it with darker shades of purple to reduce shine, and make it a little less obvious. Most of the armor looked like that of the royal guards, but a little more flexible around the joints, and instead of a helmet, she wore her crown, which she enchanted to absorb status effects (i.e. poison, paralyzation, waterblight, etc). Since Twilight prefered to carry a bowgun, one of her wrists and shoulders had a little extra plating, and her whole armor set wasn’t as thick as a swordsman’s.

“All right! Let's go!”, Spike said, climbing onto Twilight's private ship, which recently came back from repairs. It was a large boat with a a couple cannons on each side and one ballista on each side, along with a dragonater equipped at the front of the ship. The large sail above the boat was folded up so the wind didn't take it away, but you could still see part of Twilight's cutie mark on it.

“Um, Spike, I think we should take a smaller, less threatening boat”, Twilight said to him, “Especially since mine is built with a dragonater.” Spike slid down the ladder, not even phased by a possible rope burn.

“Oh... right”, he said sheepishly. He looked back at the ship and sighed. It was one of his favorite creations. He doesn't build ships too often, in fact, this was the second one of three he's ever made, but he had a lot of fun making them, especially since he got to work with others.

“Alright girls, since we don't have any large, unthreatening boats, and Blueblood went to go burn his...” Twilight made a raspberry at the sound of Blueblood's name, “we're going to have to take three different boats.” The two brown colts pointed out three similar looking row boats. Each could fit about three at the most. The first one held one of the colts, Sweetie Belle, and Scootaloo. The second would hold the other colt, Applebloom, and Babs. And the third would just have Twilight and Spike.

The boats set off, and the two colts began talking about their lives, and how their monster hunts went. Even if you've been hunting long enough to hear all their stories, they keep it interesting.

Once everypony arrived back at the camp where the crusaders were last, the two colts tied all three boats together and began rowing away.

“So, where's Ol' Spire?”, Twilight asked, looking around, not paying much attention to the dead Hermitaur and battle marks that scattered the area.

“He's usually sleepin' over there”, Babs pointed to the giant rock spire out at sea, “But I'm guessing he's off hunting for his own food.”

“Should we go look for him?”, Scootaloo asked.

“Let's do it, I really wanna see him again”, Sweetie Belle squeaked and took off to the hunting grounds, the others following in her wake. Twilight had a little trouble keeping up due to not being used to wearing armor. She didn't have much of a stamina problem, but she forgot how clumsy armor was after wearing just fabric clothing for a while.

Sweetie Belle led everyone into a large open field. Off on the other side was a huge mountain with a waterfall fall down to the ground, creating a river that flowed right through the middle of the field and to the camp. It was surrounded by rocky structures, coming out from the waterfall, with only two ways out. That was either the cave beside the waterfall, or the path towards camp. Since the cave was the only other way to this area, and it held pretty dangerous creatures, herbivores never typically made it here. Mostly only flying wyverns, or a few giggi that crawl out of the cave. So this was just kind of a calm area for hunters. Kind of like an extension of camp, but with a little more access for monsters.

Sweetie Belle stopped in front of the cave, remembering what they were running from before.

“What's wrong Sweetie?”, Twilight asked, when she pointed at a large, pale creature with a huge bruise on its head appeared. It was the Gigginox from last night. The girls carefully pulled out their weapons, getting ready for battle. The creature was about to roar, but Spike quickly went up and punched it in the neck. Then he pinned it down and completely roasted the Gigginox with his fire breath, killing it rather quickly.

He threw the corpse to the side, hardly satisfied with the fight.

“C'mon”, he said positively, “We've got a Lagiacrus to meet!” Applebloom looked to Twilight, who just shrugged and said, “My #1 assistant. He’s not here just to help me sort out the library.”

Author's Note

I don't feel like this one is as decent as the first two, but I guess it's okay???
so, here's the third chapter which introduces Chief Twilight and a more grown up Spike. And Blueblood for maybe a temporary period.