A Mysterious Disappearance of Ponies
The Entrance (Prologue)
"What does this thing even look like?" shouted Twilight down the long damp cave to Rarity. She turned and shined her horn stirring bats and causing echoing screeches to reverberate through the cave and out of its mouth. The sounds rushed towards Twilight Sparkle who was doing the same and slowly climbing down the slippery rocks just steep enough to jump down on.
"It's sort of bright white and transparent." Rarity yelled back to Twilight. "It shines and casts shadows from the inside, you really can't miss it darling." Spike peered into the cave afraid of the darkness and his knees began to shake uncontrollably as he said "G-girls…maybe we s-shouldn't be here…it's dark and…s-scary…"
Twilight caught up with Rarity and said over her shoulder to Spike "Relax pal, we have horns to light the way if you're scared." "That's right Spike. Besides two unicorns can protect you from anything between their cunning and raw ability. No need to fear." Said Rarity as she helped Twilight down a steep part of the sloped wet cave floor.
"I still don't know girls…something about this cave…rubs me the wrong way…" Spike mumbled through the echoing cave. Twilight said sweetly back to him "Fine Spike, you don't need to come with us. You can go home and try to sleep in that big, old, dark, creaky tree all alone with Owlowiscious." She tried to contain a chuckle as Spike climbed down the cave mouth too quick and tripped rolling down the slanted rocky floor. He rolled out of control and hit Rarity's back leg. Rarity yelped and turned around, her horn on Spike's chest and said glaring "Spike that is no way to touch a lady! I think you should apologize!" "Uuuh…I'm s-s-…" Spike said and gulped nervously blushing bright red. "Sorry…Rarity…"
Rarity smiled and raised her head again quickly changing demeanor to a calmer more subtle Rarity. "Quite alright Spike. You didn't mean to." She turned again and came face to face with a screeching bat and quickly screamed turning her head away as it flew past her. Twilight giggled a bit apologizing as she laughed and trotted on. "Sorry…I've just never seen anypony get so scared of something so harmless before…" She said with a bright smile on her face.
Rarity glared at her backside and walked on with her. "Well at least," Rarity began "I'm not les-" She was cut off by Twilight turning and shushing her quickly replying, "That was just once ok? Just to check really. It didn't even mean anything."
Rarity sighed and looked sad. She hung her head and apologized, "Alright Twilight, I shouldn't have brought it up…" She felt bad about what she said and meant the apology realizing that she hadn't thought about what she was saying. She couldn't shake the feeling that something was up between Twilight and Fluttershy though, they've been spending so much time together recently and not paying attention to Rarity and the other girls.
"No Rarity, it's ok," Twilight grinned and Started walking once again with Rarity looking down each corridor they come to. "It really was nothing…I overreacted…" She hid a blush by turning away and facing forward hoping Rarity hadn't seen. Spike walked up beside Twilight and grinned widely with a slight blush on his cheeks as well.
"So why haven't I heard anything about you and Fluttershy, Twilight?" He said and barely cracked up. Twilight lowered her eyelids and tried to ignore him. She knew that he would keep on with this for a looong time.
The Explanation
The three of them walked for a while and found nothing going down every corridor they couldn't see the end of. They thought they'd never see the orb again, that it was lost forever. Twilight thought she seen something white down one of the corridors. She slowed down to have a deeper look inside just as Rarity sped up to reach the next corner. Rarity bumped into Twilight's flank pushing her forward and heard her make a little yelp. Twilight turned about quickly and stared blushing into Rarity's eyes.
Twilight thought for a second and chuckled smiling, still red faced. Rarity began to laugh as well. They both increased in volume slowly for almost a minute laughing and leaning into each other for support. They both eventually fell to the ground and stopped laughing abruptly when Rarity's hoof clipped Twilight's cutie mark close to her flank. The two unicorns awkwardly stood and cleared their throats trying to avoid each other's gaze. Twilight broke the silence and asked, "Um hey, what even happened to make you drop this thing in the first place, Rarity?"
"Oh right! How very uncollected of me to forget that!" Rarity said smiling and trying to remember what happened. She'd been walking along the path not far from the cave mouth with the mysterious crystal ball on her way to Everfree Forest to see what Zecora could make of it when she was startled by a spooktree. Before she was able to realize what was happening and grab it the orb was shaken from her back and rolled into the cave bouncing down the steep step-like rocks and rolled along the slanted path down into the darkness.
She was afraid to go alone even with the light from her horn and ran to Zecora's house. Upon hearing about the cave though the zebra became spooked and wouldn't speak of it claiming it bore evil. Rarity couldn't make anything of this seeing as she'd been in millions of caves looking for diamonds with Spike before so she went back to Ponyville asking for help from her friends.
Rainbow Dash and Fluttershy claimed that they didn't belong underground since they were both pegasus and wouldn't be much help in a cave. Pinkie Pie was hosting a party and didn't want to be a bad host and it was harvest season so Applejack was needed on the orchard. That left Twilight Sparkle and Spike who had nothing better to do so they were in.
They all took until dusk to find the cave again and search through most of it. Then they were where they are now, with Twilight listening contently to Rarity's story.
"Well that sucks." Twilight blurted just after Rarity finished. "It's funny how it rolled all the way from the path into the cave…almost like it belongs here…" She giggled some more and thought about ghosts in the cave for a second. She dismissed it as silly on account of not wanting it in her mind right then.
"Mhm…like it wanted to be here or something…" Rarity said, looking around and regaining her bearings. "Hey, where's Spike?" She whipped her head around looking for the purple dragon everywhere. "Spiiike! Where are you!"
Twilight kept walking and daydreamed about Fluttershy and Rarity…having a sleep over…yeah…and that's all. "He probably got bored from the story and went back home…I wouldn't pay him much mind."
Rarity followed her and replied worriedly, "But he's deathly afraid of the dark. I don't think it's much like him to go back through the entire cave without us and then through the woods at night." She was right. It was a bit weird but he is getting older, he could've decided to face his fear and head back home.
"It's probably fine Rarity, I know him better than anyone else. He does well on his own." Rarity reluctantly followed Twilight around the next corner hoping that she was right and immediately was put in a good mood from what she saw ahead of them.
The Discovery
"Twilight, pay attention in front of you!" Rarity said racing up ahead of her. She ran towards the white pearly orb she had lost and picked it up with a glimmer from her horn holding it between Twilight and herself. Twilight's expression lifted a bit and she smirked as her reflection gazed back at her in the shiny white sphere.
Just then a small crack appeared on it and quickly grew until it split on one side and deflated as tiny white spiders came pouring by the millions out of it and began encasing the deflated orb, now realized as an egg sack, as they hissed and squeaked at the world they were now submerged in. The two ponies screamed in shock as Rarity threw the egg sack across the tunnel back at where she picked it up from. They both ran screaming from the tunnel but upon rounding the corner found something that was even more disgusting, more vile, scary, and dangerous than a million baby spiders.
Sat there, filling the entire corridor from floor to ceiling and staring with huge red round eyes at the delicious looking ponies was a bloody fanged, hairy legged, gigantic black tarantularge. Rarity fainted right there and Twilight slammed her side against the wall and shut off her horn light attempting to hide from the creature. She could hear it moving and searching for her. It moved over Rarity and sniffed in the air feeling around the floor with its long hairy feet and found the unicorn's body lying on the floor helpless.
The tarantularge, drooling and squeaking over its prey, slowly took webbing from its spinneret wrapping Rarity's body in it and poking its fangs out from its mouth awaiting its feast. Twilight was disgusted to think of such a thing and tried to block it out from her ears holding a hoof to her mouth to prevent her from making a peep.
Twilight felt the baby spiders crawling up the back of her legs and nibbling on her with their undeveloped fangs. She closed her eyes wishing that they would go away but then she heard something so curious she couldn't believe it only through sound. She had to open her eyes to make sure of what was happening.
Slowly, she cracked one eyelid open and seen the red eyes of the tarantularge and a white form held up to its mouth, a slimy crunching sound reverberating through the cavern, and by extension, her head. She puked in her mouth and collapsed as she watched her friend being eaten alive by the thing that spelled certain doom for her as well unless she did something about it. She cursed the creature in her mind and moved in centimeters on her belly slowly crawling past the feasting spider wary of what was around her in the darkness trying not to make any noise.
The baby spiders were all over her now harmlessly pushing their mouths against her body all over wanting to drive their fangs, too small to come past their mouth, into the unicorn. 'Twilight Sparkle…' She thought to herself, 'You defeated the dark princess Nightmare Moon, you can do this…'
Twilight took a long deep breath careful to keep silent then stood up once she was behind the tarantularge slowly walking faster until she starts running. She shined her horn ahead of her and shook all the baby spiders off of her but tripped on something and crashed to the ground with a grunt of pain. Once she gathered herself and realized what she tripped on she screamed again alerting the tarantularge to her whereabouts.
She got up and ran as best she could on a twisted ankle away from the skeleton of a baby dragon wrapped in silky webbing. As Twilight ran she noticed the slope of the cave floor slowly increasing until it became hard to move forward at any efficient speed without falling all over herself. She seen the cave mouth and heard the tarantularge behind her at the same time. She began to scream wildly trying to get somepony to notice her shrieks of terror but to no avail.
As she started unsteadily climbing up the stepping stones to the cave mouth the spider caught sight of her and slowly closed on its prey. Twilight begged and pleaded for savior from all the gods she could think of from every one of her books as she climbed making almost no progress. Soon the spider was on top of her and she was weeping uncontrollably overcome from grappling with the fact she was going to die.
She tried not to look at the beast as it picked her up and began spinning her in a thin tangle of webbing to hold her steady. She weeped hard and bawled her eyes out as she was slowly encased in the substance and couldn't see anything but a dull white and shadows. She soon lost her voice and couldn't even cry out for anything. She fell silent closing her eyes as she heard the tarantularge slurping up its saliva and cleaning its fangs. It slowly reared back and then with a hiss of unrestrained joy dove forward with its fangs.
The Mourning (Epilogue)
Dear Elements of Harmony,
It has come to my attention that there was a great loss in equestrian in the past three days. I am very heartbroken to hear that my star pupil, Twilight Sparkle, along with her assistant, Spike, and her trusted friend Rarity have all been missing since October 9th, 2011. I have sent out four separate search parties of my greatest pegasus teams to find them but so far have not had any luck locating the two unicorns. I understand how hard a struggle it must be for you all without two of the key elements of harmony in your lives but please try to stay level headed through these dark times. To help you all acclimate to the time in between now and when they are found I will allow you free and unrestricted access to the palace grounds at any time including all holidays. You are free to meet with anypony from my personal help team. They are all very kind and work quite hard at whatever your problem may be. I am also asking of you all to please not attempt to look for these ponies, as you may become lost yourselves and i'm sure nopony would like it if more of you went missing. Again we are very sorry for your loss and hope to find your friends soon. If any of you have any information that would help us look for them in any way please feel free to contact me or come see me at the palace.
Please stay strong in these hard times.
Sincerely and Always Yours,
Princess Celestia
