"Over here Spike!" a musical voice called out, interrupting the natural serenity of the gem fields.
"Coming Rarity!" the young voice of a boy answered.
Rarity and Spike were working under the early afternoon sun, trying to get as many precious gems as they could before the day was out.
Rarity had a large order to fill, and her current gem supply just wouldn't cut it. So, the only logical solution was to get more. Simple as pie.
"Where are they?" Spike asked.
The white unicorn pointed a hoof at the ground just barely a meter in front of her. "A large cache of them are just under the surface here, Spike," she told him with a smile. She appreciated everything he was doing for her. Mostly because she could never have done as much as him by herself. But also because, even though she knew it was ridiculous, she knew how much he cared for her. And knowing that, she just couldn't not let him help her. It was a little selfish, yes. But it made him happy.
"I'm on it!" he said with a wide smile. He bent down and tore at the soft ground with his claws, making short work of the soil covering up the gems.
After a few seconds small purple arm shot up, holding half a dozen tiny gems in its palm. "I got 'em!" Spike yelled from the hole he was in.
"Very good Spike," Rarity said as she levitated a small, white kerchief over her forehead, wiping away small beads of sweat. She looked to the sky. "Oh my, it seems we've been at this longer than I thought." She looked at the small purple and green dragon climbing out of the hole. "I do believe it's time for a break."
Spike looked at her with a smile. "Lunch time?"
"Yes," she said with a nod, "it's lunch time."
***
"Can you pass the ketchup?" Spike asked as he swallowed a mouthful of hay fries.
Rarity nodded, levitating the red bottle over to him. She was busy chewing a particularly delicious daisy and daffodil sandwich and couldn't speak. It was unladylike to talk with your mouth full.
"Fanmksh!" Spike said through a mouth full of fries. He squirted the bottle into his mouth and chewed loudly.
Rarity visibly shuddered as she saw this. Spike may be cute and friendly, but sometimes he could really be quite disgusting.
But other than Spike's eating habits, nothing of note happened during their lunch break. Well, that is until...
Spike blinked. "Did you feel that?" he asked the purple maned pony.
She looked at him in confusion. "Feel... what, exactly?"
"I don't know..." he said, scratching his head. "It almost felt like... There it is again!"
Rarity looked around the small area they were resting in. She could neither feel, nor see anything that could be-
"AAAHHHHH!!!" Rarity screamed as the ground beneath her vanished, causing her to plummet into a dark, dirty hole that was at least four meters in diameter.
"Rarity!" Spike yelled after her. He was about to jump in after her, but a huge, clawed paw struck out, smashing into his chest hard and launching him almost ten meters back. He crashed into a tree, making it tremble with the force of his impact. The pain was unimaginable. Tearing, splitting, searing pain all through his body.
Then... everything went black.
***
"Spike!"
The voice was distant, like it came to Spike from a great distance. His head hurt, he couldn't feel left arm, and there was something wet on his side and stomach.
"Spike! Spike please, wake up!"
"Ughh..." Spike groaned, trying to open his eyes. His left eye refused to cooperate, but he did manage to crack open his right eye. Just barely. He saw Twilight. Twilight... and her friends.
"Spike!" Twilight yelled, tears in her eyes.
"Twi..." he rasped out. Then he broke into a fit of coughing, blood coming from his mouth.
They all stepped back, horror and shock clear on their faces and in their eyes.
Spike tried to stand up, but his strength failed him. He rolled his head to his side. His one eye widened at what he saw.
His left arm, the one without feeling, was gone. There was a bloody stump left in its place. The wet feeling from before was his own blood running down his side, making his scales glisten in the moonlight.
Moonlight...
It was dark out. But why was he here? Where was R-
"Rarity..." he groaned.
"Spike, what happened?" Twilight asked, her voice hoarse.
"Gems... Lunch... Rarity... Hole... Claw..." He gasped for air and coughed up more blood.
He felt hooves on him. He looked to see Twilight gently stroking his face, smiling at him through her tears.
"Shh, it's okay Spike. Just rest. We'll get you to the hospital and find somepony to take care of you. Just rest and save your strength. It'll be okay Spike, I'm here." She spoke in a soft voice, so as to sooth the damaged dragon.
"Twi... light... I... I... I..." Spike tried to speak. Tried to tell her what he needed to. But... it was too late.
Spike's vision faded out to darkness. He could no longer hear Twilight. Could no longer feel her hooves on him, stroking his frills.
Spike tried to take a breath, but it wouldn't come. He tried again, but no air would fill his lungs. His eye widened as panic set in. He needed to breathe! He needed air! He needed... He... He...
***
Twilight let out a sob as she realized that Spike had stopped breathing. His one open eye glazed over as it settled on some point off in the distance, forever unseeing.
"S- Spike," she choked out through her sobs.
"Twi?" asked a voice with a southern accent.
Twilight didn't move. She didn't react to the voice in any way.
"Twilight, Ah know that you're upset..."
"I'm not upset Applejack," Twilight said. She spun to face her friends. "I'm bucking furious!" she screeched, her voice cracking.
Applejack gulped audibly. "Yeah, Ah can see that. But, Twi," she said softly, "Whoever did this to Spike still has Rarity."
Twilight gasped as she heard this. Applejack was right. Rarity was still missing.
"We need to go find her!" Pinkie Pie yelled. "She's in danger and we would be bad friends if we let her get hurt."
She was right, of course. She looked at the body of Spike again. "Hole... He said something about a hole and claws. What has claws and lives in holes?" she asked the air around her.
Rainbow Dash gasped. "Those stinkin', no good Diamond Dogs!" exclaimed.
Twilight nodded slowly. "They took Rarity once, but she got away. But now... Now they're violent. Who knows what they might do to her if she resists?" She turned to face her friends. "Girls, we need to go save Rarity."
All of them nodded solemnly in agreement.
"Okay, now all we need to do is-" Twilight started.
"Hey! I found the the hole!" Pinkie yelled.
Twilight blinked. "Good job Pinkie."
They all crowded around the hole. This was it. They didn't know how many Diamond Dogs there were. They didn't know where Rarity was being held. They didn't even know if Rarity was still alive. But they had to believe. They had to believe that their friend was alive. They had to.
Pinkie jumped into the hole, followed closely by Rainbow, Applejack and a nervous Fluttershy.
Twilight looked over her shoulder one last time at the body of her best and oldest friend. Her number one assistant. A tear ran down the side of her face. "I'll come back for you, I promise," she whispered to the corpse. Then she jumped into the hole, flaring her wings and lighting up her horn so she could see ahead of her.
Rarity was in a cell, not unlike the one when she was first captured by the Diamond Dogs. Only this time, it was worse. How that was possible she didn't know, but somehow, they had managed it.
There was old, torn rags in the corner that smelled of... ugh, she didn't want to think of what that smell was. The bars were encrusted with grime, the little bit of light in the cave was a sickly yellow color, and what appeared to be old, broken sticks layered in muck lay in the back of the cell.
It was absolutely horrible.
"Hello?" She called out. "Is somepony out there going to explain why I am here?"
The last time she was here, she vocally tortured the stinking beasts that stole her. Why they had done it again was a mystery to her. But if they wanted another go at her, then she would be sure to tell them exactly what she thought about them and the situation.
"I demand that somepony answer me! This cell is far too dirty for a pony to be comfortable! And the lighting is dreadful as well! And don't even get me started on the smell... It's like-"
"Please... be quiet Miss Rarity..." a voice she recognized said from the cell's door.
The was a silence after that that seemed to fill the room, broken only by the sounds of the cave.
"Why have you taken me again?" Rarity asked sternly.
"I didn't want to, but he made me lock you up," the voice responded.
"And who may 'he' be?"
Rarity waited for an answer, but it never came.
"Well? I'm waiting for an-" but the sight of the Diamond Dog's face shocked her into silence.
He looked into the cell with a tired face. One of his green eyes were discolored and was looking in the wrong direction. Four nasty-looking scars ran across his face, making his dullish-grey fur look even worse than it did before. "Please Miss Rarity... Please stop talking," he said in a broken voice.
Rarity blinked at the image before her, mouth slightly open. "Wha... What happened to you?" she asked quietly.
He flinched away from her like she had screamed at him, his eyes staring focused only on the floor. "He happened..."
"Who? Who is 'he'? Who did this to you?"
The Dog looked at her sadly. "Our new pack leader. He came out of nowhere and challenged me and my friends for dominance. He won."
Rarity was stunned. Only one Dog beat all three of them? Either they were even more pathetic than she had first thought, or this challenger was amazingly strong. "Are those wounds from your fight, or did you get them afterwards?"
He shrunk down lower to the ground at the question. "We... I got them in the fight... But... my friends..."
"What happened to them?" Rarity asked while stepping closer to him.
"He killed them. He only let me live because he said I was smart. And he needs smart Dogs."
"And you're being a very stupid Dog right now," a voice boomed, sounding like thunder had gotten trapped in the caves.
The Diamond Dog snapped his head towards the voice and looked on in terror. "I- I w-"
"Did I tell you to talk to her?" the voice boomed again.
The Dog only blinked.
"No, I didn't. You disobeyed me Rover, and you know what I do to traitors."
"I swear, I didn't mean to! I- I only was-" but a giant paw slammed into his head, making it spin around two full times before it stopped, looking straight at Rarity with fearful, dead eyes.
***
Twilight, Applejack, Rainbow Dash, Pinkie Pie, and Fluttershy had been wondering though the caves in search of their friend for almost an hour now. And so far, they only just managed to get even more lost than they were to start with.
"We aren't getting anywhere like this!" Rainbow groaned. "It would be way faster if I just flew around all the tunnels until I found her."
"Yes, it would," Twilight said through clenched teeth.
"Then why can't I?!" Rainbow yelled at her.
"Because," Twilight said slowly, as if she were talking to a young child, "if you did that, then you might get into trouble and we won't be there to help you."
"Ah agree with Twilight on this one Rainbow. It's just too risky for ya to be goin' on ahead of us without knowin' what's down here," Applejack said, helping Twilight's argument.
"We do know what's down here!" Rainbow practically screamed. "A bunch of stinking, dirty, mean dogs with only two working smart spots in their brains!"
Twilight was about to answer when a scream was heard coming from a particularly dark tunnel.
Everyone froze when they heard it. No one could have made that scream other than one pony. It was too high pitched, too loud, too... feminine. It was Rarity.
***
Rarity watched as the body of the Diamond Dog slumped over and landed on the ground with a loud thud, the eyes still staring at her even in death. Rarity couldn't look away from the sight. She couldn't breathe. She couldn't move. She couldn't speak. She couldn't only let out a loud scream that tore its way through the caverns, echoing non-stop off of the walls of compacted earth as it went.
As she screamed the body of the Diamond Dog, Rover, was kicked away by a huge foot. What replaced it was a large, glowing red eye that pierced into her very being.
The gate was tore off of its hinges and tossed aside like a broken toy, letting whatever was outside of her cell reach in and try to grab her.
She stumbled backwards in an attempt to get away from the giant, clawed paw. She heard a crack and looked down momentarily. The sticks... No, what she thought were sticks. They were actually long dead ponies. The bones dry and brittle.
The paw grabbed for her again, but she slipped away from it before it could reach her.
There was a low growl that seemed to shake the earth as she got away, and the paw swung towards her fast, slamming her against the wall.
She was stunned, and the creature grabbed her by her back legs and hauled her out of the cell. When she was out, she came face-to-face with a monster.
A Diamond Dog standing nearly three meters high was staring at her with bright red eyes. The eyes... She saw nothing but murder and hate in its eyes. It had wounds and scars covering its body where dented metal armor wasn't. Its fur was a rocky grey color with slightly brighter patches spread thinly across the visible areas of naked fur.
It was a monster.
"W- what... What are you...?" Rarity whispered.
"I am the king of these tunnels, the render of flesh, the breaker of bones, the killer of foes! I am Ripper!" it said, the force of its voice was enough to make Rarity sway in its grasp. And as it spoke she could see huge teeth the size of her legs in its mouth.
"Why... Why do you want me here?" she asked it in as calm a voice as she could manage.
"You are smart. You are valuable. More so than any smart Dog in these caves." it said with a faint curling of its lips.
"How am I... 'valuable'?" she asked it.
"You are a magic pony. You can find gems better than any Dog ever could." Its lips curled back even further, revealing its huge teeth once more. "And you are a female."
Rarity's eyes widened when she heard this. "What do you mean?! H- how is that important?" though she had a sinking feeling that she knew exactly what it meant.
"You will work for gems. Or you will work for me. Either way, you will work." it said, not dropping its malicious grin.
Rarity swallowed. "And... if I refuse?"
Its smiled widened. "Then I will make you work. And every Dog in these caves will make you work when I am done."
Rarity smiled nervously. "Well, I suppose I can help you get a few silly old gems. No problem at all," she laughed halfheartedly.
Its eyes seemed to glow brighter when she said this, actually illuminating the surrounding area. "Good pony. You will get a reward for your hard work. But only if you deserve it."
She eyed him nervously. "What... is this reward...?"
It licked its teeth, its huge tongue nearly touching her. "When you get me gems, you will only need to work for me."
Her pupils shrunk down to pinpricks. She opened her mouth again to scream, but its claw covered her face, stopping her from making any noise.
"If you want to open your mouth, I will make you work that too," it growled at her.
After a few seconds the paw left her face. She wanted to scream, wanted to cry out in terror and despair. But she knew she couldn't. So instead she did the next best thing she could think of. "Well, those gems aren't going to find themselves," she said in a forced cheerful tone.
