For a while, everything was silent; even the light hoof-falls and shallow breathing of the sneaking ponies seemed to disappear into the dense, pervasive quiet they hoped to maintain. Fluttershy lead her line of fillies down the halls like a mother duck, though far less carefree. She flicked on her flashlight only when she needed to, not wanting to draw any undue attention. For what felt like an eternity, they searched one side of the building for the missing fillies, the sound of silence enveloping them in an uneasy comfort. The danger felt far away, at least for a few minutes, and that helped keep every pony calm.

Then they found one of the fillies, and the gravity of their situation fell upon them once more.

At first, she was just a flicker of eyeshine in the low light, before Fluttershy heard a tiny whimpering voice, one that tried to speak up but was too scared. Fluttershy's ears perked up and swiveled in the direction of the sound before she flicked on her flashlight; there, hiding in the crook of an overturned bench, was a little purplish filly with a dark mane and chartreuse eyes. Her uniform--and the fact that Fluttershy didn't know her--indicated she was from the Vanhoover troop.

"Hey." Fluttershy said in a gentle whisper. "I know you're scared, we all are. But we need to stick together. I promise I'll get you back with your troop mother, just come with us for now, okay?" She extended a wing, and the little pony scurried underneath it with her tail between her legs. A shimmering spot on the floor suggested she'd had an accident while huddled in fear.

"It's gonna be okay." Fluttershy soothed. The CMC gathered close to them both to offer comfort, as well as ask questions.

"What's your name?" whispered Sweetie Belle.

"V-Violet Dusk..." she said, shakily.

"Have you seen any of the other Vanhoover fillies out here?" asked Apple Bloom.

"I-I ran from that thing with one of them..." Violet replied "...b-but... but she's gone now..."

Fluttershy cast a shush over her shoulder to remind the group of anxious fillies to keep their voices down. "Where did you last see the dinosaur?"

"I-I-In one of the halls outside the animal room...th-that way..." she jutted a hoof toward the abyssal darkness of the deeper hallways from which she'd fled.

Fluttershy nodded and made a mental note of roughly where that was in relation to how far they'd traveled. "Alright, girls." she began "Let's backtrack a ways and figure out what to do next. Last thing we want to do is head in the direction of trouble."

As the Ponyville troop plus one began trekking back the way they'd come, it wasn't long before Fluttershy heard a voice echoing in her head. She covered her head with her wings in fear at first, before she realized what was actually happening: it was Rose Garden attempting to communicate with her.

"Hold up!" she quickly squeaked, and the fillies stopped moving. "I think I'm getting some kind of... magic thought message from Rose Garden..."

"Huh." murmured Sweetie Belle. "I wonder if I can learn to do that?"

"Fluttershy? I don't know if you'll be able to hear this very well." The troop mother's voice came through slightly warbled, but otherwise, Fluttershy could hear the message fine. "My group, we found two o' the other fillies over on our side of the building. One of 'em's a little hurt, but we've bandaged her up an' we think she'll be fine. Hope you've had success as well. Meet up with us over in the botanical exhibit an' we'll figure out what ta' do next, oukay?"

"Got it!" Fluttershy said under her breath, happy that the technique had worked. "C'mon girls, Rose wants us to meet up at the botany hall. Remember, quickly and quietly!" The patter of little hooves stayed as quiet as it could as the herd scurried towards an outer edge of the museum's layout. Eventually, the group arrived in the small exhibit hall, various flowers and medicinal herbs pressed flat behind its glass panels, and the Vanhoover troop arrived not long after. Violet Dusk rushed forward and embraced Rose Garden as soon as they did.

"I'm glad ta' see you're safe, Vi." Rose said in a hushed voice as she lovingly patted the filly. "But where's Ocean Blue?"

Violet gulped as she held back tears. "She's gone."

The fillies of her troop quietly gasped and whispered worriedly among themselves, except of course for Cherry Sweet. Rose put a hoof on the purple filly's shoulder and tried to comfort her.

"Now dear, I know this is beyond scary, but--"

The filly interrupted her, careful to keep her voice low but unable to stop her tears from coming.

"It bit off her head." Her lower lip throbbed and her stopped nose altered her tone. "It caught up to her and bit off her head..."

Some of Violet's troop mates wept quietly in their huddled mass behind Rose. Cherry Sweet, who stood beside her, wore a mixture of emotions that Fluttershy tried to pick apart. There was anger, she thought, and consternation, as well as a general fear she was trying her best to hide. Seasoning it all was a sadness that Cherry likely didn't know how to express; sure, she considered her troop to be frivolous and unprofessional, but she surely still cared about them. Having them die around her wasn't something she knew how to process--and for that matter, Fluttershy didn't really know how to, either. Still, she was able to tell a lot about the filly's current mindset just from a furrowed brow, flattened ears, and a slightly agape mouth.

As Rose attempted to soothe her group of fillies, Fluttershy stepped forward with a plan of sorts.

"Rose?" she gently intruded. "This just came to me, but... I think I know how we can better keep track of everypony... maybe."

"And what would that be, dear?" Rose turned to look at her as Fluttershy performed a quick headcount of the fillies in both troops.

"Well, there are 22 kids here. I figured we might be able to manage them better if combine both troops, then split them into smaller groups, each with a leader to keep track of those. Then, you and I could coordinate both of them a little better."

"Go on."

"Well, uh... how about we split them into trios or duos? That way each 'leader' filly only has to keep track of one or two others. And they'd report to us. We'd all try to stay together, of course, but if one group needed to break away and hide, for instance, we'd know who was in it and where they might be."

Rose slowly nodded her head before glancing at an eavesdropping Cherry Sweet, who emphatically nodded her head.

"I 'spose I don't have any better ideas."

After explaining the proposed situation to the scouts, Fluttershy and Rose Garden divided the fillies into six groups of three, with three each under their respective supervision. The remaining four were put into pairs, with each scoutmaster acting as the third member of their group. Sweetie Belle and Scootaloo stayed in one group, with Apple Bloom being delegated to lead another; her place was filled by Lily Longsocks. Tag-a-Long led the third group under Fluttershy's watch, and Cherry Sweet, naturally, led one of Rose's groups. Each group was an assortment of fillies from both troops; after all, they were all trying to survive together. They quickly left the botanical hall and, not wanting to stay in one place--or even one portion of the building--for too long, made their way across the building in the direction of the planetarium. Faint yet thunderous footsteps could be heard in the distance, as the Tyrannosaurus prowled in search of more prey.

The once comforting room full of sleeping bags and false starlight was now a mess. Brick and mortar littered the floor in places where the creature had forced its way in or out, and the broken body of Keyes, the security guard, lay where it had been dropped, flashlight still shining against the far wall. Once they arrived, Rose and Fluttershy encouraged the students to quickly gather any essentials they may need--food and drink, medicine, or security blankets--and regroup for a quick escape. Once they left this room, they may not be back for a while, if at all; expeditious bathroom breaks were also encouraged.

Off to one side of the sleeping area, Tag-a-Long and Cherry Sweet tried to commit to memory everything the former's encyclopedia had to say about dinosaurs, knowing that the book itself would be too heavy to carry around with them. From behind them, Apple Bloom slowly approached, her saddlebags filled with a few snacks she'd brought. Though it was a bit of an awkward time, she decided she would try to patch things up at least a little bit between them; in this scenario, their survival might depend on it. Silently, she pecked them on the shoulder; the two turned to face her, looking a little irked to have their important business interrupted. Apple Bloom quickly reached within her bag, retrieving a shiny apple and offering it to either of them.

"Are, uh... you two hungry?"

Tag-a-Long's face softened, but only for a moment. "Thanks." she said, accepting the offered fruit.

Cherry Sweet waved it away with a hoof. "I prefer oranges."

Apple Bloom let what would have normally been an emotional response combust inside her, knowing this was not the place nor time to discuss the pros and cons of various fruits. Instead, she simply smiled and peered over their shoulders at the open book.

"Whatcha readin' there?" she asked.

"We're trying to learn a little bit about our adversary." said Cherry Sweet. "If you know the enemy and know yourself, you need not fear the result of a hundred battles."

"Unfortunately," added Tag-a-Long, wiping apple from her mouth "whoever wrote this book has never seen a dinosaur alive, so they can't give us survival tips. It's mostly plain facts based on the fossils."

Apple Bloom leaned in closer, seeing a page with a variety of prehistoric animals illustrated. In the section on T. rex, there was an image comparing the size of its skull to an average pony, and another comparing its tooth to a banana, yet another inferior fruit. She couldn't help but get a little nervous at being reminded of the thing that had chased them out of this very room not even 30 minutes ago.

Apple Bloom glanced over her shoulder at her friends; Sweetie Belle was hyperventilating into a brown paper bag as Scootaloo patted her back and waited patiently to get her lunch back. Fluttershy was escorting a couple of fillies back from the restroom, and various other ponies were nervously milling about as they prepared their essential supplies to leave again. Rose Garden had taken Keyes' flashlight and gently draped a blanket she'd brought over his deceased form out of respect. After taking a moment to ponder everything that had happened thus far on this hellish night, Apple Bloom turned back to her former antagonist.

"Tag-a-Long... I... want to apologize for--"

Her verbal reconciliation was cut short, however, by Rose and Fluttershy rallying the groups back together and preparing to move them out.

"Alright, scouts!" called Rose, loud enough to be heard but careful not to let her voice resonate down the halls. "We're goin' ta' reform our little groups and hustle right along down this here hallway."

"We're going to move through the insect exhibit and into the Hall of Marine Life." Fluttershy continued, gesturing at the map with her wing. "Assuming there's no trouble, we're going to try to find Grimes, the janitor, and see if he needs help. There are a couple different paths we can follow out of marine life, so be sure to pay attention to where everypony else is heading, okay?"

Apple Bloom whirled around to try and find Tag-a-Long again, but she and Cherry Sweet had already reformed their groups. The little farmpony decided to get back to hers as well; she figured she could use a bit more time to figure out exactly what she wanted to say.

The equine convoy carefully moved out of the planetarium, their knapsacks and saddlebags carrying some food and little else to avoid slowing them down. They skirted the edge of the museum once again, careful to not stray too close to the monster's last known location; one unfortunate consequence of this, however, was that there was only one way to reach their destination from the planetarium, and it involved walking right through the place where Bubblegum had been killed. Her still-fresh viscera lay in a slick, shimmering puddle on the floor, staining it with blood. There was no trace connecting it to the pony it had belonged to except for an assortment of unopened vending machine snacks laying nearby. Flies were already starting to swarm it, and many students became distressed at the sight of it, trying their hardest to avoid stepping in the drying puddle that spread out around it. A wet, pinkish organ coated in greasy caul fat and some other assorted bits of meat were all that was left of the poor filly, the leftovers of the tyrant's first meal.

Fluttershy swallowed hard as she passed it, looking away and trying not to breathe through her nose. She hoped, desperately, that no more fillies would meet their end tonight.

Author's Note

~~"Oukay" is not a typo, it's a quirk of her charmin' accent, dont'cha know?~~