//------------------------------//
// Mini Story: What Could Have Been Part Two. 
// Story: A Diamond In The Ruff: A Gem Stone Beginning. 
// by Campanula Monkshood 
//------------------------------//





One Year Before Changeling Invasion of Canterlot.




"Gem! Get back to work," the guard dog cracked his whip over my head, causing me to duck and spill the stones from my pack. "Idiot! Pick those stones up you'll get fifty lashes from the Alphas!"

"Good! Maybe it will kill me this time," I screamed, chucking a large stone at the guard who let it bounce off his helm, "I'm sick of this! I am here for eating a gem that no one wanted as well as it making me into something the Alphas don't want! My father killed for standing up for me for the first time since my birth and mother soon followed. They torture us and kill us, well I say no more! Those who want to be free, those without family; join me my brothers and sisters! We shall start our own clan, where all are treated the same and no stomachs young and old will rumble from hunger! Now who's with me?!"

Everyone who felt the same way as I did started chanting about freedom as we swarmed the guards, I lunged at the guard who whipped me and grabbed his head in my paws and crushed it with ease. The prisoners and I removed our shackles and marched down the tunnels to the main exit of the warren and away from our oppressors. 

It took us nearly a week of walking until we found a suitable land to start digging, we had lost a few of our older members that decided to make the trip south. I couldn't quite place it but the land we had found looked very familiar, maybe from a dream I had one time but it was a nice little rocky hilly area a ways off from a dark forest. 

"Why we choose here," one of the gruffer females  asked as several other dogs looked around nodding, "It to close to pony town! They will chase us out before you say fleabutt!"

"Only partially true, if we not trespass on the pony town they won't see reason to push us out and it will also be our defense; alphas won't dare oppose pony princess." I drew several lines in the ground, "I was thinking we should have one main cave entrance as well as one hidden a ways off; a mile of so into the forest."

A Pug looking dog glanced over the lines and nodded, "Is doable, what about living arrangements?"

"We'll have to dig out several antechambers and from there we should be able to dig some suitable dens for the remaining elderly and young while we smooth out everything else. All right, let's get digging."





Day of the Invasion.





I proceeded with my daily check of the den's layout and structure, we were adding a new level down for a new underground water space. We've had a surplus of workers as of late, we had to call back our foragers; there has been something big going on in the works around the Princess' city. The constant thrum and buzz that could be felt all the way from here is a clear indicator, "Balto!"

"Yes sir," asked a brown and white dog fell into the room from a hole in the ceiling.

"Has word from the lookout reported anything from the Castle," I asked as I helped any a dog load a crate on a wagon.

"Not yet sir but I don't think it'll matter much. You should come see this," Balto motioned up and launched himself into the hole he came from and I soon followed him. Six lefts, two right, a antechamber, and a corkscrew later and we found ourselves on a hill overlooking the valley towards Ponyville and Canterlot. There was a massive purple bubble over the castle that was having several of the dogs topside talking.

"I don't like it."

"Pony Princess must be expecting attack."

i gave a bark to quiet them down, "It doesn't matter right now, just try and finish what you can of the wall and if anything happens we'll retreat and seal the entrances." Several dogs simply grunted and returned to work tossing boulders and thick grey paste that was made out of who knows what. I leaned down to Balto and whispered as quietly as possible to keep from being overheard, "Find out why Lookout hasn't reported in." He gave a sharp nod and bolted off down the entrance to where I assumed he was going to take the exit north to lookout. "This does not bode well." 





One Month Later.





"Why are you attacking me," several voices shouted down one of the tunnels, I jumped in said tunnel and slide easily to the antechamber where large and small dogs were fighting each other, when I exited the crowd that had formed parted ways.

"What's going on here?!"

A large tan boxer picked up a poodle by the scruff of its neck, "They smell off, not one of us!" There were numerous affirmations from the crowd. I leaned in and took a sniff of the female poodle and he was right; she didn't smell like a dog but something else with an earthy musty type smell. "He's right, you're not one of us... who are you."

All the female dogs that were in the fight as well as a couple males started trashing and green flames sprouted across their bodies, one of them let out a chittering voice, "Retreat! They can smell us! Go back to the hive!"

"It looks like we've found out what had the ponies in such a state... I want everyone with their noses to the ground, I recognized a few of those dogs so I want teams checking to see if they're still in the den while the rest of us track down any straggling insects."

"""Yes Sir!"""

We spent several hours looking through our moderate sized group and came up with the knowledge that Balto, the random dogs and the Lookout staff haven't been seen for almost two months. Just what we needed; to set up a process to spot these insect ponies and it would just slow down our progress but it needed to be done. I lined up extra scent patrols around families with children just in case while we locked down the den entrance for a whil. One way or another we would figure out what was going on and things would get back to normal





Six months after changeling invasion of Canterlot.





Things did not go back to normal, far from it; it's been a few months since the first attack and the pony town nearby is completely in ruins when the forest began growing past its boundaries, It seemed that several groups of changelings, because that's what they are apparently after finding afterr trapping one of them, loved to try and get inside by attacking us like clockwork.

"ARRROOOOO~"

Speaking of which, there was the patrol's alert for incoming hostiles on the surface, I quickly strapped on my chest piece and grapped a spare spear on my way up. Many dogs were doing the same as more howls came in to indicate rhe numbers, "Damn! There must be a whole hive out there, everyone get ready so when I give the signal you jump them."

My troop and I made it to the entrance and spotted the reason for the hubbub; there wasn't a hive swarming us like I thought, the changelings were chasing ponies of varying sizes. "Protect the ponies! Down with the bugs!"

With a rallied roar the dogs lurched down the hill and for every bug there was two dogs there to beat them back and help the ponies up. A shrill scream distracted me from my fight with a hulking new breed of changeling, probably a half-breed with a diamond dog, which was all it needed to stab my shoulder with a bloody gush. "Gah! Hold on," I shouted to the pony while lodging my spear into the ground in front of the hulk and used his weight to spear it in the chest which seemed to work. With the thing no longer moving I removed its claws and made a dash from the direction the shout came from. 

"Please Rarity, please tell me it's not true," a female voice screamed at a changeling that was shifted into a white unicorn.

'Rarity' just smirked at her, "It's true, our parents never even wanted you; I was already out of the house and they had their whole lives to themselves... I'm sorry, Sweetie. Just come back with me and it'll just be the two of us."

"Not today!" I tackled 'Rarity' and wrapped my arms around its neck while Sweetie beat on me with her hooves. "It's not what you think," I told her while I gave the neck a quick snap and the changeling reverted back to its original body, "I'm sorry for whatever it said but you can't trust what a changeling says any more than trust a dragon to watch your gems while you go to the bathroom."

"W-what?"

"It was just a changeling, it was trying to get you to follow it back to  its hive," I explained while looking over the battlefield, luckily none of our side had died but were only injured and the ponies seemed to have made it though relatively unscathed..

"Oh my gosh! You're hurt, was it Rarity- I mean that thing that did it?"

"Something similar, follow me," I lead her over to the hulking mass, "This was the one that got me."

"It's massive..."

"Yep now let's round up your little friends and get you on your merry little way." I gave her a little push with my tail to get her moving. We came across a couple of dogs with a crowd of ponies, "Alright boys, know how many have you got and any interceptors?"

"No interceptors, sir but the group of 14 we managed to round up that didn't run away screaming is right here."

"Alright thanks," I turned to the ponies, "Hello everyone, my name is Gem and my troop and I are the ones that saved you..."

An earth pony stuck his his head up and spoke in a snobbish voice, "Why did you even bother you brutes, either we die or get enslaved by the changelings or by you, what does it matter?!"

"Killed? Enslaved? Geoddie, what's he talking about," I asked on of the dogs who just shrugged, "Whatever you may think that's not the case so let me start over. My name is Gem I'm the... well not the Alpha per se... Geoddie, what would you say my title would be?"

"Unanimously decided leader..."

"Let's shorten that down to just leader... Anyways I'm the leave of this pack and we honestly didn't mean to save you; we had recieved alarms that changelings were swarming our entrance and you just happened to get saved as well." I could have almost laughed when the pony's face dropped in fear, "I'm only partially joking but now on to the hard question; who here has just started running from the Hive?" A few hooves went up, including Sweetie from earlier, "Alright, so here's my first question for any of you; how would you like a place to call home with little chance of getting taken by changelings?"

Once more the snob stuck his face up, "Why should we even trust you, before the Changelings the diamond dogs were the ones trying to foalnap us!"

"Not true, yes there were a few but not from this pack, we were slaves ourselves and we will never let something like that happen again. Right boys?" I had asked the other dogs who nodded their heads in agreement, "So that's that, if any of you do decide to join us feel free to follow us back down inside, those who don't trust us or don't want to join you're free to leave."

We gathered what weapons were salvageable and led the ponies inside and settled when one of the mares brought up the chill in the air, "We'll have to send a party to one of the nearby abandoned towns... We normally just pile up when it gets cold but I can understand why that'd be uncomfortable for you." I went to go assign someone to that duty so that I could get this wound wrapped up while the white mare followed me.

"E-excuse me, that looks painful. Can I help you bandage it?" Sweetie had asked after everything was taken care of, "I'm not great at first aid but I know enough..."

I just nodded then handed her my kit that I had borrowed from Ponyville a few short weeks ago, I flopped down on my rear so she could get to my shoulder and arm, "Sweet Celestia, this is deep... I'll try and do what I can." She picked up several items before deciding which one to use first before she started talking again. "My name's Sweetie Belle, how old are you?"

"I'm pretty sure I told you my name already,"  I said laughing softly, "but my name is Gem Stone, I'm seven and it's nice to meet you,"

"Seven?! But you're not much older than I am! Why are you in charge?!"

"It's a long, long story, Sweetie Belle."

We fell into a companionable silence while she worked, hardly ever making a large mistake or causing me pain. I wanted to ask her about the pony the changeling had turned into but I could tell that wound, much like mine, was still fresh. After she had finished I went off to do a couple of things before it was time to turn in; check the work on the underground lake again and order new tunnels and dens for our new guests, "Sweetie Belle, why are you following me?"

"Uh... Oh! You're still hurt, you're going to undo my stitches!"

:"Uh huh, come on then let's get this done and get back so I can sleep..."





After it was all said in done, we wouldn't need to finish digging the underground lake; diggers had broken into a sealed of area that was full of life, even all the way down here; Sweetie Belle thought it was the most beautiful thing she had ever seen. By the time I had finished what I had to do I was bone tired and eased my way down in my sleeping space and started to doze only to be woken up by something laying down next to me, I crack open an eye and see a familiar white coat, "Sweetie Belle, what are you doing?"

"S-sleeping? Like you said earlier, you guys huddle up for warmth and I'm cold I didn't think you would mind..."

I sighed and rubbed my eyes, "Whatever you say, goodnight."

"Goodnight," Sweetie Belle echoed and  just seemed to scoot into my fur and the only thing I heard was her soft breathing as I too fell asleep.