In a dark cave somewhere...
Deep underground... ….
And very very smelly... … …
… … … Trixie and Flash Sentry sat on their haunches—flanked by two large bipedal canines in rusted armor—while a slightly smaller creature paced in front of them, pontificating with paw'd gestures in the flickering torchlight.
“...and with pony ssssociety taking on itssssss latessssst turn, the Diamond Dogssss have decided that we mussssst blend in ssssssomehow! Thisssss isssss no longer Equessssstria for poniessssss. But Equessssstria for all creaturesssssss! And what better way to capitalize than to ssssstake our claim in a brand new worldwide economy?!?”
Trixie blinked. She leaned in towards Flash. “What in the hay are we witnessing right now?”
“I dunno.” Flash shrugged, eyes stuck on the lecturing mutt. “I think we're stuck in a Metal Gear cutscene...”
Trixie eyed the armored creatures standing near them. “How can you be so casual about all this?”
“I don't know...” Flash bit his lip. “Somehow... there's something strangely... … … familiar about this situation...”
“You've been kidnapped by a bunch of underground furries in a horse kingdom before?”
“God only knows. Maybe it's something Freudian...”
“Hey!” a particularly short dog-creature jumped in front of the two teenagers and shook a fist. “Quiet when Rover issss talking!”
“Uhhhhhhhh—yeah!” Nodded a frighteningly tall, muscular beast. His voice belonged to a husky, cartoonish adaptation of Mice and Men. “Quiet when Rover isssss talking!”
Flash and Trixie looked ahead, fixing their eyes on the tall, green-eyed “Rover” in question.
“Ah-ahem...” Rover resumed pacing. “...ssssso, we've been down thisssss road before! And we've been burned by a few misssstakessss along the way! Once, we thought we could make profit by having poniesssss fetch us gemssss! But that turned out to be very... noisssssy and annoying...”
The other mutts in the room shook visibly.
Flash and Trixie exchanged confused glances.
Rover continued: “Well, we certainly won't be making that misssstake again! Besssssidesssss... poniessss have plenty of gemssss already! We won't make a paw-hold in the new world economy by jusssssst dealing in diamondsssss and rubiesss and ssssapphiresssss...” He shook his leafy head. “No no no...!”
“Pardon me, mister dog person... thingy...” Trixie raised her hoof and spoke up, making Flash wince. “...but exactly where do we come into this picture?” A nervous smile. “It may not quite look it—but—eheheh... we're not exactly from around here!”
“If thissss wassss yearssss ago, I would have assssked you to to help ussss with gemssss!” Rover marched across the room towards a pile of rubbish. “But now, we know better! We're going to usssse you poniesssss for our junk!”
“Eaaaa-aaaaaa-haaaaaaaaaaaaaaaughhh!” Trixie flailed and hoof-kicked at the cave ceiling in sheer horror—
“See?!?!” Rover spun around, holding a bent-up unicycle and smiling with yellow teeth. “Junk! Trinketssssss! Nick-knacksssss a'plenty!” He gestured towards the pile, and in the dim torchlight both Trixie and Flash could make out miscellaneous items that belonged at a landfill: washing machines, typewriters, baseball bats—most of them rusty and decrepit as if they had been pulled out of a deep, deep ravine. “For all their talk of environmentalissssm and living off the land, poniessss are real keen to jusssst tossss anything and everything away!” He pumped a clenched paw. “That'sssss where the diamond dogsssss come in.” His green eyes narrowed. “And by that, I mean where you come in.”
“What do you want us to do?” Flash asked, taking the time to pat the shoulder of a slightly-calmer Trixie.
“It'sssss sssssimple!” Rover grinned once more. “Sssssince you were sssso generousss to have sssstumbled into our presssssence, we will be... erm... employing you to fetch us more of thessssse pricelesssss pony possssssesssssionssss from throughout the underground!” He gestured. “Sssssome are buried here... otherssss are buried there...” He barked off to the side, shrugging. “You get the picture...”
“And since we'll be 'employed,'” Flash glanced at the armored dogs on either side of them. “...what will be our payment?”
“Not being eaten and your bonessss used as pupsssss' chewtoyssss!”
Trixie gulped.
“That's... uh...” Flash smiled nervously. “...pretty good payment!”
“We dogssss are good at digging!” Rover leaned back and flexed his biceps. “In fact, we are expertsssssss at digging!”
The room full of canine bullies barked and woofed with enthusiasm.
“Butttttt... not sssssso good at appraising pony junk.” Rover made a sad face, but swiftly turned it into a grin as he pointed a claw at the two teenagers. “That'ssss where you come in!” He aimed his claw at Trixie in particular. “Essssspecially you!”
“Moi?” Trixie held a hoof over her chest. “But why Trixie?”
“The horn!” Rover gestured. “It'ssss a beacon for finding jewelssss! Sssssurely it can be ussssed for finding pony junk as well!”
“But...” Trixie's eyes squinted. “...didn't you say that you've been down this road before? With ponies being forced to do labor?”
“Yesssss! We forcccced them to find gemssss!” Rover smiled. “But thisssss issss different! Now we're going for trinketsssss!”
“Oh...” Trixie's eyebrows flattened as she droned. “...that makes perfect sense.”
“Ha HA!” Rover grinned at the small-and-big dog to his side. “I told you thisssss would work!”
“Yessss! Way to go, Rover!”
“Woof!”
“Ssssssssso...” Rover looked at the two again. “....ssssshe finds the junk. Feather pony will dig for the junk. We get more trinketssss and we ssssssell them to the Equesssstrian pawn circuit!” He posed proudly. “The Diamond Dogssss will then stake their claim amidsssst thissssss busssstling new creature economy!”
“But... like...” Flash shrugged. “...won't that come back to bite you once the other business people in Equestria figure out that you're secretly employing slave labor?”
Rover blinked. “We don't undersssstand.” A shrug. “What'ssss the problem?”
Trixie leaned in to Flash. “I wouldn't bother trying to talk sense into them. These creatures have the economic scope of a tubeworm.”
Flash exhaled through his nostrils. “Reminds me of home, actually...”
“Sssssssssssso...” Rover gestured at the two teenagers. “What are you waiting for?”
“I don't know!” Trixie folded her forelimbs and upturned her nose. “What are we waiting for?”
Less than an hour later...
“You just had to open your muzzle, didn't you?” Flash sweated and huffed, digging into a wall of dirt and pebbles under faint torchlight.
“Less talking and more digging,” Trixie muttered, standing behind him with a glowing horn. A few meters behind her, dog guards marched on patrol, eyeing them while gripping sharp spears. “Besides, I don't remember you helping much with the situation!”
“Think you can help me out here?!?” Flash wheezed, burrowing as quickly into the wall as he could. “Like—lend a hoof or something. The sooner we find some junk, maybe they'll let us rest...”
“Trixie is helping!” Trixie pointed at her horn. “The talkative one was right! Trixie can sense things with her horn! There should be something buried about a yard up ahead of you!”
“Wow, you adapted super quick...” Flash smirked bitterly, continuing to dig and burrow. “Stockholm Syndrome, much?”
“Don't be dense! Trixie wants to get out of here as much as sad-sack does! But the more we play by their expectations, the less likely we will be gutted to death!”
“Not if we die of exhaustion first...” Flash sweated and ached.
“Don't dramatize.” Trixie frowned. “And put your wings into it!”
“Are you kidding me?!? A pegasus' wings have got to be the most delicate part of a pony's—” Flash swung an errant wing at the dirt in front of him—and was surprised to see how much dirt he scooped up with the feathers in a single blink. “...well, I'll be.”
“See! Trixie is a genius!”
“Yeah?” Flash dug faster now that he was employing his wing muscles. “More like an enabler.”
“You'll thank me later once we've gathered a bounty for these numskulls.”
“What exactly are you planning?”
“Just have faith in Trixie.”
“Yeah, as if that has panned out so well in the past,” Flash grunted. “Miss 'we should just stay put here.'”
Trixie had no reply to that. She merely bit her lip as her horn dimmed.
Flash noticed it. “Hey... hey!” He whistled, motioning at the dirt wall he was digging into. “More glowy, please...”
“Ahem... yes...” Trixie nodded. “Trixie is sorry.”
Flash resumed digging. “About what?”
“... … ...”
Flash's ears folded back. It felt terribly unnatural for Trixie to go silent—much less turn melancholic. “Y'know... none of this wouldn't have happened if I hadn't messed up and lost the other members of our scouting party.”
“Mmmm...”
“... … ...so, in a way, you can say that this is all my fault.”
“Mmmmhmmmm...”
Flash glanced briefly over his shoulder. “Don't you want to chew me a new one for screwing up so badly?”
“Mmmmm-no. Trixie doesn't...”
Flash breathed steadily while working. “You seem to like it the other way around.”
Trixie's eyes darted towards him. “Huh?”
“Up above. Before we got captured. You seemed... upset when I was no longer upset with you.”
“Meh.”
“Don't 'meh' me.” Flash sweated and dug. “What's up with that?”
“Now's not the time to psychoanalyze Trixie.”
“Is that what we're doing?” Flash dug and dug. “I didn't think I was hitting it on the nose that easily! Unless...” He glanced back once more. “It is that easy. And somehow... someway... I struck a nerve that most ponies—er... people don't usually strike when they're around you.”
“... … ...”
“What's to lose in talking about it?”
“Sad-sack...” Trixie fidgeted, looking down. “...isn't like most people.”
“Yeah?” Flash blinked. “And what's that supposed to mean?”
Heavy paw-steps.
The duo flinched.
Rover returned to the scene, followed by the big mutt and the large mutt. “Well! What have the poniessss found sssso far?” He cracked his knuckles. “And don't ssssssay 'nothing,' becaussssse that would not pan out well for the poniesssss...”
“Well... erm...” Trixie delicately cleared her throat. “To be perfectly honest with you, Mr. Doggo, we've not exactly—”
“Shazam!” Flash yanked a rusty object out from the earth. He held it victoriously in his wingtips and blew the dust off the ribbed surface. “Hah! Trixie's horn was right on the money!”
Trixie blinked. “It was?” her voice cracked.
Rover stepped forward, holding a paw out. “Let us see!”
Flash handed him the object.
The dogs all leaned in as Rover held it.
“Ooooh!”
“Wowwwww!”
“What is it???”
“Ahem...” Flash cleared his throat. “I do believe it's an ancient pony device... something that you dogs wouldn't be able to comprehend.” His eyes narrowed. “Something called a 'washboard.'”
“Woof...” Rover gazed at the pegasus with a gaping expression. “Do you think it will have value in the Equesssstrian pawn circuit?”
“Eh...” Flash shrugged. “Maybe it'll fetch you a few... … ...bones?”
“Ooooh! Bones!”
“Bones!”
“Fido likes bones!”
“Well!” Rover pocketed the item and stood tall and proud. “This success means only one thing!”
Trixie's ears perked up. “We get snack time?”
Rover's teeth showed as he pointed. “Keep. Digging.”