"Fuck fuck fuck fuck," Sunburst muttered as he scrambled to get himself back up as quickly as possible. "Fucking fuck!" He briefly dusted off his cape, and disregarding his broken glasses he scaled the pile of rubble in front of him to get a look at what was beyond it.
"You won't be able to see anything anyway, Sunny," said Starshine, already at his side on top of the rubble. "And you should be happy none of the walls fell on you, honestly."
Sunburst ignored her, while trying to get a better view past the pillars of dust rising from the fallen buildings. "This is bad," he said under his breath. "This is really bad."
Wick Clip screamed at first for seeing the shelves empty their contents unceremoniously onto the floor. Then she kept screaming as the glass window of her shop shattered. And she stopped screaming once she realised what had caused it all, chills racing up her spine as she remembered the last time she'd felt that same feeling.
Heart pounding in her chest she walked out of the building, and a town of cracked buildings from which ponies drifted out greeted her. They all were silent, staring at each other with worry. It wasn't long before the stallion who'd taken residence in her shop was out there too. And they all waited, to see what would come next.
Trixie and Starlight both held each other, still on the ground. Neither tried to get up right away, and instead they just stared in the other's eyes, both their expressions equally terrified. Knowing that the Behemoth had moved again was a scary enough thing. Knowing that Twilight was there on it made everything a lot worse.
Still, both mares knew there were better things to do than be paralysed by doubts and fears. They both got up, and both silently started to look around for any signs of any creature needing rescue, any buildings about to fall, anything they could help with. It was all they could do, after all.
The spoon snapped in half, and Celestia couldn't tell if it had been the shockwave or merely her own magic under shock. A brief look around the room revealed ponies equally as frozen as her. A second, a slowly yet steadily expanding crack along the ceiling. In a flash of golden magic she teleported herself and everyone else out of the building, onto a separate floating island near the one they'd been on, her cake abandoned in her plate.
Scarlet Ribbon had lunged forward to grab her honey jar out of pure instinct, and as she lay there on the floor she acknowledged how much of a stupid decision it had been. Yet there was a giddiness to her revelation, the strange euphoria of still being alive after what easily could have been the end of her. It quickly subsided though, snuffed out by the worry and uncertainty of the future.
Floating in the thick blackness around her, Pinkie barely felt the vibration. But for anything to reach her there was already quite impressive, so it did pique her interest. She allowed herself a glance in the direction it had come from, a somewhat worried frown on her face. The darkness did not complain about her actions.
"Oh dear." Cadence stood still, and so did Shining on the other end of the room. "This is not good."
He felt it resonating all the way to his heart. Which was quite a weird experience, given he couldn't really feel his own heart at all at that moment. He wasn't, in truth, sure if it made him more excited about awakening again or more reluctant to. But either way, it certainly was waking him up. And, strangely for him, he felt scared. Something he hadn't felt for a very long time before the last time he'd gone dormant.
Sunset tapped on her screen to reach the appropriate icon, only to find Twilight already calling her. She answered, and pulled the phone up to her ear. "Did you feel that?"
"Of course I did!" Twilight replied from the other side. "The whole town must have felt that."
"What in Celestia's name was that?" yelled Sunset, moving to her window to make sure there was no significant damage outside.
"I'd say it was an earthquake," Twilight answered, "but... Well, for one, earthquakes don't happen as a single wave."
"For two, earthquakes aren't magic," Sunset added, worry in her voice, addressing what Twilight had chosen not to. "You felt that too, didn't you?"
The quiet sound of Twilight biting her lip on the other end of the call was all the confirmation Sunset needed.
Rarity catched herself, and stood straight again. "Is everyone okay?" she asked, looking around the room.
Twilight nodded, and looked as well to ensure the other mares weren't hurt.
Applejack just stared at the ground, wide-eyed and motionless. "Seven more," she whispered.
"Applejack, we need to get out of here," Twilight said, trying to grab hold of her friend.
"What was that?" Rarity worriedly asked.
"Oh for goodness' sake!" Applejack snapped, looking up at the others. "You know what that was! Just like you know everything else that happened!"
"Applejack, I don't-"
"How do you not realise it? How do you not notice when it should have only been a second here?"
Everyone else in the room remained silent, suddenly trading uneasy, increasingly worried looks.
The tape did hold, much to the benefit of the stallion's peace of mind. He began to remove it, and to place his items back on his desk. "And to think I was almost late today as well," he said, stepping around the room to make sure he'd gotten everything.
Once he was done with that, he had a look at the desk again. "Well, this should at least round it up nicely." He sighed the kind of sigh given after a hard work well done, smiling to himself. "About time we got here, anyway."