//------------------------------//
// Straight from the Storybook 
// Story: Beasts and Burdens 
// by Metool Bard 
//------------------------------//


Beasts and Burdens Chapter 3:
Straight from the Storybook


When Sweetie Belle opened her eyes, she had no idea where she was.  Wherever she was, it was very claustrophobic, as if she were being carried in some sort of sack.  She started to squirm and struggle, tearing holes in the sack with her horn and hooves.  In the middle of her struggle, her horn grazed whoever was carrying her.

"OW!  Watch it, you little runt!" barked the carrier. "Boss, I think she's awake."

"Ah, perfect timing," said another voice. "Let her out."

The sack flew open, and Sweetie Belle fell to the floor with an unceremonious thud.  She looked up, and found herself in a large, dank cave lit by torches.  Above her, three grimy-looking creatures peered down at her with glowing eyes, two sets of yellow and one set of green.  There was a large blue one, a pug-faced short one, and a particularly nasty-looking medium-sized one.  They were the same creatures that abducted her from her bedroom.

"Well, go ahead little pony," said the middle one. "Scream.  Make the annoying noises.  These tunnels carry sound a long distance, and I'm sure your sister would love to hear them."

"M-my sister?" stammered Sweetie Belle, finding her voice. "Wh-what does she have to do with this?"

"She doesn't seem to know, Boss," said the pug.

"I can see that!" the middle creature snarled.  He then cleared his throat. "Permit us to introduce ourselves.  We are Diamond Dogs.  We hunt pretty gems."

Sweetie Belle shivered.  She remembered her sister telling her about the Diamond Dogs, and how nasty they were.  But she never thought she'd actually see one, let alone three.

"Well, that's nice," she said, slowly getting to her feet. "I'd love to stay and chat, but I have, um, stuff to do at home.  And besides, my parents would be awfully worried about me if they knew I was gone, so..."

"Oh, you're not going anywhere," said the Boss.  He then took out a whistle and blew into it.  Although it didn't seem to produce a sound, two more dogs wearing armor appeared from the shadows, pointing spears at the frightened young filly.

"We've waited too long for this," said the pug. "No matter how hard we try, that whiny pony is still the better hunter.  She would be the perfect slave for us.  But all of the whining and complaining and the outrageous demands, raough!  It almost wasn't worth it!"

Sweetie Belle had to stifle a giggle.  That sounded like Rarity, alright.

"You think that's funny?!" snarled the large dog, scaring Sweetie Belle out of her wits. "That pony humiliated us!  We're Diamond Dogs!  That shouldn't happen to us!"

"So we spied on her every time she came to our mountains hunting for gems," said the pug. "We needed to get back at her.  We needed her talents.  But all we could do is watch as she took all of those precious gems for herself.  There was nothing we could think of to make her shut up and bow to our will.  And then, we saw her with you."

"M-me?" squeaked Sweetie Belle.

"She called you 'sister,'" said the Boss. "That was enough for me to hatch this brilliant plan.  Now if your sister wants to see you again, she'll come to us.  And if she wants you to remain unharmed, she'll work for us without a fuss."

"Heh heh, yeah," said the pug. "She'll be like putty in our paws."

Sweetie Belle swallowed, and tried her best to gather her courage and stand tall. "Th-there's no way she'd agree to that," she said. "She'll find a way to rescue me, and she'll bring her friends, too!"

"Oh, we already prepared for that," said the Boss with a sneer. "Those ponies are no match for us.  If they try to get to us through our usual passageways, we'll make them our workhorses, too.  And this time, we'll make sure they don't fight back."

"Um, Boss?  How are you gonna do that?" asked one of the guards

"Use your brain, you idiot!" barked the pug. "We have a hostage!  They won't try anything as long as we got her!"

"Oh, right," said the guard sheepishly.

"Now make yourself useful and throw her into the dungeon!" the Boss ordered. "Remember this day, my fellow Diamond Dogs.  For today, we outshine those silly ponies!"

Tears welled up in Sweetie Belle's eyes as the guards carried her off.  She wanted nothing more than for all this to be a bad dream, and for Rarity to wake her up and tell her everything was alright.  But alas, the harsh grip of her captors reminded her that this was all too real.  She began to picture Rarity panicking, fretting over her sister's disappearance.  The image in her mind made her cry harder.  What was going to happen?

Suddenly, another guard came in from a distant cave. "Um, Boss?  We have a problem," he grunted.

"Not now.  Can't you see we're busy?" snapped the Boss.

"But Boss, this is important," said the guard.

"What could be more important than this?" asked the large dog.

"Well, someone just broke into the northern caves," said the guard.

"Those ponies are here already?" said the pug, wringing his paws. "My, that was fast."

"It's not the ponies, sir," said the guard. "We don't know what it is.  All we know is that it has already taken out two of our battalions, and it's heading this..."

But the guard got no further.  A large explosion came from the far wall, and a large beast emerged.  The appearance of the beast caused Sweetie Belle's heart to freeze and her tail to stand up on end.  The creature looked just like the one from her book: The front of a blue lion, the back of a bluish-purple goat, a goat's head sticking out of the creature's spine, and a quartz-colored serpent for a tail.

"Well, well, well," said the lion head. "What do we have here?"

"Looks like a buuuuuuuuunch of mangy mongrels if you ask meeeeeeeeeee," brayed the goat head.

"Hey, who are you calling mongrels?!" barked the Boss Diamond Dog.

The creature whipped its serpent tail to the Boss, and it gave him an intimidating glare.

"You are the mongrelsssssssssssss," the serpent hissed. "Isssssssssss there a problem with that?"

The Boss laughed nervously. "Um, no.  No, not at all."

"But Boss..."

The pug's correction was interrupted by an elbow to the gut.  Quickly, he fell in line.

"Good," said the lion head. "We were hoping you'd be reasonable.  After all, it's not wise to disagree with the Chimera."