"Y'know, maybe diggin' for things ain't such a wise idea," Apple Bloom whispered as Theta and Sigma walked ahead of the girls, making their way through the orchard. "Ah don't want t' dig up somethin' Ah'll regret diggin' up."
"Neither do I, but what do we tell them?" Scootaloo asked. "They look like they're happy to do this, and I don't want to scare Theta by telling him what O'Malley told us..."
"What are you girls talking about?" Sigma asked lously, glancing back at the trio who were lagging behind.
"Just about how much... fun this is going to be," she replied.
"I know. I've never dug for fossils before. So any ideas where we want to dig?" Theta asked.
"Well the book said to find a nice, flat surface area to dig," Sweetie Belle said quietly.
"We should find one that's out in the open too," Scootaloo said, voice cracking. "That way we can see around us for anything out of the ordinary."
"Out of the ordinary? Like what? Relic hunters?" Theta snorted.
"Hey, you never know," she laughed weakly.
"Hey, how about near our headquarters?" Apple Bloom asked, knowing that she'd feel a lot more comfortable near somewhere they all knew. "That way we have somewhere nice to sit when we decide we wanna eat. It's also a pretty sturdy buildin' with a lock on it."
"As long as there's somewhere we can dig near it, that sounds fine to me," Theta said with a shrug.
The group made their way through the trees and found themselves at their headquarters within a few minutes. To their luck, there was a big, flat surface right behind the tree-house. Wanting to get started, Theta promptly grabbed one of the small shovels with his magic and plunged it into the soft earth, tossing it to the side of the hole. The girls watched edgily, hesitant to dig because of what O'Malley had told them.
"Come on, guys. I don't want to do all the work myself," Theta laughed as he stuck the shovel into the ground allowing him to focus on the girls. Seeing that they were staring at the hole, faces pale, he frowned and tilted his head. "What's wrong with you guys?"
"They appear to be scared of something," Sigma said quietly, eyes on the ground as he dug through it.
"Scared? We're not scared," Scootaloo said weakly.
"Well you sure look like you are," Theta muttered, smiling at her. "In fact, I'm getting the feeling that you want to chicken out of this.
Scootaloo glared at him and pushed her shovel into the ground with her hooves. She quickly threw a small pile of dirt to the side and put the shovel into the ground again. Apple Bloom and Sweetie Belle sighed, then joined the girls with the dig. The group continued to dig for several minutes, stopping when the sound of Theta's shovel hitting a hard surface came from under them. Nervous, the girls stood back as Theta took the top layer of dirt off of it, revealing it to be a broken, white object.
"What is that?" Apple Bloom yelped, jumping out of the hole,.
"It looks like a bone or something!" Sweetie Belle shrieked, following her friend's lead with Scootaloo.
"I don't think that's what it is," Theta mumbled, wiping some of the caked dirt off of the object.
"What is it then?" Scootaloo asked.
"Hmm," he murmured, pulling the object out of the ground to examine it. "Well, if I had to guess, I'd say it's a rock."
"A rock?" the girls asked, peering into the hole to see that Theta was indeed holding a rock.
"Yeah, a pretty old one too," he laughed.
"It seems like they really are on edge," Sigma noted dryly, smiling with his brother. "Perhaps they should go back to the farm. I'm afraid if we uncover a slightly bigger rock than that one, they may faint."
"Will not!" they countered feebly.
Theta then tossed the rock outside of the hole and the girls yelped with surprise as it hit the ground with a heavy thump.
"Maybe we should take a small break to relax for a bit, hm?" Sigma suggested. "I'm sure once you have some food in your stomach, you'll feel a lot better."
"Good idea," Apple Bloom said quickly.
Within an instant, the girls darted into the HQ. Sigma and Theta shared a curious look with each other then followed suit. When they walked inside, they saw that the girls were sitting in the middle of the room, back-to-back, looking at every possible entry point.
"May I have your bag?" Sigma asked as he walked up to Apple Bloom.
"S-sure, here ya go," she mumbled, pushing the bag towards him.
Without shrugging, Sigma grabbed her bag and began to sort through it, grabbing all the food he could find, as well as a table cloth that was neatly folded near the top. Sigma and Theta quickly set everything up and sat down on the cloth. Knowing the girls were hesitant at the moment, the pair began eating the food that Apple Bloom had brought. After about two minutes, the girls realized that they were overreacting, so they joined the two boys.
"What has gotten you all so worked up?" Sigma asked curiously.
"Just somethin' silly, but it's okay," Apple Bloom said, biting into a sandwich.
"If you insist," he said with a shrug.
The five young ponies spent the next half hour eating their food, and by the end of their meal, the girls had almost completely forgotten about what O'Malley said.
"That was good stuff," Scootaloo sighed happily, getting off the cloth.
"Ready to get back to digging already?" Theta asked as he finished his food.
"Well, yeah. We only dug for a little bit, and the ground isn't going to dig itself," she chuckled.
"Yeah! There's bound t' be somethin' buried underneath here, and we're gonna be the ones who find it," Apple Bloom said, rolling to her hooves.
They soon found their way back to the hole and resumed their digging, minds clear of any worries. They continued digging in different spots around the Cutie Mark Crusaders' Headquarters for several hours, finding nothing but small rocks and dirt.
"That's enough for me for today," Apple Bloom sighed, crawling out of the dirt. "And probably for the rest of my life. Diggin' for fossils and such is hard work."
"Yeah. Who would have thought digging for artifacts and fossils would take so long?" Scootaloo asked.
"Wait a sec, we don't know what fossils look like," Sweetie Belle said hopefully. "Maybe that rock is a fossil!"
"Hey, yeah! It did look pretty old!" Apple Bloom smiled. "That rock could be around a billion years old for all we know."
"Well, maybe not that old."
"Yeah, you're right. It didn't take that long t' find," Apple Bloom sighed. "Could still be a few million though, right?"
"Only one way to find out," Scootaloo chuckled, throwing the rock into her bag. "Let's have one more quick bite to eat, then we'll bring this to Twilight to see if she can find out how old it is."
"Sounds like a plan," Theta said.
The lot of them made their way out of the hole and into the tree-house once again to eat some food. Little did they know, several dozen yards away, a lone stallion wearing tattered cloths stood. He had been watching them the entire time with a sneer plastered on his face, and with a low growl, he began to make his way to the small, wooden building.