//------------------------------//
// Cutie Mark Crusaders Gem Finders! 
// Story: Sweetie Pup 
// by GrimInk 
//------------------------------//

	Sweetie Belle's head hurt as she struggled to use her newly developing magic to raise the tiny pickaxe over her head. The white filly grinded her teeth together as, through a sheer force of will, the pickaxe rose into the air and stabbed itself into the cave wall in front of her. Dripping with sweat, Sweetie Belle let her magic stop flowing. Beneath the pink hardhat that sat upon her purple mess of a mane, Sweetie Belle could feel a twinge of pain that told her that if she continued to use magic that night, she would wake up with a terrible migraine. The lantern that sat at her feet, filled with brightly glowing fireflies, flickered a bit, and caused shadows to dance all over the stone walls of the cave, startling her a little bit.
Sweetie Belle and her two friends, Apple Bloom and Scootaloo, were trying something new to get their cutie marks: mining! Though they had barely started digging, Sweetie Belle could tell that this was going to end just as bad as every other attempt they have had. Scootaloo or Apple Bloom was going to do something slightly stupid, a catastrophic event was going to occur, and then Sweetie Belle would be stuck cleaning up after them.
Sweetie Belle couldn't help but give a half-sigh-half-chuckle at the thought. She knew that she had caused her own fair share of incidents, but most of them were slightly more embarrassing than anything her best friends had done. She preferred to keep them a secret, even from her big sister (and usual caretaker), Rarity.
"Watcha laughin' at?" Apple Bloom asked, as she trotted over from the other side of the dark and musky cave. Unlike Sweetie Belle, Apple Bloom had a pair of flashlights duct taped to either side of her yellow hard-hat, and she carried her pickaxe in her mouth. Despite her lack of magic, being an earth pony, she wasn't at a disadvantage. In fact, due to Apple Bloom's upbringing, Sweetie Belle figured that if anypony had a chance at getting a mining cutie mark, it was probably Apple Bloom.
"I was just wondering why we were down here," Sweetie Belle lied. She didn't want to tell her friends that she thought this was a useless endeavour.
The problem that always persisted between the three fillies was that they all enjoyed very different things. Sweetie Belle loved the arts and girlie things, like making dresses (which she had no talent for) and performing on stage, but Apple Bloom preferred to do things that involved manual labour, such as farming and physical exercise. Even worse, however, was Scootaloo, who insisted, at every opportunity, to on doing 'extreme' things, like hang gliding or zip lining. Now that Sweetie Belle thought about it, most of the worst accidents occurred whenever Scootaloo made a suggestion. She wanted to giggle at the idea, but held it in as best as possible.
"Ah told you, Sweetie Belle," Apple Bloom said, raising a hoof, "we're here to get our minin' cutie marks!"
Just as Sweetie Belle was about to make a retort, Scootaloo fluttered down from the ceiling of the cave. She had gotten much better at flying over the recent months, thanks to personal training from Rainbow Dash herself. "I really don't think we're getting anywhere with this," she complained, "I've been digging at the ceiling for hours now, and I haven't found a single jewel!"
"Really?" Apple Bloom smirked, and titled her head. "I've found a couple, but nothing worth getting excited about," she said, pointing towards a big pile of rocks that she had dug out of the wall.
Even from a distance, with the low light of their torches, Sweetie Belle could tell that the only thing Apple Bloom had been successful at digging up were rocks and chunks of very tiny quartz. After a few seconds at admiring the less-than-shiny chunks of rock, Scootaloo admitted that she had been unsuccessful at digging up anything either.
"Ah kinda wish we coulda waited for Babs to get here," Apple Bloom sighed, as she thought about her favorite cousin, "we probably coulda dug up way more if we had another pony!"
Sweetie Belle couldn't help but roll her eyes at the idea. It wasn't that she didn't like Babs Seed, quite the contrary actually. Sweetie Belle very much liked Babs, despite how shy she could be around fillies with cutie marks. The idea that irritated her a bit was the fact that Apple Bloom hadn't given up on the whole 'mining' thing yet. They had been at it since well past their bed time, and all three of them were quite surprised considering that nobody had come looking for them yet.
"Why did we have to do this at night, anyways?" Scootaloo asked.
"Because there'd be no way, no how, that Apple Jack woulda let us do this durin' the day!" Apple Bloom asserted, shaking her head so furiously that her hard hat almost fell off.
Scootaloo shook her head and landed next to Sweetie Belle, and then dropped her own respective pickaxe at Apple Bloom's hooves. "Sorry, this just isn't for me," she grumbled.
"Me neither," Sweetie Belle admitted.
Apple Bloom sighed, but then nodded in agreement. "Yeah, Ah wasn't really havin' much fun, neither," she grumbled, tossing her pickaxe aside. "Let's just get out of this here creepy cave, okay?"
All three fillies nodded, and began packing up their flashlights and pickaxes in their saddle bags. Sighing at another failed attempt at acquiring their cutie marks, the girls began wandering off in the first direction they saw.
After fifteen minutes of wandering, it finally occurred to Sweetie Belle that Apple Bloom, the pony who had been leading them through the mines, was lost. Sighing in frustration, Sweetie Belle flattened her ears against her head. Even without the aid of a mirror, she could tell her mane was a mess. Rarity was going to chew her ear off for wearing such a tacky hard hat, she just knew it.
Suddenly, Sweetie Belle could hear a scratching noise coming from the cave walls. Scootaloo and Apple Bloom must have heard it too, because they both stopped walking and turned to face the noise.
A tiny crack began to form in the cave wall, as it seemed it was being pressured from the other side. As the three fillies stood and watched, the crack got bigger and bigger, until it wasn't a crack anymore. It was a hole. And out of the hole jumped a figure that only Sweetie Belle recognized.
The creature stood only on its two under-developed hind paws, with its large front paws dragging along the ground as it walked. It had dark grey fur and piercing yellow eyes, and a drooling blue tongue was hanging out of its mouth, which was filled with sharp and jagged teeth. Atop its head were two pointed ears, both of which were filled with dirt. It was wearing a yellow vest and a black collar, from which a brass name-tag hung. Between its legs was a fluffy tail, which was swaying back and forth half-heartedly.
"A Diamond Dog!" Sweetie Belle squeaked, leaping into the air and diving behind Apple Bloom. "It's going to kidnapped us and make us dig in the dirt forever and ever!"
The Diamond Dog's eyes bulged his ears folded against his head. Apple Bloom frowned and realized that the creature looked rather offended at the idea.
"Sweetie Belle, I really doubt this lil' fella can do much harm," Apple Bloom assured her. "Look at him! He's hardly even bigger than us! And there are three of us, and one of him!"
Looking over Apple Bloom's flank, Sweetie Belle realized that she was right. It was clear to her, upon examining the Diamond Dog closely, that he was much smaller than the ones that her sister had described to her.
"Oh, he's tiny!" She exclaimed, standing up and trotting over to the Diamond Dog. "He's so cute too!"
"Hey!" The Diamond Dog growled, baring his fangs. "I am not cute!"
"Yes you are!" Sweetie Bell smiled, scratching the diamond dog behind the ear. "What's your name, little guy?"
"Sparky," he answered, his eyes rolling up into his head and his tongue lolling out as he enjoyed the ear scritches. "P-please stop!" He growled. "This is embarrassing!"
"Who's a good boy! Sparky is! Yes he is!" Sweetie Belle cooed.
"Sweetie Belle," Apple Bloom started, "Ah really think you should give the Dog some space."
"Oh, I'm sure he's harmless!" Sweetie Belle assured her, the fear that had been so present in her head having evaporated faster than water on a hot summer's day.
Now thoroughly annoyed with being treated so poorly, Sparky the Diamond Dog opened his mouth and lashed out at Sweetie Belle. Before anypony had a chance to stop him, he had sunken his teeth into the flesh around Sweetie Belle's forearm.
Sweetie Belle's eyes began to water, and as soon as Sparky released her, she began to scream. "He bit me!" She squeaked, flailing her hooves in the air. "That Diamond Dog bit me!"
"You had it coming! I asked you nicely to stop!" Sparky growled, before running off down the tunnel with his tail between his legs.
"Are you okay, Sweetie Belle?" Scootaloo asked, pulling some bandages out of her saddle bag and wrapping them around Sweetie Belle's forearm.
Sweetie Belle didn't know what to say. On one hoof, she was mad at Sparky the Diamond Dog for biting her, but on the other hoof she was mad at herself for not being smart enough to realize that he could bite her. "I think I'll be okay," she lied, while in reality she was feeling very dizzy from the bite, "but I think we can all agree that I'll never get a cutie mark for handling Diamond Dogs."
The girls all shared a half-hearted laugh, before they resumed their journey to exit the caves…