“DIAMOND TIARA! APPLE BLOOM!”
Whilst Sweetie Belle and Silver Spoon called out for their fellow classmates to answer them, the rescue team around them, aided by a desperate Scootaloo, were tearing away the rubble in the hopes of finding at least one of the fillies alive and well. The fire had taken a long time to extinguish, though, and most of the factory had been horribly burned in the process.
“Excuse me,” a stallion with a blue cap on his head called out to the two fillies. “It has been fifteen minutes now. I realise that this must be hard for you, but I must insist that-”
“We’re not leaving without our friends!” Sweetie Belle shouted. “Diamond! Apple Bloom!”
“ANSWER US!” Silver Spoon called out.
The stallion behind them sighed, his patience starting to wear thin. “Look, I feel for you, I really do. But my men are doing all that they can right now, and we really need you to be at the station where it is safe, and where you can fill in a report against the two foalnappers.”
“Sir!” The stallion turned around to face one of his subordinates racing towards him. “We found something, sir!”
“One of the fillies?” Sweetie Belle and Silver Spoon stopped their shouting and faced the stallions with hopeful looks.
“N-Not quite.” Their faces fell, but not for long. “However, we did find what appears to be an open sewer grid, at the top of which was a small tiara.” The stallion produced said tiara contained inside of a plastic bag, and the fillies gasped at the sight.
“That’s Diamonds!” Silver Spoon said. “No doubt about it! It’s hers!”
“Then they’re probably in the sewers then,” the capped stallion surmised. “What would a sewer grid be doing in a factory? Aren’t they usually out in the streets?”
“Sir. This factory was once home to an organised crime front that were charged with the manufacture and selling of false goods.”
“I see. An escape tunnel from back then, huh?” The stallion put a hoof to his chin. “I don’t suppose they’re still down there?”
The subordinate shook his head. “Unfortunately, the rubble from one of the blasts filled in the hole. There’s no way down or up it now.”
“Where’s the nearest manhole?”
“Just a few blocks from here,” the other stallion reported. “However, without any way to open it, it’s possible that they’ll simply press on instead.”
“I want a team to investigate that manhole ASAP, and I want a map of the underground tunnels on my desk before I return with these fillies to the station.”
“Yes, sir!” As the one stallion turned and ran off to perform the tasks assigned to him, the other turned back to the two fillies beside him.
“As you’ve heard, your friends are alive and well.” ‘Or at least one of them is. Probably.’ “Now, will you please come back to the station with me where it is safe and let us handle the situation ourselves?”
“But…” Sweetie Belle began to protest, but took a moment to consider the circumstances. If the two of them were really out there somewhere, then the Manehatten Police Department stood a better chance of finding them than three fillies did. And even if they could outrun Silver Spoon’s dad like they did earlier, they couldn’t escape an entire precinct’s grasp quite as easily. “… Okay.”
“As long as they’re alive… I guess that’s enough for now,” Silver Spoon said, reaching the same conclusion as Sweetie Belle. “You’ll definitely find them, right?”
“Of course we will,” the stallion said. “I’ll have precinct in the city be on the lookout for them. Sooner or later, they’ll be back home safe and sound. For now, let’s just pray they’re not doing anything stupid.”
“This place is disgusting, and it stinks, and it’s wet, and it’s leaving a foul taste in my mouth!” Diamond Tiara gagged as a particularly nasty scent wafted into her nose and turned to see what it was. “I-Is that a dead rat?!”
“What d’ya expect? It is a sewer, after all,” Apple Bloom said, glaring daggers at the pink filly beside her who would not stop complaining for even a single second.
“Only an idiot like you would think to come down to a place like this!”
“Y’all would prefer ta be burned to a crisp?” Apple Bloom asked, earning simply a huff from the other filly. “Then again, maybe ya would like that. Get yerself a healthy tan. Maybe then ya’d stop whining so much.”
“Stupid. You get tans from UV light, not from fire! And I never said I would rather burn to death, but that doesn’t change the fact that it stinks down here!”
“Ah get it, it stink! An’ ah’d appreciate if y’all would stop callin’ me stupid!”
“But you are stupid, so of course I’m going to call you stupid! After all, I brought you here so you could watch my back, and what happens? You run off on your own into the night and get yourself foalnapped, which gets me foalnapped!”
“If y’all call me stupid one more time-”
“Stupid.”
Apple Bloom stopped and stamped her hooves against the ground, growling angrily as she bared her teeth at Diamond Tiara. “Oh, ah’m the stupid one?! Who was it that said we should run away in the first place?! Who’s the genius that said we, two lil’ fillies who have the lowest grades in our class, should try to run away without so much as a plan of where to go or what to do when we get there?! If it wasn’t for my idea of trackin’ down Babs, we’d probably be lost and sleepin’ out in the rain right about now!”
“At least I had the drive to do something and not just let our families push us around into marrying each other! You should be thanking me for bringing you along! Otherwise you’d be staying with a family that doesn’t even care for you!”
Apple Bloom’s face turned red at the accusation. “Mah family does too care for me!”
“Oh please! Then why’d they try to marry you without asking you first?!”
“What ‘bout yer family, huh?!”
Diamond flinched at that. “T-That’s different!”
“How so?!”
“I… That… S-Shut up, blank flank!”
“Goin’ ta yer default? Guess that means yer out of smart things ta say! An’ if y’all hate blank flanks so much, maybe ya should stop tryin’ ta brainwash Babs into joinin’ yer lil’ circle of spoiled brats!”
“I’m not brainwashing anypony!” Diamond shouted, pushing Apple Bloom with her hoof. “Babs is my friend, whether you like it or not! I look past her blank flank because, unlike you and your lame friends back there, she’s not a stupid, clumsy, annoying idiot!”
“Don’t talk ‘bout mah friends that way!” Apple Bloom shouted as she pushed Diamond Tiara back into a wall behind her. Diamond responded by lunging forward and tackling Apple Bloom, pushing her backwards towards the filthy sewage water behind her.
Apple Bloom managed to land her forehooves on the stone pathway on the opposite side of the water, arching over the water beneath her as Diamond Tiara quickly jumped back, afraid to get her coat anywhere near the nasty, murky water.
“W-Watch it!” Apple Bloom shouted as she nimbly pushed herself back to her hooves. “What if ah’d fallen in?! Ah coulda got an infection!”
“You are an infection!” Diamond shouted. “An infection on my life! I’m lost, I’m hungry, and I’m done in a filthy sewer and it’s all your fault! If you didn’t exist, daddy would never have tried marrying me to you!”
“Ah’m not the problem here! You are!”
Diamond Tiara unleashed a battle cry as she stepped forward and swung a kick, only for Apple Bloom to dodge it by ducking and kick back. The kick forced Diamond Tiara to fall to her haunches and groan as she held her hooves to her stomach.
“D-Darn it… I hate you so much,” Diamond said as she tried to rise to her hooves.
“Ah hate ya too,” Apple Bloom said, “But right now, ah’m tired, an’ ah jus’ wanna go home. I’m gettin’ outta here. You wanna stay here or go yer separate way, go ahead.”
With that, Diamond Tiara glared as she watched Apple Bloom leave down the sewer tunnel. There was really only one path to take, but perhaps she could wait for her to leave a bit before going down it.
A howling wind down the tunnel shattered Diamond’s resolve in an instant. She was cold, she was hungry, and now, she was scared. Grumbling under her breath, Diamond began to follow after Apple Bloom, though she made sure to keep as much distance as she could without losing sight of the filly up until they had finally found a manhole that wasn’t locked.
Apple Bloom pushed up against the loose manhole cover with one forehoof, the other one holding onto the ladder leading up for dear life. The cover was heavier than she thought, and was hard to push with just one hoof, but with some effort and some grunts and groans, she managed to lift the grid up and push it to one side.
“Finally. Some fresh air,” Diamond said as the moonlight outside shined down onto her face, and the scent of the big city air entered her nose. “… I miss Ponyville’s air.”
Apple Bloom rolled her eyes as she climbed up onto the surface. “Do ya jus’ have ta complain ‘bout somethin’ at all times or what?”
“Well excuse me for being a little homesick.”
“Ah’m homesick too, but we can’t waste all our time complainin’ right now,” Apple Bloom said as she watched Diamond Tiara climb out of the sewer and stretch her legs. “We gotta find our way back ta Babs’ place an’-”
“… And what?” Diamond asked after Apple Bloom stopped. The yellow filly was simply staring into space with her jaw hanging open. “What?”
“… They know where we are,” Apple Bloom said, her voice trembling as she lowered her head towards the ground. “Birds said they put a trans… somethin’, on his pigeon. They know where to find us now.”
Diamond thought back to her own meeting with Birds earlier that day. “That’s right…”
“What do we do now?” Apple Bloom asked. “They’re definitely gonna be waitin’ fer us at Babs’ house.” Apple Bloom gasped as the implications hit her. “Babs is gonna get in trouble, an’ it’s all our fault!”
“… W-Well, maybe not,” Diamond said, her stomach churning at the thought of Babs’ parents scolding her for harbouring the two fillies. “Maybe she can convince them she had no idea we were here. Maybe she-”
“You deal with maybes! Ah’m not gonna let mah cousin an’ friend get in trouble ‘cause of somethin’ ah did! An’ if you were really her friend like ya claim, you wouldn’t want her to get blamed either!”
Diamond Tiara grimaced at the sharp accusation directed her way. “Of course I care, but what can we do?!” Diamond shouted. “If we go back, we’ll be caught, and forced to marry! We’ve got to think of ourselves in this situation!”
“How incredibly self-centred of ya,” Apple Bloom said.
“I’m just thinking logically. Wanna try it?”
“We’re goin’ back ta Babs’,” Apple Bloom said sternly.
“You can go if you want, but I’m leaving,” Diamond Tiara said. “I’m not going to just give up so easily.”
“An’ jus’ where d’ya plan on goin’, exactly? D’ya even know where we are?”
“… W-What about you? How do you even plan on getting to Babs’ house from here?”
“Ah…” Apple Bloom thought it over for a bit. “… Darn it, ah don’t know! Now we’re not only cold, hungry, an’ without food or money, but we have no idea where we even are! Darn it, ah should have never listened ta ya!”
“I should have never brought you along! You’ve been nothing but a pain in my flank my whole life, so I should have known it would be a bad idea!”
“Everythin’ that goes wrong in mah life is yer fault! It’s ALL YOUR FAULT!”
The small hand struck the eleventh hour on the grandfather clock. Fry Laurence took a deep breath, and exhaled it in an exhausted yawn. “I guess it’s time to hit the hay for tonight.” Laurence put his hooves together and closed his eyes. After a short moment of silence, he reopened his eyes and climbed to his hooves, reaching out for his candle beside him.
Walking out into the church’s hallway, Laurence looked around and scanned every bench to make sure that there were no loose possessions or sleeping ponies around. All seemed to be well. “Just make sure that everything is locked up, and then-”
“AH’LL KILL YA!”
Laurence’s ears twitched at the sounds of shouting outside. It wasn’t exactly an uncommon occurrence in Manehatten. Ponies fought all the time, and voices would often get raised around this time at night. However, this one sounded… odd.
“I’LL RIP YOUR TAIL OFF!”
It sounded like… two fillies.
“It is two fillies,” Laurence told himself as he peered out of a nearby window. Just outside of the church, in the middle of the road, were two fillies on the ground together, throwing kicks and pulling at hair. “Oh my.”
As fast as he could, Laurence made his way through the church and dash outside, approaching the two fillies with the hopes of stopping them before teeth were lost.
“YOU STUPID BLANK FLANK!”
“FRIEND STEALER!”
“Children, children!” Laurence called out as he rushed out through the church’s gate. The fillies didn’t seem to acknowledge his presence at all. “Children, please-”
“PLOT HEAD!”
“APPLES FOR BRAINS!”
Laurence stamped both of his forehooves onto the floor. “CHILDREN!” At his ‘request’ both fillies stopped their fighting. They were now both paying attention to the stallion they hadn’t realised was standing over them, looking down at the two with the same disappointed look they often saw from their teacher. And it had the same effect of sending chills down their spines.
“That’s better,” Laurence said, ushering the two fillies apart with his hooves. “Children should not be fighting each other like this. Or using such language.”
“It’s none of your business,” Diamond Tiara said as she released Apple Bloom’s tail and stood up straight.
“It’s her fault we’re lost out here, after all,” Apple Bloom spat, glaring at Diamond as she straightened out the bow on the back of her mane.
“You’re lost?” Laurence asked, receiving nods from Apple Bloom and Diamond Tiara. ‘Oh dear. I should find take them over to the nearest precinct and-’ Laurence’s thoughts were interrupted as a yawn escaped the pink filly’s mouth, followed by the other filly’s after. “… It’s late,” Laurence said as he turned to face the church behind him. “For now, you two should spend the night here, and we’ll get you both home first thing tomorrow.”
“No!” Diamond shouted. “We’re not going home!”
“You may not be, but ah am!”
“Enough!” Laurence scolded, sensing another fight about to break out. “We’ll discuss this tomorrow, but for now, it’s time for little fillies like yourselves to be in bed!”
“You’re not my daddy!” Diamond Tiara told the stallion.
“No, but I am the only adult here, which makes you my responsibility for now,” Laurence said, giving the filly a stern look. The way she flinched told him that he was winning the battle of wills. “Now let’s go.”
With a little hesitance, Diamond Tiara gave in to her need for a warm, comfy bed and found herself following the stallion into the church before them. Apple Bloom followed not long after, her own mind too tired to contemplate the situation or argue against the idea of shelter for the night.