//------------------------------//
// The Dogs 
// Story: Are You In or Out? 
// by nabrixwrites 
//------------------------------//

	Discord stood outside, surrounded by several holes in the ground. He wondered why he didn't come here first. After all, he wasn't that far from Ponyville, his temporary home. It was literally two miles away. He'd been to Cloudsdale, Canterlot, Manehattan, a far away volcano, and even the North Pole so far, but he hadn't decided to go two miles from his home? After a few more minutes of berating himself, Discord jumped up and dived down one of the holes. That was a mistake. By diving in head first, Discord landed directly on his head. Shakily getting up, Discord rubbed his head. There was definitely going to be a bump there tomorrow morning. As his vision returned from its blurry state, Discord took in his surroundings. He was standing in a maze of tunnels. There was no doubt it was a mine, most likely for gems. That fit with what he had heard of diamond dogs. Strangely, though, there was no one in sight. "Helloooooo?" Discord called. Hearing the sound of pebbles tumbling behind him, Discord jerked around. From the same tunnel, he heard coarse laughter.

"The dragon-pony is foolish for coming down to our domain…" the voice said.

"Yes," a deeper voice said. "Does he not know who we are? Or maybe he wishes to work for us…"

"Yes!" a third voice said. "We need a new slave!"

Three pairs of eyes lit up in the tunnel and lunged towards Discord. Discord expected this, and put up an invisible forcefield to knock them back. "Easy there, doggies," Discord said as they shook their heads and scrambled back up. "I'm friendly, see?" He fashioned three large dog treats out of thin air and tossed them at the dogs, the forcefield now gone. "Good puppies," he said as they devoured their snacks. "Now that I've got your attention, I'd like to have a civilized conversation with you, okay?"

The three hesitantly nodded. After all, they did not expect their uninvited visitor to have magical abilities.

"Good. You're familiar with a Miss Rarity, are you not?"

"She was the white pony!" the middle one said.

"She was soooooo annoying!" the right one said.

"She robbed us of our gems!" the left one said.

"I'm glad we have a mutual understanding," Discord said.

"Why do you know white pony? Are you friend with white pony?" the biggest dog said, unsheathing his claws.

"Easy there, Spot," Discord said, taking a step back. "I hate the white pony just as much as you do."

"Then why you here?" the middle diamond dog asked.

"I'm here to propose an alliance," Discord said calmly.

"Why would we ally with you?" the right one scoffed.

"Because I can promise you revenge on the white pony. And I can promise you all the gems you can imagine."

"Ha! We're all for revenge, but you can't find gems better than we can," the right one. He seemed to be the most intelligent, using mostly correct grammar.

"Really? 'Cuz I'll bet I can find twice as many gems as you can," Discord said triumphantly.

"All right," the same dog said. "One hour. If you get more gems than us, we trust you and join you."

"Deal," Discord said, grinning deviously. The three dogs went down their tunnel and Discord was left standing there alone. This is going to be easy, he thought. He used his magic of chaos to pull every gem in his vicinity out of the dirt. There was quite a lot there. Then he just sat and waited. After twenty minutes, he figured he should go look elsewhere. Going down one of the tunnels, he discovered just how complicated and intricate these mazes were. For having shit grammar, these diamond dogs were actually pretty smart. He performed his spell again and even more gems came to him. He sent them back to his pile in the main room, and went out searching again. He repeated this process for the rest of the hour. When he was done, he nearly had a mountain of gems. The dogs' jaws nearly dropped to the floor.

"So?" Discord asked. "How about it, boys? Are you in or out?"

All three of them said in unison, "In!"

"Good," Discord said. "Get prepared. Our attack will be soon…"