You enter your house, and take a brief nap on the couch, but you quickly become restless, and decide to head back outside. You walk through town, just enjoying the tranquility. You eventually arrive at the park, and you see the Crusaders hanging out together by a tree.
You give a wave, and they all jump up, and run over. You lower your head down to their level before speaking. “So, Crusaders, what’s the plan for today?”
“We have no idea.” Scootaloo says, being quite blunt about it.
You give a brief shake of your head. “Well, maybe you should just do something to have fun. Rather than spend all your time looking for what you’re good at you should just enjoy yourselves for a day. Just go and have fun.”
“We have been trying really hard these past few days.” This comes from Sweetie Belle. “Maybe we could just take a couple days off from our search.”
“That’s the spirit. Maybe you’ll just stumble across your talents by accident while you’re having some fun.” As you finish they run off. You hope that they don’t do anything too outrageous, knowing that it’ll just turn into another attempt to find their talents. You walk for a few minutes later, before finding a bench. You sit down, and just enjoy the nice weather.
A short while later you feel the bench sag a bit from another pony taking a seat. You open your eyes, and are surprised to see AJ sitting next to you. She gives you a smile, and just relaxes for a moment before speaking.
“So Storm. You’re interested in Rainbow, from what Ah hear.”
“Yeah. I guess I am. Why? Is there something wrong with that?”
“No, not at all. Ah’m just worried is all. Rainbow’s had more coltfriends than the others and mahself combined.” She looks at you with a serious look on her face. “Ah don’t want her to get hurt again, if y’all get what Ah’m sayin.”
You look at her, and it becomes clear just how serious she is about this. “I’d never do anything to hurt her, AJ. She’s special to me. I know I can’t stop her from being who she wants to be, but I can help her to be who she really is.”
AJ nods, and then looks away, seemingly satisfied by this answer. After a short while, she gets up, and starts heading back to her farm. As she goes you give her a wave.
Not too much later you get up, and head for home as well. On your way, though, you hear a shout for help. You jump up, and take flight towards the sound. When you get to the source of the commotion, you spot a large dog-thing, attacking a pony.
Without thinking, you dive onto the dog-thing, and pull it off the pony. She sprints away as soon as she is free. The dog gives a quick snarl as it looks at you. You both start circling, waiting for the other to make the first move. Your mind is racing, and is running through all possible ways that this fight can happen. You realize that this fight, like all others, is nothing but a game of chess. Arms and legs are the pieces, with torque and momentum being the moves.
Without warning the dog lunges at you, and you gracefully evade the attack, before turning, and giving it a hearty kick in its open side. With a whine it rolls with your kick, and is back on its feet. As you begin circling again, you stumble, and lose your footing. Looking down you see that you are right next to the big hole in the ground that it must have come out of. Too late, you see that it was just positioning you to get you next to the hole.
You use your other legs to push off, but you don’t have a stable enough position to get airborne, so you only barely clear the hole. The dog snarls again, clearly angry that its plan didn’t work.
You begin circling again, keeping an eye on the hole, and making sure to avoid it. This time, you make the first move, feinting to the right, before rolling to the left, and launching yourself towards the dog. It dives to the side, but you still manage a glancing blow. As you recover yourself from the attack, you notice that it is acting sluggish. Perhaps your hits are having an effect after all.
Not wanting to be baited, though, you hold off for a moment to get a better look at the situation. Without warning, you are tackled from the side. Shit, you think, a second one!
This one manages to get you pinned, but something in your head screams at you, and you kick the dog off. You roll to your hooves, and see the two of them. They spread out some, to get you off guard. You slowly back up, not wanting to get sandwiched between them. You hear some shouting, and can make out the voices of some ponies. Hopefully they make it here before things get out of control.
The dogs hear it too, as they become angrier, if their expressions are accurate. They both lunge at you, one high, and one low. The one that went high managed to snag your back right leg as you dove away. With surprising strength he holds your leg firmly, and runs toward the hole in the ground. With a sharp cry you twist your leg free, but feel a sharp pain as you do so.
With your leg free you struggle to take flight, and you almost make it, before a third blur leaps from the hole, and grabs you. The dog dives right into the hole with you in tow, and the world goes dark. The throbbing in your leg is driving you crazy, and the darkness is making you feel claustrophobic. You see a light in the distance, and it quickly resolves itself into a large cavern. You are dizzy from the pain, and can’t make out any details.
You hear several snarls, growls and barks, and then a sharp pain on the back of your head ends your current foray in the world of consciousness.
ABOVE GROUND
Rainbow and the others saw the third Diamond Dog leap from the ground and grab Storm. Before anypony can do anything to stop the other two, they follow the other back into the ground, and the hole closes up behind them. Rainbow lands on the spot where the hole was, and starts pounding at the ground.
“Celestia, no! I wasn’t fast enough! I could’ve gotten here sooner, if only I was faster!” The others watch in horror as Rainbow’s frantic pleas slowly lose strength until she is just standing there sobbing.
AJ approaches slowly. “Hold on there, sugarcube. You did what you could. You were flyin as fast as y’all could. Nopony here blames you, and I reckon that Storm wouldn’t blame you either.” The others approach as well, and Rainbow slowly stops crying.
She slowly lies down on the ground, and she doesn’t even seem to realize that the others are there. They back away a bit, to give her some space. Pinkie is the first to say something, and the others notice her hair has lost almost all of its normal poofiness.
“We need to get Storm back. I’ve never seen Rainbow so sad. I don’t think that even one of my best parties could cheer her up.” The others nod their assent.
“I think I have an idea,” Twilight says. “Perhaps we could head back to where we first met the Diamond Dogs, and head down there again. I’m certain that they have all of their tunnels connected, so it’ll just be a matter of looking hard enough.”
Rarity has a shocked look on her face. “You want me to go down there AGAIN? I couldn’t possibly go down there, it’s dirty!” The others just glare at her, and she gives a weak chuckle, “Although I suppose I could manage for Rainbow’s sake. And Storm too.”
Twilight goes over to Rainbow, before she sits down next to her. She brushes some of the tears off of Rainbow’s face, and Rainbow looks up at her as she does so.
“Twi, I… I wasn’t fast enough, and now he’s gone. He was special, and now I just let him get away.”
Twilight gives Rainbow a hug, “You didn’t let him get away Dash. They took him, and now we will take him back.”
Rainbow reciprocates the hug, and mumbles out her thanks. After holding the hug for a few minutes they break the hug, and then they head to Twilight’s house to get ready.
(Oh noes! You have been captured by the Diamond Dogs! What will happen to you next? Find out next chapter!)