Rainbow struggled and strained to squeeze her way out from underneath the splintery planks of wood. She felt every beam and hinge rattling as the monster stormed its way closer.
"Nnngh... c-come on... come on!"
By the time the footsteps were thundering in her ears, she felt her limbs tingling in their extremities. A great numbness fell over her body like an icy sheet.
"Oh horseapples!" Rainbow hissed, sweating. "Not here! Not now!" She fished her throbbing hoof left and right beneath the heavy planks, struggling to reach the pill container in her satchel. Time was running out. With a sneering hiss, the creature came upon her.
Just then, a hole exploded in the planks right above her. Rainbow coughed from the sudden wave of sawdust. She squinted up, seeing a pair of butting ramhorns in the torchlight.
"Hey there, girl!" Churning exclaimed. "The heck are you doing under all this wood?"
"Quick!" Rainbow's voice squeaked as she flung both hooves towards him. "Grab ahold! No time to explain!"
"Uhhhhh—" He reached a cloven hoof down. "Okay...?"
The monster's scaled snout plowed through the debris behind her. As she felt her wings freed from the exploding mess, she grabbed Churning as tightly as she could and flapped her feathers against the monster's snrling breaths.
"Whoah!" The mountain ram flailed as the two shot up like a missile. Chunks of wood and shattered mirror parts flew after them. "Is that the monster?! They should have named it the 'Smashing' instead!"
"Churning, this is some real serious vomit!" Rainbow panted. "I saw that thing freeze a buffalo to stone!"
"You're shearing me!"
"No, for real!"
"Just what is that thing?!"
"From what my friend Twilight taught me, I think it's a cockatrice!" Rainbow sweated and flapped her wings harder to outfly the beast. "Only it's one hundred times larger, wingless, and it has the face of a lizard and not a rooster." She grimaced. "So... uh... I guess it's not really much of a cockatrice at all."
"What's a cock-a-tits?"
"Never mind!" Rainbow shouted. "We gotta get the heck out of this mountain and—like—find us an army or something!"
"Holy avalanches!" Churning grinned, gawking at the source of the thundering noise. "Look at the way he carries that buffalo in his mouth!" He squinted. "Does that thing have one eye?"
Rainbow gasped. "No! You stupid goat! Don't look at—!"
It was too late. Rainbow's wings sagged from the sudden weight she was carrying. She looked down to see that the ram's hooves had turned to four petrified white cylinders.
"Uhhhh... why's all the blood—urp—rushing to my head?"
"Churning! Dang it!" Rainbow grunted, sweating profusely as her limp limbs struggled to keep ahold of his doubling, tripling, quadrupling weight. "J-just hang in there! I can hardly—" Wham! She flew blindly into a stalactite. With a stupid grunt, she fell—along with the half stone mountain ram.
"D'oh!" Churning grunted as he rolled, rolled, and ended wobbling head-up like a living bobble-head.
"Ungh!" Rainbow crashed through a pile of bagged oats. She rubbed her head, fumbled, and sat up. "Nnnngh... guh... Ch-Churning? Churning, where did you—?" She froze halfway, gasping, for she saw a huge reptilian shape looming over the helpless quadruped.
"Oh... uh..." The mountain ram waved a stony hoof. "Hi there, big fella! Boy... you smell rotten." He blinked. "Say, is it getting cold in here or is it just me—" His voice cut off—as did his throat, as did all the color in his body. His entire woolie figure turned to stone, teetering over until it collapsed—frozen—against the rocky floor of the cave. Clunk!
"Churning!" Rainbow shouted.
The beast's snout pivoted towards her, the one eye shimmering like a deathlight.
Rainbow immediately flinched away, covering her eyes as she hid—trembling—against a pile of bagged edibles. The dust and spilled oats around her flounced with each menacing clawstep as the beast lumbered towards her. At last, it stood a few naked meters away, and it lowered its snout until its glowing eye was illuminating every square inch of Rainbow's body, threatening to squeeze its glowing gaze through Rainbow's clenched eyelids.
Within seconds, a familiar voice shouted from the far edge of the cave. "Alright, buffalo! Now, buffalo!"
The deathly glow of the creature's gaze lifted. Bravely, Rainbow opened her eyes, spotting what had distracted the monster.
Over two dozen buffalo suddenly made themselves known. They stood spaced apart, occupying seemingly random spots along the cavern, all the way down to the tight tunnels that eventually led to the outside world. Buffalo Who Bags Well stood on a pile of rocks. His shades reflected the monster's glowing eye as he courageously stood his ground, then waved a hoof wildly in the air with a well-toned forelimb.
On cue, the multiple spaced-apart buffalo pivoted the mirrors that they stood next to. In well-timed procision, they bounced an extremely bright light source from the far end of the cave, ricocheting the glow from one mirror to another until it finally shot like a burning laser into the cavern where Rainbow was. It wasn't until the last second that Rainbow realized that they were "carrying" daylight into the cavern.
The Slithering realized it too, and a column of mist rose from his scales at the direct contact. He let loose a monsterous hiss, rearing in pain as the beam of sunlight burned across his iron-tight flesh. He stumbled backwards, his hellbender body writhing and slamming into cavern walls left and right. At last, with a grumbling snarl, he picked up the frozen female buffalo in one of his many limbs and Churning Bag's stone body in another. Gliding like a sea serpent, he sped his way down a nearby tunnel, skimming past the sunny laser, and shooting his way up the vertical chasm from which he initially descended.
Rainbow Dash exhaled. Legs wobbling/tingling, she stood up and limped her way towards He Who Bags Well while the other buffalo gathered around him.
"It looks like we lost another buffalo, buffalo," the leader said, adjusting his shades. "But we must still count this as a buffalo victory, buffalo, for many were spared, buffalo."
The feisty group shook off their urge to mourn, instead slamming their hooves repeatedly against the ground and growling:
"Buffalo!"
"Buffalo!"
"Buffalo!"
"Hold on a friggin' second!" Rainbow Dash snarled. "A victory?!" She gritted her teeth. "We just lost a buffalo and Churning!"
"It could have been a lot worse, non-buffalo, buffalo." The Leader Who Bags Well growled. "I thought you were going to root out that monster, buffalo. Turns out that we had to save your weak hide in the end, buffalo!"
"Kiss my grits, buffalo!" Rainbow Dash frowned, flapping her wings to stay upright and glare into the creature's face. "Just how long as this crap been going on? These mirrors can't possibly save you forever!"
"They will have to do, buffalo," he retorted. "Until we find a way to bring light to his lair, he will keep preying upon us, snatching our frozen buffalo brothers and sisters when we least expect him to."
"'Least expect him to'?! You mean—like—all the friggin' time?" Rainbow gazed around as various bison came out of hiding, nervously eyeing the damage done to their home as they began sweeping the place up in quiet defeat. "Just what the heck is that thing, anyways?"
"A basilisk, buffalo, and quite a nasty one at that, buffalo."
"Look, will you just drop the buffalo?!" Rainbow Dash waved a hoof. "Why haven't you tried—I dunno—standing up to this thing with more than mirrors and lasers?"
"The creature is older than time, and we're lucky that its gaze can only petrify. It used to bring nothing but death."
"How do you know this?"
"Because I'm the buffalo who took one of his eyes..." He Who Bags Well, lowered his shades, revealing a pair of pale-as-snow eyes that teared up at the faintest touch of light. "At a great cost, buffalo..."