After only a few feet however, Calambite was forced to stop. She had come across another wall af pipes, similar to the first one, except that there seemed to be more space between the pipes running horizontally and vertically. The area was abnormally clustered with pipes hanging everywhere, and the pegasus had to crouch slightly in order to even approach the next wall.
Well, atleast there still seems to be hope. she pondered, and scanned the scene for any routes further. Who the hay was in charge of the design anyway? It took her a minute, but eventually she was able to narrow her options down to a gap shaped by pipes running close to each other. This seems like my best bet... she sighed and bent down to climb through the gaps.
Calambite managed to navigate past the first couple of pipes with little trouble, before running into a horizontal and much more narrow gap. The mare halted and doubtingly measured the size of it with her eyes. Just her luck to run into something like this, but it seemed to be the only way. She eased her head through with relative ease, but felt just how tight it was when she was at her chest. She wriggled and forced herself further and further between the thin pipes. Straining hard, she thrusted herself forward once, which was enough to force her torso through the gap.
The pegasus mare sighed in relief. "Boy, that was some..." she started, but halted when she felt a tug coming from her hips. Her face paled immediately when she suddenly remembered about her hindquarters.
"Oh..."
She slowly craned her neck backwards to get a good look, and just as she'd feared, her flank had not gotten through yet, and did not seem to be able to do so. She leaned forward again and saw her hips and butt cram at the gap's opening, not even close to squeezing through, complete with the feeling of her body being pulled backwards.
"...horseshoes."
The mare planted her front hooves on the lower pipe and pushed forward hard, trying to squeeze her hip bone into the gap. She strained and grunted, but nothing was happening. Noticing the lack of effect, she heaved and thrusted forward instead, hoping to force herself through in a more brutal manner. Sadly, that did not seem to have a different effect than the pushing.
Calambite ceased her attempts, lightly sweating now. She looked back at her rear, confirming her suspicion of her lack of progress. Her buttcheeks seemed to contribute greatly to the stuckage, as they would simply bunch up whenever she'd try to go any further. They were too big to fit. So was there any way to shrink them?
The pegasus mare leaned back and stuck a hoof in between the pipes she'd been trying to fit through and fondled after her butt. When she finally found it, she attempted to push the soft rearcheeks down in order to make them smaller, whilst at the same time leaning forward. When doing this on both sides of her butt, she felt that more and more of it was able to frame through the tiny gap. Excited over the progress, she pushed forward again and slid in a little bit further.
Then she stopped again, as her hip clogged up the space.
Again, Calambite pushed. However, this time she felt that she had stopped completely. The pegasus struggled for a few more minutes, trying to fit all of her rear through, but finally had to give up. It was an unwinnable battle. The hip would just not fit.
The trapped mare took a small breather before looking back at the source of her troubles. She saw that only a portion of her butt had managed to fit through, and that her hip width refused any more to enter. She sighed yet again, this time out of annoyance, and laid her head to rest again. She would have to call upon the others again.
Slowly, she rose her upper body and rested on her elbows before turning her head to where she had come from.
"Hey! Hey guys!" she shouted. "I...I need your help again! I'm stuck!"
Just hope they can manage to get past that other damned pipe! Calambite thought worryingly.
Neither Iokin or Trippy had done much since Calambite's success in traversing the pipe wall. Both were sitting, waiting and listening for any commands that might come from the other side. The pipes around them felt still, as if they were deactivated, reminding them both of the current crisis in Ponyville. They had to get the pipe flow fixed as soon as possible, but the maintenance tunnel's architecture did not make that a simple task for them.
Eventually, Iokin spoke up: "You think she's found the problem yet?"
Trippy sighed. "I don't know. If I remember correctly, the valves shouldn't be too far away from here. That is unless memory fails me of course." she said and chuckled.
The stallion looked slightly confused. "Valves?" he asked and raised an eyebrow.
The mare looked at him with similar confusion for a few seconds before she suddenly threw up a hoof and slapped her own forehead. "Oh, I'm sorry Iokin!" she chuckled to him. "Guess I forgot to brief you properly, huh? You haven't been down here before, have you?"
"Umm...no?"
"Well, here's the thing:" Trippy exclaimed and sat more straight. While she spoke, she gestured vividly with her hooves. "Ponyville's water supply is not perfect. Sometimes, like now for example, the flow of water is forced to stop thanks to some wierd, or should I say, poorly-designed intersections between the pipes. When that happens, the flow has to be restarted manually by correcting a few valves attached to the flow pipes. It's been a while since this happened though, mostly thanks to the new and improved supply pipes installed not too long ago." she said and gestured to the masses of pipes hanging overhead. "Now only eastern Ponyville has this problem. Just a shame that the placements were so messed up."
"Alright. I see." Iokin nodded. "But if east Ponyville is left without the proper flow control, how exactly does the..."
Iokin was suddenly interrupted in his question by a shout coming from behind the pipe wall, the same side Calambite was on. Both ponies were on their feet and next to the wall in less than two seconds and listened intensly. Thanks to obstructing pipes and weak ceiling light, neither of them could see any further into the tunnel than just ten-or-something metres. Soon, another shout came.
"Hey, can you hear me?!"
"Calam, is that you?" Trippy called back into the darkness hoping that her friend was okay. Iokin just watched silently.
"Trippy, Iokin!" sounded another call from the tunnel. "I need your help, again."
"What's the matter?"
"I can't get through these pipes! Atleast not by myself. You'll have to come over here and help me!"
"Alright, we'll be right over!" Trippy shouted back to her. She turned to Iokin. "You heard that? She needs our help again. Let's go!"
"But, uhm, doesn't that mean we have to climb through the pipe?" Iokin said and pointed to the cylinder behind Trippy that their pegasus companion had crawled through earlier. Trippy looked behind her and gasped as the stallion's words dawned upon her.
"Crap, I didn't think about that!" she said.
Both maintenance workers trotted up to the opening and looked inside. The mare slowly stroked the edge of the hole before looking at Iokin, comparing his frame to the narrow passage. The stallion noticed that she was eying him up and quickly realized her intention.
"Trippy, you aren't thinking of..."
"You're more slender than I, Iokin. I think you should go through here, rather than me."
"Figured." he sighed and looked at the hole nervously. "But I'm not that much smaller than Calambite. I'm not sure if I could fit in there."
"The alternative is that I would try, and inevitably get stuck."
"I could push you on?"
"You would like that, wouldn't you?"
"Hey, same goes for you!"
"Guys?" another shout came down the tunnel. "Are you coming yet?"
Iokin glanced back and forth between the pipe and his coworker's commanding gaze. He gulped, then sighed in defeat. "Fine then. I'll go."
The mare in front of him shone up and cracked a smile. "I knew you wanted to! Well, go right ahead. I'll tell Calambite that you're coming."
After she had called on her friends, Calambite resumed the struggle to squeeze out of the pipe's clutches. Alas, all her attempts were in vain, and her struggles had been reduced to simply trying to find an angle that would possibly allow her to squeeze further, an effort tossed into the trash due to her trapped hip. She took another break, going down on her elbows again and simply staring at her hooves.
"Stupid butt..." she muttered. Suddenly, she heard Trippy's voice call out to her again some distance behind her.
"Alright Calam, we're sending Iokin through to your side. Think you can come over here and help him through?"
The pegasus mare looked back at her rear again. "Uhm...sure." she said and tried to move backwards. With a little force, her rump slipped out of the gap and she began crawling back. As she reached her torso however, her progress slowed down heavily. She remembered how difficult it was to get her chest in, and wondered if she would be able to squeeze out the way she came.
Her question was answered when she suddenly stopped with the middle of her torso through. She grunted and tried again. Still no result. Calambite raised her rear end up into the air, planted her back hooves onto the ground, and jerked her hips back in an attempt to heave herself out of her prison. This only hurt however, and got her no further.
She sighed in defeat. Not only was her rear too big to fit going through, her chest prevented her from going back! She pushed forward again, resting herself between the pipes on her belly and looked back. The others were going to have to do without her.
Iokin had managed to get his upper part of the torso through when Calambite responded; "S-sorry guys! I can't get back from here."
Trippy's face adapted a slight shade of white as she turned from looking at the struggling Iokin to face the darkness again. "What?! Don't tell me you're stuck again, are you?"
"You didn't hear me before? I said I was stuck." came the response.
The earth mare rubbed her forehead in frustration. "Okay...well how bad is it this time?"
"There's...well...there were two pipes with a gap between them. I tried to squeeze through, but I couldn't fit. And now I can't back out either!"
"Wait, wait, wait, wait...hold up there Calam. You're telling me that the only way to get any further through this tunnel would be to try and fit through a tiny gap left by the pipe blockage?" Trippy asked in disbelief.
"Sounds unlikely, I know. But that's what it is."
"Wow, I am so going to sue somepony for this!" Trippy murmured. She once again looked over to where Iokin was now struggling to fit what was left of his torso through the opening, kicking his hind legs whilst trying to lift them up so he could crawl in. "Seriously, this was not in the job description." she continued and walked over to him. In one swift motion, she grabbed his flailing legs and pushed him hard into the pipe, cramming all of his upper body into the tight passage.
"Wah!" Iokin yelped over the sudden activity, but calmed down the moment after. "T-thanks Trippy."
"No problem, dude." Trippy replied with a smile.
That smile instantly faded when she noticed his hips hitting the edges of the hole.
The width of Iokin's hips was slightly larger than the diameter of the passage. His rear was not of the same size at Calambite's luckily, but it still clearly hindered him from venturing any further into the pipe. Iokin squirmed and kicked with his hind legs trying to fit himself further in, but without success. His tail flicked impatiently, and noises of struggle could be heard from within the pipe.
Trippy sighed. "Well, atleast it was somewhat expected..." she mumbled to herself. She leaned foward as if to speak to Iokin, but had to quickly dodge sideways as his right leg suddenly flailed up, threatening to kick her by accident. He was trying harder and harder to squeeze into the pipe, using his rear legs to jerk his body further. The earth mare approached him from the side, put her face close to the pipe's rim where her companion was trapped and called out to him: "Are you okay there?"
"Ngh! Hngh!" was his first response as he continually tried to push himself forward. After a few seconds however, his legs sloped down and an audible sigh was let out from within the cylinder. "I'm fine."
"Really?" she replied doubtingly.
Iokin raised his right hind leg and performed another fruitless effort to squeeze further in. "Well, I'm feeling okay. It's just that...I-I think I'm stuck."
"Figured." Trippy answered and looked at the area where his body stuck out. The bottom of his green worker vest was still visible, otherwise he'd managed to get his entire torso in, up until his hip area. "How does it feel? Can you pull yourself forward with your arms?"
"No. There's no way. It's so tight I can barely breathe, let alone move around."
"Really?" she asked again, much more sincere this time. "Well, I don't want to the bringer of bad news, but..." Trippy shifted on the spot slightly, trying to figure out how to describe her friend's predicament with atleast some dignity. "...your upper body won't be the only thing keeping you up, if you catch my drift."
Inside the pipe, the grey tone on Iokin's face faded into a slight shade of red as he bit his lip in embarrassment. "Yeah...I felt that..." he replied.
The mare behind him blushed as well, realizing just how embarrased he had to be in this situation. She reached out a hoof towards him. "Hey, listen; I should pull you out. You were right. I should have...
Iokin jerked his head up in reaction to her words, accidentaly slamming his head into the pipe's ceiling with a loud *CLANG* in the process. Wincing, he reached out rub his head, but found that he couldn't thanks to being completely compressed within the passage. The noise had however caused Trippy to retract her helping hoof enough so that the stallion could call out to her before she reached him.
"No, wait! Ow...wait." he said as he waited for the pain in his skull to subside. "No, you were right, Trippy. We wouldn't have been any better off had you tried this instead of me. No offence, but you were probably right about the 'me being thinner' part..." he continued, mostly mumbling the last part of the sentence. He raised one of his hind legs as if testing if he could weigh himself inwards. "Thing is, I'm already, well... caught in here! We might as well try to get me all the way through instead of retreating, yeah?" His legs slumped down again. "I'm not tired yet!"
Trippy rubbed her chin in contemplation, but eventually cracked a warm smile. "It's nice that you want to continue, Iokin. I know quite a few ponies who would wimp out if something like this were to happen to them. It's admirable that you want to keep going."
"Aw, don't mention it! If it's all about helping out friend and that, you know..." He blushed again.
Suppose the chance of finding a girl in distress can grab any stallion, eh...? the mare though with a sly smile, looking at the part of Iokin sticking out of the pipe and planning her next move.
Now, let's see if we can get you out of there.
Calambite tried pushing herself forward again. This time however, she angled herself upwards in order to squeeze her hips through the gap first. The pipes that were holding her trapped creaked slightly, but remained as intact and inflexible as before. Pushing up hard, with a couple of groans escaping her on the way, she managed to feed a small portion of her hip between the gap.
Pausing mid-squeeze to catch her breath, Calambite sighed in relief. She could probably make it this time! The pegasus gathered her strength again and heaved herself forward with full force.
Nothing happened.
Confused, Calambite pushed forward again and looked back to see what was holding her up. She didn't see much, but still figured out what the problem was pretty quickly. Both of her buttcheeks had bunched up in the gap, preventing any forward momentum. She pushed harder, trying her hardest to squeeze her butt through, but soon felt that she just couldn't manage. Finally, she gave up on it and backed up, dislodging her hips from the gap and giving her legs some more space to breathe.
"So close..." she muttered and glared through the gap at her butt.
After a few moments of thinking, Trippy walked up behind Iokin's rump and cleared her throat. "Okay, I'm going to have to get a little physical if I wanna help you. Think you can handle that?"
"Go ahead! We still got some ice to break."
"Alright, here goes!" she called out to him and leaned her hooves on his rear. She had expected it to be about as soft as Calambite's, but noticed straight away that the stallion's was, in fact, a bit more firm. She pushed him forward, but felt like she could not quite get a grip of him that way. Iokin did his best to struggle along, but didn't achieve much being as crammed in as he was already. It seemed like only Trippy had the possiblity to budge the wedged stallion.
Trippy grabbed Iokin's rear legs from underneath, lifted them up, held them under her arms and leaned forward hard, figuring that Iokin would have a higher chance of squeezing in, would his entire body be on the same horizontal level. Inside the pipe, the stallion tried as hard as he could to pull himself forward with the help of his companion. However, neither of them seemed to be able to force the stuck pony an inch further.
Finally, both of them ceased their struggles and took a short break. Trippy sat down on her haunches and looked up at her friend in the pipe. They hadn't been able to squeeze his hips inside. Not yet atleast. She had a good feeling about this strategy, and perhaps it would work, would she get more brutal in her actions.
Iokin was the first to break the silence: "I don't know about you, but I don't think it worked." he said and shuffled his body slightly in discomfort.
"We're just gonna have to go harder on it." Trippy said as she wiped some sweat off her forehead.
"Uhm, I hope that doesn't mean you're going to ram me, right?" Iokin asked nervously.
"Nah. We haven't reached that stage yet." was her response. She stood up again and cracked her neck by leaning her head side to side. "It just means that I'll have to work harder on forcing your butt through."
"Well, do whatever you feel is necessary. I'm ready when you are." he called out to her.
"Right, raise your legs."
Iokin complied and let Trippy take his rear legs under her arms again. Trippy took a light breath to muster her strength, before shoving Iokin forward again. When she felt that normal, straight-on pushing did not have an effect, she instead began thrusting him forward, hoping to squeeze part of his hips further and further in with each thrust. The stallion winced slightly, but kept quiet, certain that his companion would do no harm to him.
As Trippy kept up the struggle, she noticed that the strategy actually was working to some extent. Iokin's flanks slowly gathered within the pipe's opening and more, and more of him was stuffed inside with each thrust. This inspired the earth mare to put more and more force into her thrusts, even using her own head to push straight on Iokin's butt, assisting the process. It wasn't until after a couple of minutes had passed until the stuck stallion couldn't continue withstanding the pain caused by her efforts.
"Ow, OW! Tri-ingh-py. Trippy! Stop!" Iokin shouted. Trippy halted her pushing immediately and stepped back a bit to both give her friend some space and to observe her work.
The first thing she noticed was that the absolute majority of Iokin's hip had been crammed into the tiny pipe. Only a small portion of it remained outside, not even enough to allow him to lower his hind legs anymore. However, his bottom seemed to have just reached the hole's edge, and although it wasn't as large as the pegasus mare's had been, Trippy was not certain that it would enter without a fight.
Iokin squirmed inside the pipe, seeming like he was continuing the struggle on his own. After a short while however, the struggling halted and Iokin's voice rung out from the cylinder; "Oh! I think I can reach the edge now!"
Trippy looked past the wall of pipes that had blocked off their way before and saw that, on the other end of the pipe her friend was sitting in, a grey hoof was fumbling on the edge. Iokin shifted again slightly, and a couple of grunts could be heard from his position. Now he was actually trying to squeeze himself further.
For Iokin, it felt like he was being squeezed on from all possible angles. He kept fumbling with the edge of the pipe's end, trying to pull his compressed body further through the metal prison. He could feel the walls pressing against his hips, proving that they had gotten inside, but no matter how hard he tried to pull his body through, he still felt that his backside was unmovable. Nothing he did seemed to be able to budge it.
Outside, Trippy was looking at Iokin's struggles. At one point she realized that her eyes kept focusing on his exposed rear, bidding to fit into the tight opening. She blushed slightly and tried to look away, when Iokin suddenly called out to her again.
"Trippy! I'm still stuck! I can't pull myself in!"
"Well...there's..." Trippy began, but trailed off as she tried to find any suitable words to describe his predicament, still staring at his butt as if hypnotized. After a couple of seconds however, she snapped back to her senses and shook her head. Deciding that a direct response would work best, she simply replied; "Your butt is still blocking the way."
"Wha-huh? Oh." He let out an audible growl, and spoke again, clearly frustrated. "Celestia damn it! If not even I can fit my flank through this damn..."
"Hey, it's not that big! I think I should still be able to knead it through." Trippy said and stepped up to him. "Why don't you try to pull yourself in while I'm doing it? It would probably make it easier for both of us."
"...a-alright then." Iokin answered and calmed down a bit, before continuing his struggle forward. The earth mare planted her hooves on Iokin's rump, and began forcing them into the tight passage, piece by piece.
Both of them worked on their part respectively, Iokin pulling himself forward and Trippy pushing his backside. After a while, nearly all of his butt was packed into the circular frame, leaving only a small part of his rearcheeks and hips outside, together with with his hind hooves and charcoal-black tail. Both of them decided to take yet another break from their struggles, allowing Trippy to finally sit down again and regain her strength and stamina.
Iokin now felt an extreme tightness around his rear as well, like he had been wedged even more. He tried to move forward again, but felt that he couldn't move an inch, no matter how hard he tried. As an experiment, he even tried to squeeze backwards and was met with the same result. He was completely trapped.
Yet again, Trippy stood up from her rest, ready to check up on Iokin. She walked up to his side again and faced the pipe. "That was quite the workout, don't you think?" she said with a light chuckle, before finally asking him; "How are you feeling?"
"Ngh...I'm fine. It's just a little snug."
"Good. You think you can make the rest?"
There was a slight pause before he responded. "No. Well, yes. But...erhm..."
"But what?"
"I...well, I can't really manage to get a grip on the edge just yet. It's just a little bit too far away." he said and began shifting again, trying to reach the end of the pipe. "And I'm like, really, really stuck in here. As in, 'not being able to move without your help'-stuck."
"You mean, 'not being able to move without me pushing your butt again'-stuck?" Trippy asked slyly.
"...Yes, just like that." he said. Another deep sigh. "Honestly, I'm not sure how Calambite had less trouble fitting through here than I."
"Her butt was pretty troublesome though, gotta say." she replied, lowering her voice so that the pony they were referring to wouldn't be able to hear them. "You know, with both of us pushing, and she still wouldn't budge?"
"Heh, guess you're right." Iokin said, a little relieved after being reminded that Calambite had equally as much difficulty with the passage as he did. "So anyhow, would you like to help me again?" he asked.
Trippy nodded silently and trotted up behind him again. She wouldn't be able to wrap her arms around his legs as before, so normal pushing would have to do. "Ready?" she called out to him and put her front hooves onto his butt yet again.
"Ready!"
The mare leaned forward again. She wouldn't be able to get a proper grip around the stallion's buttcheeks, but fortunately, it was not required to force him further in. Iokin tried his absolute hardest in squeezing through now, gripping the edges and pulling with all of his might.
It went ridiculously slow, but piece after piece, Iokin was pushed further and further into the tight passage. As a result, more and more of his arms came out of the opening on the other side. Pretty soon he was able to assist in the struggle with the tip of his elbows, and used them for a greater force.
It was only when his head was almost out of the pipe that he stopped yet again. His body was equally as compressed as before, and still really wedged. On top of that, he could no longer feel his coworker's hooves pressing on his rump. The stallion craned his neck in an attempt to look backwards and shouted to Trippy; "Hey! Why did you stop?"
Trippy wiped some sweat off her forehead and cleared her throat, preparing to tell him the hold-up. As she had pushed him, Iokin had slowly slided away from her reach, until she finally wasn't able to reach his rear anymore. Figuring that attempting to push his legs forward would be fruitless, she had simply backed off, standing idly by until Iokin would react.
"You're too far in, Iokin. I can't reach you anymore." she said and looked through the pipe wall. Sure enough, a piece of his head was sticking out of the pipe exit now, and anything he said was much more audible now than before.
"Aw, horseshoes." was his response. Trippy saw again how he tried to pull himself further through, attempting to use his elbows rather than his hooves which, to her, looked rather uncomfortable.
"You, uh...think you can get through by yourself?" she asked nervously.
"Hold on." he grumbled. He wiggled as hard as he could, aiming to squeeze forward again. Trippy simply sat by and observed the trapped stallion as he struggled to escape his tight prison. After just a few minutes of intense watching, Trippy was about to let out a sigh of defeat, when Iokin suddenly jerked onward and somehow slid slightly further through the pipe, his entire head now outside of it.
"Hah, alright..." he panted. He looked in Trippy's direction, finding her standing right behind the pipe blockade. "Yeah, I think I can manage this. Just give me some time!" he said.
Trippy sighed in relief, happy to hear the news. "Thank Celestia for that. I almost thought I would have to do an emergency call in order to get both your and Calam's flanks out of here!" she laughed.
"Now that's something I would not want to appear in the papers." Iokin chuckled.
"Hey! Hey!" Calambite's voice suddenly boomed out from the dark hall ahead. "What in the entire world is taking you so long?"
"Oh! Heh, I forgot about that..." Iokin chuckled nervously. "Sorry! I'll be there soon! Just, uh, sit tight!" he shouted down the hall, and began pushing himself further. Since he had managed to squeeze further, there was more room for him to utilize his elbows.
"Hah, 'sit tight'?" Trippy giggled. "Isn't that reassuring..."
Iokin slowly wiggled and crammed his chest through the metal cylinder, which went fairly easy. As he reached his belly however, he couldn't reach the exit rim with his elbows anymore, forcing him to push with his hooves yet again. Because of this, his progress slowed down by quite a bit, and he had to struggle harder to achieve any results.
Eventually, as his hips were close to reach the edge, Iokin had no other option than to push with completely outstreched arms. This weakened his struggle, and caused it to slow down significantly. He ceased his pushing for a moment to regain some energy, and looked over to Trippy again.
"You think we would have saved some time if we had taken the long route instead?" he asked her.
"Maybe, maybe not." the mare replied. "At this point, I feel that might have been true."
"Same here." Iokin said and looked back at the pipe. His hips were aching due to the tightness of the obstacle, and he really wanted to get out of it now. He wiped off some sweat from his face and gathered himself for a moment, before carefully continuing forward.
He pushed straight on at first, but receded when he felt nothing. On the second attempt, he tried to wiggle his hips as well, and noticed that he was able to force one of them out with enough struggle. The stallion twisted his body from side to side, leaning around as hard as he could to fit himself out.
Finally, after a long time of twisting and straining and with a almighty push, his left hip fell out from the hole, causing him to fall forward slightly. Iokin looked down on the concrete floor beneath him, bracing for the landing, and shoved the rest of his butt through the pipe, accompanied by his legs and tail.
Trippy clapped her hooves joyfully as she saw Iokin get out, but stopped her celebration to wince as he tumbled forward and landed straight on his back, knocking the air out of his lungs.
"Oh my gosh Iokin, are you alright?" she asked, a hint of worry in her voice.
Iokin inhaled and coughed, trying to get his breathing back to normal whilst also massaging his aching hips. After a few seconds of wheezing, he slowly rose and turned to face the earth pony mare standing on the other side of the pipe wall. He looked up at her, still rubbing his flanks, and smiled. "Yeah, I'm...*cough*...alright..."
Trippy smiled. "See? It wasn't that hard for you, was it?" she said jokingly.
A bit to her suprise, Iokin just shrugged and looked at the cylindrical pipe he'd just gone through. "You know Trippy, you're right. It was a pretty easy feat." he said and leaned onto the metal exterior, now with a smile much more sly. "Why don't you come over and join us here? Don't worry about the entrance, it's just a little snug, that's all."
The mare couldn't help but chuckle a bit to her companion's humorous remark. "Well, Io'... I don't remember you getting a sense of humour anytime recently. How hard did you hit yourself when you fell out of that pipe?"
Now it was the stallion's turn to grin at his friend's comeback. "Well, in all seriousness Trippy; what are you going to do now?"
Trippy shrugged and looked at the pipe. "I'm not going there, that's for sure. After seeing you guys do it, I think I can draw the conclusion that I would not stand a chance trying to cram myself in that thing." She looked back at the path they'd come from and then back to Iokin. "You guys are not gonna try to go back the way you came, right?"
"Not if we can avoid it, no."
"Then I think I'll head topside and seek out that other entrance we didn't go to. Perhaps you guys can find your way there when you're done, so you don't have to be bothered by the cluster again."
"Sound reasonable." Iokin replied.
"Then let's get moving. We don't want to be delayed any more than we already have!" Trippy exclaimed. "We'll meet up soon, alright? Now, you should probably focus on getting Calambite out of her mess. That girl has been sitting there for long enough." she told him, finishing off her sentence with a wink as if to say; "You're a lucky boy."
Iokin blushed, but nodded. Synchronized, they turned away from each other, heading in their own directions. Trippy on her way to the surface, and Iokin to where Calambite was caught.
For the last couple of minutes, Calambite had been resting her head on her arms, slowly coming to terms with her defeat. The pipes had her wedged tight, and she wasn't able to push herself on or back up. All she could hope for was that her friends would be able to pass through that first pipe and come over to her. But judging from the time it seemed to be taking, it seemed that they had run into some problems.
Suddenly, she heard the echoes of hoofsteps behind her quickly closing in, as well as the light banging of a few pipes. She rose her torso and looked behind her, through the tight gap, just in time to see a silhouette of a pony approach her in a crawling pace. She almost immediately recognized the figure's dark mane and grey coat.
"Iokin!" she called out, ecstatic over that one of her fellow workers had managed to get through to her.
"Calambite, how are you doi..." Iokin began to say, but faded as soon as he saw his friend's predicament right in front of him. The mare's entire torso had gone through a small gap between two pipes hanging horizontally across the cluster passage, but her rear held her clearly trapped. Her hips seemed to be slightly larger than the gap, and her precious round butt just bulged as she tried to move forward.
Calambite blushed, realizing what had caused her companion to fall silent. She looked forward into the darkness ahead and planted her hooves on the ground, lifting her upper body. "Listen, I'm going to need you help to get through this..."
"Uhm...yeah! Uh, right away!" Iokin replied, blushing slightly as well.
He kneeled down, grabbing hold of Calambite's legs, and pushed her forward. The blue mare began pushing as well at first, but halted and called out to her friend; "Wait, wait! Push my butt through first, otherwise I won't fit."
"O-okay!" the stallion complied and pressed onto Calambite's soft buttcheeks instead, forcing them between the pipes. After that, both of them picked up the pace and pushed hard forward. It was working, as the mare's hip slowly but painfully was squeezed between the pipe, but it still went pretty slow. When the widest part of her hip was going through, Calambite almost teared up from the pain of the pressure.
"Ow, ow, ow!" she grunted, causing the male behind her to stop.
"What is it? Are you..."
"No, no! Keep...*hhng*...going...please. It's hurting..." she groaned in pain.
Iokin realized what she meant and immediately reared up, took a hold of her legs with one arm and planting the other on her rear, and threw himself forward as hard as he could.
Calambite jerked forward slightly, and pushed even harder to get out faster. Both of them struggled with all that they could muster, until the mare finally fell forward when her rump was shoved out of the gap, almost collapsing on the unforgiving concrete floor. She groaned in agony and pulled herself forward until she was lying spread out on the floor, panting lightly out of exhaustion.
Iokin looked through the gap, eyeing the mare in front of him. "Are...are you alright, Calam?"
The female rubbed the irritated skin on her hip slowly. "Yeah, I-I'm okay. It just stung a little." she said, rose to her knees before standing fully up and facing Iokin. "T-thanks..."
"No problem." he replied, feeling pride over his rescue. Then the situation dawned on him again as he looked down at the tight gap in front of him. "Now, uhm...I think I'm going to have to get a little help with..."
"Oh! Oh yeah, right." Calambite said when she realized what he meant. "How...uhm, how hard was it for you to squeeze through that last pipe?" she asked.
"Well...kind of difficult..." he started, taking a close look at the pipes with a look growing more and more concerned. "Actually, really difficult."
"In that case it's going to be a bit tough..." Calambite pondered.
"It's not like I have anywhere else to go." Ioikin said and kneeled down to the same level as the gap. Something in what he said caused Calambite to stop up and think for a moment, feeling like she'd forgotten something, but she wasn't able to place exactly what. The grey stallion in the meantime, pressed his head and forearms between the pipes and pressed forward.
He hit a problem almost immediately. His chest was just a bit too big to fit through comfortably, and he had to do some sort of half-wiggle movement in order to press it through piece by piece. It was tough, but it was working. Slowly but surely his ribcage crammed through the tiny space.
As he reached his stomach, Calambite suddenly remembered what she found amiss. "Hey, Iokin!" she said. "Where's Trippy? She didn't come with you?"
"No, that...*hnh!*...would have been too difficult." he replied through gritted teeth, shoving the final parts of his torso past the obstacle. "She went ahead of us to the nearest entrance down here, expecting us to come out through there instead of going back the way we came, for obvious...*hngh*...reasons."
"I see." Calambite said.
Iokin mustered up his strength and pushed forward, trying to fit his pelvis through the gap. He squeezed and pushed, but was not able to venture any further, his rear plugging up the space. After just a couple of seconds, he halted his struggle to look up at the mare in front of him, reaching out a hoof. "A little help maybe?"
"Right." she replied and grabbed his hoof. She began pulling as he pushed, stretching his arm far towards her. Eventually, Iokin reached out his other hoof aswell which Calambite quickly grabbed, now pulling on both of his arms. Iokin wiggled his hips as much as he could, slowly inching forward until he, after a couple of minutes of heartily tugging, fell out of the tight gap between the pipes and landed on the concrete floor with a thud.
Calambite leaned down and helped him stand up, making sure he was alright, before exhaling in relief. "That wasn't as bad as I thought it would be." she said. "It seems like your butt wasn't all that too big."
"Ehehe..." Iokin scratched his head and smiled awkwardly at the comment.
Calambite blushed a bit seeing his reaction, but quickly shook away any further thoughts from her head. "Now come on. We got our duty to fulfill, and I don't want any more delays."
"Right away." he replied and picked up the toolbox that Calambite had brought.
Both of them headed away from the pipe cluster, and further into the dark corridor, the light of their luminous vests shining bright in the darkened hallway.