//------------------------------//
// Where The Hay Are We? 
// Story: Extra Hour in the Rock Pit 
// by Sketcha-Holic 
//------------------------------//

"Cannonball!" 

At the sound of Quibble Pants' voice, Rainbow Dash just barely dodged getting bombed by the stallion. Foam rocks soared out of the pit upon his barreling into the pile, and Rainbow instinctively shielded herself, holding a delighted grin. She didn't have much time to react when her new friend popped out of the pile and chucked one at her face, but before he could throw another, she tackled him. 

The two laughed heartily as they sank into the pit, with Rainbow plucking rocks from the side and playfully pretend-trying to smash his head in. Quibble feebly shielded himself for several moments, until he found an opening and chucked a rock at her chest. 

Rainbow gasped and clutched her chest, crying out in an accented, "Curse you, Daring Doooooo!" 

She then flopped into the foam cave, lolling out her tongue in mock death as she sank deeper. 

Quibble laughed. "Hey, wake up, you common loon! I know you're faking it just to jump me." He tossed a few rocks at her, and was impressed that she didn't even move a muscle. "Besides, it's not always the punches and kicks that Daring Do employs in her adventures--she has a knack for outsmarting her enemies, like when she tricked Ahuizotl into thinking she was dead from the rock slide, or when she gave Caballeron the wrong answer to the riddle with a very convincing logic. Gotta say, it's satisfying to see them get chased off by some monster or trap."

Rainbow waved her front legs. "Ha! They always have it coming!" She lifted her head. "Especially after those death traps they put her in."

"That they do. Those things are always overkill." Quibble looked up, noticing the foam rock walls that surrounded them. "Come on, let's swim out of this thing--there's a lot more to do at this convention, and I'm not planning on spending forever in this hole!" 

"Gotcha," Rainbow said, starting to boost herself up. Unfortunately, the act of boosting made the foam rock foundation beneath them crumble, and they suddenly sank deeper into the hole--much, much deeper. Their screams did not last long as they were completely swallowed up by the rock pit. 

They popped through a ceiling made of those foam rocks, and landed face first into a dark room. 

Quibble Pants threw his head up in a gasp for air. "Aw, geez! That moron running this thing better be careful with the foam--somepony could suffocate in here." He swung himself up to sit on his haunches and stretched to pop some kinks in his back. "They could get in serious trouble if one or both of us dies!" 

Rainbow sat up and looked around, her eyes narrowing to try and see better. "This doesn't look like the bottom of the rock pit. You'd think there'd be more rocks and less room."

Quibble raised an eyebrow. "Where else could we be, the center of the planet?"

Rainbow slowly stood up, fully expecting to hit her head on the foam rocks above at any moment. It was both fortunate and unfortunate that she managed to stand up to her full height. She still tried to scan the area, but she could hardly see past the little peeps of light that allowed her to at least see some of Quibble. As far as she knew, they were still in the bottom of the rock pit; nothing of interest there anyhow.

"Doesn't matter, I'll be getting us out of here in no time." Looking up at the small cracks of light in the ceiling, she quickly dashed up to break through them, only to come tumbling back down with an avalanche piling on top of her, and even less light now seeping through above them. 

Quibble lightly clapped. "Good job." 

Rainbow popped her head out of the pile, spitting out flakes of foam. She glared at the smaller cracks in the ceiling. "Oh, you think you're so tough? I was just being soft; I'll bust a hole in you yet!"

She flew back up and slammed her head on the ceiling, dislodging more rocks that not only pushed her down again, but also hit Quibble in the head. She zipped up and headbutted the ceiling again, making more of them fall. A fourth and a fifth time brought more rocks, and sixth and seventh nearly buried Quibble in a hill of foam rocks. In what little light they had, there didn't seem to be any sign of rupture, despite the number of foam rocks that had already fallen. 

Before Rainbow tried an eighth time, Quibble said, "I don't think it's working."

Rainbow paused and growled. "Hey, this pit only has so many rocks; I'm bound to break through sometime!" 

"Uh-huh." Quibble swam out of his pile, and started shuffling around the dark cave, kicking foam rocks left and right. "You keep doing that, and I'll be looking for the emergency hatch. There's gotta be one around here somewhere..."

In his stepping around in the dark, Quibble stepped in a random bucket of water. Whinnying a "What the, how the?!" he jerked his wet hoof from the bucket, and backed away from it, only to step on a random mop, and slip on it. Landing on his back sent waves of pain up and down his spine, and spread throughout his system for several painfully long moments. 

Rainbow heard the clanging, and followed her ears to find her buddy. "Hey, what happened?"

Quibble groaned as he sat up, rubbing his back. "I stepped in a bucket and tripped on a mop."

"Uh... what?"

"Ugh... I stepped in a bucket and tripped on a mop!"

There was a pause, and then Rainbow burst into laughter. 

Quibble Pants felt his face furrow into a scowl. "What's so funny?"

Rainbow hiccuped with her chortles. "Did you seriously find a mop and a bucket in here? What is this, a broom closet?!" 

"Ugh... I wouldn't be surprised if this was an elaborate prank by a sister of mine," As his pegasus friend continued to laugh, Quibble felt around until he found the mop's handle and picked it up near the yarns. "Why is this thing even in here?"

Suddenly, the handle exploded into a bright pink glow, which had made both ponies jump and cover their eyes. After a fair amount of blinking, they regained their senses and looked at the glowing, humming mop handle. Both curiously poked it, only to recoil when it burned them. 

After a long silence, Rainbow said, "You gotta admit, that's kinda cool."

Quibble changed his holding position several times to examine the illuminated handle, careful to keep it away from Rainbow and himself. "Mmm, yeah, coolest looking mop I've ever seen... even though burning ponies makes it impractical..."

"We could use it to look around."

"Oh, yeah, good point." Quibble mumbled, swinging it out to light up more of the room. In doing so, he ended up slicing right through the bucket, and as a yellow, soapy mixture spilled out, the bucket let out a dying gasp before its top half went clanging to the floor. The two ponies stared at the dead bucket for a moment before deciding that maybe they were just hearing things. 

"Okay, it makes a bad cleaning thing, but it'd make a pretty awesome weapon." Rainbow said, nudging her buddy. 

"I'll stick to using it as a light source, thank you!"

Quibble raised the glowing handle, keeping it pointed away from the both of them, and looked up to see the walls bearing shelves of various soaps, rags, cleaning agents, detergents, and mops and brooms. They were all arranged haphazardly, along with various other boxes that the two needed to step closer to see, and stacked into the scrambled letters of the alphabet and characters of a foreign written language. 

"What the--this is a broom closet!" he said, blinking in disbelief.

"Hey, whoa whoa whoa!" Rainbow started to hover to free both of her hooves for waving. "I was only kidding about the broom closet!"

"Well, congratulations, you have psychic powers," Quibble deadpanned. He narrowed his eyes to look at the cleaning supplies and whatever the other items were, and then staggered back, looking insulted. "Are those food items with those cleaning supplies?! Okay, no no no! Whoever owns this weird... closet in... a foam rock pit... should know better! Why would anyone store potatoes with their bleach?!"

Rainbow flew to the shelves to take a closer look. "This cleaning stuff is weird. I mean... this floor cleaner brags about making the floor taste like coconuts, that sponge is oozing green slime, and the air freshener is wet dog scented."

"Who manufactured that?! I'm boycotting them!"

"Disorder Inc."

"Never heard of them. But I'm boycotting them!"

Rainbow rolled her eyes and sighed. "Let's just get back to getting out of here; I'm not going to wait for anyone to rescue us!" 

"Okay, okay, I'll find a door." Quibble swung the mop handle to look at the other wall, bearing shelves with blankets and pillowed stuffed onto them instead of folded, and even had some food items stored with them as well. "Oh, how nice, there are linens here too. I hope those vegetables wrapped in them are comfortable." He swung it to another wall, and blinked at the contents of those shelves. "Is that a collection of pony dolls? I think I see one of you, sitting against that big yellow pegasus with a few others..."

"Huh? Wait, I thought I didn't have a toy yet."

"Why would you have a toy?" Quibble asked in a hoarse whisper.

Rainbow smirked. "I'm the new Wonderbolt."

"Oh." Quibble pursed his lips. "Okay. You'd think a guy working for the newspaper would know. Then again, my job is more about opinions and critiques about literature and acts at the local theater, and I've never been interested in any sports or military news--which is it? I'm not sure--but maybe after today--if we ever get out of this random closet and spend the rest of the con having fun together--I'll be making more of an effort to look for you in the news, a-and bragging to my brothers that I met a Wonder--"

"Yeah, yeah, yeah, I know, it's amazing to be in the presence of one." Rainbow looked at the shrine of pony dolls and cringed. "It's really creepy that this same pony has dolls of my friends too. Why is Fluttershy so big?"

"I don't know, but there's one wall left to find the door, and it's smelling like wet dog in here." Quibble swing the glowing mop handle to the last wall, and there, between shelves of other oddly stacked food and cleaning items, was the door. 

"Yes!" Rainbow bolted to the door, nearly knocking over Quibble in the process, and proceeded to yank at it. 

Unfortunately, much to her chagrin, it turned out to be locked. Pull and grunt as she might, the door barely even budged. She pulled and tugged in vain, until her shoulders were sore from nearly being yanked out of their sockets. With a growl and a "Come on!" she rotated in midair to buck at the door repeatedly, with only clangs that suspiciously sounded like laughter ringing through the room. 

"I thought these closets were only locked on the outside." Quibble looked back at the pony doll collection. "Not gonna lie, I go the extra mile in protecting my merchandise too." He lifted up the mop to his face, staring at the pink energy beam that replaced the handle. "And thieves would want the magical death mop..."

His eyes widened in realization as he kept gazing. 

When Rainbow was reduced to pushing her whole body against the door, Quibble hollered, "Hey, Rainbow! Step aside and let me take a crack at it!"

Rainbow blinked, looked at the mop in Quibble's hoof, and then complied. Taking a stance like a samurai pony in an old book he read years ago, Quibble took a deep breath as he focused on the door. Thinking of how easily the bucket was sliced by the mop, surely this was the solution to their little problem. 

He leapt forward with a battle cry, and swung the mop handle at the door. It broke into several pieces upon impact. 

They were lucky that Rainbow was standing next to the light switch, and she turned it on once things went dark. It sufficed, though a disco ball playing some sappy love song it was. Quibble stared at the pieces of mop handle scattered on the floor, his slack jaw releasing stunned croaks. He looked back up at the door, where a sign that wasn't there before mockingly read, "This Door is Lightsaber-Proof."

Quibble laughed feebly. "So that's what it was called..."

Rainbow switched the light off, then on again out of disgust of the romantic music that played. "Well, that didn't work. Guess we have to find something else to knock the stupid door down!" She wrinkled her nose when a nursery rhyme played, and she fiddled with the light again and looked across the closet. "Now, what can we use for a battering ram..." She paused, noticing that the music was now an opera, and switched the light off and on again to change the music. 

"It was almost Hearth's Warming time..."

Quibble screamed. "No, no, no! Not this cheap, mushy, manipulative excuse for a Hearth's Warming song! Sure, it sounds cute, but if you take a closer listen to it, you'd realize it makes very little sense! Or would make sense if you go by the theory that the kid's scamming the viewpoint character--"

"Quibble!" 

"What? I could be here all day listing off the problems of--"

Rainbow turned the light off and on again. This time they heard, "The super duper party pony, that pony is me..."

Quibble blinked, and then said, "'Kay, I guess the Cheese Sandwich music is acceptable."

Rainbow flew to a large trash can, and then threw it across the room. Quibble yelped and jumped out of the way, and the trash can hit the door. It exploded with a great kaboom, sending Quibble flying into the shelves of cleaning supplies and food. An avalanche of the items fell onto him, with just about everything and the kitchen sink (literally), piling on top of him. 

"Heheheh... no, spit that out right now..." he moaned.

Rainbow hovered closer to the door, and screamed on finding it still intact. "How?! It exploded!"

Quibble's hoof popped out of the pile, and pointed to the sink, his muffled voice saying, "Try the sink."

Rainbow flew over, grabbed the sink, and then pulled Quibble out of the pile. Rubbing his head, the stallion grumbled, "After we get out of here, I oughta see a doctor and see if anything's wrong after this..."

Rainbow still held the sink in her forelegs. "Well, I guess that's more reason to get out of here!" 

She squared up, pointed the sink at the door, and then flew at top speed toward it. Unfortunately, instead of the door even cracking from the momentum, the sink bounced right out of her hooves, and then pinballed around the closet at nearly the same speed as Rainbow had flown. Quibble ducked under his pile of cleaning and food items, Rainbow dodged every instance of the sink flying toward her, and every shelf and pile that was hit had their items flying off, though miraculously, they ended up landing on other shelves, organized with other items of their category and without any others interfering with the order. It wasn't until the sink finally hit Rainbow--sending her face first into a bag of flour--that it stopped. 

Quibble slowly rose from his pile. "Hey... you okay over there?"

Rainbow groaned as she sat up, and she coughed out billows of flour. "Ugh... my mouth tastes like dog biscuits..."

Quibble cringed. "I don't even want to know how you know how they taste."

Rainbow shook the flour off her body, and stood up. She turned and glared at the door, snorting and pawing at the ground. "All right, you stupid door! I am going to do whatever it takes to break you down! You can't keep me in here forever!"

Quibble sighed. "If we are stuck in here forever, at least we have something to eat." He stood up and trotted out of his pile. "But, we both have things to do and ponies to see, so let's see what else we can try with what we've got in here. It's not like anypony actually stores their own stuff in some rock pit."

And so, the two plotted in using some of the stuff in the closet to break out. They grabbed one of the fallen shelves, and used it as a battering ram against the door, up until the shelf broke. They did this with a couple more shelves before deciding to do something else. 

They toyed with the items in storage, both food and cleaning implement. When finding that the ketchup and mustard squirt bottles shot lasers, they aimed at the door and squeezed as hard as they could for full power; unfortunately, the sign changed and said "Laser Proof". When finding out that some dish soap had the effects of acid, they squirted the door with it, only to have the sign now say "Acid Proof". And when they found that the big Fluttershy doll could roar sonic waves, they aimed it and and squeezed it, with "You're going to love me!" echoing through the closet. The only result was the ringing ears of the two ponies, and the sign changing to "Supersonic Wave Proof".

They tried throwing a trash can at it again, hoping that it'd explode like the last one. However, instead, a bunch of pencils fell out of it, and they all stood up, and started playing instruments in a tune straight out of Mexicolt. The sign then said, "Mariachi Band Proof".

Quibble threw his hooves up in the air. "How many things can this door resist?!"

Rainbow aggressively hovered in front of the sign. "Oh, yeah? Are you Rainbow Dash proof?!"

Quibble raised an eyebrow. "Considering earlier, I think it is."

Rainbow spun around and snorted at him. "Well, we must have weakened it with all the crud we threw at it! Just because it says it's everything proof doesn't mean it can withstand our barrage forever! I bet that if I fly at the door again, it'll break down this time! It has to!"

There was a few moments of silence, and Quibble guessed, "...you're claustrophobic, aren't you?"

Rainbow contorted her face, her cheeks growing red. "No, I'm not! Let's just get out of here!" She spun around, hitting Quibble in the face with her tail, and then zipped to the wall opposite the door, at an angle where she didn't have to fly around the rock pile, performing a few warm-up stretches before takeoff. 

Quibble stared at her with half-lidded eyes. "Seems to be one hair away from a panic attack."

He backed up, this time sitting by the pony collection. Looking at a doll of Princess Celestia, he asked it, "Hey, Your Majesty, how much do you think she'll end up hurting herself with this stunt?" He wiggled the doll back and forth, squeaking in a high voice, "'A lot.'"

He watched as Rainbow launched herself from the wall, speeding toward the wall with a speed that he didn't even know was possible. Considering the power of momentum and the theory that the door could have been weakened by earlier escape attempts, he wondered if she really was going to break them out this time. Here was hoping that there wasn't another pinball sink situation. 

In Rainbow's point of view, time seemed to slow down. She could feel and hear own heartbeat pounding, and her wings burn from how they pushed her. She was both hot from the exertion, yet cool from the air blowing past her. The door steadily came closer and closer, seemingly still taunting her with silent cockiness. The music of both the mariachi band and Cheese Sandwich were slow, tedious drones in her ears, so she mentally replaced them with her own personal rock tune. 

She's got this. She was going to break them out. 

However, by the time she reached the door, it had opened, and she crashed outside of the broom closet... rock pit... whatever it was. The Cheese Sandwich music abruptly stopped, and said, "Ow!" in response to what just happened, while the pencil band just fell. 

Quibble winced from the sound of the crash, expecting to hear an angry booth-keeper snapping at the pegasus, but at the same time, he lit up on seeing the open door. He cantered to the door, off to see the damage and see if she needed any medical attention. Closing in on it, he mused aloud, "Wow, I can't believe it just opened like thaaaaaaa....." He froze on seeing just who had opened the door. 

The serpentine mishmash of random creatures, with an unnatural loop in his body that must have been formed to avoid Rainbow Dash, was staring at him with a raised bushy eyebrow. As Quibble croaked in fear, the creature known as Discord looked between the stallion in the closet, and the dazed mare laying on a pile of furniture. 

Discord straightened his body and chuckled, his attention mainly on Rainbow. "Well, well, well! I wasn't expecting guests today, but it's always nice for a friend to come and visit my humble abode... I'm surprised that it was you instead of Fluttershy! Oh, if only I knew, then I could have prepared snacks." He glanced at Quibble and put a paw on his chest. "And to introduce me to a new friend... well, I just feel so special!"

Rainbow groaned and sat up, rubbing her head. "Ugh... Discord?" Her ears perked up with alarm. "Discord?! We were in your closet?!"

Discord gave her a deadpan look. "Apparently, that seems to be the case! Just what were you doing in there...?" He looked between Rainbow and the still stupefied Quibble, and drew a conclusion. Pointing at the brown stallion, he said, "I didn't take a guy like this to be your type."

"Wait, what?!"

"Oh, don't play dumb with me; I know what happens when a guy and a girl get into a closet."

"Hey, whoa, whoa, whoa!" Rainbow flew up to Discord's face. "We weren't doing anything like that! We were hanging out at a convention, and then obviously you made a portal in a rock pit we jumped in just to mess with us! Or just me; Quibble got dragged into it."

Quibble rubbed his head. "How hard did I hit my head?"

Discord scoffed and grabbed Rainbow's ear. "Well, I do not appreciate your accusatory tone! How do you even know if it was me and that ball pit portals into my realm aren't commonplace? Well, we can just forget about snack time if you are going to be so rude." 

He threw her back into the closet, and then let his head pop off and hover around the closet to assess the damage. Looking left and right, forward and back, and rotating, Discord took note of how his items were rearranged. He frowned at the sight of cleaning supplies with cleaning supplies, linens with linens, food with food, and pony toys with pony toys, with only a few broken things and a couple piles of junk here and there. "This closet was perfectly chaotic before! Well, not perfectly, I was planning on rearranging it into a bigger mess... but still, I don't appreciate the reorganization."

"All we were doing is trying to break out!" Rainbow shouted. 

Quibble looked at the corners. "I could have sworn we broke more things than organized them..."

Discord's head reattached itself to his neck. "Well, I was excited to have visitors, but I guess my home isn't good enough for them. If you two cannot show me or my things the least bit of courtesy, then I'm afraid I'll have to bid you adieu."

He snapped his talons, and a springboard shot Rainbow and Quibble up through the ceiling. 





The two ponies burst out of the rock pit with a gasp, and coughed a bit before regaining their senses. They looked down at the foam rocks, looked up at each other, and then looked around at the stands and booths lined up in rows in the convention halls. The hums and drones of conversation filling the air, neither Rainbow nor Quibble knew what to say about what had just happened. 

"Hey!"

They looked down to see both the scowling booth-keeper and a line of glaring cosplayers waiting for a turn in the rock pit. Tapping her hoof, the keeper said, "If you're done now, other ponies would like a turn in there."

Rainbow dug herself out of the foam rocks, started to hover, and carried Quibble Pants out of the pit. "Okay, but I have to warn you, you might fall into another dimension if you're not careful."

Some of the little foals giggled at that remark, while the booth-keeper said, "Oh, such a kidder, aren't you?"

Still trying to process the recent adventure, Quibble mumbled, "I think my sister's mushroom casserole got to me..."





Meanwhile, at the Griffonstone Friendship Summit, Princesses Celestia and Twilight Sparkle were presented with a large platter stacked with lots and lots of Griffonstone Scones. Celestia remained as regal as can be, while simultaneously trying not to bug her eyes at the amount, while Twilight gawked at the mountain of scones before them. 

"So, uh... why did you say you wanted a lot of scones?" Twilight whispered. 

Celestia pursed her lips. "I do not know what came over me."