Diamonds are a girl's worst enemy

by Rarity Belle

Act 1 chapter 15

“Run?! Run what way, lass?!” Rare Thinker yelled towards Rarity. The company of ponies wanted to know the finer details of their hasty escape, if there were any to begin with. Their eyes went all over the place in the danger of the moment. Even though the cavern was still empty, they knew their time was going to be very limited if they wanted to make it out alive.

Though when Rarity needed to answer the question, she gave pretty much the impossible one to it. The one they feared the most. The one they least expected. “The way we came!” she shouted. Then she wanted to gallop off. It seemed like madness itself when the others thought about it. Galloping back to the entrance the way they came just seemed like suicide to all of them.

“What makes you think we will be able to get there?!” Drawn Brush yelled to her. Though moments later they all kicked themselves into high gear.

“Because it is the way we know that will be working on order to survive. I don’t want to be running through this whole place, just to die in a dead end, master Brush!” replied Rarity harsh. She did have a point. The changelings probably knew just how the whole place worked and looked. The company had only seen the route they came. While it was more than possible for them to find another way to get out, the dangers were there that they perhaps couldn't.

“But it means we have to go back through their sleeping chamber, won’t they be still there?!” questioned Brush Drawn. His horn was lit up like a torch to provide some form of light. The creatures knew they were there somewhere, so their cover was already blown. Or so he thought.

“No, they will all be awake and searching for us. I can only hope that all of them have taken up the orders to find us and thus leaving the place empty,” replied Rarity to him. She allowed her own horn to shine in the magical aura and provided a secondary light for the group.

They galloped as fast as they possibly could. Yet there came the dreaded corner that housed the conversion center. Each of them sprinted like the wind past it. None of them wanted to even see the horrors again. They didn’t wanted to see their own doom. The group was being hunted by the changelings that seemed to be coming from literally all over the place. The sounds of their hisses and the buzzing of their wings was highly annoying to say the least, but also terrifying. Even though they didn't saw any of the bugs crawling around, they knew they were around there somewhere.

The eyes almost constantly looked up from left to right as well as up to make certain there wouldn't have been any surprise attack on them. They have come that far, they wanted to finish it. Even the pegasus of the group had that thought on his mind. Each of them wanted to return home and be done with it all once and for all.

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The more they galloped through the cavern, the more the orange lights had become clearly visible to their eyes. They were close by the place they had only sneaked through hours before. Yet there was also something else. Something that caused Rarity to pull upon the breaks. That action would stop every pony just in time before they would turn themselves around the corner.

All of them were taken by a rather massive surprise about the fact as the unicorn shushed them quietly. “Listen, listen closely,” Rarity then spoke up. Her eyes turned themselves from left to right, she had heard something that the others didn’t. The other ponies looked a bit confused to her though. They couldn't understand what she meant with her words.

Only when they began to listen to the sounds around them was the horrifying discovery made by all of them. The entire caverns had fallen silent. All of their eyes suddenly opened themselves wide and they stared at a nodding Rarity. Caution had to be given. It was impossible to tell where the changelings were from that moment on.

Sadly enough didn't the company look upwards. It was on the ceiling of the cavern they were in that the hungry beasts had collected themselves for the meal of five ponies. Though the silence was maintained from both side. That was until one of the creatures dropped some saliva right upon the mane of Brush Drawn.

The stallion wiped it away and wanted to look up to see where it came from. “Don’t,” the unicorn said before she gave him a stern look. She seemed to be knowing more than enough just where the creatures that hunted them were. The time to go had fallen upon them there and then. “Let’s go, move everypony. Back to where we came from,” she spoke in a silent whisper. Then she trotted around the corner. A corner from which everything could be popping behind and that was the massive fear that the mare had.

When she eventually did dare to look around, the situation itself was rather different. Different from the events as she had pictured them. Gone were all of the changelings while the lights still burned bright. With both the book and the gem was Rarity the key subject in the matter. She knew they wouldn't rest until they discovered her and possibly ended her life to get the thing back.

The rest of the team also quickly turned around the corner. Though Rare Thinker couldn't help it but to look behind them. The fear of being followed by bugs the size of himself was a terrifying thought to say the least. “And now?” Drawn Brush squeaked while he wanted to know the finer details of the plan. A plan that in and of itself would be become madness itself.

“The giants… We have to wake the giants somehow. It is our only chance of getting out of here without a scratch and you all know that.” It was a plan of utmost absurdity and all of them knew it. Sadly did all of them also knew that they alone weren't enough to handle themselves against an army of changelings and their maddened king.

“It’s the only option that we have for it. We have to do it!” Brush Drawn commented. In that moment had they all set it on a running once again.

Through corridor and hallway of stone they galloped. All in order to make it back to the place where it all started. The very place where they fought off the two giants. Though there wasn't any guarantee that there would be any more left outside of the two they managed to end. It was a bold move made by a desperate mare.

“Desperate times ask for desperate measures. Let’s do it, lass!” Rare Thinker eventually spoke to her. Even he saw their only options fade away and coming up with the same mad idea. For once he was standing at the side of Rarity and the lot of them rushed back inside of the chamber.

The gems themselves were still shining as beautiful as ever with their massive, hypnotic glare. Everypony remembered how the younger twin got seduced by them only a day ago. It seemed daft to even work, perhaps too daft that it might actually work.

It was their best shot for certain but one as fragile as their bodies. “Look for another way out, blast one if you have too. We need a back-up place in case something goes terribly wrong!” shouted Rarity while the sounds of hisses and buzzes once more returned within their very ears. Their final stand would have been made there and then if they were to die.

In the entrance way they could be heard galloping, flying and even wall climbing. Thousands of changelings were coming their way and the group of ponies all curled together and near one another. The time to see whether or not their plan would have worked was there. There was no way back for any of them.