Courage the Cowardly Dog In: Dog Days

by lunabrony

4 - Ups and Downs

Courage at first hadn't even realized he'd been grabbed, or that anything at all was amiss. There was a sensation of warmth that surrounded him as if he'd fallen asleep in front of a fireplace, and the usual sleepy laziness that came with such an activity. His mind felt sluggish as one who'd just taken a particularly powerful sedative might experience, but he began to awaken after a minute or two.

He found himself in what appeared to be an underground cave or cell of some kind, the only exit that he could see was blocked by thick, jewel encrusted bars. Digging underground in Equestria presumably unearthed a lot of them, and and using them to enforce bars like this was admittedly rather clever. They were no match for Courage and his never fully explained shape-shifting ability, however, as the dog wasted no time in melting his body down into a puddled liquid state, and rippling through the bars before solidifying and popping back up in his normal shape on the other side. The cell had contained him for less than five whole minutes.

Courage could get a better look at his surroundings from here, and saw that the cell was one of many identical alcoves set into a long, twisting hallway, which appeared to be an entire network of tunnels. There was nobody in sight, at least not for the moment, and he knew he had to act quickly. Choosing a direction at random, he ran down the tunnels, which were lit every few feet by burning torches. He passed cell after cell, stopping only when he came to the first occupied one.

On the other side of the cell stood a dirty, weary looking young donkey. Not quite a child, but not an adult yet either. "Heyyyyy-awwwww!" The donkey brayed. "Hey, you! You gotta get me outta here, man!"

Courage nodded his head, and tugged on the bars with all his strength. He might as well have been trying to push a building across Equestria.

"It's no good," the donkey said. "You're gonna have to get keys from one of the guards. Are you from Donkey Xote too? I don't remember seeing you."

The pup shook his head. "Ponyville," he said, as it was the first name to come to mind, and not a total lie. He remembered Donkey Xote being one of the other towns that had been assimilated during the last attack, though he'd never gotten around to actually seeing it.

"Wait here," Courage said, and the donkey rolled his eyes.

"Like I got a choice?"

Courage started to move further down, but was stopped by sounds around the corner. He pulled at the bars of one of the nearest cages out of instinct, but of course they didn't budge. He snatched one of the torches off the walls and froze like a statue, a grimace on his face and holding the torch up over his head like some sort of sentry gargoyle.

Around the corner came a creature which Courage had very much hoped he'd never have to see again in his entire life. A pony shaped entity seemingly entirely made of purple haze, broken only by solid silver orbs for eyes. It passed him without a second thought, either not noticing or not caring, and as soon as it had passed.

Feeling his flesh crawling with fear and hate, Courage slowly snuck up behind the fogpony, and snatched the keys dangling from a keyring around its misty tail. He spared no thought about how a non-solid entity could carry solid objects, and wasn't about to engage in a philosophical debate with it. He waited until the fogpony rounded the corner again, then returned to the donkey and unlocked the cell.

"Heyyyyy-awww, thanks, pup!" The donkey grinned, displaying massive flat teeth. "Come on, we gotta get the others!" He ran down the tunnel as quickly as possible, and Courage followed. Guards turned out to be slim, perhaps there was even only just the one at this point in time, as they didn't encounter any others. The donkey led him through winding tunnels as easily as if he'd been born and raised down here, and Courage wondered how long he'd been locked up.

The pair eventually came across an overlook that looked down over some sort of quarry, and Courage gasped in horror despite himself. He gazed down upon a scene that would have struck Miss Rarity with a severe case of deja vu. Gems were being mined and hauled by at least 15 children, employed against their will as unwilling labor by whatever madman was running this operation.

"Do you know who's in charge?" Courage asked. "Who we have to stop?"

"I don't know his name," the donkey said, sounding regretful. "But I've seen him a few times." He began to describe the appearance of whoever was behind all this, and as he did, the few alarm bells that were going off in Courage's head gradually became blaring sirens.

He knew who was behind it.

And he didn't like it at all.

"Oh, no," Courage whispered. That couldn't be right, it just couldn't. But then again, the description was too perfect to be anything else. But as to WHY... it didn't make any sense. It just raised more questions than it answered. "We have to get the kids out of here!" He insisted. But even as he spoke, gazing down upon the quarry, a small flare of purple light blazed into existence down below. It brought with it the appearance of yet another child, a young blue pegasus whom he didn't recognize, who appeared in shackles like the rest of them.

This brought the almost immediate attention of two more fogpony guards, who grabbed the child and hauled her away, crying and screaming for help, presumably to be trained or conditioned or whatever orientation process the others had gone through. Courage didn't want to think about it, it made him feel sick.

"Can we get down there?" He asked, pointing.

"We should get help first," the donkey said. "There's not a lot of guards, but most of them will be down there, and if we get busted, it's game over man."

Courage gave a longing look back down at the quarry, the cries of the filly still echoing in the tunnels. They'd have to move, being out of their cells like this meant the longer they were out, the higher risk they ran of being caught. He wanted to help all the children right now, right this second, and get them out of here... but they'd have to wait a little bit longer.

"Uh huh," he agreed reluctantly, and the pair began to work their way deeper into the tunnels, leaving the overlook behind and trying to find the way out.

He could only home that the mares above ground were coming for them, and that they were hurrying. When they found out what he himself knew now...

...they weren't going to like it.

Comments

[Neko Majin C]

He could only home that the mares above ground were coming for them, and that they were hurrying.

"Hope."

Now I am intrigued. Who could be behind all this? Could it be the red cat guy again? Or maybe the alien chicken thing? I will just have to keep reading to find out.

~KBO.

[lunabrony]

5790159 Katz and Sombra are currently suffering from a rather severe case of being dead. Equestrian medical services have yet to find a cure for that.

[Neko Majin C]

5790339 The existence of zombie ponies would disagree with you.

[darkmage1997]

Will you do a story with one of Courage's other enemies, like Le Quack?

[lunabrony]

5793468 Negative. The Courage stories will be a trilogy, I already have the bare outline of Courage 3 in my head, I know the villain but I don't have it all worked out yet