Muck and the Mare

by AleximusPrime

Rarity to the Rescue!

CHAPTER 3

“STAY BACK, STAY BACK YOU MONSTERS! DON’T TOUCH MY LOVELY COAT, I BEG YOU!!!” Rarity screamed to the top her of her lungs. The mud monsters had surrounded her from one end causing her to back up into a wall and right on top of a mud puddle. She screeched at the sight of the mud below her and briefly forgot about the monsters and almost ran into them, but then backed into the wall again screaming even louder. “WHAT DO YOU WANT WITH ME?!?! PLEASE LEAVE ME ALONE!!!”

“MUAHAHAH!” laughed one of the monsters maniacally with his friends. “You’re not going anywhere, Miss Rarity! The Diamond Dogs have ordered us to keep you from entering the Mud Fortress and to keep you from escaping to call for help! You belong to us now!!”

“WHA-WHAT?!? BUT WHY?!? I JUST WANT TO HELP MY FRIENDS! PLEASE LEAVE ME ALONE I TELL YOU!!!”

But the monsters only laughed more and came closer with their hands spread out towards her just to torture her with fear. Rarity screamed even louder and started crying for her life. This was definitely not her day at all. Never before had she been around such muck and filth. She was afraid of losing her life-long beauty and her good looks. Ponyville’s finest and loveliest mare, about to be drenched in disgusting mud by horrible monsters made of mud, scarring her for life.
One of the monsters’ hands was right above her head and a tiny drop of mud fell right on her snout. But then something came over her: Rarity remembered her dear friends and what they could be going through. She then remembered how the monsters said they worked for the Diamond Dogs, and a great rage built up in her. “The Diamond Dogs did this!” she thought to herself. “And now they’re sending these fiends to just make things worse so I can’t save my friends! How dare they!” Suddenly, she opened her eyes and the tiny drop of mud that was on her snout seemed like nothing anymore. Then she forgot about all the mud around her, and could only think about how important her friends were to her and how important it was to rescue them. Her courage all of a sudden increased and her anger exploded. She growled and her face turned beat red, and then it happened…

“YOU FOOLS DON’T SCARE ME! TAKE THIS!!!” She jumped forward and spun around bucking the nearest monster right in the abdominal region as he squealed in pain. Some mud from him flew off and landed all over her, but it didn’t matter. She quickly went right over to the next monster and did the same only to his face this time. The last three monsters started realizing her retaliation and backed away, but she still gave each of them a powerful buck knocking them back into submission. She stopped and stood there panting, most of her body covered in large clumps of mud. Then she looked down on the monsters and realized that the areas she kicked them in were revealing their true identity underneath.

“You’re……YOU’RE DOGS?!?” she shouted. “HA!!! So that’s who you were all along! A bunch of dumb, gem-hording mongrels working for those Diamond Dogs! And here I was afraid of this?!? PATHETIC!!!” she mocked.

“Please, don’t hurt us anymore!” said one of the dogs who was actually still conscious.

“Tell me the way to this Mud Fortress and that’s exactly what I’ll do!” she said turning around and lifting her hind leg ready to buck with it.

“AGH! Ok, ok, it’s that way!” said the dog stiffly pointing to his left. “But you’ll never get there, pony! There are a bunch of other traps on the way to the fortress!”

“Oh? And what are the traps made of might I ask?”

“Uh……..mud…”

“Mud?!? Puh-lease! I no longer care about this mud, I want to rescue my friends, and if you dogs are just going to use simple mud as a weapon against me, then so be it! Whatever it takes to save my friends! ONWARD!!!” and with that, Rarity galloped off to the fortress leaving the dogs in pain.

She came across a little path with two straight rows of trees. Suddenly, little guns popped out from behind them and shot mud balls at her, but she kept on running.

“BRING IT ON, DIAMOND DOGS!!! I DO NOT FEAR YOUR LOUSY MUD ANYMORE!! I WILL RESCUE MY FRIENDS AND THERE IS NOTHING YOU CAN DO ABOUT IT!!!” she whooped.

Another trap came. The ground gave away and Rarity realized that it was a bunch of leaves covering another mud river again. The mud came up past her ankles and it slowed her down a bit, but was not nearly deep enough to stop her. She trudged through it and then crossed and kept on running forward.

“IS THAT THE BEST YOU’VE GOT?!? I’M JUST GETTING STARTED!!!”

Back in the Mud Fortress, the Diamond Dogs finally decided to take Spike and the ponies out of the cell to start doing their slave work. Fluttershy and Rainbow Dash both had a ball and chain attached to one hoof so they wouldn’t fly off and there were guard dogs nearby with spears in case any of them ran away.

“Twilight, the longer you hold in your powers, the worse this is gonna get!” reminded Rainbow Dash. She was getting even crankier from being in the fortress too long and the ball and chain was making it worse.

“And you’re making it worse by trying to get me to do that, Rainbow Dash!” Twilight said fiercely, although she was slowly starting to lose her patience with the Diamond Dogs.

They all finally came into a huge dome-shaped cave with tiny little crystal shards sticking out of the walls and stalactites. This must have been the main area where the dogs would get their gems, but now the ponies and Spike would be the ones digging them out.

“This is where you all shall work.” explained the leader. “Miss Twilight, you shall locate the gems and the dragon will dig along with all the other ponies! You will then put the gems into this wagon and the strong orange pony shall haul it into that room over there where we shall inspect them…”

“Look, I got a name here, and it’s Applejack!” said Applejack to the leader angrily.

“Whatever your name is, I do not have time to remember everyone’s name right now, alright!!”

“Can we eat something?” asked Pinkie. She hadn’t eaten in quite some time and her belly was starting to rumble.

“Yes yes, but your meal times will come when we decide!”

“But we haven’t eaten in so long…” said Fluttershy timidly. “…why can’t we just eat now? We’ll starve to death if you don’t feed us.”

“Silence, pony! We Diamond Dogs call the shots, not you!”

“Well Mr. Dog, if you don’t feed us when WE say we need to be fed, we might be very malnourished and will lose our strength. Do you want your “slaves” to be weak and not be able to do this work?” Twilight asked trying to use as much logic as possible to get her way.

The leader facepalmed and finally gave in. “GRRRR! Alright, fine, I will go get you ponies some food!!” he stomped off and closed the door behind him and locked it.

“Well I ain’t doing any of this work!” Rainbow Dash said sitting down and crossing her arms.

“Rainbow Dash, let’s just do it for now and see what happens.” suggested Twilight. “Maybe if we do well, they’ll be pleased and might think we’ve gotten enough gems so they might release us!”

“Them dogs ain’t gonna release us, Twi!” said Applejack. “They’re gonna keep us here as long as they want, I can tell! We ain’t goin nowhere and we don’t seem to be gettin any help right now either!”

“We will find a way out somehow girls…”

“But Twilight, the only way out really is if you use your powers and you won’t!” Pinkie told her.

“Well I sure hope I don’t have to use my powers. They still won’t listen to me, but I’m sure I can get them to eventually…”

“Good luck with that, Twilight!” said Spike carrying over a few tiny gems he found on the ground nearby in plain sight.

“For right now, we’re just going to have to go along with it. Now, how do I do this spell again?” Twilight asked herself. She half-closed her eyes and thought hard and her horn started glowing a bit. But then it stopped glowing and she looked very worried. “Oh no, don’t tell me!”

“What’s wrong, Twilight? Use Rarity’s spell.” Spike said.

“I can’t believe this……I think I’ve forgotten how to copy Rarity’s gem-finding spell already!”

“WHAT?!?!” shouted everyone else in the cave with their eyes widened.

“Aw well that’s just great, we’re doomed!!” said Rainbow Dash stomping one hoof on the ground.

“How in tarnation will we ever explain this to them dogs?!” Applejack asked worriedly.

“Well at least this means we won’t be able to find the gems so well…” said Fluttershy a bit happily since she knew that they couldn’t do such hard work now.

“Yeah, but what will the Diamond Dogs say!?” Twilight asked as she looked up imagining how angry they could get. They might be able to keep themselves from doing work, but the Diamond Dogs might get very upset with their performance.

“Ok, here’s the plan: Spike, do you think you can still sniff some gems out from the ground?”

“I could try, Twilight, but it won’t work as well as you finding them for me and pointing them out…”

“Well, we’re gonna have to deal with that for now. We best get moving! Oh this is not going to end well...” she said under her breath.

And so the ponies all started following Spike around as he slowly looked for the gems. Every now and then he would sniff them and then start digging, but he didn’t get a whole lot. He was the only one who could catch the scent of the gems, but he couldn’t smell them good enough under the dirt. The ponies tried and tried their hardest but only got a bit of some gems. They were worried about how the Dogs might react when they returned…

Elsewhere in the forest, it was still night and getting closer to midnight. Rarity was running through the forest with many spots of mud on her. Her mane was also terribly messy from contact with the mud and a lot of moving around. She was starting to not look like herself, but she didn’t care anymore, all that mattered was the safety of her friends.

“Almost there, Rarity! Oh Diamond Dogs, just you wait till I get my hooves on you!!” she said while running.

Finally she started nearing the end of the forest and saw the entrance up ahead. There was a large sign above the entrance which read “Welcome to Mud Fortress” but it was guarded by two diamond dogs. She stayed behind a tree thinking of how she’d get by them, but then she looked down and saw two fairly-sized rocks. A devilish smirk came across Rarity’s face as she used her magic to lift the rocks. She then threw them both at the dogs and hit them square in the heads and knocked both of them out. As the dogs were on the ground with little stars spinning around their heads, Rarity galloped by and into the Mud Fortress down the corridor entrance.

“Alright Rarity, this is it, the Mud Fortress! A place of filth and dirt and mire! But that won’t stop you! You must save your friends, even if you have to trudge through all the mud in the…………world?”

Rarity finally came to the end of the corridor and into an area with light. Before her was a huge cylindrical room with stairwells and slopes carved into the sides and some wagons sitting in several spots with some dirt and rocks in them. So far, the “Mud” Fortress seemed rather harmless.

“I say, where is the mud?!”

She then looked at a sign to her left that said “Mud Fortress” on it, but the word “Mud” seemed to be on a piece of paper with the word written on it and taped onto the sign. Rarity bit the paper off and underneath it was the word “Gem.”

“HA! I KNEW IT ALL ALONG! This fortress has no mud in it at all; it’s just a bunch of gems and rocks! They just called it that to keep me from coming in to rescue my friends!!”

Suddenly some voices could be heard from nearby in a little cave. Light started to shine from it and some dogs would be out in the open where they could see her any minute. Rarity quickly ran to her left towards one of the large wagons full of dirt. She hid behind the wagon, but the dogs started talking about “transporting the dirt to the next level”. She wouldn’t be safe hiding behind this wagon, so she would have to hide in it. She looked down in it at the dirt and gathering her strength dived in and burrowed inside it.

“Is this the wagon over here?” asked one of the dogs.

“Yeah, that’s it. Let’s take it to level two; it’s getting in the way.” said the other one grabbing the wagon by the handle and pulling it up the slope to the next level in the room where the wagon would be put.

Rarity stayed under the dirt calmly and waited till the dogs would leave. It was filthy, smelly, and disgusting, but she endured it and just kept on thinking about what she had to do. Her only problem was that it was hard to breathe in there. Finally the wagon came to a sudden lurch and the dogs left still talking. Their talking started to get quieter so they were farther away. Rarity opened her eyes and peered out of the dirt pile and saw she was in a little dark cave on the second level. She popped her head out and jumped out of the wagon and shook herself to get some of the dirt off even though it really did no good.

Now she had even more dirt on her than before. Her coat had completely lost its white color and she was all covered in mud. Her hair had also lost its curl and was brown and messy and going in every direction. She looked completely awful and bedraggled but she still did not care at all. For the first time ever, getting dirty was the last thing Rarity was afraid of. The more she endured the horrendous muck, the more courageous and determined she seemed to get!

“Where are you, Diamond Dogs? You cannot hide from Rarity!” she whispered deeply. “I would swim through a sea of mud to get to my friends, and so far all you’ve given me is a little bit of it! Well I’ve already gotten to your oh-so-muddy fortress and I am ready to find them and kick your sorry canine tailbones!!!”

She then went out of the cave and up the slope to the next level. She noticed that the further she went up, the darker it seemed to get. But there were some torches in certain areas which must have meant that the dogs would take that route usually. There were also more dogs around that she would have to avoid. She walked slowly and stayed low to the ground slinking around like a secret agent spying on somepony. Some dogs’ voices could be heard up ahead and she hid behind a rock and scrunched up her body to be shaped like it.

While they were walking by, she overheard some conversation about the ponies and dragon in the uppermost caves of the mountain. That was where they were, in the highest point, but it was just a question of where; the mountain tunnels were very complex and lead to several different directions. She would eventually have to ask someone for directions, but none of the dogs would help her too easily.

The dogs went by and she jumped out from behind it and saw that the next tunnel in front of her had torches lit inside it. She slowly tiptoed down the corridor towards the light ahead. She came in to what appeared to be another cylindrical cave with stairs circling it. It was very dark in here but light was shining down from above onto the center of the cave. Rarity noticed something in the middle. As she got closer she finally realized what it was.

“Applejack’s hat! Oh my stars, she must have lost it on the way in!” she said picking the hat up with her magic. She knew that she was getting closer to rescuing her friends now since she found Applejack’s hat. But how much longer would it take and how would she find out which cave it was exactly that she needed to get through?

“Hey, who goes there?!?” shouted a deep voice from above.

Rarity looked up to see several glowing eyes looking down upon her. They were dogs! They jumped down and surrounded her and pointed their spears at her all at once. There were about ten or twelve dogs around her.

“What are you doing in here, pony?! You should be working with the others!” Said the main guard fearlessly.

“What?! I wasn’t one of them, I got in here on my own!” she responded.

“Well then we’ll just have to make you leave now then.”

“I am not leaving, not without my friends!”

“Oh yes you are!” and all the dogs pointed their spears a bit closer to her.

Rarity then got angry again at these dogs trying to keep her from rescuing her friends for the last time. She had gotten quite far into the mountain and she didn’t want to have to start all over again. There may have been about a dozen Diamond Dogs around her armed with spears, but she remembered that she was a unicorn and she could use magic to lift the spears since she had lifted many things simultaneously before in her boutique back home. So she did just that. With an angry look on her face, her horn and the spears started glowing and then they all slipped out of each of the dogs’ hands up in the air and they flipped around the other way pointing at the dogs instead.

“Whoa, how’d that happen?! What’s going on?!” some of the dogs wimpered.

“Do you dogs know who I am?! I am Rarity! Yes, that’s right, Rarity: the unicorn you all thought would just refuse to come into here to rescue her friends! But you gentlemen have underestimated this mare!!” she spoke determinedly.

“Please, don’t hurt us, Pony! I’m sure we can work this out nicely!”

“Oh I’m sure we can!” She then moved the spears closer to each of their faces. “Where are my friends? You best start talking right now!!!”

TO BE CONTINUED...

Comments

[Yoshifan30]

“Well I sure hope I don’t have to use my powers. They still won’t listen to me, but I’m sure I can get them to eventually…”

Twilight I know you don't like violence but COME ON!!!!!!!

[Yoshifan30]

Whoa thats actually really cool so it looks like Rarity got herself surrounded by mud monsters and she was very terrified but something really hit her about not seeing her friends again and how they've been treated so with that anger determination she overcome her Fear To Face any threats even if it gets dirty and I'm very glad that she overcomes at and now she has to save them meanwhile Twilight and the others are basically working and are complaining they didn't have any lunch so what's that the dogs facts about the food hopefully this will distract them and Twilight is using Rarities ability to find a job unfortunately she forgot and really not the good time either so right now they have to improvise and hopefully Rarity will get there fast as she can but I got to admit that was pretty cool how she pick up all those Spears now she really is determined to save her friends I like that