A Rescue In Progress, Perhaps? (SteelEagle, riverhippo, Bramble Rose, Corsair, Rosewind and Phil the Time Wizard)

[SteelEagle]

Rarity was dead on the money when she called the route precarious. Valen wasn't an expert in the art of adventure and cave spelunking but he knew darn well that a route barely big enough for him to mosey about sideways on wasn't one of the greatest options. Valen was having a complete freakout internally, so Rarity keeping calm and on task was a wonderful thing because if she had started freaking out Valen would have curled up in the ball and wept in the corner until something happened to him. That was still an attractive option but worse than the possibility of going on that route was disappointing the one mare who seemed to take stock in who he was.

Valen followed Rarity's approach, hind legs and back to wall. Of course he couldn't do it on the shoes, which he took off and used the straps to hang round his neck, allowing them to lie deafly on his neck. He then followed her, making sure to keep his eyes forward. A fear of heights was one beaten into him by Manehattan. A little colt staring over a skyscraper had many things going through his head, namely the drop that ended darkly should he make the simplest colt like error. With mute terror you recognized such drops occurred everywhere and while Valen did an admirable job dealing with his fears, shuttling them away to the locked region of his mind which held in stock many parts of him hitherto banished for fear, decency, and confusion, they were still present. At least he could often claim absurd degrees of safety which did something to calm him. Here, only Rarity could save him and while he placed stock in her abilities, there was noticeably fewer backup plans.

[colour=#0033cc]"T-thank you, Rarity. I'm s-s-s-sure you'll save me if- when-how..."[/colour] he took a deep breath, following her step by step as his hooves found weak footing on the route which was better than nothing at all at least.

[colour=#0033cc]"Why couldn't I fear...spiders...or...scorpions...or...pineapples..."[/colour] he whispered, biting his bottom lip and letting out a pitiful meep, [colour=#0033cc]"flying feather, flying feather, land's sake, celestia's tubesocks," [/colour]he muttered vulgarities, fear starting to topple that inner censor. His was letting out rapid-fire beats of deep, pounding jackhammer strength. With every beat came a reverb in his chest, his whole body clammy with tension and anxiety, and the beats came quick and merciless. He'd give anything to be off of the route, and he didn't even gander a glance down.

[colour=#0033cc]"Miss Rarity, I-I don't-"[/colour] He began before cruel fate intervened again.

From somewhere came a fierce, brutal roar which shook Valen free of the rockface long enough for him to panic and toss himself back up against it like glue. Then silence for a few moments and he began to feel this extra tension break free. Then some sort of sixth sense acquired by his unlucky fate or sheer luck had him look up, spotting a collection of boulders and rocks coming straight down at him. Valen moved as fast as he could, hooves nearly slipping over one another as he came back the way he came. The boulders connected and destroyed more than ten feet of route between Valen and Rarity, their crashing noise and accuracy striking whatever courage he had left out of him. He panicked and looked down, and his mind went black with terror at the size of the drop that ended in something slimy and utter darkness. Valen pressed himself against the wall and didn't move or say a word. In fact, he was quite content with never doing anything again. Rarity had been dead on the money calling the route precarious.

Down below, the destroyed portions of the route tumbled and cracked and brought more friends with them until they slammed into the darkness...and a nest of giant worms. A few seconds afterwards, in complete silence, seven pairs of beady eyes opened, and six giant worms started moving instinctually into their hunting holes while one glared at the scene far above...and moved to deal with it.

[Rosewind]

Pinkie Pie brushed dust out of her mane, coughing. She looked awkwardly to her friends, grinning. [colour=#ed458b]"Oopsie! Sorry about that! I wouldn't want to get us trapped down here, what if we all had to spend the rest of our lives down here and make friends with all the little critters that live down here? We'd have to build another Ponyville down here, but instead of using wood, we'd have to use rocks, and we could call it Rockville! You know I have pretty good experience with rocks. You could even call it a Pie family specialty!"[/colour]

A faint glimmer caught the pink mare's attention. She stopped rambling for a few moments as swaths of dust cleared away from what looked like a giant pile of gems. She trotted forward slowly, the glitter catching her eyes. It was at the moment she noticed Rainbow had also noticed the giant shape of the worm. [colour=#ed458b]"O-one of them? ANOTHER ONE?!" [/colour]Pinkie quickly stuffed her hoof in her mouth, not eager to start another cave in. She dove behind Applejack, peeking up over her shoulder.

[colour=#ed458b]"Mrrpgffffphpffphpffphpf!"[/colour]

[Hippo]

[colour=#000000]Applejack understood Pinkie for once. And it made sense that Rainbow Dash would have been the pony to take slight interesting in this... thing, whatever it was. Applejack walked towards it with caution, and then leaned forward to get a good look at it. [/colour][colour=#ff0000]"Is it dead? What is it? Some kind of giant worm?" [/colour][colour=#000000] After a moment of hesitation, Applejack saw that it wasn't moving in the slightest, so she decided to touch it with her hoof. As soon as she touched it, it felt thin and scaley, almost like a dragon. [/colour][colour=#ff0000]"This feels stranger than month old apple crisp."[/colour][colour=#000000] Applejack pressed lightly, before her entire hoof broke into the giant creature, like it was made of glass. [/colour][colour=#ff0000] "Bwwaah!"[/colour][colour=#000000] Applejack pulled out her leg quckly. [/colour][colour=#ff0000]"What in tarnation?"[/colour]

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[Corsair]

Fluttershy took comfort in the fact that her friends didn't seem to blame her, but this whole situation still had her terrified. She stuck close to Applejack as they all followed Rainbow Dash through the cave. The caves carried all kinds of sounds to the ponies; bangs, hisses, rumbles, and dripping water. Fluttershy forced herself to put one hoof in front of the other, but at every noise she just wanted to curl up into a ball.

Fluttershy was so focused on just moving forward, she didn't even realize what Rainbow had discovered until Pinkie's shout. Her eyes locked on the gigantic, gem-studded form before her and she froze, eyes wide. Every instinct was telling her to bolt, but there was no where to run here, and no way to fly away. She stood there frozen, like a statue, until Applejack went up to the worm and poked it. Her hoof went right through the surface!

Suddenly, Fluttershy's mind started working again. She walked up to the the husk, and started feeling it with her hooves. "Oh wow!" she said, her voice carrying a hint of awe. "It's a shed exoskeleton, like a from a cicada!" She wrapped her hooves around one of the gems embedded in the surface and began tugging. With a crack, the jewel broke free, sending the pegasus tumbling backward a bit. She dropped the gem, and instead went to look at the deep crater that had been left in the shell. "Whatever these creatures are, they must have been down here for years!" she said, her excitement from discovering a new species finally over-riding her fear of the creatures. "But does this mean they are some kind of insect? Or a worm with an outer shell? What do they eat down here? Gems? But why would they have them all over their shells?"

At that moment, Fluttershy was distracted by a rumble much louder than the others had been. "W-was that another cave-in?" she asked, her eyes darting around to try and find the source of the noise.

​ Edited January 25, 2016 by Corsair

[Bramble Rose]

Rainbow Dash stepped up next to Fluttershy, looking sideways at the normally timid pony. [colour=#0000cd]"You're really weird sometimes, you know that?"[/colour] She reached out a hoof and wriggled one of the jeweled studs. [colour=#0000cd]"They got all wiggly when it was moving around. Maybe it's supposed to, like, dazzle prey so it can eat them? Heh. So it's a giant worm with gems... I can just see Rarity now..."

​[/colour]

In Dash's imagination, the scene played out. The badly drawn giant worm reared up before a badly drawn Rarity with sticks for legs. The stick-Rarity recoiled. [colour=#800080]"Oh, how ugly! A worm! Keep it away!"[/colour] Then she got hearts for eyes and moved forward. [colour=#800080]"But such beautiful jewels!"[/colour] Then she recoiled again. [colour=#800080]"But it's a worm! Ew!" [/colour] Then she moved forward once more. [colour=#800080]"But the jewwwwwwweeeeeels!"[/colour]

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Dash snickered softly.

[colour=#0000cd]"Don't worry!" [/colour]she said, putting a leg around Fluttershy's shoulder. [colour=#0000cd]"It's probably just more of those awesome worms. Let's go check it out! You can write all about it in some ... uh ... animal lover's monthly magazine or something!"[/colour] She trotted off down the tunnel, leaving the shed husk behind.

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