“Are y’all all right?” Applejack shouted out over the valley, but no answer. There were no sign of them. All there was to see was boulders and rocks from the avalanche. The avalanche had occurred while Applejack, Pinkie and Rarity were on their way down the mountain and they would have fallen down if it wasn’t for Rarity. She had saved them with her magic and quick thinking. They were unharmed, if not a bit chocked. But their friends had gotten the avalanche of rock right on top of them. They were right now stuck under a small bit of the mountain. If they didn’t find them in time… they had to find them in time!

“Have you girls seen anything yet?” Rarity shouted to her friends. By the sound of her voice, she was really worried. Nopony could blame her for that. They were all worried.

“Keep looking! They must be here somewhere!” Rainbow said, who had been lying a bit further away, didn’t get hit by the avalanche. She had also started to feel better from Huffy’s magical attack. And even if she wasn’t fully recovered, she still helped the others in the search for their friends.

“Did you saw where they were, Dashie?” Pinkie asked Rainbow. She just waived with her hoof in the air.

“Somewhere around here”, she said and proceeded by pushing a few rocks to the side.

“Do you think they… didn’t make it?” Spike cried. Tears had already started filling his eyes since he first witnessed the avalanche. This was hard for him. For everypony.

They had just begun with the search, but they already got the feeling that this was pointless. There were so many rocks in the way. For all what they knew, their friends could be trapped beneath ten meters of stone. If Twilight, Fluttershy or Sharpy didn’t scream for help, they would never find them.

“Hey, I got something!” Rainbow shouted. Her voice was filled with hope, but she still looked worried. Everypony and Spike ran towards her. Beneath the stone, they could hear Fluttershy’s sweet voice was crying out for help. By the sound of her voice, she didn’t seem hurt, but she sounded terrified.

“We’re here, Fluttershy!” Pinkie shouted back. “We’re here to get you out of there! Just don’t go anywhere”

“She won’t be able to go anywhere if we don’t help her”. Rainbow and Applejack started digging instantly. Pinkie joined the next moment.

“Hurry…” the exhausted voice of Twilight could be heard. There were a lot of dirt between them and the ones trapped, but now was not the time to be weak. They had to help their friends, no matter the cost. Everything was going all right until they hit a rock. Applejack, Rainbow and Pinkie tried to move it out of the way. It couldn’t be much further now. But the rock was simply too big for them to lift.

“We need your help, Rarity”, Rainbow moaned. Rarity nodded.

“Of course”, she said quickly and took a few steps forward to the hole they were digging. A light blue aura formed around her horn as she used her magic on the rock. The rock lightened up as well with the same blue aura. Rarity closed her eyes to concentrate on the magic. It was heavy. Levitating something as heavy as this wasn’t really something Rarity was used to. But she had to do it. For her friends. She bit her lip so hard it started to bleed. Rarity gave everything she got and eventually the giant rock started moving. Slowly the rock levitated up in the air and she carefully dropped it down a couple of meters away. Rarity panted heavily, but it didn’t seem to be over just yet. A few more rocks, smaller, but still big enough to prove a challenge, started slowly levitating up from the hole. The purple aura that covered the other rocks showed them that Twilight was trying to get up. But it seemed that her magic was about to fade away. She had been holding up quite some weight for a long time, after all. But Rarity was quick to help. She used her magic to help Twilight with the remaining rocks that were blocking the only way out.

But when the way was clear Twilight didn’t jump out like they would have expected her to do. Instead she went down again. A few seconds later, she and Fluttershy was pushing Sharpy out of the hole. The first thing that caught their attention was Fluttershy. She was, more or less, covered in blood.

“Oh my gosh! Fluttershy, are you all right?” Pinkie asked. Worried for her friend as she was, she ran up to her and started checking for external injuries. But Fluttershy just rejected her quickly. Pinkie looked surprised, but Fluttershy just stared back with a serious look.

“I’m okay…the blood is not mine. It’s Sharpy’s…” she said and ran up to Sharpy. But when she reached him, he gave her a weak push. Sharpy was crawling on the ground, kicking mindlessly with his legs while he was desperately gasping for air. A small amount of blood was dripping out from his mouth as he spit out some more.

“He can’t breathe!” Twilight yelled. “I need your help!” Fluttershy nodded and tried to reach Sharpy again, but with the same result. But this time the push was even weaker than before.

“He’s coughing up blood, too” Fluttershy said worried. Tears started filling her eyes. “It could be punctured lungs”.

Applejack stepped up and held Sharpy still. She ignored all the mindless kicking. He was much weakened, so holding him still wasn’t a big problem for a pony as strong as Applejack.

“Can you help him, Fluttershy?” Applejack said and started into her eyes.

“Not… not without the right equipment… I’m sorry… Sharpy…” Fluttershy stammered. She closed her eyes and fell hopelessly down on the hard ground. This was bad. Fluttershy was the only one with some kind of medical skills, but she could do nothing without the right equipment. Twilight bit her lip. She hadn’t taught herself any spells for a situation like this. And besides. Would it matter? Sharpy’s body resists most incoming magic. All they could do was to stare hopelessly as the life slowly faded away from Sharpy’s eyes. Fluttershy approached him and laid her head besides his.

“I’m sorry... I can’t… I’m sorry…” Fluttershy looked Sharpy in his eyes, but he just stared back with blank eyes. He’d lost all sense of reality. All his body was doing now was to make sure he didn’t die. But without help, he wouldn’t last very long.

“Somepony? Anypony?” Rainbow shouted at the group. “Can we do nothing?”

“Let me try!” Everypony looked at Rarity. “I might have learned a few things thanks to the time I’ve spent with Fluttershy”.

“Whatever you’re going to do, do it fast!” Twilight said. Rarity nodded and turned to Sharpy. “We’ll need a safe place to stay. This could take a while”. Twilight nodded and charged up her horn. She’d seen a cave, not far from here, when she was heading down the mountain. She had to use a lot of magic to teleport everypony over there. She just hoped this would work for Sharpy too.

A bright flash occurred and everypony felt how they became disembodied. Nopony were really used to this and they didn’t like it very much. It felt very weird. But it was the fastest way to travel. Not even a seconds later, they were inside a large cave. At first look, it looked like a regular old cave with nothing special about it at all. But if you took a closer look, you could see this was just one room of many. It was like a house in here, except it was made out of stone and the darkness made it hard to see at distances. But this would have to do. It was better than nothing.

Rarity quickly put Sharpy’s, now nearly unconscious, body on her back and ran to the corner of the big room they were in. She signaled Twilight to follow her. Twilight looked at her for a second before following.

“Isn’t Sharpy immune to most magic?” Twilight felt like pointing it out. Rarity didn’t seem to understand that most dragons were immune to magic.

“Well your teleportation spell worked, right?” Rarity answered without looking back. When she reached the inner corner of the room, she carefully dropped Sharpy off on the floor. Sharpy was not fully unconscious.

“Yeah, well… but…” Twilight didn’t know what to say. Her spell did work, even though Sharpy is supposed to be immune, or at least resistant, to magic. How did that work?

“I figured that a dragon can only take so much magic before the barrier, or whatever it could be, will break and they will be vulnerable to magic”. Twilight looked at Rarity, who now looked back at her. That actually made sense. Twilight had used a very powerful spell to teleport them all here. In this weakened state Sharpy is in, perhaps that was enough to break the barrier.

“So with enough magical force we’ll be able to make your healing spells work?” Twilight asked Rarity. Rarity nodded, but it was obvious she was uncertain. Ponies knew little about dragons, so there was no way they could be sure if this would work or not. They just hoped that it would.

“Let’s get to it”. They both concentrated their magic on Sharpy. Since Rarity was the one with the medical skills, Twilight would do nothing but assist her by lending Rarity her own magical power. Together they would make this work. They had to.

The other ponies all looked worried as Rarity and Twilight ran away to the far end of the cave. They all knew if those two unicorns couldn’t help Sharpy in time, he would die. They all looked at each other with sad faces. Everypony but Fluttershy. She was still looking at Sharpy, who were now being placed down on the ground by Rarity. Not even a minute later, Rarity and Twilight started using their magic on Sharpy. Now Fluttershy looked away. She couldn’t take the pressure. She had to figure out something to do while she waited for Rarity and Twilight to reveal the results. Fluttershy saw how everypony was picking their individual room to sleep in. This sure was a big cave. She wouldn’t have been surprised if this had once been the home of something before the dragons came to this place. Perhaps ponies?

She walked up to one of the rooms. The entrance wasn’t very big, but still big enough for her to enter without problems. The room itself wasn’t big, but it was obvious this had been used for something. The corners of the room were too good to be naturally created. Somepony had made this room out of their bare hooves. Fluttershy found it quite interesting how somepony could have created something like this for, probably, a very long time ago. Now only one question remained. How was she supposed to sleep well on this hard floor? But she didn’t have to think for too long. The next moment, Rainbow Dash flew inside the room, carrying a mattress.

“I use this for reserve, but I guess you will need it more than I”, she said and placed the mattress in the middle of the room. “Here you go, Fluttershy”.

“Oh, thank you, Rainbow”, Fluttershy said quietly. She didn’t trust her voice to stay steady, so she didn’t want to speak up more than usual, even if that’s what Twilight had been trying to teach her. She tried to be more assertive, but right now wasn’t the time. She was too worried.

“No need to thank me”, Rainbow said with a salute. “I’ll be off to my room. Hope you’ll get settled. We might be stuck here for a while”. Fluttershy nodded and watched Rainbow leave the room. Then she looked back to the mattress. She was glad Rainbow brought this to her. At least now it wouldn’t be so hard to get some sleep tonight. But she still couldn’t allow it to lie in the middle of the room like this. She grabbed it and dragged it over to the far end of the room. All she had to do now was to find Spike and bring her little bag back here.

She walked out of the room and looked from side to side. Now where could Spike be?

When she walked across the room she could hear both Rarity and Twilight talking to each other while taking care of Sharpy. To Fluttershy’s despair, they didn’t sound very positive or full of hope. It seemed like they were panicking. Fluttershy decided to stay and listen to what they were talking about.

“… seems stable, but he’s still losing it!” Rarity said. She was panicking and you could hear how she was almost at the edge of breaking under the pressure.

“Try it again!” Twilight shouted. Rarity’s and Twilight’s horns started to glow and a bright light appeared. This didn’t sound very good. Fluttershy couldn’t just stand there and watch. She wanted to do whatever she could to save Sharpy. She flew up to them as fast as she could.

“How is he doing?” she asked. “Is there anything I can do to help?”

“Sorry, Fluttershy”, Twilight said quickly. “There isn’t much you can do right now. If you excuse us…” Twilight didn’t even look at her. And neither did Rarity. Normally she would feel a bit sad, but not this time. They were more focused on helping Sharpy and talking to her. And that was good. She couldn’t possibly be upset because they ignored her. What would she do anyway? Without the right tools, there wasn’t much she could do. She supposed she should leave this for the unicorns and continue her search for Spike.

“Yes, of course. I understand”, Fluttershy said and left the two unicorns alone. She slowly walked away and headed for the different rooms. She sighed sadly. Once again, there was nothing she could do. And even when she tries to help, everything goes wrong. If she would just have stayed out of the battle between Sharpy and Huffy, Sharpy wouldn’t have gotten hurt. Sharpy got hurt because of her. Sharpy got hurt protecting her. But there was nothing she could do for him.

She found Spike in one of the larger rooms. The room was round and a little bigger than her room. Spike had placed Twilight’s mattress in the far end of the room, but was standing a little confused with his blanket in his claws. Fluttershy saw her bag lying beside Twilight’s mattress. When she walked into the room Spike noticed her and turned around. He smirked when he saw her.

“Hey, Fluttershy!” he said. But then he saw Fluttershy’s sad look. “How are you doing?” Fluttershy looked at him. She didn’t feel like talking too much about it, so she went with the simplest explanation.

“Sharpy… he isn’t doing too well”, she said slowly. Then she felt how the tears started to run down her chins. “I overheard Rarity and Twilight… they say he’s losing it…”

“Oh…” Spike said slowly and looked down. He stood like that for a few seconds. But then he brightened up. “Fluttershy. We have to believe in Rarity and Twilight now. They’ll handle this for sure”. Spike seemed very convinced in what he was saying, but Fluttershy wasn’t so sure. She could see before her eyes how Rarity ran through the cave crying and how Twilight was sitting completely frozen, looking at Sharpy’s body. The rest would come out of their respective rooms to see what was going on. And then everypony would see that… She couldn’t continue. She blocked the very thought and threw it out of her mind like you throw out the trash. Spike was right. She had to believe. She had taught Rarity a lot about how the body works and with Twilight’s powerful magic, they were bound to succeed. But even though she tried to cheer herself up, she couldn’t stop herself from expect the worst.

“Fluttershy?” Fluttershy lost her thought and looked at Spike. He looked at her, and it seemed like he’d been doing that for a little while. “I guess you weren’t here to talk?”

“No, sorry”, Fluttershy replied. She pointed at her bag. “I was looking for my bag”. Spike nodded and took a few steps to the bag. He picked it up and gave it to Fluttershy. But before he let it go, he looked into her eyes and she looked back.

“It’ll be all right. Just wait. In the end, everything will be all right”. Spike was very serious when he said that. Unusually serious. Fluttershy almost got surprised. But Spike knew of her deep, yet complicated and perhaps conflicted, love for Sharpy. It had been tough for her before, but now when Sharpy was at death’s door, he could only but imagine how she felt.

Fluttershy gave Spike a shy smile and nodded. Spike let go of the bag and allowed Fluttershy to take it. Fluttershy put the bag on her back and walked out of the room. But before she took the final step, she turned back and looked at Spike.

“Thank you”, she said and left the little dragon alone. Thanks to that short, yet warming, talk with Spike, she actually felt a lot better. But then she looked over to Rarity and Twilight and her heart got filled with sadness. They still seemed really stressed out and that proved things wasn’t going their way. She closed her eyes and wished. Wished that Sharpy would survive this. She would pay any price to spend more time with him. She opened her eyes again and looked back at Rarity and Twilight. They are both very talented unicorns. Now was their time to show that.

“Please save Sharpy…”, she whispered and walked into her room. Next Chapter: Chapter 23: No More Hiding Estimated time remaining: 1 Hour, 33 Minutes