//------------------------------//
// Chapter 4 
// Story: Adventure of e-Lightning 
// by Platinum6857 
//------------------------------//

Chapter 4
When I woke up, I was in a cocoon again. “Another one?” I thought. I looked around, and saw that I wasn’t alone in here. Rainbow Dash was in the same cocoon. I looked around and saw that Twilight and the rest of the ponies were in cocoons. I looked down and saw millions of changelings. I also noted that this room had a very high ceiling.
“Like it?” Discord said. Queen Chrysalis was at the doorway and she turned on the lights. We were surrounded by changelings everywhere. “We put you two lovebirds together in a cocoon since you had the nerve to make out in our base,” Discord said. I turned red with anger, but it quickly flushed out. I had to wake up Rainbow. I shook her awake. “Huh?” She said.
“Look down,” I whispered. She looked down and flinched at the sight of all the changelings.
“Yikes! What are we gonna do?”
“Well first, we have to wake up everypony else. Then, we have to pray that we’ll get out of this alive.”
“Got it. So, how do we wake them up?”
“Shouting, I guess.”
We started shouting as loud as we could to wake the others up. “Huh?” Twilight said as she woke up. “Where are we? What’s going on?” We pointed to the floor. She stared in shock. Applejack was next to wake up.
“What’s goin’ on?”
“Look down,” I said.
“Yikes!”
Eventually everyone else woke up and we all had no idea on what to do. Twilight was pretty much going over everything we could possibly do.
“We could just open the cocoons, but then what would we do to get rid of the changelings.”
“Forget this,” I said. “Let’s just call for help.”
“I second that motion,” Rainbow Dash said.
“Me too, Ah think we need to do something different,” Applejack said.
***
Derpy was flying over the Everfree forest when suddenly she heard a distant cry for help.
“Hmm… Where’s that coming from?” She said.
She flew in the general direction of the noise. She heard the noise a lot better.
“HELP!”
“That sounds like…” Derpy gasped and flew immediately back to Ponyville.
***
It was an average day in Ponyville, there were not many clouds in the sky and generally there was a good mood, at least until Derpy flew in. She crashed into a wall, and then straightened herself out. Carrot Top was nearby, and she noticed her concern. “What’s wrong?” she said.
“I heard a cry for help in the Everfree forest!”
***
Pinkie made a hole in the paragraph. “It’s true! Tsk, tsk, they should have listened to me!”
***
“Okay then…” Carrot Top said, slowly backing off and running in the opposite direction.
“Why won’t anypony listen to me?”
“I’m listening,” Pinkie said. “I’ll come with you to help!”
“Maybe we should ask the doctor for help, too?”
“Sure, why not?”
***
Pinkie pulled Derpy through the fourth wall. Instantly, she noticed the reader. “Um, hi there!” she said.
“This way!” Pinkie exclaimed. She made a hole, where Derpy jumped into the doctor’s house. Pinkie followed.
***
“Well, Derpy, what are you doing here?” The doctor was having a cup of tea.
“I need your help. I heard a cry for help in the Everfree forest.” The doctor was shocked. He knew what would happen if he didn’t do anything. He dropped his cup just thinking about it.
“Of course I’ll help you.”
“Alright! Me, Derpy and the doctor makes three! Let’s get over there!”
***
“It’s hopeless. There isn’t anypony for miles on end,” I said.
“Not really,” said Rainbow. “Pinkie’s outside, but she won’t set a foot in here.”
“What now?”
“Keep shouting!” Twilight said. “We need all the attention we can get!”
“HELP!” We all screamed.
***
Pinkie, Derpy, and Doctor Whooves went through the fourth wall. There were instantly at the entrance.
“Alright, let’s get down there,” the doctor said.
One by one, they jumped into the hole.
“HELP!” They heard.
“I think it’s coming this way!” Pinkie said. She started shaking again. “Yep, I’m sure of it!” They ran through corridor after corridor, with Pinkie leading the way. They came to a large room. There were four cocoons dangling from the ceiling and an endless army of changelings. Screwball was fluttering around lazily with a propeller cap. “Screwball!” Derpy shouted.
“404 not found,” the chaos pony said.
“I missed you too!”
“3.1415926535897932384626433832795028841971693.”
“Look, I know you like Discord here, but can you please help us?”
“Herp derp.”
“Glad you understand. Now let’s fight!”
***
I didn’t expect much from Derpy, with her just being a clumsy Pegasus. But she fights pretty well with Screwball. I guess I should expect more when two rather odd ponies are fighting. At some points, I was surprised what Screwball could do. At one point she flopped her ears around and a lightning bolt the size of the Lincoln Memorial struck the changelings. “Turkey!” she shouted. Soon after, every changeling was on the floor, either dead or unconscious. Derpy flew up to where we were. “Are you…” She stared momentarily at the sight of me and Rainbow Dash in the same cocoon. “Long story,” I said. Derpy shook her head.
“Doesn’t matter, as long as you’re okay.”
“Hey Derpy!” The doctor shouted. “Take this!” He passed a knife to her.
“Thanks!” She started cutting at the cocoon. In less than a minute, we were free. “I’ll take it from here,” I said. I flew over to the other cocoons and started cutting at Twilight’s cocoon. “Man, Chrysalis has gone the extra mile to make these extra strong.”
“You gotta hand it to her,” Rainbow Dash said.
I was able to free Twilight, who in turn used a spell to cut open the rest of the cocoons. It was now just us against Discord and the changeling queen.
“Well, well, finally taking a stand, aren’t we?” Discord used some of his chaos magic to first lock Derpy, Screwball, and Doctor Whooves in a cage. Then he twisted the battlefield around to his liking. The floor began shaking and I began to lose my balance. A huge crack opened in the floor and I finally fell. I was heading straight for the hole in the ground. I braced for impact, but it never came. There was a purple aura surrounding me. “Thanks,” I said.
“No problem,” Twilight said. “Now let’s do this!”
“Wait a minute…” I said. “Where’s the elements?”
“They’re in my backpack,” said Twilight.
“Yeah, just one problem… You don’t have your backpack!” I said.
“Uh-oh.”
Discord smiled. “We locked away your backpacks, in case there was something dangerous there.” He thought for a few seconds. “Okay, here’s what you can do. You can either leave now, and we can do what we want, or you can look for your backpacks and you can defeat us. Then we’ll never try to take over Equestria again.”
“Okay, backpacks,” I said.
“But wait!” Discord said. “There are catches.”
“Does there always have to be one?”
“Yes, especially in this case. If there aren’t any, then defeating us would be too easy. First of all, you have two minutes to find them. Second of all, no magic, and no wings are allowed. Lastly, if you fail, you die, and so do your friends.”
“Okay,” I said, realizing I was taking the greatest risk in my life.
“Alright, I’ll remove your extra parts.” Instantly everypony’s respective wings and horns disappeared.
“Okay, your two minutes start now.”
We rushed out of the room and searched corridor after corridor. “There has to be some kind of method,” Twilight said.
“Okay, as far as I know, we have two methods. There’s the grid method, searching every room for the Elements. The other is called the drunkard’s walk, where we randomly search. I propose number two, that way, we cover more ground and waste less time.”
“I agree,” Twilight said.
We searched corridor after corridor, but the Elements weren’t there. Everyone worried. Not only did their lives depend on this, but Equestria did too. Discord’s voice echoed through the halls. “30 seconds remaining,” he said. We started searching faster. 5 seconds. We began to panic. 10 seconds. I began losing it. Five seconds. Four seconds. Three seconds. “Oh please Celestia, please let the Elements be here.” Two seconds. I opened the door. One second. “I found them!” I shouted. Everypony rushed to me. There were our backpacks, with Twilight’s carrying the Elements. “Quick, get the Elements and let’s head back,” I said.
The main hall was empty, except for Discord and Chrysalis. “Good job, you found the Elements,” he said. With a flick of his wrist, our wings and horns returned. “Now you can defeat us.”
“Everypony ready?” Twilight said. Everypony had their respective Elements. I stood in the middle of a circle. Twilight concentrated until her magic caused her crown to glow.  All the elements were glowing. Before I could say anything, they shot beams straight at me. I felt a warm rush of power surging through me. My eyes were glowing. My forehead shot a blinding rainbow of light straight at Discord and Chrysalis. “That’s strange,” I thought. “I don’t have a horn.” The light surrounded Chrysalis and Discord.
“Ow, it hurts really bad!” Chrysalis shouted. “Does it really hurt this much?”
“This is a bit stronger than usual, but yeah, this is what it feels like.” Soon, a layer of white stone emerged from both of their legs. They were becoming petrified-- literally! Soon, we were facing two statues of Chrysalis and Discord. Everypony stared at me. I looked up to see a crown with a green gemstone shaped like a lightning bolt. “Wow,” I thought to myself. I looked back at the statues.
“What should we do with them?” I asked.
“I suggest that first you unlock this cage, and then you leave them here,” The doctor said. “Then we replace the entrance trapdoor with a titanium hatch that is impossible to open.”
“Good idea, but where do we get that?”
“I always come prepared,” the doctor said, holding a perfectly-sized metal trapdoor. We found a key. It fit perfectly in the slot. Soon after, everypony was freed from the cage.
“Alright then! Let’s get out of here!”
We went through the corridors, one by one, until we reached the exit. The doctor and I worked together to remove the old wooden trapdoor with reinforced titanium. After a few minutes, we were done, and not a moment too soon, because some semi-conscious changelings tried to get out of the base.
***
Carrot Top was worrying. She hadn’t seen Derpy for hours on end. When she went to the doctor’s house, it was empty. Everyone was out of the house. She was thinking of worst-case scenarios. “Maybe they got kidnapped by an enemy of the doctor,” she thought. “Or maybe a wormhole picked them up and brought them to a different dimension. Just when she was thinking of the worst possible thing, she saw in the distance, coming from the Everfree forest, Twilight and friends, e-Lightning, Derpy, Screwball and the doctor. She ran over to them.
“Where have you been?” She asked Derpy.
“Just on an adventure,” said Derpy. “Say, Twilight, what were you doing in there?”
“Long story,” she said.
***
It felt great to be back. After a few days of being put in cocoons and forced into uncomfortable situations, sometimes both at once. Since Carrot Top was still concerned, I decided to tell her what happened.
“Well, it all started with a letter from the princess…”
***A few months later***
I woke up in Rainbow Dash’s house. She was still asleep, but I had to wake up early for my job at Cloudsdale Postal Service. I walked downstairs to the kitchen where I made some toast. I ate quickly and got ready to leave. I put on my hat and mail bag. I was just at the door when Rainbow Dash stopped me. “Leaving so soon?” she said.
“Yeah, I have to come in early today. Today’s Mother’s day, so there’s gonna be lots of letters.”
“Maybe we might be celebrating in the future.”
“Yeah, maybe.” I blushed slightly.
“Anyways, see you later!” She gave me a kiss on the cheek.
I opened the door and left. It was a beautiful day in Cloudsdale, as usual. I flew off towards the post office.
***
When I arrived at the post office, Derpy was already there. “Hey,” I said.”
“Hi e-Lightning. How’s it going?”
“Same old, same old. How about you? Is Dinky doing okay?”
“Everything’s fine with me. Dinky is doing fine too.”
“Well, enough chit-chat. Gotta get to work. See you around!”
I flew towards the mail pile, collected all the letters I could carry, and took off for the first recipient’s house.