EXTRA 2: Dear My Friend For Life
It was a beautiful clear night, the Moon and the stars on full display for anyone out at the time. The night’s beauty was perhaps tarnished by the fact that it was one of the nights where it was possible to see the broken side of the Moon, but Sonic didn’t dwell on it as he sat on the grass looking up at the night sky, instead focusing on what Eggman hadn’t ruined yet. “Seaside Hill really does have some great views at night. I never got a chance to appreciate that before. I’m glad we get to come back here for this year’s Gran Prix,” he thought.
Indeed, the time was almost upon them for the second All-Stars Racing Gran Prix, less than a day to be exact. According to Tails, all evidence pointed to tomorrow being the day when everything would be in alignment and the weaker time-space barriers of their world would allow travel to other worlds and vice versa. Last year had been the first time so many different worlds discovered this and, as a way of coming together and proving nobody was bad (except for Eggman, of course), they’d decided to have races that would also allow everyone to get a taste of what the other worlds were like. It was unknown how often this phenomenon was going to happen, but once it started looking like it was going to happen again, it was decided that another racing tournament should be held, especially since last year’s races had evidently managed to catch the attention of worlds previously unheard of as well.
He was pulled out his thoughts when he heard a familiar voice call, “Hey, Sonic!” The blue hedgehog turned to look back over his shoulder to see Tails running towards him with his Miles Electronic tucked under his right arm, the fox stopping when he reached him. “I was looking for you,” he said before pulling the handheld out from under his arm with his left hand and holding it out to Sonic. “Here, I just finished getting this all set up for you like I promised,” he explained.
Sonic smiled as he took the yellow portable machine from his fox friend, saying, “Thanks, Tails.” He held it in both hands, looking down at the screen as he switched it on, the black screen lighting up and changing to a black and green background as words and options appeared on it. “I’ll probably have the hang of this thing by the time I go to sleep,” he shrugged.
Tails giggled and said, “I’m sure you will. Just don’t get too rough with it.”
Sonic looked back up at him with a mock offended look, “Me? Get rough? Dude, do you know who you’re talking to?”
Tails put his hands behind his back and nodded with a knowing look on his face, “Yes. Yes, I do.” Sonic gave him a smirk in reply and went back to looking at the night sky a moment later. Tails moved over next to him, though he remained standing as he too looked up at the night sky. “You know, this really is the better option for you, so I’m glad you prefer it. It’s not exactly compatible with phones,” he said after a few moments.
“Eh. It’s not like anything’s ever come up where you’ve desperately needed to get in touch with me anyway,” Sonic shrugged.
Tails looked over at him seriously, “That day could still come, Sonic. It’s better to be prepared in advance, and don’t forget…”
Sonic cut him off, “Yeah, yeah, I know. And don’t worry; I’m pretty sure I couldn’t forget the old days if I tried.” A thoughtful expression crossed his face, “All the memories…”
Tails went back to looking at the sky, saying after a moment, “I wonder how Twilight and her friends are doing.”
Sonic replied, “Me too. Considering what they told us about, they’d probably really interested in this.”
Tails said, “With the need to make some changes and add the appropriate upgrades to our, Knuckles, and Amy’s vehicles, I really haven’t spent a lot of time working on my machine. It’s pretty much still where it was the last time you checked in with me about it.”
Sonic looked up at him, “It’s all right, Tails. I’m sure Spike and the girls have plenty of things on their plate that they need to worry about too. They probably still have their fair share of crazy adventures, keeping Equestria safe and everything else they’ll travel to the ends of the world to do or find.” He faced forward again, “Of course, if Twilight does manage to beat you to figuring it out, you will be the one who has to explain it, buddy.”
Tails looked over at him, “The Warp Rings are not an easy thing to figure out; even I’m not entirely sure I’ve got a handle on how they work. And since it’s far away from home, she’s probably going to have to find an alternate way to restore power to it.” He faced forward again, “She’ll need to figure that out before she can start working out dimensional travel.”
Sonic replied, “Well, I’m sure both you and she will keep working at it. Maybe you’ll both figure it out at the same time, maybe you’ll beat her to the punch.”
Tails reminded him a moment later, “Or there’s the third option you mentioned.”
Sonic replied, “Yeah, I mainly said that because I thought it would be a motivator, but it doesn’t matter.” He looked up at the Moon, “I’m sure we’ll see them again one of these days, and like I’ve said before…”
Tails finished for him, “Right, we’ll have plenty of stories to share with each other.” They were both silent afterwards, only the sounds of the night’s tranquility being heard. Eventually, Tails stretched his arms and let out a yawn before saying, “I think I’m going to head back to the camp and get some sleep.”
Sonic nodded and said, “Okay. I’m gonna be here for a little longer, but I’ll head back soon.”
As he started back the way he came, Tails called back, “Yeah, don’t be up too late, Sonic. Tomorrow’s going to be a big day.” Sonic glanced back over his shoulder as the fox walked away, watching him until his form became indistinguishable from the rest of the night.
Sonic turned back to the night sky after a couple of moments, wondering not only how the Equestrians were doing, but also the other worlds they’d had contact with that day due to Eggman and Discord’s meddling with time and space. It would seem likely that stopping the Time Eater would’ve undone any further complications they might’ve caused, but now that he thought about it, it wasn’t entirely possible that everything went back to the way it was for all of them, maybe not even for his and Tails’ past selves. Could there still be something they had missed?
Sonic shook his head to get the thought out, knowing he had no way of answering it and that it wouldn’t help him fall asleep. Instead he turned his attention to his Miles Electronic and began tapping the screen, going through everything. After a minute, he found what he was looking for and pulled up the on-screen keyboard in order to write a letter. The action was not an impulsive thought; he was probably used to writing letters almost as often as Twilight used to. He took a moment to gather his thoughts and then began to softly say them aloud as he typed. “Dear…”
________________________________________
Twilight let out a sigh as she looked up out one of the windows in her guest bedroom at the night sky, trying not to do so too loudly since Spike had already fallen asleep. Despite her exhaustion from overdoing it at the dance earlier, she found that she was unable to fall asleep for a reason other than the fact that she was not used to her new wings yet. The sight of Luna’s night was relaxing to her and she hoped it would help her find her sleepiness since, despite what happened a few nights ago, she and her friends were still in the Crystal Empire for a Princess Summit and she, being Equestria’s newest princess, would need to be brought up to speed on what Celestia, Luna, and Cadance had discussed in her absence.
Now that she had some time to herself, she was able to take stock of what exactly had happened. Exactly three nights ago, a unicorn by the name of Sunset Shimmer had come through a magic mirror that had been moved to the Crystal Empire and tried to steal Twilight’s new crown, which now held the Element of Magic gem. The crown had been thrown through the mirror in the resulting scuffle and Twilight had been ordered to go after it and bring it back to Equestria. Spike had followed her and it was a good thing he did; the new yet familiar world on the other side of the mirror had been a hard place to adapt to, even if it was just for a few days. There had been a number of times where it hadn’t looked like she would be able to prevail, but with the help of Spike and the mirror world versions of her friends, she had. The crown currently on top of her head was proof of that.
She took a moment to double-check that it was still there with a hoof before returning to her thoughts, thinking about Sunset Shimmer. Apparently, she had been Princess Celestia’s last personal student, but unlike Twilight, she had not been satisfied learning magic at an even pace and was not at all humble. Based on what Princess Celestia had told her, the magic mirror had been the thing that had led to her special yet strained relationship with the unicorn to come to a head, with Sunset taking matters into her own hooves and learning the secret of the mirror behind Celestia’s back. When the Sun Princess found out, she stripped Sunset of her private tutelage and had her escorted out, only for the unicorn to escape her guards and disappear through the mirror. Even during and after the time Twilight had taken her place at the School for Gifted Unicorns, Celestia had held onto the faint hope that Sunset would come back to Equestria one day, but it had never happened. It seemed that their last meeting, full of harsh words and bitter statements, was going to remain the last time they would ever see each other.
Twilight thought about what she personally knew about Sunset Shimmer. This girl, who had gone from being a student of magic to a girl in a new world who never forgot about who she was and where she had come from, had managed to carve a new life for herself in the other world for at least three years if Twilight had to guess. In that time, she essentially rose to power in Canterlot High School, becoming a bully to her fellow students who had ways of getting exactly what she wanted… at least until she saw an opportunity to get what she thought she really wanted.
When she’d stolen Twilight’s crown, she had intended to use the Element of Magic to give herself something she couldn’t get in the other world. No doubt she had wanted magic since Twilight had found herself unable to use magic at all during her time there, but she evidently hadn’t been prepared for what happened when she finally got her hands on the crown. Somehow, it turned her into a demon and twisted her old desires of ruling Equestria as an alicorn princess into something evil. Her new form desired to conquer Equestria, even using the students and faculty at CHS to help her achieve her goal. It was thanks to Twilight and her not-exactly-new friends coming together and awakening the magic of Friendship that Sunset was freed from this state, the girl that came out of the ordeal broken and remorseful for all that she had done. Deciding not to press anything on her, Twilight had left her to learn more about friendship with her friends at CHS, knowing if anyone would be willing to help her become a better person, it would be them.
As her thoughts came to an end, Twilight found herself letting out a yawn, her earlier exhaustion now back and urging her to climb into bed. Deciding to heed the urge, she used her magic to lift her crown off her head and walked over to where she had left her pack the only other night she had used this guest room. “Maybe I’m just being paranoid, but I don’t feel comfortable leaving this out on the nightstand again. I just need to remember that I put it back in my pack when I wake up in the morning,” she thought to herself as she reached her pack and used her magic to open it, gently lowering the crown inside.
As she was about to close it again, her eyes noticed that her crown almost completely surrounded an object at the bottom of the bag. She squinted to get a better look for a moment before looking up and pulling open the top-right drawer on the small dresser next to her bag, looking inside and seeing the books she had brought along for the trip. She looked confused for a moment before she remembered that she had stopped unpacking that night when she had gotten caught up in the crown and the fact that she was now a princess. Looking back down into the bag, she reached a hoof inside and grabbed the object, pulling it out and holding it up in front of her.
It was a fairly big golden ring that had a magenta sheen along part of its outer rim. It was none other than the Warp Ring Sonic and Tails had given her, and the magenta shine was from her experimenting with using her magic to try to charge it up. For some reason, her magic had bonded with the ring quite easily, though it was still a long way from being in a usable state. When she started packing for the Princess Summit, she’d secretly thrown the ring in her bag, putting it at the bottom so it wouldn’t be seen. She was planning on experimenting with it some more if she found time during the summit; at least that had been the plan before the whole mirror fiasco happened.
Once again, her exhaustion was forgotten about as she turned around and rested her hindquarters on top of the dresser, looking down at the ring as her thoughts turned back to the world on the other side of the mirror. When she and Spike reached the other side, they found themselves changed likely due to the magic in the mirror. While Spike had been turned into a dog, she had become a human like Dr. Eggman and the humans she and her friends had met in Chun-Nan and Empire City, yet she and the other humans in the other world had been different from those in Sonic’s world. While she fit the basic human appearance, for whatever reason, her lavender coat had remained as her human form’s skin color, although it didn’t look as saturated, and the coats of everypony she recognized were similarly their skin colors. As she thought about it, she rationalized that this difference, though minor, was what had thrown her off in the first place.
Aside from the brighter, more colorful skin tones, the humans in the mirror world, from what she and Spike had seen, had quite a bit in common with the ones in Sonic’s world. They had cellphones like the one Sonic had and other electronic equipment, they enjoyed doing things in groups, and liked taking pictures of themselves and others. Twilight blushed as she remembered her mishaps in the school library, wishing she’d paid more attention to how Tails used a computer. It might’ve been one less embarrassing thing for Sunset Shimmer to use against her. Not that that would’ve stopped her from making Twilight look bad, but still.
Twilight shifted on the dresser suddenly and lost her balance, letting out a cry as she tried to keep from falling all the way down onto the floor. She managed to get her forehooves under her before she hit the ground, but she ended up bumping into the side of the still-open drawer on the way down, causing it to fall onto the floor quite noisily and leaving her groaning slightly. She set the Warp Ring on the floor for a moment and picked up the drawer with her magic, sliding it back in as quietly as she could.
Before she could turn around, she heard Spike groan and groggily ask, “Twilight, will you keep it down?”
Twilight turned around at the sound of his voice and said, “Oh, sorry Spike.” She glanced down and grabbed the Warp Ring with her right hoof, holding it up against her chest as she asked, “Did I wake you?”
The baby dragon groaned, his head soon peeking up over the side of her bed as he said, “Well, actually, I was having a little trouble actually falling asleep, but I think I was finally starting to. Then I heard a loud crash and suddenly I was awake and, well, here we are. So why are you…” As his eyes started to adjust, he glanced down slightly and saw the ring up against her chest. The sight of it was enough for him to cut himself short. “Hey, is that Warp Ring?” he asked, feeling a little more awake. His head dropped down and he slid out of his bed onto the floor, making his way around Twilight’s bed over to her.
Twilight nodded, “Yeah. I noticed that I never took it out of my pack. It’s probably a good thing I didn’t, huh?”
Spike came to a stop in front of her and said, “Yeah. Imagine if Sunset Shimmer took that and your crown.” He thought for a moment before saying, “You know, Twilight… that world she lives in was a lot like Sonic’s world. Do you think maybe…?”
Twilight caught onto what he was implying and replied while putting the Warp Ring back in her pack and closing it, “I don’t think so, Spike. Yes, the similarities are definitely there, but I think that’s all they are.” She turned back to him, “I mean, maybe they aren’t, but the fact that there’s no magic in that world…”
Spike nodded, “Yeah, you may be right. Still, you can’t deny that that place brought back some memories.”
Twilight smiled, “That’s true. That reminds me. Remember when Pinkie had her hunch about Flash earlier?”
Spike replied, “I sure do. It was just like the other Pinkie having a hunch about you being a pony princess and the Element of Magic being in your crown.”
Twilight said, “And Pinkie also had a hunch about Sonic being a king, so…” The two shared a laugh at that. “Crazy day for a birthday,” Twilight sighed afterwards.
“Definitely,” Spike agreed, feeling that ‘crazy’ was a good enough description for everything that happened that day. After a moment, he asked, “Do you think we’ll get to see them again?”
Twilight glanced back at her pack as she said, “Well, I don’t think it’s going to be anytime soon, I’m afraid. Between getting used to being an alicorn now and trying to figure out how the Warp Ring works, I’ve still got a lot of work to do before I can say yes. It’s probably going to be a while.”
Spike let out a yawn, turning and heading back to his bed as he sighed, “Well, don’t work on it tonight. You do have to be up early tomorrow.” He stopped in front of Twilight’s bed and looked back at her, asking, “Hey, uh… what do you think they might be doing?”
Twilight replied, “Oh, I’m sure they’re doing their usual things. Solving mysteries, guarding precious gemstones, stealing precious gemstones, building machines, seeing the world… and of course protecting the world from Dr. Eggman.” Spike nodded in agreement and resumed walking again. Before he could disappear around the side of her bed, Twilight asked, “Uh, Spike? Can you remind me in the morning that I put my crown back in my pack?”
Spike yawned, “Sure, if I’m up. Right now, I think I’m ready to try going to sleep again. Good night, Twilight.” Twilight heard the mattress in his bed squeak a bit, indicating he had flopped down into it.
She smiled softly, “Good night, Spike.” She quickly used her magic to put her pack next to the side of the dresser before walking over to her bed, slipping under the blanket as she climbed into it. She peered over the side to see that Spike had already fallen asleep, the baby dragon snoring softly, and decided it was time for her to do the same.
As she rested her head on her pillow, her mind briefly returned to how her magic bonded so easily with the Warp Ring, but she pushed it aside, her tired mind quickly providing her with what Sonic had suggested to her before about Chaos and Harmony to get her to settle down. “I wasn’t sure before, but now I do think he was right then. They really are connected in a way,” she thought. Her last thoughts turned out the lights as she drifted off into sleep’s welcome embrace, “That’s my distant but still close friend… A friend for life…”
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I kind of wanted to add music to the previous chapter, but I wasn't really thinking of anything concrete I could use while writing it.
It's not really a substitute, but I'm going to include here the two songs that this chapter's name is obviously a mash-up of.
Sonic's ending:
Twilight's ending:
8391693
Nice...
...and you do you man buu...
This was beautiful.
Woulda been cool to see some Sega cameos, but I'm glad all star transform got a reference to all the same.