> My Little Pony Adventure: Neck-and-Neck
>  by PhycoKrusk
> --------------------------------------------------------------------------

> Prologue
> --------------------------------------------------------------------------

Following her experiences on the other side of a magic mirror, one Twilight Sparkle, Princess of Equestria, developed an interest in ‘the other places out there’; worlds beyond her own.

Naturally, this interest was hampered by the fact that finding other worlds proved to be anything but easy, but then, Twilight Sparkle was nothing if not determined. Though her research was frequently interrupted by local and national crises (and a trip to Manehattan) and threatened to take her another thirty moons or even longer, she eventually succeeded, and armed with an ample supply of paper, ink, and quills and with her closest friends on standby, she opened a ring-shaped portal and stepped into a new world.

This new world was inhabited by humans, although they were not the same humans that Twilight Sparkle had encountered during her journey through the magic mirror; it was not the same world she had encountered. There were no analogues to their Equestrian counterparts, and very, very few similarities between each of the worlds. They were so different that for a time, the Princess feared they would never find common ground, and even that armed conflict between the two would be unavoidable.

But only for a time, and a very brief one at that. Despite the differences between each world, these humans were happy to accept the friendship of Equestria, after some initial caution. In part, this was due to a sense of camaraderie felt because of the various disasters each world had survived, but it was due also in no small part to the presences of Mobians on Earth; otherwise ordinary animals that had been given intellect, speech and bipedal forms through the magical — and very little understood — Mobius Effect. Although greatly outnumbered by humans, Mobians were nevertheless integral members of society, and at the end of the day, ponies were really not so different from them.

The only trouble came from the portal itself; although it was not unsafe, it was unstable, requiring large amounts of energy to remain opened, and then only for brief windows of time. It was a problem, at least until a genius inventor devised a suitable power source. With only the windows of stability posing an obstacle, travel between worlds became no more complicated than purchasing a ticket for a very complex train that could only leave the station on certain days, the inconvenience of it enough to discourage mass population exchange.

What did readily travel between the worlds was information. News, of course, but also stories that were shared as much for information as they were in a grand game of one-upping each other. Stories of the dangers that each world faced, and the multitude of heroes that had saved them each time. As time went on, however, gradually two of them moved to the forefront, and the questions about them both mounted until finally, the questions were too much, and ponies, humans, and Mobians alike had to know:

Who’s fast, and who’s the fastest?
> Press Start
> --------------------------------------------------------------------------

	“Ohmigosh, how awesome is this?”

There were three key things happening in, around, and near Ponyville on the day this story begins. The first of them was a mass visitation from Earth, the world on the other side of the mystic portal discovered by Princess Twilight Sparkle. Besides ponies, there were also scores of humans and Mobians about, and while the humans were neat, it was the Mobians that most ponies were interested in (even if they were only a tiny fraction of the visiting population); although also bipedal, they otherwise had animal forms, and most were about the same size as a pony, making them much less strange. That was, truthfully, pretty awesome.

The second was the great fair that was going on inside Whitetail Wood. It was the biggest fair that Ponyville had seen in a long time; even bigger than the Summer Sun Celebration, and even bigger than the one celebrating Princess Twilight’s coronation. Many ponies had to come in from far outside of Ponyville just to make sure that enough vendors were present. Several humans and a few Mobians had come through the portal in advance of the fair so they could make sure there were enough vendors. No fewer than a dozen new inns had been constructed on the outskirts of the town, and were full to capacity. That, too, was pretty awesome.

But what was most awesome of all was the third thing happening, also in Whitetail Wood. It was a race, but not just any race. It was the race to end all races, or so it had been billed as. More to the point, however, was that one of the racers was Ponyville’s own Rainbow Dash. And that, for three fillies wandering the fair grounds, best friends and sisters in the quest to find their special talents, was what made it the most awesome thing of all.

“I’ll tell you how awesome,” Scootaloo said again, somehow not having run out of steam despite already having been on her hooves for some time, “Too awesome!” Her wings, underdeveloped though they were, were almost buzzing with excitement.

“Too, too awesome!” added Sweetie Belle, walking alongside Scootaloo and practically vibrating with delight. It would have hardly been surprising if sparks were jumping off her horn from her excitement.

“Yeah, girls, I get it,” Apple Bloom followed-up, walking alongside Sweetie Belle, “It’s amazing, and we get to see this amazin’ race, just like both o’ ya’ll have said like, every minute for th’ last hour. I get it.” She would’ve have thought everything was too, too, too awesome if her friends didn’t insist on bringing it up constantly.

Well, two out of three ain’t bad.

“No, I don’t think you really do,” Scootaloo said back, grin never wavering as she took in all the sites of the fair around her. “A day off from school, a fair, and we get to see Rainbow Dash in the race of a lifetime! Today is awesome!”

At least, the day was awesome, until her next step forward (admittedly while she was picking out a game to try and not paying attention to her surroundings) when she collided with someone and fell back onto her hindquarters. Quickly shaking the dots out of her vision, Scootaloo looked up to see exactly who it was she’d bumped into.

The red dress caught her attention first only because it was a striking color. But it only took another moment to realize that she hadn’t bumped into another pony, but into a Mobian. A hedgehog, probably based on the pictures she’d seen, somewhat taller than a filly, boots matching her dress, rose pink quills styled in a bob, and sitting on the ground just like she was and looking exceptionally apologetic.

“I’m sorry!” the hedgehog said, getting back onto her feet and offering her hands. “I guess I wasn’t watching where I was going.”

Scootaloo stared for a moment, but then hooked her hoof in the hedgehog’s hands and clambered back up to standing. “It’s cool,” she replied, “I mean, it was just an accident. No harm done.”

“Well, look who it is, Silver!”

In an instant, the mood changed, and the three fillies and one hedgehog turned to observe two more fillies casually walking over towards them; pink-furred, purple-with-white-streak-maned Diamond Tiara, and grey-furred, silver-with-slightly-lighter-silver-streak maned Silver Spoon. “If it isn’t the No-Cutie Mark Crusaders,” Diamond said, continuing her earlier line of speech, “What brings you blank flank losers here? Going to not get your cutie marks in watching your fake big sister crash and burn?”

The Cutie Mark Crusaders all ground their teeth, but kept quiet in the hope that they might seem like uninteresting targets. The day was supposed to be awesome, and the last thing they wanted or needed was three bullies ruining it for them.

Only Diamond and Silver were laughing, however. The hedgehog did not join in with the two rude fillies, and in fact, she actually looked very annoyed with both of them. “That wasn’t a very nice thing to say,” she said.

“So?” Diamond said back, “What? Are we supposed to stop just because they don’t like it?”

“You know who else wouldn’t like it?” the hedgehog asked, expression serious and hands on her hips, “Sonic, that’s who!”

All five fillies knew that name, but it had the strongest effect on Diamond Tiara, whose eyes immediately widened. “Well, I’m sure he’d know I was, just kidding,” she said just a bit too loudly, looking just a bit too panicked. 

The hedgehog looked back to the three fillies she’d bumped into, expecting to find them wearing expressions indicating that Diamond was full of it. All three of them were, looking thoroughly unamused by pink-furred earth pony. With a sigh, the hedgehog turned back to Diamond. “Well, I guess I believe you. For now.” And then she slipped back to a smile. “But since you were ‘just kidding’ and we’re done with that, why don’t you introduce us?”

“O-of course!” Diamond replied, still just a bit too loudly. “Uh, Amy, this is Scootaloo —” raising a hoof, she indicated the pegasus — “And Sweetie Belle —” the unicorn — “And Apple Bloom —” the yellow-furred earth pony, and then the hoof went back onto the ground. “Girls, this is Amy Rose. She’s a very good friend of Sonic the Hedgehog.” Amy herself didn’t even get a chance to say anything.

“You know Sonic?!” Sweetie exclaimed, darting in front of Amy so suddenly that the hedgehog gave a startled hop.

“Y-yeah,” Amy said uncertainly, although she quickly returned to smiling, “I first met him when he saved me on the Little Planet. We’ve been friends ever since.”

“Oh, wow,” Sweetie said back, “He saved you? He sounds even cooler than they say he is.”

“Well, at least one of you blank flanks sees reason,” said Diamond with a huff, “I mean, it’s only obvious who’s going to win.”

“Yeah,” chimed Scootaloo, mouth drawn into a frown, “Rainbow Dash.”

“Ha! See? Can’t even read the writing on the wall,” Diamond snarked, although she was careful to bite back any further comments about the pegasus’ ability to read, lest those words find their way back to a certain someone. But she didn’t stop, necessarily, sidling up next to Sweetie Belle. “You know, Sweetie, you’re sharper than I really ever gave you credit for. Why don’t you hang out with us instead?”

Sweetie Belle, if nothing else, was able to see that something wasn’t quite right in all this. “You want me to hang out with you?” she repeated, “But I still don’t have my cutie mark. Isn’t that, like, the one thing I really need?”

“Well, Amy doesn’t have a cutie mark, either!” Diamond replied, “No, no, no cutie marks required. To get in this club, you just have to be sharp, and being sharp here means being a Sonic fan, just like you, and me, and Amy, and Silver.”

“Um…” Silver Spoon began to say before she stopped and said nothing. It was still too late to stop all the attention from suddenly moving to her.

“‘Um’?” Diamond asked, “What do you mean, ‘um’? We’re here to see Sonic win. That’s the only reason we’re even out here at all!”

Silver managed to keep her composure for a few seconds before her expression filled with panic and she had to explain herself. “I’m sorry, DT! I really, really am!” she exclaimed, “But I, I want Rainbow Dash to win!”

“What?!”

“I’m sorry,” Silver repeated as he expression turned just a bit wistful, “She’s just, she’s so cool….”

“I don’t believe this,” Diamond said with a huff, turning away from Silver, “My own best friend, turned against me.”

“Wait!” Amy suddenly said with a wide smile. “This means there’s three of us each! Half of us for Sonic, and half for Rainbow Dash. That’s perfect!”

The fillies were stunned. “It is?” asked Apple Bloom.

“Of course. I mean, this is supposed to be a friendly competition, although if Rainbow Dash is anything like Sonic, it might not stay that way,” Amy replied, “And friendly competitions are always better when you have someone rooting for the other team, and they’re even better when you have a friend to go against, just like we have here. See? Perfect!”

Not one of the fillies could think of a counterpoint to that claim, even though they tried. Scootaloo tried especially hard, but even she couldn’t think of a reason why Amy’s assertion wasn’t true.

“Well, I for one would be happy to welcome Sweetie into our fold,” Diamond Tiara conceded before throwing an angry glare at Silver Spoon, “Especially since she’s not a traitor!”

Silver, for her part, ‘hmphed’ and trotted to join Apple Bloom and Scootaloo, head held high. “You’re only saying that because you picked Sonic,” she said, suddenly whirling around on Diamond with an angry glare of her own. “When you know Rainbow Dash is going to stomp him into the mud and then take him to the cleaners!”

Diamond was caught off-guard when Sweetie Belle suddenly in front of her, seemingly uncharacteristically aggressive. “You’ll never beat Team Sonic!” she retorted.

Scootaloo took a step forward. “Team Dash!” she said.

“Team Sonic!”

“Team Dash!”

“Girls, please!” Amy pleaded, “Everyone knows that Team Rose is the best! Besides, we don’t have time for this!” She gestured towards the grandstands, “The seats are filling up, and we haven’t gotten cotton candy yet! We can’t watch the race without cotton candy. And maybe we can meet Sonic before it starts!” Not waiting for a reply, she turned and hurried towards the sea of vendors that had set up in the wood for the day.

“Cotton candy?“ said Sweetie Belle.

“Meet Sonic?” said Diamond Tiara.

In an instant, both of them were galloping after the hedgehog. “Amy! Wait up!”

Scootaloo, Apple Bloom, and Silver Spoon watched them for a few seconds. Scootaloo and Apple Bloom looked at Silver Spoon, nonplussed. Silver Spoon looked back at them, indifferent, and then offered a shrug. All three of them went trotting after their friends.
> Whitetail Wood
> --------------------------------------------------------------------------

	With the race underway, thousands of ponies, humans and Mobians alike watched in anxious anticipation as several large monitors (provided courtesy of Accelovice, Inc., with accompanying signs to make sure everyone present knew that) scattered around the faire grounds displayed the location of the two contestants in nearly realtime, with occasional video footage as it was available.

At least, that’s what would have been happening had one of the contestants not been missing. Instead, the grandstands flanking the starting line remained full, the attendees sitting and shifting anxiously, wondering when the race would start. A stage had been erected in front of the stands to one side, where several television cameras were set up, and several photographers from both Earth and Equestria waited, wondering when the race would start. Part of the grandstands included a wide VIP box, currently occupied by Princesses Celestia and Luna, as well as a third, unoccupied seat that was the focus of an unactivated holographic projector. Both alicorns conversed with each other in hushed tones, each wondering when the race would start.

Down on the ground, just behind the starting line was a prep area occupied by news reporters and more photographers and camera, as well as one of the contestants (who was also, as far as she was concerned, the real star of the show), a splotch of cyan and swatch of rainbow in the otherwise green Whitetail Wood; Ponyville weather manager and Equestrian national hero, Rainbow Dash. Unlike most everyone else, she was not waiting, but rather was stretching and warming up. Also unlike everyone else, she was not wondering when the race would start; she wondered if it would start at all.

“Rainbow!”

Pausing her routine just briefly to look towards who had addressed her, a smile spread across her face at the approach of another member of Equestrian royalty, and the only one she felt no need to bow or defer to.

“Hey Twi!” Dash replied as Princess Twilight Sparkle trotted happily up to her. The pegasus leaned to one side and extended the opposite wing up towards the sky in a far-reaching stretch. “Don’t tell me, here for an autograph, right? Maybe an interview, get my impressions of this little shindig? Gonna have to wait until after the race, just like I told everypony else, even if you are a princess. Can’t play favorites with my fans, and all that.”

Twilight giggled a princessly giggle. “Maybe I will. For posterity, of course! This is a pretty historic event,” she said with a smile that was tinged just slightly with concern, “But honestly, I’m more curious how you’re feeling, Rainbow. I mean, this isn’t like the Iron Pony competition. This is a race against a living legend! I mean, I guess we’ll find out today for sure, but on Earth, they already call him the ‘fastest thing alive’. Are you nervous?”

Dash didn’t even flinch in her stretching: “Meh.”

Twilight gave Dash a quizzical, puzzled look. “You’re not worried?” she asked. Dash shook her head in response. “Not even a little bit?” Twilight asked again.

“Pfft. This’ll be a cinch,” Dash replied haughtily, switching sides and giving her other wing a stretch, “Besides, we’re already two minutes past go-time! Like I told the papers, I doubt this chump’ll even show.”

Without warning, an object came zooming into the prep area, speeding past the grandstands and then in several wide circles around Dash and Twilight, visible as little more than a blur of color and heralded by nothing other than the rush of wind carried in its wake, forcing them to shield their faces from the dust it kicked up. With a sudden screech of friction, it came to a rapid halt next to Dash; the height of a pony, bipedal, and covered almost completely from head to high-tops in blue quills that were swept back in large spikes.

“Sorry I’m late, everyone!” called out Sonic the Hedgehog, “Just stepped out the door two minutes ago.” Having explained himself, he turned to the grandstands filled with ponies, humans and Mobians alike and threw his hands over his head to a round of loud cheering.

Dash stared at him for a moment, and then snorted, folding her forelegs across her barrel and scowling the empty air to her side. “Showoff,” she mumbled. Twilight giggled, but otherwise left the scene alone and trotted off to return to the tasks she had remaining.

“Mister Hedgehog!”

Sonic turned to find a unicorn trotting up to him, sea green coat and ocean blue mane, cutie mark not visible from the head-on angle of his approach. The notepad and pencil suspended in his shimmering aura and the badge reading ‘PRESS’ hanging from around his neck told the full story. “Screamsheet, Daily Whinny. You claim to be ‘the fastest thing alive’, and your accomplishments seem to show it. What’s your secret?”

Sonic turned from the stands to address the reporter. “Eat your vegetables, exercise plenty, and know your opponent,” he answered, “I always take time before I do anything to check out the competition.”

“Ha!” Rainbow Dash barked with sarcastic laughter. “Check out the competition's plot is more like it!” And I'm ok with that. Check out this plot —” She stood up and walked towards the starting line with a very pronounced sway of her hindquarters — “Get real familiar with it” — She stopped and looked back over her shoulder — “Cuz as soon as we leave that line, it’ll be the only part of me you’re gonna see!”

“Oh yeah?” In a flash, Sonic was standing beside Dash, arms folded across his chest. “And when’s that gonna happen?” he asked with a grin, “After I finish the circuit and lap you?”

Screamsheet wasted no time and trotted over to the pair, pencil poised to fly across the page of his notebook again. “Mister Hedgehog, are you asserting that you are, in fact, faster than the 'fastest flyer in Equestria’?”

Sonic jerked his thumb at Rainbow Dash. “Iron Pony,” he said to the reporter before twisting his wrist to point his thumb straight down at the ground, “Lead wings.”

“Ho ho!” retorted Dash with an aggressive grin, “Pretty big talk for a bipedal house pet.”

Sonic looked at her with an equally aggressive grin. “Pretty big talk for a quadrupedal snail,” he fired back, “Seriously, I figured your cutie mark’d be a jar of molasses.”

“You think you’re so fast?” Dash fired back, leaning in towards the hedgehog, “How ‘bout you put more than your rep on the line? Loser buys lunch, winner’s choice, and no matter where it is, it’s all-she-can eat.”

“Yeah?” Sonic leaned in towards Dash, all but pressing his face against hers, “And what if the winner picks one of those fancy places that only serves tiny portions of things he can’t pronounce?”

Dash did press her face against Sonic’s, mashing her forehead against his and pushing him back slightly, her grin turned manic. “Then losing is gonna get very expensive!”

“Mares and gentlestallions!”

A voice over the loudspeaker drew all eyes towards the stage next to the grandstands, and to a tiny, purple dragon holding a microphone. Besides running his voice over the loudspeakers, it sent it through the cameras that the news teams from Earth had brought; across dimensions, Spike the Dragon’s voice was loud and clear.

“Ladies and gentlemen! Creatures of all shapes and sizes! Welcome to a special, late-season run of the Equestria Grand Prix, and welcome to the first ever running of the new Unlimited Class!” A round of cheering broke out from the grandstands, and Spike allowed everyone a moment to get it out of their system. “This class removes the usual separation between feet and wings, so runners and fliers compete together, and what better way to kick things off than with the fastest runner and flier we could find?

“Racing for the home team is a pony that needs no introduction. Best Young Flyer three years running, Wonderbolts reservist, and Ponyville’s own hometown heroine. Equestria’s speedster extraordinaire! The embodiment of Loyalty itself! The one! The only!

“Rainbo~ow! Dash!”

Dash looked to the cheering crowd and pumped her hoof in the air before giving them an energetic wave accompanied by a wide smile. The cheering increased in volume, some in the audience calling her name and several more wearing rainbow-dyed wigs or waving pennants with her mark or likeness on them. Spike gave them a few seconds before he continued.

“And the visitor!” He quickly brought out an index card full of cues, “Born on Christmas Island on Christmas Day, and described by many as the greatest gift, Santa Claus ever brought?” He shrugged his shoulders and continued on regardless. “His own résumé rivals his opponent’s in magnitude, just as he rivals her in attitude! The Hero of Hustle! The Viscount of Velocity! The Blue Blur!

“Sonic! The! Hedgeho~og!”

Sonic whipped around to face the crowd, flashing them a Victory sign. The roaring cheers were quickly broken by a growing chant.

“Son-ic! Son-ic! Son-ic! Son-ic!”

When Sonic winked at a certain, small section of the grandstands, Amy’s hand went to her forehead at the same instant that Diamond Tiara’s and Sweetie Belle’s went to theirs, and with a collective swoon, all three of them fell in a dead faint, luckily caught by their friends. Apple Bloom, Scootaloo and Silver Spoon exchanged unamused glances.

“And now, without further ado, here is your Master of Cememonies, Princess Twilight Sparkle!” The dragon stepped aside, allowing the aforementioned alicorn to take the stage, her own microphone floating near her face, suspended in magic. Despite suggestions from certain ‘concerned parties’, she opted to wear only her tiara, rather than full regalia or even a dress.

“Thank you, Spike,” Twilight said, “And once again, welcome to the Equestria Grand Prix Unlimited Class. I want to thank you all for coming, and to extend extra special thanks to Princesses Celestia and Luna, and to United Federation President Ōshima for making this event possible.” She paused and looked to the VIP box in the stands behind her. Celestia and Luna smiled and waved to the crowd, as did the human president from earth. Although he was not present for security reasons, he was nevertheless ‘attending’ via holographic projection.

“Now, both racers already know the rules, but I’m going to recap them for the spectators,” continued Twilight.

“The race is a cross-country run through Equestria, starting from Whitetail Wood, down and over through Appleloosa and Dodge Junction — watch out for ant lions — past the Badlands, through the Hayseed Swamps, past Baltimare, through Hollow Shades, up north through the Crystal Empire, then south past Cloudsdale, through the Unicorn Range and finally to the finish line in Ponyville, following the same circuit as the Expert Flyer class from earlier in the year, despite the fact that this is completely unrealistic for the contestants’ planned completion time of three days, never mind the segments that can’t really be crossed without flying. Markers have already been set up along the route, and there are stops in key locations with food and water, although stops can be made anywhere at the contestants’ own risk. Unlike the Expert classes, the victor will not be decided by score, so contestants may stop as often as they wish. Also unlike the Expert classes, detours are not allowed. The first one to reach the finish line in Ponyville will be officially recognized as ‘the Fastest Thing Alive’. I will now turn the stage over to my co-Master of Ceremonies, Miles Prower. Mister Prower?”

Her attention shifted to the space next to her, occupied by a young fox who, in addition to the normal traits of a Mobian, possessed two tails rather than only one. “Thank you, Princess Twilight,” said Miles Prower (‘Tails’ to his friends) into his own microphone, incorporated into a wireless headset fitted over his ears. With a twist of his two tails, they were set spinning like a helicopter rotor and he hovered into the air, and then towards Sonic and Dash.

“Seriously?!” Scootaloo demanded from the grandstands; no one paid her any attention.

Landing on the ground next to Sonic, Tails withdrew two large objects with the appearance of wrist watches from between his tails. “These are comm-link bracelets,” he explained for everyone. “They’ll let us stay in contact with both racers through a two-way radio, regardless of distance.” He fastened the first around Sonic’s wrist, and then jogged to Dash and fastened the second just above her pastern. “And thanks to the trackers in them, we can also pinpoint their locations on the terminal over there.” He took a step back and pointed towards a large, blocky computer set up just by the stage. “That means we can follow their progress, anywhere in Equestria! And, um, that also means that any cheating by taking detours off the circuit will be immediately obviously, so… don’t?” He finished off sheepishly, and then suddenly twisted his tails and took off again, settling promptly behind the terminal while the racers took a moment to examine their new accessories.

“Swag,” concluded Dash, “But are you sure it can keep up with me?”

“You should be more worried about you keeping up with me,” Sonic retorted.

The sound of someone clearing their throat into a microphone grabbed both their attentions. “Are the racers ready?” Twilight asked with an edge of irritation in her voice. With one final competitive glare at each other, Dash and Sonic walked to the starting line and stepped into the blocks.

“Good! Mister Prower, are you ready?” Twilight asked as she looked towards the computer terminal.

The fox seated at it looked back and gave the thumbs-up. “We are online, Princess!”

“Then let’s get ready to race! On your marks!” Twilight said through her microphone.

Dash flared her wings open and gave a quick flap before moving them to the nearly vertical ‘ready’ position. Sonic crouched, both hands on the ground in front of him.

“Get set!”

Dash bent her legs just so, lowering herself while tensing her wings just a bit more. Sonic extended his legs just slightly and leaned forward just a bit. Both of them were like coiled springs; the audience watched with anticipation.

“Go!”

The rush of displaced air as the racers took off was an even stronger indicator that the race was on than Twilight’s command, both of them accelerating from zero to ‘by Celestia’s gilded hoofshoes that’s totally nuts!’ in the blink of an eye. High winds whipped through the grandstands, manes and hairdos were thrown askew and hats went flying away, never to be seen again until their owners picked them up. Cameras flashed just in time to completely miss all the action.

Out of Whitetail Wood, past the outskirts of Ponyville, and west along the railroad towards Ghastly Gorge, a trail of rainbows and a cloud of dust zoomed onward, neck-and-neck.
> High Noon Highway
> --------------------------------------------------------------------------

	Not long after the race had started, the crowd had dispersed back to the fair; there was nothing else to see and the starting line, after all. Three hours after it had started, the fair was still in full swing; there were plenty of games, plenty of food, and plenty of monitors displaying a map of southwestern Equestria, showing the positions of both Sonic the Hedgehog and Rainbow Dash — approximately, at least — as well as a number of other statistics, chief of which was their velocity (which fluctuated for both of them between ‘really fast’ and ‘by the seven stones of chaos, what?’). All that anyone could really complain about was the fact that, despite three hours and nearly six hundred miles of terrain, neither Sonic nor Dash had managed to secure a lead.

“Great news, everypony!” Spike’s voice announced suddenly over the PA system. “Everybody! If you could all turn your attention to a nearby monitor, you’ll see that both of our racers are just about to enter the first Mach Zone on the circuit.”

“See, the big problem that both Sonic and Rainbow Dash have is that they’re too fast. They’re actually holding their speed way, per the rules of the race. If either of them went all-out, they’d cause untold destruction to the world around them just by passing through! And that is where the Mach Zones come in.

“In an Unrestricted Maneuvering Zone, or ‘Mach Zone’ for short, the usual rules regarding speed don’t apply. As soon as they enter up until they leave, they can go as fast as they like. And speaking of entering, hey Tails! How long until the show starts?”

“About thirty seconds! I’m pulling up the live feed from the camera at the start of the zone now,” the fox replied over the PA, “For those of you watching right now, this particular Mach Zone is located just a bit west of Appleloosa, and is about one hundred miles from start to finish. A trip like that could take a pony five days, but if he hits top speed, Sonic could clear it in five minutes. I don’t have any numbers for Rainbow Dash, but I guess we’re about to find out if she’s as fast as he is.”

After another moment, the map of southwestern Equestria disappeared from the screens and was replaced with an image of what looked like the start of empty, arid desert. A packed dirt highway was clearly visible in the shot, as was a large marker, turned at a slight angle and likely marking the start of the zone. In the top-left corners of each screen was a simple message reading, ‘LIVE’. A moment later, a countdown appeared in the center of the screen, just in time to start at six. A rising column of dust was approaching the marker at the start of the zone rapidly. It only took the people and ponies watching another second to pick up on what was about to happen, and then all watched intently, certain that someone would finally take the lead.

“Four! Three! Two! One!”

The monitor being fed video from the camera briefly showed both racers close enough to pick out details, then briefly showed a burst of rainbow light as both racers vanished in streaks of color, and then briefly picked up the sound of a boom and roaring wind as it showed the camera being lifted from its mount, and hurled through the air by the supersonic compression wave before it struck the ground, and showed a blank screen with the prominently displayed message: ‘NO SIGNAL’.

Everyone stared at the monitors. After a moment, Tails came back on the PA, somewhat meekly, “Ladies and gentlemen, the camera may have been just a bit too close to the race.” After another moment, in which the audience started to exchange confused glances, he added to his statement by saying, “Oops?”

Hundreds of miles away from Whitetail Wood, the world blurred by Sonic in dead silence, nothing registering to his senses except for the noiseless stretch of unpaved road in front of him. They were rare: Moments when he could effectively disassociate himself from the rest of the universe and actually put the big things into perspective. Moments like the one he was experiencing as he ran towards the next leg of the circuit.

Moments that never seemed to last, though; before long — not more than a few minutes — he saw a sign high above the ground, miles distant and hundreds of feet tall and wide, dimensions necessary just to be seen at the speed he was traveling:


MACH END / SLOW DOWN


He mentally ticked off the seconds until he was passing just beneath the sign, and then began to check his speed. At first, the world seemed just a bit less blurred, and then, he felt a wave of sudden pressure hit him from behind — pushing him forward just slightly — and the world was silent no longer. He heard the wind rushing by him, no longer blocked out by the sound of speed; heard the torrents of dust he’d stirred into a small hurricane catching up as he continued to slow down to what was considered a ‘legal velocity’; heard the rhythmic and rapid-fire slamming of his high-tops against the ground like a jackhammer; and perhaps most critically of all, he heard the air as it whipped over wings that were only just beginning to beat again.

For the first time since entering the Mach Zone, Sonic turned to look to the side and saw that throughout it all, Dash had managed to keep pace with him, and looked like she could continue to do so for some time. The hedgehog smirked.

“Yo! Dash!”

The pegasus suddenly turned her face to look at him, startled, and then fell behind as she lost her concentration, although she quickly accelerated to catch up to him again — even though doing so was tredding a grey area with regards to the rules. “You! What? How!” she stammered out.

Sonic’s smirk widened. He was used to running with others who could keep up with him when he was only giving things twenty percent of his max; Dash clearly was used to flying with others who were much slower than she was. “Just keep flying and watch ahead of you, Dash,” he said back, turning his gaze forward again. “Appleloosa’s coming up fast!”

Shaking the confusion from her mind, Dash refocused on the route in front of her. Sure enough, she could see the distant marker ahead to note the town’s border, as well as the start of the Reduced Speed Zone that surrounded it; the “Slow Zone” for short. As soon as they pass the marker indicating the start of the zone, both she and Sonic slowed down, and then slowed down even more. By the time they reached the town proper, they’d both slowed down to a typical pony trot.

The waved to the cheering crowd as they passed down the street, ponies and buffalo and even some other creatures mixed in. Dash noted to herself that it looked like a fair number of spectators had come in from out of town; why they decided on Appleloosa instead of almost anywhere else on the circuit remained mysterious, as it didn’t look like any new inns or saloons had been built.

Just ahead of them on either side, two spectators wearing official Grand Prix badges stepped out from the crowd just slightly, each holding something in an outstretched hoof. Without slowing down further, Sonic and Dash each reached out towards the officials. As they passed by them a moment later, both hand and hoof had grasped a unwrapped RunningMate® Calorie Bar (product of Xtreme Eats Ltd., a division of Accelovice, Inc.); compact, easy to chew, chocolate-flavored, and packed with an even two thousand calories worth of sugars and complex carbohydrates, perfect for the racer on the move. They each stuffed the bars into their mouths, chewed quickly, and swallowed before reaching out again.

When they passed by two more officials a moment later, both hand and hoof grasped an opened bottle of RunningMate® Electrolyte Water (another product of Xtreme Eats Ltd., a division of Accelovice, Inc.); flavored water overflowing with potassium and other electrolytes for rapid rehydration, perfect for the racer on the move. Without missing a beat, each brought the mouth of their bottle to their lips and drank greedily, before tossing the empty containers into a circuit-side bin for recyclables (product of some company that wasn’t a sponsor and therefore not worth mentioning after the fact).

Appaloosa was a small town, and even at their slowed pace, it did not take Sonic and Dash more than a couple of minutes to reach the other side. Shortly after that, the reached the end of the crowd, and a cloud of dust leaped after them as they were off once again, the landscape rushing by them far below mach speeds, but still faster than any other thing in Equestria, with the Princesses as a possible exception. Maybe.

The circuit took both of them off and away from the one highway winding through the desert they were entering, and both hedgehog and pegasus dodged and wove around rocks, boulders, sages, and the occasional tumbleweed. Gradually, the markers led them into a canyon, narrow and with very tall sides, but hardly enough to interfere with their movement. A tall, rocky median divided the canyon in half and the two racers separated down even more narrow pathways, although still not enough to interfere with moving.

At least, not until the ground suddenly vanished underneath Sonic’s feet and sent him tumbling into a deep pit with sloping sides. Moving quickly, he managed to turn onto his back, so he could at least see what he was falling into, and saw two huge, blade-like pincers erupt from under the sand and rocket straight at him, spreading apart wide. ‘Watch out for ant lions’, eh?

With a twisting jump that was only one part technique to three parts desperation, Sonic got into the air just in time and just high enough to avoid the enormous, iron-black pincers that came from out of the sand. To his surprise and slight horror, he did not land of any loose gravel, but on something very solid. Looking down, he confirmed that he was standing on top of the head of a gigantic insect. Just one of its eyes was almost as big around as his head! Completely unwilling to conduct any sort of study, the hedgehog turned and jumped into the air again, this time with solid enough footing to clear the pit he’d fallen into.

Back on solid ground, he took off running again, albeit much slower to give himself time to look for the telltale signs of another pit, spotting one ahead of him and changing his course to go around it. Not a second later, he saw the lip of another pit, and then two more so close to it that weaving between them even at reduced speed would have been unsafe, especially in the narrow canyon that, per the rules, he couldn’t go around. Why were they so close together?

With the ground out of the question, Sonic juked around the first pit and up onto the canyon wall, leaping from it and landing precisely on the tip of a thin rock spire before bounding to the other canyon wall, then to and off the side of a tiny mesa back to the wall he’d leapt from. He hit the wall running, darting up and along the underside of a narrow arch that crossed over the top of the canyon, and jumped one final time towards the canyon floor. Curling into a tight ball, Sonic spun rapidly, and the moment his quills touch the ground, he took off like a cannonball, skipping over one final pit too fast for the ant lion inside to react and out of the canyon, before uncurling and beating feet towards Dodge Junction again. No more pits opened up in front of him as he continued running, but at the same time, Dash was nowhere in sight; no doubt that she was already waiting for him up ahead. Spying in the distance the final marker for the stretch of circuit he was on and no significant obstacles in his way, Sonic kept his speed up and ran straight toward it.

Still, the encounter in the canyon had spooked him, just a little bit; Sonic had been expecting something fanciful when he’d heard ‘ant lion’, like a lions with ant mandibles, or something, and not just a bigger, badder, hedgehog-eating version of what they had back home. That just wasn’t fair! The world didn’t get to just decide to start making sense after not doing that since he arrived.

Slowing to a walk as he entered the town proper, Sonic noticed a lack of a crowd to greet him. Some were there, but he suspected most of them must have dispersed once Dash arrived. Giving a wave to the officials — who noted his arrival — he looked at his comm-link for a moment, puzzling over the buttons, and then tapped two of them in succession. “Hey, Tails,” he said into the microphone, “Y’there, buddy?”

“Reading you loud and clear, Sonic,” came the reply over the radio, “Looks like you made it to Dodge Junction.”

“You know it.” Sonic paused for a moment. “Hey, listen. Is Princess Twilight still there?”

“Yeah. Gimme a second, I’ll conference her in.”

A few seconds of quiet passed before another voice joined in on the comm-link. “Hello? Sonic?”

“Hey, Princess, thanks for the heads-up about the ant lions,” Sonic said with a scowl, “Would’ve been really cool if you mentioned they were as big as houses!”

“Oh,” came Twilight’s voice over the comm-link. “Do they not get that big on Earth?”

“Nothing gets that big on Earth! Not without serious help.”

“I’m sorry! I didn’t know!”

“Princess, just —“ Sonic shut his mouth, pulling in a deep breath — “It’s cool, ok? That kind of stuff is normal here, right? So, it’s cool,  just… if there’s other stuff like that we’ll run into, check with Tails and see if you need to explain something to me. Listen, I gotta grab dinner. I’ll catch you later.”

Without ceremony, Sonic abruptly closed the connection and then started in a slow jog further into town.

Back in Whitetail Wood, Twilight hung her head say, ears pressed back to her skull. She wasn’t about to cry, by any means — Sonic had been justifiably upset — but the conversation just ended and she didn’t have a chance to really apologize.

“Don’t worry, Princess.”

Twilight’s attention was drawn up to Tails, who was pushing his chair back from the terminal. “I know Sonic brags sometimes, but he doesn’t lie, not when it really matters, and he doesn’t really hold grudges. For long. He’s probably still a little cheesed, but if he says the two of you are cool, then you’re cool.”

That, at least, lifted the alicorn’s spirits slightly. “You’re sure?” she asked.

“Totally!” Tails entered a command on the terminal, and with a mechanical hiss, several compartments opened up and the screen unhinged, and the whole began folding in on itself to a more easily moveable size. “It’s not just you, either. He gets like that sometimes, ever since… well, that’s not really for me to tell. Anyway, let’s go!” With a final ‘clak!’, the terminal finished its routine, now a size that could be easily wheeled around; it even had wheels in this configuration! “You and Spike said you’d show me around, since we didn’t have time before everything started, remember?”

That perked Twilight up immediately. “Right!” she replied. “And I know just where to go first.”

Far from Ponyville, Sonic jogged down the streets of Dodge Junction, having been directed to the saloon by a race official. Sure enough, Rainbow Dash was reclining out front on a small cloud she’d brought down from the sky, looking smug. When she noticed Sonic approaching, her attitude did not change.

“Well, look who decided to join us!” Dash jovially, flapping into the air and over to Sonic, circling around him as he came to a gradual stop, watching her. “Told you I was faster.”

“As if it’s a fair comparison,” Sonic fired back, “You flew through the canyon. I had to run, and those ant lions didn’t even know you were there, so guess who had to deal with all that. I’ll give you a hint. He’s got two thumbs, and is the fastest thing on two feet.” Without ceremony, the hedgehog raised both his hands and jabbed his thumbs towards himself.

“Sounds like an excuse if I ever heard one, but hey, don’t worry about that right now!” Dash said, lazily corkscrewing up in the air, diving again and then drifting back towards the saloon in a slow backstroke through the air. Pegasus magic. “C’mon, let’s go check out the spread. I’m starving!”

With a roll of his eyes, Sonic jogged after her to find out what dinner would consist of.

As it happened, dinner consisted of — at the recommendation of one Miles Prower, it seemed — calorie dense foods of all sorts, including pasta marinara, cheese, plenty of fresh fruit, avocados, dark chocolate for dessert, and plenty of water; a fair amount of the fare looked like it had been brought it from outside the town just for the event, particularly the avocados. The conversation during dinner was nonexistent; both Sonic and Dash were completely focused on eating and nothing else. The conversation after dinner was likewise nonexistent; both Sonic and Dash immediately dispersed to do their own things to pass the remaining hour before sunset.

For Dash, that meant taking to the airspace above Dodge Junction for stunt flying, or at least what would pass for stunt flying. In truth, her maneuvers weren’t made with her best effort; her turns were too wide, her spins and twists too loose to qualify as actual stunt flying, but she was moving quick enough that only a practiced eye would notice, and in any case, no one tried to get her attention. Finally, the sun dipped below the horizon and the moon came out, and without being able to see as well with only star and moonlight, Dash called it a day for stunt flying, settling into a slow, easy flight around down to cool off.

Partway through the night flight, she chanced to look down and spotted a blue hedgehog laying down on one of the rooftops, looking up at the sky. While a smirk, she dropped down from the sky and flew several speedy, tight circles around him before settling into a hover. “Yo, Sonic!” she said, giving him a place to actually look as he tried to track her, smirking just like she was.

“Hey, Dash,” Sonic replied before turning his attention back up towards the sky. “What’s up?”

“Not me until tomorrow!” Dash replied. She flew a lazy loop through the air and then touched down on the roof, walked a half-circle, and then rolled onto her back, front hooves behind her head. “What about you? Never guessed you were a stargazer.”

“Meh, not usually,” Sonic said back. “But you go to a different planet, you can only go so long before you wonder how different the sky looks. Especially if you haven’t seen the view at the top yet.”

Dash puzzled over that for a moment. “The view from the top?” she asked.

“Yeah. Up there.” Sonic pulled one hand from behind his head, pointing a finger up towards the sky. “In high orbit, where you can see the whole world all at the same time.”

As Sonic’s hand went back behind his head, Dash considered the implications of his statement; and wow. “You’ve been that high?” she asked.

“Just once. Had a whole adventure while we were at it!” The smile stayed on Sonic’s face, even as his expression seemed further away. “Once I had a chance to stop and just look, it was kind of like running the way we did back in the Mach Zone, you know? No distractions, no interruptions, just me and me. Sometimes, that’s the only way you can really think about stuff.”

The conversation descended into easy silence for several seconds before Dash spoke up. “Stunt flying’s the same thing for me,” she said. “I mean, I work hard at them, being on reserve for the Wonderbolt’s and all, but all the little things just kind of, you know, fall away for a little while when I’m twisting and corkscrewing. I’m not really even practicing sometimes. I just look like I am because everypony just assumes I really need to concentrate and leaves me alone, and when nopony’s bothering you, it’s easy to block the rest of the world out. Just me and me, like you said.”

Silence overtook the conversation for a second time, again for several seconds. “Good talk,” Sonic said finally, before following up with a loud yawn. “Man, I’m beat. Hey, catch you in the morning, bright and early, yeah?”

“Yeah,” Dash replied, following up with a yawn of her own. “Sounds like a plan.”

But plan or not, Dash could only look up at the sky with an uncertain frown. There was something she was thinking about that was giving her worry and keeping her awake, and finally, she could wait no longer. “Hey, Sonic?” she asked, hoping he was still awake.

“Mmhm?” came the tired reply.

Dash paused for a moment before she continued. “I really don’t wanna win on a forfeit,” she said, “You do have a plan for getting across the swamp, right?”

She was answered by silence.

“Sonic?” she asked again, lifting her head up from the shingles on the roof to actually look at her compatriot.

She was answered by a low snore.

Dash watched the sleeping hedgehog for a moment, and then huffed and laid back on the roof again to stargaze for a bit longer. “Dweeb,” she said with a smirk.
> Hayseed Swamps
> --------------------------------------------------------------------------

	Anyone in Dodge Junction that hoped to sleep without earplugs was likely either sleep deprived or inebriated by the time the sun rose. Sonic the Hedgehog was still on the rooftop he was stargazing on the night before, sprawled out on his back and snoring, as one resident would later describe, like a roaring lion. Rainbow Dash, sprawled out on her back, wings splayed, using Sonic as a pillow, was somehow snoring slightly louder.

At the very least, it made it very easy for a race official to find them when she needed to start jabbing her hoof into Sonic’s head. After the fifth and most forceful jab, he finally gave a loud yawn and looked around with bleary eyes, finally settling on the vaguely pegasus-shaped blob standing next to him. “What?” he asked.

“Mister Hedgehog, it’s five minutes to eight.”

“Oh.” Several seconds passed, and then his eyes widened and he bolted up to sitting. “What?!” he demanded on the blob, which had by then resolved itself into a cerulean-furred, crimson-maned pegasus. Dash rolled off of his stomach when he sat up and landed with a thud on the roof, but otherwise didn’t stir or wake up, even when Sonic lifted her up by her shoulders and started shaking her. “Dash, wake up!”

“Five more minutes, mom…” Dash muttered.

“Dash, we overslept!” Sonic shouted with great urgency. “The race starts again in five minutes!”

That, at last, had the desired effect; the pegasus’ eyes shot opened and leapt into the air, wings beating in a panicked hover. “What?!”

“Come on! We still have time for breakfast!”

Without another word, Sonic jumped from the top of the rooftop and down to the ground, zooming off towards the saloon as soon as his feet touched earth, Dash right on his heels.

They were greeted by another impressive spread of food (once again, far more than seemed even remotely reasonable for only one hedgehog and one pegasus), and kitchen staff who were clearly not happy with the time they’d decided to stroll in. One of the earth ponies in kitchen uniform even opened her mouth to speak, but held her words when they were taken away in astonishment as the racers tucked in with a level of energy and enthusiasm that was, truthfully frightening. They didn’t even bother with plates, scooping up mouthfuls of eggs, oatmeal, bacon (for Sonic, although he was pretty sure that Dash snuck a few pieces as well and made a note to ask her about it. Eventually), hay fries (for Dash, although she was pretty sure that Sonic snuck a few pieces as well and made a note to ask him about it. Eventually), and hash browns directly from the serving platters, finishing up by grabbing several pieces of toast each and and a carafe full of orange juice before hurrying out the door. The kitchen staff were left to wonder how just one pony and one hedgehog nevertheless managed to devour half of the food that had been prepared in the two minutes or so they had given themselves. Wonder that was quickly abandoned when it threatened to take a turn for the surreal.

Outside, Sonic and Dash advanced at a leisurely (for them) pace towards the new starting line, stuffing their faces with toast and then passing the carafe between them after they’d finished those. They finished the juice just as they reached the starting line; waiting for them there were starting blocks, a silver-furred, dark-maned stallion wearing the single, striped sleeve of a  race official, and the crowd that Sonic had not seen the night before, mostly ponies but with other creatures mixed in. Sonic deposited the carafe on the ground, and both he and Dash finished their jog up to the starting line.

“Well,” said the official, “So nice of you to finally join us.”

“Yeah, sorry about that,” Sonic replied. He dropped into leg stretches without another word, while Dash landed and started on her wings. Sensing that he was not going to get anymore than that from them, the official decided to move on.

“In the next two minutes, the race will restart,” he said. “There is a Mach Zone that starts about a mile-and-a-half down the route, but I expect both of you to restrain yourselves to legal speeds until you reach it. Blah blah blah, don’t cheat, you know the rest.” He stepped off to the side with something of a huff.

With a perplexed expression, Sonic looked to Dash, who shrugged in response. A little quirky, sure, but not really important. Stretching for a minute more, they stepped into the starting blocks, dropped to a crouch or raised their wings, and set their eyes on the road in front of them while the seconds ticked away until it was time.

“On your marks! Get set!”

Without warning, the official turned and broke into a full gallop away from the road, stopping and turning around only after he’d moved fifty feet away.

“Go!”

Dust flew down the road after the racers, both Sonic and Dash reduced to streaks of color as they zoomed into the distance, and the spectators poured into the road once they’d left to continue watching. A mere thirty seconds after the race was back on, a ring of rainbow burst into existence down the road, expanding outward from its epicenter at the start of the Mach Zone.

The soundlessness this time was short-lived; less than a minute passed before they checked their speed and slowed to sane velocities. They would have even if the zone hadn’t ended, though, as trees were fast approaching from ahead, marking the beginning of the Hayseed Swamps.

“Hope you’re not planning to swim through this part, Sonic!” Dash called over to her opponent.

“Funny thing about water, Dash!” Sonic called back, “Get going fast enough, and it might as well be concrete!”

As they moved past the tree line, the grass turned greener, and then thinner. The ground turned soggy, then muddy, and then the water abruptly started. But as the soil dropped beneath the surface, Sonic did not; he stayed above, keeping pace with Dash. The water behind him rose and fell in an impressively large rooster tail, but beneath his relentlessly hammering feet, it was as solid as rock. He was even still able to maneuver, weaving between the trees that he needed to, if somewhat more clumsily than he had on dry land.

The trees were growing rather thick, as well, and Dash needed to concentrate on her flying just as much as Sonic needed to concentrate on his running; neither of them exchanged words for several minutes as they moved miles and miles deeper into the swamps. It was somewhere in those several minutes and miles deeper that then tension in the air changed with the addition of a sound. Dash’s ears perked up, and Sonic’s attention split between maneuvering and listening. Then, they both heard it again.

It was distant, soft, and hard to hear, but it sounded very much like it could have been someone calling for help.

Without waiting to see if she heard anything a second time, Dash banked hard and changed course, heading towards the sound and away from the race circuit.

“Dash, wait up!” Sonic shouted. He tried frantically to turn, but it was hard on water; almost impossible, he was finding. Dash either didn’t hear him or ignored him, zooming onwards towards the distress cry they were certain they’d heard.

“Dash, you’re leaving the route!” came Tails’ voice over her comm-link suddenly. “What’s wrong?”

“Ask Sonic! I’m busy!”

The source of the call for help rapidly came into Dash’s view; in the middle of what was apparently especially deep water was a capsized canoe that had turned completely over, and two ponies in the water — a stallion and a colt she realized as she zoomed closer — struggling to keep above the water. Skimming along the water’s surface, Dash scooped both of them up and once and immediately turned skywards. She was almost immediately halted and was spun around, wings flapping frantically to keep them all in the air. The reason for their struggles had been the mass of vines, creepers, weeds and other plants they’d become tangled in, and it showed no signs of letting them go. “Oh, come on!” Dash cried in frustration, still flapping. If she dropped them, or worse, fell in too, they’d never get free.

“Keep pulling, Dash!”

The pegasus’ attention snapped back in the direction she flew in from to see Sonic approaching fast. The water under him exploded outwards and he leapt up into the air, curing up into a somersault before streaking forward in a sudden burst of speed and energy. When he hit the vines and creepers wrapped around the ponies Dash was carrying, the Blue Blur may as well have been a blue buzzsaw; he sliced through everything just as well as one, and Dash was suddenly free to fly her passengers wherever she wanted. A quick glance revealed that Sonic had hit the water running and was skimming along the surface in a necessarily wide turn towards a nearby shore, and a glance at that revealed a small dock that was almost certainly where the whole mess had started. Only a few seconds later, Dash brought both stallion and colt in for a fairly gentle landing, and was immediately joined by Sonic in helping them pull off the plants that had held them in the water; a quick task, all things considered.

“Sorry we took so long,” Sonic said as the last of the wines were pulled free.

“Thanks for showing up at all!” the stallion — a unicorn, it was now apparent — replied, ignoring them in favor of opening a small case that was hanging from his neck. With a steady glow of copper-red magic, the camera contained inside levitated into the open air and was immediately inspected while the colt carefully approached.

“Is it OK, dad?” he asked cautiously.

After another moment, the stallion smiled and nodded. “Yup! Looks like it’s just fine,” he said, before finally turning to regard Dash and Sonic, who had moved to stand by each other and give him space to work. “It’s a good thing you two came by when you did.”

“Yeah, thanks —” the colt began, before his eyes widen when he saw who he was looking at. “Whoa! Rainbow Dash! And Sonic!”

It did not take either racer more than a second to start basking in the implied praise. “Looks like our reputations precede us,” Sonic quipped.

“Got that right,” Dash replied. A moment later confusion overtook her expression. “Wait, I get you knowing us and all, but what happened? How’d you get in the water like that?”

“Well, um, we wanted to get a really close spot to watch you when you were going by, for the race,” the colt said.

“And then, you ended up in the water…” Sonic began, trying to coax an explanation that was, luckily, readily forthcoming.

“Erm, that was my fault, actually,” the stallion admitted. “I tried to swing the canoe to get a better shot and, well, you can figure out the rest. Guess we should leave boating safety to the experts, huh?”

“Sorry for wrecking your race,” the colt said sadly, hanging his head.

“Hey, don’t worry about it!” Dash said cheerfully. “Besides, it can still be an awesome day. I mean, that camera still works, right?”

“Um, yes, it should work fine,” the stallion replied uncertainly. “I didn’t see any damage, at least.”

Sonic, however, wasn’t uncertain at all. “Great idea, Dash,” he said with a smile. He turned the colt towards his father, and then stood to one side, with Dash moving to the other. Both the other ponies figured out what was happening and took action, the colt standing tall and smiling widely, and the stallion raising up his camera.

“Everypony say ‘totally wicked’!” he said.

“Totally wicked!”

Briefly, they heard the sound of the camera’s shutter opening and closing, and after another moment, the stallion lowered the camera. “I’ll have to make extra prints of this one!” he said. “You’ll have to take one with you to school!”

“Wow! A picture with Rainbow Dash and Sonic! I can’t wait to show everypony!” the colt said, prancing about happily.

“Here’s one for the road, too,” Sonic replied.

The colt turned around, and discovered that both Sonic and Dash were each holding out a fist and hoof, respectively. With a stupidly large grin, he reared back and bumped his front hooves against both the hoof and fist.

“Maybe we’ll see you next year too, kid,” Sonic said.

“Only don’t fall in the water next time,” Dash added.

“Don’t worry!” the colt replied. “We’ll be extra careful.”

With a nod to the colt and his father, and then a nod to each other, the two racers turned around — Dash leaping into the air and Sonic coiling down in a shallow crouch — and were off across the water once again, waves and rooster tails flying every which way as they made their way back onto the circuit.

“Wow,” the colt said, “Rainbow Dash is so cool!”

“Sure is!” said his father in agreement. “Kind of a funny name, though —” he brought a hoof to his chin in thought — “There wasn’t one bit of rainbow on him!”

The colt stared at his father for a moment, and then raised his own hoof and planted his face firmly against it.

Already nearing one mile distant, Sonic and Dash raced on, weaving through trees and splashing water over nearly everything around them. They didn’t exchange words, but didn’t need to, either; each one knew the other was pleased at their good deed, and so raced in silence. The seconds stretched into minutes, Sonic and Dash both intensely focused on maneuvering, until finally the ground rose up from the water, and they were back over solid, if extremely muddy ground, although that quickly changed, the soil becoming dryer as they moved towards the outskirts of the swamps. The silence was finally broken when their comm-links beeped.

“Sonic, Dash, can you hear me?” came Tails’ voice.

Sonic brought his arm away from his side, bringing the comm-link close to his face. “Loud and clear, buddy,” he replied.

“Great! It looks like both of you made it out of the Swamps OK, and given the nature of your detour, the officials have decided to include an exception to disqualifications for emergencies, so don’t sweat it if it happens again. And lastly, you’re both coming up on another Mach Zone. If you keep up your current pace, you’ll probably make it to Baltimare before it gets too dark to keep going. You might even make it to Hollow Shades, if you don’t stop again!”

“One of us might!” Dash replied into her own comm-link, “But we’ll see about the other. Thanks for the update Tails. We’ll check in after the Mach Zone.”

“Roger that. Tails, out!”

“Only one of us might, huh?” Sonic asked, arm back at his side. “What’s wrong, Dash? Don’t have enough in you for another supersonic sprint?”

“Ha! Save your breath, hedgehog!” Dash replied, turning her full attention forward again. “You’re gonna need it!”

“Yeah, for gloating!”

Sonic attention likewise turned to the route in front of them; a packed dirt highway through grassland that ran to the coast of Horseshoe Bay. From there, they would turn north towards Baltimare, but that was still some time and a Mach Zone away, and with the highway generally free of traffic and debris, Sonic pushed some of the world out of mind and focused on the road in front of him.

Sonic focused on the road in front of him with such dedication that he didn’t even notice that Dash was no longer keeping pace with him. Not until he heard a distant cry: “Sonic! Help!”

When he looked to his side, Sonic saw that he was alone, and a glance to the other side and then behind him did not reveal any sign of the pegasus. About-facing without even slowing down, his feet became a blur on the ground, bringing him to a rapid halt before he rocketed back in the direction he came from. Not even a full second later, he came skidding to a halt.

Rainbow Dash was lying on the ground, her wings stuck together with some sort of green-colored goo between them. The same goo had bound her hind hooves together as well, although she was still able to squirm them a little bit, and both front hooves was stuck to the ground — although not together — by more of the goo. What exactly it was, Sonic didn’t know, and there was only one way to find out. “Dash, what happened?” he all but shouted.

“I don’t know!” Dash replied loudly as she squirmed some more, trying to get free. “This stuff just came out of nowhere and now I can’t move and I think it’s still out there and I can’t move!”

“Hold on! I’ll get you out!” Without wasting even a second, Sonic tried to pull Dash’s leg free of the goo, and when that failed, tried to remove the stuff from her directly, only for both of his hands to be immobilized. With a sharp tug, Sonic managed to pull his hands free from the gunk on Dash’s hoof, several long, thick strands of the stuff sticking to his fingers. Bewildered, he tried to shake them loose, and finally resorted to wiping them off on the ground, needing a couple tries to do so, his expression twisted in disgust the entire time. “What the heck is this stuff?!” he exclaimed. “It’s like crazy glue!”

“Sonic, I can’t move and it’s still out there!”

The hedgehog’s attention was brought back to the goo, and he resumed trying to remove it, although with greater care as he realized some of it was starting to harden.

“Sonic!”

“I’m trying! Let me think!”

“Hurry!”

“Dash, look at me!”

The pegasus did exactly that, surprised by the forcefulness of the statement, and Sonic held her gaze for a moment before continuing. “I’m not leaving you here, but this stuff is super sticky,” he said, “And if I’m not careful, I’ll get stuck too. I’ll get you free, but I need to concentrate, so you need to watch my back, OK?”

Dash was a lot like Sonic, and that meant that when faced with the particular situation they were in, neither one of them were afraid. The difference was that Sonic had an action plan, and Dash did not; that was why she was panicking. Now that Dash also had a plan, her nerves were instantly under control, even if they were not calmed.

“Got it.”

Dash started a vigil immediately, and Sonic set to work on the green goo that was gluing her to the ground, amazed at how quickly it was drying, and at how hard it had become. He pulled from different angles, and even tried hammering at it with his fist to try and loosen it. This paid off almost immediately and yield a crack he was able to get his fingers in. He didn’t have long to start prying, at it, however; not even three seconds.

“Sonic, watch out!”

With a little more warning, he might’ve dodged. But there wasn’t enough warning, and the hedgehog felt sharp pain when something struck him in the head and to the ground. Trying to focus through the haze suddenly filling his skull, he rolled onto his back and, through blurred vision, made out a black blob with brilliant blue eyes. A moment after that, acid green light glowed above the blob.

A moment after that, darkness took him.
> Where They Came From: The Sad Hedgehog
> --------------------------------------------------------------------------

	In the heartland of the United Federation was an unassuming, small rural town, a short distance from a collection of farms and often serving as a stop for motorists traveling down the nearby highway.  Inside of that town was an unassuming parlor, not at all extravagant on the outside, but warm and comforting and homey on the inside, filled with mostly humans but also a few Mobians that all knew each other and got on well, but that normally did not have occasion to gather together all at once. This, however, was not what why on that day, many years in the past, unusual about the unassuming parlor in that unassuming town.

What was unusual was the hedgehog on the back porch. A little, blue-quilled Mobian hedgehog, just a bit more than nine years-old. He was wearing a white shirt, with a black suit over-top, a black necktie and black shoes. He didn’t want to wear these things, but at that moment, there were a lot of things that he didn’t want. All he felt he really wanted to do was sit on the step leading down from the porch, staring sadly at the framed photograph he was holding in his hands.

In the photo was a blue hedgehog perfectly matching the one looking at it, which was hardly surprising; he’d posed for that very photo not two weeks prior. Instead of a black suit, however, that little hedgehog was wearing a tan fishing vest and red sneakers, rod in one hand and a fish in the other, although he’d needed help holding up that trout that was almost as long as he was tall. He’d fought hard to catch that fish, and he was proud of catching it, something that the wide smile he wore in the photo made all too clear.

But the most critical part of that photo was the man in it kneeling next to the hedgehog, a human also dressed in fishing gear and helping to hold up that trout that was almost as long as the hedgehog was tall. His silvering hair was was just a bit wild, making him seem slightly older than he was, and his bushy mustache in matching color did nothing to hide the smile on his face. He’d been proud of the little hedgehog that day, when he’d fought so hard against that trout and refused to give up even when his arms started to hurt.

The man was there at the parlor too, inside instead of outside, also dressed in a suit and surrounded by dozens of friends that he would never speak to again. It was this fact that led the hedgehog to absorb himself in the photo; so absorbed that when another man dressed in a black suit came out onto the porch, he did not even realize it.

“I thought you might be out here,” said the new man. When hedgehog didn’t react, the man took a seat on the porch right next to him. “It was last week we were all sitting here, I think. You, me, and your Uncle Chuck, just sitting here, you talking about how one day, you were gonna run around the whole world and see everything there was to see, and he was encouraging you by telling about all the places he’d been. Always thought he was on the right track with you. He was a good man, and as much as he didn’t think he’d earned the title, he was a good father.”

When the hedgehog didn’t react for the second time, continuing to stare at the photo in his hands, the man decided that enough was enough.

“Listen, Jules, I won’t say I know what you’re going through. I’ve lost plenty of folks close to me as Chuck was to you, but time, being a generally unkind sonuvagun, has a funny way of making these things hurt less and less, the further in the past they get. But over the course of many funerals, I’ve learned a trick and I’m gonna teach it to you. You listening, Jules?”

The hedgehog gave no indication that he was or was not listening, and so the man continued.

“When it feels like things are too heavy, and it’s hard to see anything but a bunch of sadness, I have found that it helps to think about the good things that the individual in question has done. Not the little day to day things, necessarily, but the really big ones. And your uncle Chuck? He had the biggest one I know. Did he tell you about Westside Island?”

Again, the hedgehog gave no indication that he’d heard. With a contained sigh, the man pressed forward again.

“It was a few years before you came along. Not too many humans on Westside, but there’s a good-sized bunch of Mobians, and that year, that got hit with a hurricane. First one in longer than anyone could remember, and absolutely terrible. News crews got there, and I was watching TV wondering why didn’t they live in houses. They didn’t live in houses cuz the wind and rain washed most everything out. Twenty thousand people that suddenly didn’t have houses or roads or medicine. And while I’m watching all this unfold, Chuck’s getting on the phone, getting a friend of his from the city to watch the clinic, and then he catches the bus, and then the train, and then a boat, and then he’s there on the island. There for three months, didn’t get paid for it, and never got famous either.

“When he finally gets back home, we all ask him why he did it. Half a world away, after all, wasn’t his problem. He gave all of us a pretty hard look when we asked that, and he says to us, ‘I saw them, and I saw they needed help, and I knew I could help. That’s all the reason I needed’. That’s just the kind of guy he was. He just did what he had to do.”

For several seconds, silence dominated the one-sided conversation, until the hedgehog turned and buried his face in his companion’s chest. “I want my dad,” he whimpered feebly.

The man wrapped one massive arm around the little hedgehog’s shoulders and pulled him into a tight hug. “It’ll be OK, pal,” he said softly. “It hurts now, I know, but it’ll be OK.”
> Undermountain Hive
> --------------------------------------------------------------------------

	Sonic the Hedgehog stirred awake, in part because he felt tears sliding down his cheeks, but also because he was sure he heard someone calling his name.

“Dash?” he asked, finally getting his eyes opened and seeing the pegasus, cast in bright blue-white light coming from somewhere to the side, looking down at him with concern.

“Are you, crying?” she asked, brow quirked.

“No,” Sonic replied immediately, before replying again with, “Yes.” Finally, he settled on, “I’m fine,” as he wiped his eyes. “What happened?”

“I believe I can answer that.”

The creature they saw when they looked towards the voice — on the other side of a row of slick-looking green columns — resembled a pony only superficially. It’s black body glistened slightly in whatever was producing that blue light, looking less like skin of any sort and more like an armored shell. The horn on its head was smooth and curved, not at all like that of a unicorn. The wings on its back were membranous and tattered, not at all like that of a pegasus. Its blue eyes lacked visible pupils, irises, and sclera, not at all like that of anything. The protruding fangs and visible holes in its legs, although simply strange to a Mobian, meant something completely different for an Equestrian.

“Changelings!” Dash exclaimed in shock. Her outburst was followed with a dangerous growl that sounded a bit out of place coming from a pony. Both of these things drew a confused look from Sonic.

“Changelings?” he asked.

“They’re these evil bug-pony… things that can turn into whatever they want,” Dash answered with a very severe expression. “They pretend to be someone that’s really close to you, and then they suck out all of your love and happiness like a vampire!”

In response, the changeling barked with laughter, seeming to make itself — himself? — sound intentionally like a laughing, barking dog. “Whatever you want to give us credit for,” it/he said. “We’ll send you down some food, eventually. In the meantime, why not take a few minutes to imagine what your replacements are doing to all your precious friends.” With a haughty flip of a nonexistent mane, the changeling turned and left them alone.

In an instant, Dash was at the columns. “Jerk! You just wait ’till I get outta here!” With an enraged cry, she spun about, coiled up and bucked the column in front of her as hard as she could. The result was Sonic cringing, and Dash rolling about on the floor, holding both of her hind hooves in pain. “Son of a fish-fondling fruitcake!”

“Don’t bother.”

The new voice, feminine and vaguely threatening with a strange reverberating quality, pulled Sonic’s attention towards the darkness-shrouded back of the cell immediately, and Dash joined in after another moment of getting her pain reflexes under control.

“Those columns are solidified changeling essence,” the voice continued, “They’re as hard as steel, so as impressive as your strength may be, for a pegasus, I’m afraid we won’t be leaving anytime soon.”

“Hold on a second, I recognize your voice,” Dash said, suddenly clambering up to her hooves with a slight wince. “Who are you?”

“Oh, I suppose you would forget my name, although remembering my voice is worth something.” Without another word, the voice’s owner stepped out from the shadows, revealing another changeling. Another changeling that was not like the other one; taller, much taller, with a mane colored a sickly blue-green, hard, green irises in suspiciously un-changeling eyes, and a crooked horn.

Dash’s eyes widened in momentary surprise, before they angered themselves sharply in anger. “You!”

“Why, that’s no way to greet royalty!” the tall changeling said with offense, the mocking grin on her face showing that it was in no way real offense. “‘Chrysalis, my queen’ would be so much more appropriate.”

“Queen, right,” Dash retorted, before hopping into the air and darting forward on the attack. “Lemme crown ya!”

“Whoa, hold it!” Sonic darted in between them with both his hands raised towards Dash, forcing her to stop with a suspicious braking sound. “You two know each other?”

“Darn right we do!” Dash exclaimed. “She crashed Twilight’s brother’s wedding with the rest of those bugs and tried to take over Equestria! It’s just too bad for her that I was there!”

“Really?” Chrysalis asked. “Because I seem to remember you not doing very much aside from knocking out a few of my fighters and then getting captured.”

“Alright, fine!” Dash shouted back, shoving Sonic out of the way and getting right in Chrysalis’ face. “You think you got what it takes to call the shots? Let’s go! You and me, right here, right now!”

“An excellent idea!” Chrysalis replied. “Maybe you’ll finally learn some manners and recognize your place!”

Sonic decided, wisely, that it was not the right time to take further action and stepped away quietly.

“I know my place! It’s standing right here, mashing your dumb face into the ground —”

Their argument was interrupted when they both started coughing, the cell suddenly filled with a cloud of dust and a screeching sound, followed by a rush of wind and the crashing of hard resin breaking apart. Only a few seconds later, the dust settled enough for them to see exactly what had happened, and their eyes widened in surprise. Sonic was busy brushing broken pieces of solidified essence off his shoulders, but what caught their attention much more powerfully was that he was standing outside their cell, two of the vertical columns keeping them inside smashed to bits.

Dash looked down at the floor to see that there was an extremely large mark scuffed into it, and realized that the screeching they’d heard was hedgehog quills grinding against stone.

“You, broke it!” Chrysalis exclaimed in disbelief.

Sonic replied with a smug smile and a thumbs-up. “Of course! I’m Sonic the Hedgehog. I can do anything!”

“That better include getting us out of here,” Dash remarked, squeezing through the exit that Sonic had made. The hedgehog was already moving down the tunnel at a much more sedate pace than normal for him, and Dash copied him; they were, after all, attempting to sneak out.

“Wait!” Chrysalis called after them, struggling to fit through the gap in the columns that was just a bit too small for her, and finally tumbling out of the cell. “Wait for me!”

“You?” In the blink of an eye, Dash was back in the air and across the floor, hovering in front of Chrysalis’ face. “Why should we wait for you?”

“Do you know the way out of here?” Chrysalis sneered back.

Dash’s eyes widened momentarily as she realized she didn’t. “Fine,” she said with a scowl, before hurrying after Sonic with Chrysalis in tow.

It rapidly became apparent that the entire structure of the underground tunnel system they were in was intended to completely confound any intruders. The tunnel they were in was well-lit by whatever was producing that blue light back by their cell — it looked like some kind of fungus, but neither Sonic nor Dash cared enough to ask — and there were many other tunnels branching off of it, supported by more columns of solid changeling essence. Those tunnels looked exactly the same as the one they were in, and like every tunnel around it, and there was nothing obvious to indicate what was where.

If Chrysalis hadn’t decided to start providing directions after she had to stop them and tell them to ‘stop screwing around’ and follow her, it would have been slow going. Slower going; even with the changeling’s help, they were still moving along at a pace that, as far as the two speedsters were concerned, was reserved for the extremely elderly and anyone recovering from knee or carpal surgery.

After only a minute of quiet, outside of Chrysalis’ directions, Sonic could stand no more, and unable to run with his feet, decided instead to run his mouth.

“So, Chrysalis,” Sonic began.

“Queen Chrysalis,” the changeling snarled.

“Right, sorry. So, Chrysalis, you were in prison.”

“What of it?” For the moment, she chose to focus on that statement, rather than the hedgehog’s blatant disrespect of her position.

“Right, so, what’s up with that?” Sonic asked casually.

“Hey, yeah,” Dash chimed in, flitting around in front of Chrysalis and flying backwards in order to continue facing her as they moved. “What is up with that? Aren’t you running the show around here?”

Chrysalis gave a disgusted, and very un-queenly snort. “That would be the work of that recalcitrant renegade, General Stinger,” she replied, “He’s gotten the idea that he’s better for rulership than I am, despite not being able to handle a simple hostile invasion, and staged a coup!”

“Weren’t you leading that simple hostile invasion?” Dash asked smugly.

Chrysalis stared at the pegasus incredulously for a few moments before scowling. “The point is, he’s clearly gone mad with the power I foolishly granted him! In any case, he means to attempt another invasion with the use of a ‘something special’, as he insists on calling it.”

“Sounds like bad news, alright,” Sonic remarked, coming to a stop at a sharp turn in the tunnel —a move Dash and Chrysalis copied — pressing against the wall and peering around it briefly, before gesturing to continue and advancing around it. “Any idea where we can find him and give him a talking-to, by which, I mean a good thrashing, and then smashing whatever it is he’s building?”

“As I had attempted to explain, this is Stinger’s plan,” Chrysalis snapped back. “If he was planning a coup, why would he have told me anything?”

“Well, I guess you have a point there.”

“Pfft, plan, schman,” Dash remarked, intentionally falling to the rear so she could keep an eye on Chrysalis. “Chumps like him’re easy to deal with. All we have to do is find him, tell him we know what he’s up to, and then rearrange his thinking. And his face!”

“Now that’s a plan I can get behind!” Sonic added as he glanced around the next corner. Almost immediately, he pulled his head back and quickly pressed himself flat against the wall. Dash and Chrysalis mimicked him without hesitation.

A moment later, Sonic’s head slowly reappeared around the corner, and a moment later, Dash’s appeared below his and Chrysalis’ above.

“That’s a lot of changelings,” Dash whispered.

The tunnel opened onto an outcropping and then into an enormous cavern that was filled wall to wall, although not end to end,  with black shapes. Hundreds of changelings gathered in one place at the far side of the cavern, all facing the same direction to watch and listen another changeling address them from the air, although the words were not carrying far enough to be heard by the escapees.

“What’re they saying?” Dash hissed, looking up towards Chrysalis. Sonic turned his gaze upward as well.

Chrysalis, expertly, turned hers downward. “If I could tell what they were saying from this distance, then I would have anticipated their plot before I was imprisoned, don’t you think?” she growled back before returning her attention to the assembled changelings for a few moments more. “There’s so many of them here. Stinger can’t be ready to make a move yet. It’s too soon.”

“We can’t do anything until we get out of here,” Sonic replied. The three of them quickly drew partway around the corner again; whatever it was the changelings were meeting for, it was apparently finished, and the crowd was dispersing out through the many tunnels off the cavern. Luckily, none of them were moving towards the trio. In short order, the cavern was empty. “We can get out through here, right?”

“We can,” Chrysalis replied.

“Good.”

Coolly, and three heads withdrew around the corner, and a moment later, Sonic rounded it, followed by Chrysalis and then Dash, entering the cavern. “All this slo-mo is wearing me out!” Without another word, Sonic advanced forward.

After taking a single step, he darted backwards into Chrysalis, as the dark shapes of two dozens hissing changelings suddenly dropped from the ceiling, forming a tight half-circle around the group, and the mouth of the tunnel they just attempted to exit from.

“Don’t changelings call before dropping in?” Sonic asked, somewhat louder and a bit more frantically than he really meant to.

“You could’ve warned us!” Dash shouted at Chrysalis, backing up with the others into the tunnel behind them. “Why didn’t you say something?!”

“If I knew what they were thinking and where they were, I wouldn’t be in this mess in the first place, would I?!” Chrysalis fired back, before standing her ground — which Sonic and Dash were not so inclined to do —and pulling herself up tall to address the changelings. “You worthless thugs! You should feel lucky to have such a forgiving queen. Surrender and tell me everything you know about that vile betrayer Stinger, and I may overlook your indiscretion!”

As a single unit, the changelings stepped forward, and Chrysalis rapidly stepped backward in response, lining up with the slowly retreating hedgehog and pegasus. “Well, that’s all I’ve got. Any ideas?” she asked, voice barely above a whisper.

Neither of her companions had anything to voice, and all of them were backed into the tunnel, the exit in front of them surrounded completely and the tunnel steadily filling wall to wall with changelings: There was no escape.

At least, there was no escape until Dash happened to look upwards, and then sprung towards the tunnel wall.

The sound of hooves slamming against rock rang out and was quickly replaced by the sound of rock slamming against rock. The advancing changelings looked up frantically, and then scrambled backwards just as an avalanche of stalactites and small boulders tumbled down. Dash jumped away from the wall, while Sonic and Chrysalis each raised an arm to shield their faces. When all the rumbling stopped, they both finally looked, seeing the tunnel ahead of them neatly blocked by rubble. Muffled voices sounded through it, although the most critical information came through; the changelings were moving to circle around the block.

“Conniving traitors!” Chrysalis snarled. “They’re going to pay for —”

“No time!”

Chrysalis was suddenly shoved backwards and over, toppling into Sonic’s arms. An instant later, both he and Dash took off down one of the other tunnels at wholly irresponsible speeds — it was a bit hard to tell which one — with Chrysalis carried along for the ride like a storybook damsel in distress.

“Fool!” she shrieked, wrapping her arms around Sonic for fear he might drop her otherwise. “Put me down immediately! This is undignified! Stop!” It was too late, of course, as they flew past the entrance of another tunnel, and she wildly pointed back towards it with one of her tarsi. “Idiot! That would’ve taken us right to the exit!”

In an instant, Rainbow Dash’s face was directly next to Chrysalis’. “Then stop talking and start directing!” she shouted back.

“How dare —” The changeling queen’s protest was cut off as a bolt of green magic flew through the air, missing all three of them completely but still coming very close. “Left at the next junction, and fast! They can follow our emotions!”

Sonic and Dash both complied, turning hard to change direction; the former corkscrewed from the floor up and around the walls and ceiling and back several times before he settled on a stable run on the ground again (which Chrysalis’ stomach was less than pleased about), while the latter had to briefly gallop along the wall before she could settle into flying properly.

Chrysalis called out more directions as they moved, but was perplexed that not a single changeling seemed to be trying to contain them, even as the winding tunnels sloped upwards to carrying them towards the exits. The reason why didn’t occur to her until they whipped past a marker on the wall that provided directions, so fast that she barely recognized it: There were no changelings appearing ahead of them because they were passing through hundreds of feet of tunnel each second. Any changeling that was giving pursuit was behind them and struggling to even consider catching up. It was an incredible thought.

“Is that light from outside?” Sonic asked suddenly, snapping Chrysalis out of her reverie.

Chrysalis only needed to look around for a moment to know what tunnel they were running through. “Yes, it is,” she said, “But —”

“Great! Pour it on, Dash!”

“W-wait!” Chrysalis cried, gripping Sonic even more tightly and their speed increased, the walls of the tunnel whipping by them so fast that all details resolved into indistinct blurs. “Stop!”

They zoomed out of the tunnel’s mouth, and into the open, sunlit sky.

The sun, still above the horizon but clearly on its way down, felt warmer on Dash’s fur than ever before — a side effect of having been underground for so long — and she couldn’t help but smile widely before she looked to Sonic and Chrysalis.

The world seemed to move in slow motion as her smile morphed into a shocked frown as she saw them each tightening their hold on the other. The changeling’s eyes were wide with fear and her teeth clenched, while the hedgehog’s were equally wide and his mouth drawing out a single word — “Ohhhhh —” as both of them stared downwards. It was only then that Dash noticed Sonic’s feet wildly bicycling through empty, as if he might be able to run through the atmosphere if he could just move them fast enough.

And then, time resumed, and the terrified pair dropped out of the sky like stones, hurtling towards the expanse of green forest hundreds of feet below them.

“Shooooooo —”

In less than a second, Dash had dropped after them, painting the sky with a streak of rainbow. It was nothing like the Best Young Fliers’ Competition here she’d saved Rarity and several Wonderbolts; in this case, she had plenty of time to zip down, grab them both (since it didn’t look like they were going to be separated at any point in the near future), and then zip off over the horizon before any changelings could even think about giving pursuit.

That was, at least, Dash’s plan right up until the moment when Chrysalis remembered that she had wings of her own and tried to use them. Both she and Sonic suddenly lost a good deal of speed, and Dash collided with them. All three tumbled in the air for a moment before organizing themselves into an unstable column with Chrysalis trying to correct her flight path (and not quite able to determine why she was having no success), Sonic trying to hold onto Chrysalis and keep her from falling (and not realizing this was not, in fact, an actual danger), and Dash trying to carry the both of them while flying in an increasingly erratic line that was rapidly taking them to lower and lower altitudes.

“You two stop squirming! I can’t fly straight!”

“Don’t fly straight, fly up!”

“Idiots! Watch out for that —”

Before Chrysalis could finish her sentence, the trio crashed mightily into the boughs of a tree, each of them crying out several times as they ungracefully crashed the rest of the way down to the ground.

Moments later, a dozen changelings poured out of the hive after them, hovering in the air and scanning with their emotional sensory perception. After a few more moments of finding nothing, the group divided in two and flew off in separate directions to search. Moments later, Sonic and Dash each stuck their heads up from the foliage below, looking at the sky, and then took a few cautious steps forward from the bushes they were hiding in.

“They aren’t even trying,” Dash said, raising a hoof to shield her eyes from the late afternoon sun. “I thought they could like, track our emotions, or whatever.”

“They can.”

Sonic and Dash looked over their shoulders to see Chrysalis stepping out of the bushes, horn awash with acid green magic. “Unless, of course, someone interferes with their ESP, which they never seem to realize when it happens. Oh, ho! For a change, I’m actually glad most of them seem so incredibly stupid!”

“Now, that’s what I’m talking about!” Sonic replied. “How long can you keep that up for?”

At that question, Chrysalis eyed the hedgehog suspiciously, brow quirked. “Why?”

“Well, it could be a long way to wherever it is that Stinger’s going, right?”

“Whoa, whoa, hold it!” Rainbow Dash flitted through the air, stopping in a hover just in front of Sonic, forcing him to look up to meet her — by that point — intense stare. “What do you even care about that, for? You’re not going to help her, are you?!”

“What, help save the changelings from some bad guy up to no good?” Sonic fired back, folding his arms across his chest and not breaking his own stare from Dash’s. “Why wouldn’t I?”

“Because she’s evil!” Dash leaned right into Sonic’s face with an angry glare.

He pressed right back, just as angry. “That’s not a reason, and you don’t know that for sure!”

“She’s never done anything good! She’s bad news!”

“Yeah, well, so was Shadow!”

Barely a second passed before Sonic pushed Dash away from him, and then turned and stomped off a few paces, fuming. Almost instantly, Dash was in front of him and in his face again, looking no less angry.

“Is that how you get to be a hero where you come from?” she demanded. “By helping the bad guys?”

“Drop it, Dash,” Sonic growled back dangerously. “Just drop it. You don’t know anything about him.”

“So he gets a free pass, just like that? How’s that fair?”

“Stop it, both of you! Stop this at once!”

Magic momentarily wrapped around the shoulders of hedgehog and pony alike, pulling them apart from each other as Chrysalis stepped forward. “I can’t believe I’m about to do this, but I’m going to make an effort to care,” she said with a huff before looking to Sonic. “Sonic, isn’t it? Who was ‘Shadow’, exactly?”

Sonic hesitated for a few moments, shooting a disbelieving look to Dash as if to confirm that he wasn’t imagining anything; the pegasus wasn’t much help with regards to a confirmation. “He was a confused and angry hedgehog,” Sonic finally said, addressing Chrysalis. “He blamed everyone because someone close to him died, and he thought his purpose in life was to get revenge by destroying everything. The whole world. And he almost did it.”

By then, Sonic was agitatedly pacing back and forth. “But he changed his mind. He saved the world, and then he died —” He whirled around to face Dash again, jabbing a finger at her — “How’s that fair? He saved the whole world, and then he was right there, and I thought I had him, but I didn’t, and he fell and he died!”

Dash and Chrysalis were silent, while the only sound Sonic made was the deep breaths he was taking to settle his nerves. Breathing that stopped quite suddenly when he felt feathers laying across his shoulder, which he knew must have belonged to Dash. Sure enough, she was right by his side, one wing around him.

“Hey, I get it,” she said, before looking briefly at the ground — “I mean, I think I get it —” And then back to Sonic. “It’s like with those things that live up on the moon, or Discord, I guess. Yeah, they did some really bad stuff, but they were good in the end, and maybe it’s the same here? So, yeah. I get it now.”

The smile Dash offered was met with another one from Sonic, but both of them turned to Chrysalis with concerned frowns when they heard her harrumph. Regally, she strided over towards them, appearing somewhat threatening given that she had not dropped the spell hiding them from the other changelings, and both Sonic and Dash stepped a bit apart, watching the queen warily.

“Tell me, Sonic the Hedgehog, and tell me truthfully —” she leaned down right into his face, horn slowly even more brightly than it had been — “I’ll know. Why are you offering to help me and my changelings when it is apparent that you stand to gain nothing from doing so?”

Sonic matched the Queen’s glare, and delivered his reply without any hesitation: “Because I see you, and I see you need help, and I know I can help. That’s all the reason I need.”

For several seconds, Chrysalis glared dangerously at Sonic before finally speaking her mind on the matter: “The Foal Mountains.”

Both Sonic and Dash were left to stare uncomprehendingly as the changeling queen turned away. “We were constructing another hive there as a fallback point if the invasion of Equestria didn’t go as planned,” she added. “If I hadn’t been so impatient, we might’ve used it, as it was mostly finished. There wasn’t much there, but that was a long time ago, and Stinger’s been working on this betrayal of his for a long time.”

“So that’s the best place to look for him,” Sonic said, finishing the implication. Already, one foot was in hand, bending the attached leg back behind him to stretch the thigh. “Sounds like we have a plan, right Dash?”

Hearing her name, Dash shook her head rapidly as she realized she was the focus of conversation, looking from Sonic, to Chrysalis, and then back to Sonic. “Ugh, fine!” she said, less out of agreement and more out of capitulation. “We’ve got a plan, completely ignoring the fact that she held out on us, but sure, we’ve got a plan. But we also gotta be real, Sonic.” With a flap of her wings, Dash was in the air, zipping over to the hedgehog’s side and hovering there. “I mean, we can’t carry the whole way, so how’s she going to keep up with us?”

“Oh, don’t worry about that, little pony,” Chrysalis said with a toothy grin. “I’m certainly not as fast as either of you, but I promise that I’m much faster than I look.”

“Well, that settles it then!” Sonic said, raising a hand and pointing one finger towards the northwest. “Come on, ladies! Let’s thrash us a vile betrayer!”