With her guards surrounding the "surface dwellers", the royal seapony was about to finish carrying out her sentence when a worried Princess Skystar quickly shook her fins around, wanting her to stop.
"No, no, no, no! Mom, Mom, Mom, Mom, please,it issonot like that!" Skystar then began to swim beside her mother, trying to reason with her. "The Storm King is trying to taketheirhome, too!"
Twilight nodded in agreement, and she gave the white-colored seapony a pleading look. "Please, we're trying to find the hippogriffs. Do you know what happened to them?"
A smirk appeared on the royal pony's face as she replied to Twilight. "Well, ofcourseI know what happened-"
Suddenly, a bright smile appeared on Skystar's face as she swam away from her mother. "Ooh, ooh,it issucha good story!"
"Don't youdaretell them!" exclaimed the royal seapony, but to little avail since Skystar was getting ready to tell the story after having reached one of the castle walls.
"Once upon a time…like, a while ago," said Skystar, who had touched the wall with one of her fins, and it began to light up with illustrations of the hippogriffs, as well as the Storm King. "Theydiduse to live on Mt. Aris, but then, that horned beast showed up to steal their magic!"
While the group of friends started to go"ooh"during Skystar's story, her mother let out a sigh, and shook her head in irritation. "Did I not just say for you tonottell them? But hey, I'm only the queen here, so don't mind me…"
"Yes, Mother,"muttered the yellow seapony, but then, her smile quickly returned. "Now, what Iwouldn'tnormally tell you is… in order to keep their kingdom out of hisevilclutches, their brave and majestic leader - Queen Novo - hid them deep underwater so that he wouldn't be able to reach them!"
While Skystar continued to change around the illustrations to depict the story's events, her mother raised an eyebrow. "Seriously?"
As for Twilight, she was beginning to realize what the story meant exactly, and her response came from an excited Skystar.
"Weare - no, wait, sorry… wewerethe hippogriffs!Ta-dah!" Then, she swam over to the group of ponies, and whispered, "But Itotallydid not tell you that!"
A sigh came out of the older seapony's mouth. "Well, I guess the pearl's out of the oyster now…Iam Queen Novo."
After the queen introduced herself, Twilight's face lit up with pure joy and happiness.We found the queen of the hippogriffs! Now I just have to ask her if-
"Are there any more stories you can tell us with that cool light-glowing thing?" asked Pinkie, pointing at the wall that Skystar had been using.
"Sure! Okay, so this one time, I ran into this pony whose name was Star-"
However, before Skystar could finish the sentence, a confused Applejack said, "Let me get this straight. Y'all just decided to flee and abandon your city after the Storm King showed up?"
Skystar let out a chuckle, and replied, "We didn't flee, weswam… you know, in order to flee!"
"But…how?" wondered Starlight, who had some trouble figuring out in Equestria they were able to completely transform themselves from hippogriffs into seaponies, and Skystar swam back to her mother in excitement.
"Oh! Mother, can we show them?" The princess began to twirl around Queen Novo, with a wide smile. "These are the first guests that we've had in, like,forever!Can we, can we, can we, can we, can we?"
Seeing that there wasn't really much harm to the ponies being in their underwater home, Queen Novo looked up at the giant jellyfish that was above her throne, and she said, "Well, IsupposeI should make sure it still works."
So, the queen swam her way up to the jellyfish, and after giving it a gentle tap, its tendrils parted to give Nova a shiny, glittering pearl that contained a glow which brightened up the entire place.
"Ohhhhh…!"squealed an overjoyed Skystar, watching a swirl of the pearl's magic make its way over to the group of friends, and one by one, they all started to transform into seaponies themselves.
"Thesefinsaredivine!" Rarity was already falling in love with her new appearance.
Just as Applejack had gotten her hat stay on her head, a grinning Rainbow quickly swam up to float beside her. "I'll race you to that corral!"
"You're on!" said the orange seapony, and the two competitive friends rushed off to their destination.
Nearby, Pinkie was happily twirling around in her new body, a wide smile on her face. "Whoo-hoo! Ooh,try it, Fluttershy!"
The yellow Pegasus-turned-seapony let out a giggle, and moved her new tail around just for a moment or two. "Yay…"
"What…" A transformed Starlight was looking at Skystar with confusion since her lower body was now longer showing any sign of being frozen solid. "How?"
Skystar giggled several times for she gave the pink seapony her response. "Well, it's not like we were going to let any of the hippogriffs that got struck by the Storm King's orbs turn into seapony statues…"
"Guys? Um,guys?" Starlight turned her head to look over at Spike, who had the unfortunate outcome of having turned into a pufferfish. "What is-"
POOF!
"- happening?!" finished Spike, now floating up after his entire body blew up like a balloon, and Starlight sighed before swimming over to deflate her friend.
Casey was excited about his new seapony appearance, as well, and he began to perform all sorts of twirling tricks that came to his head. "Sweeeeeet!"
"Totally…"sighed an agreeing Pinkie Pie.
As for Twilight, the excited alicorn-turned-seapony swam over to Queen Novo, and she said, "This isamazing! With this, we could transform everypony in Equestria into something powerful enough to destroy the Storm King's army!"
Twilight tried to take a closer look at the magical pearl in Novo's fins, but the queen kept it close to herself, along with a frown appearing on her face. "Orit could end up in his greedyclaws!"
"But…" said Twilight, her happiness - once again - starting to turn into sadness.
"Honey, I'm sorry about your home," replied Queen Novo, in a soft but direct tone. "I truly am… but my responsibility is to protectmysubjects, and that means thepearlisn't going anywhere."
Twilight watched with pain and disbelief as the pearl was put back into the jellyfish, and then, she said, "But… we came all this way… you can't just stay down here for the rest of your lives. There's so much you're missing up there!"
"And, we areperfectlyokaywith that!" said Queen Novo, making her decision final, as well as leaving to continue on with her own royal agenda.
Twilight just stayed in her spot, full of sadness and disappointment, while her friends came to join her after hearing what the queen had said to the young princess.
"So, that'sit?" exclaimed Applejack, also full of disbelief. "We came all the way up her fornothin'?"
Casey placed a comforting fin on the purple alicorn-turned-seapony, who turned her head towards him, but just as he was about to try and make her feel better, Skystar told them that she'd just thought of an amazing idea.
"You can allstay herewith us! Ooh, there's so much fun things we can do - we could make friendship bracelets out of shells, and picture frames out of shells, and decorative waste baskets out of shells… oh, I have so many fun ideas that involve shells!"
Then, a warm smile appeared on her face as she added, "Now, I have someonenewto share them with! Well, aside from my friends, Shelly and Sheldon… isn't that right, Shelly? Sheldon?"
Skystar continued to laugh and giggle with amusement as she held up two clam shells that both had a pair of plastic eyes, with everyone except Pinkie looking at the princess with slight discomfort. "Here, want to say hello?"
A wide-smiling Pinkie just nodded her head, but then, Rarity cleared her throat before saying, "Oh, um, that does soundlovely, darling…"
She hated to lower the hopes of the princess seapony, especially after how kind Skystar had been to them. "But you do realize that we can't stay here."
"We've got to get back to our families," added Applejack, who also felt bad for turning down the princess' offer.
"Um… maybe you could bring them down here, too?" suggested Skystar, but after Starlight sadly shook her head, the seapony's happiness started to go away. "Oh, okay… that's fine, ha-ha… I mean, Shelly and Sheldon get jealous anyway."
Then, just like how Pinkie would be when someone turned down the offer of having a party, Skystar began to completely deflate into pure sadness. "I'll just go and, um… tell Mother to change you all back so that you can go home."
As the seapony princess swam hurry, Pinkie - who felt awful, and just hated to see someone like Skystar so sad - looked back at the others. "I know we have to go, but… you saw how disappointed Princess Skystar was! Can't we stay here for just alittlebit longer?"
"I'm sorry, sugarcube, but there's no time to-" Applejack started to say until Twilight suddenly swam in between the two of them.
"Oh, no… no, no... Pinkie'sright!"
Everyone turned their heads in Twilight's direction, and Rainbow, in disbelief, said, "Say what now?"
"Well, wedoneed to still figure out a way onhowto get back, so a few more minutes won't make ahugedifference," reminded Twilight, who turned to smile at her pink-colored friend. "And if there's anyone who can cram a lifetime of fun in the blink of an eye,it'sPinkie Pie!"
Squee!
Pinkie's wide smile returned, and a confident Twilight nodded her head. "Now, go ahead and show Skystar the best time ever!"
"Iwon'tlet you down!" Pinkie gave the alicorn-turned-seapony a salute, and Twilight began ushering the others towards her.
"Oh, I'm counting on it." After watching them swim out of the seacastle, Twilight turned her attention over to the jellyfish, but then, a familiar voice interrupted her thoughts.
"Twilight? You okay?" said Casey, having noticed that she hadn't followed after Pinkie like everyone else.
"Yeah, great! I'll just wait here in case, uh, Queen Novo comes back from her seaweed wrap and massage treatment," replied Twilight, giving her special somepony a warm smile. "Go on, it's been a while since you've hung out with them all, right?"
A sheepish Casey let out a chuckle before saying, "Yeah, I… guess you do have a point… heh, I wonder how Stardust would've felt about all this."
"I'm sure that it would include a little bit of profanity somewhere," suggested Twilight, and the two of them shared a laugh together before Casey hurried to catch up to the rest of their friends… while the young princess went back to looking up at the jellyfish, which still held the pearl safely inside.
After making sure that no one else was in there with her, Twilight slowly swam up towards it, and took a deep breath while mentally preparing herself for what she was about to do.
This is the only way to save Equestria.
As a heartbroken Skystar slowly made her way to where Queen Novo was at, she muttered to herself, "It's probably for the best."
Suddenly, to her surprise, the two clam shells that she'd shown the newcomers were being help up in front of her, courtesy of a smiling Pinkie.
Hey, now, don't be sad
I know we cannot stay
Then, Skystar turned around to see that Pinkie was not alone. In fact, almost everyone else that she'd met earlier was there, as well!
[normal voice] But we've got a couple minutes
And a little time to play
However, Skystar remembered the reasons why they had all come in the first place, and she began to swim away from them again… but Pinkie was not ready to give up so easily.
I know you have important things
So it's okay, just go
[Pinkie Pie]
But we can still pick one small, little thing
To do with you, y'know!
So, before she knew it, Skystar found herself doing all sorts of fun and wonderful things with Pinkie and the others, with a smile quickly appearing on her face.
One small thing
doesn't seem like a lot
One small thing
work with the time you've got!
Soon, one small thing becomes two
After two, perhaps another few
Then one small thing is not so small
One small thing can be
The biggest thing of all
[Princess Skystar]
All right now, since you're here
Let's see what we can do
Swim with the flow until you go
Together, me and you
Soon enough, the rest of the other hippogriffs-turned-seaponies, along with various oceanic sea creatures, also decided to join in on the fun.
[Pinkie Pie]
I've got necklaces for everyfish
So what else do ya got?
[Princess Skystar]
Well, we could play the bubblefish
You'll like this one a lot!
[Pinkie Pie and Princess Skystar]
One small thing, it's a good place to start
[Spike, Casey, and Starlight]
(Just one small thing)
[Pinkie Pie and Princess Skystar]
One small thing, and we don't seem so far apart
[Applejack, Rainbow Dash, Rarity, and Fluttershy]
(Don't seem apart)
[All]
Soon, one small thing leads to more
It's so much more than there was before
Just one small thing, and you will see
The start of something big for you and me
Even Queen Novo found herself coming out of the sea spa to see what exactly was going on.
[Pinkie Pie]
One small thing
[Seaponies]
Just one small thing
[Princess Skystar]
Or a tall thing
[Seaponies]
Just one tall thing
[Fluttershy]
Or a sing thing
[Seaponies]
Just one sing-y thing
[Rarity]
Or a bling thing
[All]
Just one bling-y thing
[Applejack]
A conga thing
[All]
Yeah, a conga thing
[Rainbow Dash]
Or a longah thing
[Seaponies]
Just one longah thing
[Pinkie Pie]
A blue thing, true thing, you thing
[Seaponies]
(Oooh-oooh)
[Princess Skystar]
A whee thing, sea thing, me thing
[Seaponies]
(Oooh-oooh-oooh!)
[Pinkie Pie and Princess Skystar]
So many things and everything until our time is done
There's one small thing for each and everyone!
As this was happening, with Queen Novo eventually joining on the fun, Twilight was almost about to succesfully complete her plan, but then, she noticed a jellyfish tentacle swiftly turn in her direction. "Uh-oh."
[Princess Skystar]
One small thing, so much we can create
You and me, we started something great
It's so amazing, look around
At all the happy sights and sounds
One small thing is big, it's true
You did this all for us
I just wish there was one small thing
An extra special kind of thing
[Princess Skystar and Seaponies]
That we could do for you...
One small thing!
Once they had all finished with having fun, Queen Novo looked back at the group of ponies-turned-seaponies, and she said, "Well, I guess there isonesmall thing that we can do."
Victory!thought Casey, with the rest of his friends glad at the fact that Pinkie's idea of fun had worked.
RING! RING! RING! RING!
Suddenly, it was like an alarm had gone off through the entire kingdom, and as Novo glared at Skystar, Casey let out a gulp. "That doesn't sound good."
Unfortunately, that wasn't the worst of it… because they had all returned to the flower-shaped castle, and found a struggling Twilight, whose body was tightly wrapped up in jellyfish tentacles, trying to reach for the pearl!
"Ow, ow…"cried Twilight, when the tentacles began to sting her with electricity.
A growl came out of the furious queen's mouth, and to Twilight's horror, she had taken the pearl away just as Twilight was about to grab it. "No,please!"
"All of thisso you could take the pearl?" exclaimed Queen Novo, and she pulled a worried Skystar towards her. "Thisis why we don't bring strangers into our home!"
Then, before turning them back into their regular selves, as well as sending them away from their undersea home, a deep frown of disappointment appeared on Novo's face.
"You don'tdeserveto be one of us..."