Chapter 4
Things Go From Great to Bad
(Peter Parker)
You know, the Gala would have been quite great, but we had some horsing around, literally, and we had some strange dude in a Halloween mask and this old guy with lightning bolts ruin our day.
I guess I’ll start where Toonie left off (that’s my new nickname for him).
We arrived at the castle via flying chariots, which didn’t suit well for several people. I was used to heights, but Fluttershy screamed silently, Luigi cuddled with her while screaming “mama mia” and Percy threw up over the edge a time or two. I hope that didn’t hit someone below. Actually, that’d be kinda funny. Jack seemed unfazed, and when I asked him why, he said he used to go skydiving, so he’d gone much higher than what we were on.
Princess Loony, I mean, Luna, had been talking for a while, but I didn’t hear most of what she said. One, too much wind in my ears, two, I knew she was giving a history lesson, so, BORING.
As we were coming to a stop right in front of this really cool looking castle, she finally did say something that caught our attention. “By the way, we’ve had some more strange creatures like you in our castle for a couple of days. Would you like to meet them?”
Twilight’s face broke into a smile that almost looked kinda nuts. “Really? Are they highly advanced? Are they dangerous? Are they…?”
“Whoa, little pony,” Tony the Pony said, patting her on the head like he would a six year old child getting on a sugar high. “Let’s get a little out of the Princesses face here. Commoners need to give royalty their royal space.”
Twilight glared at him. “I’ll have you know that I’m actually a Princess myself. And if you keep treating me like (what’s that word you use in your world) crap, then I’ll see what you’ll look like as a garden gnome.”
Tony put up his hands defensively. “Hey, I’m just trying to keep Princess Loony from going, uh, loony.” He chuckled at his own joke.
“Okay,” I said, coming up. “Let’s not start shooting things at each other. And even though Twily here reminds me of that romance saga I loathe, we need to get on the right foot. So, Tony the Pony, show a little respect please.”
Tony was so surprised at my commanding tone that he said “Sure.”
We walked towards the castle, with me prancing a little bit at my small victory. If only I had known what was descending upon us, literally.
I was so intent on my prancing that I didn’t notice someone rounding the corner of the stone wall. I did when my Spidey-Sense went off, and I instinctively punched whoever it was.
“OOF!” said the thing, or something like that, I don’t know if I could spell what it actually said. But it went down with a crunch on the sidewalk. About that time I realized what, or actually, who, I’d run into.
It was a man, around 30ish, with shoulder length brown hair, a leather flight jacket, and a handsome figure. As he got to his feet, I noticed he had a radiance of overconfidence and swaggered a bit. As if Tony was bad enough, now we had another guy with a full view of himself. Yaaaaaaaaay.
“Aw, man,” the guy said, rubbing his back. “I hope I don’t end up in a wheelchair. That would be torture for the best pilot in the ga…” he stopped when he saw our group.
The group stared at him.
He stared back at us.
We engaged in a staring competition for a while. Then I said, “You must be one of the ‘strange creatures,’” here I made air quotes, “that Loon… I mean, Luna was telling us about.”
“I’m only strange because I’m so cool,” was the man’s reply.
“Okay, Mr. Cool,” Applejack said, glaring at him. “Who are ya?”
The man got up; smiling brightly as if we were a group of reporters ready to interview him for some heroic deed he’d just done. “The name’s Han Solo. Best pilot in the galaxy. My ship, the Millennium Falcon was attacked and crash landed on this planet of ponies. We’re staying in the castle until we can fix up.”
“Wait,” Jack exclaimed, coming forward. “Did you say, ‘we,’ as in ‘there are more than one of us’ we?”
“I did,” Han said. “Would you like to meet Luke, Leia, and Chuy?”
We nodded, and he gave us that smile again. “Great, follow me.” He strutted off as if he owned the entire planet.
Luna sighed as we looked over at her. “We’ve dealt with that from him for a couple of days. He’d be a better person if he didn’t have such an ego.”
“Leggo my Ego,” I said. When everyone stared at me blankly, I shrugged. “Nothing.”
“Hey, slowpokes don’t get to see new people,” Han yelled at us from the other end of the garden, making a ‘hurry up’ motion.
So, not without a few muttered complaints about his ‘barbaric’ behavior, we set off after Han, wondering what was ahead.
Less than an hour and a half later, our group had grown a little bigger. After hearing that we were going to the Grand Galloping Gala, Han, along with Luke Skywalker, Princess Leia, and Chewbacca, who was just called Chuy, decided to tag along. There was a lot of talking as we headed towards the Gala grounds, Chuy even offering his moans and groans occasionally.
I couldn’t believe how many people were in our group now. Nine smashers, eleven ponies, because we had the six main friends, the two princesses, and the three fillies, all of us superheroes, which totaled seven, Spike, Percy, Ed, Jack, Han, Luke, Chuy, and Leia. Calculating the simple addition in my head, we had thirty-five people in our group. Unbelievable.
I found myself also thinking about how long it had been since I had first arrived here. Calculating all the hours, I came up with 27 hours. I’d been in Equestria only three hours over a day. All that had happened since then; unbelievable.
“What are you thinking about?” Luke asked suddenly, right in my ear. He scared me so much that I ended up leaping six feet in the air and latching onto a stone arch upside down like a bat.
There was a collective amount of laughter from the group, and I laughed a bit too. Until I realized something.
“Uh, guys?” I said.
“What?” Luke asked.
“I can’t get down,” I replied sheepishly.
Finally, after a couple of minutes, Twilight’s magic got me back on solid ground.
“Sorry about that,” Luke said. “I didn’t know you were that deep in thought.”
By this time, we had arrived in what seemed to be a kind of fair. Ponies were everywhere, almost all of them staring at us in disbelief. But after some consoling from Celestia and Luna, they relaxed a bit. And now, be prepared to laugh, because those smashers made me laugh so hard then.
“Wow,” Luigi gasped as we walked through the sprawling Gala area. All around were ponies in suits, dresses, carrying drinks and food, and doing almost anything you could think of. Some ponies were selling things, from games, to really good smelling food that made Wario’s mouth water. Obviously, since at least twice in the past five minutes he had tried to nab a few of the foods from a couple of the vendors. Rarity, however, instantly made him return the foods, and then calmed the angry red-faced vendors down. Trying to get him to apologize, though, was like trying to move Mt. Everest with a crane.
“Yes,” Luna agreed as we the creatures continued walking through the sea of ponies. “The Gala is one of the biggest events in Equestria.”
“Wow,” Luigi said again.
“Yep,” Ness remarked, closing Toon Link’s mouth that had been hanging open for the past few minutes. I knew something funny was coming, sense my Spidey Sense was tingling.
“Wow,” Luigi said for the third time.
“Would you stop saying ‘wow’?” Wario yelled in Luigi’s ear, causing the latter to nearly fall onto a fruit stand. The former instantly looked sheepish when all of us, except for me, glared at him. I was busy laughing.
Jack sighed and put his hands in his pockets. “I haven’t been to an event like this in a while. It’s nice to be able to come to an amazing event like this.”
Luna smiled at him. “I’m glad that you were able to attend.”
Jack frowned. “I still can’t get my wife out of my head.”
Rarity touched his hand with her hoof. “I’m sure she’s just wonderful.”
Wario farted. No wonder he never got a date.
Can we throw him over the hedge? Lucario asked. Pikachu gave an agreeing “Pikachu.”
“Oh, if I could,” Mario said through clenched teeth.
“’Opefully ‘e won’t be ah bother,” Applejack declared. “Ain’t that right Luigi?”
Luigi was staring off into space, deep in thought.
“Uh, hello?” Rainbow Dash said, waving a hoof in front of him. “Is anypony home?”
Luigi didn’t even blink.
Here it comes… I thought with a chuckle.
“Luigi?” Rainbow Dash called, shaking him.
“Huh? What?” Luigi said, startled. In his shock he tripped over his shoelace and fell over on the floor.
Mario sighed and shook his head. “Are you sure you’re not adopted?”
“I honestly don’t know,” Luigi answered, trying to retie his shoe.
“Me niefer,” Wario remarked as he munched on something stolen from a vendor. Rarity instantly made him apologize to the vendor he had stolen it from, even if the apology was made rather indifferently.
Ness sighed. “That’s Wario. Part strange, 100% rude.”
Luna gave a smile. “Well, all have their eccentricities.”
“Agreed,” Twilight said. I sensed a lot of them looking at me with raised eyebrows. I smiled.
At that moment, I realized that Tony the Pony had clopped off somewhere. “Hey, where’d Tony go?”
“I’m back,” Tony said, appearing next to us. I groaned, because I was kinda hoping he’d gotten lost. The Cap’ opened his mouth to say something, but realized that Tony had gotten a snack. “What are you eating?”
“No idea,” was the reply. “But whatever it is, it’s delicious.” To emphasize this point, he bit into his food, which looked kinda like a corn dog.
I laughed then felt a severe migraine hit my head. I winced, and tried to get rid of it. It went away, but I still felt uneasy. I only felt those when something really bad was about to happen.
“Are you okay?” Fluttershy asked with concern.
I was going to laugh it off, but then another pain shot through my head. It was so bad I cried out and fell to the floor.
“What’s happening?!” Twilight exclaimed, desperately trying to soothe my pain with magic.
“I have a really bad feeling about this,” Han said.
He had it for good reason.
At that moment, a flashing red light flew out from a nearby alleyway. It sailed gracefully through the air and struck an unsuspecting pony who was buying some turnips from a stall. The pony’s head was severed neatly, and fell to the grass.
A collective gasp of horror fell through the crowd as the light flew back into the alleyway to… what?
Silence. Then, we all heard a noise. It was the sound of breathing. Not ordinary breathing, but a mechanical rasping breathing.
“I know that sound,” Luke said, drawing his… what was that called… lightsaber from his belt. That’s when I realized that the light that had struck down that pony had been a lightsaber. But, whose was it?
Out of the alleyway stepped a figure. It was tall, dark, and menacing. In its hand was a red lightsaber. There was no sign of flesh, just a black suit with a black mask and helmet. Its mechanical breathing filled the silence. At that moment, I suddenly had my memory come back. After dashing my brains out against volumes at Twilight’s, my mind hadn’t remembered anything. I realized I knew all these characters, except a couple, from TV and video games I’d played. And the person, if he could be called that, was one of the most iconic villains of all time.
“Hello, Father,” Luke said in a sad and angry tone.
“So, my son, we meet again,” Darth Vader replied.