//------------------------------// // Motocross Mayhem // Story: Friendship Games: Another Story // by ArcanaMaverick7 //------------------------------// "Fragment Hunter, battle stations," Sunset Blaze called out after she threw her bike from the motocross race at a small group of Creeps. "We've got threats to deal with," she said as she stared down a large plant coming out of a purple rift that appeared next to her. "What about our cover? If we fight, they'll know about us," Lapis asked through Blaze's Semblance. "We only joined because we were trying to figure out what Twilight was up to," Blaze explained. "And with the Grimm here, I think that doing our job is more important than taking part in something we could've easily dealt with." "I guess you're right," Silver stated as he stopped his bike and got ready to battle against any Grimm that attacked. At the same time, Rainbow Dash and Sunset Shimmer were still racing against Indigo Zap and Sugarcoat. They managed to speed past the Grimm that appeared along the track, but the plants that appeared through the rifts caused by Twilight's amulet were another story entirely. They began to emerge from the purple rifts and reveal mouths like flytraps. The racers were all shocked at the giant plants attacking and several of them had to swerve by the vines so that they could stay in the race. The spectators could only watch in shock as everything was happening around them. Sunset Shimmer was soon gaining on Sugarcoat, but the two of them saw some Beowolves and one of the vines coming right at them. As Sugarcoat's bike was snatched by the vine, she held on while Sunset Shimmer fell off her bike. As that happened, Silver rushed in and started to battle the Beowolves when he revealed hidden blades in his boots and kicked away at the Grimm. Striking at them in areas that would have had vital organs, Silver was able to stop the Grimm near him from going after. At the same time, Indigo Zap saw the vine that held Sugarcoat's bike in its mouth and used it as a ramp in order to pass Rainbow Dash. When Rainbow saw Indigo pass her, she looked back to see that Sunset was dazed from her crash, Sugarcoat was captured by a monstrous vine, and Silver was too busy fighting off Grimm to help either of them. Determined to save her friend, Rainbow Dash turned her bike around and rushed to rescue Sunset Shimmer. Throughout the race, Fragment Hunter was busy defending everyone from the Grimm and even some of the vines. Sunset Blaze activated her Aura and used it to activate the Fire Dust in the sleeves and back of her leather jacket. With her favorite article of clothing lighting up with an orange and red glow, Blaze began to launch fireballs at the plants that got too close to her or the audience. Some of the Grimm began to approach some of the Canterlot High students who ran off from the stands, such as Trixie and the Crusaders. Seeing them in trouble, Cereza and Azalea went to fend off the Grimm and get the girls to safety. A small group of Beowolves managed to corner the Crusaders and the three girls began to shake in fear until Azalea came by with her weapon at the ready. "Leave them alone," she shouted at the Grimm before attacking them. Using her baton's Lightning Dust setting, she was able to smack the werewolf creatures around and stun them before kicking them to the ground. Changing the setting of her weapon, Azalea let out a primal scream as she slammed the baton to the ground and spires of rock impaled each of the Beowolves. When the Grimm began to dissolve, Azalea turned back to see the three girls looking at Azalea with wide eyes until a boy that Azalea recognized as Applejack's brother arrived. "Get them to safety," Azalea told Big Mac, who only nodded before carrying all three girls toward the school. With Trixie, she was running away from the track before she tripped and the bear-like Grimm that Huntsmen knew as an Ursa stared her down. It roared loudly to scare the illusionist before it clawed at the ground like a bull that was about to charge. "The Great and Powerful Trixie doesn't want to get eaten by a demon bear," Trixie exclaimed as a call for help. The Ursa only roared again before it charged at Trixie, but it soon got thrown backward as Cereza showed herself. "The 'Great and Powerful Cereza' believes that you should calm down," Cereza said to Trixie as she mocked Trixie's speaking habits. The Grimm roared before it tried to slash at Cerzea with its claws, only for the girl to dodge. "So close," Cereza taunted the Grimm as she activated her Semblance, Time Mirage. Slowing down time around herself for just a few moments, Cereza began to attack the Ursa and pummel it down with her bare fists as she channeled her Aura through her attacks. When the Time Mirage ended, the Ursa was thrown into the middle of the track and soon exploded. The blast sent the spikes that covered its body all around to impale Grimm and the vines nearby. Trixie could only stare in awe with her jaw dropped at what she witnessed before Cereza approached her again. "Cover your mouth, dear. You'll catch flies," Cereza teased before she brought Trixie inside the school and went off to help the others. Back on the motocross track, Sunset Shimmer looked up at the vine that was eating Sugarcoat's bike. As the plant devoured the bike, Sugarcoat fell off and Silver saw her about to hit the ground. Rushing toward the girl, Silver jumped up and caught her before they landed safely on the ground. As Sugarcoat and Silver were safe, the former was looking mildly traumatized by what happened. "I suppose that I should thank you for saving me," Sugarcoat said as she caught her breath. "Even if I don't know what's going on." As the two were recovering, Rainbow Dash zoomed past them and headed right toward Sunset Shimmer when a vine monster was about to attack her. Rainbow Dash held out her hand and saved Sunset Shimmer just in the nick of time when the plant creature tried to eat her. The monster only slammed its jaws into the dirt as Shimmer got on the back of Rainbow's bike. "Dash, you saved me," Sunset thanked her friend. "Well, I wasn't about to let my friend become plant food," Rainbow said as her body began to glow with a blue aura. Stopping the bike, she removed her helmet to let her pony ears form and her blue feathered wings emerged soon after. In the announcer's booth, Cinch saw Rainbow Dash's transformation and Celestia only shrugged in response to feign innocence. "We can still win this," Rainbow Dash told Sunset as she gave her the bike. "I'll help the others hold off the plants and those Grimm. You go beat Crystal Prep!" Sunset nodded in reply and returned to the race while Rainbow Dash and Silver went to help the rest of Fragment Hunter. The announcers booth could only comment about what was going on to each other. "What's going on? What are those things," Cadance asked as she saw Fragment Hunter fighting Grimm and vines. "Whatever they are, we need to stop the race," Celestia said. Just as she was about to grab the microphone, a Beowolf leaped up toward the booth and knocked the stand over. The wolf-like creature snarled at the teachers and jumped at them, only for a large hand to reach forward and grab the monster by its throat. Terracotta held the Beowolf away from the others and began to strangle the unholy beast with one hand. The monster could only flail about and try to claw at Terra's hand before he tightened his grip even further. With a loud crunching noise from the Grimm, the monster's body stopped moving and its arms became limp. The creature's corpse began to evaporate in Terracotta's hand while the principals and Dean Cadance just stared in shock at what happened. "We keep the students safe. Start taking them inside," Terracotta told the other women. The regular teachers were still surprised as they just saw a man kill a monster literally single-handedly. "...Yeah, okay," Cadance managed to said as she still stared at Terracotta and processed what happened. On the skate track, Twilight was trying to reach for her amulet so that she could turn it off and stop the rifts. However, a plant managed to grab at her ankle and began to pull her away from it. Rua heard Twilight's cry for help and teleported in front of the plant's 'face'. Kicking it aside, the plant only roared before it grabbed at Rua with a free tendril and captured her. Rua teleported free and continued to fight the plant with her martial arts skills as Twilight tried to free herself from the vine around her legs. When another vine was sneaking up on her, Spike began to protect his friend and bit down on the plant while Vixen used her illusion Semblance to distract any Grimm that approached Twilight. Indigo Zap continued through the course, but a vine monster she approached managed to leave a crater just below the ramp she was heading down. Falling into the hole, Indigo was defenseless as the vine and a Boarbatusk approached her. When they saw her in trouble, Rainbow Dash flew by the plant to distract it while Silver used his Semblance to transform into a wolf and fought the Grimm like a wild animal. As Sunset Shimmer got back in the race, she sped past Indigo and Silver. Indigo was determined to win, so she continued to ride her bike and successfully got out of the hole she was in. As Sunset and Indigo sped down the track, they dodged Grimm and the members of Fragment Hunter that were fighting them. Sunset noticed that no matter how many Grimm that her friends from Remnant fought, more just showed up from the red and black rifts to replace them. As the race continued, Rainbow Dash tackled a plant that was sneaking up on the girls racing and drove it into the dirt. As she stood on top of her defeat enemy with a victorious smile, she soon saw that Fragment Hunter was starting to become overwhelmed by the sheer number of Grimm that kept appearing. Sunset Blaze used her Semblance so that the Rainbooms and Fragment Hunter could communicate. "There's too many! We don't have all our gear," Layla exclaimed as she kept forcing Grimm back with her Dust jewelry and Telekinesis Semblance. "We're not going to make it!" "We need backup," Silver said as he transformed back to his regular Wolf Faunus form. The Boarbatusk he fought was dissolving as he exited the hole he left the Grimm in. Soon, a silver rift with a rainbow border opened up above the field and a loud noise was heard that surprised everyone. "Was that a sonic boom," Rainbow Dash asked as she floated above Silver. "It's backup," Azalea told everyone with a smile on her face when she saw something coming out of the new portal. After the sound was heard, a gust of wind kicked up on the field and Grimm began to drop dead when a blur past by them. When enough Grimm were defeated, Fragment Hunter and Rainbow Dash saw what the blur was as it slowed down and floated to the ground. A man with with windswept spiky blonde hair wearing a pair of goggles landed in front of them. He wore a black t-shirt, a bomber jacket with armored shoulders, cargo pants, and black and silver fingerless gloves. He didn't wear any boots or shoes, which revealed that he actually had falcon talons instead of regular feet. On his legs, he wore a set of greaves that looked like they could fire something. He soon removed his goggles to show his sky blue eyes and get a better look at his surroundings. Seeing where he was and who was in front of him, he turned to Azalea. "Azalea, where am I and what am I doing here? I just finished a mission," the man with falcon talons asked. "No time to talk, Uncle Ven," Azalea said. "Grimm are here and we need help." The man only nodded and placed his goggles back over his eyes before he started to fly in the air and attacked any Grimm he saw. Pulling out a combat knife designed like a falcon, he cut down the monsters he got close to. He also managed to slash away at them with his talons every time he kicked at the Creatures of Grimm. With blinding speed, the man managed to kill off the Grimm that began to emerge from the rifts while Fragment Hunter continued to handle the ones that were still on the field. The race kept going on as Fragment Hunter and their backup dealt with the Grimm. Indigo Zap and Sunset Shimmer were neck and neck as they approached the finish line, but Sunset managed to get ahead and crossed the finish line first. "Canterlot wins," Cadance announced as she managed to recover from Terracotta strangling the Beowolf. The Canterlot High students that stuck around for the race cheered for their victory against Crystal Prep while Cinch and CPA were upset at their second loss of the Friendship Games. "Everybody head into the gymnasium immediately," Cadance told the audience. As Fragment Hunter kept a path safe for the students, Twilight finally managed to reach her amulet and slammed it shut. When it closed, every rift that opened up did the same. Every vine was severed and any Grimm that started to come out of the rifts were cut to pieces when the rifts closed on them. As the rifts disappeared, Twilight was concerned about everything because she was unintentionally stealing magic and creating these dimensional portals as a result. When Fragment Hunter made sure that the other students were safely inside and that the last of the Grimm they could find were killed, they met back up with the Rainbooms. "Is everybody all right," Applejack asked as Sunset Shimmer pulled up next to them. "Exhausted, but we'll manage," Rua replied as she teleported next to Rarity. "Better than all right," Rainbow Dash said as she landed between Applejack and Rua. "We won!" "That's one way of looking at it," Celadon remarked. "Yeah, we won, but somebody could've been seriously hurt or even killed," Sunset Shimmer stated as she removed her helmet. "The magic is going haywire, those Grimm keep showing up, and I have no idea how to fix anything," she exclaimed with increasing anger and frustration. "This started when Twilight's pendant acted on its own," Azalea mentioned as she and the man with talons approached the group. "By the way, this is my uncle, Ventus Gaia. He's my dad's brother," she said introducing the man to the Rainbooms. "Hey," Ventus greeted. "Azalea tried to tell me as much as she could about this whole thing." "Um, excuse me," Twilight said as she approached everyone. "I didn't mean for any of this to happen. I just wanted to learn about the strange energy coming from your school. I didn't know that it was magic or... how it works," she apologized to the Rainbooms and explained why she had the amulet in the first place. "That's okay," Rainbow Dash said as she walked up to Sci-Twi. "Neither do we." "Dash, no," Rua and Azalea called out, but Twilight's amulet acted up again when Rainbow got too close. Floating toward the girl, the device opened up and began to drain Rainbow Dash of her magic. "Oh, no! Oh, no no no! Not again," Twilight panicked as she tried to pull back on her amulet. Rainbow Dash felt her magic being forcibly taken from her and she transformed back to normal. Sunset Shimmer checked up on Rainbow when she saw her look fatigued from the magic drain. "I'm sorry! It just started absorbing energy on its own! But I'm not sure how," Twilight tried to explain. "What do you mean you don't know how," Sunset questioned as she angrily confronted Twilight for hurting Rainbow Dash. As Twilight tried to close her amulet, it forced itself to stay open and it opened two more rifts. The first was a large purple rift that revealed a starry night sky above them while the second opened up a red and black rift right next to the group. The second rift soon cleared up enough so that everyone could see through it. Looking into the rift, everyone saw more Grimm that resembled centipedes. "Ugh! What are those things," Rarity exclaimed as she cringed at the sight of the new Grimm. "Night Crawlers," Celadon answered. "Nasty and poisonous insect Grimm that we had a trouble with when we first learned about them," she explained with a shudder. "Cover your ears, everyone," Lapis said as she stepped in front of the rift. Inhaling deeply, Lapis used her Semblance to unleash a sonic scream that was so loud and powerful, it decimated the Grimm before they could exit the rift. When the Grimm were killed, the red and black rift closed on its own while everyone recovered from Lapis' scream. At the same time, Principal Cinch began to spy on the large group that Twilight was speaking with. "My tracker also causes these corresponding rifts to appear! I don't know how that works either," Twilight said as she returned to the topic at hand. "Is there anything you do know?! Like how to get our magic back?! Or how to fix the portal to Equestria," Sunset Shimmer angrily questioned. "N-no," Twilight meekly answered as Sunset Shimmer wasn't calming down. "You're supposed to be so smart, but did you ever think that you shouldn't be messing around with things you don't understand," Shimmer told Twilight as she closed the amulet and the purple rift above the group closed with it. "But I want to understand," Twilight said. "But you don't," Shimmer exploded with anger. "And worst of all, you put the lives of my friends in danger!" Twilight was driven to tears at Sunset's outburst and she started to slowly back away. "I'm sorry. I didn't mean to," Twilight said as her voice cracked. She soon turned and ran away from Sunset Shimmer with Azalea and Spike calling out for her as she sobbed. As the dog chased after his master and Shimmer seethed in anger, she soon realized who she was talking to and what she just did. Feeling guilty for making a lonely and curious girl run away crying, she just buried her face in her hands. Out of sight from the Rainbooms, Fragment Hunter, and Ventus Gaia, Principal Cinch saw and heard everything. Smiling to herself, she realized that she could gain an advantage over Canterlot High in the final round. However, she was brought out of her sinister thoughts when the Principal Celestia and Ivy caught her attention. "You can't possibly call that a fair race," Cinch said as she referred to the chaos from earlier. "Principal Cinch, we all saw what happened. You can't think CHS or Beacon Academy had some kind of advantage," Celestia stated. "Can't I? Even without your trained attack plants and beasts, your students have wings," Cinch countered as she mentioned Rainbow Dash's transformation. "Trained attack plants? Trained beasts," Ivy said with an annoyed and angry tone. "They came out of rifts in space and time! Same with those monsters! They were attacking everything! I think you're just being a sore loser because of the last two events," she said as she confronted Cinch and got in her face. Terracotta soon pulled his wife away from Principal Cinch so that Celestia could speak again. "Well, the race certainly had some... extenuating circumstances," Principal Celestia mentioned. "Perhaps we should end the games now and declare a tie," she pondered aloud. "We don't want to risk anything else like this happening during the final event." "A tie? Was this your strategy all along? To force us into accepting you as equals? I think not," Cinch said as she refused to stop the Friendship Games. "The games will continue and Crystal Prep will prevail despite your antics and whatever performance-enhancing regimen your students are on," she stated as she walked away from the other adults. Ivy could only growl in anger as she glared at Cinch with enough fury to catch the attention of any stray Grimm. "How can you stand to work with her," Ivy asked Cadance. "Sheer willpower," Cadance said with a deadpan tone. "And spending nights with Shining Armor," she added with a longing sigh before she and Vice Principal Luna went to check on the students. "Obviously, winning all these years undefeated has built up an illusion in her head," Terracotta said as Fragment Hunter, Ventus, and the Rainbooms approached himself, Ivy, and Principal Celestia. "It will come crashing down today. I can tell," he added before he saw Ventus with the group that arrived. "Hey, little brother. When did you get here?" "Long story," Ventus said as he cleaned off his goggles. "I'm sorry that I couldn't stop all this from happening," Sunset Shimmer apologized to Principal Celestia. "It's not your fault, Sunset," Celestia told the girl. "Isn't it? I should know how to control the magic I brought here. But I don't. I let everyone down," Sunset stated. "And now Principal Cinch thinks we're cheating." "It doesn't matter what that bitch thinks," Ivy and Rua said. "But it does. The students here at CHS don't just wanna win. They wanna beat Crystal Prep. It isn't gonna count if the other side doesn't really think they lost. Crystal Prep is never gonna believe we won fair and square if there's magic around. And that magic is only around... because of me," Sunset Shimmer sadly explained. "Those prep school pieces of Grimm bait can kiss my knuckles if they think you're cheating," Rua exclaimed. "If they believe that, then they're probably going to cheat back. And when that happens, I'll be ready for them," she said as she grinned. "We have one event left. Let's get it over with so that I can deal with those idiots."