Sienna had spent the past week, since Mako disappeared, sitting by herself to gather her thoughts, or she could spend time training to loosen her rage at the incompetence of her subordinates.

She even took some of her rage on the Raiders; slashing them with her sword, shooting them with her ray gun, or just plain wrestling them to the floor.

Omnisha never felt so relieved to not being in the field with her. “She’s out of control! This cannot go on.”

Mako, had been unconscious ever since blasting himself across United Equestria, and now he was finally starting to awaken, though he still felt very woozy.

He found himself lying in a warm bed of thick furry blankets inside of a hut, and his uniform was hanging on a clothesline, washed, but still damaged. “Oh…!” he groaned as he rubbed his head, “Where am I? What’s happened to me? The last thing I remember, my ray gun went kaphlooey and blew me clean into the sky.

Just then, a humanoid zebra dressed in burlap robes came into the hut and answered in rhyme,

“You are here because I brought you inside,
Had I not come along and I fear you would have died.”

Mako couldn’t believe this; a pony, or rather had saved him?! He would have protested, but his head still felt weary.

“Now, now, you just lay back and get some good rest,
I will fix you some hot soup and give it some healing zest.”

Mako just lay back in his bed, still unable to believe all this, but he was much too weary to question right now, and he fell back asleep.

Meanwhile, somewhere deep within another forest, with what equipment he still had, Slash had set up a little camp for himself where he spent the last week sleeping in the wilderness, training hard, but also furiously raging over his exile!

“All these decades of loyalty and hardship to serve Sienna, and my reward is exile because of that little brat Mako…?!” he thundered to himself. He let out of fierce growl and took a huge swing with his sword breaking a huge rock into pebbles.

He calmed himself and began to think, “Somehow, I must prove my honor to Sienna and she’ll let back to the ship.

He suddenly heard the sounds of a gong bonging. He made his way to the edge of the forest and used his mini telescope to see deep into town.

When Sienna had ejected him from her ship, she simply sent him to a random place on the planet; New Horn Kong, and the gong he just heard was coming from a restaurant nearby;“The Cook-Lings Inn”

This place was run and managed by Cookie Dough, his wife Khana Ling. The two had opened their doors wide at the sound of the gong; Khana carried her ten month old baby son, Chopstick, in a buggy she wore.

She addressed the public nearby in Chinese,“Lái ba, lái ba. Chī nǐ de tiánchōng, bìng yǒu yīgè qiú!”Then her husband repeated what she said in English…

This was their traditional chant to alert people that their joint was now open, and of course, being world renowned for their exquisite cuisine, the place was flooding with hungry and eager customers.

“Huh!” scoffed Slash “Only fools give money to be served. Real fighters take what they desire without pay.”

He was about to run off when he suddenly noticed, Cookie Dough holding up a small, thin item wrapped almost poorly in brown paper and tied with string. “What’s that?

He then noticed Khana and Cookie conversing, and being able to read lips, he spelled out what they were saying.

Khana nodded “I hope he will be arriving soon. He and his friends have been looking for this.”

Then they went into their restaurant to cater to their customers, while Slash began to ponder, “Could it be…?

“We now have two pieces of Mystic Map and two of the legendary items.” said Grand Ruler “Now only two fragments and two items remain.”

The powerless amulet and the knight’s helmet were put aside as everyone studied the new map fragment. It did not connect to the piece they had, but it did have carved images of the four items…

The helmet being one, and the amulet was another. The two remaining items carved into the gold seemed to resemble a Shield, and simple round ball, but exactly what kind it was, no one could say.

“…Creatures of Four differences, with four blades of difference shall reveal the entrance to the Temple of Mystery.”

Krysta sighed “Another dead-end. We KNOW we’re looking for a temple, but we want to know WHERE it is.”

Lightning calmed her, “Easy, Krysta, we’ll find it. We’ll have to keep finding the rest of the map.”

Celestia agreed, “And we’ve already located one, which is why we called you here, Lightning.” Then she raised her hand and made a letter magically appeared.

Lightning read the letter, from Cookie and Khanna, saying that they were questioned by Starfleet Scouts that had detected the energies from a fragment of the map emitting from Cookie and Khana’s home in New Horn Kong, and requesting Lightning to personally come and get it himself.

“But why didn’t the scouts just report this by telepathic message?” asked Krysta.

“Remember, Krysta, we’re trying to keep low about this so Sienna doesn’t get wise to us. Telepathic and Audio messages can he overheard or intercepted; Letters can’t be so easily, especially if it was sent by friends instead of soldiers.”

Grand Ruler nodded in agreement. “Anyways… you have your mission, Lightning. Your team will consist of you, Starla’s droid, Krysta, Pinkie Pie, and Rainbow Dash, in case you should run into trouble.”

Celestia looked down at the map pieces and items, and began to think about her mother again.

Meanwhile, Mako had just finished his helping of soup, and some special tea Zecora made to help his weariness. He felt physically better, but was still confused more than ever.

“Why would you help me?” he asked “You’re a United Equestrian. Aren’t we supposed to be enemies?”

“While that is true, you are aligned with the enemy
I saw that you were hurt and needed help especially

While may say that I could be out of my mind,
My favorite motto is to never leave someone behind.”

Mako felt touched by such a heartfelt speech, almost as if it were for the first time.

Just then, there was a knock at the door, Spike and Rarity came in. “Hello, Zecora…” Rarity said cheerfully. “Sorry to waltz in like this, but I require your--” she stopped and she and Spike gasped when they saw…

“You attitude is understandable, but please do not fight
This poor boy was found injured, and I helped to put him right.”

Rarity approached Zecora calmly, “Um, Zecora… darling…” she giggled nervously, “Um… not quite sure you’ve noticed but, HE… IS… THE… ENEMY…!!”

Her shouting made the walls rattle, but Mako held up his hands “I am unarmed. I have no intentions to fight.”

Spike growled softly and glared suspiciously at him. “How do we know this isn’t some kind of trick?”

Mako assured him it wasn’t “Look, I still don’t get why you’d all be kind to me. All I want is go back to my sister, Sienna.” He began to cry softly showing his completely honesty, “…I’ve never been away from her, not even for a minute, and I’m scared…!”

Seeing his tears brought pain to their hearts. Spike and Rarity knew fully well that they should at least have brought him in for questioning, and maybe use him to help get back at Sienna’s forces, but seeing how frightened he was, they weren’t certain they could.

“Despite the obviousness…” Spike muttered, earning him an elbowing from his wife.

Mako didn’t seem willing to tell, as he still harbored skepticism and somewhat opposition of the United Equestrians, “I’ve seen this act before… you pretend to be nice, and then you show your true colors and beat me!”

The way he was behaving now, it was as if there was more to his and Sienna’s evil motivations than ever, as opposed to just being power hungry.

Rarity spoke calmly to him, “Darling, I can respect if you wish not to tell, but you know that we are Starfleet officers, and it is our job to deal with evil beings. So you may as well explain to us your troubles and make it easier for us and yourself.”

“Keeping secrets locked away can lead to harm, my youth
But sometimes it can clear the air… if you do tell the truth.”

Mako struggled with his inner-conscience, but finally he gave in, and told them his story…

Sienna and I were orphaned when I was no more than twenty years old; that’s pretty young for the people of our race. Our parents were returning home from a space expedition, but there was a terrible malfunction, and the ship crashed and burst into flames. There were no survivors.

Sienna and I had no other relatives, so we were sent to an orphanage. I’ll never forget the day we arrived!

“I’m so scared, Sienna! Mommy and Daddy are gone! I don’t want to live here!”

Sienna hugged metightly, trying to be brave for us both,“It’ll be okay, Mako. I’m still here with you, and I always will be. We’ll get through this together.”

The people who ran the orphanage were really nice, but some of the kids we grew up with weren’t. They loved to pick on me because I was small, and no one stood up for me… except Sienna.

“You leave my brother alone, you creeps, or we’ll see how loud you cry!”

Sienna often got into trouble for beating the bullies up, but when the owners of the orphanage found out about the bullies, they got into even bigger trouble, but… Sienna was there for me. She was the one person I felt I could trust on the entire planet.

Sienna and I were completely inseparable. She looked out for me like a mother caring for a child.

“Someday… I wanna fly in a real spaceship, and fly through space to see new planets.”

“Hey… I like that. I’m sure if we dream hard about it, it’ll come true.”

The orphanage was attacked by hostile thieves from outer space that looted treasure for profit and glory, and they kidnapped many orphans to serve as hostages. Sienna and I were among the poor victims.

We orphans were treated as slaves, and forced to work on the alien spaceship. We worked long and agonizing hours with hardly any rest, and little feedings. Sometimes the aliens would beat us silly, even if we did nothing wrong just for amusement.

They picked on me the most because I was the smallest and easily scared, and as usual… my sister stood up for me, often taking the beatings meant for me, doing extra chores for me so I could sleep.

She looked as if she would die one her feet, but she insisted it was okay,“Just… catch up… on your sleep, Mako. I can keep working.”

As time passed, the orphans began to die from being overworked, underfed, or succumbing from injuries inflicted, until only Sienna and I were left, and Sienna finally couldn’t take it anymore!

Years of painful losses, and abuse, she turned on our alien overlords, stealing their weapons and destroyed them in extreme rage.

I had never seen her behave in such a way, it was almost frightening, but we were free from slavery, and with that, Sienna took control of the ship, and she and I were now the owners of all the treasure onboard.

“This universe has taken much from us, Mako…! It took away our parents! It pushed us around and abused us, and now… I’d say it’s time for payback!”

Naturally, I felt the same way as she, and that’s when we began traveling all over, plundering treasures and valuables. They stole from us, now we were stealing from them!

As the decades passed, we grew stronger as our armies formed and used our resources to create Jemma-Nites and Raiders.

Then, Sienna discovered the fragment of Galaxia’s horn which revealed to us the Elements of Chaos, and the power they would give! It became our grandest and most desperate quest to find those elements, and with their mighty power, we’ll be the strongest in the universe!

The others were all struck with mixtures of disgust, but also of understanding, and rather shock.

“It sounds to me like you guys were consumed by greed and hatred.” said Spike “That’s no way to go about, believe me I know!”

Spike remembered how he let himself grow into that horrible dragon beast that kidnapped Rarity and stole many things.

Rarity remembered how she found the magic collar that turned everything she touched into gold, including Spike!

“Those who often let greed become their master,
It can only steer them one way: down the path of disaster!”

Mako felt his anger spiking, “They deserve it; all of them, after everything they took from us… we have every right to do this to them!”

Even Rarity was starting to lose her cool, “Forgive my tone, but have you any idea how insane and ridiculous you sound?! You’re blaming an entire galaxy of innocent creatures for things that happened to you.”

“Bad things happened to you, I can see that now and you have my sympathy for that, however, you’ve been attacking and tormenting so many other planets and races of people and beings that had nothing to do with it, and obviously never knew of your hardships.”

Mako fell silent in shock, as if he had been awakened to the reality of things for the first time in a long time.

“Believe us… we know how it feels.” said Spike “We’ve had our fair shares of tragedy and hardship, but you don’t see us blaming and needlessly attacking other races out of petty revenge.

We fight to PREVENT things like this, which is why we fight you and your sister’s forces.”

Meanwhile, Lightning and his team already arrived in New Horn Kong, and were taking a moment to get reacquainted with their friends.

Everyone thought it was so sweet, but Lightning cleared his throat, “Major Pinkie Pie, we’re here on official business.”

“Anyways, do you have it?” Starla asked through her droid. Cookie nodded and he held up the small package “Here, but don’t open it.”

Starla took the package and used her X-ray scanning to reveal the Map Fragment inside. It had no text on it, but it did have more carvings of the landmasses. “This is definitely what we’ve been looking for.” Starla said, and she took a few snapshots of the map inside.

Khana explained, “My great grand-mother used to work hard as a wood carver. She would spend her time making statues and seals carved from the wood from trees cut down for firewood.

One day, as she was walking through the forest, she came across a most unusual tree, which gave a mysterious glow. Ever so curious, my great-grandmother drilled through the tree with her tools, and discovered the golden plate.

She had never seen anything like it before, and realizing she had found something special, she came to a new passion to carve in stone to make trinkets and pendants.

She became well renowned in Horn Kong, but the golden plate which inspired her to all this, remained her most sacred treasure, handed down in our family.”

Everyone felt that was a deep story and Cookie held his wife close and said to the others “If you guys need this to end the war, it’s yours.”

Suddenly, there was a loud crash as the front doors and parts of the wall burst wide open, frightening everyone.

Slash entered the restaurant snickering as he held his sword, “Correction: it’s mine!” his hissed.

Many of the patrons in the restaurant headed for the other exists at the sides, “Stay where you are, all of you!” Slash thundered and he snapped his fingers…

At once, large crystal-like swords slammed down outside like fences blocking the ways out and surrounding the entire restaurant in a magical barrier, preventing anyone from leaving.

Then, right before Slash came his Jemma-Nite, Fencer; a Jemma-Nite that resembled a Fencer, wearing garbs and crystal armor, and wielding two powerful, glowing swords. These swords were not only powerful weapons, but combined with Fencer’s ability, they served as generators projecting the energy barrier that kept everyone trapped in, and all else out!

The civilians were all frightened more than ever, and worse, Starla’s droid began to jerk about softly. “Starla… what’s wrong?” asked Lightning.

The droid’s voice skipped and scrambled, “Barrier… cut… power link… losing… control.”

Then the droid went completely offline and flopped onto the ground, “Starla!” cried Lightning.

Back at home, Starla’s controls were completely locked out, and she groaned out loud “Ugh! I don’t believe it!” she groaned. “That barrier cut me off from my droid. I won’t be able to help the others.”

Suddenly, Shining Light began to cry from his room. Starla realized she had woken him up from his nap with her shouting.

So, she had no choice but to abandon her controls on the sofa, and tend to her baby.

Slash snickered, “That’s one pest down, and unless you want more to fall, you’ll hand over that map fragment to me!”

Krysta shook her head, “I can’t! Just as the barrier keeps us in, it also keeps us from warping out!”

Lightning and the girls knew they couldn’t risk battling inside the restaurant for fearing of causing unthinkable damage as well as hurting the civilians.

Pinkie then got an idea as she saw some small baking trays, and package wrapping just like the map’s wrapping in the droid’s hands.

“You have ten seconds…” sneered Slash “Ten seconds before I rampage through this dump and take the map anyway. Either way I win.”

Pinkie Pie suddenly stepped out, holding a wrapped package, “Okay! We surrender.” and she held up the package, “Here! Take the map piece!”

Slash was surprised to see this himself, and began to have his suspicions, “Now… throw it this way.”

“Pinkie…!” snapped Lightning, but Pinkie already tossed Slash the package and he caught it in his hands.

Despite the package was the same size as the one he had observed, he still had his doubts and put a small slit through the wrapping revealing it was a small baking tray, and before he could react, Pinkie zipped forth and head-butt slash hard in the chest, sending him out the door, and stopping just inches before the barrier outside.

Outside, thanks to the barrier, there wasn’t all that much room to move around, but Slash got up to his feet and found himself confronted by the trio of ponies, but he didn’t seem a bit worried “This is going to be fun.” and he called for his monster, “Fencer!”

Lightning went straight for Slash and swung his fist at him, but Slash dodged and then attempted to hit Lightning with his sword, only, for Lightning to bump his other arm into Slash’s arm, blocking him.

The two then began to engage in a fury of attacks, blocking and countering one another.

“A true treasure hunter must always stay prepared!” hissed Slash, “And once I defeat you, I can prove myself loyalty to Sienna again.”

As the two continued to brawl, the girls charged straight at the monster; jump-kicking straight for it!

Fencer held up its two glowing swords like shields shocking the girls on contact and flinging them back hard.

“Oh, you wanna play tough, huh?!” growled Rainbow. She rushed in again, and though she held no weapon, she swerved, dodged and evaded the monster’s every strike and slash.

Pinkie nodded and came rushing in hollering madly, and she tripped the monster up and then she and Rainbow jump-kicked again, slamming Fencer hard, backwards, near the restaurant doors.

“Pinkie, wait!” shouted Rainbow, but Pinkie already tackled the monster hard, and the two of them rolled right back into the restaurant…!

Lightning looked up when he saw the crash. “Pinkie, get out of there!” he called, but in his distraction, Slash kicked him hard, sending him crashing hard into Rainbow, and the two of them crashed inside too, forcing the patrons to scatter about.

Fencer knocked Pinkie off and sent her slamming into a table, crushing it on impact.

Slash entered the restaurant, frightening everyone again, “All that fuss, just to end up back in here again!”

Lightning was outraged, but concerned as well as he thought deeply,“If only there was more room outside, and no civilians in here we could really fighting strong!”

Khana couldn’t bear to see all this anymore, not wanting her friends and customers to get hurt anymore from those wicked beings. Then she saw the wrapped map fragment still in the hands of Starla’s dead droid.

“But we must, it may be the only way to stop all this chaos, and perhaps it will be possible for our friends to retrieve it somehow?”

Cookie honestly didn’t know what to think; he had seen monsters like Slash before, and most of the time, even after they get what they demanded they would still terrorize everyone, just for the fun of it…

…On the other hand, it was possible that this would be one of those few times it wouldn’t be such, and his wife had a point of protecting the others.

Fencer stood with its swords glowing and ready to cause a load of destruction, and Lightning and the fighters couldn’t fight back, not wanting to risk safety of the civilians.

“This is your last chance!” growled Slash “Surrender the map piece, or you’ll all be in pieces!”

Lightning and his team glared furiously at the evil villains, but suddenly heard Cookie Dough call to Slash, “Here, take it!” and he tossed the map piece to Slash.

Slash caught the piece, and broke open the wrapping revealing that it was the real deal! He snickered wickedly, “It seems that some of your kind has brains.”

Lightning looked over his should, in shock at Cookie Dough and what he had just done. However, Slash then reached for Fencer’s capsule and returned the monster inside, which also dispelled the barrier around the restaurant, and the next thing Slash knew, a teleportation device appeared before him; beamed down from Sienna’s ship.

This was exactly what he was hoping for. “I’ve gotten all that I need here, as much as I could finish you off now, my Captain has summoned me back. So until next time…!” He laughed and activated his teleporting, vanishing back to the alien ship.

“He totally just ran off like that, WITH the map piece!” Rainbow grumbled, and she looked angrily over at Cookie Dough, but it was Lightning who approached him, still looking rather stern.

Cookie and Khana felt rather nervous! As Commander, Lightning had the authority to authorize punishment on those who interfered in Starfleet affairs, as well as endangering others and giving in to the enemy!

Lightning, however, didn’t scold them, and smiled softly, “You were only trying to look out for everyone, even if it meant giving the enemy what they wanted. Of course, that doesn’t change the fact that Slash could have still attacked us anyway, and the fact that now we’ll have to work hard to get the map fragment from him…

Much as Rainbow still felt a bit outraged, Pinkie placed her hand on her shoulder telling her to ease up.

Khana and Cookie felt relieved and forced soft smiled, yet they still felt a bit regretful having to give into the enemy. “Will you be able to get the treasure back?” Khana asked.

The others agreed, but for now all they could do was head back to New Ponyville and report to their Majesties.

Lightning signed Cookie and Khana a small cheque to pay for all the small damages done inside the restaurant.

Meanwhile, Sienna walked down the corridors with Omnisha cautioning her, “Captain, are you certain it’s a good idea to allow Slash back? Because of him, your brother is still lost.”

Sienna halted in her tracks clenching her fist to supress the pain. “Perhaps, but Slash has successfully obtained a piece of the map to help us find the Elements of Chaos. That is quite essential to us.

Plus, letting the ponies live is perfect. We’ll let them uncover the remaining fragments and legendary items. It will save us the trouble of searching ourselves, and when the time is right… we’ll TAKE THEM from them!”

Omnisha couldn’t argue, but she was feeling concerned of Sienna now. She seemed to be focussing more on finding the Elements than her own brother.

“Oh, great… Now I’m starting to soften up and worry about that kid.” She grumbled to herself.

As for Mako, he was still in shock of realization. “I don’t know what to do now.” he said.

Spike and Rarity gazed at one another, realizing they had no choice up to now, “I think you better come with us.” said Spike.

Mako felt worried until Rarity comforted him, “We’re not going to arrest you, but we will have to keep close, because… we may have an idea how to end all this fighting between our respective sides.”

Mako was still unsure of going, but… after a few moments of though, he took Rarity’s hand agreeing to go with her and Spike.

“You have taken your first step in ending this war,
Perhaps soon there shall be peace between us and more.”

“Peace…”Mako thought softly to himself, something he hadn’t thought of in a very long time.“Maybe that would be better than just ruling the world.”

In our next episode: As Applejack’s folks become reacquainted with their new surroundings and new lives, the team hone in on yet another one of the legendary items, but also discuss an ultimatum for Sienna.

Who will get the legendary item first, and will Sienna honor the ultimatum?

Don’t miss the next exciting episode of “Starfleet Magic!”

(Next Episode: “Let’s make a REAL Deal”)

My Brave Pony Starfleet Magic: Season VII

by DakariKingMykan

Episode 16: Truth be Bold