//------------------------------// // Amateur Movie Maker // Story: Equestria Girls/Sonic Boom: The Crossover Series Pre-Sequel Sequel // by GreenS21 //------------------------------// A couple of days have passed since Sunset and her friends made contact with Team Sonic and joined their fight against Dr. Eggman. In that time, relatively little has changed; Sonic and his friends continued their daily attacks on Eggman’s Badniks, though with the girls helping them in their own way. Since Eggman had Sunset designated as a capture target, she often allowed them to see her to draw them away to where her friends were waiting to use their magic to take care of them. Amazingly, none of the members of Team Sonic, not even Sticks, suspected them of having magic as they never seemed to see how they dealt with the Badniks. Spike and the girls really wanted to reveal the truth about Eggman to the rest of Canterlot, but they knew that it wasn’t going to be easy due to all the attention the media was giving him and so many people believing every word he said. They were going to need solid evidence to show to the world in order to have a chance of exposing him, which seemed like it was going to be tricky since he’d been making fewer public appearances the last few days. Even his robots were making their daily patrols less frequently, which had some of the girls worried he was planning something big. Still, they never came anywhere near Canterlot High and they didn’t seem to know where Team Sonic was holed up, and they would be finding out the answer for themselves soon enough. As per their new afterschool routine, Spike and most of the girls went to meet up with Team Sonic at what they were now terming their secret base. They were currently waiting for Rainbow Dash and Fluttershy to arrive. Fluttershy obviously wanted to go with her friend, whom some of the girls suspected wanted to do something fun on before coming. They couldn’t blame her, though; they were all starting to notice that, when they visited, they really didn’t do much. It made sense since Sonic and his friends needed to stay hidden, but their visits tended to be short as a result. At the moment, Tails, Twilight, and Sunset were working on the fox’s laptop at the front counter, Rarity was inspecting and cleaning all the surfaces, Sticks was doing… something that was keeping her quiet in her home away from home, and everyone else was loitering around. The tranquility was disturbed slightly when Tails suddenly said, “Yes! All right! I’ve got the Wi-Fi up and running, guys!” Applejack tilted her hat up, both her and Sonic looking over from where they were leaning against the other counter as she asked, “Y’all got that worked out? Sticks ain’t gonna chew on the box or nothin’?” Sunset looked over and said, “We’re pretty sure she won’t find it, Applejack. Even if her brain is somehow wired to pick up the waves, it won’t be easy for her to find.” Applejack shrugged, “Here’s hopin’. Don’t wanna be regularly replacin’ that.” Twilight looked at Tails and said, “I must admit, I’m still a little surprised. Even though you guys are constantly going up against an evil genius back on your world, I wouldn’t have said an Internet equivalent was readily available on a faraway island.” Tails replied, “Well, Eggman is a heavier user than we are. We mostly just use it to electronically communicate with others on sites such as FriendSpace.” Pinkie spoke up from the booth she was sitting at, “FriendSpace? Ooh, I wonder if that’s anything like MyStable!” Tails shrugged, “It could be. Similarities do exist between universes after all.” Rarity muttered to herself as she cleaned off a nearby table, “If things are so similar, then why doesn’t he invent something that can do all this for them?” Amy overheard her and leaned over from the booth to whisper, “Tails has done that before. It tends to not work out like he planned.” Rarity raised an eyebrow, giving her an annoyed look that Amy smiled sheepishly at. The two, along with everyone else, turned to look when they heard the back door open and saw Rainbow and Fluttershy step out. Fluttershy was shouldering her backpack and Rainbow had what appeared to be a newspaper tucked under her arm. “What took you two so long?” Sonic asked. “I’m sorry. I just wanted to stop at home before we came,” Fluttershy apologized. Sonic glanced at her backpack, “You didn’t bring your animal buddies, did you? We’re still cleaning up after yesterday.” He looked over at Rarity and Amy when they let out a huff almost simultaneously, raising an eyebrow at the looks they were giving him. Rainbow spoke up for her friend, “No, no, she knows. She just had to drop them off and comfort them. That takes a while sometimes. She also wanted to pick something up.” Fluttershy nodded, “I noticed you have a, um… working tape player. I thought maybe you all might like some music to listen to.” Knuckles poked his head out of the backroom, “I could go for some music. It’s in here.” Fluttershy looked back at Sonic and saw him nod, so she made her way over to the echidna. While they went into the backroom, Sunset walked over to Rainbow and asked, “Anything else happen?” Rainbow replied, “Well, you know, I mainly wanted to see if I could mess with Egghead’s bots a bit, so of course I was gonna give Fluttershy a lift.” Sunset gave her a knowing smile at that. Rainbow then said, “I couldn’t find any, but it wasn’t a total waste of time. I think I found out why he’s been so quiet lately.” She grabbed the newspaper and held it up to Sunset, “They were just putting this out when I saw it.” Sunset took the paper in both hands. It was from the Quotidian Tuba, one of the so-called ‘elite’ newspapers in Canterlot. While it was seen as such by much of the city’s upper class, it was considered a controversial tabloid by others for its slants and publishing false or questionable stories to sell more papers. It, like some other newspapers and television outlets, had bought into Eggman’s slander and seemed intent on furthering his smear campaign, living up to its name with new stories that tried to make Sonic and his friends look like the bad guys and Eggman look good. For once, though, it seemed the newspaper managed to publish a truthful story as the main article showed a picture of the damage Lyric had caused to Eggman’s building, the headline proclaiming ‘MUTANT ENEMIES MULTIPLY! Doctor Kintobor’s Friendly Robot Business Attacked, Suspects His Enemies Are Growing in Number!’ After reading the headline aloud so everyone could hear, Sunset looked at Rainbow and started, “Is this…?” Rainbow replied, “Pretty sure it’s real. That’s the other reason it took a while to get here. I was seeing what everyone else was saying.” She held up her phone and gestured to it, “It didn’t take much; just one search was all it took. It’s all over the local news that Eggman’s place was attacked by a giant snake.” Sonic grunted, “Lyric…” Twilight asked, “Any specifics yet?” Rainbow answered, “All they’re saying is he stole a bunch of crates full of parts and attacked a security guard.” Rarity spoke, “Oh, how dreadful! Is the guard okay?” Rainbow replied, “Yeah, but apparently he’s in the hospital. Guess Lyric really did a number on him.” Tails said, “Well, that explains it. Eggman’s probably had to deal with the insurance at least over the last few days.” Applejack looked at him, “Ya really think he gave them health insurance?” Tails shrugged, “Well, he probably never thought they’d actually have to use it.” Sunset held a hand to her chin, “So Lyric’s starting to reveal himself… But where could he be? I’ve been checking since we first met up; nothing on giant, otherworldly snakes. How has he managed to hide himself this well?” That was a question nobody had an answer to. Suddenly, Knuckles came out of the backroom carrying a boombox over his head with Fluttershy following behind. “Found it! It was under the table,” he said, Sonic rolling his eyes in response. After he set it down on the counter, Fluttershy thanked him and set her backpack down on the counter. She reached into it as she said, “I brought so many with me. I guess I’ll just put in the first one I grab.” She pulled a cassette tape out and, without looking at it, turned and slid it into the boombox. Almost as soon as she hit the PLAY button, a riveting and atmospheric song began to come out of the speakers. While everyone else glanced over intrigued, Sonic immediately snapped to attention, his eyes wide as he heard the first notes of the song. He glanced over at the boombox as the song continued for a few seconds before suddenly zipping out of the room and into the back. He came back after a few moments carrying Tails’ blaster and immediately ran over to the boombox, turning it to face him. He then grabbed both sides of it and began shaking it vigorously, causing the music to distort a bit. “As I…” The song stopped when Sonic suddenly hit the EJECT button, causing the tape to shoot out like a clay pigeon. As it reached the height of its flight, Sonic spun around and grabbed the blaster in one hand. He then pointed it up and pulled the trigger, the shot completely destroying the tape. There was silence for several moments before Spike looked at Sonic and asked, “Why’d you do that?” Sonic lowered the blaster and gave a perturbed expression as he said through clenched teeth, “I hate that song.” Amy spoke, “Even so, Sonic, that’s no reason to destroy one of Fluttershy’s tapes.” Fluttershy stammered, “T-That wasn’t one of mine! I didn’t even know we owned a tape with that on it!” Rainbow remarked, “Yeah, I’m pretty sure that’s not something even your brother would listen to, Fluttershy.” While she was talking, Fluttershy started looking through her backpack for another tape, this time making sure to read the labels. While she selected a tape with some nice show tunes on it, Pinkie piped up, “That was so cool! I wish I’d had my phone out; that would’ve made a great video!” Sonic looked at her, “‘Video’?” Sunset spoke, “She means like something you’d post online to share with others. You saw those on sites like FriendSpace, right?” Sonic replied, “I remember comments and pictures last time that was the subject of the day. Not really any videos from what I recall.” Rainbow said, “Wow. I hope there are videos there. That was the kind of thing a lot of people would watch here.” Knuckles looked at her and asked, “What, shooting a thing?” Rainbow replied, “Well, that’d get some views by itself, but the way he did it? Lot of replay value in that.” Applejack said, “She’s right. Y’all probably wouldn’t be surprised by what shows up on the Internet.” Pinkie piped up, “Ooh! I know!” Everyone looked at her. “We should make a whole bunch of videos of you guys doing all kinds of things and post them online! That’ll show people there’s another side to you besides what Eggy is saying about you and make them start raising questions about him! It’ll be part of our campaign against him!” There was silence for several moments before Sunset said, “That’s… a good idea, Pinkie.” Twilight nodded, “Yeah. I mean, it wouldn’t be without the problems that often come with posting videos online, but it would certainly do quite a bit more than just smashing his robots and running all the time.” Rainbow, Applejack, Fluttershy, and Rarity all nodded in agreement. Amy asked, “So, these videos… Are we supposed to make them in… here? Wouldn’t that kind of tell people where we are?” Applejack said, “Nah, o’ course not. Not all of ‘em, anyway. There’s only so much ya could do in here; you’d run outta things ta do.” Sonic went next, “Well, what would we do in these videos, then? I mean,” he looked over at Sunset, “do you girls make a lot of videos? What do you do?” Sunset replied, “Well, sure. We make videos, and we post stuff online. I, for instance, have my own channel called Shimmer Code where I post my videos, particularly my video game livestreams.” Rainbow said, “And I do a lot of music videos, both those that I’ve recorded and for the Rainbooms.” Rarity nodded, “Those are certainly ideas. You could also come up with your own ideas, or simply imitate what’s popular if you can’t come up with anything.” Tails asked, “Like what?” Twilight said, “That’s a good question. Let me see the laptop for a moment.” She sat down on the edge of the counter and turned it towards her, typing on the keyboard. “Let’s just see what shows up after a quick search.” After a few moments, she spoke, “Hmm. Human suffering. That became popular with home videos and never seems to go out of style. Video game walkthroughs. That’s an alternative to livestreaming where you can record beforehand and not have to talk if you don’t want to. Do-it-yourself videos, art tutorials, reaction videos, unboxings, people really like to see others spend money, a lot of memes, and… Oh.” Her face fell slightly, “Apparently bee puns are making a comeback.” She clicked on a video link and turned the laptop to face everyone, forcing Tails to have to climb over the counter to see, the video showing a cartoon bee talking to a flower that had a sad expression on its face until the inevitable pun came. Everyone looked at the screen while either shuddering or raising their eyebrows. “Really? That’s something someone made and put up for others to see?” Amy asked. “Yes, and according to this, it has been trending for almost two weeks now. A video that’s less than ten seconds long made for the sake of a pun is still popular now. Let that sink in for a moment,” Twilight said. “Well, they ain’t gonna be doin’ any puns,” Applejack remarked. Sonic turned to the cowgirl with a cocky smirk, “Oh, that’s where you’re wrong, Applejack. I got a whole treasure trove of puns. I’ll be doing plenty of those in addition to everything else.” Knuckles pointed at him and spoke, “Oh yeah? Well, I’m… I got even more puns than you do! Nobody’s gonna want to listen to your puns because they’ll be too busy listening to mine!” Sonic retorted, “Gimme a break, Knuckles! You can’t do a fired pun properly!” He pointed his thumb towards the laptop, “You probably won’t even be able to do a bee pun as good as that!” Knuckles asked, “Oh yeah? You really wanna bet you got me BEE-t?” Sonic retorted, “I’ll tell you right now: I’m gonna out-BEE-d you!” When the echidna stared blankly at him for a few moments, he looked around and said, “See? Flew right over his head!” Amy spoke, “All right, enough you two!” She looked around, “While some of those do sound like they would be interesting to record, others seem like they would be misrepresentative or,” she nodded in Sonic and Knuckles’ direction, “even worthy of a wince or two. Is this really the best option for us?” Rainbow spoke, “Uh, yeah. Sure, there’ll be trolls and people like the guy in charge of this newspaper who’ll do whatever they can to give you a hard time, but the Internet basically exists for this kind of thing.” Twilight said, “That might be debatable, but Rainbow does make a good point, Amy. You wouldn’t be the first ones to try something like this.” Rarity added, “And there are certain other benefits involved.” Sunset nodded, “Monetary benefits for one, if you’re willing to work hard for them.” Amy suddenly looked less apprehensive at that. “Ah. Looks like we found the magic word,” Applejack smirked. “We have to do something if we’re going to fix this place up and start figuring out how we’re going to get home,” Tails remarked. Rainbow crossed her arms as she said, “And this would probably be your best way to do it right now. I seriously doubt Rarity’s gonna share her credit card information with you guys again after what Amy did.” ________________________________________ The girls were sitting around a table in the school cafeteria at lunchtime several days earlier when Rarity’s cellphone suddenly rang. She pulled it out and checked the caller ID before answering it, glancing upwards. “Hello? Yes. …Mm-hmm.” Her face creased in concern, “Really?” Her friends looked at her as she continued to respond to whoever was on the other end, watching her expression shift from concerned to shocked, then to a look of realization, and finally to anger. Her grip on her phone tightened and everyone in the cafeteria turned to look at her when she stood up and screamed at the top of her lungs, “AMY ROSE!!!” ________________________________________ “Ugh,” Rainbow uttered while rolling her eyes. Sonic walked over to her and asked, “Oh, you get moments like that too, huh?” Rainbow raised an eyebrow down at him while Rarity did the same thing to Amy, who suddenly looked sheepish again. Sunset spoke, “I guess it’s unanimous, then. We should probably start by setting up a video account for everyone and then we can get to work.” She and the rest of the girls all made their way over to Twilight, who was already beginning the process on Tails’ laptop. ________________________________________ Tails finished setting his materials on his makeshift worktable in the back of the hideout along with his tools before checking to make sure he had everything. Once he was done, he looked towards the camera and, realizing that it was recording, cleared his throat before speaking, “Hello viewers, and welcome to my High-Tech Handiworks Channel. My name is Tails and today, I’m going to teach you how to build one of my earliest inventions for your personal and practical uses. I call it the Reverse Polarizer. Don’t let the name befuddle you; what you see here on the table is all that’s required to build this remarkably useful device in portable form. How it works is that, through the way it generates energy, it’s capable of reversing any…” He was cut off by Rainbow Dash saying, “I can’t take this anymore! CUT!” Tails blinked and stared at her in surprise as she stopped the recording on her phone. She then placed her hands on her hips and gave him an annoyed look, “Tails, what was that?! I’ve seen Applejack fake better than that!” Tails looked angered at her words. “I’m not faking anything. I’m explaining,” he defended. Rainbow replied, “Yeah, and you’re doing it poorly! You’re jumping back and forth between your explanations, and it’s just coming off as clunky. And what’s with your word choice?” Tails asked, “What’s wrong with my words?” Rainbow answered, “You keep using big words even though you don’t have to. This isn’t a cartoon; you don’t have to use big words to explain everything. You managed to explain the Reverse Polarizer to me easily enough. Do the same for this video. Go for a wide audience instead of just something only the techie kids at CHS would watch.” Tails put his hands on his hips, “I think you’re making too big a deal out of this, Rainbow. It’s an instructional video and I think I should follow my own style rather than make it your way and read your script.” Rainbow held her left hand up to her face as she sighed, “I’m not trying to tell you what to do, Tails. I’m trying to give you hints to help you focus and make the most of your time so that instead of a video that lasts half an hour, your video’s only half as long.” They both looked towards the door when they heard Sonic’s voice outside, “I just finished another pun video! Better pick up the pace, Knuckles!” Rainbow looked back at Tails and said, “All right, let’s take a minute and then try this again. I won’t stop recording this time, but at least think about what I said.” ________________________________________ “And we just add a few light strokes to this snowflake so that it looks different from its partner. Because like every individual, every snowflake is unique on the surface, even if they do seem to look alike. And that’s why we all deserve to have a friend,” Amy was saying as she painted a snowy landscape with a closeup of two snowflakes on an easel. “And… that’s a wrap!” Sunset said a few seconds after Amy took her brush away. In response, Rarity stopped recording. “It’s a very lovely painting, Amy,” Rarity commented as she saved the video on her phone. Amy stepped back to get a better look at her work as she replied, “Yes, it is. I think this is one of my best paintings yet.” Pinkie leapt up from her seat, “You should’ve worn the wig!” Amy looked distastefully up at the big brown wig the pink girl was holding up as she said, “I already told you I’m not wearing that ridiculous thing.” Rarity glanced up, “That’s a sign of good taste. I wouldn’t wear it either.” She then returned her gaze to her phone. “It’s the principle, Amy! You’re supposed to wear the wig for this!” Pinkie argued. “Well, I guess I’m just new wave,” Amy replied. ________________________________________ “I think you’d be a great sidekick for me,” Knuckles remarked, leaning against the front counter while holding a clipboard and pencil and talking to Sonic, who was sitting across from him on the counter with an unamused expression on his face. A wall of green behind Knuckles was the only other thing that could be seen. “No, Knuckles. I’m looking for someone to be MY sidekick,” Sonic said, sounding as exasperated as he looked. Knuckles seemed to be thinking while he was talking and spoke afterwards, “We’d have to change your name, though. I’m thinking… ‘Knuckles Junior’.” Sonic reached over and took the clipboard and pencil from him and started crossing something out on it. “All right, cut!” Applejack said. Sonic and Knuckles both looked over at her while Fluttershy and Pinkie Pie began taking the green wall down. “That was such a disappointing day. You’re not really going to show that to everyone, are you?” Knuckles asked. “‘Course we are. Y’all got some interestin’ experiences under yer belts, and the best stuff usually comes from personal experience. These videos should draw in some viewers and give ‘em a good laugh,” Applejack replied. “Really? Like half the time when we have adventures, we’re just sitting around not doing anything action-y or heroic. Who would want to watch us doing that?” Sonic asked. Pinkie popped up next to the counter, startling Knuckles. “You never know until you try!” she grinned. ________________________________________ Twilight and Spike watched as Knuckles showed a deeper, more dexterous side of himself, recording him carefully assemble a birdhouse piece by piece. “This is amazing, Knuckles. I could never put anything together this well on my own, yet you make it look so easy.” She brought her phone closer, “Can you tell the viewers what you’re doing?” Knuckles looked up at her, “Uh, what do you mean?” Twilight clarified, “You know, explain it step by step. Tell us how you selected the materials for this birdhouse and how you’re putting it together.” She noticed how he glanced back and forth between her and the birdhouse, so she said, “You can keep working, of course, but it would be really good for the video if you could explain it as well.” Knuckles raised an eyebrow, “I have to do more than one thing here? I’ve never had to do that before, Twilight. I don’t know if I can.” Spike looked at Twilight, “Maybe we should just, uh…” Twilight caught onto what he was saying and said, “Sorry, never mind my question, Knuckles. Just… keep doing it the way you always do. We can edit that in later.” Feeling relieved at that, Knuckles returned to building the birdhouse. ________________________________________ “Hey, everybody! Welcome to another episode of Dude-itude Extreme Sports and Stunts with your host, me, Sonic!” Sonic said to the camera, his face close to it. He backed away a bit, revealing he was holding a golf club in his left hand. “So previously, we’ve done the Free Fall Basket as well as the inaccurately named Mount Safety Course, and now today you’re going to see my classic Gopher Ball Trick Shot!” He leaned closer to the camera, his right arm moving to in front of his face like he was going to reveal a secret, “You might call it ‘golf’, but we call it Gopher Ball back home and it’s not the same if we don’t call it that.” Sonic turned away, the camera following a short distance behind him as he stepped up to the tee and got into his stance. As he lined up his shot, a camera being held by a drone activated, causing a shift to a side view. It moved up as he brought his club back and then quickly followed the ball once it was up in the air. It kept moving until it had a good view of the hole up on top of a tall hill, giving a clear view when it hit the ground and rolled into it. Micro Chips and Heath Burns were watching the video in the cafeteria and talking about it as it played and afterwards. They weren’t the only ones; a lot of Canterlot High’s student body were watching and/or talking about all the recently posted videos featuring Sonic, Tails, Knuckles, Amy, and Sticks. Some were wondering how they were able to post so many videos, but most were looking at how they were acting in them and wondering if what Dr. Eggman had said about them was really true. On the side of it all, Sunset and her friends sat at their usual table, smiling as they listened in on what their fellow students were saying. ________________________________________ Eggman glared up at his large screen as he watched the video playing on it. Ever since he heard Sonic and his friends were posting videos on the Internet, he made sure to go online multiple times throughout the day to see if they’d posted any new videos. Today he’d discovered a video posted by a user whose online name seemed like it would be the actual name of a rainbow-haired girl his robots had been seeing a lot of lately. The video involved said girl and a pink-haired girl investigating a badger’s den and discovering the ‘treasures’ within. The video had reached a point where Sticks discovered the two and chased them out while the rainbow-haired girl hastily yet coolly told the viewer that that was all the time they had and they would be back for more another day. Eggman leaned back in his chair and grumbled, “Can you believe this? Is this really what passes for entertainment in this world?” Behind him, Orbot and Cubot were floating in front of his desk, having seen the whole video as well. “It does start off rather intriguing, Boss,” Orbot commented. “Yeah, and that sudden shock at the end… Really makes you want to see if they’ll really go back into that badger’s home,” Cubot added. Both of them were silenced when Eggman turned his chair around and slammed his fist down on the arm of his chair. Pulling himself up to his desk, Eggman said, “Well, I don’t care what that girl is looking for. She has a video on her account featuring one of Sonic’s friends, so it’s the same as if it was one of their videos. It almost pains me to have to get her account closed, but she’s not allowed to post that.” He began typing on his keyboard as he spoke, “Go, my Trollbots and Downbots! Post disparaging comments and give her all the thumbs down that you have! Get them to shut her account down forever!” Cubot looked at Orbot curiously. The red robot quietly whispered to him, “I don’t think that’s all it takes to get someone’s account closed, but since he enjoys it so much, let’s just let him keep believing it.” ________________________________________ I got a team behind me that can hold me down There isn’t anybody to fold me, pal Please don’t act like you know me now Ain’t nobody around that can slow me down You dead beats are dead meat I’m- Lyric paused the video, glaring at Sonic on the screen as he was frozen playing a guitar while swinging on a tire swing. Thanks to this World Wide Web, he was now able to confirm that all of his enemies, more or less, had been dragged to this world with him, which suited him just fine. The bleakness of his situation would surely have destroyed anyone else, but here he was, proving he was a survivor, that he was the last Ancient for a reason. He didn’t have access to his robots and his suit’s weapons had been damaged during the travel, but he wouldn’t let either of these things discourage him. He knew what he had to do to fix his suit, and with the parts he’d stolen from Eggman, he would be able to build a new army now that he had found a suitable hiding place. And thanks to the World Wide Web, he knew the local law enforcement was trying to collect and store the shattered pieces of the Lost Crystal of Power like they knew better than him what to do with it and all his enemies had ended up with him. It had also showed him more things than he would’ve like to have seen, things that still made him grimace as he thought about them. He wasn’t sure he’d ever look at Sonic or these strange creatures the same way again. Lyric shook his head to get those thoughts out. Right now, he had to focus and be patient. His chance for revenge would come soon enough, but he had to be ready for it. Even if these creatures were inferior to him, he couldn’t underestimate them. He’d done that with Sonic and it had cost him. He wouldn’t make that same mistake again. He glared at the screen again; he found anger to be a good motivator. “Enjoy yourself while you can, Sonic. I’ll be seeing you soon, and this time, you’ll be the one who makes the fatal plunge,” he growled before shutting the screen off and turning away. He had work to do.