//------------------------------// // Uncertain Friends // Story: Worlds Apart: The Chosen of the Prognosticus // by GMBlackjack //------------------------------// Vanilla’s house was a homely, simple construction situated near the edge of town. It was almost idyllic with the way it stood amidst the verdant trees and calm, rippling grass of the hills. The day itself was almost perfect as well, without a cloud in the sky. It was already past sunrise, but the horizon was still orange with its memory. “Why don’t Twilight or the others ever join us for breakfast?” Vanilla asked as she poured milk on Toph’s cereal. Toph shrugged, shoveling a huge spoonful into her mouth. “Probably way too fixated on their little project. Twilight only sleeps when she passes out, Tippi doesn’t need sleep, Lulu’s kind of a spoiled brat, and Blaze…” She frowned as she chewed on her cereal. “I don’t know. She seems deadly serious half the time, and the rest she’s on the lookout for boys.” Vanilla put a hand to her chin. “Girls get like that when they get older, Toph.” “How come Twilight isn’t?” “She’s old enough to have grown out of it.” “That’s a load of…” Toph paused, processing for a moment. “I actually don’t have any idea how old she is. Huh. Weird.” “You’ve been traveling with her for how long now?” “I think it’s been about a month? But half of that has been wasting time in that dumb shop.” She crossed her arms in a huff. “There has to be something else to do.” “Just because you aren’t able to help right now doesn’t mean they aren’t doing what needs to be done.” Vanilla glanced out the window at the Void in the sky. It had grown double in size since they’d arrived. “They’re trying their hardest.” “Sometimes I think Twilight’s the only one actually working.” Toph sighed, shoveling the rest of the food into her mouth quickly. She let out a belch. “Thanks for breakfast.” “Don’t mention it, it’s the least I can do for a growing hero!” “Yeah, yeah…” She stood up and walked to the door. After waving to Vanilla she trudged up the road back to Eggman’s abandoned lab. She’d tried rolling across the earth once—and decided to never do that again. It had taken her forever to flatten the road so it was easy to walk on once more. So, every day, she walked. She knew she could sleep at the lab if she wanted, but the food there was terrible and Vanilla was much better company than sleep-deprived Twilight, stuck-up Lulu, and that cat. Toph decided that she just wasn’t a cat person. She was soon close enough to the base for her senses to tell her what was going on inside. Twilight was asleep, as usual, and Lulu was working on something in the ship—presumably with Tippi. Blaze was… nowhere to be found. Instead, Toph sensed a large, muscular presence. Almost exactly like that O’Chunks guy. She would have said it was him if the figure wasn’t walking around through the base like it didn’t weigh well over a ton. What on earth…? She started running toward the base, focusing her attention on the O’Chunks-thing. To her shock, it changed shape. With a sharp puff of vibrations, it was suddenly a girl with an oddly square head. She was laughing, Toph was sure of it. Then the thing turned into Blaze. She’s a shape-shifter? Toph slowed her approach, deciding it was probably best to look casual upon arrival. She walked into the main hangar bay. Blaze was sliding down one of the railings, dropping into a roll the moment she ran out of rail. “Hey! How was breakfast with mom?” “Actually the best meal I’ve had in weeks, thank you!” Toph gave her a grin that could in no way be taken as pleasant. “Where’s Twilight?” “She’s been sleeping on the scrap-heap for…” Blaze counted on her fingers, quickly running out of digits. “...for about twelve hours.” “Finally got a full night’s sleep. Good for her.” Toph clapped her hands together. “I’ll be her alarm clock!” “It’s your funeral.” Blaze skipped into the ship and found Lulu. Toph couldn’t hear what they were saying, but she knew they were talking. Hopefully, they’d be a while. She broke into a run, getting to the scrap-heap as fast as she could. Sitting atop the pile of loose metal sheets, discarded screws, oiled gears, and random cables was an alicorn. She was a mess—absolutely covered in grease, missing part of her tail, and sporting wings as mangy as feather dusters. Still, despite this, she seemed peaceful. “I hate to ruin this,” Toph lied to herself. She punched a plate of metal and bent it around her fist. With a soft chuckle, she smashed it into the pile, letting out a resounding and satisfying ‘gong’ noise that filled the entire hangar. “Pancake!” Twilight shouted, jumping onto her hooves in an instant. “Where’s the rigamarole?!” “Twilight, listen—” “Why did you wake me up!? I was dreaming about… about… home…” A forlorn look came over Twilight's face. “Oh, Celestia, I…” Toph grabbed Twilight’s head. “Twilight, shut up, this is important. Blaze is some kind of shape-shifter.” “I… what?” Twilight blinked several times. “I sensed her change forms several times as I was coming here. She’s always made me uneasy, but this… she’s hiding something.” “I knew that,” Twilight said, carefully removing herself from Toph’s grip. “They both are. But they’re trying to help us fix this spaceship. Maybe shapeshifters are just treated badly in this world and she doesn’t want us to judge her.” “I might buy that. If one of the forms she turned into wasn’t O’Chunks.” Twilight paused. “Are… are you sure?” “Positive. No one else is that size with the posture of an ape. Almost thought it was him, but she walked around wrong when she took his form. ...I would pay to see that hulk trying to dance around like he weighed nothing.” “If… if she’s working with Count Bleck…” Twilight’s pupils shrunk to pinpricks. “Oh no.” “Oh no what?” “The wires… they really are being sabotaged, aren’t they? By her!” Toph punched her fist into the palm of her hand. “Now we’re talkin’! Let’s go make her spill the beans!” “I don’t want to jump to any conclusions, we’ll have to be sure. I’ll… I’ll set up some trap spells that will trigger on her specifically. Gather some information if she’s undoing my work...” Twilight tapped the ground with her hoof, no doubt formulating the specifics of some methodical plan. Toph groaned. “Really? More information gathering?” “For all we know, there’s a perfectly reasonable explanation for all of this, and accusing her with the fists you’re so eager to use will just destroy our relationship and get us kicked out of the garage.” Toph slumped onto the metal heap. “Fiiiiine… we can do it your way.” Twilight gave her a smile. “And no matter what, we’ll get through this, okay? And tell me the moment you sense anything else.” “Nothing to report on, ma’am.” Toph gave her a mock salute. “They’re leaving the ship now, let’s act normal.” However, Toph was not graced with Twilight’s terrible “act normal” skills just yet, because Lulu and Blaze didn’t come to them—they ran for the front of the hangar. Toph sensed elevated heartbeats, which concerned her. “Something’s happening.” The two of them ran onto the scene, though upon arrival Toph bumped into Tippi. “Sorry,” she apologized. After a moment of no response from anyone, she noticed that they were all looking slightly upward. “What are you all looking at?” “They’re looking at me, small fry,” came the harsh, hammy voice of a proud man. “Small fry!? Why don’t you come down here and tell that to my face!” Toph raised a fist in the direction of the man’s voice. “I don’t need to. I’m going to have my robots do it for me. See, you’re all in my lab.” “Your lab?” Twilight took a step back. “But that means you’re…” “The one, the only, Doctor Eggman!” Toph couldn’t sense him directly, but somehow she knew he was striking a ridiculous pose. “Now, it may look like all these robots in the field are dead, but I assure you, they’re anything but.” Toph heard a soft click, and roughly a third of the robots she previously thought were nothing more than scrap metal rose to their full height. There were humanoid beasts with missiles for wrists, angry beetles with cannons all over them, and a few things that took to the air and vanished from Toph’s perceptions. “Have fun with the robots you were so daringly trying to salvage for parts! Now you are the parts! Oh ho ho ho ho ho!”