Toph felt Twilight raise the barrier spell in the blink of an eye. To Toph’s astonishment, she realized it felt perfect. Nothing Toph ever sensed was perfect, there were always minor imperfections in the structure. But this magical barrier was a hollow sphere with no blemishes or deformations, even extending a short distance below the ground. It kept its shape perfectly as multiple missiles hit it and exploded, surrounding them all in a cloud of dust.
“You’re actually going to put up a fight?” Eggman called down to them. “How charming.”
“Wait!” Twilight called. “We were just trying to get into space to find Knuckles and the Master Emerald! This was our only option!”
Eggman let out a joyous laugh. “Well you’ll all be glad to know that Knuckles and company should be back in an hour or so! You don’t have to go to space anymore.”
“We… don’t?” Twilight’s left eye twitched.
“What, have you been slaving over a hot stove trying to get the Egg Burster to fly?”
“Well, uh, maybe, a—that’s not the point!” Twilight let out a disgruntled snort. “The point is, if there’s no reason for us to go to space, we don’t need to be in your lab anymore!”
“Very true.” Eggman admitted. “Very, very true…” Toph was getting really tired of not being able to see this guy. He was clearly floating above the ground somehow, likely via a machine of somesort, but there was nothing for her to go off of that’d help her other than his voice and a soft unidentifiable humming just below that. “But you’re still trespassers, and I hate trespassers. Blow them to smithereens.”
The robots attacked again, this time with more than just a few missiles. The explosions weakened Twilight’s barrier—the punch from the robot with missiles for wrists was enough to shatter it like glass. Thankfully, the shards melted into nothing rather than tearing into their flesh like little knives.
Toph leaped into action. She wasn’t sure about Eggman’s whereabouts, so she plowed her hands into the missile-wrist and pulled it off the robot, bending the metal with ease. She whirled around, smacking it in the head with its own body. After it ceased functioning, she peeled off a section of its chestplate and surrounded herself in the metal. Now in full armor, she charged a beetle-bot and ripped its horn right off.
“Is metal like paper to you!?” Eggman shouted from up above.
“Yeah!” Toph called up, driving a pillar of earth into a nearby robot with blades for arms. “I’m my world’s only metalbender! Deal with it!”
“Yet another world… I suppose the tear would herald an event like that. I can’t wait to study all of you!”
“You’ll have to wait!” Twilight called from above, letting Toph know she had been flying around. A magic laser went off, but it went wide, hitting the ground instead of Eggman.
“Ohohoho! A horse that fancies herself a warplane? Let me show you a real warplane.” He clapped his hands. A whoosh met Toph’s ears as she smashed more and more robots into oblivion. He’s got a big flying thing.
She heard Twilight cry out in pain. “Twilight!”
Whatever had just hit Twilight smacked Toph in the back of the head, turning everything into a blur of sounds and sensations…
~~~
Twilight cried out in pain as the massive four-winged airplane with fists on the underside punched her away like a baseball. Toph called out to her, but Twilight couldn’t see the earthbender. What she could see was Eggman’s smug, bald face sporting an oversized mustache. “Oh ho ho ho ho! You couldn’t handle the Egg Flightfist! None of you can!” He waved his arms mockingly, taunting them from his position in a round hovering chair that vaguely resembled the bottom half of an egg.
“Sleep,” Lulu ordered Eggman, pointing a finger at him.
For a moment, it looked like the fat man would doze off, his large body slouching… but he shook himself out of it. “Mind games won’t work on me, missy!” he declared proudly.
“So you do have a brain in there,” Lulu commented.
“Of course! Who do you think built all these robots? They’re my inventions, my genius!” He pointed at her. “Flightfist, get her.”
Lulu pressed her hands together and spoke words in an ancient language beyond Twilight’s understanding. The girl lifted her hands toward the Void in the sky. “Forget.”
Eggman looked confused for a moment—before the sneer returned. “I said mind games weren’t going to work.”
Lulu stood on her tiptoes and made another incantation, twirling her finger in the air. “Tor—”
One of the robots kicked her out of the way, interrupting her magic. “How dare you!” Lulu didn’t wave her hands for the next spell. “Fira!”
A tornado of fire appeared under the robot, scorching it until it was glowing red hot. Unfortunately, it was rated for extreme heat situations, and was able to keep attacking her.
“Oh, bother,” Lulu muttered.
Twilight teleported in front of her, raising a shield to protect the girl. “Run!”
Lulu didn’t hesitate. She took off at a run, only for Flightfist to knock her down a short moment later. Out of the corner of her eye, Twilight saw Blaze running away from a series of mole-like robots.
They were not winning the fight.
“Are you sure we can’t talk about this!?” Twilight called to Eggman, teleporting behind the robot attacking her, driving a magic spike through the machine and taking it out.
“Talk is so boring,” Eggman muttered. “I much prefer this. I haven’t been able to curbstomp anyone in a good long while, it’s a nice feeling.”
“I’ll bet it is…” Twilight muttered, grabbing the fists of Flightfist with her magic and fusing them to each other with an adhesive spell, preventing the machine from unleashing any more unholy punches. It opted to crash into her instead, tossing her to the side from the impact. She landed on her hooves next to the downed form of Blaze.
“Ponyfeathers…” Twilight said. “He’s gonna win.”
“Heh…” Blaze laughed. “The bald ninny beats the legendary hero…”
“Blaze,” Twilight said, raising a shield around both of them. “I know you’ve got a secret.”
Blaze looked at her in panic. “W-what?”
“Toph sensed something, and I don’t care what you are, I’m still your friend, okay? But…” I’m taking this way too fast. “But I don’t have time for that right now, do what you can to save us! Keep us out of his clutches!”
“She can’t do anything!” Eggman called. “I know her kind. Cats. Easy to capture. She’ll make a nice subject for some of my nanobot experiments…”
“No!” Blaze shouted. “I am not going to become the experiment of some… old greasy oaf!”
“My dear, if I was a lesser man I’d be insulted!” He took a moment to let his toothy grin sink into their minds. “Luckily, petty insults mean nothing to me.”
“Doofus!” Blaze shouted, suddenly engulfed in a burst of purple smoke. In her place was a girl with green skin and an oddly square shaped head. “DOOFUS!”
Eggman adjusted his glasses. “...What are you?”
“I am Mimi!” Mimi shouted. “And this isn’t even my true form…” She jumped forward, prompting Twilight to drop her shield.
Eggman held up a hand to prevent his robots from attacking. “I want to see this.”
Mimi stared right at him, giggling dementedly. She twisted her head to the side, to the limits that her neck would allow. With a sickening crunch, her neck turned further, grinding the bones in her spine into powder. Her head kept turning, and turning, and turning, more like a corkscrew than a thing of flesh and blood. The small body she had before became shriveled spikes that extended from a crumpled green cube. Multicolored gears stuck out the cube’s sides, rotating to some unseen beat. Gone was any sense of a normal creature, in its place was nothing short of an absolute monster with eight wiry legs, and upside-down mouth, no eyes, and clockwork poking out at odd angles.
Twilight wanted to puke.
“Oh my…” Eggman grimaced. “How unsightly.”
“MIMIMIMIMIMIMIMIMIMIMIMIMIMI!” Mimi shouted, her voice reverberating with a dark echo Twilight wished she couldn’t hear. “I’m going to skewer you, old man.”
“Oh ho ho ho ho ho ho!” Eggman lowered his hands, allowing his robots to attack. “By all means, try.” His robots unleashed their attacks all at once. There was no way Mimi could dodge.
She didn’t even try. Mimi allowed the missiles, punches, blades, and lasers to hit her dead on. She emerged unscathed. “You IDIOT! I’m invincible! Completely invincible! Your robots are scrap!”
Eggman leaned in with a smirk. “Well well well, you aren’t exaggerating. Guess I’ll just have to capture the spider instead of squishing it.”
“There will be no capture!”
“I beg to differ.” Eggman pressed a different button in his chair. “Oh Shadow? I need you to catch a fly for me.”
Suddenly, a new player landed on the field. He wasn’t a robot—he was a Mobian. His fur was black with red streaks and like all the others, he wore gloves and shoes, though his eyes were even larger than usual; so massive they looked like they touched. It was with these he glared at Mimi.
Mimi laughed. “Nice pet! What can he do?”
Shadow vanished from Twilight’s view with a blur. She whirled around, only to find that all of Mimi’s legs were tied up, pinning her in place. “Mimimi...mi?”
Shadow continued to run around her at rapid speeds, tying her in more and more rope. Twilight realized the rope wasn’t some simple strand of fiber, but rather a kind of metal alloy that definitely wouldn’t be easy to break.
Twilight caught Shadow in her magic, lifting him off the ground. “Leave her alone!”
“Take care of the horse,” Eggman ordered his robots. “I grow tired of her.”
Ponyfeathers.
“Hey Egghead!” Twilight’s ears flicked in the direction of the newcomer, identifying it as a young male. Strangely, the voice reminded her of Rainbow Dash...
A blue blur shot out of the sky and skewered five of Eggman’s robots at once, including Flightfist. They exploded in showers of metal and sparks, falling much like how they had when Toph was still cutting them to pieces.
“Oh no…” Eggman groaned. “Sonic… you’re back early…”
The blue blur stopped moving long enough to shoot a cocky finger-guns gesture at Eggman. “I’m always early, Eggman!” He looked a lot like Shadow, though he was bright blue rather than black, and his hair was much smoother compared to Shadow’s jagged style.
“Always early?” Eggman snorted. “I’m sure any one of your friends would point out a time you were horribly, horribly late.”
Sonic shrugged. “What can I say? Got places to be, things to do.”
Eggman sighed. “Look, we’ve had several long weeks in space messing with those pesky Metarex and then this Void shows up out of nowhere. Can’t I trounce these trespassers up and win for once?”
“Hmm, lemme think about that…” Sonic scratched his chin. “You guys wanna keep fighting him?”
“Please no,” Twilight gasped. “We don’t even need anything from him anymore! We just…”
“That’s all I need to hear!” Sonic turned back to Eggman, giving him a thumbs down. “Not gonna fly, Doc.”
“Ugh…”
Shadow folded his arms. “Should I attack, Doctor?”
“Don’t bother,” Eggman said, dismissively. “You know this never goes well. Take the trespassers and go, Sonic, it’s not worth getting my base trashed. Again.”
Shadow nodded. No longer needed, he turned and walked away.
With a flutter, Tippi appeared from behind an overturned box, taking her place besides Twilight. “Is the fight over? I’m terribly sorry I wasn’t able to help much…”
“Forget about that! Get me out of here!” Mimi shouted. She was in her green-girl form again, but somehow the chains still held her.
“Geez, you really tied her up!” Sonic said, lifting her off the ground and examining the chains. “I think Tails is gonna have to cut you out of this.”
“Careful, Sonic,” Eggman warned. “That one’s a spider.”
Sonic rolled his eyes. “If you handled her that easily, I’m pretty sure I won’t have a problem.…”
Twilight used her magic to pick up the limp forms of Lulu and Toph. “Do you have somewhere we can get medical attention?”
Sonic gave her a thumbs up. “The Blue Typhoon is ready for anyone!”
“The what?”
He pointed at the sky and Twilight’s jaw dropped. Floating above them was a massive spaceship made from smooth metal that ended in several yellow cones ringed in blue. The top of the ship was a runway lined with fake palm trees that led up to a multi-tiered observation deck with several decorative fins.
“A s-s-spaceship…” Twilight stammered.
“I take it you want to see inside?”
“YES PLEASE!”
~~~
Lulu and Toph were laid on beds to recover—thankfully, they hadn’t broken any bones—while Twilight went with Mimi, Tippi, and Sonic to one of the hangars with the tied-up shapeshifter levitated in Twilight’s magic, much to Mimi’s chagrin.
“This better be over quick,” Mimi growled. She hadn’t even tried to take a shape besides normal green-girl form, since it didn’t help her with escaping Eggman’s trap.
“Calm down,” Twilight chided. “I’m sure it’ll be over soon.”
“Hey! Cosmo!” Sonic called to a green figure standing on an elevated platform next to a gold-plated aircraft.
“Coming!” Cosmo called, jumping off the platform. Instead of falling straight down, the leafy petals that made up her body extended into a sort of built-in parachute, allowing her to drift gently down to them. Twilight quickly identified her as a plant-based lifeform, given the petal dress, the two rosebuds poking out of her head, and the leafy green color all over her. The eyes were a little strange to see on a plant creature, but Twilight’s overall visual impression of her was “sweet”. Her soft voice only added to that perception. “What did you need, Sonic? And who are these?”
“Some new friends that Eggman was hassling,” Sonic said with a somewhat dismissive tone. “I need Tails to cut Mimi loose. You know where he is?”
“He’s up there, actually.” Cosmo looked up to the aircraft. “Tails! Sonic needs your help!” Even shouting, her voice carried with it a soft, sweet quality.
Tails popped out of one of the hatches. Tails, it turned out, was a yellow fox with two tails. Like every other Mobian, he wore gloves and running shoes. “Coming!” He jumped out as well, and to Twilight’s astonishment, began spinning his tails like a helicopter, slowly lowering him to the ground.
Wait. Those two tails should tie up spinning that fast. How does he…?
He landed in Cosmos’ arms and the two took a moment to embrace, Cosmo spinning Tails around in a full circle before depositing him in front of Mimi.
“...I finally meet a cutie-pie and he’s taken,” Mimi pouted.
Tails blinked. “I… what?”
“I don’t like the insinuation either, buddy,” Sonic admitted. “But can you cut this girl loose? Eggman did a number on her.”
“Oh, sure!” Tails reached behind the base of the platform and removed a toolkit, producing a massive pair of wire cutters. He examined the tangle around Mimi and chose one segment. Snipping it, the entire trap fell to the ground around Mimi. Twilight set her on the ground.
“Why, thank you, handsome!” Mimi kissed him on the cheek. “My hero!”
Cosmo slowly grabbed Tails and dragged him away from the shapeshifter.
Mimi giggled. “Well, golly, you all have a pretty nice ship here, don’t you?”
“It’s the Blue Typhoon, a spaceship I designed,” Tails said, nervously.
“Tails here is our captain,” Sonic explained. “He calls all the shots and runs everything from the bridge. Usually. When he’s not down here working on his planes.”
“And when you all actually listen to my orders,” Tails huffed.
“Hey! That was one… two… three…” Sonic started counting on his fingers, but he ran out of digits. “Uh… that was not as many times as you are implying it was!”
Tails rolled his eyes, turning to Twilight. “And who’re you?”
Twilight bowed slightly. “I’m Princess Twilight Sparkle of Equis. I come from another world seeking the Pure Heart to save all worlds from the curse that is the Void—I’m sure you’ve seen it.”
“An otherworlder?” Tails gasped. “Maybe you can help us solve a mystery!”
“A… mystery?” Twilight inquired.
“Yeah, come with me! We need to see Knuckles!”
“...That’s exactly who I was looking for!” Twilight clapped her hooves, grinning from ear to ear. “Oh, this day couldn’t get any better!”
Sonic left them to Tails and Cosmo, running off at such a high speed it was hard to see which direction he went. At least he has a reason for wearing the running shoes, Twilight thought to herself. Tails and Cosmo led them through the Blue Typhoon, which, appropriately enough for its size, had a labyrinthian number of corridors and hallways. Most of them were empty, though every now and then they’d see another Mobian running around—even running into a pink girl similar in build to Sonic carrying an unreasonably large hammer on her shoulders.
Their goal, however, was in the bowels of the ship: engineering. Most of the lower decks were occupied by a power regulation system fixated on a central core, guarded by none other than the Knuckles they had been searching for all this time.
Knuckles, as it turned out, was red. He was about the same size as Sonic, but with a grumpier expression and spikes built into his gloves. Twilight hoped the spikes were decorative and not truly part of his hands. That thought disturbed her.
Behind him was a tremendous diamond-cut emerald easily larger than an elephant, the perfect size to fit on the pedestal back in the temple they had arrived in. It bristled with a magical energy closest to… Discord, Twilight noted with surprise. It was a chaotic power, but not an evil one.
“The Master Emerald…” Twilight said.
“Yep,” Knuckles said with a grunt. “What do you want with it?”
“Do you know about anything called a Pure Heart?”
“Nope.”
“Well, uh…” Twilight tapped her wings together. “Tippi?”
Tippi flew forward. “The Pure Hearts are essences of the universes they come from, associated with reality and love. They take the form of smooth crystal hearts. Have you heard of anything resembling that? In legend or otherwise?”
“Nope,” Knuckles said, folding his arms. “The Master Emerald’s the closest thing I can think of.”
“Yes, that’s not it…” Tippi leaned in. “It’s a similar power, but not the same. The Pure Heart is hiding somewhere in the temple where this Master Emerald once resided.”
“Pff, I would have noticed.” Knuckles waved his hand dismissively. “I’ve devoted my life to guarding the Master Emerald. I know that temple like the back of my hand.”
“There might be something hidden,” Twilight said. “Don’t take this wrong, but the last one we found was hiding, and would only reveal itself when we extinguished all light.”
“Hmm… a puzzle, you say?” Knuckles grunted. “I hate puzzles.”
Cosmo leaned in. “Knuckles, surely you want to know more about the Master Emerald’s temple and history?”
“...Maybe.”
“Then why don’t we help these nice people?”
Knuckles folded his arms and let out a series of indecipherable grumblings before addressing them again. “I already said I don’t know anything about any dumb heart things!”
Twilight cleared her throat. “Well, to start, we could put the Master Emerald back and work from there, see if anything new happens.”
Knuckles pointed at Twilight while glaring at Tails. “Wow, this horse knows exactly what we need to do. Let’s take it back.”
“Wait!” Mimi shouted. “Don’t you need the Master Emerald to run the ship?”
Tails nodded. “We do. All the chaos emeralds are in space, and while we have a few replicas, they aren’t exactly reliable power sources.”
“But we need the Pure Heart to stop the Void,” Twilight pleaded. “It’s slowly eating all worlds, including your own!”
“Eating… all worlds…” Tails scratched his chin. “So that’s why it sent Chris back…”
“What?” Twilight cocked her head.
Tails pressed his hands together as he explained. “We had a human on board—Chris, from Earth. The Master Emerald started flashing a few weeks ago, begging Chris to return home. It used a lot of its power, but it sent him back just before our sensors picked up the Void.”
“It would know the Void would block most dimensional travel,” Tippi explained.
“The Master Emerald didn’t want him to be stuck,” Knuckles realized, looking up to the crystal with reverence. “I’ll be! You’re always looking out for us, aren’t you?”
“It is…” Twilight said. “You know, back home, on Equis, we have a similar guardian artifact. It’s the Tree of Harmony and i—”
Twilight and Knuckles were suddenly standing in a white void, with only the Master Emerald floating in front of them.
“What the—” Knuckles looked around frantically. “Not this insanity again!”
“This doesn’t happen often?” Twilight asked.
Knuckles facepalmed. “It happens too often…”
The Master Emerald sparkled, flooding their minds with disjointed images. They saw cream-colored rabbits, Cosmo floating in space, a humanoid robot with a glass sphere in its head, a dark hand coming out of the Void, and seven smaller gemstones—presumably the chaos emeralds—becoming dull and crumbling to dust.
With a jolt, they were back in engineering, falling backward.
“Twilight!” Tippi called. “What happened?”
“The Master Emerald tried to speak to us,” Twilight muttered, rubbing her head. “I’m not exactly sure what it was saying… I saw you, Cosmo, and some rabbits?”
“Cream’s the only rabbit on board,” Cosmo said, frowning. “I’m not sure what she’d have to do with anything…”
“What else did you see?” Mimi asked.
Twilight frowned. “Hmm… There was a dark hand, the Void, and…”
“Crumbling chaos emeralds and a Metarex,” Knuckles added, standing up.
“Metarex?” Toph cocked her head. “What?”
“Evil space aliens,” Tails explained.
“The Metarex currently have all seven chaos emeralds,” Cosmo said, putting a hand to her mouth. “You don’t think they’re going to try to do something with them, are you?”
Tails sighed. “I don’t know, ever since the Void opened they’ve been acting differently.” He tapped his foot, tails spinning faster as he went deeper into thought.
“They might try to do something to the Void!” Mimi declared. “We should go investigate it! You know, what we were trying to do in the first place?”
Twilight glanced at Tippi. “It might be useful to examine the Void up close, perhaps we could develop some defenses against it.”
“The Pure Heart…” Tippi paused. “It can wait.”
Tails clenched his fists. “All right, I’m going to the bridge—we’re going to the Void. Shouldn’t take too long to get there, it’s not even out of the solar system.”
“I’m going to check up on my friends,” Twilight said. “Tell me when we get there.”
“I’ll come too,” Cosmo said. “I’d like to meet our new passengers.”
~~~
Iroh sat on Flipside’s top platform, enjoying his tea. The Jasmine Dragon wasn’t open at the moment, so he could sit and appreciate the warm, soothing glow of the interdimensional city. There was a small table next to his seat filled with warm tea. Across from him there was an empty chair—Ty Lee had been there a few minutes ago, but she never stayed very long. Always more things to explore, in that young mind of hers.
Then there was a knock at the door.
Iroh sat up, concerned that someone had found the door in the back of his shop. However, to his relief and confusion, the knock came from the orange door. Whoever had knocked had noticed that the door wasn’t locked and was poking their head into Flipside. Iroh was delighted to see a beautiful rabbit creature timidly poke her head through. “Hello…?”
“Ah, welcome!” Iroh said, waving. “Come, have a seat. Do you like tea?”
“Oh, I haven’t had any in a while, but I do love it.” Her timidity vanished the moment she decided Iroh’s face was welcoming. She closed the door behind her and sat down, picking up a cup. “I’m Vanilla. I’m from Mobius… the world behind the orange door.”
“I’m from the red one.” Iroh said. “I’m Iroh. It’s a pleasure to make your acquaintance, Vanilla. I’ve never seen a creature quite like you! Those ears are quite remarkable.”
Vanilla put a hand to her mouth. “Oh, all rabbits have them.”
“But you are not most rabbits, I can tell. You have a strong gentleness about you.”
“And you fancy yourself a poet.”
“I do. But just between you and me, I’m not any good.”
Vanilla chuckled. “You’re exactly as Toph described you.”
Iroh gave her a cheesy grin. “Coming here on her recommendation, are we?”
She shrugged. “I suppose. I was just checking in on the temple again, and I got curious.”
“Curiosity kills cats. You’re lucky you’re not a cat.”
“But then I would have a reason to be curious.” She sipped her tea. Neither of them said nothing in a good long while, appreciating the serene beauty of Flipside’s sky.
Eventually, though, Vanilla laid her eyes on the Void and sighed. “It’s smaller here. So small you can almost—but not quite—forget it.”
“Most of the people back home still don’t know what it is. It would cause them undue panic.”
“We have faith that they’ll stop it.”
“Do you doubt them?”
A small smile crawled up Vanilla’s face. “Not for a single moment.”