//------------------------------// // A Change of Pace // Story: Way Past Equestria // by Onomonopia //------------------------------// "Glad to see that you're all here. Are you all rested up? None of you did anything stupid last night like get into pointless fights with one another, right?" Twilight asked the ensembled heroes. All eyes went to Shadow and Silver, who were both covered in bandages and bruises, while refusing to look at each other. "Nope." "Doesn't ring a bell." "Good. Glad that you both know better than to do something like that," Twilight nodded. "Now this has nothing to do with anything recent, but we've changed the teams for this mission around a bit. Silver and Shadow are no longer on the same team. We just felt like mixing it up." "That's fine." "No problems here." "I swear you two...ahem. Alright, here's the deal. You all know the stakes, you know who we're up against and you all know it's going to be the hardest fight of our lives. So all that's left is the plan," Sally said. She stepped up next to Twilight, gazing down at the ensemble group of heroes from both worlds. Some had been there from the beginning, some had been saved along the way. But they all stood together, ready to fight for the fate of all their worlds. "Getting to where Eggman and Sombra are hiding out is going to be easy enough. Now that we have a location, Celestia and Luna have stated that they will have little issue opening a portal to the villains." "For too long we have allowed these foes to run amuck without any repercussions. Today we change that," Luna promised. "And Sombra has been a stain on Equestria's legacy long enough. Time to erase him," Celestia growled. "It's once we're inside that things really become problematic," Sally continued. "We have some idea what Sombra and Eggman will have due to our past battles with them. With Eggman, expect a lot of death traps, robots and lasers." "And with Sombra expect a lot of death traps, monsters and crystal lasers," Twilight added on with a smirk. "The big issue will be everything that we don't know. They've been working on something. We know this much. They always do. The question is, what will it be and how are we going to handle it? Well, that's where the teams come in. We're saying screw it to balance. Three groups: the bruisers, the planners and the runners. Those are our teams." "To clarify, instead of focusing on balanced teams, we're grouping all of you with others who are similar to you. Since we won't be split up and can help each other as needed, we figured it best to have you all just do what you're best at. Bruisers go in first and tear a path to the villains. Planners will handle strategy on the fly and whatever tech obstacles we come across. Runners will be both support and offense, depending on what we come across. I shouldn't have to explain to any of you who goes where. I'm sure you can figure it out yourselves." "Wrecking crew, huddle up!" Bunnie called out. Knuckles, Applejack, Big Mach, Shining Armor, Blaze, Amy, and, surprisingly, Luna and Cadence gathered around. "Uh, princesses, not to be rude, but are ya sure yer in the right group?" "Please, I've always been the more smash happy of the sisters," Luna reply. "And I'll tear down everything in my path to get my hooves on Sombra," Cadence seethed. "He took my family from me. He still has my daughter. So I will only stop tearing down whatever he has built up is when his lifeless corpse is laying broken and bloody at my hooves. Only then..." "Well welcome to the team," Knuckles said excitedly. "So what do we call ourselves, the brain trust?" Silver asked. Their team consisted of him, Twilight, Celestia, Sally, Antoine, Rotor, Tails, Rarity, and Fluttershy. "I prefer chess masters myself," Tails said. "Guys, can we focus? The name isn't important," Sally said. "You are right, Sally, we don't need to choose a name," Celestia agreed, getting Sally to nod. "Because we all know that the master minds is the superior choice." "Huh, guess there aren't as many of us as I thought," Sonic muttered. The final team consisted of him, Rainbow Dash, Shadow and Pinkie. "Of course they would expect the smallest team to do all the heavy lifting," Rainbow said with a shrug. "Just shows how good we are that we're expected to do so much." "Is...is she on the right team?" Shadow asked, looking at Pinkie. "Trust me Shadow, she might just be the fastest out of all of us," Sonic chuckled. Shadow raised an eyebrow before a red velvet cupcake was placed in front of his face. "Want a cupcake? I've been meeting so many new friends that I haven't had a chance to throw a party for all of them, so at the very least I'm trying to give everypony new I meet some sweets of some kind," Pinkie said. "Thanks...?" Shadow muttered, taking the cupcake. "I will be staying behind to keep an eye on things," Discord said. "Also, I'm your last resort. I've been saving up my strength and I think I've got one more mega spell in my arsenal before I become bed ridden for a month. I'll also be looking after Rouge and Starlight, since they're still out. Spike too. I swear, that dragon is lazier than me." "Watch it." "Sorry princess, just making an observation," Discord replied. "Alright, these teams look about right," Twilight said. "We'll be leaving in an hour, so grab whatever you need and say goodbye to anypony who you need to. This...this will be our biggest fight yet, and, even though I wish I could, I can't guarantee everypony's safety. But we'll win this. We have to. Not just because the fate of our two worlds rests on it...but because if we lose Eggman and Sombra would never let us hear the end of it." A small chuckle broke out through the group, before more serious expressions took their place. "Alright team, let's-" And then the world was shaken to its core. The teams barely managed to remain standing as the world shook, all of them heading towards the windows once they were able to find their footing again. And their hearts sunk into their stomachs when they saw what had caused the quakes. A colossal, metallic monster made of crystals, dark magic and something that none of them recognized. It was mostly humanoid, expect for the unicorn horn on it's head, with a wicked mustache on its face. It's eyes glowed with an unholy, red light and there was also the small fact that it was as large as the mountain that Canterlot was on. The behemoth slowly turned it's head towards the group and a smile unsheathed itself. Then a single beam fired from it's horn that annihilated Canterlot. ||==O O==|| "Think that got them?" Robotnik asked. "No chance in hell. If it was that easy to kill all of them, we would have done it years ago," Sombra scoffed. "Still, it's sure one hell of a way to say hello, isn't it?" "I really wish we could have seen their faces. I mean, if I saw this thing drop on my doorstep I would probably need to change my pants," Robotnik said. Then he narrowed his eyes. "Well look at that. Seems you were right once more." Through the view port the two villains watched as the smoke cleared around Canterlot, that was still in one piece thanks to the barrier of magic that had surrounded it. The barrier dropped and the villains watched as the heroes began their assault on their masterpiece. "Heroes. Always managing to do the impossible," Sombra sighed. "Well, we expected this. Launch everything." Their systems told them that the base had done just that, unleashing every badnik, shadow beast, crystal titan and version of Metal Sonic that they had. "So how long do you think that will hold them?" Robotnik asked. "Until Twilight and her friends stop messing around and bring out the Elements," Sombra replied. "How about Sonic? Think he'll go Super Sonic right away to finish this as quick as possible or is he going to save it?" "To my eternal surprise, Sonic general saves his super form until there are no other options, meaning that we won't be seeing it until we are in the final phase," Robotnik said with a masters wisdom. "Thanks to the time limit and the fact that the emeralds won't be able to recharge while the Chaos Force is so badly damaged, they'll use their one chance when they've got nothing else. That's what I would wager." "I see. Well, then perhaps we'll have to up our game and-nope, there goes the Elements!" As Sombra said this, an explosion of rainbow light went off in the middle of the battle and annihilated the villains forces. The scanners in the viewport zoomed in and revealed, just as he had said, Twilight and her friends were now in their Elemental form. "Surprise they'd bust them out this early, but whatever, I'm not going to complain." "They are making remarkable quick work of our forces, though," Robotnik noticed. "That's what they're there for. Oops, shields just went up. Somepony's on the attack," Sombra said. They zoomed in to find a combination of Bunnie, Rainbow Dash, and the princesses unleashing all of their might into the barrier that surrounded their masterpiece. "Shall I ridicule them or do you wish to?" "It's been a while since I've done it personally," Robotnik said and Sombra passed the comms to him. "Foolish beast of burden! You really think that your pathetic magic is a match for this disaster piece? We've built this specifically to counter each and every one of you. Use all your might. Even your Elements power cannot help you now! For this is our Magnum Atlas!" "Excellent delivery on the name." "Thank you, I spent all morning practicing it," Robotnik proudly said. "Now fire the unstoppable death laser!" The unicorn horn fired another blast of unstoppable magic upon the teams, but once again the two villains watched as the Elements power came together to deflect the blast. "We really got to stop calling it unstoppable if they keep stopping it." "We'll give it one more shot and then we'll change the name," Sombra suggested. "Wait, there's a bunch of their strong losers coming towards us. We should try stepping on them, bet that would be funny." "Squash em," Robotnik ordered. The Magnum Atlas lifted it's leg and brought its foot down atop the Wrecking Crew. For a moment the two villains smiled together in victory. Then the foot was slightly lifted up before one, massive hit sent the entire machine staggering backwards. "What the hell? Who do they have on their team that can possible hit hard enough to do that?" "SOMBRA!" A single streak of pink light rocketed out from beneath their foot and slammed itself into the barrier in front of their view ports, getting both villains to raise an eyebrow as Cadence rammed her body against their shields repeatedly. "Give me back my daughter or Faust help me I will cut you in half with a SPOON!" Sombra looked from the princess to the foal that was still trapped in the cage hanging next to him. He then glanced to Robotnik, who shook his head slightly, before Sombra reached up and swatted the cage, rocking it and getting Flurry to cry out. Cadence let out a bellow that on it's own was nearly strong enough to shatter the barrier, before hurling herself into the shield with enough force that cracks started to form. "You had to do it, didn't you?" Robotnik asked. "It's who I am," Sombra said with a shrug. He then pressed a button on the intercoms. "Activate the bug repellent." The barrier unleashed enough lightning to power half of Mobius and fried Cadence, who screamed in pain before dropping out of the sky. Both villains watched with baited breath as she plummeted towards the ground, only to sigh as she was caught out of the air by Rainbow Dash. "Just once. Just once I'd like to see them go splat," Sombra asked. Their heads snapped up as red lights started going off and the alarm came on, getting Robotnik to slam his hand onto the comms button. "What is going on? Why are our alarms going off? Cubot, answer!" "Well your evilness, it's because-Hey!" "They're going off, Egghead, because I'm inside." "Sonic," Robotnik seethed. "The one and only. Be there in a minute. See you at the top." "Come and get me, rodent. Because this time," Robotnik smiled gleefully as he turned towards a metal locker. "I'm ready to finish this."