//------------------------------// // Amidst the Fighting... // Story: Legends Never Die // by bookhorse125 //------------------------------// The young foals' names were Jinx Evergreen, Rose Blossom, and Lofty Skies. They sat side by side on one of the couches that adorned the first floor, crossing hooves with each other for comfort. “Your parents are freaking out right now,” Sprout scolded them. “Why in Equestria would you run away like that? Everypony’s looking for you!” “We didn’t want to lose our friendship,” Rose Blossom said quietly. “Lofty Skies was going to leave, and… we wanted to stick together. Like you guys did.” “But you can’t just run off without telling anypony just because you want to stay friends,” Hitch added. “You did,” Lofty Skies pointed out. “Yes… well… the circumstances were… special,” Hitch stuttered before giving up. “Okay, yeah, they sort of do have a valid point.” “Hitch!” Sprout reprimanded, his tone saying clearly, “We are not going to just let them off the hook like that.” “This is a different matter entirely. They’re foals, for hoofness sake, and running off into a mysterious forest to accept the help from complete strangers is definitely not the sort of actions we want from other foals. The first thing we do is get them home.” “No!” all three foals said at once, wrapping their arms around Lofty Skies. “My parents will think that we need to move away first thing to prevent something like this from ever happening again!” the pegasus foal exclaimed. “Mine will want to move back to Bridlewood, and even if they don't-” Jinx Evergreen began, but Rose Blossom finished. “-they’ll be really angry and probably ground us and we’ll never see each other again!” The foals opened their eyes wide and stuck out their trembling lower lips. Sprout sighed frustratedly. “Foals these days,” he muttered. “All right, fine,” he snapped, and the foals’ faces lit up. “If you come back to Maretime Bay, we’ll help convince your parents to let you stay together. And, just for the record, this is not because of your adorable puppy eyes, so don’t ever try that again.” The foals cheered. Midge, Stephen Magnet, and Iron Bill looked at each other with a strange look on their faces, as if they wanted the foals to stick around because they needed more time to ‘convince them to support their cause.’ Hitch gave them a sideways glance and opened his mouth to say something, but paused. “Uh, guys?” he asked, tilting his head. “Do you hear that?” The ponies and creatures stopped to listen. One by one, they became aware of the distant yapping and barking that Hitch had heard. “What on earth-?” Zipp was the first one outside, Hitch close behind her. A white ball of fluff suddenly flew out of nowhere and tackled Hitch right in the face, knocking him on the ground. Sunny shrieked and jumped back into Izzy, who stumbled, tripping on Stephen Magnet’s water bowl, which tipped and sloshed, showering Pipp in water, who screamed and tried to fly away, only crashing into Iron Bill, who waved his arms, trying to regain his balance, and accidentally hit Lofty Skies in the head, who threatened to fall down the stairs had Jinx Evergreen and Rose Blossom not grabbed her hooves and heaved her back up, toppling into Midge and knocking them all to the ground, which tripped Sprout so that he almost whacked one of Zipp’s wings, but just barely managed to regain his balance in time. “Cloudpuff?” Zipp asked incredulously, oblivious to the chaos around her. “What are you doing here?” “We need to teach this dog to not attack my face,” Hitch growled from underneath the white pomeranian, who was happily licking his face. With a groan, he pushed Cloudpuff off and sat up. Cloudpuff proceeded to flap his wings so that he could hover next to Hitch and continue to lick his face. “Wait, if Cloudpuff’s here, then that means…” Pipp trailed off as a dozen ponies touched down in front of them. “Mom?” “My darlings!” Haven cried, running forward to meet her daughters. “Thank hoofness you’re safe! Zephyr Heights is in panic, and we just couldn’t stay any longer, so we decided to come looking for you, and what were you thinking running away like that, anything could have happened to you, I was out of my mind, I didn’t know if you were alive or dead or kept in a dungeon somewhere…” She sighed and wrapped her wings around Zipp and Pipp. “I was so worried about you,” she whispered softly, stroking their heads. “We’re sorry we ran away,” Pipp responded immediately. “But we had to,” Zipp finished. “We managed to stop the unicorns and earth ponies from joining in all the madness, and then Sunny thought that we should go figure out how the three tribes separated before, and we found out about the Windigos and how the crystals were created, we think, and why magic disappeared, we think, and then Sunny said that there was a castle in the woods, so we went to go explore it, and we found them…” She turned around, but Iron Bill, Stephen Magnet, and Midge were nowhere to be seen. “You found unicorns here?” Haven said, confused. Everypony whirled around. Trotting in from Bridlewood were about ten unicorns, led by the large gray figure of Alphabittle. They all looked worried. “I thought she was referring to the earth ponies,” Zoom supplied, gesturing to the small party of earth ponies coming from the direction of Maretime Bay at full speed, Phyllis Cloverleaf in the lead. “What the…” Sunny stepped forward as the two groups arrived. “What’s going on?” Alphabittle spoke first while Phyllis caught her breath. “The unicorns found out about the… situation in Zephyr Heights,” he said, throwing a self-conscious look at the assembled pegasi. “They… um, they got all angry and decided that they wanted to fight back against the pegasi. The most we could do was stop them from immediately charging into the city before we had to get out.” “The same thing happened with us,” Phyllis said, taking a break from hugging Sprout and making sure her little stallion was okay. “News leaked out about… everything. They thought the whole magic-coming-back and friendship-and-unity thing was all just a front. When they found out that magic was unstable, they, um…” She trailed off, glancing quickly at her son before continuing. “They built another… Er, what was it called, dear?” “Sprouticus Maximus,” Sprout muttered. He would have been blushing if his coat wasn’t red. “Yes… that. They started building another one. It’s only a matter of time before it's finished, and they… you know. They decided that Izzy had brainwashed Sunny into helping her escape Maretime Bay, and then brainwashed all of you into helping her take over the world, I think.” “Why in Equestria would Izzy want to take over the world?” Sunny asked, now in full-blown panic mode. “She’s literally the least likely pony to do that! And how did ponies figure out about everything? I thought you said that you were going to keep it disclosed!” Her mind overwhelmed from the craziness of the whole thing, Sunny sat down on the ground, failing to fully comprehend what was going on. “Okay, I’m sorry, I know this isn’t any of you guys’ fault. You did everything you could. But… we just united again. Do we really have to separate again? So… soon?” Her traitor of a mind turned to her father’s note, his hope of a better Equestria. They had finally accomplished what he had wanted for his whole life. She was not about to lose it that easily. “Okay. We have to get everypony to stick together. What are our options?” She looked around at her friends, hoping to see the answer on one of their faces, but they were all looking at her expectantly. “Ugh, we need more time,” she grumbled. “But time is the one thing we don’t have. So…” What would Dad do? The question came out of nowhere in her mind, but it immediately soothed her. What would her father do… Definitely the non-violent option. He wouldn’t form his own army and take it into war, trying to convince the ponies to stay together that way. He would most likely try the diplomatic approach. “Phyllis, how long do you think we have before the earth ponies are finished constructing their… thing,” Sunny asked the pink earth pony, a plan formulating in her head. “About three days,” Phyllis responded, looking worried. “It's not just the Sprouticus. They’ve also started replicating all the other things we’ve made over the years. We confiscated all the actual objects, but kept the blueprints. We were hoping to change them into items that would better suit our current society, but…” She sighed and shook her head. “And Alphabittle, how long would you say we have until the unicorns do anything drastic?” Sunny said, turning to face the large gray unicorn. Alphabittle shook his head. “I have no idea,” he admitted, “but it’s all pretty much chaos over there. They’ll need time to get organized and actually have a plan before they try anything, so… a couple of days?” “And Your Majesty, I know you were stuck in the station the whole time, but how long does it look like it’ll take Zephyr Heights to organize?” “Not long,” Haven admitted ruefully. “They started earliest, and when we escaped, they had some sort of guard chasing us. I’d say it won’t be long.” Sunny ran through this new information in her head. “Okay, I think I have a plan,” she said, and looks of relief cascaded over everypony’s faces. “But we need to all work together. It’ll be slower, but I think ponies will listen to a larger group of all three tribes than just one. First, we go to Zephyr Heights, and convince them to calm down. I know you want to get your throne back,” she added when Haven opened her mouth, “but we’ll have to worry about that later. Next, we go to Bridlewood and tell the unicorns that the pegasi are not planning to attack, which will hopefully do the trick. Then we go to Maretime Bay and get the earth ponies to stand down. We’ll also send small teams to Bridlewood and Maretime Bay to help quell the chaos before we get there. Any questions?” “Just one,” Pipp said, raising her hoof. “How soon do you think we’ll be able to get our throne back?” “I have no idea,” Sunny said cheerfully. “Alphabittle, Phyllis, pick your teams.” Alphabittle called his group of unicorns into a huddle and began discussing in hushed voices with them. Phyllis surveyed the earth ponies and decided on Toots and Sweets, two of her most trusted employees at Canterlogic. Just as they were about to leave, Sprout pulled his mother aside and said that he wanted to go, too. “Everything that happened last time was all my fault,” he said quickly over his mother’s protests. “I’m not going to let something terrible happen again.” The whole debate went back and forth for a while before Phyllis finally conceded, giving her son a big hug and a bunch of kisses that made his cheeks turn so red that you could see it through his coat. The respective groups of unicorns and earth ponies went back to their hometowns. Sunny approached Zipp. “Ready to go home?” she asked. The former princess sighed. “I guess. It’s just… I don’t know. I felt more at home with you guys in the past couple of days than I have in all my life in Zephyr Heights. So I guess I’m wondering… is it really home?” She looked over at Pipp, who was following Haven around and trying to get her attention. “But Pipp always loved it. It’s where her fans are, and you know how much she adores them.” She rolled her eyes, but Sunny saw something else in there, poorly disguised by annoyance. “Are you sure that’s it?” she asked gently, putting her hoof on Zipp’s shoulders. The pegasus shrugged, and said, “I’m just remembering the night when… it all started. And I think… I’m scared. I’m scared that I’ll go back there,  and they’ll act like nothing ever changed. I’m afraid they won’t listen. I’m afraid magic will disappear again, and… and I’ll lose you guys.” She wiped her eyes before tears could form there and spread her wings, taking off into the sky, clearly portraying that she wanted to be alone for a little while. Sunny sighed, then jumped as Pipp screamed, but it was quickly cut off. She spun around, crying, “Pipp?” but the pink pegasus was nowhere to be seen. Hooves wrapped around Sunny and smothered her gasp of shock, pulling her back into darkness.