Sunny was not okay - Sprout could see that immediately. She stood at the bow of the ship, staring at the trees below, a pained expression on her face, but whenever anypony tried to talk to her, she quickly insisted that she was fine.
Sprout and Hitch exchanged glances, and they made a silent agreement between them.
“So, Sunny,” Hitch said casually as the two stallions stood on either side of the mare, “how’re you feeling?”
“Fine,” she said in an automatic voice. Then she caught the looks on both of their faces, and she sighed. “Okay, not fine,” she admitted before turning back to the ground below. “It’s just… the last time I was here, it was because I was kidnapped against my will, and most of the memories I made here were… not pleasant.”
“What exactly did they do to you?” Sprout demanded, sidling protectively towards his friend.
“They chained me to the wall and invaded my mind, making me do whatever they wanted whenever they wanted,” Sunny said matter-of-factly, feeling a slight amusement at the shocked and enraged expressions on her foalhood friends’ faces.
“I wish I’d punched that Tirek’s face in,” Hitch growled, stamping the deck with his hoof as if imagining that the wood deck resembled the centaur’s red face.
“You and me both,” Sprout agreed. He put a hoof on Sunny’s shoulder and said, “Don’t worry. Everything’s going to be okay. You’ve got us here now - and a bunch of awesome back-up creatures.”
Sunny couldn’t help but laugh at that. “I guess so,” she said, wiping her eyes. Then she spotted something ahead, and her expression turned sober again. “There it is.”
The other ponies and creatures joined them at the rail, with the exception of Hugo, Zipp, and Kailani, the latter two helping the former find a good place to land where they could take off easily. Just visible between the trees was a small swampy marsh lake of muddy water, and in the center of that was a huge rock formation that looked like a ram head, with caves leading in and out of the tunnels that ran through the structure.
“Well,” Hitch said in his sheriff voice, “this is it.” He turned to the others and said, “All right, everypony! And - um, creature!” He cleared his throat and tried again. “This is where we will make our final stand. We will fight with everything that we have, because we know what we are fighting for, and it will be worth the struggles!”
From somewhere behind them came Zipp’s voice: “Aye aye, sheriff!”
Hitch scowled, but Sprout caught the slight color rising in his cheeks and smirked at him. When the sheriff turned and caught his eye, Sprout mouthed, “I was right,” to him. Hitch’s scowl deepened, and as he strutted away, he flicked Sprout in the face with his tail, but the other stallion thought it was totally worth it.
The other creatures scattered, making final preparations for the landing, and Hitch walked amongst them, encouraging them to keep it up and reminding them what this was all about.
Sprout chuckled as he turned back to Sunny. The mare had lapsed back into a deep silence, and he wanted to get her mind off of the coming fight. There was only one thing on his mind that he knew he could truly distract her with, and though he didn’t want to give her more worries, he knew that he had to tell somepony.
He cleared his throat and said, “You know, I’ve been feeling like… like there’s somepony else in my head.”
Well, that got her attention quickly. Her head snapped up, and she looked at him sharply, saying, “What? Has it - has it tried to do anything? Like take over and force you to do things you don’t want to do?”
Though she pretended like it was all fine, Sprout knew that her experience with the mind link had not been pleasant, and she still hated the feeling.
“No,” he said after thinking, shaking his head. “It's just kind of… there. Like it’s waiting for the right moment to strike. I’ve been… I don’t know, investigating it a little bit, but I don’t think it’s Cozy Glow, or Tirek, or Chrysalis. It’s somepony familiar… but I can’t quite figure out who it is.”
“Sprout…” She put her hoof on his, resting on the railing. “Are you okay?”
“I will be,” he assured her. “Because whenever they try to take over, I’ll just think of you, and my friends, and everything will be okay, because I know that you’ll be there for me just like we were there for you.”
Even as he said it and smiled confidently, deep inside, he wondered if this was true. After all, he wasn’t like Sunny - he hadn’t exactly saved the world and brought the world together like she had. In fact, he had helped tear it apart. So some dark part of him wondered if his friends would just leave him behind… After all, what had he ever done to make them think otherwise?
“We will always be there for you,” Sunny assured him. “No matter what.” She gave him a smile, and he felt his fear melting. “I saw you with Little Braveheart earlier. You seem to be getting along well.”
He returned the smile, and it was completely heartfelt. “Yeah. She’s crazy,” he stressed. “Like, completely insane. She dared me to jump off the side when we were passing over that hill back there, and I asked her if she would do it, and she shrugged and said, ‘Probably.’ ” And she laughed, the sound that he had missed so much while she was gone, and he felt his heart swelling up inside his chest, and he knew that he would do anything, fight anyone, give up whatever he needed to, just to keep her safe.
Inside his head, he felt that presence, just out of his reach, stirring as if it had just been given something - something that it wanted, something that it needed.
The feeling unsettled him.
Hitch led the way through the scraggly trees, keeping low to the ground as they ducked under lowhanging branches and vines and through thin bushes, the branches scratching at Sprout’s coat. He blew a frustrated breath and wished he were back on the zeppelin, just him and Sunny, completely safe.
You’ll never be safe.
He froze. That voice… that was not his voice. It came from a different place… The place in his mind where that presence lurked.
If only Sunny wasn’t with Izzy and Imara towards the back of the line. He needed to tell her about this - she needed to know. He couldn’t explain it, but he didn’t feel like he could trust anypony else with this information. But should he really be worrying her with more information right before such an important moment?
It could wait until later. It would be fine.
Right?
“Here,” Hitch hissed, stopping. Sprout bumped into his tail, and the sheriff whipped his head around to glare at him.
“Sorry,” Sprout whispered.
“No talking,” was his response. The other creatures fell silent as they all crept into the scraggly bush with a perfect view of the Legion of Doom’s cave. Zipp and Kailani, the best fliers, were positioned in trees around them after covering up their tracks.
“Look!” came Little Braveheart’s voice, so quiet it was just above a whisper. For a creature so crazy and excitable, Sprout didn’t think she was capable of being quiet. But the way she moved without making a sound, and the way she could practically breathe the words so that no speaking was required, told him that she had done this before - many times before.
“Cozy Glow,” Sunny muttered under her breath. She schooched over to the side slightly to give Sprout more room to peer out of the bush (he was amazed that they all fit, and they were so squished as it was), which he was thankful for. Villains were something he understood.
The filly was flying away from the cave, a look on her face that Sprout had seen so many times before, had worn so many times before - a mask that covered all feelings of hurt or sorrow or abandonment. She stopped, hovering in midair, her eyes closed and taking deep breaths as she calmed herself down before scanning the trees around her, picking a direction and flying off in it.
“What’s she doing?” Imara hissed.
Sprout opened his mouth to answer, but Brooks beat him to it. “Calming down,” he said in a quiet whisper. “She needs a few minutes to herself. She’ll be back, don’t worry.”
“Why would she need to do that?” Imara snapped back. “She’s a villain - they don’t have any feelings other than anger and hatred.”
“That’s not true,” Sprout protested, his voice rising slightly in indignation. “It’s the pain and the loss that lead to the anger and hatred - and just because you’re a villain doesn’t mean you’re incapable of feeling love or happiness. We have feelings.”
“How would you know that?” the changeling retorted. “You say that like you’ve been one-”
Sprout flinched and lowered his gaze. He felt Sunny’s hoof on his own and knew that he wasn’t angry at Imara - just wishing that it wouldn’t have to keep being brought up. He was sorry - wasn’t that enough?
Imara noticed this and her mouth dropped open. “Oh,” she said quietly. “I-I’m sorry, I didn’t know-”
“You shouldn’t assume things about ponies before you know anything about them,” Pipp snapped at her. The changeling recoiled and opened her mouth to say something in indignation, but Izzy nudged her, and she fell silent.
They waited for at least an hour - Sprout couldn’t keep track of time, but they didn’t see any of the other villains, and the sun had moved significantly by the time Cozy Glow came back, looking much happier than when she had left. In fact, she appeared almost… cheerful.
A horrible thought struck him, and apparently Hugo as well, because the griffon whispered in a worried voice, “Do you think she found the zeppelin?”
“I don’t know,” Sunny said in a strained voice. She reached her hoof out, and Izzy took it, giving it a squeeze. The earth pony took a deep breath and her expression hardened. “Seems like now’s as good a time as any. “What do you say we end this?”
The other creatures nodded. Sunny stood up, and though her hooves were shaking slightly, she led the charge into the cave, all of the creatures screaming definitely, and they ran (or flew) across the stones that led into the mouth of the largest cave, where they met… nothing. Sprout skidded to a stop and leaped to another stone before he tipped off of the one he stood on, looking around with a bewildered expression that matched the one on everyone else’s face.
“Where are they?” Imara demanded, her hooves curled into fists. “I’m done with all the hiding! I’m ready to fight!”
“I’m afraid you missed your chance,” came a voice from the dark, shadowed area above the stone ramps that led to more caves. There was a flicker of motion, and then Chrysalis stepped into the light, holding something with her magic. A rusted green bell floated next to her, pulsing with light. Tirek and Cozy Glow joined her, and from one of the caves, Sprout caught a glimpse of Permafrost and Sour Lavender peeking in.
“Well, what do you know,” Chrysalis said conversationally as she walked towards them. Every creature got into their fighting stances, wings spread, horns lit, hooves ready to charge. She gave Permafrost an appraising glance. “They really were dumb enough to come to us.”
Sprout froze. They knew that we were coming. How?
Maybe one of you is a spy. A traitor to the group. Who gave this information quite willingly, I might add, came that strange new voice in Sprout’s mind, and he shook his head, trying to get rid of it.
Sunny was suddenly enveloped in a golden glow, and her wings and horn appeared. She reared up on her back legs, her wings spread, horn blazing with light, and she let out a defiant yell.
A bell rang. And everything turned black.