Alphabittle kept galloping south, keeping a reasonable pace to make sure he didn't lose all of his stamina and lose Izzy entirely, who was several paces ahead. In between the two of them was the queen pegasus, who was chasing after her daughters after Izzy had caught them a couple miles outside of Bridlewood, and had convinced them to go to Maretime Bay. It was hard enough to keep track of them through the night as she and the two pegasi ran seemingly through the night to get to Maretime Bay by sunrise.
He hadn't wanted to give chase alone, so he offered Smokey, Jade, and Allium some considerable discounts at the Tearoom if they risked some jinxies and went after Izzy with him, and to his surprise, they agreed.
When this was all over, everypony was going to need some serious sleep.
It was still early morning when they neared the coast and he finally heard Izzy's voice over the next hill.
"Sunny!" She called out.
"What are you guys doing here?" He heard Sunny asked.
"We don't care what anypony says," Izzy said.
"Yeah, we just want to stay friends," Zipp told them.
The queen pegasus got to the group first.
"Pipp! Zipp!" She called as she came to a stop in front of them. "I know you're upset, darlings, my sweet little darlings, but it's time to go home now."
By this time, Alphabittle had reached them and stopped right next to the queen.
"Izzy Moonbow, you're gonna get us all jinxed. Come back to Bridlewood!" He chastised.
"Excuse me," the queen interjected. "Do you see my mouth still moving? That means I'm still a-talking," she said, leering at him.
"You're all in danger!" Sunny said, before Alphabittle could come up with a reply to her highness' rudeness.
"I'm sorry, what?" the queen asked.
As if on cue, they heard a loud honking sound, and a large red all-terrain vehicle came over the hill, coming to a stop right in front of the group of five. The air brakes threw up dust around the whole group. By the time it settled, a line of seven earth ponies with metal caps on their heads were next to the vehicle. They looked across at the gathering pegasi and unicorns, and immediately most of them looked rather uncertain.
"Huh?" the large turquoise one said.
"Would you look at this! Our enemies delivered themselves to us!" Came the muffled voice of the vehicle's pilot, a red, blonde-haired stallion.
"No, no, no, we're not here to fight, Mr. Big Robot Pony," the queen said, stepping forward in an attempt to diffuse the situation.
"I do not accept your surrender," the stallion replied, turning to look down at the line of earth ponies beside the vehicle. "Load the Splat-a-pult!"
The looks of uncertainty in the line had only increased, and the one on the left was the first to break rank and run for it, immediately followed by the one in the middle. This was followed by the driver of the vehicle letting out an immature whine.
"Oh, why do I have to everything myself?" He asked as he began working the control panel in front of him. The front bumper of the vehicle extended out, looking like it was ready to ram something.
"We gotta stop that thing," Zipp said, getting a grasp on how serious the situation was getting.
"Yeah, but how?" Izzy asked.
"With magic." Sunny answered, turning and going over to Alphabittle and the queen.
"Quick! I need your crystals." She asked both of them.
Wondering what she could need them for, both the queen and Alphabittle passed over the turquoise and sapphire gems.
"There's a third crystal! Follow me!" Sunny told her friends before galloping for the lighthouse.
"What?" The amber earth stallion asked, bewildered.
"Oh, no you don't!" The red stallion driver said, yanking the lever and turning the vehicle towards the group galloping towards the lighthouse at the top of the hill. Alphabittle began to step forward, and saw the white pegasus and amber stallion turn back to face the approaching vehicle. With some impressive acrobatics, they jumped aboard, on top of the treads underneath the driver compartment, as the other three made it into the lighthouse.
Alphabittle gasped as the vehicle, not slowing down in the slightest, slammed into the front of the structure, and finally started to run for the scene, seeing cracks go up the lighthouse.
"Sprout, stop!" he heard the amber stallion yell.
Suddenly, two contraptions popped out of both sides of the vehicle, and began to spin rapidly, flinging globs of green sticky goo everywhere, sending most of the other ponies present into a panic as they struggled to avoid the slimy projectiles. Alphabittle saw his trio of armadillos right in the middle of the road, unsure where to go with the gunk landing all around them. He galloped forward to shield them from the slime, and got hit in the back and the back right hoof for his trouble, and was unable to pull his hoof free.
He didn't see it, but heard the vehicle slam into the lighthouse again, hearing one of the pegasus scream loud and long, but fortunately head an "I'm okay!" a moment later.
"Izzy!" he heard the earth mare scream.
"We need to shut these down!" the white pegasus shouted.
"Alphabittle, look out!" he heard the other pegasus shout. He turned his head to see the vehicle backing up again, and wasn't going to slow down in time to not hit him.
This was going to hurt.
At the last moment, the pegasus queen lunged in from his right side, tackling him and tearing his hoof free from the sticky goo. He had luckily swept up the trio of armadillos in his foreleg, and all of them landed safely in the grass.
He looked to the lighthouse to see Sunny holding onto Izzy after the balcony had collapsed from under her hooves, and she was hanging by her left front leg as she tried to reach the crystal.
"Izzy!" he shouted.
The earth stallion standing on the back of the vehicle yanked a steel pin out, and the left Splat-a-pult came loose, spinning end over end and headed right for where Izzy was hanging.
"Izzy!!!" Alphabittle screamed.
Sunny saw it at the last moment, and yanked Izzy just far enough to the left to avoid the metal debris as it firmly planted itself into the side of the lighthouse. He saw Sunny carefully swing Izzy far enough to grab the crystal before pulling her back into the light room at the top.
The older mare who had been running along side the vehicle trying to shout at the driver to stop suddenly jumped in front of the vehicle's path.
"I. Said. Stop!" She screamed.
The vehicle lurched to the right to avoid the mare, and this sudden change in trajectory also threw the earth stallion and pegasus off of the back, rolling in the grass and coming to a stop.
The vehicle slammed into the lighthouse a third and final time.
"No, no, no!" The earth stallion shouted.
The top of the lighthouse quickly became unstable, and looked like it was going to come right down on top of the vehicle that had slammed into the bottom of the building.
Alphabittle saw Sunny and Izzy still in the light room, trying to crawl back up to the center pedestal. He forced himself to look away as the top of the lighthouse finally gave in, falling and slamming into the vehicle, knocking it over onto its side as the structure began to crumble, sending dust spreading out across the entire hill.
The unicorn stallion's heart pounded against his chest as he frantically tried to look through the dust to see if they were okay. When the dust clouds finally settled, he breathed a sigh of relief, seeing Izzy get to her hooves towards the left side of what remained of the structure, and that her earth pony friend was miraculously lucky as well, with chunks of concrete all around her, but was otherwise unharmed. A quiet had settled across the hill as pegasi, unicorns, and earth ponies coughed and got their bearings. Everypony got to their hooves, a bit dazed, but nopony seemed to be hurt.
A squeaking of metal broke the quiet as the driver of the now overturned vehicle also emerged, not seeming to be hurt, and only now seemed to get an idea of the chaos and destruction he had just caused as his ears folded back as he surveyed the scene.
"Oh, Sunny." Izzy said as she came up to the mare who was looking at her destroyed home.
"I understand now," Sunny said, turning to the group that had started to gather on the front walk. "It's not the crystals that need to be brought together. It's us. We can bring back everything that was lost, but it's up to us. We can stay separated by fear and distrust, or we can choose friendship."
She turned to look at her four friends, before looking down at a broken picture frame, containing a photo of her as a filly, and an older stallion, presumably her father.
"We can choose love. That's the true magic."
The pegasus queen was the first to step forward as the first rays of sunlight came over the horizon. She stepped up to Sunny, reached down, and adjusted one side of the broken picture frame, before looking up and smiling gently at Sunny.
Alphabittle decided this mare was right; if Sunny saw something in these ponies that was more important than jinxies and rituals, then they deserved a chance. He stepped forward, and slid the right side of the frame into place, shortly before the elder earth mare did the same with the top. The gesture was symbolic; the frame would need glue to stay together, but the message was there. They were ready to try working together.
The smiles of Sunny and her friends widened as the rest of the surrounding ponies had gathered in silence, affirming they were ready to give unity a shot.
The crystals, which had been buried by the rubble, glowed brightly, pushing themselves out of the piles of concrete, and began floating around Sunny.
"Ah!" Sunny shouted as she was lifted up into the air by the ethereal force of the crystals that began to rotate around her fast and faster.
Alphabittle watched as she rose higher into the sky, and his eyes widened when he saw glowing golden wings and a horn appear on her body, before the crystals rose up above her, and came together. There was an explosion of rainbow and light, that instantly evaporated the morning overcast, as streaks of prismatic light snaked out over the horizon.
What happened next nearly overwhelmed him; he felt his horn tingle, and it was like he became aware of a piece of himself that had been missing all his life, as he felt his horn get filled with energy.
"Whoa!" Izzy exclaimed excitedly as her own horn began to glow intensely, just before the wings of Pipp and Zipp spread and they gave their wings a single flap, and they easily became airborne.
"Sunny, check you out!"
"Now that's what I call a glow-up!" Izzy said as Sunny floated back down to the ground.
Alphabittle took a breath, got his excitement under control, and walked over to the group of friends.
"Izzy? Sunny? Everypony? I'm sorry, and thank you. Thank you for believing in us when we didn't."
He got smiles and nods from the group before Izzy came in for a hug.
"This is the start of something amazing, I know it!" She told him.
The magic continued to spread, as more of the pegasi and unicorns present got glowing wings and horns. Alphabittle turned back to the pegasus queen, who had elected to stay on the ground for now.
"Um, Your Highness?" He asked, getting her attention. When she turned to him, he offered a short bow.
"Thanks for the save back there. I don't think we were properly introduced back outside the forest. Alphabittle Blossomforth, of Bridlewood."
The pegasus smiled at him.
"Haven, of Zephyr Heights. A pleasure, Mr. Blossomforth."
Her curiosity was piqued when Alphabittle's eyes widened upon hearing her name.
"From the look on your face, I'm assuming you've heard of me?" She asked.
"You... Could say that. Look, I'm sure we're all very tired from our overnight trek here. Let's see if Maretime Bay can put together some sleeping arrangements for everypony for a few hours, because I won't have it said that Alphabittle is ungrateful towards those who saved him from harm's way, and I intend to prove that. Say, over dinner, Your Majesty?"