“You’ve really outdone yourself this time, Tails.”
“Well, we’ve all personally experienced hard evidence that there are other realms out there, Sonic. But with this, we should be able to actually make contact with whoever’s in those realms.”
“…And we have a way to close the connection real fast in case whoever we chat with turns out to not be as friendly as we hoped?”
“Of course we do. I just have to punch in the code – “S-T-K” – and the connection closes.”
“S-T-K… Me, you, and Knuckles, I’m assuming?”
“…How’d you know?”
“Lucky guess”
Tails walked over to the control panel for his newest invention. Within it sat the Fake Chaos Emerald he’d made back during the incident involving the Space Colony ARK. While nowhere near as powerful as a true Chaos Emerald, the artificial one could provide more than enough power to supply the device, which Tails was calling the “Trans-Planar Communication Console”.
“Well,” Sonic said as he walked up to the comm. terminal, “let’s fire this thing up and see who’s in the mood to talk!”
“Gotcha, Sonic”
The two-tailed kitsune shot his older-brother figure a thumbs-up, and then turned his attention to the console. He keyed in a series of commands, and after several seconds the dimensional rift in the center of the machine came alive, and the terminal in front of Sonic lit up, displaying technical data. Sonic looked at the rift, a swirling energy thingy that was presently a pale blue with hints of dull purple. Suddenly, the rift swelled from half the width of Sonic’s head up to twice the size of his body. Worse, there was a light breeze, air being drawn toward the hole.
“Uh, Tails?” Sonic asked, not letting his tiny hint of nervousness show. “Is it supposed to be doing that?”
“No, it isn’t!” Tails replied. “It’s supposed to let through communication and nothing else! And it’s definitely not supposed to be pulling anything in!”
Sonic then felt as the two Chaos Emeralds he had stored in ethereal form within himself resonate with power.
“Uh, Tails, old buddy? The two Chaos Emeralds I’ve got are reacting to WHOAH!!!!”
Sonic was now inexplicably being drawn toward the portal, even though nothing else in the room was. He was now barely holding on with one hand to the terminal.
“The controls aren’t responding to the shutdown code!” Tails shouted.
“A little help would be nice, Tails!”
Tails rushed over to Sonic, reaching out a hand to grab hold of Sonic’s wrist… and arrived there half a second too late, as Sonic lost his grip and was instantly sucked into and through the portal, which then collapsed. The workshop was very quiet, as Tails stood still, hand still outstretched.
“…Well…” Tails muttered to himself, in a bit of a daze. “At least the readings showed that the other side was habitable…”
He then numbly walked back over to the machine, starting to dig through the data and try to find out what had happened.
-SCENE BREAK-
Sonic had decided that hurtling through the space between spaces, while not exactly what he would call pleasant, was not by a long shot the most horrible thing he’d ever experienced. The occasional swirling lights, a feeling of constant motion… he was a tad bored, actually. He saw occasional glimpses of other things as he went – a spaceship shaped like an egg, what looked like a giant tuning fork, a blue police call-box – but for the most part not much happened.
Finally, though, after about 10 minutes of this, he felt a sudden lurching motion, and everything went white. He held a hand to his face, thus figuring out that his vision hadn’t given out on him; everything else was simply a bright white, all around him in every direction. Another flash, and everything became a swirling, tumbling mix of sky-blue, brown, and green. Sonic quickly realized that he was, in fact, falling through the air, and the ground was getting closer pretty quick. He rolled into a ball, and allowed himself to bounce off the ground several times before settling down. He uncurled himself, and looked around.
He was in the middle of a grassy field; in the distance in one direction, he could see the edge of a massive, dark forest; near the forest was what looked like a nice little town. There were several impressive mountains nearby, and a city was built into the side of the tallest one.
“Huh… So I’m in another world, I guess…”
After dusting himself off and stretching out, he took off in the direction of the town, cruising at a leisurely 150 miles per hour. As he neared the town, however, he heard something quite interesting coming from closer to the forest: roars and growls, accompanied by screams of fear and battle cries, both of the latter distinctly feminine. Changing course, he doubled speed and took off toward the source of the sound.
-SCENE BREAK-
Twilight Sparkle used her magic to wield an uprooted tree as a club, smacking away three of the shadowy things attacking them. She, Spike, and the girls had come out here to have a nice little picnic a little ways from Fluttershy’s house on the edge of the Everfree Forest, and they’d suddenly been attacked by these creatures – thin, black and purple, with red slit-pupiled eyes and large claws. She’d read about them: Shadow Slashers, creatures of darkness that liked to live where wild magic congregated. Apparently, this pack lived within Everfree Forest, and by chance the group of seven and the pack had, while both moving in different directions, came close enough to each other that the creatures detected them. These things, self-sustaining creations of some long-dead dark mage and capable of some bizarre form of asexual reproduction that required the life-force of ponies or wellsprings of wild magic, were notoriously vicious, so much that Celestia had led several cullings of their numbers over the centuries. Yet they never seemed to completely die out, no matter how many were destroyed.
A blast of green fire from Spike hit a Shadow Slasher in the chest. It hissed, wounded but not enough to destroy it, and lashed out at Spike with its claws. Spike leapt backward, barely dodging the hit. The wounded Slasher was then hit by a flying double-kick to the back by Rainbow Dash, who then put all of her considerable force into a stomp onto the thing’s upper back. It screeched and then burst into black particles, destroyed. About a dozen feet away, Rarity stood next to Fluttershy, blasting the creatures with magically-accelerated stones as projectiles. Applejack was easily strong enough to one-hit-kill any Shadow Slasher she hit, but she was slower and weaker than normal today; her body still hadn’t recovered from her recent sleep deprivation and exhaustion from her ill-fated one-girl-harvest attempt. However, Pinkie was covering her, taking some of the load off of the cowgirl’s shoulders.
Unfortunately, one of the Shadow Slashers got past Pinkie and went for Applejack, who was busy fending off another one. She turned her head just in time to see a shadowy claw coming toward her… and the Shadow Slasher being impacted by a blue blur moving at speed to match Rainbow Dash’s. The ponies (and dragon) and the Shadow Slashers paused as they took in this new arrival.
“You okay?” the blue biped said to Applejack.
“Y-Yeah” the mare replied. “Still a little slow on the uptake after workin’ myself half to death a few days ago. …Who the heck are you?”
“Is he some kind of alien here to observe our world?” Spike asked.
“Or maybe he’s a unique and mysterious hero-creature come to test the ponies of the world!” Pinkie said.
“Nothin’ like that” he replied. “What you see is what you get; just a guy who loves adventure! I’m Sonic! Sonic the Hedgehog!”
“A… hedgehog?” Fluttershy asked. “You don’t look like any hedgehog I’ve ever seen.”
“Well, they’re probably different here; where I come from, ponies like you girls aren't even sentient beings, and dragons, pegasi, and unicorns don’t exist at all except in fairy tales. I’m from another universe. My little inventor friend was trying out a new invention that would let him talk to other beings in other realms, and I was helping him test it out. But somethin’ went screwy, and it sucked me through and spat me out here. But no matter the universe, one thing doesn’t change…”
He turned to look at the 13 Shadow Slashers, who had regrouped and were trying to decide whether or not to attack the newcomer.
“If someone needs help, there’s no way I can just stand by and watch.”
Before anyone could say anything, the Shadow Slasher Alpha – nearly twice the size of the standard Slashers – roared, and it and its pack charged. In a flash, Sonic and Rainbow Dash shot toward them, hitting the closest two with a Homing Attack and a two-forehoof strike, respectively, destroying both.
“Come on, Skinnies!” Sonic shouted. “Come and see what it’s like to get beat down by the fastest thing on two legs!”
“And the fastest thing on four!” Dash added in.
A Shadow Slasher was about to rush at Dash, only for a spear/spike of rock – glowing faintly with Rarity’s bluish magical aura – to jut out from the ground beneath it, skewering it. Another went for Applejack, only to be blindsided by Twilight’s improvised club, smashing it away and crushing its chest. Spike dodge-rolled underneath one, slashing out at its ankles with his claws. The creature screeched and knelt down on its injured legs, allowing Spike to blast it in the face with a bolt of green fire, taking it out.
Rainbow Dash took down her third Shadow Slasher, bringing it down to five. She looked… and saw that Sonic had taken down three as well, and was now engaging the Alpha. He flitted about, dodging its attacks and dealing return strikes with strength unbecoming of his size and frame, sending the monster reeling. He leapt back, and then struck it in the center of the chest with a Homing Attack, knocking it onto its back. He then leapt high, curled into a ball, and came down hard onto the Alpha’s upper torso, impacting with enough force to destroy it.
The last Shadow Slasher had somehow managed to slip past everyone. It leapt at Fluttershy… and was speared through the chest by a thin beam of golden light. It dissolved into darkness-particles before it could hit the ground. Everyone looked over to where the beam of light came from, to see…
“Princess!”
Even Sonic gave a quick, gracious bow to the regal figure walking up to the group. Celestia looked around, checking on each of the group, and then focused her sight on Sonic.
“Who might you be?” she asked.
“His name’s Sonic the Hedgehog” Pinkie cut in. “He says his friend back in his universe was working on a machine to let them talk to beings in other universes, but something went haywire and sucked Sonic up and spat him out here in our world.”
“He assisted us in dealing with the Shadow Slashers” Twilight said. “He even saved Applejack.”
“Not that I’d normally need savin’,” the orange-furred girl added in, “but I still ain’t recovered from pushing myself way too hard a couple ‘a days ago.”
“In that case, thank you for helping my student and her friends, Mr. Sonic.”
“Just Sonic, ma’am” the blue hedgehog replied. “I don’t like formalities.”
“Neither do I” Celestia said. “But as a Princess, I’m somewhat forced to apply to them more often than not. Ugh, the stories I could tell you about some of the stuck-up… Ah, but I’m getting ahead of myself.”
“Um, Sonic” Twilight asked. “I’m sensing what feels like a powerful magical artifact in you. …Actually, two of them.”
Sonic nodded and held out his hand. Magical energy stored in his body coalesced into a large, blue gem.
“This is a Chaos Emerald” he said.
“I can sense a considerable amount of power in it” Celestia said. “On par with an Element of Harmony…”
“The Chaos Emeralds contain great and varied power” Sonic continued. “They contain and provide enormous amounts of energy. When someone who has learned how to attune themselves to an Emerald’s energy signature gets a hold of one, they can access the Emeralds’ power. With just one Chaos Emerald, the user can temporarily freeze time for everyone except themselves and anyone physically touching them. Someone using an Emerald can also use it to teleport, and to shoot out blasts of raw magical energy to harm enemies.”
He called forth his other Emerald, a green one.
“The Emeralds can also heal the user and others. One Emerald can heal wounds that would leave someone hospitalized for days. If you have all seven, you can resurrect the recently-dead, though only if they didn’t die of natural causes and they weren’t, like, reduced to ashes or atoms. Also, if all seven Chaos Emeralds are together, they can bestow upon the user and anyone else of their choosing a Super Mode; with that transformation, strength, power, speed, and durability skyrocket, and the user gains the ability to fly at great speed and survive deep ocean, lava, or even the vacuum of space.”
The girls (and Spike) were awestruck.
“Such incredible power…” Rarity muttered. “All contained in those little gems?”
“Do you have the others with you?” Fluttershy asked.
“Nah” Sonic replied. “The other five Chaos Emeralds are back on my world right now.”
“Why don’t we find a place to sit down and trade stories?” Celestia suggested.
The group headed over to Fluttershy’s cottage. There, Sonic told them of his world, and explained his friends and various exploits – up to the incident with the Chaos Water God, the emergence of Shadow, the fight to stop Space Colony ARK, the incident with Metal Sonic, and the recent invasion of the Black Arms… and how Shadow near-singlehandedly saved the world and killed Black Doom. Celestia and the girls (and Spike) introduced themselves properly, and then told Sonic some important data about the world of Equestria, and of the recent vanquishing of Nightmare Moon and freeing of Princess Luna. And of Applejack’s recent ill-fated attempt to harvest an entire orchard all by herself.
‘So… You’re not worried about how you’re gonna get home?” Dash asked.
“No” Sonic replied. “Tails will figure something out. He always does. I don’t know where I’d be in life if I’d never met him. He’ll freak out for, like, 20 minutes, and then he’ll get down to business.”
Suddenly, in the center of the room was a whorl of dark-blue sparkles. It subsided to reveal none other than Princess Luna.
“Sister?” Celestia asked. “What brings you here?”
“We are aware of the visitor that hath come to this world” Luna said. “We hath seen a vision.”
She turned to face Sonic. “At some point in the near future – months, at most – a foe from thy world shall attempt to harm this world.”
“…Was it a fat, bald guy in a red outfit with black shades?”
“No. We divined one cryptic clue: ‘a foe of thy past meets a foe of thy future, and the two become one’.”
“…I hate prophecies. …Guess that means I better stick around, though. No way I’m letting one of my rogues’ gallery make trouble for you guys without my help. Where should I stay?”
“We have a spare room” Spike said.
“Good idea, Spike” Twilight said. “You can stay at our place. It’s the library at the center of Ponyville, the one built into a tree.”
“…Alright. Not the weirdest place I’ve stayed in. Not by a long shot. I’d be happy to stay wherever you can offer me.”
“Then it’s settled” Celestia said. “Sonic, why don’t you go with the girls into town, get used to the place, maybe meet some of the locals?”
“Alright. It’s a nice, small little town, so I’m guessing it shouldn’t take too long.”
“And let’s not forget the welcoming party!” Pinkie said.
“Sounds good to me” Sonic said with a grin. “I’m always up for a celebration!”
In twin flashes of light, the Princesses teleported back to their castle. The group of eight exited the cottage through the front door, heading over to Ponyville.