Luna's moon had just risen when Twilight first noticed something: she was tired.
"Ok Spike, I think that is enough research for one day" Twilight said, she and her dragon assistant had been working all day to try and find out what this gem was and where it came from. But so far they had nothing to show for a whole day of research.
"Finally, bed!" Spike said, hurrying off to his basket.
Twilight, yawned heading to her bed for the night, not even bothering to re-shelve the books, sh just wanted to close her eyes, fall asleep, wake up in the morning, and research more. She remembered something, and raced back downstairs. She double checked that the gem was locked up tight first, going as far as re-locking the 10 or 20 locks on it.
"I still have a bad feeling about that gem, what if it is being used to slowly leak something into Equestria." she thought.
Twilight took one last glance at the gem, and sighed going to her bed, for real this time, "it'll be fine, nopony could possibly undo all those locks" she said to herself, getting into her bed and pulling the covers over herself. "Yes, everything will be fine" she said, before drifting off into a deep sleep.
***
Tails and Omega approached the tree house, a sign in front read "Ponyville Library".
"'ponyville library, ponies can read? Tails mentally inquired, he knew he was in a different world, but he still thought it was weird.
"The door is locked, should i use brute force?" E-123 inquired, his robotic brain choosing the quickest most destructive route to his objective, as always.
"No, no!" Tails said, shaking his head frantically. He looked at the library, spotting an open window, it was just big enough for him to fit through, "Omega you stay hidden out here if i need help ill send up a flare, okay?".
"understood" Omega unhappily replied.
Tails's tails spun and he took off towards the window, once he got there he squeezed through the frame. His eyes locking onto his target, the glowing white chaos emerald. he was about to jump from the windowsill to the floor when a snoring sound occurred directly in front of him. Tails looked down to see a horse-like figure fast asleep on a bed, constellations were stitched into the blanket, under which a purple unicorn, as far as Tails could tell, was sleeping soundly.
"Oh great, this could be hard." he thought, slowly edging his way along a small ledge on the wall.
Once he was clear of the bed he jumped down to the floor. He landed without a sound, slowly but surely he made his way to the white emerald, he frowned at the locks on the case, not because there were so many but because they were so simple to unlock.
"i would think that they would do a better job than this" he said, then it happened, he picked the last lock slowly taking it off of the case to quietly set it on the floor when all of a sudden, it slipped from his hands.
'BANG'
the lock must have been charged with some kind of energy, because as soon as it hit the floor it exploded. Tails was propelled back into a wall, he heard footsteps getting louder.
"Nice try whoever you a-" the figure, who turned out to be the unicorn Tails had avoided landing on earlier, stated stopping in mid sentence, her eyes wide and mouth agape, staring at Tails.
"wh-who, what ar-" was what she managed to say before Tails made a dive for the emerald. He was only a few meters away when he was suddenly pulled back, he turned around to see the unicorn, her horn aglow, glaring at him.
"Okay, I wasn't planing to use this, but i have no choice now." he thought reaching into his backpack he brought out his arm cannon, charging it's laser and aiming it towards the unicorn, who was also charging a shot.
'CRASH'
The fox and the unicorn turned to see a large chunk of a wall missing, debris scattered on the floor. The source of the abrupt intrusion was another pony, this one looking more like a normal horse from their world nor horn or wings, as Shadow had reported pegasi in this world. It's lime green eyes glowed in the dark regarding the two with little concern. but what stood out about this pony was its armor. White, with blue designs on the hooves and one of the armored, "manes?" Tails inquired mentally, not knowing much about a horse's anatomy.
***
Twilight was frozen in shock, first a weird two-tailed creature sets off the lock trap, and then a armored earth pony bursts through the wall.
She was so distracted, as was the two-tailed creature, that they almost missed the fact that the earth pony had grabbed the emerald and had ran towards the hole in the wall. Twilight, now recovered from her shock, whirled around and shot off the already charged up energy beam from her horn, the creature swiveled its right arm towards the armored earth pony, the object on the end of his arm glowing yellow before blasting a powerful beam of energy towards the earth pony.
Despite the armor this pony was incredibly quick. It dodged Twilights beam, then ducked under the creatures one, leaping out the hole in the wall. The armor on its back retracting as two metallic looking wings unfolded and flapped propelling the now apparent pegasi forward.
Twilight turned to look at the creature as he looked at her, he wore a worried and shocked expression.
"Truce, just until we get the chaos emerald back?" he asked.
"Su- WAIT, the "WHAT" emerald!?" Twilight yelled, rivaling Luna's "royal Canterlot voice". She could not believe that she had been so close to a source of chaos and had not known.
"Yeah, there are 7 of them, they are also known as 'the gems of miracles' collect all seven and a miracle is supposed to occur"
"Bu - I - wha -" Twilight stammered, she then shook her head and looked back to the armored pegasus.
She sighed "Tell me about it later, we have to go catch that pegasus!", she said racing to the door. When she opened it however, she was greeted by the sight of a large metallic figure, taller than herself and the creature.
"Life-form: equine. Gender: female. Name: unknown" it said.
Twilight was planning to run, when the orange creature came out of the door behind her.
"Omega, don't shoot!" he called, pointing to the pegasus, who was now hovering in the air a few yards away as if it wanted them to catch it.
"Target that flying one in white armor!" he said. "Omega" swiveled his upper body 180 degrees around to face the pegasus.
"target locked on to!" he confirmed.
The two-tailed creature spoke up "By the way, my name is Tails", he said smiling.
"It's nice to meet you Tails, my name is Twilight Sparkle" she replied, as they both set off after the pegasus.
***
Tails, using his tails to increase his speed, ran/hovered alongside Twilight and E-123. Their flying thief, whoever they were, was fast, very very fast. They chased the pegasus through the streets of ponyville, eventually making it to a road that lead to Sweet Apple Acres.
"Hopefully my friend Applejack can help us with this pegasus problem" Twilight said. Tails hoped that was the case as well.
"Wait, the emerald was detected on a farm, Knuckles was sent there. Sweet Apple Acres, so that means-" Tails's eyes widened as he realized what might have happened,
"Twilight, a friend of mine, he might have hurt your friend if she had the emerald with her!" Tails called, knowing how much of a knucklehead his friend was.
"What, wh-" before Twilight could finish the armored pegasus suddenly yelped.
Tails turned towards the noise, and saw a orange pony, no horn or wings present on her body, a depiction of 3 red apples on her flank. From the look of it she had used her hind legs to kick the pegasus in the side causing the flying pony to crash to the ground. She turned towards Twilight smiling, until she saw the two-tailed orange fox.
"Twilight, get away from that thing!" Applejack, judging by the apples on her flank, yelled charging towards Tails.
Instead of moving away, Twilight moved in front of Tails, blocking Applejacks path.
"He is not here to hurt me or you, or anypony Applejack, he is looking for the chaos emeralds, do you still have the yellow one?" Twilight explained
Applejack shook her head, "A red creature, that looks a lot like yer orange friend here, came an' took the emerald from me, but if that red creature is friends with, um-"
"Tails" Tails said, introducing himself to the orange pony.
"Then i think we can get back. But first lets take care of this pegasus", Applejack said turning toward the armored flyer, who, to her surprise, was fully recovered from her hard kick, standing fully upright.
"How did it-" Tails began, only to be cut off by the pegasus.
"I heal quickly, and the armor helps" she stated "The emeralds and elements must be united, if they arn-"
"What have you done to my friends?" Tails asked angrily, his arm cannon rising.
The armored pegasus blinked, "I'm sorry, what was that?" she asked.
"My friends: Sonic, Shadow, Knuckles, and Rouge. When they contacted me they all were cut off by a creature. And you match the description, perfectly!" he growled, his arm cannon glowing.
"Oh they are fine dear, i just need the emeralds, and that's all I took from them, now ill take this and-" she was cut off by a large boulder being tossed straight at her.
Tails turned to see Twilight's horn glowing, surrounded by a light magenta aura. Her face a expression of smug cleverness.
The expression only lasted for a few seconds however, as the boulder was once again surrounded by a shining aura, only this time the aura was a dark crimson.
CRACK
The aura glowed brighter as the boulder started to crumble, until it finally shattered into pebbles, bouncing off of the armor of neither a pegasus or a unicorn, but an alicorn, dual bladed wings shining in the moonlight, and a bladed horn glowing crimson in the darkness.
"TAILS!" a familiar shout tore through the silence of the night. Tails turned around to see Knuckles charging, towards Applejack. Tails shook his head and pointed at the "alicorn". His freind nodded and changed his course, he swung a hard right at the alicorn. It blocked with one of its wings, sparks flying as Knuckles's fist smashed into the metal blade.
The armored equine gave a hard shove with its wing, then spun around, its other wing rotating like a saw blade forcing Knuckles back towards the group, its other wing, dented and sparking, slowly started to repair itself, pieces of metal and hydraulic parts re-attaching themselves to the wing. The alicorn proceeded to use both wings as saws, blocking attacks and thrusting out the spinning blades of death towards anything that came too close to her.
"How the hay is that thing doing that!?" Applejack yelled over the wind generated by the blade-wings.
"A machine, it cant be a machine, can it!?" Tails frantically searched his mind for a probable answer to this situation, as the question ran rings around his mind.
"What is this thing!?" Twilight asked, raising her voice to be heard over the gale, she fired off another bolt of energy but it was quickly shattered by the spinning blades.
Tails would have responded, but suddenly he was grabbed by an unseen force and hurled into a swirling vortex of red and black energy.
"Never thought it would end this way, being beaten by a pony" he thought as his vision faded and then failed altogether.
***
Twilight, Knuckles, And Applejack watched in horror as the incredibly brilliant two-tailed fox was absorbed by the vortex, and disappeared.
"Tails!" Knuckles cried out, his thoughts consumed by the rage and sorrow for his friend's loss.
"I-I'll-I'LL KILL YOU!" he screamed at the alicorn, he charged at the pony, his body glowing a bright red, firery aura surrounding him.
The alicorn's back armor, once again, slid open, wings extending instantly, her eyes glowing like the headlights of a vehicle.
"Until next time, Knuckles. I'll take good care of Tails" she responded, a high pitched whine starting up before blue flames shot out of the hoof armor, lifting the alicorn into the air. The hoofs folded up and back flames shooting out behind the alicorn, who shot away disappearing with a scarlet flash into the equestrian night sky.
***
"NO!" Knuckles's anger was clearly visible, he was on the ground sobbing at the loss of his friend.
"Um, Knuckles, right? We will get your friend back, promise" Twilight said, trying to comfort the red echidna.
"Yeah, you can bet that emerald we'll save him!" Applejack chimed in, a determined look on her face.
"O-okay, but we will have to find our friends and the other emeralds fir - oh - no" his voice trailed off as he heard a sonic boom followed by a cannon shot, then a shattering of glass.
"What the hay-" Applejack started to say.
"It seems that our friends are now, to put it mildly, fighting" the red echidna stated, a worried look spreading on his face as well as the faces of the unicorn and the earth pony. Instead of inquiring further the trio raced towards the town.
"Wait" Knuckles abruptly stated looking around
"Where is E-123 Omega!?" All three looking about for the bulky red robot, that had somehow disappeared without a trace.