//------------------------------// // Sweet Mountain and Planet Wisp, Part IV // Story: Sonic Generations: Friendship is Timeless // by GreenS21 //------------------------------// After running after them for a few minutes, the group heard the sounds of arguing nearby and came to a stop. After a quick decision, the group decided to check it out and ran off the path they had been on, heading for the top of a hill. When they reached it and looked down below, Twilight gasped, “Pinkie Pie!” Down below them, the party pony was fighting with Soarin and Storm the Albatross over a pie, the three of them having a hand/hoof/mouth on the pie tin and trying to get it away from the other two. “Let go of it! It’s mine!” Pinkie yelled. “No, it’s mine, little pony!” Storm scoffed. “It’s mine! I saw it first!” Soarin exclaimed as best he could, his mouth closed around the edge of the pie. As they continued arguing, Silver looked at Blaze and asked, “Should we go down there?” Blaze crossed her arms, “I’m not so sure we should get involved with this… food fight.” Vector thumped his right fist against the palm of his left hand while saying, “No need for all of us to get involved! I think I can settle this nice and…” Before he could finish, they heard Spitfire scream, “Soarin!” The pale blue pegasus in question froze when he heard his name being called. His eyes moved upward, where he saw his captain flapping her wings to remain where she was above him. He took his mouth off the pie; she wasn’t right above him, but the look she was giving him made it feel like she was. “S-Spitfire!” he uttered. “Ha ha, you’re gonna get yelled at! And the pie is mine!” Storm gloated, thinking taking the pie from Pinkie would be easy now that Soarin had let go. Unfortunately for him, even though the pink pony only had one hoof on it, she wasn’t letting go. Soarin stood stock still, still looking up at Spitfire while Storm and Pinkie fought over the pie. That fight was soon halted when Jet, Wave, and Rainbow flew up alongside Spitfire and Jet yelled, “Storm! What do you think you’re doing?!” The albatross’ teeth clenched and he let go of the pie. He turned and looked up at his fellow Babylonians, both of them with their arms crossed as they glared down at him. “B-B-Boss! W-Wave!” he stuttered. A second later, Pinkie cheered, “Whoo-hoo! Pinkie’s got the pie!” She then turned and bounced away with the pie sitting atop her cotton candy mane. Almost immediately, Soarin and Storm looked at Pinkie and forgot about the possible punishments they expected to receive and started chasing after her. “Hey, come back here!” Storm yelled. “Give me back my pie!” Soarin exclaimed. Spitfire, Jet, and Wave tried to get Soarin and Storm to return to attention, but now they were too focused on chasing the bouncing pony to pay attention. Up on the hill, Spike sarcastically said, “Great. That didn’t help at all.” Cadance held a hoof to her chin, “Perhaps if I use my spell on them, they’ll calm down.” Luna suggested, “Or perhaps the Royal Canterlot Voice…” Celestia said, “Those are both good ideas… but I think we need something that will really grab their attentions.” Sonic looked off to the side and noticed a Violet Wisp chasing a Red Wisp and a Green Wisp around, the Violet Wisp barking like a dog the entire time. He held a hand to his chin, “Hm… That gives me an idea.” Celestia looked at him, “An idea?” Luna asked, “What do you propose, Sonic?” Sonic gestured with his hands for them to come closer and they did so, leaning down so their heads were close to his. He then started whispering in their ears and gesturing at the Wisps that were still floating around, leaving the others confused as to what he had in mind. When he was done, the three of them leaned back and Luna smiled, “Oh my, that does sound like fun!” Celestia nodded, “Indeed. And you’re sure this will work?” Sonic replied, “As long as you two work closely together. I’m sure you two can handle it, right?” Celestia and Luna looked at each other for a moment before looking back at him and nodding with a smile. A minute later… “Stop bouncing around like that!” Storm yelled, now very frustrated. No matter what he did, Pinkie Pie always managed to bounce out of his reach, especially now when he was getting winded. Rainbow Dash stood beside the others, having joined them to watch this scene play out. “Mm… Nope!” Pinkie chimed, still bouncing around in a circle with the pie still perfectly balanced on her mane. Soarin panted, “How can she keep this up for so long? Ugh, what I wouldn’t give for a bit of relief right now…” As if in response, a wind started blowing past the Wonderbolt. “Ah… That’s not much, but it sure feels nice,” he sighed. NIGHTMARE MOON?! After a few seconds, the wind began to pick up, unnaturally so. It even caused Pinkie Pie to stop and look around, Soarin and Storm doing the same. Suddenly a booming, familiar-sounding voice spoke, “YOU LITTLE FOALS! YOU DISPLEASE ME WITH YOUR QUARRELING AND REFUSAL TO SHARE WITH ONE ANOTHER!” As everyone looked around, a familiar black mare flew up from behind a stack of pies and grinned down at Pinkie, Storm, and Soarin, “I HAD THOUGHT ABOUT SIMPLY EATING THESE PIES, BUT INSTEAD, PERHAPS I WILL SIMPLY EAT YOU!” Pinkie screamed, “AAAAAAHHHHHHH! NIGHTMARE MOON!” Soarin and Storm screamed as well, Soarin because he remembered being told the tale of Nightmare Moon when he was a colt and Storm because the Mare in the Moon’s sudden appearance and statement terrified him. The others, though not all of them, looked on in shock at what they were seeing. Jet angrily shook a fist at Nightmare Moon, “Try to eat my teammate, will you?! I’m gonna…!” He stopped short when he noticed something violet forming in front of the mare’s hooves. “What’s she doing?” he asked. Suddenly, a void formed in front of Nightmare Moon, a scary face outlined in yellow on its surface and cobalt blue around the outside of it. “That looks like the lightless black! Jet, move it!” Wave exclaimed. The two of them quickly turned and flew behind part of the ground that was sticking straight up and peered around it. Wave called, “Storm, get over here!” The albatross turned and started to run towards his fellow rogues, Soarin and Pinkie deciding to do the same, the forgotten pie flying towards Nightmare Moon and disappearing into the void. “Hey, we’d better take cover too!” Tails exclaimed, everybody jumping down from the hill and running for cover behind stable parts of the ground that were sticking up, Spitfire joining them. Pinkie, Storm, and Soarin were just about to reach the others when, suddenly, the pull from the black hole became stronger and it started to pull them backwards! Panicking, they all tried to dig themselves into the ground, Soarin and Pinkie planting their hooves into it and Storm punching handles to grab onto into it. But they could still feel the pull from Nightmare Moon’s black hole behind them, and they didn’t know how long they could hold on. “Soarin, you’re a Wonderbolt for crying out loud! Put those wings to work!” Spitfire yelled. The pale blue pegasus spread his wings and started flapping them, trying to push himself away from Nightmare Moon’s pull. But he barely started moving forward before a cobalt blue aura wrapped around him, Pinkie, and Storm and started pulling them backwards! “I can’t move…!” Soarin whimpered. Suddenly, a bright yellow aura wrapped around him, Storm, and Pinkie, seemingly negating the cobalt blue aura. Princess Celestia’s voice spoke, “Fear not, my little ponies. I will protect you.” Pinkie, Storm, and Soarin looked up and the others looked back to see a bright green flash, forcing them all to avert their eyes. When they could all see again, a large, green comet-like shape was flying over all their heads, coming to a stop just in front and above the three figures huddled on the ground. They couldn’t see who was under the green, but the two ‘tails’ behind the comet and the way they moved left little doubt as to who it was. “Luna, I command you to stop this at once!” Celestia’s voice spoke from within the green comet with as much royal authority as the Sun Princess could muster. “YOU DARE TO OPPOSE ME, SISTER?! I WILL NOT ALLOW IT!” Nightmare Moon yelled, moving towards the green comet and stopping just in front of it, behind the three figures huddled on the ground. The two princesses began pushing against each other with their Wisp power, the air around them shaking as they both tried to overpower the other. The pull from the black hole began to get stronger, Pinkie, Storm, and Soarin starting to lose their grip even with Celestia’s magic holding them. It was at this moment that three fillies came trotting out into the open, still looking for the others. As she walked around the side of a blueberry pie, Sweetie Belle spotted everyone taking cover. “Hey, there they are!” she called back to her friends. Scootaloo and Apple Bloom came rushing over to her when she said that, but then all of them started to feel the pull of the void, the wind whipping around them. The three fillies covered their faces, Scootaloo yelling above the wind, “What’s going on here?!” Sweetie Belle shouted, “Some kind of… wind! It’s like a tornado!” Apple Bloom looked down as it suddenly felt like she was moving. She was, and Sweetie Belle and Scootaloo were moving too! It really was like a tornado! She looked at the nearby pie and jumped up, locking her hooves onto the edge of the tin and yelling as loud as she could, “Grab on!” Scootaloo and Sweetie Belle heard her and leapt up, Scootaloo wrapping her forelegs around Apple Bloom’s hind legs and Sweetie Belle doing the same with Scootaloo. Apple Bloom had yelled a little too loudly, it seemed, since Applejack raised an eyebrow and looked back over her shoulder, her eyes widening when she saw the three fillies hanging on for dear life. “Apple Bloom!” she exclaimed. Rarity turned to look when she heard that and she reacted much the same way as Applejack, especially since it looked like the Cutie Mark Crusaders wouldn’t be able to hold on for very long. “Sweetie Belle! Oh, this plan is going so horribly wrong!” she moaned. Rainbow had also spotted the fillies and was beginning to worry that Apple Bloom was losing her grip due to the wind picking up. Shooting a glance in the direction of Celestia and Luna, she looked back at the fillies and said, “Not gonna happen!” She spread her wings and, after fluttering them a few times, she shot straight towards the Cutie Mark Crusaders. Just as she was about to reach them, Apple Bloom lost her grip; not even a second later, the three fillies disappeared as Rainbow grabbed them and shot back towards her spot before her speed gave out, landing next to Spitfire with Apple Bloom, Sweetie Belle, and Scootaloo in her forelegs. “Thanks, Rainbow Dash,” Scootaloo whispered. “No problem, Scootaloo. Don’t worry; Sonic said this shouldn’t last much longer,” the pegasus replied. As if to prove her point, a second later, there was a dark violet flash followed by a bright green flash, both of them causing everyone to look away even though they were behind cover. When they looked again, they could see Celestia and Luna, back in her normal form, flapping their wings as they hovered in the air, Luna holding a pie up in between them with her magic. The Babylon Rogues, the Cutie Mark Crusaders, Spitfire, and Soarin looked up in confusion as the two sisters began laughing mirthfully, both acting like… well, sisters. It wasn’t long before Pinkie joined in on the laughter and rolled over onto her back, seemingly getting something that some of the others didn’t. “Oh, wow! That was great, Princess Celestia and Princess Luna! You really had me going there!” the pink pony exclaimed. The two alicorns fluttered down, both of them still chortling. They landed on the ground a second later, standing between Pinkie and Soarin. “Thank you, Pinkie Pie. That was rather refreshing, wasn’t it?” Celestia spoke. Luna turned to Soarin and levitated the pie over to him, holding it just above his head. “I believe you said you saw this first,” she said as she cut off her magic, the pie landing between Soarin’s ears as he looked up at her. Back behind cover, Scootaloo raised an eyebrow, “Wait… what’s really going on here?” Rainbow chuckled as she set the three fillies down, “Sorry about that, kid. Pinkie and Soarin were fighting with that albatross guy over a pie and all three princesses were trying to come up with a way to get them to stop.” Spitfire looked over at her in surprise at that. As the others started coming out from behind their cover, Sweetie Belle asked, “And they didn’t think to just say something loud enough to get their attention?” Blaze walked over and explained to the fillies, “Celestia wanted to do something that would really get their attention and get them to stop. I believe she thought that speaking loudly wasn’t… interesting enough.” NOT EXACTLY WHAT WAS EXPECTED Applejack angrily walked over to the Cutie Mark Crusaders, Rarity right behind her, and said, “Well, Ah’m gonna be speakin’ loudly right now! Just what do you three think you’re doin’ here?!” Rarity stepped up beside her and added, “And after we told you not to come here and Princess Celestia agreed with us!” The three fillies huddled together nervously, especially Sweetie Belle and Apple Bloom. “Uh-oh…” Apple Bloom whispered. While Applejack and Rarity started arguing with Rainbow Dash about giving the fillies a talking to and Blaze and Silver tried to calm them all down, Spitfire flew over to Soarin. The pale blue pegasus looked up at her, grinning nervously as he lay on his stomach on the ground. “Uh… hi, Spitfire?” he smiled. Spitfire continued to look down at him angrily as she landed in front of him and said, “Don’t give me that innocent look, Soarin! I told you we needed to stick together until we figured out where we were, but you deliberately took off on me! And for what, free pies? If you’d just restrained yourself a little longer, we both could’ve looked for them and not gotten separated!” Any more words the team captain had to say were stopped when a loud shout filled the air. It was so loud that even Rainbow Dash, Rarity, and Applejack stopped arguing. Everyone looked and saw Jet stomping over to Storm with his Extreme Gear under his right arm, Wave following behind him while carrying both her and Storm’s Extreme Gear under her left arm. When he was standing in front of his teammate, Jet angrily yelled, “Storm, you idiot! This is what you disappeared for?! To get a pie?! If you were looking for treasure, maybe I could forgive it, but this?!” The gray albatross shot up into a sitting position and held his hands up, sputtering, “B-Boss, I… I didn’t mean to… I mean…” Wave put her right hand on Jet’s shoulder, saying, “Jet, just calm down.” The hawk nearly burst a vein as he turned to her and screamed, “No! He disappears, makes me miss a chance to settle the score with Sonic, and we end up being played for fools by two ‘princesses’ just so he can get a pie?! And that’s not counting all the time we wasted just looking for him!” Wave asked, “Aren’t you overreacting?” Jet answered, “Overreacting?! Storm wasn’t listening to me earlier and those two decided to have fun with their lame prank! Nobody gets to make light of me like that, NOBODY!” He turned to look at Sonic and pointed at him, “I won’t stand for this disgrace! Just for that, we are going to race right now, Sonic the Hedgehog!” Before Sonic could say anything or Celestia could try to rectify the situation, Pinkie popped up right next to Jet, wrapping a hoof around his shoulders and saying, “Aw, don’t be such a mean meanie pants, Jet-ski! Princess Celestia and Princess Luna were just having fun! It’s fun to be scared sometimes! Don’t you know that?” Before Jet could reply, Pinkie let him go, moving so swiftly that the hawk dropped his Extreme Gear and spun in a circle a few times, and dropped to all fours, grinning, “And there’s one thing that’s even better than that!” She took off running again, leaving a cloud of dust behind as she yelled, “CHOCOLATE MILK!” As Jet stopped spinning, Twilight called, “Pinkie!” Sonic turned away from the direction Pinkie had run off in, looking at Jet as the green hawk shook his head and placed his left hand on his forehead. “Looks like you’ll have to find another outlet for your anger. See ya, Jet!” With that, he turned and ran after Pinkie Pie, Tails soon following him while spinning his tails. “H-Hey, wait!” Jet yelled while holding out his right hand in Sonic’s direction. “Oh dear…” Blaze sighed as she and Silver started after the duo. Applejack spoke, “C’mon, y’all! We’d better go too!” Twilight, Fluttershy, Rainbow, Rarity, and Spike all nodded. As Twilight lifted Spike onto her back, Applejack turned to Apple Bloom and her friends and said, in a no-nonsense tone, “And now that we know y’all are here, you’re comin’ too!” The Cutie Mark Crusaders quickly nodded, Apple Bloom and Sweetie Belle climbing up on their sisters’ backs while Rainbow Dash took Scootaloo in her forelegs. Along with Shining Armor and Cadance, they then hurried to catch up with the others. “Hey, what’s this all about?” Wave questioned. “Where are you all going?!” Jet yelled. Espio passed by him, turning his head to look at him and saying, “We have better things to do right now. One of them is making sure our friend Pinkie Pie is okay.” He then faced forward and ran after the others. As he walked past him, Vector smirked at Jet, “Looks like it’s time you learned a little patience, you little brat.” He then hurried after Espio, Celestia and Luna spreading their wings and flying after him. Jet yelled, “What?! Why, that overgrown handbag! First… and now…! Argh, that’s it!” He flipped his Extreme Gear over, the board hovering just above the ground. Wave turned to Storm (who had stood up by this time) and shifted her Extreme Gear to her right arm, holding the albatross’ board out to him as she said, “Here, Storm, I brought your Extreme Gear. And you’re cleaning it off yourself if you want any more maintenance done on it!” Storm groaned as he took it, “Aw, come on, Wave…” The swallow didn’t respond; she simply set up her Extreme Gear and stepped on it, both her and Jet taking off after the group, Storm getting on his Extreme Gear and following them after a few seconds. Spitfire turned to Soarin and said, “Come on, Soarin, we’re going too! They helped me find you; I’m going to return the favor!” She spread her wings and took off, flying after the Babylon Rogues. Soarin cried, “H-Hey! Wait up, Spitfire!” He stood up and, while trying to keep the pie balanced on his head, spread his wings and flew after her, unaware that the Red Wisp that had wandered off earlier was following behind him. Soon… Pinkie Pie grinned as she reached the end of the frosting-covered canyon trench, coming upon a large beach that had Skittles, M&M’s, and various other small candies littering it instead of sand. She didn’t care about the candies or the two cake-like ledges along the sides, though; what had her attention was what awaited her at the shore: the Chocolate Milk Sea. As soon as she saw it, she stopped bouncing and opened her mouth, letting her tongue dangle out. She then rushed towards the shore, too focused on the chocolate milk to pay any attention whatsoever when a loud noise broke the silence on the beach… Sonic heard a loud scream as he exited the canyon trench and looked straight ahead. He saw an explosion of candies being scattered, what looked like a cannonball wedged into the ground at that spot, and a familiar pink pony flying backwards from the other end of the beach. “Pinkie!” Sonic yelled, immediately dashing towards her. He held out his arms as they got closer, catching Pinkie and sliding to a stop as soon as he had her. He looked down at the pony in his arms, “Are you okay?” As Tails and the others exited the canyon and started making their way over, Pinkie shook her head and looked up at him, “Wowie, Sonic! I sure am glad to see you! That big boom TOTALLY surprised me! If you hadn’t caught me, I’d sure have a big bump on the old Pinkie coconut!” Sonic smirked down at her. “Heh, she’s okay,” he thought to himself. Tails, Blaze, and Silver came running up behind Sonic with the others not far behind and stood at his sides, Tails on his right and Blaze at his left, Silver standing to Blaze’s right. Tails and Blaze looked down at Pinkie, relieved to see that she was okay, but it was broken when Silver exclaimed, “Look! What’s that?!” After Sonic set Pinkie down, they, along with Blaze and Tails, looked where Silver was pointing, out on the Chocolate Milk Sea, as everyone else caught up and stood at their sides and/or behind them, also looking to see what was coming (Soarin doing so while finishing off the last of his pie). Out in the middle of the sea (as far as the group could see), from behind a rock structure that looked like it was made entirely out of chocolate, a galleon was floating into view, two of the cannons on the side already visible. The rest of the ship soon appeared and everyone could see that it had various candies covering it. As they watched, a robot with a rocket thruster in place of its legs flew up from the ship, flying about halfway to the shore before stopping. While holding up a lollipop in its left hand, it spoke, “ARR, WHAT HAVE WE HERE? MORE NOSY TRESPASSERS, THIS TIME ON CAPTAIN JELLY’S TERRITORY!” Vector groaned, “What a surprise. Of course Eggman would have a cheesy robot pirate to guard the waters of his candy land.” Captain Jelly heard him and, while pointing his lollipop down at Vector, said, “STILL YOUR TONGUE, YOU LEATHERHEAD! I’VE KEELHAULED FOR LESS THAN THAT!” Sonic looked at Blaze and shrugged, “Geez, it hasn’t even been five minutes and already this guy’s pirate shtick is worse than Captain Whisker’s.” Blaze replied, “Perhaps that’s not the only thing that’s worse about him.” Captain Jelly yelled, “I HEARD THAT, YOU SEA RATS! YOU DARE MOCK THE GREAT CAPTAIN JELLY?! I’LL TEACH YE A LESSON!” He looked back at his ship and ordered, “FIRE THE CANNONS! SEND THEM TO DAVY JONES’ LOCKER ROOM!” At his command, three of the cannons on the galleon aimed upwards and fired. Most of the group members quickly saw that the cannonballs would be right on top of them when they hit. Storm exclaimed, “Wah! Boss, what do we do?!” Before Jet could respond, Shining Armor said, “Don’t panic! I’ll use my force field to keep those cannonballs from reaching us!” While crossing his arms, Espio spoke, “There’s no need for that. Allow me.” He then uncrossed his arms, now holding three throwing stars in each hand. Eying the cannonballs for a moment, he suddenly threw his stars, the bladed projectiles spinning as they flew through the air. Two hit and got stuck in each cannonball at the highest point of their shot; just as they were about to start coming down, the throwing stars exploded, taking the cannonballs with them! Shining Armor looked at Espio in surprise, the chameleon calmly saying, “Exploding throwing stars. I always keep them handy.” Captain Jelly growled, “ARR, YE BE QUITE CLEVER INDEED! BUT LET’S SEE HOW WELL YE FARE AGAINST THIS!” He held his lollipop out in front of him and swung it downwards. At this motion, the cannons on the galleon aimed towards the water and started firing, raising chocolate milk splashes into the air. Even as far back as the group was standing, the soon rapid fire from the cannons sent chocolate milk flying in their direction, forcing everyone to cover their eyes… except for Pinkie Pie, who had her mouth open as she tried to catch as much chocolate milk as she could. Even if the Babylon Rogues, Spitfire, and Soarin had put on their goggles, they wouldn’t have been able to see through the shower of chocolate milk to see what Captain Jelly was doing. After the chocolate rain stopped and they could see again, everyone could see that there were several long lines of Egg Pawns at the other end of the beach. Looking up, they could see Buzzers and Captain Jelly’s crewmates dropping off more. After a moment, Captain Jelly flew back to his ship while saying, “DESTROY THEM, ALL OF THEM!” As the Egg Pawns started shifting, one of them said, “AFFIRMATIVE. ACQUIRING TARGETS…” Fluttershy squeaked, “T-That’s a lot of r-robots…” Vector grunted, “He thinks he can throw numbers at us to take us down? He’s got to be kidding.” While pulling out his Bashyo fans, Jet said, “Destroy us? Please! Like I’m gonna get beaten by some oversized toasters!” Spitfire glanced at him, “Save your energy, bird boy! This is the kind of thing that even us Wonderbolts are trained to deal with!” Wave pulled out a large wrench and tossed it up and down in her right hand as she said, “I’m sure you are. You’ve really got the whole drill sergeant act down.” Espio spoke, “Enough of your squabbling! It is time for action!” As he said that, the Egg Pawns finished identifying their targets and started charging towards the group, the ones carrying blasters opening fire as they ran. Sonic grinned as he, Tails, Silver, Blaze, Espio, Vector, and the Babylon Rogues moved to intercept them head-on, “Time to party!” Pinkie perked up, “Party?! Where?!” Applejack looked at her, “It’s a figure o’ speech, Pinkie!” The party pony looked a little disappointed at that, but she quickly shrugged it off. Spike and the ponies stayed back for the moment, Shining, Cadance, and Spitfire staring after Sonic and the others with looks of surprise on their faces. Soarin, surprisingly, looked excited at this action. He smiled at Spitfire, “I like these guys already.” Spitfire stared at him for a moment before the pale blue pegasus said, “Come on, Spitfire! Let’s get this show on the road!” His captain narrowed her eyes at his words and nodded with a smile, both of them spreading their wings and taking to the air. Shining looked back at his wife, “You’d better stay back, Cadance. I can’t promise you I’ll be able to protect you at all times in the middle of battle.” Cadance looked worried at the thought of her husband going into battle in front of her, especially without his armor, but she nodded to him. Applejack spoke, “That goes for you, yer friends, and Spike too, Apple Bloom. Y’all are stayin’ outta this.” The Cutie Mark Crusaders looked ready to protest, but Spike beat them to it, “What?! Why do we have to stay off on the side?! What about when we dealt with the changelings and all that?!” Twilight said, “Those were different circumstances, Spike. There weren’t a lot of other options available.” She looked back at Fluttershy, the yellow pegasus still cowering on the ground. “Besides, it looks like Fluttershy is sitting this one out too, and somepony needs to look after her in case any of those robots decide to go after her or Cadance,” she added. Protests started to flare up again, but Applejack silenced them with a simple reminder, “Some o’ y’all are already in enough trouble, and Ah fer one don’t wanna have any reason to make it worse.” Apple Bloom, Sweetie Belle, and Scootaloo immediately stopped talking at that and they all scurried up onto the ledge on the left, Spike reluctantly following them along with Cadance after she picked up Fluttershy with her magic. The remainder of the Main Six, Shining Armor, Celestia, and Luna then moved forward to help their friends out. Up on the ledge, after setting her down, Cadance patted Fluttershy on the head reassuringly, looking down at her for a moment before looking out towards the skirmish below. “Please be careful, everypony…” she thought to herself. She remained focused on the battle, occasionally reassuring Fluttershy but not noticing the Cutie Mark Crusaders sneaking off along the ledge with Spike following them. EGG PAWN BRAWL Down below, Sonic and Rainbow Dash were literally trying to stay on top of the situation, Sonic using Homing Attacks on any nearby Egg Pawns to stay up while Rainbow flew around the field, slamming into any robots in her path. Shining Armor and Vector briefly saw Rainbow fly over them and felt the wind created from Sonic jumping over them from the side as they fought alongside each other. Vector was relying on his fists while Shining fired magic shots from his horn at the Egg Pawns. “Bet you don’t see this kind of action in the Royal Guard, do you, Shiny?” Vector questioned. While firing magic at several Egg Pawns, the white stallion replied, “This is the kind of thing I was trained to lead soldiers against. I know what to expect in a battle situation, though I never thought I’d get involved in this kind of thing.” He looked over at the crocodile, “Though I suppose it’s not all that unusual for you?” Vector smirked, “This is more Sonic’s thing. I’ll help if I have to, but I usually prefer getting a little money out of it. Of course, this is a special occasion.” Before Shining could ask what he meant, he noticed an Egg Pawn running up behind Vector. At the same time, the crocodile could see an Egg Pawn carrying a wick rushing towards the stallion’s other side, where he couldn’t see it. “BEHIND YOU!” they both shouted as Shining turned and ran behind Vector, bucking the Egg Pawn in the chest while the crocodile breathed fire at the other one. They both looked at each other afterward and said “Thanks” before getting back into the battle. Elsewhere, Espio and Luna were under fire by the Egg Pawns that were carrying blasters. Espio was able to deflect a few shots by holding up a pair of kunai daggers, but he was forced to drop down when a shot was aimed for his head while Luna dodged around the shots aimed at her. After backing out of the way of one that flew past her front, she looked up and noticed something on the ledge off to the right. It looked like a giant bowl of sprinkles containing all the colors of the rainbow. Glancing back down at the Egg Pawns, she turned and fired a beam at the bowl while saying, “Taste the rainbow, Egg Pawns!” The cobalt beam from Luna’s horn hit the side of the bowl and knocked it off the ledge, sending the colorful confections flying. Many of them landed on the Egg Pawns, some of them covering their optics, causing them to panic. One of the Egg Pawns exclaimed, “I CAN ONLY SEE A HORRIBLE RAINBOW!” Espio stood up and looked back at Luna, saying, “Nice going, Princess Luna. Allow me now.” The Lunar Princess nodded, so Espio turned back to the Egg Pawns, who were just recovering from the surprise rainbow shower. He eyed them for a moment before pulling out several throwing stars. He then threw them at the robots, the projectiles exploding a moment later and taking out quite a few Egg Pawns. When the smoke cleared, Espio and Luna saw they had a little breathing room and turned to look over the rest of the battle. They saw Applejack bump an Egg Pawn that was rushing at her in the chest with her side and then flip it over her back. Not far away from her, Rarity used a jump kick to send an Egg Pawn’s head flying while Pinkie caught one with her party cannon and pointed it straight up, firing the robot straight up into the air before it fell down and exploded, Pinkie having moved her cannon while it was up. As they turned back, Soarin flew over Espio and Luna’s heads, delivering a flying kick to a stray Egg Pawn and destroying it. The two shared a smirk with the pale blue pegasus before they jumped back into the fight. On the other side of the beach, Twilight and Silver slid to a stop while running, turning around to face the Egg Pawns behind them. Working quickly, Silver created a Psychic Knife with his hands while Twilight used her magic to form her newly-dubbed Mystic Blade. Once they were ready, both Twilight and Silver sent their attacks flying horizontally, the blades slicing through the robots’ insides and causing them to explode. The two flashed a smile at each other while, behind them, Blaze dashed by with fire surrounding her left arm, Celestia right behind her with her horn glowing yellow. Twilight looked forward again and gasped, “Silver, look out!” The silver hedgehog looked and then they both dropped down, Jet flying over them with his Bashyo fans held out at his sides. They both stood up afterwards, looking back at Jet and wondering what he was thinking. They didn’t have to wait long to find out as the green hawk began drifting on his board as he neared a squad of Egg Pawns, slashing them with his Bashōsens before breaking out of his drift and heading for another Egg Pawn. As he went from one to the next, he yelled, “Yeah, who wants some?! You want some?!” While Jet took out another one, an Egg Pawn with a blaster raised its weapon and aimed for the hawk’s back. Storm saw what the robot was planning to do and took off in Jet’s direction, fully prepared to protect his boss. As the Egg Pawn squeezed the trigger, Storm pulled his board up underneath him and called, “Boss, look out!” Jet turned to look and saw Storm get in front of him, the Egg Pawn’s shot hitting the underside of the albatross’ Extreme Gear. Almost immediately afterwards, Storm flew towards the Egg Pawn and took it out with a single punch. As she flew by, Wave shouted, “Don’t use my Gear as a shield!” She then faced forward and swung her wrench like a club back and forth, sending Egg Pawns flying. Up above her, on the left ledge, Spike and the Cutie Mark Crusaders were carrying a large candy cane over to a large jawbreaker. Once they were standing next to it, Spike stuck the long end into the frosting-covered ledge, underneath the jawbreaker, and ran to the other end, where the Cutie Mark Crusaders were trying to apply enough force to knock the jawbreaker loose. Once he reached them, Spike said, “Wait!” The three fillies stopped jumping up and down on the candy cane and looked at him. “Let’s do it all at once! That should do the trick!” he explained. The three fillies looked at each other for a moment before nodding to him. Spike hopped up on the candy cane next to Sweetie Belle before looking at the fillies and saying, “All right, all together on three! Ready?” They nodded and readied themselves as he counted, “One… Two… Three!” At three, they all jumped up and landed on the candy cane at the same time. As they pushed down, the other end of the candy cane lifted up, sending the jawbreaker rolling off of the ledge! Down below, Wave just noticed the jawbreaker as it came rolling towards her, flattening Egg Pawns as it rolled. She barely managed to move her Extreme Gear out of the way, stopping in midair and turning to see the jawbreaker crushing a couple more Egg Pawns before rolling towards the Chocolate Milk Sea. She looked up as Spike and the Cutie Mark Crusaders cheered, “Strike!” Their moment was cut short when Wave, while shaking her fist, yelled, “You shrimps hit my board and I’ll be sure to strike YOU!” Turning away, she grumbled to herself while shaking her head. Soarin and Storm saw and heard the whole thing, both of them hovering in the air next to each other nearby. Soarin turned to Storm a moment later and, while pointing a hoof at Wave, asked, “Wow, she’s touchy, huh?” Storm replied, “Believe me, the Boss and I could tell you stories…” Not far away, Spitfire was kicking away Egg Pawns while using her wings to stay up. After kicking one away, however, another one got up behind her and caught her in a lock, both of its arms under Spitfire’s forelegs and its hands on the back of her neck as she struggled to get free. While she was trying to break out, Tails leapt onto the Egg Pawn’s back and reached over its head, grabbing Spitfire’s goggles and pulling them off her head. He then brought his arms back and put the goggles around the Egg Pawn’s head, stretching them out and letting them snap back, hitting the robot in the optics. While the Egg Pawn was reeling from the sudden move, Spitfire got free and Tails pulled her goggles off of it; Spitfire then joined him behind the robot and they both kicked it away. Spitfire smirked at Tails afterwards, “Nice move just now, kid.” Tails replied, “It’s Tails, ma’am. Here, let me fix that for you.” He reached up and (gently) put the captain’s goggles back on. He looked off to the side afterwards and noticed the Red Wisp from earlier coming towards them, the little guy having finally caught up to them. “Hey, look!” he pointed. Spitfire looked and raised an eyebrow, “What the…? Is that an alien?” Suddenly, the Red Wisp leapt towards her, disappearing into her chest. “Hey, what’s it doing?!” she exclaimed. Tails explained, “It’s all right, Spitfire! The Wisps do that when they want to lend their Hyper-go-on energy to someone! And the Red Wisp literally has a fiery personality.” Spitfire spread her wings and held herself up on her hind legs as she looked down at herself, noticing red, ember-like energy beginning to surround her. She soon smirked, “Is that so? Well, it’s a good thing I had this suit fireproofed then!” She looked up at Tails and grinned as she felt the energy beginning to flow through her, “Because I’m gonna melt these tin cans down and pour them on some horseshoes!” She then turned and took to the sky as flames began to surround her. Tails could swear she looked like a phoenix rising up from the ground. Sonic looked up and saw the pegasus flying overhead, the flames now surrounding her completely. He looked down and yelled as loud as he could, “Heads up, everyone! There’s a firestorm coming!” Even though they didn’t all get what he was saying or hear him, they all did look up and notice Spitfire flying above the beach, flames beginning to build up around her. Blaze, Twilight, and Shining Armor immediately jumped into action. Blaze, Sonic, and Tails ran over to Espio, Silver, Vector, and Luna, Blaze putting up a flame shield around them all. Twilight teleported over to her friends, Celestia, and Soarin and used her magic to create a force field, hoping it would be strong enough. Shining Armor, meanwhile, did the same with Fluttershy, Cadance, Spike, and the Cutie Mark Crusaders. The Babylon Rogues, however, ignored Sonic’s calls to join the group under Blaze’s protection and simply flew towards where they entered the beach from, away from the center of the beach. After about a few seconds, Spitfire turned and flew at an angle down towards the ground, flames still gathering around her as she went down like a bomb. As soon as she hit the ground, she burst into an explosion of fire, the flames roasting the whole beach except for what was under Blaze’s flame shield as well as Twilight and Shining Armor’s force fields, both siblings’ fields buckling and cracking a bit under the heat and pressure. When the flames cleared, Spitfire was standing completely unharmed in the middle of the beach, the Red Wisp floating out of her chest, and all the remaining Egg Pawns on the beach melted down into molten metal. Near the entrance to the beach, even though the Babylon Rogues themselves hadn’t been hit by the flames, Wave’s eyes widened as she saw that all three Extreme Gears had been scorched somewhat, Jet’s and Storm’s Extreme Gears in particular since they held them up to protect themselves. After Spitfire said goodbye to the Red Wisp, Blaze called her flames back to her and Twilight and Shining Armor made their force fields disappear. Soarin was the first to move, flying over to Spitfire to check on his captain. After he was sure she was as okay as she seemed to be, the others, except for the Babylon Rogues, started coming over, Shining, Cadance, Fluttershy, Spike, and the Cutie Mark Crusaders coming down from the ledge. Before they could reach the two Wonderbolts, however, Captain Jelly chimed in from his ship, using what sounded like a megaphone to project his voice, “ARRR, YOU LOT ARE A LOT MORE DURABLE THAN I THOUGHT!” Luna murmured, “Oh. It would appear we forgot something.” Rainbow yelled, “Hey pal, we smashed all your toys! Why don’t come over here so we can smash you too?!” Captain Jelly laughed, “YAR HAR HAR! YE BE A FOOL IF YE THINK ME ROBOTS WERE ALL I HAD ONBOARD! DON’T FORGET HOW I SNUCK THEM ALL IN FRONT OF YOU IN THE FIRST PLACE!” Silver groaned, “Oh, shoot! We forgot his ship had cannons too!” Captain Jelly said, “AND NOW THAT MISTAKE WILL COST YE! ALL PORT CANNONS, TAKE AIM!” At his order, the cannons on the side of the ship all aimed towards the beach. “GIVE MY REGARDS TO DAVY JONES WHEN YE SEE HIM!” Captain Jelly mocked. TAKING THE CAPTAIN As he was about to give the order to fire, something suddenly struck him in the side of the face, knocking him onto his side. As he collected himself, a new voice could be heard through the megaphone, “I don’t think so, mate! You no-good pirate, this sheila won’t let you get away with this!” Even though she couldn’t clearly see what was happening on the deck of the galleon, Blaze could recognize that voice and that accent anywhere. “Marine?!” she gasped. Sonic groaned and shrugged, “Where’d she come from THIS time?!” On the ship, Captain Jelly recovered and looked at Marine with angry eyes. He ordered, “CREW, DEAL WITH THOSE LANDLUBBERS! THIS ONE’S ALL MINE!” At his command, his crew flew up off the ship towards the shore while Captain Jelly raised his lollipop towards Marine. Back on the beach, Blaze growled, “I’ve… got to help her!” She dashed forward, towards the chocolate milk. Silver held out his hand as he called, “Blaze, wait!” But it wasn’t enough; the cat kept running until she reached the edge of the chocolate milk, at which point she was surrounded by flames and vanished, reappearing on top of one of the crewmates that wasn’t far from the shore. She then disappeared again, ‘leaping’ from one crewmate to the next as she made her way towards Captain Jelly’s galleon. Applejack groaned, “That girl’s gonna get herself hurt like that. Ah don’t deny she’s powerful, but she shouldn’t be jumpin’ in by herself like that!” Tails said, “She’s got the right idea, though. If we were all on that ship at once, we’d probably end up getting in each other’s way. But if we go a few at a time, we should be able to take care of Captain Jelly and his crew quickly!” Applejack asked, “Well, fine, but how are we supposed to get on that thing anyhow? Not all of us can fly, after all!” Sonic said, “Well, I’m sure Twilight can teleport a few of us onto it now, and then Silver can make a bridge for the rest of you once jell-o boy’s crew is taken care of.” Silver looked at him, “A bridge? What do you…? Oh, you mean like back at the volcano! Yeah, I can do that, as long as Rainbow Dash can make a long enough trail to reach that ship!” Rainbow gave him a salute, “Don’t worry, Silver! I can do that in ten seconds flat!” Before anyone else could say anything, Captain Jelly’s crewmates reached the beach and they started diving towards the group, forcing everyone to move. They weren’t able to get very far due to the crewmates getting in their way, all of them seemingly ready to get blown up to stop the heroes. Sonic kicked one away and then turned to Twilight, asking, “Hey Twilight, do you think you can teleport me, your brother, and yourself onto that ship from here? These things should be a cakewalk for the others, and the three of us can go help Blaze out!” The lavender unicorn replied, “I think so!” She turned to Shining Armor and asked, “Shining, did you hear that?” The Captain of the Royal Guard answered, “Yeah, I did, Twilight! If you’re wondering… yeah, I’ll go along with Sonic’s plan!” He turned to Cadance and said, “Cadance, stay with your aunts; they’ll keep you safe! Once things quiet down over here, come join us on the ship!” Cadance nodded to him, knowing he would be fine after watching him fight earlier. She hurried over to Celestia and Luna while Shining and Sonic ran over to Twilight. As soon as they reached her, the lavender unicorn closed her eyes and focused her magic into her horn, a bright flash causing the three of them to disappear a moment later, leaving the others to deal with Captain Jelly’s crew.