//------------------------------// // Chapter 14: Good or Evil - Choose Your Side // Story: Sonic New World // by ColossalParadox //------------------------------// Sonic and the Doctor stared at each other, both trying to find a way out of the awkwardness in the situation. A bead of nervous sweat made its way down Sonic’s forehead as he continued to glare at the Doctor with his poker face. The awkward was thick in the air, until the Doctor finally started realizing he has said much more embarrassing and awkward things to other people. Besides, now was not the time to be wasting, there was places to be and things to do. The Doctor shook his head after his quick realization, breaking the awkward gaze. “Alright, now that that is over. Sonic,” the Doctor paused to cast his attention toward Sonic, “will you please let me see the emerald, the TARPIS must start a scan on it immediately.” “Why, what is the hurry,” Sonic asked. “Since your emerald is a foreign object, it will take a while for the TARPIS to scan it and locate its six counterparts. You also said that others are looking for the emeralds, so we must find them before they do. With what you told us, they must be very powerful and very dangerous,” the Doctor replied. Sonic nodded at the Doctor’s explanation and quickly tossed him the newly obtained, yellow emerald. The Doctor caught the emerald with his hoof, somehow, and brought it over to the circular panel in the center of the TARPIS’ main room. He stopped in front of one section of the panel and lifted a small cubic glass container, placing the emerald inside and closing it before pressing a few buttons which started a scanning sequence on one of the TARPIS’ monitors. Everyone watched in awe and amazement as small lines on the screen ran across the image of the chaos emerald multiple times, trying to make sense on what the Doctor has placed inside it. The scans went on for a few minutes and as everyone has, their short attention spans made them bored very quickly. All except for the Doctor, he stood and watched the screen with his focus completely on it, seeming to actually enjoy watching the machine scan the emerald. The entire group sat around, casting their gazes from one item to the next in the TARPIS as they waited for the scan on the emerald to finish. The scan went on for several more minutes, but finally there was a loud “DING” and the monitor displayed: Scan completed – Locations within 100 miles discovered: 0 “Hmm,” the Doctor contemplated, “you weren’t kidding when you said that these things spread out all over. Well, where do you suppose we go to start looking for the others, or at least where we can go so that the map scan is within range of one,” the Doctor asked the group. “Well,” Twilight began, “we should probably head back to the Golden Dragon Inn.” “Why would you want to head back there? My TARPIS can travel to any part of the land and you want to go back to the place that you know an emerald is not at to look for an emerald?” The Doctor’s question was prolonged and took all of his breath away. “Uhh, no, we need to go back there because all of our stuff is there,” Twilight said, finishing with a sheepish smile. “Oh, right. Of course, we can’t have you leaving your belongings behind. So, who is ready to fly through the space and time vortex?” “WE ARE, WE ARE,” the cutie mark crusaders all yelled in unison. “That’s all I needed to hear. DERPY, DINKY, FRONT AND CENTER,” the Doctor commanded like a drill sergeant. Derpy and Dinky were in front of the Doctor almost impossibly fast, “to your usual positions.” At this, Derpy and Dinky both walked over to a certain part of the TARPIS’ control panel and waited for the Doctor to walk over to his. “Now, we are going to have to do this a bit different since we are only moving from one location to another on the same planet and not to a different one all together. Both of you just do what you usually do, but Derpy,” Derpy looked over at the Doctor, “you will have to do something different on your end. Don’t worry about it though, I will tell you when it is time to do it.” “Okay Doctor,” Derpy confirmed, giving a slight nod as she talked. “Well then,” the Doctor began, “LET’S FLY,” he said before he pulled a lever down and the TARPIS sparked to life, making the noise it did when the Doctor and his family saved the group. The group watched as the family piloted the impossibly big machine. Dinky was pumping some sort of stick in and out of the machine with her hooves as she used her magic to spin some sort of dial on the panel and flip switches. Derpy was constantly flipping a lever up and down as well as pressing some buttons in a certain order. The Doctor was watching a monitor and putting in some type of coordinates on some kind of typewriter looking object. The TARPIS started shake and vibrate, making everyone go off balance. The family of time travelers instinctively grabbed a certain part of the TARPIS and waited for the shaking to subside. After it did, everyone got to their hooves and or feet and the family when back to piloting the TARPIS. “Alright Derpy, this is what I want you to do,” the Doctor began, “You see that lever in front of you,” he asked. Derpy looked down to the panel and saw the lever he was talking about. “Yeah,” she confirmed as she reached for it. “NO, NOT THAT LEVER,” the Doctor yelled, panicked. Derpy looked up to her husband in confusion. “The one right beside it,” he finished. Derpy nodded and pulled it, causing the TARPIS to make a loud and obnoxious grinding sound, and forced everyone to cover their ears. “UN-PULL IT,” the Doctor yelled over the grinding. Derpy did as she was told and pushed the lever back to its original position, ceasing the grinding almost immediately. Derpy again looked over at the Doctor with a look of confusion adorned on her face. The Doctor took his hooves of his ears and looked at Derpy, his cheeks burning crimson. “Sorry, I meant the one left beside it,” the Doctor corrected. Derpy nodded and pulled the lever on the left and the TARPIS made another noise, but this one was more positive and made the Doctor smile. “Alright everypony,” he started as he typed a few final things on the monitor,” HERE… WE… GO!!” the Doctor said and pulled on last lever down, causing the TARPIS to shake more violently and continue its cycle of the iconic noise it makes. o.0.o The Golden Dragon lobby was bustling with life as ponies came in and out of the doors, whether they were checking in or checking out, it was semi-busy. A lot of the ponies were just hanging around and talking about recent events or just talking in general. They seemed to be enjoying their time together, until they heard a weird noise coming out of nowhere and the wind in the lobby started to pick up dramatically. They all watched in shock as a tall, wooden, blue box faded into existence out of nowhere. The box slowly faded in and after it did, the noise that was scaring most of the tourists ceased. Twilight slowly opened the door and poked her head out to make sure they were in the correct area. After she confirmed that they were she turned her head towards the lobby counter. “Uh, excuse me, but were going to need express check-out please,” she said, putting on a sheepish smile afterwards. The counter-pony could only nod, still frozen by the fact that a wooden blue box just appeared out of nowhere. o.0.o Both Sonic and the Doctor tapped their feet against the floor, impatiently waiting for the bell-hop ponies to finish bringing in the group’s luggage. The crusaders sat down across from both of them, giving an occasional giggle at the looks on the bell-hop ponies’ faces as they walked into the TARPIS. Their eyes just went wide and their mouths dropped as soon as they crossed the threshold into the TARPIS. The bell-hops finished loading the group’s luggage on the TARPIS, Twilight giving each of them a six bit tip as they walked out, them getting one last good look before they left. The Doctor basically slammed the TARPIS’ door in the last bell-hop’s face and went up to the group. “There, you have your stuff. Now, where do you want to go this time?” the Doctor asked. “Well,” Twilight began, “if this machine is going to be our permanent choice of travel, we probably won’t need much of this luggage we have. So what I suggest, before we do anything too serious, is we go back to Ponyville, drop off our luggage, then we go to Canterlot and inform Princess Celestia that we have discovered a chaos emerald. Then we can start another expedition,” Twilight finished. The Doctor thought about the plan for a moment before smiling. “Alright, sounds like a pretty good plan. Let’s go to Ponyville, drop off your luggage, go and visit some loved ones for a bit if you want. Just meet back at where ever the TARPIS lands in about 45 minutes after we do, alright?” Everyone nodded their agreement and understanding. “Alright, DERPY, DINKY, TO YOUR STATIONS,” the Doctor yelled once more. “Do you really have to shout like that,” Dinky asked. “No,” the Doctor replied, “but it gets your attention, doesn’t it?” The Doctor jokingly asked, receiving a small groan from her and causing him to chuckle. o.0.o The trip to Ponyville was quicker than imagined. Applejack and AppleBloom went to go inform Granny Smith and Big Mac of what they were doing, Fluttershy went to her cottage to give her animals a stock of food that would last them a few day, Rarity and Sweetie Belle went to the boutique to see if there were any orders that needed to be caught up on, Rainbow Dash went to take a power nap, Scootaloo went home to inform her parents of the plan, Pinkie Pie went to go tell the cakes what was happening (and to get something to eat), Twilight went back to the library to check on Spike, and Sonic stuck with the family to see what they would do. Sonic chuckled after the TARPIS landed and they stepped outside because of all the shocked expressions of the ponies that witnessed it. Nothing really spectacular happened with the family, they just walked around the small market place of the town, browsing the many different types of fruits and vegetables and the wares that they had for cooking them. Sonic didn’t understand why they were just walking around if he wasn’t going to buy anything, so he thought he would find out. “Hey Doctor,” Sonic began. “Yes,” the Doctor said, not taking the time to look at Sonic. “Why are we just walking around if you aren’t going to buy anything?” “Well, first of all, I don’t have any bits, never had a use for the stuff. Second, it is a great way to kill time, no wait, I should re-word that… it is a great way to waste time. Plus it is good to just get out and walk around, good on the legs and good for the heart too. Wouldn’t you agree?” “Eeh, I am more of a running guy.” “Walk, run, they are basically the same thing except one is a faster way of travel.” Sonic only nodded and everything became silent between them again. It wasn’t until it was time to head back to the TARPIS that they talked again, but it was only to inform him that it was time to go back. The walk back seemed faster than when they were leaving. “Time is just funny that way” the Doctor said as Sonic asked why. The group was waiting in front of the TARPIS waiting for him, along with a few witnesses that were examining it, trying to see how it could have just appeared. The Doctor shooed them away and unlocked the TARPIS, allowing everyone else to go in before him. o.0.o Princess Celestia sat on her throne cushion sipping some tea along with her sister Luna, having a small get together of nobles and rick folks. No more than 10 ponies were there, but the one that stuck out the most was the horrid prince, BlueBlood. Everyone was just standing and sipping tea or lounging in an area and talking, eating small sandwiches and Danishes. They were all just having a good time, until everyone felt the wind pick up and heard a strange noise start to fade in out of nowhere. They all looked to the center of the room, including the princesses, and their jaws dropped per the usual. A mysterious blue box started to fade in from non-existence in the center of the room, making a strange noise along with it. Everyone closed their mouths as the box completely faded into existence and the weird noise stopped. Everyone stayed frozen in place for a short while before the royal guards arrived after hearing the noise and surrounded the box, spears pointing straight at it. The guards readied themselves as the door on it clicked and it slowly opened. The head of the Doctor stuck out of the crack of the door and smiled with his mouth closed upon seeing the spears. “Well this is certainly a warm welcome, wouldn’t you agree Princess Twilight,” the Doctor said, noticing the guards lose their focus and look from one another. The Doctor opened both doors all the way and stepped to the side, Twilight stepping out with her eyes closed. She did not pay attention to where she was going, to which the Doctor noticed and spoke up. “Um, Princess Twilight, I would recommend walking the rest of the way with your eyes open.” Twilight went “huh” at his words and opened her eyes, quickly jumping back after realizing she almost walked straight into one the guards spears. The guard that was conversing with the one beside him noticed Twilight jump back and withdrew his spear before anyone else could get hurt. “I apologize P-Princess Twilight, I was not p-paying attention,” the guard stuttered out. “It is alright, I wasn’t really looking where I was going, don’t worry,” she assured the guard. “Thank you Princess, you are most merciful,” the guard said as he backed away and joined the others in a line leading to the Princesses. Sonic jumped over Twilight and skidded to a halt in front of the Princesses and started tossing the chaos emerald up and down in his hand. The Princesses leaned forward a bit to get a better look at the emerald, their mouths in an “Ooooo” shape. Sonic stopped tossing the emerald up and down and put it away. “I-Is that,” Princess Celestia began. “Yep, one of a total seven chaos emeralds. We just thought we would stop by and let you know before we go off to find the rest.” “Well, that is very good news, it means you are one step closer to getting home, and all of Equestria is here to help and support you in any way possible.” “Thank you Princesses,” Sonic said as he kneeled and stood up before them. “What is this thing,” Prince Blueblood asked as he examined a felt along the TARPIS. “That is my TARPIS,” the Doctor replied, “and I would appreciate if you didn’t touch it.” “W-WHAT, Excuse you sir, but do you know who you are talking too.” “I know very well who you are and that is why I don’t want you to touch it.” Prince Blueblood leaned back flabbergasted at the Doctor’s words. They both gave each other stern looks, sparks flying between each other. Derpy decided it was enough and stepped between them. “Alright Doctor, let’s focus. I don’t want you getting in a fight with anypony today, we have work to do.” “Oh,” Prince Blueblood began, “it’s you. I thought I made it clear you ridiculous mare that you were not welcome here.” Those words, those words could possibly be Prince Bluebloods last. Everypony in the room could hear the snap that happened within the Doctor. The Doctor hoof shot out and grabbed the collar of Blueblood’s formal attire and drew him close to his face until both their noses were touching. Prince Blueblood gave an audible gulp at what might happen next. “Now you listen to me Blueblood, I don’t know who you think you are, nor will I ever will. But if you ever speak to my wife like that again, she won’t be able to save you next time, do you understand you brainless ape?” Blueblood only gave a couple of slight nods to the Doctor. The Doctor smirked before saying, “Good,” and threw Blueblood back and made him fall to the ground. “Now run back to your aunts, they might be able to protect you,” the Doctor said threateningly to Blueblood. The Doctor noticed the fear in his eye raise a level, but Blueblood merely stood back up and brushed himself off and then walked over to stand beside Luna. The Doctor looked around the room at the scene that just unfolded before them, all the nobles and rich ponies stunned at the Doctor’s bravery. The Doctor walked back up to the TARPIS and opened the door before looking back at the crowd of ponies. “I am the Doctor, and nopony is going to talk to my family like that while I’m around. Now, if anypony needs me, I will be in here. I have a few things I have to do before we leave so feel free to walk around for a bit. But be back here in 30 minutes and not a second later, I mean it,” the Doctor finished and walked inside the TARPIS. The entire group looked to each other trying to get an understanding of what just happened, but unfortunately no one had an answer. o.0.o Sonic walked through downtown Canterlot, eating an arrangement of different foods that he bought with the spending money Twilight gave him. For some reason he loaded on a bunch of food, almost a week’s worth. There was just something about near death experiences that made him hungry. He walked down the street with Rarity since they never actually got any quality time together, just talking about each other. Like what it was back where Sonic was from, if working in the Carousel Boutique was a good living, things like that. They were having a nice time, until Sonic noticed a couple of fillies digging around in some trash cans in the corner of his eye. Noble ponies that walked by them just gave them looks of disgust and some even spat at them. Sometimes missing them, but the fillies didn’t even bat an eye. They were young, about nor more than 8 or 9, a purple unicorn filly with a purple mane and white highlights and a bluish earth pony with a green mane. Sonic’s chest tightened at the sight of them, no more than children and they were thought of as the lowest of the low by the adults who would mock and torture them which made Sonic think, who was the real scum of the city? Sonic noticed their stomachs and they were flat and more inverted than a normal fillies’ stomach should be, barely making out the little dips of what he imagined was their ribs. Sonic knew this couldn’t continue, that is when he looked down to the huge bag of food and supplies he had, an idea struck him like lightning almost immediately. Sonic went off track of walking beside Rarity to the other side of the street when she was in the middle of talking about how Celestia made it unbearably hot today. Sonic walked towards the children at a slow pace, which drew the attention of ponies nearby as they noticed the course of where he was heading. A lot of them hoped that he had finally learned some of their customs and were going to give it to those fillies hard. Rarity finally noticed that Sonic was not with her and looked around in every direction until finally spotting him, seeing that he was walking in the directions of poverty-stricken fillies. She thought that Sonic had learned how the upper class treat the poor in their world and all she could say to herself was, “Not you too.” The fillies noticed Sonic walking in their direction and got frightened for he was not the usual pony that walked by and treated them badly. They thought that Sonic was going to do much worse to them. They shrunk down to the ground right beside each other and shied away, but still looked up at Sonic. They saw a look of anger on his face and knew that he was about to do something because he smiled. He raised his hand and the fillies closed their eyes and squeezed close to each other preparing for impact. But instead of feeling a hard smack on their bodies, they both felt a soft tapping and rubbing on their heads, with little massages behind their ears and scratched under their chins. This must have been the first time they smiled in 2 years and actually giggled from the little tickles on sensitive areas of their heads that Sonic scratched. Sonic stopped his bombardment of affection after a few minutes, a small crowd gathering around at this point, and drew the fillies’ attention up to him. They looked up with bright smiles and happiness welling in their eyes. Sonic smiled sweetly down at them. “You know,” he began, talking to the fillies and loud enough so everyone could hear, “the way others treat you just because of your misfortune. You’ve got to wonder, who is the real trash of the city?” Sonic asked, drawing a few surprised gasps from the crowd of ponies. Sonic just ignored them and continued talking. “Here, I think you both need this more than I do. Be sure to share this with any family and friends,” Sonic said as he handed his giant bag full of nothing but food, noticing a flash out of the corner of his eye. The fillies looked through the bag a bit and said a few names of items that caught their interest. Sonic’s smile grew bigger at the sight of the happy children. He got up and began to walk away, but one of the fillies heard him. Just because they were low in society didn’t mean they forgot their manners. The bluish earth pony left her purple friend with the bag to keep looking through it and ran up to Sonic. She tapped on the back of his leg to get his attention. It worked, of course, and Sonic turned around to the eager filly. “From my sister, me, and our family and friends,” she started to tear up and her voice got a bit gurgly at this point, “thank you, thank you so much,” she said as she hugged Sonic’s left leg, drawing another gasp from the crowd. Sonic got agitated at the last gasp from the crowd and was not going to allow them to demean the filly’s affection. “Alright everyone, calm down. It’s called a hug, people usually do it when they are happy or are in need. If you have a smidge of goodness left in you, you might be able to differentiate between which one it is,” Sonic finished and knelt down to the filly. She backed off after noticing his leg was bending and watched as he came to almost eye level with her. “Things will be different one day,” Sonic said softly, so only him and the filly could hear, “I swear I will do everything in my power to make it a better place. No one should have to live and be treated this way, especially two young, innocent, and sweet fillies.” The little pony sniffled a bit and smiled at Sonic, getting him to smile back. “We don’t even know who you are, and you just come by and basically save us, why?” “That is what I do, I rescue those in need and help those who need it, and you both definitely needed that food more than I do, anymore questions?” “Who-Who are you?” Sonic smirked at the question, “I’m Sonic, Sonic the Hedgehog.” “Sonic the Hedgehog, the person who saved my life. I will never, EVER, forget you.” “Thank you, now all I ask, is for you to be happy and to be patient, there is always a better tomorrow. And I have a feeling that tomorrow is coming soon,” Sonic said to the filly, filling her with hope. The filly smiled once more and instead of saying anything, she reared up on her hind legs and wrapped both her forelegs around Sonic’s neck, giving him the best hug she could muster in her weakened state. Sonic was surprised at first at the sudden show of emotion from the filly, but quickly settled down and hugged her back. Sonic opened his eyes suddenly and thought of something that he forgot to ask. Sonic broke the hug and held the filly in his hands. “By the way, what are you and your sister’s names?” “My name is Blue Bell, and my sister is Magenta Bell,” the filly answered immediately. Sonic nodded at the filly’s answers before setting her down on the ground, “Alright, I’m afraid I have to leave now, but I promise that things will be better. Just always look at the brighter side of things, okay? Now, make sure you don’t eat all of that food before you get some to your other family members.” The filly nodded at Sonic’s request and walked back over to her sister as Sonic was getting up. He turned around and walked towards the direction of the castle, Rarity coming up behind him as they made their way through the crowd. Rarity and Sonic walked for a short while before they said anything. “Sonic,” Rarity said, getting Sonic’s attention. “Yeah,” was his response. “What you did back their darling, it was, it was…,” Rarity said trying to find the right words. “Let me guess, a disgrace, a horrible thing to do, a ‘you can never show your face in public anymore stunt’. Well, I think that you all need to adopt some better culture. I mean, they were just kids and it wasn’t like their lives were bad enough. Adding insult to injury is not okay in my book. I though this place was supposed to be the perfect world of happiness and friendship, but I guess I should never judge a book by its cover.” “No Sonic, I completely agree with you. What those ponies were doing to those children back there is completely unacceptable. If I ever saw someone do that to Sweetie Belle, let’s just say I might do a few un-lady like things for the next few minutes.” Rarity paused, imaging how that scenario would play out. “Anyway, back to what I was saying. What you did back there, it was so heart-warming and sweet. You gave up what you had so they could prosper in life. You are an amazing hero in more ways than one Sonic the Hedgehog, and I am proud to call you my friend.” “Wow, thank you Rarity, I’m pretty sure you would have done the same thing.” “Oh, why yes, of course I would have, heh heh,” she said, as the castle came into view. “O-kay, the castle, now for some very necessary words that need to be said can be heard.” o.0.o Everyone in the throne room all turned to the sound of the two giant double doors slamming open. They all saw a distraught and angry Sonic walk in, a confused and frightened looking Rarity in tow. Sonic shot his eyes around the room for a moment before spotting the two ponies he was looking for, the princesses. Sonic narrowed his eyes and began walking towards them. “Hey, princesses,” Sonic said angrily as continued to walk towards them, “I have a few things that I need to say, and I think it would be in your best interest to listen.” Sonic finished, Princess Celestia staring at Sonic, frozen in mid sip of tea and Princess Luna looking up from her Fashion Weekly magazine.