//------------------------------//
// Chapter 27: A Deadly Defeat 
// Story: Sonic New World 
// by ColossalParadox 
//------------------------------//

	Queen Chrysalis flew above Ponyvile, smiling maliciously at the destruction her changeling army was causing. She began to laugh evily, as loud as she could so the entire town could hear her triumph. The force of her laugh her throw her head back, imagining what kind of misery the townsfolk must be in. After she finished laughing, she looked back down at the town again, still smiling.

"Yes, my changelings, YES!! Destroy all, keep the citizens alive though. We must feast on something while we take over the land," she commanded.

"Not if we have anything to do about it!!" Yelled a distant to the queen.

Queen Chrysalis stopped mid-flight and landed in the middle of the small market area.

"Who said that, SHOW YOURSELVES!!"

"I'm right here!" Shouted the voice again.

Queen Chrysalis looked up just in time to see the bottom of a shoe heading straight her way. She was barely able to dodge it in time by jumping backwards, but the shockwave of the foreign entity landing knocked her on her side, sending her sliding to a halt.

Queen Chrysalis stood up and brushed herself off, some changelings rushing to her aide, and looked up to only gasp in surprise at what she saw. 

Crouching there, not a foot away from where she just was, slowly stood Sonic, along with whom she could only guess were his friends, a fox, a bat, another pink hedgehog, an echidna, and another black hedgehog that approached from behind them.

Queen Chrysalis' mouth was still agape as Sonic and his friends closed in on her. She tried to shuffle away, but the entire group kept on her futile attempts at what was her escape plan. Chrysalis felt something she hadn't since that defeat in Canterlot.

Fear.

Fear was the one thing a changeling absolutely hated to feel because it was a drain on their power, which is why they always try to implement fear into their foes so as to weaken their mental state of mind and absorb any kind of love the ponies had in their hearts. 

Their greatest trait is their greatest weakness.

Amy had pulled her Piko Piko hammer out of seemingly no where, Knuckles began cracking his knuckles, Tails was busy assembling his Bolt Blaster which was only to be used in emergency situations, and the rest just stood there towering over the Queen.

Queen Chrysalis felt weak from the fear already, but she did not let that stop her from standing her ground. Looking around, she sensed how many changelings were in the area that were in out in the open and how many were hidden. Chrysalis smiled on the inside and slowly got up from the ground, fear still filling her up but remained steady.

"H-How did you, I mean, what?? You were supposed to be in prison!" Queen Chrysalis stammered.

"Yeah we were, but we were let out early for good behavior," Knuckles snyly responded, punching his right fist into his left palm.

Some of the townsponies were looking out their windows at this point, trying to get a good look and listen to the ongoing dispute, some of their faces beaming brighter when they saw Sonic.

"I am gone for one day and this happens? I suppose it is about time this mess got cleaned up," Sonic told the others, "Oh, and it is too bad that your little smoke and mirrors act didn't work out, but that was a pretty convincing copy," he said with a smirk.

Queen Chrysalis' eyes went wide at the knowledge of Sonic knowing he was framed.

"We will not fail you blue rat!" Chrysalis yelled, "We have come too far and have worked too hard to lose now. The time has come for the Changelings to rise and make a new generation, a better one." The wind around them began to pick up, "And this time, no pony will stop u-" Queen Chrysalis was interrupted as a familiar sound to the group was heard.

Everyone looked off to the side to see the TARPIS fading in and out of reality. Sonic and the others smiled and felt relieved at their pony friends finally showing up, Queen Chrysalis and the changelings that were in the area stood with their mouths agape at the unknown phenomenon happening in front of them.

The TARPIS finished making its trademark sound and finally landed with its usual loud *THUD* noise. The double doors of the box opened, revealing the silhouette of the Doctor with the other traveling ponies behind him.

He stepped out of the TARPIS with the others in tow, now wearing the blue jacket they first met him in before, and flashing a smile to the group of foreign visitors.

"Not to worry everypony, not to worry, the Doctor is in. Sorry I'm late, traffic was killer," the Doctor joked, reaching into the inside pocket of his jacket and tossing a large number of blue and red 3-D glassed at Sonic, his friends, and the ponies behind them.

"Everypony take a pair or two of these, you may need them when fighting."

"Why's that Doc," Sonic asked, looking at the glasses in his hand in confusion.

"As you know, changelings have the ability to morph their physical appearance and make it difficult to distinguish them from real ponies. Theses glasses are thermal detectors. Real ponies have a different heat signature on their body than changelings, which means if you see a pony with red and orange all over their body, do not attack them," the Doctor explained.

Everyone nodded at his explanation and put on a pair of glasses, instantly seeing the difference of thermal recognition. Real ponies had as the Doctor said, red and orange all over their body while changelings had a green and blue appearance instead. They all smiled at the fact of being able to tell which pony was real and which was a changeling.

Everyone looked behind them when they heard a strange noise of pegasi flying towards them. What they saw confirmed their suspicions, the Royal Guard of Canterlot were flying towards them with one chariot to every two pegasus. They all smiled, except for the changelings, upon seeing the Celestia had given the order more quickly than expected. 

Sonic stepped forward, drawing everyone's attention, and gave a quick, cocky laugh.

"All right everyone," Sonic said, looking around at the group, "LET'S DO THIS!!"


o.0.o


"No..." Was all Queen Chrysalis could mutter out as she looked around at all of her changelings, some panting and some closed to fainting.

Sonic and his friends, the Elements of Harmony, the Doctor and his family, and the entire Royal Guard all stood proud and tall, knowing that they had one this fight. The changelings were in no condition to continue fighting and everyone of the defenders of Ponyville had enough energy to take on another army of changelings.

Queen Chrysalis crawled away and staggered to stand on all four of her hooves. She used what energy she had left to cast a very minor stamina spell on her changelings, enough to make them able tp get off the ground.

"This isn't over, we shall return even stronger and in greater number. Our day to rule will arrive one day in the future and next time, we won't be so easy to defeat," she spat.

"Good, because you were a little too easy for my liking," Shadow retorted. Everyone looked back, impressed in the boldness of the words from the usually quiet hedgehog.

Queen Chrysalis could only growl at the hedgehog, not having the strength to harm Shadow in any way. Instead, she looked around at the changelings that were slowly, but surely recovering. She cleared her throat and did her technique to raise her voice.

"Changelings, fall back. We will recover and will one day return to reclaim our pride. MOVE!!" She commanded, flapping her own wings and taking off.

Everyone watched as all the changelings spread all around the town took off, following after their queen. Once a good number of them accumulated, it looked as if a giant dark cloud was fleeing Ponyville.

Once they were gone, Sonic turned around to look at the group that helped him defeat a possible threat to all life in the land. Tails ran up to Sonic and, him sensing what Tails was doing, held out his hand for a high five, which Tails happily smacked with his own. Sonic looked around for the general of the Royal Guard that had helped with the attack and approached him.

Saluting him, "Thanks for your help general. Assure all your men know they did a great job and we couldn't have done it without them. Thank Princess Celestia for me when you get back to Canterlot, will ya?"

The general smiled at him and saluted back, "Will do Sonic. We apologize that we mistook you for a criminal and look forward to assisting in any way possible, starting with the thieves that stole the chaos emeralds," the guard turned to leave until an important thought came back to him, "Oh, and thank you for helping Sergeant StormChaser in his time of need," the general praised.

"Who?" Sonic asked.

The general looked at him with a dumbfounded expression, "The one who threw you into the hay cart and kept watch over you when you were in the dungeon," The guard explained.

"Oh, think nothing of it. He was just doing his job, also, I want an update on his condition soon. Send the letter to the Golden Oaks Library here in Ponyville."

"Of course, thank you once more," the general turned to his platoon, "ALRIGHT MEN!! LET'S MOVE OUT!!"

And with that, the entire squad was packed and left town in ten minutes. They were out of sight before any of them knew it.

The ponies started coming out of their hiding places and homes after they had left and surrounded Sonic and the entire gang of heroes. Three familiar adorable fillies ran through the crowd and up to Sonic, jumping up and down in front of him.

"That was awesome Sonic!!" Scootaloo praised.

"Yeah, ah saw ya take out five of dem changelings in one go, it was "way past cool"!" Applebloom said.

"You did an amazing job Sonic," Sweetie squeaked.

A good number of ponies were now around the group, but one pony in particular approached Sonic, thinking for a second he saw her chest glow for a second, but shook it off and looked down at the interesting little filly with a gray coat and electric blue hair with light blue highlights.

She looked up at Sonic with wide eyes, who looked back down at her.

"After all the things we did to you and all those awful things we called you, you still came back, why?" The mysterious filly pondered.

"Because," Sonic started, kneeling to be a the filly's level, "this is not the first time I have been framed and arrested. I was just going to let this one run its course. The changeling invasion was just out of the blue, it was a last minute thing we heard about and we knew we had to come back her and help you all. You've done nothing wrong, and neither has anyone else. If you are trying to apologize, then you are already forgiven, as is everyone else. It is nice to know you were concerned though," Sonic responded with a smile.

Her eyes widened and shrank back down to their normal size, a blush on her cheeks appearing when they did. She smiled and motioned for Sonic to lean in closer, so he obliged until his hear was right next to her mouth.

"Just for the record," she whispered, "neither my parent and I thought you were guilty," she said, kissing him on the cheek after she did.

The blush that adorned Sonic's face spread like wild fire. He looked down at the filly in shock, who only giggled at him and ran back into the crowd. Sonic couldn't make heads or tails of what happened, but he didn't have enough time to when everything started going down the drain again.

There was a bright light and a huge explosion following afterwards on a nearby fruit stand. Sonic and the others quickly turned towards the source of the commotion and what they heard would solve their mystery faster than Sonic could run. There was a high-pitched cackling and a silhouette of a stick on a circle flying around the debris smoke. Sonic knew all to well who it was, but his suspicions were confirmed even further when the figure flew through the smoke and hovered in front of the gang, along with Zor and General Hewdraw.

"Zazz.." Sonic said with a low rumble in his voice.

"That's right hedgehog, did ya miss me?" Zazz asked sarcastically.

"Well with a face like that, who could," Applejack responded from out of nowhere.

Everyone turned to look at Applejack, looks of surprise adorning each one. Applejack looked around at each pair of eyes and smiled.

"Just speakin' the truth," She said. Everyone chuckled at the amazing sense of humor the farm pony had; Zazz only glared daggers at her, but still smiled for some unknown reason.

"Laugh it up you dumb hick, that will disappear soon enough," Zazz said with a maniacal laugh, looking past the group.

They all slowly looked at him, Applejack the most confused out of all of them.

"What do ya mea-"

"AAAHHHH!!! HEELP!!"

"What in tarnation!?" Applejack yelled, everyone looking back at the source for the please of assistance. The entire group gasped at what they saw. 

There stood a smug looking Zeena holding a cage containing three familiar little frightened fillies, shivering fast enough to wiggle right out of their skin.

"HEY!!" Sonic yelled, beginning to run in the direction towards Zeena. However, her reflexes were too quick for Sonic to reach her in time and she ended up somersaulting over Sonic and back to the group of baddies. She handed the cage off to Zazz, who gladly accepted it and looked in between the bars at the scared fillies that were backed as far away from him as possible. Chuckling darkly, he lowered the cage and looked at the group, but mainly Sonic.

"You let 'em go right now ya' varmit," Applejack started.

"Or else, my dear," Rarity continued.

"There will be heck to pay!" Rainbow Dash finished.

Zazz looked around at everyone that was in the area, still keeping that creepy smile on his face. He looked at the three older sisters of the captured fillies.

"Okay, I'll release them," Zazz (almost) complied, looking over at Sonic, "But you'll have to catch me first," He stated very darkly.

Before anyone knew it, he had turned around and began flying away. The entire group was caught off guard by this action, all except for one who stayed light on their feet just in case. In an instant, Sonic was chasing after the deranged pink Zeti, only focusing on the three fillies in the cage Zazz held in his right hand. All three of them were turned around looking back at Sonic, pleading and begging with their eyes for him to get them out; he heard their cries loud and clear.

(Cue Music)

Ponies immediately got out of the way for the impending chase. Zazz flew behind Sonic to begin with to try and throw him off. He then stomped on the yellow orb to make it shoot a star at him. Sonic was able to avoid it by quickly doing a side step to the left. Zazz got angry and began to shoot stars more rapidly down in Sonic's direction, but every single time Sonic side stepped and the stars just flew right past him.

Sonic noticed a few ponies flying by from a far distance to spectate the chase that was unfolding in the small town. Zazz chuckled deeply and flew to the front of Sonic this time. He stomped and hit the orb with his fists, producing multiple stars that would slam down in Sonic's path, forcing him to do a combination of side steps or jumps in order to avoid them, in case they took up all the running room he had on the narrow street.

Once Zazz had failed at trying to impede Sonic's progress, he flew high and away from Sonic, way above the small houses where Sonic could not reach him as his orb recharged some energy. Acting quickly, Sonic saw this as a chance to deal some damage and noticed a fruit cart that was irresponsibly left out. Sonic smiled and jumped on top of the small awning that covered, bouncing high into the air but still out of reach from Zazz.

Zazz noticed Sonic following after him in the sky and saw this as a chance to damage Sonic since he could not maneuver easily in the air. Zazz quickly turned around with his orb and fired all the stars he could at Sonic, which was three for the time being. 

Sonic gulped at the stars hurdling towards him and thought of an idea as fast as he could. He targeted in on the stars that were flying at a much slower rate than he thought and took aim. He charged up a really fast spin in the air, the three fillies gasping at the never before seen move and heard a word that seemed to be announced out of nowhere.

"LASER!!"

And in an instant, Sonic shot out after the stars, leaving behind a translucent trail of cyan. He bounced from one star to another in a bit of a triangle pattern and ended the move when he was above Zazz. Sonic took one good look at Zazz and grinned, shooting out towards the orb and hitting square in its face.

The orb fell to the ground and did a bit of bouncing, Zazz struggled to stay balanced as the orb worked to regain its flying capabilities. After the orb had was when Sonic landed on the ground and continued chasing after them. The orb looked at Sonic and gave him a bit of a growling look before Zazz went into another round of trying to shoot Sonic with a star from behind him, fail, and then try the front by slamming stars down in his path.

At this point, Sonic and Zazz had made a full 180 degrees turn and were heading back the way they came. However, Sonic had nothing to jump up into the air this time while Zazz's orb recharged energy due to the fruit cart rolling out of the streets the first time Sonic jumped on it. 

Sonic had found himself at a loss on how to reach Zazz so high in the air. While Sonic pondered the situation, he didn't notice the cyan blue pegasus with a rainbow mane flying beside him. She tapped his shoulder, getting his attention, and pointed up with her hoof. Sonic looked up and saw and amazing sight, a whole team of ponies leading in a triangle patter wearing skin tight blue suits were flying along with Sonic.

Sonic looked back at Dash, who just smiled at him and held out her hoof. Sonic hesitated for a moment before reaching out and grabbing it with his hand. With a grunt, Rainbow Dash slung Sonic into the with all her might and gave him a look that said, "you do the rest."

Sonic got the picture pretty quickly and focused on the entire row of ponies that lead just close enough to Zazz, who was unaware of the assistance Sonic was being provided since he was looking in the opposite direction. Sonic grinned once more and got the image of all the ponies flying in his head. Then, in an instant, shot out after the first wonder bolt he was closest to. Before he reached the wonder bolt, Sonic broke out of his homing attack and instead caught their back. He did a one handed, hand stand on the wonder bolt's back and focused on the next wonder bolt.

After preparing himself for a few seconds, Sonic threw himself off, performing a somersault, and shot out after the next wonder bolt in the line. Sonic did this every time right up until he got to Zazz. At the last wonder bolt, Sonic stood on their backs and jumped as hard as he could off of the wonder bolt, without hurting them, into the air above Zazz. 

Zazz caught wind of something going on behind him and looked back to see what it was. Zazz saw a bunch of pegasi beginning to disperse after he noticed Sonic had jumped into the air behind him. Zazz stomped his foot on the orb in agitation and turned around, saying, "You've got to be kidding me," just as Sonic was slowly falling to be right in front of Zazz.

Sonic shot out after Zazz and hit the orb on its left side, causing it to spin and fall to the ground sharply. Sonic focused and shot out after Zazz again, hitting the orb on the right this time; causing it to spin and bounce of the ground roughly. Sonic took one final aim as he noticed the orb was in a bad state and looked that it could explode at any second, then shot out at Zazz. 

Sonic jumped straight off of Zazz's face, grabbing the caged fillies in the progress, and knocked Zazz flat on his back. The force of Zazz falling on the orb knocked it down to the ground and caused a huge explosion that left a small crater in the road, thankfully not damaging any buildings or ponies. 

The explosion happened right in front of the group of travelers who gasped at the violent explosion that seemed to engulf both Zazz and Sonic. Their hope began to diminish until they saw a figure fly from the smoke and come to a skidding halt in front of them. Sonic stood before them covered in soot and panting with a cage of fillies that were unharmed. 

The entire group was speechless. (End Music)