//------------------------------// // Chapter 15: Plans and Stowaways // Story: Star Wars: Ponies of the Old Republic // by BlueSun52 //------------------------------// CHAPTER 15 PLANS AND STOWAWAYS Both Rarity and Twilight glared down at their stowaways, Spike and Rarity's little sister, Sweetie Belle, in the Golden Phoenix's cargo hold while the others watched from the room's entrance. There was high tension in the room and Spike and Sweetie Belle were unfortunately the reason for it. Finally, after several minutes of silence, Twilight spoke up. "Spike, Sweetie Belle, you are both going to tell us how you got in the ship and how you both stayed undetected for this long," Twilight said in a serious tone. "Well, umm-" Spike began to say but couldn't find the words he needed at this point. Sweetie Belle let out a sigh. "Wait! Before you both say anything, let me say that this was all my idea." "What do you mean, Sweetie Belle?" Rarity asked, furrowing her brow. "Well, it started when you told me you were leaving the academy-" "What?! Why are you leaving?" Sweetie Belle asked her big sister, Rarity. Rarity was packing her things in her seventh suitcase and was gathering all of her fashion equipment for the trip. She turned to face her sister. "I told you already. Master Celestia wants me to accompany Twilight and her friends on this important mission and if Twilight's involved, then it is the utmost importance that I help along with this journey the best I can." "You're just saying that because the stallion you like is-" "SWEETIE BELLE!" "What!?" Sweetie Belle squeaked, being interrupted by her sister while she was telling the story. "Please, sis. Leave some of the more personal details about our conversation between us," Rarity explained. She motioned her eyes towards Garret without anypony noticing except Sweetie Belle and she looked back and forth between the two. Sweetie Belle thought for a moment and pointed at Garret. "Is he the one that you have a crus-" "SWEETIE BELLE!" "Okay, Okay! Sheesh. I was just making sure," Sweetie Belle said, defensibly. She then let out a sigh. "Anyways, I was asking her if I could come but she said-” "No. I simply cannot let my little sister come along on this dreadful, dangerous, and more than likely to happen, dirty quest. What would happen if I let you come along and you got hurt!" Rarity then let out a gasp. "Or worse than that! What if you get your mane all tangled up or possibly lose it forever! No, I cannot let you go through that." "But-" Rarity stomped her hoof down. "No buts. You're staying and that's final," she said. "Now if you don't mind, I've to finish packing my designs." She turned her attention back to packing her things. "Now, where did I put my latest in-season saddlebag?" she said to herself. Sweetie Belle made a pout and left Rarity's room. After some time had passed, Sweetie Belle watched her sister leave with Twilight, the stallion that Rarity liked, and that new mare that she hadn't met before. As they were walking away, Sweetie Belle thought of an idea and quietly followed the trio to the ship. On the way, she saw Spike with them and saw how disappointed he was for not going along with them as well. So when the timing was right she grabbed Spike from the shadows and covered his mouth with her hoof. Spike was struggling to get free from her until she spoke up in a hushed tone. "Spike!" "Sweetie Belle?" Spike said, but what came out wasn't clear because of Sweetie Belle's hoof over his mouth. She then let go of Spike. "What are you doing? Why did you just try to foalnap me?" "I'm going to sneak on the ship before Rarity and her friends leave," Sweetie Belle explained. "Wanna come?" "WHAT?! Sweetie Belle that's ridiculous and we'll get into a lot of trouble if we do that," Spike said. "But don't you want to be with Twilight? I mean, she does leave you here and you don't do that much around here anyway." "Yeah, but-" "And you might impress Rarity while we're with them." "......Let's do this," Spike said confidently. "I knew you would see it my way," Sweetie Belle commented with a satisfied smirk. "Okay, but how are we going to sneak on to the ship anyway?" "Hmmm." Sweetie Belle was stroking her chin until an idea popped into her head. "I got it!" "What?" "Why me?" Spike said to himself as he was stuffed in one of Rarity's suitcases with Sweetie Belle. "Shush, we need to stay quiet," Sweetie Belle whispered. "Okay, I'll try," Spike said. "What was in this case anyway?" "Don't know. There was just nothing but shampoos, soaps, and other kinds of stuff my sister always packs." "WHAT!?" "Now what?" Sweetie Belle asked her sister after Rarity interrupted her. "Sweetie Belle, those were all of my bathing supplies!" Rarity cried. "I had months of supplies to keep up with my beauty and to keep me looking as fresh as possible." "Wait, months?" Twilight asked. "Rarity, we're on a mission of the utmost importance in galactic history and you're more concern about losing some of your beauty supplies?" "Don't judge me, dear," Rarity said. "You can't possibly fight evil while not looking your best against it." "Rarity, the reality of this is that when we do go into battle, all of our clothes would get damaged, our sweat would ruin the make up and get into our eyes, and we’ll have patches of bald spots on our fur," Twilight explained. "And that's why you have somepony like me to keep you looking your best," Rarity said striking a pose and fluffing her curly mane. Twilight rolled her eyes and looked over to Sweetie Belle and Spike. "And I guess the rest of the story is that you two were brought on the ship and hid the whole time we were on our way to Tythorn?" "Yes," Sweetie Belle answered. "And then we were caught by those two." Sweetie Belle pointed at both Canderous and Zaalbar. "How did they catch you?" "How long are we supposed to stay in here?" Spike asked. "We've been in here for hours!" "I don't know. I didn't really think we would make it this far," Sweetie Belle confessed. "So, should we get out?" "Might as well." Sweetie Belle used what little magic training she acquired to open the suitcase up. Unfortunately she was still far from using magic and had a worried look on her. "Well? Aren't you going to open it?" Spike asked. "I uh...We may have a problem." "We're stuck aren't we?" "Yeah." "Hold on, I got an idea," Spike calmly said and used his index claw to pick at the lock. The lock came undone and the case was opened. "Wow! How did you do that?" Sweetie Belle asked. "Some of the colts would shove me in a locker or broom closet and I eventually learned how to use my claws as a lockpicker." "That sounds terrible." "Nah, you get use to it." "So how-" "Hey, did you hear something?" a voice spoke up in the corridors. Sweetie Belle let out a gasp. "Oh no! We need to hide!" she whispered. "Quick! In here!" Spike said, pointing to a large canister attached to the wall. Sweetie Belle quickly jumped into it and Spike followed and closed the small door behind them. As they were trapped inside they heard voices but couldn’t tell what they were saying outside and were more preoccupied by a delightful smell. Sweetie Belle took a couple of sniffs in the air. "Hmmm, something smells good in here." "I can't see what's in here but it's making me hungry," Spike said. "Hold on, let me see what I can do about that," Sweetie Belle said. Her horn started to illuminate and they both were able to see what was around them. "Snacks?" she said, confusedly. "We must be in a food storage," Spike said. He looked over some of snacks and furrowed his brow. "Why is there a couple of bones here?" The top of the storage was opened and a large paw was trying to grab on to something. "Blast! I can’t find those bones anywhere in here," Canderous said. While trying to avoid Canderous' paws, Sweetie Belle went over to grab a bone and placed it in his paws. "There we go." Canderous pulled out the bone and started chewing on it. "You're welcome," Sweetie Belle said and Spike smacked himself in the face. "What? Oh right, thank you," Canderous said to the storage and started walking away until his eyes widened. "Hey, wait a minute!" Canderous opened the storage and was looking down on both Sweetie Belle and Spike. "What the-" "RUN!" Spike shouted and sprayed whipped cream in Canderous' eyes. "AAAAAAA! MY EYES!" Sweetie Belle and Spike made a run for it as Canderous was getting the whipped cream out of his eyes. While they were running, they went past Zaalbar as he was checking to see what was going and was confused by the two newcomers. Zaalbar scratched his head for a moment and Canderous came out of the storage room. "Those two are stowaways! GET THEM!" Canderous shouted. Zaalbar retorted in his language. "What?! Who cares that I'm the boss or not, just get them!" Canderous said and went after the duo. Zaalbar gave a shrug and followed him. Canderous was checking the engine room and Sweetie Belle was under the port side engine. Canderous took a few sniffs with his nose. "You can hide, but I can smell you," Canderous warned as he was sniffing around. Sweetie Belle started to sweat a bit as Canderous was walking near her. Her heart was beating fast as his steps drew closer and closer to her. Soon though his paws went past where she was and she let out sigh of relieve. But she let out a shriek when something pulled her tail and saw Zaalbar holding her by it. Canderous looked behind him and gave out a smirk smile. "Ha! One down, one to go." "LET HER GO!" The three looked over to where Spike was standing having a fierce look on him. Still having a smirk on him, Canderous walked over to the small dragon showing the height difference between the two. "Or what?" Canderous asked, mockingly. Spike inhaled a large amount of air and covered Canderous' head in a stream of green fire from his mouth. When Spike ran out of breath, the fire died down and Canderous' head was covered in ashes and his eyebrows were singed off. He then fell on the ground unconscious, passing out from the pain. "YEAH! Who's the number one dragon now?!" Spike gloated and did a little dance until Zaalbar caught him by the tail and held him up. "HEY! Let me go!" Spike shouted and tried to breath out another wave of fire. But all that came out was just a spark of fire and Spike blushed a bit. "Oops, used too much of it already." Spike looked over to see Sweetie Belle being held by a coat rack and was being hung over with her robe on it. She struggled as much as she could but it was to no avail. Zaalbar walked over to the rack and tied Spike's tail to it and Spike was hanging upside down with his arms crossed. "Well, this is just humiliating," Spike said. "Well, at least it couldn't get any worse, right?" Sweetie Belle said, sheepishly. Spike smacked himself in the face again. "Hey Zaalbar, what's going on? I was trying to take a nap and you guys were-" Scootaloo came out of the starboard dormitory. She paused to look over to see the two pair on the rack and then looked over to Zaalbar with a puzzled look. "What the heck did I miss?" Twilight and Rarity continued to glare down on the two trouble makers. "You're grounded, Sweetie Belle," Rarity said. "Aw nuts," Sweetie Belle complained. "And you're grounded as well," Twilight said. "From what?" Spike asked. "Not from what, for what you're going to do," Twilight explained. "You're going to be reading the entire section of Star Swirl's magical theories." "A-All of them?" "Yes." Spike's eyes twitched a bit and he raised his hands towards the heavens. "NNNNOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO!" Everypony, droid, minotaur, and diamond dog rolled their eyes. Twilight then turned to the group. "Pinkie Pie, I need you to....No, wait. Rainbow Dash, you can....No, no, that's worse." "HEY! I understand Pinkie, but why not me?" Rainbow Dash argued. "I looked over Scootaloo, didn't I?" "Actually, Zaalbar looked over me more while you were out at the bar a lot," Scootaloo added. "Not helping, squirt." Twilight thought of it for a moment. "You're right. Zaalbar, you look over these two." "That's more- WAIT, WHAT?!" Zaalbar gave out a shrug and just nodded in agreement. "Alright, Garret and I need to contact Master Celestia right now," Twilight said. "We need to tell her what happened at the temple and see what our next move is." "Ah can set that up for ya," Applejack said. "Great. Let's get to it." Everypony was standing around the holotable as Applejack was trying to contact Master Celestia at the Enclave on White Tail. After a few moments of waiting for a response, Celestia, Lyra, Morning Right and several other members of the council appeared and were facing Twilight's and Garret's direction. "Master Celestia," Twilight said giving a small bow to her teacher and giving her a smile. Celestia did the same. "Twilight, it is good to hear from you. Did you find the element?" "Yes, we did," Twilight answered. "Unfortunately, it didn't show us where the others were though." "I see. This is most disturbing," Celestia said. "Eclipse and Moonlight must have hid them somewhere the elements can't connect with one another and if I had to guess, it would more than likely be on the Chaos Forge. Whatever dark magic is there is blocking the elements connection." "I agree, but the element of magic has given us more insight." "Has it? Please do tell us." "It showed us visions of strange looking objects on different worlds. Garret was able to identify these worlds and concluded that these objects are maps that could lead us to the Forge." Celestia paused for a moment. "Very well then, Twilight. You and the others will go and find the these maps and use them to lead you to the Chaos Forge. When you find it, contact us and we'll prepare for what is to come." "I understand, Master, but can I make a quick come back to the enclave?" "Why would you need to return?" Twilight motioned both Sweetie Belle and Spike to come face Celestia and the council with shame as their expression. "These two sneaked on to the ship and caused some trouble for our team." "We're sorry, Grandmaster Celestia," Sweetie Belle said, sorrowfully. "Me too, Master Celestia," Spike said. "Why would you two sneak away from the enclave?" Celestia asked. "Because I didn't want to be away for my sister for so long and I wanted to help her in any way I could," Sweetie Belle pleaded, making Rarity smile at her little sister. "And I always get left behind," Spike said. "Seriously, it almost feels like you don't want me around." "Spike! You know that's not true," Twilight countered. "It's dangerous and you're too young." "What!? Scootaloo told me all about how she saved you all by herself and she's twelve! I'm fourteen!" Twilight glared over to Scootaloo who had a sheepish smile on her. "I may have changed a few things in my version of the story," Scootaloo explained. Twilight rolled her eyes. "Spike. It doesn't matter what she did, it's what you did and what you did was act out and not do what I said. And whatever Sweetie Belle said to convince you to come along with her probably wasn't a very good reason. I am very disappointed." Spike lowered his head down in shame. "I know and I'm really sorry about it, Twi. All I want to do is to help." Twilight had a smile on her. "I know you do and I'm proud that you want to." Then there was a long pause between the two. Twilight looked over to Celestia and said, "On second thought, Master. I think Spike can come along with us." Spike's eyes widened with surprise and glee. "Really!?" "Yes. I can be a little overprotective at times-" "A little?" "Okay fine, very overprotective. But you are growing up and will eventually start traveling the galaxy on you own, so might as well do it with me." Twilight then gave Spike hug. All of the mares were 'awwing' while some of males were rolling their eyes around except for Garret and T3. Sweetie Belle looked over to Rarity and she was holding out her hooves for a hug. Rarity smiled and hugged her little sister. "Can I come now?" Sweetie Belle asked, innocently. "Hmmm, no." "Aw nuts." Everypony in the room started to laugh including some of the council members. After Celestia was done giggling, she said, "Since that is taken care of, we'll await your arrival and-" Then all of a sudden there was some static over the holotable. Everypony looked over to Applejack as she looking and pressing on buttons to see what the problem was. "Ah think we lost the signal," Applejack stated. "I think something is jamming it." "Is it a problem at our end?" Garret asked. "No. I think it's a problem on their end," Applejack said. Then there was silence in the room. A very dark and dreadful silence in the room. "C-Can you do something about it?" Twilight asked. "Nothing much Ah can do," Applejack said. "We'll just have to wait and-" Then Celestia appeared on the holotable again but had a more concern expression on her. "Twilight, can you hear me?" she asked while static was going off in the background. "Yes, master, I can hear you. What's happening?" "Moonlight and his forces have come upon us." "WHAT?!" "Their fleet has come out of hyperspace and are attempting to cut us off from all communication. I was only able to use a communication channel they haven't been able to block yet. Twilight, I need you to contact the Republic and send help." "Yes, master, we'll send in help right away and we'll join you in-" "No, Twilight!" Celestia interrupted. "You must go now and start finding the Chaos Forge's maps and find out where in the entire known galaxy it is. Time is of the essence, my little apprentice. I trust that you will agree with me on this." Twilight just stood there in silence dreading the situation. She was just told to abandon the enclave, her fellow knights, and her master. She knew the importance of this mission but was it really worth leaving behind lives at the mercy of Moonlight's fleet? With a heavy heart and burden she let out a sigh and changed her expression into a serious one. "I understand, master." She turned to Applejack. "Applejack, send word to the Republic quickly about the situation. The fleet Celestia has won't hold Moonlight's fleet for long." "Aye aye, sugarcube," Applejack replied and gave a salute. She then pressed on a few more buttons on the controls. "I've sent the message, hopefully they'll get it and send help right away." Twilight nodded at Applejack and turned back to Celestia. Her expression softened. "Will you be alright, master?" Celestia gave a small smile. "I will. Moonlight isn’t the first tyrant have faced and I’m more than prepared for whatever plan he has. May the Will of Harmony be with you all." Celestia holographic appearance was gone and the transmission was over. There was another moment of silence. "I can't believe it," Rarity said. "First Hoovris and now this? Our own homeworld? Is Moonlight really that desperate for power?" "I'm afraid so, Rarity" Twilight said. "Now is not the time to worry about Celestia and the others. They are highly trained warriors of magic and can take care of themselves. We must start looking for the maps as soon as possible and hopefully stop Moonlight before any other planet comes under attack by his forces." Applejack tapped her chin a couple of times. "You and Garret said that Tatooine was one of the planets right?" "Yes." "That's the closest planet on the star chart. We can get there in no time" "Then that's where we go," Twilight said. "Rainbow Dash, take us to Trotooine." "You got it, boss mare," Rainbow Dash said with a salute. The Phoenix's engines started blazing with blue energy and disappeared to another part of the galaxy. Unknown to the crew of the Phoenix came another ship. It's hull was slanted and large as the bridge of it was in the very front. It had three massive engines with two gun turrets on the left and right side engines with the last one on the bottom of the ship. Inside the ship was Calo Ford who was piloting the ship with Sunset Shimmer sitting in the co-pilot seat with her front legs crossed. Sunset looked over to Calo. "Why didn't we attack them while they were still in their ship?" "As powerful as my ship can be, I’d rather not kill our targets," Calo replied. "You may not want to take your 'precious' Twilight alive, but I've been given a large sum of credits just to take her alive. Even if I was able to disable the ship, we would be outnumbered and they have a better advantage of fighting us on their ship then ours. So we'll wait until they reach their next destination and take them on there." "So where is it then?" "The computer needs time to track their next destination." "Great," Sunset said sarcastically. "Hey, um, where is the food?" Snails asked from the back. "It's in the cargo hold," Calo said. "For the seventh time." "But I can't seem to find it in there." *Sigh* "I'll help you find it," Snip said. "You always get lost everywhere we go." "Do not," Snails defended. "Do too." "Do not." "Do too!" "Do not!" "DO TOO! "DO NOT!" "Tartarus! They should have payed me to put up with you two!" Calo shouted. "They should have given me better guards," Sunset whispered to herself. "Damn you, Soul." End of Chapter