Chapter 7
Side Mission: Free the Slaves
(Heroes’ POV)
(Sweet Apple Acres)
Our heroes were now in the barn, discussing the events of the first portal site.
“So you’re saying that Rainbow saved me this time?” Sonic asked.
“From what we saw on the footage, you were out cold, while Rainbow here saved you, stopped that monster of a Titan, and sealed the first portal. All by herself.” Applejack said smirking.
Sonic’s jaw was hitting the floor.
Rainbow however was looking at the ground sadly, “I wouldn’t say it was me who did it all. I’d say it was all Dark Dash who saved you.”
“Maybe it was you who was actually in control.” Knuckles said.
Rainbow’s eyes widened in horror.
Applejack biffed the back of Knuckles’ head, “Knuckles, you’re not helping by saying that.”
Knuckles rubbed the back of his head, “Oops.”
Sonic walked over to Rainbow and hugged her, “Don’t worry Rainbow. I’m sure your… dark side… isn’t pure evil… unlike my own.”
While the silence carried on, Lightning walked into the room, “Oh. Ummm. Am I interupting something?”
Sonic and Rainbow let go of each other.
“No. What is it?” Sonic said.
“Remember you saw that the Nightmare Kingdom was using people as slaves to build their portals?” Lightning asked.
“Yeah, what about them?” Rainbow asked.
“I’ve discovered the people are being held in several secret facilities.” Lightning said opening her computer.
“Ok, but we don’t even know where these facilities are.” Twilight said.
“Unless someone pinpoints the location of a nearby one.” Lightning said showing the others her 3d holographic map. A red dot flashed at a nearby location, “Which I have.”
“That’s an abandoned prison… Or at least what remains of it.” Applejack said.
“What’s that supposed to mean?” Ace asked.
“Tirek may or may not have flattened some of it like a pancake.” Pinkie said.
“Oh.” Ace said.
“But if the place was flattened, then how are the Nightmare Warriors using it to hold prisoners?” Silver asked.
“That prison also runs underground from what I got of its schematics.” Lightning said pressing a button on her computer. The hologram zoomed in and showed a picture of the prison that ran down at least 5 miles down into the ground.
“Let me guess, we're going to storm the place and free the prisoners?” Dark asked.
“Yes we are. And in turn, not only will we free the prisoners, but we'll also slow down the portal construction slightly.” Sonic said.
“We'll need a plan of attack. They'll be expecting us to free the people.” Sunset said.
(Abandoned Prison (Exterior))
Several Nightmare Warriors and Knights were stationed at the exterior entrance of the prison.
“Uhg. Why do we have to be here?” A Nightmare Warrior complained, “There is no way those heroes are going to get through all the guards stationed inside the prison.”
“We’re here because Nightmare Lilac ordered us to. And we are loyal to the queen.” Another replied.
“But seriously, how could they possibly have a chance to get throu-” The Warrior began, but then he stopped.
A metal cylinder had been thrown at his feet.
“Huh? What’s this?” He said picking up the device.
The other warrior noticed a red blinking light on it, and heard a beeping sound, “Gah! Get rid of that! It’s a bomb!”
“What!? AH!” The warrior yelled throwing the bomb.
It exploded in mid air, but it exploded with confetti.
“What the hell?” The warrior said looking at the confetti. Then he glared, “Ok Fred, was that you who pulled this prank?”
He got no response.
“Fred?” The Warrior said turning. He saw the other warrior unconscious on the ground, “What the fuck!?” He drew his sword quickly and pulled out a dark blue orb, “Show yourself! All I have to do is activate this beacon and everyone who sees it will come rushing over here to attack you.”
The warrior then noticed a shadow moving across the ground, “AHA!” He then shot a beam at the two shadows, only for it to move out of the way.
Dark both rose out of their shadows and glared at the warrior, “Wave of Darkness!” He shouted. A giant wave of dark energy rose and rushed towards the warrior.
“AH!” The warrior yelled as he was engulfed by the wave.
When the wave disappeared, the warrior was unconscious on the ground.
Sunset walked over to the warrior’s beacon and stomped on it, shattering it, “That takes care of them.”
“Good work.” Dark said then he looked behind him, “Let’s move.”
The others walked out from behind a piece of rubble from the prison before it was wrecked.
When the heroes walked into the prison, they didn’t notice the first Nightmare Warrior had regained conscience and had activated a red beacon, “Good luck down there.”
(Abandoned Prison (Interior))
The heroes walked through the prison and hadn’t encountered any Nightmare Guards so far.
“Where are all the prisoners?” Silver asked.
“They must be in the lower levels.” Rarity said.
Then they all heard metal clanging, whips cracking, and voices screaming.
“Hey, do y’all hear that?” Applejack said.
They walked towards the sound, noticing the air was getting warmer each step closer they got.
When they noticed the screaming got louder, they saw a room lit up brightly.
They ran into the room and gasped.
The room was a smeltery, for building the needed supplies to build the portals.
People were lifting heavy beams of hot metal; operating machines; and keeping the furnaces burning.
“Keep moving!” A Nightmare Commander yelled at the people.
Warriors whipped the people hard across their backs, forcing them to scream and yell in pain.
Rainbow clenched her fists tightly and her anger began to rise.
Sonic noticed her eyes were also changing between magenta and blood red. He grabbed her hand and looked at her.
Rainbow looked at Sonic and instantly calmed down, “We can’t let them do this.”
“I know, and we’ll free these people.” Sonic said.
“But we need to take out that commander first. He’ll warn the rest of the building that we’re here, if he sees us.” Ace said looking at the commander.
“Allow me, darling.” Rarity said. She tapped her Chaos Element, and she began to glow white.
Rarity had become the chaos archer; white breastplate, a pair of arm guards, purple archery boots, a white archery hat; and she had her silver and white bow, and quiver with purple arrows.
Silver sighed in admiration, “No matter what she looks like, she always has beauty.”
The others rolled their eyes.
Rarity stepped away from the others, so she could see the commander. She drew an arrow and aimed at him, “Night night.” She then let the arrow fly.
The commander however smiled and looked directly at the arrow and grabbed it, “Nice try.”
“What!?” The heroes shouted.
“We’ve been expecting you.” The Commander said. He then whistled loudly.
Hatches in the ceiling then opened and several Nightmare Knights dropped around the heroes.
The other girls went to activate their Chaos Elements, but the guys stopped them.
“What are you doing!?” Rainbow shouted at Sonic.
“We can’t fight them now. They’ve got innocent people here. We can’t let them get caught in the crossfire.”
The commander laughed, “That’s one thing that makes you heroes weak. We don’t care who dies, as long as we win.” He then turned back towards the prisoners, “Put them in cells. And make sure to take their weapons. Put the chaos and dark ones in the energy generators, we need more power.”
Then all the heroes were knocked out.
(5 Mins Later)
(Group POV)
Sonic groaned as he regained conscience, “Uhg. What happened?”
“The Knights knocked us all out and put us in these cells.” Sonic heard Rainbow say.
He looked up and saw each of the heroes had been placed in a separate cell, except some of the guys weren’t here.
“Hey, where are Shadow, Silver, Ace, and Dark?” Sonic asked.
“They took them into the generator rooms.” Sonic heard Sunset sniffle.
Then Sonic heard distant, yet familiar yells of pain.
Sonic went to grab the bars of his cell, “We need to get out of here.” But when he grabbed the bars, he was shocked with electrical current, “G-a-a-a-a-a-h!”
“The bars are electrocuted by the way, darling.” Rarity said sadly.
Sonic heard more yells of pain.
Sonic growled, “This needs to stop now!” Sonic charged a spin dash and dashed into the gate, only to bounce off it, “Grr.” He charged more and more spin dashes and kept smashing into the gate, “Come. On. You. Stupid. Gate!” Sonic then charged a spin dash so hard, he began to glow golden.
“Don’t bother, Sonic. Nothing will get past these-” Tails began.
But Sonic unleashed his super spin dash and smashed through the gate, but kept bouncing all over the walls, smashing into the other cells.
When Sonic stopped bouncing all over the place, he got up and looked at the destruction he caused. He whistled, “Whoa.” He had managed to smash all the cell gates that were holding his friends.
The others’ jaws hit the floor.
“Well don’t just stand there. Our friends are in need of help!” Sonic yelled.
The others got up and out of their cells and they ran to the door, but it was sealed shut.
“Damit. Now what?” Sonic said, “I can’t use another super spin dash. I’m too tired for that.”
“You’re actually tired?” Rainbow said.
“Yeah. Weird isn’t it?” Sonic said.
Knuckles walked over to the door and began to smash his fists against it, but failed to even dent it, “Aw come on!”
Applejack walked over and began to kick at the door with Knuckles, “C’mon ya stupid door!”
Eventually the two managed to dent the door.
Knuckles’ anger began to rise and he began to pound harder, “RAHHHH!” As his fists began to hit harder, the spikes began to glow red.
Pulling back all the way, Knuckles smashed through the door, sending across the room on the other side, and smashing a Nightmare Warrior between it and the wall.
“Gah!” Knuckles groaned grabbing his fist as it began to throb.
“Great work Knuckles.” Tails said.
“Thanks, but now my hand hurts a lot.” Knuckles said.
“We need to saves the others.” Sonic said as they all ran down the halls.
“Yes, but we also need to get our stuff back so we can save the enslaved people too.” Rainbow said.
They all ran down the halls, but Twilight suddenly stopped in front of a door that was locked shut. She felt a peculiar, yet familiar energy coming from in the room, “Huh?”
The other noticed that Twilight had stopped and they stopped too.
“Twilight? C’mon. We need to save the others.” Sunset said.
Twilight however wasn’t listening to them. She saw a control panel and activated it, “There is something behind this door that is making me curious.”
“Well your curiosity is wasting our time!” Rainbow shouted.
Twilight groaned as she tried to punch in the correct pass code, but was failing, “Rah! Come on!”
Then Tails walked up to her, “Let me try.”
Tails began to punch into the codes, but was straining, “Uhg. This security is really advanced. Time restrictions, alarm systems, and it will raise a cage around the intruders.” He began typing faster, “I need to finish this before time’s up.”
As Tails was typing in the code, two Nightmare Guards came around the corner and saw the heroes, “Hey! You’re supposed to be locked up.” They drew their swords and charged towards the heroes.
“Uh oh. Trouble’s come to town.” Sonic said turning towards the guards.
Sonic went to charge a spin dash, but he stopped mid spin, “*Huff* Dang I *huff* am too * tired to *huff* even fight anyone.”
Knuckles couldn’t fight because his hands still hurt from bashing the door down.
The gaurds charged Sonic and Knuckles and slashed their swords at them, cutting them across their chests.
“AHH!” They shouted as they fell to one knee.
Rainbow and Sunset jumped between the guards and their friends, “We got this.”
“But you don’t have any special abilities.” Sonic said, “They’ve got swords and abilities.”
“So what? We can defend ourselves even without abilities.” Rainbow said running towards one of the guards.
The guard swung his sword horizontally, as an attempt to slice across Rainbow’s face.
Rainbow dropped to her knees and slid under the sword, “Missed me.” Then she grabbed the guard’s wrist and twisted it.
“GAH!” He yelled, dropping his sword.
Rainbow took the sword and threw to Sunset, “Sunset, catch!”
Sunset took the sword and charged at the other guard, and sword linked with him.
While they were dealing with the guards, Fluttershy and Rarity were tending to Sonic and Knuckles’ wounds.
Tails had almost cracked the pass code, “C’mon. Almost there.” Then he heard a beep and the door opened, “Yes!”
Twilight and Applejack ran into the room and gasped. All their stuff was in the room.
“Wohoo! Let’s wrap this up.” Applejack said putting on her Chaos Element and activating it.
Twilight put her’s on and activated it too.
The guards had managed to knock down Rainbow and Sunset, swords pointed at their chests.
“Any last words?” One guard said.
“Yeah. Get yer swords away from mah friends!” Applejack said throwing her lassos around the two guards.
“What the!?” The guards said as the lassos wrapped tightly around them.
“Chaos Beams!” Twilight said pointing her staff at the two guards. Two beams shot out of it and hit the two guards.
The guards then fell unconscious.
Twilight and Applejack handed the other girls their respective Chaos Elements.
“Now let’s save the others.” Rainbow said activating her Chaos Element.
The heroes ran down the halls, knocking down any and all Nightmare Guards they came across. Until they reached a room where the path split to four paths.
One lead to the power generators, one lead to the prison control room, one lead to the prison cells, and the other lead to the surface exit.
“Fluttershy, Sunset, Rarity, and Pinkie. You go free the guys from the generators.” Rainbow said, “Twilight and Tails go to the control room to free the prisoners. Sonic, Applejack, Knuckles, and I will help free the prisoners once they are free.”
Everyone nodded and went down the paths they were supposed to go into.
(Tails and Twilight POV)
(Play Centuries - Fall Out Boy)
The doors to the control room blasted open, alerting the guards and knights in the room.
Several purple beams shot through the doorway, hitting most of the guards. The knights raised energy barriers and blocked the beams.
“What the hell?” A Knight said drawing his sword.
A small fox shaped robot walked into the room slowly.
“What the hell is this?” A Knight asked picking up the robot.
Suddenly the robot’s eyes glowed red and it bared fangs and claws.
“Uh oh.” The knight said.
The fox then jumped onto the knight and began tearing at his armor and skin.
“AHH!” The knight yelled as his armor was torn and shattered.
The other knights pulled out their swords and looked at the robot.
Tails activated the robot’s self destruct command, causing it to blow up on the guard, “Gah!”
“Chaos Control!” Twilight appeared in the middle of the room.
All the knights turned quickly towards Twilight and went to charge at her.
“Chaos BLAST!” Twilight shouted stabbing her staff into the ground.
Deadly Chaos energy expanded from where the staff smashed into the ground, causing all the knights to get caught in it and incinerating them.
Twilight huffed from using such a powerful ability, “We’re *huff* all *huff* clear.” Then Twilight fell to one knee.
Tails ran into the room and caught her, “Are you ok Twi?”
“I’m fine. Get to the controls and free the prisoners.” Twilight said.
Tails nodded and ran over to the controls. He typed in a few commands and then pulled a lever.
“Warning. All prison cells opened. Prisoners escaping!” The loud speaker said.
(Prison Cell Level)
(Sonic, Rainbow, Applejack, and Knuckles’ POV)
When they heard the loud speaker, Sonic, Rainbow, Applejack, and Knuckles charged into the room and took out the two guards guarding the doorway out.
Several Knights saw the four heroes and instantly charged at them.
“Hehe. Let’s do this! Applejack! Punt me!” Sonic shouted charging a spin dash.
“You got it partner!” Applejack said running at Sonic. She kicked him as hard as she could towards the charging knights.
Sonic plowed through ten guards, “Oh yeah! Strike!”
Rainbow dashed towards knights with lightning fast speed, striking their legs and arms with her daggers.
When the knights fell, Knuckles ran behind up to them and smashed their heads into the ground, “Yeah! Get wrecked!”
“Really, Knuckles?” Rainbow asked as she cut down the last Knight.
“What? I can’t have a little fun?” Knuckles asked as he smashed the knight’s face.
“No you can’t. Because your definition of fun, is far from fun.” Rainbow said throwing a shuriken behind her, hitting a knight charging at her behind her.
Applejack and Knuckles began escorting people to the exit, while Sonic and Rainbow held back Knights and Guards that came at them.
When the last of the prisoners got out, Sonic and Rainbow went to go to the exit.
“Is that everyone?” Sonic asked.
“Yeah. I think so, minus the others in the generator room.” Rainbow said.
“Let’s hope they got there ok.” Sonic said.
(Generator Room)
(Sunset, Pinkie, Rarity, and Fluttershy POV)
Several clangs and roars could be heard in the halls leading to the generators.
A knight yelled after being thrown by bears and other animals.
Several were shot frozen by Rarity’s ice arrows, then smashed by Sunset’s sword or Pinkie’s arm party cannons.
“C’mon. We’re almost there.” Sunset said seeing the door to the generators.
Sunset ran to the door and burst through it, only to receive an arm to the face, causing her to fall flat on her back.
Sunset looked up and gasped.
Dark was standing over her, growling. His eyes were neon green, and filled with fear
“Dark?” She said.
Dark then went to smash his fist down in her head.
Sunset yelped and rolled out of the way, then got up and faced Dark, “What is wrong with you? It’s me, Sunset Shimmer.”
Sunset then heard someone chuckle, “Hehe. You actually thought we were going to use them to generate power to this station? What a fool.”
The Nightmare Commander walked out of the shadows behind Dark.
“What have you done to him?” Sunset said growling.
“Hehe. We’ve given him a douse of our Nightmare Toxin. It makes see what they love the most, as the thing they want to destroy the most, or what they fear most.”
The other three girls ran into the room behind Sunset.
“Oh, and we’ve done it to all four of them.” The Commander said.
Shadow, Silver, and Ace walked out of the shadows and stood next to Dark, their eyes neon green and filled with fear.
“Have fun with them.” The Commander said walking back into the shadows.
“Chaos Spear!” Shadow shouted, throwing a green spear at the girls, “This is for Maria!”
Sunset deflected the spear and absorbed it into her sword, “Guys stop this. You don’t want to hurt us. We’re your friends.”
Silver then picked up an empty waste can and threw it at the girls, “I will destroy you again Iblis!”
Rarity shot the can with an ice arrow and shattered the can, “You’re seeing a Nightmare, it’s not real. Snap out of it!”
“Chaos Bomb!” Ace said creating a bomb and throwing it at the girls.
Pinkie took the bomb into her party cannon and shot it back at the guys, “This isn’t fun. C’mon, spa out it. I’m not having fun battling you four.”
“Wave of Darkness!” Dark shouted, sending a wave of dark energy at the girls.
They gasped and yelled as the wave smashed down upon them.
The girls were forced into returning back to their normal forms.
The guys walked over to the girls and looked down upon them.
Pinkie looked at Shadow with fear in her eyes, “Shadow, is this what Maria would truly want? You killing others for revenge?”
Shadow formed a chaos spear and raised it above his head.
Pinkie closed her eyes and waited for the blow.
“No, it’s not what she would want.” Shadow said.
Pinkie’s eyes flashed open.
Shadow turned and threw the Chaos Spear at the other three, causing the ground below them to explode.
“Gah!” The three yelled as they were flung into the wall.
Shadow dashed forward towards Silver and grabbed him by his collar, “Iblis is dead. Blaze had sacrificed her life to make sure of that. You are seeing a nightmare, Silver. WAKE UP!”
Silver stopped struggling and the fear drained out of his eyes, “B-Blaze.”
Silver them fell unconscious.
Shadow nodded and turned, only to get a fist to the face, “Ahg!”
Ace charged at Shadow, Chaos Javilen in his hand.
Shadow saw this and smirked, “You always were too easy to defeat.” Then he got up, “Chaos Control.”
The space and time around Ace slowed down, and Shadow appeared next to him.
Shadow grabbed the javilen and swung it at the back of Ace’s head, sending him into the wall again, “Gah!” Ace lay unconsious in the rubble.
When he turned, Shadow was suddenly grabbed by his neck.
Dark growled at him, “I will detroy you.”
“Dark! Stop this!” Sunset yelled charging at Dark.
Dark didn’t quite see who was charging at him and back handed Sunset in the face, sending her to the floor, “You are all weak compared to me. I will-” Then he saw Sunset on the ground, in tears.
“Why won’t you wake up? This isn’t really what is happening.” Sunset said between tears.
Dark’s eyes widened in terror and he dropped Shadow, “N-No. What have I done!?” He grabbed his head and yelled, dropping to his knees, “M-Must… f-fight… the… f-fear!” Then he yelled once more and fell unconscious.
Sunset stopped crying and checked Dark’s pulse, “He’s still ok.”
“Same over here.” Rarity said checking Silver.
“Ace is still breathing.” Fluttershy said.
“I’m fine, but a little dizzy.” Shadow said as Pinkie helped him up.
“We need to get out of here.” Sunset said as she tried to pick Dark up, but failed.
“Need some help?” She heard someone say.
She looked up and saw Rainbow and Sonic helping her lift Dark up, “Thanks guys.”
(Abandoned Prison Exterior)
The heroes got outside of the prison and sighed.
“We did it guys.” Rainbow said.
“We’re not done yet.” Sunset said, “We need to blow the place up.”
“Why?” Tails asked.
“Somewhere inside that prison is also a lab that they are develpoing a toxin called Nightmare Toxin. They used it on Shadow, Silver, Ace, and Dark.” Rarity said.
“Well it’s a good thing Twilight and I placed bombs all over the place down there. We can set them to blow up the entire place.” Tails said pulling out a tirgger.
“Do it.” Sonic said.
When they were far away, Tails pushed the trigger button.
The prison blew up from inside, lighting up the sky in a bright light of fire. The mushroom cloud rose high above where the prison once was.
“It is done.” Tails said.
And with that, the heroes set off to head back to Sweet Apple Acres.
(Stop Playing Centuries)
(10 minutes later)
(Inside the remains of the prison)
The prison lay in pure destruction. Nightmare Knight’s corpses and skeletons strewn all over the place.
A dark figure walked through the remains of the facility, crushing one of the skulls.
“Hmm. Did it survive?” Nightmare Lilac said looking at the rubble.
Then she saw it. A glowing stasis tube under the rubble.
She walked over to it and wiped the dust covered glass. She saw what was inside and smiled, “Hehe. It seems the process was 100% sucsessful. My plans for the Eternal Night will come to a sucess after all. Nehehehe Ahahahahahaha NAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAAAAAAA!” Then she continued to laugh evilly.