Chapter 13
Rise of the Resistance
Some time had passed and the sun was beginning to set over the region Canterlot City. Within the Shadowbolts base under Canterlot Mountain, all eleven girls remained trapped inside the prison cell made of stone Lego bricks. The six LEGO Team members — Sunset Shimmer, Rainbow Dash, Applejack, Pinkie Pie, Fluttershy, and Rarity — and the five Shadowbolt agents — Indigo Zap, Sugarcoat, Lemon Zest, Sour Sweet, and Sunny Flare — all sat or stood in scattered places throughout the small room, silently contemplating how everything could have gone so horribly wrong.
“A super-evil Twilight Sparkle,” muttered Pinkie Pie sadly. “I never thought I’d see anything like that in a million years.”
“How could this be even possible?” asked Rarity sadly. “The Princess Twilight of Equestria we know and love would never descend to such wickedness.”
“But she ain’t the pony princess we’re familiar with,” Applejack pointed out. “They might have the same name an’ appearances, but somewhere along the way, they took very different paths.”
“Applejack’s right,” agreed Sunset sadly. “Equestria’s Twilight was mentored by her world’s Celestia, and look at where she stands now: The Princess of Friendship, with her own castle. This world’s Twilight seemed to only want the most ambitious path, regardless of the consequences.” She paused as a sudden realization occurred to her. “Just like the path I once took. No wonder that stolen magic turned her into a monster.”
“If only we’d done more to help her sooner,” mumbled Fluttershy.
“You’re not the only ones who should feel guilty about all of this,” stated Sugarcoat. As everyone in the room turned their attention towards her, she continued, “She was forced into this situation by Cinch’s orders. Twilight and the rest of us were beginning to seriously question Cinch’s judgement over the last few days, but none of us ever acted upon those suspicions.”
“Yeah, you’re right,” agreed Indigo Zap in disappointment. “Who wants a new world order when the one who wants to be supreme leader is going crazy? We should’ve overthrown her before things went from bad to worse.”
“Yeah, we should have,” agreed Sour Sweet’s sweet face with a sad tone. She then spun her head around to her sour face and grumbled, “But we never would have. We could barely stand each other! No wonder Twilight became so desperate to abandon the Shadowbolts.”
“Ironic, isn’t it?” stated Sunny Flare. “Here we are, top members from both sides of a long-running conflict for the fate of the Lego World, and now it’s all on the verge of total annihilation at the hands of a monster created out of the rising tensions of this conflict.”
Rainbow Dash sighed and stood up. “Well we can’t just stand here,” she declared. “We gotta find a way to stop Twilight!”
“Midnight,” Lemon Zest pointed out as she removed her headphones. “She calls herself Midnight Sparkle, now.”
Rainbow Dash rolled her eyes and continued, “Call her what you want, but I think we can still save both the world and Twilight. We did it once before with Sunset, so I’m sure we can do it again.”
“Need I remind you that our first obstacle is to find a way out of this prison crafted by Midnight Sparkle?” Sugarcoat pointed out. “The walls are made of solid stone interlocking bricks and the only way in or out is through that locked door over there. It’s not like that door is just gonna magically open on its own.”
CLICK!
That sudden noise made everyone immediately turn their attention to the door. Astonishingly, the door swung open and outside stood a certain smiling young boy with a red cap on his head.
Spike chuckled and remarked, “Good thing I totally ignored Twilight when she told me to never read that book about how to pick a lock.”
“Spike?!” asked all six LEGO Team girls in surprise and confusion.
“Yeah!” cheered Lemon Zest as she jumped to her feet and immediately hugged Spike. “Way to go, little dude!”
Once Lemon broke the hug, Indigo Zap walked up to him and asked, “Where have you been this whole time?”
“I took shelter inside the air vents when I heard the others,” replied Spike. “You girls didn’t exactly make the most subtle of entrances.”
Rainbow Dash sighed and facepalmed, then turned to Pinkie Pie and grumbled, “Okay, it’s official! From now on, Pinkie, you’re never going first.”
“Awwww!” moaned Pinkie in disappointment.
“Eh, don’t take it too personally,” assured Spike as he pulled out a messaging tablet and held it up. “I had a bit of a heads up that you girls would be coming, anyway.”
Sunset’s eyes widened in shock, both at what Spike had just said and at seeing the tablet in his hands. “Wait… are you saying that you were the Informant?!” she asked in disbelief.
Spike responded by typing a quick message onto his tablet and sending it. Sunset heard the familiar tone coming from her messaging tablet and pulled it out. There was no need for her to say anything as she and her friends looked at the new message they had just received.
That’s right! It’s me! :)
“But that’s impossible!” exclaimed Pinkie Pie. “The Informant told us that she was one of Twilight’s new teammates — one of those five girls over there!”
“That was a total bluff,” replied Spike dismissively. “If I hadn’t thrown you off like that, everyone would’ve eventually caught on that it was me.”
“To be honest, I had never once considered it,” stated Rarity. “It never occurred to me that there even was a Spike that was native to this world.”
Spike raised an eyebrow and asked, “Why would you think that?”
Rarity rubbed the back of her head and nervously replied, “Well, it’s just that… the other Twilight always had her Spike accompanying her, and since the same couldn’t be said for this world’s Twilight, I just naturally assumed that Spike had no counterpart in this world, as is the case with Sunset Shimmer.”
“Nah,” said Spike with a dismissive wave of a hand as he walked away. “She just always wants to work alone.” When he found Twilight’s glasses on the floor, he picked them up and was relieved to see they were undamaged. He sighed and continued, “I remember the day I first met her. It was also the day she had to start wearing these.” He held up the glasses for everyone to see.
“Are you going to tell us about that ‘laser beam incident’ you mentioned to us earlier?” asked Sunny Flare.
Spike silently nodded. He gazed down at the pair of glasses and spoke, “It was Twilight’s very first mission as a Shadowbolt agent. She was supposed to recover an ancient relic known as the ‘pointed laser’ and deliver it to President Business — keep in mind, this was back when he was still a bad guy better known as Lord Business. Anyway, I was living alone on the streets back then — don’t remember how I ended up like that — and when I saw Twilight having some difficulty moving that thing around, I decided to be a nice guy and help her out. But she kept pushing me away, insisting that she worked alone and that she didn’t need any help. I knew there was no way she’d ever get that big thing into her vehicle on her own, so I kept trying to help, but she still kept trying to push me away. We kept struggling with each other until she accidentally set that thing off, shooting a short laser beam at a nearby mirror that reflected it right into her eyes, and with the way she went down and started screaming, I knew that had to hurt a lot. Fortunately, an eye doctor’s office happened to be just across the street from there, so I offered to guard her vehicle and cargo while she went over there. When she came back, she said that the damage was unrepairable, but she was able to get these glasses to correct her eyesight. And true to my word, I had kept her cargo safe, allowing her to complete her mission. Since then, I’ve always been living with Twilight, assisting her with her inventions, guarding her base while she’s out on missions, things like that. She never let me go anywhere beyond whatever base we occupied, but compared to my old life, I was totally cool with that.”
“Wow, that’s… quite a story,” remarked Applejack.
“How unfortunate,” mumbled Fluttershy as she knelt down and gave Spike a hug.
Rarity couldn’t help but notice that, while this world’s Spike had no problem speaking to her, he did have a noticeable blush on his face as he was being embraced by Fluttershy.
“Come on! We’re wasting time here!” Indigo Zap suddenly exclaimed. “Midnight Sparkle is on a multidimensional rampage and we gotta stop her!”
“But how can we do that?” asked Lemon Zest. “She’s got all the otherworldly magic she could get her hands on!”
Sunset tapped her chin as she thought about their options. Her expression brightened as she got an idea. “Maybe we could somehow turn the tables against her,” she spoke up. “What if we could somehow use her own magic-capturing device against her?”
“Seems kinda risky if ya ask me,” said Applejack uneasily.
“But it’s also the only guaranteed method we know of that can take away this magic she’s now using,” Sugarcoat pointed out. “When you consider the simple fact that everything in all of existence is at stake, I’d say it’s a risk worth taking.”
Rainbow Dash stepped forward and said, “Okay, so obviously the first thing we gotta do is actually find that thing, so everyone start looking around.”
Just as everyone began to spread out and start searching, Fluttershy suddenly spoke up and nervously said, “Um… I-I don’t think that’s going to be possible.”
Everyone stopped and turned to Fluttershy. “What do you mean by that?” asked Indigo Zap incredulously.
Fluttershy shuffled her feet around nervously as she uneasily replied, “Well… when Twilight was busy blasting open all these holes in space, I saw that device go flying over my head and fall… through there.”
Fluttershy pointed at the Jump-Gate, which was still opened to the Infinite Abyss of Nothingness. As everyone turned their attention towards it, the swirling dark vortex rumbled with thunder again.
Rainbow Dash facepalmed and growled in frustration. “Why did we have to leave that silly thing open?” she grumbled.
“So you’re saying that the one thing that could help us save the Lego World from total annihilation is now lost down the Infinite Abyss of Nothingness?!” exclaimed Sour Sweet’s sour face. She threw her arms up and shouted, “Well that’s just great!”
“So much for Plan A,” grumbled Sunny Flare. She turned to Sunset and asked, “Any other ideas?”
Sunset rubbed her chin as she continued staring into the dark swirling vortex within the Jump-Gate. She struggled to think of any alternative ways to defeat Midnight Sparkle without that device, but to her it just didn’t seem possible. No matter how she looked at it, she knew that she absolutely had to somehow retrieve that device… even if it meant taking the craziest and stupidest risk imaginable.
Finally, Sunset sighed and reluctantly said, “I think I know how to salvage this… but I’m going to need some time.” She shifted her gaze around at the others as she continued. “I need you girls — all ten of you — to go out there and hold off Midnight Sparkle for as long as possible. Build anything you can to stall her, just make sure she doesn’t go any further than she already has.”
“Do you really think we can hold our own against her?” asked Rarity.
“I’m completely confident that you can,” replied Sunset with a smile. She turned to the Shadowbolts as she continued, “And if all of us are willing to set aside our differences, I’m sure that our combined talents will give us the best chance of success. But just in case if that’s not enough, I’ve got a special task for Spike.” She then focused her attention on the young boy. “I need you to get to the LEGO Team headquarters building at the top of this mountain as quickly as possible.”
“And I’m guessing you want me to warn Celestia Playwell about what’s happening, right?” asked Spike.
Sunset smiled as she rolled her eyes and replied, “If Midnight’s rampage over the city is even half of what she did in this room, I’m sure Celestia and Luna are already well aware of what’s going on out there.” Her expression turned serious again as she placed a hand on Spike’s shoulder and continued, “No, what I need you to do is have Celestia send a message to every single citizen in Canterlot City, telling them to rise up in resistance against Midnight Sparkle, to build anything they can think of to put a stop to her. We overheard that she plans to build hundreds or even thousands of mechanical drones to expand her reach of power, so to beat her army, we’ll need an army of our own.”
“Consider it done,” acknowledged Spike with a salute.
“And what about you?” asked Fluttershy to Sunset.
Sunset pulled the messaging tablet out of her jacket, took one more look at it, then simply tossed it aside. She turned her attention ahead towards the endless vortex beyond the Jump-Gate, took a deep breath, and finally replied, “I’m gonna get that device back.”
Reactions were not immediate, but as everyone glanced between Sunset and the open Jump-Gate and realized the full implications of what she really meant, all of them were shocked speechless and many were left with jaws gaping.
“You mean you’re gonna jump in there?!” exclaimed Pinkie Pie in shock as she pointed towards the dark vortex. “That’s insane! That goes way beyond even what I’d consider to be crazy!”
“You think I don’t realize that?” asked Sunset incredulously.
“I don’t know whether to call you ridiculously brave or ridiculously stupid,” stated Sugarcoat.
“Then call me both,” remarked Sunset irritably. She took a breath to calm herself and said, “Look, there’s a rumor out of Bricksburg that a certain construction worker went through that same abyss and came back alive, and that to me is enough assurance that this might not be the one-way trip that everyone fears.”
“But what if it is?” asked Rarity worriedly. “What would we do without you?”
Sunset backed up a few steps away from the Jump-Gate and assured everyone in the room, “Try not to worry about me too much. I’ve already told you the plan, and now you just need to follow it. And I can promise you this much. If it’s even possible at all… then I will return.” She glanced around at everyone in the room and gave them all one last smile. “I will return.”
Finally, Sunset Shimmer took a deep breath and ran straight ahead right through the Jump-Gate. Not once did she ever scream as she plunged endlessly into the Infinite Abyss of Nothingness, for she had willingly chosen this fate and now couldn’t do anything but wait to see what would happen to her.
Inside the gateway room, the others just stared ahead silently as they watched Sunset Shimmer plunge into the seemingly bottomless vortex. Before long, she had fallen so far that they simply lost sight of her. For better or for worse, she was now on her way into the unknown, and there was certainly no turning back for her.
“So, um… what now?” asked Fluttershy quietly.
“Simple,” replied Spike. “We follow Sunset’s plan.” He turned away and ran across the room towards the side that was now open to the outside world. “Which means I need to get to the building at the top of this mountain right away. And I’ve got just the thing to do that.”
Spike hit a large button on the wall to the right, causing a nearby panel on that wall to slide away and the object hidden behind to extend out into the room. It was a rather odd contraption that looked like a minifig was supposed to be strapped to the front with a set of controls on either side, but by far the most notable part was that it had a pair of giant fans placed horizontally at the top on opposite sides.
“I have always wanted to use this thing,” remarked Spike with a smile as he strapped himself to the contraption and grasped the controls. He glanced over at the others one last time and said, “Good luck to all of you!”
Spike started up the personal contraption and the fans roared to life. He and his contraption then hovered off the floor and out through the opened emergency exit. Once he was outside, he revved up the fans and began to ascend up the mountain.
Back inside the base, after everyone had watched Spike depart, the ten girls who remained looked to each other. “Spike’s right,” stated Rarity. “Sunset Shimmer assigned us the responsibility of fending off the rampage of Midnight Sparkle for as long as possible, so we must not hesitate another moment.”
“And let’s not forget, we’re all in this together now,” declared Rainbow Dash, focusing her attention on the five Shadowbolts. “No more of this ‘good guys versus bad guys’ stuff. From now on, we’re all one thing and one thing only: Master Builders.”
“Except you’re forgetting that the five of you are no longer Master Builders due to Twilight’s device taking away your magic.” Sugarcoat quickly pointed out.
Rainbow Dash facepalmed and grumbled into her hand, “Rub it in our faces, why don’t ya?”
Applejack turned her attention towards the Jump-Gate, thought for a moment, then smiled as she got an idea. “Then we’ll just have to get uncreative!” she suddenly spoke up.
“Uncreative?” asked Sour Sweet’s sour face skeptically. “That is the stupidest thing I’ve ever heard!”
“No, seriously, just hear me out on this,” argued Applejack. She turned to her friends and explained, “The guys at that Pick-A-Brick place said they had copies of every instruction book ever published, so if we go there an’ search through their inventory, Ah’m sure we could find somethin’ we could build to help us fight against Midnight Sparkle. Anyone can follow instructions — ya don’t need to be a Master Builder to do that.” She turned to the Shadowbolts and continued, “An’ while we’re busy followin’ instructions, you girls can search through the whole warehouse for everythin’ y’all would need to build whatever ya want. With all of us workin’ together, Ah reckon we might stand a good chance of takin’ on the forces of Midnight Sparkle.”
“It does sound rather ludicrous,” said Sunny Flare, “but I suppose it may be our best option under the given circumstances.”
“Hey, at least it’ll give us all something to do,” remarked Lemon Zest with a shrug.
“I never thought I’d ever do anything heroic,” added Indigo Zap, “but hey, I’m up for the challenge!”
“Okie dokie, then!” stated Pinkie Pie cheerfully. “Back to the warehouse we go!”
Applejack walked over to the list of destinations displayed beside the Jump-Gate and scrolled through it until she found “Pick-A-Brick”. She selected it, but hesitated to hit the big green Open button. She glanced back into the Infinite Abyss of Nothingness, then sighed and muttered, “Ah sure hope Sunset can find her way back.” Reluctantly, she hit the button.
The doors closed on the dark swirling vortex, the familiar low whooshing noise lasted for a few seconds, and the doors parted open to reveal the aisles of the Pick-A-Brick Distribution Warehouse. With their plan of action now set in motion, all ten girls immediately rushed through the gateway.
Flim and Flam were busy sweeping the floor of their warehouse. As they finished up this final clean-up task, they both set aside their brooms, wiped their brows, and smiled as they shook each other’s hands at a job well done. But just as they turned away to leave, a rope suddenly looped around and pulled them both together, back-to-back. After they both fell to their rears, they looked over and saw that it was Applejack who had just lassoed them.
As she wrapped the rest of the rope around the business brothers, Applejack just smiled and swiftly explained, “Sorry, y’all, but we’re gonna have to borrow your warehouse for a lil’ longer. All in the name of the greater good. You understand.” She quickly tied up the end of the rope and then ran off.
Flim and Flam struggled against the rope, but it was wrapped so tightly around their arms and bodies that it was clear they were not going anywhere anytime soon.
“I’m beginning to think that we might be better off just staying out of conflicts altogether,” grumbled Flim.
“You’ve said it, dear brother of mine,” grumbled Flam in agreement.
Meanwhile, Rainbow Dash and Pinkie Pie dragged some filing cabinets over to some tables that Rarity and Fluttershy had retrieved from the break room. As soon as the filing cabinets had been set down, Applejack suddenly ran over to them and simply stated, “All taken care of.”
“Excellent work,” responded Rarity. “The Shadowbolts are busy gathering parts for their own creations as we speak, and Rainbow and Pinkie have just returned with a vast trove of instruction books.”
Before Rarity could speak any further, Rainbow Dash suddenly tossed dozens of instruction booklets onto the tables and exclaimed, “Start searching!”
Rarity sputtered as she stared at the scattered mess of pages all over the tables, then folded her arms as she scoffed and grumbled, “I would have preferred to leave them inside the filing cabinets as we searched through them. I mean, they must be properly organized for the sake of convenience.”
“No time!” shouted Pinkie Pie as she suddenly dumped a large pile of instruction booklets onto the tables. Since that was literally everything she could find in the filing cabinet she had taken, she immediately began to search through them, while Rainbow Dash continued to toss the rest of the stash onto the table. Understanding they didn’t have much time to lose, Applejack, Fluttershy, and Rarity approached the tables and also began to search through the piles of instructions.
After a quick glance over what easily had to be hundreds of different instruction books, Fluttershy sighed and mumbled, “This might take a while.”
Meanwhile, the five Shadowbolts agents rushed up and down the aisles of the warehouse in search of all the parts they would need for their custom creations. However, since their first visit to this warehouse had been only earlier that day, none of them were familiar with where to find any of the pieces they were looking for.
“Does anyone know where I can find wing parts?!” hollered Indigo Zap across the aisles where the others were scattered. “How am I supposed to build something that can fly if I can’t put wings on it?!”
“How am I supposed to know?!” hollered back Sour Sweet through her sour face. “All these aisles look the same to me!”
“Wow,” remarked Lemon Zest as she ran down yet another aisle. “Who knew there were so many kinds of Lego bricks? There’s gotta be thousands of these tubs to look through!”
Sugarcoat had stopped in the middle of a perpendicular aisle and looked across all the surrounding aisles, but all she could see to differentiate them was simply the numbers for each aisle. “There’s gotta be a system to how all these parts are organized,” she stated. “The owners would never be able to keep this place fully stocked if they didn’t have such a system in place.” She then began to hear the quiet hum of a motorized cart, so she turned around and saw Sunny Flare riding on a cart at a modest speed directly towards her.
“I believe I may have found precisely what you’re asking for,” remarked Sunny Flare as she stopped her cart near Sugarcoat, and then tossed a rather plain booklet over to her fellow Shadowbolt agent. “While the rest of you immediately charged into the aisles without a plan, I decided to look for the owner’s guide on where to find everything and then made enough photocopies for all of us to have one.”
Sugarcoat looked at the guide in her hands, flipped through the pages, and then grumbled, “I guess even the smartest of us can still have moments where we fail to use our common sense.”
“Regardless of whose idea it was, what’s most important is that we can now proceed far more quickly,” stated Sunny Flare.
Sugarcoat stared at Sunny and raised an eyebrow. “You’re not attempting to make any snide remarks about how you came up with this idea and I didn’t?”
Sunny Flare shrugged and replied, “I just don’t see the point. Belittling my teammates won’t help us save the world, after all.” She then held up one of the plain booklets and added, “Now if you’ll excuse me, I have to deliver these copies to the rest of our teammates.” She then began to drive away on her cart, searching for the others somewhere in the other aisles.
Sugarcoat opened her copy of the owner’s guide and began to study the inventory more thoroughly. As a certain group of parts caught her attention, she slightly smiled and remarked, “I know just what to build.”
After many minutes, none of the LEGO Team girls had any luck finding something that could be useful in the upcoming battle. Rarity and Fluttershy flipped through a few pages of each booklet before setting them aside, Applejack studied the model displayed on the cover of each booklet for a few seconds before discarding them, and Pinkie Pie and Rainbow Dash simply took a brief glance at the cover of each booklet before carelessly tossing they away.
“Lame… Dull… Boring…” muttered Rainbow Dash with each instruction book she tossed over her shoulder. She glanced at another one, then blew a loud raspberry as she tossed that one away too.
Applejack grabbed a rather old instruction book and glanced at the cover. “Yellow Castle? Golly, this thing must be ancient,” she muttered as she tossed that one aside.
“C’mon, there’s gotta be something good in here!” Pinkie Pie exclaimed desperately. She held up one random booklet and continued, “I mean, how is a flower cart supposed to help us defeat Midnight Sparkle?! Even I know that throwing flowers at her won’t do anything!”
“We simply have to keep searching,” responded Rarity as she gently set aside another unsuitable instruction booklet. “Considering how much of this pile we have yet to go through, I remain confident that we will eventually find something satisfactory.”
After a few more minutes, Rainbow Dash was beginning to lose patience and started tossing away useless instructions as quickly as possible. She was about to toss away a rather large instruction book when she took a second glance at the cover and suddenly paused. She stared at the model displayed on the cover, then suddenly grinned and shouted, “Jackpot!”
As soon as the others turned to her, Rainbow Dash tossed the instruction book over to them and excitedly exclaimed, “Check it out! The LL-929 Spaceship! Built by Benny Blue Jr. for the battle against Lord Business!”
Rarity picked up the instruction book and quickly flipped through a few pages. “Oh! Look at this!” she pointed out contently. “Three seats in the cockpit, two seats in the monitoring room — that’s enough to fit all of us!”
“Yay! We can all fly together!” Pinkie Pie cheerfully exclaimed.
“And I’m sure it’ll be much quicker and easier if this is the only thing we have to build,” added Fluttershy.
Applejack looked closely at the cover and said with concern, “But this thing’s got over nine hundred pieces. That could take a while to build, not to mention we actually gotta go out an’ find all those pieces.”
“Then it’s a good thing I’m giving you one of these,” remarked Sunny Flare as she suddenly drove by while tossing a copy of the warehouse owner’s guide over to the tables.
Everyone glanced in confusion for a moment at the Shadowbolt passing by. Rarity picked up the guide and flipped through a few pages, then smiled and remarked, “Yes, I do believe this will help us save quite a significant amount of time.” She flipped to another page and her eyes suddenly widened in delight. “Oh! They even have a decal printer in this warehouse! If we’re going to be building this particular spaceship, then we’re going to need decals applied to some of the parts, and I would be more than happy to handle that task.”
“Cool!” responded Rainbow Dash with a grin. “AJ and Fluttershy can go get the parts while Pinkie and I put it all together!”
“Ah guess it’s settled, then,” stated Applejack. “We’re gonna be buildin’ ourselves Benny’s Spaceship.”
“You mean Benny’s Spaceship, Spaceship, SPACESHIP!” corrected Pinkie Pie cheerfully. When everyone gave her confused looks, she pointed at the cover of the instruction book and added, “No, seriously, that’s the actual name of this kit. See?”
Applejack just rolled her eyes and said, “Whatever it is, it’s what we’re buildin’.” She tore out the last few pages of that instruction book — which contained the complete parts list for the model — and then tossed the rest of it over to Rainbow Dash. “C’mon, Fluttershy! Let’s go!” With the parts list in her hands, she ran off into the aisles.
Fluttershy was about to follow, but Rarity tapped her on the shoulder and handed the warehouse owner’s guide to her. Fluttershy smiled in appreciation as she took the guide, then followed after Applejack.
Throughout the evening, everyone worked hard to build everything they needed as quickly as possible. The LEGO Team girls cleared out enough floor space to build Benny’s Spaceship, then quickly gathered up parts and started assembling them, with Rarity printing out the decals, both onto a sticker sheet and directly onto certain parts. Despite having a plan and instructions to follow, they did have a few issues along the way — such as Fluttershy accidentally dropping the main canopy piece and putting a large fracture in it, forcing her to get a replacement — but overall, they were able to make good progress with the build.
Meanwhile, the Shadowbolt girls eventually managed to gather up all the parts they wanted and started building their own creations. Indigo Zap built a personal spaceship, Lemon Zest put big wheels and big subwoofers onto her vehicle, Sugarcoat decided to go for a small attack helicopter, Sour Sweet added treads and a turret to her armored vehicle, and Sunny Flare went with a convertible car that she claimed would have a special secret power.
Once their creations were complete, the Shadowbolts decided to check on how the LEGO Team girls were doing. When they arrived at the building site, they were quite surprised by what they saw.
“Whoa! That is a big spaceship!” remarked Lemon Zest in astonishment.
“Are you sure this is necessary?” asked Sunny Flare skeptically.
As she tossed a blue 2x4 sloped brick over to Pinkie Pie, Rainbow Dash irritably replied, “Since we’ve got no choice but to follow instructions, we decided it was better to just build one thing for all of us.”
Sugarcoat folded her arms and noted, “You do realize that’s never gonna fit through the Jump-Gate, do you?”
“I don’t care if we have to take the long way around to reach Canterlot City!” Rainbow Dash shot back as she tossed another blue 2x4 sloped brick to Pinkie. “This is what we’ve agreed to build, and it’s too late to change our minds.”
As the LEGO Team girls continued building the big blue spaceship, the Shadowbolts looked to each other with concerned expressions. “We gotta figure something out!” exclaimed Indigo Zap desperately. “There’s no way we’re leaving without them!”
Sugarcoat raised an eyebrow as she turned to Indigo Zap and asked, “You’re actually starting to worry about people other than yourself?”
“This is the fate of the whole Lego World we’re talking about here!” Indigo Zap sharply responded. “We need all the help we can get, and I’m not about to ditch our new allies!”
Sour Sweet spoke through her sweet face as she remarked, “I guess fighting for the good guys is already starting to improve our attitudes.” She then switched to her sour face and grumbled, “But that still doesn’t help us solve to problem of how we’re gonna get that big spaceship to Canterlot City without a Jump-Gate.”
Sunny Flare glanced over at the large empty wall close to where the spaceship was being assembled and soon got an idea. “Perhaps we could build another Jump-Gate,” she suggested. “One that’s big enough for that spaceship to fit through.”
“Don’t be ridiculous,” Sugarcoat sharply responded. “Twilight is the only one in the whole Lego World who knows how to build Jump-Gates, and I seriously doubt she’s ever considered making one as big as what you’re suggesting.”
“True,” acknowledged Sunny Flare, “but I do find it hard to believe that she could build Jump-Gates entirely by memory. With how obsessed she can be with perfection, she must have written some instructions and kept them among her possessions. And unlike these girls here, we don’t have to precisely follow those instructions. Instead, we can just use it as a guide to help us figure out how to build the giant version that we need.”
“Sounds crazy, but it just might work!” remarked Lemon Zest with a smile.
“So now you’re suggesting that we search through all of Twilight’s personal belongings back at our base?” asked Sugarcoat.
“Do you have any better ideas?!” snapped Indigo Zap. She sighed and added, “Look, if this is what it takes to save the Lego World, then let’s go for it. We can always apologize later.”
“Fair enough,” muttered Sugarcoat as she and the other Shadowbolts began to head back to the site where they had left open the Jump-Gate back to their base.
Meanwhile, as Applejack and Fluttershy returned with the last of the parts they needed, Rarity — who had already finished with adding all of the detailing to each necessary part — was now assisting Rainbow Dash and Pinkie Pie with assembling the hatch to go over the monitoring room.
“Why do we need to build that special seat for Unikitty?” asked Rainbow Dash. “We all know she’s not gonna be flying with us.”
“Because, Rainbow Dash, we are not Master Builders at the moment,” answered Rarity. “We simply have no choice but to follow these instructions precisely as they are written, even if it means including redundant features that we otherwise would exclude without a second thought.”
Rainbow Dash rolled her eyes as she sighed and grumbled, “Who knew something so awesome would be so lame to build?”
As soon as the Shadowbolts had found Twilight’s personal instructions for building a Jump-Gate, they immediately went to work building the frame for the giant Jump-Gate right in front of where the LEGO team girls were building their spaceship. It took a bit of ingenuity to scale up the design shown in the instructions, but thanks to their Master Builder talents, it was of little difficulty to them.
Meanwhile, the LEGO team girls were finally adding the last few pieces onto the spaceship. The final step in the instructions was to attach the two wing fighters. All five of them worked together to pick up and move one of the fighters into place on one of the wingtips. Once they finally attached it, they congratulated each other, then moved on to the other one.
At the same time, Indigo Zap, Sunny Flare, and Lemon Zest were making some final adjustments to the giant Jump-Gate. Sour Sweet had returned to the base to search for a spare Power Crystal, while Sugarcoat was busy punching some numbers into a calculator in her hand, also making sure to write down each result on a sheet of paper on the nearest table as she progressed.
When Sugarcoat reached the final answer in her calculations, her eyes widened in shock. She quickly ran through those numbers again, but each stage along the way ended up with the exact same result as she had previously written down. Once she reconfirmed that the number she was seeing was true, she knew that she had to tell everyone about her unfortunate discovery.
“Girls, we’ve got a serious problem here!” Sugarcoat spoke up. Once everyone’s attention was on her, she continued, “I just ran through a few calculations and I’ve discovered that, although this bigger Jump-Gate will obviously come with a greater power requirement, the exact rate of that increase is exponential. In layman’s terms, since this Jump-Gate is going to be five times larger than normal, the power demand will be twenty-five times greater!”
“Whoa,” muttered Indigo Zap almost breathlessly in shock. “That’s a lot of extra power.”
“I’ve heard that for most Jump-Gates, the Power Crystal needs to be replaced once every one or two months, depending on how often it’s been used,” noted Sunny Flare.
“And if this giant Jump-Gate is gonna go through Power Crystals twenty-five times faster…” began Lemon Zest.
“We may only have one shot at this,” finished Sugarcoat solemnly.
The LEGO Team girls had just finished attaching the final part to their spaceship when they overheard the bad news. Even though they had just successfully finished building Benny’s Spaceship, the possibility that they might not be able to get it to Canterlot City quickly enough had certainly tempered their enthusiasm.
“Maybe we should’ve just built something smaller,” Fluttershy muttered sadly.
“Don’t feel bad about yourselves,” responded Sugarcoat. “As the builders of this giant Jump-Gate, we’re just as committed to seeing it work as you are. Personally, I’d say it’s a chance worth taking.”
“Wow, Sugarcoat,” remarked Sunny Flare. “That’s a surprisingly optimistic thing for you to say.”
“I suppose Sour Sweet might’ve been on to something,” said Sugarcoat with a shrug. “Perhaps fighting for the good guys really has started to improve our morale.”
“Speaking of Sour Sweet, looks like she just came back!” Pinkie Pie spoke up while pointing at one of the nearest aisles.
Everyone glanced back and saw Sour Sweet arrive on one of the warehouse’s carts. She stopped beside her teammates, hopped out, and carried a translucent orange Power Crystal over to them. With her sweet face exposed, she solemnly stated, “This was the only Power Crystal I could find.”
Sugarcoat snatched the Power Crystal out of Sour Sweet’s hands and placed it on a power scale on a nearby table. “It’s not even fully energized,” Sugarcoat noted as she began to quickly run another series of calculations.
Everyone else waited nervously to hear what the result would be. If this was the only Power Crystal they could get and it wasn’t powerful enough to use the giant Jump-Gate, then they would be completely out of options, and Sunset Shimmer’s daring effort would be all for nothing.
Sugarcoat got the result, checked her math twice, and finally reported, “This should be enough to power the giant Jump-Gate, but only for just one full minute.”
“Good enough for us!” said Rainbow Dash with enthusiasm. “All we gotta do is open it up to Canterlot City, go through, and that’s it! Once we’re through, it won’t matter if it shuts down behind us.”
“I agree,” said Sunny Flare with a nod. As she took the Power Crystal from Sugarcoat, she added, “And since it won’t stay open for long, I recommend that we start up our vehicles and move them into position before we even insert this Power Crystal.”
“Sounds good to us,” agreed Applejack. She then climbed onto the big spaceship and pulled open both the hatch to the monitoring room and the translucent yellow canopy over the cockpit. “Everybody in!”
The LEGO Team girls didn’t hesitate to hop into the spaceship. Rainbow Dash took the pilot’s seat up front, Applejack sat down behind her, and Rarity settled for the rear seat of the cockpit. Inside the monitoring room, Pinkie Pie sat down on the left side, and Fluttershy seated herself on the right side.
Meanwhile, the Shadowbolt agents also quickly hopped into their respective vehicles and started them up. The only exception was Sunny Flare since she had the Power Crystal in her hands, so she simply started up her vehicle and then rushed over to the giant Jump-Gate’s control panel.
Inside the big blue spaceship, Fluttershy and Pinkie Pie checked on the power core behind the rear window, then silently nodded to each other and put on their headsets. “Power core is looking good,” reported Fluttershy. “Start it up whenever you’re ready.”
In the cockpit, the others had just put on their headsets when they received that okay from Fluttershy. “Sure thing, Fluttershy,” responded Rainbow Dash. “But first, can everyone else hear each other?”
“No problem,” reported Applejack.
“Absolutely!” reported Pinkie Pie.
“Positively,” reported Rarity.
“Affirmative,” reported Sugarcoat.
“Copy that!” reported Sour Sweet.
“Good to go!” reported Indigo Zap.
“Ready to rock!” reported Lemon Zest.
Sunny Flare glanced around, then with a sudden look of realization on her face, she rushed back to her convertible, grabbed her headset, and hastily put it on as she rushed back to the Jump-Gate control panel. “Sorry, almost forgot,” she responded. “Is everyone all set?”
After the other Shadowbolt agents confirmed they were ready, Rainbow Dash responded, “Wait until this thing’s hovering off the ground before you try to start up that Jump-Gate.” Without waiting for a response, she quickly powered up the spaceship, grasped the flight controls, and then ignited the lower thrusters. As the engines gently roared to life, the big blue and grey spaceship slowly began to hover off the floor.
With the spaceship now airborne, Sunny Flare turned to the Jump-Gate control panel, opened the power supply hatch, and inserted the Power Crystal. She was silently relieved to see the control panel immediately flicker to life. As she then began entering a set of coordinates, she reported, “I’m going to open this thing to Canterlot City’s main highway right on the western city limits.”
“Copy that,” responded Rainbow Dash. “Wherever the action will be, that’ll be a good place for us to come in.”
Sunny Flare finished entering the coordinates and then moved her hand over to the big green button. She paused, let out a sigh, and then muttered, “Well, here goes nothing…” She hit the open button, then quickly ran back towards her convertible.
As was to be expected, the Jump-Gate made a low whooshing noise as it prepared to open, but the huge size of this particular Jump-Gate also caused the ground to slightly rumble with that noise. It lasted for only a few seconds, then once everything went still and silent, the enormous steel doors very slowly parted open. Everyone smiled as they saw the gateway had opened onto a highway with the skyline of Canterlot City barely visible under the nighttime sky.
It was now time for action, but Rainbow Dash wanted to spare a quick moment for something else. She chuckled mischievously and remarked, “I’ve always wanted to say this…”
“Ah think we all know what you’re gonna say,” remarked Applejack.
“Ooh! Ooh! Can we all say it together like true friends?” asked Pinkie Pie excitedly.
“I don’t see why not,” responded Rarity with a shrug.
Rainbow Dash tightened her grip on the fight controls as she grinned and said, “Okay, girls. In three… two… one…”
Finally, all five of the LEGO Team girls simultaneously and very excitedly shouted the exact same thing: “SPACESHIP!!!”
Rainbow Dash instantly hit full throttle. The three main thrusters ignited and the spaceship quickly shot right through the giant Jump-Gate and out into the skies over Canterlot City. As it blasted out of the warehouse, the massive burst of exhaust also blew all of the discarded instruction booklets off the tables and end up fluttering around all over the place like autumn leaves.
“Let’s go!” shouted Indigo Zap as she brought her smaller personal spaceship into a hover and quickly flew out through the gateway. She was soon followed by Sunny Flare in her convertible, Lemon Zest in her mighty jeep, Sugarcoat in her small attack helicopter, and finally Sour Sweet in her battle tank. All of them headed straight down the highway directly into the heart of Canterlot City, and the epic battle that was sure to await.
Meanwhile, Flim and Flam had finally freed themselves from the rope and arrived at the cleared-out space in their warehouse. Although the sight of countless instruction pages fluttering all around them was quite unnerving, it was the presence of the giant Jump-Gate still open to Canterlot City that really caught their attention.
“You know what, dear brother of mine?” remarked Flim with a smile. “I think we might have something that can eliminate all of our shipping costs.”
Before anything more could be said, a loud alarm suddenly blared from the control panel. After a few seconds, the portal suddenly shut down, and the image of Canterlot City was instantly replaced with just the blank warehouse wall. As if that wasn’t bad enough, the entire control panel suddenly burst into flames, and then the entire frame toppled over and smashed to pieces on the floor.
Flim and Flam just stared in shock with dropped jaws, unable to take their eyes off of the wreckage of what could have been a great asset to their company. Eventually, Flam simply shrugged and remarked, “Well, easy come, easy go.”
The unlikely alliance of five LEGO Team members and five Shadowbolt agents charged into Canterlot City in their respective creations. The big blue and grey spaceship took the lead with Indigo Zap and Sugarcoat flanking on either side and the others not far behind on the streets below. It certainly didn’t take long for them to notice how bad things had gotten throughout the city.
“Midnight Sparkle appears to have been quite busy,” noted Sugarcoat. “I can see she’s opened a lot more dimensional rifts all over the city.”
Something suddenly collided into Indigo Zap and sent her small spaceship tumbling around, but she quickly regained control and leveled off. “And there are drones everywhere!” she exclaimed.
Everyone glanced around and saw there were now literally hundreds of these hovering small grey boxes swarming all over the city, possibly even thousands. And since the new heroic alliance charging into the city was hard to miss, it was no surprise that many of them were already flying right towards them.
“Then let’s take ‘em out!” declared Rainbow Dash. She immediately began firing the twin laser blasters mounted atop the spaceship, quickly destroying some of the drones directly ahead.
The Shadowbolts also began to take down the countless drones that attempted to swarm them. Indigo Zap rapidly fired her own set of laser blasters on her small spaceship, while Sugarcoat fired one of the fours missiles mounted under her attack helicopter. On the ground, Sour Sweet blasted a large missile from the turret as her armored vehicle lumbered down the street, while Lemon Zest deployed a gatling turret from behind the giant subwoofers on the back of her vehicle and began firing it at drones in all directions.
Sunny Flare brought her convertible to a screeching halt at an intersection and as drones began to swarm in from all four directions, she just smirked and remarked, “Time to show how my ride is… more than meets the eye.” She pulled a lever by her feet and all the parts of the car around her began to quickly shift and move around. In a matter of seconds, her convertible car had transformed into a modest mech with her piloting from an open cockpit at the top. “Now that’s what I call a robot in disguise,” she quipped before leaping into action, punching and smashing any drone that got close to her, and even jumping up a few floors onto the rooftop of a small building.
Rainbow Dash set her sights on another small swarm of drones, but before she could take them out, they were suddenly blasted to pieces by some laser shots from the ground. Startled, all five girls in the spaceship looked around to see where those shots had come from. It wasn’t long until they all began to see something pleasantly surprising.
“Oh my, would you look at that?” said Rarity in awe.
“Well Ah’ll be,” remarked Applejack with a chuckle. “The lil’ guy actually pulled through for us.”
“Awesome!” exclaimed Rainbow Dash excitedly. “We’ve got the whole city on our side!”
To everyone who wished to stop Midnight Sparkle, it was truly a sight to behold. Citizens all over the city had rebuilt anything around them into all kinds of wacky vehicles to take on the swarms of mechanical drones. On the streets, there were wheeled vehicles with turrets mounted on them, and there were also some modest mechs that either smashed drones or simply blasted them out of the sky. And in the air, there were plenty of hovering and flying machines that weaved around and between buildings as they went after more drones, ensuring that the forces of Midnight Sparkle were never beyond their reach.
On one rooftop in particular, a certain trio of young girls had just finished assembling a biplane with seats for each of them with a symbol painted on them. These symbols were of a shield with a tricolor of red, pink, and violet, with a slightly different addition in the middle of them; the one on the front seat had a magenta heart within a purple apple, the one on the middle seat had a magenta musical note within a purple star, and the one on the rear seat had a magenta lightning bolt within a purple feathered wing.
“Creative Mark Crusaders,” announced Apple Bloom. “Operation: City Heroes is a go!”
“Let’s go save the city!” declared Sweetie Belle.
The three girls excitedly cheered in agreement, then quickly hopped into their homemade biplane. Apple Bloom took the front seat, Sweetie Belle took the middle seat, and Scootaloo took the rear seat. Apple Bloom started up the engine and the front propeller roared to life. Each of the three girls then buckled up into their seats, put on an aviator’s cap, and lowered the goggles over their eyes. Finally, Apple Bloom grasped the flight controls and the biplane soon took off from the rooftop.
The Crusaders’ homemade biplane soared through the sky over the city and it wasn’t long until they began to follow one of the drones. Scootaloo quickly deployed a small gatling turret over the heads of her friends in front, loaded up a chain of ammunition that consisted of 1x1 round plates, and took aim at the drone. “Eat plastic!” she hollered before letting loose a rapid barrage tiny Lego pieces.
The rapid series of shots quickly broke off parts and pieces from the drone until it was reduced to just a bunch of small bricks falling out of the sky. The three Creative Mark Crusaders cheered excitedly as they flew by.
Meanwhile, the action down on the streets was no less exciting. Just about anyone who cared about Canterlot City was doing their part to defend the city from complete annihilation. Even the incompetent robbers Rocky and Mugsy had decided to join in on the fun.
“Out of our way, sissies!” shouted Rocky as he drove an armored van down the street at top speed. “We’ll show ya how it’s done!”
“Hey Rocky, watch this!” alerted Mugsy excitedly from the passenger seat as he grabbed a giant hammer and stuck his body out the side window. As they zoomed by a drone, he swung his hammer at it, obliterating it to pieces. “BOOM!”
“Nice shot, Mugsy!” responded Rocky. He then grabbed a single stud launcher and aimed it out of his side window as he quipped, “But not as nice as this!” He fired a 1x1 round plate from the small launcher towards another drone, blasting it to pieces. “BOOM! Headshot!”
“Do these things even have heads?” asked Mugsy.
“Who cares?!” rebuffed Rocky. “All we gotta do is get rid of ‘em all!”
And while all of the citizens worked together to deal with the threat of Midnight Sparkle’s mechanical drones, the five LEGO team girls and five Shadowbolt agents continued to do their part in saving the city and thus the entire Lego World.
As Lemon Zest shot down some more drones with her gatling turret, she asked over her headset, “As much fun as I’m having blowing up all these drones, does anyone know where Midnight Sparkle went?”
Nobody immediately responded. The battle had only just begun and not once had any of them seen any sign of the one who was responsible for all this madness, despite the obvious signs of her presence in the form of a few dimensional rifts.
After a moment of searching around, Rainbow Dash suddenly reported, “I got a visual! She’s on top of the Octan Building!”
Hovering over the same building where a magically corrupted Sunset Shimmer had once tried to take over the city, the magically corrupted Twilight Sparkle was glancing around in confusion and fury. She had opened more rifts to obtain a larger sample of Equestrian magic and left her drones to keep the citizens out of her way. However, she had not anticipated that the citizens would resist to such an incredible degree, and with dozens of her drones being destroyed left and right, it was becoming increasingly difficult to focus on her primary goal.
“What is going on?!” Midnight Sparkle furiously screamed to everyone around. “Stop interfering with my research! Just stop it! Stop it right now!” As she saw a large blue spaceship fly by, she thrust her right arm forward and unleashed a blast of magic, tearing open another dimensional rift right in the path of that spaceship.
With no time to swerve around that suddenly opened rift, Rainbow Dash quietly muttered, “Uh oh…”
This particular night in Equestria and especially the town of Ponyville had certainly been among the weirdest ever as mysterious tears in space had suddenly opened up all over the place, revealing a very strange world made of plastic building blocks. The world beyond was so strange and mysterious that not a single pony dared to approach any of these rifts, let alone actually try to go through one.
As yet another of these dimensional tears opened up over Ponyville, the residents were in for quite a shock as a big blue and grey object suddenly flew right out of the rift. The unidentified flying object had a long pointy nose with two pairs of wings — a smaller blue set up front and a broader grey set at the rear — that never flapped. As it flew, it also seemed to shoot fire out the back with a dragon-like roar.
Ponies all over town watched in shock and fear as the strange object flew low over the town and headed directly towards Princess Twilight’s castle. Some terrified ponies feared the object was going to crash right into the castle, but then they saw the object slightly tilt to the left and looped completely around the castle, somehow managing to avoid touching the building.
The collective sigh of relief was short-lived as that strange big object headed right back towards town. Screams of fear and terror echoed all across Ponyville as residents feared the worst. Amazingly, the unknown object not only flew high enough to clear all the buildings, but also managed to fly directly back to the rift it had emerged from. Finally, just as suddenly as it had arrived, the big blue and grey flying thing flew back through the rift and completely vanished.
All over Ponyville, residents muttered amongst themselves, wondering about what they had just witnessed. They had never seen anything like that, and if something that big and terrifying came from the other side of those dimensional rifts, then they certainly didn’t want to imagine what else could be over there. Needless to say, these ponies were definitely going to stay far away from these rifts as long as they remained open. Their only hope now was that some greater force on the other side would find a way to close these dangerous rifts once and for all.
Inside the spaceship, the five LEGO Team girls all sat completely still with eyes wide open in shock. To say that they had just gone through a very strange experience would have been the greatest understatement of their lives.
After a moment of stunned silence, Rainbow Dash awkwardly muttered, “Okay… that was weird.”
The five girls eventually managed to get over their shock and returned to focusing on the task ahead. It wasn’t long until Fluttershy noticed something come up on one of the computer sensors in front of her. “Oh my! You are not going to believe who else has decided to help us!” she reported to the others.
It didn’t take long for everyone to notice the sudden arrival of three Super Secret Police dropships onto the scene of chaos. These three dropships — identified as 700, 701, and 702 of the 6thDV — ignored all of the surrounding carnage and flew directly towards Midnight Sparkle’s location. Although the dropships were obviously being piloted by Robo SWATs from the Super Secret Police force, very few of the onlookers realized that dropship 700 was carrying a rather unexpected passenger.
“I shall never be able to thank my sister enough for this!” exclaimed Luna Playwell excitedly with a huge grin on her face as she rode within the main compartment. She opened a hatch to the cockpit and commanded, “Robots! Commence Operation: Nightmare Containment!”
“Affirmative,” acknowledged the two robot pilots. The three dropships quickly approached Midnight Sparkle and began to circle around her in a counterclockwise direction. As Midnight glared at the encircling dropships, a Robo SWAT from each of them climbed into the roof mounted turret.
“Unit seven-hundred is locked on,” stated one robot as he aimed his turret at Midnight.
“Unit seven-o-one is locked on,” stated another robot as he also aimed his turret at Midnight.
“Unit seven-o-two is locked on,” stated the third robot once his turret was also aimed at Midnight.
“Engage,” stated the first robot. All three turrets immediately opened fired directly on Midnight Sparkle, unleashing so much firepower that she was obscured by smoke within seconds.
After a full ten seconds of all-out bombardment with every single weapon mounted on those turrets, the first robot ordered, “Cease fire.” The turrets on all three encircling dropships immediately stopped firing and waited to observe the status of their target.
When the smoke soon cleared, Midnight Sparkle was revealed to be completely unharmed, thanks to a magical glowing magenta shield that completely surrounded her.
“Negative,” reported the robot atop dropship 700. “Target remains.”
Midnight Sparkle was now absolutely furious. These robot-piloted dropships had dared to destroy her, so now she was going to unleash even greater devastation upon them. She immediately fired off magic blasts all around her. Many of them either missed completely or just grazed the surrounding dropships, but one final shot managed to take out the left front jet thruster on the bottom of dropship 702.
“Mayday! Mayday! Unit seven-o-two is going down!” alerted one of the pilots on the doomed dropship as it descended and veered to the left. Despite the best efforts of its robot pilots, the dropship fell over sideways and crashed onto the roof of a building, exploding into a huge fireball upon impact.
Slightly panicked by the sudden loss of one dropship, Luna quickly ordered, “Retreat and regroup! We need to restrategize!”
“Affirmative,” acknowledged the robot pilots, and the two remaining dropships quickly broke formation and retreated from Midnight Sparkle’s position, narrowly avoiding more magic blasts along the way.
As Rainbow Dash watched the retreat of the remaining Super Secret Police dropships, she sighed and muttered, “So much for getting help from those guys.”
As the Creative Mark Crusaders’ biplane flew by, Apple Bloom confidently shouted, “Don’t worry, y’all! We can still beat these bad guys!” She swooped the plane down low along a street, allowing Scootaloo to take out a few more drones with the gatling turret.
One of those drones narrowly avoided getting shot at and flew down another street, only to suddenly get snatched out of the air and smashed to pieces by being slammed against the ground, courtesy of Big Mac within a mech built out of the parts of his old pickup truck. “Eeyup!” he stated contently, then turned and began to run up another street.
Flying overhead, Indigo Zap had begun to pursue another drone. As soon as she locked her laser blasters onto it, she chuckled and confidently muttered, “I’ve got you now.”
But before she could fire off those lasers, the drone was suddenly obliterated by series of laser blasts from a completely different direction.
“What the—?!” exclaimed Indigo Zap in shock.
Another small spaceship suddenly flew up and did a barrel roll before leveling off beside Indigo Zap’s spaceship. Piloting that other personal spaceship was a member of Canterlot City’s Reserve LEGO Team, Micro Chips. “You’re not the only one who knows how to build a spaceship!” he quipped playfully, then steered away and flew off in a different direction.
Indigo Zap was momentarily shocked by the intrusion by that tech expert, but then she simply smirked and remarked, “Oh, it’s on!”
As the spaceship pulled away in another direction, it passed by a flying modified ice cream truck being piloted by Lyra and Bon Bon. As their vehicle closed in on another swarm of drones, the two best friends readied themselves for action.
“Want some ice cream?!” asked Lyra tauntingly from the pilot’s seat.
“This one’s on the house!” added Bon Bon as she pulled the lever in front of her seat.
From the two high-pressure nozzles mounted on the wings of the vehicle, liquefied ice cream shot out and coated one of the drones. The drone struggled to stay airborne, but the weight and stickiness of the ice cream proved too much and it dropped out of the sky, landing on the roof of a lesser skyscraper.
Seconds later, Sunny Flare’s mech stomped across the roof of that skyscraper, leaped across the street, and landed on the roof of another skyscraper. She stopped, deployed the cannon mounted on her mech’s right arm, and fired a few shots at some passing drones. One drone tried to sneak up behind her, but without even a single glance back, she snatched it out of the air with her mech’s left arm and tossed it down to the street below.
The fallen drone slammed into the street and managed to remain intact and slightly twitching, only to suddenly get crushed to pieces under the treads of Sour Sweet’s armored vehicle. As she continued driving slowly down the street, she also aimed the turret at every passing drone and blasted them out of the sky.
Further down that street, Sandalwood — another member of the Reserve LEGO Team — was piloting his own small mech. He aimed the missile launcher mounted on his mech’s right arm at a passing drone and cheerfully shouted, “Peace, dudes!” He fired the missile, blowing the drone completely apart on impact. “Or should I say, pieces,” he quipped.
On the other side of the block, Lemon Zest zoomed down another street. As well over a dozen drones suddenly began to swarm around her vehicle, she decided it was time to unleash her ultimate weapon. “Get ready to rock!” she excitedly hollered as she stuck her headphones onto a bust in the seat beside her and flipped a switch. The massive set of subwoofers on the back suddenly started blaring heavy metal rock music at full blast. The pressure wave of such intense noise was so great that all of the surrounding drones were quickly shaken to pieces.
It was right at this moment that two certain citizens by the names of Octavia and DJ Pon-3 flew overhead on their custom-built flying vehicle. Inspired by Lemon Zest’s efforts, DJ Pon-3 quickly rebuilt parts of the rear of the vehicle into a large rotating speaker system. As a swarm of drones closed in on them, she quickly aimed the system at them and unleashed her famous heavy metal dubstep, shattering the drones every time she dropped that bass.
“Good show!” congratulated Octavia from the pilot’s seat. “Your cousin in Lego City would be proud.
Not much further away, Derpy was flying around in a modified version of her personal micro car. With no words and just a silly smile on her face, she rammed her flying car into one of the drones, sending it tumbling off course.
The drone managed to pull itself out of that tumble and reorient itself before it could slam into anything. It then glanced around a bit to determine its location, only to suddenly get blasted to pieces by a missile from Sugarcoat’s attack helicopter.
Since that was the last of four missiles, Sugarcoat hit a button that automatically deployed a set of arms that quickly pulled four more missiles out of the storage compartment and loaded them onto the launching frame. However, just as soon as she finished reloading those missiles, she glanced back at the drone she had just taken out and her eyes widened in shock.
Two more drones had quickly picked up the scattered pieces, swiftly reassembled them into the drone they once formed, and then they and the newly rebuilt drone flew off.
Understanding very well the implications of what she just witnessed, Sugarcoat urgently reported over her headset, “This isn’t working! The drones just keep rebuilding themselves as quickly as we can destroy them! We need to deal with the source of the problem! Somebody needs to take the fight directly to Midnight Sparkle herself!”
“Leave that to us!” Rainbow Dash smugly responded. She steered the big spaceship towards Midnight and increased the throttle. “Alright, mistress of darkness!” she taunted. “Show us what you’re made of!”
As she noticed the rapidly increasing pitch of engine noise, Midnight Sparkle turned around and saw the big blue and grey spaceship flying right towards her! With just a single flap of her raven wings, she ascended just enough for the spaceship pass directly under her. She wasn’t even slightly fazed by the deafening roar of the engines as it passed extremely close by to her.
Inside the spaceship, Applejack glanced back to see that they had narrowly missed Midnight, although she personally felt that the encounter had been way too close for comfort. “Golly!” she exclaimed in shock and disbelief. “You almost made her go splat on the windshield like a lil’ bug!”
“Eh, I was just testing her,” responded Rainbow Dash dismissively. “Now it’s time for the real battle to begin!” She flew the spaceship a little further out before coming around and heading directly towards Midnight Sparkle again. As soon as she was on target, she hit a button that made the main wings extend outward, deploying the big missile launchers mounted within.
Inside the monitoring room, Fluttershy couldn’t help but worriedly mutter, “Oh, I really hope Sunset Shimmer gets back here very soon.”
“Wherever she is, I’m sure she’s doing just fine,” assured Pinkie Pie.
Little did anyone know, Pinkie Pie couldn’t have been any further from the truth…