Friendship is Serious

by The card holder

Through the Forest and In the Castle

Sam and the ponies kept pushing through the dense trees, the former muttering a few choice words when he was struck in the face by a bent branch. Occasionally aliens would attack, but never more than a few at a time, and they were quickly dispatched.

Soon, the group arrived at a hut that looked very abandoned. "Someone lives out here?" Sam asked.

"Lived," Twilight corrected. "After Mental showed up, Zecora was forced to move into Ponyville."

"Well, still, it's a building, so that means that more than likely there's something inside." With this line of thinking, Sam strode forward towards the entrance to the hut, while the ponies stayed in place, ready for anything.

Upon entering the run-down hut, Sam came face to face with a welcome sight. Grinning, he picked up his tommy gun. "Now, it's a party!"

Predictably, Sam could hear the sound of a lot of teleporting nearby. He left the hut just in time to see a group of beheaded rocketeers emerge from the trees, and the ponies already shielded by Twilight. Still grinning, Sam gunned down the attackers with little effort, only moving to dodge their slow-moving projectiles. Once he was sure the coast was clear, he motioned to Twilight, who took the shield down. The ponies, including Fluttershy, who was now awake, followed Sam as they headed deeper into the jungle.

"Odd, I figured we'd see more wildlife out here," Netricsa commented.

"That's a good point, Netty. What's up?"

Surprising everyone, Fluttershy spoke up. "After M- Mental started ruling, nearly all of the animals in the forest ran away. It's kind of sad, really..."

To keep the pegasus from depressing herself, Twilight changed the subject. "We should be coming to a deep gorge soon, with a rope bridge across."

"Is it incredibly flimsy, and likely to collapse if we so much as step on it?"

"Is there any other kind of rope bridge, Sam?"

"Point taken."

Sure enough, they did arrive at the edge of a gorge, with only a single rope bridge across. It didn't look safe in any way whatsoever.

"Welp, no time like the present," Sam said, boldly walking onto the bridge. Despite the protests of the boards, it held, and soon the human was across. The ponies followed, and once they were all across they looked up at the foreboding castle in front of them.

"So, is this castle booby-trapped?" Sam asked. "Because that would be helpful advice."

"Well, it didn't seem to be, when we came here," Twilight said. "Though it is falling apart."

"Well, we're no strangers to ruins," Netricsa told them. "Although, they technically weren't always ruins when we went through them..."

"So, what are we looking for again?" Sam had to ask.

"Anything that would prove useful to fighting Mental. Or at the very least, directions to somewhere else we could find something like that."

"I do not know what you expect to find in there," Rarity said, "but surely it wouldn't hurt to look."

"No, it wouldn't. And don't call me Shirley." Before the ponies could even question what he meant, Sam took the initiative and kicked open the large front doors of the castle. The inside wasn't much better than the outside, with the walls beginning to crumble apart in several areas.

Ahead of the group, situated on a throne on a slightly raised platform, was a somewhat large pony-shaped skeleton. Sam instantly readied his shotgun, but relaxed when he saw it wasn't galloping at him.

"Princess Luna..." Twilight trailed off, a hint of sadness in her voice. A quick opening of a file from Netty gave Sam a quick rundown of who it was and why they were important.

However, there was something slightly off about the scene, which didn't go unnoticed. "Hey, wasn't she wearin' her armor when she...?" Applejack began, the unspoken question replacing the gloom in the air with confusion.

"I... I think she was," Twilight answered, also perplexed.

Sam shrugged. "Maybe Mental kept it as a trophy or something." At the ponies' horrified and offended looks, he put up his hands. "What? He's evil, and that sounds like a thing an evil guy would do."

"Regardless, try to stay focused, Sam. Perhaps there is something in the castle that could help us."

The seven started to split up in order to search for whatever it is they needed, but not even ten seconds after they did so, there was a loud roar from the back of the chamber. Startled, everyone looked just in time to see a large robotic leg crush the throne, and the skeleton on it. Following the leg up, they saw that it was attached to a big, bipedal... thing, which consisted of what looked like a robotic chassis housing a huge brain-shaped creature. Notably, it had what certainly looked like Nightmare Moon's armor mounted on various parts of it, though whether this was for decoration or actual protection was up for debate.

In the ensuing shocked silence, Sam was the first to speak. "Well, aren't you adorable!"

The thing roared again, and Sam drew his weapon while the ponies crowded together and Twilight shielded them. Sam let out a modest war cry of his own, and the battle began.

The monstrosity made the first move, and fired off a volley of rockets at Sam, which were either dodged or shot down by his tommy gun. The human held down the trigger until he ran out of bullets, at which point he pulled out his larger shotgun and began firing that. Despite the blood coming from the beast's head, it didn't seem to be sustaining much injury.

A few boxes of ammo were scattered around the area, and Sam wasted no time in picking them up. The creature began advancing towards him, forcing Sam to backpedal, bringing him right beside the shielded ponies. The incoming rockets made the shield flicker, but it still held, Twilight straining under the effort.

Because this wasn't quite a party yet, a group of kleers and headless kamikazes came running into the chamber, making a beeline for Sam. He was forced to shift fire towards the newcomers while still being mindful of the rockets being fired at him.

Now in his element, Sam let out a laugh. "You freaks seriously need to learn when to quit!"

Suddenly, as he was backing up, Sam ran into the wall. He let out a curse as he sidestepped a lunging kleer and sprinted back into the center of the chamber. A rocket wasn't too far behind, and it blew up both the kleer and the wall. After fighting off a few more opponents, the human turned to see a welcome sight behind the destroyed wall. Grinning, he managed to fight his way back over there, where a rocket launcher with a generous amount of ammo was waiting.

"Now I got your ticket to hell!" Sam ran back into the fight, where he cleared some space between him and the giant mechanical beast. He fired off a few rockets of his own, which impacted with much more damage than the bullets did, knocking off bits and pieces of its arguably useless armor. After a few more rockets, the monstrosity let out another, weaker roar, and it fell over, firing one more rocket, which took out a couple of incoming kamikazes.

Once Sam was done mopping up the remaining enemies, he wiped some sweat off his forehead. "Well, that was fun!"

Behind him, the ponies walked to his side, wary of the fallen creature. "Just what is that thing?" Rarity asked.

"A major biomechanoid. From the looks of it, this one was modified slightly, what with the armor and all."

"So... now what?" Dash questioned, hovering in the air.

"Well, I just killed a big, unique thing," Sam explained, "so that usually means that there's a shiny thing somewhere nearby that I need to grab."

None of the ponies could argue with that logic, so once again they split up to look for something, this time not getting interrupted by some kind of monster. After about five minutes of searching, Twilight found something, and called everyone else over to where she was.

There, in a formerly sealed-off chamber, was a group of five necklaces and one tiara. The ponies gasped with delight, while Sam looked up another file from Netricsa. "Those important?" he asked after reading about what they might've been.

"These are the Elements of Harmony, Equestria's greatest defense," Twilight told him. "Although, the one time we used them, it didn't work..."

"Well, it's better than nothin'," Applejack said, putting on her own necklace. The others did the same, and Twilight put on the tiara.

And then nothing happened.

"Uh... Is something supposed to happen?" Sam asked.

Twilight inspected her crown. "I'm... not sure. Last time, right after we put them on, they-"

She was interrupted by each one of the pieces of jewelry shooting out a strong beam of colored light. The six beams mixed together, and the ensuing rainbow colored beam went into the air...

Before heading directly for Sam.

"What the-" He was cut off as the beam impacted him, causing only minor pain, which was just as surprising as the beam itself seeking him out. After a few more seconds, it stopped, and Sam looked around to see the ponies staring at him, worried.

"Oh, Celestia, Sam! Are you alright?" Fluttershy asked, at her loudest since this whole adventure began.

Sam nursed a slight headache. "Yeah, I'm fine, but what was that about?"

"I don't know!" Twilight said, slightly panicked. "I don't know why it fired off at you, or why it didn't do anything, or-"

"Hold that thought, Twilight. Sam, I'm detecting an anomaly in our systems-"

"Please, do not be alarmed."

All the ponies gasped at the new voice, noting that it sounded somewhat familiar. Twilight, however, almost couldn't believe it. "C- Celestia?"

"Yes, my faithful student, it is me."

"So, why do I have two voices in my head now?" Sam had to ask.

"When my sister took over, I was forced to go into hiding, lest she try to take revenge on me. When Mental appeared, I thought maybe I could come out of hiding, but it soon became obvious I could not. However, I could still observe the world through the Elements, and I decided that now would be a good time to make myself known, albeit not in person."

"So you just jumped into my head?" Sam questioned.

"More or less. I knew Twilight put that spell on you, Sam, so I knew that this would be the easiest way to communicate for now."

Twilight's brain finally caught up with this turn of events. "But... where are you, Princess?"

"As I said, I went into hiding. However, currently my conciseness is located here, inside the head of Sam."

"You could've at least warned us, you had me worried for a second."

"So, got a plan for getting rid of Mental?" Sam inquired.

"Indeed I do. There is a particular set of ruins out in the desert that contains a certain artifact that can be used to power another artifact that will aid us greatly."

"Is it another time lock? Because that was kinda my plan to begin with."

Sam's comment made Celestia falter slightly. "Well, it probably is... But that is an issue for later. For now, we should get to the desert."

"Which is how far, exactly?"

"It does not matter. My magic is weakened in this state, but I have enough to teleport you all to somewhere in the desert, though it will not be accurate."

By now, the rest of the ponies shook of the shock of the situation. "Whatever it takes, Princess," Rarity told her.

"Yeah, we can take it!" Dash chimed in.

"Ooh! Now when I throw Sam a party, I get to have three cakes!" Pinkie said, bouncing up and down.

"Well, after that exposition dump, a bit of walking through the desert sounds nice," Sam commented.

"What do you mean ex-"

"Forget it. One thing you learn about Sam after a while being in his head is that he has his moments of being strange. Let's just ignore the fact that technically I am him and do the same things for now."

Somewhat confused at Netty's answer, Celestia used what magic she had left, which showed as Sam's forehead glowing yellow. "Oh, this doesn't feel good."

Despite his complaint, the seven (or nine, depending on how you look at it) of them vanished in a flash of light, reappearing in the middle of a vast desert, nothing notable visible for miles to come.

Sam, not used to magic being used from inside his head, took the time to empty his stomach a bit from nausea.

"Apologies, I was not aware you weren't used to magic."

Sam took a deep breath. "Seriously, the things I put up with..."

"Sam, I'm picking up a settlement of some sort to the northeast. Maybe we should head there."

Dash flew up into the air. "Yeah, I can see something over there."

"Then it is settled. We will go there to find those ruins. In the meantime, Netricsa-"

"Please, call me Netty."

"Netty, would it be alright if I look at some of these files you've accumulated?"

While the two voices in his head conversed, Sam trudged through the sand, keeping an eye out for any hostiles, his new rocket launcher in his hands. Looks like things were about to seriously get serious.

Comments

[Superbowl]

If I was still making serious sam levels I'd seriously (hah!) consider making a couple levels to follow this story. I got seriously nostalgic about explorin' some ruins and killin' some classic Mental minions from reading this. Dunno how I would've incorporated the ponies though... but on the plus side, the speed at which you're writing this story is very close to my mapping speed so I would've been able to keep up

[Jack Kellar]

I really thought we were gonna see some hardcore melee kills BFE style this chapter. Oh well, later then.

Poor Lulu...