Adventures on the Friendship Express

by GreenS21

Coral Cave, Pt. I

CATCHING UP

Tails was walking through the train’s passenger cars, looking for Sonic, Spike, and the ponies. He had just finished putting everything back into place under the engine and making sure it was all optimally tightened a couple of minutes ago and planned on checking in with the others while the engine warmed up after being cold for a while. He was surprised when he wasn’t able to find them in the car they had been sitting in for most of the trip, and so far he hadn’t found any trace of them in the rest of the cars. It was like they had just vanished into thin air.

As he stood in one of the sleeper cars after going all the way back to the caboose, he scratched the side of his head with his right hand as he wondered, “Where is everybody?” As if on cue, his radar suddenly began to vibrate in his tails and he turned slightly as he reached for it. He flipped it open and examined the screens; it had been alerting him about all the new portals opening up along the route to Canterlot, but this one looked different. The readings weren’t the same, and the radar was showing that their point of origin was located on the train…

He looked up and noticed a white light coming through the window of one of the rooms in the sleeper car. It shone brightly for several moments before it faded. Tails hesitated for a moment before he moved towards the door, using his left hand to slide it open. He had checked the room earlier, but when he looked in this time, he could only utter, “Huh?” at what he saw.

Sonic and the others were sprawled out on both the beds and the floor, all of them looking a bit disoriented. While they tried to right themselves, Tails noticed that they were all bandaged up to varying degrees. He particularly noticed the bandage patch over Twilight’s right eye, the wrappings around Rainbow’s wings, and the bandages wrapping around Shining’s stomach and on his face, but the amount of bandages they were all wearing worried him.

Sonic, who had ended up on the bottom back bunk on the left side of the room with Twilight and Rainbow sprawled out on top of him, let out a groan as he rubbed his forehead with his left hand, which was still feeling tender after his duel with Terios. Twilight and Rainbow groaned as well as they tried to get up, Rainbow managing to twist herself around and fall off the bed onto the floor with Shining, Spike, and Fluttershy. After shaking off the tumble, the cyan pegasus raised her head and looked around, her eyes soon falling on the book lying in the middle of the floor between Shining and Fluttershy. That was when she realized, “Hey, we’re back!”

Everyone else perked up at that and looked around, seeing that she was right. “You’re right, Rainbow! We’re back on the train!” Cadance said as she flipped herself over on the top front bunk on the right side of the room, Rarity on the bunk underneath her.

Sonic and Twilight managed to get untangled and sit up, the latter saying, “Wow. Merlina and Shahra both have incredible magic.”

Tails cleared his throat, at which point everyone realized he was standing in the doorway. They all looked over at him and he waved awkwardly. “Uh, hi, guys,” he said.

“Smithy?” Shining got out, still a bit dazed and with the bottom of his jaw pressed against the floor.

“Ali Baba?” Applejack asked. With her head against the pillow on the bottom front bunk on the left and positioned the way she was, she couldn’t get a good look at the fox in the doorway.

“Pinkie Pie!” Pinkie exclaimed as she laid upside-down on the top back bunk on the right with her back against the wall, the top of her head and mane sinking into the mattress slightly.

Tails shook his head and spoke, “Okay, could someone, anyone, please start from the beginning and tell me what happened to all of you? Because I’m very worried and confused right now.” Everyone in the room looked around at each other, wondering who should start.

A short while later, everyone had shaken off the disorientation from the teleportation and moved to the back of the car, sitting in a circle on both the floor and the edges of both the top and bottom bunk beds. Tails was sitting next to Sonic, the fox having been brought up to speed on what he had missed. “Wow. What a wild ride,” he commented. He then looked over at Sonic, “So you’re really a king, huh?”

The blue hedgehog replied, “Only in another world, buddy.”

Rarity asked, “He didn’t tell you about that, Tails?”

The fox shook his head, “No. Until now, the only one who mentioned anything about this to me was Amy. She said him being a king was the worst excuse she’d ever heard when she confronted him about missing their date.”

Rainbow leaned her head over the edge of the top bunk and looked down at Sonic oddly, “Wait, you agreed to a date with Amy, only for Merlina to call on you afterwards?”

Sonic shrugged, “Well, it was a slow day. I worked up the nerve to agree to a date when she asked me, and yeah, I had just picked up a snack on my way to meet her when, lo and behold, Merlina summoned me to deal with King Arthur.” He crossed his arms, “Still had a price to pay afterwards, though. Amy was already mad because I didn’t show up, and explaining what happened didn’t make things better. Actually made things worse, since that’s when the hammer came out.” He looked at Tails, “I know it’s partly because she was mad about the date, but I get the feeling she wouldn’t have believed me even if she wasn’t already mad. And if she wouldn’t believe me…”

Tails looked back at him for a moment before smiling, “You’re right. If you’d told me at the time, I probably would’ve found it a hard pill to swallow too.”

Cadance asked, “You don’t think you would’ve believed him, Tails?”

The fox looked at her and shrugged, “Did you?”

Pinkie piped up, “Ooh, ooh! When Sonic was about to tell us, I had a hunch that I knew what he was going to say! It just came to me and I was all like- whoa!” She was cut off when Applejack reached up and grabbed the end of her poofy tail between her teeth, giving a sharp pull down. Pinkie’s head swung down as she used her hooves to stop her fall, Applejack letting go of her tail and reaching up with a hoof, pressing it against Pinkie’s muzzle to keep her from going off again.

“That was a close one,” Rainbow muttered as she looked down at Tails, Sonic, and Twilight.

Applejack gave Pinkie a push up, allowing her to sit upright and speak again. She then said, “In answer to yer question, Tails, no, we really didn’t. It was pretty surprisin’, and we had ta hear the whole story before it really sank in.”

Tails replied, “That’s kind of what I figured. I mean, we’ve seen a lot of strange things today, but still, you have to have limits somewhere, right? I wasn’t much of a believer in actual magic until today, when I’ve seen enough to know it’s real.”

Fluttershy, who was sitting the farthest from the others on the floor, looked off to the side and muttered darkly, “I thought I knew what a certain someone’s limits were. Now I know better.”

Shining and Cadance were sitting close to the pegasus and heard her muttering, though they didn’t what she said. They looked at her and Cadance asked, “What did you say, Fluttershy?”

The shy pegasus looked at her in surprise and uttered, “Oh, um, nothing…”

Shining shrugged and looked back at Tails, “Well, you can rest assured, Tails, that Sonic got to prove he can handle the pressures of being a king.” He thought for a moment before adding, “Well, some of them, anyway.”

Sonic nodded, “Yeah. Didn’t really get a chance to deal with some of the other stuff.”

Spike said, “Come on, I bet you could handle it.”

Sonic replied, “Yeah, well, all things considered, I think I dealt with enough in one day.”

Tails nodded, “Yep. It’s time to go back to being you and get back on track. Speaking of which, I finished putting everything back in place a little while ago and started warming the engine up while I looked for you. We should be ready to get going by now.”

Cadance smiled, “Really? That’s wonderful, Tails. We’re lucky you’re so good with machines.”

Twilight said, “We should have a chance to sit down before we get to Canterlot.”

Rainbow added, “Well, let’s get going, then! We’ve got worlds to save here!”

Tails and Pinkie were the first two to leave the room, everyone else following them out. Fluttershy was the last to leave and, as she closed the door behind her and followed the others, she murmured softly to herself, “I don’t think he’s any different… After that… are we really safe…?”

While everyone else went back to their usual seats, Tails and Pinkie kept going forward, going back to the engine. Once they were there, they saw that, as predicted, the furnace had warmed up enough for them to continue their journey to Canterlot. Tails took the coal shovel and threw in an extra scoopful of coal to be on the safe side while Pinkie blew the train’s horn, signaling that they were about to get moving. Soon, a shudder ran through the cars behind the engine as it slowly began moving again, continuing around the mountain pass.

TENSION

While they had managed to keep their usual demeanors while relating their literary experience to Tails, as they settled into their seats, a mood settled over nearly everyone as they found themselves unable to engage in casual banter like they had before. Cadance seemed to be the only one who wasn’t feeling dour at the moment, but that meant she was the only one who was looking around the car worriedly at everyone else. Shining and Twilight seemed to be preoccupied by something, as did the other ponies and Spike. Sonic might’ve been acting normal, but she couldn’t tell since he was looking out the window again. She wanted to say something, but with how thick the tension was, she knew she’d have to be careful with what she said or she might set everyone off unintentionally.

It didn’t take long for the train to enter the last tunnel on the path to Canterlot. Up front, Tails half-expected something to happen like with the first tunnel they went through. He expected something to attack while they were shrouded in darkness or for a portal warning immediately in front of the train to come up too late for him to stop the train, but instead, the train came out of the tunnel without anything unusual happening. “Well, that was unexpected. You know it’s been quite a ride when it’s surprising that there’s only a light at the end of the tunnel!” he joked to Pinkie.

The pink pony, who had been sitting quietly in the corner looking at the fox after the train started moving again, replied, “Yep, that’s for sure! It’s always what you least expect to happen that’s the most surprising! So surprising that even my Pinkie Sense didn’t go off! Still, everyone loves surprises! They’re good, aren’t they? Surprises, I mean…” She trailed off with a nervous giggle.

Tails looked back at her with a raised eyebrow. She’d sounded WAY too chipper while she was talking, which, considering how she normally acted, was saying something, and that giggle did not sound genuine to him. “Are you… feeling okay, Pinkie?” he asked.

Pinkie looked at him with wide eyes like she’d been caught, but she quickly gave him a wide, nervous smile, “Of course I’m okay, Smi- Tails! Why wouldn’t I be okay?”

Tails fully turned towards her, “Well, uh… You do have quite a few bandages all over you.” Pinkie looked down at her wrappings before looking back up at him, trying to keep an innocent look on her face. “Your encounter with that fake Sonic you mentioned must’ve been pretty rough if you needed medical attention. We should be arriving in Canterlot soon; do you want to go sit and rest with the others until we get there?” he asked.

Pinkie’s pupils dilated for a split second before she cheerfully replied, “Aw, there’s no need for that, Tails! I’m fine, everypony’s fine, everything’s fi- well, not everything’s fine yet, but it will be once we’ve stopped that mean monster and made everything right again!” She turned and stuck her head out the window, “Absolutely fine!”

Unfortunately for the pink pony, her reassurances did little to reassure Tails. Now he was fully convinced she was keeping something from him. “What happened?” he asked calmly but firmly. Pinkie glanced towards the inside of the engine, but kept her head out the window. “I know you can hear me, Pinkie, and I know there’s something you’re not telling me. Are you going to tell me or are you going to keep this charade up? Only the truth can free you, you know,” he stated a little firmer.

Pinkie gulped and looked towards the front of the engine. Suddenly, her eyes widened as she saw an excuse. “Hey! There’s a portal opening up ahead! It’s right in front of the train! You’d better stop it, Tails!” she cried.

Tails was about to pass it off as an excuse when he heard the warning from his radar go off. Pulling it out and flipping it open, he saw that there was indeed a portal forming up ahead, and whether there were tracks on the other side was anyone’s guess. He shut the system and went over to the controls, thinking to himself as he pulled back the throttle, “I might as well give it up. She’s not going to talk. She’s not trying to keep a secret; she sounds like she’s trying to convince herself that nothing’s wrong. Maybe Sonic will be willing to tell me more about what I missed.”

Sonic blinked as he looked out the window, noticing something. “Hey, the train’s stopping,” he said as he looked away from the window. Everyone in the car looked at him at that, almost all of them jerked out of their thoughts by his words. Cadance had been planning to use her spell on her husband to see if that would lighten things up a little, but now that everyone’s attention had been redirected, she decided against it. It wasn’t long before they all felt that the train had stopped moving completely.

Shortly afterwards, the door at the front of the car slid open and everyone looked to see Pinkie come trotting through the doorway with an innocent but nervous look on her face. Tails was right behind her, the fox having stared hard at the back of Pinkie’s head the whole time she was ahead of him, trying one last time to see if she would tell him what was wrong. She had kept it together, though, and as she walked between her friends’ seats, turned around, and sat in the middle of the aisle, he gave her one last meaningful look as she stared back at him. “Tails, Pinkie, why did we stop?” Twilight asked, causing them both to break eye contact with each other.

Tails looked over at the unicorn, wondering more than before why one of her eyes had a bandage patch over it, and answered, “Pinkie saw a new portal open up on the tracks ahead. It’s blocking the way and it’s hard to say if there are any tracks inside of it.” He looked over everyone before rubbing the side of his head, “Uh… I can probably go investigate it myself. You can all wait here if you’re not feeling up to it right now.”

At that, Spike and the ponies, save for Cadance and Fluttershy, knew that their choice was to go with him and they had to convince him to let them. They all knew better; if the alternative was sitting on a train and waiting in such stagnant air, anything had to be better.

“No, no, no! Don’t let our appearances deceive you, Tails! We’re perfectly capable of doing what we’ve been doing all day!” Rarity exclaimed.

“Yeah, Rarity’s right! Things got a little rougher than we were expecting earlier, but we’re totally ready to face anything!” Rainbow agreed.

Tails scratched the top of his head with a finger as he said, “Well, okay. I just don’t want anyone to feel they need to push themselves for any reason. There’s nothing to prove here, just…”

Pinkie piped up, “We’re not proving anything! We’re just doing what we normally do when Equestria is in danger!”

Applejack added, “You’re right, though, Tails. We probably shouldn’t be tacklin’ anythin’ so soon after what happened, but we should be fine as long as we don’t push ourselves too hard. We all remember what happened when Ah did that…”

Spike nodded, “Yeah, we won’t assume anything. If things start looking too rough, we’ll pull back. Don’t want to hurt ourselves further or burn anyone else. …Did I say burn? Where did that come from? I didn’t mean to say that.”

Shining looked at the fox, “Tails, we’re all in this together. We’ve supported each other this whole time, even if it hasn’t exactly been the same amount of support the entire time, and we can continue to do so. I’m sure Cadance and Twi- Twilight agree with me.” Once again he’d caught himself before he could say ‘Twily’.

Cadance looked at her husband a little worriedly, but said, “You’re absolutely right, Shining. We have supported each other this entire time no matter what.”

While she was still confused about why Shining had to stop and say her name again, Twilight nodded, “Right, which is going to be especially helpful with injuries like these. We’ll definitely need to help and protect each other this time.”

Fluttershy finally spoke, “Yes, we’re certainly going to need… protection.” She looked over at Sonic as she said the last word, the blue hedgehog raising an eye at the action.

Tails said, “All right, then. I was able to stop the train a couple of feet in front of the portal, so it won’t be a long walk. Let’s use the steps on the sides of the engines to get down; it’ll be easier that way.” As he turned and led the way to the engine, he thought, “It’s not just Pinkie; whatever happened must’ve affected them all. Now I really hope Sonic will tell me what happened.”

________________________________________

A FAMILIAR, OTHERWORLDLY CAVE

Everyone stepped out of the portal and felt their feet/hooves/claws come into contact with a rocky surface. Looking around, they saw that they were in a large cave with sunlight streaming in through openings in the walls and ceiling. Many of the rocks they could see were of either a cyan or violet coloring, the two colors not quite alternating though they did appear to form stripes in spots on the walls from what they could see. All around them, patches of coral were attached to the rocks.

“Well… this certainly is a bit more colorful than some of what we’ve seen recently. It’s very lovely,” Rarity commented after a moment of silence.

“Where are we now?” Twilight asked as she looked at Sonic and Tails.

Tails held a hand to his chin, “Hmm… I know we’ve been here before, but I can’t quite place it…”

Sonic stepped away from the others as he looked around. “That’s what I’m thinking too, Tails. It’s familiar, but…” He stopped and looked off into the distance, noticing a large metal hook dangling from an apparatus, the entire thing looking like a giant fishing reel. He then looked at the rocks again, noticing that the violet seemed more prominent than the cyan; even the coral looked mostly violet in color. He suddenly had a thought and turned to look at Tails, asking, “Hey, Tails, wasn’t this cave underwater before? And didn’t we…?”

At his words, it clicked for Tails too and he finished, “Reunite with Blaze here?” They both stared at each other in realization and Tails said, “Yeah, that’s it! That’s why this place is so familiar! This is one of the islands we visited when we ended up in Blaze’s world!”

Cadance asked, “Blaze’s world? You mean she’s not from the same world as you two?”

Sonic replied, “Nope. We originally met her when her duties caused her to end up in our world.”

Shining commented, “Considering she was with you guys today, she must have quite the list of responsibilities to have time to jump between worlds.”

Tails, while looking at his radar, said, “Well, the first two times we saw her, it was because our worlds had become intertwined. She was in our world today as sort of a chance to get away and do something more relaxing.” He looked up a moment later, “I’m not getting any readings. Things seem pretty stable here.”

Applejack said, “Seems like that’s been the case with most o’ these portals, Tails. That monster’s just been openin’ ‘em just to slow us down.”

Twilight looked back at the portal they had come through, “I agree with you, Applejack, but that portal’s still right in front of the train, and there are no tracks here so it would be derailed if we tried to ride it in. As slow as it may be, we have to close it.”

Applejack quickly replied, “O-Of course, Twilight. Ah ain’t disagreein’ with you.”

Sonic said, “Guess we’re going spelunking, then. Let’s get going.”

As everyone started moving, Fluttershy muttered to herself, “That is so like you, just deciding that you can take charge. Twilight does that too…”

The group walked through the cave, keeping an eye out for trouble as they walked on top of the brightly colored rocks. Much like the first cave they had gone through on their journey, there didn’t appear to be any robots present, which Sonic and Tails found odd since they had seen plenty of them the first time they had visited the island the cave was located on. It wasn’t so silent that the only thing they could hear was the sound of their footsteps bouncing off the cave walls, but the silence was still unnerving, especially for Spike and the ponies since it made them feel like they were in Terios’ tower again.

To help fill the silence, Shining asked, “So, uh, Sonic, Tails… How did you guys meet Blaze? Originally.”

Sonic answered, “Uh, Eggman was partly responsible for that. Managed to bring the Sol Emeralds, her world’s version of the Chaos Emeralds basically, over to our world. She’s their guardian, so naturally she chased after him to get them back and made friends with Cream and Cheese and later us along the way.”

Cadance asked, “Sol Emeralds? Are those just like the Chaos Emeralds?”

Tails replied, “Pretty much, I think. Obviously they have their differences, but they are alike. I mean, they’re enough alike that our worlds began to merge because they were in the same world as the Chaos Emeralds.”

Applejack raised an eye, “Merge?”

Tails nodded, “Yeah. Basically, her world began to occupy the same space that our world did. Thankfully, we never saw any of the end results of that happening, but there was a while where things started to get worse in our world as the dimensional stability degraded further.”

Sonic added, “Yeah. Stuff started turning purple and wavy until we set things right.”

Twilight said, “I can already imagine that would’ve caused destruction on a global scale. Is that why Blaze had to return to her world?”

Sonic replied, “Right. Even if she never lost them again, she said it was too dangerous for them to be so close to the Chaos Emeralds. The last I saw of her was as our worlds finished separating, pulling us back to them.”

Tails looked at Sonic, “Speaking of separate worlds, maybe you could answer a question I have, Sonic.” When the blue hedgehog looked back at him, he went on, “It’s about the world you guys were in last. That fake Sonic you fought… you said his name was Terios? What did he…?”

He was cut off when Pinkie, who had become nervous like most of the others as Tails continued, suddenly shot forward and wrapped her forelegs around the two, pulling them back with her as she cried, “Look out!” The three fell onto their backs, a loud crunching sound filling the air afterwards. The three looked up from the ground and stared with the others at a large stalactite that had fallen from the ceiling where the two might’ve been, the pointed end embedded in the ground. Sonic and Tails glanced down to see the last traces of Pinkie’s tail twitching.

“Whoa! That was close!” Rainbow said.

“How did that happen?” Cadance asked. They all looked up and saw where the stalactite had been, the remainder of it still connected to a low part of the cave’s ceiling.

“It must’ve weakened and broke off,” Tails guessed.

“Thought I had to break a bunch of those off to get through this cave the last time we were here. Are we in a different part of the cave?” Sonic wondered.

Applejack looked at the rock formation and then took a step back to look up at a ledge past it before saying, “Ah don’t know, but Ah think we can use this to get up there.” She walked up to the stalactite and climbed on top of it while Sonic, Tails, and Pinkie got up off the ground.

Rarity went next, but couldn’t quite pull herself up. Sonic sighed and walked over to her, crouching down and putting his hands under her back hooves as he said, “Here, let me give you a boost, Rarity.” The fashionista gratefully accepted his help, the push helping her to get up on top of the stalactite with Applejack. Once she was up, Sonic turned to Tails while Shining helped Twilight and Spike get up and asked, “What were you trying to say, Tails?”

Shining and Spike froze in mid-climb at that. “Oh, uh… I was just going to ask how you got so beat up. Was that Terios guy really that tough?”

Shining and Spike let out a sigh of relief while Sonic replied, “Well… he did hang in there for a long time and he had a couple of tricks I wasn’t expecting, but he also made some pretty cheap moves. He didn’t really want to fight fair most of the time.” Tails nodded in reply and Sonic turned and began to climb up after Shining and Spike.

Pinkie trotted forward to climb up after him and Tails stared at her for a moment before shrugging and following behind her. “I’m glad she and her Pinkie Sense caught that. I was not paying attention. I’d still like to know what else happened, though,” he thought.

As she followed after Rainbow and Cadance, Fluttershy thought to herself, “Funny he should say that, considering he wasn’t fair to Terios.”

After they all got on top of the stalactite and up onto the ledge afterwards, they continued their trek through the cave in silence for a short while, keeping an eye out for any other parts of the ceiling that might be loose. They also began to see small pools of water along the path, the water shimmering with the sunlight on it.

A short while later, as they were walking down a passage with a low ceiling, they saw something large and wooden at the other end. “What’s that?” Cadance asked.

“Um, I’m not sure what it’s called, exactly. All I know is that it’s useful for getting around this cave,” Tails said.

“How does it do that?” Twilight asked.

Sonic got into a running stance, “It’ll be easier to show you what it does.” With that, he shot forward, grabbing onto the object when he reached it. A moment later, it moved back and then to the side, swinging downwards! It swung back up into place a few seconds later, causing Spike and the ponies to realize it was part of an arm.

“Whoa, cool!” Rainbow grinned, running forward next. She wrapped her forelegs around the wood and held on as it swung down. She saw another arm at the end of the passage she stopped at and leapt off, landing on her hooves and running towards it, spreading her wings and flapping them, lifting off the ground as she ran.

This turned out to be a bad idea, though, as before she could reach the arm, a sharp pain shot through her wings, causing her to wince and stop flapping her wings. She managed to reach the arm and grab onto it before she crashed, but after it swung her down, she stumbled a bit when she set her hooves on the ground.

Sonic was waiting just ahead when she came down and saw her stumble. “What’s wrong, Dash?” he asked as he stepped closer while she tried to regain her balance.

Once her hooves were all firmly on the ground, she replied, “Nothing, I’m good. I just flapped my wings a little too hard up there.” She relaxed her wings and walked over to him.

It wasn’t long before everyone else had joined the two. Tails came down next, followed by Applejack and Fluttershy, then Rarity and Pinkie, and finally Shining, Cadance, Twilight, and Spike. Twilight groaned as she got her hooves on the ground and, after stumbling for a second, fell onto her side, Spike jumping off before she started falling.

MISSTEP

Everyone looked at her when she fell, all of them moving closer. “Are you okay, Twilight?” Shining asked.

“You dizzy or something?” Rainbow added.

Twilight rolled onto her front and said, “No, it’s not that.” She raised her left foreleg and placed it on her right shoulder, rubbing it. “My shoulder feels sore for some reason,” she said. At that, Applejack tilted her hat down and looked away.

“Did you get hit by Terios there?” Tails asked.

Twilight looked up at him, “I don’t think so. Then again, he kept attacking quickly and retreating into the dark afterwards. Between trying to figure out where he was and when he was moving, I have no idea how many times he hit me. Or where.”

Sonic stepped in front of her and knelt down, holding his right hand out to her. “Here, I’ll help you- oof!” He was cut off when something firm yet soft hit him from the side, causing him to stagger to the side for a second. Once he stopped himself, he turned and saw that it was Fluttershy, the yellow pegasus in front of Twilight.

“Here, let ME help you, Twilight. I know I normally work with animals, but I can take care of ponies too,” the pegasus said. She helped Twilight off the ground and steadied her before taking a closer look at her shoulder. After a moment, she spoke, “It doesn’t look bad, Twilight. Here, lean on me; I’ll help support you while you were walk. See, when I say I’m going to help, I actually mean it.” She shot Sonic a look as she started walking forward with Twilight. The lavender unicorn was confused by her actions, but she figured she knew what she was talking about, so she followed after her.

She wasn’t the only one confused by the shy pegasus’ assertiveness. Everyone else couldn’t help but stare at her as she helped Twilight walk down the passage. Once they were a fair distance away, Tails looked at the others and asked, “Hey, what’s gotten into Fluttershy all of a sudden?”

Rarity responded as Sonic stood up, “I don’t know, Tails. Come to think of it, she has been acting rather odd recently.”

Spike nodded, “Yeah. It seems like she started acting weird after Terios was defeated.”

Cadance said, “That’s true. She must’ve really wanted to help him become good and she’s upset that it ended the way it did.”

Rainbow argued, “Well, she shouldn’t be! We all saw what happened! He wasn’t serious about changing himself! He just said all those things to take advantage of her! He would’ve ripped her back open if Sonic and I hadn’t gotten her away from him in time!”

Pinkie agreed, “He was one of the worst meanies I’ve ever met!”

Tails looked at the pink earth pony, “Why? What else did he do?”

Before Pinkie could reply, they all heard Twilight call, “Hey, where is everyone?”

Shining called back, “We’ll be right there, Twilight!” He then sighed and looked at Tails, “We’ll tell you what happened, Tails. Just… can it wait until we get back on the train? If we’re going to talk about Terios, it might be better if Fluttershy isn’t nearby to hear it.” Although he was confused, Tails agreed and they all walked to catch up with Twilight and Fluttershy. As they caught up, Fluttershy let Twilight walk on her own at her request and she shot Sonic an unreadable look as they continued onward.

FURTHER DOWN

It wasn’t long afterwards that the group came across a pair of mine carts connected to each other, both filled with various gemstones. Naturally, Rarity and Spike ran ahead to get a closer look at them, Rarity peering over the side of the back mine cart while Spike dove into the gems in the front cart. As the others came over, they heard Rarity saying, “Look at all of these beautiful gems! They’re all so divine, and…” Her light blue magic aura surrounded her horn for a moment before she continued, “My spell reacted! They are real!”

Spike popped out of the gem pile in the front cart with several gems sticking out of his mouth, chewing a few times before swallowing and saying, “Mm-hmm! They taste real too!”

Applejack asked, “Who left mine carts full o’ gems around here?”

Sonic shrugged, “Who knows? Probably whoever came here last before the cave was sent underwater to hide its treasure.”

Twilight asked, “Do you have any idea who that might’ve been?”

Sonic replied, “Uh, probably whoever in Blaze’s homeland decided that this cave was a safe place to store the Jeweled Scepter. You know, they probably left gems in the mine carts to keep any thieves away from the cave’s real treasure.”

Rarity held up a sapphire in her hoof as she said, “Well, a scepter with jewels in it certainly sounds like quite a treasure, but I would consider these beauties treasure enough.”

Tails spoke, “You know, Sonic, Marine, and I rode in several of these mine carts when we were exploring this cave. What do you guys say? Feel like going for a ride in these mine carts?”

Rainbow nodded, “Yeah, sure, that sounds pretty cool.”

Sonic said, “All right, as long as we don’t have to ride them through the rest of the cave.”

Pinkie asked, “Aw, you don’t think that would be fun, Sonic?”

The blue hedgehog replied, “You ever tried jumping with a mine cart, Pinkie? As in when it’s going straight and there’s no ramp? I have, and it’s kind of awkward to have to pull it up with you.” He shook his head, “Even in a game, I think it’s odd. That was a weird gimmick to include in a phone game, having to ride in a mine cart for an entire level and jump throughout.”

Cadance said, “Well, that aside, we would certainly get through the cave quicker if we could go straight through in these carts. Let’s try it.” Everyone agreed and they all climbed into the carts, Sonic, Tails, Twilight and Cadance joining Spike in the front cart while everypony else save for Shining climbed into the back cart, the unicorn stallion getting behind the back cart to give it a push to get them going.

Before they could get going, Spike popped out of the gem pile in the cart, holding something interesting in his claws. It appeared to be two red gems stuck in a small slab of gray rock. “Check these gems out! I wonder why they didn’t take them out of this rock,” he said. He shrugged and opened his mouth to eat them anyway.

“Hold it, Spike!” Tails exclaimed suddenly. The baby dragon stopped bringing the find closer to his mouth and everyone looked at the fox as he knelt down to get a closer look, adjusting the rock with his hands while Spike held onto it. “Wow! That’s a really good sample of Red Material!” he said after a moment.

“What’s with the fancy talk, Tails? They’re gems stuck in a rock, and there are two of them, not one,” Rainbow shrugged.

“No, no, no. See, the islands around this part of the ocean are abundant with gemstones and metals called Materials. That’s one of the first amazing things we learned about when we ended up here. Despite them looking like gems and metals, you can actually use Materials to build things,” Tails explained.

Sonic put a hand on his chin, “Oh yeah, that’s right. Isn’t the Red Material one of the Materials you needed to build the hovercraft and the submarine?” Tails nodded in reply.

Twilight looked at Tails in amazement, “You used gems to build a submarine?”

Tails nodded, “Yeah! Marine had a book that explained the whole thing. It’s actually pretty easy once you get the hang of it. And believe it or not, the gems actually come out not looking out of place at the end. It’s amazing stuff.”

Shining grunted, “Excuse me for interrupting, but I’m gonna get us going now, if that’s okay with you.”

Tails blushed, “Oh, of course, Shining. Sorry.” With that, Shining started pushing with his hooves, the mine carts starting to move forward.

As they were moving, Spike looked down at the Red Material and then up at Tails, “Can I eat this now?”

Tails blinked and looked around the cart, “Uh…” His eyes fell on a sizable ruby and he reached for it. He then held it out to Spike, “I’ll trade you for it.” Spike looked back and forth between the Red Material and the ruby for several moments before shrugging and giving him the Material in exchange for the ruby. “Thanks, Spike. I’d kind of like to hold onto this for now,” Tails said as he held the Material in both hands, both Twilight and Cadance looking down at it. Spike just shrugged again as he started nibbling on the ruby.

After pushing for several seconds, Shining used his hooves to pull himself up into the back cart, settling in with the other ponies. Shortly afterwards, the ground in front of the group sloped downhill, gravity taking hold of the front cart as it reached the top of the slope. Everyone grabbed onto the sides of the cart, some of them yelling as the carts rolled down the slope. They kept going forward when the ground leveled out again, though the uneven ground began to affect their forward momentum.

Before they could slow down too much, Sonic, Tails, Twilight, Cadance, and Spike saw that the path was coming to an end up ahead, nothing but thin air at the end of it from what they could see. “The path is ending! Can we stop in time?” Twilight asked, unable to accurately tell due to one eye being closed.

“I don’t think so, Twilight, not at this speed anyway!” Cadance replied.

“We can use our magic to make the carts slow down!” Shining suggested.

Sonic held up his right hand, “Hold on. Let’s see where that takes us.”

Rarity spoke, “I can tell you where it’s going to take us, Sonic! It’s going to lead us to a long drop, and when that’s over…” Before she could finish, the carts got too close to the ledge for the magic users to reasonably stop them in time. The group started falling after the carts went over the ledge… but to their surprise, it was only a short drop. Instead of falling down into the water pooled at the bottom of the cave, the group landed on tracks, the carts rolling much smoother now that their wheels were on the tracks. “Oh. I wasn’t expecting that,” Rarity admitted.

Applejack chuckled, “Leap o’ faith, Rare. Sometimes, ya gotta make one.”

Twilight smiled, remembering the first leap of faith she’d made with all of her friends. “That is true, Applejack,” she said. She then looked at Sonic and asked, “Did you know these tracks would be here, Sonic?”

The blue hedgehog replied, “No, but we did have to ride some rails like these to get to where the Jeweled Scepter was hidden away. It was pretty dark where we got on, but I had a feeling that the tracks were probably pretty extensive.”

Tails nodded, “Sure looks that way.”

Rainbow asked, “Hey, what’s this ‘Jeweled Scepter’ you guys are talking about?”

Tails answered, “It’s an ancient treasure that’s been guarded by Blaze’s family for generations. It’s hidden in the deepest part of this cave to protect it from thieves, and like Sonic said, the tracks along the way there are pretty dark. That makes a great natural defense to protect it from potential thieves.”

Spike held a sapphire in front of his mouth as he spoke, “I can imagine it must be valuable if it’s called the Jeweled Scepter. Jewels do make things more valuable, after all. Is there something else special about it, though?”

Tails replied, “Yes. The scepter is able to harness something called the Power of the Stars. I’m not sure of all the specifics, but from what I do understand, it’s the power that makes the existence of alternate worlds possible, which makes it more powerful than the Chaos and Sol Emeralds.”

The Equestrians were surprised to hear that. “That scepter makes the existence of other worlds possible? That’s incredible,” Cadance said.

“It either contains or it taps into it. Either way, that scepter is a lot older than it looks,” Sonic said.

“Here in Blaze’s world, it also has an effect on geologic activity,” Tails added.

“Interestin’ name, Power of the Stars,” Applejack commented.

Twilight thought back to her first adventure with her friends again, remembering what her book said about Nightmare Moon. “‘The stars will aid in her escape’,” she murmured.

Cadance looked at the unicorn, “Is something wrong, Twilight?”

Twilight looked at her and replied, “No, just thinking, Cadance.”

Rainbow asked, “So how did you guys get caught up with this ‘Power of the Stars’ thing?”

Tails answered, “Sonic and I were investigating some strange readings when we got caught up in a heavy storm. When we woke up, we were on the shore of Southern Island, which is where we met Marine.”

Cadance asked, “Marine is that raccoon girl, right?”

Sonic nodded, “Yeah. She had the book that talked about building things with Materials, so went along with being her crew while trying to figure out where we were.”

Tails continued, “Before we reached this cave, we had collected enough Materials for me to build a waterbike and a ship. While we were exploring the nearby islands, we were attacked by robots that we later learned had been sent by robot pirates.”

Rainbow said, “Let me guess. Baldy Nose Hair was actually the one responsible for the robots.”

Tails replied, “Yeah, but we didn’t learn that until much later, and he wasn’t the only one responsible. At the time, we didn’t connect Captain Whisker to Dr. Eggman despite the fact that he had a similar mustache. He was kind of dangerous, but I seem to remember him being a bit of a clown too.”

Shining asked, “So he was the one who was initially after the Jeweled Scepter?”

Tails nodded, “Right. We arrived at the scepter’s resting place just behind him. In the confusion of meeting Blaze again, he managed to slip away with it. We pursued him and his right hand man Johnny across the sea until we finally defeated them and got the Jeweled Scepter back. That’s why we needed to build the Aqua Blast and Deep Typhoon. Some of the places we went out to weren’t really reachable with the Wave Cyclone and Ocean Tornado.”

Shining asked, “Those are the names of the ships you built?” Tails nodded in reply.

“You both seem to have a fascination with naming things after the wind,” Rarity noted.

“Yeah! If I was gonna name ships, they’d all have super happy long names!” Pinkie piped up.

Sonic shrugged, “Well, it’s kind of a nostalgia thing.” He glanced towards the tracks in front of the cart, “Fun times.”

ROLLING INTO DARKNESS

Cadance spoke, “Tails, you mentioned that Dr. Eggman wasn’t the only one who Captain Whisker was taking the Jeweled Scepter for. Who was the other?”

Tails replied, “Oh, right. Well…”

Before he could go on, Sonic tapped him on the shoulder, “Hey Tails, heads up.”

The fox looked forward, as did everyone else, and saw that the mine carts were approaching a dark tunnel. “Oh. That must be the dark part of the cave we’re coming up on.” He moved to the front of the cart and put his hands on it, “Hang on until we get through this.” Cadance nodded and they all straightened up a bit, looking forward as they approached the blackness.

Soon, they were enveloped in almost complete darkness. Looking around, the Equestrians saw that the only source of light was from a line of candles on both walls to their sides. Despite how narrow the tunnel seemed, the flames did not provide much light. It seemed like their main purpose was to mark which way they were going. “Wowie, it really is dark in this tunnel!” Pinkie exclaimed.

Sonic nodded, “We told you it was dark. Keep your eyes peeled; we don’t want to miss the turn that’ll get us back into the light.”

While peering out from the side of the cart, Applejack said, “It’s kinda hard ta do that with as dark as it is. Hey Twi’, can you get us a little light in here?” A moment passed before Applejack pulled back into the cart slightly and looked at the unicorn, asking, “Twilight?” When there was still no response, everyone looked at the bookworm pony.

Twilight ran her tongue across her lips as she looked up at the candles, trying to rid them of the sudden dryness she felt. She was trying to focus, but the pitch blackness was starting to get to her. It was bringing back bad memories of Terios’ castle, how the lights went out and the anxiety that followed before he attacked her and Smithy. It was also causing her to think about the darkness she woke up to after Queen Chrysalis sent her to the caverns below Canterlot and the rush that followed as she and Cadance tried to keep the changelings from taking over Equestria.

She suddenly felt her head get pushed backwards and heard Spike shout, “Twilight, snap out of it!” She looked down to see the baby dragon looking up at her in a mixture of frustration and worry. She also noticed that it seemed to be brighter in the tunnel now. A quick look showed her that Shining and Cadance had lit up their horns to provide some light.

“Are you all right, Twil- Twilight?” Shining asked, catching himself once again. Had she been calmer, Twilight would’ve once again wondered about that, but her anxiety was still there.

She looked up at the candles again and asked, “Are we alone in here?”

Rainbow shrugged, “Of course we’re alone, Twilight! Why wouldn’t we be?”

Twilight replied, “Some things like to sneak up in the dark… or torment you…”

Rainbow sighed, “Don’t start acting weird on us, egghead. There’s nothing in here besides us!”

Sonic shrugged, but Pinkie suddenly gasped and said, “Ooh, you might want to take that back, Dashie!”

Rarity glared at the pink earth pony, “Oh Pinkie, stop it. This is not a good time for games.”

Pinkie replied, “No, I’m serious! My hoof tapped rapidly and I gasped loudly just now! That’s my Pinkie Sense going off, and it’s saying there’s something creeping around in the dark!” Everyone began to look around at that.

Soon, they all began to hear a roaring sound echoing off the walls to their sides. “What is that?” Cadance asked as she glanced around.

“Sounds like a small rocket booster,” Tails said with a raised eyebrow, also looking around.

HIDDEN IN THE DARKNESS

A few seconds later, Shining straightened up and slowly turned around, looking back down the tracks. As he turned around fully, he began to focus the light coming from his horn, changing it to a beam of light that projected down the tunnel. As it reached its full length, he caught a brief glimpse of a pair of red, mechanical eyes before they disappeared, which was followed by the noise starting to get louder. His eyes widened and he shouted, “Get down, everybody!” Everyone looked back at him for a moment before ducking down, both his and Cadance’s lights going out as well. They reacted just in time too; the noise became nearly deafening and something shot overhead, disappearing into the darkness ahead.

Everyone straightened up a moment later, Applejack asking, “What was that?!”

Shining replied, “I don’t know. I couldn’t get a good look at it before it rushed us. All I saw were red eyes…”

Sonic asked, “Speaking of seeing, does anyone else think it’s darker now?”

Twilight looked up at the walls and saw the problem. “The candles are out! Whatever that was must’ve put them out as it flew by!” she said.

“There are turns up ahead we have to take to get out of here! It’s going to be a lot harder to see them without any light!” Tails gasped.

As she lit up her horn again, Cadance called, “Shining, Twilight, Rarity!” At this, the three unicorns focused their magic into their horns as well, all together producing a light that considerably brightened things up around the carts.

Sonic reached into his quills and pulled out his phone. As he began tapping its screen, he said, “Good, good. Keep an eye out for that thing. I’ll keep an eye out for the turn.” He turned on the phone’s flashlight and held it out in front of the cart, trying to illuminate the tracks ahead as much as he could.

Twilight and Cadance considered telling him to put the phone away and let them do that, but they soon heard the sound of the engine getting louder again. “It’s coming back this way!” Twilight exclaimed. The four focused their lights to try to get a visual on their mystery attacker, but even though it flew overhead once again, they weren’t able to catch in their sights.

Shining looked back as it flew back down the tunnel. “It flew over us again,” he said.

“It’s probably coming back!” Rainbow grunted. Tails looked down between the carts and noticed the pin that was keeping them together. He reached down with his right hand and started to pull it out. Rainbow noticed this and asked, “Tails, what are you doing?!”

The fox glanced up as he replied, “If whatever it is attacks low, it’ll be easier to jump with these carts if we’re not hooked together like this!” With that, he pulled the pin all the way out and tossed it back into the cart before pushing the back cart with his hands to better separate the two.

A second later, they heard the engine roaring again and everyone looked back. It once again seemed like it was going high, but this time, before it flew past the front cart, it stopped and shot diagonally down at it! The brief pause caught Sonic’s attention, and when he heard it roaring up again, he yelled, “Jump!” He grabbed the front of the cart while Tails grabbed the back and Cadance and Twilight grabbed the sides, all of them grunting as they managed to lift the cart up off the tracks, allowing them to avoid the attack.

They all heard a crashing sound afterwards, though, and the ponies in the back cart realized that it had gone through a section of the track! “Everypony jump!” Shining called, all the ponies grabbing onto the cart and pulling up as best they could, Rainbow flapping her wings furiously as she pulled up. They were able to get the cart high enough to get over the new gap in the tracks and land on the other side, Twilight and Cadance casting their lights backwards to see them.

Rainbow looked forward while panting and said, “Okay, I’m gonna have to agree with you, Sonic. Jumping in one of these carts isn’t the easiest thing to do, especially when there’s more than one pony riding!”

Shining spoke, “Whoever’s attacking clearly isn’t just able to fly; they must be able to see in the dark as well. Try to stay alert, everyone; we can’t really fend off our attacker in a tunnel this narrow and dark!”

Sonic faced forward again, once again shining his phone’s light ahead as he said, “It shouldn’t be too much farther to the turn now! Let’s try to dodge as best we can until we get out of here!”

Rainbow growled, “At this speed, it’s gonna take forever! Hang on, everyone!” She flew up out of the cart and landed on the tracks behind it, pausing for a few seconds before flying straight at it. Her hooves pressed against the back of the cart and pushed it forward, causing it to collide with the front cart, shaking everyone up and causing the front car to gain speed. The cyan pegasus then flew up behind the cart again, this time pushing it to give it enough speed to keep up with the cart in front of it before landing back inside. Despite being jostled a bit, no one could deny that this was better.

They continued to roll down the tunnel for a short time, ducking and jumping to avoid being hit or falling off the track, the magic users constantly trying to get a look at the attacker while Sonic tried to keep his phone’s light on the track ahead. Soon, Spike pointed straight ahead and asked, “Hey, is that the turn?!”

Tails looked ahead and saw that the track branched off to the left, center, and right up ahead. “Yeah, that’s it!” he said. He looked back at the others, “We’re almost there! We have to go right!” He grabbed the lever on the back of the cart and turned it to his left so that the cart would go down the right path, Shining Armor doing the same. They soon reached the turn and went down the right track, but as they were rounding the bend, the cart started to lean too far! “Oh no, too fast!” Tails cried.

Sonic dropped his phone in the cart and moved to the right side as he said, “Help me with this!” He grabbed onto the side of the cart and started pushing down, Twilight, Spike, and Cadance doing the same. The girls in the back cart saw this and quickly moved to do the same. Soon, both carts had all four wheels back on the tracks and they were rolling normally again.

Their relief was short-lived, however, as they heard their attacker shooting towards them again, flying over both carts and into the darkness ahead. For a moment, it sounded like the sound of the engine was becoming distant again, but then it suddenly, dramatically dropped in pitch. Seconds later, they heard the sound of something being fired three times with a blast that briefly lit up the tunnel following each one, followed by the engine noise returning and then disappearing further down the tunnel again.

“Now what did it do?” Shining asked.

Tails’ eyes widened as he realized what must’ve happened, his suspicions confirmed as he began to see it up ahead. “The tracks have been blown out! I don’t think we can jump over this hole!” he exclaimed.

Sonic grunted, “Well, we don’t have a lot of options right now, Tails! The only thing we can do is chance it!” As they approached the gap, everyone grabbed onto their carts and pulled up as hard as they could while they jumped, Rainbow, Fluttershy, and Cadance flapping their wings rapidly to try to get a little more distance out of the jump. Despite this, they couldn’t get the distance they needed to get to the other side, the weight of everyone in the carts and the jewels pulling them down below the tracks short of making it.

Comments

[Pokefan777]

Interesting chapter

[Felipe1402xza]

Flutershy debe aprender que no todos pueden ser redimidos😐

[Omegamorph]

Heyos. Sorry I I hadn't caught up with the Sonic fics in a while. Just going to say that Rush Adventure Is generally overlooked and like the representation here.