Friendships Unite!!

by Phantom-Dragon

Chapter 6: Crystal Empire Catastrophe

Later, the heroes were on a train, heading towards the Crystal Empire.

"The Crystal Empire is just up ahead, at the end of this rail," Twilight explained. "We should be able to find the secret agent when we get there."

"Well, let's hope this train can get us there fast!" Spyro said as he and Sparx looked outside a window with concern. "The sooner we stop them from attacking the Crystal Empire and restore the Crystal Heart. The sooner we can go to Canterlot and stop Queen Chrysalis!"

"We should keep our guards up," Tails added as he readied his arm cannon. "It's likely they'll try to keep us out of the Crystal Empire!"

And no sooner had Tails said that, when sounds of explosions were heard and the train shook violently a little.

The heroes all stumbled out of their seat before they regained their balance.

"What was that?" Rainbow Dash asked as she hovered in the air.

Then, the heroes all looked up to see a red sparkling light appearing on the ceiling. It leaved a hot trail behind as it moves around to form a perfect circle. The circle piece of the ceiling fell down, revealing several robots glaring down on the heroes.

"You had to ask," Sonic cracked his knuckles as he leaped into the air, curled up as a ball, came onto the roof of the train and kicked one of the robots away.

One of the robots fired a laser at Sonic, but the speedy hedgehog was quick enough to dodge the fire as he leaped in the air and did a back flip, landed behind the robot and kicked it off the train as more flying robots arrived, firing their attacks at Sonic before they landed on the roof of the train and advanced on him, and continued to fire him.

Sonic tried to fight them off, but the rocky movement of the train as it sped through the surroundings of the arctic tundra made it difficult for him to maintain his speed and his balance, while dodging all of the lasers fired at him from the robots. A robot had fired another laser at Sonic, which he was able to dodge, but was enough to get him to lose his balance completely as he fell off the train. Sonic braced himself as he was about to land in snow, but instead, a felt something metallic and leathery beneath him, which he looked down to see he was on an Extreme Gear.

"I thought you might need it," Tails said as he poked his head out of the window.

Sonic smiled as he gave the fox his trademark thumbs up as he said, "Thanks Tails. I owe ya one."

Another shot from the robots on the roof of the train got Sonic's attention as he flies toward the robots on his board and shoves them off, just as more came flying and firing after him, while some crawled through the hole in the roof, the windows and into the coach.

Rainbow Dash was holding some of them off as she reared her hind legs and bucked them out through the window, while Twilight Sparkle looked through her book and conjured up a magical shield to protect herself and her friends.

Spyro flew out of the train with Sparx, and blew out three fire balls at the robots, while Sparx zipped around blew multiple fireballs at some other robots that were coming from behind.

Mario and Luigi meanwhile, where dealing with some robots that were coming into the coach. A robot shot a laser beam at Mario, but the cunning red plumber quickly pulled a yellow cape and magically send the shot back at the robot and caused it to explode. Luigi jumped on every robots in the room, stomping each and every one of them in the process, and they all to exploded.

Spike lastly, was clamping onto a robot's head and was viciously chomping on it, trying to save Twilight. The robot raised it's gun at him and was about to shoot him when he jumped off, resulting it to shoot itself and exploded.

A robot got behind Twilight and pulled out an taser sword and struck the lavender unicorn down.

"TWILIGHT!!" Rainbow screamed, before she got piled on by several more robots.

"MARIO!!" Luigi screamed as he tried to escape from a robot that looked like a trash can, but got sucked in and was trapped in several smaller trash-can looking robots.

"Hang on-a Luigi!" Mario cried as he ran up to fight the robots to free Luigi.

Sonic and Tails were still outside of the train with Spyro and Sparx, fighting with the rest of the robots, so they didn't know what happened inside.

Twilight moaned as she struggled to get up, but the robot kept forcing her down and was about to swing it's taser sword at her again.

"TWILIGHT!!" Spike screamed as he grabbed a magic item from Spyro's bag and flew toward the robot screaming, "NO!"

There was a flash of light, and there Spike stood, holding two pirate swords in blue and yellow auras, and keeping the taser sword from getting any closer to Twilight.

Twilight woke up to see Spike in a sword fight with the robot, both trying to get the upper hand. The battle ended when Spike leaped in the air, swung his twin swords down and sliced through the robot's taser sword, and the robot itself as it exploded.

"Spike..." Twilight gasped. "That was...."

"SO AWESOME!!" Rainbow finished while making her famous /)^3^(\ face.

"Don't mention it," Spike said as he put the swords away as Spyro, Sparx, Sonic, and Tails came back into the train to join with the rest of the heroes, just in time as the trash can looking robot spat Luigi out and fled with its smaller counterparts.

"Dr. Eggman's toys are packing it up and leaving," Sonic explained as he got off his Extreme Gear. "Think we scared them off?"

"I don't think so Sonic," Tails said. "It's likely they were called away for something. But we'll worry about that later. Right now, we need to worry about getting to the Crystal Empire and helping Princess Cadance and the Crystal Ponies."

"You're right," Twilight agreed as she looked outside the window of the train to see the Crystal Empire over the horizon. "Hang on Cadance. We're coming."

The train continued its journey, without being attacked by anymore robots.

At last, they reached the Crystal Empire. And found trouble.

As the heroes got off the train and onto the platform of the station they arrived at in the Crystal Empire, they looked around to see chaos in the streets everywhere. Robots, changelings, Goombas, Shy Guys, and Koopas were everywhere chasing down panicked civilians of the empire. Several crystal ponies, pegasus, unicorns, and earth ponies, all clad in armors were all charging into battle, with spears at the ready, and horns glowing, ready to fire.

The heroes watched as lasers, bombs, spears, and shells were flying everywhere as the battle was raging on, both sides trying to emerge victoriously.

As another bomb went off, the heroes quickly ducked behind a wall.

"Wow," Sonic gasped as he looked around. "So this is the Crystal Empire. Rouge, Knuckles, and maybe even the Chaotix would've loved to see this place, if only it weren't being overrunned by Dr. Eggman's army of tin men, little fungus-looking monsters, lame turtles, and mutant, swiss cheese bug-like ponies."

"To be honest," Rainbow Dash commented. "I kinda wished it was King Sombra again."

"Shh….keep your voices down everpony," Twilight whispered, while looking around from their hiding spot. "The changelings may not know we are here yet. We don't want to give ourselves away, until we find Agent Pie."

Suddenly, out of nowhere, Pinkie Pie came bouncing out.

"Hey Twilight! Dashie!" Pinke Pie screamed happily. "Don't tell anypony. But Shining Armor made me a secret agent!"

"Pinkie?" Twilight, Rainbow, and Spike all shouted in unsion, before they saw some changelings coming.

"PINKIE PIE!!!" Twilight screamed. "WATCH OUT FOR THOSE CHANGELINGS BEHIND YOU!!!"

But too late. Pinkie Pie tried to escape, but the changelings were able to catch her and placed her inside a capsule that was made by Dr. Eggman.

"Pinkie Pie!! NO!!" Twilight screamed as her horn glowed in it's usual magenta aura before firing off a laser that destroyed the capsule and set Pinkie Pie free.

"Yeah!" Pinkie Pie cheered as she bounced around. "I'm free, I'm free!"

But the moment was short lasted when she landed in a puddle of green goo and was stuck in it.

"Dang it," she said gloomily.

Worse still, a robot was chasing a crystal mare when it came to a stop and noticed Pinkie stuck in the green puddle. It quickly changed direction as it advanced on Pinkie Pie, who struggled to break free from the puddle.

"Oh no you don't!" Rainbow Dash growled as she took to the air and charged at the robot, but was intercepted by a changeling that came out of the sky as a green fireball and shoved Rainbow Dash away.

The robot was able to capture Pinkie Pie, who wiggled around in it's grip, laughing, "Hehehe, that tickles."

"PINKIE! HOLD ON!" Twilight shouted as she used her magic to stop the robot in it's track, but then, a bomb was thrown and blasted Twilight away, thankfully, into a cart of crystal berry pies. Twilight got up with crystal berry juice dripping all over her as she looked to see the robot running off with Pinkie Pie.

"PINKIE!!" Twilight got up as she tried to gallop after the robot but she slipped on some crystal berry juice and fell back down.

Spike, together with Spyro, Sparx, and Tails all flew after the robot, but were stopped by several Bullet Bills flying at them. Spyro blew several fireballs and they all exploded, upon collision with the Bullet Bills, giving them a clear path once more to see the robot, about to go through a portal.

"PINKIE!!" Rainbow Dash kicked the changeling off of her as she flies and grabbed the robot by the leg, with Spyro grabbing onto her tail, with Spike grabbing onto his leg, and Sparx grabbing onto his tail, all grabbing a hold of each other, preventing the robot from entering the portal.

The robot turned one of it's arm at Rainbow Dash, changed it into a cannon and blasted both Rainbow Dash, Spyro, Spike, and Sparx off, allowing it to enter the portal with Pinkie screaming, "DAAAAAAAASSSSSSSSSHHHHHHHHIIIIIIIEEE!!!"

Rainbow Dash could only look on with her mouth agape, her eyes widen and pupil shrunken to the size of a dot. She could only shut her eyes with tears leaking as she arched her head up to the sky and screamed, "NNNNOOO-"

Her scream stopped midway as she and the heroes around her noticed that the portal was closing midway when a pink hoof poked through and struggled to keep the portal from closing, and Pinkie Pie stuck her head out screaming, "It's okay Dashie! I can get ou-"

Pinkie was interrupted when the robot's arm reappeared from behind Pinkie Pie and pulled her head back in. The heroes watched as a struggle broke from within the portal. Whatever it is Pinkie Pie was doing, it was giving the portal a hard time closing up, as they hear her giggling and squealing, "Help! Eek! Ahahaha. Okay! Ow! Ahahaha. Stop it! Th..that...it tickles. Dashie, you have... Ahaha! Rainbow Dash. Aha! Help! Ouch! Hey! Dash! Ouch! Hey! Dashie! Dow! Ouch! Hey! Rainbow Dash!"

Without another word, the portal closed up completely, leaving Rainbow Dash back to screaming, "NNNNNNNOOOOOOOOOOO!!"

"Little help here!" Sonic called out.

Rainbow Dash and the heroes around her, turned their heads to see Sonic and the rest of their group, all fighting off the rest of the robots, changelings, and koopas in the Crystal Empire.

Spyro and Sparx already left, while Spike stayed behind with Rainbow Dash and said, "Come on Rainbow Dash. We've got to help them!"

Rainbow Dash only sat down with her head low to ground and guilt in her eyes.

Spike only walked up to face her eye-to-eye as he explained, "Don't worry Rainbow Dash. We'll save her. We just need to stick to the plan. We'll run these goons out of the Crystal Empire, restore the Crystal Heart, and then, we'll go to Canterlot to meet up with Applejack, Fluttershy, and the guys. Then we'll find Pinkie Pie and the rest of our friends there."

Rainbow Dash's fighting spirit returned as her face's gloomy expression became a serious one as she spread her wings and screamed, "FOR FRIENDSHIP!!"

With Rainbow Dash out of her funk, everyone were able to help the Crystal Guards fight back their enemies and were turning the tide.

Several robots were putting the Crystal Ponies they were able to capture inside some pods, but Sonic and Tails quickly came to the rescue and destroyed the robots. Tails quickly went to work, breaking the ponies out of the pods, as he opened up the control panel and started to do a lot of rewiring, while Sonic kept the robots away from his friend.

The robots all suddenly unsheathed swords out from their arms as they charged at the speedy hedgehog, who didn't hesitate to use his Extreme Gear to fight back with and to shield him from the blades.

"Sonic!" Sonic turned to see Tails throwing, what appeared to be a cylinder block. "CATCH!"

Sonic quickly caught the object, before he kicked a robot's head off, while asking, "What is it?"

"It's your weapon!" Tails replied quickly as he cut a wire off.

"A weapon?"

"Just press the button!"

Sonic looked again and saw the button, just as a robot swung its sword and cut off a bit of Sonic's quills off.

"HEY!" Sonic angrily shouted as he got in the robot's face. "Watch the quilldo!"

Another robot came and kicked Sonic off of its companion and his Extreme Gear was sent flying away from him. The robot quickly swung its sword at the hedgehog who quickly pointed one end of his object, with a hole, at the robot as he pressed the button, and a long sharp blade quickly thrusted itself out and stabbed the robot through like butter.

"Oh you're in so much trouble," Sonic smirked as he held the sword in his hand and with it, all of the robots have been cut down to size, literally.

"Brings back good old memories," Sonic reminisced as he recalled his adventures in the book, King Arther and the Knights of the Round Table.

Elsewhere, in the Crystal Empire, Mario and Luigi were fighting off several Goombas, Koopas, Bob-Ombs, and Lakitus.

One of the Goombas charged at Mario, who jumped up and stomped it flat on the ground, while a Hammer Bro threw several hammers at the Mario Bros., which had quickly countered by using a Super Leaf to become, Fox Luigi, and deflect the hammers back at the hammer bro with his tail.

Mario quickly jumped on a Koopa and sent it flying out of it's shell and into a Bob-Omb, and the two exploded upon collision. With the empty Koopa shell in hand, Mario threw it to a wall, and the shell bounced off towards another wall and bounced off again as it knocked all of the Goombas, Koopas, and Bob-Ombs out.

The Mario Bros. looked up to see the Lakitus all throwing spiked balls down at them. The Mario Bros. dodged the ball, and looked to see the balls uncurled and revealed themselves to be monsters with spiked shells called Spinies. The Spinies crawled after the Mario Bros., but Mario and Luigi both did a ground pound together which sent a powerful shockwave that knocked all of the Spinies onto their shells, revealing the exposed part of their body, allowing Mario and Luigi to jump on them, defeating them.

The Lakitus started throwing more spike balls at the Mario Bros., but this time, Luigi quickly pulled out a device that looked like a vaccum cleaner, called the Poltergust 5000, and with it, he vaccumed up all the spiked balls and fired them at the Lakitus, knocking them off of their clouds, defeating them.

"Oh yeah," Mario and Luigi said together as they did a pose and finished it with saying, "We're the Mario Bros."

The crystal guards were fighting off some changelings, when several more came with some robots and all shot green sticky slimes that glued the guards helplessly to each other or to the ground, as they can't move any parts of their body. They were about to be captured and taken away, when red hot stream of fire bursted out of nowhere and singed the changelings and the robots. The changelings shook the ashes off as they and the robots all turned to see Spyro charging at them with his horn in a fiery aura, in the shape of an ibex's horn.

"Watch out!" Spyro began as he sended a robot flying before he turned around and took to the air, "Cause I'm all fired up!"

Once at the peak of his climb, he opened his mouth up with fire flaring inside as he drop back down with his nose pointing towards the ground, his wings wrapped by his side. At the last second, he opened his wings and became airborne. But not before he released a fireball from his mouth that exploded upon impact with the ground, and accompanied by a tailwind that came down with Spyro, caused the fires to spread across the ground like that of a shockwave and blasted all of the changelings and robots away. With his enemies gone for the moment, Spyro landed back to the ground as he breathed fire on the slimes and freed all of the crystal guards who thanked him gratefully after they were freed.

Up in the sky, Rainbow Dash was in a heated battle with the changelings, flying robots, winged Goombas called Paragoombas, and winged Koopas called Parakoopas.

While the Paragoombas and Parakoopas are easy to beat, since they lose their wings very easily with just one hit, the robots and changelings were another story as they all charged and attacked Rainbow Dash from every directions.

Rainbow Dash kicked a robot away as it was flying towards her. Then another came, but Rainbow Dash was quick enough to grab it with her hooves and flung it into another robot and they exploded.

But without warning, Rainbow Dash was hit from something behind. As she turned to look, a black hoof with holes punched her in the face, followed by an uppercut before she was kicked to the stomach.

Rainbow Dash panted as she felt all of the wind were knocked out of her. Without another second to give her a break, the changelings all dive bombed at her as green flaming comets, forcing her to the ground.

Twilight was blasting several robots when she saw her friend in trouble. Without hesitation, Twilight charged her horn and released a huge magenta magic beam, that got all of the changelings off of Rainbow Dash, who quickly spread her wings out as she slowly landed safely back to the ground.

"Thanks Twi!" Rainbow Dash's eyes widen when she caught sight of something before she flung herself at Twilight screaming, "LOOK OUT!!"

A Bullet Bill narrowly missed the two mares as it flies past them and exploded off in the distance. The two looked to see robots carrying guns and cannons, firing lasers and bullet bills at the two mares, who wasted no time as they galloped off in seperate directions, avoiding every ammunitions being fired at them.

The robots kept firing until a tiny yellow spark came zipping by before it stopped in front the robots, who all looked at it to see it was none other than Sparx, who made faces at them while taunting, "Nah-nah-nah! You can't catch me."

The robots all opened fire on him, which he of course zipped around, avoiding their attacks while saying random stuff like, "Missed me! Missed again! Three strikes! You're all out!"

The robots all ended up firing at each other and it sent off a chain reaction. A bullet bill was misfired by one of the robots. It flew into a flying robot and exploded, sending pieces of the robots to rain down and landed on mainly the changelings, Koopas, Lakitus, Shy Guys, and some robots. One of the changeling was hit on the head by a piece from the robot and it spiraled out of control and landed in a cannon, where Spike was as he had loaded several amunitions inside the cannon and lit up, firing the changeling and several random objects with it at the rest of its comrad.

As the heroes fought on, they were able to drive their enemies back as they retreated. The Crystal Ponies all cheered happily in their moment of victory.

"Yeah we did it! The Crystal Empire is saved!" Twilight cheered.

"Twilight!" a voice called out.

The heroes turned to see a pink alicorn, with shades of purple at the tip of her wings, yellow, pink, purple stripes in her mane and tail, flying towards the heroes, mainly Twilight.

"Cadance!" Twilight cried happily, as she and the Cadance ran up to each other and did a little dance while reciting, "Sunshine, sunshine, ladybugs awake! Clap your hooves and do a little shake!"

The two shared a laugh together before Cadance turned to the rest of the heroes.

"Greetings, heroes," she said with a curtsy, who all returned it as they each bowed their heads to the princess. Cadance stood up as she began, "I cannot tell you all how grateful I am for all your heroic deeds."

"It's nothing," Rainbow Dash began, before she had a smug expression and stated, "Although, I am awesome!"

The rest of the heroes all cleared their throats as she turned to see them glaring at her.

Sonic and Tails stepped forward as Sonic began, "You can thank us with couple of chili dogs and maybe some..."

"SONIC!" Tails quickly covered Sonic's mouth as he began, "You can thank us later, your highness. As I recall, Shing Armor said there's this Crystal Heart that needed to be restored before we can move on to Canterlot and save everypony and all of Equestria."

"You're right," Cadence said as she explained. "The Crystal Heart was destroyed by one of those monsters when they attacked the empire. It's pieces were scattered and we need to find them if we're ever going to keep the Crystal Empire safe once more. And I'll see to it that not another changeling or Queen Chrysalis to be prescised would try to sneak into the empire and break it again."

"One question though," Rainbow began, "How are we going to find them? They could be anywhere! Here in the empire! Somewhere, out there in the Arctic North! Or maybe even out of Equestria!"

"I hate to say it," Twilight panicked. "But Rainbow Dash could be right! What if they're gone forever? What if it takes us all day, or a week, or maybe even a month, or even longer than a year or two to locate all of them! By then, Chrysalis would've ruled all of Equestria or maybe the entire world with the Syndicate. The end of the magic of friendship and life as we all know it! It's a catastrophe....CATASTROPHE I TELL YOU....CATASTRAPH-"

Cadance placed a gentle hoof on Twilight's shoulder as she explained, "It's okay, Twilight. They haven't gone far."

"Oh," Twilight sighed as she became calm. "Well, why didn't you just say so in the first place?"

Cadance ignored the question as she explained, "As princess of the Crystal Empire, I have the power to locate the Crystal Heart, including its pieces, if anything were to happen to it. The Crystal Heart's pieces are still here, somewhere in the Crystal Palace."

"Then what are we doing standing around here for?" Sonic exclaimed as he took off, "Let's find those crystal pieces already!"

The heroes, all split up and searched for the missing pieces.

Twilight Sparkle looked in the library, while Rainbow Dash flew up in the air to scout around the empire for pieces of the Crystal Heart from above.

Tails flew around above the rooftops of multiple houses, hoping he could find a piece on one of them.

Sonic was running around the streets, checking every places where a piece of the Crystal Heart could've been hidden in, such as a trash can, a tiny crack, under a bench, a bush, even under somepony's bed.

Spyro was flying around in the Crystal Castle, looking through every room, and using every bit of treasure hunting skills he know to find one of the pieces, but like the rest of the heroes, he wasn't having much luck.

Spike was in the fields with Sparx. The little dragon was digging around as he looked for a piece of the Crystal Heart, with Sparx to help light up his way in case he had to dig deeper underground.

Mario and Luigi were also in some part of the Crystal Castle. They checked through every furniture, every trinkets, and every little spaces with Luigi's Poltergust 5000 to find one of the pieces.

After what felt like hours, the heroes, each found a piece of the Crystal Heart.

Twilight, coincidentally, found a piece inside a bookshelf.

Rainbow found one at the top of the Crystal Castle.

Sonic found another when he tripped on it, while running through the streets.

Tails was able to locate another piece, inside a chimney.

Spyro found another piece that was among one of the crystal jewels on a crystal chandelier.

Spike and Sparx both found another when Spike was digging his way up and he ended up inside a Crystal Empire bakery, where both he and Sparx found the next piece inside a cannoli.

Lastly, the Mario Bros. found a piece inside a Crystal flugelhorn, and sucked it out with Luigi's Poltergust.

The heroes all met up with Cadance as they brought all the pieces together at the Crystal Heart's original resting place, at the base of the Crystal Castle. As the pieces were all coming together, the Crystal Heart was starting to become whole again. But when the heroes put in the last piece in their possession....

"There's still one piece missing," Cadence said.

Just as Rainbow Dash was about to enter in another state of drama and Twilight was about to panic again, Mario came out of nowhere, eating a crystal berry pie.

"Mario!" Luigi yelled. "How can you eat at a-time a-like a-this?"

"Eating helps me a-think a-Luigi," Mario said as he took another bite. But then, something cracked inside his mouth. "Something is a-crunchy in my pie!"

Mario spat something outside of his mouth and into his hand, which revealed to be….

"The last piece of the Crystal Heart!!" Twilight yelled happily as she levitated it from Mario. "Thank you."

At last, the Crystal Heart was complete.

After that, all of the Crystal Ponies came out from their hiding place and recharged the Crystal Heart which formed an invisible barrier surrounding the empire.

"Yes!! The Crystal Empire is safe once more," Twilight Sparkle cheered.

"Thank you, Twilight," Princess Cadence said as she came up and embraced the lavender unicorn. "You and your friends have saved the empire once again."

"Now that that's over," Rainbow Dash began, "Next stop is Canterlot!"

"Right!" Twilight Sparkle released her embrace as she looked at Princess Cadance and asked, "Will you be alright protecting the empire?"

"Don't worry. The Crystal Empire will be fine, Twilight," Cadance explained. "You and your friends must hurry and get to Canterlot first and stop Chrysalis. I'll join you all once I've gathered my troops. Now go."

And with that, Princess Cadance conjured up another magic from her horn and created a portal that will take the heroes to Canterlot.

"Princess Celestia! Princess Luna! Pinkie Pie! Everypony and Crystal Ponies! Hang on! We're coming!!" Twilight Sparkle said as she jumped into the portal headfirst.

"Let's go kick some changeling's blank flank!" Rainbow Dash cried as she followed dived into the portal.

And with that, the rest of the heroes all jumped into the portal.