My Brave Pony Starfleet Magic: Season IV

by DakariKingMykan

Episode 9: Desperation Disasters

EPISODE NINE

Late one night, Lightning never felt so exhausted. He and the rest of his team had spent a really long day in training and sparing, which they had been doing for many days now, to beef up their bodies and hopefully be able to increase their inner-magical energies for future battles, particularly against the phantom of magic.

Also, Lightning had been going through countless reports, many of which concerned the scanning of Earth Ponies and any leads to find the phantom, but he also had other reports to deal with, and schedules to manage, orders to approve of, even a few laws to pass.

He was finding it more and more difficult to stay awake. Finally Starla came downstairs. “Oh, honey, come to bed. You’re about to pass out.”

Lightning tried to deny his fatigue “I can’t right now. I still have to finish these reports from New Fillydelphia, then I have to approve of these permits, check the Wonderbolt’s messages… and… and then… I… I…” he yawned very deeply. His wife came over and helped him up. “Come on, you need to sleep. Even The Grand Ruler would tell you that.”

Poor Lightning had hardly any steam left to answer, and practically fell asleep halfway up the stairs. Starla had to help him into bed, and activated his night garbs by tapping his insignia. He was sleeping like a dozen logs. Starla gazed down at him with love, and softly pressed her lips against his cheek before climbing into bed herself.

Meanwhile, in the New Crystal Empire…

Cadance had suffered more nightmares and other misfortunate accidents nearly hitting her and her loved ones and friends. She could no longer take it, and had decided could not take it a second longer. Shining Armor had not come to bed yet, which she felt it was better so as not to see what she was doing.

She had removed her royal garbs, as well as her crown, and now was dressed in a brown burlap hood and cloak with a simple outfit underneath, and she placed a letter on the bed. Tears were streaking down her cheeks, and her heart felt very heavy.

“Goodbye.” She peeped ever so softly, and then she just set off into the night.

When Shining Armor came to his room to get some much needed sleep, what he found turned his blood ever so cold. The letter read…

My Dear Shining Armor…

By the time you read this, I will be gone. I can no longer stand all this stress. I’ve tried to deny it all I could, but more horrible things keep happening whenever I am around. I fear for the safety of you and everyone else that I leave.

My heart is aching as I’m sure yours is, but I just can’t risk it anymore.

These are the hardest words I’ve ever had to say…

…Goodbye my love!

Shining Armor was quivering in extreme disbelief as his insides burned with immense pain. He ran to the windows and looked out the night “…CADANCE!!!”

Though it was late at night, Shining Armor used the emergency warp portal to head directly to New Canterlot, where Grand Ruler and Celestia were just putting their sleeping babies to bed, and they were devastated upon learning what was happening. “Oh, Celesto…!” cried Celestia.

“I’ll send out the guards right away. We’ll organize a planetary search.” Grand Ruler said as he marched out of the room and sounded the alarm. This woke Castor and Leilani. “Oh, children…!” cried Celestia as she comforted them.

Princess Luna appeared “Big sister, I have heard everything. I intend to join the search. I shall not rest until Princess Cadance is found and returned.”

“Thank you.” Shining Armor said, and his aunt took off leaving him still half hysterical of the whole thing. He clutched Cadance’s letter along with her crown. “How could this happen-- and all because of these ridiculous nightmares.”

Celestia grasped her sides and groaned softly. At first Shining Armor thought she was overwhelmed with grief, but her groaning became louder and she fell onto her back in pain. “Celestia…!”

The children saw their mother and thought it scary the way she was groaning, and cried more.

Grand Ruler came right back to the horrible sight. “Celestia!” he cried as he dashed over and scooped her up in his arms cradling her softly. Then the pain stopped, but Celestia was all sweaty and she felt very warm. Shining Armor calmed the babies down, but Celestia looked really weak as if she had been through a big battle.

Grand Ruler gazed down at her. “Celestia…! Darling, are you alright?”

His wife looked up. “I don’t feel so well!”

“What’s wrong?” Shining Armor asked, and he was made aware of Celestia’s constant painful attacks. They had done everything the court physician had said-- she had rested well avoided too much stress, until now, and she even took medicine to help with the pain-- but things were obviously not improving.

Shining Armor felt as if he was going to turn inside out as the pain ate away at him. First his wife left him, and now this! Grand Ruler was even more worried than he was, but he wasn’t sure of what to do, except to give his wife a little boost of energy from his magic. It helped her, get back onto her feet, but her fever had not gone down. “What’s happening to me?” she groaned.

The others hadn’t a clue, and couldn’t bear to have any more problems now, while outside, those two hooded figures were watching, still unseen by all and speaking through telepathy.

“The time has come. We’ve got to act now.”

His friend agreed, and reached into her robe pulling out a small bottle of medicine pills with a red sticker seal, and a note attached. “I just pray that this works.” Then, both of them used their magic to transfer the bottle inside through the window, in a small flash of light.

“What was that?” snapped Grand Ruler.

“Look.” said Shining Armor, pointing at the bottle on the windowsill. The two figures, remained unseen by them, but the trio examined the medicine bottle and the note attached to it: “For the Queen, be sure to take these. Your survival depends on it.” it said. This worried everyone, but confused them as well, and they began to suspect a trap. Shining Armor ripped off the note, breaking the sticker-seal. A big flash of light shone, and he dropped the bottle as everyone stepped back and gazed in awe as light images of the two hooded creatures appeared.

The trio was just speechless, but the babies gazed at the two figures strangely.

“If you are hearing this message, be advised, this is no trap.” said the male.

“You must listen very carefully to what we are about to tell you. We can only say it once.” said the female. The trio listened very carefully, feeling it was important.

“Queen Celestia is extremely ill, and in exactly one week from today, she will die from a blood disease.”

Celestia gasped, and the others gazed at her with such concern.

The female voice then explained everything, and the images warped to showing events from the past. There Celestia was, fighting with Raven, the evil assassin whom tried to murder Celestia, and killed Twilight.

…Remembering this angered everyone severely.

The message played on warning Celestia this was how it all started…

Raven had coated her fists with a very powerful poison she had discovered from her thousand years of training in the Dark Dimension. She managed to even render it invisible so Celestia would never suspect a thing, and no current Starfleet technology would detect it within her.

Raven herself was already immune to this poison, yet every time she punched Celestia during their brawl, hitting Celestia’s skin, the poison seeped into her body. Though it was only in small doses, it slowly began to build up inside of her. Modern day technology would never have been able to detect the poison until it was too late.

It was Raven’s hope that if by some fluke she had lost to Celestia, Celestia would still die and she’d gain her revenge, for no actual cure existed that could help her.

“This medicine we have given is your only hope. It will give you a fighting chance if you take it.” said the male voice.

“By now you must realize that this is not an act of trickery. We would never give you this message if it had been.”

“Take your medicine now. You have not much time left.”

The images faded and would not be seen again. Celestia was a mixture of emotions, confused, astonished, but most of all she was afraid. “I’m… going to… die?!”

Grand Ruler gazed at his wife with possibly the deepest most frightened concern he had ever felt. He really didn’t know what to think, yet explanations were justified, and with no time to actually study the pills and find out their contents as it would take far too long, in desperation not to lose her, he was prepared to take the biggest risk he had ever taken…!

He took the bottle and handed it to her. “You better take your medicine.”

Even Shining Armor was inclined to agree.

Meanwhile in his secret lair, the phantom of magic was fuming angrily “How can this be?!” He had been gathering so much magic and so many cutie marks from so many ponies, and yet he didn’t seem to be getting any closer to unleashing that ultimate power he sought.

He growled angrily and slumped into his chair. “I must think-- why isn’t this working?”

He thought back to ever since he began stealing magic, and all the victims. It was working fine at the start, but then things started to slow down, except for one instant when he stole Rarity and Applejack’s marks that the flow increased immensely, after that it was all slow and steady again.

“So that’s the answer; it’s those annoying pests. I must capture their remaining bits of magic to get what I want.”

He could tell that this would be anything but easy, seeing as the team was out to try and stop him. So far he had managed to avoid capture, but it wasn’t denied that it was becoming more and more difficult.

He then gazed at the light silhouette of that centaur creature, and thought how wonderful it would be ton finally complete his task and gain the ultimate power he sought to rule over all ponies. “I have no alternative. Their magic will be mine!”

The New Crystal Empire was devastated upon learning of their Princess’ abandoning them, and even civilians wasted no time in jumping into the search. All over United Equestrian, thousands of ponies had joined in the search, both officers and civilian. Even other creatures joined in the search; dragons, griffins, minotaur…

Some were actually just greedily hoping there was a reward for finding her.

The space ports were still closed, so Cadance most likely had not left the planet, and yet no matter how inconceivable it was to believe, Cadance was just nowhere to be found. The scanning couldn’t even detect a shred of her magic, or biological energy, even Zecora wasn’t able to find her.

When the friends came to her wondering if the spirits could help find her, Zecora just couldn’t believe it.

“Da spirits have spoken me,
But dis simply cannot be.
Dey cannot find where da princess has gone.
It’s as if her spiritual force has no longer shone.”

This worried the others. “You don’t think she’s…” Krysta paused and then gulped.

Zecora saw a few new mixed patters in her cauldron, followed by a few puffs of smoke symbols.

“Ah ha, no need to worry about your friend.
Da spirits can tell she did not meet with her end.

“I’m relieved to hear It.” said Lightning “But where exactly is she?”

Zecora concentrated all her might to the spirits and mixed a few more powders into her cauldron. Suddenly the mixture began to ignite and was about to show them the answer…

…unbeknownst to everyone, the hooded figures were just outside of the hut, and used their magic to make the images fade into complete nothingness. “What happened?” asked Starla.

Zecora was baffled, and tried to re-conjure the mixture, but absolutely nothing happened. It was as if all her powders, potions and spells had been cursed so as not to show the answer.

Zecora tried few more times, but the result was the same.

“Da spirits cannot hear my call.
They won’t be able to help us at all.”

The others were deeply dismayed, but suddenly the cauldron began to work normally again. Zecora was still able to use it for other means, but she wouldn’t be able to tell anything about Cadance.

The ponies just couldn’t understand, and began to suspect something very fishy was going on.

They all left and headed back to New Ponyville, and the search for Cadance was looking bleak, but still continuing. Lightning ordered the forces to check every square inch of United Equestria, sector-by-sector. “Do it once, and then do it again. We’ve got to find her.”

The ponies all saluted and dashed off. Lightning and Starla stayed behind as the other duties to tend to. Krysta came back from checking up on Shining Armor. Twink was her as well as King Topaz.

“How is he holding up?” asked Lightning.

“Not very well.” answered Krysta “But he promised to be brave for us.”

“I can’t very well blame him.” said King Topaz. He understood how Shining Armor felt more than the others did. “I lost you for some time, my dear, and I couldn’t bear it again.” he said to Krysta. His wife felt touched, and yet she also couldn’t help but remembered Shining Armor seemed pretty worried, as if something else was going on, but he didn’t want to tell anyone as he was sworn to secrecy.

“We’ll just have to keep looking for Cadance then. She’s got to be around here.” said Starla.

Twink was very worried about Cadance, but he couldn’t understand it “Why are you guys just sitting here? Shouldn’t you be helping with the search?”

Lightning looked up at him “Believe me, Twink; we’re just as concerned about Cadance as you are, but we do have other things to worry about.”

Starla nodded “Twink the planet is at war and our race is in danger, we have to stay on guard for any attacks waged by our enemies.”

“You see, my son…” said Topaz “When it comes to duty, priority can be a great burden.”

Twink still was too young to understand much, but he promised to be brave about all those. “Aw, that’s my brave boy.” Krysta said, and pecked her son on his little head.

Just then, there was a knock at the door, and there stood Applejack and Buddy Rose. “Anything yet?” asked Lightning.

“I never knew just how big my land was, until now.” said Applejack, as she slumped down into a chair, and she fanned herself with her hat. “We must’ve combed every single acre. We got nothing. Sorry, Lightning.” said Buddy

Lightning and Starla sighed. They even received reports from Rainbow Dash and the Wonderbolts by magic mail saying they couldn’t find Cadance but were continuing the search with every available member they had.

Lightning sighed irritably, between all his duties, and extra work with all the reports and meetings and stuff, he could really feel the toll of work getting to him-- working hard day and night, and never getting a break to help solve any problems…!

Suddenly he and the others all heard Pinkie Pie shouting. “I found her! I found her!”

They all raced to the door with hope in their eyes, only to find when Pinkie said “Her” she meant a little dolly she found for a little filly who lost it. The filly was very happy and walked off. Then Pinkie bounced merrily over to the others. “What’s with all the long faces?”

“Pinkie Pie, how in Sam-Hill can you be so cheerful at a time like this?” asked Applejack.

“Don’t answer that, Pinkie.” said Lightning “We know the drill.”

Pinkie hated to admit it, but she was only smiling to try and be brave. “All I know is being sad and mopey won’t help.”

“She’s got a point there.” said Topaz.

Soon, all the friends had gathered at Lightning and Starla’s, all of them disappointed as not being able to find Cadance. “It’s as if she’s disappeared off the face of the planet.” said Spike.

“But that can’t be, the space ports are still closed.” said Krysta “Believe us, we would know. All our fairy guards are posted around. If Cadance had gone by they would have seen her.”

Fluttershy almost felt worried to tears. “I just hope she’s okay out there.”

Rhymey nodded in agreement

“All this fear, woe and dread,
It’s positively aching in my head.”

One-by-one, everyone complained about the dangers and stuff, Lightning felt his head booming with every sound. “ENOUGH!!! CAN’T WE DO SOMETHING OTHER THAN COMPLAIN?!” he shouted.

The others all stared at him wide-eyes and in shock, and Lightning himself was shocked by how he just acted. “I… I’m sorry I…I…”

“No, we’re sorry too, Lightning.” said Starla.

“I guess we haven’t been making too much progress, and yet it all gets dumped on you, being the big chief.” said Dyno. “Si, maybe it’s time we picked ourselves and worked harder or we’ll never get anything done.” added Myte. The others all nodded in agreement.

Lightning smiled weakly, and they all decided to change the subject, like going over the pony reports for the phantom.

They had gone over millions of scanning, and not one of them matched the phantom-- they had no magic. “Are you certain we got every Earth Pony there is?” asked Lightning.

“Not quite all, there were some that didn’t quite make the scan.” said Artie.

“Good, narrow them down, and iron it out. The noose is really closing in.” said Lightning.

Suddenly, ponies outside began to scream and ran about in panic. Twink peeked outside the window. “It’s the phantom!” he cried.

“WHAT?!” everyone shouted in shock. They all crowded by the windows and saw it was true. “But I thought he only came out at night?” snapped Rainbow Dash.

“Let’s go!” snapped Lightning “Krysta, Topaz, get as many civilians out of the area as you can!”

“Right!” the fairies saluted.

“I want to help too! I want to help too!” cried Twink, but his parents wouldn’t hear of it, insisting he was far too young, and so they warped him home to planet Luminous first, then returned to help with evacuation while the friends prepared to face the phantom.

As they stared him down, the evacuation continued, yet the phantom was just standing there, not even making a move towards the other ponies, when so many cutie marks were escaping from his grasp, yet he didn’t seem to care. He just stood there gazing the team down.

As confused as they all were, they all decided to transform quickly.

“STARFLEET MAGIC!!”

“HARMONY HOUR, FRIENDSHIP POWER!!”

“Dragon Power!”

By the time they all transformed, the phantom was still just standing there, staring them down, even as the last pony evacuated through the space ports.

“You just gonna stand there all goofy and all?” Applejack snarled.

The phantom laughed and sneered “I’m not goofing off. I had no interest in those in any of them; it’s you I’m after, or rather three of your friends.” he eyed at Pinkie, Rainbow and Fluttershy.

“You want our cutie marks….!” snapped Pinkie.

“And any special magic that goes with them.” added Rainbow.

“Congratulations for stating the obvious!” growled the phantom “Once I have your marks, I’ll be ever so close to finally completing my task and nothing and no one will stop me.”

“You may want to do your math right.” snarled Spike “There are thirteen of us, and only one of you.”

The phantom grinned wickedly and his teeth shimmered in the sunlight. He stuck his arms out laughing loudly as the ground began to quake, and soon a whole gaggle of at least twenty phantoms, all puppets emerged. “Your friends and their powers ARE MINE!!”

The phantom begun to charge forth, and Lightning turned to face the three with marks. “Get back inside, quick! I don’t want to take any chances.”

The girls obeyed immediately, already realizing how serious it would be if they tried to fight. “I’ll guard you.” Spike said as he stood near the entrance. “I’ll help you.” cried Rarity. “Count me in too.” added Applejack.

With the three of them guarding the house, the others all charged at the phantom swarm. Each and everyone them looked alike, and fought just as fiercely; stronger than ever even.

Buddy Rose got kicked hard in the chest and was knocked back a bit. “What’s with these guys? They’re just puppets!”

One-by-one, several of the puppets spoke. “Fools, I’ve been gathering cutie marks and magic for a while now.”

“And each and every bit of it I gather increases my power.”

“Just as I grow stronger, so do my puppet-phantoms.”

“A pity the same can’t be said for you.”

The fight waged on, and many of the friends got punched and pummeled hard. Several of the phantoms made their way to the house. Spike, Applejack and Rarity stood their ground. “We’re not lettin’ y’all through. No chance!” snarled Applejack.

The others nodded fiercely, but the phantoms all laughed, and one of them said “One tiny flaw in your strategy…” and their eyes began to glow and the three friends felt themselves freezing up.

The other phantoms used their powers to paralyze the others as well.

The friends inside the house could see, and thought that was a dirty move. Rainbow was starting to lose patience “Let me at him! Let me at him!” she growled as she tried to race outside, but Pinkie and Fluttershy struggled to hold her back, knowing it wasn’t safe for them to go out there.

Now all the phantoms were starting to make their way towards the house, and just as the first few of them approached the three guarding the door. Spike shook himself free and punched one of the phantoms, sending him crashing into two others.

The others all shook themselves free and attacked all the others. “What’s this?!” growled one of the phantoms. He and his allies tried to paralyze the heroes again, but it didn’t work.

“Only one problem with your strategy…” snapped Lightning “We’ve been powering up ourselves though extensive training. Your old tricks won’t work on us this time.”

The phantoms all roared and the fight began to heat up. Despite being outnumbered, thanks to their training, the team managed to match the phantoms out for a while, but the phantom could see he would need even more reinforcements, and summoned forth more phantom puppets.

“I want those cutie marks!” he shouted.

“Ha! We were prepared for this too.” said Lightning, and he whistled loudly, and all at once, and entire swarm of fighters cam to join them, all were space alicorns, so as not to have any cutie marks. “GO!!” shouted Lightning.

With so many extra fighters the phantoms began to fall like dominos. The real phantom decided to make a break for it. “I’ll get you for this, Starfleet!” he shouted and he ran through the immense army of puppet clones “You’ll never catch me now!”

“Oh yes we will!” snarled Lightning “Our visors will scan you out!”

“…Don’t forget my dragon sense of smell.” added Spike.

The others began to use their finisher attacks to wipe out many more of the puppets making it easier to spot the real phantom. “There he is!” shouted Artie.

“Let’s get him!” shouted Starla!

All of them chased after the fleeing phantom, leaving all the other officers to destroy the remaining puppets, but inside the house, Rainbow was still growing far too edgy, while Pinkie and Fluttershy continued to hold her back from going out there. “Rainbow… you can’t!” cried Fluttershy as she struggled to hold her back.

Pinkie clenched Rainbow’s tail in her teeth, as well as her hands pulling her back hard, but Rainbow began to yank hard. “Let… me… GO!!” she pulled herself loose and dashed out the door, “Rainbow!” cried Fluttershy.

Pinkie tried to dash out to get her back, but Fluttershy held her back, remembering the risk out there. They could only watch and Rainbow helped to bust those baddies to bits, by kicking them hard and even reaching inside of them and yanking out the enchanted puppet-block, and crush it, destroying the clones.

Meanwhile, the others were all chasing the real phantom deep through New Ponyville, but still he managed to avoid capture. Every time one of the ponies lunged at him, he swerved out of the way. Applejack and Buddy Rose tried to lasso him, and he grabbed their lines and looped them together.

The Spanish Twins rushed at him, but ended up running into one other. “Yo no creo que esto! This guy is driving me crazy!” shouted Dyno. “Vamos, let’s get him!” snapped Myte.

Lightning managed to shoot at him with his old Capture Blaster, but the magic had no effect on him. “It is useless! You cannot contain me!” the phantom snarled.

Lightning growled, but he and the others kept on chasing him.

Meanwhile, the army of puppets had almost completely been diminished. “We’ve got ‘em on the ropes! Let’s finish ‘em off!” shouted Rainbow, and she flew up, up, way up high, and came crashing down fast. “SONIC RAINBOOM”

Many of the fighters ran out of the way, as she collided into a large group of phantoms, disintegrating them on impact. “YEAH!!” she cried as she struck a victory pose. It seemed as if every last phantom was beaten, all except one that snuck out from behind, grabbing Rainbow hard.

“RAINBOW...!!” Pinkie and Fluttershy screamed, and could barely watch as they saw her cutie mark get stolen, and with it went her ability to perform the Sonic Rainboom.

The last phantom was quickly disposed of by the other officers, but Rainbow’s mark had not returned.

The real phantom, still avoiding the others, began to glow softly as he felt another source of power being absorbed. “Well, it looks like I got a little of what I came for after all.”

The others were outraged and all rushed him at once, tackling him to the ground feeling they had caught him, yet when the dust settled, they found they were only beating on each other, and the phantom had escaped again.

“Ugh!! He got away again!” growled Applejack.

“And worse, now he’s gotten another cutie mark.” said Starla.

Lightning had a feeling he knew what had happened, and he didn’t seem pleased.

The phantom had retreated back to his lair, and adding Rainbow’s mark to his collection really boosted the level of energy needed. “Excellent…” he hissed “So I was right about those pests, now it’s only a matter of time.”

He gazed over at the centaur-silhouette again “Once I’ve captured the remaining pieces, the real prize will appear.” he laughed wickedly at the thought of so much power being near his grasp.

Back at Lightning’s place, Lightning spoke severely to Rainbow for messing up, even presenting her with a charge order pending an inquiry and possibly court martial. “You are further charged deliberate disobedience of a strict order. I ask you, is there no you should not be court martialed?”

Rainbow stood perfectly stiff and tall and said “No sir.”

“No, Captain Rainbow Dash, there is not!” snapped Lightning “Because of your insubordination, the phantom got away with more magic, and you have lost a special power that we couldn’t afford to lose, which puts us at a greater disadvantage than ever, and there’s one final thing I’d like to add to this…”

Right before everyone’s eyes, he tore up the citation. Rainbow was confused, and the others were shocked. “Why not?” said Lightning “Things are bad enough as they are, no sense it making it worse, and you did help to get rid of most of the puppets.”

Rainbow didn’t smile, but she was grateful deep down, but still upset about losing her power. Still, now they knew what to expect. The Phantom was after Fluttershy and Pinkie too. He would be back, and they would have to be ready for him!

Lightning sent his report of canceling Rainbow’s citation to the Grand Ruler, and he felt Lightning did the right thing, but not very thrilled with Rainbow’s action costing her more power; even still he was too upset to think about such a small matter now.

The search for Cadance was getting nowhere, and Celestia… she was by far the biggest priority of all now. She was taking her medicine-- two pills every four hours as was instructed on the bottle, and she was to keep this up until the bottle was empty.

She took another two pills, on schedule, and they tasted awful, and almost made her sick every time she took them.

Still, between themselves, Shining Armor, and even Princess Luna whom had found out, nobody else knew of her illness, and that was how it was to stay. Things were already horrid enough in United Equestria, but new of the queen nearing death would really cause hysteria.

They just had to trust that the medicine would help, but still… they couldn’t help continue to wonder who it was who really gave it to them. Who were those two hooded figures, and why were they going to such incredible lengths to help, but remain in hiding?

(Promo)

In our next episode, some of the friends take part in an annual community gardening hosted by Buddy Rose, Thunder Cloud is invited personally by Rarity, much to Spike’s annoyance, and things heat up as Thunder Cloud begins to experience new feelings.

Things then turn really ugly as Ergo and Neila appear with another Cardinal to shake things up, and they don’t plan to leave without destroying everything.

How will Spike and Thunder Cloud handle this newly formed love triangle between them and Rarity, and will Ergo and Neila triumph together?

Don’t miss the next exciting episode of “Starfleet Magic!”

(Next Episode: “Two Times Trouble”)