Power Rangers Super Megaforce: Equestrian Adventure

by ariellewilson

Chapter 29: The Somnambula Village

Troy felt a bump of the wagon, jolting him awake from his short nap he had taken not too long ago. He sat up, fixing his hair, placing it back in place. He felt a drip of sweat in the back of his neck.

Using his hoof, he felt how wet and sticky his fur was. Realizing he hadn’t had his water, he opened up one of the saddlebags Twilight had taken off her after they left the Arabian Castle.

Thankfully, the water is still cold enough. Unscrewing the cap of the bottle, he took a few satisfying sips from liquid.

Twilight hadn’t seemed to have touched her water bottle, for she was engrossed in her book. A page was flipped over for she was getting to the next page. She smiled at the Red Ranger. “You’re gonna have a great time meeting the place and the pony named after it,” she bet, putting her book away, replacing it with the water bottle. She drank the water out of it. “Somnambula - the pony - is one of the Pillars, one of Star Swirl’s allies when they were stuck in limbo before my friends and brought them back.”

“Why would you bring them back from limbo?” he asked, leaning against the wagon.

She looked a little embarrassed, rubbing her hooves together. “...we had to help them to defeat the Pony of Shadows. Plus, I always wanted to meet Star Swirl the Bearded. When we first brought him and his team back, he wasn’t too happy about it. He wanted to banish the Pony of Shadows back to limbo, though I found a portal spell where it’ll take the villain but not the Pillars. Turned out Stygian transformed into the Pony of Shadows. He and The Shadow were one until all of us used our power to save him, letting The Shadow get sucked into the portal.”

“Was this after or before the Tree of Harmony and the Elements got destroyed?”

“Before.” Putting the water bottle away, she smiled. “I still remember the day when my friends and I defeated Nightmare Moon. All the girls had necklaces where I had a crown. Adding to that, the Pillars had their own Elements of Harmony.”

Troy seemed to be intrigued by this. “Gosei did say that they had the Elements first…”

“Correct. The Elements they had were Strength, Bravery, Hope, Beauty, Healing, and Sorcery. It’s similar to the Elements my friends and I had onced owned.” A frown came upon her. “It’s too bad they got destroyed.” She looked at the Red Ranger solemnly. “Does Gosie know about the Elements and the Tree of Harmony being gone?”

“Apparently, no, he doesn’t.” Truthfully, his mentor would’ve known if Celestia told him when they met again. When his mentor wonders about the Elements, he would have to tell him.

On the side note, he and his friends have been told that their new friends don’t need those jewels to defeat the bad guys they dealt with.

These ponies are heroes in this pony world, like how he and his friends are heroes in the human world.

He drank more water out of his water bottle, the hot weather getting warmer. At first, he was concerned that the heat would be too much for the guards. However, it doesn’t seem to faze them one bit.

He had a hunch that these guards are used to this type of weather.

It was when they halted. “Here we are,” the one guard announced. They unhitched themselves. The one who spoke went to the back of the wagon, opening it up. “We have arrived at Somnambula.”

Getting off the wagon, the two ponies thanked the guards. The guards gave them a salute after hitching themselves back to the wagon. They bowed their heads then left.

Somnambula wasn’t what the stallion was expecting. He was expecting it to be like Saddle Arabia, with buildings and a castle. There are buildings, yes, though they weren’t really big. Just average size like any other home.

There were shops, with sale ponies selling stuff with the ponies buying them, paying the items with bits.

The sound of the coins clinked on the stands. The villagers were either pulling carts or wearing saddlebags like the princess has. The kids ran, chasing each other.

Not too far from the village was a tall pyramid, Troy saw, while he and the princess walked around.

It was then they saw pillows being sat on by ponies. The two went around them, seeing a stage being occupied by somepony.

The pony was a pegasus mare wearing a see through type of an Egyption dress with a golden band around her midsection of her body. Around her eyes are dark black, like she was wearing makeup with some type of blue tone eye shadow. She had a white veil with a golden ‘crown’, covering up most of her dark, arctic blue and turquoise mane. Her tail had the same color as her hair, with the middle part being squeezed by two golden bands, the other two at the end. Her coat color is a light scarlet.

She had her eyes closed, her body relaxed, her forelegs up at each side of her head, her back legs crisscrossing over each other. “Focus on my voice and feel yourself unlock your potential,” she began speaking, her accent flowing away, sounding Egyptian. The ponies followed in suit. They, too, had their arms at each side of their heads. “Imagine everything that troubles you as one big cloud. Now let it float away. You are relaxed. Free to do anything you want.” She inhaled from her nose, letting the air out softly from her mouth. “Have all the frustration you had built in your mind turn into something else...something calming.” She took a breath in. “Inhale…” Her class all took one breath in. “...breathe out…” She exhaled, everyone following her lead. “Feel all your tension go from your ears down to your back hooves. Think as if you’re a butterfly, fluttering away happily. Pretend to see there’s a rainbow, shooing away all the negative thoughts you collected. Replace them with happy, relaxed feelings.” It was when she opened her eyes, revealing that they are a grayish-blue violet. She turned her head to the left. “Twilight Sparkle.” A kind smile came upon her. She turned to face the others. “You may go,” she dismissed, getting up from her pillow.

They all got up, leaving the area.

The one who was speaking came off the stage. “Twilight,” she repeated, her tone staying the same. It was a nice voice to hear from her. All calm and collective. “I see you brought a friend. What is your name, kind fellow?”

“Troy Burrows.”

“Nice to meet you, Troy. My name is Somnambula.”

The two shook hooves, when Troy asked her something. “What were you doing?”

“Ah, I am a Motivational Speaker,” she told him. “I help ponies who have frustration, helping them release all of it.”

“Interesting. Have you always been doing it?”

Somnambula softly laughed. “No, I was formerly an Advisor for Prince Hisan years ago.”

Wow, Troy thought, trying to imagine what her life was back then. “Twilight here-” He tilted his head at the alicorn. “-told me that you are one of the Pillars, a pony who had an Element.”

“Yes, you’re right,” she remembered. “I was the Element of Hope. I help ponies by bringing hope to them.”

“How thoughtful of you.” It was nice for him to hear her something so kind, lending lots of hope to the ponies in need.

“Thanks. May I know something about you?” Somnambula required, as the three of them strolled away from the stage.

“I help people by saving them from bad guys - x-borgs and bruisers - with the help of my friends.”

“He’s the Red Ranger,” Twilight piped in.

The Piller’s eyes widen. “The Red Ranger? You mean, as in the Power Rangers Super Megaforce? I had received a letter about it from the Princess of the Day about those heroes. Including heroes known as the Power Ponies.”

“You got it. However…” Troy whipped his head around, placing a hoof next to his face. “...nobody else should know,” he whispered.

“I know. All my friends know about you guys,” the Pillar assured. “Speaking of friends… where are your companions?”

“They’re in Ponyville, playing in the snow,” the princess told her. “You ponies are lucky since you live in one of those places that never snows. We had gone to Califoalnia a couple of months back for a buckball game. Pinkie Pie and Fluttershy are really good at it. They’re on Team Ponyville.”

“I can already see them winning more buckball games,” Somnambula answered gracefully. “The game was around during me and friends time back in old Equestria.”

“We never knew that.” Reaching into her saddlebags, the princess took out her water bottle, finishing it up. “Boy, it’s so warm here. I repeat what I said seconds ago, you ponies are lucky to live in a place where it never snows.”

“Heh, heh.” Somnambula let out a chuckle. “You could say that. Though, I’d always wonder what snow looks like.” She stopped in her tracks. “Do you ponies want anything from the vending booths?”

The two answered at the same time.

“Nope.”

“I’m good.”

“Okay, well, follow me. I’ll show you where I live.” She led them to her home, which was made out of hard stone. The windows have blue curtains, her front door in the color of tan. She opened up the door, leading them inside.

They went into her kitchen. The kitchen held that ancient culture in the home land of Egypt. There were masks hanging from the walls to lots of paintings, like the pyramid Troy saw earlier when he and his friend arrived here.

One painting caught his attention. It was a creature, mostly purple with a body of a lion with a lion’s tail, wings of an eagle, and a head of a female pony.

The creature was an eerie expression, showing rows of sharp, pointed teeth. The eyes are with black slits for pupils. It had an Eygptian headpiece with earrings.

It seemed to be staring right at him, causing him to back away from it, hitting the round table. The table shook a little. He almost knocked down a chair, catching it in time before it hit the hard floor.

The creature on the painting had its wings open, like it wanted to fly.

He blinked at the picture, as if he was trying to get rid of it. “What is that…?” he managed to say. “It looks like a...sphinx.”

“It is a sphinx,” Somnumbula replied to his guess. “A creature whom I defeated.”

Troy glanced at the painting back at the Pillar. “You...defeated that huge creature?”

“Mhm. I sure did.”

“How?”

“I’ll tell you how I did it.”

Listening to her story, the unicorn learned that long ago, an unwanted village was terrorized by a sphinx, who demanded a tribute of crops in exchange for sparing them in her wrath.

During that time, Somnambula would start giving up what little she had, like her pearl necklace, to help ponies for them to buy food, hoping the pharaoh’s son, Prince Hisan, would have the courage to stand up to the beast.

Unluckily for him, this got the sphinx in enraged of anger, grabbing the prince in her mighty paw, whisking him back to her pyramid as her prisoner. The prince's father declared that the monster will set the prince free if anyone can solve her riddle.

Somnambula was the only person brave enough to volunteer to save the prince. Upon reaching there and confronting the creature, the sphinx gave her the riddle.

“I shine brightest in the dark. I am there but cannot be seen. To have me costs you nothing. To be without me costs you everything,” was the monster’s riddle in a male voice, despite being a female, which was a shock to the Red Ranger, continuing on listening to the heroic story.

The creature was expecting to hear the wrong answer. However, the brave pegasus gave her the correct answer. “Hope,” the Pillar had answered with a proud smile.

The sphinx became enraged once again. In fact, so enraged, she was likely that she wouldn’t release the prince, so Somnambula asked her for another challenge, and if she succeeded, the sphinx would leave the ponies’ home for good.

The sphinx declared that the next challenge is to simply walk to the prince, across a deep chasm, while being blindfolded. The sphinx even cast a spell on the pegasus for her not to fly.

Despite this, Somnambula never gave up hope, allowing the prince’s voice to guide her to him.

Defeated again, the sphinx leapt to the skyline of the pyramid and flew off, never to be heard from again.

In gratitude for saving him, Hisan replaced Somnambula’s pearl necklace with a string of glowpaz.

“Ever since the creature had retrieved away from our homeland, we never saw her again,” Somnambula finished the story, holding up the green string.

“Whoa…” Amazed at the story, the Red Ranger would never know the answer to the creature’s riddle. He pictured himself in the Pillar’s hooves, confronting the villain to solve the riddle, picturing himself getting it wrong if his friends got kidnapped by the monster.

He stared back at the creature on the painting, wondering who did the artwork for it. Probably some famous pony artist.

On the side note, he wondered if the sphinx would return here, or somewhere in Equestria.

Probably not.

---

Twilight and Troy stayed at the place for a few hours, with Somnambula giving them a tour from both her house and her hometown.

When it was time to leave, the two were led to a train station, where they caught the train just in time.

Getting on the train, the two of them sat down at one of the seats. Twilight got herself ready by re-putting on her winter outfit, while at the same time, handing her friend’s winter outfit in which he put back on.

When they got to the Ponyville Train Station, the weather went from humid to a chill bone type.

It was getting late, for the sun was slowly setting from Celestia, being replaced by her sister’s moon.

At the castle, Starlight, Cobalt, Ice Crystal, and Spike were in the library, simply hanging out by the fireplace, the flames eating the logs. It felt warm in the room.

Twilight and Troy hung out in the room with them, listening to the dragon talking about Hearts and Hooves Day gift - a simple card.

“It’s like a thing my friends and I have back at home. We actually call it Valentine’s Day,” Troy told them.

“What a weird name for a holiday.” Twilight whacked the dragon in the back of his scaly head. “Ow!” He rubbed the area where he was hit. “All I said is what a weird name for a holiday.”

“Technically it isn’t really a holiday,” Starlight spoke. “I did read on why we celebrate Hearts and Hooves Day. Did you know it actually started all because of a love potion?”

“Love...potion?” Never in his life the Red Ranger ever heard something like a love potion. “Hearts and Hooves Day was started all from a love potion?”

“You got it. However, it isn’t a love potion. It’s a love poison.” The last word stretched out of Twilight’s student mouth in full seriousness.

“Huh?” Cobalt questioned. “Wait a second. How can it be a love poison? It couldn’t go from a love potion to some kind of poison.”

A book appeared out of thin air, Starlight’s horn aglow, holding the book. Opening the book, she found the section containing the information about the poison. “It says here that a prince from long ago whipped up this recipe and gave it to this princess he liked. He meant for it to be a love position, but things didn’t turn out so well.”

“How ‘not so well’ did things turn out?” Ice wondered, laying down on the floor.

“Apparently, there’s something here about a dragon, the kingdom falling, chaos reigning… Basically, the prince and princess were so lost in each other’s eyes that they couldn’t perform their royal duties,” she stated to the Power Pony pondering question. “Though, if you get two ponies from looking into each other’s eyes, the love curse will be broken.”

Hearing this information of the history of Hearts and Hooves Day, the unicorn stallion had always wondered why people back on earth celebrate Valentine’s Day. He knows it always had something to do with a special someone the person likes.

In all his life from when he was a really young teen to a young adult, he hadn’t found ‘the one’. Until he moved to Harwood County, going to Harwood High School where he met his new friends with the Pink Ranger being one of them.

When it was time to go to bed, Twilight brushed the fire away with her magical horn, then followed the rest of her friends who went into separate bedrooms, excluding the Red Ranger who is in his cot, not too far from the alicorn’s bed.

Entering into the room, she climbed into bed. “Troy?”

“Hm,” he shortly replied.

“Who is your special somepony?”

This got his attention, for he sat up from his cot. “Special somepony?”

“You know. A pony you like.”

He couldn’t help but to put on a smirk. “...I guess Emma is my special someone- I mean, somepony.”

“Ooo, probably the reason why she’s going to be your plus one for the Gala that’s coming up.”

From her playful teasing, Troy couldn’t argue with her for she made a good point. He doesn’t regret saying that Emma would be his plus one. He always liked her, no doubt it. Adding to this, he always thought she was really pretty.

Laying his head back on the pillow, he went to sleep, and he couldn’t wait for Hearts and Hooves Day.