Friendship Through the Worlds

by ThomasZoey3000

Interactions

Chapter 5: Interactions

"There are cars, trucks and even a freight train all on their sides here in Brechin' Ontario," said a news reporter on the radio. The radio itself was playing in the pool hall where Patrick, Ryan and Emily were waiting for Matthew to arrive. "Some sources say that a small creature attacked them and threw them all over the place. Police are not sure if that's true or not, but they are asking that if anyone has seen anyone, or any creature acting weird to please report to the police at once."

"A small creature?" Patrick asked in confusion as he shot off, "what kind of creature could do that much damage?"

"A hippo maybe?" suggested Emily as Matthew finally arrived.

"No, a hippo is big and are slow walkers," said Ryan. "Besides, not even a hippo can derail a freight train. Hey Matt, what do you think it could be?"

"What could be what?"

"Weren't you listening to the radio on the way here?"

"Not really. My truck acts up so many times I have to keep the radio off in order for me to hear the darn thing properly."

"Well the radio station was talking about an attack in Brechin' Ontario. Something attacked all those cars and trucks, even going as far as derailing a freight train."

Matthew was just about to grab a pole, but froze when he heard that. Right away, he knew what it was, but he couldn't say it.

"Not sure what it could be. But who knows, maybe a tractor trailer smashed into the freight train."

"Maybe, but what about the sighting of a small creature?" Emily asked with a raised eyebrow.

"Oh well- er, I think probably, er- that they might've been seeing things. Accidents can cause some trauma to the brain you know."

Emily kept her eyebrow raised.

"You might be right on that Matthew," said Patrick. "Oh well, it's all the way down there and not here. Besides, it's not any of our business."

"Yeah, none of our business at all," Matthew chuckled while rubbing the back of his head.

Outside of Canterlot High, Sunset Shimmer and her five best friends all waited for some response. But ever since she sent the second note, there hadn't been a single response from Princess Celestia, Spike or even Princess Twilight.

"Maybe we should send another message?" Rainbow Dash suggested.

"No, I'm sure they got the message. I bet they're working on a way to open the portal without the use of the magical journal." Sunset sighed and sat down on the stairs, "I know the Princess is okay, but given what I know, that Starlight Glimmer is bound to be up to no good."

"How do you know about that girl-I mean, pony?" stuttered Fluttershy.

The other girls looked at Sunset with great interest. Sunset looked to the statue, only to see no change. So she gave in and told them the whole story.

"It was during the years I was Princess Celestia's student. I was, as you can guess, a little full of myself, though I hadn't reached the level of nastiness you all know from me. Though," she paused and chuckled, "I wasn't one of those ponies who like to stay indoors and study during nice days, and on the day in question, I wanted to go out to the park."

"There wasn't a single cloud in the sky, the flowers were all blooming and ponies were going about their own business. On that day however, I noticed a bunch of ponies standing around something. At first, I wanted to know what they were looking at, but then decided to merely walk away. It seems the other ponies had the same thought as they too left, revealing the source of their interest."

"Starlight Glimmer?" Rainbow Dash asked.

The others looked to her, annoyed that she was interrupting the story. Sunset however just smiled and nodded, "yep, it was her."

" 'Cutie Marks are evil! They ruin a pony's life! I can help you get rid of them forever!' she was shouting."

"I merely rolled my eyes and started walking away. Then I heard her again."

" 'I have a magical item that can remove your cutie marks! Join me, and we can rid this land of those stupid little symbols!'' "

"Being who I was, I shouted, 'why don't you remove yourself from this park, and leave us to our peace and quiet'! I shouted at her."

"She glared at me, but I ignored her and continued to where I wanted to go. All of the sudden, I felt myself being lifted off the ground by magic. I looked and saw that the magic belonged to the filly."

" 'Look kid, you're adorable, but I have things to do, so please put me down and forget we had this conversation''."

"The filly shook her head, 'the name's Starlight Glimmer, and today, I'm going to help you out of your troubles. Trust me, you'll thank me for this.' "

"And she produced a long staff, one I never have seen or even read about. Though I could tell it was a fake to begin with, the real magic in question was coming from her horn."

" 'Oh buck no you're not!' I shouted and using my magic, I broke free and landed on all four of my hooves. Starlight however lost her balance and fell back, breaking her so called staff in the process. She got back up and with fire in her eyes, her horn lit up. I took my stance, 'you really want to try me kid?! I'm a student of Princess Celestia for goodness sakes, I'm not some pushover!' "

"She only scoffed at me, 'I can still beat you, and take that cutie mark of yours!' "

" 'Try it pip squeak!' " Sunset paused and looked back to the statue, "She fired off first, but I dodged it. Before I could strike, she lifted me off the ground and threw me into the nearby bushes. She tried again to steal my cutie mark, but I fired a shot at her and sent her flying. I got out of the bush just in time to see her rubbing her hoof under her mouth. As you can guess, she was bleeding a bit. We fired off at each other, more often hitting objects around us than each other. Thankfully nopony was hit, apart from us."

"As the fight was about to get worse, the royal guards showed up with Captain Shining Armor leading, 'Are you alright Sunset'?"

" 'Yeah I'm fine, just a little sore', I answered with a groan."

"I looked back to Starlight Glimmer, and I could still see the fiery determination she had when we started this fight, but seeing she was outnumbered, she took off running without her staff. When asked what happened, I merely said 'she was some pony not happy that I wouldn't listen to her'. After that, I heard nothing from her, until now anyways."

"So, she's just as powerful as you?" Applejack asked.

Sunset nodded, "though it's been some time since the last I saw her, so if I had to guess, she's gotten stronger since then."

"But why does she hate cutie marks?" Fluttershy asked.

Sunset shrugged and was about to talk, when suddenly, they heard a whooshing sound. They looked and saw a rock with a note wrapped around it. Rainbow picked it up and brought it to Sunset, who read the note, "they want me to join them?"

"But that means you'll have to talk to your former mentor," Applejack pointed out.

"Awkward," said Pinkie Pie.

Rarity placed a hand on Sunset's shoulder, "are you going to be okay meeting up with her again?"

Sunset took in a deep breath, then exhaled, "I'm going have to be, for Princess Twilight and the others. I'll be back soon."

Her friends all gave her a big hug, and taking in one more deep breath, she ran towards the portal and whooshed through it.

"Dang Matthew, you lost all the games tonight, are you feeling alright?" Patrick asked.

"Yeah, sorry, I guess I'm just- well, rusty I guess."

"More like he's distracted about something," but Emily only thought that to herself.

"Oh well, no worries buddy. What matters is that we're all hanging out together." Patrick nodded with Ryan's statement. "Though I'll admit, that game sure got me hungry."

"I can agree to that," added Patrick. "Hey, I saw this restaurant in the mall yesterday, maybe we could eat there."

"Yeah, what's it called again?"

"Steak Villa, I think."

"Well, good enough for me. What do you two say to that?"

Emily was perfectly fine with that, but Matthew looked a little worried. The more time he was away was more time the ponies weren't able to go after Starlight Glimmer, and more time for people to discover that they were there.

"Hey Matt, are you going to be okay with going there?" Patrick asked.

"Huh? Oh uh, I uh..."

"What's the matter Matthew?" Emily asked with her eyebrow still raised, "got somewhere you need to be?"

He was about to answer, when at that moment, he swore he could hear Twilight in his head, "go out with your friends, we can wait."

"Uh, no, I'm fine with going there."

"Great, then let's go."

Not sure why he had that thought, Matthew nodded and followed the other three out of the pool hall.

Sunset landed flat on her stomach after emerging from the portal. She looked around and found herself in a big library. She also found herself in front of several ponies, and one baby dragon.

"Hey Sunset, long time no see," smiled Spike.

Sunset got to her hooves and walked over to Spike before pulling him into a hug, "she is okay Spike. She told me that, we'll get her home."

"Indeed we will."

The other voice made Sunset freeze. She looked behind her and saw Princess Celestia looking down at her. For the first time in her life, Sunset felt truly small in front of the alicorn princess.

"Hello Princess Celestia, it's been a while."

"Yes, it has Sunset, and we have much to talk about. However, that will have to wait until we bring Twilight Sparkle and her friends home."

"Right, but how did you get me here?"

"It wasn't difficult," said another voice. Sunset looked and saw a pony with a black sweater behind the machine, "name's Moondancer, I think we've crossed paths before."

"Perhaps, but I wasn't a social pony back then, but how did-"

"It took a bit of rewiring, and using Princess Celestia's magic, we were able to get you here."

Sunset took a look at it, "very impressive."

"Don't worry, it'll be back to normal when it's time to send you to- uh, wherever it is you came from."

"Save that for later. What do we do now?"

"We need to go to Starswirl's archives," said Princess Celestia. "Due to the thousand years I've been around, I've forgotten how to use portal magic, and only he wrote down how to use that kind of magic."

"And it's a big archive," said Spike. "I know, we've been there."

"Well then, I guess we should get started." Sunset's horn lit up, but fizzled out in a second, "seems I've forgotten how to use magic. Princess Celestia, would you mind teleporting us?"

Princess Celestia nodded and within seconds, the library was empty again.

At the house, all was not well. The ponies were hiding as they could hear the same banging sounds from before with the hunters.

"Matthew was right, they don't learn," grumbled Rainbow Dash.

"Those poor animals out there," groaned Fluttershy. "They're going to get hurt, or worse. There was must be something we can do."

"We could always kick them out of here," suggested Applejack.

"And risk getting hurt by them, no chance," said Rarity.

Twilight suddenly smirked, "direct approaches won't work, but luckily for us, we do have magic."

Her horn lit up and with her eyes closed, she focused on the hunters. First, she made one of them trip, followed by the other one. Next, while they were getting up, she made ice appear under them and made them fall onto their backs.

"Thank goodness I learned that as Masked Matter Horn," Twilight thought thankfully to herself.

Matthew's paintball guns flew out of the closest, and seeing that they were loaded, Twilight teleported them outside the house and fired at the hunters. They yelped, fell, screamed and banged into each other.

"This place is haunted!" they cried.

Moments later, they raced to their vehicle and hurried away.

"Wow Twilight, that was amazing!" cheered Pinkie Pie.

Twilight chuckled, "I doubt Matthew will have any more trouble with these fools."

The ponies couldn't help but laugh, even Rarity and Fluttershy found the situation funny.

"Okay, so we had our fun with them, but we still need to get that Starlight Glimmer," said Rainbow Dash. "We can't leave her here, look what she's been doing!"

"We know that Rainbow Dash, but at this point, we have no idea where she is, and even if we take a good guess, she'll be gone from there."

"So what do you say Twilight? We wait till she finds us here?"

Twilight was about to say 'yes', but then remembered the damage done to Stouffville, Uxbridge and Brechin'.

"No, but we do need to track her moves and with Matthew's knowledge, we'll catch her before she does anymore damage."

"Hopefully," muttered Applejack, but it wasn't loud enough to be heard.

At the Steak Villa restaurant, the four friends had placed their orders and were now talking. Well, three of them were and the last one, Matthew, was just listening.

"So I told the idiot; well next time, make sure to keep your eyes up before crossing the road," said Patrick.

"And he didn't think looking down at his phone would nearly lead him into walking out into traffic?" Emily asked.

"Guess not."

Ryan sighed, "sure makes you wonder why some people are like that."

"Tell me about it," said Matthew for the first time since they arrived. "I got two people who come onto my property almost daily, and get this, the only reason they're there is to hunt animals."

"Seriously?" Patrick asked in surprise.

"Yes indeed, and yet I scare them off every time. Why just last night, I was out on the back deck with Tw-er, a tall drink and I heard these loud bangs." As he recapped the story, without the ponies in there, Emily just looked unconvincing at him.

"He is hiding something. First he doesn't want to come, then agrees and now he's changing his story. What is going on with you Matthew," but she thought that to herself.

She wasn't alone in thinking that. Both Ryan and Patrick were getting suspicious too. But before they could say anything, the food arrived and any conversation they wanted to have was halted.