The New Era for Equus

by Robert Emerald Fountain

Saving Everyone from Humdinger

When the ships began appearing on Humdinger’s radar, he began to get very upset.

“Oh no you don’t.”, he said to himself as Harold powered up the defenses.

“Lock S-Foils in attack position.”, said Twilight as she opened her wings.

Everyone followed suit and began opening their wings as well as raising their shields. Once they had accelerated to attack speed, all of the defense turrets began firing at them.

“SPLIT UP!”, yelled Mickey.

Everyone broke out of formation and began firing back. They were quick to take out a lot of the turrets. Flurry Heart scanned the station to locate the hangar where Ryder’s ship was and quickly found it. The hangar was located above the brim at the bottom of the station. The turrets were all on the brim, except for one. The only turret that wasn’t on the brim was the one that fired the Electromagnetic Pulses. That one was underneath the station because Ryder’s report indicated that the turret was lowered down. When Millie spotted the turret being lowered down to shoot at them, she had other ideas.

“You’re not going to disable us!”, she said as she readied a missile.

When the missile was launched, her ship was pushed back. Regardless, the missile struck the turret and destroyed it as Harold was starting to charge it up.

“Uncle, I think these allies are trained in the same way Ryder and the Paw Patrol are. They just shot down the E M P turret and are taking out the other turrets with ease.”, Harold said worriedly.

Humdinger began to get worried that his nephew was right.

“Raise shields.”, he finally said.

He didn’t know that Flurry Heart had shot a tap onto the station in order to listen in. She began to scan the ship in order to find the main shield generator. She readied a missile equipped with a drill once she found the generator. Firing the missile, it began to penetrate deep into the bowels of the space station. It detonated upon reaching the shield generator and took it out. The explosion rattled the entire structure, throwing Humdinger and Harold off of their feet.

“UNCLE, RED ALERT! WE’VE LOST OUR SHIELD GENERATOR!”, Harold cried.

Humdinger banged on the console as he screamed in rage, accidentally arming the most powerful turret on the entire station.

“DANGER! VAPORIZER ONLINE!”, said a mechanical voice from the computer.

This was a massive laser that could vaporize multiple space ships in one single blow. When he realized the turret was powering up, he tried to shut it off, but he had banged so hard that the controls for it were broken.

“Aunt Minnie, look. There’s a turret emerging from the top of the station. My analysis says it’s designed to vaporize all of our ships in a single blast. We need to take it out.”, shrieked Melody.

“Affirmative, Melody.”, replied Minnie.

She radioed the information to Twilight who immediately flew up to the turret and aimed a special weapon at it. When the weapon was deployed, it acted as a saw and cut the turret off, sending it into the atmosphere where it burned up and exploded.

“All wings, prepare to board. I’m about to open the hangar where Ryder’s ship is being held.”, Flurry reported.

At this point, all of the defense turrets had been destroyed, so everyone grouped back up around her and they began flying towards the station.

As everyone began closing in on the hangar, Mickey noticed what looked like a shield over the opening in the hangar.

“Flurry, this is Mickey. I see a shield covering the hangar. My analysis indicates that we cannot get through it. However, I have spotted the generator for the shield. I am going to shoot it out. Once it’s open, we will not have long to get inside. I have a feeling there will be an emergency hatch that will close up when the shield is breached.”, he said over radio.

“Go for it.”, Flurry replied.

Mickey opened fire and took out the generator to disable the shield. Once the shield was opened, everyone accelerated to get inside before the hatches closed. Once they had landed, they grabbed their handheld weapons and rushed to get off their ships. Harold ran into the hangar to confront them, but Twilight fired a stun blast from her horn to knock him out. Once he was unconscious, Millie ran over to restrain him. After tying a blindfold over his eyes, covering his mouth with tape, and tying his hands behind his back with rope, she smashed his headset to cut off communication between him and his uncle. Remembering that Humdinger had used sleeping gas to stop Ryder in his tracks, they kept their helmets closed and set their air supply to recycle the carbon dioxide into oxygen. This way, they would not run out of air and suffocate.

“Let’s find the ship that he and his uncle used to get up here. We can put him there.”, suggested Donald.

Twilight and Flurry agreed and they found the ship in only minutes. They encountered Humdinger’s kittens along the way and stunned them as well. After strapping him in one of the seats and putting the kittens in a cage, they knew it was time to save Ryder, his pups, and the cats.

After meeting back up in the hangar, Twilight and Flurry started establishing a plan to save everyone and eliminate the station.

“How will we do that? We don’t have a map of the space station.”, asked Mickey.

“We snatched Harold’s map when we restrained him. Also, we grabbed an access card and took a snapshot of his eyes. On the way to the ship, we passed doors locked by a retina scanner.”, explained Twilight.

After everyone had taken notes on the map, Twilight searched for Ryder and the pups and cats. She spotted their radar signals but had a feeling that their uniforms had been taken off. After sending a probe to find the pups and the cats based on body heat instead of radar, she spotted them all chained to the walls of a super-cooled room. After confirming they were still alive by using the probe’s medical scanner, she and Flurry established how they would rescue everyone.

“Alright, here’s what we will do. Donald and Daisy, I want you to find and activate the self-destruct for the space station. Take Harold’s keycard and the snapshot of his eyes because I am sure it will be a restricted area. Also, jam the doors shut after you leave because Humdinger may try to stop the sequence. Mickey, come with Flurry and I to save Ryder. Everyone else, go to where the probe is and unfreeze all of the pups and cats. Get them warmed up enough that they can pilot their ships.”, Twilight said.

Everybody accepted their assignments and they split up to rescue everyone.

Twilight, Flurry, and Mickey followed Ryder’s tracking signal until they reached a door that led into a dark, cold, shadowy room. Setting their suits to keep them warm, they opened the door and turned their headlamps on in order to see. Their lights fell on a dark-colored block of some sort that was hung on one of the walls. Running over to it, they looked at the block and noticed parts of Ryder’s outline including his hands. His lips were wide open, his teeth were gritted, and his eyes were shut tightly as if he was either cold or in severe pain. Twilight looked at one side of the block and noticed what looked like switches, but she didn’t know what to do. She had Flurry and Mickey look for clues and they found one in a flash.

“I’ve got something, Aunt Twilight. Ryder is encapsulated in a flash-frozen compound of carbon and some type of gas. This is apparently called “carbonite”. Don’t ask me where or how Humdinger got his hands on this. According to this schematic, the compound is held inside a frame with those switches on it. There are two switches that need to be moved. The first one is a lock that will allow you to move the second. The second switch will initiate a mechanism that will send high-frequency waves through the carbonite matrix to melt it. Mickey and I will stand ready to catch Ryder in case he is unable to stand on his own.”, said Flurry as Mickey showed Twilight a schematic of the block.

Twilight nodded and Flurry got in position with Mickey to catch Ryder in case he collapsed. Twilight saw the first switch and twisted it to unlock the second switch. After sliding the second switch, some of the lights on the side of the frame went out. Seconds later, Ryder’s outline began to glow orange.

“IT’S WORKING!”, yelled Mickey.

Moments later, the membrane began to melt away from Ryder and turn to gas. Ryder felt the heat radiating around him and his hands were able to relax from the position they had been in. When his mouth was able to move again, he exhaled quickly and then took a deep breath in a relieved way as if he had just surfaced from water. His legs were tingly for a second and he fell forward but Mickey and Flurry caught his shoulders.

“Easy, Ryder. We’ve got you.”, Flurry said as Ryder began to cough.

“I’m alright. I looked at my watch before I was frozen and took note of the time. I was frozen around 2:45 PM. Since my watch says 4:30 PM, I was only frozen for 1 hour and 45 minutes.”, said Ryder as his legs woke up and he stood up.

“Do you know why Humdinger did this to you?”, asked Mickey.

“He grew tired of being on parole and killed his officer. Before freezing me in that stuff, he said he was planning to kill us.”, Ryder explained as the four left the chamber.

“HE DID WHAT?”, Twilight shrieked.

“GOODNESS GRACIOUS!”, yelped Flurry.

Mickey explained that Daisy and Donald were looking for the station’s self-destruct mechanism and everyone else was freeing the pups and the cats as they went back to the hangar. Along the way, more sleep gas was released, so Ryder quickly sealed his helmet and drew his laser-handgun to set it for stun. They ran into Humdinger and got into a small shootout. Hiding behind corners, they would fire and try to hit him as they got closer to him. Several times, either Mickey or Ryder would grab something off the floor and throw it at Humdinger to force him back, but they missed and hit the walls. Eventually, Ryder was close enough that he jumped out and stunned Humdinger with a single shot without having to stall and aim. When Humdinger dropped unconscious to the floor, Ryder blew across the barrel on his laser-gun before putting it back in its holster on his belt.

“Point-blank range.”, said Twilight in amazement.

“Good shot, Ryder.”, said Mickey.

Ryder thanked Mickey and they dragged Humdinger to his ship where Harold was fighting to get out of his seat and strapped him in his own seat next to him. After closing the hatch, they ran to the main hangar where Ryder’s ship was along with everyone else’s.

**

Daisy and Donald rushed through the station’s hallways until they reached one that led into “Engineering”. Inserting Harold’s keycard into a slot and pressing the snapshot of his eyes over a scanner, they opened the door and hurried inside.

“Daisy, this is Mickey. We have Ryder and have gotten Humdinger onto his own ship.”, said Mickey over headset.

“Good work, guys. Donald and I have reached Engineering. We are certain that the self-destruct mechanism is in here.”, she replied.

As they looked around, Donald saw a red handle that had “Emergency Only” printed on it. Pulling the handle, he released a panel on the wall next to it. In this panel were two larger levers. He and Daisy each pulled one and they released a panel door in the floor. Opening this panel, they saw the words: “Emergency Detonation System” written on the inside of the door. Following the instructions for the “SCUTTLE” procedure, Donald entered a code and released four bolts that he and Daisy screwed into threaded holes. They pulled up on the bolts to extend the fixtures and then flipped switches behind small doors. Seconds later, a digital voice sounded over the space station’s intercom speakers as an alarm began blaring and lights began flashing.

“Danger! The emergency destruct system is now activated. The space station will detonate in T-Minus: 10 Minutes. The option to override automatic detonation expires in T-Minus: 5 minutes.”, said the voice.

“Twilight, this is Donald. Daisy and I have armed the self-destruct.”, said Donald over radio as he and Daisy left the Engineering section and welded the door shut with a metal rod and an acetylene torch.

“We heard the warning over the speakers. Good work, you two. Now make your way to the hangar where we entered.”, said Twilight.

Daisy acknowledged and they ran as fast as they could until they reached the hangar.

Three minutes before the self-destruct alarm began sounding, Minnie found a closet where the pups’ and the cats’ uniforms had been thrown. She scooped them into a bag and joined the group at the door where Twilight’s probe was located. The door was coated in ice, so they had to pry it open after entering the unlock code. Inside the room, they saw all of the pups and cats shackled to the wall and covered in frost. Goofy spied a control panel on the wall and set the thermostat to heat up the room and thaw everyone out. Hot air began flowing into the room in a heartbeat and melting the ice everywhere. Once the shackles were defrosted, the pups and the cats began waking up.

“We’re saved!”, cheered Skye.

Millie started opening the shackles and getting everyone down as Minnie and Melody started pulling everyone’s uniforms out. As the pups and the cats were getting redressed, the alarm sounded and prompted everyone to get redressed faster. Once everyone was dressed, Minnie called out to them.

“COME ON! WE DON’T HAVE A SECOND TO LOSE!”, she shouted.

It took a while to get back to the hangar, but they soon made it and started boarding their ships. As they ran, a second voice sounded over the intercom system.

“The option to override detonation procedure has now expired! The space station will automatically destruct in T-Minus: 5 minutes.”, said the voice.

Arriving in the hangar, the pups and the cats ran to their ships and started getting ready to evacuate.

Humdinger was awakened by the second warning and by Harold kicking at him repeatedly.

“NO, NO, NO!”, he shouted.

After waking up completely, he pulled the tape off of Harold’s mouth.

“Uncle, it’s too late. We have to abandon the station, or else we will die.”, said Harold sadly.

Realizing his nephew was correct, Humdinger began powering up their ship and opened the hangar doors after depressurizing. Little did he know that Twilight had gone devious and removed his fuel crystal and smashed it.

**

Ryder was the last to board his ship. He closed his helmet and started the depressurization sequence to equalize the environment. After boarding his ship, he called out to everyone.

“Here we go everyone, we’re getting out of here.”, he said over headset.

The emergency hatch that had closed to keep the pressure earlier opened automatically when the sensors verified equal pressure. Once it was open, Ryder led everyone out.

**

Humdinger was about to start the engines when Harold noticed a warning symbol on the console.

“Uncle, the engines are not working. The fuel crystal is missing.”, he said.

Humdinger was annoyed and he reluctantly disembarked to find a fresh one. He grabbed one from a storage barrel and put it in place before getting back on board and finishing the power-up sequence. They left the station just in the nick of time, but they were not fast enough to escape the destruct radius. When the station exploded, a piece of shrapnel hit their ship and sent them into a spin as they entered the reentry corridor. During descent, they passed out from the g-force before crashing in the ocean.

**

After Ryder had led everyone to a safe landing area, they took off their space suits and started watching for Humdinger’s ship so they could confront him and his nephew. Millie spotted the ship through her binoculars and then stated bad news to everyone.

“I think they were hit. Their ship is spinning out of control and headed for the water.”, she said.

Twilight took to the air and quickly calculated where the ship would land so that Zuma and Ryder could tow them to shore. Once the ship touched down, Ryder and Zuma attached towlines, pulled the ship to the beach, and then opened the main hatch to extract everyone. They knew that the process after this would not be pretty.

After extracting Humdinger, his kittens, and Harold from their ship, Ryder instructed Chase to leave the kittens in the cage and put handcuffs on Harold and his uncle. Chase proceeded to do so and then Humdinger and Harold were woken up with smelling salts.

“You are both under arrest for kidnapping us, attempting to kill us, and for endangering the Star-lab space station.”, Chase said firmly with a growl.

The two were taken to a holding area to await trial the next morning. While they were in the cell, Harold explained what he had gone through to his uncle.

“They were too fast to take me down, Uncle. One second I am ready to shoot at them for intrusion, next second I am tied up, blindfolded, gagged, and strapped in my seat on our ship.”, he said bitterly.

“I can’t believe Ryder managed to hit me with a stun blast at point-blank range. Also, one of those allies must have sabotaged our ship by removing the fuel crystal in order to slow us down from escaping. We thought we had the element of surprise when we caught the Paw Patrol, but then those allies outsmarted us.”, Humdinger said angrily.

**

Before everyone laid down for the night, Mayor Goodway came to the Lookout to discuss the charges that should be pressed against Humdinger and Harold in court.

“I’m glad to see you’re all okay Ryder. When you didn’t return after repairing the new space station, I began to worry.”, she said.

“They were taken by surprise and captured by Humdinger, Your Honor.”, said Twilight.

“How is that possible? His parole officer would have reported it.”, asked Mayor Goodway.

“Before he froze me in suspended animation, he told me himself that he had killed his parole officer.”, explained Ryder.

“Why did he do that?”, asked Goodway.

“Apparently, he grew tired of being on parole and under such restrictions.”, said Mickey.

“Understood, but I am not sure what the proper way would be to issue consequences. If they’re put in jail, the kittens could possibly break them out.”, replied Goodway.

“I’m one step ahead, Your Honor. We have special equipment that can brainwash whatever it is used on. We will use that and brainwash the kittens. We have also confiscated Humdinger’s cat whistle so he can’t attract them anymore.”, replied Flurry Heart.

Mayor Goodway was impressed by Flurry’s description. After the meeting was finished, everyone laid down to rest up for the court meeting the next day.

Humdinger and Harold were taken to court the next morning to stand trial for what they had done when they captured Ryder and his group. When everyone took their seats, Mayor Goodway started by stating all of the charges that Humdinger was pressed with.

“Humdinger, you are found guilty of murdering your own parole officer. Both you and your nephew, Harold, are guilty of kidnapping Ryder and the Paw Patrol, and attempting to murder them. You are also guilty of endangering civilians on the Star-lab space station by shooting at them. Finally, you deceived the Paw Patrol in order to capture them.”, stated Goodway.

Both Humdinger and Harold were very worried. Goodway had just stated charges on everything they had done. Ryder, along with Twilight and Mickey spoke next to explain the verdict they had decided on.

“Sir, all three of us decided last evening that the harshest consequence is that you must be placed in jail for life. Also, your kittens will not be with you. Instead, they have had their memories with you erased. They will be adopted by new owners.”, said Twilight.

When Humdinger and Harold heard all of the results, they broke down in tears. Regardless, they followed Chase out to the enlarged version of his police cruiser and got in the back. Before closing the doors, Minnie got in and sat across from Humdinger and Harold, holding a plasma-rifle to warn them not to try anything that would impede the trip. The doors were closed and Chase drove to a maximum-security prison facility that was located many miles away from any civilization. This prison was also where all other enemies of the Paw Patrol were taken after they were caught, tried, and found guilty. Both Humdinger and Harold were led to their cells with an officer both in front of them and behind them at the same time. After being led to their cells, which were nowhere close to each other, both Harold and his uncle were locked up.

“We’ll take it from here, Ryder.”, said one of the prison officers.

Ryder, Chase, and Minnie gave the officer a salute before they returned to Adventure Bay. Upon returning, Mickey told them something surprising.

“Mayor Goodway is arranging a ceremony for all of us. Our fleet, you and the entire Paw Patrol, and Twilight’s fleet will be recognized tomorrow.”, he explained.

All three of them were excited about this and they began to get ready before getting some sleep.

The next day was spent getting ready for the recognition ceremony of all members of the alliance. Along with the citizens of Adventure Bay, citizens of Adventure City were present as well. At sunset, it was time for the ceremony to begin. All of the members of the PAW Patrol along with the allies were lined up in front of a large stage set up in the town square of Adventure Bay. Mayor Goodway hung a medal around each of their necks and then told them to turn and face the audience.

“Ladies and gentlemen, I present to you, the unbroken alliance of the Paw Patrol, Equestria, and Disney. Let’s hear it for them!”, hollered Mayor Goodway.

The audience erupted with clapping, cheering, and yelling: “ALLIES!”. During the applause, Mayor Goodway pressed a button to start a giant fireworks display that lit up the sky while all of the allies waved at everyone. The story was in all of the news headlines the next day. Multiple reporters interviewed the fleets about their histories and how the fleets met each other, whether it was through being rescued or helping with rescuing another fleet. All three fleets continued helping each other for years to come until the time came for some of the members to retire. Regardless of how much time passed, all three fleets remained as a legend for all three of the home-worlds and they established days to remember the fleets being formed.