> Equestria In Chaos Control
>  by chaoswisp1000
> --------------------------------------------------------------------------

> Chapter 1 - An Accidental Summoning 
> --------------------------------------------------------------------------

						

Written By Chaoswisp1000


*Edited by JumpingShinyFrogs*


The sun shone down on the planet Mobius. Puffy clouds dotted a light blue sky. No robot attacks had occurred recently; it was all so peaceful and tranquil. There was one being who was enjoying that rare moment, when you have no cares or worries, and you can just kick back and relax.  

"SONIC!" 

The loud yell shattered the peace of the quiet afternoon, and shook Sonic out of the tree he was taking a nap in.  

"Ouch, whoops, ack, ow!" the hedgehog said as he tumbled through the branches of the tree. 

Once clear of the branches he spread his arms and legs out, slowing his decent slightly. He swung his body backwards, latching on to the tree, sliding down its trunk, leaping off near the base and landing in a crouching position on the soft grass. He rubbed a sore spot on his head, wincing slightly from the pain.  

The source of the yell had apparently been Sonic's best friend Tails, who was flying towards him, his two tails twirling like helicopter blades, allowing him to hover.  

"Tails, what's wrong?" Sonic asked, noticing the panicked look on his friend's face. "Is Eggman up to no good again? Is anyone h-" 

"No, no, nothing like that. It's even worse!" Tails was sweating and he still had a frightened look on his face "It's the Chaos Emeralds! They've disappeared!" said Tails frantically. "Knuckles will explain everything, come on, we'll meet the others on Angel Island!" 

"So much for a relaxing day," thought Sonic, following Tails to his workshop. Once everyone was present at the Angel Island shrine, Knuckles started explaining what had happened. 

"Well, I was guarding the Master Emerald like every other ordinary day, when all of a sudden a vortex opened up," the red echidna explained. "It tore away some of the loose bricks and took the Emeralds before disappearing!"

"Knuckles!" Sonic called "You can find the Emeralds right? Just use the master emerald and-"

Knuckles shook his head "I tried already, Sonic, and it seems that the Emeralds aren't on Mobius anymore!"


*****


The Ponyville Library, a place of quiet and knowledge and home to Princess Celestia's student: Twilight Sparkle, who was, at the moment; panicking, the reason being an attempt to try and use a spell that would allow the transportation of objects across long distances. The spell had worked, and then had promptly gone wrong, and now a vortex of purple and black energy was blowing out a gale of wind into the library.

"SPIKE, GIVE ME THE BOOK THAT CONTAINS THE SHUTDOWN SPELL FOR THIS PORTAL!" Twilight yelled over the wind.  

"Uh-uh-umm, AH-HA, HERE IT IS!" the purple and green dragon exclaimed with triumph.  

The purple unicorn levitated the book over to herself, flipping through the pages so fast that they were just cream colored blurs. Eventually she came to the page she was looking for, horn aglow she started to cast the shutdown spell.

In a few seconds the wind died down, and the vortex disappeared. Twilight looked around the library, which looked like nothing had happened at all. The books and scrolls were still neatly stacked and books still lined the shelves.  

"Odd," thought Twilight. She was just about to put the book back in its place on the shelf, when out of the corner of her eye she spotted something in the corner of her library. A green emerald, flawless in every detail, its crystalline surface shining with a green aura. She could feel it radiating power, too much for her to risk handling on her own. 

"Spike, take a letter." 

The little dragon got out a quill and parchment as Twilight began to dictate the letter.

"Dear Princess Celestia,

In my recent attempt to use the new long distance teleportation spell, I have aquired a powerful artifact. It appears to be some sort of jewel, and it radiates power constantly. Please give a suggestion as to what to do with it. 

Your faithful student, Twilight Sparkle"

"Okay Twilight, should I send it now?" Spike asked. 

"Yes Spike, you may send it now."

The dragon drew in a deep breath and then exhaled. Upon exhaling green flames came out of his mouth, enveloping the scroll and turning it into a sparkling cloud which flew out the window on its way to the princess.    

> Chapter 2 - The Seven Among Freinds
> --------------------------------------------------------------------------


*Edited By JumpingShinyFrogs*


Written by Chaoswisp1000


Celestia did not hesitate when she got Twilight's letter. She, along with her sister Luna, set out for Ponyville, but not before sending a response to the purple unicorn librarian.  

"My faithful student, my sister and I received your letter. We advise you to not try and interact with this jewel's power. It has the potential to be dangerous. Assemble your friends at the library. Though I do not know what power the artifact you described contains, we still advise caution.

Your mentor, 
Princess Celestia."

Twilight did as she was instructed, rounding up her 5 friends and telling them to meet her at the library. She also avoided the emerald as much as she could, to the extent of covering it with a tarp. When the princesses did arrive they seemed to understand Twilight's worry, trying to calm her down, however upon entering the library both princesses suddenly shuddered, as if the warm spring day had been replaced by a cold winter's night.

"Princesses, are you alright?!" Twilight asked, the worry in her voice palpable.  

"We are fine, Twilight Sparkle," Luna replied, though they both stumbled for a second and continued to stagger slightly, but otherwise they seemed fine.  

The librarian led the 6 other ponies to the emerald and removed the tarp. Luna and Celestia both shared surprised looks while they were studying the emerald. 	

"Twilight, do you happen to know where the teleportation spell linked to?" Celestia asked, still examining the green emerald. 

Twilight shook her head "No, the spell went wrong almost immediately after I started casting it, I don't know where these are from, is it bad? Did I do something that puts Equestria i-"

"No, Twilight it is okay, it was a mistake" the sun princess answered, noting how Twilight was edging towards a full out panic.  

Rarity, who had up until this point been gazing at the green emerald in a stupor, suddenly was illuminated in a light blue light as her horn started to glow.

"Wh-what is-" She walked towards a bookcase covered by a large mountain of Twilight's notes, her horn directing her to it. Upon removal of the notes she found what had activated her 'Gemstone Finding' ability: a shining purple emerald which resembled the green one Twilight had found. Before she could examine it in further detail however her horn lit up again, this time dragging her to a pile of books containing a crimson emerald.  

This repeated four more times eventually Rarity had uncovered 7 emeralds consisting of the colors: blue, yellow, white, and cyan.  Each one radiated a similar power to the green one.

"Celestia, do you know what these are?" Twilight asked, praying that the sun princess's vast collection of knowledge from her experiences would yield an answer.  

The princess shook her head. "No, I do not know what these are or where they came from, but based off of what you've told me I think it best each one of you takes an emerald for safe keeping until further notice. We will take this one to Canterlot for further examination," Celestia stated, holding up the green emerald.

"Leaving six more, one for each of you."

The two princesses left shortly afterwards. The six friends took one emerald each for safe keeping, as instructed. Rainbow Dash took the purple emerald, Rarity, after about 5 minutes of indecisiveness, took the crimson emerald. Applejack decided on the yellow gem, Pinkie Pie; the cyan one. Fluttershy was given the blue emerald, and Twilight received the white one.



***


"Okay is everyone ready?" asked Tails. The group going to this other world consisted of Sonic, Tails, Knuckles, Rouge, Amy, Shadow, E-123 Omega, and Cream.  

"Ready as we'll ever be, buddy," replied Sonic.  

The plan was to use the remaining traces of the portal's energy to help guide them to this 'other world' using chaos energy from the master emerald. The immense amount of power from the combined two would, supposedly, create an effect much like that of using chaos control with the Chaos Emeralds, only much more powerful.  

"Alright then, Shadow lets get this show on the road!" the Blue Blur said to his rival and friend.  	

"This will be interesting" the black and red hedgehog thought, raising his hand and tapping into the immense amount of chaos energy in the master emerald. Shadow closed his eyes and energy crackled in the air surrounding the group. Crimson sparks flew out of the hedgehog as spoke the command words, 'Chaos Control!'.

The energy left from the portal and the chaos energy from the master emerald swirled around the group in faster and tighter circles, growing brighter by the second, until with a loud bang that resembled that of thunder the group disappeared in a bright flash of white.  

When they arrived, Shadow, remembering what he learned as a G.U.N agent, took a note of his surroundings. They seemed to be near some sort of city. Not spotting anything that presented a threat he turned to his allies, making sure they were okay.  

After confirming no one was hurt, Tails took out his handheld and started scanning. "Hmm, it looks like there's an emerald over there!" he said, after a while, pointing to one of the many towers that made up part of a palace. "The other six are somewhere else."  

"You think someone found them?" Sonic asked, a hint of worry in his voice. "I mean, they probably don't know what kind of power those emeralds contain!" he pointed out.  

Tails thought about it for a few seconds before saying, "You're probably right, and if they did it would explain why they're not all in the same place, which is what I thought would be the situation from how Knuckles described what happened."

Rouge turned to face the two-tailed fox. "Should we split up then? It would be quicker after all," she stated,  

"Hmm." Tails pondered over the thought. Eventually he said, "Lets go in groups of two. Sonic you're with Shadow, Amy you're with Cream. Knuckles, you go with Rouge, and I'll go with Omega."

Shadow and Sonic looked at each other, nodding and making a silent agreement on where they would go.  

"Shadow and I will search the palace, it's probably the most heavily guarded, and we can outrun the guards if we encounter any." Sonic proposed his plan with his usual cocky grin.  

"Okay then, according to my handheld, the other emeralds are in a village nearby. They should be easy enough to find," Tails replied, looking at his handheld's screen and adjusting the scan proximity.  

"If everyone is ready, then let's get moving," Shadow said, a rare grin forming on his face. 		

"Right!" the others exclaimed with glee, running, gliding and flying off to the supposed locations of their targets.    

> Chapter 3 - The Blur And The Shadow
> --------------------------------------------------------------------------

	Sonic And Shadow raced towards the palace watching for any ambushes or surprises.  They were just at the bridge that crossed over the moat when they were caught in a bright light.  Shielding his eyes Shadow could just make out the forms of armored figures, 

"Are those, horses?!" Shadow asked mentally.  He cleared his mind of that question, for the moment , and crouched into a running position, taking off towards the wall of the palace, his jet skates igniting casting a bit of light allowing for him to see, however the light also allowed a guard to spot him. 

The guard quickly issued the order to "Hold that thing off!".  Two creatures, that Shadow recognized as "pegasi" ,launched into the air, lances strapped to their sides.  

"halt, desist or you wil-", that was all the guard managed to say before Shadow struck him with his homing attack. 

He cracked a smile saying "this is where it gets interesting" before striking another guard down.  

Sonic had taken the more direct route running across the bridge, leaping over and avoiding spears as he ran.  A large platoon of guards raced from around a corner and charged at him head on.  Sonic knew if he didn't act he would become hedgehog on a stick, luckily he had one special trick up his sleeve, when he was a few yards away from the guards he activated his boost ability, he accelerated instantly the transparent blue cone forming around him, he charged into the guards' ranks scattering weapons and armor knocking away a few of the guards as well.  

The two hedgehogs met up running side by side, leaving the guards in the dust racing into the palace, eventually they came to a large room, red carpet, stone pillars, and stained glass windows, which depicted scenes Shadow and Sonic could not understand, were all included in the decor.  But what caught the attention of the hedgehogs was the green chaos emerald on a pedestal next to an empty throne.  

"Well we found it, now lets get going" Sonic said as Shadow grabbed the emerald.  

"Thou shalt not be going anywhere with that!" a female voice called out, sonic and shadow turned to see two creatures, the bigger one bright white in color, the smaller one midnight blue.  They both resembled a pegasus crossed with a unicorn, and both radiated power.  


***


Princess Luna and princess Celestia both received word of the intruders from guards positioned outside their bedrooms who.  They had both rushed to the throne room where the emerald that Twilight had summoned was being kept, and seen two creatures, bipeds that had odd looking covers on the ends of their arms which resembled claws, as well as two other casings on the ends of their legs.  

"Thou shalt not be going anywhere with that!" Luna called out.  

The creatures turned surprise in their eyes, and in the moonlight Celestia could make out that one was blue with tan arms, the other was black with red stripes on the spikes coming out of the back of his head.  

"There is no way we are going to let you take the chaos emerald!" the blue one said, crouching slightly.  

"Very well, we will take it from you then" Celestia said spreading her wings out in a menacing manner.  

Luna charged at the black and red creature firing a bolt of arcane energy, the creature raised his hand up and swung it downwards yelling "chaos spear!" instantly a bolt of red energy launched out of his hand colliding with Luna's bolt , the two energies exploding on contact with each other.  

Celestia took on the blue creature, trying to hit it with a blast of energy from her horn.  this however was proving to be difficult seeing as this creature could move inexplicably fast.  

"Your too slow!" it yelled, dodging another blast, a wide grin on its face.  Celestia focused pinpointing where the creature would take its next step, and fired.

The blast caught the creature off guard tripping him, he landed with a thud on his side, holding his arm as if it had been injured. 

Celestia smiled at her success, walking over to the fallen form of the creature "You will not be taking that emerald anywhere, not anytime soon" she said, keeping a grin on her face.

"Haven't you ever been trained in combat before?" it asked, wearing a smug grin of its own, he spoke with that cocky voice from before, "cause the first rule is: never turn your back on your foe".

"wha-I-" Celestia was cut off by a solid object impacting the back of her neck, she fought to stay conscious but failed, watching as the creature whirled around to face her sister Luna, before she blacked out.

Luna was enraged "thou hast hurt our sister , thou shalt not be left unpunished!" she said flaring her wings, and lowering her body, as the two creatures also readied for the inevitable fight.       


***


Shadow and Sonic glanced at each other agreeing silently as to what they would do.  

Shadow charged at the figure as she charged at them.  Sonic turned around racing away down the corridor of the palace, chaos emerald in his hand.  

The pegasus-unicorn hybrid attempted to give chase, but Shadow quickly prevented that from happening, he shot off a volley of chaos spears, trying to force the dark creature back. 

"thou shall have to try harder, if thou wants to best me" she taunted nimbly leaping out of the way, her wings boosting her jump.

Shadow growled, he closed his eyes as the energy of chaos flowed into his body.  He clutched his hand into a fist and concentrated hard.  

"chaos-control!" he shouted, time slowed around him as he continued his run towards the winged unicorn. Leaping up into the air behind her and swinging his foot around in a roundhouse kick.  the kick connected with the back of her head, missing its mark by only meters, leaving the "princess", judging by the now-visible tiara resting against her horn,  still standing.  

"What magic is this?!" she growled, launching at Shadow while shooting off a beam of energy.  

Once again Shadow activated chaos control, time slowing around him once more, allowing him to easily avoid the attack.

This time though the princess reacted quicker, shooting off another beam striking Shadow plowing him into a wall, he collapsed to the floor, fur smoking, eyes closed.  

He heard the princess chuckle

"Did thou really believe that thou could best I?" she taunted, laughing at him.

Shadow growled, the princess jumped back in surprise, he felt enormous amounts of chaos energy flow into him, and his inhibitor rings unclasp and fall from his wrists clanging to the floor

"Did i forget to mention, i am the ultimate life-form?" he asked his voice now an angry growl, his vision slowly being obscured by a red haze.  


***


Luna took a few steps back from the creature, she could feel the immense amounts of power contained within him.  his body began to glow orange-red and his eyes were blank, as if somepony had taken an eraser and erased any features of his eyes and left only the whites, he hovered a few inches off the ground but he did not posses wings.

"nay, this cannot be happening!" Luna thought, taking several more steps back.  The power this creature possessed, it was impossible for such a thing to contain this amount of power, the only other being who she knew that held this much power was: her sister, Celestia.  

"Behold the ultimate power!" the creature said, disappearing in a flash of blue-green light, and re-appearing directly in front of her.  

She fired off some bolts of energy, but they were deflected by the creature.  "Impossible!" she thought. she felt cold stone bricks press up against her back, she was cornered.  She charged up one more blast, but the creature appeared directly in front of her, throwing off her concentration, he glowed brighter and leaped at her 

"Chaos, Blast!' he shouted, a red bubble of energy expanding outwards from him.  

Luna quickly put up a shield around herself, it took the brunt of the blast but crumbled after a few moments, leaving her knocked out on the floor of the throne room.  


***


From roughly a few miles away a figure, wearing white armor with blue designs on the hoofs, watched the bright flash of red from Canterlot Palace's throne room, and saw one of the stained glass windows shatter.  She heard the shouts of guards and the shouting of commands.

"Shadow, your still such a trouble-maker", She chuckled quietly, turning away and readying her teleportation spell, disappearing in a bright flash of red.      

> Chapter 4 - The Farm Pony, The Knucklehead, and The Bat
> --------------------------------------------------------------------------

	"Why Tails?,  why did you pair me with her!?" Knuckles thought to himself.  Once the group had gotten to the village they had each set off for a different emerald.  Knuckles had been stuck with Rouge and apparently their emerald was at a farm of sorts.  It was in a field covered by apple trees, according to Knuckles's ability to sense chaos energy emitted by the emeralds.  What had happened, most likely, was whoever worked there had dropped the emerald while going about their chores.    

"Knuckie, you sure that emerald is here?" asked Rouge the bat, refering to Knuckles using the nickname she had thought of a while back.  

"I can sense the energy coming from it Rouge, I am sure its somewhere around here." the red echidna replied, walking off in the general direction of the energy source.

Rouge shrugged and took to the air, flying low and slow to avoid anything seeing her. 

"Weather i like it or not i guess ill have to trust him, i don't have his ability to sense the emeralds after all" Rouge thought.  She turned her attention to the task at hand listening closely for any sign of someone, or something approaching.  

"There!" Knuckles exclaimed quietly, seeing the yellow glow of the chaos emerald.  He started to run towards the emerald, but before he could get there Rouge grabbed him and pulled him behind a tree.  

"What are y-"

"Shut up" Rouge whispered in response.  

The bat and echidna peeked from behind their hiding place, at first they saw nothing but the emerald's yellow glow piercing the darkness of night. Then they saw it: an equine figure, orange in color, wearing a brown stetson and two small bags strapped across its back.  A symbol of 3 bright red apples depicted on its flank, it's tail and mane were blonde with red hairbands at the ends.  

"Here it is, ah wonder how it is that ah dropped it an' didn't notice the light" She said, speaking with a deep southern accent.  

"I don't care if she is the one who brought the emeralds here or not, no one takes the emeralds and goes unpunished!" Knuckles thought, angry at the thought that of all things a horse now had an artifact he was supposed to be guarding.  So he did the only thing he could think of and charged at the horse.   


***


"GIVE ME THAT EMERALD!" was all Applejack heard before spinning around to face a red spiky creature, barreling towards her.  It stood on two legs like a dragon, and had white cases over its "claws", spikes coming out of the top of the case.  

It raised an arm lashing out with a spiked "claw", Applejack barely managed to dodge the attack, the spike grazing her neck.  

"Hey, it ain't polite to hit a girl!" She said lashing out with a strong buck, normally only used when she was working.  Her legs struck home, really hard, hitting the creature in the midsection, propelling him into a nearby tree.  "Ya'll learn yer' lesson?" she called, smiling at how easily she had taken down the creature.  

To her surprise he stood up, and brushed himself off, not a scratch on him.  

"How the hay?!" the farm pony thought her mouth agape, if she had hit another pony with that buck they probably would at least be knocked out from the impact.  

"Not bad, but that emerald is mine!" its stated, its claws clenching into fists and holding them with the spikes pointing towards Applejack.  

"Sorry partner, but this here emerald is stayin' with me, ah' done made a promise to mah friend Twilight, and ah' am gonna keep that promise!" she stated readying herself for the fight.  The creature charged again, but this time when Applejack dodged he was quicker with his reactions, spinning 180 degrees to face her and striking her in the back with his claw.  Pain shot through Applejack's body as she stumbled around for a few seconds taking another blow, this time to he head.  "Horsefeathers, how'd he become so darn fast!" she thought to herself, breathing heavily. 

He charged at her once more, when he was only a few inches away she lashed out another kick, connecting once again with the creature.  He didnt go flying into a tree this time, he had blocked the orange earth pony's strong buck with his own fists.  

But he had gotten the wind knocked out of him, and while he was catching his breath Applejack unleashed her strongest kick yet.

*WHAM*

The creature was sent hurtling through 2 trees before being stopped by the 3rd accompanied by a solid 'WHACK'.  

She turned and started off towards her home at a slow casual pace, grinning from the pride of protecting the emerald as she had promised to Twilight.

"I reckon that settles that lit-" Applejack was cut short by a fiery meteor slamming into the ground right next to her, she whirled around to face the creature, who's fists were now on fire.  He swung his fist once more, a fireball formed from his hand arced out towards her.  She leaped out of the way, but was blown off balance when a second fireball exploded right underneath her.  The force of the shockwave sent her tumbling to the ground, landing on her side.  She quickly got up and readied herself for another attack.  But she felt different now, or her saddlebags did at least, they didn't feel, quite so...heavy anymore.

Suddenly Applejack realized that she no longer felt weight of the emerald in her saddlebags.  She checked her saddlebags, one of them was torn open.  Hoping she had just dropped it she looked around, but she did not spot its glow anywhere in the orchard or in her immediate area.  

"Oh, horsefeathers!" Applejack mentally said, the glow was gone, and with a sudden shower of dirt and a quick paced digging noise, she realized the creature was gone as well.  

"Ah'll tell Twi' in the mornin'." she promised herself, slowly trotting away, wondering how Twilight would react to her loosing the emerald and breaking her promise.  


***


"That was easy" the G.U.N spy, Rouge the Bat, stated gazing into the emerald, admiring its beauty.  

"You didn't even help!" Knuckles said, leaping out of the tunnel he had just dug to get to the meeting place.  

"I DID get the emerald when that horse dropped it, that counts as helping, right?" she countered, grinning at her partner.  

"I guess it does" grumbled a slightly annoyed Knuckles, as the two treasure hunters hurried off towards the town.  


***


If Knuckles, Rouge, or Applejack had bothered to look closely at the shadows of the trees, they would have noticed the white armored pony, with lime-green dragon-shaped eyes watching them battle.

"So these ponies aren't as unfamiliar with combat as i thought, especially if one can match that knucklehead in strength" she thought to herself, smiling as she turned away.  The body armor panels on her back opened up as two metallic mechanical bladed wings unfolded, she did an experimental flap, then she silently flew off into the night.

"I may not know much of this land known as 'Equestria' but i do know the elements and the 7 chaos must be united, against the true enemies" she said to herself quietly, determined to complete her mission.  The armor on the back of her wings opened two small panels, the inside of the now exposed tubes glowing a slight red before tiny but powerful jets activated, silently, but quickly, propelling her to her destination.     
> Chapter 5 - The Alicorn Knight of Chaos
> --------------------------------------------------------------------------

	
Luna's moon had just risen when Twilight first noticed something: she was tired.  

"Ok Spike, I think that is enough research for one day"  Twilight said, she and her dragon assistant had been working all day to try and find out what this gem was and where it came from.  But so far they had nothing to show for a whole day of research.

"Finally, bed!" Spike said, hurrying off to his basket.  

Twilight, yawned heading to her bed for the night, not even bothering to re-shelve the books, sh just wanted to close her eyes, fall asleep, wake up in the morning, and research more.  She remembered something, and raced back downstairs.  She double checked that the gem was locked up tight first, going as far as re-locking the 10 or 20 locks on it.  

"I still have a bad feeling about that gem, what if it is being used to slowly leak something into Equestria." she thought.   

Twilight took one last glance at the gem, and sighed going to her bed, for real this time, "it'll be fine, nopony could possibly undo all those locks" she said to herself, getting into her bed and pulling the covers over herself.  "Yes, everything will be fine" she said, before drifting off into a deep sleep.  


***
	     

Tails and Omega approached the tree house, a sign in front read "Ponyville Library".  

"'ponyville library, ponies can read? Tails mentally inquired, he knew he was in a different world, but he still thought it was weird.  

"The door is locked, should i use brute force?" E-123 inquired, his robotic brain choosing the quickest most destructive route to his objective, as always.  

"No, no!" Tails said, shaking his head frantically.  He looked at the library, spotting an open window, it was just big enough for him to fit through, "Omega you stay hidden out here if i need help ill send up a flare, okay?".

"understood" Omega unhappily replied.  

Tails's tails spun and he took off towards the window, once he got there he squeezed through the frame.  His eyes locking onto his target, the glowing white chaos emerald.  he was about to jump from the windowsill to the floor when a snoring sound occurred directly in front of him.  Tails looked down to see a horse-like figure fast asleep on a bed, constellations were stitched into the blanket, under which a purple unicorn, as far as Tails could tell, was sleeping soundly.

"Oh great, this could be hard." he thought, slowly edging his way along a small ledge on the wall.  

Once he was clear of the bed he jumped down to the floor.  He landed without a sound, slowly but surely he made his way to the white emerald, he frowned at the locks on the case, not because there were so many but because they were so simple to unlock.  

"i would think that they would do a better job than this" he said, then it happened, he picked the last lock slowly taking it off of the case to quietly set it on the floor when all of a sudden, it slipped from his hands.  

'BANG'

the lock must have been charged with some kind of energy, because as soon as it hit the floor it exploded.  Tails was propelled back into a wall, he heard footsteps getting louder.

"Nice try whoever you a-" the figure, who turned out to be the unicorn Tails had avoided landing on earlier, stated stopping in mid sentence, her eyes wide and mouth agape, staring at Tails.  

"wh-who, what ar-" was what she managed to say before Tails made a dive for the emerald.  He was only a few meters away when he was suddenly pulled back, he turned around to see the unicorn, her horn aglow, glaring at him.  

"Okay, I wasn't planing to use this, but i have no choice now." he thought reaching into his backpack he brought out his arm cannon, charging it's laser and aiming it towards the unicorn, who was also charging a shot.  

'CRASH'

The fox and the unicorn turned to see a large chunk of a wall missing, debris scattered on the floor.  The source of the abrupt intrusion was another pony, this one looking more like a normal horse from their world nor horn or wings, as Shadow had reported pegasi in this world.  It's lime green eyes glowed in the dark regarding the two with little concern.  but what stood out about this pony was its armor.  White, with blue designs on the hooves and one of the armored, "manes?" Tails inquired mentally, not knowing much about a horse's anatomy.  



***


Twilight was frozen in shock, first a weird two-tailed creature sets off the lock trap, and then a armored earth pony bursts through the wall.  

She was so distracted, as was the two-tailed creature, that they almost missed the fact that the earth pony had grabbed the emerald and had ran towards the hole in the wall.  Twilight, now recovered from her shock, whirled around and shot off the already charged up energy beam from her horn, the creature swiveled its right arm towards the armored earth pony, the object on the end of his arm glowing yellow before blasting a powerful beam of energy towards the earth pony.  

Despite the armor this pony was incredibly quick.  It dodged Twilights beam, then ducked under the creatures one, leaping out the hole in the wall.  The armor on its back retracting as two metallic looking wings unfolded and flapped propelling the now apparent pegasi forward.  

Twilight turned to look at the creature as he looked at her, he wore a worried and shocked expression.  

"Truce, just until we get the chaos emerald back?" he asked.  

"Su- WAIT, the "WHAT" emerald!?" Twilight yelled, rivaling Luna's "royal Canterlot voice".  She could  not believe that she had been so close to a source of chaos and had not known.  

"Yeah, there are 7 of them, they are also known as 'the gems of miracles' collect all seven and a miracle is supposed to occur"

"Bu - I - wha -" Twilight stammered, she then shook her head and looked back to the armored pegasus. 

She sighed "Tell me about it later, we have to go catch that pegasus!", she said racing to the door.  When she opened it however, she was greeted by the sight of a large metallic figure, taller than herself and the creature.  

"Life-form: equine. Gender: female. Name: unknown" it said. 

Twilight was planning to run, when the orange creature came out of the door behind her.  

"Omega, don't shoot!" he called, pointing to the pegasus, who was now hovering in the air a few yards away as if it wanted them to catch it.  

"Target that flying one in white armor!" he said.  "Omega" swiveled his upper body 180 degrees around to face the pegasus.  

"target locked on to!" he confirmed.  

The two-tailed creature spoke up "By the way, my name is Tails", he said smiling.  

"It's nice to meet you Tails, my name is Twilight Sparkle" she replied, as they both set off after the pegasus.  


***


Tails, using his tails to increase his speed, ran/hovered alongside Twilight and E-123.  Their flying thief, whoever they were, was fast, very very fast.  They chased the pegasus through the streets of ponyville, eventually making it to a road that lead to Sweet Apple Acres.  

"Hopefully my friend Applejack can help us with this pegasus problem" Twilight said.  Tails hoped that was the case as well.  

"Wait, the emerald was detected on a farm, Knuckles was sent there.  Sweet Apple Acres, so that means-" Tails's eyes widened as he realized what might have happened,  

"Twilight, a friend of mine, he might have hurt your friend if she had the emerald with her!" Tails called, knowing how much of a knucklehead his friend was.  

"What, wh-" before Twilight could finish the armored pegasus suddenly yelped.  

Tails turned towards the noise, and saw a orange pony, no horn or wings present on her body, a depiction of 3 red apples on her flank.  From the look of it she had used her hind legs to kick the pegasus in the side causing the flying pony to crash to the ground.  She turned towards Twilight smiling, until she saw the two-tailed orange fox.  

"Twilight, get away from that thing!" Applejack, judging by the apples on her flank, yelled charging towards Tails.  

Instead of moving away, Twilight moved in front of Tails, blocking Applejacks path.  

"He is not here to hurt me or you, or anypony Applejack, he is looking for the chaos emeralds, do you still have the yellow one?" Twilight explained

Applejack shook her head, "A red creature, that looks a lot like yer orange friend here, came an' took the emerald from me, but if that red creature is friends with, um-" 

"Tails" Tails said, introducing himself to the orange pony.  

"Then i think we can get back.  But first lets take care of this pegasus", Applejack said turning toward the armored flyer, who, to her surprise, was fully recovered from her hard kick, standing fully upright.  

"How did it-" Tails began, only to be cut off by the pegasus.

"I heal quickly, and the armor helps" she stated "The emeralds and elements must be united, if they arn-"

"What have you done to my friends?" Tails asked angrily, his arm cannon rising.  

The armored pegasus blinked, "I'm sorry, what was that?" she asked.  

"My friends: Sonic, Shadow, Knuckles, and Rouge.  When they contacted me they all were cut off by a creature.  And you match the description, perfectly!"  he growled, his arm cannon glowing.  

"Oh they are fine dear, i just need the emeralds, and that's all I took from them, now ill take this and-" she was cut off by a large boulder being tossed straight at her.  

Tails turned to see Twilight's horn glowing, surrounded by a light magenta aura.  Her face a expression of smug cleverness.  

The expression only lasted for a few seconds however, as the boulder was once again surrounded by a shining aura, only this time the aura was a dark crimson.  

CRACK

The aura glowed brighter as the boulder started to crumble, until it finally shattered into pebbles, bouncing off of the armor of neither a pegasus or a unicorn, but an alicorn, dual bladed wings shining in the moonlight, and a bladed horn glowing crimson in the darkness.   

"TAILS!" a familiar shout tore through the silence of the night.  Tails turned around to see Knuckles charging, towards Applejack.  Tails shook his head and pointed at the "alicorn".  His freind nodded and changed his course, he swung a hard right at the alicorn.  It blocked with one of its wings, sparks flying as Knuckles's fist smashed into the metal blade. 

The armored equine gave a hard shove with its wing, then spun around, its other wing rotating like a saw blade forcing Knuckles back towards the group, its other wing, dented and sparking, slowly started to repair itself, pieces of metal and hydraulic parts re-attaching themselves to the wing.  The alicorn proceeded to use both wings as saws, blocking attacks and thrusting out the spinning blades of death towards anything that came too close to her.  

"How the hay is that thing doing that!?" Applejack yelled over the wind generated by the blade-wings.  

"A machine, it cant be a machine, can it!?" Tails frantically searched his mind for a probable answer to this situation, as the question ran rings around his mind.  

"What is this thing!?" Twilight asked, raising her voice to be heard over the gale, she fired off another bolt of energy but it was quickly shattered by the spinning blades.  

Tails would have responded, but suddenly he was grabbed by an unseen force and hurled into a swirling vortex of red and black energy.  

"Never thought it would end this way, being beaten by a pony" he thought as his vision faded and then failed altogether.  


***


Twilight, Knuckles, And Applejack watched in horror as the incredibly brilliant two-tailed fox was absorbed by the vortex, and disappeared.  

"Tails!" Knuckles cried out, his thoughts consumed by the rage and sorrow for his friend's loss.  

"I-I'll-I'LL KILL YOU!" he screamed at the alicorn, he charged at the pony, his body glowing a bright red, firery aura surrounding him.

The alicorn's back armor, once again, slid open, wings extending instantly, her eyes glowing like the headlights of a vehicle.  

"Until next time, Knuckles.  I'll take good care of Tails" she responded, a high pitched whine starting up before blue flames shot out of the hoof armor, lifting the alicorn into the air.  The hoofs folded up and back flames shooting out behind the alicorn, who shot away disappearing with a scarlet flash into the equestrian night sky.


***


"NO!" Knuckles's anger was clearly visible, he was on the ground sobbing at the loss of his friend.  

"Um, Knuckles, right? We will get your friend back, promise" Twilight said, trying to comfort the red echidna.   

"Yeah, you can bet that emerald we'll save him!" Applejack chimed in, a determined look on her face.  

"O-okay, but we will have to find our friends and the other emeralds fir - oh - no" his voice trailed off as he heard a sonic boom followed by a cannon shot, then a shattering of glass.  

"What the hay-" Applejack started to say.  

"It seems that our friends are now, to put it mildly, fighting" the red echidna stated, a worried look spreading on his face as well as the faces of the unicorn and the earth pony.  Instead of inquiring further the trio raced towards the town.    

"Wait" Knuckles abruptly stated looking around

"Where is E-123 Omega!?" All three looking about for the bulky red robot, that had somehow disappeared without a trace.
> Chapter 6 - Party With A Rose
> --------------------------------------------------------------------------

	The element of laughter swiveled her trademark blue and yellow party cannon around, watching for any sign of anypony who wanted to take the emerald twilight had told her to keep safe.  

"I know you're out there thief, just try and take this jewel!" she said aloud, though thus far there hadn't even been a single disturbance or break-in attempt.  But Pinkie Pie, as paranoid as she ever was, kept watch anyway waiting for something to happen. 

It was quarter to midnight when Pinkie actually started to have problems staying awake, her eyes refused to stay open, and she was starting to give in to her need for a rest.  

"I guess a few minuets of sleep woul - zzzZZZzzzZZZzzz." the pink party pony fell asleep almost instantly, unaware of the pink hedgehog peeking in through the shop's window.


***


"Great, first Cream and Cheese wander off somewhere, and now i have to get by a horse with a cannon" Amy mentally complained, she could see the light coming from the emerald and knew she had to get it somehow.  But she also knew that the horse guarding it was armed.

"Well here I go" she said quietly, moving towards the door.  She carefully opened the door, only enough so she could get in, without allowing the door to hit the bell above.  Once she was certain that no one had heard her she moved slowly and quietly towards the emerald, and the sleeping equine in front of it.  Then, with only about a foot between Amy and the emerald, she stepped on a toy, which let out a loud skweak.  

Instantly the pink horse was on its hooves, cannon lowered at Amy, who in response pulled out her over sized hammer from nowhere.  

"Put the hammer down, thief!" the horse said, much to Amy's surprise.  However she quickly got over her shock and stood her ground holding her hammer in a two handed grip, readying it for combat.  

"The emerald doesn't even belong to you, just give it to me and neither of us will have to get hurt!" she tried to reason, hoping that this would be a quick and easy task.  

"No, never in a million years, I promised I would keep this emerald safe, stay away from it!" the equine said before firing her cannon.  

Amy ducked the shot and side swiped with her hammer.  The horse jumped the swing leaving Amy off-balance, before she could recover she was hit in the back by something really, really hard.  Turning around she saw the equine her cannon smoking.  

"Your going to pay for that!" the pink hedgehog said, swinging her hammer left, then right, then faking a right and bringing it straight up, connecting with the equine's jaw.  


***


Pinkie Pie felt really, really hurt.  Not just from the hammer, but from not being able to keep her promise to Twilight.  The creature walked over to the emerald and was about to take it from its glass case, when suddenly the sound of shattering glass broke the silence of the room.  

Pinkie turned as the creature did to see another being, this one was taller and instead of spikes hanging off the side of its head they jutted out from the back of its head, giving it a wind swept look.  It had weird orange and silver casings on its feet, and claw like endings on its arms, rings made of a shiny gold material attached to the casings.  Its body was tiny, and it eyes were a were like burning flames.

"Who ar-" before pinkie could finish her question she was rammed in the gut by a spinning ball of silver and orange.  She flew backwards into the pink creature both collapsing to the floor.  

"Ill take that emerald, thank you for dealing with her for me" the creature said, before racing out the broken window.  

"STOP!" 

Pinkie and the pink creature she had fallen on said simultaneously, both trying to get up and falling back down in the process.  


***
 

The hedgehog picked up her pace as she ran through the streets of the village.  Stopping occasionally to let her two pink pursuers catch up before dashing off in another direction.		

"This is too easy" she thought, racing around a mare who had stepped out to see what all the noise was about.  

Eventually though she ran into a dead end, she whirled around to see the pink are known as Pinkie Pie readying a cannon.  The pony fired the cannon, the force sending her skidding back a few feet.  The hedgehog smiled, kicking away the cannonball of party streamers and confetti.

The mare was about to fire again when suddenly a over-sized red and gold hammer smashed into the pony sending her flying into the wall of a house.  

"Your *pant* not taking that emerald!" a pink hedgehog said, the frustration in her voice was uncomfortably palpable.  


***


Amy charged at the mysterious hedgehog a fresh new hammer appearing at her command.  Her charge was interrupted however by a party material cannonball, shot directly at her legs by the equine, who was now up again and loading another shot.  

The horse fired the cannon, but this time Amy was ready, she swung her hammer like a baseball bat, striking the cannonball in just the right spot, causing it to shatter into tiny pieces of confetti.  

"I'm taking that emerald, I made a promise to keep it safe.  Let it go meanie-pants." the horse called out.  Firing off another shot.  

Amy, instead of striking the cannonball dodged left, allowing the projectile to shoot straight towards the mystery hedgehog.  

The hedgehog raised its hand, the emerald glowing brightly in the darkness of the night, it's cyan glow enveloping the pony and Amy herself, the cannonball instantly vaporized by the massive amounts of energy.  

"What is--" Amy started, shielding her eyes from the glow which was now a blinding white.

"Going on--oh shiny" the equine finished.  


***


The glow started to dim as the hedgehog finished the trap technique.  

"That wasn't so hard" she thought, clutching the emerald tightly as a crowd of ponies started towards her.  

"What have you done to Pinkie Pie" asked a stallion with a orange coat and mane, a symbol of 3 square cuts of cake depicted on his flank.  From what the hedgehog collected from his tone of voice and his expression: he was mad.  

"Tell me!" he demanded, this only evoked a smile from the hedgehog, who then began to chuckle softly.

"wuh-" before the stallion could finish a rumble shook the earth, as, not one but two sonic booms occurred simultaneously.  One was filled with the colors of the rainbow, the other was a blue disk of shimmering energy.

"i need to act FAST" the hedgehog quickly spoke the two activation words for her ability.

"chaos control!" she said, everything around her slowing to a standstill, as she raced away towards the two sonic speeders.  


***


Inside all the emeralds something stirred, something dark and angry, powerful, ancient.  It didn't have a name, more or less it had a title, it had been subdued for eons, and only recently had been freed.  But it was quickly imprisoned once again, being confined to its cell, or chamber.  It didn't know where it was, but it did feel something.  Something powerful, and the something was also imprisoned.  Encased in stone for over 1000 years, seeking to break out and reclaim what it thought was rightfully its'.  

Both wanted the same thing, both thrived on the same energy, and both were hungry for freedom.  
> Chapter 7 - The Blue Spectrum
> --------------------------------------------------------------------------

	Sonic raced towards one of the weirdest things he had ever seen: a castle made completely out of clouds.  

Now over the course of his life he had seen a TON of strange things, a sword that could talk, a robot that could think for itself and evolve, a genie in a magical book, aliens being used to power an amusement part in space, and another him that was him from an earlier time in his own life.  

"man just thinking about it hurts my head" he thought, his destination only a few yards away, if it were on the ground that is.  

"Now, how am i going to get that emerald?" he wondered, seeing its purple glow shining out of a open cloud window.  He looked around for something that might help him get up to, and walk on, a cloud.  

Then it hit him, literally, with a sharp 'clank' the emerald hit him squarely on the head.  He rubbed the sore spot and winced from the pain, picking up the emerald and starting off to where he was supposed to meet with the others.  

"Hey you, where do you think you're taking that?" a feminine voice said, causing the hedgehog to jump out of shock.    Sonic whirled around to see a blue pegasus shooting towards him.  He jumped out of the way, allowing the blur to shoot right past him.  

"Heh-heh, gotta be quicker!" he said, before running off towards the forest.  

"Get back here!" the equine shouted.  

Turning his head, Sonic was actually surprised to see that the pegasus was keeping up with him.  

As they raced into the forest, Sonic put his plan into action.  Diving off the path he led the pegasus in between the trees, looping around branches and buzz-sawing through vines, the trees becoming closer together and more abundant as he dove deeper into the forest.  

His initial thought was correct, the pegasus couldn't find much space to maneuver in the trees forcing her to slow down, and the canopy was too thick in this region of the forest for her to risk loosing him and the emerald from sight.  

His luck ran out a few minuets later however, as the trees gave way to an open area with mountains and flat lands, and between him and them there was a huge canyon with fog obscuring the bottom.  

"Oh well, here we go!" He said, racing over the edge of the canyon wall, and running down the cliff face, his feet going from individually visible, to one big blur.  

"Yeah, Woooooo-hooo!" he shouted as he raced back up the other side of the canyon. 


***


Rainbow Dash was shocked, the creature she had been chasing had outpaced her, then it had run down the side of Ghastly Gorge and right back up the other side.  

"He wasn't even flying!" her mind couldn't make sense of it, nothing could go that fast without wings, nothing.  

She snapped out of her shock and gave chase, racing up instead of forwards.  

"I know what can catch him" she thought reaching the top of her arc and starting the decent, building up speed, the air around her getting colder, mach cone forming around her. 

'BOOM'

The sonic rainboom exploded into view, its colors intensified by the dark night.  Rainbow Dash becoming a rainbow streak across the plains, speeding toward the creature, who was strangely grinning at her.

"My, that's a pretty snazzy performance there" he said, and it was now that rainbow dash realized something: he was running at the same speed as her, backwards.  

"But if that's all you really got, then catch me if you can!" he said, spinning around back to his original running style.  

Rainbow watched as the creature's feet became a blur once more, only this time the blur of red took on a shape: a figure-8.  Instantly the blue creature shot forward, a blue cone forming around him as he raced towards the mountains, Rainbow Dash followed in hot pursuit.

Soon the two were in the freezing cold nearing the top of the mountain, a cold blizzard awaiting them.  Both were struggling through snow and ice, dash noticed the ice being more of a problem for the creature, he couldn't seem to find any grip on the ground and kept slipping.  

However rainbow wasn't without problems either, her wings were starting to ice-over, and the wind was making it hard to move at all.  

Then it happened, dash made a dive at the blue creature, wings folded in.  She collided head-on with it, causing them both to slip and slide down the mountain, the ice-covered slopes providing little to no grip.  

Eventually they hit a flat ledge, where the creature managed to stop sliding and survey the area.  Rainbow Dash wasn't
so lucky, because of her ice-coated wings weighing so much she couldn't stop or use her wings to try and stop herself and went sailing over the edge of the cliff.  

"I'm sorry Twilight, I failed." she could only watch as the sharp rocky cones below rushed up to greet her and listen to the wind whistling past her ears.  She closed her eyes and braced for impact.  

"Here. We. Go!" a voice yelled over the wind, rainbow opened her eyes to see the blue creature materialize right in front of her.  His arms slipping under her, supporting her, and carrying her to the other side of the valley.  

"Thankyouthankyouthankyouthankyouthankyou!" she said, words coming out of her mouth like bullets from a machine gun.  


***


Sonic hadn't wanted the pegasus to die, he had just wanted the emerald and nothing else.  But her near-death experience was his fault and he knew it.  

When she had gone over the cliff's edge, he immediately raced down the mountain side, sliding around obstacles, buzz-sawing through rocks and pillars of ice, even vaulting off a few, to try and rescue her.  

Once he had gotten onto a small ledge he had charged up his spindash, light orbs flowing into his body until he was encased by a light blue aura.  Crouching down he felt his power of super speed and the power he had absorbed combine until he was ready to do something he hadn't done in quite a while: a light-speed attack.  

"Here. We. Go!" he had shouted, launching off the ledge at a speed that made him invisible to the naked eye.  

He had saved the pegasus and she was now recuperating from her frozen wings problem.  She had introduced herself as Rainbow Dash, the fastest flier in all of Equestria.  And seeing as she had been able to keep up with him, he believed it.  

"So, whats your name?" Dash asked, a smile on her face.

"I'm Sonic, Sonic The Hedgehog" he replied, in his usual carefree tone.  

Before either one of them could say anything more, the emerald suddenly darkened.  A figure taking form, it stood on two legs, had three "fingers" at the end of each arm, and elongated claw-like feet.  Its eyes glowed a sickening shade of green and it looked like it was almost completely composed of water.  

"wh-what is that?" Rainbow Dash asked, clearly frightened by the strange creature.

"Chaos, I thought you were with Tikal!" Sonic exclaimed watching as the creature scoped up the emerald and absorbed its energy, its thin frame becoming bigger and bulkier.  

It let out a roar looking down at the hedgehog and the pegasus.  Then it shrunk into a puddle of liquid and seeped into the ground.  

"Where did it go!?" Dash exclaimed, looking around for the creature.  

"It ran away, huh, it's gotten smarter since last time" sonic said, but he was also worried because if chaos was in this weird world, it meant someone, something, or "somepony" had awakened it and allowed it to escape. 

"But who would be dumb enough to do that!?" sonic thought about this but couldn't find an answer that worked, shaking his head he turned to the rainbow-colored pegasus.

"We should go find our friends, I've got a really bad feeling about this" he said, as they raced back towards the town.


***


In the Canterlot palace's garden a stone statue started to crack, fissures forming in the hard rock.  tiny points of energy glowed on the statures surface.  And if anypony had been close enough to hear, they would have heard a voice chuckling to itself.

"Its only a matter of time until i have the ultimate power in my claws" the voice chuckled.  More cracks appearing in the statue depicting a "draconequus" frozen for over 1000 years in stone, now ready to be unleashed upon Equestria.  

	
> Chapter 8 - The Shadow Garrison
> --------------------------------------------------------------------------

	Tails watched as Sonic The Hedgehog, his life-long friend, fell to the ground, a dark pool of crimson liquid seeping out from a wound on his chest.  The young fox wanted to help, wanted to get his friend somewhere safe to heal him, to save him.  But it was too late for that already, Sonic was dead.    

"NO!" he screamed, tears trickling down his cheeks, soaking his white fur.  Not accepting what his eyes were seeing.

"Tails" the voice came quietly,as light as a morning sunrise.  

"Huh, w-who is there?" he said between through his sobbing.  

"wake up" the voice called out, clearer this time, more urgent.  Instantly the world around the two tailed fox started to fracture and shatter into pieces, cracks lancing out all over the place.  

Tails started to back up but he suddenly felt something hard press up against his back.  He whirled around to see nothing in his path, he tried to move away from the fracturing world once more, only to be blocked once again by the invisible obstruction.  

"Tails? Tails! Wake up!" now the voice was clearer then ever.  A sudden flash of white light nearly blinded the young fox as he pressed up against the invisible barrier.  


***


"WAH!" The young yellow fox exclaimed, shooting into a sitting position, hitting his head against something in the process.

"ouch!" someone said, judging from the pitch and tone of the voice, they were female.   

The fox opened his eyes to see who had spoken.   Out of the corner of his eye he spotted something silver and orange in color, with a hedgehog-like shape.  Once his vision cleared what he saw was a cute hedgehog girl, maybe about his friend Sonic's age.  She was wearing gloves that matched Shadow's in style, with golden rings on the wrists, only these were black around the area on which Shadow's gloves were red.  

"h-hey are you okay?" he asked the girl, helping her to her feet.  

"I'm fine, thank you" she replied, her eyes opening revealing their lime green color.  

"She seems familiar somehow, but I am sure I've never met her before" the two tailed fox thought.  

"Hey, is he alright!?" a familiar voice called from behind the new hedgehog.  

"He's fine Shadow, just a little bump on the head that's all!" the girl called back.  

From behind the girl another two other hedgehogs came into view, they were two that the young fox knew all-too well.  


***


"Tails!" Amy shouted in relief, hugging her young friend.  

"Urf-uh- Amy, could you - ACK - not hug so tight!?" the fox gasped through the pink hedgehog's tight embrace

"Sorry Tails" She replied, loosening her grip quickly.  

"Good to see you alive Tails" Shadow said.  

The new hedgehog looked around, as if there was something wrong.

"Amy, wheres-" 

"Here I Am!" Said a pink pony, cotton-candy-like mane bouncing around as she shot from her hiding place, a huge grin on her face.

"Good, we're all here" Shadow said, looking at the new hedgehog in a odd way.  

"Uh, Shadow, is something wrong?" She asked, a look of confusion on her face.  

"Wha-no, no, I'm fine really!" the red and black hedgehog quickly responded.  

"Where are we?" the fox asked, examining, what appeared to be a cave of some sort.  It was dark, the only light coming from a flashlight that the pink pony had gotten from, seemingly, nowhere.  In its light though, it revealed jewels that Tails's friend Rouge could only dream of finding.  But the flashlight also revealed the 3 other branching tunnels, each dissapearing into darkness beyond the flashlight's reach.  

*Clink*

The group turned towards the source of the sound, finding a shard of stone, and a small tunnel.  It was too small for the pony or any of the hedgehogs or the fox.  

"So, it looks like we're not alone in this cave after all" the silver-orange hedgehog said quietly, her eyes darting every which way.  

"Um, by the way, whats your name?" Tails asked her, as he had just realized she hadn't introduced herself yet.  

"My name is..."  she trailed off at the end, scratching her head, another confused look setting in on her face.  

"Heh, funny I actually don't know if I even have a name" she chuckled, giving a apologetic look to the others.  

"Wha-no name, are you loco in the coco?  of course you have a name, you just need to remember it an-"

"Maria" Shadow said quietly, cutting off the pink pony in mid sentence.  

"What?" everyone asked at once.

"Sorry, its just you remind me of a friend I used to know, before...a certain incident occurred" Shadow explained, while staring at the floor of the cave.		

"Oh, i wont ask about it if it pains you" the girl responded, seemingly knowing what had happened just from how shadow had acted as he had spoke.  

Before anyone else could speak the cave walls erupted, weird looking beings flooding out like they were made of liquid. But as they started to take on more solid forms, Shadow gasped.  

"Their shades, dark copies of a actual being!" he said, flinging a chaos spear at the nearest group of the creatures which resembled his friends.  Instead of exploding or scattering the shades though, the chaos energy bolt sailed right through them.  

Shadow was shocked, as were the rest of his friends.  So shocked in fact, that he didn't notice the shades encircling him.  They threw themselves at him, their bodies disintegrating into blobs of dark energy which covered shadow from head to toe.  When they started to reform as themselves again, they left behind a stone-encased Shadow the Hedgehog, a scared look plastered on his face. 


***


The Shades wasted no time in starting to encase the others in stone body bags.  Tails was the first after trying to blast the shades with his arm cannon, when this failed he tried to escape by flying to safety.  But he wast stopped by a large group of shades that had taken on his appearance.  The stone fox fell to the ground with a solid *WHAM*, the stone case not even scratched by the impact.  

Amy was next, she tried for her hammer, which worked for a while, the solid surface slicing through the shades, but they quickly reformed and eventually overpowered her.  Enveloping her in stone like the others.


***


The shades then turned their attention to the hedgehog, who had managed to out-run her set of shades.  But as the shades started to fuse together, they became faster and stronger.  Eventually the shades managed to strike the hedgehog down, she fell to the floor, landing on her hands and knees.  The shades commenced to encircle the hedgehog, getting closer with every second, their targets were as good as dead now, there was no way these creatures could win.


***
  

Inside the hedgehog, something clicked, like a light being flicked on in a dark room.  She felt raw power flow into her body surging through her in waves a energy.  

She was lifted off the ground by an invisible force, the floor underneath her was now boiling hot, but every few seconds it would freeze over.  Her body was orbited by two rings of energy, one burned bright in the darkness and produced searing heat that burned the shades to the ground.  The other ring glowed a pale-blue and radiated freezing cold energy causing shades who were hit by it's blasts to experience a painful end to their existence.  

One shade made a break for the deeper part of the cave, only to be stopped by the hedgehog.  

"Please spare me?" it asked, it put all of its effort into sounding sorry.  

For a moment the shade's pleading seemed to have the desired effect, the hedgehog looked at the creature with eyes that seemed to be more understanding than harsh.  But that sense of hope in the shade was instantly turned to fear as the hedgehog's eyes went from an cool understanding gaze, to a inferno that would show no mercy to its enemies.

"Spare a shade, HA! your going straight to hell!" she said, her voice harsh, but also conveyed a level of authority that the shade found almost respectable.  This was the end for it however so it closed its eyes as the two rings of energy enveloped it, and it ceased to exist.


***


"I lost control it was too much" the hedgehog confessed to her friends, who were trying to comfort her.  With the remaining power she had left over from her power surge she had been able to undo the effects of the shade's paralysis.  

"Its okay now, your our friend Solaria" Shadow said.  

"Solaria?" the silver hedgehog repeated.  

"I hope you don't mind me making up a name for you out of nowhere" the black and red hedgehog said, giving his new friend a apologetic look.  The girl looked up at the ceiling of the cave, musing over her new identity.  

"Solaria, I like it, thank you Shadow" she finished off her thank you by giving the hedgehog a tight hug.  

Shadow tried to hide his blush but he failed miserably, his red stripes almost disappearing.  He smiled however as he realized how much this girl was like Maria, but he also enjoyed how different she was from Maria.  

"Come on you two lets get going, we've gotta get back to Ponyville so I can throw a party for you and your other friends!" Pinkie Pie said, making it sound as if they didn't someone might die.  

The group shared a good and much needed laugh as they followed the path to where ever it may take them.  


***


Deep in the Everfree forest there was a small area of which nearly all animals avoided.  The reason being a weird object had arrived.  It was round with a pointed end, at the other end a smoking object, which was impossibly hot, whirred in the cool air.  Suddenly with a loud hiss a panel slid out of place and out of the strange pod came a figure.  It was blue, its body had a odd indent on the front and a weird extrusion on the back.

A loud roar erupted from a nearby hydra.  Creatures who had been examining the blue being panicked and ran for safety.  But surprisingly the blue creature stayed right where it was. 

If any one of the creature of the Everfree had been able to read the mind of the being they would have found out 2 things, one: that it had no mind to read.  Two: If they could figure out and understand its objectives and put them into words, it would have translated to: 'Location: Unknown.  Priority 1: Find and destroy Solaris Project remains.  Priority 2: Kill Sonic The Hedgehog!'.   


> Chapter 9 - The Power of Gaia
> --------------------------------------------------------------------------

	Sonic and Rainbow Dash had both been shocked when they saw chaos appear out of the emerald, but now it was Sonic's turn to be shocked again, and it was Dash's turn to be terrified.  

The two super-fast creatures had been racing towards Ponyville, casually discussing the events that had recently occurred.  

"You know, I think i'm starting to like this place Dash, its peaceful, friendly inhabitants, its my kind of place!" said Sonic, keeping his pace steady so the pegasus could "keep up".    

"Well, I don't know if I want you to stay here, there can only be one fastest thing alive in a world you know."  the rainbow maned pegasus replied with a smirk.  Racing alongside the blue blur, rainbow dash was having experiencing a thrill she hade'nt had in a long time: having someone that rivaled your own abilities and pushed you to your limit.  

"Rainbow Dash, STOP!" The cyan pegasus was shaken back to reality by Sonic's call of warning.  When she came to a stop she found herself face-to-face with a weird, glowing creature.  It appeared to be made out a of a gas and, its two large  eyes glowed a bright pink in the dark night.  

The creature took a swipe with one of its large claws, the blow connecting with Dash's side.  The pegasus crashed into the ground, aches and pains coursing throughout her entire body.  

"Grrr, agh, RAAAAGGGHHHHHH!" Dash whirled around to see her blue friend be enveloped by a dark mist, his coat growing darker, his hands turning into spiked claws, his body grew bulkier and less streamlined.  When the mist dispersed Rainbow Dash was looking at a growling, dark, spiny sonic the hedgehog.  Another roar caught the pegasus's attention, turning her head away from the "monster-hog" she saw one of the shadow-creatures charging at her.  She closed her eyes in anticipation of the oncoming pain.  

"Hey, pick on someone your own size!" a rough growling voice called out from behind Dash.  Suddenly a shadow raced over Dash's head, the Shadow materialized into a clawed fist that smashed into the creature with a solid "THUD", a few moments later the creature turned into a cloud of smoke and disappeared altogether.  

"Heh, that was almost too easy!" The owner of the fist said, the arm reverting to its original length.

"S-So-Sonic?" Dash whimpered, shaken, scared, and confused as to what stood before her.

"I'll explain on the way to ponyville, but Dash i'm still...me...sort of" the hedgehog said.


***


"So, when the sun goes down, you turn into...THAT?" Dash asked, the surprise in her voice was crystal clear.  

"Yeah that's it put simply" the "warehog" replied, staring at the full moon that seemed to blaze like the sun in the night sky.  Suddenly Sonic stopped staring at the moon and started laughing, falling over with laughter in fact.  

"What's so funny Sonic?" Rainbow Dash asked, tilting her head in confusion, as the warehog continued to howl with laughter.  

"Sorry Dash, its just that, well, you sounded exactly like me when I first turned into a warehog!" the navy blue hog replied, continuing to chuckle.  

"Heh, yeah i guess that is kinda funny Sonic." the blue pegasus replied.  


***


The two blue beings continued to fight the minions of a creature sonic called "Dark Gaia".  When Dash asked what or who Dark Gaia was, the warehog gave a shudder.  

"Hey, if you dont want to talk about it, that's okay to" Dash said, not wanting to pressure her friend or make him uncomfortable.  

"No no, its okay Dash, I guess I'll start from the beginning" The hedgehog said.  As the two walked, fought, and ran, Sonic explained that Dark Gaia was a super-powerful being that had been awakened by Sonic's arch-enemy, Dr. Ivo Robotnik, whom Sonic always called "Eggman".  The hedgehog continued to explain that to awaken Dark Gaia, Eggman had needed to pierce the planet's crust with concentrated energy, harnessed from the 7 chaos emeralds, but that at the time Sonic had used the emeralds to turn into something called "Super Sonic" to foil his plan.  But in doing this he had allowed Eggman to lead him straight into his trap.  

After being told to speed up the story, the hedgehog quickly explained that In awakening Dark Gaia, Eggman had actually broken apart the planets continents, and how it had been up to the Blue Blur and his new found friend Chip, to restore the planet and seal Dark Gaia back in its core.  

"In the end, chip turned out to be Dark Gaia's exact opposite: Light Gaia, or Gaia Colossus.  And he saved my life, but he was also sealed in the core along with his counterpart." The hedgehog finished, a crestfallen look on his face.  

"Im sorry Sonic, I didnt mean to force you to remember those events." The prismatic pegasus apologized.  

"Its ok Dash, it actually helped me a bit, It feels good to have shared what was on my mind" the warehog replied, a smile on his face.  


***


Solaria was fast asleep when Tails And Amy came back from their "scouting" mission.  

"We didn't find an exit, or any sign of an exit, while looking around." The fox reported, looking at Solaria with a hint of concern.  

"How is she?" Amy asked, worry seeping into her voice and expression.  Shadow glanced at the sleeping girl, noting her pained expression and the way she was now thrashing about in her sleep. 

"I really cant tell, one moment she is fine the next it looks like she is having a nightmare" He said, he also now seemed worried by this late development, that being Solaria was getting frequent headaches, passing out from a few every now and then.  She was almost always restless when she slept, and seemed to grow ever-more tired with each passing minute .  

"Maybe she is sick, oh I wish my friend Fluttershy was here, she would know what to do." Pinkie Pie said, looking more sad than worried.  

Suddenly, without any warning, Solaria shot into the air, fully awake and eyes glowing.  A gold aura had enveloped her, a faint symbol orbiting her.  The symbol looked like a bright glowing sun.  Shadow and Pinkie recognized it almost instantly.  

"Thats the symbol that was on that unicorn-pegasus hybrid I fought with Sonic!" Shadow said in a shocked voice.  

"'Unicorn-pegasus hybrid'? Oh you must mean Princess Celestia, she is an alicorn" Pinkie said, her smile still on her face.  

Solaria landed on the ground, looking at each member of the group in turn.  Her eyes still glowing a bright gold, the symbol now on her gloves.  

"Pinkie Pie, it is good to see you're okay!" Solaria said, but not in her own voice.  this voice was more like that of what Shadow had heard from the "princess" while fighting her and her "sister".  

"Twilight told me what had happened, after Mr. Cake told her what had happened, to you and this Amy Rose?" Celestia/Solaria said, turning her/their head to face Amy, who gave a little wave in response.  

"Twilight also informed me of this 'alicorn knight' who sent someone named "Tails" to someplace as well?" she/they asked, Pinkie nodded and pointed to the two tailed fox in response.  

"And - wh-" Celestia said before Solaria pinned Shadow to the ground.  Everyone looked at the hedgehog/princess in shock.  

"You!" Solaria growled in Celestia's voice, her body now radiating a steady pulse of energy.  

"Your the one who nearly killed Luna!" She said, Solaria's gloves igniting, burning Shadow's arms.

Shadow grimaced from the pain, kicking solaria in the midsection.  The golden hedgehog skidded across the floor, stopping and taking a fighting stance.  

And then, she collapsed to the ground her body smoking.  Shadow rushed to her side.

"Solaria, are you okay?" He asked, as she began to stand, her color reverting to her normal silver and orange, the symbol was gone from her gloves.  As she got up she looked much better than in the past few days, more awake and more alert. 

"Come on guys, I think I know a way out of here!" She said, her body now glowing a yellow hue as she started to rotate like a drill.  Soon a cone of swirling energy was swirling around the tip of her fingers, now she really did look like a drill made out of pure energy.  

"Lets go!" she said, shooting up into the ceiling, the cone cutting through the rock with ease, making a path big enough for all of them to fit in.  Everyone found their own way of ascending up the tube and made their way towards the moonlight that shone down into the tunnel.   


***


Omega stomped through a dense area of forest,scanning the terrain for his target.  Suddenly a certain blue blur caught his attention.  He didn't hesitate, he just activated his arm cannon, and fired straight at the blur.  

The shot connected with deadly force, exploding on contact sending the blue blur into the shadows of the trees.  Flames spewing out of its metallic body.

"Target has evaded defeat, continue scan" the robot deduced, stomping off towards the crash site of his target.  
	
> Chapter 10 - An Unknown Sol
> --------------------------------------------------------------------------

	Shadow knew something was up when Solaria started to make sudden stops and look around.  But when he asked her why she was stopping, she simply said it was nothing, and continued on.  

"Solaria, really, tell me the truth:  What Is Going On?" Shadow asked putting emphasis on the question.  Solaria hung her head and sighed, turning around to face the black and red hedgehog.  

"Shadow I told you its nothing.  I just have this funny feeling that something isn't right.  Like we are being watched by someone or somepony" She replied, eyes still darting around, watching for anything that posed as a threat.  At first Shadow thought his freind was being paranoid, probably from her "possession" by the princess.

"I gotta remember to give her a thank you for that, chaos spear style" he noted, but when he focused, he also felt something wrong.  Out of the entire group only he and Solaria had enough chaos energy in their bodies to really be noticeable by other beings with the ability of chaos control.  Now though he felt another pool of chaos energy, and it was moving, fast.  Almost as fast as he could run, or for that matter Sonic could.  But besides that, Shadow also realized, that it was moving towards the group.  

"We need to move, NOW!" he shouted, racing away from the detected chaos energy, Solaria, Amy, Tails, And Pinkie Pie following him closely.  


***


They had been running for several minutes by now, stopping only to take 5 second breaks and to let Solaria set up energy leech traps.  Though none of the traps seemed to slow the being down, they kept running.  But Pinkie Pie, Amy, and Tails were starting to fall behind.  

"We cant keep running forever!" Shadow said, looking to Solaria with concern.

"Gee, when did that cross your mind professor, let's see who this guy is."  She replied, stopping and spinning around to face their pursuer.  They didnt have to wait long, a few seconds later the figure materialized in front of them.  

And straight away, Solaria decided to have a fight, leaping up into the air and spinning like a top, chaos spears raining down on the figure.  

"hmph, seen it" the figure said, moving away from the impact zone as fast as the blue blur.  

"If you keep doing that ill become angry, you do NOT want to be my target when Im angry" The figure continued.  

"I've dealt with worse, blur boy" Solaria countered, dropping down and preforming a spin kick, launching dust into the newcomer's eyes.  

"ACK, okay, NOW I'M ANGRY!" the figure bellowed, an aura of red encasing his form, his eyes going pure white.  

"that's right, speed boy, keep your power burning at white hot." Solaria said under her breath.  The newcomer shot forward at Solaria, his body crackling with raw power.  All Solaria did in response: was just stand in one spot.  

Then it happened, with just meters separating the two hedgehogs, Solaria burst forward.  The collision didnt seem to really affect the two, but suddenly Solaria's eyes went a solid blue-white, and her body started to change.  Until standing before the shocked eyes of Solaria's friends and new foe, was a multi-color hyper form.  

"H-H-Hyper Solaria?" Shadow gasped in astonishment.  

"But how, we don't even have a chaos emerald, let alone all 7 super emeralds!" Tails said, his eyes wide.  

"Hyper is nothing to me, your still going down, miss flashy!" the figure said.  

"we'll see about that, oh, and you might want to get an anger management class, it could help you a lot!" The girl teased.  

"GRAHHHHH!" was all the unknown hedgehog said, before leaping at the hyper hedgehog.  


***


After what felt like hours, the battle was over, the two hedgehogs having reached a stalemate.  

"Impressive, very impressive" The newcomer said between breaths.

"Not so bad yourself" Solaria replied.  

"okay its time for some answers" Shadow interrupted.  

"Who are you, and why are you here?" the black and red hedgehog asked.  

"ugh, do you want the short version or the long version?"  Unknown asked.  

"short" Solaria said.  


***


"I still don't trust you" Solaria said, glaring at Unknown like he was some foul piece of garbage.  Even after they had all gone through the story of how he had become what he was, Solaria still couldn't shake a certain feeling that this guy was gonna give them trouble.

"I've gotten that look from many, though none of them were as good a fighter as you are" Unknown noted, rubbing his behind where Solaria had struck it quite hard with a "borrowed" hammer from Amy.  

"Or hit as hard" he continued, wincing from the pain.  This only made Solaria chuckle, and smirk.  

"Okay, maybe I was being a bit rash there, I'm sorry" she said still giggling at unknown.  

"yes, pain is very funny for you isn't it Solaria?" Unknown asked.  

"Again, sorry" she responded

"um, guys I don't mean to break up this wonderful conversation, but I have a few questions: where are we, and what are those!?" tails half-shouted, half-asked, pointing to a group of black creatures who appeared to be riding on crosses between a motor bike and a unicycle.

"For one of the first times in my life i do-" 

"Shadow speeders, whatever you do, dont let them touch you or try to touch them!" Solaria said, getting a running start before leaping into the air, the body of what looked like a vehicle quickly formed around her.  When she landed, she was in a 3-wheeled hybrid of a bike and a car.  

"Nice wheels Solaria!" Tails commented. 

"I got this from when i actually had to face these things more often.  Now go, ill provide some covering fire!" She said, the cockpit windshield lowering into place.  

"Alright Balance Blade, as an old friend of mine might say, Lets Do This!" she said, the front of her vehicle opening up.  the left and right portions of the "hood" of her car opening to reveal that they were in-fact blades, and the middle sliding forward, brandishing a chainsaw.  

"Oh yeah, this brings back memories" she said quietly, revving the powerful engine, and firing a bot of energy from the saw-blade.  


***


As soon as they made Tails, Amy, and Pinkie Pie promise that they would stay put, Unknown and Shadow raced away to help Solaria.  

"I don't know what we are getting ourselves into here, but here we go!" said Unknown, as the two of them raced towards Solaria.  

"Please Solaria, save some of them for us" Shadow added.   
	

	

	  
> Chapter 11 - The Iblis Warrior
> --------------------------------------------------------------------------

	Solaria abandoned her vehicle, its once white and orange armor was already starting to convert to onyx black shadow matter.  The cockpit canopy slid forward with a hiss, and the nimble hedgehog leaped out.  The car continued on its course taking out some of the speeders on its way.  

"Damn, i really liked that one" ,Solaria said with a hint of sadness.  She focused her mind, and a few moments later her gloved hand was gripping the hilt of her sword; Its silver blade shone brightly, contrasting the golden hilt beautifully.  

"Alright, playtime is officially over.  Bring it on!" The orange and silver hedgehog shouted.  

"Mind if we join in?", Solaria threw a glance over her shoulder.  She cracked a smile as she saw Shadow and Unknown approaching.  

"As long as you two behave yourselves" she chuckled.  She reached out with the power of chaos, and felt its energy pool within her. "Chaos Spear!" she shouted.  The darts of golden energy formed around her and launched at the Shadow Speeders.  

Shadow followed her lead; using his own chaos spear to fend off the speeders.  Unknown attacked using phsychokinesis catching shadow speeders in his metal vise grip and slamming them into the ground, or tossing them into the distance.  

"Nice job boys, we've almost won!" Solaria exclaimed.  She glanced back at her friends to check on their progress; which was a mistake.   

"Solaria, look out!" Unknown's warning was almost too late.  The Speeder had made it to near point blank range with Solaria while she was distracted.  The hedgehog yelped and acted on instinct.  The girls blade came up in front of her face and cut the speeder straight down the middle.  

"Wow, nice move Sol!" Unknown complimented, as he smashed the last of the speeders into the ground.  Its form exploding from the inside releasing its essence into the sky.  

Shadow turned around, his eyes widened at what he saw, "Solaria, your sword.  It's -"

"- Shadow matter" Unknown finished.  

"Huh?" the hedgehog asked; before looking to her blade.  The hilt was still a shining gold, but the blade was no longer a cold silver.  Instead it was a deep black, wisps of black energy curled off of it.  

"That's...new" the silver hedgehog said slowly.    

"You did it!!!" A puffy pink mane and tail sprung out of nowhere the hyperactive mare who they were attached to quickly tackled Solaria to the ground.  This was followed by an unexplainable explosion of streamers and confetti.  

"Urf - Pinkie - Cant -- Breath!" Solaria managed to choke out.  Unknown and Shadow both started to chuckle; eventually they couldn't hold it anymore.  The two hedgehog broke out into laughter from the sight.  Once solaria recovered from the tackle she glared at the two hedgehogs.  

"you mention this to anyone, I will hunt you down, and send you to hell. Got That?" she growled.  The two hedgehogs continued to snicker,but they promised not to tell anyone.

"Boys, don't they ever learn?" Solaria said under her breath.  Suddenly the chuckling behind her stopped. 

"Uhmm, Solaria ---"

"--- your hand is on fire!" Shadow finished.  the girl looked down at her hand which was now coated with a layer of bright flames.  

 
> Chapter 12 - Metal Trouble
> --------------------------------------------------------------------------

	Twilight listened as Knuckles concluded his explanation of the master emerald and the chaos emeralds as tey headed towards town.  

"The master emerald is kind of like a toggle switch: it can both give additional power to the emeralds or stop them entirely,"  the red echidna stated, "That's why it requires a guardian, and its also why we need the emeralds"  
that sound?
"Ah' don't get it; if these here emeralds are so darn powerful why would ya'll wanna stop them?" Applejack asked.   

"Believe me its saved our hides in the past" Knuckles chuckled.  Twilight stayed silent for a few moments letting the ideas roll about her mind.  

"you've explained why you and your friends are looking for these emeralds, but I have another question; who is the armored alicorn?" Twilight asked. 

Knuckles scratched his head, "I dont know, its not from Mobius, but from what you're saying its not from this world either."    

"interesting," Twilight whispered, "so we're dealing with a inter-worldly being here?" 

"huh?" both knuckles and AJ asked together.  

Twilight sighed, "a being from somewhere other than Equestria or Mobius.  

"Oh, yeah i guess we are, in fact-"  

"Ah' hate to break up your interestin' conversation, but does anypony else hear that sound?" AJ interupted.  The unicorn and echidna both strained their ears.  They heard nothing at first, then slowly the pat-pat-pat of rapid footsteps and the beat of flapping wings.  

Knuckles smiled watching as the blue blur came to a stop in front of the trio.  A rainbow maned pegasus landing beside him.

"Hey knucklehead!" Sonic cheerfully greeted.  This was quickly followed by a snicker from the pegasus, and a angry expression from the echidna.  

"Not.  Funny.  Sonic." the red guardian growled.  Sonic merely chuckled, and turned to the blue pegasus beside him.  

"Rainbow Dash this is my friend Knuckles, guardian of the master emerald.  Knuckles, this is Rainbow Dash, The fastest flyer in all of equestria" The hedgehog introduced.  Trying to make it clear that he was still the fastest thing on two legs.

The pegasus gestured at the orange, and purple mares.  

"Sonic, meet Applejack, and Twilight Sparkle; my two awesome friends!" Dash proudly introduced.  

"Good morning"

"Howdy partner"

"Nice to meet you both" Sonic replied.  


***


A red bulky robot lifted off the ground as a pink laser tore through the space where it had just been standing.  

"You shall not interfere with my mission," the smaller blue bot said, "We were created by the same being, you have the same true master as I do"

The red bot responded with a round of bullets from its right arm's built in minigun.  The blue bot rocketed out of the way, getting in close, becoming a blue spinning ball, and striking out with a homing attack.  

The red bot fell to the ground with a crash.  Despite its thick armor plating and defensive protocols; the smaller bot had managed to cause more damage by striking a single spot repeatedly.  The resulting weak spot allowed the blue bots homing attack to pierce the weakened armor, damaging the red bot's circuits. 

"cri-i-tical sys-system f-f-fai-failure" E-123 Omega stammered, as his systems closed down.  

The blue bot stood over it's fallen enemy.  Watching as it powered down and conducted a self repair.  

"Initializing scan," it said, "Warning: internal energy reserves low.  New priority one: find power source."  

The bot started a scan for the largest amount of energy in a certain radius from itself.  

"Power source found; locking on coordinates"

Metal Sonic turned to face in the general direction of his target: a city built into the mountain side.  Its large spires towering over the rest of the city.  The sound of a jet engine's whine could be heard as he shot into the air; directly towards Canterlot; towards the castle.


***



Sonic, Knuckles, AJ, Rainbow Dash, and Twilight all turned their heads towards a almost scream-like sound.  This sound was accompanied by a loud boom, and a trail of pinkish purple forming in the early morning sky.  

"A-Ah'm afraid to ask, b-but what is that?" Applejack stuttered.

Sonic furrowed his brow, and his eyes narrowed, "That would be trouble," he said worriedly, "and its name Is: Metal Sonic.  My evil robotic doppelganger".  

"Its headed right towards Canterlot," Twilight exclaimed, "I have to warn the princess!" The mare said.  She broke into a full gallop towards the library her two other friends following her.  .  

Sonic ran up next to her; a determined look on his face, "You do that, Knuckles and I will try and slow Metal down."

The hedgehog accelerated ahead with the echidna following close behind.  Before long twilight could make out the blue and red streaks as the two aliens followed the train tracks that connected Canterlot, and Ponyville.  

"Good luck you two, and thank you," Twilight said under her breath.  

	
	
   
  
> Chapter 13 - Metallic Duel
> --------------------------------------------------------------------------

	The guards stationed at the edge of Canterlot's city limits had not expected a spiky metal object to fly towards the city alarming speeds,  but they attempted to stop it anyways; it was their duty to keep the city safe after all.  

But their spears just bounced off of its metallic body, and the unicorn's magic bolts of energy was avoided easily.  The creature quickly decimated the guards, scattering them, electrocuting them, and beat them.    

Now a newer recruit was held in its metallic grasp.  Being held by the neck, choking, and gasping for air, "P-please...s-spare...m-m-me...". 

The creature loosened its grip slightly.  The guard felt a glimmer of hope; maybe it would give them a chance to explain themselves, maybe it had attacked because they had attacked it.  

The young stallion's glimmer of hope was extinguished as the metal blue being hurled him aside.  The guard blacked out from the impact of his back against a wall.  

Just before loosing consciousness the guard caught a glimpse of a blue creature, this one clearly not metallic, but just as fast.  


***


"Hey, long time no see; Faker!" Sonic shouted as he delivered a sweep-kick to Metal Sonic's torso.  The bot tumbled forwards, not prepared for the sudden attack.  

"Target acquired; Sonic The Hedgehog" The blue bot growled in its sinister metallic voice.  

"Just what do you think you're up to this time Metal?" The hedgehog asked.  

"Mission objective is none of your concern"  The bot droned.  

"Alright then," Sonic said; rubbing the underside of his nose, "I guess we'll just have to beat it out of you!" 

Before Metal could respond; the ground beneath the bot exploded.  A spiked fist smashed into the bot's torso, and a second one followed up with a blow to the back of the head.  

"What's the matter Metal, you getting slower?" Knuckles taunted as he landed on the other side of Metal Sonic.  The bot tried to take off again, but was cut off by a blue orb smashing into him.  The attack was followed by another punch to the back, the process repeated several times.  

Then Knuckles accidentally threw a sloppy left hook at the robot.  Metal managed to catch Knuckles by the wrist, and proceeded to kick and punch him, dodging attacks from Sonic, and allowing them to strike the echidna.  

Metal landed a quick spin-kick, followed by a spin attack, and to finish it; Metal Sonic used a copied uppercut, which carried the same strength as the echidna's punch.   

Knuckles fell to the ground, and stayed there.  Sonic rolled into a ball, and charged at his double.  Metal countered with his own spindash.  

The fight wore on; Sonic and Metal Sonic, striking each other with identical attacks, all of which resulted in a stalemate.  

Metal countered another homing attack with his own, but as sonic spun up his spindash, metal used a different attack: the indent on the front of his torso glowed pink, and when Sonic was mere meters from his robot double metal sonic fired his energy beam.  The attack didn't kill the hedgehog, but it electrocuted him.  

Sonic blacked out from the massive amount of power that had just been shot through his body.  The shock, coupled with the fatigue of battle had made the effects of the beam slightly more devastating than if Sonic had been at full strength.  

But the attack had cost Metal Sonic nearly all of his power reserves.  Not wasting any time the bot shot towards the power source he had detected before.  


***


Celestia was used to letters arriving at all points of the day, and two at once was not exactly a rare occurrence.  But two letters, at the exact same time, and seemingly about the same thing, both from ponies she met daily; was somewhat surprising.

She read the one with her students wax seal on it first:


Dear Princess Celestia,

Some strange creatures have appeared in equestria, I've met four so far; Sonic, Knuckles, Tails, And E-123 Omega.  But there is another one, Sonic says its his robotic doppelganger: Metal Sonic.  We saw Metal Sonic heading straight for Canterlot.  Sonic said he would try and slow Metal down, but he wasn't sure if he could stop him.  Please be careful.
Your faithful student,
Twilight Sparkle.  


Celestia acknowledged the information, and had quickly opened up the second scroll; this one had a seal with a symbol of two swords crossed over a golden shield: the insignia of the Canterlot Guards.  


Your Highness,
A blue metal creature attacked our squad of guards.  We had warned against entering the city at the high speeds it was traveling at, but it had ignored us.  The creature easily defeated our squad, there were no deaths, but we need medical help.  A second blue creature; that had spikes that stuck out of the back of its head, and a red one; that had dreadlock styled spikes confronted what the blue one called "Metal Sonic".  They put up a good fight, but Metal Sonic subdued them both.  They may need medical attention.  
Private, Sol Flare


Celestia's eyes widened when the private mentioned the blue creature as having spikes on the back of its head.  Was this the blue creature that, along with the black and red one, had managed to defeat her and Luna, and steal the jewel? 

The sound of shattering glass, followed by the shouting of guards, and the sounds of energy discharges; was more than she needed to hear.  The princess of Equestria galloped towards sounds of pain, and battle.  

The shouts and clattering of weapons stopped, but the energy discharges continued.

Celestia opened the door with her magic, quickly forming a elegantly designed sword of golden shimmering energy.  She heard another set of hoofsteps getting steadily louder.  He attention was captivated by the two metallic figures that fought before her.  

One was as twilight and the guard described; blue and with spikes coming off the back of the head, very similar to the creature, who she guessed was the one called "Sonic", she had fought before.  

However; the one that "Metal Sonic" was confronting was the one that gave her a shock, and a slight scare.  

Like Metal Sonic: it was more mechanical looking, with no skin or coat showing through the armor that covered its entire body.      but that was the only similarity that Celestia could make out at the moment.  

This other mechanical creature was a pony in form, but its tail was more like a dragons tail, longer and more flexible.  The mechanical pony's mane was actually two individual head plates, that jutted straight out from the back of the pony's head.  The pony's eyes were similar to Nightmare Moon's in shape, but the eyes of this pony were lime green glowing lights.

But what truly scared the ancient princess was the type of pony this ivory mechanical being was: an alicorn.   

Celestia managed to see all of this in a matter of seconds, but Metal Sonic didn't need seconds to react to the princess's arrival.  Metal shot at the sun goddess.  Who threw up a magic shield, but it was a quickly made one, and slowed the bot down, but didn't stop him.  

The princess was thrown to the floor, Metal leaping off of her to prepare another attack.  

Celestia took the pause in Metal's attack to use her magic to blast him backwards, straight into the set of dual doors that kept the elements of harmony safe.  

A wave of blue arcane energy struck the mechanical ivory alicorn, and sent her into one of the stone pillars that lined the room.  

"Sister!" Luna's voice was music to Celestia's ears.  The princess of the night helped her sister to her hooves, and raised her own shimmering sword of magical energy.  Luna's sword shimmered midnight blue, was more jagged, and had a dagger like quality.

The mecha-alicorn was on her hooves as well, and, despite appearing to be a machine, had summoned its own sword.  This one was blood red, and looked like a fusion of the sister's swords.  

The mecha-alicorn glared at the sisters, and snarled "Nice job, you've just allowed Metal Sonic to recharge himself" The voice was definitely feminine, and dripped with sarcasm.  

The blue bot got to its feet and charged at the mecha-alicorn.  

"Chaos burst!" the alicorn called out; pointing the tip of her sword at the charging bot.  

The bot glowed briefly, and then was sent flying backwards into a pillar.

Luna and Celestia both fired while the bot was down, getting two blasts to strike the bot.  The last shot was blocked by an energy shield the princesses eye's turned towards the mecha-alicorn.  

The alicorn lowered her horn at Metal Sonic.  Her horn glowed for a second, then a shimmering trail of energy linked the two bots.  With a start Celestia realized what was happening.  

"She's draining Metal Sonic's power" Celestia exclaimed, before Luna slashed her sword through the link severing it, and causing the unstable energy to bunch up, like water in a hose when someone is stepping on it.  The energy then expanded uncontrollably.

The resulting explosion sent Metal flying off of the mountainside, and into the forest below.  

Celestia and Luna opened their eyes.  The explosion should have sent them crashing into a wall, but they seemed to be untouched.  The cause being a blood red shield that housed them, and the mechanical alicorn.  

For a time the sisters and the bot stared at each other.  The bot broke the silence, "Look I saved your flanks this time, but this doesn't make us friends".

With that, the mecha-alicorn shot into the air, dissappearing into the noon sky.     

	   
> Chapter 14 - New Introductions
> --------------------------------------------------------------------------

	The first thing that Sonic heard was a steady beeping sound.

"Your highness; he's waking up!" A feminine voice called out.  

The hedgehog opened his eyes, and was nearly blinded by the lights which were shining in his face.  

"Ugh w-what happened, where am I?"

"Your at The Canterlot Hospital, Sonic The Hedgehog" A different voice answered.  

Sonic's eyes widened, "Oh no".  That was the voice of one of the two ponies that he and Shadow had faced, and now; she was probably going to kill him.  

"Look now that you got me; your gonna have to catch me if you want to kill me." Sonic said defiantly, leaping out from under the blinding lights, and straight into the face of the white unicorn-pegasus hybrid.  

"We don't wish to cause you harm Sonic; we have obviously had a misunderstanding.  I propose we negotiate and make up for that little conflict." She said.  

"And how do I know that I can trust you?" Sonic questioned.  Narrowing his eyes, ready to run at the first sign of hostile action.  

"Bringing you to this hospital and helping you recover isn't enough?" The princess asked flatly, "What more do you require for us to gain your trust?"

"Well you could start by explaining some things to me," The hedgehog snarled, "one: where's my friend; Knuckles?"

"He is just down the hallway, 3 rooms to the right." The princess responded.  Her tone more relaxed, and forgiving.  

"My second question is: Where did your armored pega-corn take Shadow?"  

"It's Alicorn actually, as for the question; I do not know who or what that thing is, but I can tell you it is certainly not mine to command!" The Alicorn retorted.  Her calm expression changing to a darker one.  

"I have some questions for you as well, Sonic," She said, "I would like to know what your orange and silver friend has done with Pinkie Pie."  Her voice was cold, and serious.

"Who?" The fastest thing alive asked.  His expression conveyed his confusion.

"last night a creature, looking much like your black and red friend; broke into Sugar Cube Corner, stole the jewel that the mare known as Pinkie Pie was protecting, and then threw her and another pink creature, a friend of yours I presume, into a void."

Sonic's eyes were wide as the alicorn finished her recollection. 

"Was the other pink creature, wearing a red dress with white trim, and was she carrying a hammer?" He asked slowly.  

The princess hesitated a moment before slowly answering, "yes." 

"Shadow has been taken, now Amy to," he said, "And my little buddy."

"'Little buddy?'" The alicorn asked.

"My friend; Tails, he's more like a little brother, than a friend, and i care deeply about him.  He was taken by the alicorn." Sonic said.  Sadness seeping into his voice, and small tears falling to the floor.  

Sonic felt something brush against his back, he opened his eyes to find a large white wing resting on his back.  

"I know what it feels like to have someone you care for taken away," The princess assured, "I don't believe I've told you my name," She continued, thankfully changing the subject, "I am Princess Celestia."



***
  


Celestia led Sonic out of the room, introducing him to her sister; Luna, who had just arrived from assisting the guards who had been attacked by Metal Sonic.  

"It's an honor to meet you formally princess, and sorry about before."  

"Tis' fine, we also wish to extend an apology to you, and your companions for being to quick to judge." She said, but she had kept a somewhat suspicious expression for the duration of the conversation. 

The group proceeded to the room where Knuckles had been recovering in.  He wasn't as trusting as Sonic, and it took a while for them to convince him that disappearances of their friends was not the action of the princesses.  

"Well then who is this robot alicorn?" The echidna asked.  

"We have never imagined this kind of machine to be possible to build; much less seen or heard of such a complex machine existing." Luna said.  

"Is there anything in your history or mythology similar to this being?" Sonic asked the two sisters.  

Before either of the sisters could respond a guard rushed into the hallway.  

"Your majesties Twilight Sparkle and her friends have just arrived.  Along with two other creatures," The guard reported, "they are downstairs in the lobby."

"Thank you for informing us" Celestia replied.  Dismissing the guard with a wave of her hoof.  

"This day has been full of introductions, hasn't it?" Sonic chuckled.  

"Indeed, but let's not keep the others waiting." Celestia said, as the group started down the steps.    
> Chapter 15 - Teaming Up
> --------------------------------------------------------------------------

	"Princess Celestia!" 

Twilight raced over to her mentor as soon as she spotted the goddess.  Her 4 friends, accompanied by a "bat" and a "rabbit", following her.    

"It is good to see you again, Twilight" The princess greeted.  

Sonic, Luna, and Knuckles arrived moments later.

"Rouge, what happened," Sonic asked; addressing the bat, "You look...a little tired"

"Just a fight with a very annoying cat," Rouge grumbled, "Nothing too bad"

"I am very sorry about that," a white and purple unicorn sheepishly said, "But cats have claws, and its not wise to annoy one"


***


"Okay, so you're Rarity," Sonic said; turning to face the unicorn who nodded, "and you're Fluttershy, right?" 

"uhmm...yes" came the quiet response from the yellow pegasus.  

Celestia turned to face the bat and the bunny, "and you're rouge, correct?" she asked; getting a simple "mm-hmm" in response. "And you're name is Cream, right?" the princess asked the little rabbit-like child.  

A quiet "yes ma'am" was given in response.  

"So now that we know each other, what do we do about pinkie, your friends, that alicorn in armor, and Metal Sonic?" asked Twilight.  

"While I cannot formulate a plan that addresses the first or last problems," Celestia admitted, "I can say that: the alicorn is not wearing armor so to speak."

"What do you mean sister?" Luna asked.  

"What I am saying is this: that alicorn is like Metal Sonic a mechanical version of a living creature," The goddess stated, "It does not wear it's armor; its skin is it's armor."  

"I-Impossible, how does it fly, use magic, and act on its own; If its a machine!?" Twilight gasped.  

"I would say that Eggman is somehow behind this, but there's no way he would build something like a pony-bot, no offense to any-pony," Sonic hypothesized, "furthermore it can use magic, something I know that Eggman's machines cannot do or replicate."  

"So if it's not from your world. and it's not from our world.  Then where did it come from?" asked a deeply confused Applejack.  

"Well either way we have to get pinkie back, and your friends." rainbow interrupted.

The conversation was cut off by a crackle and a flash of golden magic; as a scroll appeared before the group.  Celestia took it gingerly in her magical grip, and unfolded it.  Her eyes widened as she read over the scroll.  

"What is it, what does it say, what hath happened sister?" Luna asked urgently; peering at the letter over her sisters wing.  

Celestia held the letter so everyone could see it, and slowly their expressions started to match her worried one. 

Your Highness,
Several creatures have been spotted in San Franciscolt, with one of the element bearers.  one stayed behind and allowed herself to be taken in for questioning, if the others were left alone.  The interrogators await your orders as to what to do with this one.  All we know is that she resembles the creatures that have been appearing as of late, and she closely resembles the one that foalnapped the element bearer; who was present when they arrived.  
Awaiting your order's, Harmony Whisper

"What shall we do sister?" Luna asked, after a moment of silence.  

"I suppose we are heading to San Franciscolt dear sister." 

Sonic and Rainbow Dash looked at each other and smiled

"RACE YOU!" The two speed demons challenged.  
> Chapter 16 - The Lunar Blaze
> --------------------------------------------------------------------------

	"Where is she?" Celestia asked, the rest of the group coming up behind her.  

"She is in here your highness" the guard responded, opening the door to the cell where the "girl" was staying.  He eyed Sonic and his friends in a suspicious manner, but didnt say anything.

"Wait out here, my sister and I will question this being" The princess instructed before entering the cell.  

"So, you're Princess Celestia, the ruler of this land.  It's an honor" the girl calmly greeted, her expression still placid.

"Thank you miss..." Celestia inquired, fishing for a name.  

"Solaria" the girl flatly stated, eyeing the two princesses with a hint of curiosity.

"Why didst thou foalnap Pinkie Pie?" Luna interrupted.  Solaria just raised an eyebrow in confusion.  

"I have done no such thing, nor would I want to" She said.  

"Then would thou explain how a creature that looked exactly like thou foalnapped the element of laughter and a friend of Sonic the hedgehog," Luna questioned irritation seeping into her voice, "as far as we know, no one in Equestria looks like you, and that includes Sonic and his friends"

"Look, I have no idea what you are talking about Princess.  I've been trapped in a realm of shadow for a few years now, and at no point did I escape it.  Therefor I couldn't have captured Pinkie Pie"  Solaria retorted, glaring at Luna.  

The two continued to glare at each other like two predators who want the same carcass, and Celestia worried she would be caught in the middle of a troubling conflict.


***


"Whats taking them so long?" Twilight her lip, the princesses had been interrogating the girl for a little over half an hour by now.  

"Now don't you get yourself all worked up over this sugarcube," Applejack reassured, "ah'm sure that the princesses are almost done with what they're doing."  

A loud banging captured the attention of everyone in the waiting room.  The door to the cell holding the girl was torn off of its hinges by pure telekinetic force.  Ponies and Mobians alike, peered into the now exposed cell.  Inside the cell it looked like a chaotic hell had just just been released.  

Celestia was dazed, slumped against the far wall of the cell.  She had a nasty cut across the face, around 6 inches in length and leaking blood, and another less serious cut just below her right wing.  

Twilight tried to rush forward, to try and help her fallen teacher, but she was repelled by a shimmering energy field.

She was stuck as a spectator, unable to assist the princesses.  She felt pathetic, useless, and unwanted.  But then a flash of blue energy caught her attention.

Luna stood on one side of the cell, and the hedgehog girl stood on the opposing side.  Both had swords drawn and leveled, Luna's; A shimmering, midnight-blue blade, dotted with pinpricks of white light, the hilt was as black as the void of space itself.  The hedgehog's weapon was ablaze all along the length of a sinister, curved onyx black blade, attached to a glorious golden hilt.  

Neither one moved, just stood still, and waited for the other to make the first move.  

The hedgehog's eyes glanced over Twilight and Sonic in an instant, and Luna took the chance to attack.  The hedgehog parried the slash with a mind-numbingly fast downward cut, followed by a reversal of grip and a speedy double jab.  Luna leaped out of the way, her wings extending her jumps duration; straight into a wall of the cell.  

The hedgehog was on the attack instantly, taking a running start, and then leaping atop the off-balance lunar princess.  The girl lashed out with a close quarters punch to Luna's side, and followed by spin-kicking away, flipping herself in the air.

Luna wasn't done though, she reached out with her magic and latched on to the girl's leg.  She gave a solid tug with her magic, and the girl was slammed into the cement floor.  The princess went on full offensive, switching between magic and sword at will, forcing the girl to dodge around bolts of energy, and walls of shimmering magic.       

"Not bad" The hedgehog conceded.  Luna couldn't help herself, she smirked evilly.  

Just for an instant, time seemed to slow to a crawl for the group of Ponies and Mobians watching the fight, and Twilight could've sworn she saw the hedgehog's eyes flash a bright crimson.  

Suddenly Luna was desperately blocking powerful, swift strikes from the hedgehog.  It was almost as if the hedgehog was moving twice as fast, while she was moving four times as slow.  She wasn't given any openings to strike back, the attacks came at her like a wall; a wall of blurred fire and silver blades. 

"How in the...," twilight breathed, "h-how, w-what just happened!?".  

"I don't know what happened, but I do know that Luna cant last much longer" Knuckles said flatly.  

He was right, Luna's blocks and parries were becoming slower and sloppy.  Her magical shields were dimmer and weaker than before, and they shattered the instant the girl's sword touched them.  And all the group could do was stand off to the side, and watch as the princess of the night was battered.  

Luna threw up one last magical shield, and struck out with her shimmering blade.  

"Ack!"   

The sound came from the girl, who had just received a 6 inch gash across her face.  She clutched the scar with a hand, letting go of her sword, and stumbling backwards.  She passed out from the pain, and her hand fell away from her face.  A portion of her face was covered in warm crimson blood, and the cut was still leaking badly.       

Luna didn't dare move, even with her opponent wounded.  Instead she looked from her elder sister to the girl, and back again.  

"The scars," She breathed as the group surrounded her and the girl, "T-the scars they're..."

She trailed off, and continued to simply look between the two cuts.  

The cuts were identical, the both covered the same area of the face,  and both were leaking blood; with a midnight blue tint.  

Luna was responsible for the damage done to the girl, and her sister.  Somehow, for reasons not even she could fully understand; she had tried to kill both of them  
	
> Chapter 17 - The New Face of Foes Past
> --------------------------------------------------------------------------

	"Pathetic"

Solaria's eyes opened to the sound of the insult.

"If you keep this loosing streak up, then maybe its time I take over this body" The voice had a edge to it that Solaria recognized all too well.  

"We both know that will not happen, I took on the responsibility of sealing your essence in myself for however long it took for your energy to burn out" the hedgehog said.  She stood, or floated since there wasn't technically ground, and scanned the vast expanse of her mind's realm.

"That white horse overpowered your will with a simple message, not a direct take over, it probably wasn't even intended for you to receive it," the voice whispered to her from everywhere, "your growing weaker admit it Solares Novalia, it's time for you to give up!"

Solaria hated to admit defeat, and her adversary's argument was fully true. She had been feeling weaker ever since that creature had sealed her in the realm of shadow.  But she didn't care in the least.  

"I don't care, even if you're right my duty is to keep you sealed," Solaria growled, working her mental lock to consciousness, "And Im not about to fail that duty"  

With that said she opened the lock, and returned to reality.  


***


If Unknown had to pick the worst point in his time in this journey, it would have been now.  The group consisting of Shadow, Tails, Amy, Pinkie, and himself were facing off with one of the weirdest creatures created.  

It was a translucent semi-liquid being with a constantly changing body.  It had four eyes, two glowing lime green that rested below two yellow ones, on its head.  It's head looked like a serpent's with an alligator's jaws, lined with almost cartoon like teeth  that curled at random angles.

It's arms also looked like a fusion, with the liquid body surrounding a mechanical upper arm, a lion's arm and paw on the right with each digit displaying a different claw, and a over-sized mechanical talon on it's left arm.  

Its legs were a reverse design of the arms, the lower legs and feet were mechanical and had a blue liquid "skin", and the upper legs consisted of one covered in scales, and the other covered in brown fur. 

Whenever any of them took a stab at doing any kind of damage the creature just unleashed hell on them in the form of a rain of energy bolts, or the ground underneath them becoming as slippery as wet ice.  

"Who or what is that thing?" Unknown said as he was pelted by what appeared to be a frozen chocolate milk hailstorm.  

"I don't know," came the reply from Shadow, "but whatever it is they are, without a doubt stronger than all of us!"

"Guys, Amy and Pinkie are hurt!" Tails cried over a torrent of sticky pink clouds.  The two hedgehogs looked over at the two girls; Amy had a gash on her forehead and Pinkie had various cuts on her body from the onslaught of attacks.  

"Well we cant seem to do much to this thing anyways, the best plan would be to hide, recover, and plan," Unknown conceded, turning around to pick up Pinkie Pie.  Shadow scooped up Amy in his arms and glared at the others.  

"If anyone tells Sonic about this I swear they are as good as dead" he growled.  If there was one thing he didn't need; it was sonic making fun of this example of his 'caring' for Amy.    


***


"You left her there!?" 

Luna winced as her sister pointed out the tactical error of leaving the girl in the remains of the cell, instead of having her contained again for further questioning.  

They were in a a hospital room, it was separate from the others and allowed Luna to work her basic healing magic in peace.

"We were worried about our big sister," Luna responded softly "the act of our sister's recovery was of the utmost importance at the time"

"Luna that girl is dangerous she went from completely calm to deadly insane in an instant," Celestia stopped to try and compose herself before continuing "and her power, she was careless, but it was overwhelming.  Sonic managed to beat me, but he needed help to bring me down.  This girl is a whole n---"

The two were interrupted by the doors to the room flying open and a earth pony guard rushing in.  He wore a worried expression and it looked as if he had been running quite a while.  

"Your highnesses," he said while giving a quick bow "The girl has managed to evade our pegasi's pursuit and is now running through the city, we are currently working on finding her but there has been nothing reported yet."  

"Keep up the search, I will not allow that monster to hurt anypony else," Celestia said before adding in, "My sister and I will also help the search effort"  

The guard gave a surprised expression, once he composed himself he asked "A-are you sure princess?"  

"That thing is powerful and fast, there is no telling what she will do, and I don't want her hurting my subjects!" And with that Celestia exited the room making her way towards the hospital's exit.


***


'man, these ponies are annoying' Solaria raced from street to alley to rooftop and back to street.  Trying to evade the pony's following was turning out to be harder than she thought.  Her biggest problem was the number of ponies and carridges on the streets. and the not-so-stable roofs of the buildings.

She heard a guard call out something, but she didn't pay any attention to it.  Though a moment later she wished she had as 4 blue walls of shimmering energy encased her.  

"got you now you spiky haired freak," came the taunt of the guard who had trapped her.

Solaria screamed as her body was suddenly shot through with arcane energy. She could the guard chuckling to himself quietly as he watched her misery.  

"That is enough private!" An older guard snapped, but to everyone's surprise the private ignored him and kept taunting his prisoner.  

"How do you feel now you  freak of nature?  Not so hot now that you're bei--"

"ENOUGH!" Solaria's eye flashed white and then filled with a dark shade of violet. Her fur went from a its normal silver to a shade as dark as a black hole.  Arcane energy absorbed from the private's trap coursed around her body, creating a suit of armor held together by sheer will.  She glared at the private, but her gaze seemed to go through him and directly to his heart.

She didn't attack, she didn't move, and she didn't say anything. She stood only a few feet away from the terrified pony, the arcane energy crackling and snapping like a whip.  

There was a sudden flash, as a large arc of energy surged through her body. In that split second the guard could've sworn that the girl had a pair of ghostly, golden wings on her back and was holding a lance of some sort.  He dismissed them as a trick of the eye, because; as quickly as they had appeared the disappeared leaving behind only the angry beast from before.           

The private whimpered in fear, as the girl's angered expression changed to a feral grin.  And it was this that scared the guard more than anything else.  For it was the expression of a savage, it was the expression of someone who wanted their enemy to die in the slowest and most painful manner right before their own eyes.   

There was a sudden flash of light so bright that made the sun look dark, and then the beast was gone.  The only indication that anything had been there was a burn mark on the street, and a thoroughly scared young guard.  


***


"Chaos Spear!" Shadow yelled as a tentacle came to smack him.  His attack blasted the appendage apart, but it was a hollow victory as three more tentacles took the place of the one.  Shadow didn't have the energy to launch a counter to the attack.

"Sonic wind!" several blue arrows of energy flew past the group and went on to sever the writhing tentacles.  Shadow looked to his left to see Sonic, Knuckles, and Rouge.  

"Where's Cream?" Shadow asked noticing the young girl's absence.  

"She's with Twilight and her friends at the hospital" Sonic answered as he dodged another tentacle.

"Twilight as in Twilight Sparkle?" Shadow asked as he struck another tentacle with a chaos spear. 

"Yeah that's right, how'd you know?"

"She told me about twilight and her friends" Shadow said gesturing towards Pinkie Pie.

The two leapt out of the way as another tentacle smashed into the space where they had been standing.  

"What is this thing anyways?" Rouge asked, avoiding the tentacles that tried to grab her as she flew.  

"Does it look like anyone here knows?" Knuckles retorted, punching through one of the writhing tendrils. 

"Can we just focus on whats going on here?!" Tails interjected, flying up to the pair before they started a fight of their own  

At first the group held their ground against the creature, with Sonic and Shadow preforming fast dashes and disorienting maneuvers and the others doing what they could to try and bring the monstrosity down.  But soon they were all starting to reach their personal limits.  

Sonic and Shadow started to slow down, and when the creature attacked them they couldn't get out of the way.  Rouge, Knuckles, and Tails were forced to land as they to grew tired.  The lack of air attacks meant that the creature could attack the group without splitting between targets in the air and targets on the ground.  Amy and even Pinkie Pie started to loose energy, winding up hitting each other most of the time.  

Only Unknown was left to defend the group from the full force of the creatures attacks.  He unleashed bolts of chaos energy to sever limbs, and he delivered quick strikes when he could.  But for all his power, he knew he couldn't keep this thing at bay forever.  

There was a loud bang, and then an explosion which made the monster stumble. Shadow smiled as E-123 Omega stomped into view.  

"Annihilate!" The robot said, unleashing a torrent of bullets and missiles at the beast.  

Even though this beast was strong even it didn't seem to be able to brush off omega's virtually unending barrage.  The beast collapsed into a kneeling position weakened by the robot's attack.  

'time to end this' unknown unleashed a concentrated ball of power right at the head of the foe.  The mixed up creature crumpled under the the attack, and fell defeated.

But before anyone could celebrate  the monster suddenly dissolved into a cyan liquid mass and disappeared in a flash of white light.

"Please tell me that that thing was defeated" Rouge said, worry in her voice.  

"For now at least," Unknown answered, "For now..."