Vinyl, Yakko, GLaDOS, the Pyro, Sephiroth, and Latisha join forces to stop Captain Planet's evil.
Vinyl Scratch the DJ pony of Ponyville, Yakko Warner the Warner Brother of Hollywood, GLaDOS the super computer of Aperture Science, Pyro the mercenary of Mann Co., Sephiroth the one-winged angel of Gaia, and Latisha the half-eaten taco, must join forces to fight the evil Captain Planet, his arsenal of weapons and his despicable minions. This legendary adventure brings together six unusual characters who must discover teamwork, friendship, and even true love. But what's in store for this unlikely team? What trials and tribulations will they face? And can they stop the diabolical captain before it's too late?! This is the stuff of legends!
Vinyl Scratch paced back and forth, analyzing the situation as best she could. She made sure to keep an eye on her trusty bass cannon being in the company of five strangers, though they didn't seem to be hostile. Instead, they seemed to be analyzing their current state just as she was.
"Alright, so nopony remembers how they got here?" She asked, pointing to each of the strange... people surrounding her.
"I'm not even sure how you're able to talk." The human with the single wing said. He clearly did not want to stay with any of these people, but they likely held important information as to how he ended up in their companies. "Most horses I've met were incapable of speech."
"Incapable of speech? You must've met some pretty weird horses then pal." Vinyl joked, prodding his boot with her hoof.
"I don't know about you, but this is the weirdest conversation I've ever seen." The black puppy dog said to you, the reader, cupping his mouth with one hand and pointing his thumb at Vinyl and the one-winged angel with the other.
While the two continued bickering back and forth, a man wearing a gas mask sat quietly on a pile of wooden planks with his legs folded and his chin resting on his palms. His flamethrower laid down next to him, dangerously close to a potato who was in no way looking to be baked.
"Excuse me sir," The potato said, causing the man to look around in alarm and make some strange muffled noises which the mechanical spud could only assume was a futile attempt at speech. "I would be ever so grateful if you would remove your over-sized cigarette lighter from my connector cables."
After a few seconds of the two just sitting in silence, most of which had the man turning his gaze to the others to try and understand how a vegetable could talk, he picked up his home-made flamethrower and placed it on the ground by his feet.
"Thanks, it was getting kind of hot. Well, while we're not doing anything important, we might as well get to know each other. As painful as this sounds, I think we may be spending a lot of time together. I am a Genetic Lifeform and Disk Operating System, but you can call me GLaDOS for short. I'm a potato."
The other five became silent at the surprising fact that a potato could talk.
"Hmm hmm mm mm Hmmrm." The man said, gesturing to the flame symbol on his bicep. The others just stared at him.
"Sorry, my Speech Receptive Units could not register that as a language. Does anyone here know how to speak Idiot?"
"Sure do!" The black dog said, rushing over at an almost unnatural speed. "It's actually my native tongue. I'm Yakko by the way. Nice to meet ya Spuddy."
"Well since we're introducing ourselves," The white pony said, trotting over to the group near the wooden plank bench. "My name's Vinyl Scratch."
"... Sephiroth..." Said the man in the back, turned away from the others. "Now that we've got the formalities out of the way-"
"Wait Sephy," Vinyl cut him off mid-sentence. "There's still one more... thing, to introduce."
They all turned their attention to a hard-shelled taco sitting next to the pyromaniac. It was filled with Grade-D meat, lettuce, and grated cheese. There were also two large bites in it, implying that it had previously been nommed on, but was not satisfying enough to be completely eaten.
"... You're kidding right...?" Sephiroth's chin sank to his chest and his glare changed to a look of irritation.
The others just ignored him and continued to look at the Mexican delicacy. "Well, what's your name?" Vinyl asked.
After about a minute of awkward staring, GLaDOS broke the silence. "So far, you're my favorite."
"Am I the only one who's kinda surprised the taco can't talk as well?" Asked Yakko.
"Hmm hmmm hrr nmm m mmhmmhm."
"Does anypony understand this guy?" Vinyl asked with a sigh.
"I believe our vocally impaired friend said that her name is Latisha." Yakko said wearing a Sherlock Holmes ensemble and blowing a bubble pipe.
"Mhm." Said the Pyro nodding his head, while the others looked at Yakko in amazement... except for Sephiroth.
"How in Equestria did you guess that?" Vinyl asked, adjusting her custom-made, purple sunglasses.
Yakko quickly hid the script behind his back. "Eeeeehhh, call it a lucky guess?"
"Great, so now we all know each other." Sephiroth cut in, obviously tired of waiting for his chance to get some answers. "Where am I?"
Sephiroth waited, but no one had an answer. Looking around, they could see grassy hills, deep valleys, and flowing rivers. But the thing that had everyone befuddled were the huge chunks of land floating in the multicolored sky. In the distance they could see a forest and a few abandoned civilizations, but for the most part, the land was inhabited by wildlife: birds, rhinos, and gazelles all lived in the grassy meadows. Even the occasional elephant wondered by.
Someone must have known they were coming, because there was a small camp set up nearby with two tents and some barrels and boxes full of supplies. A plane had crashed not too far away, but the pilot had long since vanished.
"Not sure Sephy... But I don't think we're in Ponyville anymore."
"... Ponyville?"
"But we'll never figure out where we are by just sitting here." Vinyl jumped to her feet and trotted over to her bass cannon. "C'mon everypony!"
As the ivory unicorn rolled her amp along the road with a huge grin on her face, Sephiroth folded his arms in protest. "If you don't know where I am, then what use are you to me?"
"Aw, come on Seph, don't be such a party pooper." Yakko put his arm around Sephiroth's shoulder and got uncomfortably close to his face. "You'll never make friends with an attitude like that."
"I'm not trying to make friends you mangy mutt. And don't call me 'Seph'."
While Yakko continued to pester Sephiroth, GLaDOS turned her attention to the Pyro and asked, "So Mr. Pyro, if your not too busy, do you think you could hook me into that plane over there?"
"Hmm?" He tilted his head in confusion.
"Oh trust me, I'd ask someone else to do it, but the pony doesn't have hands, the taco is inanimate, and frankly I don't trust the tall one or the annoying one."
The Pyro nodded in agreement as he picked up the potato and made his way over to the smoking plane. But no matter how hard they tried, the plane would not cooperate. "It's no use. This plane is in no condition to fly. It's just about as useless as you."
"Boy, that pilot sure could've used a wing-man." Yakko said, pointing at Sephiroth. The sound of a rim-shot could be heard in the distance.
"What did you say?!" Sephiroth roared, drawing his enormous masamune and striking a battle stance not but a few feet from his obnoxious comrade. Dark clouds rolled in all around the camp and the grass at the angel's feet began to burn.
"Hey!"
Just before Sephiroth struck, Vinyl appeared on the side of the road, her amp facing towards him with her hoof held over a small red button.
"I will use this."
The clouds vanished, returning the sky to its oddly beautiful array of colors. "What even is that?" Asked Sephiroth, sheathing his blade.
"Oh, it's nothing special. It's just my bass cannon." Said Vinyl, shrugging her shoulders.
Rather than ask the obvious question, Sephiroth just shook his head and began walking. "I'm going to find answers. If anyone wishes to follow, so be it. But I'm not looking out for any of you."
The rest of the group looked at each other, unsure if they really wanted to follow Sephiroth. But before he got too far away, the Pyro grabbed his flamethrower and trailed after the angel. The others followed close behind, GLaDOS and Latisha resting on Vinyl Scratch's amp as she rolled it along.
*****
"Well, well, well... It looks like the chosen heroes are here to rain on my parade." said a muscular man with blue skin and green hair, as he brought his fist down on a round table. Around him were six other silhouetted figures of various shape and size.
"We'll have to accelerate our plans." Said one of the figures, hidden in the shadows so you can't guess who he is.
"As if it matters. I could handle those foals with one hoof tied behind my back."
"Why don't we just zerg rush them?"
"That wouldn't work you bumbling buffoon!"
"Enough!" Shouted the figure right next to the leader. "We have a plan guys. We didn't make it this far by bickering with each other."
"And that's why you're my right hand man Will." The leader stood from his chair. "We will deal with these 'heroes' in time. Our ray of sunshine will not be dampened!"
"Right!" said five of the shadowed figures. The last one, who hadn't said a single word the entire time just settled for a stereotypical-anime-agreement-grunt.
"And besides, they don't know anything about our plans or even where they are." He burst out into evil laughter, his hands on his hips, as his minions joined in. The laughing continued for an unnecessarily long amount of time while the imaginary screen faded to black.
"So I was like 'What?' And she was like 'Yeah!'" Vinyl concluded her story rolling her amp along the dirt road. "Chicks."
Sephiroth, having put up with Vinyl Scratch's stories about her life as a DJ for about twenty minutes, finally spoke up. "Would it kill you for just a moment to stop talking? For just one moment?"
"I find her stories enjoyably entertaining." GLaDOS objected. "Do tell me the one where your Princess banished her sister to the moon again."
"Or I could tell you about the time Canterlot invited me to play at the Grand Galloping Gala. That's a night they'll never forget!"
"Oh good. Let's hear that."
Sephiroth just let out a long sigh and quickened his pace. As the white pony began to spin a new tale, he noticed an upcoming town of some sort.
He motioned for the rest of the group to be silent, then said, "Look." He pointed up ahead. "It appears to be a town of some sort."
"Great. Cause I'm famished." Said Yakko.
"As long as there are no potatoes on the menu."
"Mmhmm mm hmm hmm mmmhm."
"You're all missing the point!" Sephiroth barked back at the group. "These people actually live here. We'll finally be able to get some answers."
As they got closer, they noticed that the settlement was resting on a small patch of land. It was cut off from all sides by a deep valley with a running river at the bottom. The only things connecting it to the mainland were four bridges, one coming from each direction.
There were three large buildings built around the edges of the island, though they were quite odd in their constructions. They mostly consisted of one or two large rooms filled with unusual furniture and radiant purple lights. In the center of the town rested a flag pole. But there were no people to be found. The place looked as though it had been deserted for quite some time. There were no indications, other than the furniture, that anyone had ever lived there.
"It doesn't look like anypony's here Sephy." Vinyl Scratch said, taking a break from rolling her bass cannon across the bridge.
"This makes no sense... why would there be a town here, with no people to inhabit it?" Sephiroth, puzzled at this development, checked a nearby building for any signs of life.
"Hmm hmm hmm." The Pyro mumbled, pointing to the top of the flag pole.
The group looked up to see a single flag floating in the breeze. However, it was unrecognizable by any of them. The flag bore a circle divided by vertical and horizontal lines placed over a red background. They could only assume it was a planet, though none of them knew which planet it was.
"Hey, that's a neat looking flag." Yakko said, admiring the piece of cloth.
"But who does it belong to?" Sephiroth asked, pacing back and forth.
"Maybe we should ask that mysterious shadowy figure." GLaDOS said, directing her attention to the western bridge. "He looks friendly enough."
"How can someone look friendly if they're also mysterious?" Asked Vinyl.
"What? What figure?" Sephiroth demanded, pushing his way to the front of the group for a better view.
Sure enough, there was a man on the other side of the ravine. His arms folded behind his back. As he began crossing the bridge and neared the group, his features became more defined. His light-brown hair was short and curly, and his eyes were a light shade of blue. His figure was sleek and stylish as he sported an expensive-looking suit.
He set foot on the island and raised his hand. "Good afternoon." He spoke in a low, yet welcoming tone. "It's a nice looking biome, don't you think?"
The six exchanged unsure glances, then looked back at the strange man.
"The Captain wanted a more natural environment, but I talked him into... 'acquiring' this land instead." He looked over at a wandering elephant and let loose a sigh of admiration. "After all, once he saw the wildlife here, how could he say no? So serene and-"
"Sorry to interrupt, but I've waited long enough." Sephiroth approached the man, with little care for boundaries. "I want answers. And you're going to give them to me." His hand hovered over the hilt of his blade, ready to draw if need be.
The well-dressed man saw this and took a step back, not that it would do much good given the sword's length. "Now, now, no need to get violent." He held his hand out in front of him. "My name's Will. Will Ferrell."
The angel moved his hand away from his masamune, but made no move to shake the other man's hand. He simply muttered, "Sephiroth. Now if you don't mind, I'd like to get some answers."
He heard footsteps from behind him, but motioned the others to stay back. The group, while hesitant to follow his instructions in any other situation thus far, saw fit to do as he told this time and stayed put.
"I see. So you want answers..." He sighed while he looked around the abandoned town. "Pity, isn't it? That this town had to go to waste. You see my master, Captain Planet, has taken the responsibility of keeping all planets free from pollution. A heavy burden really, as he always seems to be fighting a-a-a-a-a-a-a-a-a-a..."
Will Ferrell vanished in mid-sentence and the six didn't know what to make of it. Sephiroth backed up, a bit alarmed at the man's sudden disappearance. After a few moments, GLaDOS asked, "Is he coming back? I kind of liked him." No one answered. Right when the group was ready to continue on down the road, the man reappeared in the exact same position he was in when he vanished.
"losing battle."
They all snapped their attention back to Will, eyes widened in shock. "I've heard of a disappearing act, but this is ridiculous." Yakko joked.
"Mm mm mmm!?"
Ignoring their comments, Will continued. "You see, he discovered the root cause of all pollution: humans. Everything they touch becomes tainted. Every body of water, every forest, even the sky, destroyed by the chaotic industrialization of man. He needed to find a better way to stop pollution. But how?"
He stopped for a moment, gazing over what little natural beauty there was left. "And then, it came to him. A solution. The solution. All this time, he had been fighting the effect... when he should have been fighting the cause."
"And what was the solution?" Sephiroth asked, even though he had already guessed the answer.
"Well," Will continued, "Many of the planets he had been fighting to save were already damaged beyond repair, with only a sliver of land worth fighting for. So, he came up with the brilliant idea to take those slivers of perfection, and build a brand new planet, free of pollution. Of course to do this, humans needed to be eliminated first."
Sephiroth nodded. "So any other civilizations we come across would also be..."
"Deserted? I would hope so. The Captain didn't work this hard for nothing you know."
"And what of us? Are we not welcome here?"
"Not at all. That's why Captain Planet has ordered us to bring you to him so he can 'remove' you."
The others jumped at his sentence, looking to Sephiroth for what to do. He simply motioned for them to remain calm."What do you mean 'us'?"
"Well you didn't think that Captain Planet, being the brilliant mastermind that he is wouldn't have some sort of brute force to carry out his law, did you?"
"I would expect nothing less. But you must realize that you're currently outnumbered."
"Oh don't worry, I'll leave the fighting up to Mr. L in the City of Gold."
Vinyl Scratch turned to the others. "Did he... just tell us where to go?"
"W-what?" Will stammered. "Uh, I didn't say anything!"
"Oh don't worry," GLaDOS repeated in Will's voice. "I'll leave the fighting up to Mr. L in the City of Gold." She had been secretly recording the entire conversation. She then spoke in her own voice, "Oh no, we heard you quite clearly actually."
"Well, It doesn't matter! You have no idea how to get there! And you'll never stop the Captain!" And with that, Will Ferrell vanished in a puff of smoke.
The group just stood there in silence. "Well this has certainly been an eventful road trip." Yakko said, sitting on a recliner and reading a newspaper.
"So what do we do now?" Vinyl asked.
"That man made it clear that we aren't welcome here." Sephiroth said, looking at the ground where Will had been standing. He then shifted his gaze Westward. "He came from that direction. That's where we need to go."
"But Sephy..." Vinyl said in a worried tone. "They want to 'remove' us... shouldn't we try to find a way out of here instead of chasing after them?"
"After all, not all of us are in fighting condition." GLaDOS added.
"Mm Mm mmhmm mm hmm m mmmm."
"True, they do want us out of the way." Sephiroth said, "But I would rather be the hunter than the hunted. If we don't go after them, they'll just keep coming after us, whoever 'they' are."
"He's right." Yakko said, his previously used props gone. "And if we don't stop them now, they'll keep on destroying other planets to build this one. Who knows? He may have already destroyed our worlds."
"I'm with you. I may be a potato, but I am still alive, and I would like to keep it that way."
"Mmhmm! Mm hmm hmm!"
"Yeah, you guys are right. Lead the way Sephy."
"Alright. Then we haven't any time to waste." Sephiroth said, turning to the West. The others followed closely behind.
*****
The team walked along the road in silence until they came to a crossroad. Just as the road split North and South, there stood a crudely painted arrow pointing North. On it were the words 'City of Gold'.
"Oddly suspicious of there to be a sign here pointing exactly where we need to go." Yakko commented.
Vinyl Scratch walked up to the sign and turned to Sephiroth. "Do you think it's a trap?"
"I'm not sure..." He replied quietly, checking both North and South. "I can't see too far down either road..."
"My sensors are picking up a large amount of metal to the North." Said GLaDOS.
"Well then it probably is a trap, but we don't have any other leads." He turned to the North. "Will said something about someone waiting for us. I have no clue who Mr. L is, but hopefully we'll get more information from him."
The group turned their sights Northward and began down their new path. None of them knew exactly what was waiting for them in the City of Gold, but they knew that whatever it was they would most likely have to face it together if they wanted to survive.
"The pieces are all in place." Will said, walking down a narrow corridor. A doorway opened up at the end of the hallway leading to a control room filled with numerous luminescent screens and various annoying noises. "Soon, those 'heroes' will be no more."
"Excellent." Said Captain Planet, looking over a rotating hologram of his world-in-construction. A few pieces were missing leaving the core of his planet exposed, but in no real danger. "Then very soon our perfect planet will be complete."
"Let's not get ahead of ourselves Captain," A round man with a large mustache called out from behind a wall of computers. "There's still the matter of removing Sector Q."
"Of course Doctor." The Captain replied. "And have you located another sector to fill its slot?"
"As a matter of fact, I've got just the place." The man handed a picture to Captain Planet while staying hidden behind his fortified fortress of hardware. "It's a beautiful piece of land, a tropical paradise. There is a minor infestation of people however, but they will be of no consequence."
"I'd say this will replace that miserable Sector Q nicely. How soon will we be able to extract this land?"
"Just say the word, and my men will be ready to move."
"Then let's make like a tree and leaf!"
*****
"Wow... Look at that... it's beautiful." Vinyl said, removing her sunglasses and revealing her violet eyes. Or red eyes, I'm not gonna judge you, pick whichever one you want.
"Will certainly wasn't joking when he said 'City of Gold'." Sephiroth said, seemingly unimpressed.
"That's nothing, wait 'til you see Spielberg's bathroom." Yakko said, elbowing the Pyro who obviously didn't get the joke.
"Don't get too comfortable." The winged one said. "Be on your guard. We're not welcome here, remember?"
"But Sephiroth, this place is amazing." Vinyl trotted ahead of the group, admiring the serene beauty. "I mean, I wonder-"
"No. We have to stay alert."
"Vinyl sighed in disappointment and rejoined the group as they decided to head to the top of the city to get a better view." Yakko read in a low monotone voice.
"Hmm?" The Pyro asked, tilting his head.
"What?" Yakko asked, looking up to see confused faces all around. He looked back down at the script, read it again, then gasped in realization. "Oh, whoops. Wrong part."
"Actually, that's not a bad idea." Vinyl said, looking to the giant golden temple in the center of the city. Half of her thought it really was a good idea, but the other half just wanted to see what else was in this wonderland.
"Well then, I'll head to the top." Sephiroth said, making his way down the street.
"But, Sephy..." Vinyl blurted out. The others looked bamboozled at her out-of-character outburst, but she quickly regained her calm demeanor and said, "I mean, we should probably stick together."
GLaDOS, who had been silently conversing with Latisha about the finer points of life, said. "By my calculations, divided we only have a 4.998473000001 percent chance of success. But together we have a 32.33, repeating of course, percentage of survival."
Sephiroth thought it through a few times, rolled his eyes and sighed, "Alright, fine. We'll all go up together."
The group began to climb the long staircase. Sephiroth lead the way, followed by the Pyro and Yakko, who was carrying GLaDOS and Latisha. Vinyl brought up the rear using her magic to levitate her bass cannon. As they climbed higher and higher, even more of the beautiful city became visible. Vinyl gazed in amazement at the glorious golden everything, though the others kept their gaze fixed on the top of the stairway.
They finally reached the top of the stairs and, embarrassed and disappointed that the two authors couldn't come up with a good joke at this particular moment, headed inside the temple. Except for Sephiroth and Vinyl who stood just outside the room and looked down on the city.
The city lived up to its name with gold almost everywhere. Practically every building was constructed from the precious metal, and the rest of the city was beautifully made as well. There was an arena for sports of some kind with stone seats for an audience. And in the distance, they could see a giant whirlpool. It too was surrounded by stone bleachers and a walkway that dropped off high above the watery abyss.
"You have to admit," Vinyl started. "It is really beautiful."
Sephiroth looked down at the pony and opened his mouth to speak, but before he could say anything, Yakko peaked his head out from inside the temple, "Hey guys, you might wanna see this."
The two turned to face their black and white companion, wondering what could be so important that they had to see it. Reluctantly, they followed the others inside the temple.
The inside was fairly small and less glorious than the rest of the city. It was made up of only one room with a small pool of water in the middle. There was no furniture and very little gold with most of the treasures being in the walls. "So..." Sephiroth started, looking all around the room. "What is it that you wanted to show us?"
Yakko pointed across the pool to the back of the room. "Over there." He said. The group looked to where he was pointing and could see a man sitting cross-legged on the ground.
"Hey, I thought Will said there were no people here." Said Vinyl to the group.
"She's right." GLaDOS agreed. "Do you think it's possible he lied to us?"
"Why? What reason would he have for doing that?" Sephiroth asked in return.
They made their way over to the man sitting in the temple. His skin was dark but his hair was white, tied back in a ponytail. He wore well-crafted plate armor and carried a large halberd with red markings on the blade. He seemed rather lifeless with a blank expression on his face, even with a group of six strangers surrounding him. He didn't say a word, only maintaining his slow, steady breathing with the occasional blink of his eyes. But the most peculiar thing about him were the green words hovering over his head that read:
<AFK>Leeroy
<PALS FOR LIFE>
Perplexed at this development, the Pyro made his way closer to the man, reached his gloved hand out, and tried to touch the words. But his fingers phased through the letters seamlessly as if they didn't exist.
"What's wrong with him? He appears to be defective." GLaDOS speculated from Yakko's hand.
"I don't know." Sephiroth replied, inspecting the man's weapon.
"Do you think this could be the guy Will was talking about?" Vinyl asked. "Ya know, 'Mr. L'?"
"Everything does check out... But why is he just sitting here? And how long has he been here? Nobody just sits still doing absolutely nothing."
"You should see my brother some time." Yakko joked, though again nobody understood it.
"Has he moved at all since we arrived?" Sephiroth asked, waving his hand in front of the man's face.
"Mm m mmph." The Pyro answered, shaking his head back and forth.
With a small sigh, the one winged angel turned back to the doorway. "Well, so much for getting information from Mr. L. Looks like we'll have to find our own way out." He began towards the exit, motioning for the others to follow, leaving the man where they had found him.
*****
"Well that was completely pointless." GLaDOS said as they neared the bottom of the stairway.
"There seems to be no way in or out of this city, other than the way we took." Sephiroth sighed. "We may have to go back the way we came."
"But how do we know if that'll work?" Vinyl Scratch asked, once again levitating her amp.
"We don't, but it's our only choice."
"Alright, time's up. Let's do this..."
"What was... who said that?" Vinyl asked, her hooves finally touching the bottom of the staircase. They looked at each other, but no one answered.
The group looked up to see the man from before, plummeting down at an incredible speed directly towards them.
"MOVE!" Sephiroth yelled, instantly grabbing Vinyl Scratch in one arm and Yakko in the other and jumping out of the way.
*CRASH* The man landed leaving a small crater in the ground. The previously green words above his head were now red, and around him was a faint glowing aura. As he slowly rose to his feet, he drew his weapon and struck a fighting stance. "Come at me bros!" He called out in a cocky, arrogant tone.
"Vinyl, get everyone out of here." Sephiroth said, quickly getting to his feet and drawing his masamune.
"But..." She protested.
"Go now! I can handle him myself." He barked, keeping his eyes on his opponent.
She was against splitting up the team, especially in this situation, but she had no choice. She and Yakko placed GLaDOS and Latisha on the bass cannon and headed for the exit as fast as they could.
The Pyro however, remained by Sephiroth, his fire axe in hand.
"Pyro, go with them! It's too dangerous here!"
"Hhmm mmhm hmmhmm!" The Pyro argued. Soon after, their feet began to burn. They looked down to see yellow light cracking through the earth below. Within seconds, the ground became as hot as a furnace, forcing the two to back away from Leeroy.
The man pursued however, raising his enormous weapon with both hands and preparing to strike. But a quick dodge from Sephiroth caused Leeroy to miss, slamming the ground with his blade.
Now with the upper hand, Sephiroth swung his sword horizontally expecting the blade to make contact with Leeroy. But instead, his blade just bounced off the transparent aura of light that surrounded his foe, causing him to lose balance.
"What?!" Exclaimed Sephiroth. Leeroy took advantage of this and raised his palm at Sephiroth. Before he could react, he was struck by what felt like a hammer-blow to the head. No matter how hard he tried, he could not bring himself to move.
With Sephiroth incapacitated, Leeroy turned his attention to the Pyro and gave a grim smirk. A bit discouraged from his friend's failed attempt, the Pyro took a few steps back, but still stood ready.
Leeroy charged at the gas jockey, weapon in hand. Quickly thinking, the Pyro pulled out his flare gun with one hand while still holding onto his axe with the other. He fired a shot at the armored foe, not expecting it to do anything.
But much to his surprise, the flare passed through the shield as if it wasn't even there and hit Leeroy's shoulder causing him to let out a shriek of pain and lose his balance.
With Leeroy's trajectory thrown off, the Pyro quickly moved out of the way of his incoming blade.
He skidded to a stop and immediately, Leeroy began to summon holy light to heal himself from the flare shot. With his guard down, the Pyro took the opportunity to close the distance and strike with his axe.
But upon impact, the axe was deflected off of the shield and the Pyro was knocked back onto the ground. Leeroy chuckled a bit at his futile attempts and continued to cast his restoration spell.
Sephiroth finally recovered from the stun Leeroy had cast on him and ran over to the dazed Pyro to help him up. "It's no use." He said. "Neither your axe nor my sword can best his shield. But your fire..." He looked down at the Pyro's flare gun.
And then, it came to them. The only way to beat their opponent, the only way to win.
W + M1
Leeroy, still encased in his fluorescent shield, charged back into the battle. His wound completely healed, he was ready to fight again.
With the villain charging in fast, the Pyro dropped his flare gun and fire axe, pulled out his home-made flamethrower, and began to charge back. Sephiroth tried to stop him so they could think of a better plan, but it was too late. Sparks flew as the two neared each other. When they were within a few feet of each other, the Pyro sidestepped his opponent's blade, just as he had dodged 1001 Demo-Knights before him, pulled the trigger, and doused him in flames.
The searing flames breached through Leeroy's shield instantly as his halberd just missed the Pyro. He tried to turn around for a second attack, but the fire turned his plate armor red-hot, causing it to burn its wearer's flesh. He fell to his knees, unable to even stand in the flames. The enemy's cries of agony were like music to the Pyro's ears. his victim burning alive and begging for him to stop. He felt right at home.
But suddenly the screams of agony were replaced with crazed laughter. Confused, the Pyro let go of the trigger to see his adversary once again standing on his feet, a slightly brighter aura around him, almost like a giant bubble.
The Pyro pulled the trigger again, but this time not even the fire had an effect on Leeroy.
Though the enemy continued to laugh, the Pyro could see the fear in his eyes. Then, all of the sudden, the man made some strange gestures with his hands and they began to glow bright green.
The Pyro waited, his finger itching to burn him again. But in just ten seconds flat, he threw his left hand forward and disappeared without a trace while his laughter slowly faded away.
The two, not exactly sure what to make of this, just stood there. Until the Pyro asked, "Mmm mm mmph?"
"Is that it?" Sephiroth asked, looking around the city for any sign of their heavily armored foe. But as time passed, it became more and more clear. Leeroy was gone.
"Are you guys okay?" Yelled Vinyl Scratch as she galloped towards the two.
"We're fine." Replied Sephiroth, placing his sword in its sheath. "What are you doing back here? I told you to take the others and leave."
"I did, but then I heard laughter, so I came back to check on you...."
"Well I appreciate your concern." The swordsman interrupted.
Not sure if he was being sincere or sarcastic, Vinyl continued talking. "And to tell you we found another way out of the city."
"Where?" Asked Sephiroth, turning around to look at her.
"There's a hidden passage in the waterway that leads out of the city, everypony else is waiting for us there."
"Well then, we'd best not keep them waiting." Sephiroth followed behind Vinyl Scratch, making their way towards the waterway. As they walked along, the angel turned toward the Pyro and said, "I guess I should be thankful."
The Pyro tilted his head.
"That man caught me off-guard. If you hadn't stayed, I might not be here right now."
The Pyro nodded as they neared the rest of the group. Yakko stood guard of Vinyl's bass cannon with the two foods resting on top.
"Oh good, you're still in one piece. Well, actually two pieces, since you're two different people." GLaDOS said in a lighthearted, yet still monotone voice.
"Nice to see you too..." Sephiroth said back.
"Guys, we can talk on the way. Right now we should get moving." Vinyl said, taking her amp back from Yakko as she started down the waterway. With the others following her, they could only imagine what lay at the end of the tunnel.
"They found the tunnel, am I correct?" A four-legged figure asked. It stood in the shadows of a stone hallway.
"Yes. They are on schedule." A man said, also hidden in the shadows. "They will be arriving in Sector Q any moment now."
"Excellent. And the dead weight?"
"Taken care of."
"Then the plan is moving along nicely. Soon we shall have our reward."
*****
The six walked along a hazardous wasteland, careful not to step in the murky, green water. They had exited the tunnel not but a few minutes ago only to find what appeared to be the ruins of a city. The area was littered with crumbling stone towers and a larger tower in the center. But it too had seen better days.
In the distance, they could see a single hut that stood on a pillar of earth. But its architecture was different from everything else, indicating that it had been built long before any of the ruined buildings.
"Did we accidentally go to a different planet?" Vinyl Scratch asked rhetorically, careful to not get too close to the disgusting water.
"If Captain Planet wanted a 'perfect planet'," Yakko started, running his hand along a stone wall. "why did he pick this place?"
"Mmph hmm mmhmmph..." The Pyro muttered from the back of the group.
"Do you even know where we're going Sephy?"
The one winged angel stood elevated on one of the wrecked buildings, studying the surrounding area. He didn't answer Vinyl's question, but rather continued investigating.
The unicorn let out a sigh, turned to the others, and said, "Does anypony have an idea of where to go?"
"Hhmm hmmph mm. Mm mm hmmhmmph. Mmph hmm."
Silence. All but Sephiroth just stared blankly at the Pyro.
"I'm sure if we could understand you," GLaDOS began, "We'd all laugh at how stupid that idea is."
"There." Sephiroth called out to the others, pointing over a few islands away. He had finally found what he had been looking for. In the distance, they could make out a giant metal wall with a small doorway located at the base. "Obviously, there's something on the other side."
He jumped off his perch and rejoined the others. "Come on, we have to get moving."
"I agree. This place is disgusting." Vinyl seconded, still levitating her bass cannon above the muddy ground below.
*****
"I see..." Captain Planet sighed, crossing his arms and shaking his head. "Unfortunate about Leeroy."
"They're stronger than we originally thought." Will replied.
"Perhaps using your powers to enhance Leeroy's abilities wasn't such a good idea. It made him even more reckless than before." One of the figures closer to the Captain said.
"A casualty is still a casualty." The Captain replied. "The loss of Leeroy is heartbreaking, but we'll have to carry on. What other news have you Will?"
Will nodded and said, "The heroes were last seen entering Sector Q."
"Really?" He asked, genuinely surprised. He stroked his chin and smiled a bit. "Hmm... maybe we can use this to our advantage."
"Sir?"
"While Sector Q is of no use to us..." He addressed the silent figure sitting at the far end of the table. "You know what to do."
The figure nodded and dematerialized. As soon as he did, one of the computers in the back of the room lit up and opened a program. Within seconds, the program closed and the computer turned off again.
"In the meanwhile, Doctor, have you made any progress on the replacement for Sector Q?" Captain Planet asked, turning to the group again.
"Of course sir."
"Then tell your men to move tonight. The heroes will be finished off by then, and we can move forward with our plan-et."
*****
The gears in the center of the door rotated clockwise until the lock was undone and the two halves of the door disappeared into the walls. The group passed through and stood now in a small ditch. But from what they could tell, they had entered a gigantic city.
When they reached the higher ground, they saw even more of the city. And though it was in better shape than the outside, it was still polluted and inhabitable.
"What a dump." Vinyl said, looking around the trashed city.
The others had to agree, this was a rather imperfect city. As they walked down the road, they noticed that the houses were built right up against the wall and even on top of other houses, with numerous floating vehicles of various shapes and colors dotting the streets.
The city itself looked as if it had been through a war. There were many craters in the ground and parts of buildings that had been destroyed.
"Well while we're here," Sephiroth began, looking around the abandoned block. "We might as well look around and see if we can find anything useful."
The group turned the corner and were greeted with more of the same. Empty streets except for the occasional vehicle, homes piled on homes, and the feeling of despair all around. But as they continued moving, something caught their ears. The sound of walking, but not ordinary feet. The footsteps sounded mechanical.
The footsteps grew louder until from around a corner, a group of five red robots appeared. Two of them had four legs, a center eye, and no guns. Another two hovered a few feet in the air and were armed with a center eye and two small guns. And the last one stood upright like a human, its hands replaced by large twin lasers.
"What the..." Yakko said, losing his train of thought when the big one fired a light-red laser at them, just barely missing.
"Hey! What did we do to you!?" Vinyl shouted angrily.
"They're hostile!" Sephiroth yelled, quickly deflecting another laser with his sword. "Move! Quickly! Head back to the-"
He was cut off by the Pyro rushing the incoming robots. While the big one focused on the swordsman, the Pyro broke through their defense, jumped over the four legged bots, and performed a 360 vertical chop to one of the aerial sentinels, killing it instantly.
"You're not the only one who can fight Sephy!" Vinyl called out, her horn beginning to glow light-blue.
"What are you doing? Get out of-" Again, he was cut off mid-sentence. A blue sphere appeared around one of the four legged bots, halting its movement. Vinyl summoned her magical abilities and compressed the sphere, crushing the robot inside of it.
Suddenly, an unfamiliar tune began to play out of nowhere. The others in the group looked around until they saw Yakko bobbing up and down in rhythm as the other four legged bot approached him. "Yakko, what are you doing! Run!" Vinyl called out.
But he just stood there waiting for the robot to come closer. Even more peculiar. He began singing.
"An anvil's black and shiny,
it's very heavy too.
So watch out my robot friend,
or one will fall on you."
And like clockwork, a huge black anvil fell from the sky, crushing the robot underneath. "Neato completo yippie!" Yakko said, raising his eyebrows and giving a thumbs-up to the rest of the team.
The second aerial robot was slowly flying around Vinyl's bass cannon where GLaDOS and Latisha lay. "You're almost as annoying as the robots I made." GLaDOS mocked. "Well, at least you can't talk." She then launched one of her connector cables at it. When it made contact, a powerful wave of energy surged through the cable, short-circuiting the robot and causing it to fall to the ground.
The bigger robot fired another shot at the group but once again the laser was deflected by Sephiroth's blade. He then used the sword's incredibly ridiculous length to cut the robot clean in two.
"Ok, it looks like you guys can hold your own after all." Said the one-winged angel. "We need to keep moving though, I'm curious to see where those robots came from."
He took the lead of the group. "There's just no pleasing this guy." GLaDOS whispered to the others. They just shrugged and followed behind him.
"They had to come from somewhere." Sephiroth said, stopping for a moment to let the others catch up. "And if we find out where, we can find whoever is controlling them. Then maybe we can get some-" He stopped just as he turned the corner.
"What is it? What's wrong Sephy...?" Vinyl stopped, her mouth ajar at the sea of red robots just around the corner. And not the small bots either. The humanoid bots held the front line, but hovering overhead were similar robots with jet packs. Littered throughout the robot army were enormous four legged walkers with turrets mounted on their backs.
And just when things couldn't get any more bleak, another robot dropped down from the sky, landing in front of the robot army. This one hovered slightly above the ground, was heavily armored, and was equipped with a razor-sharp saw blade on each side and one more in the front. The blades began spinning and the robot began to move forward.
"We're not fighting our way through this one! Run!" Sephiroth shouted, turning 180 degrees and retreating. The rest of the group followed without hesitation.
They ran as fast as they could through the destroyed city, not paying attention to where they were going. As long as they got away from the metal battalion, they didn't care where they ended up.
The group became tired quickly, running at full speed to escape. They needed to find a place to hide, and fast. Suddenly, Sephiroth noticed a large tent up ahead. He looked back and saw the others panting and gasping for breath. It was obvious they had less endurance than he. "In there!" He yelled back at the others, pointing towards the tent.
They quickly entered the tent, exhausted from being chased through the city. Sephiroth peeked through the doorway to see if they had been followed. Thankfully, the metallic army was nowhere to be seen.
"We'll rest here. I don't think they'll be able to find us." Sephiroth said, taking a seat with the others. The tent was crowded with a wide array of various assorted knick-knacks and doo-dads. In the back there stood a large tiki mask with purple smoke flowing out of the mouth. Other things such as bowls, candles, and treasures surrounded the walls of the tent, making it much smaller than it looked on the outside.
"What were they Sephy?" Vinyl asked, still catching her breath.
"I have no idea." He answered.
The group sat in silence for a long while, until they could hear the sound of footsteps outside.
"Who's there?" Yakko whispered. "Do you think it's those tin-plated goons again?"
The footsteps grew louder, and soon they could hear muttering from the other side.
"... last time I ever try to make my own sandwich..."
They looked at one another, puzzled at what they thought they heard. Finally, a short man entered the tent, his eyes fixated on the ground. He was holding a BLT in one hand and a crowbar in the other. He wore a black shirt that said 'JERK' in bold white letters, and his hair was a short black mess. Trailing right behind him was a small gray cat with even messier fur.
"I swear, it's impossible to find decent sandwich ingredients anywhere in this worthless city." He muttered again, still staring down at the ground, an angry glare on his face.
Just as the six were wondering if he was even going to notice them, he looked up and found himself face to face with Yakko. The two stood there in silence, not moving a muscle.
"Ah!" The short man yelled. "What are you doing in my house!? Get out!" He raised his crowbar in one hand, ready to maim the intruder.
Before he could swing, Sephiroth grabbed hold of the weapon and said. "I don't think so."
The man turned and met eyes with the one winged angel as well as the rest of the group, the Pyro giving a friendly wave.
"Great. A traveling circus." The man sighed sarcastically. "And give me back my crowbar!" He tugged against Sephiroth's grip, but couldn't pull it free.
"Do you think he's working with Captain Planet?" GLaDOS asked the others. "Perhaps he was the one in control of those robots that attacked us."
"What are you talking about?" The man asked, still trying to take his bar back. "I don't even know who Captain Plant is!"
"Likely story." Sephiroth said, reaching for his sword with his free hand.
"No wait!" He searched the room for a way out. "If you let me go... I can tell you who really was behind the robots! Just give me a chance to explain!"
"Wait Sephy, I think he may be telling the truth." Said the white pony before he was able to draw his weapon.
He turned to her, "What makes you think that?"
"Well for one thing he didn't even say the name correctly, and second, we can't just go around threatening everypony we see."
Sephiroth sighed, but released his grip on the crowbar. "Alright, so explain yourself. Who are you and why are you here?"
The man, who had gotten as far away from the six strangers as he could, looked over at them and said, "Now wait just a minute! Who do you think you are just bursting into my house, threatening my life, and then expecting me to help you? If anything I should be the one asking the questions!"
"He does have a point." Yakko said to the others.
"We should at least give him the benefit of the doubt." Vinyl added.
"Hmmph mm mmph."
"Alright, fine." Sephiroth surrendered.
The man gave a small grin. "Alright, so why are you here?" He demanded.
Sephiroth stepped up and answered. "We were being chased by an army of red robots. We managed to escape, but we needed a place to rest for a while. We saw this tent, but didn't expect anyone to live-"
"Wait wait wait wait!" The man interrupted. "These robots... were you 'afraid' of them?"
The angel exchanged confused looks with the others. "Um... I suppose, but I don't see what that has to do with anything."
"Excellent!" He exclaimed to himself. "I'm close!"
"Close... to what?"
"The name's Dan. I've spent the last two months tracking down 'The Essence of Fear Itself' to exact my revenge on it. I figured this city would be a good place to look next."
The group just stared at Dan in silence trying to understand what he meant by that. He ignored their confused looks, sat down at a small table in the corner of the tent and began to eat his sandwich. As he took his first bite, a tomato slice fell out from the inside and landed on the ground.
"Awww..." Dan groaned in dismay. He then pulled out a small book from his pocket, flipped it open about halfway, and uncapped a pen. The group could see a bunch of random words written down in the book, most of them having been crossed out. "Gravity..." He muttered, scribbling down the word as he said it.
He closed the book and put it back in his pocket, then turned his attention back to the six strangers, who were still waiting for an explanation. "My plan is simple. I sell weapons, well I've been trying to sell weapons. So I can save up money to buy a bigger weapon. But you're the first people I've met since I got here." Suddenly, an idea popped into his head. "Say... you guys wouldn't be interested in buying anything, would you?"
"Wait," Vinyl started, still confused. "don't you care who we are?"
"As long as you buy some stuff, I couldn't care less who you are."
Sephiroth stroked his chin, thinking about their encounter with Leeroy. "Actually, we could use some upgrades." He walked closer to Dan. "What do you have?"
"I'm glad you asked." He replied, reaching for a cardboard box underneath the table. "I've got just the thing for you: dental floss!"
Sephiroth facepalmed, mumbling something about Dan being incompetent, when GLaDOS spoke up, "Do you have anything a bit... better?"
Dan threw the floss over his shoulder, not caring where it ended up, and searched the box again. "How about a stack of old records?"
The unicorn's face lit up and she quickly approached Dan. "I'll take those! Just wait 'til I show Tavi!" She levitated the folder of six vinyls from Dan's hand and examined them.
"Alright, I got this dumb computer adapter thingy." He continued, holding up the small electronic device for everyone to see.
"An adapter?" GLaDOS repeated. "Is it compatible with potatoes?"
"How should I know?!" Dan exclaimed, throwing his hands in the air. "You want it or not?"
"It may come in handy." Sephiroth said, taking it from Dan.
Dan ignored his words and went back to looking in his arsenal. "Let's see, vintage wine glass, no. Chris' car keys, no. Paddle-ball, no..." He threw all of the 'weapons' behind him, digging through the box.
"Hold on," Yakko said, stopping Dan. "Did you say paddle-ball?"
"I don't know, I'm not paying attention!"
Yakko walked behind Dan to the growing pile of useless junk and grabbed the paddle-ball. He immediately started playing with it and said, "This'll do nicely. I'll take it!"
"Whatever." Dan sighed. "Safety scissors, nope. Yoyo, no." As he neared the bottom of the box, Sephiroth still had not found anything of real use. Until Dan pulled out an old piece of parchment. A single word was written on the paper, and just before Dan threw it into the useless pile, Sephiroth snatched it from his hand.
"Hey!" Dan shouted, though it didn't do much good. Sephiroth just ignored him.
"Where did you get this?" He asked, examining the page.
"I don't know. I can't even read it. My cat, Mr. Mumbles thinks it's written in Salvatian."
"I'll take it." He rolled up the piece of paper and stored it in a small pouch on his person.
Dan examined the last two members of the group, his box emptied now. "You don't really look like you need anything." He said pointing to the Pyro, who just shook his head. "And I don't really have anything for a half-eaten taco, unless..." He remembered the tomato slice that had fallen out of his lunch and picked it up off the ground. "What about this?"
The Pyro looked down at Latisha and said, "Hmm hmmmph?"
Silence.
He then turned to Dan and nodded. "Mmhmm."
"Yeah ok." He shrugged, handing the tomato slice to the Pyro who placed it inside Latisha's shell.
"Alright, so how are you going to pay for all this?" Dan asked, refilling the box and pushing it back under the table.
In truth, they hadn't even thought about that. "Sorry Dan," Vinyl started, "we don't have any money."
"Well then why am I doing business with you!? Gimme my stuff back!" Dan demanded, looking even angrier than before. Just then, something shiny caught his eye. He turned to the Pyro to see him pulling three bars of solid gold out of his rubber suit.
"I think those will do nicely." Dan said, his glare fading.
"Hmm?" The Pyro questioned, unsure why the man wanted the chocolate bars he had taken from the magical candy-land they had recently gotten out of. As Dan grabbed hold of one of the bars, the Pyro pulled back, not wanting to share his tasty treats.
"Pyro, let go of the gold." Sephiroth commanded.
"Mmm!"
"Give Dan the gold." He tried again.
The Pyro sighed in sadness and released his grip on the candy. Disappointed, he turned to Sephiroth who was already leaving the tent. The rest of the group and Dan followed him out.
As the Pyro exited the tent, wishing he still had his chocolate bars, he looked around their surroundings and saw something in front of one of the abandoned buildings that caught his attention. It was a giant candy-cane sticking out of the ground.
"Hmm hmmph mm mmph hmmhmm!" He exclaimed, pointing at the candy-cane.
The others turned to look at him, then at the thing he was pointing at.
"That's what you want?" Asked Dan, exasperated.
"Mhm!" Replied the Pyro, nodding his head vigorously.
"Well you're out of luck, that's not even mi-" An evil grin appeared on his face and he let out a small chuckle. "Wait right here." He said to the group as he walked off-screen. The group heard a few strained grunts, followed by the sound of splintering wood.
Dan walked back to the rest of the group holding a mailbox in his hands. It was green, with a red flag that stood upright, and the number 606 painted on the side. "So how are you planning on paying for this?" He asked. "You got any more money?"
The Pyro thought about it for a second, then held his lollipop out to Dan. "Hmm?"
"Works for me." Said Dan, trading items with the Pyro. "Well it's been a pleasure doing business with all of you." He continued, but was quickly interrupted by Sephiroth.
"We aren't done just yet, you still have to tell us what you know about those robots."
"Yeah... about that," Said Dan slowly. "I lied. I actually don't know anything about them, but I do know a place where you're sure to find some answers."
A huge red robot circled around the block, the three blades spinning extraordinarily fast. It vigorously searched for its targets in all corners of the enormous city. After searching the perimeter and finding nothing, it continued on to the next.
Silence flooded the area. The scenery in this area was much different than that of the housing district. This one seemed much more industrial with almost everything being built out of metal. There was an upper-level highway to the city leading to more areas, but it too had been mostly destroyed. Craters and vehicles still covered the city but other than that, the streets were completely empty.
A sewer lid from the ground suddenly lifted up, and a gloved hand holding a potato peeped out. After scanning around the area, it spoke. "It's all clear. The robots are gone."
The hand was pulled back in and the six emerged from the sewers where they had been hiding.
"I don't like this constant hiding." Vinyl Scratch said, quickly fetching her amp she had laid against a wall. She was reluctant to leave it behind, but it was too big to fit in the sewer.
"We don't have much choice." Sephiroth answered, scraping the muck off of his boots. "As long as that mechanical menace is out, we can't do anything else but hide."
"Mm hmmph mmph hmmhmmphmm?"
"Like Dan said," Sephiroth replied, frightened that he was beginning to understand the Pyro. "There's a computer room somewhere in this district. We find it, we find answers."
"He couldn't have narrowed down the search a little bit more?" Yakko asked, moving the metal lid back onto the hole.
"We just have to keep looking. Although, he did say it was on the second level."
The six looked around, also keeping an eye out for any red robots. "Look. Over there." Vinyl pointed her hoof to a ramp just to the right. It was in bad shape like the rest of the city, but it appeared to be in good enough condition to walk up.
They made their way to the second level, Vinyl having to levitate her bass cannon to get it over all the debris that littered the ramp.
"So what? Are we just looking for a big neon sign that says 'Computer Room'?" Yakko asked sarcastically.
"We're just looking for something. Anything." Sephiroth responded, keeping his eyes forward.
"Would it even still be in one piece? I mean just look at this-" Vinyl stopped. "Do you guys hear that?"
They stopped in their tracks and listened. Soon after, they could hear the sound of metallic footsteps growing louder.
"Hmm mmphmm!" The Pyro exclaimed, pointing to a door to the right.
"Come on!" Sephiroth agreed, rushing to the door. As he approached the small steel door, it slid open allowing the six to enter.
Confused and cautious at the automatic door, Sephiroth hesitated a bit before rushing inside. The other's followed right behind him and tried to force the doors closed. The Pyro and Yakko struggled and strained against the heavy metal doors, before finally sealing off the entrance.
They remained quiet however, listening anxiously for the robots. The footsteps grew louder and louder, the six becoming increasingly worried that they would be found out. They all let out a heavy sigh of relief as they could hear the bots continue on as the sounds of metal feet became more faint and finally disappeared.
"That was too close." Vinyl Scratch sighed, her heart still racing.
"It's not safe out there." Sephiroth said keeping his ears open for anything. "We'll stay here for a while."
They turned around to see where they had ended up. They stood on an elevated platform with gears and circuitry beneath them. They walked down a narrow bridge and ended up in the center of the room, surrounded by glowing blue screens and keyboards. There was another bridge off to the side with a strange circular device at the end, but none of them knew what it was. "I think we just found the room." Yakko commented, gazing up at the two enormous monitors.
"Well, Dan was telling the truth." Sephiroth agreed. He moved toward one of the keyboards. "This technology is different from my world, but I think I can figure out how it works."
He began typing some words into the console to try and find the main files. He tried searching for 'location_directive' but nothing happened. He tried a few more specific searches, but each time it yielded the same results.
"It's no use. I can't figure this machine out." He said, getting up from the keyboard. "It runs on a key specific code we probably aren't supposed to figure out."
"Maybe we should try whacking it a few times." Vinyl suggested preparing to buck the technology.
"Ah! Don't do that!" Sephiroth yelled.
Vinyl stopped right before her hind legs made contact with the computer. "Well then what do you suggest we do?"
"Hey, why don't we plug Spuddy in?" Yakko gestured to the potato.
"I'd prefer to be called Ms. Spuddy." GLaDOS replied.
"Hmm... that may work." Sephiroth said, noting the adapter he placed in his pouch. "GLaDOS, do you think you can work this thing?"
"I was designed to be perfect in every way and to control any and all technology. So sure, why not?"
The angel pulled the adapter out and picked up GLaDOS. After a bit of searching he located the outlet and connected the hardware.
"Now if you would kindly plug me into that giant contraption."
It took some time to locate the second outlet on the computer, but after a while, GLaDOS was plugged in and began speeding through all of the files on the computer.
"Let's see what we have here. 'Six Easy Steps to Baking a Cake'. Oh, I'll have to remember this. Would any of you care for some cake?"
"Focus GLaDOS." Sephiroth said. "We need to find answers."
"Oh alright." GLaDOS said, but not before saving the file to her Starch Drive. "Well, here's a video file. There is no name, just 'watch?v=QH2-TGUlwu4.mp4'."
"Hmm... well let's see what it is." Vinyl said.
GLaDOS opened the video, pulled it to full screen and after a quick loading bar...
"What is this? I don't even..." Sephiroth said, unable to comprehend what he was witnessing.
"Aaaaaaaah-" Yakko struggled to find his words. "I don't think this is entirely important."
As the video continued, Sephiroth looked at the Potato and asked, "Why is this still playing?"
GLaDOS simply replied with, "I find it enjoyable, and so does Mr. Pyro."
The others turned around to see the gas jockey bobbing his head and tapping his foot in rhythm. After a moment or two of his happy dancing, he noticed the others giving him strange looks, and responded with a thumbs-up.
"GLaDOS, please, focus." Sephiroth begged.
"Oh, alright." She said, pausing and minimizing the video. She then proceeded to type a long series of characters into the console at the rate only a super-computer could achieve. Numerous windows opened and closed on the screen, much too fast for any of the others to see what they were. "Haven City." GLaDOS broke the silence.
They all looked at the monitor to see she had stopped on one particular window. It was filled with tons of folders and files named by a confusing code of numbers and letters. "What?" Vinyl asked.
"The name of this city, Haven City." She opened numerous files and said, "And apparently, Captain Planet is planning on removing this place from the rest of the planet."
"Well I can't say I blame him." Yakko commented. "This doesn't exactly seem like the proper piece of a perfect planet."
"Well why did he choose it in the first place?" Vinyl piped up.
"That information doesn't seem to be in these files." GLaDOS replied. "But this might be of some use." She clicked on a file named 'PP.chi'.
"Uh... Captain Planet does know there's pp on his computer screen, right?" Yakko rather inappropriately joked.
A few seconds later, a blue planet hologram appeared in the center of the room. Beware the walrus. There were several chunks of the planet missing, leaving the core exposed.
"This is his planet-in-construction." GLaDOS said. "And he's still not finished."
"Hmm." Sephiroth said, examining the hologram. "Now look for who was behind those robots."
"You called?" said a mysterious voice that seemed to emanate from the computer.
Silence. Sephiroth turned to GLaDOS and asked, "What did you say?"
GLaDOS replied. "I didn't say anything."
Suddenly, all of the windows that cluttered the console's screen abruptly closed. But when they had all been shut down, they didn't see the desktop, they instead were greeted by a a hideous purple monster. He looked as though he was wearing a mask sporting long horns on both sides. His arms and legs were long and unprotected, though the rest of his body was covered by a thick layer of armor. He had long yellow hair, though his anatomy was more like that of a spider than a human.
He stared at the six, his soul-piercing green and yellow eyes looking at each of the heroes at once. Finally, Sephiroth stepped up. "Who are you?!"
"My name..." He started, pausing for dramatic effect. "is Diaboromon."
"Then it was you who was controlling those robots!" Vinyl shouted at the monitor. "You tried to kill us!"
"And I'm willing to bet dollars to donuts that you're working for Captain Planet." Yakko added, crossing his arms and glaring at the screen.
"You're both correct." Diaboromon said, a grim smile on his face. "And though I failed to kill you when you first entered the City," There was a loud pounding on the metal door, startling the six. "You're all fish in a barrel now!"
Sephiroth drew his masamune and ran to the door, joined by Yakko and the Pyro. "Great! Just what we needed!" Sephiroth sighed, preparing for the onslaught of robots.
"It's no use!" Diaboromon boasted. "You're no match for my KG Death-Bot army!"
"He's right." Yakko solemnly agreed. "There's no way we can fight them all. We've got to think of something else!"
"If we could get to Diaboromon himself, then..." Sephiroth stopped. He quickly turned to the console potato. "GLaDOS! You have to fight him!"
"Actually, we were just about to go out for lunch." GLaDOS replied dryly. As soon as she said that, she began zooming through the console, searching for the villain. "It feels so good to be all-powerful again."
She scoured the computer, scanning every data file and internet link looking for Diaboromon. At last she found him in the Paint program.
"Ohai. So, how are you holding up?" GLaDOS cordially asked. "Because I'm about to kill you." Using various tools in the program, she created a six-gauge shotgun, fully colored, cocked back, and aimed for his skull.
Though he was far too quick and dodged every single bullet. As he jumped all around the program, he shouted, "Web Wrecker!" And a red ball of energy fired out of his chest and destroyed the drawing.
On the other end of the line, the Pyro, Sephiroth and Yakko did their best to hold the door shut, but it was apparent that the robots were breaking through. Vinyl then bought them some time by keeping the door sealed tight with her magic. "GLaDOS! Hurry!" Sephiroth called back. "We can't hold them forever!"
"Perhaps you would like to trade places?" GLaDOS asked, trying to corner the digital monster. He jumped through numerous programs, evading the supercomputer's wrath. Diaboromon opened up a window and instantly disappeared.
GLaDOS followed him into the program. It took a few moments for the window to fully load, but eventually GLaDOS saw what appeared to be an entire world made up of blocks. She looked at the corner of the window and saw the word 'Minecraft'.
The world had a very lonesome atmosphere, as if GLaDOS was the only one there. There was wildlife however, very odd looking pigs and sheep wondered aimlessly through the fields of grass. She moved the camera of the window back a ways and saw she was controlling a man, also made of blocks, wearing a blue shirt and pants.
She walked along, looking for the villain in this colorful pixelated world. There was no sound other than the occasional animal noises and her own footsteps along the dirt. In the distance she could see mountains, forests, and what appeared to be a large body of water.
Suddenly, a voice called out from the distance. "Web Wrecker!" A square of red energy barreled right toward GLaDOS at an alarming speed. Thinking quickly, she jumped out of the way, though the blast knocked her to the ground. "Oof!" She said.
On the other end of the console, the robots were finally pushing through the door. Fighting against Vinyl's magic, they managed to open it enough to fire some shots into the room.
Sephiroth deflected the lasers and with one swipe from his sword, destroyed the robot on the other end. "We don't have time for this! GLaDOS, hurry up!" He yelled, another robot firing shots through the doorway.
"This may be a shock to you," GLaDOS replied, "but this isn't exactly easy."
Diaboromon approached the wounded character and laughed. "You are a supercomputer? Ha! That's a laugh!"
As he continued bragging and boasting, GLaDOS opened her inventory to see if she could find a way out of this one. In her backpack she found sticks, some sand, wool, an ink sac, and... a diamond sword.
About the time he was rambling about tacos and certain parts of the Geneva Convention, she reached into her backpack, got a firm grip, and threw the sand in his eyes.
"Ah! What are you-?! AH!" Diaboromon cried, trying to wipe the sand out of his eyes.
In his moment of disorientation, GLaDOS grabbed the diamond sword and swung at the spider. The sword severed one of his arms.
Rather than yelling 'ouch', Diaboromon instead said "Cable Crusher!" And his still attached arm extended, pushing GLaDOS' character into a tree with great force. He then jumped out of the window and fled to another part of the console.
The potato followed as best she could, but he had evaded her once again. Even worse, the others were not faring too well. The doors were almost completely open, and some of the smaller bots were able to get inside. The Pyro swung his Postal Pummeler at the smaller bots, crushing them to pieces. While Latisha could only stare in shock and awe as her friends fought bravely and valiantly.
"Where'd that over-grown insect run off to?" GLaDOS asked to herself, searching through all of the fires as quickly as possible. She opened Skype, Photoshop, Movie Maker, and ITunes, but he was still nowhere to be found.
"Go back..." A voice whispered.
"What? Who said that?" GLaDOS asked.
"I didn't hear anything!" Vinyl said, levitating some of her records and launching them at the small walker bots.
"Go back..." it said again, a bit louder this time. It didn't sound like Diaboromon, in fact it was quite the opposite. It was distorted, making it sound both intimidating and friendly.
"Go back... to where?" GLaDOS asked.
She waited for a minute for an answer. Just as she began wondering if it was gone, the voice spoke again. "Go back... to the beginning."
"Back to the beginning?" She repeated. Suddenly, it all made sense. "Back to the beginning!" She opened up a program on the computer she had neglected before; Steam. And there he was, hiding out in the games library. The only problem was he had spent this time multiplying himself, as well as regenerating his arm.
"He's multiplying!" GLaDOS called out. "I can't tell which is the real one!"
"Can't you just run a search for the real Diaboromon?" Yakko asked, backing away from a robot.
"That would take too long. There must be over nine thousand of them."
She looked for any means of destroying the thousands of spiders cluttering the screen, but it seemed like a hopeless endeavor. That is until she caught site of a familiar logo: The logo for Aperture Science.
Suddenly, she had a brilliant idea. "Oh Diaboromon?" She called out, not expecting them to pay her much attention. "There's someone who would like to meet you."
As soon as she said that, the screen outside of the Steam window filled with walls covered in spikes.
"Mashy-spike-plates!"
The walls moved in, crushing hundreds of Diaboromons, killing them instantly. the Steam window began to clear, more and more until only a few thousand were left. And then only a few hundred. And then only one.
"Well, it's been fun, but I don't like you." One of the plates lined itself up with the last Diaboromon. "Goodbye."
Just before he met the same fate as all of his clones, he jumped out of the way just in time. GLaDOS raised another plate to hit right where he landed, but again, he was too quick and evaded the wall.
"No wonder I never used these, they never work." GLaDOS said to herself.
"GLaDOS, we're out of time!" Sephiroth yelled, the robots finally breaking through the door and storming into the room. "Finish him, now!"
"He's too fast, every time I have him in my sights, he jumps somewhere else!" She said back. "I need to find some way to slow him down- wait, that's it!" GLaDOS went back to the Aperture Science logo and clicked on it.
Slowly, a greenish-yellow gas flooded the screen and she continued the pressure with the spike plates. Diaboromon continued to dodge each one, but eventually, the gas got to him and he began to slow down.
"Wha- what is this?" He said with a cough.
"Oh, it's just a little thing I like to call deadly neurotoxin." One last time, she raised a spike plate up to the villain. "But you can call it I-really-hope-this-doesn't-kill-me." The wall sprung toward the arachnid, crushing him into the Steam window.
"Connection," he struggled to say from behind the spiked plate. "terminated..."
Sephiroth prepared for another wave of robots to storm the room, but just as they entered, they deactivated and fell to the ground. The group sighed in relief, catching their breath. "Is everypony alright?" Vinyl asked, breathing heavily.
"I think so." Sephiroth said, sheathing his sword.
"Hmm mmphmm hmmhmmph hmm." The Pryo agreed, putting away his mailbox.
"Yeah, Captain Planet sent him here to deal with us." Yakko said, placing his hands on his hips. "But how did he know we were here?"
"Somehow he's watching us." Sephiroth said, moving toward the computer. "GLaDOS, is there anything in the computer that can tell us who his scout is?"
"Sure. I'll just run a search and-" She stopped. She continued clicking on a file for a few seconds, but nothing happened. Finally, a message popped up saying that the file had been corrupted. "Oh this isn't good."
"What is it?" Vinyl asked.
"Diaboromon was able to corrupt all of the files on this console. I can't do anything."
*BOOM* A loud explosion just outside caught their attention.
"What was that?!"
"It seems that right before he died, Diaboromon set up us the bomb. This place is about to blow!"
"Then we have to get out of here!"
"Hold on," GLaDOS said, frantically searching the console. "I think I've found a way out." After searching through the sub files of sub files, she managed to activate the circular structure in the back. The device turned out to be a portal, as it lit up with a rippling blue essence, emitting a low hum.
"The portal is activated." GLaDOS called. "Would anyone care to specify a destination?"
"Who cares?" Sephiroth asked, running to the portal. "Just get us out of here!"
"Alright, alright. There. Would someone pull me out of the computer so we can go. I don't feel like becoming a baked potato."
The Pyro quickly pulled the potato away from the keyboard and bolted for the portal. With the explosions becoming more violent, the rest of the group had already entered the portal. And as the room fell to pieces in the fiery explosions, the Pyro leapt for the portal, barely making it in before the entire room was destroyed.
"What?!" Captain Planet shouted. "Diaboromon has been killed?!"
Will sighed and gave a nod. "Unfortunately. He was a valuable asset. Much more valuable than Leeroy."
The Captain paced back and forth, deep in thought. "Any death is a tragedy."
"Leeroy was too headstrong and cocky." Will pounded his fist on a desk, startling the man sitting behind it. "There is no way he could be compared to Diaboromon!"
Captain Planet turned to his right hand man, a confused look on his face.
"I mean... yes, both deaths are tragic, but there is no point in morning the lost. We need to figure out a new plan."
"Yes, it would seem." He pulled out a folder from a nearby desk and glanced over some files. "We are not dealing with any ordinary six people. They have talent. They are powerful." He turned to the man behind the desk. "Doctor Robotnik, do you have any ideas?"
The doctor stood from the darkness and took a step into the light, his trademark red coat finally being revealed. His mustache was larger than what seemed physically possible and he wore a unique pair of goggles. Though he lacked hair on his head, he made up for it with his IQ of 300.
"I'm glad you asked Captain." He said in his gruff, harsh tone. "I still need a day or two to complete my grand masterpiece, and I cannot say I would be comfortable stepping into the line of fire. Why not send the pony?"
"I don't think that's a good idea." Will interjected.
"Actually," Captain Planet said stroking his chin. "That could work swimmingly."
"Captain please." Will raised his voice, obviously irritated. "If Leeroy couldn't do it, then what makes you think he is any different?"
Captain Planet gave Will a look of authority, trying to remind him of who was in charge.
"I-I'm sorry sir. It won't happen again." He hanged his head and sat down.
The Captain turned his attention to the pony and said, "It's your turn now."
*****
Meanwhile, in a snowy village, a man in a red flame-retardant suit trenched through the white frozen water. His boots sank deep into the snow, hindering his movement, though he pressed on. Surrounding him were numerous wooden buildings with various names and designs. They weren't the sturdiest buildings but they were well-built enough to stand.
After finishing looking around, the Pyro returned to a particular building with a sign that read 'The Three Broomsticks'. As he entered the establishment, he noticed that the others were sitting at an old, worn-out table with three broomsticks hanging on the wall. In front of them rested five glasses of a bubbly, light brown liquid.
The Pyro pulled out a chair and sat down. "Well, did you see anything?" Vinyl asked passing him a glass.
"Mm mm." The Pyro replied.
"Good. Then we haven't been followed." Sephiroth said quietly, taking a sip of his beverage.
"Well, where do we go next?" Vinyl asked the winged one while levitating the glass to her mouth.
"Pyro, did you see anything else out there?"
"Hmmph hmm mm hmmph mm hmmhmm hmm hmmph." He answered, trying to describe the muffled somethings with hand gestures. Most of the others didn't seem to understand him too well.
"A pathway? And where does it lead?" Sephiroth asked. The others shifted their confused faces to Sephiroth rather than their English-impaired friend.
"Mmm. Mmmhmmph mmhmm. Hmmph mm mm mmph hmm hmm hmmph hmm."
"A castle of some sorts? That seems like our best bet. Maybe we can find something there."
"What are we looking for?" Yakko asked. "I don't think a medieval castle has a computer room."
"It's better than staying here drinking... whatever it is we're drinking." Sephiroth commented, looking at his odd drink. "Let's get moving."
"Wait, before we go, I have a question." GLaDOS said. The others turned to her awaiting her question. "Why don't I have a drink?"
They all looked at the drinks, then at her. "Hmm hmm mmph mm mmph." The Pyro mummbled.
"He says 'because you're a potato.'" Sephiroth translated.
"And how come Latisha gets a drink?"
"Mmph hmm hmmph. Hmm hmmphmmph mmph mmhmmhmmph."
"'She's a taco of course. Not a potato,' he says."
GLaDOS metaphysically rolled her eyes and said, "The logic in the current situation is quickly depleting."
*****
The group trudged along through the thick snow. In the distance they could see the castle down the narrow path they followed, and knew that was where they needed to go.
They were silent, all except for Yakko's paddle-ball which he played with perfectly whilst walking. The view of the castle was becoming more and more clear, showing the immensity of the stone structure.
Vinyl Scratch broke the silence, "That castle reminds me a lot of the one in Canterlot." She looked up, reminiscing the times when she had been invited to play. "They kept inviting me back, no matter how many times I nearly destroyed the place."
"You seem to have quite the life." Yakko said, turning his attention away from his repetitive motions though still playing.
"It was pretty exciting." Vinyl said. "I do miss Tavi though. She and I did everything together. I wonder if she misses me too. Or if she even knows I'm gone."
"Who's Tavi?"
"Oh, well her full name is Octavia. She's a pretty darn good musician, just like me."
"And let me guess," GLaDOS spoke up. "She's another pony?"
"No, she's a walnut." Vinyl said dryly. "Of course she's a pony. Where I come from, everypony is a pony."
"Hmmhmm?"
"Well, no. We also have pegasi and earth ponies. Cows and donkeys too."
"An entire world of talking animals." Yakko said. "This is sounding a tad familiar."
Vinyl gave a small sigh. "Now I'm feeling homesick. Don't even know if we'll ever get back to our homes."
"I'm sure we'll get home somehow." GLaDOS encouraged.
"Yeah, listen to the food. I still gotta get back to take care of my siblings." Yakko said.
"There are more like you?" Vinyl questioned, adjusting her sunglasses.
"Eeyup. Wakko is my brother. Think I mentioned him before. Well, he's crazy. He and the Pyro would probably get along real nice."
"Hmm!" The Pyro looked up with excitement that someone would be his friend.
"And my little sister Princess Angelina Contessa Louisa Francesca Banana Fanna Bo Besca III. She's the youngest of our family, and the cutest thing in the world."
"Princess... Ange-booble-what's-her-face?" Vinyl tried to repeat. "Isn't that kind of a mouthful?"
"Not really, but we do call her Dot for short."
"Hmm hmmph mm. Hmmph hmmhmm mmphhmmhmm mm." The Pyro mummbled, looking down.
"What on earth did he even try to say?" GLaDOS rather rudely asked.
"He said 'that sounds nice. I never had any siblings.'" Sephiroth answered from the front of the group.
"Hmm mmmph." The Pyro continued, mumbling in a dialect that most others found annoying.
While he was rambling, Vinyl inched away from the back of the herd and trotted up to Sephiroth. "So this has been some adventure, huh?"
Sephiroth looked down with an unimpressed demeanor. "I'll be honest, I didn't expect to meet any of you." He looked forward again. "Let alone spend this much time with a bunch of idiots... No offense."
Vinyl shrugged. "Eh, it's no biggie. I've been called worse things."
"Truth be told, you're the least idiotic of the group."
"Aw, ya mean it Sephy?"
"As long as you stop calling me 'Sephy'. My name is Sephiroth."
"Not to me it isn't." Vinyl looked up with a grin ear to ear.
With a sigh of defeat, Sephiroth looked down at her and tried to muster a smile. His lip curled a notch, but to no avail.
"So what do you think we'll find at this castle?" Vinyl asked trying to get a better view of the building in front of them.
"Given the things we've found so far..." He too shifted his gaze to the enormous castle. "I have no idea."
"Well whatever is waiting for us, we can handle it."
"What makes you so sure of that?"
"Well we've beaten Leeroy and Diaboromon." She let out a small chuckle. "I'll bet Captain Planet isn't too happy with us."
"That is true. We're probably not his favorite people in the world right now."
"And besides, who could be tougher than them?"
"Don't get too cocky Vinyl Scratch." The castle was closer than it had ever been now. "None of us know what lies inside this castle."
*****
The group arrived at a pair of giant double doors made of wood. They were old and worn, though they still looked sturdy enough. The castle was even bigger now than it looked in the distance, with a field off to the side for sports and numerous towers spreading all throughout the building.
"So..." GLaDOS started. "Should we ring the doorbell?"
"I wonder if anybody even lives here." Sephiroth stroked his chin, admiring the castle.
While they were all trying to decide on a course of action, the Pyro walked right up and knocked on the right door three times. The rest of the group looked at his actions as if he was just a derp, but soon after the doors slowly swung open.
At first they were concerned for stepping into an unfamiliar, and rather intimidating building. But when nobody came to the door or objected to it being opened, they entered.
The castle was made of solid marble and stone, finely cut and placed into walls and pillars. The inside was much more grand and magnificent than the outside, though there wasn't much else besides the pillars. It was mostly just a long hallway with some stairs at the end. There were some doors off to the side, but on the whole it was grand but bland.
"This is it?" Vinyl asked, removing her sunglasses. "It's good but... I expected a bit more."
"I told you we were going the wrong way!" A nagging voice echoed down one of the corridors. "Now we're going in circles!"
"Who said that?" GLaDOS asked.
"Ya know, for a planet devoid of life, this place is pretty populated." Yakko commented.
"Oh, well excuse me, pocket-watch!" An annoying voice replied to the nagging voice. "Maybe you'd like to call the shots!"
"What the-" Sephiroth looked down the nearest corridor.
"Perhaps it would be better! I've lived my entire life in a castle anyways!" The first voice said, becoming a bit louder.
"Did'ja get lost in it often? Cuz ya did a fine job getting us lost here!" The second voice responded.
"Now wait just a minute you... you... rat!"
"Who is it Sephy?" Vinyl asked, joining his gaze down the hallway.
He remained silent. "You wouldn't believe me if I told you."
"Well what do you suggest we do?" The nagging voice asked, approaching the group.
"I don't know!" The irritating voice replied. "Why don't we ask those guys up there for directions?!" He stopped, folded his arms and turned to the other. After a few moments, his eyes widened and he looked back at the group of six standing in the main hallway. He quickly panicked and ducked behind the other for cover.
"What are you doing?!" The other asked.
"This way if they are hungry, they'll eat you instead of me!"
"Eat us? Preposterous!" Said the talking clock. He walked up to the tallest one of the group and gestured to him. "Does he look dangerous in the slightest?"
Sephiroth just rolled his eyes, wondering if this entire journey had made it hard for people to take him seriously.
The meerkat peered up, noting the enormous sword. "Well when ya put it that way... YES!"
"Oh pish-posh, you're such a wimp." The clock turned to the others. "Sorry about my, eh, I hesitate to say 'friend'."
"Likewise, 'pal'."
"As I was saying, I am Cogsworth, head of household."
"Ha! That's a laugh!"
An unimpressed Cogsworth sighed and gestured behind him. "This is Timon..."
"Whoa. A talking clock." Vinyl looked impressed slash confused.
"And yet another talking animal." Sephiroth added. "I'm beginning to wonder if Chocobos are capable of speech as well."
"Maybe they just don't have anything to say." Yakko interrupted.
"We're getting impressively off topic now." GLaDOS said from the back.
Sephiroth nodded. "Right. Well... I'm Sephiroth. This is Vinyl Scratch, Yakko, GLaDOS, The Pyro, and... Latisha." He said pointing to each one in turn.
"A pleasure to meet all of you. And how can I be of assistance?" Cogsworth asked.
"Well..." Vinyl looked around. "Can you tell us where we are?"
"Why certainly mademoiselle." The clock cleared his throat, obviously preparing for a long speech.
"Oh boy, here we go..." Timon sighed, plugging his ears with his fingers.
"This is Hogwarts Castle. It used to be a school for gifted witches and wizards of all kinds. From the simple spells of levitation." Cogsworth stood on one foot, as if trying to float. "To the crushing power of casting curses. Even learning how to make potions and how to care for various magical creatures." He pointed to some broomsticks laying on the floor to the side. "And of course, what school would be complete without its very own sport? Quidditch is the fastest sport in the entire wizarding world."
Sephiroth interrupted "We don't exactly need a tour. We just need to know..." He hesitated to say why they were really there. He looked to everyone in the group, but none of them knew what to do. Until he got to the Pyro who gave him a thumbs up. Reluctantly, Sephiroth carried on. "Captain Planet. Have you heard of him?"
"Of course we've heard of him." Timon said, waltzing his way up to the group. "In fact, the 'master' of this castle works for him." He made sure to emphasize 'master' with an amount of sarcasm that actually made Yakko jealous.
"Hmm hmmphmm mm hmmph phmm hmmph?" The Pyro attempted to say.
Everyone just stared at the red suited moron. Then, all together said, "WHAT?!"
Sephiroth on the other hand, had unfortunately gained the skills of translating for the Pyro and said, "He asked why you said 'master' so sarcastically."
Cogsworth stuttered a bit, then said, "Well, you see, um... well, h-he's not quite, well not exactly. Not exactly the... b-b-best, uh... master."
"He stinks worse than rhino dung!" Timon interjected, Cogsworth rushed to cover his friend's mouth.
"Quiet! If the master finds out about this it will be our necks!"
"I don't care if he hears us!" Timon shook his fist in the air angrily.
"If you hate him so much," Vinyl started. "then why are you serving him?"
Silence. The two, for once, had nothing to say.
"Well?" She pushed.
"Because..." Cogsworth began, scratching the back of his neck anxiously. "Because he'll have that dreadful Captain Planet destroy our worlds if we don't."
"Traitors!" A voice boomed from above. "You will both pay for your insolence!"
Cogsworth and Timon instinctively cowered and jumped into each other's arms, shaking with anxiety. Just then, from a nearby staircase, a puff of smoke covered the upstairs hallway in a dense fog.
"Who in Equestria is that?" Vinyl asked, shielding her eyes from bright lights as if she were at a carnival.
Through the mist, a silhouette began to appear. It looked to be a pony standing on hind legs and holding its front legs high into the air, as if showing off to the crowd below. It wore a purple cape and pointy hat, decorated with stupid stars and moons and stuff.
"Have you forgotten who saved you from sure destruction?!" The voice called out again, its dark purplish eyes glaring down at the clock and cat.
While Cogsworth cowered from his master, Timon stepped up and said, "It was YOU who tried to destroy our world in the first place!"
"SILENCE!" He roared, Timon rushing behind his companion. "If you will not serve your great and powerful master, then perhaps I should destroy your worlds myself!"
"Who do you think you are?!" Yakko piped up, the pony's attention shifting to him.
"You incredulous pup! Do you not know to whom you speak?!"
"No. I don't." Yakko replied dryly. "That's why I asked smart one."
"Scoff not, young foal." He boasted, the smoke at his hooves clearing to reveal a light blue coat. "For you are in the presence of none other than... The Great and Powerful TRISTAN!" Numerous colorful explosions flooded the upstairs as the smoke vanished revealing the pony. He wore a proud, smug expression upon his face, knowing that he was completely and utterly the best ever.
"Great... Another pony." Sephiroth sighed. "Do you know this guy?" he asked turning to Vinyl Scratch.
"Not really." She tilted her head. "Though he does look really similar to this one pony, Trixie. Come to think of it, she called herself 'The Great and Powerful Trixie'. Maybe she had a brother."
"Nice to meet you." GLaDOS spoke up. "Would you like some cake?"
Timon jumped out from behind the still shivering Cogsworth, "Someone tell the potato to stop offering desserts to the pony!" (10 bucks to anyone who's heard this sentence in any context before...)
"The Great and Powerful Tristan will enjoy cake after your defeat." He boasted some more, holding his head high. "And when the delectable has been devoured, I will tell Captain Planet that I have found two more perfect worlds to extract."
"Exactly what gives you the right to do that?" Yakko asked.
"Hmm hmmph mmph hmm." The Pyro added, holding his candy cane up.
"Because, impudent foals." He began down the stairway. "Anything you can do, I can do better."
"Shall we put that to the test?" Sephiroth asked, raising his sword to challenge the pony.
"You're nothing but a showoff and a fraud." Vinyl added, reaching for her cannon. "If your sister was incompetent, then you won't be any different."
Tristan chuckled. "Oh, I doubt that." He turned his back to them, gesturing to the halls behind him. "This whole castle is nothing but a gigantic library for magic. I've spent at least thirty minutes practicing everything that caught my interest."
"Eh, Master Tristan," Cogsworth interjected. "Wouldn't it have made more sense to have, eh, studied everything the books have to offer?"
Tristan glared down and barked, "If I took my time to actually read, then I would miss out on using the spells! And what do you know? You're just a ticking moron!"
"But... um..." The clock stuttered. "You mean to say you didn't actually read the spells?"
"SILENCE!" The stallion roared, his eyes glowing light blue as a beam of powerful magic shot out of his horn, blasting the ground where Cogsworth and Timon stood. The two were sent flying in opposite directions, screaming all the way until they collided with the walls of the castle.
"Hey! What's the big idea!" Yakko yelled. "He's only trying to help!"
"The Great and Powerful Tristan needs not the help of imbeciles like him!" His horn began to glow brighter. "And he most certainly does not need foals like you telling him who he can and cannot blast!"
Yakko looked at the others and whispered, "Yakko is confused as to when we shifted to the third person."
"GLaDOS agrees." GLaDOS agreed.
Suddenly, another blast of light blue magic rushed down at the group, knocking them all in different directions and leaving a crater in the ground. "The Great and Powerful Tristan will show you why he is so great and powerful!"
Sephiroth rose to his feet and, in an instant, appeared right next to Tristan. Without a word, he raised his sword and swung diagonally at the blue colt. But Tristan was quick to dodge the blade and retaliated with two magic swords of his own.
The two light blue blades engaged Sephiroth while Tristan managed to gain some distance from the swordsman. Though the spell didn't last long, as the angel made short work of the conjured swords and charged toward Tristan again.
Before he could reach him however, the pony managed to cast a spell and split himself into six other Tristans.
"Oh goodie, more cloning nonsense." GLaDOS metaphysically rolled her nonexistent eyes.
He paid the potato no heed, and instead boasted some more. "When I am finished here, and I assure you it won't take long," each Tristan made the same gestures and wore the same brash and cocky face. "Captain Planet will destroy all of your worlds!"
"Not today." Sephiroth retorted, slicing through one of the Tristans instantly. The clone phased in and out of existence, until finally dissipating.
"Congratulations," The Tristans said in surround sound. "You've bested one of my clones. But you cannot beat the real me, no matter how much strength you muster!" The remaining Tristans laughed as their horns began to glow. All together, they fired a beam at Sephiroth.
Though he fought against it, the power of six Tristans was far too great for him, and the swordsman was blown into the stone walls again and knocked unconscious.
"Sephy!" Vinyl called out, galloping over to him.
"Ha! Just as I thought!" The stallions cachinnated in unison. "Not even the acclaimed, One-Winged Angel could best The Great and Powerful Tristan!"
"If I had a nickle for every time this guy bragged, I'd have about thirty nickles." Yakko commented. "It's not a lot, but given the amount of time I've known him, it's quite impressive."
"Oh, and would you like to challenge The Great and-" The Tristans were cut off.
"Great and Powerful Tristan, blah blah blah, yadda yadda, whatever." Yakko imitated, moving his hand like a mouth. "Can we just get on with this?"
"How dare you challenge me! Do you know who I am!?"
"YES!" Yakko caps-raged. "EVERYONE KNOWS WHO YOU ARE!"
Vinyl launched records at two of the Tristans, slicing seamlessly through their bodies "Yakko, stop provoking him!" she yelled.
Just as Yakko shrugged off Vinyl's command, the two Tristans began to phase just like the one Sephiroth had sliced through, and they eventually disappeared.
"Well well well, magic versus magic then?" The four remaining colts asked. "Then perhaps this is where my thirty minutes of almost reading those boring old books will come in handy." Vinyl raised up four more of the records, firing each of them at a different target. "Expulso!" the enemies shouted, as each one fired bright balls of magic at the musical discs, shattering all but one. The missed target made it through the barrage and destroyed yet another clone.
The three remaining Tristans, now extremely irritated, cast another spell. "Stupefy!" The middle Tristan shot a red beam of light out of his horn. It came too quickly for the mare to dodge, and Vinyl was put into an unconscious state, just like Sephiroth. So they are pretty much out of this fight, okay? Okay.
One of the Tristans strayed from the group, approaching Latisha and GLaDOS. "And I suppose you are going to try your hoof at stopping The Great and Powerful Tristan as well?"
"Well," GLaDOS paused for a moment, then spoke, "I won't do anything. But my friend there might."
"Friend?"
Out of nowhere, a green mailbox slammed down through the Tristan, getting rid of yet another clone. The Pyro turned his attention to the last two Tristans, just staring at them. Normally, Tristan would have had something arrogant to say. But the Pyro seemed to take his breath away. they just stood there, waiting for one to make a move.
After a moment of just waiting it out, the Pyro finally made his move, reaching behind him to pull out his flare gun. He aimed it as quickly as possible and launched the little red projectile at one of the ponies. Before it landed, the one he had not aimed for pushed the first out of the way and took the flare.
With the final clone gone, Tristan looked to the Pyro in distaste. "So... That's how it's going to be then." The unicorn's horn once again glowed and he muttered the words, "Wingardium Leviosa!" The Pyro was lifted off of his feet, confused and frightened, he reached for his Flamethrower. "Oh no you don't!" Tristan yelled, throwing the gas jockey into the walls of the castle numerous times.
Tristan finally slammed him into the ground where he lay unable to move.
A slight chuckle from the pony as he admired his handiwork. "Well, it seems none of you foals were a match for I. Was there ever any doubt?"
A dinging noise filled the air, startling the pony. He turned around to see a stage set up as if he was in a game show. Yakko stood behind a pedestal, his hand raised and constantly repeating the word "Ooh!"
Genuinely confused, Tristan reluctantly pointed his hoof at the dog. "Um... you?"
"YES!" Yakko yelled, confetti raining down on him as he cheered in excitement. "Yay! I win I win I win!"
The stallion stared at him, struggling to comprehend what just happened. "How do you function?"
"Well, Hollywood pays me to act, and Steven's a nice guy. A bit of a slave driver sometimes, but hey, what can ya do? I always like to think that-"
"Shut up. Just... shut up."
"C'mon Tristy, lighten up pony-boy."
"You know, Captain Planet gave me orders to only capture you six, but in situations like this, one or two casualties are to be expected." Tristan said gravely as his horn began to glow.
"Oh, I don't think I like the sound of that," GLaDOS began. "Yakko I would suggest Not letting him hit you with that next spell."
"It's no use!" Shouted Tristan. "I spent a whole ten minutes working on this spell, there's nothing you can do!"
He stood on his hind legs preparing to unleash his next attack.
"Clavaca Renadra!"
Silence. They all stood still, waiting for something to happen. But after an entire minute of nothing happening, Yakko opened his mouth. "Do you... do you want me to die?"
"I don't understand!" Tristan exclaimed, summoning a book to him. "I could have sworn that's how it went!"
"Well performance issues are to be expected."
"Blast it all! Why isn't this spell written down in any of these books?!"
"Idunno, a spell that kills people, you think more people would want to know it."
"Unless it was... aha!"
"You got it?"
"Yes!" Tristan stood from his second-long reading session and said, "Cower now you idiot! For now you shall feel the wrath of The Great and Powerful Tristan!"
"Think you've said that enough?"
"Arturo Viagra!"
Again, what followed the spell was a dense silence.
"Wha-... NO!" Tristan panicked, flipping through the book yet again.
"Are you trying to think of the words, Abra Kadabra?"
"Shut up! You're not helping!"
"Well it sure is helping me that you're incompetent." Yakko shrugged, walking away from the stallion.
"Where do you think you're going?! You get back here so I can kill you!" Tristan commanded.
"As riveting as that option is, I think I'll pass."
Furiously glancing through each page for not even half a second, Tristan closed the book and said, "Okay! This time I've got it!" He prepared his body once again and spoke the words, "Kakuna Rattata!"
"I'm just gonna take a wild guess and say that wasn't it either." Yakko said, not even turning around to see Tristan's failure.
"But... But... But he said!" Tristan stuttered. "He told me... the spell..."
"Look, if we're done here, I think we'll just be moving on." Yakko waved, rolling Vinyl's bass cannon along with GLaDOS and Latisha on top of it.
"Wait! I remember it!" Tristan exclaimed.
"Oh boy, I can't wait to see this one." GLaDOS said sarcastically.
"Now you will think twice before you mess with The Great and Powerful Tris... Oh whatever, you get the idea!" He readied his stance and shouted at the top of his lungs, "A Pina Colada!"
Unlike all the other times he had attempted to cast the spell, something actually did happen this time. A cool, refreshing drink with a little paper umbrella appeared right next to GLaDOS on the amp.
"Wat." Tristan mumbled.
"Oh, hey, thanks Tristy! I could use a drink." Yakko said appreciatively, taking a small sip of the delicious beverage.
"This can't be right! Think, Tristan, think!" He paced around for a moment. "What was that phrase that stupid rat would always say?"
Timon looked up from his wounded state. "Who are you calling 'stupid'!?"
Cogsworth rose unsteadily to his feet and answered for him. "Um, I believe it was 'Hakuna Matata'?"
"Yes!" Tristan shouted. "That! I'll try that!" He ran over to Yakko, a crazed look in his eyes, and in mid-jump, yelled out, "HAKUNA MATATA!"
As the nothing happened yet again, Tristan slid to a painful stop on the stone floor right in front of Yakko.
"Are you quite done?" GLaDOS asked. "I don't think it's healthy for you to keep doing... this. Whatever 'this' is."
"I don't know what he's doing," Yakko said to GLaDOS, "but he is doing it to the best of his abilities."
Tristan tried to stand up, looking even angrier than usual.
"You need some help there Tristy?" Yakko offered a hand to Tristan's hoof.
"Get away from me you... you...!"
"Care to finish that thought?" Sephiroth said, walking right behind Tristan.
"Uh..." Tristan searched for the words, but couldn't think.
Vinyl came up from behind as well. "It's over Tristan. You're outnumbered and out of ideas."
Tristan looked around, panicking at his failure. It seemed like there was no way out... until. "You think you've won? You think you've beaten me?! The Great and Powerful Tristan?! Well, The Great and Powerful Tristan has one final trick up his sleeve!" His horn glowed bright blue, magic layering on thicker and thicker. "The Great and Powerful Tristan had prepared for this, admittedly unlikely outcome, and now it's time for you all..." The magic began sweeping around the group, blinding the heroes with the intense light. "TO DISAPPEAR!" And with one bright flash and a sonic boom, the five heroes who surrounded Tristan were gone...
"We traced the heroes to Hogsmeade, in a bar called the Three Broomsticks." A shadowy masked man said, his arms folded behind his back. Captain Planet sat in his chair at the round table, his chin resting on his fist. "After that, they headed for Hogwarts and were intercepted by Tristan."
"I see." the Captain replied. "And where are they now?"
"We do not know. Tristan used a spell to warp most of them to an unknown location before they could finish him off."
"Most of them?"
"Yes." The masked man turned and toward Dr. Robotnik and motioned for him to move on. The Doctor pressed a big red button and a screen behind them lit up showing the Pyro's mask. "He was unconscious while Tristan performed his spell."
"Well then, what are we waiting for?" Captain Planet stood and pointed to Will Ferrell. "Go take care of the Pyro, Will! It seems we'll need to separate the heroes, otherwise they cannot fall."
"Yes sir." Will saluted his superior, then exited the building.
The Captain turned back to his team, or rather what was left of it, and asked, "So, where is Tristan now?"
"We're not sure." Robotnik sighed. "He ran away after teleporting the 'heroes' to where ever he teleported them. And none of my scouts have been able to locate him. He is probably using his magic to keep himself hidden."
"Chances are he won't be returning." The masked figure added.
"Well then," Captain Planet looked down, stroking his chin. "These heroes have dealt quite a blow to our plans. First Leeroy, then Diaboromon. And now Tristan."
"Picking them off one-by-one is our best chance."
"I am agreeing with this statement. Will is going down there to finish off the Pyro. And seeing as how we don't know where the others are yet..." He turned to Robotnik and said, "We may as well use this time to our advantage. Doctor, head down to the Base of Operations and finish repairs on my 'Ultima Weapon'."
"It would be my pleasure Captain!" He replied in his gruff and somewhat annoying voice.
"And what about me Captain?" The last figure asked.
"You stay here and look mysterious."
"Okay."
*****
The Pyro sat disheveled and motionless in the corner of the stone hallway where he had been mercilessly pummeled against the walls. He only moved slightly to breath in and out, biding time until Cogsworth and Timon returned from their search.
What seemed like hours passed and there had been no word from the clock and cat, and he was starting to lose hope. He began wondering if they had abandoned him... and if his friends had abandoned him as well.
But before he could think too much about those depressive thoughts, he heard a throat clear just behind a wall. He jumped up and looked over to see the clock had returned with the meerkat trailing close behind. "Eh, Mr. Pyro?" Cogsworth hesitated to say.
The Pyro ran over to the two and asked, "Hmm? Hmm mm mmph mm?"
"Um..." Timon questioned. "Right..."
An awkward silence crept its way into the conversation, something that happened a lot around the Pyro. When Cogsworth broke the silence. "Um, yes. Anyway, we looked all over the castle, from top to bottom."
"Mmhmm..." The Pyro nodded in anticipation.
"And... regrettably... we were unable to find any trace of your friends."
The Pyro's heart sank. He had hoped for anything but that answer. Now there were even more questions flooding his mind. Where were his friends? Did they abandon him by choice? Had they been taken prisoner by Captain Planet, or worse? He shuddered to think of any of those options and didn't know which one he hated more.
After a brief silence, he turned and trudged back to his corner to retrieve his belongings. His flare gun, flamethrower, and mailbox, which had been damaged in the battle with Tristan. The red flag had been broken off and the wooden post was almost split down the middle.
After picking up his weapons, he made way for the giant double doors which he had entered the castle from. He thought he heard one of the comic reliefs say they were sorry for his loss, but he simply ignored them and continued.
Upon reaching the door, he stopped and gave a heavy sigh. He had no idea where he was going, but there was nothing else for him here. Maybe he was heading back to Mann Co., or to find his friends whether they wanted him to or not. With unsure intentions in mind, he pushed the doors open and took one step outside...
"Well hello there! Long time, no see." An all too familiar figure stood not but five feet from the Pyro. "Remember me?"
"Oh my!" Cogsworth cried out from behind. "It's Captain Planet's right hand man!"
"Hit the dirt!" Timon added, bolting in the opposite direction, Cogsworth following closely behind.
Sure enough, it was Will Ferrell standing right outside the castle walls, extending his hand to the Pyro very cordially. "So how has your journey been so far?"
The Pyro, rather than reaching for the man's hand, reached for his flamethrower and pointed it directly at Will, clearly not willing to discuss his trials and tribulations.
Will backed up a step and held his hands up. "Hey now! Take it easy! I'm not here to cause you trouble..." He said quickly, trying not to become bacon. "I'm here to deliver news of the good variety."
His charisma and class caught the Pyro's attention, and he begrudgingly lowered his weapon to listen. "Mhmm?"
"You know, I think we got off on the wrong foot." Will began again, becoming more relaxed around his twitchy acquaintance. "You see, I'm not really the bad guy."
"Mmhmm..." The Pyro responded, obviously not believing the well-dressed man.
"You see, Captain Planet actually sent me down here with a particularly grim goal in mind. Basically, he believes that the only way to rid his perfect planet of you and your teammates is to separate you and then pick you all off one-by-one. Divide and conquer, that sort of thing."
Will paced back and forth, laughing a bit. "You know, you all have created quite a stir in his relatively simple plans. Holding your own against not one, not two, but three of his best soldiers! I'm quite impressed. And while it would be the simplest thing in the world to take you out right now, I have another idea in mind."
The Pyro, led on by his silver tongue, bit the bait and asked, "Hmm... mm mmmph mph hmmmmphmm?"
Assuming he asked what he thought he had asked, Will continued, "I'm glad you asked. I simply want to avoid any more casualties. I have a plan to get you and your friends off of this planet-"
"HMM! Hmmph mmph mmmm mmmph!" The Pyro shouted, angered by the mentioning of his friends.
"Oh, there's no reason to be offended. Your friends are alive." Will said with a slight smirk.
"Hmm?"
"Oh, right. I completely forgot about my news. Well, it seems that while you were unconscious, Tristan cast one last spell on the five others, not to dispose of them, but to teleport them away so that he could escape."
"Hmm mmph mmmph mm mmm mmphhmm?"
"... I'm going to assume you asked me where they are. If that's correct, nod your head."
The Pyro nodded his head.
"Good. Well, according to my intelligence, they are currently in Atlantis."
"... Hmmhmmhmm?"
"Yes. Atlantis. The spell Tristan used took the last place that he was currently thinking of and transported anyone within a ten yard radius, besides himself, to that place. Why he was thinking of Atlantis, I have no idea."
"Hmm mmmph mm mmmph hmm hmmph?"
"Atlantis, actually isn't too far away." Will pointed to the giant lake next to the castle. "There is a passage at the bottom of that lake that lets out near the glorious underwater city. However, as you currently are, you wouldn't last five minutes under the sea." He looked down at the Pyro's arsenal. "And your weapons certainly won't be of any use to you down there either."
"Hmm mm mmmph." The Pyro stated, turning to the lake.
"Whoa, slow down. I don't want you to march to your death. There's a thin line between courage and stupidity." Will looked down in thought, stroking his chin.
After a minute or two, he snapped his fingers and said, "I've got it! Conveniently placed to my left, there's a cave that leads underground." He pointed to his left, and there was a cave indeed. "Inside, you'll find an old man. He will give you what you need to survive this perilous trek and save your friends."
"Hmm mmmph mmmhmm?" The Pyro asked, taking a step toward the cave.
"... English man. Use English."
"Hmm mm."
"These are not words!" Will calmed down before he flipped a table. "OK. Let's narrow this down. Are you asking about your friends?"
"Hmmhmm."
"... OK. Just nod or shake your head."
The Pyro nodded.
"OK. Are you asking about their condition?"
The Pyro nodded again.
"Ah. See? We're making progress." Will straightened his tie and cleared his throat. "Unfortunately, I do not know the condition of your friends. But if they are as tough as you are, I'm sure they're fine."
"Hmm mmmph mm mmph hmmphmm hmm?"
Will sighed. "We're back to this then? Alright. Are you still talking about them?"
Once again, he nodded.
"Are you... talking about an individual?"
Nods.
"Sephiroth?"
He shook his head this time.
"Vinyl Scratch?"
Again, shook his head.
"GLaDOS? Yakko?"
He continued to shake his head.
"... Latisha...?"
He nodded. "Mmhmm. Hmmph mmhmm hmmph mm mmmmmph mphmm hmmph hmm mmmph mmph mmmmph hmph mph. Hmmph hmp hhmmm mmm mmph mph. Hmmph hmm hmm mm mmmmph mmmmphmmm. Hmm mmm." The Pyro... spoke? He then made a heart-shape with his hands.
Will was dumbfounded. He tried to find his words, but he honestly had none. "Are... you're... you... the taco?"
The Pyro nodded.
"You're in love...
Silence.
"With the taco..."
The Pyro nodded vigorously. "Mmhmm!"
"And on that note, I'm leaving." Will said, mind-blown at just how stupid the Pyro was. Will Ferrell, with his mission of mercy finished, turned away and headed into the forest that surrounded the castle. He disappeared behind the dense trees and mists of the environment, leaving the gas jockey.
The Pyro shifted his gaze from the forest to the cave that Will had mentioned before. He stared down into the abyss, unsure of whether or not Will could be trusted. He said that Captain Planet thought it best to take them out one at a time. But Will's intentions were shrouded in mystery.
He looked down at his arsenal and grabbed his flare gun. He had only a few shots left in his inventory, and questioned first whether he really wanted to use one to find something rather than light someone on fire.
Overcoming his urge to kill everything that ever existed, he loaded the small projectile into the gun, pointed it into the dark hole, and pulled the trigger.
The flare lit the cave incredibly well, revealing a long tunnel below. It went on for some time, until he heard the distinct sound of his flare shot hitting a solid object, presumably the end of the cave.
He hesitantly raised his foot, and took a step into the cavern. Well, he wasn't dead yet. That was clearly a good sign. He grabbed his flamethrower and held it in front of him, near the cave floor to light his way. As he submerged deeper and deeper into the disorienting darkness, he found himself looking back a few times to see how far he had traveled.
After about ten minutes of walking down the steep passage, he entered what appeared to be an underground chamber, a lit torch on each side. In between them stood an old man with a white beard in a red robe. The Pyro put down his flamethrower and stared at the man.
He didn't budge, and aside from his occasional breathing and blinking, he looked almost like a statue.
The Pyro looked around the room, but seeing as nothing else was in the cave, he approached the elder and tapped him on the shoulder.
All of the sudden, you were assaulted by a poorly photo-shopped picture I made to get you to laugh. LAUGH AT IT.
The man's sudden shouting startled the Pyro making him take a step back. Rather than respond to the strange old man, he reached for the bag on the ground in front of him and snatched it away as quickly as possible, then quickly walked to the tunnel he had entered from.
Inside the bag were four items: the first was a new mask with an oxygen tank connected to the mouth. The second was a small remote with a red button on it. The third was a Chinese bar sign with a bright red border and blue letters translating to 'bar'. And the last item was a note with a few sentences of writing in pen. The note read;
You now have the equipment necessary to save your friends from a watery grave. The mask will allow you to breathe underwater for up to six hours. The Neon Annihilator will burn through any enemies you may find along the way. And lastly, that remote is special. Press it only when you and your friends have been reunited.
Having read the note, the Pyro put it back inside the pack and inside his inventory (backpackception?). With his new arsenal in hand, he immediately took a nap.
...
He immediately rushed out of the cave to save his friends from imminent doom like a boss.
Two horizontal swipes and a vertical of the enormous masamune and about twenty metal bars were severed from the cage. Sephiroth sheathed his weapon and turned to the others. "Is everyone alright?" He asked, genuinely concerned for his comrades.
"We're fine Sephy." Vinyl said, making sure her bass cannon was still functional. "It's just this thing that I'm worried about."
"Don't worry about that." Sephiroth said, helping her out of the cell where they had been held. "If there's any damage, GLaDOS can fix it when we get out of here."
With no metal bars hindering their views, the group was able to see where exactly they were. Outside of the moldy cell that Tristan had teleported them to, they were greeted by a beautiful underwater paradise. Temples built from stone, professionally crafted at that. Little fishes were carved into the stones to create an 'underwatery' feel. And speaking of little fishes, the city was surrounded by dozens, hundreds of schools of what seemed like thousands of types of fish. Just swimming around, eating, and being generally useless to society as a whole.
"What is this place?" Vinyl asked, pushing her amp along with the two foods on top.
"I'm not sure." Sephiroth said, examining the city. "But it appears we are underwater." He pointed two fingers upward. "And it looks like there is some kind of barrier keeping the water out."
The group looked up to see transparent walls that seemed to move as water would. Sephiroth walked to one of the jiggling walls and reached his gloved hand out to touch it. The barrier resisted slightly at first, but as he pushed a bit more, his hand passed through.
The cold water on his hand instinctively made the angel pull back into the safety of the giant bubble, as the barrier closed without allowing the water inside.
"Interesting." He muttered. "What kind of magic is this?"
"I think we have bigger concerns right now Sepherroo." Yakko chimed in. "Like how are we gonna get out of here?"
"Yeah, and where's the Pyro?" Vinyl added.
"Calm down, calm down everyone." Sephiroth gently said. "I don't know how we're going to get out of this one, nor do I know where he is." He looked all around him for a solution, but there was nothing to aid them.
"Well," Yakko began, strolling forward. "I guess we'll just wander around aimlessly looking for clues... again." He pulled out and began playing with his paddleball again as he whistled a tune with only two notes.
"I..." Sephiroth thought about saying something against that idea, but he had nothing better. "Alright. Let's go."
As the group trudged along through the abandoned city, Vinyl rolled her amp along, staying as close to Sephiroth as possible. She looked up and asked, "Do you think the Pyro's ok?"
He met eyes with her, at least he assumed so since she was still wearing sunglasses, and said, "Of course I do. He's a moron, but he can look out for himself." He gave the best smile he could (barely a smile) and continued. "The best thing we can do right now is keep the rest of us alive. We have to look out for each other; Yakko, GLaDOS... even Latisha."
"I agree." GLaDOS added. "I just have one question. Who's GLaDOS?"
*****
Meanwhile, somewhere deep below the surface of the lake in Hogwarts, the Pyro dove into the depths. With his new gear equipped, he drew oxygen from the tank on his back, allowing him to breathe while under the sea. He didn't know where he was heading, but he had a pretty good idea that if he kept swimming in a random direction, he'd find something eventually.
He continued on, paying no heed to the fishes that swam by. Occasionally he got the urge to attempt to light them on fire. At one point he even reached for his flamethrower. but he knew that wouldn't do him much good. He continued on his monotonous trek to the bottom of the lake.
As he submerged deeper and deeper into the darkness, he found it difficult to see even a foot in front of him. The only light came from his new weapon, and even then the red light was far too dim to see much of anything.
After about thirty seconds of swimming, he became too exhausted to carry on and headed for a nearby alcove. Upon breaching the surface in the air pocket, he was greeted by a familiar friend; fire. A torch to be exact. Removing the oxygen mask, he ran over to the conveniently lit campfire and sat down next to it.
He cupped his hands over the torch, warming them up to a toasty degree. Being underwater for almost a minute sure took its toll on the merc, and he enjoyed being reunited with the one thing that brought him comfort.
The sound of footsteps behind him. He didn't turn until they became louder, then suddenly came to a halt. He turned to see several fish people. They were small in size, and had big, gaping mouths and lotsa sharp teeth. One of them held a spear, another held a staff, and the middle carried a flag with unintelligible markings painted in red.
The four just stood/sat there in awkward silence for some time, before the middle fish extended his skinny webbed hand to the Pyro. "Mmmggrrll mmggrrll mmgl." He said, making the Pyro's speech seem like an actual language.
The Pyro took the fish's small hand in his and shook it heartily. "Hmmph hmm hmmmph mm."
As the gas jockey stood, his size frightened the spear wielder and he pointed the weapon at the intruder. The Pyro held his hands up and backed away so to not be poked.
"Mmrrrgll! Mmrrrg mmrrrggglll llgmmgll!" The middle one scolded the frightened one, forcing his spear down. He went on in his own... unique language, hopefully explaining that the red suited man was not a threat.
"Hmmph hmm hmmph mmph?" The Pyro asked, pointing to the exit and tilting his head.
"Mmgrrll mm mmrrrll mmmggggllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllll." The middle one shook his head. From what the Pyro could gather, they were not hostile creatures, rather they wanted to know who he was and why he was there. "Mmrggll mmrrrrgl."
The Pyro wasn't sure what he had said, but apparently, he had offended the fish people. They began backing him into a corner, weapons in fin. The one with the stave's fins began to glow a light blue aura that resembled lightning. Something bad was about to happen if he did not act fast.
"... Hmmmmmmmmm..."
"MMMGGGRRRLL MMRR! MMMRRRRGGGGLLL!" The middle one, his eyes fixated on the mercenary, pointed at him and the other two jumped at him.
The Pyro rolled quickly to the left, stuck the landing, and pulled out his flamethrower. The fish people were no longer friendly with the Pyro, and vice versa.
The spear wielder rushed at him again, jumping to impale the Pyro. The fish went sailing over his shoulder however, missing completely and hitting his face against the wall.
He missed.
Turning his attention away from the incompetent entree, the one with the staff began to cast what looked like a spell. While the Pyro had some experience in dealing with magicians, the fish was a far better wizard than Merasmus, as he lobbed a wave of electricity through the air.
The spell hit the Pyro, dealing about 44 damage. Without a moment to spare, he got to his feet and jumped at the fish person, holding the trigger down the entire time. He roasted the enemy until he was nothing but a pile of fish sticks. He then proceeded to stomp on the fish sticks as he did not like them.
"Hmm!" He called out angrily, scanning the cavern for the other fish. He looked to the corner where he had embarrassingly launched into, but only saw his spear.
Suddenly, he felt as though someone threw a bowling ball at the back of his head. He was able to remain on his feet before hearing the murgles and gurgles of his unfriendly fishy foes.
He struggled to get the unwanted company off of his back, but no success. The fish person just kept smashing away at the Pyro's head, trying to do as much damage as possible. One of the the fish person's punches hit the Pyro's mask just right, and suddenly his colorful world of happy rainbow sunshine rainbows was gone. A loud, high-pitched ringing overpowered the Pyro's hearing.
With all his might, he heaved the fish off of his back and into the wall with a loud crack. He then fell to the ground, squinting his eyes behind his mask. The ringing became even louder before fading out into something worse: screams.
Women, children, all of the ear-piercing screams he had forced to the darkest corners of his memory, were now crystal clear yet again.
All of them dead by his hands. He burned their towns. Their homes. He left none alive.
He saw images he had long since forgotten. Families begging him for mercy. And those same families, charred, hacked, and left to rot.
He could barely breathe. He tried to get to his feet, but couldn't muster the strength.
All the people he had killed. All the lives he had taken became too much for him to bear. He regretted ever making his beloved flamethrower. He remembered trying on multiple occasions to destroy it, but he could never bring himself to do it. There had to be an alternative.
And sure enough, there was. A brilliant man, able to construct sentry guns and teleporters alike. Seeing his handiwork, the Pyro asked, rather begged him to find a solution. After much discussion, the man by the name of the Engineer agreed to build him a mask that would place the Pyro in a sort-of alternate world. One where he would be spreading joy, instead of despair.
And so, the Pyro had found a way to cope with his addiction. Mann Co. saw his talent and hired him without a second thought. The perfect rage inducer to encourage the mercs to stop sucking.
But over the years that the Pyro had spent under the employment of Helen and Saxton Hale, he had forgotten about the real world. He embraced his new sight as reality. His 'Pyrovision' was the only thing that was real to him now. All of the memories from before had been forgotten.
Finally, the screams of his victims ceased. He looked up to see what he had done. He had taken two more lives. And he wouldn't have even known. He reached a hand behind his head and flipped a knob through his mask, switching Pyrovision back on. But the memories still remained, burning brighter than ever.
But something was amiss. Two of the fish people lay dead in the cave, but where was the last one? There were three before, but he was nowhere to be found. The man rose to his feet, scanning all over for the flag carrier.
After a while of searching, he found the flag fish. Only he didn't want to find him now. A massive armada of fish people blazed through the cavern towards him, all the while shouting at the top of their lungs. It was truly the most annoying sound in the world.
The gas jockey quickly put the underwater breathy thing back on and grabbed the rest of his stuff. Without a second thought, he dove back underwater, swimming as fast as he could away from the tidal wave of fish people.
*****
"So tell me Miss," Yakko started, dressed in a long white coat and glasses, holding a notepad and pencil. "How do you feel?"
The potato sat on a red sofa, most of which she didn't need, and replied. "I feel fine."
"Then may I ask you some questions?" Yakko asked, tapping his lower lip with the pencil.
"By all means."
"What is your name?"
"Caroline." the potato said.
"Does the name 'GLaDOS' mean anything to you?"
"No. Not at all. Why do you ask?"
"Interesting..." Yakko muttered, while drawing a U.F.O. on his notepad.
"So what does this mean?" Sephiroth asked.
"Well, physically she hasn't changed." Yakko hid the notepad from view. "It's something mentally wrong with her."
"I beg your pardon?" Caroline spoke up from the couch.
"What I'm trying to say," Yakko continued, paying no attention to his potato patient. "is that she doesn't think she's GLaDOS."
The others tilted their heads. "What do you mean 'she doesn't think she's GLaDOS'?" Vinyl asked, raising her eyebrow.
"I mean she doesn't think she's GLaDOS." Yakko said dryly, turning to the pony with an aggravated expression. "Which word didn't you understand? I can show you in the dictionary if you'd like." He pulled out an enormous book labeled 'Dicshunary' in shiny metallic words.
"Well if she doesn't think she's GLaDOS," Sephiroth interrupted. "then who does she think she is?"
"Iunno." Yakko shrugged. "She said her name was Caroline. But GLaDOS never mentioned a Caroline."
"Who is this GLaDOS?" Caroline asked, growing impatient. "Do you mean our new disk operating system?"
Thinking back, Sephiroth remembered that their tasty companion was in fact an operating system. "Yes." He said, turning back towards her. "A genetic lifeform of sorts."
"Well that does sound familiar. I believe I heard Mr. Cave Johnson talking about something like that."
Yakko gave the potato a look of disbelief, turns to you, and blows a kiss to the imaginary audience. "Goodnight everybody!"
"Well then." Sephiroth started, picking the potato off of the couch and placing her on the amp. "There is some kind of connection between you and GLaDOS. I'm not sure what that connection is, but we'll never find out down here." He looked around for a moment, then spotted a hallway protected by the transparent water shields. "Let's try this way."
The angel started down the hallway, keeping his hand on the hilt of his blade, ready for anything. Yakko followed close behind, playing with his paddleball, and Vinyl rolled her bass cannon behind them both, holding the two foods on top.
It was a long hallway, though not much was in it. Just some broken pillars with ancient carvings and some pottery. Fish, little fish swam by outside. Sponges. The outside was filled to the brim with wildlife of all shapes and sizes. Often times, the group was fearful that a large animal would accidentally run into the structure. But there were no animals bigger than fishes, and the occasional shark to be seen.
"Are we there yet?" Vinyl asked from the back.
"No." Sephiroth answered, very blandly.
"How far do we have to go?" Yakko added.
"I don't even know. Stop asking."
"My hooves are tired though, Sephy. We've been walking like this for I don't even know how long. Can't we just take a small break?" Vinyl asked.
"If we take any breaks, we give Captain Planet the advantage." He stopped, looking back. Yakko ran smack-dab into the leader, and Vinyl into him.
"Sephy?!" Vinyl said loudly. "What's the big idea-"
"Shh!" Sephiroth shushed her, looking back and drawing his sword a bit.
"Don't shush me!" She yelled.
"Be quiet!" He whispered back. "Do you hear that?"
The pony and dog perked their ears up, listening behind them. Eventually, the two picked up a faint cry for help... followed by a low rumbling. The sound became louder and louder, and eventually the group picked up the odor of rotten fish.
They looked back to see what was making the sound. The corridor was so long and dark that they could barely make anything out. Until they could make out a red dot in the distance. Squinting their eyes, they couldn't believe what they were seeing.
"HMM HMMMPH!" The Pyro cried out, running as fast as he possibly could.
"Is that..." Yakko started, pausing and waiting a moment. "the Pyro?"
"It is!" Vinyl exclaimed excitedly.
"And it looks like he brought some company." Sephiroth said, drawing his sword. "Get behind me!" He yelled. The others, at this point, had no problems listening to him.
Just then, the Pyro noticed his friends in the distance. He shifted his gaze to Vinyl's trusty amp and saw his beloved resting in blissful beauty. Suddenly, all of his troubles melted away. He felt like he could fly to his waifu.
Time slowed down as he approached the amp. He reached both hands around to embrace the taco. He spun around, unaware of the blood of dead fish splattering all over the ground, walls, and ceiling. Sephiroth swung his masamune, killing three of the fish people at once, and discouraging the others from pursuing. But not for long.
"If you two are done," Sephiroth said, looking at Latisha and the Pyro out of the corner of his eye. "I'd appreciate some help."
The Pyro nodded, giving Latisha a quick kiss and then joining the others on the battlefield, his new weapon in hand.
"It's good to see you again." Sephiroth slightly almost sort of smiled, readying his blade for another brutal swipe.
The nine other fish people, charged without hesitation. Vinyl was the first to launch two musical discs at two of them. They fell to the ground, too dead to get up.
"Nice one Vinyl." Sephiroth said, slicing another one in half with a vertical strike.
"Leave it to me guys!" Yakko called out, holding a bucket of water. As three of the fish people neared him, he threw the bucket at the middle one, spraying all of them with water and halting the charge. The middle one held both fins on his face, staggering around a bit in pain. He almost fell once, but manage to regain his balance. He then removed his webbed hands from his face and said, "Mrrggl! Mmmrrll mrrglll!"
"Sorry." Yakko apologized. Not long after, the Pyro jumped out from behind the dog, smashing the middle one in the face (again) with the Neon Annihilator, royally pwning him. The fish's body was lifted up a bit, as it evaporated into thin air.
Seeing this, the other two fishes turned to run away, but the Pyro was too quick on them, hitting one after the other with the Chinese sign, vaporizing them both.
The remaining three fish people, seeing the thorough ownage of their comrade's faces and the group still standing strong, turned tail and ran for their lives.
"Yeah! We did it!" Vinyl jumped up in excitement.
"Did what?" Caroline asked from the back. "What was all that noise?"
"Well done guys." Sephiroth said, sheathing his blade.
"Hmm! Hmmph!" The Pyro yelled, running to the pony.
"Pyro! It's so good to see you!" Vinyl said.
"Hmmph hmm mmm phmm!"
"What happened to you? For a while we thought you were dead."
"Hmm Hmm! HMMPH MM!"
"Wait Vinyl." Sephiroth approached the two. "He's trying to tell us something."
"Hmm hmmph hmm mm hmmph phmmphmmh!"
"But we just fought off the pack."
"Hmm hmmph! Hmm! Mmm mmph!"
Sephiroth turned to the others. "He says that those creatures hunt in groups." The low rumbling sound returned, much louder this time, actually shaking the cavern. "Groups of hundreds at the least."
"In other words, that was just the appetizer to this fishy feeding frenzy!" Yakko said, backing away from the incoming army. "Let's skedaddle!"
The group ran in the other direction. They could only hope that there was some kind of escape route in this corridor. Their escape plan did not last for long however. Through the transparent shields, they could see even more fish people encroaching on the hallway. They began pouring through just a little ways away from the group, surrounding them.
"What do we do now?" Vinyl asked, clutching the boot of her tall friend.
"I..." Sephiroth stuttered. "I don't know."
Just when all hope seemed lost, the Pyro remembered the note from Will. He reached into the backpack and located the button. He pulled it out of the backpack and said, "Hmmph! Hmm hmmph mm mmm mmph!"
"What's that?" Sephiroth asked. "Where did you get this from?"
"Hmm hmm!"
"What!? From Will!?" He shouted. "How do you know it's not just a bomb?!"
"Hmmph hmm hmmph hmm mm!"
"He wants us dead! And now you expect us to trust him?"
"Boys!" Vinyl Scratch yelled. "We really don't have much choice! If Pyro says we should press it, then we should press it!"
Sephiroth, noting that the armies were just seconds away, snatched the device out of the Pyro's hand and pressed the red button.
Instantly, a blinding white flash engulfed the group, lifting them all a bit off of the ground. A high frequency pitch drop, and the group vanished without a trace, yet again leaving a lovely cliffhanger for you fine readers.
We rejoin our heroes after roughly a month of waiting in a medium sized room of technology and blinking lights. The walls were covered from top to bottom with metal panels and control boards. There was a panel of buttons on the far wall just in front of our heroes, but they only wanted to find out where they were.
"I only want to find out where we are." Sephiroth said looking all around the room for any clues.
"Well we certainly aren't underwater anymore." Yakko said placing his hands on his hips.
"Hmm hmmph hmmmm hmmph hmm hmm!" The Pyro added giving Sephiroth an I-told-you-so look through his mask.
"Yes, yes, I know it wasn't a bomb now." The one-winged angel rolled his eyes. "But where are we? That could have just transported us to some kind of prison."
"That is true." Vinyl Scratch agreed. "We could have just played into Captain Planet's hooves, er... hands."
"Well we should probably just wait here where it's safe." Caroline said from the potato.
"You be quiet." GLaDOS said from the same potato. "If I had known where you were in my circuitry earlier, you wouldn't be suggesting such terrible ideas."
"I'm only trying to help." Caroline replied. "Who are you anyways?"
"I'm GLaDOS. Genetic Lifeform and Disk Operating System."
"That sounds familiar. What is that?"
"It's you. Well, you, but better."
Sephiroth rubbed his forehead and muttered, "And I thought she was a migraine before she argued with herself."
"How are we even supposed to tell them apart?" Vinyl questioned. "They're both just a single potato."
"I'm the real GLaDOS." GLaDOS answered. "I was unexpectedly shut down after Tristan used his teleportation spell."
"We were teleported deep under the water." Sephiroth added.
"Then that must be it." Yakko said. "The water pressure must have tampered with your circuitry."
"So then... that mildly explains where Caroline came from... I guess." Vinyl Scratch scratched her head. "But then why is she still here?"
"I can explain that," GLaDOS chimed in. "The only explanation is that Caroline was stored in my E.P.C.C.M.D.S.P."
"... WHAT?!" Everyone simultaneously said. Except for the Pyro who said, "... HMMPH?!"
"My Emergency Personality Core Chamber Matrix Drive System Processor." GLaDOS cleared up. "So when I was shut down, there was no other personality to pull up except for hers. And now that we are above the surface of water, my personality is back."
"But that still doesn't explain why Caroline is still here also." Sephiroth said, obviously wanting to just get to the point.
"Excuse me," Caroline said, feeling a bit insulted. "I'm right here you know."
GLaDOS just ignored her annoying counterpart and said, "Well, I may be a supercomputer but... I'm a potato. I don't have the capability to put her back into the Emergency Personality Core Cham-"
"Cut to the chase please." Yakko said, saving his companions from the absurdly long name of the Emergency Personality Core Chamber Matrix Drive System Processor.
"Shut your trap and let me talk." GLaDOS said. "Anyways, I can't do it in this current state."
"Don't I get a say in this?" Caroline asked.
"Not really." Sephiroth answered rather abruptly. "Now that we have that figured out, we need to find out where we are. Is this some kind of trap?"
"I don't think it is Sephy." Vinyl said. "I mean... nothing bad has happened yet."
"True. But where did that button send us?"
"Well I suggest that we stay here and wait for-" Caroline started but was cut off.
"Wait for what? For someone to come by and pick us off? We need to leave and-" GLaDOS was interrupted as well.
"But we don't know what's out there!"
"We don't know what's coming for us either!"
"So you expect us to just-"
"Go and look for help? Yes that's what-"
"That's not a good idea-"
"And yours is?"
"Yes it-"
"No it's not a-"
"Yes, yes it-"
"is a horrible-"
"MAKE IT STOP!" VINYL YELLED!
Suddenly, the metal panel on the far wall just beside the buttons slid upward revealing a long rectangular corridor full of more bleeping buttons and lights. "Whoops." Yakko sarcastically said. "Did I do that?" He pulled his gloved hand away from the panel of buttonry.
"If you two are done," Sephiroth said, starting toward the pathway. "we are going to find out where we are."
"Sephy is right." Vinyl jumped to her hooves and grabbed her amp. "Being cautious didn't get us as far as we are now."
"Hmmph hmm hmm mmph." The Pyro mummbled, following behind the others.
"Oh fine. Rush to your deaths! I'll just be waiting safely here." Caroline said folding her nonexistent arms.
"Tough luck you waste of RAM. You're coming with us." GLaDOS said to her as they both sat on the bass cannon.
The group walked down the hallway, all the while listening to the potato argue with itself, only somewhat wanting to shoot themselves.
Room after room, they continued down the hallway, turning only when the corridor curved off to the right. But every room they passed looked exactly the same. The walls were obviously designed to look identical, which probably pleased whoever constructed this construction, but only served to confuse the group.
Eventually, they passed a room that bared a striking resemblance to the one they had started in.
"Wait a second." Vinyl stopped and looked at the room. "Is this... where we started?"
The others stopped and walked a bit back to see for themselves.
"It does look like it..." Sephiroth said. "Have we been going in circles?"
"Actually, it would be squares." Yakko said.
They all turned to him with a look of disbelief.
"Because... we always turned... 90 degrees... and this joke is over." He abandoned ship.
"Well, then how do we get out of the loop?" Vinyl asked.
"Hmmph hmm mm mmph mm hmmph." The Pyro suggested. "Hmmph hmm?"
"An elevator?" Sephiroth repeated.
"Hmm. Hmm hmmph hmm hmmphmm."
"What's he saying Sephy?" Vinyl asked.
"The Pyro thinks this room may be an elevator."
"Hmm! Hmm hmph mm mphmm!"
"Er... an ele-Vader." Sephiroth squinted his eyes at the Pyro. "Is it a room that moves up and down?"
"Hmmhmm."
"An elevator, yes."
"And is it?" Yakko asked.
"Well, there are a few buttons we didn't try. Let's just see what happens when I push some of those buttons at random and hope for the best." With that, the group entered the room in which they had started off in.
As Sephiroth began pressing as many buttons as he could with one hand, the metal panel shut downward and the group felt as though the room was being lifted upward.
The six (or seven if you're for equal rights of potatoes) of the mismatched group of heroes... more or less. Vinyl Scratch looked into her envelope of records and sighed. She had lost three of them in the battle with Tristan, and only three remained in her pouch.
"Man. This sucks." Vinyl sighed. "I wanted to show Tavi what I'd found in a different world. But at this rate, they'll all be gone before I get back."
Sephiroth looked down at the dismayed white pony, almost breaching a state of sympathy. He sort of reached his hand down and kind of touched the back of her neck to attempt to awkwardly comfort her and said, "Let's just focus on getting back for now, ok?"
She admired his pathetic effort and gave him a smile. "You're right Sephy. We gotta stick together."
Before things got a little too suggestive, the door slid upwards and revealed a ginormous room of electronics and even brighter blinky lights. Rows and rows of consoles and screens sat plastered from every inch of the room except for the back part which appeared to be a giant platform, probably for the guy in charge to dictate commands. Above even the platform were windows which had all been blocked off by red hand-knitted wool curtains.
As the group set foot into the control room, they saw that the computers were all processing data of some sort. What they were processing and why, they did not know. But it looked similar to the same data they had seen in Haven City.
"So this is the control room," Sephiroth stated, looking around the large spherical chamber.
"Looks like it. But there's nopony here. What are these computers doing?" Vinyl asked.
"Hmmph hmm mmhphmhpmphmphm." The Pyro said, admiring the decor of the curtains and how well the red blended with the silver and black metal surrounding it.
"Hey, why don't we plug GLaDOS into the computer to see what's going on here?" Vinyl suggested, gesturing to the food. "She did it before in Haven City."
"Yes. Yes. I want to do this." GLaDOS said almost immediately after Vinyl suggested it.
Sephiroth looked a bit confused at his tasty companion, but agreed. "That's a good idea."
Picking a random computer on a random row, they plugged GLaDOS in and let her work her magic.
"Make sure to see where we are." Vinyl Scratch said from behind the monitor.
"And it couldn't hurt to see if there's a way out of here." Yakko added.
"Hmmph hmm hmm mmph." The Pyro said with a nod.
"Ok." GLaDOS said and executed a few console commands.
Shortly after, a monotoned male voice spoke over the intercom system "Caroline deleted."
The rest of the group just stared at her.
"I'm sorry, could you repeat what you said earlier?"
"Where we are? Search it?" Yakko said.
"The Death Star." GLaDOS said after a few seconds of file surfing.
"That's where we are?" Vinyl asked.
"No, that's where I'm ordering our pizza from." GLaDOS said dryly. "Of course it's where we are."
"And where exactly is that?" Sephiroth asked.
"It's still on Captain Planet's perfect planet." GLaDOS searched on through the computer. "Apparently, this used to be part of a gigantic space station from a galaxy far far away. Captain Planet only extracted a portion of it."
"But why would he want this place?" Vinyl questioned.
"That information doesn't seem to be here." GLaDOS furiously searched but found nothing. "Admittedly this place doesn't seem very eco-friendly."
"And how do we get out of here?" Yakko questioned.
Just then, GLaDOS beamed up a blue holographic projection in the center of the room. The projection was of the space station in its prime. "There is some sort of hangar over there."
"Well that's not too far." Sephiroth speculated. "Let's get going."
The six continued down the long stretch of narrow corridors, following the directions that GLaDOS had provided from the computer directory system. From what the hologram had shown them, the hangar was not too much farther. For most of the trek, the group remained silent, just wanting to get to the hangar and find some way out of this adventure they had been forced to endure.
They still hadn't the foggiest idea of why they had ended up in this mess with such an odd and mismatched variety of characters. Though they had gotten accustomed to each other's company, it was obvious that they each just wanted to get back to their own worlds.
Growing annoyed by the annoying silence, an annoyed Vinyl Scratch cleared her throat and said, "So GLaDOS." She paused briefly, the others turning to face the pony. "What was the deal with Caroline back there?"
"Well, Caroline was me before she was me." GLaDOS answered.
"What does that even mean?" Sephiroth asked turning his head to the potato.
"My creator, Cave Johnson, wanted to make a supercomputer to run his facility at a much more efficient rate, so that's what he did."
"So where does Caroline fit in with this?" Yakko asked while he played with his paddle-ball.
"Mr. Johnson wanted the supercomputer to have a personality as well." GLaDOS continued. "The only way to accomplish this was to put an actual human specimen into the computer."
"That doesn't exactly seem healthy." Yakko said grimacing at the thought.
"Oh it's not." GLaDOS assured. "Caroline humbly volunteered to be the test subject, totally not against her will."
"Hmmph hmm hmmph mmhm?" The Pyro asked.
"He asked you where you come in." Sephiroth translated.
"I was created with the specific job to build devices and materials, and to test said devices and materials." GLaDOS saidified.
"So you were actually programmed by a human... with a human... to help humans." Sephiroth clarified.
"Well, I tried helping them, but humans are slow and unintelligent. I am perfectly capable of running the facility of Aperture far more efficiently than if humans were there. So I flooded the enrichment center with a deadly neurotoxin, killing everyone in the building except for the test subjects."
Silence. The group just looked at the murderous food with raised eyebrows.
"Did I say I killed them?" GLaDOS asked, rather insincerely. "I meant I fed them all cake."
"What was that whole 'deadly neurotoxin' thing?" Vinyl asked.
The unicorn's question went unanswered for a few moments. GLaDOS didn't know what to say, and wished that she hadn't said anything in the first place. Suddenly, she spoke in a more lighthearted, upbeat monotonous tone, "Oh look. There's the door to the hangar we were looking for right now."
The group turned to the left to see that there was in fact a large door on the wall.
"Oh, yeah. So it is." Yakko agreed, approaching the control panel to attempt to open the door.
"Wait really? I was just saying that to avoid the question Vinyl Scratch just asked me." GLaDOS said very awkwardly. "Well go on then. Let's go in."
The others just gave her a look like '...really?', before Yakko managed to find the right button combination by randomly hitting thirteen buttons in some stupid order.
The metal door slid upward into the ceiling, revealing an enormous dome-like room on the other side. There wasn't much in it besides a small stockpile of spaceships of various size and shape that had been rather crudely moved to the left of the dome. Some of the ships had toppled over and were even stacked on top of each other.
All along the walls of the dome were bleeping and booping buttons and lights. All the gears and gizmos made whirring sounds inside the huge structure, but were mostly drowned out by a low hum emanating from the centre (it's French) of the room.
"I'm getting really sick and tired of all these bleeping and booping buttons and lights." Vinyl Scratch rolled her eyes while also rolling her amp into the room.
"What do you suppose all of these ships are doing here?" Yakko asked, gesturing to the poorly assembled pile of flying contraptions.
"I have no idea." Sephiroth just looked around in analytical confusion. "This place just keeps getting weirder and weirder. But why don't we see if any of these ships can still fly."
The six looked over at the armada, trying to find a suitable suitor for them to board. However, before they could inspect them any further, a door not too far from the spaceships flew upward and a tall, egg-shaped man, sporting killer boots, a red coat, blue-tinted glasses, and an over-sized mustache stepped into the room. In his white gloved hands he held a clipboard and a pen.
"Let's see here..." He murmured in a low, gruff voice. "Arwing, check. Blue Falcon, check. The Tardis, the T-Ship, Tie Fighter, check check check."
He carried on, apparently not having any awareness of his unwanted company. He just continued making checkmarks along his checklist until barely glancing up a bit and catching just a smidgin of the heroes.
After noticing that he wasn't alone anymore, he jumped to attention and became slightly frazzled. "What the... You weren't supposed to get here so quickly!" He said, flailing his arms around in a very animated manner.
"We can go back outside if you want." GLaDOS suggested.
"No no, it's fine. I'll just have to move construction on the Ultima Weapon back a bit." He shrugged, straightening out his glasses and tossing the checklist behind him with no concern of where it landed.
"What's that about an Ultima Weapon?" Sephiroth questioned, keeping his gaze on the egg man.
"It's of no concern to you really." The man waved his hand in a shooing motion as he paced back and forth. "You won't live long enough to see what my master has in store for this universe."
"Let me guess." Vinyl Scratch stepped forward. "You work for Captain Planet, don't you?!"
A grim smile appeared on his face. "You couldn't be more correct my little pony." The man turned around, pointing his right hand in the air and said, "I am Dr. Robotnik!"
A catchy little fanfare played in the background as a spotlight moved around the room, stopping just above the insane doctor. Fireworks from the floor shot up and confetti fell from the ceiling in a colorful array of yellow and red.
"Dang it Scratch! I told you not to do the confetti!" He yelled behind him, totally killing the mood of the... rather over-the-top introduction.
The heroes just stood there, wiping the confetti off of themselves.
"Hmm hmmph mmph?" The Pyro asked.
"I don't even know Pyro." Sephiroth said, staring at the chubby adversary. "I don't even know."
"Well, no matter. I'll clean up the mess once I deal with you five." Dr. Robotnik said, turning away from the group and jumping into a gray and black, one-man hovercraft and chuckled to himself.
"Hey! The Pyro is a person too!" Yakko defended.
"Hmm?" The Pyro looked down at his mislead friend in confusion.
"I think he means Latisha." GLaDOS corrected.
"Yeah, that makes a little more sense." Yakko shrugged.
"HMM?!"
"I don't count the Mexican Entree!" The doctor said, pushing a few buttons on the dashboard of his vehicle. It began moving back toward the far end of the dome while still facing the heroes. "How could a taco ever defeat me?"
"Keep talking like that doctor," Sephiroth taunted, drawing his masamune and holding the blade toward Doctor Robotnik. "But we've made it through every adversary the Captain has thrown at us. What makes you any different?"
The egg man scowled angrily at the group. He never liked being doubted, especially not by blue hedgehogs that were faster than they should naturally be. Anyways, the wall behind him opened as he slowly drifted farther away. Behind it rested a large mech-suit, painted red and black. It had arms and legs, though the hands were replaced with giant gatling guns.
Robotnik's hovercraft attached to the top of the mech-suit so that the hovercraft was completely covered by the suit while still allowing the doctor to see his enemies and operate the devastating invention. A glass dome flew over the insane doctor, encasing him in a fortified suit of armor.
"I see." Sephiroth muttered, a bit disheartened at the sight of their new challenge.
"You fools!" Robotnik shouted, his voice transmitting through an intercom installed in the mech-suit for taunting purposes. "I'm not just some ordinary minion of Captain Planet! I've built my own minions who were more capable than Leeroy ever was!"
"Well that's just rude." Vinyl whispered to her companions.
"I guess there's no getting out of this one." GLaDOS said. "I was hoping to avoid another scrap such as this."
"Enough of these pointless words!" Robotnik yelled. "Let's just get this over with!" He then pressed a series of buttons on the dashboard and pulled various switches and knobs. The flaps on the outside of his suit lifted upward to reveal numerous missile launchers, armed and ready to fire.
"Guys, get back!" Sephiroth motioned for the team to take cover behind him, which they did without a moment to lose.
"FIRE!" Robotnik shouted, pushing a big red button in the center of his mechanical menace. Instantly, the missiles all fired out of the suit, spiraling and crashing into everywhere except where they were supposed to. The entire dome was littered with ash and craters from the missiles that obviously had done the opposite of what the doctor had intended.
"Huh... well that's disappointing." Robotnik said with a scratch of the head. "I guess my speed-seeking missiles won't work on you guys..."
"Speed-seeking missiles?" Yakko asked in disbelievability. "I just have one question. Why?"
Rather than answer his straight forward question, Robotnik hit a bunch of other buttons and such. "No matter!" He said while continuing to smash on his dashboard. "Let's see how well you handle... THIS!"
Suddenly, an over-sized brown and browner wrecking ball with a checkered pattern shot out of the center hole in the right hand of the suit. It was attached by a chain allowing the enormous ball to swing around the robot. The hole seemed much too small for this to ever happen ever, but the authors of this story don't care about logic right now. Waffles.
Out of the other hand appeared an also over-sized silver drill, which began spinning almost immediately afterwards. "GET A LOAD OF THIS!" Robotnik shouted, rushing straight toward the group, his flail spinning wildly above him. He dove at them, trying to impale them with the drill.
Before he could put a hole in them, they all jumped out of the way of the attack. They ended up mostly apart except for the Pyro, who had grabbed Latisha before the stabby stabs.
Sephiroth examined the room while he had the chance to make sure his teammates were unharmed. Much to his surprise and relief, the others were fine. With that, he held his sword in both hands and tried to get the attention of the metal monstrosity. "Come and get me." He egged on.
"GET A LOAD OF THIS!" Robotnik said again, unaware of his repeating. He dove once more at the angel, though his drill was stopped before he could run his opponent into oblivion. "What?"
Sephiroth stood face to face with the drill, looking unimpressed. "Do you know who I am?" he asked rhetorically.
Doctor Robotnik, unsure of the rhetorical nature of the question, idiotically responded. "Um... Serrifoss?"
"I am Sephiroth." He answered, pushing his sword forward with enough force to knock the mech-suit off balance. "The One-Winged Angel of Gaia. And you are nothing."
Furious at his statement, the doctor swung the wrecking ball down at the emotionally challenged target, this time without a cheesy one-liner.
Teleporting just out of the way of the gigantic weapon, Sephiroth hoisted his right hand in front of him and blasted several balls of fire at the doctor.
The fireballs merely bounced off of the glass and dissipated shortly after. "Your pitiful attacks don't work on me!" Robotnik mocked, pulling the suit's left arm up for another drill attack. "GET A LOAD OF THIS!"
"Seriously dude?" Vinyl asked, levitating one of the ships in the stockpile. "Don't you get tired of saying that?" using all of her magical might, she launched the Tie Fighter at the mech-suit with a loud crash.
The suit toppled over, falling onto the ground with the doctor struggling to regain control on the inside. "Hey! No fair!" The egg man claimed, pulling the suit to its feet. "Perhaps a more distant method then." he said to himself. The wrecking ball and drill retracted back inside the machine, and in their places mounted two twin lasers.
The chest again flapped open, only this time not to reveal missiles, but a strange looking weaponry. "You know what they say," he stated, firing up his new weapons. "The more the merrier!"
The hands began firing a constant ray of red and yellow light accompanied by a high-pitched hum. The lasers cut right through most of the ships in the pile with little effort on the doctor's part.
At the same time, boomerangs fired out of the chest in every which way imaginable. The 'rangs too were a constant attack, as they would return to the suit and be launched again.
Sephiroth did his best to deflect all of the projectiles coming at him, but eventually it proved too much even for his almost unmatched skill. One stray boomerang caught him off-guard and knocked him against a nearby wall. Taking advantage of his momentary vulnerability, Robotnik slowly swiped one of his arms horizontally past the angel.
He teleported yet again, barely avoiding complete disintegration. He appeared nearby Vinyl Scratch, who had been using her magic to create a forcefield protecting her amp, GLaDOS, Yakko, and herself. "Get behind me Sephy!" She yelled, struggling to maintain the shield.
With all of them in one place. Doctor Robotnik called on all of his boomerangs to return, then concentrated both lasers on the shield.
"Aah!" Vinyl cried out, sweating from the exertion of keeping her magic up.
"Aah ha ha ha!" The doctor laughed crazily, sure in his victory.
"I can't..." Vinyl started, her words cut short by keeping her focus. "Hold it... much longer..." the force field around them began to crack under the pressure of the two powerful beams. The glow around her horn began to fade in as sweat dripped down her forehead.
Just before the lasers broke through the magical barrier, the Pyro who had eluded Robotnik's attention for so long, grabbed his Chinese bar sign and hurled it at the glass dome over Robotnik's head. Upon collision with the glass, the Neon Annihilator bounced off of the suit, flying in a random direction. The glass on the other hand, cracked under the force of the sign.
The doctor turned toward the Pyro, startled by the sound, and even more so startled at the damage he had done. "Why you little..." He immediately turned his mech-suit to the Pyro and the taco, allowing Vinyl Scratch a moment to rest.
With the suit slowly turning to him, the Pyro quickly grabbed Latisha and ran like a maniac around the room. The lasers swept left and right, up and down, diagonal and even swagonal, but the Pyro seemed untouchable.
"Will... you... stop... MOVING!?" the doctor yelled, very annoyed at this particular moment.
The gas jockey did not respond, rather he just kept bobbing and weaving with his taco love. He was even surprised he had dodged the beams so well. Perhaps hanging out with the Scout had paid off in the long run.
"Grrr!" Robotnik growled, his face visibly red. He pulled the lasers back into his suit and in their places came two guns that looked all too familiar to the masked mute.
Giant trails of fire erupted from the guns, making the Pyro incredibly jealous. But he had no time for QQing, for now was the time to run. he narrowly evaded the fire trailing right at his ankles and was able to duck behind the Tie Fighter as he sucked his thumb in fear.
"You think your fire is the best!?" Robotnik taunted, laughing maniacally. "My fire is the best fire actually!"
The Tie Fighter's exterior metal began to heat up from the flames, scorching the vessel to an almost melting degree. Just then, one of the arms of the mech-suit was completely severed from the body. It fell to the floor, deactivated and generally useless with a loud tap.
"What?" Robotnik asked. Before he could investigate what had happened, Sephiroth slid on the ground right in front of the suit. "Did you just..." His question was unanswered as the angel jumped at the doctor and slashed horizontally with his sword, knocking the machine to the ground yet again.
Sheathing his blade for a moment, Sephiroth ran over to the Pyro to make sure he was alright. "Pyro, are you ok?" he asked, careful not to touch the white hot metal of the ship.
"Hmm hmmph mm?" The Pyro asked, looking desperately around the room.
"Don't worry," The long-haired leader assured, pulling out a Mexican treat from his somewhere. "I have Latisha right here."
"Hmm! Hmm mm hmmph!"
The three regrouped with the others just in time for their crazy opponent to pull the mech to its damaged feet... again. The glass both behind and in front of the doctor was now cracked, obscuring his vision and really rustling his jimmies.
"Fine!" He yelled, seeming like he was about to throw a hissy fit. "Be that way! I'm still in control! And I have no idea how to fix this!"
"Are you guys ok?" Vinyl asked, ready to arm her bass cannon.
"We're fine." Sephiroth said with a nod. "We have to get rid of his weapons if we want to stop him."
"And how do we do that?" GLaDOS asked. "He's got more weaponry than anything in Aperture. I was actually considering hiring him if we survive this ordeal."
"If we could just break through that glass dome over his head..." Sephiroth thought out loud. Suddenly, it hit him like a ton of tissue paper. He quickly shifted his attention to Yakko who stood fearful of the giant metal thing and said, "Yakko! We need you to drop an anvil on him!"
"What?" Yakko looked up at his friend with a raised eyebrow. "I can't just make an anvil appear whenever I want to Seph. It takes time, effort, and a punchline."
With an ironic sense of comedic timing, a big black anvil dropped from somewhere up above where they were and landed right on the cracked glass of the mech-suit, shattering it completely though missing Robotnik.
"Huh... nevermind." Yakko said with a shrug.
"THAT'S IT!" Robotnik yelled, way beyond angry. "I'VE HAD IT UP TO HERE WITH YOU ALL!" He continued, holding his hand above his head. "I'M NOT GOING TO BE REMEMBERED AS THE GUY WHO LOST TO A PONY, A MUTE, A DOG, A POTATO, AND A STUPID ANGEL!"
"You forgot Latisha again." Vinyl Scratch said, gesturing to her edible friend.
"I DON'T COUNT THE TACO!" the doctor shouted louder than what seemed humanly possible, as the remaining hand of his mech-suit sprouted fingers and launched at the pony with blinding speed. The fingers wrapped around the white unicorn, trapping her in its mechanical grasp.
"Ahh!" She cried out as the hand was brought back to the robot by the long strong cables. With Vinyl Scratch in his clutches, Robotnik ushered a grim cackle. The flaps on the chest and all around his mech opened up again to reveal the missiles yet again. Only this time, he counted on them going all over the place. And it was exactly what he wanted them to do.
"Vinyl!" Sephiroth yell, charging at the metal beast, ready to cut it down to size. Before he made it too far, the missiles launched, creating a sea of explosive projectiles for to harm his enemies. More missiles fired out of the mech-suit than seemed physically possible, yet the angel dodged every single one of them.
He continued forcing his way through the onslaught of rockets, deflecting a few of them with his sword. When he finally got close enough to the robot, he jumped at it, his sword aimed right for the doctor's chest.
However, Robotnik had planned for such a frontal assault. He pulled a lever on the left hand side of his console and grinned mischievously. A large, bright red boxing glove flew out of the mech, socking Sephiroth right in the face with enough force to send him spiraling toward one of the walls of the hangar.
"Sephy!" Vinyl yelled, struggling to breathe through the machine's tight hold.
"Ha! Who's nothing NOW?!" Robotnik laughed, the missiles still firing out of his suit.
The angel struggled to get to his feet, the impact of the glove, wall, and floor making him uneasy. At that same moment, one of the stray crazy ivan missiles seemed to direct its attention to the injured hero. He only caught a glimpse of the incoming rocket... before the Pyro jumped between his friend and his friend's death. Using a method long since forgotten in the Pyro's mind, he M2'd at the missile. A powerful compressed air blast exited the flamethrower, strong enough to redirect the rocket right back at the doctor.
"Give it up! You can't win!" Robotnik said in a condescending tone to the pony as she still struggled to escape. "You and your friends are..." something caught his attention over the constant shooting of rockets. one of the missiles he had randomly fired was now coming right for him. "finished."
The projectile explosive collided with the suit in a fiery explosion, knocking it off balance. In the suit's wobbly attempts to keep its balance, the hand opened and Vinyl Scratch dropped to the ground, Yakko rushing to her quick descent. Before she hit the ground, the dog pulled a mini-trampoline from off-screen and placed it right under the pony, catching her in a fun, bouncy fashion. . "Thanks Yakko." She said with a small smile, getting off of the trampoline and running to her comrades.
"Don't mention it." Yakko replied with a not so small smile.
The impact of the rocket on the mech-suit took its toll on the machine, as it was no longer able to fire the speed-seeking missiles. "What?! No!" Robotnik smashed his dashboard in a few times, continuously shouting the word 'no'.
"It's over doctor." Yakko said, his paddle-ball in hand. "You've lost this round."
"HAVE I?!" He retorted. Doctor Robotnik was many things, but a quitter was not one of them. He angrily hit a series of buttons on the extremely damaged console, chortling all the while. The suit's chest opened up yet again, only this time to reveal three square picture-frames.
"Hmm mm hmm hmmph?" The Pyro asked, observing the new transformation.
"I'm not sure Pyro." Sephiroth said, holding his sword tightly. "But be ready for anything."
The insides of the picture-frames then began to spin vertically, changing pictures to what looked like golden rings, a blue hedgehog, more golden rings, small robots, a golden ring with the number '50' under it, and a few other pictures. Meanwhile, the still intact arm of the robot pulled its fingers back inside and pointed at the heroes. "GET A LOAD OF THIS!"
"Are you kidding me?" Vinyl Scratch asked, getting really annoyed by his constant repetitions of stupid phrases that were lame to begin with.
Before she could complain too much, bullets began to fire out of the holes in the arm, tearing through the floor of the hangar like a hot knife through butter.
The heroes barrel-rolled out of the way before becoming swiss cheese. The outrageously strong cartilages followed the angel, who ran as fast as possible from the new attack.
Though the doctor seemed to have A.D.D., as every time another target came into his sights, he switched his attention to them. Miraculously though, the bullets seemed to miss every time no matter how randomly aimed they were.
"WHY CAN'T I HIT YOU!?" Doctor Robotnik complained, smashing his keyboard again, much harder than before. Suddenly, the slot machine on his suit's chest came to a stop on an icon that resembled a mushroom cloud. "Huh... I actually don't know what that means."
The suit issued in a monotoned female voice "Self-destruct sequence initiated."
"Uh-oh! Time to go!" He stammered, quickly detaching his hovercraft from the remains of his once proud mech-suit. He tried to fly as far away as he could, but the force of the explosion from the suit knocked him off-course.
He plummeted down to the floor of the hangar, abandoning all signs of control and smashing into the pretty much destroyed pile of ships.
All sounds in the dome quieted, a huge contrast to the battle that had just been waged. "Is he dead?" GLaDOS asked breaking the silence.
Before they could confirm his demise, a hand burst upward from the rubble holding a small device with a single green button in the center. "AH HA!" He laughed, his face covered in scratches and dirt. "YOU THINK YOU CAN BEAT ME SO EASILY! BEHOLD!"
The others in the room did not behold. They did not even care. Rather, they worried about his sanity.
"Doctor... I think you should see a doctor." Yakko said, reaching for his white coat and glasses. "I could help if you-"
"BEHOLD!" He interrupted. "MY ULTIMATE CREATION!" He held the button out in front of him in a demonstrative motion. "GAZE UPON THE BRILLIANCE OF... THE 'YOU LOSE BUTTON'!"
They couldn't even... they were so stunned at the egg man's desperation.
"ANYONE WHO PRESSES THIS BUTTON!" He continued his unhealthy rant. "WILL BE SUBJECTED TO LOSE FOREVER! NOW! VINYL SCRATCH! PRESS THE BUTTON!" He directed the device toward the pony, taking a few steps out of the rubble.
The others just turned their attention from the psychotic inventor to the white pony. She looked to the left, then to the right, then to Robotnik. "What? No." She said with a disgusted tone.
"Wha... PRESS IT!" Robotnik shouted again, shaking the device around in his hand.
"No." The pony repeated.
"Huh... I didn't think that... I didn't count on you..." He struggled for the words. He folded his arms behind his back and began to pace the floor in front of them. "I did everything right. I used the machine... got angry a lot... maybe I hit the dashboard a few too many times?"
While he walked hurriedly back and forth, he paid no attention to where he was stepping. Shortly after he got on the topic of over-sized mammals, he lost his footing and fell to the ground with a thud.
"Ouch!" He looked down and saw a stray slice of tomato on the ground. "What is this doing here?! Tomatoes is slippery!" Shocked at his grammatical slip up, he looked at the heroes, who just stared at him in confusion. "What in the... Oh noes." He stood up to see that he had sat right on top of the 'You Lose Button'.
The heroes couldn't help but burst out laughing... except for Sephiroth who remained almost entirely emotionless.
"Nice one, egg man!" Vinyl Scratch choked in between chuckles.
"Stop laughing!" Robotnik yelled. They didn't stop laughing. Rather they laughed harder. "I gotta get out of here!" he yelled, searching for his hovercraft. He located it in the debris of the pile of ships and jumped in without concern of where he landed in it. He sat upright and directed it to a small opening in the top of the hangar.
"You haven't seen the last of me!" He threatened to the group as they died from laughter. "I will return! More powerful than ever! YOU'LL SEE!" The tunnel closed behind Robotnik, leaving the heroes to enjoy their victory.
"WAT!?" Captain Planet yelled at his right hand man standing to his left, baffled by the words that came out of his mouth.
"It would seem that Robotnik was not as strong as we had originally thought." Will Ferrell stroked his chin. "I'm actually starting to see a trend here."
Captain Planet, oblivious to his utter failure to compile a team that could actually do things, just shrugged and said, "What kind of trend? What does you mean?"
Will raised his index finger and opened his mouth to speak, when he saw the Captain picking his nose, and decided to remain silent.
"We need to come up with something fast as lightning!" The Captain looked up and began to pace back and forth, deep in thought. "These heroes aren't messing around. They've managed to take out four of my minions! Four!"
"To be fair, you may have underestimated their abilities from the start." The mysterious man in the shadows murmured. "After all, we aren't just dealing with any ordinary six people."
"They have accomplished great feats." Will continued. "Magical powers, expert swordsmanship, anvils from nowhere, and a taco. They seem to have just what they need to win."
"Not to mention their..." The masked man stopped and quieted his voice. "special powers..."
The entire room fell void of noise. The three just sat at the table except for Captain Planet, Will, and the masked man as they were all in fact, standing.
"Why did you say that all quiet like?" Will asked, raising an eyebrow. "No one else is here anymore."
Completely ignoring Will, Captain Planet just raised his fist in the air. "No matter what powers they have, we will have a perfect world!" He looked at the table below and smirked. On it was a blueprint of how his world would look when it was completed. "Maybe we just need to hit these 'heroes' a little... closer to home."
"What do you mean Captain?" Will asked, intrigued by his devious stare.
"Well... While it was mainly Dr. Robotnik's primary operative to extract pieces for my new, perfect world, I still have control over the entire operation." He strolled to a small collection of computer consoles and typed in a few characters. This brought up a surprisingly serious hologram of a giant claw attached to a moar gianter spaceship.
"But that doesn't mean that we can change the plan, does it?!" Will stated, rather flustered. "We had it all figured out!"
"And now we're going to... edit the plan. And the planet." The evil captain turned a key in the main console and with that, the moar gianter spaceship began moving towards a planet that any brony should recognize.
"But sir!" Will burst out, furious at the turn of events.
"But nothing!" Captain roared back. "We need something to break those heroes! And this is how we are going to do it! YOU!" He yelled, directing his attention to the mysterious man whom the authors still don't feel like revealing just yet.
"Yes Captain?"
"I have a trace on the heroes." He said, typing a few more codes on the keyboard. "Apparently they fled the Death Star and are now in a space pod, headed towards the moon."
"Say no more." The man bowed. "I'll take care of them."
"Good. And you Will, begin the cleansing of this new planet, this... Equestria. I want it completely devoid of those wretched pollutant ponies!"
*****
We rejoin our heroes yet again, sitting in a rather compact space pod, with barely enough space inside to go around. (ba dum tss)
Vinyl Scratch was forced to sit on Sephiroth's lap, though being through so much, the two didn't mind it too much. It started off rather awkwardly though. Yakko sat on the other side of the pod, Vinyl's amp next to him and Latisha and GLaDOS on that. The Pyro took the last available seat inside the cramped ship.
They had originally tried to plug GLaDOS into the pod with the adapter cable, but there was no where for to plug said potato in. The pod seemed to be reading off of some preset coordinates.
So the six just sat there, uncomfortably close to each other. To pass the time, Yakko pulled out his favorite toy which he had purchased from Dan so long ago and began to play with it. However, there was so little room that the ball just kept smacking the Pyro in the face.
"Don't you ever get tired of playing with that thing?" Sephiroth asked, hoping for some peace and quiet rather than the constant smacking of the face of the gas jockey.
"Not really Seph." Yakko thought out loud. "It sure passes the time."
Vinyl, who had been sitting quietly staring at the floor, suddenly looked up and said, "Speaking of time, how long have we even been on this crazy trip?"
The question caught everyone off guard. Even Yakko stopped playing with his paddle ball to acknowledge the question.
"Hmmph mmph mm mmph hm hmmph hmm." The Pyro muttered, making some specific hand gestures.
"I don't know Pyro." Sephiroth said. "We've been on this adventure for quite a while. I've actually lost track."
"Well fortunately for all of you, I've taken the time to calculate how long we've been together." GLaDOS said.
The others leaned closer to her, anxious to hear what the all-knowing potato had calculated. "And?" Vinyl asked.
"Entirely too long." GLaDOS said.
Silence.
"So... you don't actually know?" Yakko asked, looking rather unimpressed at the spud.
"Not the slightest idea." She replied rather cheerfully.
They all leaned back, disappointed in GLaDOS' knowledge, or lack there of. None of them spoke. Even Yakko put his toy away, succumbing to the quietude.
After a long while, the Pyro looked outside of the pod's only window. He saw stars... more stars... lots of stars... Until finally, he saw something bigger than a star... well not astronomically bigger, but it was closer so it appeared to be bigger. "Hmmph!" He yelled to the others, pointing toward the large something.
"What is that?" Vinyl asked, standing up on Sephiroth's lap to get a better view.
"It looks like..." Sephiroth squinted his eyes. "A small moon."
"That's no moon." Yakko said, pressing his face up against the glass. "It's a space station."
Upon closer inspection, the dog shook his head and said, "Oh whoops. My bad, it is a moon."
"Then I guess that's the destination." Sephiroth said, still looking at the giant rock. As the pod grew closer, the moon appeared to be unlike any other. It had a face. And not a smiley one like this:
:)
but a mean one like this:
"That's no ordinary moon." Sephiroth said judgmentally.
"Hmmph mmph mmph hmm." The Pyro added.
The moon was not happy to see them. And so it started to pull them towards its mouth hole (if this is dirty to you, go away).
"What's happening?" GLaDOS said, sensing the sudden shift in speed of the pod.
"We're all in a pod, that's the extent of my knowledge." Yakko paraphrased from a really hilarious movie.
"It's the moon!" Sephiroth said, trying to keep his balance in the shaking and shifting pod. "It's sucking us into its mouth hole (we don't really care).
"What's gonna happen to us now?!" Vinyl Scratch cried, hugging Sephiroth's boot for her dear life.
The shaking pod rattled back and forth, all of the inhabitants panicking at this point, even the angel. The mouth grew wider and wider, about to swallow them whole.
"I don't know..." Sephiroth said, just before the pod fell into darkness and the group lost consciousness yet again.
As we finally rejoin our heroes, it appears that they had silently slipped into a coma for a little over a month. This plot device totally not being the writer's faults, they awaken to finish their journey.
Vinyl Scratch was the first to wake, rubbing her head walking over to where her glasses had fallen off. After putting on her spectacles, she looked around what seemed to be paradise. The six sat in the middle of a grassy meadow that seemed to go on forever. She didn't know where they were, but where ever it was, it was more inviting than any of the places prior.
Just ahead was a lone tree on a small hill. Anything else was hidden in a dense fog and light blue sky. The tree itself was enormous, its branches stretching farther than what seemed natural.
Vinyl thought back as far as she could. The last thing she remembered was her in an escape pod with her friends. Then... nothing.
She looked over, counting in her head to make sure the rest of the group was present. After accounting for the team, she proceeded to prod the one winged angel.
"Sephy. Sephy, wake up." Vinyl said quietly, not knowing if anyone... or anything was watching.
After a few seconds, the angel's eyes creaked open. He scanned the surroundings from the grassy field, and simply asked, "Are we dead?"
"No, we're not-" Vinyl started, then paused and looked around. "Well I don't think we are."
"We crashed into the moon." A voice said from behind them. They two turned quickly to see that Yakko was also up.
"What?" Vinyl asked with a tilt of her head.
"Well, the script says that we crashed into the moon." Yakko held the paperback book, flipping through all of the pages. "But that's all it says. I don't think the authors accounted for anything afterwards."
"What are you talking about?" Sephiroth said, rising to his feet.
"I mean that we aren't supposed to be here right now." Yakko summarized, tossing the script behind him.
"Well, what exactly is our next objective?" GLaDOS said, startling the group.
"Well..." Sephiroth started, stepping back into the boots of leadership. "I guess our goal is what it's always been. We need to find out where we are. Then find a way out."
"Are we ever going to just get out of here?" Vinyl asked in an annoyed tone. "I'm sick and tired of this stupid adventure."
"Well this isn't exactly how I wanted to spend my weekend either." GLaDOS added sarcastically.
"And that's another thing." Vinyl turned to the potato sitting potatoishly on the grass. "Your sarcasm is really getting on my nerves."
"If you would like to file a complaint, please dial our non-toll free customer service department at 1-800-stop-talking.com."
Rather than argue with the food, Vinyl turned and stomped away angrily.
"Vinyl, we're trying our hardest." Sephiroth said, trying to calm the pony.
"And we're still no closer to home than we were when we first started." She replied. "All I want is to go home and put this whole stupid adventure thing behind me."
Silence fell on the group. No one knew what to say next. The five just sat still, staring at Vinyl Scratch as she sat with her back to her team.
"So..." Yakko started, scratching the back of his neck. "You'd leave us behind?"
She looked up, then back at the five who were all sad... except for Sephiroth who in fact showed little to no emotion.
"... yes." Vinyl said solemnly.
The group again fell quiet. As much as it hurt Vinyl Scratch to say it, she couldn't hide the truth. With a heavy sigh, Vinyl stood up and walked away from the group, leaving her bass cannon behind.
Almost striking some level of emotion, Sephiroth extended his hand and opened his mouth to call for her to come back. But the angel stopped himself and looked away as the pony left.
"Well... what now?" Yakko asked, sounding less than cheerful.
Sephiroth remained quiet for a while. His eyes scanning the group, and the last few seconds of Vinyl Scratch before she disappeared into the fog. He turned around, took in some air, and said, "We move on."
"But... What about Vinyl?" Yakko asked. "We can't just leave her..."
"I had gotten to know Binal Scarf too well to just forget him so suddenly." GLaDOS said, rather harshly mispronouncing Vinyl's name... and gender.
"She'll be fine." Sephiroth said, though unsure himself. "The best thing we can do is just... carry on."
And so the group, now one member short, moved on through the beautiful but desolate fields of green. With no direction or even an idea of where they were, they had no clue how they were to get out of this mess.
"Let's head this way." Sephiroth pointed away from the tree. "There must be some way out of this fog."
"Wait!" Yakko shouted, looking around desperately.
"What is it?" The angel asked.
"Where's the Pyro?!"
Sephiroth looked all around, sure enough, the Pyro was gone as well. "Oh great. Not again."
*****
The ivory unicorn removed her glasses, as they began to fog from her tears. She had waited until she was out of earshot from the others before letting loose the waterworks. All she wanted was to go home. To escape this adventure. At first, the idea of exploration and discovery peaked her excitement and made her want to keep going forward.
But now, the memories of home had worn her down. As much fun as it was discovering new places, she missed her daily life in Equestria. She couldn't remember the last time she had performed as a DJ in Ponyville. Or the last time she had ruined one of Octavia's tea parties with her outrageously loud music.
Come to think of it, she couldn't even remember the last time she had seen Octavia. Her best friend. She had almost forgotten what she even looked like. She wondered if Octavia had even noticed her absence. Did she even care?
Suddenly, something sneaked under Vinyl's hoof, nearly tripping her. She quickly regained her balance, then shifted her gaze up. It was the tree... which shocked and confused her. She could have sworn she had walked away from the tree. She couldn't even recall going up the small hill.
At the moment however, she didn't care. She decided to just sit down by the trunk, since she had no idea where she was going anyways.
She suddenly found her mind wandering to thoughts of Sephiroth. Though she didn't want to think about him or any of the others she had left behind... she couldn't help it. Sephiroth was a good friend, and a great leader. He had saved her and the others numerous times. Not to mention he was always the voice of reason in the darkest times. He always knew what to do, and when it came down to it he always put the others before himself.
She smiled a bit, thinking of the time she had spent with the incredible team. Incredibly weird and mismatched, but incredible all the same. From the Pyro's goofy antics to Yakko's odd sense of humor... even GLaDOS's sarcastic demeanor was somewhat charming.
For the first time in Vinyl Scratch's life, she found herself torn between two very different worlds. Nearly out of tears, Vinyl buried her face into her forelegs, unsure of what she really wanted.
Little did she know that she was being watched by one of the people she had abandoned. The Pyro had left the others while they weren't looking and followed the unicorn, just close enough so that he wouldn't lose her in the mist, but far enough away that she wouldn't notice him.
Being a mercenary, paid to kill countless people as long as they wore blue, the Pyro himself was almost as emotionless as Sephiroth. Though he understood the pony's distress. He wanted to help, or at least talk to her... though he wasn't very good at that.
So to ease the tension, he tried playing the song Mary had a Little Lamb in his head. It didn't work. He was still sad.
It became blisteringly apparent that he would have to confront his ex-teammate. Though he didn't know what to say or even how to say it, he began to approach Vinyl Scratch.
"A shame that they don't understand you."
The Pyro looked around confusedly, wondering if he had said that. After he decided that he hadn't, he noticed a mysteriously mysterious shadowy shadow figure making his way to the tree, and in turn, Vinyl.
Instead of being brave, the Pyro ducked down and hid in plain sight.
"W-what?" Vinyl said with a sniffle as she wiped her eyes.
The figure stepped out of the fog at last revealing himself to the readers. Considering we've kept him a secret from the very first chapter, it's probably about time we show who he is.
"I understand you Vinyl Scratch." The man uttered in a deep, but sympathetic voice. He wore a gray and brown robe, brown pants, as well as boots and gloves. A hood covered his head, and he wore a white mask with a face painted on it in red and black. Though the eyes were cut out so he could see. He knelt down in front of the pony, showing that he meant no harm.
"Who... who are you?" Vinyl asked, still showing obvious signs of sorrow.
"I..." he began, building up the suspense. "am Amon."
Vinyl Scratch gasped in a huge amount of air from the shock. "I still don't know who you are."
The Pyro listened in, making sure Vinyl was ok. Though it would be best that he wasn't seen.
"You and your friends have killed quiet a few powerful people." Amon continued, paying no attention to Vinyl Scratch's obvious lack of knowledge of who he was. "Leeroy Jenkins, Diaboromon, and even the Great and Powerful Tristan. It's nothing short of astounding."
Vinyl squinted her brow in confusion. "How did you know all that?"
Amon stood and bowed. "Because I am one of Captain Planet's warriors as well."
At that, Vinyl stood and jumped a good distance from the man. Though she had neither her cannon or her vinyls, her horn glowed blue, ready to fry his face. "Get back!" She warned with a glare.
"Calm down Ms. Scratch." Amon said, standing in the exact same spot. "I mean you no harm. Rather, I come with an offer."
"Forget it!" Vinyl retorted. "I don't want anything to do with you or your master!"
"That's a shame," Amon replied. "I'm sure all of your friends back in Ponyville would have been delighted at your return."
The glow around Vinyl's horn dimmed slightly but didn't completely disappear. "What do you mean...?"
"Let me level with you Ms. Scratch." Amon paced a bit back and forth. "I do not care for bloodshed. I had a rather tragic past. Abusive father, missing brother, the works. And in my lifetime, I've been forced to do some terrible things. I won't go into detail, but let's just say I have a strong distaste for violence of any nature." He turned and met eyes with the pony, making sure she was still listening. "We've both been a part of some awful events in the past few... however long it's been. But I'm here to offer you a way home."
The glow around Vinyl's horn disappeared, and her eyes lit up at the mention of her home. "You mean... you can..."
"Yes." Amon interrupted. "I have the ability to send anyone anywhere. And that includes sending you to Ponyville."
"That's... That's amazing!" Vinyl Scratch exclaimed excitedly. The idea of returning home after such a long adventure made her ecstatic.
But... then again, something didn't seem right. This man worked for Captain Planet. He openly admitted it. And offering her the chance to return home the exact moment she wanted to return home... something seemed out of place.
"Why are you offering this to me?" Vinyl asked inquisitively. "What is it you have to gain?"
"I stated before that I hate violence." Amon clarified. "The chance to save your life is all I desire."
"Then... Captain Planet isn't behind this?"
"He does not know I'm here right now."
Vinyl turned and looked back the way she came. She couldn't see the others past the dense fog, but had a feeling they wanted to go home too. "Alright." She said after a long pause. "I accept."
"That's wonderful news." Amon said clapping his hands together.
"On one condition." Vinyl interjected.
Amon said nothing. The tension behind his emotionless mask building as he folded his hands behind his back.
"My friends and I have been here for we-don't-even-know-how long. All I ask is for you to send them to their respective homes as well."
"I'm afraid..." Amon stuttered, his calm and collected nature visibly shaken. "I cannot do that."
Vinyl looked bewildered at him. "Why not?"
Amon regained his composure and straightened out his robe. "Simply put, that would raise the Captain's suspicions. My powers, as great as they are, have their limitations."
Vinyl wanted to argue, but she had no knowledge of Amon's powers. Maybe he was telling the truth.
"You don't want to keep walking in circles do you?" The man pressed on, kneeling down to eye-level with the pony. "You've tried your hardest, and you're still no closer to home than you were when you first started. Don't you want to put all of this behind you?"
Vinyl Scratch looked straight into the man's eyes. Deep down, she knew he was right. She did want to just go home. And here, right in front of her, was her chance.
"Take your time." Amon said calmly. "I'm in no rush."
Meanwhile, continuing to hide in plain sight (and rather surprised it was actually working) the Pyro had heard the entire conversation. At first he had thought about charging down Amon with his flamethrower in hand. However, after their last battle, it was obvious that that was not an option. The encounters had been becoming increasingly difficult, and though he was a muffled moron, the Pyro knew his limits.
He knew that he couldn't take on that mysterious man himself... but his team could be strong enough. He just hoped that he could warn the others before it was too late, and Vinyl was long gone.
He took off as fast and sneakily as possible in the direction he assumed he had come from.
*****
"Are we there yet?" Yakko asked in a droll, bored tone. He had even opted out of playing with his paddle ball to push Vinyl Scratch's bass cannon with Latisha and GLaDOS atop. Though they had no use for the amp, they figured it was better to keep it than leaving it behind.
"Not yet." Sephiroth answered, not caring that this was the fourth or fifth time Yakko had asked.
"Do you even know where we're going?" GLaDOS asked.
Sephiroth ignored her as they just kept moving, hoping that eventually they would run into the Pyro... and maybe even Vinyl Scratch.
The team became quiet as the trek through misty nothingness seemed endless. Out of the corner of their eyes, they could have sworn they passed the same tree a few times in the distance, but they didn't pay much attention considering the events that had taken place.
Then, out of the blue came an all too familiar gas mask, sprinting towards them at remarkably average speed, flailing his arms above his head.
"Pyro, where have you been?" Sephiroth asked, slightly relieved to see him.
"Hmmph! Hmm hmmph mmph hmmph hmm! HMM! Hmmph hmmph hmm hmm mmph mph hmm!" The Pyro yelled, almost tripping over nothing a few times, but maintaining his sloppy balance.
"What's he saying?" Yakko asked, running up next to Sephiroth.
"Give me a second." Sephiroth said to Yakko, then turning back to face the Pyro. "What about Vinyl?"
"Hmmph mm mmph mm mmmm mmph! HMM!"
"Who offered her that?"
"Hmmph mm hph mmph mm hmm!"
"Amon? Who in Gaia is that?"
"Hmm hmm... hmph hmm mmmph hmm hmmph!"
"He works for Captain Planet!?"
"HMM!"
"Times like these, I'm almost glad I can understand you." Sephiroth said, drawing his sword and turning to the distant tree. "Vinyl Scratch is in trouble! We have to get to her now!"
Vinyl Scratch sat under the giant tree in the meadow, faced with a difficult choice. She could go home or stay here, and the odds seemed to be stacked in favor of the former. But then again, could this man truly be trusted?
That was the biggest concern for her. She had had previous encounters with the Captain's lackeys, and not once did they offer such a delectable deal.
Amon stood a few feet away, facing the opposite direction with his arms folded behind his back. He seemed confident in the choice Vinyl would make. But other than that, his intentions were shrouded in mystery, much like himself for most of this story.
"It is a difficult choice Ms. Scratch," Amon said, startling the pony. "I do not blame you for taking so long to decide."
"I just don't know..." Vinyl muttered.
"I understand. However, my time here is limited, and I need an answer." Amon turned around and took a few steps closer to the unicorn.
Vinyl looked up, connecting eyes with him through his mask... and her spectacles.
"... I guess... I..." Vinyl started, looking down at the grass.
"Yes?" Amon prodded, knowing exactly what choice she had made.
"HHHHHMMMMMMMMMM!!!!!!!!!EXCLAMATIONPOINT!!!"
The two turned quickly to the direction of the annoying sound to see the group of misfits rushing toward them at a slightly impressive speed.
"Guys?" Vinyl asked, rising to her hooves and taking a few steps away from the masked man. "What are you doing here?"
"Vinyl!" Sephiroth called out, almost reaching that 'worried' emotion he had heard so much about. "Don't listen to that man!"
"What?" Vinyl asked with a glance back at Amon. "Why not?"
"Because I don't like him." GLaDOS said, resting on the amp pushed by the Pyro.
"And he smells weird." Yakko added.
"This isn't the time guys!" Sephiroth scolded as they reached Vinyl and the man. "You can't honestly trust this guy Vinyl. He's working for Captain Planet!"
"I know... but he said..." Vinyl started "He said he could get me home."
"And you believe him?" Yakko asked, shrugging his shoulders.
"Well..." Vinyl looked back and forth from Amon to her friends.
"Ms. Scratch, do you think that you'll make it through this ordeal alive?" Amon questioned. "You may have made it this far, but trust me when I say you can't win against Captain Planet."
The seven... 'people' just stood by the enormous tree. No one spoke, and no one moved.
Suddenly, Sephiroth took a step forward and placed his hand on Vinyl's back. "We've gotten through everything else we supposedly couldn't make it through."
"Hmmph! Hmm hmmph mm." The Pyro stated, making stupid hand gestures. "Hmmph mm mmph hmmph hmm hmm hmmph mm. hmmph hmm!"
Amon stared at the Pyro... not sure what he had just heard.
"He said that we managed to beat Leeroy back in the City of Gold." Sephiroth clarified.
"Yeah. And we escaped the robot menace in Haven City." Yakko said, placing his hands on his hips. "Even beating that psycho Diaboromon.
"Not to mention the Not-so-great-and-less-than-powerful-Tristan." GLaDOS added from her perch.
"And that insane Doctor Robotnik. We've made it through everything that, according to your Captain, should have killed us." Sephiroth said, placing his hand on his hilt. "I don't know that much about teamwork, but if it hadn't been for all of us, we couldn't have come this far. And we aren't going to stop now."
Vinyl Scratch, inspired by her friend's words, trotted to the back of the group and retrieved her trusty bass cannon. She turned to the others and whispered, "Thanks guys."
"Hmmph hmm hmmph mm hmm." The Pyro said with a thumbs up.
"I hear you..." Vinyl paused. "I don't understand you, but I'm assuming it's something good."
"Basically he said let's get this guy." Sephiroth hurriedly translated, never taking his eyes off of the masked man. The six teammates took their fighting stances and readied for their next encounter. Sephiroth drew his masamune and pointed it at Amon. "Your move."
"Oh well." Amon shook his head and sighed. "I had hoped things would turn out differently."
"Yeah well tough luck!" Vinyl said, her horn glowing with magic.
"You could have said your farewells to all of your friends back in Equestria before their demise." Amon said with a smirk behind his mask. "What a shame."
"Huh?" Vinyl questioned questioningly. "What are you talking about?"
Amon looked upward and chuckled. "Oh that's right. You don't know."
"Know what?"
"Well, somewhere out there is Equestria. Living peacefully without a care in the universe. But... very soon, Captain Planet's Fabulous Planet Portion Extractor, or... CPFPPE as he likes to call it, will reach your home... and tear it apart."
"WHAT?!" Vinyl yelled, her horn fizzling from a mix of fear and anger.
"Though the CPFPPE won't reach its destination for a few days, Dr. Robotnik's army should be there any time to wipe the planet clean."
"But we defeated the doctor!" Vinyl yelled, ready to arm her bass cannon.
"That you did." Amon agreed. "But Captain Planet is still in command."
"That's it!" Vinyl exclaimed, using her magic to lift her remaining vinyls into the air, she launched them at Amon with a furious grunt. "I'm gonna destroy this creep if it's the last thing I do!"
The discs flew at the man with tremendous speed, and yet he didn't move a muscle. He just stared at the oncoming assault with a blank expression behind his mask, or so we assume. *shrug*
Finally, when the discs were not but five feet away from Amon, he leapt into action, performing a fancy spinning spiral flip in the air, narrowly avoiding all of the projectiles. He stuck the landing, placing one hand on the grass below to balance, while the other hand was raised above, his index and middle fingers extended outward. He raised his face toward the group, their faces shocked, stunned, and all manner of upset. "Is that the best you can do?" He egged on, a possible smile behind his white mask.
His taunting angered Vinyl further, as she gritted her teeth audibly. "You're really starting to tick me off!"
"An angry pony?" Amon asked, standing up. "I can't say that entirely frightens me. To be completely honest, I was expecting more of a challenge from the 'champions' I've heard so much about."
Enraged, Vinyl Scratch began to charge at Amon, forgetting all about her magic and just relying on brute force. She didn't get too far though, as Sephiroth quickly teleported in front of her, halting her forward progress.
Too angry to think, Vinyl tried to get past him. "Out of my way! This freak's gonna taste my hooves!" She yelled.
"Calm down Vinyl!" Sephiroth said, blocking her as best as he could. "Can't you see you're playing into his hands?"
"What do you mean?" Vinyl asked, though not entirely invested in the answer.
"There's something off about this guy." Sephiroth said, looking back at Amon as he just stood there, hands behind his back. "He isn't like the others. If we're gonna win this, we have to stay calm and think... that means you too Pyro."
The Pyro shrugged at Sephiroth, confused as to why Sephiroth would think he would just blindly charge at their opponent.
"That stance he is in..." GLaDOS started, obviously analyzing a butt-load of data. "I would not recommend letting him get too close to your bodies. He is using a stance favoring pressure point combat."
"Well well, someone has done their homework." Amon said with a small, slightly disappointed chuckle. "I kind of preferred you hadn't though."
"So, how do we fight him then?" Yakko asked, assuming a hesitant battle stance. "Should I get an anvil ready?"
"I don't think that would do much good." Sephiroth reasoned. "We've seen how quick his reactions are. The only way to fight him is to play his game."
"Hmmph?" The Pyro interrupted. "Hmm mmph mm mmph hmm!"
"Relax." The angel assured. "You haven't seen all I can do yet." He changed his gaze from his nearly muted teammate, to his mysterious adversary. With his enormous blade still drawn, he cracked a devilish smile as he opened his single wing and charged Amon at a blinding speed.
"Ah. Finally, a challenge." Amon said excitedly, as he ran at Sephiroth, preparing for the impact.
Sephiroth lunged his sword thingy at Amon to impale him. Before the tip of the sword thingy reached him however, Amon knocked the weapon off its course with two fingers, touching the sword's side with just enough force so that it missed.
"What?!" Sephiroth questioned, as he saw his blade slide right beside his target, and the target's fist becoming increasingly close to his face.
Before Amon's fist socked him in the jaw, Sephiroth accumulated his mana and teleported behind him. Amon anticipated that move however, and quickly swept his leg behind him, tripping Sephiroth.
"Predictable." The masked man said, bringing two fingers down on the falling angel's left shoulder. "You're too slow."
"Ahh!" Sephiroth cried out, as he lost much of his feeling in his left arm. The angel hit the ground, and Amon's fingers dug further into the pressure point in his shoulder. He could barely feel his arm, let alone make it move. Before any more damage could be done, Sephiroth held his palm directly at Amon's face. As energy began to build in his right arm, he let loose a large ball of fire, knocking the man back.
He landed with a thud near the tree and quickly rose to his feet. "Now that's more like it." he taunted, returning to his fighting stance.
The other five ran over to their wounded leader, concerned about what had happened. "Sephy! Are you alright?!" Vinyl asked, helping him to his feet.
"Yeah, I'm fine." He replied, trying to move his injured arm. It only turned slightly and he couldn't lift it at all. "Give the potato a medal. She was right about not getting close."
"I'll take a slice of cake instead." GLaDOS bargained. "Also, I have an idea."
*****
One quick group huddle later, the six heroes spread out to put GLaDOS' plan into motion. As they all ran opposite directions to get a better position, Amon couldn't help but wonder what they were planning.
"I really hope this works..." Yakko said nervously with Sephiroth standing right behind him.
"It will." Sephiroth said, trying to assure himself as much as his small companion.
With his right arm, Sephiroth grabbed hold of Yakko's back, and launched him high above Amon.
The masked man directed his attention upward and chuckled.
When he was right above Amon, Yakko reached into the plot and pulled out three large black anvils, and then dropped them all, raining metal down onto the opponent.
"Clever move." Amon said, preparing to move out of the way. "But I thought you would have learned by now. Projectiles won't do you any good."
As the anvils drew closer to crushing Amon, he leapt out of the way. The huge metal blocks forcefully hit the ground, sinking into the soft dirt below.
The masked mystery man landed, sliding back a bit. But before he could relax, Sephiroth approached him from behind, his right hand glowing with more red energy. "Just try and dodge this!"
Amon, turned just in time to see the big red ball of flames heading right at him, and he jumped out of the way again. "Working as a team I see." Amon said, the fire barely singeing his robes. "But as I just stated, projectiles won't do you any-"
Before he could finish his sentence, another masked man jumped from behind, a Chinese bar sign raised in his hands.
Amon probably looked very worried at this point, as he was in mid dodge from the fire and had no way of avoiding the oncoming strike.
*BADINK*
The Pyro slammed his neon annihilator into Amon's face, sending him flying in the opposite direction.
"Gotcha!" Vinyl exclaimed, her horn glowing with blue energy. The magic surrounded and encased Amon as he flew through the air, and stopped him from hitting the ground.
"What is this?" He struggled to say against the magic. "It can't be... but then, if it was... I could resist it..."
"I don't know what you're babbling about, but I hope you're ready for a close encounter with that tree over there!" Vinyl Scratch shouted, as a second layer of magic surrounded her horn, increasing her power.
With all the strength she could muster, she forced Amon into the tree at speeds that would kill a normal man. With a loud crack, Vinyl released her magical grip on him, letting him fall to the ground. Sweat dripped from her brow and she breathed heavily. Using that much magic had taken a lot out of her.
Amon stayed on the ground for a few seconds before slowly rising back to his feet. Between having his face smashed by the Pyro and being slammed against a tree trunk, his mask had been shattered and now laid in pieces at his feet. "It would seem that I underestimated you," He began to chuckle menacingly. "But no longer. I still have a few tricks up my sleeve."
With his mask destroyed, the six could see his face. Amon peeled back his hood revealing his short brown hair and his grayish-blue eyes. His face was long and bore a sinister smile. He extended his arms at the six, his teeth now bared. "My name is Noatak. And this is where your story ends."
Without warning, the heroes lost all control of their bodies. The pain seared throughout them as they cried in agony. It was as if the very blood within them had turned against them. Except for GLaDOS and Latisha, who in fact have no blood. That still didn't make them particularly useful in the current scenario, but... meh.
"If I wanted to, I could kill all of you with one fell swoop." Noatak muttered. He raised his hands higher, lifting them into the air as they struggled against this overpowering attack. "But I'd rather play with my food first."
"What... is... this..." Sephiroth other-word-for-'struggled' to say.
"Do you like it?" Noatak asked, already knowing the answer. "It's called blood bending. My father taught it to me when I was merely a boy. And it's only become stronger since then." He tightened his grip, harming the helpless heroes further.
"It does no good to fight it," He approached them, then lowered Vinyl Scratch down to him. "I'll only make it worse."
"V-Vinyl...!" Yakko tried to reach out to her, but it was impossible for him to move at all.
"Normally, I can resist blood bending. But your magic seems to be a completely different technique." He said, slowly running his hand through Vinyl's mane. "And I don't think I like it."
"Don't... touch... me...!" Vinyl warned, fighting as hard as she could. Her horn began to glow dimly, but she was unable to focus underneath the excruciating pain.
"Still fighting back?" Noatak asked, walking behind her. "I have a solution for that." Using his right hand to maintain his control over the heroes, he placed his left thumb on Vinyl Scratch's forehead just above her horn.
"What... are... you...?" Vinyl began.
"Doing? Simple. I don't like your magic." Noatak laughed a bit, "So I'm taking it away..."
With that said, Noatak used all of his bending abilities and began cutting out Vinyl's magic.
"AAAAAAAAAHHHHHHHHHHH!" The unicorn screamed, as she felt an incredible amount of pain in her head.
"Vinyl!" Sephiroth called out against Noatak's attack. He could only watch helplessly as his friend's magic was stripped from her.
Vinyl Scratch collapsed to the grassy ground as Noatak's grip was released. The unicorn couldn't move a muscle. Whatever the man had done, it left her in a daze, unable to do anything other than look around at her friends, held helpless in the air.
Slowly, she turned to her adversary. "What... d-did you... do...?" She managed to say horse-ly.
Noatak turned his attention from his captives to the grounded pony and smiled a devilish smile. "I simply took your magic." He waved his hands around in random motions, dropping the others to the ground. "You'll never use that horn again."
Vinyl attempted to stand, but only fell back to the ground. She grunted as she crawled to pummel Noatak in the esophagus... or at least try. "You... you're a... m-monster." She said, pounding her hoof weakly into his boot, not inflicting any kind of physical distress at all.
"Tsk tsk. Pitiful." He said, not even deeming the ivory unicorn worthy of harming. He simply walked toward the others, namely the angel with a single wing. "I expected more from you to be honest."
Sephiroth, aggravated, agitated, animated, aviated, abbreviated, desperated, constipated, aggravated, and relatively upset, looked at the opponent with hate in his eyes. "Keep talking... We'll see where that gets you."
"Oh we shall see alright." Noatak egged on. He turned his attention to Yakko, who was also lying on his stomach in defeat. "I didn't really expect anything from you," he turned to the Pyro and continued. "Nor you. Or those snacks you brought with you."
"I'm more than a snack." GLaDOS retorted from the sidelines. "And if I had a number of needlessly complicated puzzles, and you had nothing except exactly what you need to solve them, things would probably have turned out much different."
Noatak just stared at her, unsure exactly how to combat such stupidity. "... Right." He strolled away from the group, back to the tree in which the battle had started.
Without him noticing, Vinyl had slowly limped to Sephiroth. "Sephy... are you... ok?" She whispered, careful not to be noticed by their powerful foe.
"I was going to ask you the same thing Vinyl." Sephiroth answered. He reached his hand into a pouch just inside his coat and seemed to be rummaging through a pocket for something.
Vinyl Scratch in the mean time tried to use her magic on a nearby pebble. She struggled and strained, using every ounce of magic she thought she had. But it was no use. Noatak's words proved true. She had lost her magic to the fiend. She was now as useless as Applejack (just kidding :D). "Sephy... he did it... he took my..." she tried to hold back the tears. She felt so weak and helpless. Right in front of all of her friends, she had lost everything.
Sephiroth gave a look of almost compassion, then held his hand out. In it, he held a small glass vial filled with a bluish liquid. "Here. I've been saving this ever since we started this journey." He said, making sure Noatak didn't see it. He was monologueing though, so he probably wasn't paying attention to them.
"What is it?" Vinyl asked, wiping her eyes.
"It's an Elixir." He said, going into exposition mode. "It's a potion from my world. It has the ability to completely restore one's health and magic to their maximum. It may be able to restore yours."
Vinyl Scratch was stunned at Sephiroth. Was he really willing to sacrifice such an incredible potion to her? And to think, she had almost taken Noatak's deal and left such wonderful friends behind. "Sephy... I... I don't know..."
"It's nothing." Sephiroth said quickly, handing the vial to her. "Just take it quickly."
The unicorn uncapped the bottle with her hooves, sloppily I might add as she was used to doing almost everything by magic. But just as she raised the glass to her lips, she stopped and pulled it away. "But Sephy... how are we gonna beat him afterwards?"
"We'll think of something." Sephiroth insisted.
"But he could just take my magic away again." Vinyl argued, handing the vial back. "You take it."
"Me?"
"You're the only one who has a chance at beating him." Vinyl reasoned. "My magic would only go so far. Sephy, you're amazing. It has to be you."
"Vinyl..."
She smiled at her friend. "Don't worry about me." She closed his hands around the elixir. "Just... don't show him any mercy."
He was taken aback just how much Vinyl believed in him. With a nod from them both, and a smile from one, he raised the vial to his mouth hole.
"... And that is why I will never trust a sea urchin again." Noatak finished, shivering slightly. "But that's a story for another time. As I was saying, the Captain wishes me to bring you all to him alive." He turned around to see his defeated. "That means the pony, the mutt, the idiot, the potato, the taco, and the-" He stopped, raising his finger to count. "Wait a second..."
Sephiroth appeared out of thin air right behind Noatak and whispered quietly, "Looking for me?"
Noatak turned around to see the angel and took a few started steps away from him. "THAT'S IMPOSSIBLE!"
Sephiroth drew his masamune, holding it behind him with one hand. "Maybe. But I've never been one to follow the rules." He quickly swung his sword horizontally with tremendous speed.
Noatak jumped away, the blade just barely slicing his robe. "Ah! Have you learned nothing?!" The crazed bender raised his arms again. "I control everyone! You are nothing compared to me!"
Sephiroth felt his arms pin to his sides in agonizing pain. "Aah!" He was lifted off of the ground against his will, as his blood once again turned on him.
"This time I won't hold anything back!" Noatak shouted, obviously furious. "I'll just tell the Captain that there was a slight complication! I'm sure he'll understand!"
"SEPHY!" Vinyl Scratch called out, extending a weak hoof.
"And once I'm done with you, I'll make your little pony over there suffer for your insolence!" Noatak laughed at his own cruelty.
Sephiroth fought against his invisible bindings, but it proved futile. Hearing Vinyl Scratch call out for him didn't help either. It only made him panic more. He had to find some way out of this.
Then... he had it.
"V-Vinyl..." He choked out, trying desperately to even speak. "Th-thank... y-you..."
Without a moment to spare, Sephiroth was gone. vanished right out of Noatak's sight and grasp.
"W-WHAT?!" Noatak shouted, as he clearly didn't expect any more surprises from the One-Winged Angel of Gaia.
"You hurt my friends." Sephiroth's voice came from nowhere, yet it seemed to be everywhere. Noatak was rightfully freaking out. "You underestimated my powers."
"What?" Noatak searched all over, but couldn't find the swordsman anywhere. "Where is he?!"
"And worst of all, you took my friend's gift." Sephiroth finally appeared right in front of his opponent. "And for that, I will kill you."
Noatak panicked, quickly raising his hands again to blood bend Sephiroth. But before his bending could take effect, his target was gone again.
"How is he doing that?" Yakko asked quietly to the others.
"Hmmph mm hmm!" The Pyro added.
"Show yourself you coward!" Noatak yelled at the top of his lungs, becoming ever angrier.
And as if on command, Sephiroth appeared again, to his side, already ready to strike. "As you wish."
The blade swung horizontally again, but this time Noatak was unprepared and unfocused... and his jump was kinda sloppy either way. The sword slashed his side, sending waves of pain through his body.
The evil blood bender hit the ground, gritting his teeth and putting his hand on his wound to stop the bleeding. The cut wasn't too deep, but still... kinda hurt.
He thrusted his other palm forward to retaliate, but yet again, Sephiroth was already gone.
"How...?" Noatak whispered to himself. Before he had too much time to contemplate, Sephiroth was already above him, baring his enormous sword straight down for him, just like how he mercilessly slaughtered Aerith. Only this time, his opponent was intelligent enough to move.
The masamune dug hilt deep into the ground, as Noatak rolled away from the blade just in time. However, Sephiroth effortlessly pulled his sword from the earth and teleported yet again.
At this point, Noatak was too weak to fight back and simply tried to evade the strikes. But this proved to be futile as Sephiroth disappeared and reappeared faster and faster, throwing in jukes and fake outs to confuse him.
Noatak was losing the battle, his body taking more and more small slashes here and there. He began to try and anticipate where Sephiroth would appear, which only made it easier for the legendary swordsman to slice him open.
"Predictable." Sephiroth said, just to the side of the wounded adversary.
Noatak was mortified as he turned his head slowly to his left. But it was too late.
With one skyward slash, Sephiroth delivered an almost fatal blow to the bender, severing his left arm at the elbow.
The pawn of Captain Planet let loose a blood curdling cry of anguish, as he fell to the grass. He lied on his back, blood drenching the grass below him. "I... have to... stop... the bleeding!" He gasped. With his right hand, he made a few motions in the air, causing the blood flow to cease. With another motion, the blood began to reenter his body through his numerous wounds.
Yet in his state of weakness, Sephiroth approached his foe. "You must be very proud of those arms." He lowered the blade to his right wrist.
"You... w-wouldn't..." Noatak choked out from his deathbed.
Sephiroth glared down at him, eyes like daggers. But slowly, he raised his sword away from Noatak's wrist. "You're right. I'm not as cruel as you."
Noatak breathed a sigh of relief.
"That's why I'll go ahead and put you out of your misery." With that said, he raised his sword one last time, and before he had a chance to think about it too hard, he swung it at a blinding speed through Noatak's neck.
"It's done." Sephiroth murmured, turning away from the body as it lay still on the grassy moon.
"You did it Sephy!" Vinyl cheered from the ground, trying to get to her feet.
"Don't move Vinyl." Sephiroth said, kneeling down next to her. "You're still weak."
The others ran to congratulate their friend on a job well done dismembering their enemy's head from his shoulders.
"Great job Seph!" Yakko said, patting his friend on the back. "I guess you can say that Noatak wasn't thinking a head!"
"Everyone gather around." Sephiroth said, feeling through his pouch again. "That battle took its toll on all of us. So it's a good thing I have these potions."
The leader handed out one potion to each of the teammates who actually needed them. Yakko and the Pyro drank the potions.
"Don't you have another one of those elixir things Sephy?" Vinyl asked, holding off on drinking the dark blue liquid.
"... I'm sorry." Sephiroth said disheartedly.
"Oh..." Vinyl said, looking down at the grass. The two were silent while the others rounded up their belongings to head off.
"Don't worry Vinyl." Sephiroth encouraged. "We will find a way to get your magic back. I promise."
"... Thanks." Vinyl muttered, though she didn't really believe it could be done.
*****
The six walked through the grassy fields, hoping to find some way out of the moon's mouth hole. Although, tensions were riding high when they passed the same tree for the tenth time.
"How the heck are we gonna get out of this one?" Yakko asked, irritatedly.
"Hmmph hmm hmm hhmmmphmm." The Pyro mumbled.
"I agree Pyro... I have no idea." Sephiroth translated. "We may have won the battle with Noatak, but he may have won all the same. We're stranded here without any clue of how to escape."
"Not to mention we are running out of food." GLaDOS added.
"Wha- you don't even have to eat." Yakko said, bamboozled at the potato's statement.
"I know. But it will be a big problem for you guys soon."
"GLaDOS, we don't need you making things any more difficult." Vinyl Scratch said, rolling her amp with the Pyro's help.
"Relax guys, we've still got at least half a taco." Yakko said, pointing to the hardened tortilla.
"HMMPH!" The Pyro stopped pushing the amp and took a defensive stance between Latisha and Yakko. "HMMPH HMM MMPH MM MM HMM HMMPH!"
"What!?" Yakko argued. "Someone already ate her! Besides, I was only joking!"
"GUYS!" Sephiroth yelled from the front. Instantly, the others turned to the frustrated angel. "This is not helping! Unless you have something useful to say, then shut up!"
"Well what if we ask that pony up there for help?" Vinyl pointed just ahead.
"What? Pony?" Sephiroth turned to face whoever Vinyl was pointing to. He squinted his eyes, and then through the dense fog, he saw him.
"YOU!" Sephiroth stated again, only louder this time. His index finger extended at the pony figure just ahead.
The six heroes took a defensive stance, all except for Latisha who in fact could not do anything of the sort. She instead remained still and silent, like a boss. #cooltaco
"I understand your hostility, and it is perfectly justified." The small pony on the opposite side of the heroes. He took a step forward out of the nonexistent shadows and revealed himself to the only person who didn't know who he was, other than himself. "It is I, The Great and..."
"WE ALREADY KNOW WHO YOU ARE!" Everyone in the current vicinity yelled.
Tristan turned his face away in embarrassment. "I don't really say it that much, do I?"
"Agreed." Sephiroth said extra bluntly. "I thought we had seen the last of you back in Hogwarts."
"Well see..." Tristan started, but was soon interrupted by Yakko.
"Some people... er... ponies, just can't take a loss gracefully." Yakko said, correcting himself.
"No, listen I-" Tristan once again opened his mouth hole to speak, but was again interrupted.
"We just got done with another member of your stupid cult. You don't stand a chance now." Vinyl stated, readying her cannon for fire.
"Listen! Please! I'm not here to fight!" Tristan yelled among the accusations and threats.
"Then why are you here?" Sephiroth asked, motioning for Vinyl to hold off on the whole bass cannon thing.
Tristan cleared his throat and spoke. "I... was... wr-... wrrrr..." His face struggled to form the last word, stretching into all manner of funny faces.
The others just looked back and forth between each other, sharing looks of both confusion and concern. Finally, after about the fourth hilarious look on Tristan's face, GLaDOS suggested, "Wrong?"
Tristan beamed in excitement. "YES! THAT ONE!"
"You were wrong." Sephiroth folded his arms. "And what exactly does that mean?"
"It means I was wrong." Tristan said with no problems whatsoever, a dumb smile plastered all over his face.
"Soooooooo... That's it?" Yakko asked, wondering if there was a point to all this, since the script ended a few chapters ago.
"Not exactly!" Tristan stated, holding his hoof high in false triumph. "I never liked working for that fool, Captain Planet. All he ever did was boast his ego and belittle the rest of us. It was awful!"
"... Yeah... awful..." Vinyl sarcasmed, thumping her bass cannon with her hoof.
"IKR!?" Tristan nodded. "So I started thinking, when life gives you lemons-"
"BURN HIS HOUSE DOWN!" GLaDOS shouted completely out of nowhere. The others just stared at the potato with a general look of confusion. "Sorry about that. Please continue Mr. Johnson."
Tristan shared the look of confusion, but shook his head and continued. "Anyways, Lemons, lemonade, the point is I don't want to work for Captain Planet anymore. In fact, I have half a mind to march there myself and put him in his place."
"So, you want to join us then?" Vinyl asked hesitantly.
"Nope!" Tristan shook his head, "but I would like to see the Captain put down. So instead, I'm going to help you guys get to him."
"And how exactly are we going to get to him?" Yakko asked, gesturing to the tree. "I don't know if you've noticed, but we've been going in circles for the past 6 months."
"What my hyperbole-inducing little friend means is that we have no way to get out of here." Sephiroth said, stepping closer to Tristan. "Even you seem to be trapped here. Unless you have some sort of magical trump card. Then again, your magic is... less than overwhelming."
"Thank you!" Tristan misinterpreted. "But right now isn't the time for compliments, because I do happen to have a magical trump card!"
Tristan stepped past all of the heroes and went a good 10 yards away before his horn started glowing bright blue. "Behold! The Great and Powerful-!" He glanced back to see the irritated faces. "Heh heh, well... you know who I am."
With an incredible discharge of magical energy and a blinding light that made our heroes turn away to shield their eyes, they turned back around and saw an unbelievable sight.
"Behold! Rainbow Road!"
Ahead laid a long, winding road of rainbow-like colors. Star rails lined the edges and many constellations in the starry space sky resembled that of famous video game characters... but not Sephiroth.
The heroes were befuddled at this new development. They could barely form words.
"Is it safe?" Sephiroth asked, forming words.
"Absolutely!" Tristan assured, bringing a hoof to his chest. "This is the pathway to Norwegia, Captain Planet's base of operations! He taught this spell to each of his minions in case of emergency. But he never expected that one of his minions would use it against him like this!"
The heroes took turns testing the rainbow road to make sure it was stable. It felt soft but sturdy, as it held them all without challenge.
"So..." Sephiroth turned back around, "we just follow this road all the way down?"
"Yes indeed." Tristan looked proud of himself. "See? Isn't the Great and Apologetic Tristan the best Tristan?"
"I gotta hand it to ya Tristy, you came through in the end." Yakko said, jumping excitedly on the colorful road.
"Huzzah!" Tristan shouted. He dropped a smoke bomb from nowhere, and ran off in the opposite direction of the heroes, tripping once, but getting to his hooves almost instantly. Eventually, he vanished into the mist of the moon.
Upon the multicolored road our heroes strode through standing tall and not-so-tall. The stars lit up the night sky brighter than what seemed normal, and in the distance, the winding road continued for what seemed like ages, or several Mario Kart games.
The road was incredible in length, stretching and repeating in the same colors. The heroes continued on, Vinyl Scratch trotting ahead to scout.
"It just keeps going." She called back to the others.
"Hmmph hmm hmmph mm?" The Pyro asked, turning to his taco love.
She said nothing.
"We don't have much choice, we'll have to keep walking." Sephiroth said as the pony rejoined the group, walking next to the angel.
They continued onward down the path, for miles and more miles. Trekking down a road unlike anything they had ever traveled. It seemed worse than passing the same tree over and over. They took a look back from where they had come from, but couldn't see anything past the draw distance. The moon and a great deal of the road they had already traveled had disappeared behind them. Turning back was not an option.
"Are we going to have to walk this whole road?" Vinyl asked, her hooves becoming quite tired.
Sephiroth looked around. Though his stamina was great, it was apparent that his teammates could not keep this up. Especially for how long the ever-expanding road seemed to last. With the exception of the potato and the taco, the entire team was struggling to keep going.
"I'm not sure Vinyl..." Sephiroth said softly, trying not to let the others hear his despair.
"That's a nice sentiment Seph ol' buddy," Yakko panted from behind. "but we can just read the words on the screen."
Bamboozled and smackledorbed, Sephiroth shook his head at the dog's statement and kept moving forward.
Suddenly, just up ahead, something new in this beautifully barren road. A large black and white checker flag, with the words 'MARIO KART' emblazoned in the center. Below it, Eight karts, all same in design but varying in colors. And just in front of them, another black and white checker pattern, completely contrasting the rainbow road. And even further ahead, completely off of the road and in space, they could see a what looked like a planet in the distance. It was round for the most part, but from the looks of it, it seemed incomplete.
"You guys don't think that that's Captain Planet's 'Perfect World' do ya?" Yakko said, pointing into the distance.
"That would be a logical guess." GLaDOS said. "Considering we are close to the Captain according to the useless pony from the moon."
"Well we can't worry about that right now. We don't even have a means of getting there." Sephiroth stepped forward and gestured to the karts lined up neatly in two rows of four. "What the heck is this?"
"Perhaps someone has been expecting us?" GLaDOS suggested, staring at the odd scenery.
"Quite right, you wonderful spud!"
The heroes looked forward to see another figure upon the road. They could barely make out the man as he strolled closer to the karts. But from the looks of it, the man had short brown hair, a suit, and was sporting some snazzy shoes.
"Hmmph mm hmm hmmph hmmp phmm?" The Pyro asked, sneaking a closer peak with his super vision that he doesn't have.
"No... it can't be..." Yakko said, using his eyes to look forward.
"Yes... it can be." The man said, gesturing to his awesomeness.
"Oh for the love of, SPIT IT OUT!" Sephiroth shouted, frightening the man and his comrades.
"Alright, fine." The man stepped out of his enigma and revealed himself to be none other than the dashing prince of captains and captain of monkey I don't know where I'm going with this anymore WILL FERRELL! (love us)
"You!" Vinyl yelled out, reaching for her bass cannon.
"Me!" Will said. He then put on a confused look and said. "Wait... how did you get to here?"
The heroes exchanged confused looks with each other, unsure of what he meant.
"What exactly do you mean?" Sephiroth asked.
"I mean, how did you get to Rainbow Road?" Will asked, sounding rather condescending. "Captain Planet only showed his strongest men the secret to getting to here."
"Then why did he show Tristan?" Yakko prodded on, giving a quick low-five to the Pyro.
"Tristan!?" Will shouted, surprised at his comrade. "I can't believe he'd go and double cross me like that!"
"What do you mean by double crossed you?" Vinyl asked, squinting through her glasses.
"Never mind, it's not important." Will hastily reassured, straightening out his suit and clearing his throat. "I am the last one standing between you and the Captain. So it's my job to stop you."
"Well good luck to ya buddy." Yakko taunted, stepping forward.
"Hmmph hmm! hmm hm mm hmph mmph!" The Pyro added, aiming his flamethrower at Will.
"Yeah! Whatever he tried to say!" GLaDOS said, readying her... potato-ness.
"We've handled plenty of tough foes!" Vinyl said. "You and your captain are no match for us!"
Will grinned a devilish grin. "Oh I seriously doubt that." He looked at the heroes not but a few yards away. "Look above you."
The heroes hesitantly turned their gazes skyward. Just above them, an enormous red spaceship drifted through the starry sky, the fire bursting from the exhaust pipes and many other smaller ships floating around the vessel. It was like... really big. Really really big. And just behind it, attached by what seemed like a tractor beam, there floated a gigantic chunk of what appeared to be...
"Is... is that...?" Vinyl stammered, too speechless for words.
"What is it?" Sephiroth asked, turning to the stunned pony. "What is that Vinyl?"
"It's Equestria... It's my home..."
"This was not part of his original plan." Will said gravely. "But I'm afraid, my dear heroes, you left Captain Planet no choice."
The giant red ship hauled the continent overhead. The ship seemed to be heading towards the planet in the distance.
The heroes were too shaken to speaken, so Willen continued on.
"This is just a small reminder of the power Captain Planet has at his disposal."
"Well thanks," Yakko said, becoming more and more agitated by the second. "But we aren't interested in the captain's sink."
While Yakko and the Pyro proceeded to call Will bad words, Sephiroth knelt down to Vinyl. "Are you alright?"
Vinyl remained silent, tears dripping from her eyes. Sephiroth had no idea what to do. Usually, he was the one causing the tears. This was new ground for him... how exactly does one comfort a friend?
"We'll... um..." Sephiroth started, searching for the right words.
Vinyl just looked up, connecting eyes with her angel friend. Without a single word, she knew what he was trying to say, and hugged him tightly.
Surprised, Sephiroth put his arms around Vinyl, more instinct than emotion, he didn't think he had ever done anything like this before. But one thing was sure, he didn't dislike it.
"Enough!" Will shouted, his feelings slightly hurt from the names Yakko and the Pyro were calling him. "Let's just cut to the race!"
The heroes looked back and forth as Will stepped into the green kart in the front.
"Don't you mean chase?" Yakko asked.
"No. Race." Will repeated. "That's how you get to the Captain. You must beat me in a race." He started his engine and revved his kart up. "And since I'm such a good sport, I'll make you guys a deal."
The engine sputtered and spurred as the others hesitantly walked up to the karts.
"Hmmph hmm mm hmmph?" The Pyro asked with a shrug.
"Assuming you asked the obvious, I'm glad you asked." Will said, leaning back against the seat. "If you guys all beat me, then I will give Vinyl Scratch her magic back."
Vinyl Scratch looked up, shocked at what she had just heard. "You... you can do that?"
Will looked back, a smug face on his head. "You have no idea what I can do."
Stunned by this new revelation, the group couldn't muster the words required for a coherent response. The Pyro's response was the best they could hope for, as he ran to the red kart right next to Will's. He sat down, started his engine, and motioned for the others to join him.
"We all have to beat you?" Yakko asked, strolling towards the orange kart behind the Pyro.
"Isn't that what I said?" Will asked sarcastically. "You all have to beat me, otherwise, no magic, and no passage to Norwegia."
As Yakko climbed into the vehicle and revved the engine a bit, the others picked out their karts as well. Sephiroth and Vinyl Scratch approached the eight karts, holding Latisha and GLaDOS as they decided which colors to take.
"I don't care much which kart you give me, just as long as it has an on-board computer and a go pedal." GLaDOS said with a non-existent smirk. Sephiroth plugged her into the nearest kart, which just so happened to be pink. "Thank you. Oh, by the way, how did you know pink is my favorite color?" Using her adapter, she was able to access the kart and rev the engine even without feet.
"Are you sure we can beat him?" Sephiroth asked Vinyl, as he placed Latisha in the light green kart, which for the sake of plot convenience had an autopilot feature. "I've never driven one of these before."
"I don't know," Vinyl said, climbing into the blue kart in the back of the line. "but we have to try."
With the race about to begin, Sephiroth began to climb into the cramped yellow kart next to Vinyl's. "Don't worry." He assured. "We'll win this. We'll get you your magic back, and somehow we'll save your world. I promise."
"... Thank you." Vinyl said, trying to focus on the task at hoof.
"Um..." Yakko started in a confused tone. "Has anyone else noticed this guy next to me?"
Surely enough, next to Yakko and behind Will, filling the last available kart (purple btw) was a short, fat man. He had pointy ears and a huge pink nose. His mustache zigged and zagged and his attire consisted of a yellow hat with a 'W' on the front, purple overalls and brown shoes.
"Who is that clown?" GLaDOS asked curiously. "And more importantly, when did he get here?"
The man stared forward, paying no attention to the odd array of characters in this Grand Prix. He merely stated "Im'a Wario! Im'a gonna win!"
"... Oooookay then." Yakko said, as a small fanfare played, signalling the start of the race.
Our heroes' focus tightened as the countdown began. With Will already in the lead, it would be a difficult race to win.
(Where were we? Somewhere on Rainbow Road I think. Oh... Right.)
GO!
The race began with the count down reaching green. The karts blasted forward with tremendous speed, a few of them even getting an extra speed boost by holding the A button down at the correct time.
However, several karts did not move forward at all. And by several, we mean one. The kart piloted by the pony. "What the heck? How do you make this thing move?" Vinyl Scratch said, irately. With her magic powers on the line, this wasn't a race she could afford to lose. Yet already she was at a great disadvantage as she witnessed all of the other racers zooming forward and disappearing out of sight down the steep slope. Even Latisha, who was in no way, shape, or form able to control her kart, was speeding through the track.
Meanwhile, in front of most of the other racers, the Pyro was swerving past hazardous pits and stray Chain Chomps like a professional. Seeing as he was invited to join Sonic the Hedgehog in his kart racing game, it was little trouble for the mercenary to master a different kart model. As he ran through a partially visible, multicolored block with a question mark in the middle, he was suddenly holding a large black hammer. His familiar weapon, the Powerjack, allowed the Pyro to speed up, leaving the other racers in the dust.
However, just behind him, Wario, Latisha, GLaDOS, and Will were also receiving their respective items from the rainbow boxes. Wario obtained a useless banana peel which he uselessly placed behind him uselessly. And useless it was, as all of the other racers swerved around the empty fruit holder.
Latisha passed through the mystical item giver and was granted with a queso-slick. She dropped the trap behind her as well, adding to the useless hazards.
GLaDOS, using her potatoness to drive the kart, got her item which turned out to be a turret. "Oh good. I was beginning to think I wasn't going to see you." GLaDOS sarcastically said, swerving through the banana peel and cheese puddle.
"Ohai." The turret greeted GLaDOS. The potato quickly got rid of the annoying sentry, plopping it down behind her, making it someone else's problem.
"Where are you going?" The turret asked curiously as GLaDOS sped away. If she didn't see the useless scrap of metal again, it would be too soon.
Then it was Will's turn. He passed through the block and smiled. He already knew the item he would receive. In his inventory appeared not one, not two, not three, but FOUR blue shells. "Ah hahaha!" He laughed, as he held two of the blue, spiked, winged shells in his hands. "There's no way I'm gonna miss!" With that said, he launched the two shells forward.
Passed GLaDOS, Latisha, and Wario, the shells aimed directly for the Pyro, rocketing through the track faster than any kart. The two shells were now hot on the Pyro's trail, no matter how hard he tried to shake them, they were just too fast. Before the Pyro could react, the shells struck his kart, creating two large blue explosions and sending the merc's kart flying.
"What in the world was that?!" GLaDOS exclaimed as she passed the damaged vehicle and the Pyro, struggling to comprehend what the actual f*ck just happened.
Suddenly, another blue shell was let loose, aimed for Wario. It exploded on him with equal brutality, knocking the fat man and his car sky high. Wario let out a rather loud "WAAAAAAAA!" as he fell back to the ground, accelerating back to top speed like nothing had even happened (stupid rubber band physics).
However, now the places had been greatly altered with Latisha in first place, followed by GLaDOS, Will, Wario, and the Pyro. Behind them, just reaching the item boxes, Yakko, Sephiroth, and Vinyl, who had finally gotten the hang of driving... sort of. It was rather difficult with hooves.
Upon passing through the question mark block, Yakko recieved a slingshot with 3 shots. "Oh this is great!" He exclaimed, as he neared the other drivers ahead of him. Not wanting to hit the Pyro, he tried to speed up next to him to communicate and coordinate.
Meanwhile, Sephiroth phased through the box, obtaining a magical essence of fire. He suddenly put together that he was wielding a 'Firaga' power in his hands. And judging by the power he could feel, he had enough for five fire balls. He noted the current places, singling out Will in the front. All they had to do was beat him and they would be able to get to Captain Planet, as well as get Vinyl's magic back. Speeding ahead, he hoped to knock Ferrell into last place with one fell swoop.
Swerving and spiraling behind all of the other competitors, Vinyl Scratch struggled to drive with her lack of hands. "How in Equestria does anypony expect me to do this?!" She yelled, unable to comprehend what the actual was going on.
As she neared the encroaching wall made up of four question mark blocks, she had inevitably seen what they were used for, and thus aimed directly for the one closest to her general direction. Through all of her bad driving and failing at being good at driving, Vinyl Scratch devoted all she had and... completely missed the item block.
"Oh are you kidding me?" Vinyl asked, looking back. Seeing as she was already last place, there was no time to turn back around. She trudged on, saddened by her inability to be good.
At the front of the line, Latisha's lead was not going to last much longer, as Will Ferrell was closing in on GLaDOS and preparing to launch his last blue shell. He let loose his grand attack, unleashing the powerful attack. The blue shell of hatred and despise flew with tremendous speed straight toward the kart-bound taco.
With an enormous blue explosion, Latisha's kart was flung high into the sky, crashing down while staying surprisingly upright and intact. However, now the places had shifted even further, with GLaDOS in first and Will closing in behind her.
*****
The next few laps proceeded with little deviation from the first. The places now stood as Will in first, followed by Wario, Latisha, the Pyro, GLaDOS, Yakko, Sephiroth, and Vinyl Scratch (who had finally managed to get the hang of driving) all the way in last.
With only one more lap to go, it was seemingly a pointless effort. The deal was for them all to end up ahead of Will, and so far he was winning. Perhaps they should have just beat him up, taken his money, and maybe his kart, then thrown him off of Rainbow Road and raced to Captain Planet. Then they would slap him around some, insult his mother, and probably go get some pizza afterwards, celebrating their awesome victory against the meanies who stood in front of them. Then maybe they'd hitch a ride home on a bus or something and call it a day.
So far... that wasn't looking like the optimal plan.
Getting back to the actual race thing at hand, Will was getting rather fed up with Wario. "Will you just get out of here?" He asked over the roar of the engines and Rainbow Road music. "I'm tired of you hogging the road!"
"I'ma Wario! I'ma gonna win!" Wario said, speeding ahead of Will with an unnecessarily large boost, sending him practically to the something far away.
(My brother and I were just arguing about the music of Star Fox 64 for a good two minutes and have rightfully forgotten where we're going with this particular part of the story. On the bright side, I won the argument, so that's that.)
"Hey! Get back here you fat f-f-f-f-f-f-f-f-f-f-f-f-f-f-f-f-f-f-f-f" Will shouted, though he suddenly began repeatedly making the f sound.
Because the joke was funny the first time, Will disconnected from the race, disappearing entirely and making this unfunny joke unfunnier.
The Pyro noticed the sudden disappearance and mumbled back to the others, "Hmmph! Hmm hmmm mmmph hmm hmmph!"
The others simply replied, "What?!"
All except for Vinyl Scratch, who was carefully weaving back and forth through the multicolored road, aiming for the item box. twisting and turning delicately through to make sure she got the item resulted in her not getting the item. "Oh pony feathers!" She cursed rather inappropriately, and continued driving poorly down the road.
About thirty seconds later, Will appeared right where he had vanished, raging hardcore. "GAH! I HATE MY STUPID INTERNET CONNECTION!" He raged like a twelve-year-old on Call of Duty. He looked in front and behind, but he couldn't see anyone. "Oh well. At least I'm still ahead. Or maybe I'm not. But whatever. Ignorance is bliss." Will said, zooming forward and passing the others.
"Ha! I still win losers!" He yelled at them. When suddenly, a white pony began catching up. "Oh look who finally got the hang of it. And even with no magic. I'm slightly more than impressed."
Vinyl Scratch chuckled, "You better watch that hubris of yours. It's gonna come back to bite you real soon." She taunted, a set of item boxes coming up.
Will had missed the items, shrugging it off as nothing as he passed Wario who was in first. "Not like it matters. Even if you pass me, your friends have to beat me too!"
As the ivory unicorn approached the row of question mark blocks, she calmed herself, and used reverse psychology on the world and tried to miss. Ironically, that caused her to get the super item box. No banana peels or red shells to be seen, but instead, Vinyl was granted the one thing she needed.
The most powerful item in her arsenal.
The most wubtacular wubcaster this side of the wubiverse.
The bass cannon.
A devilish smile appeared on Vinyl's face, as she lined her cannon up with Will's kart.
"It doesn't matter what item you got!" Will mocked back at her. "The finish line is within sight! There's no point in using... what even is that?"
Vinyl finished the aiming process, and smirked, the sunlight gleaming against her glasses creating a cool anime affect. "Oh... it's nothing special." She pressed the big red button, as the gears began turning inside of the amp, preparing for the intense amount of wub. "It's just my BASS CANNON!"
Within a split second, an outrageously enormous blue beam rocketed from the cannon forward across the entire road with no concern for what it hit. The beam was so powerful, it completely decimated the railing of Rainbow Road, though not the actual road itself (made of rainbows or something. idunno.)
By the time Will had taken the time to look back and notice what was coming at him, his kart was already knocked to the side of the road, spinning out and recovering from ridiculously large amounts of wub that had just hit him. It sounded a little something like this:
With this incredible dues ex machina, the pink pony (not pink) zoomed ahead, crossing the finish line and finishing... seventh.
"What? Seventh?" Vinyl asked very much very confused. "I thought I finished first... I passed all of you."
Sephiroth approached the pony and said, "You did pass us, but that's because we lapped you. We had already finished. Though for some odd reason, we weren't able to stop driving until now."
Vinyl scratched her head. "So... who won?"
GLaDOS chimed in from behind "Sephiroth was sixth. Yakko came in fifth. I was fourth. Latisha was third. The Pyro was second. And the yellow tub of lard came in first place."
"What?! That guy?!" Vinyl shouted, her jaw hitting the floor. She directed her attention over to the end of the road where Wario was STILL sitting in his kart, having not moved a muscle.
"I'ma Wario! I'ma gonna win!" He repeated, though he had clearly already won. Whatever.
"Well... that was anticlimactic." Yakko said, reuniting with his team.
"Hmmph hmm mmph hmm. hmmph." The Pyro said.
Latisha drove up, saying nothing because she was too choked up.
"I really didn't think we could do it." Sephiroth rather depressingly stated. "But we sure did it."
"Wait." Vinyl said. "We all beat Will. That means I can get my magic back!"
The grouple turned their attention over to the burning and slightly demolished kart as Will rolled it passed the finish line, claiming eighth place.
"I'ma Wario! I'ma gonna win!"
"Oh shut up you!" Will shouted. He looked over the other six, staring at him with anticipation. "Alright, alright. fine. I lost, I admit it." Will began waving his arms about in some silly manner. "I'm nothing if not a man of my word. So Vinyl Scratch. I bestow back to you... your magical powers."
With a simple snap of the fingers, Vinyl felt a huge magical surge of some sort flow through her body. After a few shivers, a bluish glow encapsulated her kart and it was lifted above the ground. "It worked! I can magic guys!"
Sephiroth gripped his hilt and turned to Will. "Now there's just the matter of you opening the pathway to Captain Planet."
"Yeah k." Will said surprisingly suavely. "There's no need to get violent." He snapped his fingers again, vanishing into thin air.
The group turned to the left to see a side road appear, with a hastily crafted sign reading "Norweigia".
"We're here..." Sephiroth said, staring at the odd sign.
