> Angry Ponies: The Battle Begins > by SuperBird64 > -------------------------------------------------------------------------- > Episode 1: Poached Eggs/The CMCs & A New Home > -------------------------------------------------------------------------- Long ago in what 'used to be the' magical land of Equestria[ /i] More than a thousand moons ago, months after the founding of Equestria. An event happend that seem to drain almost all magic in Equestria. This was nicknmed the Magic famine which drained 90% of magic from Equestria. There were many riots and hundreds of casualties. The pony society of Equestria has collapsed and many pony groups were made to survive on their own. Weather began moving on their own along wth the sun and moon, crops were harder to grow and took months, moving was constant because of the dangerous unpredictable weather conditions so towns were never built, tasks became very hard to do. The pony population has changed a lot since then. Twilight Sparkle along with the other members of her herd Applejack, Rainbow Dash, Fluttershy and 2 members of the Cutie Mark Crusaders Apple Bloom and Scootaloo were on the outskirts of Equestria. This land was called the Badlands by most ponies which were really just dry trees, occasional cactus and small sand storms "Face it Twilight we're not gonna find shelter or Sweetie Belle out here she's a filly just like me. Do you really think she could make out here without any supplies." Apple Bloom informed the leader The whole reason why Twilight's herd was out here in the Badlands in the first place is because they moving around Equestria for survivable. There seems to be something going on in the place that ponies describe as a magic famine which basically means that all of the powerful magic like a magic blast, supersonic flight, alicorn magic and sonic rain booms are all gone. While all the basic magic telekinesis and flight stay intact. "Applejack why can't we stay at the apple orchard anymore?" Apple Bloom asked her older sister "You gotta understand Sugarcube that there's nothing left on the orchard Granny Smith was already gone by then and Big Mac shortly followed. There's nothing left for us on the orchard all the trees have rotted and the remaining one was taken out by my temper." "Um have you seen Scootaloo" Fluttershy asked Apple Bloom, which made the filly look next to her and finding that Scootaloo's gone before spotting her trying to balance on a tower of rocks. "Hey get off of there" the older pegasus said trotting over to the tower of rocks. But when she reached the tower of rocks the peagsus fleapt off the tower. This caused luckily only the small rock to fall on Fluttershy's forehead causing her to let out a quiet ouch. She then got scared when it looked like the big rock was gonna fall but it stabilized at the last second. "Hey Rainbow you think I can break this cactus open?" Applejack asked accidentally pricking her hoof on said cactus "Worth a shot heard there's water inside." the pegasus responded as the earth pony smashed the cactus open pouring water out except this water wasn't clean or fresh it looked dirty and even had a green like tint which was enough to gross the 2 ponies away. "Welp everypony we tried but there's nothing here, guess we'll have to go back" She informed her herd only to get a random small gust of sand in her eyes They all turned around and started to head back all with a sad expression , all of a sudden, out of nowhere, unconventionally, Murphy's law etc, it started raining. "Raining in a desert, how bad is our luck." Scootaloo pointed out by putting a hoof on her face. "Even though it's not raining that hard we don't want to walk through all this, so lets just set up camp here." Twilight told the herd before dropping her saddle bag of supplies, followed by the others as they set up their camp. Once nighttime came due to the sun and moon cycle being natural now. It stopped raining and Twilight was staring at the stars wishing that she wasn't born into a world with barely any magic, things like cutie marks being elusive and survival requiring a herd. Speaking of a herd she then decided to reflect on her first encounters with the members of her herd starting with Apple Bloom and Scootaloo or the CMCs. Flashback Ever since Equestria had fallen into a magic famine as most ponies call it and ponies started creating groups to survive on their own. This famine had drained Equestria of powerful magic like alicorn magic and supersonic flight, leaving basic magic like telekinesis and normal flight. Twilight was looking for the right ponies, the ones that were rational and capable of surviving a long time in the wilderness. After a while of searching for any ponies since of course Ponyville and Canterlot were in ruins and all there was now for miles was the wilderness she found a somehow still intact treehouse. She approached the treehouse knocking on the door, with no answer of hearing any movement she let herself in. Inside the small treehouse Twilight found 2 fillies inside, they were both sitting in the corner and they had a worried look on their faces. When the unicorn approached them she simply asked "Um what's wrong, are you two okay?" The yellow filly with a red mane spoke up "Hello there i'm Apple Bloom this is Scootaloo, were looking for a lost member of The Cutie Mark Crusaders her name is Sweetie can you help us?" she asked the unicorn Twilight was hesitant at first while she could already tell these 2 weren't gonna help with survival, but she did want to help find this Sweetie Belle and plus she knew a side quest could make things more interesting for her "You know what i'll help you two look for her come." she told the fillies In The Present The next day Twilight and her herd had headed back to the Everfree forest their previous base camp. "Gosh i wish i could actually fly properly" Scootaloo said to herself laying down on a pile of rock. She then starts flapping her wings in hopes of achieving flight but a few seconds later falls back onto then lays down on a pile of rocks. All of a sudden the pile of rocks fell over catching the pegasus off guard but luckily she wasn't hurt. "What was that-" Twilight said before looking into the pile of rock, her eyes widened as she had found a nest of 3 dragon eggs , each a different color and pattern and when she pulled them out of the pile of rocks the entire herd was shocked. Twilight suddenly gained a lot of energy and had a lot of questions "Are these actually dragon eggs? Why were they in a random pile of rocks? Should we take them?" Eventually after the rest of the herd was able to calm the leader down she then got out an Equestrian history book to learn more about these dragons. "According to this Equestria history book dragons used to be pretty common creatures, until they became homicidal and they started killing each other and eating their own eggs. They never united forming some sorts of dragon kingdom, which made them very rare and such things as dragons eggs elusive." Twilight explained to the others before putting the history back in the saddle bag. "Wait so what should we do with these dragons eggs?" Apple Bloom asked "I say we should take care of them, and wait for them to hatch." Fluttershy suggested "We don't have that long, how about we just find a dragon and have them take care of these eggs." Rainbow suggested. "Alright everypony i'm the leader so i'm deciding, we're gonna take care of these eggs cause first of all dragons are already very rare creatures and second of all the dragons are cannibals the history book said they killed each other and ate their own eggs." Twilight reminded the herd The herd packed up camp and moved again leaving the Everfree Forest and headed east. And after a few days they eventually found themselves in this flat terrain with the occasional tree. "This looks like a nice environment for the eggs to hatch in." Fluttershy stated wrapping the eggs in a blanket and placing them in a nest the herd had just finished making. Meanwhile not too far from the nest, 2 hippogriffs were scavenging for food "Wait hold one a second why are we here again?" Silverstream a white hippogriff with a teal mane asked Silverstream a pink hippogriff with a light blue mane. Terramar spat out a lump of dirt "Bleh salty, look sis we're here to look for food for the kingdom, apparently these land creatures had better food sources than dead sea creatures and barely edible seaweed." "Hold on a second bro , who are these land creatures you're referring to ?" Silverstream asked "These land creatures are creatures that walk on something called hooves, some have wings and others have something called horns." "Seriously another one of your stories about the surface to creep me out." she countered "I wasn't trying to-" he suddenly interrupted by his sister who made a random noise. "There's gotta be something good around here." Silver said looking around the flat terrain. "There doesn't seem to be anything but this short land seaweed and these strands of seaweed on these trees." Terramar told her plucking a green lead off a tree After a bit more searching Silverstream spotted some food "Hey i know what we can try, BOILED EGGS!" she yelled out. "Uh Silver where are we gonna find some eggs? There's nothing but land seaweed for miles." the male hippogriff reminded her. "The eggs i was talking about are over there." Silverstream said pointing a talon at the nest of dragon eggs. "Huh good eye sis but I think you need to double check, look closer." When she looked again she noticed Twilight's herd surrounding the nest of dragon eggs. "We're gonna need some help" Terramar simply said before grabbing his sister's arm "That group of land creatures are guarding those eggs so we might have a problem if we steal their foals." Silverstream explained to Princess Skystar "Uh cousins those land dwellers aren't like us so they can't make or produce eggs." Skystar countered "Now do you have a plan cause i don't?" she informed her cousins her voice, losing its tone when she reached the end of her sentence "Actually i do" Silver said before walking into a bush and came out a few seconds later trying to pull something out of the bush that looked like a giant rubber band. It was revealed a few seconds later that this rubber band was connected to a wooden Y. "Uh Silver what is that suppose to be?" Terramar asked her. "This is something i like to call a slingshot i made it myself, saw others playing a sport with it" Silverstream explained setting up the slingshot "So what's the plan Silverstream? How is a slingshot gonna help us get the eggs?" Skystar asked "Are we gonna fling ourselves at those land dwellers?" "Here's the plan i'll set this slingshot up and since the land ponies have probably never seen a slingshot it'll distract them and then we'll swoop in and grab the eggs." Silverstream explained before grabbing the band of the slingshot and started dragging it to a nearby rock. Twilight was looking over the eggs, Fluttershy added twigs to the nest and wrapped a blanket around them, Applejack was using a magnifying glass to inspect some apples and Rainbow was on lookout duty to spot any danger "Uh hey i think i see something on a rock it looks like a wooden Y with a rubber band across it." "Must be some kind of sign come on lets go check it out" Applejack said signaling the others to follow her. "Now's our chance" Skystar told her cousins before they all flew over to the nest and grabbed an egg, Terramar grabbing the magnifying glass Applejack was just using. When the herd returned they all gasped, realizing what happened at the same time "What how?" Twilight asked, approaching the nest a little, she got angry, the herd following shortly. "Whoever did this is gonna pay." Twilight stated through gritted teeth. "I think i know who" Rainbow said spotting the 2 hippogriffs not too far from the nest. Terramar was trying to cook the eggs with the magnifying glass, Silverstream blew some steam away from the eggs. "Hopefully i can get these eggs cooked fast enough!" Skystar stated before licking her beak. "HEY!" Twilight yelled approaching the hippogriffs "First of all what are you three suppose to be and second of all what do you think you're doing with our dragon eggs?" "First off all were hippogriffs half pony half bird creatures and second of all Dragon Eggs? These aren't even your own eggs." Skystar responded which was followed by a laugh. "Well at least we're not trying to cook and eat the eggs!" Twilight countered, she then started growling and gave the 3 hippogriffs an angered expression. "Look just give us the dragon eggs back and no creature gets hurt." "Terramar throw the magnifying glass at them" Skystar told him in a panicked tone, the male hippogriff proceeded to do this throwing the hot piece of glass at Twilight burning her muzzle knocking her back into her herd. "MAKE A RUN FOR IT!" the princess said before all 3 hippogriffs ran off with the eggs "Those Hippogriffs are gonna pay!" Twilight said through gritted teeth. "I got just the thing" Rainbow said dragging the slingshot over to the herd. "Ah-ha we can use this to launch stuff at them QUICKLY GRAB EVERY BLUNT OBJECT YOU CAN FIND!" the unicorn yelled. The herd grabbed rocks, boulders, logs, pieces of wood, and a bunch of other things. They loaded them all into the slingshot and fired it towards the hippogriffs, unfortunately all of the debris missed them. "They're getting away!" Rainbow altered the herd "Oh no they don't!" Twilight said loading a torch into the slingshot and firing it, the torch ended up hitting a tree which set it on fire. Fluttershy quickly flew over to that tree rolling a giant boulder onto it putting out the fire. "You're gonna hurt the animals" the pegasus told Rainbow. "Um Twilight there seems to be something going on over there." Applejack said pointing a hoof at the thing she was talking about. What she saw was the 3 hippogriffs from earlier were building something and they put another random hippogriff in the middle of it. "Looks like some kind of fortress or structure " Fluttershy said, the structure itself was on a platform 2 small pieces on the edge of them2 wooden planks were holding it up. Inside those wooden planks was a small rectangle structure 2 more wooden planks placed horizontally and 2 glass planks placed vertically. Back to the main structure above the 2 main wooden planks there was another wooden plank placed horizontally, that plank being the platform for an identical copy of the bottom part. Except there was a small piece of wood at the top and inside it was another small piece of wood with a female hippogriff placed on it. "Just try to knock this down" the hippogriff taunted the herd before giggling at them "That's not very nice" Fluttershy stated her voice angering a little "How does they except us to fight against this fortress" Apple Bloom said before getting a response from Scootaloo "You know we can just go around this structure it's not like we're required to beat this." "Well these hippogriffs have to pay for what they're doing to the dragon eggs if they eat them it'll take away the only chance the dragon species has to repopulate and form a kingdom." Twilight explained "Got just the thing" Rainbow said setting up the slingshot they found earlier sitting on a rock "Since super sonic flight is gone guess me and Fluttershy can use this to gain some and speed and for the rest of you to knock down the structures." "Guess i'll go first" Twilight said before hopping into the slingshot, it being held down by Fluttershy "Be careful Twilight" the pegasus told her. "I need some help here" Twilight said having trouble with stretching back the rubber band of the slingshot. Rainbow and Applejack helped her with this problem pulling the slingshot back and aiming it toward the structure. "On the count of 3 release me" the unicorn said "1 2-" suddenly Rainbow smacked Applejack in the face causing her to let go as the pegasus willingly let go launching Twilight "I WASN'T READY!" the unicorn yelled being launched at the structure. Twilight yelled which caused her horn to suddenly glow and a few waves of magic came out. But when it hit the structure instead of destroying the fortress it toppled over, and crushed the female hippogriff with a wooden plank. Twilight crashed into some wooden planks destroying them "Did i do it?" she asked weakly. "Rainbow what was that for" Applejack asked rubbing the place where she smacked her. "Oh come on it's funny" the pegasus simply responded. The next structure or fortress the herd came across was on a hills with 2 parts the first one on the lower hill, 2 stone planks holding it up on the left and 2 glass planks holding it up on the right. On top there was 2 stone planks placed horizontally, and on top of those planks were 10 glass cubes. There was also a small piece of glass placed across touching the 2 glass planks and inside the structure was a male hippogriff. On the upper part of the hill was an identical On the upper part of the hill was an identical copy of the structure on the bottom hill except both sides had stone planks and there was no piece of glass placed across and touching the right stone plank and inside that structure was a another female hippogriff. "Guess what you land ponies stone is 5 times stronger than wood." the male hippogriff taunted, the 2 hippogriffs laughing at the herd. "I'll go this time" Apple Bloom said before hopping into the slingshot and Applejack pulling it back. "Alright let's see here" the older earth pony said trying to aim the filly at the right spot, she first thought about aiming her at the stone but then decided against it since stone is stronger than wood. In the end Applejack decided to launch Apple Bloom to the top where the 10 glass cubes were. Apple Bloom was launched into the structure on the lower hill. When she hit the glass cubes on top she shattered all of them but also caused the fortress to tip over crushing the male hippogriff in the process. "You completely missed me!" the female hippogriff taunted. "I'll finish them off" Scootaloo said before hopping into the slingshot "Launch me where you launched Apple Bloom." the pegasus requested, before being launched by Rainbow Dash towards the structure on the upper part of the hill. Scootaloo just barely missed the 10 glass cubes she ended up hitting the 2 stone planks but luckily this was enough to knock over the structure crushing the female hippogriff and shattering all 10 glass cubes. "Hey i spotted the hippogriffs they're up ahead." Rainbow said pointing a hoof at them. After Twilight picked up Apple Bloom and Scootaloo they made their way to the 3 hippogriffs. "What? How did you catch up to us so fast and how did you get past our defenses?" Skystar asked in a surprised tone. "First of all we didn't have to get past your structures or fortresses" Scootaloo started "We just decided to knock them down because we knew you hippogriffs had to pay." Twilight completed "We've also used the slingshot you 3 left behind" she concluded Princess Skystar looked around before looking at her cousin "Silverstream you distract them!" she said , before she along with the Terramar left. "Sure thing cousin, see you all later" Silverstream said in a cheerful tone waving a claw goodbye. "Your quest ends here nothing gets past me." She told the herd Twilight growled at Silverstream before shouting which released the same waves of magic from earlier which knocked the hippogriff into a nearby rock. "This battle cry is a lot stronger than i thought it'll be." "When did these land ponies have abilities?" Silverstream asked weakly, trying to get up "NOT SO FAST!" the 2 crusaders yelled in unison before beating her up. Twilight stomped on Silverstream with all 4 hooves as Rainbow spotted the 3 remaining hippogriffs. Terramar giggling followed by Skystar bursting into laughter as they both headed towards the sea shore. "We gotta keep following them" Twilight told the herd, before stomping on Silverstream one last time leaving her badly bruised but not bruised enough to draw blood. "Uh oh they're catching up to us" Terramar warned his cousin as they were walking between 2 trees "Don't worry i've got a plan." she told him before pulling out a remote and pressing the big red button. All of a sudden 2 massive structures exploded knocking wood, glass and stone onto the path that blocked Twilight's herd from going after the 3 remaining hippogriffs. "Is this suppose to stop us?" Scootaloo asked "Says the filly that can't fly properly" Apple Bloom responded "HEY!" "Stop it you two, we've gotta focus on getting the dragon eggs back." Fluttershy reminded the 2 fillies Once Twilight and the herd go over the huge pile of materials they found themselves on a beach shore with the remining hippogriffs nowhere in site. "Where'd they go?" Applejack asked and wondered "Hey everyone they say that you can hear the ocean if you put a seashell up to your ear." Fluttershy told the others before putting a seashell up to her right ear. "I think i have a clue of where they went" Twilight informed the herd, spotting a trail of structure materials floating in the water. Putting on scuba diving equipment which was just a bubble with a tube in it which was connected to an oxygen tank. The herd dived into the water bringing the slingshot along and luckily there was a trail of sinking fortress material so once following that they found a small sign saying Seaquestria and an arrow pointing to the right. "Um guys there's literally a bigger sign say Welcome To Seaquestria kingdom of the Seaponies." Applejack said pointing at the bigger sign. "Do they expect us to fall for this cheap trick." Apple Bloom said before punching and destroying the sign, it sinking to the bottom of the ocean "Wait so you're telling me that not only are these hippogriffs half pony half bird creatures but they can also turn into new creatures called seaponies and live in a kingdom called Seaquestria. Things just got a whole lot complicated for us" Twilight said in an annoyed tone The next thing they found after swimming past the was a structure made completely out of wood which explains all the sinking structure material. The fortress itself was on a platform of rocks 2 blocks on either side holding it up and 1 block on either side placed horizontally on top of them. Inside those 2 sets of blocks was another block in the middle separating 2 male seaponies. On the top part of the structure the 2 blocks placed horizontally along with 2 planks the middle block was holding up worked as a platform for the top part of the fortress. The top part of the structure had 2 planks, on the left side of the structure on the left it was held up by 2 small cubes and the right side was held up by a short plank and inside it was a female hippogriff. The right side of the structure was identical to the left except the short plank and was on the left and the 2 cubes were on the right and inside it was another female hippogriff. "This structure is made out of 2 layers of thick wood you need some insane speed to break through this." a female hippogriff taunted "This might sound crazy but i think i should knock this one down hopefully i can gain some speed." Rainbow suggested before setting up the slingshot on top of a rock and hopping in. "Aim for the middle part" the pegasus requested as Twilight adjusted her aim and pulled back the slingshot. When Twilight released Rainbow the pegasus wanted to try something that might help break through the 2 layers of wood. She flew forward which made her gain a huge amount of speed which was enough to break right through the wooden structure causing it to collapse crushing all 4 hippogriffs inside leaving a rainbow trail. "Yes flew right through it" Rainbow said with pride as she brushed herself off as the wood sank to the ocean floor. The next fortress they came across was completely made out of stone there were 2 castle towers both with female seaponies. In between them was another structure 2 planks holding it up, 2 blocks in the middle separating 2 male seaponies. There were 4 planks placed horizontally on top. 2 blocks were placed in the middle of these 4 planks and above it was 2 blocks that reached the top and 2 small planks were placed on either side. 2 planks on either side were leaned over, only being stopped by 2 stone cubes on either side. "If you thought the first stone structure was bad, this one has 2 layers of stone." a female seaponie taunted, the herd hearing laughter from the other seaponies. "Hey Twilight i should take this one out since i do have an explosive temper." Applejack explained "Yeah we all do, these half birds, half ponies but also half hippogriff, half seapony creatures stole the dragon eggs." the unicorn responded "No serisouly i have a explosive temper as in if i get mad i blow up like a bomb." Applejack corrects her "You're kidding right?" Twilight asks "No i'm not i'll prove it to you" she responded before hopping into the slingshot. "If you say so" the leader simply responds before pulling back the slingshot "Launch me into the middle structure" The earth pony requests. Twilight takes note of this and pulls the rubber band down. When Applejack is launched she flies over the first stone tower and hits the middle structure. Once she lands there she manages to break some stone, she then starts growling, which just gets her laughed at by the 2 male seaponies. All of a sudden her ponytail (the one in her mane) catches on fire acting like a fuse. Once the fuse reaches her main mane Applejack blows up, destroying the middle structure taking out the 2 male seaponies. Blasting stone to either tower taking out a part of them which causes them to fall over crushing the 2 female seaponies. "Alright that's taken care of just one more structure to take out." Twilight informed her herd as they swam past the stone castle, Fluttershy picking up Applejack in the process. "How did you learn to do that?" Apple Bloom asked her older sister "I discovered it when this loss of powerful magic started unfortunately when i discovered it i couldn't control it everytime i would be surprised i blew up but luckily around the time i met Twilight i managed to control it now being able to explode at will." Applejack explained to her sister. The final structure they came across was a wooden structure with metal wheels there was also starfruit lying around. As for the structure itself it was in the shape of a train, the last wooden cart carried a female seapony in it and the first cart had 3 starfruit in it. Finally there was the biggest part of the structure the locomotive made out of wood planks and blocks and inside it was a male seapony. There was also a smaller wooden structure in the shape of a train except the locomotive was way smaller and inside it was a male seapony. There was also the cart which was somehow bigger than the locomotive which carried another male seapony. "All aboard the starfruit train." the male seapony in the big locomotive said, the herd knowing it was an attempt to taunt them. "I'm starting to rethink this, I mean we're destroying another creature's home over 3 dragon eggs." Fluttershy said swimming back a little. "You do realize how rare dragons are and how such things as dragons eggs are elusive." Twilight reminded her. Unfortunately this wasn't enough to convince Fluttershy to fight back against these seaponies. "Hang on Twilight i'll handle this" Rainbow told her pushing the unicorn aside a little "Those seaponies are gonna eat baby dragons" the pegasus simply told Fluttershy which angered her. "THOSE SEAPONIES ARE GONNA PAY!" she yelled before hopping into the slingshot. She then noticed the seashell she was using earlier to listen to the ocean was shaking a lot "Um that seashell seems to be shaking a whole awful lot" she told the others going back to her normal shy tone. "Huh this must be the sea pressure" Apple Bloom stated picking up and examining the shaking seashell. "Give it to me might be effective against those seaponies." Fluttershy requested "Aim me up i'm gonna airdrop this like a bomb." the pegasus explained as the slingshot was being pulled back. When Fluttershy was launched she flew right over the structure and then dropped the pressurized seashell on the big wooden locomotive blowing it up taking out the male seapony inside. The explosion blew wood into the back carts destroying the one carrying the 3 starfruits and the one carrying the female seapony. Chunks of wood were also blasted into the smaller wooden train which took out both male seaponies. "Something tells me that's where the remaining hippogriffs are." Twilight told her herd pointing at a big lantern, once they swam inside they found a large white seapony with a purple mane trying to crack open one of the dragon eggs "Come on, come on break" she said banging the egg against her throne. "Wait a minute YOU'RE THE QUEEN!" Twilight assumed since Novo seemed to be the only ruler of Seaquestria. "Yeah i'm the queen the name's Queen Novo and that means i can do this GUARDS!" she yelled All of a sudden 4 seaponies dressed in armor surround the herd all pointing a spear at them, which finally gave Twilight a good look at the seaponies. These seaponies were completely different from their hippogriffs form, they didn't have any feathers just fur and their beaks were replaced by a seahorse snout. Their front hooves were replaced by fins, their wings if they had some and manes were replaced by fins as well. Their back legs were replaced by a fish tail and Twilight noticed that Queen Novo had a light above her head. "Princess Skystar you distract them, use the pearl if you have to, while i figure out another way to cook these dragon eggs." Queen Novo asked her daughter before swimming off with the dragon eggs. "See you later mom" Skystar simply said in her sea pony form with the same light above her head. She then reached into a giant white jellyfish above the throne and pulled out a pearl. "You see this, this is the Pearl Of Transformation meaning i can turn you land ponies into anything i want i'm thinking...huh never thought about this." she then started thinking about what she should transform Twilight's herd into. Twilight started growling which confused not only the herd but also the guards a little. Her horn glowed for second before she screamed which let out a massive battle cry which knocked back the seapony guards and also knocked the pearl out of Skystar's fins. "I got it i'll transform you all into bubble fish!" the princess said, opening her eyes and immediately noticing the pearl missing from her fin. "Hey where did the-" Rainbow Dash swam forward managing to kick Skystar in the neck. Fluttershy then swam up to the seapony and threw another pressurized sea shell at her which blew up badly bruising her. Finally Applejack punched Skystar in the face giving her a black eye, she then ignited her ponytail fuse. "I hope you like explosions, cause you're about to get one!" Applejack told the seapony before the fuse reached her main mane creating an explosion which finished off Princess Skystar. Twilight stomped on Skystar with all 4 hooves as Rainbow spotted Queen Novo and Terramar who were swimming towards a massive structure that was still under construction, seaponies still putting on new parts. Terramar giggled at the herd which was followed by Novo bursting into laughter. "Alright everypony we've taken out 2 half bird, half pony but also half hippogriff, half seapony creatures now we just need to take out 2 mo-" Twilight's voice slurred as the herd came across not only Queen Novo and Terramar but also a bunch of other seaponies in a massive fortress. The structure itself was just a giant square but it had a variety of all the materials glass, wood and stone block, planks and cubes. "Face it you land dwellers you'll never break down this fortress it has multiple layers of materials, and once you all give up i'll boil these dragon eggs in an underwater volcano." Queen Novo said before licking one of the eggs. "I'm gonna be honest Twilight i don't think any of our abilities can take down that structure in one try." Applejack admitted "Looks like we're gonna have to use all our abilities one at a time." Twilight responded. Twilight jumped in the slingshot and fired herself into a stone part of the structure before letting out a battle cry. "Didn't do much just dented it a little." Twilight said trying to get up. "I'm going for that box of dynamite" Rainbow stated before launching herself up into the air and dashing forwards hitting the TNT crate causing an explosion that took out almost all the seaponies at the top of the structure. "Uh what just happened to the roof?" Novo asked the seaponies around her in a panicked tone. Only getting a reponse from Terramar pointing at Apple Bloom and Scootaloo hopping into the slingshot. "Are you sure about this?" Scootaloo asked her friend "Trust me we'll do more damage like this." Apple Bloom told her before launching themselves at the top part of the structure taking out the remaining seaponies on the roof and knocking down some wood. Fluttershy went next firing herself at the same area the last 2 fired themselves at the top part. But this time with the roof part gone she threw another pressurized sea shell into the structure blowing up a huge part of it taking out Terramar and a few other seaponies. "Phew that was a close one" Queen Novo said before letting out a sigh of relief. Unfortunately for her this didn't last long as Applejack launched herself at the part Twilight hit earlier her fuse igniting and causing a explosion taking out both the structure and the remaining seaponies. The explosion Applejack caused blew glass wood and stone everywhere. A chunk of stone hit the underwater volcano Queen Novo was talking about earlier causing it to erupt and destroy a part of Seaquestria. Hearing a volcano eruption immediately alerted the seapony ruler "Uh oh better get out of here" she said spotting the Pearl Of Transformation floating around she used it to turn into her hippogriff form and float back up to the surface, getting out of a pond. "Better make a fire if i want to cook and eat these" Queen Novo thought before trotting off looking for sticks. Twilight's herd quickly recovered from their battle injuries and followed her back to the surface finding themselves in a completely new place. "Woah where are we?" Fluttershy asked looking around the new area they just discovered. The place they were in had abandoned statues and trees that were covered in moss. "HEY THERE YOU ARE!" Twilight yelled through gritted teeth spotting Queen Novo hiding behind a statue. "Uh oh" the hippogriff said but before she could fly away with the dragon eggs Twilight grabbed her tail and knocked her back with a battle cry. Apple Bloom and Scootaloo then beat her up, Rainbow punched her in the face giving her a black eye, Fluttershy threw another pressurized sea shell at her blowing her back and finally Applejack ignited her ponytail fuse blowing Queen Novo away. Twilight let out a sigh of relief having gotten the dragon eggs back, Apple Bloom and Scootaloo jumped for joy, Applejack and Fluttershy inspected the eggs to make sure they were safe and Rainbow growled at the defeated Queen Novo who was badly bruised with bumps all over her body, 2 black eyes and a bent crown, well at least what the herd assumed was a crown, they even caused her nose to bleed. "If you ever try to steal our dragon eggs again you're gonna pay." Twilight told the hippogriff "Oh yeah well guess what you land dwellers me and the other seaponies will try everything, we're not gonna stop until we eat those eggs." Queen Novo countered. "Looks like these half birds, half ponies, but also half hippogriff and half seapony creatures will be a problem now." Twilight informed her herd, face hoofing herself. "I'm gonna be honest look on the bright side Twilight even though they will come back at least it'll be a while." Applejack stated pointing a hoof at the defeated Queen Novo. Shortly after the herd's first encounter with the Hippogriffs/Seaponies and Seaquestria they decided to relocate to another area of this flat terrain. "Come on, we better find a new place to live in if we want the chances of those half birds, half pony but also half hippogriff, half seapony creatures to come back and steal the dragon eggs." Twilight explained to the herd before crashing into a throne bush. But this wasn't any old thorn bush this seemed to be more of a thorn bush box which surrounded a blocked off area of this flat terrain. "I'm gonna be honest and say this is definitely out of place in a flat terrain with the occasional tree." Applejack admitted. "I have a feeling this wall or box of thorns is hiding something especially considering that it's in the middle of a flat terrain." Twilight suggested to the herd looking at the thorn box. "I've got an idea!" Scootaloo then dragged over a rock and placed a log in the middle creating a seesaw "Hey Rainbow you think you can give me a boost?" Rainbow nodded and jumped on the other end of the seesaw sending the filly into the air and landing on the top edge of the thorn wall. "My idea worked!" she said but before she could turn around to see what was on the other side of the hedge she fell through but right before she hit the ground Rainbow caught her with only a few scratch marks "Nevermind." Scootaloo annouced as Rainbow placed her down "You're doing it wrong Scootaloo don't worry everpont i've got this!" Apple Bloom said grabbing the same log of the seesaw and charging at the thorns. "Hopefully this works" the filly thought before pole vaulting over the wall of thorns. Unfortunately she didn't make it over cause she crashed near the top and somehow managed to get stuck inside one of the walls of the thorn box. "Hang in there Apple Bloom i'll get you out" Applejack said walking up to the thorns, but right as her fur touched one of the thorns she blew up the explosion was 2 times bigger than the explosion she did during the herd's adventure to get the dragon eggs back. Luckily after all the smoke cleared it revealed that both Applejack and Apple Bloom were okay. But another thing the herd noticed was that the explosion destroyed one of the thorn walls. "Does that always happen?" Rainbow asked the earth pony "To be honest that's actually something i didn't even know i could do." AJ explained. Twilight noticed that behind this thorn wall and a few bushes was something shiny, and when the herd walked past those bushes they found a massive tree but this wasn't any old massive tree this one was coated in crystal, which gave the tree it's shiny look. "I think i just found our new home!" Twilight informed her herd. Suddenly the herd heard movement and Twilight swore she saw something run by the tree. "I think i saw something, get your abilities ready." the unicorn whispered to the herd. Rainbow and the 2 crusaders got their speed ready and charged up, Applejack lit her fuse, Fluttershy was getting ready to throw another pressurized seashell and Twilight growled getting her battle cry ready. "GOTCHA...Ohhh" Twilight's voice slurred as she found a white filly with green eyes, and a purple and pink mane and tail. "Uh how did a filly like you end up here?" she asked the filly. "Wait a minute is that who we think it is SWEETIE BELLE!" the crusaders both yelled before they both trotted over to Sweetie Belle wrapping her in a hug. "What happened how did you end up her separated from your friends?" Twilight asked her again. "It's simple me and the crusaders were surviving on our own for a while until i learned about my sister Rarity so i left The Other Crusaders so i could go look for her unfortunately during my travels i got lost and somehow ended up here." Sweetie Belle explained the rest of Twilight's herd. "Well you know what we'll help look for your sister Rarity, i mean it could make for a good sidequest for surviving in this almost magic-less world but first we better unpack and settle in our new home." Twilight stated > Episode 2: Mighty Hoax/Rainbow Dash/Bonus: IE > -------------------------------------------------------------------------- Shortly after Poached Eggs The underwater kingdom of Seaquestria was in ruins, the castle along with all the lantern buildings were destroyed. The ruins themselves were on the ocean floor and some had fallen onto rocks. There was nothing left on the ceiling from the lantern houses but there was barely anything left on the ceiling from the castle. Every seapony in the area seemed to have been crushed by a piece of rubble. A seapony who had been crushed under a boulder only its fin sticking out and started moving trying to wiggle out from underneath the boulder. Another seapony who was buried under a pile of broken wood managed to get herself out, she had gotten a black eye, a few scars and lots of splinters. Once she got up she stumbled over to a piece of rubble and lifted it up revealing 2 male seaponies underneath who had been badly bruised each with 2 black eyes. They would find and save another seapony and that seapony would join the search party. Eventually once they were able to find and save every civilian seapony they tried to sort out the rubble and after a while gave up due to the huge amount of it. Skystar managed to climb out of the castle rubble not long after all the civilian seaponies were found, with a bunch of bumps, 2 black eyes and a broken fin. "Wow these seaponies work fast" she thought spotting the whole population of Seaquestria swimming around. "Guess i should better start rebuilding this place and hatch a plan to steal those dragon eggs so this doesn't happen again" she thought before putting on a coconut helmet A Few Months Later It's been a while since the hippogriff's first defeat against Twilight and her herd, they took a pretty bad beating especially Silverstream, Princess Skystar and Queen Novo and not only that Seaqustria itself also took a pretty bad beating. Turns out the underwater volcano from their first attempt to steal and eat the eggs set off a domino effect which set off a bunch of other hidden underwater volcanoes. Inside Queen Novo's throne room were a few seapony guards were there along with Princess Skystar who was serving her mom some seaweed and cooked sea creatures. Queen Novo had a fin to her forehead in disappointment pondering about the first encounter with the herd and not really focused on the food her daughter was serving to her. "Look mom i know you're still upset about both the dragon eggs and the destruction of Seaquestria, well guess what we managed to rebuild the place and then maybe we can discuss stealing the eggs from those land dwellers." Skystar informed her mother before sliding another plate of sea food onto her throne. "Princess Skystar it's more than losing the eggs to those land ponies and Seaquestria getting destroyed there was also the injuries i and many other seaponies and hippogriffs faced i got 2 black eyes, bumps all over my body and they even bent my antennas which i'm pretty sure the land dwellers thought was a crown which is why they bent it." Novo responded in an annoyed tone pointing a fin at the bandaged up set of antennas. "You know a crown doesn't sound half bad" she stated breaking her annoyed tone, putting a fin on her chin. "And plus not to mention the multiple broken bones and injuries, many hippogriffs and seaponies faced from those collapsing structures, we lost almost half of all our guards! And guess what Silverstream is still recovering from her battle injuries. The reason why she is still recovering but me and you are already healed is because since we're royalty and have these lights above our heads we heal faster." the Queen continued on "And adding to the destruction of Seaquestria, since all those underwater volcanoes destroyed not only the castle but also all the lamps houses and due to all the support strings on them snapping, you decided to rebuilt the place with all the houses connected to the castle." "And since you used all the glass, wood and stone materials on those now destroyed structures the houses are supported by weak material which could cause structural problems." Novo concluded swatting a random plate of sea food off her throne, the plate shattering when it hit the rocks below. "Okay look mom i know the material i used to rebuilt the houses was weak but it can't be weak enough to cause-" Skystar was suddenly interrupted by a table crashing through the roof of the throne room and landing in the middle of the floor surprising every seapony in the room "Sorry about that" a random seapony said from above. "See what i mean!" the seapony queen said pointing a fin at the fallen almost broken table. "To be honest Skystar i don't really think you did a good job at making this room sturdy." Terramar cut in leaning against a stone pillar only for a part of the pillar to collapse a few seconds later catching him off guard and almost getting him crushed by the rest of the stone pillar. "I think it might be a bad time to discuss the dragon eggs" Skystar said nervously followed by a nervous laugh before sliding her one last plate of sea food onto her mother's throne before swimming out of the throne room. Meanwhile on land Twilight's herd was still working on making the shiny crystal tree they found their new home. They found the tree a while ago not a few months after their first encounter with the hippogriffs/seaponies behind a throne bush wall, part of a throne cube. "Looks like were gonna need more wood" Rainbow informed the others noticing the lack of progress being made on the rooms of the treehouse. "I'm already on it Rainbow" Applejack said walking over to a tree "I've always wanted to try this" she mumbled before bucking the tree but as soon as her back hooves hit the tree her ponytail fuse ignited and when it reached her mane she blew up turning the tree to ashes. "God bucking damm it!" she said facehoofing herself before trying to sweep away the ashes of the tree. "Alright everpony as forepony i suggest not only more wood but also more of other materials like stone and vines to keep the tree and wood together." Twilight told the rest of her herd. Flashback Twilight not long after finding and recruiting the 2 members of a group or trio called The Cutie Mark Crusaders was looking for another pony to recruit and add to the herd. She was looking for a pony that was rational and capable of long time survival. Interestingly and luckily for Twilight, Apple Bloom and Scootaloo didn't slow her down they didn't complain about the constant traveling and walking or the lack of food. Twilight guessed that these 2 fillies either started off complaining about these survival conditions but later got used to it or they were already used to these conditions. Twilight was looking for any signs of another pony, hoof prints, chopped down trees, or empty fruit trees. "COMING THROUGH!" a mare voice yelled catching Twilight off guard, but luckily made her get out of the way. A light blue pegasus with a rainbow mane flew past the unicorn and crashed into a nearby tree. "Sorry about that just trying to gain some speed" the pegasus informed Twilight. "Why are you just randomly flying around trying to gain some speed, supersonic flight is gone." Twilight explained. "First of all i'm randomly flying around cause i'm not a part of a herd yet and second of all i'm trying to gain supersonic speed so i can perform a sonic rainboom" the pegasus informed the purple unicorn "I've heard of a sonic rainboom before but that's just an old mares tale, pretty sure it's not possible even with supersonic flight." Twilight countered "Oh come on my name's Rainbow Dash it's like i was born to make a sonic rainboom" Rainbow said in half annoyed half angered tone. "Alright Rainbow Dash since you're not in a herd and your dream is to make a sonic rainboom guess you can join me and 2 fillies in my herd." Twilight offered "Eh i guess i don't want to be flying across the lands trying to perform a sonic rainboom and plus maybe i could use my speed to collect resources." Rainbow said nonchalantly "I was actually about to ask you if you were rational and capable of long time survival and i guess you are, so come along." Twilight concluded walking back toward Apple Bloom and Scootaloo, Rainbow following behind. Now In The Present "Still a huge threat just like last time" Skystar in her hippogriff form thought looking at Applejack and then the rest of the herd with a pair of binoculars "Only if there was a way to distract them like a copy of myself" Skystar whispered putting her binoculars down, ducking behind the bush she was hiding behind and writing down clones in her notes. "Hey thought of a new plan yet" Terramar whispered coming out of the bush Skystar was hiding behind "Cause all i managed to find is this brown rock with spikes on it which i'm 76% sure is edible." he said before shoving it into his mouth and try to chew it. "Why a random number like 76?" Skystar asked "It's the first number that came to my head." the male hippogriff responded slightly muffled before spitting the pinecone out of his mouth. "I'm thinking of using clones or some kind of decoy!" Skystar informed her cousin "I got an idea, how about cardboard cutouts we'll just make cardboard cut outs of the dragon eggs, me, you Silverstream and Queen Novo and use them to distract those land ponies." Terramar proposed "There are 2 major flaws to your plan aka suggestion first of there's no chance that herd of land ponies is stupid enough to fall for a cheap trick like cardboard cut outs. Second of all we don't have a whole lot of access to cardboard i mean we live underwater so the only way we have access to cardboard is through the trash on the beach!" Skystar countered "Fine maybe the cardboard cutouts of ourselves won't work but there's a small chance the cutouts of the dragon eggs could work" Terramar responded "That didn't even address the- that's it we're done here" Skystar concluded grabbing her cousin's claw and dragging him to the beach shore. Skystar in her seapony form was swimming around near the sea shore on a different part of the beach, the part of the beach where the shore was full of trees and bushes. "Shelly, Sheldon what do you think i should to get those eggs?" Skystar asked the clams with googly eyes after a few moments of silence Skystar frowned. "I'm getting too old for this" she said before dropping the 2 clams into the water. Shortly after her first encounter with the land ponies her whole personality for a while, mainly during the time she was helping rebuilt Seaquestria became about the dragons eggs and a plan to steal them and once she did think of a plan it'll be hard to get back into her old habits. Skystar then decided to reach for the nearest fruit bush and grabbed a orange from it , but this was a special type of orange. This orange, if you bite it too softly all the juice will come out but if you bite it too hard it will explode. "Alright Skystar you can do this just gotta get the right amount of bite power." She told herself before biting down on the orange, which ended up pouring out all its juice into the water creating a puddle then trail and finally swirls of orange juice. "Dang it!" Skystar said throwing the remains of the orange onto the shore, landing in a bush. She turned into her hippogriff form and got out of the water to explore the land. All she really found beyond the special orange bush and 2 palms trees was a few other plants and trees. "Wow this place looks a lot better from the outside" Skystar commented leaning against a random rock. All of a sudden the rock was surrounded by a pillar of green light catching the hippogriff off guard and causing her to step back from the rock. Once the pillar of green light disappeared a weird looking creature was revealed, it looked like a light blue land pony but it had blue non-reflective eyes it also had what looked like a transparent red tail and shell, overall this creature seem to resemble a bug. "AHH GET AWAY FROM ME!" Skystar lashed out causing the creature to get scared and fly off into the mix of bushes and trees. "For a big bug looking creature it sure wasn't all that threatening." Skystar thought as she continued to explore this new area, after a bit more of exploring she found an old discarded mirror. "Huh surprised i didn't find this on the beach shore." she said examining it. Skystar then noticed her reflection, her along with the majority of Seaquestria had never come across a mirror while they heard of one which was described as the water but more clearer. While Seaponies did mainly use shiny objects like gold to check their reflections, they would occasionally use the water itself to check their reflections. Finding this mirror she decided to mess around with it doing flying tricks, making faces and a bunch of other things. She eventually had to sneeze and noticed that her reflection didn't copy causing her to freak out and throw the mirror aside revealing that the glass part of the mirror was missing and what she was looking at was just the frame of the mirror. "AH DOPPELGANGER!" Skystar yelled picking up a big rock and getting ready to throw it. The second Skystar was suddenly surrounded by a pillar of green light revealing the same bug creature from earlier except this one was green, had purple non-reflective eyes, was taller, 2 orange antlers and purple transparent tail and shell. "HOLD ON!" the green bug creature yelled covering his face with its hooves "Look i mean now harm i'm just trying to survive out here just like you and other creatures." "Wait, bug-like creatures like you can change their appearance and gender?" Skystar asked "Yeah i'm a creature called a changeling i can change my appearance, in fact i can change my species" it said before transforming into a male hippogriff. "I can basically change into anything i want" the changeling said before transforming into a rock, then a tree, an apple tree and finally a seashell. "By the way my name's Thorax and even though i can change my appearance, species and even gender i'm a male changeling i'm not non binary" Thorax explained "My name's Skystar- wait a minute weren't you just way shorter and light blue earlier?" Skystar asked "Oh so that's where she went, i'll be right back" Thorax responded before flying into the trees and bushes and coming back a few moments later with a deer. "Skystar this is Ocellus" after a few moments of silence Thorax got annoyed and looked at the deer "Um Ocellus drop the disguise." he requested After another few moments Thorax got even more annoyed "Fine if you won't drop the disguise i'll make you drop it" he said before pushing the deer into a puddle of water making the changeling drop the disguise. When the changeling revealed itself Skystar recognized it as the bug creature she saw earlier. "And if you're wondering no, the water didn't upset her and she dropped the disguise it forced her to drop the disguise, water is our weakness, another weakness is that whenever we disguise ourselves the eye color is green." Thorax explained Skystar opened her notes again and looked through them eventually finding the clone/decoy plan "Hey i've got an idea how about you 2 help us with something" she offered "What's in it for us?" Ocellus asked in a shy tone Skystar actually didn't think of this part since she didn't think they would ask that question "I got it how about survival resources you know, food, construction material." "Eh good enough" Thorax responoded Skystar turned back into her seapony form, Thorax and Ocellus turned into fish versions of themselves and followed the seapony to Seaquestria. "Welcome to Seaquestria kingdom of the seaponies" the seapony introduced to the 2 fishes before leading them into the throne room. "Hey mom i finally thought of a new plan to steal the dragon eggs from those land dwellers, with those 2 creatures" Skystar said pointing at the 2 changelings disguised as fishes. "Seriosuly Princess Skystar 2 small fishes?" Queen Novo complained in an angered tone before swatting another plate of cooked seafood off her throne, the plate smashing on the rocks below. Skystar swam over to the disguised changelings "Hey drop the disguise if you don't my mom won't believe me." The 2 changelings turned back into their normal forms but as soon as they did they both started drowning struggling to breathe. "I didn't mean your normal forms, i meant seapony forms" Skystar informed the changelings in a half eager half panicked tone. The changeling quickly turned into seapony form which was basically their normal form just with a fish tail in place of their back hooves. "Alright here's the plan so we distract the land ponies with something, take the eggs and replace them with cardboard cut outs, that won't trick them for long so one of the changelings will turn into you and once the land ponies destroy the final structure the changeling will take the beating for you" Skystar explained "First of all which one will take the beating for me and second of all are you sure they can copy others and not just change their species?" Novo asked "Pretty sure they can that's how I met them one of them was disguised as me" Skystar responded "Guess i'll take the beating" Thorax said answering Novo's second question before transforming into a exact copy of Queen Novo only difference being the eye color which was green "I mean how bad can these land ponies be?" the fake Novo states. "This could work, especially considering that you look and sound like me " the real Novo said "Are there any disadvantages or weaknesses?" Thorax turns back into his seapony from to answer the seapony queen's question "Yes there's 2, first the eye color every living form we take or copy the eye color is always green, so if we disguise ourselves as some creature else they might notice the green eyes" he explained before switching through a variety of seaponies and sea creatures before going back to his seapony form. "And second is water if our disguised form touches water, it forces us to drop the disguise" Thorax explained "Wait a second if water makes you drop the disguise how are you 2 down here underwater?" Novo countered "Huh can't believe i didn't notice that until now" Skystar commented "Well that's because we can only take the form of sea creatures and now seaponies if we want to get into the water." Thorax explained before turning into a copy of Queen Novo from earlier. Back on land Twilight was checking the progress her herd made on the crystal treehouse and noticed that even though some progress was made the place was nowhere near finished. "Alright everypony wrap it, we made enough progress today." Twilight informed the rest of the herd, once they heard this they all climbed down from the crystal tree, careful not to knock or break anything which would destroy some progress they made. Meanwhile not too far away from the nest Princess Skystar, Terramar Ocellus and Thorax were all hiding behind a bush going over the plan. "Lets go over the plan again, Terramar you place all these cardboard cutouts of trees and bushes down" Skystar said pointing a talon at the stack of cardboard cutouts. "Which will distract the land ponies and while they're distracted i'll take their dragon eggs and also replace them with cardboard cutouts, that won't distract them for long so once that fails Thorax will disguise himself as Queen Novo and chase after him got all that." "What was that i was too busy trying to bite this brown rock with spikes on which i'm 84% is edible" Terrmar said before going back to biting a pinecone Skystar face clawed herself dragging her claw down her face accidentally scratching herself but luckily the cut wasn't deep enough to draw blood, she then had to go over the plan again. Terramar grabbed a cardboard tree and wrapped a vine around the stack of cardboard cutouts, he then moved hiding behind the cardboard tree just in case the herd saw him while dragging the stack of cardboard along. Twilight was leaning against a tree reading a Equestria history book, Fluttershy added twigs and some leafs to the nest, Applejack was watching over the eggs and Rainbow was on lookout duty to spot anything strange. "Uh ponies there's a bunch of fake cardboard trees and bushes over there" Sweetie Belle said spotting the field of Cardboard cutouts. "We better go check it out could be a sign of something" Twilight told the rest of the herd, they all followed her leaving the eggs unprotected. Princess Skystar then flew over and quickly grabbed the 3 dragon eggs followed by Terramar who replaced them with cardboard cutouts. "Hey everypony i'm gonna try folding on these cardboard bushes" Applejack informed the rest of the herd before grabbing one of the fake bushes and folding it into a square "Ta Da!" she said which was followed by clapping. Applejack then put the folded up cardboard bush under her hat. Rainbow had checked behind the last fake bush "Doesn't look like there's anything here." the pegasus informed the other members of the herd before they all headed back to the nest. Once the herd got back to the nest they didn't notice the fake dragon eggs at first "Uh guys is it just me or do the eggs look a bit strange?" Scootaloo asked "Yeah they look a bit flatter than usual" Apple Bloom added before touching one of the eggs. As soon as the filly touched it the egg flew over revealing it as a fake egg, a cardboard cut out. The herd all gasped at the same time realizing what just happened "Where did-?" Twilight asked approaching the nest a little. She got angry, the herd following shortly. Rainbow then spotted Queen Novo not too far away from the nest, not noticing Princess Skystar and Terramar hiding behind Ocellus who was disguised as a rock . "It's the hippogriffs!" Rainbow yelled alerting the others "I knew it, those darn half birds half ponies but also half hippogriffs half seaponies" Twilight said through gritted teeth. "Guess their queen wasn't lying when saying they're not gonna stop until they eat the eggs" Applejack said trying to calm Twilight down. "Come on everypony, Rainbow go prepare the slingshot, Fluttershy go grab some pressurized sea shells, time to pluck some hippogriffs." Twilight told the rest of the herd Queen Novo had already finished building a structure and had also gotten 3 hippogriffs into position. Most of the structure was made out of wood, there were 3 planks placed vertically on either side, also on either side was another set of planks placed horizontally that were holding 3 stone triangle blocks, 2 of them were placed to make a square with the last one on top of the stone squares. The middle part just had a another pair of vertical wooden planks on either side and the top part had a horizontal plank which was the platform for yet another pair vertical planks on either side which were holding up one last horizontal plank which was holding 2 stone triangle blocks. Inside the top part of the structure was a stack of 7 short wooden planks, and inside the bottom part of the structure was 3 male hippogriffs hiding under a pile of 6 short glass planks, the hippogriff in between 2 others was wearing golden armor. "Wanna bet i'm the last one taken out?" the armored one asked the other unprotected hippogriffs "This one should be easy enough" Twilight thought as she hopped into the slingshot and was aimed at the structure "AJ aim me at the bottom planks that should collapse the entire structure" the unicorn requested, Applejack fulfilling. Once Twilight hit the wooden plank she let out a battle cry which collapsed and knocked over the structure and ironically enough the hippogriff wearing golden armor was the first one to be plucked by the collapsed structure shortly followed by the other 2. The next structure the herd came across seem to resemble a kitchen there was a stone pillar with a triangle stone block on top, behind it was a stone box, on top and inside the stone box was tiny wooden blocks and behind it was a female hippogriff wearing blue armor, overall this part of the structure resembled a stove with a chimney. The second part of the structure resembled a house it was made out of wood and glass planks and some stone blocks. Inside this makeshift house were 2 male hippogriffs sitting on wooden blocks and in between them was a hollow block that was holding up a plank resembling a table. On the left side of the table where the first male hippogriff was sitting was a short stone plank with small wooden blocks which resembled a plate with food on it. "For a simple structure Queen Novo sure has some creativity" the left hippogriff told the other hippogriff before looking down at the makeshift plate. "That pillar sure looks unstable" the female armored hippogriff commented backing away a little from the stone chimney. "Alright crusaders here's the plan let's go for the roof of that house." Apple Bloom told the other 2 crusaders pointing a hoof at the glass part of the makeshift roof. They all hopped into a slingshot, Fluttershy pulled back the rubber and aimed them at the roof before releasing them. The 3 fillies all manage to make it and smash through the glass roof plucking the male hippogriff on the left. Unfortunately they weren't able to make the entire roof collapse and take out the other male hippogriff. Twilight had already hopped into the slingshot and was being pulled back by Fluttershy "Fire me at the stone pillar and you take out the last hippogriff in the makeshift house." Twilight explained before being launched at the stone chimney. The unicorn then let out a battle cry which knocked over the stone pillar crushing and plucking the armored female hippogriff. Fluttershy grabbed a pressurized sea shell and used her wings to try to pull back the slingshot rubber band as far as possible. The herd never relied on pulling back the slingshot themselves since it would take a lot of force to pull back a giant rubber band, so they would usually rely on another member of the herd to pull back the slingshot. Once she felt confident that it was ready she released herself she flew past the knocked over stone chimney and dropped the explosive seashell on the wooden table. The blast didn't hit the other hippogriff but luckily the explosion knocked Fluttershy up which destroyed the second part of the roof causing the stone triangle block to fall on and pluck the second male hippogriff. After that structure was taken care of the next one the herd found was basically just a wooden bridge, all 4 hippogriffs on the bridge were hippogriff guards. "This structure reminds me a lot of Mount Aris" a male hippogriff whispered over to a female hippogriff before going back into position. Rainbow observed the bridge a little before coming to a conclusion. "If i know bridges, i know that if you take out one part the whole thing collapses" Rainbow concluded before flying into the slingshot "If you want to make the whole thing collapse guess i'll fire you at the middle part, cause once you destroy that part it'll drag down the rest of the bridge and pluck all those hippogriffs." Applejack informed the peagsus before aiming at the middle part of the bridge. After a few moments Applejack released Rainbow who sped up and smashed right through the middle part of the bridge leaving a rainbow trail behind, causing the entire bridge to collapse knocking all 4 hippogriffs into pits of hollow glass blocks plucking them. The next structure they came across and found was strange, but that would be an overstatement it was more different than strange. The structure was on a hill, there was a small tunnel in the hill where 4 males and 4 female hippogriffs were, one of the female hippogriffs was a guard. Blocking off the tunnel with the hippogriffs was glass, wood and stone hollow blocks that were held together by wooden planks. Applejack jumped into the slingshot and stared at the structure for a while before coming to a conclusion "Eh i can handle this" the earth pony said which was Rainbow's cue to start pulling the slingshot back. Applejack was launched out and hit a hollow stone block breaking it. Her braided ponytail fuse ignited and it eventually reached her mane which resulted in a explosion, it managed to destroy most of the hollow wood, glass and stone blocks a few of the blocks fell into the tunnel and plucked 3 hippogriffs leaving behind 5 hippogriffs one of them was the female hippogriff guard. "Guess i'll pluck the remaining hippogriffs" Rainbow sighed before flying into the slingahot and pulling herself back. Rainbow is the only member of the herd to somewhat get the hang of pulling back the slingshot themselves. Rainbow launched herself into the air and sped up and managed to pluck the rest of the hippogriffs including the female guard. "Wow even with armor these hippogriffs are really easy to pluck." Rainbow commented before flying out of the tunnel and back to the herd. "Alright everypony we hopefully made it to the final structure, cause it's the last one as far as i can see" Twilight said looking around the flat terrain for anymore of the hippogriff's structures. The first part of the structure had a tower, the bottom and top part of the tower had stone blocks. The top of the tower with all the stone blocks, on top of that pile was a few wooden blocks and the middle part of the tower had 2 stone planks on either side and one stone plank in the middle. Finally inside the tower were 4 hollow wooden blocks. Behind the Tower was Queen Novo and a female hippogriff guard and behind the guard was a normal male hippogriff hiding behind a tiny version of the tower, his tower barely reaching his beak. Twilight didn't notice until now that this structure was on a stair looking platform on the right second step was a male hippogriff guard and behind him was 3 normal female hippogirffs each hiding behind wooden planks each increasing in size. Rainbow went first, she dashed forward leaving a rainbow trail behind hitting the top of the tower the pile of stone blocks , although this didn't break the stone the pegasus hit it with enough force to pluck the female and male guard and crush Queen Novo. With the stone tower now destroyed Fluttershy was flung next throwing a pressurized sea shell easily plucking the 3 female hippogriffs. The herd then approached Queen Novo who survived the stone tower falling over, only suffering a few bruises. "Alright Queen Novo where are the dragon eggs?" Twilight demanded "You're crazy if you think i'm gonna tell you that." Novo responded This reponse just got her growled at by Twilight and her herd "This is your last chance Novo tell us where the eggs are or we'll beat you up." Twilight clearly stated through gritted teeth "I'll like to see you try" the hippogriff sassed "You ASKED FOR IT!" Twilight yelled before punching Novo in the face before grabbing her by the tail and throwing her into the stair platform the final structure was on. Rainbow then sped forward giving the hippogriff a black eye, the crusaders then beat Novo up, Fluttershy smacked the hippogriff queen with a normal seashell, and Applejack finished her off by blowing up and blasting her away into a puddle of water. Right before the herd's eyes a pillar of green light surrounded Novo for a second and once it disappeared it revealed Thorax who was badly bruised with bumps all over his body a black eye and one of his antlers broken. "This isn't Queen Novo who is this?" Rainbow asked "Wait a second everypony i think i saw this once in my Equestria history book." Twilight said pulling a book out of her saddle bag and flipping through it which took a while, and also took away some of the herd's patience. "Ah i found it changeling, they are bug looking creatures, that resemble ponies they can change their species and gender." Twilight explained to the rest of the herd. "Wait just an apple bucking minute why are creatures like changelings in a history book shouldn't they be in a species book?" Applejack asked "Well that's because throughout Equestrian history there have been multiple changeling sightings and reports" Twilight answered. Twilight stomped on Thorax with all 4 hooves as Rainbow looked over flat terrain failing to notice Princess Skystar and Terramar with the dragon eggs hiding behind Ocellus disguised as a rock holding in their laughter. "They actually fell for it!" Skystar thought still trying to hold in her laughter. With Twilight's herd distracted and confused Skystar, Terramar and Ocellus had made their way to the sea shore and back to Seaquestria. "The plan's was a success mom better get started on the eggs!" Skystar informed her mom "Oh yeah my feast almost forgot that was a step in the plan." the real Novo confessed. The white seapony then flipped through a cookbook and once she got to the egg section she looked through all the different ways to cook them. "Ah here it is boiled eggs, sounds a lot better than poached eggs." she requested before handing a seapony guard the cookbook. Back on the surface the herd was still confused and kinda worried about where the dragon eggs could be. "Where else could the dragon eggs be?" Apple Bloom asked, double checking for anymore hippogriff structures. "Alright this might sound crazy but what if those hippogriffs took the dragon eggs underwater to Seaquestria again?" Twilight brought up. "That's crazy Twilight last time we went there, we basically left the place in ruins by destroying one of the structures which activated a underwater volcano followed by many others" Rainbow countered "It's our only alternative if the eggs aren't down there who knows where they could be?" Applejack said grabbing the folded cardboard bush from under her hat and putting it in her saddlebag. The herd but on their scuba diving equipment, the fish bowl helmet with a tube connected to an oxygen tank. Once they headed underwater and found Seaquestria they were all shocked to see that the kingdom was still in tact. "Dang it i thought we destroyed this place" Twilight said through gritted teeth getting angry. "To be honest i guess these seaponies work fast." Applejack said being brutally honest "Am i the only one who noticed that all the lanterns are now connected to what i assume is the castle?" Sweetie Belle asked pointing a hoof at the castle. "Nope noticed it as soon as we got here" Scootaloo added "It's still as beautiful as last time especially with the sparkles on and around the kingdom." Fluttershy complemented "I've seen better looking kingdoms and buildings in Equestrian history books" Twilight stated giving the others an unfazed look. The herd couldn't tell if Twilight was exaggerating or not, for the most part they believe she was since there's no way a picture from a book looked more beautiful and majestic than a actual in pony kingdom. At the same time the herd thought that maybe she wasn't exaggerating since she had a serious unfazed look on her face. Maybe the unicorn owned an enchanted or special edition book or something like that. A male seapony guard swam into the throne room to inform Queen Novo "Your majesty it seems the land dwellers had made their way down here!" the guard exclaimed in a panicked tone. "WHAT!" Novo yelled dropping the pepper shaker of black pepper and the dragon eggs, Skystar being able to grab the eggs in time. She then looked at Skystar "Princess Skystar you didn't plan anything for this part like build another structure , you know when they CAME DOWN HERE!" Novo yelled "In my defense mom you don't want Seaquestria to be destroyed like last time right?" Skystar countered "That was only because nopony knew about the hidden volcanoes." Novo countered back "You know what fine, luckily i have a special line of defense in case something like this happens. GUARDS DEFENSE POSITIONS!" the Novo yelled. All of a sudden a bunch of male and female seapony guards with spears all grouped together blocking off the throne room and covered a bit of the castle. "Alright this is the seaponies last line of defense, we break through this we get the dragon eggs back got it?" she asked the rest of the herd getting a nod from all of them. Rainbow hopped into the slingshot as it was being pulled back "Lets go for the guards first then we can focus on the castle." the pegasus told the others before being released, she sped up and swam through a line of guards taking them out, scattering their armor and breaking their spears. Twilight had already pulled back the slingshot and was waiting for the next member of the herd to hop in. Fluttershy hopped in next and as soon as she did Twilight released the rubber band launching Fluttershy upwards. The pegasus managed to take out the remaining seapony guards with a single pressurized seashell. "The guards are taken care of now we can focus on the castle!" Twilight said while pulling back the band on the slingshot. The Cutie Mark Crusaders went next and they all were launched the glass looking material on the lantern, unfortunately the material wasn't fully glass so the 3 fillies only managed to crack it before sliding down to the rocks below. "Alright Twilight shoot me where Apple Bloom and her friends were shot cause maybe i can break through the glass and blow up whoever's inside." Applejack requested "Sounds like a long shot but it just might work" Twilight commented before releasing the earth pony towards the castle. As Applejack headed towards the cracked glass material an electric eel got in her way and seeing the earth pony as a threat attacked and bit her electrocuting her before swimming away. Meanwhile a moments ago inside the throne Queen Novo heard all the destruction outside "I never said this plan was gonna work" Skystar said out of the blue "Yes you did the 5 times" Ocellus responded before turning into Skystar "I have a feeling this plan is gonna work just find" the changeling said before changing back into her changeling seapony form. All of a sudden Applejack broke through the glass material breaking a huge chunk of the wall off before blowing up. But instead of an bomb explosion, Applejack released a massive electric shockwave which knocked debris everywhere hitting Skystar and Ocellus in face but leaving Queen Novo and the dragon eggs unharmed. Once the electric sparks faded from Applejack's body Twilight and the rest of the herd entered the destroyed throne room. Queen Novo reached behind her throne and pulled out a cardboard cutout of herself which Terramar as part of a plan pitch. "How about you give the cutout the beating while i give you the dragon eggs back." Novo said which was followed by a nervous laugh. "Actually i'm thinking of something else for you that also involves cardboard." Applejack said before reaching into her saddlebag. Twilight let out a sigh of relief having gotten the dragon eggs back, the Cutie Mark Crusaders jumped for joy, Fluttershy examined the eggs to check if they were safe and Rainbow was growling at something. It then revealed that Applejack had crushed Queen Novo with the cardboard bush she folded earlier. Applejack saw Novo's tail moving so she stomped on the cardboard bush one last time for good measures. "Welp everypony that's one hippogriff and seapony scheme foiled and a second successful save" Twilight said to the rest of the herd in a cheerful tone. "Using a changeling to pose as Queen Novo and trick us" Twilight mumbled before picking up the 3 dragon eggs with her telekinesis. "Hey AJ what was the deal with that electric shock wave?" Twilight asked the earth pony. "I'm not sure Twilight all i really know is that it came from that electric eel, but i doubt that'll happen again." Applejack said confidently as she followed the rest of the herd out of Seaquestria. Skystar having suffered a throbbing black eye, bent antennas and a temporary scar swam over to her mother "At least Sequestria wasn't totally destroyed this time." the only response she got was her mom saying something muffled, barely audible. As the herd swam out of Seaquestria with the dragons eggs the castle along with all the lantern houses attached to it collapsed once again leaving Seaquestria in ruins. "Come on you 2 i know there's treasure down here i can feel it." Scootaloo said confidently to the other fillies while using a shovel to dig through the dirt. "I think i got something!" the pegasus filly said hearing her shovel hit something hard. Apple Bloom and Sweetie Belle trotted over to the hole Scootaloo was in, the pegasus then came out of the hole covered in dirt but more importantly with a treasure chest with a giant golden lock on it. "Woah this must hold something very valuable if it has something like a lock on it." Apple Bloom pointed out, starting to mess around with the lock mainly by pulling on it. "Come on you 3 the hippogriffs just STOLE THE DRAGON EGGS!" Fluttershy yelled catching the 3 fillies off guard. The Crusaders then spotted 3 female hippogriffs guards, each carrying one egg, after making it over a hill they ran into a small dortress that Twilight was easily able to destroy. The herd then started launching themselves and destroying things around the hippogriffs in hopes of catching them off guard. The guards then ran into a small wooden shack, which was a little more sturdy than the hay one but was no match for Rainbow Dash who easily destroyed it. Despite all the exploding objects around them all 3 female guards managed to make it into a metal dome the doors slamming shut. No member of the herd could even make a dent in it, even Applejack the strongest member of the herd only left a tiny tent in the metal dome. "Never thought we would try this method again but grab every object you can and load them into the slingshot!" Twilight commanded. Despite the herd's effort this did nothing against the metal dome and didn't even leave a small dent like Applejack. "Wait a second why are the hippogriffs in there if they want to bring the eggs to Queen Novo?" Applejack pointed out getting wide eyes from the others. All of a sudden Queen Novo popped up from the top of the metal dome "HAH! take that you land dwellers knew a metal dome was a good idea! Time to cook these eggs!" she taunted before ascending back into the dome closing the hatch. Twilight looked for anything else in the area that could be loaded into the slingshot before noticing the chest the CMCs had found she quietly grabbed the chest and loaded it into the slingshot before firing it. The chest when it hit the metal dome instead of snapping into pieces like everything else the herd fired the golden lock came off and when the chest opened an artifact rolled out. The artifact simply resembled a severed griffon talon on a golden base. All of a sudden a portal appeared in the sky and a strange creature flew out of it and destroyed the metal dome launching Novo and all 3 female guards back towards the ocean. Miraculously the dragon eggs were unharmed and the herd got a good look at this strange creature. The creature seemed to be a mix of every Equestrian creature Twilight knew about, it was dark blue, had a horn and wings looking like an alicorn according to the history books. Left hoof was a griffon talon, right hoof was a hippogriff talon, back hooves were yak hooves, the tail of a seapony, spikes of a dragon along his back, and the shell of a changeling. "Um are you okay who are you?" Fluttershy asked walking up to the creature "My name is IE but you can just call me E, i'm the lord of chaos, from the chaos dimension." IE explained "What do the letters IE stand for?" Rainbow asked with a puzzled look on her face "It stands for Intermittent Explosive" he responded this strange name left Rainbow speechless "Yeah think i'll just called you by your nickname" she said casually trying not to slip a tone into her voice. "I've been waiting for ages for someone to free me from the chaos dimension." IE said before stretching his talons and hooves. "What happened and how did you get trapped in your dimension?" Twilight asked with a half-concerned half-worried tone. "You see before i got trapped in my own dimension i used to leave it whenever i was bored and mess around with reality. That was until a group of 6 ponies called the Dark Pillars Of Equestria used dark magic to try and rule Equestria, enslaving every creature. I was able to stop them but that got both me and the pillars trapped in the chaos dimension." IE explained "So where are the pillars?" Fluttershy asked "I don't know but since they were just 6 normal ponies while i'm a chaos lord it's safe to say that the pillars are gone for good so nothing to worry about." he reassured Twilight's herd "Moving on!" IE said flying over and grabbing the severed giffron talon on a golden base "If you ever want to summon me just throw this talon and i'll take care of the creatures you're fighting in some chaotic way , but only if it a absolute emergency cause if i'm interrupted too much i'll stop helping you creatures got it." he asked before getting a nod from the herd. > Episode 3: A Wish Out Of Water (Semi-Original Chapter)/Applejack > -------------------------------------------------------------------------- Seaquestria like last time had to be rebuilt but this time Skystar decided to change the layout of the kingdom. While the castle was rebuilt the same, with it suspended at the top of the cave, the lantern houses were all set up differently they were not longer connected to the castle instead they were placed down on the rocks below. Of course this meant that the seaponies could no longer exit their homes through the bottoms so Skystar was forced to cut a hole at the top of every house to allow the citizens to leave their homes. Also like last time the reconstruction process took a few months but luckily there was more construction materials this time since they didn't waste them all on the structures, especially the final one which Queen Novo would use as her last line of defense. A few months after Mighty Hoax "Welp while it may have taken a few months but we've finally recovered from our injuries and got the place rebuilt and as we promised here are some of the resources." Skystar said before slowly moving 2 medium bubbles bubbles one half full containing construction materials the other also half full of food. "Didn't you say you'll only give us the resources if we help steal the eggs?" Thorax asked "Yeah that's why we only gave you some resources." Novo pointed out, emphasizes on the some. Once the 2 changelings swam out of the throne room and were no longer in sight. Novo swam back to her throne pulled out a whiteboard and marker and started thinking. "You go examine the surface dwellers while I think and try to hatch a new plan" Novo told her daughter before going back to brainstorming a new plan. Skystar didn't want to do the same thing as last time cause first of all it'll take forever to come up with a new plan and second of all she'll get bored very easily. So in the end she just decided to swim to the surface and hang out near the island where the special bush of oranges are and where she met the changelings "Alright you 2 this is very simple just try to get the right amount of bite power." Skystar informed her cousins Silverstream and Terramar who were trying this special type of orange for the first time, this type of orange was bite sensitive meaning if they bit down too hard it'll explode but if they bit down to softly it'll go dry and lose all it's juice. They both bit down on the peeled fruit at the same time as far as Skystar could tell. The next thing she saw was an explosion of orange juice and once that cleared up she found multiple puddles of orange juice scattered around the water, and a swirl of orange juice. "MY EYES!" Terramar yelled, he started splashing around water and orange juice before swimming away at an incredible speed failing his fins and tail around creating huge splashes of water. "Should i-" Skystar started only to be interrupted by Silverstream “He’ll be back, this has happened before he usually comes back a few minutes later.” The pink hippogriff assured her cousin. “If i found something here last time, I can definitely find something here this time.” Skystar repeated in her head as she and Silver turned into their hippogriff forms and started walking along the shore of the small island. “HEY COUSIN SKYSTAR LOOK WHAT I FOUND!” Silver yelled causing Skystar to jump and face plant into the sand. The first thing Skystar assumed was that her cousin simply found a cool looking seashell since Silver did have the urge to joyfully overreact over something like a seashell. Skystar herself did have a history of collecting seashells but as she got older her shell collecting became less frequent. She had recently have given up the hobby due to her whole personality at some point becoming about capturing the dragon eggs. When she looked she saw Silverstream standing next to a giant red X. “I found a big red X and red Xs like this in pirate stories always means treasure.” Silverstream said in her signature cheerful tone. “Pirates not a bad idea” Skystar said before approaching the big red X. “Hey sis what did I miss?” Terramar asked in a slightly injured tone, since he still had some red veins in his eyes from the orange juice explosion. “Good thing I brought this” Silverstream said before reaching into a bush and pulling out a box of plastic spades. “Plastic spades? Trust me sis this will work better” Terramar informed his sister before reaching behind a tree and pulling out an old busted up jackhammer. He then turned on the jackhammer and started digging into the red X, unfortunately the drill didn't last long cause a few seconds later it fell apart and the engine that powered the tool ended up hitting Terramar in the face chipping his beak and knocking him down. "Guess i should start digging?" Silverstream concluded before pulling out a random plastic spade from the box and lodging it into the big red X before pulling it out taking some sand out, after a while of digging and a little bit of sand gone the plastic spade broke. "Uh oh my spade broke give me another one." Silverstream requested, Skystar reached into the box of plastic spades, pulled out a random one and gave it to her cousin, this will go one for a long time Silverstream had dug a hole by this point, Skystar couldn't see her cousin anymore, Sky was also laying down next to a pile of 51 broken plastic spades. "Dug the treasure up yet?" Terramar asked, still bothered by his chipped beak "Hey I think i hit something!" Silverstream exclaimed before another snapping sound was heard "I need another spade." "Just pull the treasure out with your talons." Skystar told Silverstream which was followed a few seconds later by a treasure chest being thrown out of the hole and landing in front of the 2 hippogriffs. "Got the treasure!" Silverstream exclaimed covered in dust from the sand, she then threw the broken spade into the pile bringing the number up to 52 broken plastic spades. Terramar examined the treasure chest and imagined finding gold and diamonds inside, he examined the container a little more and found a big metal lock on it. He then grabbed a random metal piece from the broken jackhammer and used it to hit and break the lock off the chest. "There we go!" Terramar muttered before Skystar opened the chest to reveal what it contained. Unfortunately all they found was just a bunch of old worn out document papers that they couldn't even read since most of the words on them had faded away. "It's just a bunch of old papers." Skystar informed her cousins before tossing most of the papers aside like she was clearing a messy table. She was just about to clear the chest of the leftover papers but before she did she noticed something at the bottom of the map it had a different texture than the other papers, this one looked in pretty good condition. When Skystar flipped the paper over she found a treasure map that was still intact with text they could actually read. The map had a red dotted trail that went across many different places all labeled with black text. "Looks like this map leads to something called the Idol of Boreas which grants some special power." Skystar informed Silverstream and Terramar before rolling up the map "Come on you two we better this take back to Seaquestria!" Meanwhile in Seaquestria Queen Novo was still brainstorming, trying to think, come up etc, with a new plan to steal the dragon eggs from the herd. "Capture the land ponies in a cage...nah that'll take too much complex planning and plus, the cage won't be able to hold them for long." the seapony queen thought before erasing the sketch of Twilight's herd trapped a cage "Make and mix chemicals to use against the surface dwellers...no, no griff is that smart enough to make chemicals." Novo thought before erasing the sketch of a beaker containing a chemical. "Hey mom look what i found!" Skystar said in an excited tone trying to show her mother the map. "Unless it's a new plan i don't want to see another shel-" As soon as Novo saw the map she grabbed it from her daughter and examined it "Princess Skystar I want you to go on treasure hunt, and make sure to take a few other hippogriffs with you." "Hopefully this Idol can help us with stealing the eggs." Skystar hoped before rolling up the treasure map and swimming out of the throne room. To Skystar this was a very strange thing for her mother to say and request cause before they discovered the dragon eggs and Twilight's herd Novo would rarely let Skystar go to the surface the only time she would allow it was to look for resources on the beach shore. Once the seapony kingdom did find out about the eggs and the land ponies Skystar was allowed to go beyond the beach shore and by beyond she means near the Tree of Anger, Skystar had enough common sense to not get to close to the herd or go beyond the tree. Taking a total of 13 hippogriffs, 7 minions and 4 guards along with Silverstream and Terramar they started the treasure hunt. The first location that the red dotted line went through was a place called Windy Bridge. "Alright first up is a place called Windy Bridge!" Skystar informed the group of hippogriffs following behind her before putting the map down revealing Windy Bridge. The first problem Skystar had with the Bridge was that it wasn't even a bridge it was just a pit, and the second problem was that it wasn't windy she didn't see a single strong gust of wind. "Huh guess the bridge broke off and the wind calmed down a long time ago." Skystar said before spreading her wings and flying across the pit. She was halfway through the pit, when suddenly a very strong gust of wind ended up pushing her back and into a rock cracking it a little. "Now i see why it's Windy" Skystar remarked before looking around for something that could work as a bridge. She then noticed a long rock on top of a pillar that looked pretty loose, when she wrapped a rope around the rock it didn't seem to budge. Skystar looked around for anything to use to pull it down before looking at 2 female minion hippogriffs. "Hey you two i've got an idea." she informed them Skystar tied the 2 minion griffs together and then wrapped the rope around the rock, she then realized that swinging across the pit like pirates in novels was a way better idea, but She wasn't exactly confident she could do it herself. She then handed the rope to a male minion griff "I want you to use this rope and swing to the other side and try your test now to flap your wings." Skystar told the male hippogriff The minion griff gripped the rope, checked his wing and focused on the other side of the pit. He stepped back and ran forward, he managed to make it half way before a chunk of the long rock came off causing all 3 minion griffs to fall into the pit, yelling and landing with a loud thud. The rest of the long rock fell but luckily was still long enough to create a bridge for the other hippogriffs to use to get to the other side of the pit. Skystar and the remaining 10 hippogriffs 4 minions, 4 guards, Silverstream and Terramar crossed Windy Bridge all of them careful not to flap their wings and activate the gust of wind. "Hey shouldn't we-" Silverstream asked pointing a talon at the pit, "We'll pick them up on our back." Skystar assured her cousin before opening the map and guiding the rest of the hippogriffs. The next location the red line went through was a cave called Rolling Cave. Once Skystar the other hippogriffs got there all they found was a cave full of rocks and boulders. "Huh.. well this place turned out to be a lot more boring than i thought." Skystar commented as she went further into the cave, the next thing the hippogriffs found was a bunch of rocks and boulders blocking the exit of the cave. Skystar walked over to a conveniently table shaped rock, near the entranceof the cave, the other griffs following and tried to think of a plan to get the rocks out of the way. Unfortunately for her there was a stalactite above her head that was dripping water onto her head. Skystar tried to ignore it but she eventually lost her patience and snapped the stalactite off the cave's roof by smacking it with her tail. But this just resulted in a giant boulder dropping down from the roof and rolling towards Skystar and the hippogriffs. They all run away from the giant rolling boulder. "Hey everygriff in here!" Silverstream yelled pointing at a hole in the wall, she, Terramar, Skystar, the remaining minions and guards were just barely able to squeeze into the hole, luckily the boulder rolled right past them and also knocked down the rocks blocking the entrance. 2 guards got out of the hiding spot and started celebrating, they celebrated too early cause a few seconds later the boulder rolled backwards and went over the 2 hippogriffs. But instead of being squashed by the boulder the guards stuck to the boulder and were carried away by it. Skystar and the remaining 8 hippogriffs 4 minions, 2 guards, Silverstream and Terramar looked both ways to make sure the boulder wasn't coming back before getting out of the hole in the wall. The next location the hippogriffs headed to and the dotted red line went through was a place called Lava Springs which was exactly what it sounded like. "Looks like we're gonna have to cross this field of lava geysers." Skystar said putting down the map, and trying to find an algorithm of the geysers trying to figure out when each one erupts. Before Skystar could come to a conclusion and plan a male minion griff tried to fly over the field of lave geysers this was bad idea cause when he was halfway through the field, a geyser erupted right as he flew over it burning his entire body, leaving it black and falling next to the geyser. "Looks like we're gonna have to walk." Skystar said before turning around and finding both her cousins and the remaining hippogriffs frozen she waved a claw in front of them before snapping both her talons which snapped the group out of their shock. The all one by one climbed down the hill and Skystar was the first one to step into the field and when she did it turned her claw got burned and when she checked it, luckily the burn wasn't a bad one it barely left a red mark on her claw. "Ow, ow, ow" Skystar repeated as she stepped across the field along with the rest of the hippogriffs. All of a sudden a mountain not too far away from the field of lava geysers revealed itself to be a volcano which erupted and shot out a literal fireball. "Nevermind MAKE A RUN FOR IT!" Skystar yelled before sprinting across the field constantly burning both her claws and hooves. The fireball ended up hitting a female minion griff who caught on fire, although she extinguished the fire quickly by rolling around, her body got badly burned, black and twitching. Skystar, her cousins and the remaining 4 hippogriffs 2 guards, 2 minions made it to the other side of the field, but it ended up costing the hippogriffs burning both their claws and hooves. "I'm gonna be honest not sure if that was worth it." Terramar said rubbing one of his burned hooves, "Yeah that felt like walking on spikes." Silverstream added The next place the red dotted line went through that the hippogriffs had to head to was a place called Miner's Cave. All the hippogriffs found there were minecart tracks and a bunch of old rusty mining tools. "This is just like Rolling Cave except with a few more objects." Skystar pointed out before bumping into another wall of rocks "It even has the same obstacle" she added "You think there's any more diamonds?!" Silverstream whispered to her brother before picking up a rusty pickaxe and start hitting it against the wall mining for diamonds. "Hey all 6 of you find a pickaxe and start mining while i try to set off a trap to break through those rocks." Skystar requested pointing a talon at the wall of rocks blocking the path. While the group of hippogriffs were mining away the hippogriff princess tried to set off a booby trap, she broke every stalactite off the cave's ceiling, stepped on every stone, no rolling boulder, arrows or swinging weapon appeared. Skystar picked up a rusty pickaxe, out of options and was just about to start mining, only to see something in a pile of wood which she assumed was a crashed minecart. She walked over to it and found a drill which didn't look very old or rusty, she examined it and found a pull string mechanism on it, which reminded her of an annoying Magic Conch Shell she had as a filly. "Step aside everygriff!" Skystar told the other hippogriffs before pulling the string, it didn't work the first time so she tried again which also didn't work, using all her strength he yanks the string a hard as she can which finally turns the drill on. She presses it against the wall of rocks which causes it to vibrate but after a few seconds the rocks are knocked down. Unfortunately the wall of rocks was the only part that supported the foundation of the cave so as a result the cave started shaking and piles of rocks started falling. "MAKE A RUN FOR IT!" Skystar yelled for the second time in this treasure quest. All 7 hippogriffs just barely managed to make their way out of the cave. Skystar to catch her breath decided to lean against a vertically placed slab but this was a bad idea cause a few seconds later the slab fell over and crushed 2 guards. "I was honestly expecting something like a stalactite or a boulder not an inconveniently placed slab." Silverstream commented as she stared at the fallen over slab. The final place Skystar and the remaining hippogriffs, 2 minions and her cousins had to go through before getting to the temple was a frozen lake called On Thin Ice. "The snow's too heavy to fly in" Skystar informed the others, being able to catch a clawfull of snow after only 3 seconds of sticking it out into the snow. "Alright one wrong move and we all fall into icy cold water." Skystar warned the 4 hippogriffs pointing at the ice and conventionally pointing at something moving under the ice catching her off guard. "Whatever that thing was i don't want to know and that's another reason why we should be careful." Skystar added before raising a claw out of the snow and placing it on the frozen lake. But as soon as she placed the other claw on the ice she lost he balance, fell and started sliding across the ice creating scratch marks on it luckily none of them were deep enough to crack the ice. Surprisingly she actually managed to slide her way to the other side of the frozen lake the other hippogriffs following in a similar manner. "Huh this sign looks a bit crooked." Silverstream said looking at the sign saying On Thin Ice, she then gripped the sign and started adjusting it eventually able to straighten it "There we go!" This of course started cracking the ice which caught all of the hippogriffs off guard so bad that they barely had anything to react before a part of the ice broke and they all fell into the icy cold water. They all turned into their seaponies forms and were about to simply jump out of the water but before they could they spotted a whole school of the creatures they saw under the ice which was revealed to be piranhas. The school of piranhas all lunged at hippogriffs, the deadly school of fish ended up mauling one of the minions griffs. Luckily Skystar broke another part of the ice, jumped out and turned back into her hippogriff form in mid air, she then helped her cousins out of the icy water before the piranhas could attack and maul them. "Hey where did the other minion go?" Terramar asked before reaching a claw into the water, risking being bitten by a piranha. He eventually felt something and luckily it wasn't a creature eating fish instead it was a minion griff frozen solid in a block of ice. He then grabbed the ice block out of the water and placed it on the snow and secured it to make sure it didn't slide onto the ice. Shortly after that Skystar, Silverstream and Terramar started making their way to the temple, they had a little trouble due to some paths taking them in circles and some even leading them back to past locations, eventually Skystar finally figured it out and the trio of hippogriffs managed to make it to the temple. "Alright, do you spot any danger. OVER!" Terramar yelled talking into an old busted up but still working walkie talkie. "There seems to be no signs or danger!" Silverstream responded talking into an identical looking walkie talkie. "You 2 do realize that you don't need walkie talkies if you're standing right next to each other." Skystar cut in revealing that the siblings were standing right next to each other with little space between them. Skystar looked around before noticing 2 giants leafs overlapping each other I have a suspicion she thought before moving the 2 leafs aside revealing the temple. The trio easily push the stone block out of place, and once inside the temple they didn't seem to find anything like statues or anything that could set off a booby trap, in fact the inside didn't even look a temple it was just a sand field with a giant x in the middle. "Can't tell if these are ancient drawings or just random markings on the cave." Skystar said pointing a talon at something she assumed was an ancient drawing which now just looked like a bunch of weirdly shaped dark markings around a bigger oddly shaped mark. Back in Seaquestria Novo was still drawing on her whiteboard brainstorming a plan to steal the eggs from Twilight's herd. "Build flying and land machines to steal the dragon eggs and fight off the surface dwellers... Nah too complicated." the seapony queen thought before erasing the sketch of a land and flying machine with hippogriffs inside them. "That's it i'm OUT OF IDEAS!" Novo yelled before tossing the whiteboard aside and snapping the dry erase marker in half. Suddenly Skystar, her cousins and the 11 other injured hippogriffs, 4 guards and 7 minions finally came back from their treasure hunt and swam into the throne room. "Hey mom look what i brought!" Skystar exclaimed excitedly before showing her mother The Idol of Boreas. The artifact was a golden statuette forming a wing and a base shaped like a claw with a sphere in the center. "Please tell me this was worth it" Novo mumbled before grabbing the statuette "I wish i could come up with a plan to steal the dragon eggs." All of a sudden the Idol glowed and released a small energy orb which then transformed into a piece of paper with had a plan written on it, the plan itself was basically to use a simple flying contraption to steal the eggs and use the Idol along the way to fight off the land ponies. "Huh guess it actually works." the seapony queen said nonchalantly before thinking of another wish. The first that came to her mind was restoring Mount Aris the place was foggy, had abandoned statues, and trees covered in moss. "I wish that Mount Aris was restored and looked good as new!" Novo wished, which was followed by the Idol glowing and releasing another energy orb, Novo and Skystar along with a group of seaponies followed the orb as it flew up to the surface. Once it did the orb flew past a massive forest, and spiraled up Mount Aris leaving a light trail as it did and once it reached the top, exploded into fairy dust and once the dust disappeared it had successfully restored Aris from a ghost town to good as new and back to its former glory. On land Twilight and the herd had finally finished construction on their tree house meaning now with a lot of free time Applejack decided to test out a theory involving her ability. "Alright I've sharpened these rocks to resemble spikes, I want you three to hide behind those set of bushes and if i manage to blow them up that means, that my blast becomes stronger when i touch something pointy, which would explain how i managed to blow up a wall of thorns when we discovered the crystal tree." Apple Bloom, Scootaloo and Sweetie Belle all nodded before trotting over and hiding behind a group of bushes. Applejack lifted a hoof and slowly started lowering it onto the set of spikes. As soon as the orange hoof touched the tip of the spike her fuse ignited and reached her mane very quickly which resulted in a massive explosion which completely destroyed the group of bushes reducing them to twigs which fell apart a few seconds later. The blast ended up leaving the crusaders black covered in soot and even left a small crater under Applejack. "Bigger explosion check" Sweetie said writing that down on a notepad, which turned to ash a few seconds later followed by the pen, both piles of ash are then blown away by the wind. Flashback Twilight along with Rainbow and the CMCs had come across a rock with something shiny inside and we’re currently trying to break it open. They’ve tried everything bucking it, pushing it over, hitting it with multiple objects and their current method was for Rainbow Dash to fly into it. “Hey y’all looks like were gonna need more firepower, as in firepower i mean a pony which more strength and I know exactly the right pony.” Apple Bloom said. The filly eventually led the herd to an orchard filled with dead trees, rusted sign and decayed barn. The eventually went into a bush and snuck up on a orange mare with a cowpony hat, that was reading a magazine about apples. “HEY BIG SIS!” Apple Bloom called out which caused the mare to let out a yell, followed her jumping into the air knocking down a dead tree, that when it hit Twilight on the head it turned to ashes and got the herd and the bush they were in covered in ash. “Oh there you are Apple Bloom, about time you got back and I seen you brought back some friends.” Twilight brushed herself off before walking up to the mare. “Hi I’m Twilight Sparkle, this is Scootaloo, Apple Bloom’s friend, and this is Rainbow Dash.” “Howdy, i’m Applejack, I run this uh…”Applejack trailed off pointing at the field of dead trees. “I run this former apple orchard, yeah by the time me and Apple Bloom inherited Sweet Apple Acres the place was dead, I guess it was to due to multiple pony groups constantly stealing apples and leaves, and since they didn’t bother planting more trees all the trees died.” The earth pony explained pointing at the field of dead trees, then the tree she reduced to ashes. "Hey Applejack if you're wondering the reason why I came back here was because we need you help to get something shiny out of a rock." Apple Bloom explained "Well sure thing sugarcube, did ya see how easily i knocked down that dead tree and reduced it to ashes?" Applejack asked pointing at the destroyed bush and tree "And that one was accidental" she added Once the herd led Applejack out of Sweet Apple Acres and over to the rock they were trying to break, the apple mare started examining it. After a while she came to a conclusion. "Alright if you want to break this open you're gonna need a lot of force." She then backed up a little before charging at the rock, her plan was to hit her head on the rock which would get her angry which would ignite he fuse and blow up the rock but when her head collided with the rock nothing happened. The only thing that happen was the rock cracking before splitting in half revealing what was inside. When the herd all looked inside expecting to find something like gemstones, crystals or even gold, but instead they only found a single piece of scrap metal. The herd was confused on how a piece of scrap metal looked shiny inside the rock, but normal once they broke it open. "I guess the sun shining on the rock reflected onto the piece of metal which made it look shiny." Rainbow concluded looking at the sun for a second before turning around. "While it may not be any type of treasure, like gold or gemstones, it's still something pick it up and lets keep going." Twilight said telling Rainbow and Applejack to carry the piece of scrap metal. Queen Novo, Princess Skystar and Silverstream in their hippogriff forms started executing the plan generated by The Idol Of Boreas, starting with the simple flying contraption. "I wish for a simple flying contraption" Skystar wished which was followed by another energy orb that transformed into the contraption. The flying contraption was basically just a blanket with a pink, yellow, purple and teal balloon, and under the blanket was a pot to scoop up the dragon eggs with. "I was expecting somehing simple like a hot air balloon but not this simple." Novo commented pointing at the vehicle, before shrugging it off and hopping in along with Skystar and Silver. Silverstream was the first one to notice that this simple contraption didn't have anything to lift itself off the ground. "Um guys i think this contraption is too simple there's nothing that can lift it off the ground, and these four balloons don't look like they could support our weight." Silverstream's statement was jinxed as a few seconds later the 4 balloons sudden;y started glowing and like magic lifted thee blanket up and started flying over the large forest. Once over the large forest they were heading towards, the herd but as soon as they saw them they ran into a huge problem "There doesn't seem to step in this plan on distracting the surface dwellers." Novo informed the other 2 hippogriffs checking the plan multiple times. Skystar thought of a distraction based on the first thing that came to her mind when it came to the oceon, which in this case was bubbles. "I got it!" She exclaimed, grabbing the Idol from her mother "I wish for a bubble machine!" next thing she knew a energy orb turned into a bubble machine at landed right in her claws. She flipped the switch that turned on the machine and then pressed a button labeled overdrive, which released a bunch of bubbles at once. "Hey everypony look bubbles!" Apple Bloom exclaimed, popping a few of them when they flew past her. Unfortunately there was too many bubbles to the point where the herd couldn't see a thing even though the bubbles themselves were transparent. The 3 hippogriffs seeing a window of opportunity, swooped in and used the pot attached to the blanket to scoop up the dragons eggs before going upwards. After they flew upwards and started flying over the forest, towards Mount Aris where they could see multiple hippogriffs flying too, Silverstream accidentally knocked the bubble machine off the raft which bounced a few times before smashing to pieces leaving a trail behind. Once all the bubbles either were popped by the herd or just flew by, the herd look over at the nest and found the dragon eggs gone. The herd all gasped at the same time realizing what just happened "What the-?" Twilight asked approaching the nest a little. She got angry, the herd following shortly. Rainbow looked around the area not noticing the trio of hippogriffs flying over them in a balloon raft, with the dragon eggs in a pot. "Dang it, looks like these hippogriffs somehow stole the dragon eggs again." Twilight said through gritted teeth "Already got the seashells." Fluttershy said throwing one into the air and catching it on her back. Rainbow Dash then flew behind the crystal tree and pulled out the slingshot "Slingshot ready!" she exclaimed "Rainbow I think you missed this" Applejack said pointing the trail of broken bubble machine pieces that led into the forest. "Guess the hippogriffs stole the eggs and ran into this forest." Twilight concluded As soon as the herd entered the forest they found a structure. There was 2 male minion griffs in between 2 stone planks, there was a structure on 2 stone planks, stone blocks and a small glass block. The said structure was made out wooden planks, rectangle and triangle blocks, on the top of the structure was also a rectangle stone block in between 2 stone triangle blocks and a male and female minion griff in it. Finally there was 3 stone planks in the shape of a table, with 2 female minion griffs on top. Twilight went first she went for the middle part of the wooden structure, she let out a battle cry which plucked the female hippogriff in the bottom part, she bounced off a wooden rectangle block breaking it a little before crashing into a stone plank knocking it over, plucking the 2 male griffs. Rainbow Dash went next, once she was flung from the slingshot the peagsus, dashed forward leaving a rainbow trail behind and flew through the wooden structure, plucking the female hippogriff and crashed into the stone table plucking the last 2 female griffs. The next structure the herd came across resembled a prison, there was a cage made out of stone, 2 stone towers surrounding it with a male guard on each. On the top of the cage was a structure that resembled a prison watchtower surrounded by glass, made out of stone and wood and had 4 guards, 3 female and a male on it. But the most important part of the structure was what was inside the cage, a pony a unicorn to be exact who had a horn longer than the average one. "Looks like that pony's in trouble!" Applejack said before loading herself into the slingshot, releasing and blowing up the first tower, plucking the first guard. Fluttershy then dropped a pressurized seashell onto the second tower plucking the second guard. The herd next went for the watchtower, the CMCs managed to destroy the glass surrounding the tower followed by Rainbow destroying and eventually knocking over the rest of the tower plucking all 4 guards along with it. Finally Twilight launched herself and used her battle cry to knock the cage over. "Phew thanks for the rescue those hippogriffs held me captive for wayyy to long." the white unicorn said, followed by her neck and head dropping down. "Um are you alright?" Twilight asked lifting the unicorn's head and neck up only for it to lean back, her horn almost hitting her back. "Trust me I've dealt with this annoying horn for a long time." the white pony said "Doesn't that hurt?" Twilight asked lifting the unicorn's horn up with her telekinesis trying to keep it stable and stop it from dipping in either direction. "Oh very much buy luckily my body is so used to this pain that it basically just ignores i t now." the new unicorn explained. "How about i-" Twilight trailed off before using her telekinesis to pull the unicorn's horn up and with a crack and posture change the white pony could finally stand up straight. "That's better, I've tried that before multiple times but i never thought i was strong enough to straighten my neck and I thought all magic was gone." the unicorn explained before using her telekinesis to pick up a nearby rock. "Oh right i completely forgot to introduce myself, I'm Tia me and my sister love to explore one day we both decided to go our separate ways and during my own travels I found the kingdom of the seaponies unfortunately i was caught trespassing and i was imprisoned for who knows how long, they eventually decided to use me as a decoration for one of their fortresses." Tia explained before using her magic to pick up a small log. Twilight was honestly shocked about Tia's backstory and realized that if she had just gave up and surrendered to the seaponies during the first encounter she and her herd could've been imprisoned. "Hey you want revenge on those hippogriffs right?" the purple unicorn asked, getting a nod from the other unicorn. "Okay then lets see what you can do!" Twilight said before bringing Tia over to the slingshot, loading her in and releasing her into the air. Right before Tia hit a nearby tree, her horn bent a little which caused her to start going back like a boomerang, fly past the herd and get her horn stuck in a tree "Was that okay?" she asked. "Okay? that was AWESOME!" Rainbow exclaimed "This pony definitely has some potential!" Applejack added, grabbing her and pulling her horn out of the tree. The next structure the herd came across was a all wooden one made out of wooden planks, rectangle blocks, a triangle block and a few slabs, it was placed on a hill with 2 male minion griffs in front of it and 3 female griffs behind it, inside the hill. Tia loaded herself into the slingshot as Twilight pulled it back, before releasing her, she flew over the hill before boomeranging back flying right through the bottom part of the structure, plucking the female griffs and the structure falling on and plucking the 2 males. "Huh guess your right big sis this pony surely has a lot of potential." Apple Bloom added as the herd moved onto their next structure. These 2 structures resembled turrets, both of them were made out of 3 rectangle wooden blocks and a triangle wooden block, held on 4 hollow stone blocks, 6 triangle stone blocks, 2 stone planks, 3 stone slabs, a single hollow triangle stone block and in the center 2 boxes of TNT. The first one on a hill had a male minion griff behind the stone hollow triangle block, while the second one on the ground had 2 male guards one on the bottom and the other one the top of a stone triangle block, it also had a female minion griff behind the hollow triangle block. Tia of course went first, when she boomeranged back she hit the 2 wooden triangle blocks, breaking the first one and causing the other to hit the TNT crates which created a explosion, plucked the male minion griff, sent materials everywhere and cause the stone triangle blocks to fall onto the second turret, blow it up, which also plucked the 3 hippogriffs along with it. The herd then moved onto the next structure it was on a wooden platform held up by hollow triangle blocks and under it were female minion griffs standing on small wooden blocks. On the platform was 3 structures shaped like castle towers, the first made out of stone, second one of wood and final one of glass. Each tower had a male and female minion griff inside and in between each tower was a female guard. "Okay here's the plan you'll launch me over the structure, then I'll come back and break right through all 3 fortresses, got that?" Tia asked getting a nod from Twilight as she was aiming the pink maned unicorn upwards. Once the unicorn was launched, when she tried to boomerang through all 3 structures she only manage to break a little of the wooden platform off which didn't even cause the glass tower to fall. "That's it i'm not dealing with this." Applejack stated before reaching into her hat and pulling out the severed talon on a golden base, loading it into the slingshot and firing it at the structure. A few seconds later a giant tree grew out of the ground which them fell over which plucked all the hippogriffs and completely destroyed the structure, achieving total destruction. "Woah now that's what i call TOTAL DESTRUCTION!" Rainbow exclaimed followed by IE appearing out of a log. Dressed like a construction builder and holding a axe. "Pretty cool huh?" he asked spinning the axe in his hippogriff talon. "Are you gonna do more cool tricks like that?" Fluttershy asked. "I'm the lord of chaos I can do basically anything!" he responded, turning the axe into a nuke, spawning in a beehive, giant eagle and giant ice ball before snapping his griffon claw making them all disappear. "Hold on this is my stop!" Silverstream said which made the balloon the raft stop and fly down allowing the hippogriff to get off. She then grabbed the pink balloon from the raft and the Idol from Skystar. "I wish that the nearby structure was made out of...ICE CREAM!" she exclaimed which released a energy orb that once it touched the nearby structure, basically the final structure of the first encounter (Poached Eggs) except it was all wood and had male and female guards inside, it had turned all the wood into strawberry ice cream. Novo and Skystar flew out of the forest in the balloon raft while Silverstream got into position in the ice cream structure right as the herd arrived. "These half birds, half ponies but also half seapony creatures really thought that ice cream could protect them." Twilight said before loading and launching herself from the slingshot, but when she let out her battle cry it barely it anything to the structure and when she collided with it she just got stuck in it before slowly sliding down leaving a trail of mushed ice cream behind. When Applejack and Fluttershy tried the explosion they caused barely did anything to the structure since the strawberry ice cream was too thick to knock over. Fluttershy grabbed the severed griffon talon and was just about to launch it before finding a magnifying glass Applejack dropped when she launched herself. The pegasus then looked a the glass and then at the sun and got and idea. She grabbed it and shined it at the sun, a beam of light bounced off the glass and onto the structure which then started melting. The melting ice cream somehow managed to pluck all the guards in the structure and almost drowned Silverstream in it. "Woah Fluttershy where did you learn that!" Rainbow asked "Simple that was a trick I used to survive in the wild before i met you guys." the pegasus responded Twilight stomped on Silverstream with all 4 hooves, haven popped the pink balloon as Rainbow looked around the area failing to notice Queen Novo and Princess Skystar above them flying towards Mount Aris on the balloon raft with 3 balloons remaining the yellow, purple and teal. Shortly after the herd made their way out of the large forest they found themselves in front of a massive set of stairs which was at least 500 steps. "Please tell me this is worth it." Twilight muttered before she and the herd started walking up the stairs. Skystar noticed the ponies walking up the stairs and got and idea "I wish, the stairs started moving backwards really fast!" she wished into the Idol. Twilight all of a sudden felt like she was moving backwards, before realizing that she wasn't going backwards the stairs were, which were also speeding up which resulted in her tripping down the stairs and crashing right into the rest of the herd with a loud thud. "Moving stairs are you kidding me?" Twilight complained before getting her the herd off herself before brushing her self off. "Um guys I thin-" Scootaloo started only to be interrupted by Rainbow "Not now Scoots, alright here's the plan you shoot me all the way to the top, got it?" Twilight aimed Rainbow upwards, before releasing her, she made it pretty far and when she started losing speed she used her speed boost, which didn't really help as a few seconds later she crashed into one of the steps and fell down the stairs all the way back to the bottom. Twilight started thinking of a new plan before all of a sudden the stairs started moving forwards at the same speed, when she looked over she saw Scootaloo had flipped a switch labeled direction "Um guys think i found the solution, the direction switch!" the pegasus said. After quickly making their way up the stairs and onto Mount Aris, they came across a structure, the first part of it was a tower of ice held up by 10 of rectangle blocks, on top of that was 2 planks, 4 slabs, on top was a hollow triangle blocks and inside the tower was a female minion. The second part of the structure was a stone tower held up by 9 hollow blocks, on top of them was a hollow block in between 4 rectangle blocks, 2 on each side, 8 small blocks in between 4 hollow blocks 2 on each side, on the very top was a upwards slab and rectangle block held up by a horizontal rectangle block on top of 2 rectangle blocks on top of 2 hollow blocks. In front of the stone tower was 12 small stone blocks, in front of the stone blocks was a male guard and in between the 2 stone structures was a male minion. The third part had a male minion in front of 8 hollow ice blocks and a female minion in between that and 2 hollow ice blocks. Applejack went first easily blowing up the ice tower and plucking the female minion along with it. Tia went next and used her boomerang ability to smash through a little of the stone tower causing half of it to fall over, plucking the male guard and minion and the other half to fall over, smash the hollow ice blocks and pluck the male and female minion. The next structure resembled a long bus, the wheels were 2 hollow stone blocks, the first bottom layer was stone, the second layer was wood, the third layer was glass, the fourth layer was TNT crates, the fifth layer was male and female minions and the sixth top layer was wooden planks. Applejack was launched upwards, landing in the middle of the bus breaking through the fifth and sixth layer, which resulted in her blowing up the entire makeshift bus, plucking all the male and female minion griffs inside, sending materials everywhere which ended up flying through multiple houses either destroying them or causing them to fall over and smash to pieces. Meanwhile the balloon raft had landed allowing Princess Skystar to get off and grab the yellow balloon and the idol. "Skystar how many structures did you build cause i don't want mass destruction to Mount Aris?" Novo asked "Don't worry mom i only built 3 structures the last one for me." Sky responded before grabbing the Idol "I wish that the nearby structure was made out of metal." A few seconds later the nearby all stone structure with female and male guards inside turned into metal and just like the all wood structure that was turned into ice cream, this all stone structure resembled the final structure from the first encounter (Poached Eggs) except now reinforced with metal. Once the herd arrived Skystar quickly got into position and knew they couldn't do anything to her reinforced structure. Everpony couldn't even dent the structure, even Applejack and Fluttershy whose abilities were literally explosions only slightly dented the structure. Twilight pulled out the griffon talon and launched it at the structure. "What is that thing?" Skystar muttered which was followed by a massive hammer appearing above the structure before being brought down, badly denting the structure, and them being brought down again destroying it and plucking all the guards along with it. Twilight stomped on Skystar with all 4 hooves, haven popped the yellow balloon as Rainbow looked around the area failing to notice Queen Novo flying above them on the balloon raft with 2 balloons remaining the purple and teal. She briefly landed the raft on a roof to think of her next move, when noticing multiple cloud moving think which gave her and idea. "I wish I could walk on clouds!" she wished into the Idol, before accidentally leaving it on the rooftop and flying up into the clouds. The herd arrived at the end of Mount Aris, looking around trying to look for the hippogriff queen before noticing the Idol. "Is that what i think it is?" Twilight asked followed by Rainbow flying up to the rooftop and grabbing the idol. "Think i've heard of this before." Tia claimed grabbing it from Rainbow and examining it. "Think I saw this in my history book!" Twilight said pulling the Equestrian history book out of her saddlebag and flipping through the pages before finding the chapter about griffons "Griffons were greedy and hoarded all their treasure for themselves until King Grover found they mysterious Idol Of Boreas which united the griffons and filled them with pride, unfortunately once they found out the Idol could grant wishes this led to a full out which led the griffons to basically bring themselves to extinction, as for the Idol it was lost and later hidden away." Once Twilight was done reading that piece of history, the herd figured that the hippogriffs had used the Idol to try and stop them from getting the dragon eggs back and thought maybe Novo escaped into the clouds. So as a result the herd wished they could walk on clouds, Rainbow brought a cloud for them to stand on and headed into the clouds. "Alright everypony were in the clouds, so what now?" Twilight asked "Now that!" Tia responded pointing a hoof at the nearby structure. This structure was more than just a simple structure it seem to be an entire contraption the first part had a structure made out of 4 wooden planks a rectangle block, hollow block, 10 ice planks a triangle block, a rectangle block, 3 stone rectangle blocks,a stone slab and plank and inside it was a female guard, a TNT crate and 2 stone balls. The second part of this contraption made of mostly wooden planks, 2 stone planks, and inside was 2 male minion griffs. Behind this structure was 3 TNT crates, in front of it was 6 stone balls, and on top of that was another female guard. The final part of this contraption was under the first part, it simply had Novo in the balloon raft and in front of it was a stack of 6 TNT crates and 4 stone balls. Rainbow Dash flew right through the wooden plank structure plucking the male minions, followed by Tia crashing into the stack of TNT behind it, plucking the female guard sending the stone balls everywhere. Finally Applejack blew up the first structure, plucking the female guard and even though none of the materials fell on Novo and the balloon raft the stone balls bouncing everywhere hit the stack of TNT destroying the balloon raft. Novo groaned as she got up with the dragon eggs still intact the pot, once she regained her vision she found the herd standing in front of her. "Oh right the eggs, here you." Novo said pushing the pot towards them. Back on Mount Aris, the herd had ripped the blanket, Twilight let out a sigh of relief having gotten the dragon eggs back, the Cutie Mark Crusaders jumped for joy, Fluttershy examined the eggs to check if they were safe, Applejack was holding a rope with her teeth and Rainbow was growling at something. It then revealed that they had given Queen Novo 2 black eyes and had tied her 2 claws and 2 hooves to the 2 remaining balloons, purple and teal. "I'm gonna be honest we better get rid of this thing, we don't want the hippogriffs to get their claws on this again." Applejack suggested tying the rope to a rope to a rock, getting a nod from the rest of the herd. Twilight then loaded the Idol Of Boreas into the slingshot before launching it into the sunset where it fell into the ocean. Shortly after that the herd got the dragon eggs out of the pot, switched the direction of the moving stairs and took them down Mount Aris and started heading back to the crystal tree. Skystar having suffered similar injuries to the second encounter (Mighty Hoax) flew up to her mom "Well at least rebuilding this place won't take as long as underwater." Skystar stated getting a respond from her mom in the form of another groan.