Equestria Girls/Sonic Boom: The Crossover Series Pre-Sequel Sequel

by GreenS21

First published 9th of August, 2018

The students of Canterlot High find themselves dealing with a conflict from a brand new world in this crazy, impossible crossover of spin-off proportions!

Totally not a spin-off to "Sonic Generations: Friendship is Timeless"; it is a sequel.

When an old, Ancient enemy resurfaces in the world of the Blue Bomber and his heroic friends, craziness ensues when they try to stop him that ends up sending everyone to a whole other world.

Stranded far from home, Team Sonic must make new allies and attempt to fit in in this new world while also trying to gain the trust of its inhabitants and reclaim the Lost Crystal of Power before their foes do.

Will Team Sonic be able to balance a life of their typical heroics with going to school? Will their new friends be able to show them new powers they'd never imagined were real before? Will Amy finally get her new snakeskin boots? And will Sticks eventually stop messing with the author?

"Don't count on it."

Find out in this, the ultimate crossover of awesomeness!

Previously On "Last Time On..."...

Sonic Boom

The purple lights on one of the machines aboard Lyric’s airship flickered for a second before they went off, the green armor-wearing snake using the hands on his suit to drag himself towards the machine as it died. He groaned and muttered, “I’m glad reptiles can regenerate their parts” as he continued his crawl. Behind him stood Sonic and his friends, the blue hedgehog having managed to hold the mad snake off long enough to set his friends free, at which point they all finished dishing out a beatdown.

Seeing Lyric seemingly defeated, they all relaxed and Sonic looked around at everyone as he said, “Great work, guys! We beat him!”

Knuckles flexed his muscles and pointed to himself with his left thumb as he remarked, “Yes! Yes, I did!”

Their reverie was cut short when Lyric spoke up, “FOOLS!” Facing forward, they realized he had raised himself up, the full length of his body outside of his armor laid out across the floor to his right. “I haven’t survived all the eons to be defeated by inferiors like you!” As he was speaking, he revealed a small red button in his left hand and pressed it with his right center finger. Immediately, a two-armed cannon rose up from the floor behind him, Sonic and his friends tensing up as both guns opened up and pointed at them, their ‘fingers’ spinning. Lyric gestured at it and said, “After this weapon turns you meddlers into abstract art, I’ll gather the crystal fragments and build my empire!”

The cannon suddenly shook and everyone heard a familiar voice say, “Lyric!” The snake looked up and saw Shadow standing on top of the cannon with a set of wires in the palm of his left hand. With a grunt and a little bit of effort, he ripped them from the weapon and it immediately powered down, its arms falling at its sides. “I said I’d find you,” Shadow said before dropping the wires and jumping towards Lyric, flipping over before he reached him and kicked him in the face (or rather the glass dome protecting his face).

The kick sent Lyric flying and Sonic turned and ran over to a hatch behind him, stopping next to a lever and casually pulling it back. The hatch opened, revealing the clouds below. Lyric looked back at the hatch and realized where this was going. “Ahhhhhhhhhhh!!! Noooooooooo!!” he yelled as he fell through the opening and disappeared beneath the clouds.

Amy rolled her eyes and said, “Man, I wanted to do that.”

Sonic shrugged, “Does it matter who did it as long as it’s done?”

Sticks put a hand on her friend’s shoulder, “We all couldn’t kick him off the airship, Amy. And you know why?”

Amy sighed and asked, “No. Why?”

Sticks stepped forward and stood in the center of everyone, moving around as she exclaimed, “Because we’re a team! We got beaten to the punch, or in this case, the kick as a team. We can raise our heads proudly, knowing that we traveled all this way just to watch somebody else finish the job. When we walk down the streets and people whisper ‘Those are the ones who couldn’t quite save the day, almost, but not quite,’ we’ll smile together because we didn’t do it as a team! I finally understand teamwork… and it’s beautiful.”

Shadow crossed his arms and rolled his eyes with a huff. “That was pathetic,” he stated.

Sonic remarked, “Sticks may have taken the long way to get to the point, but she’s right. We beat Lyric together. As a team!”

Shadow simply huffed in reply, “And I’m leaving ALONE. As your superior.” With that, he turned and walked away.

Sonic looked down and shook his head slightly. “Too bad that guy’s such a hardcase. He’d be a great addition to Team Sonic.”

As he started to walk away, Knuckles fell into stride beside him and spoke, “You mean Team Knuckles.”

Sonic corrected him, “Team SONIC.”

Knuckles insisted, “Team KNUCKLES.”

Tails, following behind the two, started, “Uh… guys?”

Amy and Sticks started to follow the boys as Sonic coughed and quickly said, “Team Sonic.”

Half an hour later…

The members of Team Sonic looked relieved as their home island got closer and closer with every moment, Sonic especially. They were all currently standing on top of the Ancient plane they’d found in the volcano to escape and continue pursuing Lyric. The crash landing had rendered it unable to fly, but it was in good enough shape to float, so they decided to use it as a boat to get home, using metal beams taken from Lyric’s airship, which they’d crashed out in the ocean with the Crystal of Power, as paddles.

“We’re almost home. Can’t wait to stretch my legs,” Sonic commented.

“I can’t wait to get this thing back to my workshop. Once I get it fixed, it’ll be great for traveling and fighting off Eggman. I’m gonna have this plane for a long time, I just know it,” Tails said.

Amy spoke, “Come on, guys, we’re just getting home and already you want to take off? I mean, we only just defeated the last living Ancient and kept him from getting his cold hands on the crystal. We should go to my house and celebrate first.”

Knuckles asked, “You really think it was a good idea to leave that crystal on that ship?”

Amy replied, “I wouldn’t worry about it. Considering how high up we were, I’m sure he didn’t have a soft landing. I don’t think we’ll have to worry about him coming back for it.”

Sticks looked at her friend and sincerely said, “I’m sorry we didn’t get you those snakeskin boots you wanted, Amy.”

Amy smiled back at her, “Oh well. Maybe we’ll have another chance some other time, Sticks. I’m just happy you understand teamwork… a little better after all this. Do you think you’d be interested in having more adventures like this?” Sticks stopped paddling, a perturbed look appearing on her face as she seriously considered what Amy was suggesting.

Meanwhile, in the robot factory below the Ancient Ruins…

Dr. Eggman stepped through the factory entrance and looked up and around at all of the machinery as he walked. The factory was still producing Ancient robots, which came off the line in an inactive state. “I must admit, those Ancients really were advanced for their time. To think that they built such a large robot factory… and now it belongs to me!”

A red-and-black orb and a yellow-and-black cube bounced up behind him and opened up to reveal Orbot and Cubot. “Yours? How exactly does it belong to you now?” Orbot asked.

“Yeah, don’t you need to have one of those fancy signed papers that says you own it?” Cubot added.

Eggman kept walking as he glanced back at his robotic underlings and said in an annoyed tone, “I don’t need to go through all that legal mumbo-jumbo! This factory has been abandoned for thousands of years! It was free for the taking for whoever managed to find it first, and now that that fossilized snake is out of the way, it’s back to being that way!”

Orbot asked, “Out of the way? You mean…” Before he could finish, they all heard the sound of metallic footsteps behind them and came to a stop. Looking back, they saw Metal Sonic walking towards them, his red-purple eyes glowing brightly. “Ah! Metal Sonic!” he said.

Eggman nodded, “Exactly! I saw Sonic and his friends running around looking for that snake Lyric and sent Metal Sonic to ensure things would be in my favor when they stumbled across this factory!”

Cubot asked, “How?”

Eggman replied, “Simple! Metal Sonic lured them away from the factory and into a volcano to keep them from destroying the factory, and once they were away, things could only work out in my favor. Either they wouldn’t make it out of the volcano… or they’d keep going and defeat Lyric for me! And judging from that airship that crashed in the ocean, I’d say the second option occurred, as I was hoping it would!”

Orbot commended, “A truly ingenious plan, sir!”

Cubot added, “Yeah, you’re all kinds of super smart!”

Eggman snorted, “What, are you two trying to earn my favor, get yourselves a little promotion? When I want my feet licked, I’ll let you know!” Orbot and Cubot looked at each other with disturbed expressions, neither one liking the… sound of that statement. By this time, Metal Sonic had reached them and walked alongside Eggman as he started walking again, Orbot and Cubot hovering after them after a few moments.

Eggman soon reached one of the factory’s computer terminals and began typing on its keyboard, using the access code he’d used to get into the factory’s systems earlier. It took the code and brought up a menu with options to give the robots various commands and what looked like files containing Lyric’s plans. “Interesting. It would seem Lyric kept all sorts of information stored down here when he took control of the factory,” he commented after a few moments.

“Perhaps it contains information on what he planned to do,” Orbot suggested.

Eggman shrugged, “Yes, I suppose it would be interesting to find that out, but more importantly, I now have control of the factory! I can keep producing his robots or use the parts in here and the factory to increase the production of my own!” He grinned wickedly, “With this sort of setup… I can REALLY cheat on my taxes now!”

________________________________________

Equestria Girls

Adagio, Aria, and Sonata finally came to a stop, all three girls leaning forward as they tried to catch their breath. After their humiliating attempt to sway the Canterlot High student body away from the Rainbooms and back to them had been answered with boos and thrown food, self-preservation had taken over and they’d fled the stage as quickly as they could, leaving behind the shattered pieces of their pendants. While their victorious foes contemplated about the pendants and where their band was going to go, the Dazzlings now had to face a new low point in their time banished from Equestria.

“What… What happened back there? What happened to our voices?” Sonata gasped, still trying to get her breath back.

Aria’s breathing returned to normal after a moment and she stood up straight, putting her hands on her hips as she looked at Sonata and spoke, “Isn’t it obvious?! The Rainbooms ruined everything for us!” She looked at Adagio, “I thought we took all the magic they had, Adagio!”

Adagio, her curly hair now a bit frizzy at the ends, wobbled a bit as she straightened up. “I never said we did! That’s obviously why I thought we stopped feeding off of them while they were under the stage, but it wasn’t the only one! Even if we didn’t get all their magic, there’s no way they should’ve had enough to be able to do… that!” she exclaimed.

Aria pointed at Adagio and yelled, “This is all your fault, Adagio! As soon as we got a little bit of Equestrian magic back, you had to get all high and mighty and go straight to the place where it came from, and now look! Not only did we actually lose at what we’re the best at, but we lost our pendants too! We’re worse off than we were when we first got here!”

Adagio shot back, “Hey, you’re the one who complained about not getting enough to eat! I was trying to fix that, and we didn’t go straight to the high school! I made sure we worked our way there so we would be strong enough when we found the source of the magic!”

Aria said, “For all the good that did us! We should’ve just filled up and moved on like we used to, but nooooo! You had to dig in and try to suck every little bit of magic you could get from that school! So much for you being smart!”

Adagio growled, “Well, if it was such a DUMB idea, why did either of you agree to it?! Oh, I’m sorry; for a moment, I forgot I was in the company of IDIOTS!”

Aria walked over and got right up in Adagio’s face, “You’d better watch what you say! I don’t know why I’m telling you that; clearly, you can’t make a single decent decision anymore!”

Adagio snarled, “And how many decisions have you made that ever contributed to our success?!”

Sonata looked back and forth between the two arguing sirens-turned-humans nervously. They’d argued plenty in the past, but it had never gotten this bad. She finally steeled herself and walked up to them, trying to push them apart as she exclaimed, “Adagio, Aria, stop it!” She managed to push them a few feet away from each other, but they immediately turned their glares on her. She shrunk a bit, but said, “For realsies, this is not a good time for this! W-We gotta figure out what we’re going to do now! We gotta eat and stuff!” She clutched her stomach, “I’m getting hungry just thinking about all this…”

Aria snorted, “That sounds about right. You’re always hungry, Sonata.”

Adagio muttered, “I think you mean yourself, Aria.” The other girl turned and glared at her, but she didn’t look away. “At least she has a point once in a while,” she shrugged. She then faced forward and said, “I suppose we should figure out where we are. We can figure out what our next move is afterwards.” She started forward, walking towards the other end of the alley. Sonata looked at Aria, the other girl glaring daggers at Adagio’s back even as she begrudgingly followed after her a moment later. Sonata followed after them carefully, feeling uncharacteristically worried about what the future held for them now.

Last Time On...

Equestria Girls

Twilight could hardly believe how much her life had changed. Not that long ago, she’d be looking into strange phenomena that had been occurring at her old high school’s rival, Canterlot High; now, partly due to her research almost consuming her and partly due to Dean Cadance making it possible, she was a student at the school learning more from the girls who had been at the center of all the strange happenings. It all seemed so surreal to look back on.

She was certainly at the top of CHS when it came to knowledge. Not that that was a surprise; there was almost nothing in Crystal Prep’s curriculum that she hadn’t aced and she had hoped her research would launch her to much greater heights than if she continued to stay there, but she didn’t care about that anymore. The students at Crystal Prep had hardly done anything to connect with her or accept her attempts to reach out to them until everything that happened at this year’s Friendship Games. All the trouble her research caused, the madness it had spawned within her before it was pushed back…

At the time, she’d wondered if it would be better to stay at Crystal Prep and make friends with the other students, who’d all had a change of heart after their pressuring pushed her over the edge, but that idea didn’t last. She wanted to make a fresh start and develop herself with the help of those who knew a lot about being friends, and Canterlot High was the school to go to for that. Of course, not everyone agreed with her decision, but she had a feeling this was the best choice for her and for Spike.

And that’s why, on this day, they were joining their new friends out on the school’s front lawn for a picnic, right in front of the statue that had contained some of what their friends had called Equestrian magic. It was such a lovely day, the sky clear and the sun shining, and she felt like this was a really good experience for her and that nothing @(&!&@*()$^*(%^*@(&)*@(&%*

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“Oh, come on! Are you seriously going to drag this story out already?”

“Hey! What did you just do? You like glitched what I had written there!”

“You want to know what I did, huh? Well, I ain’t telling you! You need to develop better writing habits and skills!”

“First of all, what do YOU know about writing? And second, I must be doing something… decently if people want to read my stories. Whatever it is I do that they like, you should let me do that!”

“After you’ve waited how long? Isn’t there an idiot out there who doesn’t want to wait on you and decided to take continuing what you’ve done into his own hands, regardless of what you say?”

“He’s not an idiot, and what he chooses to do is not the issue. I’m pretty sure it’s well-established that I have communication issues. I hardly have any right to be questioning what anybody does.”

“That’s still what pushed you over, isn’t it? He spoke up, made you angry, and now you gotta get back in the game!”

“‘Angry’ is such a harsh word…”

“Actually, it’s ‘strong’ word.”

“How did he get here?!”

“I don’t know, but that doesn’t matter! The point is, you want to do this story and you don’t want to do all the things that have made you want to kill yourself with every other thing you’ve done!”

“You have such a way with words…”

“So get to work and get this story started! You’ve already brought up the events and characters that are important to this crazy tale you’ve cooked up! Stop dragging it along behind you like you drag everything else and get going already!”

“All right, all right! Geez, I’m trying to be good about all of this, but man…”

Between Seasons

It was another fine day in Hedgehog Village, the kind of peaceful day that the villagers enjoyed if they happened to be out and about instead of glued to their TVs. The island had seen quite a couple of days like this lately, actually; aside from the regular attacks from Dr. Eggman’s robots and his occasional attempts to con the villagers with schemes that weren’t quite as clever as usual, things had been relatively quiet. It was like they were going through an off-season so to speak, and while the villagers weren’t really bothered by it due to their simple nature, things had gotten a bit stale for Team Sonic and most of the team was wishing for something interesting to happen. Their own antics were only amusing for so long, after all.

Despite this, Amy Rose was her usual optimistic self as she made her way through the village to the Meh Burger to meet up with her friends. As she got closer to the restaurant, she spotted them sitting at their usual table, though none of them had any food in front of them. “Hey guys!” she called as she approached.

Sonic raised his left hand in a half-hearted wave, his right hand currently supporting the side of his head, as he grunted, “Hey Amy.” Tails, Knuckles, and Sticks waved to her as well, their greetings not much heartier than Sonic’s.

Amy slid into her seat, a concerned look on her face as she asked, “What’s wrong, guys? Is Dave giving lousy service again?”

Sonic replied, “Don’t know. He hasn’t come out yet. We’re still waiting on our order.”

Knuckles nodded, “Yeah… Maybe now that we’re all here, the food and the service will be better.”

Amy spoke, “Oh, come on, guys! What are you all moping about?” She held out her arms, “It’s a beautiful day, there isn’t a cloud in the sky, the village is quiet…”

Sonic interjected, “Yeah, just like yesterday, and the day before yesterday. Eggman hasn’t done anything in days, and even when he does attack, there’s nothing special about it. It’s gotten so boring around here lately.”

Sticks spoke up, “It sure has… and that means something REALLY big is going to happen soon!”

Tails sighed, “You’ve said that pretty much every day lately, Sticks. You couldn’t possibly know that for sure.”

Sticks glared at him, “Oh yeah? Do you know how the luck balance of the universe is shifted?”

Tails shook his head, “No!”

Sticks said, “I’m sure there’s been another shift… and I KNOW there’s someone new here who plans to fix it. He’d better if he knows what’s good for him.” She pointed her left index finger at her head while she was talking. Sonic and the others didn’t question her, assuming it was just Sticks being Sticks.

Dave soon came out from behind the counter with their food on a large tray. He walked over to their table and served them each their own tray, simply saying, “Hope you can enjoy your food” before he went back to his post.

Sonic watched him for a moment before he lifted the top bun of his burger to check it. “Oh, for- He gave me extra pickles on purpose! Again!” he complained.

Amy looked down at her tray and saw that she had been given the completely wrong item. “Well, I guess Dave is in a bad mood today,” she sighed, resting her arms on the table.

“I miss Ador-O-Bot 2000,” Sticks said suddenly as she looked down at her food.

Everyone looked at her in surprise. “Well, that just came out of nowhere,” Tails remarked.

Amy said, “Sticks, he’s not gone. He’s just protecting the Valley of the Cubots. He wanted a new purpose and he found it. Even if… that means he’s not entirely friendly with us now.”

Sticks replied, “And I can’t believe you guys didn’t tell me until the day after! I’m the one who wanted to take him home! He lived with me and I wanted to be there when he went out into the world on his own, just like with Buster! Why didn’t anyone tell me?!”

Sonic shrugged, “Well, you were doing… whatever that day, Sticks. What were you doing, anyway? Uncovering a new conspiracy? On some dangerous adventure? Tuning your banjo?”

Sticks stared at him hard for a moment before she glanced off to the side and nonchalantly said, “I don’t remember. I’d have to ask someone else to remind me.” Sonic exhaled, letting out a cross between a sigh and a groan at the badger’s mindset.

Knuckles held a finger to his chin and looked up for a few seconds before he started, “You know what I was just wondering?”

Tails unremarkably asked, “What, if he’s still on our side or not?”

Knuckles looked down and finished, “Whatever happened to that place where we got him?”

Amy asked, “What, you mean Ragna Rock?”

Knuckles replied, “Yeah, whatever. What happened to it?”

Tails spoke, “You don’t remember? Eggman’s Ragnium mining operation was ruined. He said he had to go check his insurance policy afterwards to see what it covered.”

Knuckles asked, “Okay, but… wasn’t it ready to explode?”

Everyone thought about the echidna’s words. “Hey, that’s right. He did say that, didn’t he?” Sonic remarked after a moment.

“Yeah. The pressure was building up because we were closing all the fissures that Eggman’s mining was creating,” Amy nodded.

“Yeah, but that was when all the machinery and everything was still intact. It was all destroyed, so there’s nothing there that could cause the pressure to build up. There’s no way that an explosion happened after that,” Tails explained.

Sticks gave the fox a suspicious look. “Are you sure about that?” she questioned.

Tails gave her an irritated look, “Of course I’m sure! The only way that Eggman’s Ragnium mine could explode now is if the volcano on the island erupted, and I can safely say we stopped any chance of that happening.” Feeling he had no further need to explain, he turned back to his meal, grabbed a fry, and started eating.

He was certain what he’d said was true, but he was going off of how Ragna Rock had looked when they’d set out for home. Tails had not been back there since, nor had he been keeping an eye on the island to see what it was doing. And even if he had, he would have to have an eye on the island at that exact moment to see the long-term effects of the events that had taken place on Ragna Rock.

It hadn’t been that long ago that Team Sonic had battled D-Fekt to save Eggman and shut down his mining operation, but now the island’s volcano, which had been relatively quiet at the time, was now becoming active. It was strange that it had changed so suddenly, but perhaps due to the battle with D-Fekt and the work Eggman had done when he was mining, perhaps it was a delayed reaction-

“Sounds a lot like that terrible dinosaur movie that’s out now.”

“Hey, hey. Don’t go there.”

“Well, it does! It was convenient there and it’s convenient here, ain’t it?”

“Look, I’m trying to move away from doing this sort of thing. I would really appreciate it if you didn’t-”

“NOT ONE OF THOSE MOVIES WAS ANY GOOD!”

“…”

-that was now starting to rear its ugly head. And naturally, with the island being so far away from Bygone Island, the erupting could not be seen by anyone there. Even the plume of smoke rising up into the sky could not be readily seen.

Lava bombs came shooting out of the caldera, landing in the waters around the island while lava flowed out of the crater. With the island being so small, it naturally flowed everywhere it could reach, including into the remains of the Ragnium mine. And while the damage done to the mine might have slowed its crawl somewhat, the eruption was showing no signs of stopping anytime soon, so it wasn’t going to take long for the pressure to start building up…

Eventually, another explosion rocked the island that originated from the mine, causing another eruption of sorts. It wasn’t as powerful as the first, but it could be considered worse since it sent mostly unprocessed Ragnium into the air that, unlike the smoke, came back down. Normally, this might not turn out to be a big deal, but this was far from a normal world. Things were always skewed here; while it involved things that others might find hilarious, it was hard to find anyone who would disagree that things in this world happened without reason or without humorous effect involved.

“HEY! No editorials!”

“You started it.”

And so, it happened that some of the Ragnium ended up landing in a specific spot on the surface of the water and sinking below. For a while, nothing seemed to be off; even the fish seemed to be undisturbed by the green cloud that drifted downwards. Then, all of a sudden, the schools of fishes darted away in a panic. Something was coming up.

A large figure burst through the surface of the water, droplets being sprayed around as it held up its mechanical arms and let out a loud yell that could be heard through the glass dome around its head. The figure slumped forward slightly afterwards, though it kept hovering above the surface of the water. It seemed like that it hadn’t moved in quite a while. The armor on the upper part of its long body was more than a little rusted, likely due to being exposed to the saltwater for so long, but there was no doubt about it; it was Lyric, the last of the Ancients.

After regaining his strength, Lyric opened his eyes and raised his head, looking at a message that was being displayed on the glass in front of him. “HEALING PROCESS COMPLETE. SUSPENDED ANIMATION TERMINATED,” it read. Lyric dismissed the message after a few moments and glanced down at his right arm, which had suddenly come loose from its socket on its own. He used his left arm to pop it back in and, after a moment, he looked forward as a smile spread across his face. He began to laugh; it was a long, deep laugh that made it clear he was back and that (surely) the world was going to feel his wrath.

Escalating Quickly

Dr. Eggman, the most brilliant and handsome evil genius to ever set his sights on conquering the world, sat on his couch in his island lair, a pen held in his outstretched right hand. In his left hand was the daily newspaper, which he was holding up close to his face, a determined look on his face. An outside observer might not see it as such, but this was important work he was doing; his entire evil career was currently hanging in the balance.

“Hmm… An eight-letter word meaning ‘disaster’…” he mused as he glanced at the clue on the side. It seemed like such a simple word, so obvious an answer for his great intellect… and yet the answer wasn’t coming to him. He kept staring at the boxes, trying to mentally produce the word that was meant to fit in them.

Suddenly the door to his right slid open and Orbot and Cubot came floating in, Cubot’s arms swinging around in a panic. “Emergency!” the yellow bot cried.

“That doesn’t fit,” Eggman replied absently, not taking his eyes off the paper as his assistants came to a stop in front of his coffee table, both of them hovering in place.

“Red alert, Boss!” Orbot exclaimed.

“That’s two words!” Eggman growled, already starting to get annoyed by their intrusion.

“No, Boss! This is really important!” Orbot insisted.

Eggman finally moved the paper to the side to look at the two as he spoke, “Don’t you think I know that?! These crosswords can’t solve themselves, unfortunately! Give me some real answers if you want to help that badly!”

He started to look back at the paper when Orbot tried one more time, “Boss, we have a real situation! You have to see this!”

Eggman stopped and glared at the red-topped robot for a second before he let out an irritated sigh and set the paper and his pen down. “This had better be good!” he scowled as he stood up and made his way to the door, Orbot and Cubot following close behind.

Eggman stepped into his main control and walked over to the computer terminal, looking up at the monitors on the wall in front of it. The screens were showing surveillance footage of a familiar robot factory, which was fully operational and producing new robots. Eggman stared up at the screens for a few moments before he asked, “What is all this?”

Orbot spoke, “It’s the Ancient robot factory, Boss! The one you took over, remember?”

Eggman looked back at him with an odd expression before Orbot’s words clicked and his expression changed as he said, “Oh yes, that place! …I haven’t used that place in so long. No wonder I couldn’t place it.”

Cubot piped up, “Well, you must’ve kept everything you set up there active, Boss, because the systems picked up an intruder!”

Eggman turned back to the terminal and began typing on his keyboard as he asked, “Well, who is it? Sonic, I assume? That hedgehog always has to break and enter and touch my things, so…” He was brought to a surprising stop when the footage on the screen showed a familiar, armored snake as the perpetrator. Eggman quickly paused the footage as he exclaimed, “Lyric?!”

Cubot spoke up, “That’s the name I was trying to remember! I knew he looked familiar, but I couldn’t think of his name, we haven’t seen him in so long!”

Orbot asked, “Why is he back now, Boss? How is he back? I thought you said he was finished?”

Eggman replied, “He should’ve been! He fell out of his airship, when it was above the clouds!” He glared at the snake on the screen, “That old armor must be tougher than I thought.”

Cubot asked, “So what’s he doing in the factory?”

Eggman snorted, “Well, obviously, he doesn’t know it belongs to me now, so he’s taking it back and using it without my permission to create an army! Once he has that, well…” He paused and looked down, holding his left hand up near his mouth as he murmured, “What is the next thing he’d do? Come after me? Go after Sonic?” He thought for a few seconds before his eyes widened behind his sunglasses. “The Crystal of Power!” he exclaimed.

Orbot asked, “You mean the Meroke Crystal?”

Eggman turned his head to look at his assistants, “Not that crystal! The one Sonic and his friends were collecting the pieces of while they were following Lyric! That snake was after that crystal the entire time, and since Sonic conveniently decided to leave it behind on his airship, he’ll get it this time!”

Cubot turned to Orbot and asked, “They just left it behind?”

Orbot replied, “Apparently. Isn’t it just amazing how some people make a big deal out of leaving trash lying around and then they leave something so important behind the same way?”

Eggman didn’t hear the two, instead muttering to himself, “Lyric’s going to go after the crystal next. He had a number of plans for it in the files I recovered from the factory. If it’s as powerful as the Meroke Crystal or even stronger…”

Eggman mused quietly to himself for several moments before Cubot asked, “Uh, Boss? What are we gonna do?”

Eggman nodded a moment later, then turned to his assistants and said, “We’re going to do the unthinkable! We… are going to save the world!”

Both Orbot and Cubot looked shocked by this. “We are?” Orbot asked.

Eggman nodded, “Of course! Sonic may not have been able to know that Lyric wasn’t finished yet, but his reassembling of the Crystal of Power is going to endanger us all if Lyric gets his hands on it! Someone needs to get to that crystal before that molted old snake, and since we’re the first ones to know he’s back…”

Orbot finished, “It falls to us?” Eggman turned back to the terminal and began typing rapidly, prompting Orbot to ask, “What are you doing, Boss?”

Eggman replied without breaking his concentration, “I’m figuring out where Lyric’s airship crash-landed, getting the modified Eggmobile, and bringing back the Shark Bots. We’re going on an underwater safari!”

Cubot spoke, “Sweet! I’ll go pack the underwater safari gear!”

Later…

Sonic grunted as he struck a Destruction Trooper with a Homing Attack, the robot exploding after it fell out of the air and hit the ground while the blue hedgehog uncurled and landed on his feet. He immediately got back into an offensive stance as several ground-based troopers approached him. Behind him, Knuckles was giving his fists quite the workout taking out a group of ground-based Destruction Troopers while several closed in on Sonic, the blue hedgehog getting into an offensive stance at their approach.

After less than a minute, all the troopers were reduced to Ancient scrap metal and the two had a chance to pause and look around for more. “No more left? Well, looks like I win this round, Sonic!” Knuckles gloated after a moment.

The blue hedgehog shrugged, “Sure, you go ahead and believe that, Knuckles.” He then raised his right arm and clicked on his wrist communicator, saying after a moment, “Hey Tails, we’ve taken care of this group of robots. How are things looking now?”

At his workshop, Tails was looking at the screen of his laptop as he answered via his headset, “Uh, a little better, I guess. Amy and Sticks are busy in the middle of dealing with some of them right now, and I’m picking up signs of more across the island.”

Sonic asked, “What’s Eggman up to this time? It’s not like him to launch a robot attack without making an announcement beforehand, especially when it’s something new like this.”

Tails replied, “Well, that’s part of the reason I don’t think it’s him behind this, plus the Destruction Troopers aren’t exactly new for us.”

Sonic looked confused. “The what?” he asked.

“You know, the Ancient robots,” Tails replied. After a moment without any sort of response, he went on, “From thousands of years ago? The time of the Ancients? Their robotic soldiers?”

Sonic shrugged, “Oh. I didn’t realize they actually had a name.”

Tails continued, “We haven’t seen Ancient robots for quite a while, so this is really weird. The only place I can think that they could’ve come from is the robot factory we went through when we were trying to rescue Amy, but I could’ve sworn we shut that down. Did it get reactivated? And if it did, who’s behind it?”

Knuckles spoke up, “We could ask Eggman. There he is right now.” He pointed and Sonic followed his finger to see Eggman’s Eggmobile off in the distance. They were too far away to call out to him, but they were able to see the craft’s crane dangling underneath it with something in its grasp.

“Looks like he caught himself a prize. Some kind of big purple crystal. Kind of reminds me of the Meroke Crystal,” Sonic remarked.

While Knuckles expressed a bit of confusion about the Meroke Crystal, Tails was processing what Sonic said and was trying to put a name to it. “Big… Purple… Like the Meroke Crystal…” he murmured. His eyes widened suddenly and he exclaimed, “That must be the Lost Crystal of Power!”

Sonic looked up at Knuckles when the echidna asked, “Uh, what?”

Tails said, “The Lost Crystal of Power! You know, the one Lyric was looking for?”

Knuckles asked, “Who?”

Sonic, having recognized the name, said, “You know, Lyric! Big snake guy wearing armor?”

Tails added, “The last living Ancient?” When he didn’t hear any sound of recognition from Knuckles, he sighed and explained, “Okay, it was a while ago, but we came into conflict with Lyric after he was freed from the imprisonment his fellow Ancients had put him in thousands of years ago. He was searching for the shards of the Lost Crystal of Power and he kidnapped Amy to figure out where they were hidden. We found all the shards first and left the crystal on Lyric’s airship after he went overboard and we crashed it in the ocean.”

Knuckles’ face lit up, “Oh yeah, that’s right! I rem-” He stopped mid-sentence and his expression became blank. “…No, wait. I thought I had it.” He raised an eyebrow, “Can we start from the beginning again?”

Sonic let out a groan and spoke to Tails, “Let’s meet up with Amy and Sticks. Eggman must’ve reactivated the Ancient robots to keep us busy while he got the crystal. We’d better get it back from him.” He then switched off his communicator and started heading back towards Hedgehog Village with Knuckles in tow.

The two weren’t the only ones to spot Eggman and the crystal, however. Deep in the jungle, Lyric was overseeing an excavation several of his Destruction Troopers were conducting to find the crystal with his hands behind his back when another trooper approached him and whispered to him. Lyric turned to it afterwards and asked, “Really?” The trooper nodded, so Lyric said, “Then I suppose we need to pay this man a visit.” He turned back to the other Destruction Troopers and commanded, “That’s enough digging! The crystal’s been sighted heading for a nearby island. That is our destination now.” The troopers immediately stopped working at his words and obediently followed after him as he began to slither away, unaware of a pair of familiar red eyes watching him from afar.

Soon, at Dr. Eggman’s Lair

Dr. Eggman placed the Lost Crystal of Power standing up in one of his cages and stepped back before he used his wrist controller to activate the lasers. “There. That should keep it safe,” he said. He turned around to see Orbot and Cubot coming in with a dolly, both of them bringing it to a stop in front of him. “All right, you two, get this down to the storage room! It’ll be safe there” he ordered while pointing at the cage.

“Why can’t you do it, Boss?” Orbot asked.

“Because I’m making you two do it, that’s why! Now get to work, you lazy bolt brains!” Eggman yelled. The two robots started to move towards the cage, but they didn’t get far before an alarm started coming from one of the monitors in the living room and caught everyone’s attention. Eggman walked over to it and saw Team Sonic on the screen, the team of five making their way up to his lair from their landing point where they had left a parasail behind. They’d be at the front door soon; it was easy to guess considering how often it happened.

Eggman grimaced and looked back at his two assistants, saying, “I’ll deal with them. Get that crystal away from my coffee table!” While the two struggled to lift the cage up and put it on the dolly, Eggman exited the room and went to his main computer. He began fiddling with the controls, making the front door open for Team Sonic so they could enter and immediately locking it shut behind them. He then moved on from the door controls to continue his fiddling elsewhere.

He was just finishing adjusting the parameters programmed into his Badniks when he heard the door behind him sliding open. He stopped and turned around; Sonic and his friends were standing in the doorway, all of them glaring at him. “The jig’s up, Eggman! Give back the crystal you took!” Sonic said as they all took several steps forward.

Eggman coolly replied, “Why should I? So that you can drop it in the water again or in a hole somewhere and not even remember it the next time someone comes looking for it? This is actually a bit insulting, Sonic; I shouldn’t have to be doing your job for you!”

Sonic looked at him in confusion, “What are you talking about?”

Eggman went on, ignoring Sonic’s question, “Personally, I don’t know why you wouldn’t keep it around to use to crush your enemies like the vermin they are with it, but seriously? Just leaving it behind like that? What were you thinking?!”

Amy decided it was time for her to intervene. “Eggman, what are you trying to say?” Almost as soon as she finished speaking, the lair shook with the sound of something hitting it from outside. “What was that?!” Amy exclaimed as she and the rest of Team Sonic looked around in confusion.

Eggman turned to look at his computer screens with a grim expression. “He’s here,” he grunted.

Tails was the first to ask, “Who’s here?” He got his answer a moment later when the feed from a security camera outside the front door appeared on one of the computer screens, which showed Lyric trying to break the front door down. “Lyric?! He’s…?!” Tails exclaimed.

Eggman turned back around and finished, “Still alive? Yes. Even I thought he shouldn’t be trying to show me up anymore, but he somehow survived you dropping him out of the sky.”

Sonic stared up at the snake on the screen as he asked, “Why is he just now coming back?”

Eggman spoke, “Good question, but hardly one that matters now. Do you see why I took the crystal now? Someone had to get to it before he did, and clearly you simpletons weren’t doing anything about it! Since I was the only one who remembered the crystal, it was clearly my responsibility to make sure he couldn’t get it!”

Sticks pointed her boomerang at Eggman as she countered, “We came straight here ‘cause Sonic and Knuckles saw you taking the crystal here! Lyric probably saw you doin’ it too… by tappin’ into the government’s secret network of eyes!”

Knuckles almost immediately believed the badger’s words and he glared at Eggman as he said, “Not cool, Eggman! You made it easy for Lyric to find the crystal!”

Eggman held out his arms in exasperation, “Hey, evil robots are my thing, not saving the world! You can’t put all the blame on me!” An explosion rocked the lair before the argument could continue and they saw that Lyric had destroyed the front door and was making his way inside. “And now I can’t initiate a lockdown or use the exterior defenses. Thank you all for distracting me!” Eggman growled.

The door behind Team Sonic slid open a second later and everyone turned to see Lyric on the other side of it, a wide, toothy grin spreading across his face as he looked at everyone. “Oh, this is just too perfect,” he remarked.

“Lyric! Back for another shot at being good, or rather, bad, huh?” Sonic growled.

Lyric glared at Sonic, “You almost did manage to finish me off, Sonic. Even with landing in the water, my body and my armor were both badly damaged from that fall. I was in great pain; when I entered stasis, I wasn’t sure if it would be enough to keep me alive while I healed.” He clutched his right hand into a fist as he smirked, “Clearly I was meant to claim what’s mine, however! I was suddenly awoken to find that my injuries had healed and my suit had regained its power!” He continued to smirk as he looked at them all again, “And now that I’m back, I’ve come for what’s mine!”

Eggman spoke up, “Not anymore! The Crystal of Power is now a symbol of MY evil career! I stole it and you can’t have it~!”

Lyric’s eyes shifted to look up at the man, finally acknowledging his presence. “Ah, you. The one who thought he could take my robot factory and now my crystal from me,” he stated in a condescending tone.

Eggman yelled, “Your time is past, Lyric! You should’ve just stayed on the ocean floor and joined your fellow Ancients! My robots are far better than yours; you’ll never take the crystal from me!”

A smirk once again spread across Lyric’s face. “Oh? Then you shouldn’t have left it unattended,” he replied.

Eggman looked confused, “What? I didn’t…” A beeping from his wrist controller cut him off and he raised it and clicked it on, an irritated look on his face. “What?” he asked.

They all heard Cubot say, “Uh, Boss? We’ve kind of run into a little bit of… trouble. Uh, you see…” He suddenly let out a scream and they could hear Orbot screaming as well before the connection went dead.

“Cubot? Orbot?! Come in!” Eggman exclaimed, tapping his controller and sounding a bit frantic.

Everyone looked at Lyric when he let out a chuckle. “Do you really think I came here on my own without a plan in mind, Doctor? You have an entire network of tunnels below, tunnels you really should have thought about putting security countermeasures in. My Destruction Troopers might have had a little difficulty getting in if you had.”

Sonic growled, “You slithering creep!”

The door to the living room opened suddenly and everyone looked to see four floating Destruction Troops enter, two of them holding Orbot and Cubot by their necks and the other two holding up the cage containing the Lost Crystal of Power. Eggman looked at his two assistants before looking back at Lyric when the snake spoke, “You see, Doctor? You don’t deserve to have the crystal anymore than these fools do; your failure to plan is proof of that. You can’t possibly defeat me with your inferior machines.”

An angry look crossed Eggman’s face. “Really? Well, I’ve got news for YOU, Lyric: you just made a very big mistake! This is my lair you’re invading!” As he was speaking, he brought up his wrist controller and pressed down on it as he finished. In response, laser turrets suddenly came out of the wall across from the living room and opened fire on the Destruction Troops, hitting the two holding Orbot and Cubot in the head before they could react and damaging the other two, forcing them to drop the cage before they fell on the floor.

Lyric’s eyes widened, “What?!” Eggman pressed his controller two more times, the first causing two more turrets to come out of the walls behind Lyric and open fire on him while the second caused a net that was electrified to fall from the ceiling at him. The turrets firing at him were not enough to completely distract him, however, and he was able to notice the net falling and move back before it landed on him. He then turned and fired a pair of missiles at the turrets, destroying them.

At this, Tails said, “Uh-oh! He’s going to go for the crystal now!”

Eggman began repeatedly tapping on his controller, “Not yet, he won’t!” As Lyric turned around to face everyone again, Motobugs, Bee Bots, Crab Bots, and the rest of the Badniks Eggman had available began flooding into the room. Team Sonic tensed up as the robots came in, but to their surprise, they all moved in front of them and faced Lyric. “I made some adjustments earlier,” Eggman shrugged when they looked at him.

Lyric looked at the Badniks and let out a chuckle before asking, “You really think your toys can stop me, Doctor?” He brought his right hand close to his chest and let out a hissing sound. Seconds later, a horde of Destruction Troops came up behind him, filling the hallway.

Despite the number of robots behind Lyric, Eggman gloated, “Ha! Your robots are all flash and lights! They’re nothing compared to my new, sleek designs!”

Lyric just smirked, “Come at me, then! I’ll destroy you all!”

Tails pulled out his blaster, “I’m glad I brought this with me!”

Amy brought out her hammer, “I’m going to get you for kidnapping me, Lyric!”

Sticks pointed her boomerang at the snake, “Amy’s getting those new boots this time!”

Eggman pointed and commanded, “Get that snake and his cronies, you metallic dunderheads!” Lyric pointed as well and the robots on both sides launched forward, Amy and Sticks leaping into the middle of the fracas.

Sonic didn’t immediately jump in; instead, he stopped Knuckles from joining and told him, “Knuckles, Orbot and Cubot could probably use some help with that crystal! Help them move it!”

Knuckles looked down at him in surprise. “What?! But… that’s no fun! And what about our contest?!” he asked.

Sonic answered, “Contest was over as soon as Lyric showed up! It’s time to knuckle down!” before he turned and shot forward, hitting a Destruction Troop with a Homing Attack.

Knuckles didn’t look convinced, so Tails, while shooting at Troops with his blaster, said, “Knuckles, we can’t let Lyric get his hands on that crystal! If he gets away with it, we all lose!”

Eggman added, “Help them, Knuckles! Look at me! I’m begging you! To the best of my ability!” Knuckles turned to look at him and saw that he had his hands close together and was bending forward slightly, a not-angry look on his face.

At this, Knuckles relented, “All right.” He ran over to Orbot and Cubot, who were trying to pick the cage up again, and said, “Allow me!” The two robots backed off and he squatted down, getting his hands underneath the cage and lifting it up with a little effort. He held it up in front of him as he asked, “Okay, now what?!”

Orbot replied, “This way! Follow us!” He and Cubot then began leading Knuckles to storage room, the echidna running after them to the best of his ability.

Lyric managed to force his way into the room after a minute and, after taking out the turrets on the wall, swept his eyes around, looking for the crystal. Upon not seeing it, he shot towards the door leading to the living room. Tails and Eggman turned and fired at him, their shots doing little to slow him down. “Sonic, it’s Lyric!” Tails called, the blue hedgehog stopping and taking off after the large serpent after a moment.

Lyric could see the crystal at the other end of the hall and was starting to fly after it when something suddenly hit him in the back and forced him down onto the ground. He looked up to see Sonic landing after coming out of his Homing Attack. “Where you going, Lyric? The party’s not over yet!” he said as he stood up.

Lyric raised himself up as he spoke, “Sonic the Hedgehog… I’d love to exact my revenge on you right now, but I have a crystal to reclaim. Now get out of my way!”

Sonic got into a battle stance, “Not gonna happen, snake breath!” He then shot forward and jumped, curling up to attack again. Lyric was prepared this time and maneuvered his tail around, managing to hit him with the end of it and knock him back. Sonic managed to land on his feet, but as soon as he did, Lyric brought his tail back behind him and fired his lasers, forcing Sonic to back up to avoid getting hit. They kept this up, Lyric deflecting Sonic’s attacks as best he could while the hedgehog tried to keep him from going after the crystal.

Eggman soon joined the two in his Eggmobile and their fighting ended up moving near the laboratory. They didn’t go inside, but after they moved past the door leading to it, it suddenly opened and a familiar voice caught their attention, “Lyric!” All three of them stopped fighting and they saw Shadow standing in front of the door.

“Shadow!” Lyric growled.

“Shadow?! Isn’t it too early to see you?” Sonic asked.

“Shadow! Oh, this must be my lucky day! I have to win today, or at the very least Lyric has to lose!” Eggman exclaimed.

Shadow ignored Sonic and Eggman, focusing only on Lyric. “You can’t get away from me this time!” he snarled before leaping forward, Lyric twisting his body around to avoid him. Eggman stopped fighting Lyric and started talking about how lucky he was while Sonic and Shadow fought the snake, though it was clear they weren’t working together since Shadow had no problem colliding with Sonic several times.

Soon…

Knuckles sighed as he set the cage down in Eggman’s storage room, stepping back afterwards. “There we go. It’ll be perfectly safe in here,” he remarked as he dusted his hands.

“Absolutely. There’s no safer place here than in the room containing all the things the Boss has ever used for his evil schemes,” Orbot agreed.

“Yeah, we might not even need the cage now!” Cubot added.

Knuckles flexed his arms and grinned, “All right, I got my workout in for today. Now it’s time to go smash some Lyric robots!” He turned and stepped out of the storage room, only to stop when Lyric suddenly came crashing down through the ceiling into the basement. The snake quickly looked up after landing and darted to the side to avoid Shadow smashing into him from above. “Wha? Shadow?” Knuckles asked confusedly. The black and red hedgehog ignored him, still focused on Lyric.

Sonic dropped down through the hole a few seconds later, followed closely by Eggman. “Oh Shadow, please try to be careful with your fighting! I mean, you should do whatever it takes to defeat Lyric of course, but try not to destroy my lair as well!” Eggman said, his words falling on deaf ears. Orbot and Cubot watched the fight through the storage room door, seeing Amy, Tails, and Sticks join the fray soon afterwards.

A turning point came when Amy tried to throw her hammer at Lyric, the snake dodging out of the way as it spun end over end towards the storage room door. Orbot and Cubot yelped and moved to the sides as the hammer flew into the room and ended up hitting the top of the cage, damaging it and causing the lasers to shut off. With the door wide open, Lyric was able to clearly see the crystal unprotected when he turned around. He grinned to himself, “Ah, my crystal…”

Before he could attempt to claim his prize, he heard Shadow let out a shout and whirled back around, seeing the black hedgehog roughly knock Amy to the side (though she was thankfully caught by Sonic) before he leapt up and threw a bolt of energy at the snake. Lyric once again moved to the side to avoid being hit and it ended up hitting the crystal, causing it to shatter.

Well, it mostly shattered. A little more than a quarter of the crystal held together while the rest broke off in shards that went flying around the storage room, bouncing off of anything they hit. One shard in particular ended up bouncing off the side of one of the new additions to the storage room: one of Eggman’s old Doomsday Devices.

Almost immediately after the shard hit the floor, the screen on the Doomsday Device suddenly lit up as did the rest of the machine. As everyone watched, it began to charge up a sphere full of unstable energy, the machine shaking as if it was trying to contain the sudden power surge. “No! My Doomsday Device! We have to stop it!” Eggman exclaimed.

Sonic looked back at him with an angry look, “You said it didn’t have an ‘OFF’ switch, Eggman!”

Eggman cried, “It doesn’t! Smash it or something! I’m not using it, so I don’t want it on!”

Knuckles ran forward, yelling, “My pleasure!”

Amy ran forward and grabbed her hammer as Knuckles started pummeling it with his fists, bringing it up over her head as she said, “Let me get a swing in too!” She smashed her hammer into the side of the machine as Knuckles’ fist broke the screen. For a second, it looked like the machine was starting to power down.

Then suddenly, it lit up again and without warning fired the overloaded sphere between its two prongs straight up, the energy from the sphere discharging as it broke through the floors above and doing more damage to the lair. When it finally got outside, the sphere broke and formed a vortex in the sky over the lair, although it looked different from the black hole that the two Doomsday Devices had created before.

There wasn’t much time to look, however, before the vortex began to rotate and form a vacuum. The suction from the vortex quickly became strong and started to suck up anything loose. Old machines and robots, components of old schemes, crystal shards, Badniks, Destruction Troops… It even began sucking up Sonic and the others. As soon as they felt the pull, they all tried to grab onto something, hoping it would burn itself out soon.

It was no use, however. Although it remained confined to the island, the suction began to get stronger and stronger. Eventually, Lyric was the first to lose his grip, the large snake screaming as he was pulled up towards the vortex. Shadow was the next to lose his grip, although he didn’t seem too bothered by it; after all, he was going wherever Lyric was going. Orbot and Cubot lost their grip soon after, but Eggman flew up after them and managed to grab them when they were outside the lair. He then immediately turned his Eggmobile around and set it on full power as he yelled, “Hold on!” Both Orbot and Cubot held on tightly as he tried to fly back to the lair.

After a few seconds, Orbot yelled, “Boss, we’re not moving!”

Cubot piped up, “Yeah we are! We’re moving backwards!”

Eggman growled, “Shut up, both of you! We’re going to be fine! Just let me…” He stopped short when he saw Sonic flying up towards him, the hedgehog trying to reach for him as he went past. Eggman managed to move out of his reach, letting him fly up towards the vortex, and did the same as Tails, Amy, Knuckles, and Sticks were carried up past him. Eggman breathed a sigh of relief afterwards; they were still being pulled up, but it looked like they might outlast the vortex. Unfortunately, he noticed Sticks’ boomerang coming up towards him too late, the projectile hitting him in the face and causing the Eggmobile to slow down. That ended their escape attempt, the vortex almost immediately pulling them the rest of the way afterwards. “NOOO! MY PANINI PRESS!” Eggman cried before they were pulled in completely, the vortex closing shortly afterwards.

________________________________________

It was a beautiful night in Canterlot, the sky clear of clouds and dotted with stars. It was a perfect night for stargazing and seeing how deep into the depths of space one could see. It was also late, so only a handful of souls were currently awake to see the beautiful spectacle. They were definitely lucky, but not just for that reason; they were also about to be the only ones to bear witness to a once-in-a-lifetime spectacle.

All of a sudden, the quiet beauty of the night was disrupted by what appeared to be a black hole opening up and blocking out part of the sky. It wasn’t gigantic, but it was large enough that anyone who happened to be looking up at the time would’ve definitely noticed it. It wasn’t open long, maybe a couple of seconds at most, then it expanded slightly and gave one last swirl before it vanished as quickly as it appeared. Those who were watching the sky noticed a number of mysterious purple stars falling from the sky afterwards.

One such star shot down towards one of Canterlot’s residential areas, falling at an angle. It was interrupted in its flight by a set of power lines. It wasn’t going fast enough to break through them, but it did cause them to loosen and sag a bit under its weight. Suddenly the power lines began to spark, electricity coming from the ends of the cables. As the lines shook, the star was thrown off and landed on a nearby slanted roof, the star clattering as it rolled down and fell into someone’s backyard, landing next to the back of the house.

Inside the house, a dog’s barking could be heard, a purple-haired girl fumbling for her glasses in the dark as she groggily groaned, “What’s going on?”

Author's Notes:

"...The word is calamity in case anyone was wondering."

"Why did you tell them that?! Make them figure it out! And get back to work!"

*sigh*

After School

The bell rang, signaling the end of another school day at Canterlot High. The students all exited their classrooms and headed for their lockers to get their things, grabbing their valuable items and any school materials they would need before they headed home or to their clubs and groups. They didn’t all take off, though; many hung around their lockers, in or near the bathrooms, the halls, or in the school foyer to talk, some walking while they talked. Everything seemed to be normal as far as the student body was concerned; hardly anyone seemed to be talking about the strange event that had occurred the night before. The few who had been awake to see it hadn’t been bothered by it and those who had seen the hastily recorded videos of it wondered if it had really happened. CHS had become a pretty magical school, after all; it was hard to get something past its students anymore.

Amidst it all, one girl had been thinking about the previous night for almost the entire day, albeit for a different reason than everyone else. Twilight Sparkle headed straight for her locker after classes got out and grabbed the books she was going to need for her assignments, her dog Spike hopping out of her backpack to let her put them in. She zipped her backpack closed once she was done and slung it on her back, standing up and closing her locker door. Before she could turn away from it, she heard a familiar voice call to her, “Hey, Twilight!” She turned her head to see a girl with red and yellow hair walking towards her, the girl’s black leather jacket moving slightly with her movements over her aqua dress and blue jeans.

“Hey Sunset Shimmer!” Twilight called as she waved, Spike raising a paw to wave as well.

Sunset soon reached her friend and said, “Hey, the rest of the girls want to go hang out at the mall for a while. You wanna come?”

Twilight adjusted her glasses as she replied, “Ah, I’d like to, Sunset, but I can’t today. I have to get home.”

Sunset immediately looked concerned at this. “Why? Did something happen?” she asked.

Twilight waved her hand, “No, no, nothing happened. …Unless something happened that I don’t know about yet. But anyway, I actually have something I wanted to take a closer look at and maybe do a little experimenting on.”

Sunset raised an eyebrow at this. “What exactly did you find?” she asked slowly.

“That’s the thing; I’m not entirely sure,” Twilight admitted.

Spike spoke up, “It looks really weird, whatever it is. It almost reminds me of those gems from Camp Everfree.” Both girls turned to look down at him as he spoke.

Sunset looked back up at Twilight and asked, “You think it’s something else that’s been affected by magic?”

Twilight bent down to pick up Spike as she replied, “That’s what I intend to find out.” She stood up with Spike in her arms and looked at Sunset, “I’ll let you know what I find out later, okay?”

Sunset nodded, “Okay. You sure you’ll be all right by yourself?”

Twilight nodded back, “Yeah. I’m just going to see if I can figure out what it is that landed on my roof last night. I’ll catch up with you and the girls later, all right?” Sunset nodded and watched her walk away, wondering what she found.

After a few minutes, Sunset walked out into the school foyer and found her friends waiting for her. “Hey, Sunset! Where’s Twilight?” Rainbow Dash asked when she reached them.

“She had to go home. Said she found something that she wanted to investigate,” Sunset replied.

“She didn’t tell you about it?” Applejack asked.

“She said she didn’t know what she found,” Sunset replied.

“Huh. That’s kinda odd. Wonder why she doesn’t want us ta see it,” Applejack remarked.

Fluttershy murmured, “Well, maybe it’s not something bad or it doesn’t seem bad, but maybe she wants to make sure before she puts anyone in danger with it. Like with that magic device she made…”

Rarity spoke, “I’m sure Twilight knows what she’s doing. If she thinks she can handle it herself, then we should trust that she knows what she’s doing. I can’t see her leaving us to wonder for long what she’s doing. Now, shall we be off?”

Pinkie said, “Yeah! We may be one friend short, but we can still have a lot of fun at the mall!” With that, the six girls exited the school and headed for the mall.

A little while later, Twilight and Spike got home and headed for their room, Twilight shutting the door behind her while Spike hopped onto his pillow on the chest at the foot of her bed, turning a few times before he laid down for a quick nap. Twilight smiled down at him for a moment before she walked over to her desk and sat in her chair, turning her computer on as she (quietly) unzipped her backpack and pulled one of her books out. She began working on her homework while her computer booted up, trying to work quietly so as not to disturb Spike’s nap.

By the time Spike woke up, Twilight had finished her homework, changed the bulb in the lamp on her nightstand, and had gotten herself a sandwich to eat while she browsed the Internet to see if there was any information on the supposed ‘night whirlpool’ that had appeared last night. Most of what she found were stories on questionable news sites and blogs posted on sites like MyStable by well-established alien conspiracy theorists. Looking at the comments made on videos taken of the phenomenon only led her to a whole other brand of weirdness as everyone had an opinion to voice. It was getting to be too much for her to handle.

Fortunately, she was roused from her thoughts by Spike’s barking. She swiveled around in her chair and smiled over at him, “Hey Spike. Would you like something to eat?”

The purple dog wagged his tail happily, “Yeah! Yeah!” Twilight reached down and grabbed his food bowl before standing up, leaving the room and coming back with the bowl filled. She knelt and placed it on the floor, Spike immediately leaping down and digging in. Twilight watched him for a few moments before her gaze shifted to look at her bed. She crawled over to it and reached underneath it with her left hand, searching. She felt what she was looking for after a few seconds and pulled out a black garbage bag containing a small, gray, beat up metal box. It was almost like a small toolbox. Spike looked up from his food as she pulled it out and opened the lid with her right hand.

Inside the box was what appeared to be a glowing purple crystal shard. It was certainly bigger than the magic geodes from Camp Everfree, just short of being too big for the box it was in. Twilight stared down at the glowing treasure in wonder as she thought back to last night…

Flashback

Twilight stepped out of the front door of her house, still in her pajamas and nothing covering her feet. Spike was hot on her heels, both running out onto the sidewalk after they stepped off the porch. Twilight had wanted to see what had landed on the roof, but the sound of the neighbors yelling outside had caught both her and Spike’s attention. Stopping on the sidewalk, they saw several of their neighbors out on their front lawns, and a quick look around revealed what had woken them up: the power lines not far from her house had come down, electricity coming from the ends of the cables as they lay on the sidewalk below. Some of the neighbors were yelling at anyone who tried to move closer to the downed lines while others were using their cell phones to call the city.

Seeing that there didn’t seem to be any immediate danger, Twilight turned back to her house, Spike following her as she walked along the side of it. She looked up towards her roof, noticing the way it slanted down in the back. She hadn’t been awake when the noise on the roof started, but what she had heard, it sounded like it was getting louder before stopping suddenly. Spike, who had been woken up by the noise, confirmed that it had gotten louder before it stopped. Since there was nothing in the front yard, that left the backyard as the most likely place where whatever had made the sound had landed.

As they stepped into the backyard, Spike leapt in front of Twilight and bared his teeth, growling as he looked around in case it was something dangerous. They both looked around, Twilight using her cell phone’s flashlight to give them a little extra light. They didn’t see anything until they looked towards the back of the house, where they saw a faint purple glow coming from behind some bushes. The two stared and looked at each other before they began to creep towards it.

Twilight picked up Spike when they were right beside the bushes and they both looked over the top of one. There they saw a purple crystal lying on the ground, a faint steam coming off it. Holding Spike in her left arm, Twilight brought her right hand forward to touch it as she wondered aloud, “What is this?” Almost as soon as her fingers touched it, she jerked her hand back with a sharp “Ow!” The crystal was still a bit hot from hitting the power lines, though thankfully it wasn’t carrying any electricity.

Twilight shook her hand until the hot feeling dissipated and she looked down at the crystal again. After a few moments, she spoke slowly, “Spike… keep an eye on this, whatever it is. I’m going to go get some gloves… and some garbage bags.” She walked as she spoke and she set Spike down next to the space between the house and the bushes, where the crystal’s glow could be easily seen. Spike watched her as she ran back around to the front to get back in, his eyes darting around after he lost sight of her, looking for any sign of trouble.

End flashback

Twilight shook her head and looked back down at the crystal shard for a moment before she shut the lid again. She then tucked the box under her arm, stood up, and turned to Spike saying, “Come on, Spike. Let’s go see what’s on TV.” Spike gave a nod and a yip and followed her out.

When they got to the living room, Spike immediately jumped up on the couch and sat down on the middle cushion while Twilight looked for the remote. She found it on the arm of her dad’s easy chair and turned the TV on. She began flipping through the channels, looking for the cartoons. She knew there wouldn’t be much on at this point in the day, but there would be some reruns on. That would have to tide Spike over for now.

She soon found the show she was looking for: the unexpectedly popular cartoon featuring colorful talking dogs. Twilight felt that watching it now was a bit surreal since she had a talking dog, but she still enjoyed it and she knew Spike enjoyed it too. She set the remote down next to her dog and said, “Okay Spike, I’m going to be taking a look at this in the garage. Come get me if you need anything.” Spike just nodded, already too absorbed in the TV to do much else as Twilight left the room.

The Sun had almost completed its descent past the horizon by the time Spike reached for the remote and turned off the TV. It turned out that a late afternoon marathon of reruns for the show had been scheduled that had lasted several hours. Spike had faintly registered someone coming and going through the living room as well as the feeling of being petted while he had been watching, but there hadn’t been anything that caused him to look away for long. Now that he took the time to sniff the air, he realized it hadn’t been Twilight and guessed she was still working. Hopping off the couch, he made his way to the back door and let himself out through the pet door.

Wandering over to the garage, he found that the garage’s side door wasn’t closed all the way, a small opening visible between the door and the frame. Giving it a push, it opened a little wider, revealing the interior of the garage to the dog. Twilight, now wearing her lab coat and protective gear, was messing with something on a table in her makeshift ‘lab’. When she moved away with a set of wires in her hands, he saw that it was the crystal shard, now in a new container that was cylindrical in appearance and appeared to have protective casing on the outside of the glass. One end of the wires was attached to the top of the container, Twilight carrying the other end to the workbench across from the table.

When she reached the workbench, she began to move the wires towards something on it. Her back was facing Spike when he called out, “Twilight?”

She heard him and looked back over her shoulder at him, asking, “Spike?” Her hands kept moving forward while she was turned away and, less than a second later, they reached their intended target: the terminals of a car battery. Almost immediately, Twilight was sent flying backwards through the air with a cry as the resulting connection gave her a jolt. She landed on her back near the side of the door, her hair frizzed up and her body shaking as she shuddered. Even with her protective equipment on, she’d received quite a shock.

There wasn’t time to dwell on it as her and Spike’s attentions were directed back at the battery. Less than a second after being hooked up to the crystal, the pack exploded and the wires connected to it caught fire. Twilight let out a scream at this and, fighting through her body’s jittering, grabbed the nearby fire extinguisher and shakily stood up before pulling the pin and spraying the foam at the wire fire. It went out after a few seconds and she calmed down a bit, trying to get her breathing back under control. An errant spark came out of the destroyed battery and she quickly turned and gave the handle a quick squeeze, spraying a little foam at it. She kept staring at it and gave the extinguisher handle another squeeze when another spark came out.

She set the extinguisher back down when no more sparks came out, at which point Spike looked at her and asked, “What happened, Twilight?”

Twilight let out a sigh as she stood up straight and used her right hand to wipe off the front of her goggles. “I was just doing some tests, Spike. Trying to figure out what this is.” She pulled the goggles off and adjusted her glasses before walking back over to the workbench. “I knew it contained a lot of power. I destroyed so many smaller batteries testing it out,” she explained. Spike looked down at the garage floor and saw bits of small and big batteries littering it. Twilight leaned in for a closer look at the car battery, “Obviously a car battery holds a bigger charge, but I sure didn’t expect that to happen.” She gave a shudder, still reeling a bit from the jolt.

Spike looked up and padded forward a bit, making sure to stay away from the battery casings, as he asked, “So do you know what it is?”

Twilight looked down at him and replied, “Well, I think I’m half-right. It’s clearly not something from THIS world… but I don’t think it’s magic. At least not the magic we’re used to. Beyond that, I don’t know what it is.”

Before Spike could say anything else, they both heard Twilight’s mom calling from outside, “Twilight! Dinner’s ready! Your father and I are waiting on you!”

Twilight blinked in surprise and called back, “Okay, Mom! I’m going to go wash up and then I’ll be right there!” She looked around the garage and muttered to herself, “And I guess I’m going to clean this up later.”

As she walked towards the crystal, Spike asked, “Are you going to tell Sunset and the other girls about this?”

Twilight replied while disconnecting the wires on top of the container, “Definitely, Spike. We cannot keep this to ourselves.” She then took off her lab gear and set it on the table before she picked up the container and tucked it under her arm. She then turned back to Spike and said, “I’ll text Sunset while we’re upstairs. Let her know so she can let the girls know.” She then stepped out of the garage with him and pulled the door shut before they headed back to the house.

Meanwhile…

Sunset and the girls were currently sitting around a circular table in the mall’s food court. After checking out some of the stores, doing some shopping, and having a brief homework session, they decided to go catch a showing of the new animated superhero movie and were now grabbing a post-movie meal while they talked about it.

“I must admit, that movie was quite surprising. I don’t follow it myself, but I haven’t heard many good things about the show that it’s based on,” Rarity was saying.

“Well, somebody must’ve cared enough to try ta make sure the movie was a quality product, Rarity. They had to put things that fans of the show would recognize, but also take that extra step and make it somethin’ everyone might wanna see,” Applejack said.

Pinkie spoke up, “I don’t get why so many people are so negative about the show! All the jokes they put in, the way the main characters don’t understand what it means to be superheroes, the wacky situations… I think it’s all great!”

Rainbow rolled her eyes while muttering, “You would, Pinkie.” She then said normally, “I still kind of want to see that new movie about the Creeper.”

Rarity almost immediately admonished, “Rainbow Dash, you know Fluttershy doesn’t like scary movies. That wouldn’t be fair to her, going to see a movie and making her stand around outside by herself.”

Fluttershy started to speak up, but was interrupted by Rainbow, “Hey, take it easy, Rare. I can go see it myself if no one else wants to. I’m old enough to see it on my own and it looks like there’s plenty of tickets available over here.”

Applejack asked, “Ya think that says somethin’ about what it’s like, Dash? Like, maybe it’s not very good?”

Rainbow protested, “But the Creeper is really popular!”

Sunset spoke, “Yeah, to some people. He was more popular a couple years ago. Why didn’t they pick up on that and make a movie then?”

Rarity said, “That’s why it’s a good idea to research something before you commit to it. It’s better to pursue a big project when it’s involves something that seems to be at its peak popularity or if you’ve got a good feeling it’s time for something to make a comeback.”

Sunset shrugged, “Well, you would know that better than some of us, Rarity.”

Fluttershy finally spoke up, “Um, I was happy to see that Juniper Montage seems to be doing better now.” Everyone looked over at her at that, remembering the girl that had caused them trouble several times in the past still worked at the movie theater.

“Yeah…” Sunset started to say before she was interrupted by her cellphone notifying her she had received a text message. She pulled it out and checked her messages, raising an eyebrow as she looked at the new message.

“What’s wrong, Sunset?” Applejack asked after a few moments.

Sunset replied, “It’s from Twilight. She says she wants to show us what she found at school tomorrow, probably after school lets out.” She looked up at the others, “She’s making it sound like it’s really important.”

Pinkie piped up, “Ooh! She must’ve figured out what it is, just like Fluttershy and Rarity said!”

Rarity looked concerned. “Well, it must be very important if she’s so willing to bring it to school to show us. I wonder what it could be.”

Sunset said, “I guess we’re going to have to wait until tomorrow to find out. What do you girls think?” The other girls thought for a few moments before they all agreed. Sunset then began typing a reply on her phone as she said, “Okay, I’ll let her know we’re on for tomorrow. I’ll see if she wants a ride in the morning; maybe she’ll be willing to talk about it then and not leave us wondering all day.” Twilight texted her back after a few minutes, agreeing to the ride proposal. The girls finished eating soon afterwards and hung around for a few more minutes before they left the mall and headed home, parting ways for the evening.

Author's Notes:

"That girl and her government spy dog have never seen Rampage before."

"...The arcade game or the movie based off of it?"

"Which do you like better?"

"Uh, the game? No contest. I mean, the movie was-"

"It's not a movie! It's a documentary! It's all real events! It's what the government doesn't want-"

"Okay, it's my turn to cut you off."

Crystal Unclear

Twilight and Spike stood on the sidewalk in front of their house, the sky overhead getting slowly brighter. Twilight kept looking around anxiously, looking for Sunset Shimmer and being wary of seeing anyone else at this hour. In addition to her backpack, she also had a brown sling bag hanging on her right shoulder that held the crystal, which was still in its container, along with a few other things she thought she was going to need. Spike kept reassuring her, but she was still worried about whether she should take the crystal to CHS or keep it at home and have her friends come over to see it.

The decision was made for her when she saw a car coming towards her. She instantly recognized it as Sunset Shimmer’s car and knew there was no going back now. Sunset smiled and waved to her as she came to a stop and Twilight waved back before opening the passenger door and adjusting her bags, setting the sling bag down so she could put her backpack on the floor before putting the sling bag back on and setting it on her lap. Spike leapt up and sat on top of the bag once Twilight had her seat belt on and she pulled the door closed. They both said good morning to Sunset and she said the same before she started driving to school.

For the first couple of minutes, the only sound coming from the car was the sound of its engine. Twilight didn’t seem like she wanted to be the one to start a conversation, her eyes instead moving in Sunset’s direction a few times to look at her from the side of her vision, noticing for the first time that she was wearing her vest set today. Spike, meanwhile, just curled up on Twilight’s lap and fell into a quick snooze. Sunset kept her eyes on the road, but she still stole a glance over at Twilight and the bag on her lap.

Finally, she couldn’t take it any longer and broke the silence. “So… how was your night, Twilight?” she asked.

Twilight replied, “Oh, it was nice, I suppose. I didn’t really get a chance to sit down until dinner and afterwards. I was pretty busy with work when I got home. H-How was the mall?”

Sunset answered, “It was fun. We did a little shopping and studying, went to see a movie… Juniper’s still doing well, by the way.” Twilight nodded silently. They soon came to a stoplight and stopped for the red. While they waited, Sunset looked over at Twilight’s bag and asked, “Is that thing you discovered in there?”

Twilight nodded while still facing forward, “Yeah.”

Sunset pressed, “Can I see it?”

Twilight quickly replied, “I don’t want your car to explode.”

Sunset gave her an odd look, “Uh, isn’t that a bit of a stretch? I mean, you’ve been sitting with it on your lap this entire ride and nothing’s happened yet.”

Twilight finally turned her head to look at Sunset, “There’s still so much about this thing I don’t know yet. I don’t want to risk bumping it against something and having it discharge.” Before either of them could say anything else, the light changed to green and the impatient driver behind them honked his horn. Both girls looked back in surprise before facing forward, Twilight having a worried look on her face while Sunset looked annoyed as she stepped on the gas pedal. The two didn’t say another word to each other for the rest of the trip.

They soon arrived at CHS and Sunset found a space for her car in the parking lot. Spike woke up as they came to a stop and hopped down onto the asphalt when Twilight opened the door. She stepped out and spent a minute adjusting her bags so they were sitting comfortably on her while Sunset climbed out and locked the doors. After closing their doors, they looked towards the front of the school and saw a number of their fellow students heading inside. “I don’t think we’ll be able to get into the chemistry lab before classes start,” Twilight remarked after a few moments.

Sunset looked at her, “That’s where you want to do it?”

Twilight looked back at her, “Well, either there or the wood shop. They both have cleaning supplies right in the room, which we’re going to need. There will be some cleanup afterwards.” After a moment of looking at each other, Twilight said, “Believe me, Sunset, I want to show you and the rest of the girls what we found, but I’d prefer to do it without a bunch of other students looking over our shoulders and asking extra questions. We all would’ve had to be here really early to do that, though.”

Sunset nodded thoughtfully at that. They pretty much would have had to be at school as soon as it opened if they wanted to avoid an audience. While she could see Applejack, Fluttershy, and Pinkie getting up early enough to get ready and show up, Rainbow and Rarity were less likely to want to wake up earlier than usual, even for something like this. “Okay. We’ll go with the chemistry lab unless it’s unavailable. Just have to tell the girls to hold their questions until then when we see them.”

Twilight knelt down and let Spike hop into her backpack, his head poking up through the opening as she stood up. “The wait will be worth it,” she said before they both started walking towards the front of the school.

Aside from dodging questions from the other girls at every chance they got and urging them to wait until the end of school, the day was relatively uneventful. After the last bell rang, Twilight headed over to the wood shop and saw that the students there were staying after to work on their projects some more. They definitely weren’t getting in there. She turned and headed for her locker to retrieve her sling bag. She checked it after every period throughout the day to make sure it was still there, almost running late to a few classes as a result. Now it was okay to take it out.

Twilight put the sling bag over her shoulder after checking it and shut her locker door. She glanced to her right as she was resetting the lock and then did a double-take when she realized Sunset was standing right next to her. “Ah! Sunset, you startled me,” she said as she held her left hand over her chest.

Sunset smiled sympathetically, “Sorry, Twilight. I checked the lab out. There’s no one there right now. I already let the girls know we’ll meet them there.”

Twilight nodded, “That’s good. There’s no chance of us getting the wood shop to ourselves. Let’s go.” They turned and began making their way through the halls.

When they got to the lab, they found the other girls waiting for them, all of them, with the exception of Fluttershy and to a lesser extent Pinkie Pie, looking more than a little irritated with how long they had to wait to hear about Twilight’s discovery. She gave them a nervous grin and chuckle before opening the door to the lab and stepping inside, Sunset right behind her. As the other girls came in, they saw Sunset had placed her backpack on the center counter and was pulling some protective equipment like gloves and lab coats out of it, both her and Twilight suiting up. “Grab some protection, girls. You might need it,” Twilight said as she pulled a rubber glove on her right hand and Spike stretched out on the floor next to her.

Rainbow, clearly the most irritated out of the group, spoke up, “I think what we need is for you to stop dodging us and just tell us what’s going on, Twilight! You and Sunset have been waving us off all day, telling us to wait and not giving us any answers! I mean, really, what’s going on? What’s so important that you gotta do that?”

Twilight looked a bit intimidated at her friend’s words. Sunset could tell even without her magic and stepped in, “Rainbow, will you calm down? She just wants to show it to us all together, and besides, why are you assuming the worst?”

Rainbow blinked, “What? I’m not…”

Sunset cut her off, “Well, you’re sure acting like you are. We’re gonna find out now, so get dressed.” She threw a lab coat towards the sports star after she finished and she caught it. The other girls looked at each other for a moment before they moved forward to get their dressings.

Once they were all appropriately attired, Twilight and Sunset stood on one side of the counter while everyone else stood on the other side, Fluttershy holding Spike in her arms. As Twilight set her sling bag on the counter, she said, “All right, girls, here it is.” She opened the top of the bag and gripped the middle of the canister, lifting it out and setting it down on the center of the counter. The girls all stared at the container with wide eyes as she was setting it down, looking at the unusual crystal it held.

Almost immediately after Twilight pulled her hands away, Pinkie leaned in close to the container while saying, “Ooh! So shiny and pretty!” She looked up at Twilight, “Where’d you get it, Twilight?”

Twilight answered, “It landed on the roof of my house and fell in the backyard in the middle of the night. That was almost two nights ago.”

Applejack raised an eyebrow, “Two… Was it when that weird sky event supposedly happened?”

Twilight shrugged, “I guess? Spike and I were both asleep. We were both woken up by the sound of it rolling down the roof.”

Sunset held a hand to her chin as she looked at the crystal. “I’ve seen a lot of people claiming that they saw falling stars afterwards that looked purple. Could this be one of those ‘stars’? …It really does look like the geodes from Camp Everfree,” she murmured. She looked at Twilight, “What is this thing?”

Spike spoke up, “She’s still not sure about that.”

The girls looked at Twilight, who nodded in reply. “Yeah, I’m really not sure what it is. All I know is, whatever’s giving it that glow, it’s not magic.”

Sunset asked, “Are you sure about that?”

Twilight nodded and said, “I can prove it to you right now.” She grabbed her sling bag and reached into a small pocket on the front of it. She pulled out a dark purple disc-shaped object. As soon as everyone saw it, their eyes widened and they all took a few steps back.

Sunset pointed at the device as she started, “Twilight… Isn’t that…?”

Twilight began, “I…” She let out a sigh and said, “Yes, it’s… my magic-absorbing device. I swear I only made sure the sensor was working, and I put a lock on it just in case.” She shifted it so she was holding it from the bottom, showing that it had a small metal chain that went around it several times, a small metal lock holding it tightly in place. “It didn’t take my magic as soon as I turned it on,” she finished as she set it down on the table next to the container.

Rarity noticed the lights on the top of the device started to flicker on and off quickly like they did when it would pick up the presence of magic. “Um, Twilight darling? How does this prove your point?” she asked carefully.

Twilight took a close look at it one more time before she said, “Okay, so it’s reacting to our magic. What we’re going to do now is move back towards the door, and I want everyone to keep an eye on the lights.” She began to move backwards towards the door and the other girls did the same. As they moved away, they gradually began to notice the change. The lights had been flashing quickly when they were standing near it. It didn’t change much since they were in the same room with it, but they did see the reaction slow down, the lights flickering less rapidly.

“You see that change?” Twilight asked.

“Yeah, but… it’s still sitting next to the tube,” Rainbow began.

“Exactly. It’s not responding to the crystal despite the energy it’s giving off. If it is magic, then it can’t be the same as ours,” Twilight concluded. She then quickly walked over to the device, grabbed it, and shut it off before putting it back in her sling bag.

The other girls came back over as well and Fluttershy asked, “Um… you said it’s giving off energy, Twilight?”

Twilight nodded, “Yeah. That’s what I guessed initially. It wouldn’t have that kind of glow if it wasn’t acting as a container for something else.”

Rarity placed her head on palms of her hands and stared at the crystal dreamily, “And such an enchanting glow, too~.”

Applejack asked, “That’s what the tube is for?”

Twilight replied, “Pretty much. I just wanted to make sure it was contained in something. I didn’t really want to wake up in the morning and find out Spike and I were developing radiation poisoning or something.”

Sunset said, “That’s a good point. So, do you know what kind of energy it’s giving off?”

Twilight replied, “Well, I can give you an example.” She looked down and pulled open one of the drawers on the side of the counter, holding up a pair of tongs a second later. She looked up at them for a moment before nodding, “These should do nicely.” She then looked down at her sling bag and reached into the side pocket again with her free hand. When she pulled it back out, she was holding a light bulb. “Ordinary light bulb,” she stated.

“Yeah, we’ll take your word for it,” Rainbow smirked as she opened and closed the ends of the tongs around the bulb’s circumference.

Twilight turned while holding the tongs closed and started moving the bulb over to the container. As she moved it closer, she warned, “Get ready to duck. I already know this is going to end in pieces.” Fluttershy immediately took her warning to heart and lowered her body down until only her eyes and hair were poking up over the edge of the counter. The rest of the girls didn’t take the same precaution and looked back at the crystal, watching.

Almost as soon as she touched the bulb’s contact against one of the connectors on top of the container, it lit up, much to the girls’ amazement. Less than a second later, though, cracks quickly began to form across the bulb, the quick succession of cracking sounds catching everyone’s attention. The bulb exploded in a shower of small glass shards as they all ducked down, Rainbow grabbing the back of Pinkie’s shirt and pulling her down with her as she went.

After a few seconds, everyone opened their eyes and checked themselves for any cuts, Fluttershy spending more time looking Spike over than herself. They then stood up and looked at the counter. The bulb’s screw threads and contact had been torn apart and had a few steam plumes coming off of them as they lay next to the tongs, but they were the only parts of it that were still holding together. The wires were nowhere to be seen and the glass from the bulb was scattered across both the counter and the floor.

“Wow!” Pinkie exclaimed with a big smile.

“You said it, Pinkie! That was cool!” Rainbow said.

Rarity and Fluttershy were not enthralled. “It just exploded! Look at this mess!” Rarity exclaimed. Applejack could only stare speechlessly.

Sunset was looking at the crystal more closely, the curious glint in her eyes rekindled. “Wow. If it can do that to one light bulb, imagine what it could do as an actual power source,” she mused. She looked at Twilight, “What do you think this thing could power?”

Twilight shrugged, “I don’t know. A city on the Moon?” She then looked at the others and said, “So as we’ve noted, this thing has a lot of power inside of it, but there’s something else you should know.” She pointed to the remains of the light bulb, “That bulb was already burnt out.”

Everyone stared at her in surprise. “Wait… that was a dead bulb?” Applejack asked.

“Yes! This was the bulb I just took out of the lamp on my nightstand yesterday because it burned out. There should’ve been no way for it to light up again, yet in that VERY short time before it popped, it lit up like normal. That shouldn’t be possible, and yet we just saw it happen,” Twilight explained.

Rainbow asked, “Did you know it was gonna do that?”

Twilight nodded, “Yeah. Everything electrical I tried hooking it up to exploded, including a drained car battery.” She looked down at her right wrist as she grasped it with her left hand, “That one gave me quite a shock too.”

Sunset asked, “Does it affect anything else?”

Twilight glanced up at her, “I don’t know. I just know I didn’t want to test it out on your car this morning.” Sunset remembered her words from earlier and, based on what had just happened, realized she was actually being realistic then.

Rainbow asked, “You got anything else?”

Twilight put her hands on her hips, “Uh, not at the moment, no. That’s all I’ve learned about it, but I was planning to research it further to see if I can find out anything else about it. I mean, if that’s okay with you girls.”

Sunset put her hand on Twilight’s shoulder, “Of course it is. And if you need any help, just remember you can always ask us. Right, girls?” Applejack, Rarity, Fluttershy, Pinkie, and Rainbow all smiled and nodded in agreement.

Fluttershy then spoke up, “I think we should clean up and go. The teacher could be back any minute now and… we really don’t want to leave a mess behind.”

Pinkie mused, “Yeah, that’s also interesting. We’ve been here a while, yet we haven’t seen the teacher at all.” The other girls agreed that it was interesting, but they didn’t dwell on it as they cleaned up and put everything away.

Meanwhile…

A police officer was walking the beat in Canterlot, his day having been relatively uneventful up to this point. As he was nearing the end of his patrol, he passed by an abandoned lot where he noticed something he hadn’t seen on his last patrol a few days ago. Near the middle of the lot, there appeared to be a man lying next to an odd-looking vehicle. Confused, the officer tried calling out to the man, but he received no response. Concerned, the officer stepped into the lot, making his way over to the man.

When he reached him, the officer saw that the man was bald and lying face down on the ground, his red shirt, black pants and boots, and white gloves looking somewhat dirty. He looked too well-kept to be a typical bum. The officer rushed over to the man and knelt down next to him, shaking him. “Sir? Sir! Are you okay?!” he asked, unaware that a black and red orb and a yellow and black cube began floating above the ground off to the side, just outside of his vison.

Author's Notes:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=P_MS6niRPdM

The Chapter With Everything Necessary to Move the Story Forward

Several weeks have passed since Twilight discovered one of the shards of the Lost Crystal of Power and showed it to her friends, and since then she has uncovered little else about it. Even with the help of her friends, she has been unable to find answers to important questions about it like where it came from and what its purpose was. She continued to conduct experiments on it, but much like when Sunset was attempting to better understand the Equestrian magic that had been brought to their world, her experiments were typically unsuccessful and revealed nothing new.

The last few weeks hadn’t been entirely quiet, however. News outlets and websites were reporting that other crystal shards were being found in the city and the outlying areas, most of them being found by other Canterlot residents either by accident or due to damage they caused and being reported to the police. Twilight wanted to turn her crystal over when she saw the reports on the news, but her friends convinced her not to do it, Sunset even suggesting that they might be able to learn more if they could get their hands on another crystal. To that end, she suggested building a device that could pick up the energy signatures of the crystals, much like Twilight’s old magic meter. But while the girls were caught up in the growing mystery of the crystals, there was something else that had been slowly building up over the past few weeks that was about to be established in the city.

Dr. Eggman stood proudly in front of what was no doubt the first of many ‘Robotics Manufacturing Enterprises’ buildings with Orbot and Cubot floating by his side, his two assistants waving at the photographers as they took pictures. These last few weeks of digging around, salvaging what he could find to meet demands, and putting on a constant nice act had taken quite a bit of effort even for his genius, but it was finally paying off. His first new building had been built and this was the ribbon cutting ceremony.

Eggman looked to his right over at the mayor of Canterlot, who was talking to the press and answering questions before the ceremony began. Having talked to her before, he knew her name was Marey, spelled exactly that according to the name plate in her office. It was an odd way to spell it, but he supposed it went along with all of the other horse name puns he’d encountered so far in this strange world. She was an older woman, or at least that was the image she was trying to put on with her gray hair, glasses, and purple suit with a white collar and green tie. As a master of deceit himself, Eggman was well aware that she was trying to give herself a more professional image, though he wasn’t sure he wanted to know what exactly she did in the morning before coming in to work.

After she was finished taking questions, Mayor Marey walked over to Eggman and told him, “I must admit, Dr. Kintobor, I was not expecting the turnout to this event to be quite this large. It’s clear to me more than ever that your robotics have been making quite an impact on our fair city.”

Eggman smiled, thinking to himself once again how brilliant his fake name was as he said, “Well, I have been fighting so hard for so long to get others to recognize what I can do and see the wonders of my inventions, Ms. Mayor. I’m very fortunate that the people here are so, er, friendly and accepting. I have them to thank for this day and this new beginning.”

Marey asked, “Beginning?”

Eggman replied, “Oh yes! This fine building is just the first step towards making my dreams become a reality! I have such big plans… for future projects. Of course, giving the people what they want is going to remain my primary goal, but I have so much more that I’d like to share with the world. I’ll be talking about that more about that in the future when I’m ready to unveil my ideas, and I think you’ll be quite impressed when I do.”

Marey smiled, “I see. Well, I’m sure I will, so long as you have the people’s best interests in mind and your robots don’t, ah…”

Eggman interjected, “Run rampant? Turn evil? Well, I can understand you having such concerns, but I assure you, there’s nothing to worry about. I am most certainly a ‘people’ person; I certainly have their best interests at heart.” He paused to glance back at Orbot and Cubot with an annoyed expression, the two robots snickering to themselves. “What are you two laughing about?! Have some respect; this is an important day!” he said. He turned back to the mayor after they straightened up and finished, “I promise you right now, Ms. Mayor, nothing I ever build… will do something that it was not meant to.” As he spoke, he held his left hand behind his back and crossed his fingers.

The way he snapped at his assistants surprised Marey a bit, but given what she’d seen of their intelligence and capacity to voice their thoughts, she supposed it wasn’t uncommon for them to anger him. She smiled, “I see. Well, I look forward to learning more about what you have planned for your business.” She then turned to the crowd and gave one last speech before taking the ceremonial scissors and cutting the ribbon, turning to Eggman afterwards and shaking hands with him.

As he shook hands with her, Eggman’s thoughts turned to his new ‘company’. The building was bigger than a typical outlet store to give the impression that the robots were being made in the back, but it was certainly nothing compared to his island lair. For the time being, though, it would do. No one but him, Orbot, and Cubot knew about the secret lab built underneath the building. This secret facility would be where his new Badnik army was going to be built up, the money he made from selling his ‘new and improved’ products going towards their production. As his business continued to thrive, he would soon be able to build more buildings with their own secret labs and really make his army grow while the people remained blissfully unaware his inevitable takeover was coming.

His thoughts also turned to how he got his start in this new dimension. It all felt like it happened yesterday.

Yesterday…

Yesterday…

*insert argument with Sticks that I chose to move to the author’s notes below this time because I’m already sick of her butting in here*

Yesterday…

Yesterday…

Flashback to not-yesterday

Eggman gingerly sipped the coffee from the mug he was given, partly because he was trying to keep up his act and partly because he couldn’t stand the taste of it. Orbot and Cubot sat on the chair next to him, the latter quietly tapping his fingers on his empty mug as Officer Colten attempted to look up Eggman’s personal information. The evil genius kept shooting glances over at his two robot assistants, remembering his rude awakening and how they’d told him not to disclose his real identity to the police. He tugged on the blanket over his shoulders as they all waited to hear what the officer had to say.

After a minute more, Officer Colten looked up from his computer and asked, “Hmm… Dr. Ovi Kintobor?” Eggman quickly nodded at the name he’d made up on the fly. Officer Colten looked back at his computer for a moment before saying, “I’m afraid I can’t seem to find any of your records in our database, sir.”

Eggman replied, “Well, that’s no surprise to me.” At the officer’s questioning look, he quickly added, “Er, I mean, I seem to… just have the strangest luck so often! I try to have a normal day, go about my business, and boom! Suddenly something unexpected happens to me. I don’t know how to explain it.”

Orbot jumped to his defense, “It really is just the strangest thing how it keeps happening. And this time it happened when he was just going to the store!”

Cubot nodded, “Yeah, it’s just like we told your buddies in the car.”

Officer Colten deadpanned, “It’s still not a very convincing story.”

Eggman sat up against the back of his chair and sarcastically said, “Oh sure, look at me all weird because I can’t help you write a good report, like I’m the one doing something wrong. Clearly you’ve never had anything unexplainable happen in your life.”

Officer Colten gave him a level stare as he replied, “Now sir, that is not true. I don’t think you’re guilty of something; I’m just trying to understand what happened to you so I can help the others understand. And I can safely say we’re no strangers to odd occurrences here in Canterlot. We’ve had quite a number of reports of strange occurrences here in recent times.”

Eggman spoke, “Just recently? They seem to happen all the time back home. This is hardly anything new for me. I like the island I live on, but all the strangeness does make it difficult for me to get my work done.”

Officer Colten asked, “And what sort of work do you do, Doctor?” Eggman gestured at Orbot and Cubot, prompting the officer to ask, “You build robots?”

Eggman replied, “Yes, but not just any robots. I like to think of them as… specialized robots.”

Officer Colten asked, “And what do you mean by that?”

Eggman looked down at his mug for a moment before getting an idea and saying, “Hmm… It would seem I’ve drank all the coffee you gave me, which is perfect. If you’d be so kind as to escort me and show me where to get some more, I’d be happy to give you an example that I think you and your fellow officers could relate to.” Although confused, Officer Colten stood up and moved out from behind his desk, gesturing for Eggman to stand as well.

As he did, Orbot commented, “Maybe the two of us should just stay here.”

Cubot nodded, “Yeah. This chair’s kind of comfy. I could go for a nap right now.”

Officer Colten spoke, “I’m sorry, you two, but you cannot be here unsupervised.”

Cubot whined, “Aw, why not? We’re not gonna do anything; I’m just gonna take a nap! Its been a long day for us, you know!”

Officer Colten leaned over them, “Be that as it may, we do not allow visitors to wander unsupervised or leave them to their own devices here. Therefore, you have to come.” While Orbot and Cubot continued to try to persuade him, Eggman noticed the way he was leaning just about made him unable to see him. This was his chance! He looked to the left and right a few times before his eyes settled on a nearby potted plant. He stared at it for a few moments… before flicking his left hand to his left, dumping his remaining coffee on Officer Colten’s desk.

A few minutes later…

The three officers sitting in the break room stopped what they were doing, their attention being drawn to Officer Colten when he stepped in with Eggman and his two assistants. There’d been murmurs going around the station about the strange man and his robots ever since they were brought in, but them being escorted into this private area by a fellow officer was something the three officers had not expected to see. After a minute of watching them make their way over to the coffee maker and stand around it while Eggman watched Colten refill his mug, one of the officers asked, “Colten, why did you bring that man in here?”

While refilling his mug, Colten replied, “Because he suggested that we get some more coffee. He also said he had something to share that he thought we’d all be interested in.” The other officers looked intrigued at that, looking at Eggman as he examined the coffee maker. Once Colten was done refilling his mug, he took it out from under the machine and looked at Eggman expectantly. After a few moments, he asked, “Doctor?”

Eggman looked at him, “Hmm? Oh no, I’m actually good. I mostly wanted to see what your coffee maker was like. It’s not bad, just rather unremarkable.”

One of the other officers asked, “And what is that supposed to mean… sir?”

Eggman stood up straight and said, “Well, I mean so much of it involves manual input. You have to put grounds in, you have to set it, you have to pour yourself a cup…”

Another officer asked, “What’s wrong with that?” Eggman’s only response was to gesture towards Orbot and Cubot. “What?”

Eggman said, “I have an incredible gift for creating new things and improving old things, yet no one seems to understand my genius. It’s not just limited to these two either; I look at things and try to create new ways to con- er, I mean, help people and they don’t seem to realize it. Now that I’ve finally found a place to start fresh, I was hoping others could warm up to the many ideas I have in my head.”

Officer Colten spoke, “I’m sure we and everyone else would be willing to give your ideas a chance, Doctor, but you haven’t shared anything with us. And what do your two, uh, robots have to do with our coffee maker?”

Eggman answered, “Well, let me ask you all something. Have you ever come in to get a cup of coffee, only to realize that the last person to get a cup left just an inch at the bottom of the pot so they wouldn’t have to brew more?”

Colten groaned, “Oh, I hate when that happens.” The other officers echoed his thoughts.

“Happens all the time around here.”

“It’s a simple thing that can be avoided!”

“I sometimes feel like the coffee maker needs someone to guard it.”

Eggman nodded, “Yes, I thought you’d all feel the same way I do about it. It’s annoying, it’s a waste of everyone’s time, and it creates trust issues.” He gestured at his two assistants again, “Now imagine if the coffee maker were like these two. Sentient, aware, able to act on its own… I can already picture it: a coffee maker with something like these two built into it. Why, that inch would never come up in a coffee maker like that; it would be able to sense when the coffee was low and immediately start brewing fresh coffee. Doesn’t that sound like it would be amazing?”

Officer Colten replied, “I’d want something like that for home as well.”

One of the officers said, “Yeah, good luck finding someone who could make that, Colten. Besides, you’d still have to load the grounds into it before it would make more coffee.”

Eggman spoke, “Well, I could certainly make it. I built my assistants all by myself. And you wouldn’t even need to do that. I would certainly make it so it would do everything for you, from loading the grounds all the way to pouring you your coffee. And I haven’t even begun to discuss possible custom options. Like, we all enjoy our coffee a specific way, right? What if there was a feature where you could set the machine to recognize you and give you your coffee exactly the way you like it? And that’s not all!”

All of the officers eventually had to get back to work, but while they were there, Eggman continued to give them a taste of the different ideas he had when it came to making ordinary living better. It all felt like pointless talk to him and it was a bit annoying that he had to get so chummy with the local authorities, but he kept it to himself. He was gaining their trust after all, trust that he would have so much fun damaging later.

End flashback

________________________________________

Twilight finished getting her lunch and made her way through the cafeteria to the table she and her friends usually sat at. She saw them waving to her as she approached and she set her tray down in front of the open seat next to Sunset when she reached them. “Sorry I’m a little late. That test ran a little long,” she said as she slid her backpack off and set it on the table, allowing Spike to poke his head out.

As she sat down, Applejack asked her, “You didn’t have trouble, did ya, Twilight?”

Twilight replied, “No, no. It just took a little longer to get out of class than it should have.”

Applejack shrugged, “Okay.”

Pinkie piped up, “So… how’s the shiny doing?”

Twilight spoke, “You mean the crystal? I didn’t get a chance to do anything with it last night, but I didn’t really have anything in mind for it as far as tests I could do.” She rested her head on her hands on the table, “I really think I’ve hit a dead end with how much more I can learn about it.”

Sunset put her hand on her shoulder and said, “That’s why I think we should get a hold of another one while they’re still out there. Putting two in the same place could reveal something new about them.”

Twilight raised her head up and looked at her, “I still don’t know about that. I mean, these crystals… Are they really safer with us than with the police?”

Rainbow spoke, “I think so, all things considered. You put the one you found in something to contain it and are actually trying to learn more about it. Have you checked some of the places where they found the others? A bunch of them are still out in the open with yellow tape around them and sometimes cops. Any weirdo could get over the tape when the cops aren’t there, take the crystal, and run off with it. That can’t be better, right?”

Twilight let out a sigh and said, “Still, even if they haven’t been moved yet, they’re technically under police custody. I don’t think we know enough to be able to convince the police to give them to us.”

Sunset replied, “Well, that’s fine, Twilight. Unless we find a compelling reason for the police to turn them over, they can keep them, whether that involves putting tape around them or putting them in an evidence locker or whatever. Rainbow does have a point, though; if we had a way to track these things down and find the ones the police haven’t yet, then there would be fewer crystals out there for random people to snatch up.”

Rainbow added, “Or, you know, I could just run all over the city and find them all myself. That would probably be faster.”

Rarity remarked, “Hm. It might be, Rainbow; that’s the kind of detail work you’d excel at.” As she pulled out her phone, she muttered under her breath, “At least I hope some of your test scores aren’t accurate to real life.” As she scanned her latest news articles, her eyes stopped on one and she said, “Hm. That Dr. Kintobor fellow certainly is making the news lately. The latest news is that his first building opened today.”

Rainbow asked, “Oh, you mean that guy whose been selling people robot dogs and smart ovens or whatever?”

Rarity nodded without looking up, “That’s the one.”

Spike uttered, “I’ve never been a big fan of those robot dogs, but we did run into one of the ones made by that guy and…” He shivered, “There was just something different about the way it looked at me. It was really creepy.”

While Twilight comforted him, Fluttershy spoke up, “Um… well, I haven’t seen any for myself, but I do know the animals I’m with generally don’t seem to get along with robot pets. It’s nice that Dr. Kintobor’s, um, first robots are small animals that people can buy. That’s good for people who aren’t sure about having pets or have allergies, but… I kind of hope they don’t start bringing them to the shelter or the vet.”

Rainbow asked, “Why would they, Fluttershy? They’re robots; they don’t have needs like regular pets do!”

Rarity added, “And I’m sure they don’t have the same maintenance requirements either. If they need anything or something goes wrong, they can simply take it back to the store and get it all sorted out. There’s no food bill, no vaccinations, nothing to clean up after…”

Fluttershy asked, “But aren’t those all the best things about owning a pet?”

Rarity glanced at her for a moment before replying, “Well, I don’t think so, dear. Especially that last one…”

Applejack rolled her eyes, “That is the one you’d focus on, isn’t it, Rarity?”

The girls and Spike continued to pass the rest of the lunch period with small talk, though an odd look appeared on Sunset’s face when the subject turned to Kintobor. She kept talking, but in the back of her head, she was mulling over something that had been there for a while, a mystery of her own. She was still quietly thinking about it even as lunch ended. As they all left the cafeteria, Pinkie asked if they were still on for their sleepover at her house that night. They all agreed and some of them split off as they headed to their next classes.

Later that evening, they all met up at Pinkie’s house for their sleepover. They all had fun sharing stories, eating the apple treats that Applejack had brought over, and playing games. But as the evening wore on, Sunset found herself unable to keep the question she’d been mulling over all day in the back of her mind. It was starting to bother her that she couldn’t come up with an answer to it and felt like she needed to actually address it if she was going to enjoy the rest of the sleepover.

While they were all in Pinkie’s room, Sunset excused herself and quietly grabbed a notebook and a pen from her backpack before heading downstairs. She went to the kitchen and set them both down on the counter in the middle of the room, where she opened up to a fresh page and wrote the name “Kintobor’ in the center. She then rested her elbows on the countertop and placed the bottom of her head in her hands, looking down at it.

After several minutes of her standing there staring, she was startled out of her thoughts when she heard Twilight say, “Sunset?” She looked up to see the other girl standing in the kitchen doorway.

“Oh, hey, Twilight,” she said, looking a bit nervous.

“Are you okay? You were just standing there for almost a whole minute,” Twilight noted.

“Oh… yeah, I guess I was. I’m fine, though,” Sunset replied, the irony of the situation not being lost on her.

Twilight shrugged, “Okay.” She walked over to the refrigerator and pulled the door open. She peered inside and remarked, “Wow, she still has a lot of whipped cream in here.” Sunset couldn’t help but smile at that. Twilight soon pulled her head out, now holding a small container of juice in her right hand, and turned back to Sunset. “The girls are still playing Tirek’s Revenge. Are you going to come and watch? Or play a bit?” she asked.

Sunset smiled, “Yeah, sure.” She grabbed her notebook and pen and followed Twilight back up to Pinkie’s room. There, they joined the other girls sitting on and around the bed, Twilight sitting on the bed with Fluttershy and Spike while Sunset sat on the floor next to the bed near the door. Rainbow and Applejack sat at the foot of the bed, focused on the game, while Rarity sat on the other side of the bed applying polish to her nails and Pinkie moved around the room, unable to sit still due to all the action on the TV.

Spike soon noticed the Sunset had turned her attention back to her notebook and pulled himself free of Fluttershy’s petting to pad over to her. “What are you looking at, Sunset?” he asked. His words prompted the others to look at her as well, the sounds coming from the TV abruptly stopping.

Sunset looked back, unsure what to say,” Um, I, uh…” she stammered.

Fluttershy leaned over the side of the bed and peered at the notebook. “Why do you have ‘Kintobor’ written in there, Sunset?” she asked.

Sunset sighed, “I’m sorry, girls, Spike. It’s just… there’s something about that Dr. Kintobor guy that’s been bothering me.”

Applejack raised an eyebrow, “What are ya sayin’, Sunset? That the guy’s up to somethin’?”

Sunset looked over at her, “No, Applejack. At least I don’t think he is. It’s just…” She looked down at her notebook again, “I’ve never heard the name Kintobor before, but when I see his name spelled out, I always get this weird feeling, like I’ve seen it somewhere before.”

Pinkie hopped over and knelt down next to her, “Ooh! If it looks familiar to you, then that could mean one of two things: either Dr. K’s name has shown up elsewhere because he has a twin somewhere in this world… or you’re just not looking at it right! Here!” She reached over and grabbed Sunset’s notebook. She then turned it upside-down and handed it back to her, “There! How does it look now?”

Rainbow deadpanned, “Pinkie… I seriously doubt turning it over is gonna change anything.”

Sunset might have initially agreed with the rainbow-haired athlete, but at the moment, she was looking down at the name intently. It was still the same, but somehow, Pinkie’s simple solution had given her a different way to see it. She flipped the notebook back over after a few moments and looked at the name again before wondering, “What does it look like backwards…?” She grabbed her pen and wrote it out underneath Kintobor.

Twilight peered over her other shoulder at the reversed name after she was finished writing it out. “It looks like… Ro… Robotnik?” she asked.

Both Applejack and Rainbow laughed at that, the former saying, “Now that just sounds like a plumb silly name!”

Rainbow laughed, “Silly? It sounds really stupid! Who would want to be named that?”

Spike and the other girls, meanwhile, noticed that Sunset was once again looking intently down at the page, this time at the new name. “Robotnik… Robotnik…” she muttered, trying to place it. Suddenly she looked up as she had a thought and looked over at her backpack. She dropped her notebook and pen and crawled over to it, reaching into it and pulling a book out. The other girls instantly recognized it; it was the journal she used to send messages and letters to Equestria, specifically to Princess Twilight.

Sunset sat on her knees as she quickly flipped through the pages of the book, searching. She soon stopped on a page and traced her finger across it as she scanned the words Twilight had written to her. It didn’t take her long to stop and tap the page with her finger, “Yeah, that’s it! Right here!” She read aloud, “‘…Dr. Ivo Robotnik, better known as Dr. Eggman…’” She looked up, “That’s why it looked so familiar: Ovi Kintobor is Ivo Robotnik spelled backwards.”

Rainbow spoke up, “Wait, wait. Are you saying this Kintobor guy might actually be this ‘Robotnik’ guy?

Sunset looked over at her, “I don’t know. It could just be a weird coincidence, but there are some similarities between them. Dr. Kintobor is building all these new robots no one’s ever really seen before.” She gestured towards her book, “This Dr. Robotnik, or Eggman, builds armies of robots to help him take over his world.”

Twilight asked, “His world? So… he’s not from your world?”

Sunset nodded, “Right. He’s not from Equestria.”

Rarity asked, “Then how does Twilight- I mean, the OTHER Twilight, know him? And when did she tell you about this?”

Sunset stood up and walked over to the bed and sat on the side of it as she explained, “We were talking fairly recently. It was… before those crystals showed up. We were talking about that little adventure in Equestria when she mentioned an adventure to another alternate world she had before she became a princess. After his most recent defeat, Dr. Eggman came across a strange creature that he named the Time Eater for its abilities to erase time and space. He planned to use it to erase all of his previous defeats, but his first attempt at using it caused him to rip a new time-space hole to Equestria. He managed to get it under control with some help and decided to make a historically rewritten Equestria part of the new Eggman Empire he was creating.”

Fluttershy murmured, “Eggman Empire…?”

Applejack asked, “Somebody was actually willing to help him do that?”

Sunset gave her an odd look, “Wouldn’t surprise me. Equestria doesn’t exactly have a shortage of creeps.”

Rarity asked, “But, everything worked out, right? Nothing was changed, right? I mean, you’re still here in our world, Sunset.”

Pinkie chirped, “Yeah! I bet Not-Yet-Princess Twilight totally sent that time eating machine packing with the magic of friendship!”

Sunset looked down at her journal as she resumed, “Well, that’s partly right, anyway. She said after the Time Eater was destroyed, all the damage was repaired, including the hole to Equestria. But she did say that Dr. Eggman was still out there somewhere in his world.”

Spike asked, “So… is this Kintobor guy really this Eggman guy?”

Rainbow spoke up, “Why don’t we ask Princess Twilight to come pay us a visit and get a look at him? She should be able to recognize him right away if he really is the same clown.”

Sunset looked up and said, “We could, but… that might get her hopes up. She’d probably be disappointed if it turned out to not be Dr. Eggman.”

Applejack asked, “What do ya mean?”

Sunset answered, “Well, she and her friends didn’t send Eggman and his helper packing all on their own. They met new friends from that other world, friends who were the ones responsible for foiling his previous schemes and were instrumental in stopping the Time Eater.”

Twilight had an idea of what she was getting at and asked, “You think if it is him, they might be somewhere in Canterlot too?”

Sunset replied, “Well, one or more of them, anyway. If that strange vortex that was reported that night was something that Dr. Eggman had a hand in creating, I’m sure they would’ve followed him to try to stop whatever world conquering scheme he had in mind.”

Rainbow asked, “So what do you want to do? Wait and see if they show up?”

Sunset said, “Well, it shouldn’t be too hard to recognize them when they do show up. Spike can obviously hide the fact that he’s able to speak, but these guys…” She glanced down at her journal as she flipped forward to another page before finishing, “Considering how they look and what most people typically think of when it comes to their animal species, it shouldn’t take them long to show up in the news as well.” She handed the journal to Twilight, who took it in both hands and, after a moment, adjusted her glasses to make sure she was actually seeing what she was seeing as Spike climbed up onto her shoulder and the other girls gathered around to look.

At the bottom of the second page, just below where the writing ended, there was a photograph. The picture wasn’t completely clear, likely due in part to some of the clarity being lost during the sending and also partly due to the fact that it looked like it had been salvaged from a fire or explosion or both, but they could still make out what Sunset was getting at. In addition to the baby dragon, griffon, and all the ponies in the picture, including a certain lavender unicorn that surprised Twilight a little, there were a number of different animals standing around a picnic table that was clearly set up for a party, all of them looking considerably human-like.

Author's Notes:

"It can't be yesterday! You already established it wasn't!"

"Shh! I'm setting up a flashback."

"Yeah? Why now you gotta do it?"

"I think I'm starting to see why your show has stalled..."

"I don't have a show! What are you babbling about!"

Needlemice in a City

After their sleepover at Pinkie’s house where Sunset told her friends all she could about Sonic the Hedgehog and his friends from what Princess Twilight had shared with her, the friends all agreed that it was best not to jump to the conclusion that Dr. Kintobor was Dr. Eggman just yet. Instead, they decided the best course of action would be to observe him as best they could from afar. In the days that followed, they found that he was becoming quite a hot topic in Canterlot, interviews with him showing up on news sites and TV. They tried to keep up with them, looking for anything that might hint at his real identity.

As the days went by, Eggman’s business continued to rake in sorely needed cash for building up his army. Thanks to the machines he put in his new building, the business front basically ran itself, meaning he only needed to make an appearance whenever customers stopped in. The rest of the time, he was able to expand his resources and recover any of his displaced ‘assets’, sending his few recovered and crudely repaired Motobugs and Bee Bots out to retrieve them and search for any others that had been pulled into this world from his lair. There wasn’t much in terms of electronics, but quite a few of his Badniks and bits of prior schemes had been pulled from his lair due to the damage, all of which he was determined to reclaim before the police could get a hold of them.

Despite the reports of trucks delivering things to his building, Spike and the girls didn’t feel they knew enough about Eggman and his operations to really say they knew who he was. His Badniks usually moved out under cover of night, with ‘prototype field tests’ being announced beforehand if they had to move through the city during the day. The recounting of the Time Eater incident from Princess Twilight had only described some of the bigger threats that had been encountered during that adventure and Sunset was reluctant to get in touch with her, not sure what to ask her or how to phrase it. They noticed little things about him and what he said in some interviews, but nothing that could really shatter the Kintobor façade he had made.

Then, one day, they suddenly received a surefire confirmation courtesy of exposition on Eggman’s part.

The girls were meeting in an empty classroom in the morning before classes started, the same classroom where their friendships had first been rekindled in fact. They had all received a text from Pinkie late last night to meet her there, adding that she’d found something that they needed to see. At the moment, Twilight and Fluttershy were sitting at desks in the front of the room, the latter playing with Spike, while Sunset, Rainbow, and Applejack stood near them watching Rarity pace in circles in front of the teacher’s desk. It had been a few minutes since they had arrived and they were still waiting for Pinkie to show up.

Sunset lightly pulled at the side of her old leather jacket as she listened to Rarity mutter, “What is taking her so long? What is it she has to show us? I had to forego my usual morning routine, rush through it, in order to get here on time and she clearly hasn’t done the same! WHERE IS SHE?!” She came to a stop as she finished and, after a few moments of breathing heavily, she realized everyone was looking at her with concerned expressions.

Sunset was the first to speak up, “Rarity, just… it’s okay, all right? This isn’t how any of us were expecting to start the morning either, but we haven’t been that long. I’m sure Pinkie will be here soon.”

Twilight nodded softly, “Right. Whatever it is she said she wanted to show us is probably going to be really important too.”

Rainbow covered her mouth with a hand as she let out a yawn, saying afterwards, “I sure hope so. Don’t forget Pinkie makes a big deal over anything involving cupcakes, Twilight.” Applejack looked like she wanted to say something, but kept her mouth showed and rolled her eyes as she shook her head.

About a minute later, one of the classroom doors opened and everyone looked back to see Pinkie in the doorway with her left hand on the doorknob, her breathing a bit heavy and her pink laptop tucked under her right arm. Fluttershy quickly stood up and walked over to her, asking, “Pinkie, are you okay? What happened?”

Pinkie took her left hand off the doorknob and placed it on her laptop as she stood up straight and took a big, loud intake of air. She faced Fluttershy afterwards and spoke, “Hi, Fluttershy! Hi, girls! I know I’m a little late! I forgot to count the sprinkles last night, had to rearrange the chocolates, had to run to the store to get Maud a snack for Boulder… but that’s not important right now! I’m here, and this won’t take long!” She walked to the front of the classroom with Fluttershy following behind her and sat down in the center seat next to Twilight, setting her laptop on the desk in front of her.

As she opened it up and began to quickly type on the keyboard, Rarity came over and said, “Pinkie dear, it… it’s okay. You don’t need to rush yourself anymore this morning. I admit, I was a bit upset that you were running late, but you did have a reason.” Pinkie didn’t reply to her as she connected to the school’s internet and began looking through her browser’s history.

After a minute, she pulled up a video from one of the local news channels. She then looked up at the others and explained, “This showed up on the late, late news last night! It’s an interview with Dr. K!”

Spike and the other girls gathered around to look at the laptop’s screen. “‘Interview with Dr. Ovi Kintobor: The Hidden Kingdom’?” Twilight read the video’s title aloud. Pinkie nodded and clicked the video’s ‘PLAY’ button.

The interview started off normally enough. A reporter, a man with light and dark brown streaked hair, tan skin, and a white shirt with light blue lines and a blue tie that matched his eyes, and Eggman were sitting in the studio with the former asking the latter some fairly basic questions: how he felt about his unprecedented success, whether or not it was due to the popularity of a certain cartoon show, some idea of where his business was going to go next… About two minutes in, though, an interesting question came up.

“Doctor, I’m sure this sounds like an odd question, but how do you think you would react if one of your creations happened to get destroyed?” the reporter asked.

Eggman answered, “Oh… well, I don’t believe I need to think about it. After all, it happens a lot more often than you may think.”

The reporter asked, “It’s happened before? Has it happened recently?”

Eggman replied, “Yes, in the last few days in fact! And given the state that my, er, completely friendly babies have been found in, it’s not the work of any ordinary vandals. No, it’s them, that gang of horribly mean and close-minded teenage troublemakers who call themselves the Suppression Squad!”

The reporter tilted his head slightly, “The Suppression Squad?”

Eggman explained, “They’re a group of highly evolved and developed animals possessing unusual abilities and a knack for troublemaking, both of which they use to thwart my efforts to take ov- er, that is, do good!” Spike and the girls, with the exception of Pinkie, all looked at each other with wide eyes for a moment at this before looking back at the video. This interview was finally starting to go somewhere.

The reporter asked, almost a bit dubiously, “Highly evolved? In what way, sir?”

Eggman responded, “They stand on two legs like us! They wear clothes, real clothes! They can talk! They’ve developed a whole society and government in their little corner of the world, one that doesn’t care for the likes of us!” As he came to the end of his rant, he noticed the odd look the reporter was giving him. “Don’t look at me like that. I’m legally sane, I’ll have you know!” he snapped.

“That’s not what I’m wondering about, sir… It’s just, this ‘Suppression Squad’… Are you assuming it’s them based on past experiences, or do you have some proof to support your claims?” the reporter questioned.

Eggman replied, “Well, since you asked, I actually do! And that’s exactly why I brought these two with me!” At his words, Orbot and Cubot leapt over the back of the couch he was sitting on and hovered just above the other two cushions before opening up. Eggman looked at them expectantly, “Well, go on! Show them the image that was recovered from the Motobug!”

Orbot nodded, “Yes, Boss.” He then reached over and patted Cubot on the back. The blocky yellow robot glanced back for a moment before he faced forward, his eyes glowing brighter as he projected a holographic image in front of him. Spike and the girls leaned closer as it became clearer.

The image showed a blue hedgehog standing up straight and looking back over his right shoulder down at the camera with his green eyes. The image was a little dark and grainy, but it looked like there were buildings in the distance in the background. Judging from the outlines they could make out, it had to be Canterlot. As they looked at the picture, the girls began to get excited. “Whoa, that’s him! It’s Sonic! Just like in the other picture!” Rainbow exclaimed.

“And this picture looks like it was taken just outside the city, which means he IS here!” Twilight added.

“Is he by himself?” Fluttershy wondered.

Pinkie shushed everyone and said, “Listen to this!” They all looked back at the video.

“Not exactly your garden variety hedgehog, is he? And look at the way part of his body is hidden by shadows! He knows he did something wrong and still has the audacity to make sure I know it was him! The little attention-seeking miscreant, coming all the way from his little corner of the world because he doesn’t know how to better himself!” Eggman was saying.

The reporter asked, “Does he have a name?”

Eggman answered, “He certainly does! He calls himself, eh, Mr. Needlemouse, like he’s some kind of superhero! He used to be brown and really spiky, I’ll have you know, but then he started messing with fur dyes and managed to get his quills to fuse together! He’s always changing his image; I wouldn’t be surprised if in a week he’s green and trying to get everyone to believe he’s a king! And let’s not forget the other members of his little gang! There’s a pink hedgehog as well, Rosy the Rascal. She likes to make others believe she’s his girlfriend…”

As Eggman went on about the others and had Cubot show more images to show the viewers what Myles, Kneecaps (everyone had to struggle to not burst out laughing at that name), and Coocoo looked like, Spike and the girls became convinced that this interview was turning into less of him trying to gain everyone’s favor and more him trying to remain the center of attention for as long as possible.

“Wow. This guy is really determined to stay in the spotlight,” Sunset remarked.

“Listen ta this. Does he even hear himself?” Applejack asked.

“The sad thing is, I could almost believe he rehearsed this. And those pictures he’s showing… Even with some of the quality being lost, I’m pretty sure they’ve been edited in some way,” Sunset said, thinking of her ‘bad girl’ days.

“It’s almost a shame the guy’s evil and a wacko. He’d probably have a really successful career if he went into acting,” Rainbow commented.

Pinkie closed the Internet window and shut her laptop soon afterwards, the important part of the video over. “Well, even though he made that interview all about himself, that was informative,” Twilight remarked.

“Yeah. It’s safe to say he is Dr. Eggman, plus Sonic and his friends really are here! We just gotta meet up with them and let ‘em know we’re friends with Princess Twilight! Then they’ll know they’ve got friends here ready to back them up again!” Rainbow said.

Sunset was thinking a bit deeply about what had been shown in the video. “I don’t doubt he was making up a lot of the stuff he said, but those pictures he showed… I couldn’t tell if they were altered or not,” she muttered to herself, remembering her ‘bad girl’ days.

She looked up when Applejack spoke, “Hold yer horses, Rainbow! It is great to know that they’re here, but how are we gonna find ‘em? We ain’t seen hide nor hair of ‘em these last few days, and this is the first time anyone else has brought them up. For whatever reason, they ain’t exactly been makin’ themselves know around here.”

Twilight hummed in thought. “That’s true. Maybe they arrived later than him, woke up in a place where nobody found them like Dr. Eggman…”

Rainbow interjected, “Whatever; it doesn’t matter what took them so long. The point is, we have to find them and let them know what Eggman is trying to do!”

Fluttershy asked, “But… how?”

Rarity held her right hand against the side of her head, “That is the question, Fluttershy…”

Pinkie spoke up cheerfully, “Hey, it’s okay, guys! There’s a really easy way to find them!” Everyone looked at her, some a bit dubiously. “They’ve been smashing up Eggy’s robots, right? So, they must go after them whenever they find them! All we have to do is keep an eye on the robots he sends out into the city, and eventually, we’ll see them show up and go after the robots, and afterwards, we step in and introduce ourselves!”

Everyone looked at her blankly for a moment before Sunset said, “That… is actually a really good idea, Pinkie.”

Twilight nodded, “It’s a simple idea, but it makes a lot of sense. Pretty ingenious, Pinkie.”

Pinkie shrugged, “Hey, trying to stop bad people right away before they do bad and get nice people hurt… it’s what we would be doing if we knew there was trouble afoot, right?”

Rarity conceded, “That is also true.”

Spike spoke up, “But he’s got a lot of robots, right? And there’s no telling which ones they might attack. How are we going to keep an eye on them all?”

Rainbow said, “Well, again, I could run and fly around the city to keep an eye on them, but… yeah, that might be a bit much even for me. And if this Sonic really is as fast as me, I might just miss him.”

Sunset added, “Plus Eggman’s robots might think you ARE him and come after you. …Actually, that might be useful for herding them into one place, but I don’t know how much it would help us find him.”

Twilight suddenly had an idea and shared it with the others, “Drones!” When they looked at her, she explained, “We could use drones like mine to monitor Dr. Eggman’s robots and locate Sonic and his friends. We’ll have to make more and modify them accordingly in order to keep watch, but that way, we could keep watch from a distance.”

Rainbow nodded, “That could work.”

Sunset put a hand to her chin, “So, building and modifying, huh? I could definitely help with both of those.”

Applejack said, “Sounds like we got ourselves a plan.” The rest of the girls nodded in agreement.

“We could go to my house after school and start working on it,” Twilight said. With some idea of what their next move was going to be, the girls gathered up their belongings and headed to class. After school and club meetings were over, they met up out in front of the school and headed to Twilight’s house to pursue her idea further.

Surprisingly, it only took two days to build a dozen modified versions of Twilight’s selfie-taking drone. Twilight had some materials around her house to get them started and Applejack was able to provide some more to finish the rest. She also helped put them together along with Sunset, Rainbow, and Pinkie, and Rarity and Fluttershy made them look nicer. Sunset and Twilight were able to put together a program on a laptop to control the drones and see what they were seeing, and Sunset made an app for their phones to allow them all to see through the cameras. Once they felt they were all set, it was time for the hard part: tracking down Sonic and his friends.

Even with all the drones they had, there was only so much of the city that they could see at any one time. There was also the fact that Eggman’s Badniks weren’t always out when they were searching, and even if they were, they still had to watch the other drones’ fields of vision for any sign that Sonic or his friends were in the area, which was not easy to pick up on in Sonic’s case. It also didn’t help that Eggman’s words, as over the top as they had sounded, had evidently been taken to heart due to police showing up on the scene shortly after any of his Badniks had been attacked. A week passed with no success, but the girls weren’t about to give up. There were some similarities between all the attacks that they were picking up on, and they were starting to notice sooner when Sonic was passing the drones. It was turning into a waiting game, but they were sure they were getting close; they just had to keep at it.

A few days later after school, the girls were out surveying part of the city again. Twilight and Sunset were sitting in the bed of Applejack’s pickup truck, which was parked in an alleyway. Applejack was alternating between enjoying some apple juice and checking the surveillance footage on her phone while Twilight and Sunset looked at the footage being broadcast from the drones on the laptop. Meanwhile, Fluttershy, Spike, and Rarity were sitting at an outdoor table in a café not far away, Fluttershy checking Spike’s fur while Rarity checked her phone, Pinkie was walking around in between checking alleyways for clues, and Rainbow was, well, being as awesome as she wanted to be.

At the moment, she was grinning as she used her super speed to run down the city streets, turning the corners and watching out for cars as she ran. She glanced behind her to see a group of Motobugs following her, just as she’d thought. She ran down the sidewalk for a few more seconds before ducking down an alleyway. The Motobugs followed her blur down the alley and came to a stop and looked around in confusion when they got to the end of it. They couldn’t see Sonic anywhere; all they could see was Rainbow leaning against a nearby wall to their right, acting cool.

The Motobugs turned away from her, not knowing she was the one they had been chasing and began to scan the area for any trace of Sonic while Rainbow snickered to herself. Suddenly her cell phone rang and she pulled it out of her pocket and answered it without looking at the caller ID. She had a feeling she knew who was ringing her up. “Hey, did you guys see that?” she asked.

Rarity’s voice came from the other end, sounding a bit irritated, “Yes, all of us watching saw you, Rainbow. We’ve talked about this already. When you run like that, you throw us all off.”

Rainbow shrugged, “Hey, I’m just trying to increase my odds of seeing him. What am I supposed to do, stand on the corner and hope he runs past me?”

Rarity replied while stirring her tea with a spoon, “You’d be surprised what you can see when you do that, darling. You should try it sometime.”

Rainbow replied, “You’re just saying that ‘cause you’re sitting at a café. If you actually had to stand around, you’d agree that this is better.”

While the two were talking, one of Twilight’s drones caught sight of the Badnik gathering and hovered a bit overhead, Rainbow looking up at it and waving while Twilight and Sunset shared a glance. Applejack peered out the back window and saw what they were looking at, prompting her to ask, “Rainbow showin’ off again?”

Sunset replied, “Yeah, pretty much.”

Before Twilight could add anything, her cell phone rang and, after looking at it for a moment, she answered it. “Hello?” she asked.

She had barely finished saying the word when, on the other end, Pinkie said in an excited tone, “Twilight! I just saw a blue streak go past me! Check the cameras!”

Twilight gasped and tucked her phone between her left shoulder and ear as she began typing on the keyboard while Sunset and Applejack watched. She flipped through the camera screens, nearly passing one over when she noticed a flash on it. Seeing it disappear, she flipped to the next closest drone and caught a better glimpse of it. “I see it! I mean him!” she said, both Applejack and Sunset moving closer as she tried to keep up.

Sunset pointed at the screen as Twilight checked the cameras, “There he is again! Where’s he going now?”

Twilight noted the drone in question and flipped to the next drone based on Sonic’s positioning and where he seemed to be heading. “It looks like…” She was cut off when the footage changed to static. “Oh no! The drone got destroyed!” Twilight said.

“Oh, not again,” Sunset groaned. Before any more could be said, Sunset’s cell phone rang and she pulled it out, looking at the ID to see it was Rainbow Dash. She quickly answered it, “Rainbow?”

The girl on the other end answered, “I just saw him for a moment! Not running, either, like actually stopped! He smashed the robots and started going the way I just came! I’m on him!” She then hung up and focused on running after the blue blur ahead of her, who seemed to notice he was being followed.

Sunset brought her phone down and looked at it for a moment before saying to Applejack and Twilight and saying, “Rainbow’s going after him!”

Applejack pushed the door of her truck open and swung her legs out as she said, “Then so are we!”

As she got out and Sunset stood up, Twilight held the laptop in both hands as she spoke, “Wait! What about the drones?!”

Applejack looked at her and said, “Keep watchin’ ‘em, Twilight, and let us know if you see anythin’! Might help us avoid what happened last time! Let Rarity and Fluttershy know too! Ah’ll text Pinkie!” She pulled her phone out and Sunset jumped down out of the truck bed, both of them running down the alley while Twilight grabbed her phone from where it had fallen and called Rarity’s cell phone.

While she was waiting for an answer, she returned to the drones and checked what they were seeing again. When Rarity answered, she said, “Rarity! Rainbow caught a glimpse of Sonic! She’s in pursuit now! And…” She paused for a moment as she noticed something on the screen, “There’s some robots gathering near a bus stop not far from that café! He might be heading there next!”

Rarity stood up and tucked her phone against her head as she reached for her money and replied, “Then we’ll be there too! Just tell me which stop!” She looked at Fluttershy and Spike, “Come on, this is it! We’ll definitely need your help, Fluttershy!” The pink-haired girl let out a small gasp and stood up while Spike leapt down onto the pavement. Rarity finally grabbed her money and left enough to cover their bill on the table before taking her phone in hand again, her, Fluttershy, and Spike running down the sidewalk while Twilight gave her directions.

Rainbow had a little difficulty trailing Sonic since he kept trying to throw her off, ducking down alleys and making the tight corners without slowing down while she had to. Still, it wasn’t enough for her to lose him entirely and she eventually decided to hang back a bit to see if it would get him to go wherever he was going. She and the other girls kept using their cell phones to stay in touch, all of them with the exception of Twilight moving towards the bus stop’s location.

It didn’t take long for Rainbow to reach the bus stop, but it seemed she had stayed a little too far back. As she approached, she saw that there were more broken Motobugs littering the street and people huddling back in fear, but there was no sign of Sonic. Before she could start looking or asking the people at the stop what had happened, Rarity, Fluttershy, and Spike came around the opposite corner and, upon seeing Rainbow, waved her over. She ran over to them, at a normal speed, and Rarity asked, “Rainbow, where is he?! Where’s Sonic?!”

Rainbow replied, “I don’t know! I just got here a few seconds ago! He must’ve gone down another alley!”

Spike pointed to the people at the stop, “Maybe they saw where he went.”

Rainbow said, “I was just about to ask ‘em! Come on!” They ran over and began questioning the people about what they had seen.

By the time Applejack, Sunset, and Pinkie arrived on the scene, they had managed to learn that Sonic had disappeared down an alley on the other side of the street. Rainbow didn’t feel very confident that this information would lead them to him, however, since it seemed like he was staying on the move and wouldn’t stop for anything. Before they could debate it further, they started to hear the wail of sirens coming towards them.

“The police are coming! The police are coming!” Pinkie exclaimed.

“Their response time is getting faster and faster. Do they somehow know when Eggman’s robots get attacked?” Sunset grunted.

Applejack said, “Ah’ll bet ya if Sonic is still ‘round here, he ain’t stayin’ long now! We might wanna leave too!”

Fluttershy murmured, “Yes, we should. Please. I don’t think I could answer questions from the police.” With that, the girls split and took different directions to spread out, Spike following Applejack as she headed back to her truck. By the time the police arrived, they were gone.

Twilight looked up when she heard footsteps and saw Applejack and Spike running towards the truck. As she got closer, Applejack called, “Get in the truck, Twilight! We’re leavin’!”

Twilight stood up and asked, “Wait, where’s Sunset?!”

Applejack answered as she reached the driver’s door, “We split up ‘cause the police were comin’! We’re supposed ta text when we’re all A-Okay!” She pulled the door open and got in while Twilight got down out of the truck bed and picked up Spike before opening the passenger’s door and climbing in. Once they were all in and buckled, Applejack started the truck and pulled out of the alley.

While they were driving, Twilight said, “I lost another drone a few minutes ago. It looked like it was near the bus stop. I was trying to get in touch to let someone know, but now I guess it was too late for that.”

Applejack replied, “You know Sonic hasn’t been stickin’ around when the police show up, Twilight. He’s probably long gone by now.” They heard a series of notification sounds come from both her and Twilight’s phones a few moments later. “What’s up?” Applejack asked, keeping her eyes on the road.

Twilight pulled out her phone and checked her texts. “It’s Pinkie, Rarity, Fluttershy, and Rainbow saying that they got away okay. No word from Sun- oh wait, she just texted saying she’s fine. Want me to text them back for you as well?”

Applejack nodded, “Yeah, go ahead, Twilight.” Twilight typed and sent a reply to the other girls, letting them know all three of them were fine. She then put her phone away, disappointed that they had no more luck contacting Sonic, but relieved that they were all okay.

Unbeknownst to Spike or any of the girls, Sunset was actually not far away from the bus stop at the moment, the girl pressing her back against one of the buildings in the alley she was in as she listened for anyone who might be coming. After a few moments, she let out a sigh and stood up straight, adjusting the strap on her backpack as she began to make her way down the alley. She had ducked into it when they had split up and had stopped trying to get away when she noticed there were trash cans and other junk that looked like they had been knocked around. It made her curious and she wanted to check if there were any clues that might hint at where Sonic had gone.

As she walked, she began to feel a strange and familiar sensation in her head. It started as just a tingling, but it soon began to bother her like a headache. “What is this? Is my magic acting up again?” she wondered as she held her hand to her forehead, coming to a stop. She stood in place for several moments, trying to focus and work through the voices she was hearing. She looked up when she realized something. “These voices… They’re not all coming from the people around here, they’re… There’s a source. Only one.”

She looked up towards the roof of the building to her right. They seemed to be coming from there. Moving her eyes down the side of the building, she saw it had a fire escape. At the bottom, she saw that the ladder had been lowered. Making her way over to it, she began making her way up to the roof, trying to step as quietly as possible since she had no idea what she’d find up there.

As she got closer to the top, she began to hear voices. “You keep taking bigger and bigger risks, and soon we’re all gonna be caught!” Sticks was saying.

“Hey, more and more of Eggman’s robots keep showing up around this place! What are we supposed to do, let ‘em go around like they own it?” Sonic replied. Sunset felt encouraged when she heard Eggman’s name and quickened her pace.

“I do wonder how he got the resources to start building new robots, and so quickly. We’re pretty far from home,” Tails remarked.

“We’ll worry about that later. Sticks is right, Sonic; the police force in this large, bustling community has tried to arrest us every time we go after Eggman’s robots. They’re probably willing to help since he’s just like them,” Amy said.

Sunset reached the top of the fire escape and put her hands on the edge of the roof above her, grunting a bit to pull herself up and peer over it. As she was doing this, she heard Knuckles say, “Well, even he’s gotta have friends somewhere in the world, right?” She rested her arms on the other side of the edge to support herself and looked. Past a rectangular slab made of bricks, she could see Team Sonic, standing there large as life.

“That’s a weird idea to consider, Eggman having actual friends,” Sonic remarked. Sunset struggled to pull herself up over the edge and managed it after a few seconds, rolling down onto the roof with a slight thud. She recovered and got up on her knees, moving quietly over to the brick slab and sitting with her back to it, panting a bit. Inwardly, she was excited, but she also felt a bit overwhelmed. She’d located Sonic and his friends, but now what was she supposed to do? How was she going to approach them without them running away?

She was about to find out that she didn’t even have to think about it, however. Sticks, due to standing a short distance away from her friends and simply listening as they talked, had heard the sound of Sunset hitting the roof and turned towards the slab, suspecting that someone or something was on the other side of it. Clutching her boomerang tightly, she started to quietly make her way towards it. She was sure it had to be the C.C.C.; they had tracked them down with the help of the nefarious S.O.N.I.C.X. group. Well, they weren’t going to get the drop on her.

Her movement didn’t go entirely unnoticed by her friends. While Sonic and Knuckles were debating about the finer points of publicity, Amy looked over and saw Sticks walking tensely away from the group. “Sticks? What are you doing?” she called, causing the guys to stop talking and look over at her. Sunset heard her as well and glanced up with her head turned to the right, wondering what had caught their attention.

As soon as Sticks peered around the slab and saw Sunset, she let out a primal scream, shocking the girl and causing her to scream as she whirled around to face the badger. She tried to move back away from her, but Sticks was quick to get almost on top of her, getting her feet on both sides of Sunset’s torso to keep her from going back any further. Sticks bent forward to get closer to her face and said, “Hey, you’re not a clam! At least you don’t look like one. But you’re a member of them, ain’t ya?! Well, your society friends aren’t gonna get any closer to getting us because-” Her rant was cut off when Sunset, attempting to put some distance between them, reached up and placed her left hand on the badger’s forehead, cutting her off. Almost immediately, Sunset’s mouth fell open and her eyes began to glow white.

It was pandemonium. All she could see was a void filled with Sticks. Multiple Sticks, far too many to count. And they were all behaving differently. A very small number were acting proper and civilized to their fellow Sticks while the rest were unruly and wild, and they were all speaking. Some were whispering and murmuring what sounded like doubts and second thoughts while others were yelling, no doubt the loudest voices in her head. It was one loud sea of orange and brown, and somewhere lost in it all… a speck of green?

Sticks let out a shout and placed her hands on her head as Sunset pulled her hand back, the girl’s eyes returning to normal… somewhat. She had found the source of what was making her magic act up and she did not like what she had been shown. What she had seen in the badger’s head was… kind of terrifying. Maybe it was because she didn’t know her yet, but unlike the time she had looked in Pinkie’s head and felt that she had learned a lot, she felt like she had learned nothing about Sticks. It felt more like she had peered beneath the waves of a sea of madness.

Speaking of the badger, she had started stepping back while still holding her head and bumped into Sunset’s raised leg, which caused her to fall on her back as she tried to keep stepping back. Sunset raised her head to look at the badger as she sat up, still holding her hands to her head. She soon opened her eyes and gave Sunset an accusatory look as she pointed at her and yelled, “What did you do?! I saw your eyes glowing! Did you put something in my head?! You dirty, implanting society member! You’d better get it out right now or you’re gonna regret it!”

Sonic came around behind her while she was yelling and, after glancing at Sunset, looked down at her and grabbed her under the arms. “Okay, Sticks, take it easy. The girl didn’t do anything to you. You just fell on your head. Let’s make sure you don’t have a concussion or something,” he said plainly as he started to lift her up.

Sunset raised herself up to a sitting position to get a good look at Sonic, noting his scarf, the sports tape around his wrists and legs, and, most importantly, his blue arms. After a moment, she said, “Sonic!”

Both the blue hedgehog and Sticks stopped and looked at her in surprise for a moment before the former abruptly let go of the former, causing her to hit her head again, and exclaimed, “Well, it’s about time somebody around here recognized me! How did it take that long? This has to be the longest its ever taken!”

As Sunset stood up and dusted herself off, she heard Amy chastise, “Sonic!”

She looked over to see Tails coming over, the fox stopping near Sonic as he asked, “Just you? What about the rest of us?”

Sonic started, “Well…”

Sunset cut him off, “Tails!” The fox looked over at her in surprise as she looked over at Amy and Knuckles. “And you’re Amy Rose and… Knuckles?” she finished a bit awkwardly as she looked at the echidna.

“Yeah! …What?” Knuckles asked as he noticed the bewildered look on her face.

Sunset fiddled with her hair as she uttered, “Uh, nothing. You’re, uh… you are you.” It wasn’t the best answer by any means, but Knuckles seemed to be fine with it.

Sonic spoke, “I was about to say if somebody recognized me, they’d recognize you guys too.”

Sticks stood up suddenly and said, “Oh yeah?! Well, she didn’t say my name! …Actually, that’s a good thing.”

Sunset put a hand on her hips and replied, “I don’t know who you are, Sticks, but I know your name.”

Sticks demanded, “Hey, how do you know my name?! Did you read my mind?! Is that what you did just now?!”

Sonic answered, “She knows because I said it out loud and she heard it, Sticks. See? I said it again.”

Amy and Knuckles made their way over, standing on the other side of the slab. “I think the bigger questions are, who are you and how do you know who we are when no one else does?” Amy asked, looking directly up at Sunset.

Knuckles added, “Yeah. Are you really a mind reader like Sticks said?”

Sunset thought for a moment, glancing at Sticks for a moment before looking back at the echidna. She then spoke, “I… feel like that’s both an oversimplification and not correct at the same time. I would say I’m more of an empath because, if you were to ask me right now, I would have no idea what you’re thinking.”

Knuckles looked disappointed at that. “Aw. I was hoping you could tell me what I’m thinking. Even I can’t tell what I’m thinking sometimes.”

Sticks, however, did not look convinced. “You say that like there’s a difference!” she accused.

Sunset crossed her arms and gave her an annoyed look. “There IS a difference! One knows what you’re going to say before you say it and the other is more in tune with emotions!”

Sonic shrugged, “She’s got a point there.”

Tails asked, “Are we really discussing this now?”

Sunset shook her head and said, “Right, thank you, Tails.” She then straightened up, “My name is Sunset Shimmer, and while I actually don’t know you guys, I have a friend who… kind of knows you. Now that I actually see you, I’m pretty sure you don’t know her.”

Sonic crossed his arms, “Well, if she knows us, we must’ve met her before. What’s her name?”

Sunset asked, “Twilight Sparkle?”

Sonic shrugged, “Never heard of her.”

Sunset nodded, “Didn’t think so. She’s told me about a different version of you that she knows.”

Sonic replied, “Oh, an alternate-dimension thing, huh? We’ve had experience with those before.”

Knuckles remarked, “I still kind of wish I tasted like a fortune cookie.”

Sunset gave him an odd look. Seeing this, Amy spoke, “Don’t worry about that. At any rate, it’s lucky that you were able to recognize us despite the aforementioned alternate-dimension detail.”

Sunset replied, “Well, it took Dr. Eggman a while to drop a hint that you guys were here in Canterlot, and even then, he embellished the information to keep up with appearances.”

Sonic asked, “So Eggman’s the reason why everybody around here seems to dislike us?”

Sunset nodded, “He somehow managed to get his foot in the door and win people over with his advanced robotics. He’s probably been twisting as much as he can to make himself look like the good guy; your names and motives are just the latest thing he’s messed with.”

Tails asked, “What did he call us?”

Sunset replied, “I don’t think you want to know. Anyway, we probably would’ve tried to figure out the truth from you guys sooner or later; my friend Fluttershy is a big animal lover after all. Luckily, Twilight talked about the other version of Dr. Eggman and sent me a picture of the other guys, so that pretty much took care of that.” She noticed the expectant looks everyone except Sticks gave her and said, “I do have the picture with me right now. Do you…?” She got her answer from a few head tilts, so she slid her backpack off.

As she knelt and set her backpack on the roof, she noticed Sticks still had her eyes narrowed, that suspicious look still on her face. Sunset matched her with a level, slightly irritated look of her own even as she opened her backpack and pulled her book out. She broke the gaze when she looked down to find the picture, at which point Sonic, Tails, Amy, and Knuckles all gave the badger a look to tell her to knock it off. After few seconds, Sunset found the picture and turned the book around, handing it towards Sonic while saying, “Here, it’s right here.”

Sonic took the book in both hands, the others gathering around him as they all looked down at the picture. Some of their expressions became a bit bewildered as they looked down at it. Knuckles was the first to speak up, pointing down at his alternate-dimension self as he spoke, “Is that supposed to be me? That guy’s a shrimp! He doesn’t even look like he has fingers! Does he even work out?”

Tails remarked, “Well, if he does, then it’s clear he doesn’t skip over leg day.”

Amy looked over her counterpart appraisingly. “Look at those boots she has. They’re very nice, but can she run in them? And that dress! I wonder if she keeps a crossbow with her instead of a hammer; it might be better for her.”

Sonic looked unimpressed by what the picture was showing, but his voice had a note of jealousy in it. “Look at this guy. How come he has more friends at his birthday party than I’ve ever had? He doesn’t even know how to dress properly. He has to be…” He trailed off as he noticed something in the corner of the photo. “Wait, is that Shadow? SHADOW was at his party?! How is that possible?! That can’t be Shadow. The only way it could be is if he’s a total joker in that dimension,” he argued.

Knuckles remarked a bit jokingly, “Or, maybe, he’s just as strong as our Shadow and that other Sonic is actually that much better than you.”

Sticks asked, “Why do you say that? Did you travel to that dimension and not tell us about it? Do you know him?!”

Tails started, “Uh, Sticks? Didn’t you…”

The badger cut him off, “No, I didn’t! I’ve never traveled to any other world! The two versions don’t match up! Besides, that other one is dead, so everything that happened in it is dead!”

Amy asked, “Sticks, what are you talking about?”

Sticks put her hands over her ears and turned and ran away suddenly, yelling, “THEY DON’T MATCH UP!”

Amy immediately chased after her, calling, “Sticks, wait!”

Sunset and the boys stared as the two took off across the rooftops. “Do you think we should… help her?” Sunset asked awkwardly.

“Nah. It’s never easy to calm Sticks down or talk her out of whatever conspiracies or theories she’s caught up in, and Amy’s her best friend. She’ll know what to do,” Sonic replied.

The trio turned to face Sunset. Sonic glanced down at the picture one last time before closing the book and handing it back to her. As she took it and tucked it under her right arm, she said, “Well, I think that about covers how I’ve heard of you guys. So how did you all get here, if you don’t mind me asking?”

Sonic crossed his arms and turned his head to the side slightly, “Well…”

“…Next thing we knew, we were falling out of the sky. Luckily, our parasail got pulled up too and came out near us. We were able to use that to land safely,” Sonic finished.

“Of course, it was a long glide before we all landed, and we had no idea where we were. It took us a while before we found out Eggman was building new robots and tracked them here,” Tails added.

“Man, that was a long, extended flashback sequence just now,” Knuckles remarked.

Sunset crossed her arms, “So that’s what happened…” There was an awkward silence for several long moments.

Knuckles finally broke it by asking, “So… what now, guys?”

Sunset looked up and answered, “Well, I think getting people to realize that Eggman is lying about a number of things needs to be dealt with so you don’t have the police harassing you all the time.”

Tails spoke, “That would make things a lot easier for us. Still, how are we going to get people to listen to us? They always seem to react with fear when they see us, even when we first got here. I doubt Eggman’s slander had gone live then.”

Sunset replied, “No, he only started doing that a little over a week ago.”

Tails went on, “So we really should do something to clear this up. Still, where do we start?”

Sunset suggested, “Well, why not start by getting some help? My friends and I have been trying to get in touch with you guys to let you know that we’ll help you out here.”

Knuckles asked, “You? You want to help us?”

Sunset smiled, “Sure. You may not be the versions that Twilight knows, but I don’t see how that affects anything. You guys seem all right.”

Sonic spoke, “Just ‘all right’? That doesn’t sound very convincing to me. Besides, based on how you look, I’d say you’re about the same age as us. You some kind of rising star reporter for a major TV news station or something? ‘Cause if you’re not, I don’t see how you can help us.”

Sunset put her hands on her hips, “My friends and I have been working for a little over a week to figure out how to meet with you. We’ve had to risk questioning by the police and putting our time and effort into keeping an eye out for you guys since you’ve understandably made that difficult to do. In that time, we’ve gotten very good at knowing when you’re around and we’ve got a pretty good idea how you make your getaways. It’s only the quick response time of the police that kept everyone else from meeting you tonight, and you notice I still found you anyway. I’d say we’re doing a lot better than the police currently are.”

Tails remarked, “She’s got a point there.”

Sunset finished, “I’m certain that, between you guys and my friends and I, we can figure out a way to expose Eggman and show everyone they should trust you instead.”

Sonic crossed his arms and glanced off to the side, “I still don’t know…” Suddenly, they all began to hear a whirring sound coming from below that began to get louder. “Hey, you hear that?” Sonic asked, immediately snapping to attention.

“Motobugs!” Tails affirmed. Sonic immediately ran to the edge of the roof and leapt down onto the top of the fire escape before flipping over the railing and dropping down to the ground. Tails, meanwhile, began spinning his tails around and flew down to join him.

Sunset was pulled out of her awe at seeing Tails fly for the first time when Knuckles called, “Hey, wait for me, guys!” Sunset watched him run to the edge and, unlike Sonic, simply leapt off the edge. Sunset was immediately concerned by the fact that he jumped like he was doing a swan dive. She ran to the edge of the roof and looked down to see him falling majestically, only to keep falling when he reached the ground. It took her a moment to realize he must’ve fallen through a manhole, a fact that was confirmed when she heard his voice echo out, “I’m okay! I landed on my chest! Now I just need to figure out where everyone went…” She heard both Sonic and Tails let out a loud groan from below, making her wonder if this was typical behavior for Knuckles.

As she began making her way down from the roof, she could hear the sound of robots being destroyed, the sound being amplified due to the width of the alley. It sounded like they were fighting back the way she had come. As she got to the bottom of the fire escape, however, her walk towards the noise was interrupted when she heard Eggman say, “Dear me! Oh, you poor girl!” She spun around and looked up to see him in his Eggmobile descending into the alley. “Were you kidnapped by that HORRIBLE Needlemouse and his friends? Well, don’t worry! My robots are here to help you!” At his words, a Motobug rolled into view at the other end of the alley.

At first, Sunset was a bit intimidated by the Badnik, having never seen one so up close before and knowing that it was something made by an evil genius, but as it got closer, she pushed her fear down and stayed where she was. When it was close enough, she brought her right leg up and back and kicked it in the side of its head, knocking it to the side slightly and causing it to spin out. Eggman gasped for dramatic effect at this and asked, “What are you doing, miss?! He’s trying to help you!” He gasped again, “Don’t tell me you’ve been held captive for so long that you have Stockholm Syndrome!”

The Motobug righted itself after a few moments and tried to approach Sunset again. This time, she raised her foot and brought it down on the Badnik’s head, managing to crush it enough for it to power down. She then looked straight up at Eggman and told him, “Oh no! I don’t have anything that’s messing with my mind anymore! In fact, I’ve never really had the wool pulled over my eyes!” She pointed up at him, “I know who you really are, Dr. Eggman!”

Eggman seemed surprisingly unconcerned by what Sunset said. “Well, that’s no surprise, really. I mean, everyone around here happens to know…” Suddenly, what she said caught up with him and he leaned over his console to look down at her as he spoke, “Wait, how do you know my actual name?! I could’ve sworn I ordered the ‘Do-Gooder’ business card package, not the ‘Evil Genius’ package!”

Sunset replied, “I have friends who share certain things with me, so I kind of thought the whole ‘Kintobor’ thing was off from the start. More importantly, though, you just clarified it out loud. That means the secret’s out!”

Eggman stood up straight, returning to his usual domineering self. “Oh really? I don’t see anyone else besides you here, and you’re pulling that ‘admission’ of yours from what only you know! Do you actually think one little girl knowing my secret is actually going to be a big deal to me?”

Sonic suddenly came up behind Sunset and stopped next to her right side, Tails flying over and landing to her left as he said, “You’d better believe it’s gonna be a big deal, Egghead! Sunset here happens to be our new pal, and with her sleuthing skills and strong legs, we’re gonna show this world what a fraud you are… together!” Sunset was a bit surprised by Sonic’s words, though she smiled when she realized he’d come to a decision.

Eggman looked down at the trio for a moment before saying, “Is this the moment where I’m supposed to go on about how evil I am and you put an abrupt end to my schemes? Well, you can forget it, Sonic! I’m not that kind of villain anymore; you won’t ever catch me doing that again! And with only one supporter in a city this big, you won’t be ruining my business any time soon!” As he finished speaking, a trio of Motobugs came around the corner and shot towards the three.

When they got close enough, they each brought their legs back and kicked the Badniks as hard as they could, managing to knock them off the ground and back, all of them breaking when they landed. Afterwards, they all looked up at Eggman again and Sunset said, “I’ve got a history of finding out things and using them against people, and I’m not the only one on their side. You’re only going to lose support from here on out, Eggman, because more and more people are going to realize that you’ve been lying all this time! By the end of it, you’ll be lucky if you can even work in an alley like this to carry out your schemes!”

Sonic added, “Yeah! So you’d better start working on robots while you have the chance, Eggman! We all know how your last craft show turned out!” Tails quietly nodded in agreement.

Eggman glared down at them and growled, but glanced to the side when he heard sirens getting closer. As he started to turn away, he called down, “This isn’t over yet! I’ll build more robots! They’ll be bigger and better, and their legs will put yours to shame! And… they’ll be able to jump really high! And they’ll give you hugs!” He added under his breath as he flew away, “Eeeeeeeeevil hugs.”

A short while later, Sunset, Sonic, and Tails were sitting together on the edge of a rooftop, watching Canterlot light up as the Sun went down. “You know, this place does have a certain beauty of its own. We’d never see a view like this at night back home,” Tails remarked, Sonic nodding in response.

After a few moments, Sunset looked over at Sonic and asked, “Did you really mean what you said back there? About me being your pal?”

Sonic looked totally laidback at the moment, but he spoke sincerely, “Sure. You’re a pretty cool girl in your own way, and you were willing to stand up to Eggman. This isn’t an easy job, but I think you’ve got what it takes for it.”

Sunset mulled over his words for a moment before asking, “So, this is a job, is it? I’m sure my friends would like to have a position in it as well, and they’ll probably be wondering about it as much as I am right now. Like, what’s it like? Are there any benefits?”

Sonic replied, “Well, you’re expected to be able to foot your own expenses and be ready to drop what you’re doing whenever you’re needed, but there are plenty of benefits.” He looked over at Tails, “Show her.” The fox nodded and reached for his belt buckle with his right hand. With a quick twist, a yellow glow appeared on it that jumped to Tails’ hand. He clenched it into a fist and then flicked it forward, a glowing yellow rope seemingly made out of energy extending from it before coming back to him and disappearing.

Sunset looked amazed at this and looked at Tails, who replied, “It’s called an Enerbeam. It was originally made by a race that we call the Ancients. It’s one of the things we’ve discovered after researching them, and we make use of them from time to time.”

Sonic looked back at Sunset, “We’re kind of looking for a better place to set up shop ourselves, but once we do, we’ll get you one. We’ll get one for all your friends.” Sunset gave him a smile in reply. He might not be the Sonic that Twilight knew, but if he was anything like him, she was starting to see why she quickly became friends with him.

Meanwhile, in an alley elsewhere in the city, Amy was trying to find Sticks, having lost track of her a while ago. “Sticks! Where are you? It’s getting dark! We have to get back to the guys and find a place to spend the night!” she called. She suddenly heard a rattling nearby and looked to see Knuckles emerge from a manhole, covered in sewage and the cover balanced on his head. “Knuckles!” she said.

The cover fell off as he climbed all the way out and shook his head a bit. “Ugh. Don’t drink the water around here. It really goes through you,” he remarked.

Amy sighed and used her hammer to put the manhole cover back in place. She then put her hammer away as she said, “Come on, it’s getting dark! We’ve got to find Sticks! And find a place for you to wash up.” She then started walking down the alley again, Knuckles obediently following behind her.

As they walked out of hearing distance of it, a rattling sound came from a dumpster. Sticks poked her head out of it a second later, bits of garbage on her head. She then pulled her arms out of the trash to look at the prize she’d found: discarded copies of a videogame called ‘Pilfered by the Poltergeists’. “How could anyone throw away so many copies of something like this? How could they not see the value in an autobi… autoba… this personal experience? Well, I certainly do!” She narrowed her eyes at the cover and grinned, “Soon, I’ll know all your secrets, you pilfering geists! You, and all your ghosty friends!”

Author's Notes: