Dr. McNinja goes on an Equestrian Adventure

by Mysterious Stranger

First published 24th of November, 2012

Dr. McNinja journeys through time and space to get a motorcycle but instead gets an equestrian adventure.

After defeating the evil unicorn Sparklelord by tossing him through a portal, Dr. McNinja enters the rift in time and space himself in hopes of finding another unicorn to be his new motorcycle. However, instead of going to Radical Land like he hoped, everyone's favorite ninja doctor ends up in a small little country known as Equestria. Unfortunately, Sparklelord is in Equestria as well, with intentions to wipe it and its inhabitants off the map. It’s up to Dr. McNinja, his sidekick Gordito, and the Elements of Harmony to save the day.

(Special thanks to Totallynotabrony for his mad editing skills and another special thanks to my pega-sister/real sister for making the cover art. Cover art background by Jamey4 )

Chapter 1: A magical land with magical things and magical creatures

"Just... be sure your hand runs along the left wall, and eventually we'll make it to the entrance," Dr. McNinja advised his mustached sidekick, Gordito. "It's science."

Gordito steered Yoshi, his loyal velociraptor, closer to the wall of the tunnel but didn't touch it. Not quite complete obedience, but not outright disobedience either. Both the ninja doctor and the gunslinging twelve year old were aware of this, but neither felt it was worth bringing up.

"So..." Gordito began in an attempt to break the awkward silence. "Your motorcycle was a unicorn huh?"

"Yep. Turned out it was a unicorn." Dr. McNinja sighed. When Cumberland's resident mafia boss, King Radical, had escaped Dr. McNinja by riding a motorcycle through the very tunnels Dr. McNinja and Gordito now walked, Dr. McNinja had seen the acquisition of his own motorcycle as the greatest stroke of luck. He hadn't known at the time that his sweet new ride was actually an evil unicorn named Sparkelord, who hailed from the same magical land as King Radical, Radical Land. Ultimately, Dr. McNinja had foiled Sparklelord's plans by tossing him through a time-space portal just a few minutes ago. Dr. McNinja knew in his heart that he had done the right thing, but the loss of such an awesome, powerful, magical, motorcycle saddened him deeply.

"Don't unicorns only approach virgins?" asked Gordito.

Dr. McNinja quickly forget about his mourning as he mentally scrambled to come up with a satisfactory answer. "Uh... well... Sparklelord was twisted," he said. "So, you know, that has to make me like totally..."

Gordito raised an eyebrow as Dr. McNinja drifted off for a moment.

"I don't like addressing mature issues in my comics," Dr. McNinja finished. "Wait, scratch that, we're not in a comic anymore."

"Your what?" asked Gordito. Unlike Dr. McNinja, Gordito couldn't see past the fourth wall at the end of an adventure, which also happened to be the start of another in this case.

Suddenly, a flash of inspiration struck Dr. McNinja. "Wait a minute, I might not need Sparklelord in order to have a magical unicorn motorcycle!"

"Wait, back up, what was that about a com—"

"No time for chit chat, Gordito!" Dr. McNinja interrupted. "I have to go back to that portal and pay a visit to Radical Land!"

"You're going through the portal to Radical Land?!" asked Gordito. "Why?!"

"There might be other unicorns in Radical land besides Sparklelord!" Dr. McNinja shouted over his shoulder as he took off back down the tunnel at full ninja speed. "If I can convince a different unicorn to come back with me to our reality, I can foil whatever dastardly scheme King Radical has planned!"

Gordito considered pointing out that King Radical had done nothing but good for Cumberland, but decided against it. Clearly this was the start of yet another totally awesome adventure, and he had no intention of missing out. The boy smacked his heels against Yoshi twice, spurring the dinosaur to sprint after Dr. McNinja. After a short twisting chase through the labyrinth, Dr. McNinja reached the spherical glowing portal and stopped in front of its purple glow, allowing Gordito to catch up.

The energy from the portal caused Dr. McNinja's white lab coat and black tie to flap dramatically as he pulled out his cell phone. After flipping it open, he pressed the speed dial for his receptionist and held the device up to an ear behind his ninja mask.

"Cancel all of my appointments for today, Judy," he said. "I'm going to be busy finding a unicorn to be my new motorcycle."

Dr. McNinja paused to listen as a series of grunts emitted from the cell phone.

"Judy, we've been over this. I can't understand your words because you are a gorilla. Just cancel my appointments okay?"

"Ook," Judy replied.

"Thank you. That is all," said Dr. McNinja as he snapped his cell phone shut and slipped it back into his pant pocket. "She's such a professional," he remarked proudly. "Ready to go, Gordito?"

Gordito nodded, trying not to grin and break his image of a cool tough guy. He was excited at the prospect of starting another adventure. Dr. McNinja fiddled with the wakizashi blade strapped to his back to make sure it was secure. Once satisfied, he sprang into the portal with an "Alley oop!" Gordito tapped Yoshi again with his heels and the raptor went through as well. As they flew through a tunnel of purple energy, Gordito began to wonder if going through the portal had been a smart move.

"Have you ever jumped through a portal into another reality before?" asked Gordito.

"Nope! But it is number fourteen on my list of things to do before I die," Dr. McNinja answered.

"So you really have no idea what to expect on the other side then."

"Well, I imagine Radical Land is a magical land with magical things and magical creatures. Unicorns included, hopefully."

Gordito thought that any man who wanted to have anything to do with unicorns was weird, but didn't say so. It wasn't his place. Abruptly the tunnel of purple energy disappeared and the duo plus a raptor found themselves inside of a cave. A giant hole with rubble gathered on the ground around it was to their left, revealing the light of the midday sun from outside. Wordlessly Gordito and Dr. McNinja stepped through the opening and saw a sight that took their breath away.

They were at the top of a mountain, and from their position a country of diverse landscapes was visible. To the north lay a range of tall peaks surrounded by a frozen wasteland. To the south it was mostly desert, with a river that ran through a gorge into a large forested area at the base of the mountain. Trees and rivers were abundant everywhere else, along with a few mountains scattered here and there. Floating in the sky directly ahead was a large gathering of clouds with rainbows flowing down to the ground like waterfalls.

For a moment Gordito wondered how rainbows could flow like waterfalls, until he remembered he was now in a magical land. Presumably, it was full of magical things that science could not explain. Gordito's inner nerd secretly hoped he might see a dragon, or an ogre, or even a giant spider. Surely a land like this would give him plenty of opportunities to fulfill his geeky and violent fantasies.

"Keep your mouth open like that any longer and a bug will fly in," Dr. McNinja said. "Then you would start to choke, and then I would have to pull a Heimlich maneuver. Or worse, a poisonous bug might fly in and sting your tongue, and in order to suck out the poison I'll have to—"

"I get it, I get it," Gordito said. "But now I have a question. How will we get back home?"

"Personally, I was planning the take the portal back home."

Gordito glanced back into the cave and saw that, sure enough, the purple sphere of pure energy was still there.

"Huh. For some reason I thought the portal would disappear and strand us here, forcing us to find another way back."

"Why would you think that?"

"I dunno," Gordito said with a shrug as he glanced over the edge of the rock he stood on. "Hey, there's a city down there!"

"You just now noticed that? You need to work on your observation skills, Gordito," Dr. McNinja admonished.

Gordito didn't hear him, for he was too busy studying the city in fascination. It had tall white towers and walls with banners, spires, and flags that were gold and purple in color. The entire thing was attached to the mountainside as if on a shelf. A moderate distance away from it was a palace with an identical color scheme sitting on a island in the middle of a waterfall that flowed over the edge of the mountain down to the land below.

Then Gordito spotted something very peculiar. Dozens of what appeared to be winged horses were frantically flying around the palace. Without any warning, a loud rumble erupted from the structure as one of its towers collapsed. Gordito's eyes widened as he realized what he was witnessing

"That city is being attacked!" Gordito exclaimed. "Doc, we have to do something!"

"And do something we shall!" said Dr. McNinja as he round-house kicked an old tree nearby, causing it to snap and fall. With the agility only a ninja could pull off, he jumped on top of the severed tree as it began sliding down the rocky slope. With a grim determination, Gordito drew his revolvers and spurred Yoshi forward down the mountain at a full sprint. Neither the ninja doctor nor the gunslinging child were yet aware of what magical land they had discovered, but they certainly knew it was in need for someone to save the day.

Chapter 2: An escape of epic proportions

With a splash, Dr. McNinja's severed tree crashed into the river and kept moving towards the palace without losing any momentum. As soon as he was close enough, he nimbly jumped onto the pile of rubble the collapsed tower had made. Several winged diminutive white horses wearing golden armor were scattered among the debris like rag dolls.

"What... what now... another intruder?" coughed one of the pegasi as Dr. McNinja walked up to him.

"No, not an intruder. A doctor and a ninja, here to help. I'm Dr. McNinja," Dr. McNinja said as Gordito and Yoshi landed on the pile of rubble beside him. "And this is my sidekick Gordito. He's the human, not the dinosaur."

"A... what? A human? I've never heard of a human. Or a dinosaur. Which is which?" moaned the winged stallion.

Dr. McNinja scowled underneath his ninja mask. If King Radical was from this land, how could the horse not know what a human was?

"What happened here? Who’s attacking your palace?" asked Gordito, not one to beat around the bush.

"It was a unicorn... not a pony... but a horse... like Princess Celestia." The guard pony wheezed. "Feels like he sucked something out of me, made my wings stop working."

Dr. McNinja got down on his knees and carefully examined the pony's wings with his hands.

"No broken bones,” he mused. "And the muscles seem just fine."

With effort, the pegasus pushed the doctor's hands away.

"Don't worry about me, I'm not important," he muttered. "If you're here to help, go make sure that Princess Celestia and Princess Luna are safe."

"Then I'll go do that," Dr. McNinja said as he rose, still puzzled about what was wrong with the winged pony.

Dr. McNinja and Gordito charged into the palace through the opening the collapsed tower had made. As he tore through the marble hallways, Dr. McNinja noticed more pegasi, unicorns, and normal ponies lying around. All of them looked like they had been weakened, but none of them appeared physically injured. Debris from destroyed walls and shattered palace decorations were everywhere, as if a hurricane had passed by. After a minute of running and following the path of destruction, Dr. McNinja and Gordito burst into what appeared to be a throne room.

Before them was a large white unicorn whose horn, tail, and mane bore the colors of the rainbow. He stood above two other horses on the ground. Both of the downed mares were alicorns, wore tiaras on their heads, and seemed as if they were seconds away from passing out. Dr. McNinja figured the pair must be the princesses the guard had spoken of. One of them had an image of a moon on her flank, which Dr. McNinja deduced to mean that she was Princess Luna. By process of elimination that made the other one Princess Celestia.

Rainbow colored streams of light were flowing from the horns of each mare into the horn of the stallion standing above them. Scorch marks and gaping holes were all over the room, as if there had been a fight.

"Sparklelord," Dr. McNinja said icily. "I should have figured this was your doing."

"Dr. McNinja? What are you doing here?" The unicorn said in genuine surprise. "I wasn't expecting to ever see you again."

"And I was hoping I would never have to see you again," Dr. McNinja shot back as he drew his wakizashi. "I guess sending you back to Radical Land wasn't enough to stop you from causing mindless destruction."

"You're a horse that needs to be put down," Gordito added boldly.

Dr. McNinja felt a sudden burst of pride for his sidekick. Truly, he had come a long way in the quality of his one-liners.

"This is hardly Radical Land," Sparklelord scoffed, ignoring Gordito's comment. "Either this is another reality entirely, or time has turned it into a land that is foreign to me. But this is still a magical land with magical creatures, so I can still drain them of their magic like before."

"If you want to see a real magic trick, watch me take your sorry hide and turn it into glue." Dr. McNinja smirked beneath his mask. Gordito may be good at one-liners, but he was still the master.

"An empty threat." Sparklelord yawned. "I've already drained a great deal of magic power from these two fine looking mares, and it’s more than enough to crush you."

To prove his point, Sparklelord's horn glowed as Dr. McNinja, Gordito, and Yoshi suddenly found themselves suspended in the air by a rainbow colored glow. Out of the corner of his vision, Dr. McNinja noticed Princess Luna and Princess Celestia wearily pick themselves up and cautiously slip out of the throne room through a giant hole in the wall. At the same time, Gordito drew his revolvers and started shooting at Sparklelord.

A shimmering shield appeared around Sparklelord, which harmlessly adsorbed the bullets. His magic hold sacrificed for self-defense, Dr. McNinja and company landed on the ground again.

"Gordito! We're making a tactical withdrawal!" Dr. McNinja shouted as he charged past Sparklelord towards the large hole the alicorns had escaped through.

"We're running away?" Gordito yelled over the sound of gunshots as he continued to keep Sparklelord on the defensive with a barrage of bullets.

"That too! And we're practicing our parkour! Come on!"

Gordito kept up the suppressive fire as he urged Yoshi towards the hole to freedom. As he went through, Gordito had to stop firing to reload, which gave Sparklelord the chance to drop his shield and fire magical laser beams at the quickly escaping gunslinger. Gordito ducked as the beams flew over his head.

Sparklelord roared with fury and began to pursue, prompting the two alicorns ahead to break out into a panicked gallop as fast as they were able, which wasn't all that fast.

"Excuse me," Dr. McNinja said politely as he ran along the side of the wall over the heads of the two mares. Both of them balked slightly at the sight of the ninja doctor, but kept galloping as powerful bursts of magical lasers destroyed practically every square inch of their surroundings.

"You shoot like a storm trooper!" Dr. McNinja loudly informed Sparklelord as his feet touched the ground again without slowing.

No one else spoke as the chase continued down the hallways. Turning provided brief relief from the barrage, but for the most part ducking and weaving were required to avoid being toasted like toast. Finally a magic bolt destroyed the wall up ahead of the runners, revealing the open blue sky.

"Can I ride you?" Dr. McNinja abruptly asked Princess Celestia, a white alicorn with a shimmering mane of green, turquoise, blue, and pink. "I can't fly, you see, and I expect going out that new window is the only escape route."

Princess Celestia glanced at Dr. McNinja with wide eyes, but gave a quick nod all the same.

"Do what I'm doing, Gordito!" Dr. McNinja shouted as he backflipped onto his new ride. "We're flying out of here!"

"But what about Yoshi?!" said Gordito.

"Leave him! It's us Sparklelord is after! He'll be fine!"

Gordito hesitated for a moment before he sprang off of Yoshi's back onto Princess Luna's. Surprised by the unexpected and uninvited invasion of personal space, she stumbled on her hooves for a moment before regaining her stride.

"Go another way, Yoshi! I'll find you again!" Gordito said to his previous method of travel.

The raptor tilted his head quizzically for a moment, but then made a sharp turn down another hallway anyway. The switch was made not a moment too soon, for the very next second the two royal alicorns dove out of the surrogate window and into the wide blue sky. Time seemed to slow down as if the universe lagged in order to fully comprehend the scene. Dr. McNinja and Gordito, riding on Princess Celestia and Princess Luna respectively, escaping out of the palace as rainbow colored lasers flew all around them.

But sadly, the majestic picture was cut short as a most unfortunate situation developed.

"He took away our ability to fly!" Princess Celestia shrieked as she began to plummet.

"Thou sayeth not, omnipotent sister!" Princess Luna angrily and sarcastically shouted back at her sibling as she too began to fall.

Chapter 3: Horses can't breathe through their mouths

Bright daylight shined into Dr. McNinja's eyes like a sadistic child with a flashlight. Having no desire to get up, the ninja doctor burrowed his face further into his heated white pillow. Suddenly his eyes snapped open as he realized that he did not own a heated white pillow. In fact, he wasn't even sure that heated pillows had ever been invented. Heated blankets sure, but pillows?

Now fully awakened by the conundrum, Dr. McNinja shot up to his feet only to realize that his clothes were wet and covered in mud, presumably from the embankment he had been lying in. A quick study of his surroundings revealed a waterfall flowing down the side of a mountain directly behind him, fields beyond the bank of the river, and a very pillow-like white alicorn at his feet.

"Oh hey! My stethoscope!" Dr. McNinja said happily as he spotted the medical instrument lying in the mud.

A quick dip into the river was all it took to make the device worthy of adorning his neck once again. When he turned around again he noticed Princess Celestia had woken up and was staring at him. Dr. McNinja stared back, and for several awkward seconds he held her gaze.

"What?" he asked after he could take it no longer.

"I'm trying to figure out what you are," Princess Celestia replied evenly.

"What's to figure? I'm a ninja and a doctor. It’s really not that hard of a concept to grasp."

"I got that part. What I don't know is what kind of creature you are. I've been alive for over three thousand years and I've never seen anything like you or your—"

"Um, Doc?" Gordito interrupted from a few feet away. He was standing over Princess Luna and looked worried.

"Yes, Gordito?"

"I don't think she's breathing."

"Luna!" Princess Celestia cried out in alarm as she jumped to her hooves.

"I got this! I'm a doctor!" Dr. McNinja said as he rushed over to Princess Luna and studied her closely. "Yep, she drowned."

"Can't you perform CPR or something?!" Princess Celestia said desperately.

"That's what I'm doing," Dr. McNinja said as he knelt down while forming a tube with one hand over Princess Luna's nostrils and holding her mouth closed with the other.

"I thought CPR was mouth to mouth?" Gordito asked.

"Not with horses. They don't breath through their mouths," Dr. McNinja said quickly. "Now shut up and apply pressure to her side while I do this."

"What do you mean we don't breath through our mouths?!" demanded Princess Celestia as Dr. McNinja blew into his curled hand. If horses couldn't breathe through their mouths, then they wouldn't be able to talk, obviously.

Briefly she considered trying to stop him since he clearly didn't know anything about equine anatomy. He hadn't even removed his mask for the CPR, for goodness sake. But before she could act, Luna coughed up water and began gasping for air.

"First time's the charm!" Dr. McNinja said gleefully. "Another life has been saved by science!"

"That," Princess Luna gagged as she sat up, "Was a most unpleasant experience."

Princess Celestia sat down beside her younger sister and threw her forelegs around her in a tight hug. Once satisfied, she turned her attention back to Dr. McNinja.

"Thank you for saving my sister," Princess Celestia said. "But where did you get the idea that horses can't breathe through their mouths?"

"They can't from where I'm from." Dr. McNinja shrugged. "It's science."

"Pray tell, how do horses talk where thou art from if air does not pass through their mouths?" asked Princess Luna.

"They don't."

Both of the royal alicorns waited for him to explain further, but Dr. McNinja didn't bother to elaborate.

"So are we going to go back up there and mop the floor with Sparklelord or what?" Gordito said.

"I'm not sure that we can, he's done something that prevents me from using magic." Princess Celestia frowned. "However, I have a student that may be able to help deal with this... Sparklelord. She doesn't live too far from here."

"Is she an elf?" Gordito asked hopefully.

"Um, no, she's a unicorn. What's an elf?" asked Princess Celestia.

"They're like humans, except they have pointy ears," Gordito said as he pointed to the sides of his head.

"So... thou art a human then, since thy ears are rounded?" Princess Luna said.

"We both are," said Dr. McNinja, sensing an opportunity for proper introductions. "I'm Dr. McNinja, and this is my sidekick, Gordito."

"A pleasure to meet you both, although the circumstances are less than ideal." Princess Celestia said. "I'm Princess Celestia, and this is my sister Princess Luna. Now if I may ask, how do you know the unicorn that attacked our castle?"

Sparklelord wandered through the battered halls of his self-proclaimed new home. He was still irritated that Dr. McNinja and those two mares had escaped him, but the scene of burning pieces of debris and rubble had a calming effect on his mind. Mindless destruction was truly a beautiful thing. Not for the first time, Sparklelord was amazed to think that there had once been a time when he was appalled by destruction. What a fortune it was that someone had opened his eyes to how glorious it truly was so many eons ago.

Every now and then as he walked, Sparklelord would spot a small horse in the corner of his vision before they ran off. They were a puzzle, those horses. They were the size of ponies, yet their faces wore the experience of grown stallions and mares. The only exception had been those two alicorns he had sensed so much power from after he came out of the portal. But now they were most likely dead, along with Dr. McNinja and that little tag along of his. Sparklelord would have preferred that they died at his hooves, but that could hardly be helped now.

Sparklelord came upon a door, blew it up, and walked through to see what was on the other side. He was now outside of the palace in some sort of garden with tall shrubberies, slow moving streams, and statues on stone pedestals. It was disgustingly tidy and clean. Out of spite, Sparklelord pointed his horn at a statue of a bearded unicorn wearing a wizard's cap and caused it to spontaneously combust. Laughing madly, Sparklelord trotted around the garden for repeat performances, earning himself a shiver of ecstasy every time another statue was reduced to dust.

Just as he was about to destroy another one, Sparklelord paused. That one statue in particular looked familiar. The demented unicorn slowly approached it, his mind scarcely daring to believe what his eyes were telling him. But no, the resemblance was unmistakable. A lion's paw, a horse's head, a dragon's wing, a goat's horn, and many other characteristics that could only represent one being in all of Radical Land.

"Discord," Sparklelord whispered in awe. "My god, my maker."

Chapter 4: This isn't middle earth, Gordito

"And that is why my sister and I are called princesses, despite the fact our parents are long dead and we art the sole rulers of Equestria," Princess Luna said as the four travelers made their way across the fields towards society.

"That makes sense," Gordito said from her left. "In our world queens usually get a bad rep as well. The title princess just sounds a lot more pleasant."

"We're here," Princess Celestia said as they reached the top of a hill. "Ponyville."

Dr. McNinja paused with interest to study the sight before him as the alicorns walked on ahead. Ponyville was a large village full of tan cottages with thatched roofs of golden straw. The color pink was abundant on the structures as well. Pink doors, pink windows, and many of the buildings had pink heart shaped wind vanes on their roofs. Ponies in a wide variety of bright colors walked about doing human like things, such as shopping, chatting, or playing sports.

"What a cute little village!" Dr. McNinja said. "A world full of little sapient horses, isn't that something, Gordito?"

Gordito didn't respond. Dr. McNinja glanced at his sidekick and saw that he was scowling.

"Something wrong, Gordito?"

"This reality is starting to feel more like a T.V. show for little girls than an epic fantasy land," Gordito said. "It's full of unicorns, rainbows, and I think I see a whole bunch of ponies doing a musical number over there."

"I don't know," Dr. McNinja said thoughtfully. "Once you get past all the bright colors, I can't help but feel we might find something really special here."

Gordito seemed intent on pouting, so Dr. McNinja simply motioned him to follow and walked quickly to catch up with the alicorns. The citizens of Ponyville reacted quite noticeably as the humans and the alicorns entered the town square. Every single one of them dropped whatever they were doing to bow to the Princesses, even the ones who were in the middle of a musical number. But when they saw the humans, their eyes grew as wide as dinner plates. Gordito was surprised to overhear one of them whisper the word "guns" as he passed them. Before too long, Princess Celestia led them to a giant tree with a trunk thick enough to be a building. It had round glass windows, two balconies, and a doormat, which led Dr. McNinja to believe it was a home. This theory was strengthened when Princess Celestia rapped a hoof on the door.

Within a few seconds a short purple dragon with green spines opened it. For a moment Gordito was excited that there were dragons, until he realized that this one in particular was wearing an apron with pink frilly edges and a pink heart stitched onto the front. Was nothing sacred?

"Hi Princess Celestia," the dragon said causally.

"Hello Spike. Is Twilight Sparkle here?" Princess Celestia replied.

"She's here," Spike answered as his eyes jumped from Princess Luna, to Dr. McNinja, and finally Gordito. Unlike the rest of Ponyville, the dragon didn't radiate sheer amazement. Instead, he only had a look of mild interest. "Come on in, I'll go get her."

Dr. McNinja and company entered the tree as Spike ran halfway up a set of wooden stairs.

"Hey, Twilight!" he called. "Princess Celestia is here!"

"Nice try, Spike," A voice said from upstairs. "I'm not falling for that again."

"Come on down, Twilight. There isn't any time to waste," Princess Celestia said.

Dr. McNinja heard a gasp from upstairs, shortly followed by a thump. After that a purple unicorn appeared at the top of the steps and briskly came down the stairs, nearly losing her balance twice as she did so. In the back of his mind, Dr. McNinja noticed that her head was just above his belt buckle in height, like many other of the horses he had seen. It seemed to him that the only ones that were the same size as horses in his world were the princesses. He wondered if this Twilight Sparkle would turn into a standard sized motorcycle in his reality, a miniature one, or something else?

"Um, who are you, and why are you staring at me?" Twilight Sparkle asked.

"Hm? Oh, sorry, I zoned out there for a second. I was just having an internal dialogue," Dr. McNinja said.

Twilight Sparkle tilted her head quizzically as she looked at the ninja doctor.

"Unless you have multiple personality disorder, I believe the word you're looking for is monologue, not dialogue," Twilight Sparkle said.

"Buuuuuurn," Gordito and Spike stage-whispered simultaneously.

"Twilight Sparkle, Dr. McNinja. Dr. McNinja, Twilight Sparkle," Princess Celestia said formally, ignoring the "burn" comment. "Twilight, Dr. McNinja and his companion here are beings from another universe that entered our world through a... what did you call it?"

"Time-space portal," Dr. McNinja said.

"You're from another reality?" Twilight Sparkle asked with sudden interest.

"For all I know, I'm just from another time period in this reality." Dr. McNinja shrugged.

"Sparklelord," said Princess Luna.

"Yes, thank you, Luna,” said Princess Celestia. “Twilight, I need you to gather the Bearers of Harmony once again. Canterlot Castle has been attacked."

Twilight's eyes widened. "Attacked?! By who?!"

Princess Celestia glanced at Dr. McNinja.

"Right, the who,” he said. “So there's this unicorn from my reality, or time, who is from another reality, or this one, and he's twisted to want to destroy everything for no particular reason except because he can."

"Soooooo he's from where exactly?" asked Twilight Sparkle.

"Somewhere."

"That doesn't really help."

"Where he's from isn't important," said Princess Celestia. "What's important is that you and your friends use the Elements of Harmony to defeat him."

Dr. McNinja raised his hand as if he was in a classroom.

"Um, yes doctor?" Princess Celestia said.

"What are the Elements of Harmony?"

"Six ancient artifacts that serve as the catalysts for the magic of friendship,” Twilight Sparkle said. “My friends and I are the Bearers of Harmony, the only ponies of this generation that can wield their power."

"Friendship is magic," Gordito deadpanned.

"That's right!" Twilight Sparkle beamed.

Gordito sat down in a chair and started cleaning his guns without saying anything or looking up. Twilight Sparkle stared at the weapons in alarm for a moment before turning her attention back to Princess Celestia.

"Did you bring the Elements of Harmony with you?" she asked.

"No I did not," Princess Celestia said with a slight wince. "You're going to have to retrieve them in order to defeat Sparklelord."

Gordito glanced up from his gun cleaning. "Wait, let me get this straight. Twilight Sparkle and her friends are the only ones who can use the Elements of Harmony, but you keep them in a castle far away from where they live?"

"For safekeeping," Princess Celestia said rather defensively. "The Elements of Harmony are kept in a room that can only be opened with my... um..."

"With your magic?" Gordito said.

"With my magic," Princess Celestia admitted painfully.

"Well that's fine," Twilight Sparkle said a little uneasily, "You can just go and retrieve them while I go get my friends right?"

Princess Celestia didn't respond.

"Princess Celestia?"

"There is another thing thou should know about Sparklelord," Princess Luna said slowly. "He apparently possesses the ability to drain magic from other creatures."

"Drain... magic?" Twilight Sparkle said fearfully.

"Yes, a power that he used on both my sister and I," Princess Luna said gravely. "If the doctor and his companion had not arrived when they did, he surely would have taken all of our power and robbed us of our immortality as well. Now, we are powerless, and it is up to thou to defeat him."

"But... what would stop him from draining my magic?" Twilight Sparkle asked.

Neither of the alicorns said anything.

"I would recommend not letting him catch you," Dr. McNinja suggested.

"Dr. McNinja, you said you are a ninja as a well as a doctor correct?" asked Princess Celestia.

Dr. McNinja nodded. "That's right."

"Would it be possible then, for you to lead the Bearers of Harmony on a stealthy infiltration of Canterlot Castle to retrieve the Elements?"

Dr. McNinja exchanged a glance with Gordito.

"If you really think that's the best way to defeat Sparklelord, then I suppose I could," Dr. McNinja replied. "But if they're kept in a room that can only be opened by your magic, how are we supposed to get them?"

"I honestly don't know." Princess Celestia cringed. "Given Sparklelord's tendencies for random destruction, it's possible he may have created a way in already."

"That's a bit of a stretch," said Gordito.

"If thou would recall, I suggested keeping the Elements of Harmony in Ponyville after the Discord incident," Princess Luna said.

"Luna," Princess Celestia said through gritted teeth, "Now is really not the time."

"I am only speaking."

Princess Celestia looked as she really wanted to make a retort, but after a glance at Twilight Sparkle she held her tongue. Dr. McNinja felt the tension between the two sisters, and he decided he did not want to be around when it snapped.

"Well, Twilight Sparkle," he said quickly, "Shall we proceed to find all of your friends and depart on our quest?"

"Yes, let's," Twilight Sparkle said hastily as she, Spike, Gordito, and Dr. McNinja causally escaped out the front door.

Chapter 5: Screw you, Physics

Dr. McNinja and Gordito continued to receive a multitude of stares as they followed Twilight Sparkle through Ponyville. The lavender unicorn had Spike riding on her back and was at a full gallop, with Dr. McNinja right behind her and Gordito lagging behind. Gordito sorely missed Yoshi as he ran, both out of love for his loyal steed and out of the pain in his legs as he worked hard to keep up.

Soon the group of four came upon a large bakery. Despite the overly girly atmosphere of the village, Gordito had to admit that the bakery itself looked pretty sweet, both literally and figuratively. Like most of the buildings in Ponyville, it had light tan walls, pink windows, and a pink door. That was where the similarities ended. Instead of straw, the roof appeared to be made of gingerbread with white frosting on the edges. On top of the roof was a tower that bore an uncanny resemblance to two cupcakes with pink frosting stacked on top of each other. The only fault Gordito could find in the design was the three giant lit candles on top of the cupcake tower, which was more of a fire hazard than an eyesore.

As Gordito followed Twilight, Spike, and Dr. McNinja inside the bakery, he noticed a light pink pony with a magenta curly mane receiving a small brown bag of something from a tall and lanky yellow stallion.

"Here you go, Pinkie Pie," the lanky stallion was saying. "Enjoy the rest of your afternoon."

"Thank you, Mr. Cake. But before I clock out, I'm going to buy a snack to go," said Pinkie Pie.

"Pinkie Pie, I need you to come right away, Canterlot has—" Twilight started to say before Pinkie Pie interrupted.

"Just a moment, Twilight, I have to help the customer first."

Gordito glanced around. Aside from Dr. McNinja, Twilight, Spike, Pinkie Pie, Mr. Cake, and himself, no one was present in the confection store.

"Um, Pinkie Pie," said Twilight as she came to the same conclusion as Gordito, "No one else is in the—"

"I'd like to buy a cake please!" Pinkie Pie said as she turned towards the counter, which no one was currently standing behind at the moment.

The split second the request was out of her mouth, Pinkie Pie zipped around and appeared behind the counter faster than physics should have allowed.

"Sure can do!" she replied cheerfully to herself. "What kind of cake would you like?"

Zip.

"I'd like the strawberry one with pink frosting," she said as she pointed a hoof, playing the part of the customer as she appeared in front of the counter again.

Zip.

"Okey dokey, that will be six bits."

Zip.

Pinkie Pie reached into her brown bag and scooped out six gold coins with her hoof, which she then proceeded to drop over the counter before zipping around and catching them from the other side. She then set the cake on the counter, wished herself a nice day, picked up the cake, walked over to Twilight Sparkle, and ate the entire cake in one bite.

"Orkay, er'm ready now," she said through a mouthful of cake.

"Eating habits like that is a great way to get type two diabetes," Dr. McNinja said disapprovingly.

"Whush diabertays?" Pinkie Pie asked innocently.

"Dr. McNinja and Gordito, Pinkie Pie, Pinkie Pie, Dr. McNinja and Gordito," Twilight Sparkle said quickly. "Now come on, we have to go save Equestria from a psychotic unicorn."

"Sombra?" Pinkie Pie said with cake-free speech.

"No, somepony else."

"Did you seriously just say somepony?" Gordito groaned.

"I did... what about it?" Twilight Sparkle asked slowly.

"Weren't we in a rush?" said Dr. McNinja.

"Yes, yes, right," Twilight Sparkle said. "Pinkie Pie, I need you to go get Applejack and Rainbow Dash while I go get Rarity and Fluttershy. We'll all meet the libr—"

Twilight Sparkle cut herself off as she recalled what had been going on between Celestia and Luna at the library.

"Um, Rarity's place. We'll all meet at Rarity's," she said. "You got all that?"

"Ay-yi, Twi-li!" Pinkie Pie said as she saluted with a hoof. Then she set her hoof down and didn't move.

"Could you... do it right now?" Twilight asked after a moment. "And fast?"

Pinkie Pie nodded and rocketed out of the confection shop, leaving a trail of smoke in her wake. If Twilight Sparkle was surprised by the act, she didn't show it.

"Well, I guess you two can just follow me," she said to Dr. McNinja and Gordito.

Sparklelord sat the red cushioning a tall golden throne as he scrutinized the statue of Discord he had moved to the throne room. The land Sparklelord had seen from the mountaintop looked nothing like Radical Land, yet here before him was the spitting image of one of its inhabitants. It made no sense, much like the inspiring draconequus himself. Greatly puzzled, Sparkle Lord rose from the throne and wandered out of the throne room and into a hallway with large stained glass windows. That was when he saw it.

One of the stained glass windows was a scene that clearly involved Discord. The draconequus was inside some sort of circle of light, connected by what appeared to be magic beams emitting from six ponies. Sparklelord glanced around, and was perturbed to realize that he had destroyed most of the stained glass windows on his way in. Then the psychotic unicorn spotted another one with Discord in it. This time, Discord was colored only in gray colors, and was being struck by light from alicorns that bore an uncanny resemblance to the ones he had found in the throne room. At that point Sparkle Lord came to a startling conclusion. The statue was not a replica of Discord, the statue was Discord.

Sparklelord turned his attention back to the window depicting Discord and the alicorns, hoping to find more clues as to what was going on. The sun and the moon were also included in the picture, with the sun close to the white alicorn, and the moon close to the darker one. Sparklelord blinked as he recalled the images that had been located on the flanks of the alicorns, and a theory formed in his mind.

Even as he shattered another nearby window and looked outside at the sun, Sparklelord told himself that his theory was impossible. But when Sparkle Lord concentrated his recently stolen powers on the sun, it moved.

Sparklelord stared up at the sky in disbelief. The sun had just visibly moved to the left. Then, ever so slowly, Sparklelord began to chuckle.

"You think you can put chaos on a leash by petrifying my god?!" A twisted grin stretched across Sparklelord's face. "We'll see about that! Ahahahahahahaha!"

Chapter 6: Here there be dinosaurs

Fluttershy walked with a bit of a bounce in her step as she entered the woods just outside of Ponyville. It was the middle of the afternoon, and that meant it was time for one of her favorite activities.

"Come on out, my little animal friends," she called softly. "It’s time for your supper!"

The butter yellow pegasus smiled in expectation for the adorable little critters to come running. Much to her surprise, none did so. Fluttershy's smile weakened slightly.

"I guess they didn't hear me," she said to herself.

Fluttershy called out again, a hair louder than before. Still, no animals appeared. With a shrug, Fluttershy continued further into the woods and listened. There were no birds chirping. No squirrels tittering. The woods were completely silent. Fluttershy walked a little faster as she maneuvered through the trees. By now her smile was gone, and she wore a tight frown of concern on her face.

"Where did they all go?" Fluttershy wondered out loud.

Fluttershy heard a growl from somewhere behind her. Instantly she spun around, just in time to catch a glimpse of something move behind some trees. Fluttershy took a cautious step back. With a growl, a dragon pushed its way into view. It wasn't like any other dragon Fluttershy had heard of or seen before. It was three times her height, and its skin was the color of dried mud with dark stripes. Unlike most dragons, it had no wings or spines. At the moment though, Fluttershy was more concerned about what it did have. Namely, long and deadly looking talons along with a mouth full of sharp teeth.

The dragon slowly approached Fluttershy, still growling. Fluttershy didn't have to possess her near telepathic understanding of animals to read the expression in its reptilian eyes.

Hunger.

"Oh... oh my," Fluttershy whimpered fearfully as her legs shook. "Puh- puh- please... don't... eat me..."

Fluttershy willed herself to fly away, but her wings were traitorously frozen to her sides in sheer terror. Instead, all she could do was back away slowly. The dragon, as if sensing her weakness, began to close in on her with more confidence. Fluttershy's rump hit the trunk of a tree, preventing her backing up further. As the dragon got even closer, she squeezed her eyes shut and braced herself for the bitter and most likely painful end.

"Yoshi!" a young voice called out gleefully. "There you are!"

Fluttershy opened her eyes again in surprise. Approaching the dragon from behind was a creature unlike any she had ever seen. An adolescent male, judging from the sound of his voice. He walked upright like a minotaur, but was considerable smaller and had a round hornless head. He had coffee colored skin and didn't seem to have any hair on his body except for on top of his head, along with the presence with a very thick and fine black mustache. Additionally, he was also wearing a light blue long sleeved shirt and a red bandana around his neck. Oddly enough, his lower body was covered with a dark blue fabric that treated his legs like sleeves, and he had two holstered revolvers strapped to his waist. All this combined with the fact he had no tail made for a unique looking, but not terrifying, being.

The dragon, evidently Yoshi, glanced at the newcomer in surprise. Then it turned its attention back to Fluttershy and opened its jaws, earning another whimper from the mare.

"Whoa whoa! Hey, no!" The tailless biped objected as he stepped forward while pointing a finger. "No eating ponies, Yoshi! Sit down!"

Without even thinking, Fluttershy sat down. With obvious reluctance, the dragon did as well, although it continued to stare at her.

"Not you," the newcomer said with an exasperated eye roll. "I was talking to Yoshi."

Fluttershy blinked. Of course, it made sense that the newcomer was talking to the dragon. So why had she felt compelled to obey? As far as she could figure, something about the creature just seemed to possess an aura of authority.

"You wouldn't happen to be, uh, Butterfly would you?" The biped asked as he mercifully moved in between Yoshi and Fluttershy, cutting off the dragon's stare.

"It’s Fluttershy," the mare said in a barely audible whisper.

"What?"

"My name is Fluttershy," Fluttershy repeated at a slightly higher but still inadequate volume.

"Ah, gotcha," lied the creature as he held out a hand. "I'm Gordito Delgado, by the way."

Fluttershy hesitantly accepted the shake, although Gordito made an odd face when she placed a hoof in his palm.

"Fluttershy! There you are!" Twilight Sparkle said with relief as she came into view along with Spike and a taller, masked version of Gordito's species wearing a white lab coat. "We've been... um, where did the dragon come from?"

"That would be Yoshi," the masked biped told Twilight. "Gordito's steed."

"Hi Yoshi, I'm Spike. Nice to meet you," Spike said.

Yoshi turned his head towards Spike and stared at him blankly.

"Huh. Guess you're the strong but silent type," Spike said.

Yoshi replied by making a rumbling sound with his throat, earning a raised brow from Spike.

"Is he retarded or something?" Spike asked Gordito.

"Spike!" Twilight scolded. "That's not a polite question!"

"How else am I supposed to ask?" Spike wondered.

"Yoshi's not a dragon. He's a dinosaur," Gordito said flatly. "Doesn't talk."

"Um, could someone please explain to me what's going on? Because I don't know what's going on," Fluttershy said softly. "That is, if you don't mind."

"How about we all head back to Rarity's and I'll explain everything there," Twilight said.

"And that's pretty much the entire situation in a nutshell," Dr. McNinja concluded as he put the cap back on the marker he had been using. "Any questions so far?"

The ninja doctor was standing near a dry erase board in front of six chairs, each one containing a pony. If any of them were shocked by the knowledge of other realities and worlds existing, they didn't show it. Dr. McNinja figured they must see things that spat in the face of science and physics quite often in order to be so desensitized.

"So what exactly are we going to do about this Sparklelord guy?" asked Rainbow Dash.

"That question is an excellent segue into my plan," said Dr. McNinja as he pulled his bucket list out of his pant pocket and marked the box labeled: 52. Use the word "segue" during a presentation. Putting the list back into his pocket, he continued.

"In order to get to the Elements of Harmony without Sparklelord noticing, we'll need to use stealth to get inside Canterlot Castle. Now, seeing as you're all brightly colored and easily visible, I'm going to recommend all of you wear black. Do you have any way of acquiring black clothes? More importantly, do you even have clothes in this universe?"

"Ooh! Ooh! I have a black jumpsuit!" Pinkie Pie said excitedly.

"I'm covered. I got a black jumpsuit too," said Rainbow Dash.

"I have one too, although it’s a little torn up," said Twilight Sparkle. "And Spike has one as well."

"Is it okay if it has bunny ears? Mine has bunny ears," Fluttershy said.

"Would a black dress work?" asked Rarity.

"Ah don't reckon ah own any black outfits," said Applejack.

"I can whip something up for you," Rarity said to Applejack.

"Is the moon supposed to be doing that?" asked Gordito, who was looking out the window.

One dragon, six ponies, and a human all rushed over to the window to see what Gordito was talking about. The sun still hung in the sky as if it was in the middle of the afternoon, but the moon was slowly rising up into the sky as well.

"Is it just me, or is the moon getting bigger?" said Rarity.

"Does anyone have a telescope?" asked Twilight.

Pinkie Pie nonchalantly reached into her curly mane, pulled out a small telescope, and gave it to Twilight. Twilight, in turn, levitated it up to her eye.

"Oh my gosh!" she exclaimed. "The moon isn't just rising, it’s getting closer to Equestria! And it has a... giant smiley face carved into it?"

For a moment not a word was spoken as the severity of the situation sank in.

"Holy crap," Gordito whispered in awe. "This is just like Majora's Mask."

Chapter 7: The most masculine train you'll ever ride on

Dr. McNinja took a deep breath to prepare for the challenge before him. He and the other quest-goers were at the Ponyville train station, waiting for the next train to Canterlot. While everyone else had opted to gather at the wooden platform, he had decided the wait would not be wasted standing around. Once he felt he was mentally and physically prepared, he stuck his hand into the dispensing slot of the vending machine in front of him. With a deft flick of the wrist, he threw a throwing star straight up the inside. The projectile snagged a bag of cookies and lifted it further up into the machine before gravity took hold, bringing both snack and weapon down into his waiting palm.

"Ain't that stealing?" questioned Applejack, who had meandered over to see what he was doing.

"The vending machines in your reality don’t accept money from my reality," Dr. McNinja said, sticking his hand back through the slot for a repeat performance. "Way I see it, if I'm not distracted by hunger, I'll be able to help save your country better."

"So yer taking a bag of cookies as payment fer savin' all of Equestria," Applejack said.

"Probably closer to eight bags," Dr. McNinja said as another bag of cookies landed in his hand. "These bags are smaller than what I'm used to, and they most likely have a lot of air in them. I might grab some for Gordito too."

"Ya might also want to git some fer yer dinosaur," Applejack said, glancing at where everyone else was standing. "That critter has been eyin' Fluttershy something fierce since they've met."

"I'm not sure if Yoshi would go for anything out of this vending machine," Dr. McNinja said thoughtfully as bag number three landed in his hand. "I've never seen him eat anything but meat."

The minute the words were out of his mouth, Dr. McNinja wished he could lasso them back in. It was entirely possible that eating meat was horrifying to a world full of sapient ponies. Surely Applejack would be shocked. Surely she would—

"Oh, yeah, figures he would be a meat-eater," Applejack said nonchalantly. "Maybe we can find him something in the diner car when the train finally shows up."

Dr. McNinja was about to ask if ponies in this reality ate meat when he heard something from the boarding platform that caught his attention.

"I still think we should have taken the balloon," Rainbow Dash said. "I could have pulled us there five times over by now."

"We have to get there without attracting Sparklelord's attention," Twilight Sparkle replied. "It's the only way."

"But if the moon crashes into Equestria before the train even shows up, stealth isn't going to do us any good," Rainbow Dash said. "Besides, it's basically daytime forever right now, so being sneaky is pretty much out the window anyway."

"Remaining undetected may be harder during the day, but it's not impossible," Dr. McNinja said as he opened a bag of cookies and tossed some into his mouth.

Both Rainbow Dash and Twilight Sparkle stared at him blankly.

"What?" Dr. McNinja said after a moment.

"You just ate some cookies..." Twilight Sparkle said slowly. "Without taking off your mask."

"Ish zat not curturly ashcepteble here?" Dr. McNinja wondered through a mouthful of cookies.

"Well... no... it's just.... how did you do that?" Twilight Sparkle asked.

Dr. McNinja waved his hand dismissively. "Oh, you know, ninja tricks."

"The train's here!" Pinkie Pie said abruptly, as if the approaching machine would otherwise go unnoticed.

"Really?" Gordito deadpanned when he saw the locomotive, his eyes looking up at the sky and his palms facing in the same direction.

Dr. McNinja observed the train, trying to discern what Gordito didn't like about it. Like Ponyville, the color pink and hearts were prominent. The engine was pink with heart shaped windows, and the steel cow catcher attached the front had hearts imprinted on it as well. Many of the cars were pink, purple, and cookie colored. What Dr. McNinja found especially amusing was the fact that the cars also looked edible. Each one possessed a roof that looked like it was made of frosting. Some were white, some were pink, and others were a light tan.

"That train looks good enough to eat, doesn't it Gordito?" Dr. McNinja said as he nudged his sidekick.

The one-liner proved itself to be successful, as it earned a glare from Gordito and faint smiles from Spike and the Bearers of Harmony. One by one the quest-goers boarded the train. As he entered, Dr. McNinja was slightly dismayed to find that he was too tall for the pony-sized car and had to stoop to fit through the doorway. For a moment he wondered how he would be able to sit, until he noticed a designated area for wheelchairs which was currently being occupied by Yoshi. Just as soon as Dr. McNinja got comfortable besides the raptor, a pony in an actual wheelchair rolled up. The unspoken problem was apparent. After some maneuvering that took an embarrassing amount of time, the wheelchair bound pony was in his proper location and Dr. McNinja and Yoshi were squeezed in the walkway between were Spike, Gordito, and the Bearers of Harmony sat.

Once everyone was aboard, the train began to pick up speed and was soon rumbling along at a brisk pace. Most of the other passengers paid little attention to Dr. McNinja, Gordito, or Yoshi, for they were far too busy looking out the windows at the incoming moon and chattering among themselves about it.

"Um, Gordito?" Fluttershy said softly.

"Hm?" said Gordito as he glanced at her. "What is it?"

"Do you... think you could get Yoshi something to eat from the food car?" I don't really like the way he's looking at me and I think he might stop if you feed him."

"Oh, sure," said Gordito as he got up from his seat. "Which way is the food car?"

"Ah think it's about three cars ahead," answered Applejack as she tilted her head towards the front of the car.

Gordito started to move in that direction, but then stopped as he realized that Yoshi and Dr. McNinja were blocking the walkway.

"You can stay seated Gordito, I'll fetch some food," Dr. McNinja said as he got up and went for the window.

"Isn't that dangerous?" wondered Fluttershy as the ninja doctor opened the window and started to climb out.

"Only if you're not a ninja," he replied right before deftly pulling himself onto the roof of the car.

Dr. McNinja stretched his arms and back, glad to be somewhere he could stand up straight. Hunching over was bad for posture, after all. As the winds whipped his lab coat and tie like crazy, Dr. McNinja stuck his hands in his pockets and calmly walked along the fake icing roof. He had only gone two cars before movement in the sky caught his attention. Dr. McNinja squinted. Four objects were flying out from the mountain where Canterlot was located. Suddenly they changed course, and started flying right for the train. As they got even closer, Dr. McNinja was able to see them better. Four pegasi, each wearing a light blue uniform adorned with yellow lightning bolts. Each one also wore a pair of flight goggles, which were filled by a sickly glowing green light that prevented Dr. McNinja from seeing their eyes even as they landed in front of him.

"Directive," one of them stated mechanically. "Locate the bodies of McNinja, Gordito, Celestia, Luna, and deliver them to the master."

"McNinja has been located," said the second pegasus. "Others likely to be close by."

"Obstacle. McNinja is not dead. Body of McNinja cannot be delivered to the master in current state," said the third with arguably sound logic.

"Yeah, sorry to disappoint you," said Dr. McNinja, who wasn't very sorry at all. "I would suggest a compromise, but I'm unreasonably attached to the idea of staying alive."

"Solution. Kill McNinja," the fourth pegasus suggested flatly.

"Kill McNinja," the rest agreed.

"So that's the game we're playing is it?" Dr. McNinja replied smoothly as he set a hand on the handle of the short sword strapped to his back. With practiced skill, he drew out the weapon and spun it a few times in one hand. A pointless maneuver to be sure, but it looked wickedly awesome as he stopped the spinning and pointed the blade at the pegasi. "Let the games begin, mother—"

"He said a bad word!" a random stallion interrupted loudly, his head sticking out the window of the train car Dr. McNinja stood on.

Dr. McNinja glared down at the pony. "Really?"

"Censorship is my talent," the stallion said sheepishly as he withdrew his head back into the train car.

Dr. McNinja sighed and turned his attention back to the pegasi just in time to receive a high-speed hoof to the face.

Chapter 8: There's fast, and then there's ninja fast

As Dr. McNinja's head was knocked backwards by a flying hoof, he reflected on how much he disliked pain. Indeed, among all the sensations and feelings in the universe, pain was probably Dr. McNinja's least favorite. Conventional wisdom claimed that which didn't kill you made you stronger, but Dr. McNinja knew that was complete and utter bullcrap. He was a doctor after all, and he knew science.

Dr. McNinja's head throbbed as he felt himself fall off the train. Naturally, it was at that moment that the train just happened to be crossing a gorge. In the nick of time, Dr. McNinja managed to grab hold of the train car roof with his free hand, so that instead of plummeting to his death he simply smacked his face into the glass window. Rainbow Dash, who had been slouching in her seat inside the train car, glanced at Dr. McNinja in surprise.

"Slouching is bad for your posture," Dr. McNinja said, his words slightly muffled by his cheek being smushed against the glass.

"Uh, do you need help?" Rainbow Dash asked.

Just as Dr. McNinja started to reply, he noticed one of the uniformed pegasi appear at the edge, a yellow mare with a fiery orange mane. Dr. McNinja looked at the pegasus, and she looked at Dr. McNinja. Then she tried to stomp on his fingers.

"Not the hand! Not the hand!" Dr. McNinja said frantically as he sheathed his sword and grabbed hold with his other hand. The other three pegasi appeared as well and proceeded to join in on the stomping. Dr. McNinja's hands quickly alternated with the gripping until he got tired of the threat to his digits and let go.

The reaction from Rainbow Dash was instantaneous. The cyan mare shot up from her seat and kicked the glass window pane hard. Unfortunately, the window pane was designed for emergency situations, so instead of shattering in a way that would have looked really cool, it simply popped out.

"Go limp! I'll catch you!" Rainbow Dash yelled at Dr. McNinja as she flew out the window and swooped down after him.

Dr. McNinja couldn't help but wonder if Rainbow Dash could actually catch him. Speed was clearly no issue, but he was a grown thirty-five year old man and Rainbow Dash was barely three feet tall. Regardless, the very next moment Dr. McNinja felt Rainbow Dash's forelegs under his armpits, and they were flying back up to the train. The orange maned pegasus spotted them and flew towards them to attack, but Dr. McNinja kicked her in the jaw.

"Spitfire?! What the hay?!" Rainbow Dash swore as the now unconscious mare dropped out of the sky and landed on top of the train.

"You know these pe— er, ponies?" Dr. McNinja asked as Rainbow Dash dropped him back atop the train.

"Uh, yeah, I do," Rainbow Dash replied. "They're the Wonderbolts. Really fast."

Before Dr. McNinja could ask for more details, one of the other Wonderbolts flew straight towards him. Dr. McNinja's arm shot out and caught the unfortunate flyer by the throat.

"There's fast," he said coolly, "and then there's ninja fast."

"Soarin!" Rainbow Dash cried out in alarm as Dr. McNinja knocked the stallion out with a punch.

The two remaining Wonderbolts launched themselves towards Dr. McNinja at the same time, one flying high and the other flying low. Dr. McNinja evaded by diving forward into a shoulder roll and popping back up to his feet behind them. Dr. McNinja placed a hand on the hilt of his short sword as the Wonderbolts veered around for another pass.

"Oh no," said Rainbow Dash when she saw Dr. McNinja grip his weapon. "Oh no no no no no no no—"

Dr. McNinja suddenly vaulted forward and slammed the hilt of his wakizashi against the head of one of the oncoming Wonderbolts as his foot lashed out and caught the other one behind the ear.

Dr. McNinja felt very awesome as he landed in a crouch on top the train car a split second before the two remaining Wonderbolts crashed onto the roof. Dr. McNinja considered offering Rainbow Dash a high-five as he stood up and sheathed his sword, but decided against it when he saw the crushed look on her face.

"Th- they... you... I... ca-can't... you..." Rainbow Dash said.

Dr. McNinja awkwardly scratched the back of his head, not entirely sure of what to say to her. He didn’t need a degree in psychology to tell that she was having difficulty processing what had just occurred. What do you say to someone who just witnessed the brutal beating up of someone they clearly idolized?

"Well!" He exclaimed as he clapped his hands together, deciding it would be best to simply move on. "That was exciting! Let's get them all back inside the train now, eh?"

"No doubt about it," Twilight Sparkle said after she had finished studying the four unconscious Wonderbolts tied up in the center of the train car. "They were being mind controlled. This Sparklelord character is certainly good with magic. It's going to take me a while to undo what he did."

"I don't think you have time, Twilight," Spike said as he pointed out the window. "Look."

Dr. McNinja looked towards where Spike was pointing, along with everyone else. Outside the window was Canterlot, in all its white, gold, and purple glory. Now that he was closer, Dr. McNinja could see that there were a few other colors mixed in as well, in the form of shops and the occasional medieval tent. The city would have looked rather nice if it weren't for two issues. First, it was completely abandoned. Second, the moon was now considerably closer, blocking out most of the sky from it's position directly above the mountain Canterlot rested on. The smiley face on the moon that Twilight Sparkle had spotted by telescope earlier was now easily visible, including a grin that was very unsettling given the circumstances.

"You know what? Forget it. I'm not getting off here," said one of the passengers as she stared out the window.

Dr. McNinja and company stepped off the train as every other passenger stayed on board, whispering amongst themselves and agreeing on the wisdom in remaining in the train car.

"That smiley face is so out of place, it isn't even funny," said Rarity, her eyes still locked on the moon.

"What will happen when it crashes into the mountain?" wondered Fluttershy.

"Nothing, because we're going to get the Elements of Harmony first and fix everything," Twilight Sparkle said firmly.

Gordito scowled. "I really hate how this entire plan hinges on the hope that Sparklelord may have given us a way past the magic door. What do we do if we can't get past it?"

"One step at a time, Gordito," Dr. McNinja said. "We'll worry about that once we get there. Twilight Sparkle, I trust you know the way to the castle?"

"Yes." Twilight Sparkle pointed a hoof. "It's right over... oh."

Dr. McNinja followed her gaze and saw the problem. Canterlot castle was within sight to the east, along with a shimmering rainbow colored force field surrounding it.

"Well, that's a problem," Gordito said flatly.

"How are we supposed to get to the Elements now?" Applejack wondered.

Not a word was spoken as Applejack's question sank in. Gradually, the sky darkened as the moon began to cover up the sun, ever so slowly approaching the land beneath and casting it further into shadow. One by one everyone looked at Dr. McNinja, clearly hoping for him to come up with some bright idea. It was at that moment in time that the ninja doctor felt a feeling he had never really felt before, one that bumped the feeling of pain to second place among his least favorite feelings of all time. Hopelessness.

"I don't know," said Dr. McNinja, scarcely able to believe the words coming out of his own mouth. "I just don't know."

Chapter 9: Out of time

As the sky above Canterlot continued to darken, Gordito stared at Dr. McNinja in disbelief. This was the man who was supposed to always know what to do. This was the man who always had one more trick up his sleeve. Gordito had never heard Dr. McNinja say he didn't know what to do before, and he wasn't sure how to respond. Which was probably why the response he gave was less than stellar.

"What do you mean you don't know what to do?!" Gordito demanded.

"I mean exactly what I said," Dr. McNinja replied softly, his eyes vacantly staring straight ahead. "I don't know what to do."

"But this isn't how it’s supposed to work!" Gordito protested. "You always know what to do! That's what you do!"

"And what would you have me do, Gordito?" Dr. McNinja snapped. "This entire country is about to get flattened by the freaking moon, and the only chance we had at stopping it is behind a magic force field!"

"Is there like a magic spell for undoing force fields someone else made?" Spike asked Twilight Sparkle hopefully.

Twilight didn't reply right away, for she was preoccupied with gazing at the slowly approaching smiley face of death.

"No," she whispered. "there isn't. At least, not that I know of. Even if there is, Sparklelord’s spells are much more powerful than mine."

"You gotta at least try!" exclaimed Rainbow Dash. "What are we going to do? Sit here and wait to die?!"

"Is it going to hurt when it happens?" Fluttershy asked quietly. "I don't want it to hurt."

"It ain't gonna hurt, sugarcube," Applejack lied as she embraced Fluttershy. "We won't feel a thing."

Gordito felt the burning desire to draw out his guns at shoot something. It didn't matter what. Anything was better than just waiting to die. Suddenly, he heard an explosion from higher up the mountain. Before he even had the chance to look up, a pink-ish purple-ish light shined out from a place near the top of the mountain and washed over the sky.

Then the entire world flickered.

Before Gordito's eyes, everything changed. He wasn't standing in Canterlot, but back in George Washington's secret tunnels in Cumberland, Maryland. The scene only lasted for a split second before the world blinked again, and he was back in Canterlot.

"What was that?" asked a wide eyed Rarity, who apparently had witnessed the phenomenon as well.

"That... was my reality," Dr. McNinja said slowly. "The place where I entered the time space portal and entered your reality."

"So what does that mean?!" Rainbow Dash demanded to know.

"I don't know, maybe the moon is messing with the quantum physics stuff," Dr. McNinja figured, his head bowed.

Abruptly the ninja doctor's head snapped back up as a determined light began to glow in his eyes.

"Everyone follow me!" he commanded as he took off at a sprint, heading not towards Canterlot Castle but towards the rocky slope of the mountainside beyond the city of Canterlot. Twilight Sparkle used magic to set Spike on her back before she galloped after Dr. McNinja along with everyone else.

As the group charged up the mountain, Gordito tried to figure out what his Dr. McNinja was planning. His heart sank as he realized the answer. Dr. McNinja wasn't trying to save all of Equestria. That was no longer his purpose. He couldn't save everyone's lives. What he was doing now was to try and reach the portal and save at least ten lives. Gordito wanted to shout out in protest. Ten lives wasn't good enough. Yet deep down inside, he knew that Dr. McNinja was making the hard decision, cutting the losses and doing all that could be done. Gordito felt the earth underneath Yoshi rumble, as if preparing itself for the collision.

"Rainbow Dash!" Dr. McNinja called.

"Yes?" Rainbow Dash replied quickly, flying up beside him.

"See that light coming out from that cave up there?"

"Yeah, is that the portal you came through?"

"Yes, you need to fly as fast as you can and go through it," Dr. McNinja said grimly. "It should take you back to my reality where it's safe."

"What?! Are you saying I should leave you guys behind?!" Rainbow Dash shouted.

"Do as he says, Rainbow Dash!" Twilight Sparkle said. "There's no guarantee that we'll all make it before the moon hits! You need to at least save yourself!"

"But I can't—"

"Go!" Twilight Sparkle commanded, her eyes wet with tears.

Rainbow Dash hesitated only a split second before she obeyed, zipping out of sight with a trail of rainbow colored light.

Chunks of earth and rock started ripping up from the ground around Gordito and floated up towards the moon as he and the others frantically scrambled up the slope. With a scream, Rarity fell down into a hole created by the display of gravity's power, only to be caught by Twilight Sparkle's magic and set back onto solid ground again at a full run.

Gordito squinted, focusing on the cave entrance that was gradually getting closer. That was when he saw it. With a mechanical roar, someone who looked exactly like Dr. McNinja launched out from the cave atop a white motorcycle. It looked exactly like the motorcycle that Sparklelord used to be, but with a few differences. Large dark red saddlebags were attached to the back end of the vehicle, along with a large white cylindrical device that Gordito couldn't identify. Greatly confused, Gordito glanced at the Dr. McNinja who was still at the front of the group.

"It's not over yet! Go through the portal!" yelled the motorcycle riding version of Dr. McNinja as he made a sharp U-turn. Rainbow colored flames suddenly burst out from the back of the cylindrical device, boosting both bike and rider straight up the mountainside.

Gordito's mind had barely just begun to spaz out from confusion when six ponies, a dragon, and a boy riding a raptor emerged from the cave as well. Gordito recognized all of them, especially the last two.

"What in tarnation?!" Applejack swore when she saw the group coming out of the cave.

Each of the six ponies looked exactly like the Bearers of Harmony, except five of them wore fancy gem encrusted golden necklaces. The equivalent of Twilight Sparkle wore a crown instead. The only other difference was that the Rainbow Dash look-alike had one of her wings in a cast.

"No time to explain anything, just keep moving!" shouted the crown-wearing Twilight Sparkle as she and the other lookalikes charged down the mountain just like the other Dr. McNinja had. As they rushed by, the newly appeared version of Spike waved at his counterpart from atop the second Twilight Sparkle.

Next thing Gordito knew, he had reached the cave. Inside, the time space portal was pulsating wildly and flashing like a strobe light. The entire mountain shook again as he spurred Yoshi through the portal. It looked almost exactly the same as the first time he went through, a tunnel of pure purple energy that twisted and turned with no apparent pattern. This time, however, the speed at which he was moving was significantly faster. Gordito heard screaming as the energy tunnel snaked on. Some of them were definitely female, and he heard two very young male voices as well. It took Gordito a moment to realize he was one of them.

In no time at all, or perhaps a great deal of time, the tunnel came to an end and revealed a multitude of something green. Although Gordito had seen trees many times before, he did not recognize the green things as trees right away, for he was looking at them from directly above. Ever the party pooper, gravity took hold of the young gunslinger and pulled he, Yoshi, and the others screaming all the way down. Gordito felt his body painfully smack and break many tree branches before he landed with a thud on his back.

Gordito groaned and experimentally moved his limbs to see if anything was broken. Certainly, he was sore all over, but he didn't detect any fractured bones. As Gordito squinted up at the wide blue sky above the forest, he noticed a few things. For starters, there was no sign of a time space portal. Second, hanging like fruit from the unbroken tree branches above him were slices of delicious looking cheese pizza, which led him to believe that he was not back in his reality at all.

As he wearily rose up to his feet, Gordito wondered if he was still in Equestria. If so, he figured it couldn't be as bad as he originally thought if it had pizza trees. Movement in the corner of his vision suddenly caught Gordito's attention. The mustached twelve year old spun around to behold Dr. McNinja, who had just picked himself up off the ground. Yoshi, Spike, Flutteshy, Applejack, Rarity, Twilight Sparkle, and Pinkie Pie were all present as well, and were in the process of either sitting up or standing up.

"Owwwww, is everyone all right?" asked Twilight Sparkle as she rubbed her head.

The question was answered by grunts and nods from all. Gordito didn't hear any agonized screams of pain, so he figured that no one was hurt too badly.

"Oh my gosh you guys!" exclaimed Pinkie Pie, who didn't seem to be hurt in the slightest. "Look at the trees!"

"Okay, pizza trees, that's a new one on me," said Dr. McNinja as he glanced up at the trees.

"Excuse me," Fluttershy said very quietly. "Has anyone—"

"So, um, are we going to talk about what exactly just happened, because I am very confused," Rarity said, unintentionally cutting off Fluttershy. "I mean, we just saw ourselves, wearing the Elements of Harmony no less, run right past us."

"I'm still putting the pieces together, but I think I have a pretty good guess," said Twilight Sparkle. "I do believe that those ponies were us, but from the futu- don't eat that, Pinkie Pie!"

Pinkie Pie, who had been about to eat a slice of pizza off the ground, made a pouting face and glanced at Twilight Sparkle.

"Why not?" she asked.

"You don't know anything about that pizza. It might be poisonous or something," Twilight Sparkle said.

"Don't be silly Twilight, I know a lot about pizza! It has cheese, dough, tomato sauce, and it isn't poisonous," Pinkie Pie said.

"It doesn't grow on trees either," Twilight Sparkle pointed out.

"Can ya get back to the part where ya explain everything?" said Applejack.

"Pardon me, I think that—" Fluttershy started to say.

"Right, like I was saying, I think we saw our future selves run past us," Twilight Sparkle continued. "Apparently we're going to find the Elements of Harmony at some point in Dr. McNinja's reality."

"Actually, I'm pretty sure this isn't my reality," Dr. McNinja said. "If my reality had pizza trees, they would be planted all over America."

"Okay, well, wherever we are, we're going to find the Elements of Harmony and go back to Equestria," Twilight Sparkle said. "Come to think of it, it also means that none of us are going to die here, so that's a plus."

"Whoa whoa whoa," said Dr. McNinja. "What makes you think that?"

"Because all of us, um, passed ourselves with the Elements of Harmony. If that was us from the future, that's a guarantee of what will happen," Twilight Sparkle replied.

"No it isn't," Dr. McNinja said. "That's just one theory. another would be time traveling and making changes creates parallel universes. In other words, what we saw is only a possibility of what happens to us. We can't just throw caution to the wind."

"I think we—" Fluttershy attempted to begin a third time.

"Oh my goodness, my head is already starting to hurt from this discussion," Rarity said.

"Look, I've time traveled before, I know how it works," Twilight Sparkle said. "You can't alter time, you can only—"

Quite sick of the argument already, Gordito whipped out his revolver and fired a shot towards the sky. Everyone fell silent and glanced at Gordito with wide eyes.

"That's better." Gordito smiled. "Now, Fluttershy, you were saying?"

"Oh, um, it can wait until everyone else is done talking," said Fluttershy as she looked at the ground.

"No, no, I didn't waste a bullet just so everyone else could keep cutting you off. Say whatever you were trying to say right now," Gordito said sternly.

"But I—"

"Do it now!" Gordito demanded.

"Rainbow Dash isn't here!" Fluttershy blurted out.

A silence fell over the group as the predicament sank in. Truly, there were a great deal of questions that still needed to answered, but the question of Rainbow Dash's location was now the number one concern.

"Well, based off of Twilight Sparkle's time travel theory, I'm willing to bet that wherever she is, she has a broken wing," Dr. McNinja said. "Maybe our eventually finding her is guaranteed, but we should probably start looking all the same."

Gordito withdrew a bullet from his pocket and loaded it into his revolver to make up for the one he fired. It was clear to him that he was no longer in his world or Equestria, and he had no intention of being anything less than one hundred percent prepared for whatever else might be in this strange new world.

Chapter 10: A land flowing with Mountain Dew and Gatorade

At first, Rainbow Dash couldn't hear anything. Not only that, she couldn't see anything either. As far as Rainbow Dash could tell, she existed in a black void. She was aware, but cut off from the rest of the world. Gradually, muffled sounds entered her limited realm, echoing as if coming from very far away. As Rainbow Dash listened, the sounds became more clear, and she was able to make out words.

"If you'd like, you can go back to whatever you were doing and I'll send for you when she wakes up," said a female voice.

"Nah, I just know that the second I leave, she'll wake up. That's how the universe works," a male voice said dismissively.

"She doesn't look like any pegasus I've seen before. Do you think she could be one of Discord's?" asked the female voice.

"One of Discord's vile abominations? I think not. Discord could never create something so beautiful as her," said the male voice. "More likely she comes from beyond the forest. Perhaps she's a messenger from King Radical."

"You're an interesting mix of pessimism and optimism. You think she'll wake the second you leave, but you refuse to consider the possibility she's one of them."

"Pessimism and optimism has nothing to do with it. Experience is my guide, and it tells me if I leave she'll wake up, and that Discord is incapable of creating nice things."

"Well, I suppose we'll find out soon enough. Can you watch her for a minute while I go fetch some Mountain Dew? I imagine she'll be quite thirsty when she wakes up," said the female voice.

"I can fetch the Mountain Dew. It would be best if an actual doctor is nearby at all times."

"Very well, I'll keep an eye on her."

Rainbow Dash heard hoof steps clack against a hard floor as if leaving. For a moment there was silence again, until she felt herself start to rush up towards a light that had suddenly appeared.

Rainbow Dash opened her eyes, and observed a most unusual sight. She was in a room with white walls and a white floor, like the rooms in hospitals. A nearby table covered in medical equipment reinforced the idea that she was in a hospital. Rainbow Dash herself was lying in a bed with a metal frame, and standing above her was a creature unlike any she had ever seen before. The creature looked as if she belonged to the same species as Dr. McNinja and Gordito, except her skin was much paler and she wore a green formal looking dress with a nurse's smock over it. Additionally, she had long brown hair adorned with a variety of colorful flowers and a nurse's cap on top.

"Oh!" she exclaimed when she saw that Rainbow Dash had awoken.

Before Rainbow Dash could even open her mouth to say something, the creature jumped up, rushed to the door of the room, and stuck her head out.

"She's awake!" she called out.

"See? I told you! The second I left the room!" The male voice called back.

"Are you still getting the Mountain Dew?"

"Yes, I'm still getting the Mountain Dew! Just hang on for a second!"

The flowery-haired being turned back to Rainbow Dash and smiled warmly.

"He'll be back in a moment," she said. "How's your wing feeling?"

Rainbow Dash glanced at her wings and was surprised to see that one of them was in a cast. The sight triggered a dull ache in it, along with a faint throbbing pain in her head. Evidently she had crashed, although she couldn't seem to recall the details of it.

"Feels well enough I guess." Rainbow Dash shrugged. "My head hurts though."

"The Mountain Dew should help with that," the nurse said.

The minute the words left her mouth, a white unicorn entered the room while magically levitating a glass of some strange yellowish-green liquid. Rainbow Dash's eyes widened in surprise. The unicorn was much taller than the average stallion, just an inch shy of being the same height as Princess Luna. He had a rainbow colored mane, and oddly enough, his horn was the same color as well. To top off the list of curiosities, he had no sign of a cutie mark on either of his hindquarters, despite the fact he looked to be about the same age as herself.

"Hi there," he said when he saw her.

Rainbow Dash had so many questions, she didn't know where to begin. So she simply went with the most recent one to appear in her mind.

"Who are you?" she asked.

"Hm? Oh, right, sorry, introductions. This is Flora, our court physician," said the stallion as he pointed a hoof. "As for me, my official title is Prince Rainbow Sparkle, but I actually prefer to be called R.J. What's your name?"

"Rainbow," said Rainbow Dash.

"Yes, yes, my name is Rainbow," R.J. said impatiently. "But what's yours?"

"No, I mean, my name is Rainbow too," Rainbow Dash said. "Rainbow Dash."

"Really? I didn't know that Rainbow was a girl's name too," R.J. said.

"I didn't know it was a guy's name," Rainbow Dash said.

"Well, looks like we both learned something today." R.J. grinned. Then, remembering he had the glass of yellowish-green liquid, he said, "Oh, this is for you."

The glass floated towards Rainbow Dash, who stared at it in a mixture of confusion and repulsion. She had flown over and rested on top of mountains many times throughout her life, and she knew very well that mountain dew was not that color.

"Um, is it alright if I have some water instead?" she asked.

Both Flora and R.J. looked at her blankly.

"Water?" R.J. said with a raised brow.

"Uh, yeah, water," Rainbow Dash said slowly. "You know, the stuff that comes out of a faucet?"

"Um, that would be Mountain Dew," R.J. said.

"Comes up in a well?" Rainbow Dash tried.

"Mountain Dew."

"What rivers are made of?"

"Mountain Dew."

"Comes down from clouds?"

"Mountain Dew, or chocolate milk if you go far enough south."

"The liquid you pour on plants to make them grow?"

"Mountain Dew."

"We plants like Gatorade as well," Flora said.

"You're a plant?" Rainbow Dash asked, greatly confused.

"I'm a dryad, or a tree spirit if you prefer," Flora said. "I take it you're not from around here?"

"No, I'm from Eques–" Rainbow Dash started to say before Flora suddenly screamed.

The dryad had fallen to her knees, and was clutching her right hand with her left. Tears were in her eyes, and blood was seeping out from between her fingers.

"What happened?!" R.J. demanded to know.

"Suh– suh– someone shot me!" the tree spirit sobbed. "Someone shot one of my limbs!"

Bewildered, Rainbow Dash glanced around. No one else was in the room, the door was closed, and the glass in the only window was still intact.

“From where?!” she wondered as she continued to search frantically, fearful that the shooter might strike again.

“Not here, someone must have shot her tree,” R.J. growled. “And I know exactly where it is.”

"Rainbow Dash!" Gordito called out for the dozenth time since his arrival in the forest of pizza trees. Gordito scanned the forest from his vantage point atop Yoshi, but to no avail. Rainbow Dash was nowhere to be found. Several other voices echoed his cry as they too searched about for the missing pegasus.

"Any luck?" asked Rarity as she appeared from behind a tree.

"No." Gordito sighed. "I take it you haven't found anything either?"

"No... she did go through the portal didn't she?"

"Yeah, right before we saw ourselves come out of it."

"Yes, that really was..." Rarity drifted off before she noticed something. "Wait a minute, what happened to your guns?"

Gordito glanced down and saw that, to his alarm, his gun holsters were vacant.

"What?! how did I lose them?" he exclaimed in disbelief. "They can't just fall out, you have to–"

Click.

Gordito's breath caught in his throat as he felt warm metal press up against the back of his head. It was one of his revolvers, still warm from when he had fired up into the trees earlier to give Fluttershy a chance to speak. Rarity stiffened as Gordito's other gun, enveloped in a multicolored glow, levitated up behind her head as well and engaged its hammer.

"I hope you have a very good explanation for shooting an innocent tree," a voice from behind Gordito said coldly.

Although he was confused by the statement, Gordito felt a cold dread wash over him nonetheless. He knew that voice. He had only heard it twice before, but there was no mistaking the identity of its owner.

It sounded exactly like Sparklelord.

Chapter 11: What would Batman do?

As Dr. McNinja scanned the pizza trees ahead of him like a fat man looking for Hot Pockets in his freezer, he couldn't help but think that the hunt for Rainbow Dash should not have been as difficult as it was proving to be. After all, Rainbow Dash was a brightly colored horse with wings. Even for a horse her size, a blue coated and rainbow maned pegasus ought to be a horrible candidate for hide and seek.

Just as Dr. McNinja turned to start searching in another direction, he spotted Rarity standing not too far away. For most people, seeing a unicorn in real life was more than enough reason to pay extra attention. But what actually struck Dr. McNinja as noteworthy was the fact that Rarity was standing as still as a statue. Taking care to avoid detection, Dr. McNinja silently maneuvered through the pizza trees until he was close enough to see why. The white unicorn had a floating revolver pointed at the back of her head. Sitting atop Yoshi to her left was Gordito, who was in the same unfortunate situation with another levitating gun.

Dr. McNinja's eyes widened when he saw the third member of the stand off, not counting Yoshi. Positioned behind Gordito was a unicorn who looked exactly like Sparklelord, save for the fact he was smaller than the Sparklelord Dr. McNinja had seen in Canterlot Castle. The unicorn's horn was glowing, which led Dr. McNinja to believe he was the one in control of Gordito's guns.

"What's going on over– whoa!" exclaimed Twilight Sparkle as she, Spike, Pinkie Pie, Applejack, and Fluttershy appeared on the scene.

The Sparklelord look-alike's eyes widened when he saw the group around him.

"I'm not looking for trouble, I just want to know what's going on," he said as he positioned himself between his two hostages.

"Taken hostage by a unicorn," Gordito muttered under his breath. "I'm never going to live this down."

"We're not looking for trouble either," Twilight Sparkle told the new unicorn. "We've come from another reality or timeline or something, and we're looking for our friend who went through the time space portal before we did."

"You came through the time space portal?" the unicorn asked.

"Oh! so you already know about it? Okay, that's good, because that was probably the least believable part of our story," Twilight Sparkle said with relief. "Now, um, could you give Gordito his guns back?"

The unicorn's eyes darted around, as if afraid to spend too much time looking at any one individual.

"Not yet,” he said. "I still don't understand. If you're just looking for your friend, why did you shoot Flora?"

"Shoot who now?" Applejack asked. "Gordito sure as sugar didn't shoot nopony. We've all been too busy lookin' fer Rainbow Dash."

"R.J.!" Rainbow Dash suddenly called out as she rushed onto the scene. "Hold up, they're cool, they're with me!"

The unicorn, evidently called R.J., glanced at Rainbow Dash. Dr. McNinja couldn't help but notice that one of Rainbow Dash's wings was in a cast, just like when the alleged future version of her had appeared on the mountain. Relief appeared on everyone else's faces when they saw Rainbow Dash. Then they remembered the hostage crisis, and reverted back to the demeanor of stunned cattle.

R.J. studied Rainbow Dash for a moment before slowly lowering the guns, although he didn't give them back to Gordito.

"If they're cool, why did this one shoot Flora?" he asked.

"Okay, um, let me think of how to explain this," said Rainbow Dash. "Gordito, I'm guessing your reality doesn't have dryads either right?"

"I would say no, but I would have to double check with Doc," Gordito replied.

R.J. glanced around, as if expecting one of the Equestrians to answer to "Doc". If there had been any chance for a surprise attack from Dr.McNinja, Gordito had just killed it. With a sigh, Dr. McNinja stepped out from his hiding spot as unsurprisingly as he could. The unsurprisingly part of the act failed, as everyone present gave a start at the ninja who had seemingly come out of nowhere.

"As far as I know, we don't. Why do you ask?" he said coolly as he made eye contact with R.J. The Sparklelord look-alike held his gaze. If there was any sign of recognition from him, his face didn't show it.

"Alright, well, its like this," Rainbow Dash said. "R.J, in the reality that Gordito and Doc come from, trees don't have spirits. They're just trees, if that makes any sense."

"So trees aren't alive where they're from?" R.J. wondered.

"Yes, I mean no, I mean, not exactly," Rainbow Dash stuttered. "Wait I'm trying to say is that Gordito probably didn't mean to shoot Flora, although I don't know why exactly he would be shooting trees anyway."

"Hold on, so you're saying that when I shot up into the trees earlier I somehow killed someone?" Gordito asked.

"Oh, no, I'm still very much alive," said a woman wearing a nurse's uniform over a green formal dress as she stumbled into the clearing. "You're very fast, Rainbow Dash," she said, panting as she placed a hand wrapped with gauze over her heart.

"You're a tree?" Fluttershy wondered, her curiosity piqued. "I've always wanted to talk to a tree."

"What was stopping you before?" questioned Applejack. "Plenty of trees in Equestria."

"Oh... well... you know, they don't talk back," Fluttershy said.

"So?" said Applejack.

"Which tree is yours?" Pinkie Pie inquired of the tree spirit, who must have been Flora.

"That one over there," answered Flora as she pointed at one of the pizza trees.

Quick as a wink, Pinkie Pie shot over to the tree, a crazy grin plastered over her face.

"Tickle attack!" she yelled.

"Wait! What are you– Eeeeeee!" Flora shrieked as Pinkie Pie began to vigorously rub the tree trunk.

Dr. McNinja and the others watched in disbelief as Flora collapsed to her knees clutching her side, laughing uncontrollably. Pinkie Pie switched to tickling directly under a tree limb, causing the helpless woman to clutch at her armpit in a useless attempt to protect herself as she continued to laugh.

Dr. McNinja was inwardly glad that his face was concealed by his ninja mask as he felt himself start to grin at the scene. There was something extremely funny about watching a grown woman act as if she was being tickled by an invisible person. When Pinkie Pie started on the roots, the dryad's legs began kicking so wildly that Rainbow Dash started to laugh too. Spike was the next to join in, and before too long just about everyone was laughing hysterically. Gordito and Rarity were the only ones not laughing, presumably because no one had told them that they were no longer being held at gunpoint.

After a minute or so of the unusual performance, Pinkie Pie abandoned the tickling assault and bounded back to join the others.

"Are you ticklish over here too?" she asked.

"Please stay away from me," Flora said.

"That... was... the funniest thing... I've ever seen," gasped R.J., a foreleg pressed against his side.

"Glad you're so easily amused," Gordito said flatly. "Can I have my guns back now?"

"Sure, sure," R.J. said distractedly as he dropped the weapons back into Gordito's holsters. "Sorry about the confusion. So what brings you all to Radical Land?"

Although he had already began to suspect the name of his current location, Dr. McNinja was still surprised when R.J. said it. According to King Radical, Sparklelord was a unicorn who had somehow gone insane and destroyed all of Radical Land by fire. The fact that R.J. was the spitting image of Sparklelord couldn't have been a coincidence. Assuming King Radical hadn't been lying, it could only mean that Dr. McNinja and the others were in Radical Land's past, and that R.J. would grow up to be a mass murderer even worse than Hitler.

Another thought suddenly struck Dr. McNinja. Was there any way to know that R.J. wasn't a psychopath already? The Sparklelord he knew had already demonstrated very high skills in deception and manipulation.

"We're from a land called Equestria," Twilight replied in answer to R.J.'s question. "But it was attacked by a unicorn called–"

"Batman," interrupted Dr. McNinja, saying the first name to pop into his head.

If R.J. was already Sparklelord, the last thing Dr. McNinja wanted to do was give away any knowledge about it. Otherwise, R.J. might turn around and kill them all on the spot. Twilight gave Dr. McNinja a strange look, but to her credit she didn't contradict him.

"By a unicorn called Batman," she said. "We tried to get the Elements of Harmony to stop him, but we wound up coming here instead."

Twilight paused for a moment as if a thought had just occurred to her.

"I suppose I should explain to you what the Elements of Harmony are," she said.

"No need, I know what they are," said R.J. "Or at least, what my world's version of them are. Magic, laughter, loyalty, generosity, kindness, and honesty, right?"

"Uh, yes, that's right," said a very surprised Twilight. "Um, do you know where they are? We saw our future selves pop out of the time space portal in our world wearing them, so I'm thinking we're supposed to find them here."

"Well, they're kind of being used at the moment," said R.J. "See, two out of the six Bearers of Harmony are my parents."

Chapter 12: You can't even lead a horse to water

Twilight stared at R.J., scarcely able to wrap her mind around the statement he had just made. She had always dreamed about the possibility of other realities, but she had never before considered the idea that other realities might have their own Bearers of Harmony. Then again, there was still the possibility that Radical Land and Equestria were only two different time periods in the same reality. If that were the case, R.J.'s parents might be a future or past incarnation of the Bearers of Harmony, depending on where they fit into history. But if Radical Land was a completely different reality, there could very well be hundreds, thousands, or even millions of other universes, each with their own Elements of Harmony. Twilight's mind swam with the staggering possibility of a meta universe containing a vast number of individuals learning about the magic of friendship and using it to do battle against countless evils.

"Anytime you want to stop staring at me, feel free to do so," R.J. said, interrupting her thoughts.

"Hm? Oh, sorry," Twilight said. "It's just that... I've never considered the possibility of others being the Bearers of Harmony at the same time as my friends and I. It's a lot to take in."

"Wait, you're a Bearer of Harmony too?" R.J. inquired.

"That would be correct," replied Twilight, sensing the chance for a proper introduction. "I'm Twilight Sparkle, Element of Magic."

"Well that's weird," R.J. said with a raised brow. "My last name is Sparkle too. Rainbow Sparkle."

"Really? That is odd," Twilight said, idly wondering if she and R.J. were somehow related.

"Yeah, talk about... wait a second." R.J. said as he glanced at Rainbow Dash.

Twilight followed his gaze. With a start, she realized that R.J. and Rainbow Dash both had rainbow colored manes. Ever so slowly, an impossible theory began to form in her mind.

"No way..." R.J. said as his eyes darted back and forth between Twilight and Rainbow Dash. Apparently, the same idea was starting to appear in his mind as well.

With effort, Twilight forced herself to ask the question in her head that was demanding to be voiced.

"R.J.," she said carefully. "What do your parents look like?"

R.J. gulped as the eyes of everyone gathered under the pizza trees locked onto him.

"My... parents," he said slowly. "Look like you... and Rainbow Dash."

Twilight Sparkle felt the metaphorical gears in her mind screech to a halt as screws and bolts popped loose and fell down into a cerebral void. The shattered pieces that remained creaked and rotated in a useless attempt to chug along at normal processing speeds. So lost was she within the confines of her brain, all she could detect of the outside world was laughter.

Laughter.

Twilight blinked twice as the world snapped back into focus. R.J. was standing before her, laughing uncontrollably.

"Oh man!" he howled. "You should've see the look on your face! I really had you going didn't I?"

Rainbow Dash blinked rapidly, as if she too were emerging from a state of mental malfunction.

"Wait... you were lying?" she asked. "All that was a lie? Your name, your parents, everything?"

"Oh no, not at all." R.J. chuckled. "My name actually is Rainbow Sparkle, and my parents actually are Bearers of Harmony. But they look nothing at all like you or Twilight. I just came up that that last bit on the fly and went with it."

"Oh my gosh I just realized something!" Pinkie Pie blurted out.

"What is it, Pinkie Pie?" Twilight said, more than willing to change the topic.

"If Rainbow Dash and R.J. got married, their names would be the same," Pinkie Pie said.

An uncomfortable silence fell over all as Pinkie Pie's awkward yet technically true observation hung over them.

"Aaaannnnnyway," R.J. said, his face a little red. "There's a party going on at my place right now. What do you all say to coming with me and working out this whole Elements of Harmony thing over pizza?"

"I like parties!" Pinkie Pie squealed. "Can we go to the pizza party, Twilight? Huh huh huh can we can we can we?!

Twilight Sparkle glanced at Dr. McNinja. She was unsure as to why he had insisted that Sparklelord be called Batman earlier, but it wasn't a stretch on the imagination to figure that he had been acting on information she didn't possess. Until Twilight was up to speed, it seemed reasonable to her to let Dr. McNinja call the shots.

"Sounds good," he said with an indifferent shrug. "Lead the way."

R.J. turned and started to walk away, prompting the others to follow. Out of the corner of her vision, Twilight noticed Dr. McNinja and Gordito lagging behind, the latter of the two sitting atop Yoshi. As subtly as she could, Twilight slowed her pace so that they would catch up to her. The four of them were far back enough to avoid being overheard, although Twilight was pretty sure only three out of the four would be doing any talking.

"So," Twilight Sparkle said quietly. "Batman."

"Figured you were going to ask about that eventually," Dr. McNinja whispered back. "I'm fairly certain that the unicorn up front is Batman."

"You mean R.J. is Spar— is Batman?" Twilight asked fearfully, recalling how Princess Luna had informed her that Sparklelord could drain magic from living beings.

"Can we use a different codename besides Batman?" Gordito asked softly.

"He looks just like Spar— Batman," Dr. McNinja said, ignoring his sidekick. "Only difference is that he's shorter."

"Oh, so we must be in the past, when he was younger," Twilight said. "So why the different name?"

"I don't why we're using a different name, its not like he can hear us," Gordito muttered.

"No, I mean, why does he go by a different name now then the one we knew him by before?" Twilight said.

"No idea," Dr. McNinja said. "Gordito, do you have a clear shot?"

"No, Pinkie Pie is right behind him, and for some reason she's hopping up and down instead of walking," Gordito replied.

"Wait, hold on, are you talking about killing him?" Twilight whispered harshly, her voice rising up a little bit. "You can't do that."

"Why not?" Gordito said softly. "It's no different than going back in time and killing Hitler. It’s like the number one rule of time travel. If you have a chance to kill a psychotic mass-murderer before he does some mass murdering, you gotta do it."

Twilight had no idea who Hitler was, but decided not to press the point.

"That doesn't matter, because you don't know for sure if he's Batman," Twilight said. "What if this is some sort of alternate reality where he never becomes Batman? You would be killing an innocent unicorn. Besides, if he's telling the truth about his parents, he might be our only way of finding the Elements of Harmony."

Several gasps and exclamations of surprise from the others up ahead suddenly caught Twilight's attention. While she and the two humans had been talking, the rest had passed the tree line and had stopped in front of a large golden object. Once Twilight herself had caught up with them, she understood why.

Surrounded by a moat of some strange yellowish green liquid was a tall castle made of solid gold. For roofing it had a variety of colored gemstones that sparkled in the evening sun. Curiously enough, not a single wall of the structure was completely vertical. Instead, they were slightly slanted, and curved wherever there could have been a corner. It was very easy for Twilight to imagine someone dropping a ball out of one of the tower windows, having it roll down and then roll up the wall of another tower.

The purpose behind the unusual design became clear as Twilight spotted a unicorn drop out of a tower window on a skateboard. The skater zipped down the incline and straight up another tower before disappearing through a window. Twilight's jaw dropped. The castle was more than just a home. It was a giant skateboard park.

"Ladies and gentlemen," R.J. said with a grin. "Welcome to Castle Sparkle."

R.J. continued on, leading the quest-goers over a drawbridge that was also made of gold. When they were halfway across, six dolphins shot out of the yellowish green liquid below, three from one side of the drawbridge and three from the other. Surprisingly, each one wore sunglasses and held an electric guitar in their flippers, which they used to play a quick little tune as they passed over everyone's heads before splashing back down into the moat.

"Well, that's not something you see every day," Spike said.

"Is there something wrong with the water here?" Fluttershy asked Flora as she glanced over the drawbridge. "It doesn't look clean."

"I've never heard of water until today, so I don't know," Flora shrugged. "That stuff down there is Mountain Dew."

Twilight glanced down at the moat with worry. If Radical Land didn't have any water, she doubted anyone from Equestria would last for long. A pony couldn't go without water forever.

"This is the courtyard," R.J. said as they all entered the golden gates of the castle. "It usually looks nicer than this."

Twilight glanced around. The courtyard did indeed look less than impressive. Although there many interesting statues of things she didn't recognize and many beautiful plants, the tranquil atmosphere was offset by a large pile of rubble coated with some strange pink substance.

"What happened to that statue right there?" Rainbow Dash asked as she pointed a hoof at the pile of rubble.

R.J. gave Rainbow Dash a confused look.

"You happened," he said slowly. "Don't you remember? You crashed right into it."

"I don't remember that," Rainbow Dash replied with a slight frown.

"I wouldn't worry about it," Flora assured her. "You hit your head pretty hard. Short term memory loss isn't an uncommon result of doing something like that."

"Oh, well, sorry I broke your statue then," Rainbow Dash said as she glanced at the cast on her wing.

"Don't worry about it," R.J. said dismissively. "I can just ask Ron to fix it with magic next time he swings by."

"Is Ron the Element of Magic in your world?" Rarity asked.

"Surprisingly no, considering he's the greatest wizard in Radical Land," replied R.J. "He's King Radical's court magician."

"I think I might be able to fix the statue," Twilight said.

"Really?" That would awesome," R.J. said. "Let's see what you got, Element of Magic."

Almost immediately Twilight regretted her offer. If R.J. was indeed Sparklelord, demonstrating that she had a lot of magic to be drained was probably not a smart move. But the offer had already been made, so Twilight widened her stance and concentrated. If magic in Radical Land worked the same as in Equestria, a simple restoration spell would do the trick. Pink light burst from her horn and struck the rubble. With a flash, a statue of what appeared to be a wingless dragon with very short forearms appeared. The very next moment a pink substance started to flow out of its open jaws and began to fill up a pool at its feet.

“Oh wow. I forgot to tell you it was a ice cream fountain too, and yet you still fixed it," said R.J., clearly impressed.

"Glad I could help," Twilight said courteously. "If you don't mind me asking, where exactly are your parents and the Elements of Harmony?"

"It's kind of a long story," said R.J. "Is it alright with if I tell you over pizza? The party is right through that door over there."

"Is there a reason you can't tell us out here?" Dr. McNinja asked suddenly.

"Well... no. I'm just... hungry you know?" R.J. answered carefully.

For a moment not a word was spoken as Dr. McNinja and R.J. looked at each other.

"Are we going to the party or what?" Pinkie Pie said impatiently.

"Yeah Doc, are we?" R.J. inquired innocently.

"Sure, go ahead. We're all right behind you," Dr. McNinja said evenly.

R.J. gave Dr. McNinja an odd look, but proceeded to walk up to a golden door and walk through nonetheless. One by one everyone else entered as well. Twilight paused momentarily at the door when it was her turn. Then, for better or for worse, she entered.

Chapter 13: The floor might be lava

Dr. McNinja was pleased as punch to see that the floor was not lava when he passed through the golden door. Rather, it seemed that R.J. had been telling the truth about the pizza party. Inside was a large dining hall filled with tables, strange creatures, and plate-loads of pizza. Music was playing in one corner of the room, complete with a spherical multicolored light projector. Pinkie Pie let out a long gasp and instantly dashed over to join the small crowd of dancers.

As Dr. McNinja and the rest sat down at a table, a dryad wearing a maid's uniform served them some pizza slices. For a brief moment Dr. McNinja wondered if the pizza was safe to eat, but his hungry stomach reminded him that all he had for lunch was some cookies. Dr. McNinja took a bite, and was quite surprised when his taste buds practically sang for joy. It was, without a doubt, the best pizza he had ever eaten. Apparently Gordito and the Equestrians felt the same, for they too devoured the pizza. Yoshi, for some reason, had started to help himself to one of the serving dishes.

"You uh, can't feel us eating this pizza right?" Gordito asked Flora.

"They're sort of like nail clippings," Flora answered. "I can tell when the pizza is picked off of me, but after that I can't feel them."

Dr. McNinja tried really hard not to imagine pizza covered with nail clippings but failed. It didn’t really matter how many corpses or unnatural growths he had seen over the years, life always found some new way to gross him out.

"Wow, this is really good pizza," said Twilight as she wiped a bit of tomato sauce off her face with a napkin. "So R.J., can you tell us about your parents and the Elements of Harmony now?"

"Right. I should probably start at the beginning," R.J. said. "In order to do that, I'll have to explain a little about Radical Land. First off, you should know it's ruled by King Radical."

"Is Radical Land named after King Radical or is it the other way around?" Spike asked.

"No idea." R.J. shrugged. "Anyway, Radical Land is pretty big, far bigger than what any one king can rule directly. So King Radical has a bunch of vassals that rule in his stead. My parents, who are both Bearers of Harmony, rule over the Radical Forest and all the forest creatures."

"So where are your parents and the Elements of Harmony?" Twilight asked.

"I'm getting there. It started about a week ago when the Rocket Maglev didn't show up when it was supposed to," R.J. said.

"What's a Maglev?" asked Applejack.

"It's like a train," Dr. McNinja said. "Instead of wheels, it uses magnetic repulsion to levitate and glide around without having to worry about friction. Apparently, they're powered by rockets here."

"It what?" Applejack said in befuddlement.

"It's basically a low-flying train that goes really fast," Gordito said.

"Ah. Gotcha," Applejack said with satisfaction.

"Yes, moving on," said R.J. "Radical Land's Rocket Maglev network is really important. Without it, we can't get any mail. So when it doesn't show up at the station, it means we're basically cut off from the rest of Radical Land."

R.J. paused, as if daring anyone to interrupt again. When no one did so, he went on.

"I don't have a map with me at the moment, but if I did I could use it to show that the Radical Forest is the northernmost part of Radical Land. The Capital, where King Radical lives, is in the center. On the border between the Radical Forest and the Capital is a small town called the Hub, which is the main hub for the Rocket Maglev network."

Wouldn't it make more sense to have the main hub in the capital, the center of Radical Land?" Twilight asked.

"Ordinarily, yes," R.J. said. "But the reason it was set on the border was because they found a time space portal underground. A long time ago, folks were so uncool that they would intentionally throw garbage where it didn't belong. It was called littering. The Hub was designed in such a way that any garbage lying around would be washed up by the rain and dumped into the time space portal."

You use a rift in the fabric of reality as a garbage disposal?" Twilight said in disbelief.

"Used to," R.J. said. "During the uncool age. But that's basically the reason it's on the border. Anyway, my parents figured something must be screwed up at the Hub, so they sent spies to investigate. What they found wasn't radical. The Hub had been turned into a something completely chaotic. Not only that, but out of it came creatures unlike any we had ever seen, horrible abominations that caused pointless destruction and magical mayhem."

"Oh my gosh!" Rainbow Dash suddenly interrupted. "Discord!"

"You know about him?" R.J. said in surprise.

"I heard you and Flora talking about Discord's abominations while I was waking up," Rainbow Dash said. "But here's the weird part. Our reality has a Discord too."

"Really? Wow. Are our universes parallel or something?" R.J. said.

"And who is Discord exactly?" Dr. McNinja asked.

"He's crazier than a rabid squirrel," Applejack said bluntly.

"Uncouth," Rarity said.

"Evil," Twilight said.

"Scary," murmured Fluttershy.

"A moron," Spike said flatly.

Several heads glanced at Spike in surprise.

"What? He is," Spike said defensively. "He got defeated by the Elements of Harmony twice, and allowed it to happen the second time. If he can't recognize a pattern as simple as that, he's a moron."

"Well, I hope our Discord is a moron too," R.J. said gravely. "Because my parents and the rest of the Bearers of Harmony left on a quest to defeat him yesterday morning. They took the Elements of Harmony with them, obviously."

"I call for a group huddle for everyone that is not from Radical Land," Dr. McNinja said as he got up from his seat.

Everyone from Equestria exchanged glances but got up to join Dr. McNinja and Gordito all the same. Once the huddle was formed, Dr. McNinja realized someone was missing.

"Where's Pinkie Pie?" he asked.

"Over there, leading a musical number," Twilight said as she glanced over her shoulder. "Should I go get her?"

"Nah, she's fine. I'm just keeping track," replied Dr. McNinja. "We need to discuss our game plan. We have two goals. Borrow the Elements of Harmony and get back to Equestria right?"

"Makes sense," Twilight said. "We saw our future selves emerge from the portal wearing the Elements of Harmony. Logically, that means we acquire them here."

"We can't use the same portal we used to get here to go back," Gordito said. "That disappeared after we came through."

"So we use a different one," Twilight said. "The one R.J. told us about. At the Hub."

"So it's settled then," Dr. McNinja said. "We head for the Hub. Any objections?"

Silence.

"Excellent." Dr. McNinja grinned underneath his ninja mask. "Hands and hooves in the middle. Break on three."

Dr. McNinja stuck out his hand. Six hooves, a purple set of claws, and another human hand stacked on top of his own.

"One, two, three! Go team!" Dr. McNinja said as they broke.

"So what did you all decide just now?" R.J. asked as he took a bite of pizza.

"We're going to the Hub," Dr. McNinja said.

"Really? Like, right now? You could just wait until my parents get back." R.J. said.

"We need to use the portal there to get home anyway," Dr. McNinja said. "We'll probably be on our way now. Thanks for the pizza."

"Whoa whoa whoa, you're going a bit too fast there Doc. It's gonna be dark in a few hours. Not to mention you don't even know how to get there," said R.J.

"Do you have a map we can borrow?" Twilight said.

"Better." R.J. grinned as he placed a hoof on his chest. "I can give you a guide."

"You can't do that. Your parents wanted you to rule in their absence," said Flora.

"Oh, that reminds me. Congratulations on your promotion," R.J. told her.

"Promotion? What promotion?" questioned Flora.

R.J. got up from the table and left the room without a word. Moments later he returned with a crown super-glued to a red bicycle helmet.

"To temporary Princess of the Radical Forest of course," he answered as he magically broke the glue between the two head accessories. "Emphasis on temporary. When I get back I'm re-gluing the crown to my helmet."

"You can't do that!" Flora protested.

"Yeah I can. I got loads of glue," R.J. said.

"No, I mean, you can't just leave and put someone else in charge. Your parents specifically told you to stay here," Flora said.

"That was before we had visitors from another reality who needed to borrow the Elements of Harmony," R.J., said.

"We can probably manage with just a map," said Dr. McNinja, not entirely eager for R.J. to tag along.

"Oh no, you'll definitely need more than just a map," R.J. said. "Without the Rocket Maglev, the only way you'll get to the Hub is on hoof. Or foot, in your case. You'll need food, Mountain Dew, tents, and weapons if you hope to make it."

"Why tents?" Rarity said uneasily. "Is it a very long trip?"

"About two days at a good pace," R.J. said. "Of course, that estimate was made before we had monsters roaming the Radical Forest. Also, I have a little bit of experience fighting Discord's monsters, so that's another good reason for me to come along."

Dr. McNinja felt Gordito's and Twilight's eyes on him, waiting for his decision. Although he had his apprehensions about bringing along someone with such a strong resemblance to Sparklelord, he had to admit that R.J. made a strong case. Dr. McNinja hadn't really had the chance to evaluate the fighting capabilities of everyone from Equestria. Rainbow Dash's speed might have been a good asset in combat, but now one of her wings was in a cast. Twilight Sparkle could probably hold her own because of her talent with magic, but Dr. McNinja simply had no idea about the rest.

"I suppose in light of that, we'll be glad for you to guide us there," said Dr. McNinja.

"Awesome." R.J. grinned. "That just leaves one more thing."

R.J. strode over to where Flora sat and set the crown on her head.

"All hail Flora, temporary Princess of the Radical Forest!" he declared.

Whoops and cheers erupted from the other tables even as Flora sank a little bit into her chair.

"I will murder you for this," she whispered harshly to R.J.

"No you won't," R.J. said dismissively. "That would be a violation of your Hippocratic oath. Isn't that right, Doc?"

"Actually, the whole 'first do no harm thing' isn't in the Hippocratic oath. Common misconception," Dr. McNinja said. "That's how it is in my reality anyway, which is lucky for me."

"So when are we leaving?" asked Gordito.

"I'm thinking first thing tomorrow morning," R.J. said. "Plenty of rooms here in the castle for you all to spend the night."

Discord watched contentedly as a school of fish with little human legs walked by his throne made of graham cracker. It had been at least ten minutes since he had directly altered something with his magic, but the Hub was already so full of chaos that he had no problem just watching. Trees grew out of the side of buildings with analog clocks hanging limply over their branches like pancakes. Winged mailboxes flew around overhead while chocolate milk rained upwards from the ground. It was, in Discord's opinion, a sight far more pleasing to the eye than the Hub had been before his arrival. It was the chaos capital of the world, although so far Discord hadn't ventured outside of it except once, to play around a little with the Bearers of Harmony. It wasn't that he wasn't interesting in turning all of Radical Land upside down, but merely that he had not yet bothered to do so. There was enough fun in the Hub to keep him entertained for weeks.

A howling screech rang through the evening air, its alien sound music to Discord's ears. It was the call of the Wolf-Raptors, who were by far his favorite creations. Not only did they possess claws and talons made of literal steel, but they had the ability to sense magic. It was was an ability that Discord himself shared with them, although his was far more powerful. Discord reached out across Radical Land with his senses and almost immediately detected three beings with a great amount of magic power. One was to the south and the other two were to the north. Odd, there had only been one to the north before. Stranger still, the two from the north had a similar feel, although Discord couldn't imagine why. Even now, one of them was approaching the Hub, doubtlessly with the intention of removing Discord from his high-fructose throne.

But Discord wasn't concerned. He was chaos incarnate after all, and more than capable with dealing with whatever was thrown at him. The eagle’s claw on Discord’s left arm pressed against the lion’s paw on his right as he chuckled. Yes, let them come. Let them all come. Discord was ready for their arrival, and he was looking forward to the fun that would follow.

Chapter 14: That was easier than expected

For the four hundred and fifty fourth time that day, Gordito glanced up at the sky. Eight hours ago he had found the pale green clouds above the Radical Forest to be a pretty cool sight, but the magic had long since worn off. Now, he only looked up because he was extremely bored. It didn't help that it had been more than twenty four hours since he had shot something with his guns. Worst. Adventure. Ever.

Desperate to find something to take his mind of his boredom, Gordito glanced around. To his right was a shiny metal maglev track that ran parallel to the dirt path he walked upon. While many of the quest-goers had optimistically hoped that a Maglev might show up early on in their trek, the hope had since been abandoned by all. Resigned to their fate, hooves and feet methodically plodded on and on like zombies.

Walking alongside Gordito to his left was Yoshi. Gordito was severely tempted to hop atop his steed and take a break from the endless walking. However, Yoshi was already carrying many bags of adventuring related equipment, and Gordito didn't have the heart to increase the velociraptor's burden.

Directly in front of Gordito was Rainbow Dash. Out of everyone from Equestria, she alone had accepted a sword from R.J., which was currently strapped to her side. Whether she actually knew how to use a sword or whether she was just trying to compensate for her broken wing, Gordito wasn't sure.

Gordito scowled slightly at the sight of R.J. walking next to Rainbow Dash. Like her, R.J. also had a sword strapped to his side. Granted, he hadn't tried to kill anyone or destroy anything yet, but Gordito still preferred having him where he can be easily seen.

"I found the Elements of Harmony!" Pinkie Pie sang out without warning from the front of the group.

"That's nice dear," Rarity said with a yawn. After a two second delay, her exhausted mind caught up with the significance of the statement. "Wait, what?"

Gordito looked straight ahead and slightly down. Lying in the middle of the dirt road were five golden necklaces, each one containing a different colored gemstone.

"Wow," said Rainbow Dash. "That was almost as easy as the first time we all found the Elements of Harmony."

"What you are talking about?" said Twilight. "It wasn't easy finding them the first time."

"Yeah it was," Rainbow Dash said. "The location was in the first book Pinkie looked in, and the Elements were right where the book said they would be. Easy."

"It was not easy!" Twilight said. "There was danger along the way!"

"Actually Twi," Applejack said, draping a foreleg over her friend's shoulders. "It was kind of easy."

"Am I the only who's noticed that there are six of you but only five necklace things?" asked Gordito.

"Not only that," Rarity said as she trotted up beside Pinkie Pie. "They don't resemble our cutie marks. They're just diamonds. Wait, scratch that. They all look like my cutie mark. Quite an improvement in my opinion."

"But why are there only five?" asked Twilight. "Where's the sixth?"

"Why are they just lying in the middle of the road?" R.J. asked, a little bit of panic creeping into his tone. "Where are my parents?"

"Let's search the nearby area and see who or what we can find," Dr. McNinja said. "Five groups of two. I'll go with R.J."

Inwardly Gordito smiled. Even with the unexpected curveball of finding the Elements, Dr. McNinja was the man with the plan. No one would be alone, and Dr. McNinja would be able to keep an eye on the possible Sparklelord.

"Wouldn't it make more sense pair up those who are combat ready with those who aren't?" said R.J. as he glanced at his sword.

"I suppose so," Dr. McNinja said, a look of annoyance crossing over his face ever so briefly. "New plan. Me, Rarity. Twilight, Applejack. R.J., Pinkie Pie. Rainbow Dash, Spike. Butterfly, Gordito."

Gordito glanced at Fluttershy, half-expecting her to correct Dr. McNinja for saying her name wrong. Fluttershy however, only looked at the ground.

"Grab your Element if you have one and spread out," Dr. McNinja continued. "And let's meet back where we found them in five minutes."

Reasonably sure that Fluttershy wouldn't take the initiative to pick a direction, Gordito motioned for her to follow once she had her Element. Twilight Sparkle's Element was not among the five. Everyone split up and ventured into the forest on both sides of the road and Maglev track. When Yoshi started to follow Gordito, Fluttershy promptly took the lead.

"Is there a reason you didn't speak up when Doc said your name wrong?" Gordito asked as he scanned the trees.

"No reason," Fluttershy replied. "But don't we have more important things to worry about?"

"Uh, yeah, I guess we do," Gordito said hesitantly.

Just as Gordito turned to start looking in a different direction, Yoshi growled. Fluttershy stiffened at the sound. Less than a split second later, something large and gray sprang from some nearby bushes towards her. Gordito didn't think. He acted. Quick as a whip, his hand snatched up his revolver and fired. With the sound of a bullet ricocheting off of steel, the furry gray mass landed in a heap before Fluttershy and didn't move. Gun still smoking, Gordito approached the monstrosity.

"Well it's about time," he said with a grin. "I was starting to think I would never get the chance to kill anything on this adventure."

"Wha- what is that?!" Fluttershy said fearfully, unable to take her eyes off the horror before her.

Gordito's grin shifted to a scowl as he knelt down to examine the body. The creature in question appeared to be a velociraptor, but with some differences. Long gray fur coated its entire body and instead of a raptor's head it had the head of a wolf. A bit of fur and skin from between the eyes had been blown off, revealing what appeared to be dented steel underneath. Adding further to the list of oddities was the fact that its claws, talons, and even its teeth also appeared to be made of steel. Gordito opened its mouth wider and tapped the barrel of his revolver against the hybrid's fangs. Sure enough, the action clanged with the sound of steel hitting steel.

"It's a steel boned wolf-raptor thing," he told Fluttershy.

Not caring to see if a creature with a steel skull could survive a head shot, Gordito opened its mouth wider and fired a bullet straight down its throat. Fluttershy flinched at the sound.

"Now it's a dead steel boned wolf-raptor thing," he added smugly.

"Do... you think there might be more?" Fluttershy asked.

"Well, I know velociraptors like to hunt in packs," Gordito said thoughtfully. "And I'm pretty sure wolves do too. So I'm thinking yes."

Suddenly Gordito heard a thwack, closely followed by a unconscious wolf-raptor sailing through the air and smashing through a tree.

"You know, I don't think I'm ever going to get tired of punching dinosaurs, even when they're also wolves," Dr. McNinja said as he calmly strolled into view. "I better pace myself so it doesn't become an addiction."

Following closely behind Dr. McNinja was Rarity, Spike, Applejack, Twilight, and Rainbow Dash. Unlike Dr. McNinja, not a single one of them possessed the same air of calm.

"We need to get away from here," Twilight urged. "There could be more of those things nearby."

No sooner had the words come out of her mouth, Pinkie Pie zipped by screaming at the top of her lungs.

"Run!" yelled R.J. as he too shot by. "There's like thirty of them right behind us!"

Gordito glanced at Dr. McNinja.

"Are we really going to run again?" Gordito groaned.

"Living trumps honor," Dr. McNinja reminded his sidekick as he took off at a sprint.

Gordito followed suit as everyone ran after R.J. and Pinkie Pie. The sound of howling screeches caused the young gunslinger to glance over his shoulder. A large pack of snarling wolf-raptors were indeed in pursuit. Without slowing down, Gordito fired off a few body shots and dropped two of them. A ninja star from Dr. McNinja whirled through the air and imbedded itself in a wolf-raptor's head. Instead of dying however, the abomination simply kept up the chase.

"They have steel skulls," Gordito informed Dr. McNinja.

"Ah. That would explain why my knuckles are slightly red from punching that one earlier," Dr. McNinja said as he inspected the back of his hand.

"This way! I have an idea!" Twilight called out from the front as she veered towards a cave.

The wolf-raptors started to gain as the adventurers frantically made for the cave. Once they were all inside, Twilight spun around and caused her horn to glow. A brilliant pink light shot out, expanding into a force field that sealed off the entrance to the cave. Once the wolf-raptors caught up, they stopped in front of the magic blockade. For a moment not a word was spoken.

"A force field? Really?" one of the wolf-raptors complained. "That has got to be cheating."

As if inspired by the whiner, the rest of the wolf-raptors began calling out challenges and insults.

"Why don't you come out huh? You scared?"

"Perhaps we ought to systemically throw ourselves at different portions of this obstacle to find out of if it is truly impassible."

"Come at me bro!"

"You're a furry rhinoceros!"

"Yeah, a furry rhinoceros!"

"You can't stay in there forever!"

Ten pairs of eyes watched in quiet surprise as the wolf-raptors continued on with their petty insults.

"Well, guess we're staying here for a while," Rainbow Dash said as she trotted over to Yoshi and retrieved a sleeping bag from one of his saddle bags.

Gordito felt as if he hadn't slept for long before he was awakened by someone bumping his sleeping bag. Gordito squinted into the darkness, trying to see who had moved. R.J. was the perpetrator, slowing stepping across the others as he made for the entrance of the cave. Gordito frowned in puzzlement. R.J. wasn't supposed to take his shift watching the force field until after Gordito had. So why was he already up?

With silence that would have made Dr. McNinja proud, Gordito slipped from his sleeping bag and followed him to the cave entrance. Gordito was surprised to see that no wolf-raptors appeared to be waiting on the other side of the force field. Rainbow Dash, who was standing guard, turned at the sound of R.J's hoof steps.

"You're a bit early, Pinkie Pie," she whispered. "I literally just got here. I'll tell you when its your turn."

"It's me actually," R.J. whispered back. "I wanted to ask you something."

"Now?" Rainbow Dash said. "Why now?"

"It's not a question I wanted everyone else to hear," R.J said quietly. "I wanted to ask how well you knew Dr. McNinja and Gordito."

"Not that well," Rainbow Dash replied. "I only just met them yesterday. Why do you ask?"

"Well, I was kind of thinking about your story," R.J. said, still speaking in a low tone. "About how you all came from another reality that's been attacked by that Batman guy. At what point did Dr. McNinja and Gordito get involved?"

"I'm not sure," Rainbow Dash said. "I'm slowly remembering more, but there's still a lot I don't remember because of my head injury. They just kind of... showed up. Twilight said that Princess Celestia trusted them, so I just went with it."

"But didn't that seem kind of suspicious to you?" R.J. said. "A guy who always wears a mask and refuses to give his first name because of a wizard or something shows up right after Batman?"

"I guess that does seem pretty suspicious," Rainbow Dash said. "Come to think of it, he's also the one that led us through the portal to your world. Almost like it was planned."

"And you all showed up not too long after my parents left to fight Discord," R.J. said. "All this good timing can't be a coincidence."

"So what should we do?" Rainbow Dash said softly as she glanced towards the back of the cave.

"Let's just keep this to ourselves for now," R.J said. "If we show that we're suspicious of him, it could go badly."

"Okay, so we just watch him carefully for now. Gordito too," Rainbow Dash said. "Oh, but R.J., there's something you should know. The unicorn that attacked Equestria isn't called Batman. He's called Sparklelord."

"Oh yeah, I remember thinking it was kind of weird when he interrupted Twilight's story. But why the name change?" R.J. asked.

"I don't know. He must have some reason from keeping that name from you. I'm sorry I didn't tell you sooner," Rainbow Dash said.

"It's fine. Dr. McNinja is probably a master at manipulation. Tell you what, why don't you go get some rest and I'll do the rest of your shift?" R.J. said.

"Oh, you don't need to do that. I'll be fine," Rainbow Dash replied.

"No, your wing is still mending. You could probably use the extra rest," R.J. said. "I got it from here."

"You sure?"

"Positive."

"Alright, well, thanks," Rainbow Dash said as she turned to head back.

"No problem." R.J. grinned as she walked away.

Gordito held his breath as Rainbow Dash went past him. Mercifully, she did not notice him. R.J. turned back to the force field and gazed outside.

"Sparklelord," the rainbow maned unicorn whispered thoughtfully to himself. "Kind of has a nice ring to it."

Chapter 15: Happy birthday

Dr. McNinja seriously wished that he had a heated pillow as he woke up. While using Princess Celestia as a pillow two days ago had been a complete accident, it had certainly raised his standards for head comfort. As such, the little pillow like cushion attached to his sleeping bag was woefully inadequate. Dr. McNinja decided that the first thing he would do when he got back to his world was to look for heated pillows on the internet.

Dr. McNinja blinked as he realized that this was his second morning since leaving his own reality. Had it really already been two days? Dr. McNinja hadn't expected the trip into the time space portal to take so long. All he had wanted to do was to find a unicorn to be his new motorcycle. Instead, he had wound up going on an equestrian adventure. Indeed, equestrian was really the only adjective that best described it. No other adventure he had ever gone on had involved so many horses.

Dr. McNinja rubbed the back of his head as he sat up. Around him, Spike, Gordito, R.J., and most of the Bearers of Harmony were slowly waking up as well. A tired-looking Applejack was the only exception, dutifully guarding the force field over the cave entrance. On the other side of the force field was a pleasant view of the forest, completely absent of wolf-raptors.

"So who wants to bet that they're waiting out of sight for us to come out?" Spike asked with a yawn as he stretched.

"Even if they are, I'm not sure what we can do about it," Twilight replied, a tight frown of concern on her face. "But we can't stay in this cave forever."

"I can go out and look around," Dr. McNinja said. "Find an escape route if there is one."

"I'll go with you," R.J. said as he unsuccessfully tried to comb his mane with a hoof. "Two heads are better than one, right?"

"Actually, I think it would best if I did it alone. Reconnaissance is best left to ninjas," said Dr. McNinja.

"Ah, well, yes. I suppose that makes sense," R.J. said with reluctance. "I guess we'll all just wait here until you get back."

"I can lower the force field whenever you're ready," Twilight told Dr. McNinja.

"I'm ready now," Dr. McNinja said as he got up to his feet and strode up to the force field.

Twilight's horn flashed pink and the barrier dissipated. Once Dr. McNinja stepped outside, she put it back up again. Dr. McNinja glanced around. Unlike the trees near R.J.'s home, the forest around him was made up of normal looking trees. No wolf-raptors were in the vicinity, so Dr. McNinja dashed up to the nearest tree and ran straight up its trunk. After scrambling up its branches, Dr. McNinja scanned the forest from his new vantage point and was surprised by what he saw. Sitting atop a tree some distance away was a helicopter.

Dr. McNinja squinted to try to get a better look, but he was too far away to see whether or not it was broken. The fact that it was just sitting on top of a tree made it unlikely to be working, but Dr. McNinja decided it was still worth investigating. After all, if it could be flown, it would certainly save a lot of walking in addition to providing protection from anything on the ground.

Dr. McNinja bent his legs and vaulted to another tree in the direction of the helicopter. His lab coat sailed behind him as he softly and silently landed on its branches. A split second later he was on to the next tree, his feet barely having time to touch the limbs before springing off again. It was hardly an unnoticeable method of travel if there were any eyes above the treetops. To any below however, he would be undetectable so long as they didn't look up.

Dr. McNinja was about halfway to his target when he spotted three wolf-raptors below. The predators were sitting as if waiting for something. Intrigued, Dr. McNinja landed in a crouch without a sound and concealed himself within the tree's foliage.

"This is so exciting!" one of the wolf-raptors squealed to her companions. "This is never something we would have thought of if Discord hadn't opened our eyes."

"It's a lot more fun than the stuff we used to do," said another. "With these new bodies, there really isn't anything we can't hunt."

"I hope I get to kill one of them when they finally come out of that cave," the third said. "Did you guys see the look on Charlie's face when he killed the Element of Generosity?"

"Oh I did! He looked so happy. I wish I was him," said the first one wistfully.

"Well, I wish to be there when the final part of Discord's plan goes down," the second said. "I've heard that Discord has something special planned for Rainbow Sparkle, something to really top off the defeat of the Elements of Harmony."

"Whatever it is, I hope we can still eat him afterwards," the third said. "Charlie says unicorn meat is delicious."

As the topic moved onto a disturbing discussion about the taste of unicorn meat and other creatures that were probably sapient, Dr. McNinja noiselessly continued on jumping from tree to tree towards the helicopter. As far as he could figure, the Elements of Harmony had been abandoned on the road because Radical Land's Bearers of Harmony were attacked by the wolf-raptors. It did not however, explain why the Element of Magic jewelry was not among them.

Another area of concern was R.J. All that Dr. McNinja really knew about Sparklelord's past came from King Radical. According to him, Sparklelord was a unicorn that had been twisted somehow to despise all that was radical. Combined with what he had overheard from the wolf-raptors, Dr. McNinja was quite certain that he had arrived in Radical Land just before its destruction.

But could Radical Land still be saved? Dr. McNinja wasn't sure. If it was possible to rewrite history, couldn't have King Radical saved Radical Land simply by going back again? But perhaps it was more simple than that. Perhaps history was always the same, all instances of time travel already taken into account.

Dr. McNinja felt slightly sick as an unfortunate truth hit him. If it was R.J.'s destiny to be turned into Sparklelord by Discord, then the only way for sure he could stop it from happening would be to make sure Discord and R.J. never met. And the most certain way to make sure that Discord and R.J. never met would be to kill R.J.

So lost was he in his thoughts, Dr. McNinja hadn't realized he reached the helicopter until he landed on top of it. He was close enough now to see that it wasn't damaged, at least not on the outside.

"What are you doing?" A voice asked out of nowhere.

Surprised, Dr. McNinja frantically looked around. There didn't appear to be anyone or anything else nearby. Unsure of what else to do, Dr. McNinja answered the question.

"I'm standing on top of a helicopter while struggling with a moral quandary," he said truthfully.

"And why are you standing on my head?" the voice demanded.

"I'm not standing on a head, I'm standing on a helicopter," Dr. McNinja said. "Weren't you listening?"

"Dude, have you never heard of helicopter-head ents?" questioned the voice.

"Uh, no, no I haven't. Sorry about that," Dr. McNinja said as he hopped down to the ground.

Ever so slowly, the helicopter head ent twisted around and looked down at Dr. McNinja, revealing a giant pair of sunglasses it wore on its front window.

"It's all good," the tall creature said to Dr. McNinja. "The name’s Xavier. What's yours?"

"Dr. McNinja," Dr. McNinja replied.

"Ya gotta a first name, Doc?" Xavier inquired.

"Well, yes, but I can't say it because of a wizard," Dr. McNinja said.

"Ah, gotcha. Well Doc, whatcha doin' way out here? If you don't mind me asking."

"Long story short, my friends and I are trying to get to the Hub," Dr. McNinja said. "But we can't get any further because of wolf-raptors. With steel bones."

"Oh, I feel ya dude. All sorts of weird stuff coming out of the Hub. Tell ya what, how about I give you and your friends a lift?" Xavier volunteered.

"You would do that?" Dr. McNinja asked, hardly believing his luck.

"Yeah, I can get you pretty close. Not too close though. These wolf-raptors aren’t giving me any trouble, but the Hub isn't as nice to helicopter head ents anymore," Xavier said.

"That's fine. Your offer is more than generous," Dr. McNinja said. "So um, does your head detach or does the whole tree fly?"

"Whole tree. Grab onto any of my branches," Xavier said.

Dr. McNinja did as he was told. With a mechanical whine, Xavier's rotors began to spin and pick up speed. With a lurch, the entire tree and its roots ripped free from the ground. Dr. McNinja started to cover his ears but stopped when he realized that the helicopter wasn't actually all that loud.

"Which way?" Xavier yelled over the noise he was making.

"Um, the direction that the branch I'm sitting on is pointing!" Dr, McNinja called back. I'll let you know when to land!"

At first, all the wolf-raptors below ignored the flying tree as Dr. McNinja and Xavier closed in on the cave. But by the time they reached it, many of the furry dinosaurs began to head for the cave as well. Apparently, they had started to figure out what was going on.

As fast he could, Dr. McNinja scrambled down Xavier and made for the cave. Mercifully, the others were all packed and waiting at the force field.

"Everyone climb that tree! No time to explain!" Dr. McNinja shouted.

Twilight made a bewildered face, but lowered the force field all the same. Everyone ran out the cave even as the wolf-raptors showed up on the scene.

"But I cain't climb that high!" Applejack realized with horror when she reached the base of the tree.

Without even taking the time to warn her, Dr. McNinja snatched up Applejack and tossed her up into the branches. As the wolf-raptors closed in, Dr. McNinja did the same for everyone else until only Yoshi was left.

"I got the big one!" Xavier announced as he wrapped his roots around Yoshi, who let out a surprised screech. Dr. McNinja grabbed onto Xavier's roots with one hand as the helicopter-head ent began to take off once again. The powerful winds pressed down on the wolf-raptors, preventing them from jumping after the tree. Dr. McNinja breathed a sigh of relief. They were safe.

"Hey! Look guys! Charlie made it onto the tree! Go Charlie!" one of the wolf-raptors suddenly cheered.

"Ow! Leggo dude! That freaking hurts!" Xavier complained.

Dr. McNinja turned his head. Sure enough, one of the wolf-raptors was clinging to Xavier's roots with his steel claws. It was Rarity who was closest to him, hanging on the lowest branch.

"C'mere my little pony! Charlie's hungry!" Charlie laughed as he started to climb towards Rarity, who promptly started screaming.

Despite the dire circumstances, Dr. McNinja couldn’t help but notice the irony. According to the wolf-raptors he had eavesdropped on earlier, Radical Land’s Element of Generosity had been killed by a wolf-raptor named Charlie. Odds were pretty high that the Charlie closing in on Equestria’s Element of Generosity was the exact same one.

R.J. and Rainbow Dash simultaneously drew their swords with their mouths as they started to carefully work their down towards Rarity. Meanwhile, Gordito drew his gun and fired. Charlie however, was already on the move, climbing horizontally around the tree with his steel claws to stay out of Gordito's view.

"Go, go, go, go, Charlie! It's your birthday!" the wolf-raptors far below sang in unison as they began to dance in a way that must have been choreographed ahead of time.

Using his free hand, Dr. McNinja withdrew a throwing star and hurled it into Charlie's eye, causing him to howl in pain. The very next instant a levitating sword pierced the wolf-raptor’s gut, courtesy of R.J.

"Sorry, Charlie," said R.J. "But today is the exact opposite of your birthday."

With a grunt, R.J. magically pulled his sword out of Charlie, trailing blood. With one last cry of anguish, the wolf-raptor fell from the tree and landed on the ground far below with a bone crunching thud. For a while not a word as spoken.

"Everyone all right?" Twilight finally asked.

"I... think I'll be alright," Rarity panted. "Thank you R.J., you saved my life."

"Thank Dr. McNinja," R.J. replied. "I couldn't have done it if he hadn't provided a distraction. We make a pretty good team, eh Doc?"

With a pang of guilt, Dr. McNinja glanced up at the unicorn he intended to kill as soon as possible.

"Yes," he said. "We make a pretty good team."

Chapter 16: It's important to know the alphabet

Dr. McNinja gripped Xavier's branches tightly as the helicopter head ent approached the Hub. The border town was bigger than he expected, a small city of steel and glass. It was also the most chaotic place he had ever seen. Maglev tracks looped and twisted through the air like the rails of a highly elaborate roller coaster while giant flowered vines snaked around buildings. Every now and then lightning would shoot out of one of the giant flowers on the vines and into the sky. Not only that, but Dr. McNinja saw large pieces of shattered buildings and chunks of earth floating around willy-nilly, occasionally bouncing off of buildings or each other.

Lastly, instead of being up in the sky, pale green clouds of Mountain Dew hovered at ground level, obscuring large portions of the so called town from view. Dr. Mcninja's eyebrows narrowed. Somewhere in that mess was Discord, the being who intended to do something to R.J. If R.J. didn't die or was otherwise disposed of soon, it would be too late.

Xavier descended downward before landing with a thump about a hundred yards away from the Hub. After letting go of Yoshi, Xavier's roots flailed around for a moment before digging into the soil.

"This is as far as I go," he informed everyone. "Y'all are on your own from here on out."

Dr. McNinja hopped down from the tree and landed in a crouch. No sooner had he stood up, Pinkie Pie suddenly landed in his arms. Dr. McNinja glanced at her in surprise.

"Hi!" Pinkie Pie beamed.

"Hi," Dr. McNinja replied evenly. "Warn me next time before you jump into my arms okay?"

"Okay! I'm about to jump into your arms," Pinkie Pie informed him.

"But you're already in my—"

"Weeeeee!" Pinkie Pie squealed as she shot up into the air like a rubber band before falling back into Dr. McNinja's arms.

Dr. McNinja gently set her down as the others attempted to gingerly descend from the tree. Gordito, Fluttershy, Twilight, and R.J. managed to reach the ground without any help, although magical assistance from Twilight and R.J. was required for the rest. Dr. McNinja couldn't but notice that while Twilight levitated Rarity, Spike, and Applejack down with ease, it took visible strain on R.J.'s part to merely lower Rainbow Dash to the ground.

"Thank you very much for the ride," Twilight thanked Xavier once everyone was safely on the ground. "You saved us a lot of walking."

"No problem. Now if you'll excuse me, I'm gonna head on home for some serious chillin'," Xavier replied.

And with that, the helicopter head ent jumped into the air and engaged his propellers. Once he had gained some altitude, he turned around and flew back the way he had come.

"Well," remarked Twilight as she turned to face the Hub. "We've reached our destination, but I still don't have my Element. I hope it's somewhere nearby."

"I just hope my parents are okay," R.J. admitted. "I still don't understand why the other five Elements were just lying on the road."

"Just out of curiosity, which two Elements are your parents, exactly?" Dr. McNinja inquired.

"My mom's Generosity, my dad's Magic," R.J told him.

"Oh, okay. Just wondering," said Dr. McNinja as he grimaced beneath his mask. If R.J.'s mother was the Element of Generosity, that meant he had avenged her death without even knowing it. Briefly he wondered if he should tell R.J. about what he had overheard, but decided against it. It seemed far too cruel to tell R.J. about his mother right before killing him. The thought reminded Dr. McNinja of another issue. He wasn't sure how he would go about killing R.J. After all, R.J. was technically part of the team. Only Dr.McNinja, Gordito, and Twilight knew what was at stake. If Dr. McNinja attempted to kill R.J. right then, it was possible that the others might try to defend the unicorn.

Dr. McNinja suddenly became aware that everyone else had started to walk along the path toward the Hub, so he quickly walked after them to catch up. Before too long they reached it, but paused as they became aware of a new problem. Not a single one of them could see through the ground level layer of Mountain Dew clouds.

“If my wing wasn't broken, I could break all these clouds up in eight seconds flat," Rainbow Dash grumbled.

"Well, we cain't just walk on in there if we cain't see a darn thing," Applejack reasoned. "Anyone got any bright ideas?"

"I've got an idea," Rarity smiled. "What if we went under it?"

"That's a great idea, Rarity!" Spike said enthusiastically. "Should I start digging a tunnel?"

"Better, we can just walk," Rarity explained as she pointed a hoof. "See how the Maglev track starts to slope down as it gets closer to the Hub? I bet it if we follow it it will lead us underground."

Rarity's logic seemed perfectly reasonable to everyone else who was capable of higher level thinking, so they walked on over to the maglev track and proceeded to follow it down into the Hub. Dr. McNinja had only walked a short distance into the Mountain Dew clouds when the ground suddenly shook with a loud rumble.

Dr. McNinja managed to keep his balance even as he heard the others cry out in alarm. The next moment something under his feet shifted straight up, tossing him forward. Dr. McNinja grunted as he he landed on his hands and knees. Dr. McNinja glanced over his shoulder just in time to see yet another giant flowered vine sprout up and cover the entrance of some sort of tunnel, casting the entire place into darkness. A small gap between the vine and the wall was the only exception, revealing a little bit of light from outside.

"Ow," Spike moaned from somewhere nearby. "I think I broke my arm."

"If you actually broke your arm, you would be saying a lot more than just 'ow'," Dr. McNinja assured the dragon as he stood up and brushed himself off. "Is everyone alright?"

"I'm all right," Rarity confirmed as her horn started to glow, illuminating the darkness with blue light.

The light from Rarity's horn revealed Dr. McNinja's surroundings. The quest-goers were inside of an artificially constructed tunnel with steel walls. The tunnel was just large enough for the maglev track to run through the middle, in addition to service platforms that ran along it on both sides. One by one the others echoed Rarity's statement as they got back up. No serious injuries.

"Oh hey, we made it underground," R.J. said cheerfully as his horn glowed as well, adding a rainbow colored lighting effect to Rarity's blue.

"Not everyone," Fluttershy realized. "Where's Twilight?"

Several heads glanced around in search of the missing unicorn.

"Hello?" Twilight's voice called out as if far away. "Where did everyone go?"

"We're underground, in a maglev tunnel!" Dr. McNinja called back. "Where are you you?"

"Still outside!" Twilight replied. "There's something in front of me, not sure it what it is. It's large and green. Wait, hold on, its blocking something. I think I can stick my hoof through. Can you see my hoof?"

Dr. McNinja's looked back at the newly grown vine and spotted Twilight’s hoof, sticking through the gap between the wall of the tunnel and the giant flowered vine.

"We see it, Twi!" Applejack confirmed. "There's a giant plant thing blocking the way! You'll have to teleport inside!"

"Wait, you can teleport?!" Gordito said in disbelief. "Why did we walk all this way if you can freaking teleport?!"

"That's not how it works," Twilight explained. I can't teleport to places I don't know how to reach without magic."

"What? since when?" Rainbow Dash said skeptically.

"Since always," Twilight answered flatly.

"Okay, so if you can't teleport inside, can you get rid of the giant vine thing?" R.J. suggested.

"I can certainly try," Twilight figured. "Just give me a second."

Flashes of pink light appeared through the gap as Twilight conducted a series of magic spells.

"No good," Twilight reported. "This vine is here because of magic, and its a lot more powerful than— oh my gosh!"

Another flash of magic was seen through the gap, followed by silence.

"Twilight?" Fluttershy prompted timidly. "Are... are you still there?"

"What? Yes, I'm still here," Twilight panted. "Sorry, something just attacked me."

"Are you hurt?" Fluttershy pressed.

"No, I'm fine. I turned it into an apple, whatever it was," Twilight assured her. “I’d really prefer to not stay out here. Maybe someone can cut this vine down with a sword?”

Dr. McNinja drew his short sword to try Twilight’s suggestion. But the moment the weapon’s steel touched the vine, a surge of electricity shocked him. Dr. McNinja clenched his teeth to prevent himself from crying out in pain as he dropped his sword.

“Swords won’t work,” he informed Twilight as he picked his weapon back up and re-sheathed it. "R.J., is there any other way to get underground in the Hub?"

"Uh, let me think. I really don't know the Hub that well," R.J. answered. "I do know that you can get in from the very center. That's how its usually done. You're not actually supposed to walk along the track because, well, you'd get hit by a Maglev."

"Would it be faster to walk around the Hub and follow a different track underground?" Twilight wondered.

"I don't know," R.J. admitted. "The Hub is just a town, but its still pretty big."

"If you walk around, anything from the inside can see you on the outside," Gordito pointed out.

"So I'll walk straight through and hope I don't get seen," Twilight decided. "The cloud cover should work both ways."

"And we'll all meet you there," Applejack promised as she walked up to Twilight's hoof and pressed her own hoof against it. "Don't be late, alright?"

"Oh, don't worry," Twilight said with what was clearly false confidence. "I'm always punctual."

Twilight withdrew her hoof from the gap and silence came over the group once again.

"Well, come on!" Rainbow Dash encouraged. "We need to be there waiting for her."

Dr. McNinja took a deep breath. The longer he waited, the more of a risk he was taking. There was no telling how much longer he had before R.J. became Sparklelord.

"Actually," he corrected as evenly as he could. "There's something we need to take care of first."

"Dude," R.J. said forcefully. "Twilight is up there all by herself in a town full of monsters. Whatever it is, it can wait."

"No, it really needs to be taken care of right now," Dr. McNinja insisted.

Sensing the seriousness in his voice, everyone's eyes fell on Dr. McNinja. The ninja doctor held their gaze as his mind frantically raced through combat scenarios. If he were to just kill R.J. without explanation, it was quite likely that everyone but Gordito would assume he had turned evil and bolt. If that happened, they would be at high risk of being killed by any monsters that might also be down below. If he explained his actions beforehand, R.J. would know what was coming and resist, like any sane individual. Arguably, Spike and the Bearers of Harmony knew R.J. just as well as Dr. McNinja, which meant there was no way for him to predict which side they would take.

Dr. McNinja sighed. Twilight might have understood, but she could not help now. The first option was less risky for him, but more risky for the others. He would have to go with the second choice. He would have to explain and then act.

"I'm about to do something that that will be very controversial and very upsetting to everyone," he informed them. "I'm not going to ask any of you to like it, but I hope with proper understanding you will not interfere and put yourselves at risk."

Dr. McNinja turned and looked directly at R.J. The unicorn, in turn, held Dr. McNinja's gaze warily.

"In my reality, there is a man called King Radical," Dr. McNinja continued. "Before I came to Equestria or Radical Land, he told me he came from another reality, Radical Land. According to him, it was completely destroyed by a unicorn called Sparklelord, the same unicorn who attacked Equestria."

"Is there a reason you told me his name was Batman before?" R.J. asked with a raised brow.

"As a matter of fact, there was," Dr. McNinja replied. "I met Sparklelord myself, so I know what he looks and sounds like. He's a white unicorn with a rainbow colored horn, mane and tail. His voice also sounds exactly like yours."

"You think I'm Sparklelord," R.J. realized with wide eyes.

"I did at first," Dr. McNinja admitted. "That's why I hid Sparklelord's real name from you, so that you didn't know that I knew who you were. But last night I overheard some wolf-raptors talking about Discord's plans, and what his plans were for you. That was when I realized that you don't become Sparklelord until later, when Discord finds you."

"Well, that's... concerning," R.J. said slowly. "If you had told me that sooner, I could have left and not given Discord the chance. But now I'm stuck here with the rest of you."

"I'm not sure simply leaving or hiding would have helped anyway. There's only way to make sure you and Discord never meet," Dr. McNinja said flatly.

"Kill Discord first?" R.J. guessed optimistically.

A small bit of hope swelled up within Dr. McNinja. He hadn't thought of that.

"Is that a possibility?" he asked Applejack.

"Ah don't know 'bout that," Applejack said regretfully. "The Discord we fought could change reality at will. If we hadn't used the Elements on him, he would've won fer sure."

"Yeah, I guess that would have been too easy," Dr. McNinja sighed. "I'm sorry R.J., I have no choice but to kill you."

R.J. stiffened at Dr. McNinja's words, as did everyone else in the tunnel. Clearly, no one present liked the idea, R.J. probably least of all. None however, moved to interfere. Cold, heartless logic and unreasonable, powerful emotion were locked in a stalemate, preventing all from taking any action.

"I won't hold it against you if you fight back, R.J." Dr. McNinja promised as he drew his short sword. "I'll do all that I can to make it quick and painless. I just wanted you know why, and for you to know you didn't die in vain. If Sparklelord is never created, countless lives will be saved."

"R.J. can't be Sparklelord because he isn't strong enough!" Rainbow Dash suddenly blurted out.

Eight bewildered heads glanced at Rainbow Dash.

"Whatever do you mean, Rainbow Dash?" Rarity questioned.

"Look, R.J., I'm sorry about rubbing it in, but your life is on the line," Rainbow Dash apologized. "Now hear me out. Sparklelord has really powerful magic, like we saw when he started to yank the moon down towards Equestria. Oh, and I just remembered that Twilight couldn't undo the mind control spell he used on the Wonderbolts. Obviously, Sparklelord is way more powerful than Twilight. Now, R.J. here can't do any of that. He could barely levitate me down from that talking tree thing. I'm not even that heavy. I'm a pegasus in top physical condition."

"I was just trying to be gentle so I didn't smack your wing against the helicopter head ent," R.J. mumbled.

"Yeah whatever," Rainbow Dash said dismissively. "My point is that Twilight is better at magic than R.J., but Sparklelord is better at magic than Twilight. So R.J. can't be Sparklelord."

Dr. McNinja looked at Rainbow Dash sympathetically while R.J. continued to sweat bullets.

"I appreciate you trying to find a way out of this, Rainbow Dash," Dr. McNinja said gently. "But there's far too much evidence that says otherwise. The wolf-raptors I overheard explicitly said that Discord had plans for Rainbow Sparkle, and R.J.'s the only one with that name. Not to mention he looks and sounds just like Sparklelord."

"Whoa, back up, where did you get the idea that I'm the only Rainbow Sparkle?" R.J. suddenly asked.

Dr. McNinja glanced at the Sparklelord look-alike in surprise.

"Wait, you mean you're not the only one with that name?" Dr. McNinja wondered.

"I thought you already knew," R.J. confessed. "I mean wasn't it kind of obvious that R.J. doesn't stand for Rainbow Sparkle? Sparkle doesn't start with a 'J'. The 'J' is for junior. Rainbow Junior. My dad's name is Rainbow Sparkle too."

Suddenly it all clicked into place for Dr. McNinja. All the Elements of Harmony abandoned on the road except for the Element of Magic. The reason that the Element of Magic had not been abandoned was because its Bearer still lived. The only reason R.J. looked and sounded like Sparklelord was because he was related to the unicorn that would become Sparklelord. No, It wasn't Rainbow Sparkle the prince that Discord had plans for. It was Lord Rainbow Sparkle, Element of Magic.

Chapter 17: Have it your way

It was the flying wolf-raptor head that made Discord aware that the unicorn he had been waiting for had not arrived in a good mood. As Discord watched idly, the decapitated head sailed through the air trailing blood before landing and rolling to a stop at the foot of his graham cracker throne.

"You got me a present?" Discord chuckled. "Oh, Rainbow, you shouldn't have. Really."

"It's Lord Sparkle to you, you overgrown worm," Lord Rainbow Sparkle snarled as he stepped out from the ground level clouds of Mountain Dew and into view.

Truly, the unicorn did indeed look like a lord. Golden armor adorned his upper torso and a bright red cape flowed majestically behind him despite the lack of wind. Levitating nearby him was a diamond sword still coated with wolf-raptor blood. Further proof of the unicorn’s lordship was sitting atop his head in the form of a golden crown. It was embedded with a purple gem, the Element of Magic.

"I see you finally managed to find your Element," Discord observed. "But where are your friends? Oh, and your wife?"

In all honesty, it wasn't a question that Discord had any need to ask. He himself had manipulated the Bearers into betraying their Elements while they ran around looking for their magical artifacts. Discord had seen them declare their friendship over and part ways, only to be killed off one by one.

"I don't know where they are, and I don't care," Lord Rainbow Sparkle snarled. "It is of no concern to you. What you should be concerned about is that I, the Element of Magic, am here to kill you!"

"Oh really?" Discord replied absently. "And how do you intend to do that?"

Instead of replying, Lord Rainbow Sparkle let out a cry of rage and magically stabbed Discord through his heart with the diamond sword.

"Oh," said Discord as he watched the blood flow from the sword and down his chest. "Like that. Huh."

Lord Rainbow Sparkle watched expectantly, apparently not satisfied with Discord merely noticed the attack. So Discord decided to provide more.

"Oh, the agony!" Discord cried in mock-despair as he clutched at his chest. "Such pain I have never known! Oh, how I pray for the sweet release of death! The misery, the drama, oh me, oh my! It's more than my heart can take, literally! Everything is going dark! Wait, I see a light! Mother, is that you? I'm coming mother, save me a slice of cake!"

Discord tried in vain to think of a way to keep the act going, but instead his composure slipped and he burst out laughing. Lord Rainbow Sparkle, in turn, stared at Discord with newfound horror. Grinning, Discord rose from his throne and turned slightly to show the powerless unicorn that the sword was sticking all the way through his torso and out his back. Satisfied that his audience had a full view, Discord snapped his fingers.

Instantaneously the diamond sword turned into a candy cane, still sticking through Discord's body. At the same time, the exit and entry wounds from the sword turned into exact replicas of Discord's head, with the candy cane sticking out of their open mouths on both ends. The two extra heads rapidly devoured the candy cane with meat grinder sound effects until it was completely gone.

"Delicious," Discord pronounced from the mouths of all three of his heads at the same time. "Sorry I didn't save you any, I had a lot of mouths to feed. You know how it is."

"You... just ate my diamond sword," Lord Rainbow Sparkle said in terrified awe.

"No, I ate a candy cane," Discord chortled. "Isn't that hysterical?"

"I... fail to see the humor," Lord Rainbow Sparkle admitted quietly.

"Of course you do. Everyone does," Discord scowled. "I go through all this trouble to keep things fresh, and no one but me seems to appreciate it. Why am I the only one?"

"Because you're insane," Lord Rainbow Sparkle answered, a little bit of his courage returning to him.

"Exactly! You get me!" Discord agreed with enthusiasm. "That's the thing with insanity, its nothing but a different way of looking at things isn't it?"

"No, its the wrong way of looking at things," Lord Rainbow Sparkle corrected. "There's a difference."

"Bor-ing!" Discord sang. "Not to mention completely intolerant. Ooh, I have an idea! Why don't I help you see things my way?"

Lord Rainbow Sparkle's courage vanished completely as he looked up at Discord with an even greater horror than before.

"I... think I'll pass," he said shakily.

"Nonsense! Trust me, you'll love it," Discord promised as he knelt down in front of Lord Rainbow Sparkle and grabbed his jaw, preventing the unicorn from looking away. Lord Rainbow Sparkle tried fiercely to pull free, but could not. Discord's eyes become a spiraling whirlwind of color as they locked with Lord Rainbow Sparkle's eyes.

"Up is down and left is right," Discord whispered softly. "Night is day and day is night. North is blue and lies are true, chocolate milk is Mountain Dew."

"Up is down and left is right," Lord Rainbow Sparkle repeated mechanically as his eyes became a mirror of Discord's eyes. "Night is day and day is night. North is blue and lies are true, chocolate milk is Mountain Dew."

Discord rose back up to a standing position and watched Lord Rainbow Sparkle come to grips with the reality he had accepted. First the unicorn screamed, bellowing meaningless sounds at the sky. Then he curled into a ball and started sobbing. Eventually, his sobbing quieted down, and he was silent. Sensing that the time was right, Discord snapped his fingers, causing Lord Rainbow Sparkle's body to suddenly give off a flash of light. Sensing that something was different, the unicorn shakily rose up to a standing position as well.

"What did you do to me?" he asked in amazement.

"Made you better in just about every way possible," Discord said truthfully. "No point in having a new best friend if I'm guaranteed to outlive him right?"

Lord Rainbow Sparkle didn't seem to hear Discord. Instead he looked around and then started laughing for no apparent reason. Discord laughed along with him. He didn't need a reason to laugh either. Abruptly, Lord Rainbow Sparkle stopped laughing and stared at Discord.

"You've opened my eyes," he informed Discord, his eyes wet with tears of gratitude. "You're... you're my God."

"I don't really like that title," Discord told him. "How about, Discord old pal, or maybe best friend?"

Lord Rainbow Sparkle didn't seem to hear Discord's suggestion.

"Discord, my Master," he said instead. "My Lord, my God, my Maker."

Discord felt a sharp pang of disappointment. Making others see things his way had yielded similar results before, but that hadn't changed the fact that he had hoped Lord Rainbow Sparklelord would be different. Suddenly, Discord wasn't in the mood for chaos or anything fun.

"I'm going to leave for awhile," he told the insane unicorn. "Maybe when I get back we can make some chaos together?"

"Yes! Of course, God! Whatever you say!" Lord Rainbow Sparkle agreed wholeheartedly.

With a sigh, Discord teleported away. So lost was he in his failure to create a real friend, he never noticed the presence of a unicorn with a very similar feel to Lord Rainbow Sparkle approaching.

Twilight flinched as she felt something cold and slimy brush past her hoof. She had spent some walking through the opaque Mountain Dew clouds, and she still wasn't sure if not being able to see anything was a blessing or a curse.

The complete lack of visibility turned out to be a curse as Twilight walked face first into glass. It was only her fear of making noise that prevented her from shouting out in pain. Holding a hoof over her aching face, she blindly felt around with her other forehoof and was surprised to find a door. Twilight pushed it opened and stumbled through. She was inside of what appeared to a tourist shop, with shelves full of postcards and various souvenirs that looked like futuristic trains, presumably Rocket powered Maglevs. The entire shop looked odd to Twilight, but the oddest sight was in the form of a map taped to a wall. It wasn't just a map of the Hub, but all of Radical Land. Twilight studied the map with curiosity. The shape of the continent looked oddly familiar to her, but she couldn't figure out why.

Then it hit her. The shape of Radical Land was a mirror image of Equestria. How such a thing was possible, Twilight didn't know. Deep down inside, she had suspected some sort of connection between Radical Land and Equestria before. The fact that both places had a Discord and Elements of Harmony couldn't have been a coincidence. Was Radical Land some sort of alternate reality to Equestria? Was it Equestria's future or maybe even it's past?" Did the universe that Dr. McNinja and Gordito came from tie into the other two at all? Twilight had nothing but questions, and no clue how to find answers.

Greatly befuddled, Twilight departed from the store and silently continued on. Despite herself, Twilight let out a tiny yelp when she stepped on something warm and furry. Twilight waited for some sort response from she had touched, but none came. Not caring to see whether it was dead or just sleeping, Twilight walked around it and felt her hoof land in a puddle of something warm.

"Ew, gross," Twilight muttered as she quickened her pace.

Twilight hadn't gone very far when the clouds suddenly gave way to a clear area. In the area was a throne made of graham cracker, some trees growing out of the side of buildings with clocks hanging over their limbs like pancakes, and countless other chaotic creations. Far more alarming to Twilight than any of those things was the presence of a unicorn about the same height as Princess Celestia. He was a white unicorn, with golden armor and a red cape that flapped under the power of a non-existence breeze, a phenomenon that reminded Twilight of Princess Celestia's mane. Twilight's breath caught in her throat when she spotted the crown on top of the unicorns head. It looked slightly different from her own tiara and the gem wasn't the same color, but there was no mistaking the Element of Magic.

"Why hello there, little mare," the unicorn said with a kind smile. "Who are you?"

"Twilight Sparkle, Element of Magic," Twilight replied evenly, her heart hammering in her chest. "And I'm guessing you must Sparklelord."

"Sparklelord? No, I'm Lord Sparkle, Element of Magic," the unicorn replied. "Then again, I suppose my name could be Sparklelord could it not? Left is right, after all. You know what? I like your version better. I think from now on, I'll be Sparklelord. Hello Twilight Sparkle, I'm Sparklelord. Nice to meet you, Twilight Sparkle, my name is Sparklelord. Isn't it odd that we have the same last name, Miss Sparkle? Well, it was odd, but now my last name is Rainbow so it doesn't matter. Your name could be Sparkle Twilight, because left is right."

Twilight mentally kicked herself for not figuring it out sooner as she realized what Sparklelord's true identity was. It was obvious to her now that the unicorn before was R.J.'s father. It was the only explanation for his strong resemblance to R.J. and his status as a Bearer of Harmony. Twilight hoped that wherever Dr. McNinja was, he realized that R.J. wasn't Sparklelord before he did something drastic. Twilight figured that the best thing to do now was to get her Element back and find her friends. Once the Elements of Harmony were united, everything could be solved.

"Um, yes, that's true, left is right. my name could be Sparkle Twilight," she assured Sparklelord. "Oh, random question. Can I have that crown you're wearing?"

"I can't just give this crown away, only the Element of Magic can wear it," Sparklelord explained.

"I'm the Element of Magic too," Twilight pointed out.

"You are? Ah, that explains the power I sense within you," said Sparklelord. "How odd, I couldn't sense magic like that before. Well that's a problem isn't it? Two Elements of Magic and only one crown."

"Maybe I just borrow it? I only need it for a little while," Twilight offered.

"No, that won't do. I have no way of knowing if you'll really bring it back," Sparklelord said thoughtfully. "How about a contest instead? Perhaps a magic duel?"

Twilight pondered the suggestion. A magic duel would certainly be less lethal than an actual fight. If she lost, she wouldn't lose anything but time. If she won, she would have the crown. It was worth a shot.

"I'll do it," she decided. "Do you want to go first or do you want me to?"

"First?" Sparklelord repeated as he tilted his head quizzically. "What do you mean by that?"

"Er, I guess I'll just go first," Twilight shrugged. "Have a mustache!"

Twilight pointed her horn at Sparklelord's face and fired off a beam of pink light. The magic energy struck the unicorn dead on, causing a large fine and black mustache to appear on his face.

"Heh. Looks just like Gordito's," Twilight said proudly.

"What are you doing?" wondered Sparklelord. "Was that supposed to hurt?"

"Uh, no, we're doing a magic duel remember?" Twilight reminded him. "Winner gets the crown?"

"Little mare, I think you and I have very different ideas of what a magic duel is," deduced Sparklelord. "Tell me, what do you think a magic duel is?"

"Oh, well, a magic duel is when two unicorns take turns trying to outdo each other with magical feats. Whoever fails to top the other loses," Twilight clarified.

"Ah, that's different from what I'm thinking of," said Sparklelord. "To me, a magical duel is when two unicorns attempt to kill each other with magic at the same time. Whoever dies loses."

A cold horror washed over Twilight as she realized what she had just agreed to do.

"I think I like my version better," she said feebly.

"Pity," Sparklelord grinned as his horn flashed, causing a chainsaw to pop into existence. The chainsaw roared to life and lit itself on fire at the same time.

"It was my idea," Sparklelord continued. "So I think we'll do it my way. Ready set go!"

Chapter 18: Element of Magic vs. Element of Magic

Dr. McNinja’s black leather shoes clacked against the steel grating of the service platform as he ran. Boots, hooves and reptilian feet echoed with the same sound behind him. Like the headlights of a car, Rarity and R.J. lead from the front, illuminating the steel tunnels ahead of them with light from their horns. At the frantic pace they all traveled it wasn’t long before the group reached the underground boarding station.

Dr. McNinja didn’t have much time to admire it before everything started to get crazy. True to R.J.’s description of the place, the floors had a slight tilt down towards holes in the corners of the room, presumably the garbage chutes. In the center was the boarding platform itself, along with a streamlined and white rocket-powered maglev. A layer of dust had gathered on top of it, giving the impression that it had not moved in a while.

Abruptly a pink-ish and purple-ish light flashed out from the garbage chutes and the world around Dr. McNinja flickered. One moment, it was the Hub in Radical Land. Next was George Washington’s secret tunnel network in Cumberland. Then it was Equestria, back atop the mountain under the moon that was far too close. Finally the phenomenon ended back where it began, the Hub.

“There it is again,” Gordito recalled. “That same thing happened when we were in Canterlot. Doc, what’s going on?”

“I don’t know, it must have something to do with the time space portals,” Dr. McNinja deduced. “We must be close to our trip back to Equestria.”

“Well that’s a relief,” Rarity decided. “If what we saw on the mountain was really our future selves that must mean Twilight will be here soon with the Element of Magic.”

“That’s fantastic for all of you, but what about my dad? We still have to find him before Discord does,” R.J. pointed out.

“What’s that funny smell?” Pinkie Pie wondered, her head tilted quizzically.

Dr. McNinja sniffed the air and identified the scent immediately. It was the scent of decaying flesh, coming from the direction of the rocket powered maglev. Dr. McNinja held up a hand to signal everyone else to wait as he approached the locomotive. It took less than a minute to find the source. Behind the maglev was a half-eaten unicorn. Mercifully, it was not Twilight Sparkle. Rather, it was a pink unicorn with an steel blue mane. A few tools were gathered around the corpse, as if she had been attacked while repairing the maglev. A dark red set of saddlebags was nearby as well, with some more tools still inside.

Dr. McNinja’s eyes widened at the sight of the saddlebags. Back near the city of Canterlot halfway up the mountain. He had seen those saddlebags. He had seen them on a white motorcycle being ridden by himself. His future self. Could it really be that he had decided to take them because he had seen his future self with them? Why would he need a saddlebag full of tools?

Dr. McNinja picked up the saddlebags and glanced inside. All the bags had was an electric drill, some screwdriver heads for the drill, some brackets, and screws. In a brilliant flash of inspiration, the answer hit him.

“Oh,” he smiled underneath his ninja mask. “Duh.”

“Um, did you find anything, Doc?” Gordito wondered.

Dr. McNinja snatched up the saddlebags and confidently strode back to the others.

“As a matter of fact I did,” he beamed. “R.J., turn into a motorcycle please.”

R.J. stared at Dr. McNinja as if he had just asked him to turn into a vehicle. The expression was entirely appropriate for the situation because Dr. McNinja had indeed requested such a transformation.

“You want me to what?” R.J. inquired with a raised brow.

“Turn into a motorcycle,” Dr. McNinja said patiently. “See, I saw my future self riding a motorcycle that looked just like Sparklelord when he was my motorcycle. You look a lot like your dad, who I’m pretty sure is Sparklelord, so obviously you will inevitably turn into the one I saw. I’m asking you to do it right now.”

“So what happens if, hypothetically, I don’t think I can do that?” R.J. wondered.

“I imagine you think that because you’ve never done it before,” Dr. McNinja deduced. “But I bet that under these present conditions that you can do it.”

Seven faces joined R.J.’s in the common cause of portraying befuddlement.

“Maybe we should come back to this after we find Twilight,” Fluttershy suggested tentatively.

“It’ll be easier if I have a motorcycle first,” Dr. McNinja urged. “It’s like this. Different realities have different limits on how much awesomeness they can contain. When Sparklelord came to my reality, it couldn’t contain the awesomeness of a unicorn and transformed him into the closest thing, a sweet motorcycle.”

“Is anyone going to explain to me what a motorcycle is at some point?” asked Rarity.

“You’ll see one soon enough,” Dr. McNinja promised. “Here’s my theory. We keep seeing reality flicker because the boundaries between the universes are weakening for some reason. Therefore, if R.J. concentrates on the energies from my universe he’ll tap into it and become a motorcycle.”

“Wow,” remarked Rainbow Dash. “You’re… actually completely serious about this.”

“How am I supposed to concentrate on a universe I don’t anything about?” asked R.J.

“Close your eyes and I’ll describe it to you,” Dr. McNinja suggested.

R.J. glanced at the others to check if they also thought the idea was crazy but closed his eyes nonetheless.

“Imagine a world,” Dr. McNinja said soothingly as he walked backwards towards the maglev. “Where castles aren’t also skateboard parks.”

“Sounds boring,” R.J. muttered.

Dr. McNinja quietly reached the back of the Maglev again and began to use a wrench to detach the rocket engine on the back.

“Imagine a world,” Dr. McNinja continued. “Where pizza doesn’t grow on trees.”

R.J. shuddered as reality flickered back to Cumberland momentarily. Dr. McNinja finished detaching the white rocket engine and noiselessly began to lug it back to R.J.

“Imagine a world,” Dr. McNinja pressed on. “Where trees can never talk and they never have helicopter heads.”

The pink-ish purple-ish lights flashed with a greater intensity than before as R.J.’s body began to glow with the same colors.

“I… I can see it,” R.J. whispered in awe, his eyes stills closed. “People sometimes have jobs that they hate. Racism and littering still exists. The governments have abandoned the gold standard in favor of money they alone can create. No one but humans are capable of speech. The food, the music, the culture, it’s… so… so lame.”

“Imagine a world!” Dr. MCNinja abruptly yelled. “Where instead of Mountain Dew is a tasteless liquid called water!”

“It’s horrible!” R.J. screamed. “I can’t take it anymore! Make it stop!”

With a great burst of magical and quantum mechanical energy the light from R.J.’s body exploded outward. When it finally faded away, R.J. the unicorn was gone. In his place was a sleek white motorcycle, the most radical form of transportation that the people of Earth could create.

“Whoa,” Spike uttered in amazement. “So that’s what a motorcycle looks like.”

“He’s not done yet,” Dr. McNinja everyone as he set the drill against the R.J’s shiny new rear end. “Can you feel that?”

“Feel what?” questioned R.J.

“Just making sure,” Dr. McNinja said dismissively as he proceed to drill holes into R.J. the motorcycle.

“What’s that sound?! What are you doing back there?” R.J. demanded to know.

“Shhhh, let me concentrate,” Dr. Mcninja replied as he continued with the drilling.

Once he had finished, Dr. McNinja set the rocket engine on top behind the seat and began to fasten it in place with the screws and brackets.

“Oh, I see, this is where you got the rocket engine we saw near Canterlot. But don’t you still need a fuel source for it?” Gordito asked.

“Nah, it looked like it was powered by magic on the mountain,” Dr. McNinja explained. “Here’s our game plan. I’ll ride around the Hub and find Twilight. Gordito, you get those bags of off Yoshi and get ready for combat right here. All the Bearers of Harmony need to wait here in case Twilight shows up. You’ll need to activate the Elements of Harmony as soon as you can. Spike, you stay with them and set any monsters that get too close on fire. With your breath, in case that wasn’t clear.”

“Roger that!” Spike said with a salute.

Dr. McNinja set the saddlebags on R.J. and mounted his new mechanical steed. R.J. may not have been as tall as his father as a unicorn, but in motorcycle form he looked and felt exactly the same.

“Alright, go team!” Dr. McNinja whooped as he gunned R.J.’s engine and zoomed off toward one of the ramps that let towards the surface.

Twilight felt the heat from the flaming chainsaw as she teleported out of the way of Sparklelord's attack. With a loud buzz, the deathly machine dug itself into the concrete, causing flaming chunks of it to spray up and out. Twilight was fairly certain that chainsaws could not cut through concrete or set it on fire, but her current circumstances cared nothing about the normal procedures for reality. Sparklelord let loose a maniacal laugh as he magically heaved the weapon sideways, straight for where Twilight had reappeared.

Reacting on instinct, Twilight threw up a force field, only to have it shatter as the chainsaw exploded against it. Sensing an opening, Twilight gave Sparklelord a powerful telekinetic shove. Sparklelord grinned as he caught himself by levitating in the air, his hooves about half a foot off the ground. Lightning flew from his horn and hit Twilight dead on, causing her to spasm and scream from the pain. Twilight's horn flashed and a lightning rod appeared between her and Sparklelord, earning her a relief from the electric onslaught as the lightning struck it instead.

"Not bad, little mare!" Sparklelord chuckled as he turned the lightning rod into a battle axe that also burst into flames.

With the same lack of creativity, Twilight threw up another force field. Once again the result was a draw as both the attack and the defense destroyed each other. Twilight's breath came in haggard gasps as she braced herself for the next attack. It came right away in the form of a volley of fireballs. Summoning the first thing that sprang to her mind, Twilight created a super-sized tennis racket that swatted the projectiles away one by one.

Like the fire from the chainsaw, the deflected fireballs ignited the pavement around Twilight, casting up flames that towered above her in height. Deciding that she had had quite enough of all the fire, Twilight summoned a large raincloud to dump torrents of water down unto the battle. Much to her dismay, the fire turned out to be immune to water.

"What liquid is this? I’ve never seen anything like it before," Sparklelord observed as he was drenched.

The deranged unicorn opened his mouth and allowed the rain to pour in for a moment before spitting it back out in disgust.

"Blech! Horrible! What sort of sick twisted mind could create such an awful liquid?" he demanded.

With a grimace, Twilight willed the downpour directly above Sparklelord in increase in power, battering the taller unicorn from above. With a rainbow colored flash, Sparklelord teleported out from the assault only to appear right beside Twilight. Before she even had the chance to react, Sparklelord magically gripped her and heaved her up into the air, completely immobilizing her.

“Good effort,” he said with mock-flattery. “But ultimately fruitless in the end. Now die.”

The sound of something exploding surged through the air even as Sparklelord started to apply a crushing pressure to Twilight’s body. Out of the corner of her vision Twilight spotted the source as it appeared.

Boosting across the pavement was Dr. McNinja, riding atop of what appeared to be an armored bicycle. The vehicle was pure white in color, and had a rainbow streak decal on the side. Rainbow colored flames flickered out the back of a tube-shaped attachment, the origin of the ongoing explosion. With even slowing down in the slightest, Dr. McNinja ramped a large slab of broken concrete and sailed over the flames towards Twilight and Sparklelord.

“Yoink!” Dr. McNinja proclaimed as his arm snapped out and ripped Twilight out of Sparklelord’s hold.

Twilight barely had time to register the look of surprise on Sparklelord’s face before the vehicle landed and its riders rocketed away. For a moment Twilight started to feel relieved until she noticed Sparklelord whirl around to give chase and actually keep up with the machine. Dr. McNinja glanced over his shoulder at the pursuing stallion.

“It’s already happened,” he said grimly. “I’m sorry R.J.”

Much to Twilight’s surprise, the bike spoke with R.J’s voice.

“Maybe it’s not too late. Maybe the Elements of Harmony can undo what Discord has done to him,” he said hopefully.

With effort, Twilight managed to recover enough from her near death experience and the reality of R.J. being a machine to speak up.

“Sparklelord still has the crown. I can’t turn him back to normal unless I have it,” she pointed out.

“Survival first, crown later,” Dr. McNinja decided. “We’re almost there.”

Merely seconds after the words had left Dr. McNinja’s mouth, they arrived at a slope that led underground. Twilight spotted all the others waiting at the bottom at a boarding station. Joy appeared on their faces when they saw her. The emotion was instantly replaced by fear when they spotted Sparklelord right behind her. A giant laser shot out from his horn, unleashing a beam of destruction into the underground chamber. In the nick of time Dr. McNinja swerved out of the way. The laser struck a futuristic looking locomotive instead, causing it to explode.

The resulting fireball ruptured the floor as well, erupting into a shower of concrete and steel. Yells and screams filled the area as everyone frantically tried to dodge the flying debris. Still standing on the ramp, Sparklelord proceeded with a barrage of laser beams into the smoke filled chamber. Giant cracks and holes appeared in the floor in protest of the assault.

Finally the floor reached its limit and collapsed entirely. Still tucked under Dr. McNinja’s arm, Twilight glanced down and observed that a giant sphere of pink and purple energy had been revealed, crackling and fluctuating with power. The moment foreseen had arrived. The journey back to Equestria was nigh. But Twilight still did not have the crown.

As Twilight began to plummet down to the time space portal along with all the other quest-goers, she reached out with her magic and snatched the Element of Magic off of Sparklelord’s head. For a moment Sparklelord reached out with his own magic to take it back, but he was forced to release his grip to make a forcefield instead when Gordito shot a bullet at him. Now completely under Twilight’s control, the crown shot through the smoke and haze and came to rest in her mane. The act had been performed just in time. Next thing that Twilight knew, the world disappeared into a tunnel of pink and purple.

Author's Notes:

This chapter is dedicated to totallynotabrony for three reasons.

1. He's been an awesome proof-reader and editor thus far.

2. He helped make this chapter more radical.

3. He has a fetish for turning ponies into vehicles in his own stories.

Chapter 19: Man is only separated from heaven by that which he will not ramp

“This is it!” Twilight loudly informed her fellow quest-goers as they hurtled through the twisting tunnel of pink and purple time energy. With all the crackling and humming of the energy around them, a raised voice was the only kind of voice that could be heard.

“This is the part we saw on the mountain!” Twilight continued. “We’ve almost reached the point where we saw our future selves!”

Dr. McNinja saw no reason to disagree with Twilight. All the conditions had been fulfilled. Rainbow Dash still had her wing in a cast. Spike was clinging tightly to Twilight’s back. Each of the Bearers of Harmony wore their respective element. Dr. McNinja possessed a white motorcycle in the form of R.J. The dark red saddlebags filled with tools were located on the back end of the motorcycle, along with the magical rocket engine.

“Will the Elements work on the force-field around Canterlot Castle?” Rarity wondered. “We’ve never used them on a non-living thing before.”

“The magic of friendship completely obliterated Discord’s chaos when we used it to turn him to stone,” Twilight recalled. “I don’t see why it wouldn’t work on a force-field he indirectly created.”

“Maybe when we get there you should fire your Elements at the moon, since it was right about to flatten everything when we left,” Gordito suggested.

“It’s worth a shot. But the timing’s going to be the hardest part of it,” Twilight figured. “We’ve never really tested how far away we can be to use the Elements of Harmony on someone, and it takes about half a minute to charge up.”

“So basically, you’re all vulnerable to attack for thirty seconds before you can save the day,” Gordito interpreted. “That complicates things somewhat.”

“R.J. and I can take care of the moon,” Dr. McNinja offered. “My future self was riding up the mountain, so it must be a good idea.”

“Well, that makes planning easy. I saw myself behind the rest of you going down the mountain, so that’s what I’ll do,” Gordito decided.

“Good old divide and conquer it is then,” Dr. McNinja grinned beneath his ninja mask. “Go team!”

“Go team!” everyone else except Yoshi cheered.

Dr. McNinja gripped R.J.’s handlebars tightly, expecting to arrive in Equestria any second. But after about five adrenaline-laced minutes of time travel, his fingers were a little looser.

“Okay, seriously, how long is this going to take?” Spike wondered.

“Ah reckon there’s no real way to tell how long time travel will take,” Applejack said uneasily. “Ya know, ‘cause it’s time travel.”

“Taking time to time travel,” Twilight mused. “There’s an interesting thought.”

For a while no one said anything.

“We should all go out for ice cream after we save Equestria,” Pinkie Pie suggested.

“Yes,” Dr. McNinja agreed with conviction. “We should.”

“Applejack’s treating,” Rainbow Dash announced with a smirk.

Just as Applejack opened her mouth to respond, the group at last arrived in the same cave where Dr. McNinja had first showed up from his world. R.J’s wheels landed against stone and shot out the entrance right away. Without taking the time for any more banter, the others charged out the entrance too. Once he was out in the open, Dr. McNinja spotted his past self. The past versions of the others were there as well, running up the mountain as the moon’s gravity tore up the ground. The past version of Rainbow Dash was the only one not present. Distantly Dr. McNinja recalled how she had entered the portal before his future self, now current self, had emerged. All was the same as before.

The only difference was the perspective. From his position, Dr. McNinja could see the confusion etched into their faces. In his opinion, Past Gordito’s reaction was the most amusing. The young gunslinger’s eyes were jumping back and forth between the two ninja doctors present. But in the eyes of his own past self, Dr. McNinja saw the hardness of a man who had just about given up hope.

Dr. McNinja recalled how he had felt back then, convinced that Equestria was doomed and that he couldn’t do anything about it. Now, the feeling was almost laughable. All the same, Dr. McNinja figured that it wouldn’t hurt to give his past self some encouragement.

"It's not over yet! Go through the portal!" he yelled as he jerked R.J.’s handlebars sharply to the right.

R.J. offered no resistance as Dr. McNinja guided him into a sharp U-turn. With an unspoken coordination, R.J. magically activated the rocket engine to propel them both up the mountain.

Dr. McNinja’s white lab coat flapped in the wind as R.J’s wheels picked up pebbles and spat them out behind. A quick flick of the wrist activated R.J.’s headlights, illuminating Dr. McNinja’s destination. The moon loomed up ahead in the dark sky, still bearing the completely out of place smiley face. As they rapidly zoomed up the incline, the oncoming approach of the heavenly body at last blotted out the last bit of daylight. Now the only light that Dr. McNinja had to see by came from R.J’s headlights and the rainbow colored flames shooting out from the magic rocket engine. Stone and dirt gave way to snow as Dr. McNinja and R.J closed in on the mountain peak. In their wake they left water, snow melted by the flames. Finally, bike and rider ramped off the very tip of the mountain.

Dr. McNinja felt it all in slow motion. The roar of the rocket. The howling wind. The rattling of R.J.’s metal parts. The pull of gravity from both the world below and the moon above. It was an exhilarating state of existence, the joyous feeling of freedom that can only come from being airborne.

“What are you doing?!” R.J screamed, ruining the moment. “We’re going to crash into the moon!”

Too late, Dr. McNinja realized that there was a hole in his otherwise brilliant plan. He thought he had figured out what to do when once he was on the moon, but what about safely landing on it? With a wince, Dr. McNinja realized that he hadn’t even considered the possibility that he wouldn’t be able to breathe on the moon. Unless the moon was close enough to share the planet’s atmosphere, he would die from lack of air if the crash didn’t kill him.

Dr. McNinja closed his eyes and braced himself for a lethal impact, but it never came. Instead, he only felt a jarring thump negated only slightly by shock absorbers. Once Dr. McNinja opened his eyes again he saw why he had not died. He and R.J had landed on a very steep slope, part of a trench that was wider than his eyes could see.

“We landed in the mouth of the smiley face!” Dr. McNinja realized with glee. “Haha! Saved by the very face of evil we sought to destroy!”

Dr. McNinja applied the brakes and sprang off of R.J. Once he was standing on the moon rock, he quickly pulled some tools out of the dark red saddlebags and began to detach the rocket engine from R.J. After that was accomplished, he took the drill and drilled holes into the moon rock. Then he took the rocket engine and set in on the ground so that its exhaust was pointed towards Equestria.

“What are you doing?” R.J. asked incredulously while Dr. McNinja attached the rocket to the ground with brackets. “Are you trying to push the moon away from Equestria with the rocket?”

“That’s exactly what I’m doing,” Dr. McNinja confirmed. “Do me and the entire world a favor and activate it with your magic?”

“What? That’s not going to work!” R.J. sputtered. “You can’t push the entire moon with just one rocket!”

“Not even if it’s a magic rocket?” Dr. McNinja tried.

“No! Those things are designed to push maglevs, not planets!”

“Scientifically speaking, the moon is not a planet,” Dr. McNinja corrected. “Your dad is doing just fine with magically moving the moon, why can’t you do it?”

“I’m not the freaking element of magic!” R.J. yelled.

“So you’re telling me that there is absolutely no way you could use magic to somehow at least make the moon stop moving?” Dr. McNinja prompted.

“I…” R.J. began to say before faltering. “Actually… there is something I can do.”

Dr. McNinja got an uncomfortable feeling in his gut as the rocket engine ignited, blasting its colorful flames up towards Equestria.

“What exactly are you doing?” Dr. McNinja questioned warily.

“Putting all the magic I’ve got into it,” R.J. explained. “If I can make the rocket explode, the magical energy should collide with the magic my dad is using to move the moon and cause a chain reaction.”

“You’re going to blow up the moon,” Dr. McNinja summarized.

“Er, yes,” R.J. replied hesitantly.

Dr. McNinja felt the moon rock under his black leather shoes start to heat up while the outside of the magic rocket engine started to glow red.

“But if you put all your magic into that rocket and the moon explodes, wouldn’t that kill you twice over?” Dr. McNinja inquired.

“I was under the impression that we would both die,” R.J. muttered.

“No, I could survive that,” Dr. McNinja said dismissively. “But there has to be a way to do this without you dying.”

“Well, I can’t think of any other way,” R.J. said softly. “Besides, there’s nothing left for me anyway. You told me that Sparklelord destroyed all of Radical Land by fire. Which means that my mom is dead, my dad is essentially gone, Flora is dead, and everyone else I’ve ever known and loved is dead.”

“That doesn’t mean you can just give up on living,” Dr. McNinja argued. “There’s always something worth living for.”

“You’re probably right,” R.J. admitted as the moon began to tremble. “But that doesn’t do me any good now. Unless you want to die too, you need to do whatever you need to survive right now.”

Reality was an absolute mess as the Bearers of Harmony, Spike, and Gordito atop Yoshi half-ran, half fell down the mountainside as the gravity of the moon continued to rip chunks up into the sky. Even without the sun to see by, the pink and purple light of fragmented time energy was more than enough for all to witness the chaos around them. Like hundreds of bats flying out of caves, wolf-raptors and other monstrosities poured out of the holes in the fabric of reality.

Gordito and company were forced to stop their frantic descent to deal with the unexpected threat. Even as he started killing the closest monsters with bullets, Gordito could tell that he and the Equestrians were vastly outnumbered. Twilight managed to turn a few into apples, but it was a fruitless effort against the sea of death-sowing creatures. Forget having a half a minute. Between Discord’s abominations and the rapidly degenerating mountain, the Bearers of Harmony didn’t even have seconds.

It was truly in the nick of time when the moon exploded, a colossal eruption of rock and rainbow colored fire that washed across the sky. Compared to how dark the land had been before, the light show from the explosion and the now exposed sun was blinding. Now free of the quantum mechanical intrusion by the moon, the holes in the fabric of reality sealed themselves up as the army of abominations began to fade away like the enemies in a T-rated video game. Chunks of mountain began to rain back down, mercifully not landing atop of anyone. Besides the impact of rock against rock, the entire mountain was silent.

Gordito stiffened as he suddenly realized that Dr. McNinja and R.J. must have somehow induced the moon to explode while they were on it. With dread, Gordito desperately searched the sky for any signs of their survival. The young gun-slinger’s efforts were rewarded when he spotted a small figure falling from the sky.

“Is that… Dr. McNinja?” Rarity said in disbelief.

As the quest-goers watched, the small figure grabbed one of the falling rocks. Soon Gordito was able to make out a white lab coat fluttering about the falling man. It was indeed Dr. McNinja. Right before the rock hit the ground Dr. McNinja kicked off of it, flipped through the air, and landed in a crouch in the midst of the others. Ever so slowly, he rose back up to a standing position and looked up at the sky. Everyone followed his gaze. The unspoken fact was apparent to all: R.J. had not survived the explosion.

“My idea to stop the moon wasn’t enough,” Dr. McNinja explained softly. “But R.J. sacrificed himself to make it explode.”

“Then let’s not waste his effort,” Twilight said with determination. “Time to finish this.”

Each of the Bearers of Harmony closed their eyes in concentration as pulses of magic began to emit from their Elements. Strands of multicolored light wove around them and connected the Bearers by their Elements before at last uniting at Twilights crown. Six pairs of eyes glowed white at the peak of friendship’s power before unleashing a giant blast of magic into the sky. The energy soared up towards the heavens, made an arc, and shot back down the world below to incase the force-field guarding Canterlot Castle in a whirlwind of color. With one last burst of magic, both the whirlwind and the force-field flashed out of existence. A silence hung in the air as the Elements of Harmony powered back down.

“Did we get the force-field and Sparklelord or just the force-field?” Fluttershy wondered.

“Guess there’s only one way to find out,” Twilight figured. “C’mon everyone, let’s get back to the castle.”

The trek back to the castle did not take much time, but to the weary quest-goers it felt like forever. In Gordito’s mind, the entire thing seemed rather pointless. Before the trip to Equestria, he had overheard King Radical talk about the death of Radical Land. Back then, the knowledge hadn’t meant much to Gordito. But after actually going there and meeting its inhabitants, it was now a much greater burden to the young gunslinger. The death of an entire land was a terrible thing.

Gordito was distracted from his gloomy thoughts by the sight of a destroyed tower, the very same one that Sparklelord had knocked down during his invasion. The armored pegasi were still there, gingerly getting up from the rubble they had been lying upon. All of them were glancing around, mostly at the sky. One of them happened to glance at Gordito’s approaching group and grinned when he saw them.

“Oh, I get it now!” he said happily. “Those guys from before and the Bearers of Harmony saved the day!”

“My wings are working again!” another whooped as he flew up and did a loop-de-loop. “Yay!”

The guards hugged each other and cheered for the quest-completers as they half-heartedly walked into the castle. So caught up were they in celebrating, neither the guards nor any of the other ponies the group passed noticed that not all was well with Gordito and company. At last they reached the throne room and walked inside. They first thing Gordito noticed was the presence of a statue, a serpent like being that seemed to be made up of many creatures mashed together.

“Discord, I presume?” Dr. McNinja inquired.

“That’s him alright,” Rainbow Dash confirmed.

“Why was he moved to the throne room?” Fluttershy wondered with a moderate amount of panic. “He didn’t move himself did he?!”

“Given his reverence for Discord, I’m willing to bet that Sparklelord moved him in here,” Twilight figured. “But where’s Sparklelord?”

Twilight, you may want to look over to the right,” Rarity mumbled.

Gordito glanced to the right and stiffened in surprise. Lying on the floor was an all too familiar golden armor and a tattered red cape. Nothing was inside of Sparklelord’s signature attire, save for the presence of large piles of dust.

“He turned to dust?!” Twilight said incredulously. “How is that possible? The Elements of Harmony don’t kill!”

Dr. McNinja walked over to the cape and armor and looked down at it.

“Maybe not directly they do,” he said thoughtfully. “But didn’t you say that the Elements of Harmony could undo Discord’s magic?”

“Yes, but it should have turned him back into Rainbow Sparkle senior,” replied a befuddled Twilight. “That’s how it worked with Nightmare moon. Or, at the very least, it should have turned him to stone like Discord.”

“Well, I do know that Sparklelord spent centuries in my world before I met him,” Dr. McNinja revealed. I don’t know how long usually unicorns live, but if Discord’s magic granted him immortality in the first place, wouldn’t it kill him if you undid that?”

“I guess so,” Twilight sighed. “This is… a lot to take in.”

“That it is,” Dr. McNinja agreed. “But I think that in the end, Sparklelord, or rather, Rainbow Sparkle senior, was grateful.”

For a moment Gordito wondered how Dr. McNinja had reached that conclusion until something on the left wall of the throne room caught his attention. Carved into the wall were two simple words.

Thank you

Gordito’s attention to the writing on the wall was stolen by a sudden flash of magic in the center of the throne room. Right away his hands went for his guns, ready to defend against some last second attack from Sparklelord. But the flash of magic did not herald the return of Sparklelord. Rather, it was Princess Celestia and Princess Luna who teleported onto the scene. The latter of the two seemed to be just barely holding back a great deal of fury. Gordito idly wondered if it had something to do with Dr. McNinja and R.J. blowing up the moon.

“I was about to thank all of you for saving Equestria, but I sense there is more going on here than I had expected,” Princess Celestia noted.

“Blew up my moon,” Princess Luna muttered under her breath.

“We’ll get you a new one, one without anything carved into it,” Princess Celestia promised. “But I think there are more important matters to discuss right now. Twilight, I’m curious as to where you acquired a second set of Elements of Harmony.”

Princess Celestia didn’t interrupt Twilight once as she told her the entire story. The thought that her faithful student had spent days in another reality during Celestia’s hours at Twilight’s home seemed surreal, but the weariness Twilight and her friends wore and the presence of another set of Elements of Harmony was more than enough proof. Twilight herself looked as if she hadn’t combed or washed her mane for days. She had scratches all over her body, a scorch mark beneath her neck, and specks of blood on one of her hooves.

“And that’s pretty much it,” Twilight concluded, her face downcast. “I don’t think he survived.”

“If Dr. McNinja escaped the explosion unscathed, how does thy know R.J. did not do the same?” Princess Luna wondered.

“It was the combination of two techniques I knew that allowed me to survive,” Dr. McNinja clarified. “A man named Bruce Lee once taught me how to jump out of orbit. Once I was far away enough from the moon, I turned my back to it and rode out the explosion from there.”

“You protected yourself from an explosion by turning your back to it?” Rainbow Dash asked dubiously.

Dr. McNinja nodded. “It also works when you’re walking away from an explosion too.”

“Rest assured, R.J.’s sacrifice will not be forgotten by history,” Princess Celestia promised. “Nor will it forget any of you. R.J. and the Radical Land may have been lost, but thanks to you all Equestria was spared.”

“That reminds me. Princess Celestia, do you know what exactly the relationship between Equestria and Radical land is?” Twilight asked. “Back in Radical Land, I saw a map of the continent. It was a mirror image of Equestria.”

“That is curious,” Princess Celestia mused. “I’ll be honest Twilight, I haven’t any idea. But I do know this. The Elements you and your friends are now wearing are identical to the ones I used when my sister and I were among the six Bearers of Harmony. In fact, I just remembered how I came into possession of them. If you would be so kind as to give them to me, there is something I must do.”

Without hesitation Twilight gave her crown over to Princess Celestia, as did her friends with their Elements. Princess Celestia couldn’t help but think that if she had been Sparklelord in disguise, Twilight had been far too trusting with the act. Given recent events though, such a lack of clear thinking was understandable.

Princess Celestia’s horn flashed as she activated a time travel spell. A flurry of wind and light enclosed her and then fell away, revealing her intended time and location. She was in the dining room in a simple cottage, more than two thousand years into the past. Sitting at the table were two unicorns playing a game of chess. One of the two unicorns was Princess Celestia’s younger self, the other her sister Luna. Princess Celestia scowled slightly when she saw that her younger self had a pink mane. Past Celestia and past Luna, in turn, stared at the newcomer in surprise.

“Time is short, listen carefully,” Princess Celestia cautioned as she set the Elements onto the table. “This time travel spell only lasts so long. These are the Elements of Harmony, powerful artifacts that manifest the magic of friendship. You two and your four best friends, you know who I’m talking about, need them to defeat an evil being who will show up soon. Any questions?”

“Art… art thou my sister from the future?” Luna wondered in amazement.

“Yes I am,” Princess Celestia confirmed.

“You’re me from the future?” Past Celestia said in disbelief. “This is… wow. I never thought that I would... look so attractive.”

“Yes, that reminds me. The sooner you snap out of that, ‘I hate everything about my looks’ phase, the better,” Princess Celestia said sternly. “And stop dying your mane pink. It looks much better in its natural colors.”

“Oh, um, okay if you say so,” Past Celestia replied with wide eyes. “But wait, if you’re from the future, can you tell me who my true love is? You’ve met him by now, right?”

“Oh would you look at the time!” Princess Celestia responded uncomfortably as glanced at a nearby wall. “I um, think the time travel spell is about to wear off.”

“Why are you the looking at the wall for the time? Walls do not tell time,” Past Celestia said in confusion.

“They will eventually. After clocks are invented,” Princess Celestia explained.

Much to Princess Celestia’s relief, the spell at last wore off, causing her to vanish with a flash and return to the present. Everyone else in the room watched her, waiting for an explanation. Princess Celestia took a moment to make sure she was back to her usual level of composure.

“The Elements have been taken care of,” she informed them.

“So what happens now?” Twilight questioned.

“Well, right now, something downright odd is happening,” Dr. McNinja observed as he held up an arm. With a start, Princess Celestia realized that the ninja doctor was beginning to turn translucent, along with Gordito and Yoshi.

“Whoa, what’s going on?” Gordito said frantically as he took notice of himself starting to fade. “What is this?!”

Oh my gosh, they’re turning into ghosts!” Pinkie Pie squealed in terror.

“Calm down, there has to be a rational explanation for this!” Twilight insisted. “Maybe its a post-death trap from Sparklelord?”

“No, if it was that, it would be affecting everyone,” Dr. McNinja deduced. “I’m willing to bet it has to do with the time space portals linking our worlds together. I think this might be goodbye.”

“Wait, are we dying or being sucked back into our reality?” Gordito questioned.

“The second one. I think,” Dr. McNinja guessed. “Remember how the moon was screwing up the connection? I think blowing it up may have severed the link, but with a delayed reaction.”

“See, its times like this I wish I understood quantum physics,” Gordito sighed. “That doesn’t make any sense to me at all.”

“I’ll miss you guys!” Pinkie Pie suddenly cried as she flew forward and embraced both Dr. McNinja and Gordito.

Applejack and Rainbow Dash exchanged a glance.

“Oh what the hay, we’re probably never going to see them again,” Applejack shrugged right before joining the group hug.

Sensing that time was short, the rest of the Bearers of Harmony and Spike joined in as Dr. McNinja, Gordito, and Yoshi continued to grow fainter. Princess Celestia smiled sadly at the sight. While it had only been hours for her, it was clear that the group had forged quite the bond over the days long adventure. Not one eye was dry when Dr. McNinja and Gordito at last disappeared completely. Yoshi attempted to take a bite out of Fluttershy at the last second, but luckily failed in his endeavor as he vanished as well.

“We weren’t with them that long, but it feels like I’ve known them for ages,” Twilight sighed. “Them and R.J. Now we won’t see any of them ever again.”

“Such is the nature is friendship,” Princess Celestia said wisely. “But know this, Twilight. True friendships will never disappear completely, even when separated by death or distance. They’ll be a part of you forever.”

Gordito felt a thousand emotions pulling at him as he, Yoshi, and Dr. McNinja appeared back in George Washington’s secret tunnels beneath Cumberland, Maryland. The time space portal was still there, exactly the same as when they had first entered it. Gordito missed everyone from Equestria already, but another gloomy thought loomed in his mind as well.

“We failed,” Gordito muttered.

“Failed?” Dr. McNinja asked incredulously. “Whatever do you mean, Gordito?”

“We didn’t change anything in Radical Land. Sparkelord was still born. That means that Radical Land still met the same fate,” Gordito explained. “I know we saved Equestria and all, but what's the point if people still die?”

Dr. McNinja stuck his hands in his pockets and glanced up at the ceiling of the cave.

“That’s a good question,” he admitted. “But look at it this way. As a doctor, there’s a lot of things I can cure. Paul Bunyan's disease, the Mummy’s curse, and so on. When someone comes into my office with one of those, I can save them, and that’s good. But other times people come in with issues I can’t cure, like leukemia. Should I stop trying to cure people just because I can’t cure all of them?”

“No, you should try to do all that you can,” Gordito admitted.

“Exactly. Don’t get me wrong, Gordito, I know exactly how you feel. I wish I could save everyone all the time too. But what we can never allow to happen is that we get so down about all that we can’t do that we fail to do what we can, understand?”

“Yeah, I get it,” Gordito said with a faint smile. “I am glad that we saved Equestria. And that we met everyone that we did. I’ll never forget any of them.”

“Nor I,” Dr. McNinja agreed as he set a hand on Gordito’s shoulder. “Ready to head on home?”

Epilogue: The new era

Radical Land, two months before the founding of Equestria

Discord yawned as he woke up from his slumber. The spot he had picked to sleep was underground, a mere pocket among millions of rocks mashed together by pressure. Because it had no tunnels or exits, it was completely devoid of air. For Discord, the lack of oxygen hadn’t been a problem to his napping. Discord willed himself to be intangible as he shot straight up from his granite bed. Through layer after layer of earth he traveled. A faint and unreasonable hope was inside his heart. Discord truly wished that Rainbow Sparkle had recovered from his transformation by now. Discord desired a real friend, not just another worshipper. It was this hope that urged Discord on faster and faster until he reached the surface of Radical Land.

Discord blinked in surprise when he saw his surroundings. The Radical Land he saw was not the Radical Land he knew. There were no trees. No castles. No skateboard parks. No rivers of mountain dew. No life. The entire land was black, burnt away by a fire that couldn’t have had natural causes. A frown of puzzlement appeared on his Discord’s face. Had long had he been asleep?

“Discord! My God!” A voice suddenly cried out in joy.

Discord felt the magical aura of the speaker before he appeared. The speaker was Alondro, King of the Windigos and Discord’s first attempt at creating a real friend. The being was an entity of wind and ice, chilly breezes that whirled around while still maintaining the general form of a horse.

“Where have you been?!” Alondro practically sobbed like a child. “I haven’t felt your presence in nearly three weeks!”

“I was taking a nap,” Discord replied flatly, not at all thrilled by the reunion.

Many times throughout the eons Discord had considered thinking his failed friend attempts out of existence. Sometimes he had, only to find himself extremely lonely afterword. His worshippers were not true friends, but at least he could talk to them.

“You were asleep for three weeks?” Alondro said in disbelief.

“I’m part dragon,” Discord explained. “Sue me.”

“I would be more than glad to file a lawsuit against my God!” Alondro declared happily, completely oblivious to Discord’s sarcasm.

“Yeah whatever,” Discord yawned. “Since you’re here, why don’t you tell me why Radical Land is nothing but charred rock?

“Oh, my Lord, it was a glorious display of chaos! A great army ravaged the land with fire!” Alondro said gleefully.

“An army huh? Was it being led by a unicorn with a rainbow colored mane?” Discord inquired.

“Not that I saw,” Alondro admitted. “Nor any of my Windigos.”

Discord gazed over the land, his senses extending even further for any sign of life or magic. But Radical Land was now nothing but an empty husk. Discord was silent as he took it all in. The death. The silence. The stillness.

“This is boring!” Discord yelled at the sky.

Discord snapped his fingers and a table appeared in front of him. With a howl of rage he flipped it over, but it did nothing to lessen his frustration.

“Perhaps you could create some chaos?” Alondro suggested.

“What’s the point?” Discord demanded to know. “There’s no one around to toy with!”

Discord crossed his arms and levitated in a sitting position for a much needed pouting session. For several minutes he sulked, until his dark mood was punctured by the sharp needle of inspiration. As the details began to form in his mind, a smile crept over his face.

“Ooh! What are you going to do?” Alondro asked eagerly when he saw Discord’s smile.

Instead of responding, Discord straightened and lifted his right arm, his paw open. With a mighty tremble, the continent that was formally Radical Land began to rise. Rocks cracked and fell from the underside of the massive land as the ocean began to flow in beneath it with a loud roar.

“Up is down,” Discord smirked as he made a lazy gesture with his paw.

Slowly but surely, the land began to rotate. Mountains on one side became stalactites on the other and black charred earth was replaced with fresh brown. Discord chuckled when he saw that diamonds and other precious stones were now abundant on the top instead of miles below. The light of the sun glistened on the exposed treasures, creating a multitude of reflected colors that lit up the entire land with their brilliance.

“Beautiful! Just beautiful, God! Your works are wonderful!” Alondro cheered.

“Yeah yeah, I know that,” Discord agreed distractedly as he studied the new country.

In Discord’s opinion, it was a good start to a new age of chaos. Not that it would exactly the same as before. After all, chaos had destroyed Radical Land and all its inhabitants. Therefore, if he wanted it to last longer, he would need chaos of a different variety. Namely, chaos that was a lot less lethal. For Discord, it was hardly a sacrifice. He didn’t make chaos for the sake of killing everyone, he did it for the thrill of messing with them. If non-lethal chaos lasted longer, then he was certainly ready to try it.

Discord snapped his fingers, and trees randomly shot out from the ground all over the new continent. Cracks in the ground for rivers and lakes popped into existence as well, waiting to be filled.

“Alondro,” he announced as he turned to look out to the sea. “I have a mission for you.”

“Yes, God! Anything you want!” Alondro said eagerly.

“I want you and your fellow Windigos to search the planet,” Discord informed him. “And I want you to find the most easily riled up race in existence. A race that would lose their cool in the face of even the slightest grievance. Bonus points if they’re a rather cute species and already have a lot of racist tension.”

“And what should I do when I find them?” Alondro pressed.

Discord turned back to the new land and smiled.

“What should you do when you find them? Why, convince them to come here of course,” he replied.

Author's Notes:

And that's it! I hope you enjoyed the story. One last shout-out to Totallynotabrony for all his help with editing and ideas. Of course, props to my sister for making the cover art and to Jamey4 for the cover art background. Also, now that you've read the entire story, it's not to late too rate if you haven't already.

Best wishes,

-Mysterious Stranger