Friend or Foe

Woken back up again after just the first day of travel, Rarity got out from bed. When she placed her fourth hoof on the floor, she stepped on a bake bean can, which caused her to trip over and fall on a pile of mess that caused her to tumble into a pile of dirty laundry and luggage.

“Rarity, would you mind where you’re going?” asked Applejack as she played a card game with Spike and Pinkie Pie. They sat around a pile of empty food bags, crumbs and juice spills.

Erupted her head out of the pile of clothes in fury, Rarity shouted. “How did you beasts manage to cause this level of mess in just one night?”

“We partied out last night that’s how,” responded Pinkie Pie. “Too bad you missed out; it was a lot of fun!”

“How can one party cause all this, there has to be enough scattered food that a herd of animals could only leave!”

“Um, if it makes you happier Rarity, I could clean up all this?” said Spike.

Before Rarity could respond to that, she nudged awkwardly suddenly. “Hallo, what’s this?” She dipped her head back into the laundry and came even madder when she scooped back out in her jaw, Applebloom and Sweetie Belle. “Sweetie Belle!”

“Applebloom! What in tarnishing are you doing here?”

“We told you to stay home, because it was too dangerous!”

“I know sis, but we really wanted to come.”

“Yeah, I want to help revive my big brother and everyone else. No fair that you get both get to.”

“Sweetie Belle, we talked about this and we’re not talking about it again! Applejack, do you think it’s possible to make a return journey home?”

“No!” cried the sisters.

“Tried to stop the ship last night to get a good luck at the moon, but the whole things automated right now, no way I can change course until we reach Cloudsdale.”

Rarity gave a boiled growl before she snarled. “Fine! Congrats! You both have successfully tagged along! But you are in so much trouble when we get back home, Sweetie Belle, That you have no idea!”

“Same goes for you missy!”

“Would you two chill, you should find it pretty sweet that your sisters wanted to come along and help, I know I would,” said Pinkie Pie. “Plus more the-.”

Before they could continue, a red light started to flash through the room that got their attention. Knew there was a problem, Applejack rushed to the chair and looked at the holographic messages given to her.

“What’s the matter?” asked Spike.

“It says that there’s collision possibility detected, but I don’t see anything to worry about-.”

Applejack then spotted something that emerged out of nowhere. It was big and round and coloured the same as the sky.

“Oh Nelly...”

Expected to slam straight into it, they instead slipped straight through it and found themselves in a metal made room that was so huge.

“What’s just happened?” questioned Rarity.

“I-I don’t know, but the ship’s coming to a stop and it looks as if we’ve entered a hanger’s bay of some sort.”

“What do we do?” asked Pinkie Pie.

“Just wait and see, I guess.”

The ship had come to a stop and all of them started to wait silently.

“Nothing’s happening,” said Sweetie Belle.

“She’s right, what do we do?” asked Rarity.

“Well we didn’t come all this way to just to wait and see, may as well go out and check,” said Applejack.

“Should someone stay here to guard the little ones?” questioned Rarity.

“No!” cried the little sisters.

“Might as well stick together, we don’t know what’s going on and might require all of us.”

“Yeah!” shouted the sisters, followed by Pinkie Pie.

They all then went down and landed in the solid room. Easily, they all paced forward carefully into the room and kept their guards up. But as they advanced, Pinkie Pie’s eyes caught a slice of cake on the floor served on a plate.

“Oh cake!”

“No!” Pinkie-!” But before Applejack could stop her, Pinkie Pie had already darted forward.

Pinkie Pie had then jumped onto the cake and munched on it. When it was gone and she finished chewing, she looked back to the group and saw they all stared at her. “Oh, sorry, did you all want cake as well? I’m sure there’s some-.” Before she could finish, a rope lassoed around her and scooped her up into the air.

“Pinkie Pie!” Everyone shouted.

Pinkie Pie now dangled in the air with her legs tied up. “Weee! This is fun!”

“Pinkie Pie! What are we going to do with you!” yelled Applejack.

They then felt the ground tremble and found themselves completely surrounded by buffalo in matter of seconds. Each one of them leered at the stunned heroes fiercely.

“Um, hi,” said Spike.

Stepped forward from the herd, a buffalo towered over all the rest with a fancy feathered headgear on his head. Beside him, was a more delicate and very small, but determined faced buffalo. His face was even more aggressive towards them.

“I am chief Thunderhooves, leader of this tribe. This here is Little Strongheart. We ask you, why do you intrude?”

“Intrude? Pardon me, but we did not intrude, your aircraft appeared out of nowhere and forced us on your ship,” said Rarity.

“Why are you here then, where was your aircraft off to?”

“We’re off to Cloudsdale if you really must know.”

“Cloudsdale? Then you must be one of them?” The buffalos started to make loud fierce grunts and brush their hooves against the surface.

“Excuse me? One of whom?”

“Them! The ones who removed us from our home. We had heard they were off to Cloudsdale and so you must be a part of their fleet.”

“Now hold on!” shouted Applejack. “We have no idea what you’re on about, but there’s no way we’d be involved in something so low down.”

“I know your kind, you lie when you know you are outmatched, no use lying now.”

“Look out sugarcubes, we may be in for a ho down with these guys!”

Just then, before the buffalo were about to brace themselves to charge another buffalo had raced through the door, with a distraught look on his face.

“Chief! We have big problem!”

“What?”

“We are about to hit into storm cloud that came out from nowhere, we must brace ourselves!”

“What how long do we have before impact!”

“A few seconds!”

A loud clap of thunder had then struck from outside which caused the ship to rock and for all the buffalos and the little girls to fall off their hooves. Panic then started to quickly ensue the ship as it started to fall apart. Chunks of its structure started to fall out of place and smash to the ground and explosions ignited.

“Let’s go now, while they’re confused!” shouted Rarity.

“No! We can’t leave them like this!” replied Applejack.

“I’m sure they’re prepared for a situation like this!”

“I honestly doubt that!”

The two then noticed Little strongheart stumbled over amongst the rush and a large chunk of metal was about to crash on her. Thunderhooves appeared over her, ready to use himself as a shield, but Rarity, Spike and Applejack fired energy blasts that struck the incoming piece and destroyed it.

“Alright! But what can we do?”

“I think they are the edge of the storm, I’d say if we move this crude bucket to the right, we’ll have moved them out of it.”

“You saw how big this thing was from the outside right? And it isn’t going to be any easier to move it while inside a storm?”

“I’m sure if we get Pinkie Pie in on this, we’ll have a chance.”

The two then fired energy shots that at the roped that tied Pinkie Pie and allowed her to hit back onto the ground. Spike, Applejack and Rarity then ran up to her and all said. “Push against the right side of the ship!”

They then all flew up and pressed themselves against the edge of the aircraft. They powered up with their auras around and heaved. Slowly, they felt progress as they started to move it. In a few minutes, the buffalos started to relax and noticed that the ship no longer begun to fall apart and no longer heard the loud noises outside.

All four of them then descended back to the ground. Sweetie Belle and Applebloom rushed up to them, but saw that the buffalos surrounded them once more. Stepped forward again, Thunderhooves leered at them and asked. “You realised you could’ve escaped.”

“Yeah, you’d be surprised how much I know about gravity pull devices. But we didn’t.”

“Why?”

“Cause, were not only the not guys who kicked you out of your homes, we’re the good guys.”

“You are?”

Little Strongheart limped beside Thunderhooves with a kind smirk on her face. “You were sort of jumping to conclusions, we sort of all were.”

“Hm, I guess that’s true. You didn’t need to save me and Little Strongheart either. So therefore I apologise and hope you forgive me, I guess reckless paranoia has gotten the best of me, with what we’ve been through.”

“We understand, must be hard that you’ve lost your home and by the sounds of it, having nowhere to go. So I think I speak for all of us when we forgive you,” said Rarity.

“Thank you, as forgiveness for our misjudgement, we invite you to a feast, if you would humbly accept that?”

“We hum-diggy do!” responded Applejack.

“Yeah! Party!” shouted Pinkie Pie.

The group now saw in a wide circle with food served out to all of them. The heroes sat nearby Thunderhooves and Little Strongheart and inquired about their people.

“We lived very simple lives and perfect harmony, before the organisation arrived and gave us three options. One was to remove ourselves, which we did and happened to be able to rent this aircraft from a nearby continent, two was to serve them and the third was total annihilation.”

“Why did they do such a thing?” questioned Pinkie Pie.

“This organisation is trying to be an Empire. It perhaps is, but does not go by that name. It has ruled for a very long time and I do not know how much of the world it owns. But if my guess was right, I’d say over a quarter of the world.”

“Any idea who’s behind this?” questioned Applejack.

“I do not know. But this person is indeed very powerful. The minions under this person’s command were as strong as our best warriors and were far too ruthless and barbaric to serve under something such as charisma or material wealth, just raw power.”

“And you say this varmit’s heading for Cloudsdale? Any reason why?”

“I do not know, but I believe just to further the expansion of their empire. The place is home to the pegasi however and their warriors are very strong and ruled by a very wise person, if they cannot repel this organisation, no one can. Except probably you four, I have never seen such strong fighters, perhaps if the pegasi struggle, you may swing the balance.”

“I take it the pegasi are very friendly then?”

“The pegasi are brash and reckless people, but their intentions have always been good. They will welcome you, so long as you don’t mean harm.”

“Thanks for the information chief Thunderhooves.”

“It’s the least I can do, as well as the party I have made in your honour. Though I am baffled by your strange customs.”

Pinkie Pie then swung pass in a strange dance motion, followed by Sweetie Belle and Applebloom as they went with the drum music in the background.

The group eventually finished their celebration and were back on the ship, they waved their goodbyes to the buffalos and went on their way again, onto Cloudsdale.

“Now that was a party,” said Pinkie Pie lying on the bed.

“Mind not embarrassing us like that again?” questioned Rarity.

“How long will it take for us to get to Cloudsdale now?” asked Spike.

“Who knows sugarcube, but we can’t be too far, though something tells me when we get there, we’ll have regretted not taking the option to turn around and drop our sisters back home,” replied Applejack, while she got frustrated at the two girls playing around her.

*

Later the group were gathered on the floor and all relaxed. They right now just thought to themselves and took the moment to admire being this high in the air while being on a great adventure. Out of nowhere though, Rarity spoke.

“It’s strange, being on an adventure and not having Twilight here, she was the one who gathered all of us into this circle of friends after all.”

“Sure is,” replied Applejack.

“I do miss her,” said Pinkie Pie.

“Wait, what do you mean she was the one who gathered all of you?” asked Spike.

“Well I wouldn’t say intentionally, it was more by Cherliee as well, but one by one we were somehow involved by Twilight on her own adventures that we were sort of sucked up into them and I think it’s fair to say that each one of us three considered her a rival when we first met.”

“Sure do.”

“It was more of a friendly rivalry between me and Twilight, but rivalry nonetheless.”

“Could you all tell me, they sound exciting?”

“They sure our,” said Sweetie Belle. “I was there throughout all of it, tell him about sis.”

“We are in an cramped aircraft in midair with nothing else to do, so I don’t see why not.” Rarity then cleared her throat. “I’ll go first, being that I was the first to meet Twilight. It started off just after Cherliee had found Twilight, as you know, Twilight was young at the time and she had never been out into world, always confined by herself reading books, but was still somehow very strong. Cherilee found her because she was tracking the Orbs of harmony to uncover the myth. The two had formed an alliance I believe, Twilight would hand over the Orbs of harmony so long as Cherliee assisted in showing her the world. Shortly afterwards, the lot more younger me and Sweetie Belle were in search of the Orbs of harmony as well. We wanted the Orbs of harmony so we could wish for our own business.

So when I our paths cross, I was determined to take them. However, me and Twilight were surprisingly an equal match. Knowing the fight wouldn’t end without me scarring a hoof I made a retreat. I continued to try and surprise and trap her, but she eluded them, just as I eluded all her traps.”

“But sis, didn’t she catch us in that rope trap?”

“We escaped it before the trap hindered us anymore than what if should’ve,” replied Rarity frustrated. “But differences were placed aside when a bunch of hooligans wanted to take the Orbs of harmony for themselves, only so they could take over the world with an iron fist. We didn’t want those were cared about hurt by this, so worked together to defeat them. Soon realised I had the confidence and skill to design clothes to make a business, I decided to rest my pursuit of the Orbs of harmony and go into fashion.”

“Me next! Me next!” jumped Pinkie Pie. “Granny Smith had found me and Twilight and took an interest in us both. She is like this big time trainer, so it was a big deal to be taken in by someone like her. In order to be inducted though, we both needed to make our own apple pie, mostly because Granny Smith felt a good apple baker always made a good fighter for some reason, never understood why even though she told us it. Anyways after me and Twilight had gotten apple slices, I had three and she had six. Knowing I didn’t have enough, I got really pressured, so I did a terrible thing and stole three of Twilight’s apple slices, it was mean because Twilight didn’t have enough apples now, but I really wanted to train with thy awesome Granny Smith. However when Granny Smith tasted our pies, she found them both delectable and I didn’t know why.”

“Because Pinkie Pie, it isn’t the number of apple slices that make a pie taste right, it’s your heart,” said Applejack.

“Yeah, it’s what Granny Smith told me at some point. Afterwards though I admit I got jealous and wanted to redeem myself that I deserved to be with Granny Smith just as much. I ended up competing with Twilight in my training, racing with her as we ran from a dragon with huge rocks on our backs, tried to do the biggest energy blasts and sparred to win. But it didn’t take long for me and Twilight to realise that we had become good friends and that we both liked parties.”

“Onto my turn then?” asked Applejack and got a nod from Pinkie Pie. “Alright, I hadn’t met Twilight or Pinkie Pie yet, while I they trained with my Gran. Reason why is because I had left my Gran about a year back, because although I respected her and her humble training, I wanted a more fancy life, with more glamorous training that I went to my Uncle and Aunt who lived in the high life, training people. Big Macintosh had joined me so I wouldn’t be lonely, being that my Uncle and Aunt wouldn’t have enough free time to hang with me after training sessions.”

“I still wish you brought me along, it wasn’t as fun with Granny Smith until Twilight and Pinkie Pie came.”

“You did fine sis, you would’ve realised it probably was better you stayed with Granny Smith. Although me and Big Mac did the best in my Uncle and Aunt’s class, everyone thought we were getting special treatment and we felt pretty alienated because of our unusual customs from our background. I wanted to go back, but I was too proud and felt I had done the right thing. It changed though when my Uncle and Aunt decided they wanted me to represent them at the big tournament that they always go to. It was there I found out about Granny Smith’s students, Twilight and Pinkie Pie and when I saw how happy they were with my family and Gran was so proud of them both, I got so jealous. I fought in the tournament to compete and show up my Granny Smith in an attempt to get back at her.”

“You did seem a little mean when we first met,” said Pinkie Pie.

“Be glad you were unable to precede Pinkie Pie after you were too hurt after fighting my brother, because I swear I didn’t know what I’d do. Bad enough I tried taking it so badly out on Twilight, I tried to kill her off so many times in that one match, that I even used the Apple family specialty, but that Twilight was a wily as a coyote.”

“I wasn’t sure who to root for when I saw you fighting,” said Applebloom. “My sister or my Gran’s best student.”

“Technically it ended in a draw. Me and Twilight ended up wiping clean the entire arena so we were fighting in midair to avoid touching outside the ring, even though there was a ring no more. It ended with Twilight knocking the two of us out with a headbutt, we then dropped back to the ground unconscious, but surprisingly enough, Twilight hit the ground first, therefore she was eliminated before I was, even though she struck the final blow. It didn’t matter anyways, even though I had won the tournament that all went pass over my head when I found out my Granny Smith and sister came to me first. I was so touched, I let out that I had been wanting come back to them and was jealous because I thought they replaced me and Big Mac for Twilight and Pinkie. I left my Uncle and Aunt, who wasn’t too bad about the thing and had been wondering when I’d up and leave and me and Big Mac went back to where we really belonged.”

“It’s then that we formed our little group that went about getting ourselves in all sorts of messes, like the one we’re in now,” said Rarity.

“Wow! All those stories sound so cool!”

“Could we hold on for just a minute, I think the ship’s slowing down?” asked Applejack. The pony had gotten up and made her way over to the pilot chair. It was there she paused and slowly said. “Um, guys, I think we’ve arrived at our destination.”

Everyone rushed up to where Applejack was and looked outside. Everyone of them were now amazed at what they saw, but couldn’t believe it. Ahead of them were what looked like solid clouds that were shaped to mimic almost exactly into small islands that were arrayed throughout the sky, around them was a sea of rainbows that poured around this apparent world. Other than that this place seemed like an entire land that was up in the sky.

“Now this is cool,” said Spike.

*

“Y-yep!”

“Twilight! I told you to not move, it makes things easier if you hold still!” shouted nurse Redheart. Her a number of other ponies tried to examine Twilight, but she was that strong, it was hard to budge her.

“How are you doing Twilight?” Granny Smith stepped into the room while they were in the middle of mending her.

“Hey! This is not visiting hours!” yelled nurse Redheart with a vein sticking out of her head.

“I know.”

“Granny Smith! Oh please have you brought Zenzu apple seeds!”

“Sure have.” Granny Smith then pulled out from under her scarf a small pouch. “Afraid I was only able to grow six though, have to wait until next season until I can grow more.”

“That’s alright, just pass one here.”

“Hey! No strange substances inside this hospital!” yelled nurse Redheart. “You’ll have to go through the doctor before I let you!”

Granny Smith had already picked one out though and threw it across the room. Twilight had then lifted her head and swallowed it. Before the nurse could explode into a tantrum, Twilight had sprung off her bed and landed onto the floor, lively as ever. Bulged her muscles, the bandages were ripped off just like that and she was good as new.

Twilight then started to do a couple of stretches that made the nurses gape in disbelief. She paused though and looked up to Granny Smith and asked. “Hey, um Granny Smith, why did you bring six Zenzu apple seeds, did you really think I’d be that badly hurt?”

“Oh no, you’re actually needed in Cloudsdale.”

“Wait, what? What do you mean I’m needed in Cloudsdale?”

“Well this might sound like the craziest thing you’ve ever heard and probably will ever hear. But I’ve been hearing voices for a while, at first I thought that was me finally starting to get old. But then they started making sense to me and Cherliee was hearing the same things as well and she’s too young to start getting voices inside her head unless she’s crazy.  So we listened to what they had to say and heard that you would most likely be greatly needed.”

“Did the voices have a name?”

“Well had one name, called itself Za-corn-na or something like that.”

“Well did Zacornna tell you how I would get to Cloudsdale?” asked Twilight. She knew who Granny Smith went, but couldn’t help but tease.

“Pinkie Pie’s Dad has been working on an aircraft powerful enough to perhaps get you there. He seems to have been getting the strange voices as well.”

“He has?”

“Yep, even has Cherilee and Owylsious working on it with him right now, said he’d have it running this afternoon.”

“That’s great I’ll go there immediately! Thank you so much Granny Smith!”

Twilight then took the pouch and vanished. All the nurses now trembled at what they just saw and experienced. Nurse Redheart eventually asked. “Granny Smith was it? Mind telling me what just happened?”