Quest

-Beam Me Up, Scotty-

I doubt we can find her…” Larce fumed. The simple weapons engineer was out of his comfort zone at this point, seeing now that the whole ship’s crew, including himself, was forcibly ordered by Dark to look for the released captive known as Pinkamena Diane Pie. They’d caught footage of her roaming the ship’s many corridors, but once sentries hurried there, she was nowhere to be seen--and no pattern to follow.

“Aren’t her other friends locked up in the prison level?” Dayke asked.

“Yes, and by the looks of it, she might be planning for an escape,” Larce answered.

"How long do you think?" Larce stared out of the nearby window at the open space before him and clenched his teeth. "Before we can travel back to Squidtopia, and I'm sure his majesty will be far more enraged if we come back empty hooved."

"Plan?"

"Find her before we're screwed..."

_-_-_

“Guard?” Patrick yelled at a nearby sentry, currently guarding the starfish with an unmoving stature. Patrick was hungry--again. “Guard?!” he called again, louder this time. The sentry struggled to not attack in pure anger.

“Do you have any potato chips? Any beef jerky? Chicken? Steak?!” Constantly he nagged, and the sentry frowned in anger.

"Guard! Hey guard! Your shoe’s untied!" The  guard glanced at the ground, only to see his naked hooves, and massive gullibility.

“Ha! Made you look!” He turned and screamed at the top of his lungs--a nerve pulsed out of skin. “SHADDUP!” He then turned, took a deep breath, and wore his plain expressionless face again, as if nothing had happened.

Patrick slid down from the bars and decided to sit-nearly disciplined from his nuisance.

“I told you not to confront the guard like that.” said Twilight, calmly.

“Well, what else am I supposed to do?”

“Shut your mouth, like he said. Or you, Spongebob and I could discuss how to escape, like we should've been doing for two hours now.”

“I wouldn’t waste the dark, dry wasteland that is your small brain just yet,” the  guard playfully sneered.

“Soon enough, the hyperdrive will be prepared, and we’ll jump back to our original timeline. You’ll be imprisoned and never return to your homeworld.”

“And what makes you think that we can’t just fight back?” Twilight retaliated. The guard turned with a sickly smile.

“There are approximately 3,021 crew members on this vessel, each trained enough to swiftly defeat an army twice their size, and armed to the teeth with lethal weapons. We are ascending out of the world Tartarus, leaving it in carnage and death, and the hyper drive will be ready in mere hours. You have no hope of escaping, nor hope of return.”

“I wouldn’t say that. Pinkie Pie is somewhere around here. And I know for sure that she will help us out of a dilemma like this!”

        “You've got spunk. I like that. Nevertheless, only fate will tell.”

"Not fate. Pinkie Pie."

_-_-_

"Oooh!" Irke was nothing more than an average crew member of the Arbus, and like most of them had very little experience, but plenty of training and commitment to his ship. Although his naive nature was completely oblivious to the obvious oddity in front of him of him. A donut, taking up a small space on the iron table in his room, covered in dark chocolate, lightly sprinkled with a variety of small candies, and freshly heated. The sweet aroma drifted through the air and into his nostrils, causing him to salivate.

But now some fool decided to leave a perfectly prepared and ready to eat rare treat lying plainly out of nowhere. Surely there was nothing wrong with eating it? Irke locked the iron braced door, ran back and knelt down. He closed his eyes and began to privately feast.

And yet the one thing he failed to notice was the open vent above his head. Pinkie Pie flew out of the vent with law defying speed and grabbed Irke by the neck. Her eyes were fierce, and a red bandana was wrapped around her head.

The pink pony braced Irke against the wall behind him. "W-What?!" Before he could continue to speak, she filled his mouth with his own hoof and silenced him. "I am in no mood to hear you beg. The one thing you are going to do for mebefore I break your skull, is tell me where the prison level is." Irke wanted to cry then and there. She pulled out his hoof, and he coughed in reply.

"Can I at least have the rest of the donut back?"

_-_-_

        Fluttershy was the most scared of the group. Her dear woodland friends were alone back at her cottage, and she wasn’t there to comfort or feed them. The only thing she could do was be patient, and cry in Rarity’s soft bosom. Her friend stroked her mane like a mother. Applejack across the cell paced back in forth, desperately thinking.

“Alright… m-maybe if we think of some sort of trap er… Fluttershy, are you purring?” The noise stopped.

        “...No…” she lied.

        “This is no time to be groomed! We need a way out of this place--NOW!”

        “Do you think Twilight has a plan?” Rarity asked.

        “Maybe, but she’s somewhere else in this fancy-shmancy ship! And I have no clue where! Any ideas, Rainbo-” As she turned, she was reminded again that Rainbow Dash was completely paralyzed. All she could do was move her eyes and blink.

        “Oh… right”

        “Do... do you think they’ll kill us?” Fluttershy sobbed out.

        “I… I can’t say for sure. I jus’ wanna see my family again. I miss ‘em already.”

        “And I miss my boutique. All those beautiful and newly made dresses…wasted!” Applejack stared at her plainly.

“Oh… and Sweetie Belle too.”

“And I bet you miss your little Scootaloo don’t ya Rainbow?” Rainbow Dash forced her head to move, but instead shook her head in a prideful ‘No’. “Of course you don’t,” Applejack sighed.

The apple farmer decided to lay her head on the cold floor. For the first time, she thought she’d given up. The odds seemed small, anyways. They were trapped and captured by a force that was more powerful, more advanced, and more dangerous than even Celestia herself.

“What’s the point?” she whispered.

“Wow Applejack, I thought you had more spirit than that!” Applejack’s ears perked up, hearing the familiar friendly voice echo in her head. She looked up, and standing directly out of the cells bars was Pinkie Pie. “Pinkie?!”

“Boy-Howdy!” she cheered.

“H-how did you-”

“Didn’t you notice through the storyline that I was the only pony that wasn’t jailed up?”

“Storyline?”

“Nevermind! Let’s just get you guys outta there.” She whipped out a pair of keys, unlocked the door and swung it open. Applejack dragged out Rainbow Dash’s limp body while Fluttershy and Rarity hurried out. “Do you have a plan, Pinkie?” Rarity pleaded.

“Yes. Unfortunately it involves involves a crowbar, guns, grenades, and a teensy tiny itty-bitty invasion of the ship…”

“You had me at crowbar…” said Rainbow Dash, regaining her mobility.

_-_-_

“Llamma or Duck?”

“Excuse me? What kind of a stupid question is that?”asked Twilight. It hadn’t even been thirty minutes since their last conversation, and already Patrick Star was receiving his own personal penalty: boredom. Twilight and Spongebob had a more wider ranged luxury, since their patience and time far exceeded his, but while he was in this state, Patrick was random, immature, and unnecessarily annoying. And the price could be seen on the guard standing outside with an electric gun in his hooves, his eye twitching, and hair fuzzing out of his protective helmet.

“I swear, if Dark gave me the permission, you three would be lying in the corners unconscious by now!”

“But we aren’t, now are we?” Patrick teased.

He gritted his teeth in anger. He turned and yelled in an unmatchable rage. “How does fear not strike your hearts?! You are outnumbered, outgunned, vulnerable, and weak! You have no hope of freedom and love! What, in the name of all that his horrid and painful keeps your hearts uplifted, high, and spirited?!” What caught the guard was the smile plastered on Twilight’s face, and open happy eyes. But what really pulled his attention was her answer.

“Pinkie Pie!” At first, he was completely confused, until he felt an angered presence behind him. He turned, and swallowed. Pinkie Pie, Applejack, Fluttershy, Rarity, and Rainbow Dash (with a crowbar in her hooves) all stood there with angered faces, and a few guns in their hooves.

“I hate this job anyways-” he whispered before he was brutally beaten by the most of the ponies (mainly Fluttershy), while Pinkie Pie unlocked the cell for Twilight and Spongebob.

“Wow! Fast delivery!” Spongebob cheered. Twilight hugged Pinkie Pie with all her might, and so did everypony else once they stopped pulverizing the guard. Once everypony started to leave, Spongebob noticed one small oddity. Patrick wasn't with them.

“Hey! What about me?” Patrick pleaded inside the unopened cell. Applejack turned, her eyes flaring with vital rage.

“What about you?”

        “Girls, we can’t just leave Patrick like this! He’s our friend, isn’t he?” The girls looked at each other with  angered looks. Rarity stepped forwards.

“For one thing: I don’t know who you are, and I don’t know where you came from… all I know is that you are the one who put us in this danger in the first place… so why should we free you?”

“Because that’s not what friends do.”

Rarity blinked, and Applejack facehooved. “Aw crabapples…”

_-_-_

        If one thing was true, Applejack needed a good bottle of cider to wash her day away, but for now, it was time to run. Spongebob, Patrick and the rest of the band sped through the corridors of the Arbus, beating away any crew member that stopped them.

It wasn’t long until the alarm finally pulsed through the ships hull, alerting all of the passengers onboard. At the cockpit of the Arbus: mainly tipping north of the vessel, Dark’s temper was barely contained.

       “Why in Prometheus is the alarm going off? I thought that everything was going smoothly!” Dark turned to CKack with searing eyes. CKack flinched and turned to the attached surveillance unit next to him. The screen blinked to life, sputtering with static, then adjusting its colors. CKack’s jaw dropped.

“They’ve escaped, haven’t they?” Dark asked. CKack didn’t speak. Instead he turned and stared at the ground in shame. “You still want to redeem yourself? Find them before I change my mind.”

CKack looked up. He turned to three pony shaped service droids. “Seal off the exits and capture the escaped prisoners, quick!” the three droids galloped into the hull of the ship-then dispersed. CKack turned back to his leader, only to find a look of disappointment, anger, and an intention to kill.

_-_-_

Sensors from the central processing core of the C7-Delta Recessor Droid fired off in multiple directions. Due to the dire tone of CKacks voice, the core knew that this mission was in much need of success. Although it could not retain emotions like regular beings do (unless programmed to do so) it could still see it as an importance.

One of the droids sped down the many corridors. Its optical sensors zoomed down further and found eight individuals running in the opposite direction. They were foreign. Suddenly its core pushed a photo back into its view. If realization can be felt by a piece of hardware, then it would be the first.

        The droid pumped more power into its legs, pushing itself forward even faster. Then, it lowered its head, revealing its shiny but hard and thick exostructure. The droid was about to ram them.

It was close. Very close. It almost felt the emotion of joy to eliminate the prisoners, but before it could even squish the being into a frail humus, Twilight Sparkle’s horn lit up.

She took her stance, her eyes glowing white. An aura surrounded the droid.

External sensors detecting massive radioactive energy spi--Twilight had already crushed the powerful droid into a rolling metal ball, and once it was near enough, sliced it in half with her magic. The crew behind her moved out of its path, seeing the half cut orb roll about before falling. Sensors stopped. The core was destroyed. Luckily It had already sent the radio feed to its brethren: The intruders are on floor 13. The group proceeded onward.

_-_-_

Few things surprised Twilight now. She had been forcibly abducted, jailed, disciplined, and looked upon her home planet from the atmosphere far more above than she had ever imagined. But once she saw Pinkie Pie hack into the computer system set into the wall, she thought she had seen everything. Fluid foreign letters spattered the screen while Pinkie tapped at the keyboard flawlessly. Soon, a large virtual map flashed up, and Pinkie smiled. She stood back and showed her friends.

       “As of now,” she spoke,“we are on floor thirteen and heading upwards to the escape pods on floor eleven. The ship is massive, and it’ll take a while before we get there.” She then slung a rifle over her shoulder, new and lubricated, ready to fire. “But I’m sure we’ll get through it,” she reassured them.

“Wow, Pinkie! I’ve never seen you like this” Fluttershy commented.

“Trust me, when times are dangerous, it's good to be a little rogue.”

“I like your spirit! But I think we should get a moveon!” Applejack said, looking back down the hallway at four upcoming soldiers, screaming in rage. Before anypony could react, Patrick decided to step behind the group. He screamed to the top of his lungs: “You. Shall. Not. Pass!”

The guards still advanced. “Well, that’s all I’ve got…” Patrick admitted. Pinkie decided to step forward, slugging her rifle over and took aim. Carefully, she angled the cross-hairs, then pulled the trigger. Hundreds of volts of electricity surged out. The sentries bodies limply fell to the ground.

The rest of the group turned their heads toward Pinkie Pie in shock.

“Don’t worry-- it’s on stun.”

_-_-_

Dark stared at the surveillance footage in disbelief. They were more lethal of a threat than he had anticipated. And now they were released. He leaned and whispered into a sentries ear, and he nodded. The sentry then sped to CKack across the room, gripping his shoulder and pulling him to the neck of the ship where a batch of pods lie. “Gah! What?!”

Two other guards looked at Dark in wonder, but their leader nodded to them. They did not question. Instead they helped remove the unwanted trash.

“No! Please sir! Give me a second chance! I’ll redeem myself!”

        “It’s too late for that.” Three sentries forcefully threw CKack’s body into the escape pod encased in the command center of the ship. He squealed and cried, scared out of his mind. They stepped back and locked the thick doors. CKack pounded at the door, begging for mercy.

“We have no room for weaklings on this vessel, CKack. You have made too many mistakes this day.” Dark stepped up to the module next to him and, without a glint of hesitation, punched the launch button. The last thing Dark saw before CKack was propelled into space was his horrified eyes.

Dark didn’t look back. Instead, he took a rifle from a nearby officer and walked off the deck. He was more than determined to get the deed finished.

Before he could continue, a private sped towards him urgently. “S-sorry to interrupt you sir, but–”

“You should be,” he said grudgingly, “Trust me private, this had better be important, or else I’ll blow your head off its sockets.”

“Someone has hacked into the Arbus computer system, connecting from here to all of the ship! The only thing that was forcibly opened was the ship schematics. Do you think they plan to destroy us from the inside?”

“No. They do not posses the brain capacity to even know how to reprogram the generators on the engine level! They plan to escape using our pods.”

“So… you're going to stop them?”

“No…, I’m going to end them. No one makes a mockery of my ship.” Dark proceeded to walk off toward level eleven.

_-_-_

The ship’s architecture was like nothing the main six had ever seen before. Floor eleven hosts the escape pods, medical rooms, and main ammunition. If a war was started somewhere, this would be the place to begin the killings. The pods were perfectly structured horizontally, all surrounding a tube, and once one was activated, it would detach and zoom away into open space. Pinkie Pie led the team now. Up to four groups had intercepted them, but once they saw her pink fizzled mane, they fell apart in electrifying agony.

Once they turned the corridor, they saw a massive row of pods, newly made, and ready to blast. “Go go go!” she yelled. The everyone paired off to multiple pods . Applejack Rainbow Dash and Fluttershy ran in one while Spongebob and Patrick were sent in another. Twilight, Rarity and Pinkie Pie nearly entered theirs, but a blue bolt of electricity missed them, instead hitting the pod’s control panel, hindering its automatic flight.

Dark stood at the head of hallway, advancing towards them with the rifle in his hooves.

        “You thought you can escape from me?” He cocked his head. Pinkie Pie aimed her gun, but Dark was quicker. The massive volt shot through Pinkie’s muzzle, and her rifle exploded. Parts flew everywhere. Pinkie fell back in a daze, and Rarity tried to help her up. Dark aimed the gun again.

        “Goodbye, my little ponies.” He pulled the trigger. Twilight didn’t have time to react to the massive bolt whizzing through the air. Spongebob willfully quickly flew out of the pod, and received the volt instead.

        “What?!” Quickly Rarity used her magic to pull both Spongebob and Pinkie Pie back inside the pod while Twilight fabricated a shield, then hurled herself inside.

        “Goodbye yourself, you crazy little-” Twilight punched the manual launch button at the control panel by the front of the pod, and so did Applejack once she knew she was ready. The thick pod doors instantly shut, then detached. Computer systems activated themselves, and their programming aimed them to the nearest planet: Tartarus. The engine cried, then blasted the pods away. In anger, Dark blindedly fired the gun at the pods, but to no avail.

        They swiftly turned away carrying the ponies with them.

        The pods fired off towards the planet below. It took less than a minute to reach the atmosphere. Heat picked up, turning the emergency pod into an incoming asteroid. Patrick forcefully pulled a face.

        “So this is what it feels like to chew five gum!”

_-_-_

Somehow Patrick managed to stretch and make something crack in his arm, even though he never had bones. The main six managed to crawl out of the crashed pods, fortunately near Canterlot territory: and seeing the massive plume of smoke drawing above them. Spongebob looked up at the sky, seeing the ship again floating above the atmosphere, but facing in the opposite direction. He could already feel the anger from Dark now.

        “That’ll show him!” He raised his fist in pride, but drew it back down, seeing the seared off core in the side of his body and uniform.

“Spongebob… your body is…” Twilight wanted to cry, but stopped as the flesh of the sponge healed up immediately.

        “... oh.”

       “T-thank Celestia!” Rainbow Dash said, fluttering away. “I won’t ever be doing that again!”

        “It’s not over.” Patrick said, looking back up into the sky. Rainbow Dash turned around.

        “Come again?” she asked.

“He’s right…” Pinkie cried out, a medium sized burn across her cheek. “As much as I hate to admit it, he’s right. It’s not over. I realize that you might think that their hyperdrive will already be preset to launch soon, but they still have a solid two hours. They’ll be back. And they’ll be persistent.”

“Are you kidding me!? I just went through all that, and now I’ll have to do again?! I-I won’t! I refuse!”

        “I’m sorry, Rainbow. But it looks like we have to…” A tear crossed her face. Pinkie looked like something that she rarely seemed to be: exhausted. She had done all the heavy lifting, and now that she was weakened, maybe they won't receive the same mercy they had before.

        “Not if we change our fate,” said Spongebob, defiantly. He turned his head to Patrick, who nodded in agreement. “I say we take the battle to them! I realize that I put you through plenty today, and that you all seem tired, and afraid. But this is an adventure! And they are the ones who attacked us first! I say we invade that vessel with gutsy and strife. And maybe we can take the Arbus ourselves!”

        “... can… can we really do it?” pondered Rarity.

“We’re the elements of harmony! Of course we can! And they’re gonna be here soon anyways… Rainbow Dash, didn’t you want to bash their heads in once or twice?” asked Pinkie.

        “I do enjoy a good head bashing…”

        “And I bet Applejack and Fluttershy want to give them a piece of their minds as well?”

        The two looked at each other, thought for a second, then nodded. The rest of the group looked at Twilight for a final decision, and she was caught off guard by the response. What changed their minds so quickly? Their ambition? Their will to go on?

        All she wanted to do was go back and see Celestia and her family, but the enemy would be back. Then she reminded herself of Canterlots destruction, the cries of fear that rang through her ears when she flew through Canterlot. Maybe they did need a good beating.

“You know what?” she started, “Lets do it…”

_-_______-_