Sonic Discord - Equestrian Chaos
Part 2 chapter 4 - Phantasy Island by the Emerald Coast
Previous ChapterApplejack surveyed her scenery. She was in a fancy big city resort of some kind, and it was a bit warmer than it usually was back in Ponyville. She was not sure what the red creature with was supposed to be... but he might be in need of an escape from the midday heat. There was a door to the inside of the resort ahead of her... but no discernible way to open the door. “Now how in tarnation am I supposed to open that?” she wondered out loud as she approached the doors, only to see them open on their own.
“What the hay?” she said in response to the sight. But that was not important right now. Going back to her new companion, she lifted him up on her back and carried him inside on her back to find a really fancy hotel lobby. Out the doors, beyond the hotel was a large fancy city, in which she saw a place called Twinkle Park. There was also a shirt, a large shirt for a creature of some sort that she had never seen before that said “I [heart shape] Station Square”... but wherever this Station Square was happened to be of secondary concern to her until she helped the red creature.
In the meantime, she couldn't help but wonder what happened to the other residents of the place. Why would the entire city, as she had seen so far, be empty save for her and the red feller?
Now that she and the red feller were in a cooler, shadier place, she did her best to gently ease and lower him off her back and onto a very cool and shady spot in the hotel lobby. While doing so, she noticed a nice looking hat, like a cowboy's hat, with a blue stripe, yellow circles, and red stars in the yellow circles... though the brim did hide those nice details a little. It was a very stylish hat regardless.
She was not one to steal. However, none of the city's inhabitants were anywhere to be seen, except for him perhaps. She reckoned the hat would look mighty fine on him.
Eventually he woke up. “Huh... what? Where is this place?” he wondered as he thought he saw a place that was destroyed some amount of time ago. That was when he saw an orange creature resembling a horse walk up to him, open it's mouth, and say “Howdy stranger. How are you feeling?”.
Applejack's warm greeting did not immediately get the warm reception she had expected. The red feller looked at her with a mild amount of suspicion and said “Why should I answer that? Where is this place? And why does it look I'm in a place I couldn't possibly be?"
Applejack was shocked a bit at how he reacted but put on her guard. “Ah saw you lying on the ground outside and took you in here. The least you could do is thank me for helping.”
However, he raised his spiked fist up and glared, with more suspicion about her. What had he been doing before she found him unconscious?
MASTER EMERALD GUARDIAN - KNUCKLES THE ECHIDNA
Applejack noted he was clearly more of a fist fighter, judging from the fact he was wearing fighting gloves and had those spikes in his gloves and possibly on the paws under them. She managed to dodge a punch from one of the fists, and while she didn't WANT to fight him she would be one foalish pony not to defend herself. Managing to raise up her foreleg, she struck him enough to knock him back a little without hurting him much if at all.
She stood in front of him, still on guard. “Ah don't want to hurt you fella. What happened that would get you all riled up?”
“After what happened to me, prove you're the reason for all the troubles I've had today!” He tried to attack her again and again, but all she did was either dodge or block, sometimes attacking only to push him away without hurting him much if at all. Perhaps there was truth to her words?
Knuckles had never seen anything like her... but she was all he had to trust. He'd been screwed by Eggman enough to not immediately believe everything she may or may not tell him. But he couldn't abandon the only person in the whole area. Additionally... what could a horse do to hurt him? Even a normal horse was probably nothing compared to him.
“You haven't done anything but defend yourself this whole time... I'll test you out, for the time being.” Offering the horse his hand, he said “I'm Knuckles. Knuckles the Echidna”.
Putting her front hoof in his hand, Applejack replied with “glad we were able to get past this ugly patch. ah'm Applejack... by the way, ah found something that might look good on you.” With those words, Applejack went for the hat she had found and handed it to him... by holding the string that holds it around your neck by her teeth. Given what had just happened though, it didn't necessarily mean she was about to give him her full trust. Besides, if he tried to attack her again, she kicked harder things than him for a living.
“Um, thanks." he said with a hint of a smile as he put it on, with the hat itself dangling against his back.
“Don't mention it, sugarcube. As for where we are, ah've never heard of this Station Square place. Would you be able to tell me?”
Pausing for a moment, Knuckles thought of how to explain it to her. “Some time ago, Station Square was a city along the coastline. A scientist called Dr. Eggman, hoping to unleash a powerful weapon, released an ancient guardian. But the guardian he released was still bitter over what it had been through a long time ago. It's final attack took place here and caused a lot of destruction.”
“If what ya are sayin' is true, then this place should all torn up!” Applejack wasn't quite sure if she should believe his story. Why would anypony readily believe that the pristine city surrounding them was wrecked so badly?
“It was... I wish I knew how what was going on, and how we got here.” A small tingle... Knuckles felt a familiar sensation. “Applejack. We may be able to find out after all!” Walking towards the door to the swimming pool, a long coastline laid ahead of them.
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They headed out to see shaded tables, as well as trees with metal monkeys and cannon armed self propelled wagons. But that was the least of their worries... for whatever bizarre reason a stretch of the wooden walkway the sandy path led to was separated by a lot of water. The only way over there that they could see without getting soaked was a mechanism that appeared to be a really fancy spring thingy.
“Now tell me again why we're doin' this?”
“Somewhere in this area is a piece of the Master Emerald. Besides, if this doesn't work, I'll be in danger too.”
Knuckles jumped on the spring mechanism and was shot across to the other stretch of wooden walkways. Seeing that it appeared to work, Applejack did the same.... and landed at the other end, on 3 of her hooves, falling forward. “So that's what Pinkie Pie meant by 'everypony do the flop'..”
She looked up to see Knuckles offer her his paw, and giving him her hoof she got back on all 4 hooves maybe 4 seconds faster than she normally would have. Knuckles was curious as to who this Pinkie Pie was. “Pinkie Pie?”
“One of my friends. But we ain't got time to discuss that now if what you need is so close.”
The wooden path went further, when the 2 of them were suddenly pushed forward off a jump ramp by a powerful conveyor belt, off to another wooden path over deep water. It looked pretty safe from there, but...
After a while the boarding started to shake. “What the hay?” Applejack could only say in shock as a large whale started jumping in the path of the boarding. The only thing Knuckles could say to that was “Run!”
The whale seemed to chase them through 2 path turns and another conveyor belt assisted jump across another wooden path until they reached a land mass on the other end of the sea water. Nothing spectacular could be seen for a bit until they found an ancient building on the island among all the sand.
Wondering if they would have to go through the sandy ruins, Applejack asked “What's your feeling tellin' ya about this emerald piece now?” The feeling being positive, Knuckles told her “Yes. I think I've also been here before too. It looks like an ancient city from my home.”
“Well, whatever brings us closer to answers is worth a look. Let's so!”. Applejack took the lead in heading out to the ancient city. However a seeming obstacle came in the form of a wall they suddenly hit, only to be bounced into a wall of rising sand(?) which lifted them up to the ruins themselves. The path forward went briefly inside to a room with spikes on the ceiling, and a block of stone in front. The 2 of them pushed it forward as it... floated in the air over to a lower level, and they were once again outdoors.
A downward stream of sand ALMOST made them go up a curve to a higher level but not quite, and only Knuckles was able to get to the top. They had to take a lower route. Which meant going down 2 or more sandy inclines onto a somewhat hilly path of stone. It led to a ropeway going down diagonally that Knuckles had to hold her for since she had neither paws nor wings. At the end of it was another part of the ruins. But it seemed some of the ruins were apparently missing as ahead was a city, seemingly not by the same builders.
The place seemed to be getting grassier the further they got from that place too. But maybe not for the better. Along the way to the city, after stopping for food from the occasional palm tree growing by a river (which they got water from... after boiling it as specified by Knuckles), 2 large praying mantises and 2 more large yellow birds showed up to block their path.
GRASS ASSASSIN (x2)
RAPPY (x2)
Knuckles leaped up and managed to hurt a Grass Assassin's head pretty hard. As for Applejack leaping toward the other one... you would have to be pretty tough to keep fighting after jetting jumped at by any kind of equine creature. The birds on the other hand didn't take much work before they ran off.
Knuckles and Applejack reached the city. It looked like one part a large center of business and culture, one part... old west? “Why does this place look a little like Appleoosa?”
Knuckles had seen a lot of places. “Some of the lettering seems to call this place Aiedo, while others call it Appleoosa. Where are we anyway?”
When they entered they had heard some sort of sound in the distance. But the closer they got the more unpleasant it got. Running towards the source... they saw about 30 or so creatures fighting 4 beings and another pony. “Braeburn!” Applejack shouted as she ran to his side, as Knuckles joined them too against a bunch of creatures that seemed totally alien.
Eventually all the creatures were beaten but that left more questions than answers. Where WERE they?
“So, Braeburn, who are they?” Applejack asked her cousin.
“Well, one day I found Appleoosa had become part of another town called Aideo, but I'm sure y'all noticed that. These 4 fellers were in it, just as confused as I was. 2 of them are called humans, while the long eared one is apparently a Newman and the heavily armored one is a machine called an android. By the way, who's your friend? Don't think I've seen anything like him either.”
“I'm Knuckles the Echidna. I guess you're Applejack's brother?” Braeburn's answer was “No, but close enough. I'm her cousin.”
The other 4 looked to Applejack and Knuckles. The android had dark hair and appeared to be heavily armored, with very little of his face appearing to be made of flesh. The newman had a bright red/pink mix hair color and looked like the humans but had long ears that rose above her scalp and out of her hair. The 2 humans had blond and cyan blue hair respectively. The blond one spoke first.
The blond human greeted them with “Nice to meet you, Applejack and Knuckles. I'm Rudy. Rudy Ashleigh.” The newman joined in with “My name is Fal. Pleased to make your acquaintance.”. The android greeted himself with “You may call me Forren.” Finally, the cyan-blue haired human said “You can call me Thray. Try to forgive Rudy's judgment, he's still a kid.” Rudy replied to that with “How funny.”
Forren appeared to be on alert over something. “The planetary control system has concluded that this world appears to be made entirely of other worlds. This planet is the third in a system of 8 while Algol is a system of 2, formerly 3, planets, and the presence of the Dezorisian and Motabian control systems, as well as numerous artificial satellites that aren't of Algolian origin and what appears to be a foreign planetary control system also show that this new world may have inhabitants of a fairly advanced civilization. The moon also appears to have a deflector and tractor system concealed under it's surface on the side that never appears to face the planet.”
“So yer sayin' that all this confusion is because the world's a jumbled mess?”
Thray put on a somewhat amused smile as he said “sounds about right”.
The situation that he and Applejack had walked in on was over, and Knuckles felt a familiar feeling. “Whatever has done this to our worlds, I might be able to do something to help. Although it may not be much.” He found a town square area, more on the Aiedo style of things, and in the bushes, found some green gem shards.
“Those gem fragments appear to contain an energy field not unlike magic” Forren observed as the pieces started to put out a glow.
“They are pieces of the Master Emerald, one of the 2 most powerful things in my world. The other is a set of 7 emeralds called the Chaos Emeralds, which can grant a person's desires, but the Master Emerald can double or nullify their power.”
The sound of the TARDIS materializing was heard, as a blue booth with a light on the top and the words “POLICE PUBLIC CALL BOX” on the main sign appeared in the area.