Time Outcasts - Is it more psychic to flirt with a spiteful cat or move boxes with your mind?by Unknown7x7ChaptersChapter 1 - Use the Force, dude, use the Force! [after proofreading]Chapter 2 - Meet the Pyro [after proofreading]Chapter 3 - Everfree Forest is the best pony [after proofreading... kind of]Chapter 4 - Things to do: create an interdimenshional artifact, set village on fire, borrow a book [not proofreaded - you read at your own risk]Chapter 1 - Use the Force, dude, use the Force! [after proofreading]Let me ask you something. Have you ever had frostbite? All right. I can't hear nor see you from this side of the fourth wall, so you can peacefully continue your silence with a clear conscience (if you actually were trying to answer, I'm deeply concerned about your mental health). If you haven't, good for you - you don't know my suffering. My legs were frozen, my arms were frozen, heck, even my brain was frozen. Such a state was normal for the last few hundred years, as I was to find out soon. It's a good thing I was comatose all this time... I would hit with a rock anyone who was petrified in one place for centuries, because such a person simply CANNOT be sane and harmless. Anyway, I was blessed with a consciousness and a lack of feeling in my everything for the last ten minutes. I'm not in a good mood. Seriously, the difference of five degrees. That's all I needed to wake up. Someone must have been really careless - you can't just increase heating in my cell. Only this cold was keeping me restricted; once it's warm enough, my brain can actually do something practical. For example? Process sounds delivered by my left ear, probably the only part of me not covered entirely in ice. Wait... I think there is also... YES! A tip of my tail is free, and… OWW! Moving it hurts. Yeah, that's helpful... Looking at the bright side, I apparently managed to close my eyes before I found out how a TV dinner feels all those years ago, so they’ll probably still work. "I don't get it. Why are we even guarding this place? It's just some ice blocks, why are they in prison?" Guards. Of course. What else did I expect? "What, you don't know...? Oooh, I get it. A rookie?" Wonderful. I'm guarded by some noobs. Really, Princesses? No wonder your ponies actually know what "epic monster of the week" means. "...Yeah." "That's okay, everyone was a newbie at the beginning. Allow me to illuminate you - in these ice blocks are imprisoned two of the most deadly enemies of Equestria - the Dawwkward Duo." ...wait, what did you just say? "They’re real?!" "Of course. Also, I suggest reading some good history books - nopony nowadays seems to do that. The Ministry of Education is really bucked up. That's the only way of explaining all of this. I nearly lost my faith in ponykind when half of the recruits admitted to their ignorance about Princess Luna's origin." DAWWKWARD DUO?! CEEEEELEEEEESTIAAAAAA! "It's just... they are so weird, you know? Levitation, flying, setting everything on fire and running at the speed of sound without any kind of magic? Like a fairytale for foals." "Apparently all real. In the end they both got frozen during their last fight and ended up here. Every night some important unicorn comes from Canterlot University and reinforces the original spell. The feline also has this heat-absorbing armor or something, so it can't free itself. The hedgehog is not resistant to extreme temperatures, so he sleeps peacefully without any additional gadgets, like always." WHEN WE GET OUT OF HERE THERE WILL BE A RECKONING FOR THIS DISGRACE, CELESTIA! I WILL RIP OFF YOUR HORN AND SHOVE IT AS DEEP INTO YOUR FLANK AS HUMANLY AND INHUMANLY POSSIBLE! YOUR FATE WILL GIVE A BIRTH TO A COMPLETELY NEW TYPE OF HORROR MOVIES AND POP CULTURE REFERENCES! AND ALL OF THEM WILL BE STARTING WITH A PINEAPPLE OR CHEESE GRATER! "So... we just stand here, control our bladders, and make sure they’re still on ice?" "Exactly. Though, I still can't believe how they’re still alive in these circumstances." "Maybe they are partially frogs? I heard that frogs can hibernate in ice." "Even with such ability I think this must be very nasty experience. Think about this - your jewels frozen for eleven centuries." You have no idea, dude... All right, I think I'm calm now. Mostly. I can't even predict how ‘Blaze’ is gonna react, since she’s so much more... enthusiastic about showing her negative feelings as opposed to the responsible ones. But let's not waste even more time on chilling out and let's get out of here... Heh, get it? Chilling out because of... Okay, I'd better shut up before my frozen mind will commit more stupid puns and jokes. I focused on my right hand and did my best on pumping it with my willforce*. I know, it's not a real word, but when I was three years old I wanted so much to be a Jedi... So when I needed a name for this mysterious juice of power inside of me, that's what I came up with. Definitely better than those dumb midichlorians. First Episode never happened, guys. Never. Back to the topic. Do you know how hard it is to pump your limb with this sweet juice of Force when you can't even feel your hand? Not easy, at least for me. After all, my power is based upon directing willforce to the object of my focus. Fortunately you can make up for this disadvantage with imagination - you only need to convince yourself that you feel your arm, not actually feel your arm. A little gap, but so important. Without any mercy I took advantage of it. Ponies in, let’s say, a five miles radius are in for a nasty surprise, that’s for sure. I hope no one is drinking anything with ice cubes right now... For a very, very short moment all the seismographs in the Geological Institute of Canterlot went wild. Most nobles barely noticed this - they were much more outraged by the fact that pretty much all objects made from glass and ice suddenly shattered, which resulted in many injuries and even more angry letters to the government. The number of said messages increased tenfold after a few days, when several buildings in the city collapsed. Turns out something relocated all foundations about half an inch to the west. Nopony was quite sure why. Except Discord, that is. If he wasn’t imprisoned in stone at the time, he would explain it was mainly for swag. Argh, talk about going too far... I can already sense the incoming headache. See, that's the reason why Silver needs cooldown after using his telekinesis in games, other than weakening his ridiculously strong power for gameplay's sake... Cooldown... what, puns again?! I lost - my only jokes are puns. After a few seconds, most of my organs started working more or less normally and with some difficulties, I stood up. Gotta love my healing factor. I am by no means an immortal Deadpool (may his escapades never end), but turns out there is a good reason why characters in games casually get up after taking a death ray or rocket to the face, as long as they have some rings. Speaking of rings, there were three of them just floating in front of the reinforced doors leading to the rest of the prison (which apparently got very loud in response to my little shockwave). I never found out how this is possible, but me and my inflammable friend can actually see and "pick up" (absorb) gold rings in various places. Nopony else can, so yay, we have a monopoly for life protection! Again, game logic, as long as we have at least one we can take almost any hit. Also, don't ask me what happens if I collect a hundred of them or find a jar with my face inside... It's too weird even for me. I glanced around, still thanking St. Gordon Freeman, patron of life-threatening situations, shooting, and crowbars. My chaotic burst of power not only set me free, but also destroyed pretty much everything else in the room. The two guards, probably standing before at both sides of the door, were still alive; however, I think they were in for a loooong sick leave - ponies do not leave dents in the walls and just carry on, like Blaze. My friend was near the remains of her formerly much bigger ice prison, panting after centuries without any breath. By the way, the guard was wrong - she wasn't restricted by some magical armor, just some enchanted iron blocks chained to her feet and hands. Heh… not for long. I focused once again. My telekinesis is… different from the one unicorns use. Theirs is much weaker, but also more precise. If you want to smash something, then I’m your man, however do not expect me to play with two Rubik’s cubes with telekinesis at the same time. Bending metal? Piece of cake, that is if I won’t try with all four enchanted blocks at once. Very long ago, Blaze questioned me how it feels to move stuff with your mind. In response I asked how does it feel to burn stuff with your mind. Explaining telekinesis to her was like telling a blind man to describe the color red. With an unpleasant rasp, the fetters bended and broke into several parts, one after the other, which actually wasn’t easy after my recent stunt. Now I'm sure there will be a headache in a matter of seconds. "You all right, Blaze?" I asked. When it comes to Blaze, there is no getting up. She just suddenly changes her position from horizontal to vertical in a matter of milliseconds. Seriously, who begins their day by jumping up like that? Answer according to Blaze: someone who for a few years had a very demanding kung fu teacher. "Yes, Silver," she answered without any kind of emotion in her voice. Her lips were as straight as a ruler - eeyup, no one does a poker face just like her. "I certainly deeply enjoyed being imprisoned for centuries in a block of not-melting magical ice with the most annoying and childish person I ever met. And no, I won't waste my energy chewing someone like you out. I will save it for someone else." "Geez, no need to be so sarcastic. I did set us free, you know." I smirked. "Don't you dare use that full of confidence tone in a world so infatuated with Murphy's law." Blaze faced the reinforced door (absorbing three rings, by the way), extended her arm, and put a pointing finger on the surface. A tiny flame instantly appeared around it, slowly but easily melting the old carbon steel. "Killjoy," I muttered. "Did you say something?" "Err... nope!" Right, sharp sense of hearing. Gotta remember that, lest I want another scar on my back to remind me of the time I called her out on using pony-isms in her speech… Oh. Oh, wow, I just dodged a bullet there, didn’t I? Nice! I better keep this lucky streak going as long as I can. Temperamental partners are the least of my worries right now, after all. Headaches after abusing my power were always unnaturally short (no longer than a minute), but incredibly intense, so I decided to sit on one of the guards in lieu of a chair. He whimpered weakly at the added weight. "Hey, don't whine, Mr. Royal Guard. An adult pony shouldn't act this way even if someone is sitting on your probably-broken ribs. Such things happen when you buck up in the military, and you bucked up royally - as you said, you had only one easy job and you still managed to wreck everything." The cute, overgrown pony obediently remained silent despite his agonising pain. Or maybe he just passed out. "I have no idea why the designer of this cell put just a simple reinforced door here," said Blaze, slowly moving her burner-like finger across the surface, drawing a curve of brightly-glowing metal. "They should be fireproof. Normal ones don’t even slow me down much." My eyebrow shot up. "Because your first action after removing all these fancy handcuffs holding back our powers would be, without any doubt, releasing me. ‘Cause with me around, tearing even the best gate to pieces would be a matter of seconds." I made sure to put some emphasis on the most important words - I have a tendency to get spiteful during my after-Jedi headaches (yes, that's a real name). Blaze stiffened for a second before resuming her work, showing no other reaction. I'm not going to lie, our relationship could use a little... all right, a lot of loyalty. She is a snob raised in an even more snobbish family, not a determined Guardian of Sol Emeralds. It's hard to befriend someone like this even normally, but after they lost everything except their clothes and sharp tongue? Just no. We were a team only because, well, we are the only humans (kind of) on this planet. It's... comforting to be in the presence of someone in the same terrible situation, even if you really hate that person. Okay, maybe not completely the same. When I have a nightmare, I don't set my bed/sleeping bag/solid rock/whatever I'm sleeping on on fire. "Equestria to Silver, you have received permission to land, I repeat, you have received..." Okay, that's enough of this emotional rambling! Time for some action and showing off! "There will be an entire group of Royal Guards on the other side, right?" I asked. Blaze looked at me with some really serious disappointment visible on her face. Yay, an expression from Blaze not caused by anger! Everyone, you need to buy a draw for a lottery, it's a lucky day for all humanity! "What kind of question is that? This is a prison, you moron." Ah, here we are. Moron - her favourite way of addressing me. She was kind enough to reserve that word for this purpose only. How sweet of her, an insult intended just for me. I guess this is an opposite to "honey" - the same amount of emotion, but two different ends of the scale. I raised my arm and finished the job of removing the doors from their hinges. And sure, there were guards. "HALT!" announced one of them. "Give up immediately, Dawwkward Duo!" My pulse jumped to the frequency usually present only right before heart attacks. I'm sure I did also a pretty damn good job of impersonating Knuckles in both appearance and behavior in the next seconds. "I'll show you awkward and daww, you little technicolor horse!" I roared at him, despite being of the same height after becoming a hedgehog. I HATE that nickname for our team, but that word that starts with H is even worse. I've had enough of it in all fanfiction I ever read. I raised my hand. "Do you know what this is? This is a hand." I flexed my fingers. "How about this? No? This is a fist." Then I finally brought my fist to my chest in universal position known as "Silver is gonna mess you up" and gathered all power I could. "I'm sure you have never heard of this before, scrawny milk drinkers, because..." "...IT'S NO USE! TAKE THIS!" My scream of pure manliness and righteous fury echoed down the corridor, followed only by the sounds of bodies colliding with walls and, in the case of a certain cat, of palm colliding with a face. * Seriously, this is exactly how all so-called "guides to psychokinesis" begin. Mystical Force juices... don't look at me like that, that's not my idea. Author's Note Here it is... I hope you like it. I will welcome your comments and critique. Don't be afraid to tell about your ideas for this fanfic - I have my scenario, but I can change it a little bit if I'll like your suggestion. So far its all my proofreaders managed to check. There are more chapters awaiting for proofreading (over 10k words if put together), but my partners in crime have a lot on their plates right now, so you will have to wait. Most chapter should be at least 2,500 words long, though sometimes they can be much longer (third chapter, for example, right now has almost 5,600). I guess that's all for now. Chapter 2 - Meet the Pyro [after proofreading]"Silver, I'm fully aware that you have an empty spot somewhere between... I mean, now under your ears... but could you at least keep it clean, without any junk? Mentioning Sonic 2006 is a disgrace to any gamer." There are a lot of things I don't like about Silver. He is loud, whiny, reckless, dense, easily distracted... I could go on and on about this for hours. When my dumb companion comes to any city, suddenly every single clown in five miles radius loses their job. And yes, he is naive, often as much as the original character. It's not as likable as my lookalike stated in the game-that-shall-not-be-mentioned (the worst spent seventeen bucks ever). There is however no doubt what I hate the most about him, since it gets us almost killed plenty of times. Wasting all of his power by showing off. "Don't spoil all the fun, that was awesome! Did you see their faces? I regret nothing!" he exclaimed, massaging his forehead with one hand and holding onto my arm with the other. Once a really strong headache strikes, Silver is almost completely unable to move without my help (something about not telling apart left from right). I had to make sure I wasn’t running too fast - without his powers, his top speed is only around sixty miles per hour. You see, that's exactly the problem with Silver's power. As long as he has it, he is the most powerful hero in Sonic's universe (I really mean it - what use is super speed if your enemy can just mop the floor with you by his thoughts alone?), but after it wears out, he’s just dead weight. It's not hard to push his buttons and cause him to waste all his ammo in a little anger outburst. "In the name of the law, I command you... HOLY CELESTIA SWIMMING IN HOT CHOCOLATE!" Oh, yes, another guard decided to actually try to do his duty. "Try" being the operative verb here. Once he rounded the corner and saw me running (well, with my definition of running it was more like a quick march) straight at him with a shield of fire in front of me, he instantly decided to change his objective, direction of motion, and probably also job. "I didn’t sign up for this crap!" And then he was gone. If there’s one good thing I can say about these guys, they sure do retreat really effectively. "I think we’re close now," said Silver once we were almost to the central hall, "I can already feel that sweet, sweet taste of freedom, fresh air, and scared horse. It’s… oh, great." I stopped. A whole contingent of Royal Guards in full kit greeted us right as we rounded the corner, doing their level best to glare at us in what might have been an intimidating manner if we were any other criminals. Now, I want you to imagine that you are standing in a room with a psycho. Not a nice picture? That's not all. Let's make him really eager to leave this place, while your task is to stop him. To make it even more painful for you, let's give your opponent a flamethrower. If you think it can’t be worse, you are greatly mistaken. It's a woman with a short patience, sharp ~~claws~~ fingernails, and high heels. There’s also somewhere around fifty other men on your side, but you know, you just know that all of them could probably stand to change their (metaphorical in this case) underwear. Now you know how those stallions felt at that moment. One of them stepped forward and put a megaphone next to his mouth. "Prisoners! Cease resisting immediately, lie down on the ground, and put your... erm, front hooves over your heads! If you don’t comply, we will have to use force!" "Ouch! Dude, you’re like five meters from us! There’s no need for a megaphone!" Silver shouted back, covering his ears. Turns out both anthropomorphic cats and hedgehogs have good hearing and no tolerance to ringing in their ears, since I winced too. "Wait a second... you have a megaphone!" Geez, Silver, really? What a brilliant comment! "You already invented speakers! Do you have computers too?! I haven't played any video games in ages! Literally!" Huh... That’s actually a good point. How much time did the guard say we spent in this place? Eleven centuries? Also, why did this pony say "hooves"? Did Equestrians get so xenophobic they no longer knew the correct names for basic anatomy parts of bipeds? "Prisoners, I repeat...!" That's it, screw that noise. "Oh, for fuck's sake, SHUT UP!" I screamed, focusing my anger in my palm and throwing it as a fireball towards the guardspony. At this point it was instinctual for me. You want your enemy gone? Get mad. You want to burn a place to the ground? Get mad. You want to make Silver lose all his hard-earned rings just for fun*? Get mad. It solved almost all my problems in both of my lives. This tactic proved itself once more. As soon as my attack reached the main officer, he went up like a prayer candle and leapt into the air with an almost comical scream. The rest of his troupe stared at me wide-eyed. I took a step forward, holding my red-glowing hands open at my sides. And just like that, they all promptly turned and stampeded away like a freaked-out herd of sheep. There was something... primal in fear of fire. You think humans are scared of uncontrolled flames? Hah. Horses and ponies have it sooooo much worse. "Blaze! That wasn't nice!" Silver piped up once the guards had left the scene. My mouth pressed into a thin line. "Oh, come on, that was barely a love tap. He’ll be fine." "But you could have just created a wall of fire in front of him, not shoot at his face!" “I have a learned reflex to shoot at whatever goes above a certain volume. Rise Against notwithstanding.” I flashed him a smirk. “Are you really that angry it wasn’t you?” That shut him up, like always. Maybe I should feel some remorse for my only companion in this world, but he can be so annoying at times... Anyway, those are Royal Guards, right? They accepted dangerous situations like this as part of their job, and they surely have insurance and hazard pay. Besides, it was nothing. He will only have to regrow his fur. Finally, we found a way out… only with one problem. “Another steel gate,” I noted, already raising a hand and preparing to blowtorch my way through. I was stopped by Silver, who slipped out from under my arm and walked straight up to the door. “No worries, Blaze, I got this.” “Aren’t you still recovering?” I raised an eyebrow. But Silver was already cracking his knuckles together and limbering up his neck like some hotshot Dragonball Z cosplayer. “O ye of little faith…” Oh, no, he did not just smirk at me. Silver, you better move right now, or— “FUS RO DAH!!” A wall of telekinetic force so thick I could see the air distorting around it slammed into the gate, snapping the middle bars in half and bending the others like the convex side of a magnifying glass. Silver listed slightly to the side, panting heavily, but still found enough energy to shoot me a thumbs-up. “See? What’d I tell ya? I’m— OW!” My fiery spark hit him dead center on the tail, making him jolt upright. It was nowhere near full strength, but just enough to express my extreme displeasure. “What did I tell you about wasting all your power, you moron?!” He swatted at his singed rear, giving me a dirty look. “Oh, come on, I’ve wanted to do that for years!” he complained, “Besides, I’ll just get it all back in a minute or two. It’s not like the Royal Guards are gonna mess with us anymore after our little show.” “Murphy’s law, Silver,” I warned. “Super Epic Interdimensional Space Jedi, Blaze,” he returned, already giving me that contemptuously annoying grin. A long-suffering sigh blew out from my lips. “Fine. Let’s just get out of here.” Thankfully, he didn’t say another word after that, so I didn’t have to spend my own stamina on another fireball. It would have been totally justified, though. Like I said, reflex. We stepped through the ring-shaped hole in the gate (I almost smiled at the irony) and finally exited the prison’s dim corridor, trading torches and glass windows for sweet, sweet full sunlight. I had to squint my eyes after so long a time spent locked up in the dark at first, but when they adjusted, I was treated to one of the grandest sights of my (second? Third?) life. So... this is Canterlot. The city was much, much more beautiful than it seemed in the show. When you saw Equestria's capital from the distance on TV, it was a ridiculous sight, a violation of the law of physics. Now, however... It was truly a place to behold. I've been to Canterlot before, but a millennium of prosperity has changed this place past all recognition. It used to be just the Royal Sisters' summer residence. After all this time it had practically become a second Rome, only instead of seven hills you had one giant mountain. Cobbled streets, renaissance architecture, wonderful parks with green trees, incredible panorama stretching for miles... It is not easy to amaze me, but this one time I was very impressed. "Blaze, look! An extra life!" I tore my eyes away from the beautiful landscape, and focused them on a giant jar standing next to the former door. If we would have just marched out of there, we wouldn't have noticed it at all. Inside of the jar was floating a picture of my face (and in Silver's vision it was surely his face). "How many lives do you have?" I asked. Silver closed his eyes and stood still for a few seconds. "Just three. It seems our last fight took a toll on us." I followed his example. Once I closed my eyes and waited a little, two numbers appeared... don't ask me how or why, but this is the way in which we check our status (number of rings and lives, to be precise). Believe me, it makes falling asleep very hard. "I have two lives and six rings. I need it more." I approached the jar and kicked it (unlike rings you need to actually hit them, not just run next to them or even through them like they were just air). It always felt awkward to me. As soon as the jar opened, however, I heard the cringe-inducing sound of some children shouting "YAY!". At least it's not Fluttershy’s voice doing it, but I swear, I'll murder that Merchant if I ever meet him again. He took away all the pleasure from getting an extra life. I guess that's exactly why we were called Dawwkward Duo. "If you spot some rings nearby, tell me. I have none," Silver informed me. "So... what’s the plan?" "Let's just continue with our efforts to return to Earth... also, we need to find a way to let us measure up against the Princesses, and fast. Maybe we should summon something nasty from the void... Right now we’re too weak to fight them, so we should first gather some rings and maybe a few Emeralds." Silver nodded. "So pretty much your standard action/adventure smash-and-grab. Cool! Let's go, we need to escape from the city before the Princesses come here personally." "Was that a pathetically obvious reference to Sonic Adventure 2?" I asked, getting into a position that would provide me with a good start. "...Maybe." Prison is, by definition, not the calmest place you can find, even if it's not Balkham Asylum. Prison after an escape attempt is much, much worse, just boiling with distrust and agitation. And if that attempt turns out to be not only successful, but also spectacular, everypony will be ready to go through Tartarus itself to find the perpetrator. After all, you need to either point at somepony or be the one who is pointed at. All the staff was in uproar. Medics and doctors were running everywhere, still not accepting that Blaze "I-will-burn-you-alive" the Cat restrained herself to scaring off ponies (and in corporal Sentry's case giving mere first degree burns). Two stallions that happened to be inside of the cell during the escape had been sent to the hospital. Royal Guards interrogated other Royal Guards, unicorns from the Magical Defense Unit were searching for the source of a small earthquake, unfed prisoners were getting noisy... Overall, the blaming and hoof-pointing was actually counter-effective. In all the chaos, nopony paid attention to a certain "janitor", who had casually left the boiler room. In a matter of a few hours the investigation team would check this place and find out that a valve keeping warm water away from the main cell's pipes was unscrewed. The saboteur calmly walked down the corridor until he found the door that definitely wasn’t on the building's architectural plans. He opened it with his key, and stepped inside. A few seconds later the door gradually faded away to look just like any other piece of masonry in the hall, which somehow went unnoticed by everypony in sight. The investigation team never found out who caused the escape or why. Speed. When it comes to many characters in Sonic's universe, this word was one of the most important in their description. At the same time this attribute was never explained in great detail. How fast is Sonic the Hedgehog? Nobody is sure, to be honest, but it is doubtful he indeed breaks the sound barrier without using the Chaos Emeralds. The same goes for the original Guardian of the Sol Emeralds. Blaze did not care about her maximum speed. As long as she was the fastest, she wasn't even questioning her top speed, no need for any strange diet stuffed with calories, AND ability to reach it despite wearing high heels. What she was questioning, however, was why she was able to think while being on the run through Canterlot's streets. Games from this series demanded full attention from the player. There’s no eating, talking, getting bored, etc. Gameplay is simply too fast. You just run and hope to finish as fast as you can. And yet, Blaze often found herself letting her reflexes and instinct handle all the work, while her mind wandered, as if running at extreme speed wasn't dangerous and exciting. She had no doubt the Merchant was once again the one responsible for that. Blaze was one of the few Displaced that was fully aware of their situation right after their first day in Equestria. She knew of other victims of dimensional misplacement, and there was no doubt the Merchant could change even the way minds worked. She was practically waiting for tokens from their brothers and sisters in misery, some of them she actually found interesting. She just hoped Silver and Gilgamesh would never meet... she couldn't handle those two clowns at the same time. Her body surely wasn't the only thing that had changed. Her mind was different, her soul was different. She could only hope it wasn’t broken beyond repair. There was hope. You don't have to be a genius to know that someone was going to eventually stand up to the Merchant. This... damn it, she had forgotten his name. It's even more awkward since she still remembered his ridiculous title of Fabulous Rainbow Magician. She had to show him the Emeralds, or at least someone familiar with the subject. There was a big chance they were the key to this multidimensional trap. There were seven Chaos Emeralds and seven Sol Emeralds. The original Emeralds were pretty much this ultimate plot device that gave the heroes the upper hand. Doctor Eggman woke up some ancient evil god? Get the Emeralds and go Super Sonic at him. Two Eggmans created an ultimate weapon and caused interdimensional collision? Go Super Sonic at them. Evil multidimensional god of time destroys everything everywhere in every part of history? Go Super Sonic at him. Hell, Sonic himself is dead? GO SUPER SONIC! If problems were headaches, then that was the universal aspirin. Two Emeralds... maybe even two Emeralds were enough to escape from this trap. That's all you needed to time travel. She didn't know for sure, she never had the chance to even test it... but maybe, just maybe, if she managed to get back to ancient Equestria, she would find a way home. A home she lost very long ago... I hated conventions. It didn't take me too long to figure that out once I found myself part of one. What was I thinking? How could I expect to have fun in this place? Sure, there were games, contests, stands full of copies of various well known fictional items... but... okay, there is no way around this. I hated crowds. And I went into one dressed up as Blaze the Cat, a character from the Sonic game series. And let's face it... this fandom has a really bad reputation. Many people see these games as childish... oh, who am I trying to fool, they are childish even when SEGA tried to do something more grim (yes, I'm looking at you, Shadow the Hedgehog, Sonic the Hedgehog 2006 and Sonic Lost World). At one point one of the girls I was passing giggled, probably at something completely unrelated to my costume, but it still angered me - sometimes I can be irrational like that. I wanted to leave immediately, but my parents were going to pick me up an hour later. Nothing stood in the way of just calling them except my pride, which was massive. I'd rather suffer in this place for an entire sixty minutes than admit I was wrong about something. After a few minutes I decided to look at the wares. Some of them seemed really interesting, like a working hidden blade from Assassin's Creed or helmet of the Brotherhood of Steel, but I had no intention of buying them. I need to be really into something in order to buy an item that would only collect dust on my shelf. Unfortunately for me, I found something just like that. A sudden flash in the corner of my vision caught my eye, and I turned around. There was a little stand in the corner squeezed in between two large ones, and in the center of the table lay... "Sol Emeralds?" I said aloud. All seven of them were placed in a little, elegant jewelery box. Right next to them was a rim... no, a ring. It might be huge, but it's still an item from games so I should call it by its right name. "Yes, stranger," a sudden, hoarse voice made me jump a little. I looked up and saw a Merchant straight out of Resident Evil 4 sitting behind the stand. I immediately recalled The Merchant and barely suppressed a smile. I really shoudn't read so many fanfics those pathetic bronies write, but... I just can't help it. I love to hate MLP and any related fanfiction. "Lookin' for your Emeralds, Princess?" Despite how incredibly creepy that sounded, I decided to play along. "Indeed. As their Guardian it is my duty to ensure their safety. Say, would you part with them in exchange for coin?" I'm sure he smiled under his guise. "It is possible, but I can sell only the entire collection. Only together can they show their full power. This Power Ring is a free bonus to them. The entire set costs eighty dollars." Eighty dollars for this? I'm not an expert, but these Emeralds seemed to be of a really high quality for something fake. I leaned forward and saw how they were shining in the open sunlight. If I didn't knew better, I'd say they were the real deal. I smiled. "Okay, I accept. However, I can promise you that if I suddenly find myself in Equestria because of this trade, things are gonna get ugly," I said, hoping he’d get the joke - the setting was too familiar in my opinion to be accidental. Turns out I was right. "And I can promise you that in such case all your efforts to return to this world would be for nothing," he chuckled. I handed him the money and took the jewelery box and Power Ring. "Oh, and one more thing!" he said when I was already heading the other way. I looked back. "It's dangerous to go alone. Take him!" And then... he created a fucking fireball in his hands and threw it at me. Everything went black. * Blaze actually did so once. Silver decided to collect as many rings as he could and then check if a world would get lag after him losing them all at once. The world was fine - probably one thousand five hundred seventy-six rings wasn't enough. Silver's expression after premature release of the rings was very rewarding and definitely worth that terrible feeling of guilt... like she had kicked a cute puppy. Author's Note I have two messages for you. One for the ones that does check my blog's entries and one for everyone else. For the first group: I'm sorry it took so long, unfortunately my assumption turned out to be incorrect. For the second group: the next two chapters are already at my proofreaders' desks, the fifth one is a crossover and it's almost done. I guess that's all. Hope you liked it. Chapter 3 - Everfree Forest is the best pony [after proofreading... kind of]A monarch can work in two ways. They can either have a boring day of filing paperwork or suffer a really... hectic time. And nothing in between. Sometimes it makes you wonder which case is worse, as bad as it sounds. Princess Celestia did ponder about this. Right now it was clear that bureaucracy was much better than action. Recent events had put in motion a set of dangerous factors. Nopony could foresee the circumstances, but there was no doubt it would end badly. Such things happen when Prince Blueblood, aka. Royal Pain, actually tries to do something in politics for a change and accidentally insults the ambassador of Saddle Arabia by telling a bad joke about the saddles in general. As a result, Princess Celestia had to write a very, very good apology letter. It wasn't hard. She explained it was caused by cultural differences, that the saddles in Equestria have some bad history tied to Queen Platinum, that it was a reminder of enslavement of earth ponies by unicorns in pre-equestrian era... It was a good letter, really. Unfortunately, Princess made one serious mistake in its content - at one point she tried to belittle the entire problem. If the Saddle Arabians were resentful before, now they were completely enraged. Celestia had forgotten the importance of saddles in this old fashioned country... which was very embarrassing, since they put this word even in their country’s name. Now she wasn't only dealing with an international scandal, but with an international controversial debate about disrespect towards the culture of developing countries. Celestia sighed. It seemed she could no longer dispel the tension, since now the Saddle Arabians actually wanted this quarrel. After a few more minutes of flicking through a big pile of letters she decided to take a short break. She put all correspondence aside and raised a cup of tea in her magical grasp. Suddenly the door to the throne room burst open. What? You aren't surprised? You expected some action exactly in this moment since this is how every fanfic works? Wow, guys... Just wow. I need to came up with something surprising in the nearest future... Let's get back to the plot. "Your majesty!" shouted the Royal Guard, who galloped inside. Princess Celestia sighed once again and looked at the messenger. Duties first, enjoyment second. "Yes, my guard? What is it?" The guardspony took off his helmet and looked at his hooves in shame and slight fear. "Your highness, there was... there was a prison break half an hour ago in the Canterlot Citadel. The main prisoners have escaped." The teacup shattered on the floor in a million pieces. "Your highness?" inquired the uneasy guard. Celestia finally blinked. "The Duo?" "Yes, your majesty." Celestia looked down on the pile of letters, now covered in the tea. Suddenly the entire commotion with the saddles sounded like a very small and easy to fix problem. "Thank you for this news, my little pony, despite how grim it is. Dismissed." The guard put on his helmet with a noticeable relief and left the throne room. Celestia stood up and did the same, stopping for a second when passing guardsponies on the sides of the door. "Please, find captain Shining Armor and inform him he needs to immediately convoke a council of war. I will be waiting with my sister in the war room." with these words she disappeared from their sight. The stallions looked at each other with astonishment and anxiety. They had never received an order like this one before. Before they went into action Celestia reappeared for a second. "Also, tell the maids that's where they will serve afternoon tea." The guardsponies relaxed a bit. That was a much more familiar request. The city of Canterlot was a very easy place to escape from. Yes, it was. Especially when you possess an ability to fly or somehow slow down a deadly fall (so no cookies for you, earth ponies... again). This place wasn't created as a fortress. It had a lot of weak points. It was hanging. Have you ever wondered what would happen if something happened to... whatever is supporting this place? I did, and I think it would be a very sad day for all of Equestria. Especially for Ponyville. Which would take the impact. And that's not all. The city was built on terraces. You could just jump from the higher one to a lower level. It made navigating very easy, since I no longer had to rely on Silver in order to find the shortest way to the edge of the city. Also, now I could run on rooftops, as if I wasn't already feeling incredibly powerful. Silver was flying close by, keeping up with me without any problems since I wasn't in any hurry. I couldn't accelarate too much with how often I had to jump over the street below, but it was already too late for the Princesses to stop us - if we wanted to escape from any situation, nothing at this side of the Void could keep up with us. Simple as that. It took us a minute to get to the edge of the last terrace, which gives Canterlot a pretty small size (but, once again, we weren't in a hurry; I could cross that distance on a flat field in fifteen seconds max). There happened to be two unicorn officers (after all, only officers actually use swords). We used on them the most basic technique in the entire history of Sonic games - we just crashed into them. Yep. That's it. I'm pretty sure we are in some bad fanfic (I've read enough about Displaced to know that), so in case you don't get how we could survive such a collision, let me explain. First, I defy laws of physics, so I can get up after a collision with a brick wall at four hundred miles per hour. Second, if you are going fast enough, you actually barely feel any backlash upon impact with something. No, I'm telling the truth. That's why you need to hit very fast in karate in order to break anything except your bones. The universe needs some time to realize you delivered the blow before the third law of Newton kicks in and messes you up. If you are fast enough, you can retreat or smash through things before they make you sorry. In other words, it protected us, but definitely not the guards. Someone was going to the hospital pretty soon. "Nice. I collected twenty rings, I'm safe for now," declared Silver, leaning against the barrier of the terrace. I smiled and prepared a big fireball. "Wait. What are you... argh!" I burst out laughing when Silver got hit in the face and landed on his ass. Right after that all twenty rings... shot out of his body all around him. No other way to put it. He scowled and stood up quickly in order to gather his rings after receiving damage which would kill a normal person. What? Don't look at me like that. It's not like he felt all of it - we feel real pain only if we are struck while having no rings. Otherwise it's just a stinging sensation similiar to being hit with the full force in the face by a sea wave. Ironically, that was Silver’s own description of it, as I recall. "Very funny," stated Silver with a frown. There was no bruise after my attack; rings were a wonderful protection. Thanks to this it was very hard to really anger him... or maybe it was just Silver being Silver. He usually was happy again after finding some new toy or getting an opportunity for a stupid joke. Surprise, surprise, it was the case once more! Silver picked up two rapiers from the fallen guards. He smiled broadly. "No." Silver did his best to recreate the famous disarming move of Puss in Boots. It wasn't enough - hedgehogs aren't good at being cute and fluffy. "Just no. And don't you even dare to make a joke about Sir Percival." Silver snorted. "Fine. But it doesn't mean I can't wield a sword! This world better be prepared, for Sir Galahad shall strike swiftly!" Right after that Silver once again lost his rings. At long last I decided I had enough of this pointless banter and jumped over the edge of the platform, leaving everything in the hands of gravity. Shining Armor was very uneasy this afternoon. Okay... that was a big understatement. In the course of his career, he had been ordered to prepare a military council only once, right after Discord's escape. It... ended badly. Discord decided to leave the Elements of Harmony to themselves for a few minutes, and in this short time he completely crushed the meeting. Shining still had nightmares about a flying spaghetti monster. Now the circumstances seemed a bit milder (laws of physics were working without difficulties), but this time almost nopony knew much about the threat. So far Shining was only aware of some prison break, but he had yet to learn of the details. The Princesses had obviously decided to wait with explanations until all the military commanders arrived. Finally the door to the war room opened, admitting the Princess of the Sun.. There was a short moment of silence, in which Shining assumed that Celestia was pondering how to announce the news. Not a good sign. The assembled officers were casting troubled glances at each other. "Thank you for your quick arrival, everypony. Your devotion to our country is appreciated," started Celestia. "I'm sorry I had to summon you all here so suddenly, but the matter is urgent. Two dangerous prisoners escaped from Canterlot Citadel this morning." Some of the military commanders relaxed. "If it’s just a criminal from the Citadel, then why was this meeting arranged? It doesn't look like a danger to the entirety of Equestria," remarked general Blunt Edge. "Because they weren't standard prisoners, general," said Princess Luna, up until then grimly looking at the table. "They were imprisoned for almost eleven centuries and for a good reason. It's... Dawwkward Duo." Silence has fallen once more, but this time a lot of members of council had to stop themselves from snickering. Celestia looked a bit embarrassed. "...as an afterthought, we shouldn't call them such a ridiculous name, sister," commented Luna. "Your highness, you can’t possibly be serious," stated Shining Armor. "The Duo is a tale, a little scary story that makes foals behave." "Not all stories about them are real, captain," Celestia continued her explanation. "Blaze definitely wasn't born in Tartarus, she isn't using a burning whip as a weapon, Silver can't read minds and they are both only slightly bigger than the average pony. But everything else is at least partially true." The atmosphere was once again grievous - it was clear the Princesses weren't joking. "Then... who are they, really?" asked one of the generals. Celestia winced. "The most persistent, mad, deceitful and annoying terrorists in Equestrian history. I guess we should start at the beginning, from their first attack..." "So." Blaze looked up from little campfire she just started. "So?" "What should we do now?" I specified, sitting down across the flames, first making sure there wasn't anything nasty in the grass. It become a custom of mine ever since I accidentally took a seat on a splinter while having no rings. Learn from my mistake and never sit down without some pants on... I should find some pants. It won't be easy, it's ponyland after all, but a man can't run around naked, even if nothing indecent is on the view (thank God it was because of the sheath... fans were making so many jokes about that). "Didn't you ask me about this at the prison?" "No, I asked about our overall plan. Now I'm asking about this specific moment." She shook her head in pity. "You truly can’t think for yourself, do you? You always need someone's orders?" "Eeyup. But don't worry, I've just received an order from my stomach. There’s gotta be a chilli dog stand somewhere around here, and I’m gonna find it.” Blaze looked at me blankly. “We’re in ponyland, remember? Nothing but fruit salad here. And I’m already stuck with one.” “I’ll think of something!” I called back, already heading deeper into the forest. Ah, Everfree... it is indeed a perfect place for a camp, as long as you weren't an order-loving pony. Don't get me wrong, I have nothing against ponies... not much, anyway. They are just so... timid. When they can't control and understand everything, everypony runs in circles and screams. This place might be full of wild animals, but that sort of thing never stopped human explorers, right? A timberwolf here, a cragadile there... nothing my telekinesis or Blaze's flames couldn't handle. It was so nice of the Princesses to leave such a place intact in the heart of Equestria. No need to search too far for a hideout. Such a perfect place for every villain. After a few minutes of walking I stumbled upon a river. Good, problem of supply solved. I raised my hands and just levitated a fish out of the water. Hah! You jealous, fishermen? I gently put my future meal next to me and repeated the action several times. When I was done, I took one of them and with some difficulties put it in my hidden pocket. What pocket, you might ask? True, I don't wear any clothing outside of my gloves and boots, so I don't have any normal pockets. I'll answer this with another question. Have you ever wondered how Silver and many other video game characters are able to carry bulky remote controls, emeralds bigger than their heads, and radar scanners without any visible way to do so? I usually called it "pulling things out of my ass", because that's how it looked in Sonic games - our good ol’ blue hedehog is always just reaching behind his back and pulling Chaos Emeralds out of nowhere. After many awkward episodes in the first days of our banishment, me and Blaze found out that we have small pockets leading to miniature parallel dimensions; sort of like Bags of Holding for you D&D nuts. We wasted a lot of time on removing all the junk we accidentally put in there... Anyway, as long as an item fits in my hand, it can be stored there. And I have HUGE hands, so a few fishes throwing themselves in all directions are nothing. If you think that's strange, you wouldn't find a word to describe what happened next. It involved a random rain of various books, crystals and sharp objects, most of them landing on my head. No, mom, I swear I wasn't drinking with friends at the party... "Wait, your highness. I need to check to see that I understand everything correctly." Shining Armor rubbed his temple. "So... these two came to Equestria and released a powerful monster in the middle of a village. Said monster got out of their control and wreaked havoc across the land. In the meantime, Silver and Blaze decided to side with Discord once he appeared in Equestria in order to gather fourteen powerful artifacts they claimed were theirs. Shortly before the fall of their master, they found one of them and attempted to restore control over the monster with its help." Celestia nodded. "That is correct, captain. And since she was the one performing the ritual, Blaze couldn't fight and had to rely on Silver the Hedgehog on keeping us occupied. Fortunately, me and my sister managed to overpower him and imprison both in ice. Afterwards we banished the beast to the depths of Tartarus, where it has been imprisoned ever since." "Speaking of which," cut in general Blunt Edge with a frown on his face. "Why were these terrorists sentenced to Canterlot Citadel and not Tartarus? Even better, why weren't they just imprisoned in stone?" "It is because we deemed it unwise to keep them too far from Canterlot," explained Luna. "In order to restrain them, we had to use enchanted, temperature-absorbing limiters and make sure Silver remains ever unconscious. In the scorching heat of Tartarus, there is no way to easily maintain a freezing spell. As for the imprisonment in stone, at the time we weren't sure how long the Elements' effects would last. We used it on Discord only because there was no other option. Ice was a much more foolproof way; there was no chance of failure since we completely understand how this kind of magic works." In Shining's opinion it indeed sounded like a good enough solution. He decided to move this discussion forward. "Now we know the origin of the prisoners, but before we start to search for them, we need to figure out what they are after." "We do know what they are after." Celestia rose from her seat and a gem appeared in the middle of the table. "The Chaos Emeralds." The Emerald, despite its name, was yellow. It was cut in a brilliant shape and was of impressive size. However, the most fascinating trait was its glow - the gem was a source of light in itself. Shining Armor looked at the Princesses curiously. "What makes them so valuable?" Celestia grabbed the Emerald with her hoof and brought it closer to her. "They possess incredible power, power we still don't fully comprehend. For a long time we thought they were created by Discord as a weapon against the Elements of Harmony, but experiments conducted over a hundred years ago with advanced equipment revealed they are much older than Discord himself. The only other explanation comes from Silver, who stated, and I quote: "The Emeralds were brought to this world along with us, their owners, as a way to make shit happen."” One of the generals, who happened to be drinking tea at the time, choked. "I'm sorry, but that's exactly how he put it. Afterwards he added: "The servers are the Seven Chaos... Chaos is power, enriched by the heart... The controller exists to unify the chaos." It is still unclear what he meant by that, but we suspect Silver is this controller of Chaos Emeralds, while Blaze affects the Sol Emeralds in the same way." "Sol Emeralds are similiar to Chaos Emeralds." Luna decided her sister needed some break in explanations. "It is said they have similiar power stored in them, but for some reason, ever since they appeared in Equestria, they weren't glowing, which makes them useless for anypony." Shining looked at the Chaos Emerald. He sensed no magic coming from it; that, however, was absurd, since only magic stored in gems could make them glow. "What kind of power are we talking about, here?" Luna shook her head. "It is, once again, a mystery. This energy was called 'chaos' by Silver and Blaze, but it is clear it's not only not Discord's magic, it also isn't magic at all. It... it is a hole in the laws of physics. With a lot of concentration it can be used, though it is very dangerous. The only information about the Emeralds' power comes, again, from Dawwkward Duo. They can be used to transform a thought into power, and if the entire set is in the same place... a miracle happens. No, we do not know what kind of miracle. In short, we know very little about them, while our enemy seems to know quite a lot." "But we know we cannot let the Dawwkward Duo find them," Celestia declared. "Even one Emerald gives them frightening power, to say nothing of all seven. All the Chaos Emeralds were long ago hidden in safe places, while some Sol Emeralds went missing. We have to focus on Silver and Blaze. If we give them enough time, they will retrieve the Emeralds and it will be too late to stop them from whatever they aim to do to our world." Shining smiled. "Where do we start?" "You need to learn of their abilites first and inform your guards, Captain Shining Armor." With a glow coming from Luna's horn an illusion of a strange creature appeared in the middle of the table. "We will start with Silver the Hedgehog." "He doesn't look like a hedgehog," stated one of the generals. "That's how he identified himself. Let's start with powers." Luna looked down on a list she prepared. "His main ability is a very weird kind of telekinesis - it is not a spell in his case. We tried to defeat him by placing a magic limiter on him once, and he didn't even seem to notice. He also possesses no visible aura, but both Silver and Blaze claim he actually does and it is azure in color. He perfected this skill to a point when he can create and throw a giant ball made up from all kinds of things pressed together. He can also levitate a group of items and throw them with deadly precision and speed. It is extremely dangerous to get close to him even when he has nothing to attack with - he can immobilize anypony with his telekinesis and then throw them like anything else. Among his abilities is also a short distance teleportation and attacking with small waves of pure telekinetic energy. He usually travels by levitating himself at high speed, mostly at almost eighty miles per hour. He can reach twice as much if given a good reason, but it burns out his telekinesis very quickly*." The silence was so dense you could cut it with a knife. "Those are all his psychic abilites. Without them he can still move fast, but it is still a much less insane pace. He has a great physical and magical endurance. A lot of spells have no effect on him, and most of the rest is weaker against him. He has two strange reactions to blows that should be fatal - most of the time he starts to flicker, disappearing and reappearing for exactly three seconds. In other cases he just completly vanishes for ten seconds. There is also one more attribute to him - as long as he holds something, either by hand or telekinesis, it cannot be affected by magic in any form." Finally, general Blunt Edge had enough. "How are we supposed to stop somepony so absurdly strong?!" Luna smiled. "Silver has a weakness. If he is abusing telekinetic abilities, he quickly gains a terrible headache, which is so strong it keeps him from using his powers for several seconds. Sometimes it can even immobilize him. It's all about surviving until his skill fails him. Now, let's talk about his behavior, personality and other characteristic features. "Silver is very courageous, sometimes even to the point of foolishness. He seems very childish most of the time, but do not let him fool you, he is a very sly criminal. He isn't afraid to use your greatest weaknesses against you." 1089 years earlier... *knock, knock* "Hellooooo! Did somebo... somepony order pizza? I have pizza! Tasty and still hot!" The door opened. "A pizza, you say? Eeyup, we ordered it, I'm definitely not trying to cheat you into givi... Hold on. What are you?! You aren't the delivery colt!" "Wow, seriously?! I can't believe it really worked! Oh, whatever. Here, Mr. Guard, here is your delivery... WITH EXTRA KNUCKLES!" "Silver is an excellent shot, and has no mercy for his enemies. What makes him the most dangerous, however, is his ignorance when it comes to diplomacy and all rights connected to it. It's no use to try to talk to him, he'll just attack you anyway unless he is powerless at the time. In this case he will play for time until he is ready to fight." Again 1089 years earlier... "We art sending a messenger to thou, Princess Blaze!" announced Royal Canterlot Voice. "Do not dare to charm him!" Blaze rolled her eyes. "There is nothing they could give us in exchange for their own castle," she said to Silver. "Let's just wait until Discord is back from the Badlands. He’ll redecorate the fortress and we’ll be on our merry way. It's not like they’ll bombard their own home. Silver, scare off this little horse." "Okay!" *CRASH!* "Silver..." "I'm sorry! I was aiming at the ground in front of him!" "Thou dare to throw a piano at my messenger?! How dare thou?! Commander, bring the catapults!" "Do not expect Silver to act logically. He is mad without any doubt and you need to be prepared for anything when fighting him. Especially distracting exclamations." Once again 1089 years earlier... "Come at me, bro! When I’m done with you, you will see stars brighter than the one this planet revolves around!" "...but the sun revolves around the planet, not the other way around." "...not only weird, but also stupid as well? Damn, you are a hard case, that’s for sure. What’s next, is that brand on your ass is some kind of a prophecy?" "Well, actually..." "And one more weakness you can exploit: he protects Blaze by all means. There is nothing he won't do to save his boss. There is no doubt he holds much respect for her, and despite her terrible behavior towards him he sees her not only as a great leader, but also the most powerful warrior there is. His faith in her is fanatical." You know the drill... "Dost thou still disrespect us?! Dost thou not see our strength?! We art Celestia, the Princess of Flames!" "Nah." "What dost thou mean by 'nah'?!" "There are two women in this room who control fire... and I have no doubt that Blaze’s flames are much hotter than yours, if you know what I mean." In the next second Silver was hit by two fireballs at once. "I think that's all you should know about Silver," finished Princess Luna. "Now let's get to Blaze the Cat." The illusion of a hedgehog disappeared, replaced shortly by that of his companion. "She doesn't look like a c—" "Yes, we get it, general, they don't remind us of the animals they claim they are. We suspect they are either from a distant land or a result of Discord's magic." "Back to the topic." Celestia decided to return to discussion. "Blaze, as her name implies, is a pyrokinetic. She has the power to set on fire a part or the entirety of her body. Thanks to this, she possesses a unique set of attacks and abilities. Her physical attacks are strengthened by flames, so even one hit from her might end tragically. She often turns herself into a burning projectile and causes disarray on the battlefield, and almost at all times she is protected by a cloak of flames. Sometimes she summons large columns of fire, which rise from the ground. Pyrokinesis also enhances her mobility - she can propel herself high above the ground or soar through the air. There is also one extremely important detail - her control over flames is not restricted to the ones created by her. There is no noticable time limit to her ability. Blaze's secondary skill is how fast she can run. We don't know her maximum accomplishments in this regard, since we had no opportunity to precisely check it a thousand years ago, but we assume her favourite pace is somewhere around one hundred miles per hour, however she can easily increase that speed up to one hundred and seventy when the need arises. Both abilities have no connection to magic." Celestia checked on her list if she said everything about Blaze's powers there was to say. "That would be all when it comes to her exceptionally dangerous traits. Blaze also possesses many of the main physical features of her subordinate: endurance, magic resistance, strange reaction to blows that should have been fatal. The only difference is her much better tolerance to high temperatures. She has no known weak points. That's all." Luna flipped through her own notes about their enemy. "Blaze has a much more interesting background and personality than Silver. Without any orders from his boss he seemed almost friendly to ponies, but she was annoyed at best and furious at worst in all meetings with civilians. She harbors unexplained hatred towards ponykind. Additionally, if our intelligence is right, she is or at least was a ruler in some distant, unknown country. Thanks to this and her attitude we can assume she had probably lost her crown in her homeland and decided to conquer Equestria." "SILVER! I told you to just keep throwing stuff at this crazy horse, not waste all your ammo on Meteor Smash... which missed!" "Well, excuuuuuuse me, Princess!" "Blaze has even less mercy on her enemies than Silver. She’s committed crimes against laws so fundamental and innate that there wasn't even any rule stating how severe the punishment should be! And all of that just to get a cheap shot at the beginning of our fight." Princess Celestia was looking straight at the building covered in flames. She couldn't move; the fear paralyzed her. How... how could she? How could she burn this place with a knowledge of its purpose?! Celestia fell to her knees, dropped her magical shield she was keeping up for three days, raised her muzzle to the night sky and took a deep breath. ... ... ... ... "NOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO!!! WHY THE ROYAL BAKERY?!!!" "Finally! I was waiting here for ten minutes!" *WHOOOOSH* And that was when a heel hit Celestia's nose at the speed of one hundred and seventy four miles per hour. "During the chase, remember to be always watchful - Blaze is a great strategist and her wisdom is obscured only by her hatred. She greatly enjoys bringing pain to innocents and making even the toughest stallions scream for mercy. It is the main reason why ponies still call her 'a Princess of Tartarus' and describe her as a burning demon whose only desire is to immolate the entire world, which is allegedly why we are at this distance still feeling the warmth of her so-called prison, the sun. Be always alert." "Halt, evildoer! You are under arrest!" exclaimed the captain of the Royal Guard, dashing towards his enemy along with his fellow guardsponies. Blaze was calmly sitting on a rock at the other side of the river. A group of twelve panting unicorns finaly finished their so-called 'chase' and hesitated for a second. "Into the river, soldiers!" came the order, and nopony had any doubts anymore. Technicolor horses jumped into the water and started to swim across, not aware what was going to happen in a matter of a few seconds. "I think you shouldn't swim in the cold water after your little warm-up. You could get thermal shock," Blaze pointed out. "Here, let me help you." In her hands appeared two fireballs. Ever since that day those particular guardsponies were taking only cold showers. "I guess that's all you need to know about your enemies," stated Princess Celestia, and then looked up to Shining Armor. "Captain Armor, this enemy can't be defeated just by brutal strength. We will need an advanced strategy." An advanced strategy? No problem for me. "Since they're pursuing Chaos Emeralds, we could use that against them... Where are the Emeralds?" The Royal Sisters looked sheepishly at each other. "...ah, you see, that's the problem..." * I was thinking a lot on how to solve a little dilemma about characters' speed. If we were to estimate Sonic's speed only by games, it is clear he simply can't reach the speed of sound - obviously nobody could play at such speed. Because of that (and because Silver and Blaze are already powerful enough) I decided to ignore what SEGA said about their mascot outside of gameplay. We know Blaze is considered either an All-Around or Speed Type - she isn't as fast as Sonic, but she can still run at incredible speed. Silver is a bit slower than Sonic when using his telekinesis to fly (I ignore Sonic Rivals - he would be just OP with all these powers combined). In the end I said 'F*ck it, I'll do whatever I want' and decided to give characters an ability to easily reach and surpass the speed of sound, which however is very dangerous for everything and everyone nearby, so they simply won’t run/fly at such speed under normal conditions. Author's Note Here it is. I left the fandom for a few months and even before I had few reasons to actually continue this fic, so with as little support from readers as I receive, you guys have to get used to at least a month long break between chapters. So thats a first problem. Second? My main proofreader has decided to quit, so now you got half baked chapter (and you still will, unless I'll find someone new). Now move along, citizen. Chapter 4 - Things to do: create an interdimenshional artifact, set village on fire, borrow a book [not proofreaded - you read at your own risk]It's very awkward to be a center of a solar system. Yep, I'm strange, no one should have such thoughts. In my position it makes more sense. You see, I have a certain... impulse when it comes to things falling on my head. I suppose I acquired it in all those small clashes with Royal Guards, when they actually decided to come up with some strategy, like shooting a hail of arrows at us. In such situations I were just freezing everything heading my way with my telekinesis. The problem? All this shit was revolving around me as if I was some fucking star. It was often pretty embarrassing - big or scary objects were just fine, but can you really take seriously someone who has a roll of toilet paper flying around his head? Now I was walking through woods with a big cloud of various items following me. Once some... things started to fall from the sky, I decided to pick them up with my power - I was too lazy to put them in my invisible pocket. Don't look at me like that! Carrying objects that fall from the sky is a very wise strategy, almost all games agree about that. Anyway, they were mostly coins, strange gems, amulets and various weapons. I was also holding a few ordinary rocks and a timberwolf... no, he didn't fall from the sky, he jumped on me on my way back. I wonder if timberwolves can be tamed... it would be awesome to have a tamed timberwolf. I think I’d call him Eastwood. It seems I wasn't the only one who experienced some issues with physics - back at the fireplace Blaze was gathering an entire stack of similiar items. "Okay... do you happen to know what all this shit is?" I asked. Blaze looked at me with disapproval. I don't get it - she has no problem with swearing herself, but gets all grumpy when I do that. I once questioned her about this and she said it was very out of character for Silver. Go figure. "Totems or tokens, whatever suits you. I recognize some of them. They are from other Displaced and can be used to communicate with them." Displaced... it sounded familiar. I think Blaze mentioned it once. "And by Displaced you mean...?" "Other people cheated by the Merchant and banished to Equestria in different universes." "Oh, right. Now I remember. We met that displaced fish woman with a spear, Undinner, I think. I wonder how is she after a thousand years... You mentioned some of those Displaced might help us escape." "Indeed." Blaze sat down and closed her eyes. "A lot of them are useless pony-loving faggots or they got too much into the role and become evil overlords, but some could be helpful." "Yeah. It would be unbelievable if we were the only pair of trolls who want to show a middle finger to the Merchant." I picked up some black stone with a strange rune. "So... how does it work?" Blaze's eyes snapped open. "Don't you dare to summon anyone without my knowledge... especially him. We have enough trouble with Chaos Emeralds as it is." I sat down next to her and started to put all the tokens into my pocket, one at time. "Speaking of Emeralds, any idea how are we going to find them? You can sense Sol Emeralds, but I'm not Knuckles, there’s no chaos shards' detector in my head." My companion answered instantly. "We will raid a library in Ponyville. Knowing these ponies, all necessary information is just in some book not read by anyone. Idiots... But there is one thing to do first." Blaze stood up. In her right hand suddenly appeared a power ring. "Let's create our own tokens." I shrugged. "Fine by me." I pulled my own ring from my pocket. It was different from other rings - I bought it from the Merchant along with the Chaos Emeralds, and unlike others I don't lose that one no matter how much damage I take. Unfortunately it also doesn't protect like other power rings. "How am I supposed to do that?" "It's very simple. You just take an item and tell a speech of sorts, which explains who you are and what is your goal. Let me show you." Blaze raised the ring to her face. "I am Blaze, wielder of fire and a tamer of the Flames of Disaster. My wrath is devastating and my speed unmatched. Call upon me, enemies of the Merchant, for I shall do whatever it takes to bring him to justice for what he had done to all of us. This I can promise to you." And then... nothing happened. Blaze frowned. "I don't get it. Why doesn't it work? It worked for the others." "Maybe you were acting too much out of character?" I suggested. "You usually don't use big words to declare what you want." She gave me an ominous look. "Silver, you are walking on very shaky ground..." Oh come on, why can't she take a joke? "And no, talking like that is normal when it comes to the creation of the token." "I still think you just need to act more like yourself. Watch and learn." I cleared my throat in order to prepare the world for one of my great ideas. "My name is Silver, Silver the Hedgehog. I travel across time and space as a Jedi of sorts in search of adventure, swag, shit and giggles. You want to kick some ass, find a magical artifact, or simply hang out with a wonderful, handsome guy? If so, then just summon me! Blaze is sometimes too much even for me and I'd gladly meet someone new. Ciao!" I wish you guys could see Blaze’s face when my token started glowing. Unfortunately I can't bend the fourth wall that much and I'm afraid the author might be too lazy to draw something, so you just have to settle for my words. Anyway, shortly after that her ring lightened up too. Both items raised into the air and floated towards each other. Somehow they connected like two links of the chain and cloned themselves. Then they did it again. And again. And again... Okay. I guess I should warn you before all of that - don't expect too much logic from this world. The two original rings separated and returned to their owners, and the copies disappeared in a black vortex... I guess that was this famous interdimensional Void. A bit disappointing in my opinion. Blaze facepalmed. "Splendid. Even the Void states we are doomed for each other." I smiled. "I personally don't mind that my life is linked with yours. Oh, how romantic that sounds!" Yeah, I didn't manage to avoid her incoming fist. I angrily munched a sapphire. I was left behind. Again. The return of Nightmare Moon? He could blame only himself. Discord? Too busy with spitting out all those scrolls. However, his sister insisted on keeping him away from troublemakers in all cases. True, Twilight wanted the best for him, but it didn't mean she should always leave him behind. He was strong. Let's say some fire monster appeared in Ponyville and started to demolish the town hall. With his fireproof scales he surely would be allowed to at least watch, right? Wrong. Do you know why I am sure? Because this is exactly what happened. After Applejack galloped into the library and informed Twilight about the attack, I was told to stay here and wait for them. I wish that for once I was in the spotlight. *crash* "Argh! Who in the right mind places a pile of sharp rocks next to the window?! Someone could get hurt!" I stiffened and slowly turned around. Right next to me was sitting... a thing. A very big, white thing. "That would be me." That was the first thing I said. "Don't you know it's irresponsible to do that? If someone were to enter through the window, they would land right on them! What’s next? Shards of Christmas tree’s decorations?" I looked at the entrance to the library. "But... why the window? The door’s better." The creature shoke his head. "No, no, that's just too normal. Do I look normal to you?" I paid closer attention to the visitor as he stood up. He had huge hands with the gloves, each one easily as big as my head. He was also wearing a navy-blue boots. His head was covered by quills. I couldn't even tell what he was. "No, you are a weirdo." "Indeed, so obviously I couldn't ent... hey, that's not nice! Ugh... Look, could you just point out where are the books about history and magical artifacts?" Another normal day in Ponyville. It would be funny if it wasn't so true. Huh... so that's why I was hit by the lightning when I raised that wooden pole back in medieval Equestria. Interesting. But I digress, I should prepare the meal. I closed the book and pulled out the fish. Blaze was right again, almost everything was simply in the history books. It took some time, but finally I found three helpful volumes. Obviously I couldn't simply borrow them (no library card and no way to obtain one right away), so I just flew out of the ~~tree~~ ~~library~~ treebrary, almost instantly returning to the Everfree. For some reason the little dragon was screaming something about being grounded because of me... meh. Not my problem. My friend didn't return for another half an hour... Seriously, she really thinks it would take me so much time to steal a book? My pride is hurt. At this point I was already at the fourth fish. "Do you have it?" was the first thing she asked. "Mhm. You know, we didn't miss out much during our imprisonment. The last millenium was very calm," I answered, finishing cutting the fish with a telekinesis. I handed it to Blaze. Blaze removed her right glove and took the fish. Shortly after that she was holding a perfectly cooked piece of meat - her pyrokinesis unlike my power could be very precise. Yes, I count fish as meat. Shut up. My POV, my rules. "Whatever. Where are the Emeralds?" "We know only about two of them, others are either missing or their location is classified. Dragon Wasteland and Manehattan. The dragon king isn't exactly subtle, he likes to show off his 'symbol of friendship with Equestria'. The second one is in a museum. I also think the Princesses have at least one Emerald." "I see. That's troublesome," said Blaze, sticking another fish on the stick and setting it aside to cool down. "We will need an Emerald to get to the Dragon Wasteland." "So we will hit the museum, since we are sure only about this Emerald," I concluded. "When?" "Tomorrow." Blaze pulled something out of her interdimensional pocket. "Want some apples? I stole them myself." "To the fish? I'm not THAT dumb." "Your highnesses..." The two royals stopped their chess match and looked towards the general. "In light of recent events, the council decided it would be wise to speed up the operation. Do we have your approval, your highnesses?" There was no hesitation. "Of course, general," said older sister. "It is time." The next day, at the train station in Ponyville... Express Delivery yawned loudly. He hated to work in the morning - in his opinion 'carrying packages' and 'the morning' should've never been put in the same sentence. Well, he couldn't exactly do anything about the mystical magic of cutie marks, coudn't he? At least it wasn't a troublesome transport, just some clothes. At least that's what he thought. His hopes were dashed once he tried to lift the biggest crate. "Oh my Celestia, my spine! Those are clothes? What are they made of nowadays, wood?" he exclaimed, dropping the crate. He looked at the label. Apparently it was a delivery of suits from 'Lady Rarity' to 'Mister Scooter'. That explained much. The stallion shrugged and decided to call for help. "Boys, help me with this. It's heavier than my wife." Thanks to the combined effort of three ponies the box in the end landed in the destined place at the train. After it went other packages and ten minutes later the porters closed the door to the freight car. The silence didn't last long. "I still think we should enter two different crates. Three cubic yards* are definitely not enough." "Don't grumble. This one was the biggest I could find. Knowing our luck, with two different crates we would get loaded into two different trains," answered Blaze, but without any enthusiasm. "Couldn't we just run to Manehattan? It wouldn't take much time." "But it would gather a lot of attention. We don't want the Princesses to find out what are we going to do." Silence. "Blaze." "What?" "I didn't go to the toilet this morning." "...somehow I knew you were going to say that." * Or over two cubic meters. Suit yourself. Author's Note This chapter is shorter, but the next one is a crossover, so I decided to cut it right here. Expect evil robots, shiny Emeralds and lots of lasers.
Chapter 1 - Use the Force, dude, use the Force! [after proofreading]Let me ask you something. Have you ever had frostbite? All right. I can't hear nor see you from this side of the fourth wall, so you can peacefully continue your silence with a clear conscience (if you actually were trying to answer, I'm deeply concerned about your mental health). If you haven't, good for you - you don't know my suffering. My legs were frozen, my arms were frozen, heck, even my brain was frozen. Such a state was normal for the last few hundred years, as I was to find out soon. It's a good thing I was comatose all this time... I would hit with a rock anyone who was petrified in one place for centuries, because such a person simply CANNOT be sane and harmless. Anyway, I was blessed with a consciousness and a lack of feeling in my everything for the last ten minutes. I'm not in a good mood. Seriously, the difference of five degrees. That's all I needed to wake up. Someone must have been really careless - you can't just increase heating in my cell. Only this cold was keeping me restricted; once it's warm enough, my brain can actually do something practical. For example? Process sounds delivered by my left ear, probably the only part of me not covered entirely in ice. Wait... I think there is also... YES! A tip of my tail is free, and… OWW! Moving it hurts. Yeah, that's helpful... Looking at the bright side, I apparently managed to close my eyes before I found out how a TV dinner feels all those years ago, so they’ll probably still work. "I don't get it. Why are we even guarding this place? It's just some ice blocks, why are they in prison?" Guards. Of course. What else did I expect? "What, you don't know...? Oooh, I get it. A rookie?" Wonderful. I'm guarded by some noobs. Really, Princesses? No wonder your ponies actually know what "epic monster of the week" means. "...Yeah." "That's okay, everyone was a newbie at the beginning. Allow me to illuminate you - in these ice blocks are imprisoned two of the most deadly enemies of Equestria - the Dawwkward Duo." ...wait, what did you just say? "They’re real?!" "Of course. Also, I suggest reading some good history books - nopony nowadays seems to do that. The Ministry of Education is really bucked up. That's the only way of explaining all of this. I nearly lost my faith in ponykind when half of the recruits admitted to their ignorance about Princess Luna's origin." DAWWKWARD DUO?! CEEEEELEEEEESTIAAAAAA! "It's just... they are so weird, you know? Levitation, flying, setting everything on fire and running at the speed of sound without any kind of magic? Like a fairytale for foals." "Apparently all real. In the end they both got frozen during their last fight and ended up here. Every night some important unicorn comes from Canterlot University and reinforces the original spell. The feline also has this heat-absorbing armor or something, so it can't free itself. The hedgehog is not resistant to extreme temperatures, so he sleeps peacefully without any additional gadgets, like always." WHEN WE GET OUT OF HERE THERE WILL BE A RECKONING FOR THIS DISGRACE, CELESTIA! I WILL RIP OFF YOUR HORN AND SHOVE IT AS DEEP INTO YOUR FLANK AS HUMANLY AND INHUMANLY POSSIBLE! YOUR FATE WILL GIVE A BIRTH TO A COMPLETELY NEW TYPE OF HORROR MOVIES AND POP CULTURE REFERENCES! AND ALL OF THEM WILL BE STARTING WITH A PINEAPPLE OR CHEESE GRATER! "So... we just stand here, control our bladders, and make sure they’re still on ice?" "Exactly. Though, I still can't believe how they’re still alive in these circumstances." "Maybe they are partially frogs? I heard that frogs can hibernate in ice." "Even with such ability I think this must be very nasty experience. Think about this - your jewels frozen for eleven centuries." You have no idea, dude... All right, I think I'm calm now. Mostly. I can't even predict how ‘Blaze’ is gonna react, since she’s so much more... enthusiastic about showing her negative feelings as opposed to the responsible ones. But let's not waste even more time on chilling out and let's get out of here... Heh, get it? Chilling out because of... Okay, I'd better shut up before my frozen mind will commit more stupid puns and jokes. I focused on my right hand and did my best on pumping it with my willforce*. I know, it's not a real word, but when I was three years old I wanted so much to be a Jedi... So when I needed a name for this mysterious juice of power inside of me, that's what I came up with. Definitely better than those dumb midichlorians. First Episode never happened, guys. Never. Back to the topic. Do you know how hard it is to pump your limb with this sweet juice of Force when you can't even feel your hand? Not easy, at least for me. After all, my power is based upon directing willforce to the object of my focus. Fortunately you can make up for this disadvantage with imagination - you only need to convince yourself that you feel your arm, not actually feel your arm. A little gap, but so important. Without any mercy I took advantage of it. Ponies in, let’s say, a five miles radius are in for a nasty surprise, that’s for sure. I hope no one is drinking anything with ice cubes right now... For a very, very short moment all the seismographs in the Geological Institute of Canterlot went wild. Most nobles barely noticed this - they were much more outraged by the fact that pretty much all objects made from glass and ice suddenly shattered, which resulted in many injuries and even more angry letters to the government. The number of said messages increased tenfold after a few days, when several buildings in the city collapsed. Turns out something relocated all foundations about half an inch to the west. Nopony was quite sure why. Except Discord, that is. If he wasn’t imprisoned in stone at the time, he would explain it was mainly for swag. Argh, talk about going too far... I can already sense the incoming headache. See, that's the reason why Silver needs cooldown after using his telekinesis in games, other than weakening his ridiculously strong power for gameplay's sake... Cooldown... what, puns again?! I lost - my only jokes are puns. After a few seconds, most of my organs started working more or less normally and with some difficulties, I stood up. Gotta love my healing factor. I am by no means an immortal Deadpool (may his escapades never end), but turns out there is a good reason why characters in games casually get up after taking a death ray or rocket to the face, as long as they have some rings. Speaking of rings, there were three of them just floating in front of the reinforced doors leading to the rest of the prison (which apparently got very loud in response to my little shockwave). I never found out how this is possible, but me and my inflammable friend can actually see and "pick up" (absorb) gold rings in various places. Nopony else can, so yay, we have a monopoly for life protection! Again, game logic, as long as we have at least one we can take almost any hit. Also, don't ask me what happens if I collect a hundred of them or find a jar with my face inside... It's too weird even for me. I glanced around, still thanking St. Gordon Freeman, patron of life-threatening situations, shooting, and crowbars. My chaotic burst of power not only set me free, but also destroyed pretty much everything else in the room. The two guards, probably standing before at both sides of the door, were still alive; however, I think they were in for a loooong sick leave - ponies do not leave dents in the walls and just carry on, like Blaze. My friend was near the remains of her formerly much bigger ice prison, panting after centuries without any breath. By the way, the guard was wrong - she wasn't restricted by some magical armor, just some enchanted iron blocks chained to her feet and hands. Heh… not for long. I focused once again. My telekinesis is… different from the one unicorns use. Theirs is much weaker, but also more precise. If you want to smash something, then I’m your man, however do not expect me to play with two Rubik’s cubes with telekinesis at the same time. Bending metal? Piece of cake, that is if I won’t try with all four enchanted blocks at once. Very long ago, Blaze questioned me how it feels to move stuff with your mind. In response I asked how does it feel to burn stuff with your mind. Explaining telekinesis to her was like telling a blind man to describe the color red. With an unpleasant rasp, the fetters bended and broke into several parts, one after the other, which actually wasn’t easy after my recent stunt. Now I'm sure there will be a headache in a matter of seconds. "You all right, Blaze?" I asked. When it comes to Blaze, there is no getting up. She just suddenly changes her position from horizontal to vertical in a matter of milliseconds. Seriously, who begins their day by jumping up like that? Answer according to Blaze: someone who for a few years had a very demanding kung fu teacher. "Yes, Silver," she answered without any kind of emotion in her voice. Her lips were as straight as a ruler - eeyup, no one does a poker face just like her. "I certainly deeply enjoyed being imprisoned for centuries in a block of not-melting magical ice with the most annoying and childish person I ever met. And no, I won't waste my energy chewing someone like you out. I will save it for someone else." "Geez, no need to be so sarcastic. I did set us free, you know." I smirked. "Don't you dare use that full of confidence tone in a world so infatuated with Murphy's law." Blaze faced the reinforced door (absorbing three rings, by the way), extended her arm, and put a pointing finger on the surface. A tiny flame instantly appeared around it, slowly but easily melting the old carbon steel. "Killjoy," I muttered. "Did you say something?" "Err... nope!" Right, sharp sense of hearing. Gotta remember that, lest I want another scar on my back to remind me of the time I called her out on using pony-isms in her speech… Oh. Oh, wow, I just dodged a bullet there, didn’t I? Nice! I better keep this lucky streak going as long as I can. Temperamental partners are the least of my worries right now, after all. Headaches after abusing my power were always unnaturally short (no longer than a minute), but incredibly intense, so I decided to sit on one of the guards in lieu of a chair. He whimpered weakly at the added weight. "Hey, don't whine, Mr. Royal Guard. An adult pony shouldn't act this way even if someone is sitting on your probably-broken ribs. Such things happen when you buck up in the military, and you bucked up royally - as you said, you had only one easy job and you still managed to wreck everything." The cute, overgrown pony obediently remained silent despite his agonising pain. Or maybe he just passed out. "I have no idea why the designer of this cell put just a simple reinforced door here," said Blaze, slowly moving her burner-like finger across the surface, drawing a curve of brightly-glowing metal. "They should be fireproof. Normal ones don’t even slow me down much." My eyebrow shot up. "Because your first action after removing all these fancy handcuffs holding back our powers would be, without any doubt, releasing me. ‘Cause with me around, tearing even the best gate to pieces would be a matter of seconds." I made sure to put some emphasis on the most important words - I have a tendency to get spiteful during my after-Jedi headaches (yes, that's a real name). Blaze stiffened for a second before resuming her work, showing no other reaction. I'm not going to lie, our relationship could use a little... all right, a lot of loyalty. She is a snob raised in an even more snobbish family, not a determined Guardian of Sol Emeralds. It's hard to befriend someone like this even normally, but after they lost everything except their clothes and sharp tongue? Just no. We were a team only because, well, we are the only humans (kind of) on this planet. It's... comforting to be in the presence of someone in the same terrible situation, even if you really hate that person. Okay, maybe not completely the same. When I have a nightmare, I don't set my bed/sleeping bag/solid rock/whatever I'm sleeping on on fire. "Equestria to Silver, you have received permission to land, I repeat, you have received..." Okay, that's enough of this emotional rambling! Time for some action and showing off! "There will be an entire group of Royal Guards on the other side, right?" I asked. Blaze looked at me with some really serious disappointment visible on her face. Yay, an expression from Blaze not caused by anger! Everyone, you need to buy a draw for a lottery, it's a lucky day for all humanity! "What kind of question is that? This is a prison, you moron." Ah, here we are. Moron - her favourite way of addressing me. She was kind enough to reserve that word for this purpose only. How sweet of her, an insult intended just for me. I guess this is an opposite to "honey" - the same amount of emotion, but two different ends of the scale. I raised my arm and finished the job of removing the doors from their hinges. And sure, there were guards. "HALT!" announced one of them. "Give up immediately, Dawwkward Duo!" My pulse jumped to the frequency usually present only right before heart attacks. I'm sure I did also a pretty damn good job of impersonating Knuckles in both appearance and behavior in the next seconds. "I'll show you awkward and daww, you little technicolor horse!" I roared at him, despite being of the same height after becoming a hedgehog. I HATE that nickname for our team, but that word that starts with H is even worse. I've had enough of it in all fanfiction I ever read. I raised my hand. "Do you know what this is? This is a hand." I flexed my fingers. "How about this? No? This is a fist." Then I finally brought my fist to my chest in universal position known as "Silver is gonna mess you up" and gathered all power I could. "I'm sure you have never heard of this before, scrawny milk drinkers, because..." "...IT'S NO USE! TAKE THIS!" My scream of pure manliness and righteous fury echoed down the corridor, followed only by the sounds of bodies colliding with walls and, in the case of a certain cat, of palm colliding with a face. * Seriously, this is exactly how all so-called "guides to psychokinesis" begin. Mystical Force juices... don't look at me like that, that's not my idea. Author's Note Here it is... I hope you like it. I will welcome your comments and critique. Don't be afraid to tell about your ideas for this fanfic - I have my scenario, but I can change it a little bit if I'll like your suggestion. So far its all my proofreaders managed to check. There are more chapters awaiting for proofreading (over 10k words if put together), but my partners in crime have a lot on their plates right now, so you will have to wait. Most chapter should be at least 2,500 words long, though sometimes they can be much longer (third chapter, for example, right now has almost 5,600). I guess that's all for now.
Chapter 2 - Meet the Pyro [after proofreading]"Silver, I'm fully aware that you have an empty spot somewhere between... I mean, now under your ears... but could you at least keep it clean, without any junk? Mentioning Sonic 2006 is a disgrace to any gamer." There are a lot of things I don't like about Silver. He is loud, whiny, reckless, dense, easily distracted... I could go on and on about this for hours. When my dumb companion comes to any city, suddenly every single clown in five miles radius loses their job. And yes, he is naive, often as much as the original character. It's not as likable as my lookalike stated in the game-that-shall-not-be-mentioned (the worst spent seventeen bucks ever). There is however no doubt what I hate the most about him, since it gets us almost killed plenty of times. Wasting all of his power by showing off. "Don't spoil all the fun, that was awesome! Did you see their faces? I regret nothing!" he exclaimed, massaging his forehead with one hand and holding onto my arm with the other. Once a really strong headache strikes, Silver is almost completely unable to move without my help (something about not telling apart left from right). I had to make sure I wasn’t running too fast - without his powers, his top speed is only around sixty miles per hour. You see, that's exactly the problem with Silver's power. As long as he has it, he is the most powerful hero in Sonic's universe (I really mean it - what use is super speed if your enemy can just mop the floor with you by his thoughts alone?), but after it wears out, he’s just dead weight. It's not hard to push his buttons and cause him to waste all his ammo in a little anger outburst. "In the name of the law, I command you... HOLY CELESTIA SWIMMING IN HOT CHOCOLATE!" Oh, yes, another guard decided to actually try to do his duty. "Try" being the operative verb here. Once he rounded the corner and saw me running (well, with my definition of running it was more like a quick march) straight at him with a shield of fire in front of me, he instantly decided to change his objective, direction of motion, and probably also job. "I didn’t sign up for this crap!" And then he was gone. If there’s one good thing I can say about these guys, they sure do retreat really effectively. "I think we’re close now," said Silver once we were almost to the central hall, "I can already feel that sweet, sweet taste of freedom, fresh air, and scared horse. It’s… oh, great." I stopped. A whole contingent of Royal Guards in full kit greeted us right as we rounded the corner, doing their level best to glare at us in what might have been an intimidating manner if we were any other criminals. Now, I want you to imagine that you are standing in a room with a psycho. Not a nice picture? That's not all. Let's make him really eager to leave this place, while your task is to stop him. To make it even more painful for you, let's give your opponent a flamethrower. If you think it can’t be worse, you are greatly mistaken. It's a woman with a short patience, sharp ~~claws~~ fingernails, and high heels. There’s also somewhere around fifty other men on your side, but you know, you just know that all of them could probably stand to change their (metaphorical in this case) underwear. Now you know how those stallions felt at that moment. One of them stepped forward and put a megaphone next to his mouth. "Prisoners! Cease resisting immediately, lie down on the ground, and put your... erm, front hooves over your heads! If you don’t comply, we will have to use force!" "Ouch! Dude, you’re like five meters from us! There’s no need for a megaphone!" Silver shouted back, covering his ears. Turns out both anthropomorphic cats and hedgehogs have good hearing and no tolerance to ringing in their ears, since I winced too. "Wait a second... you have a megaphone!" Geez, Silver, really? What a brilliant comment! "You already invented speakers! Do you have computers too?! I haven't played any video games in ages! Literally!" Huh... That’s actually a good point. How much time did the guard say we spent in this place? Eleven centuries? Also, why did this pony say "hooves"? Did Equestrians get so xenophobic they no longer knew the correct names for basic anatomy parts of bipeds? "Prisoners, I repeat...!" That's it, screw that noise. "Oh, for fuck's sake, SHUT UP!" I screamed, focusing my anger in my palm and throwing it as a fireball towards the guardspony. At this point it was instinctual for me. You want your enemy gone? Get mad. You want to burn a place to the ground? Get mad. You want to make Silver lose all his hard-earned rings just for fun*? Get mad. It solved almost all my problems in both of my lives. This tactic proved itself once more. As soon as my attack reached the main officer, he went up like a prayer candle and leapt into the air with an almost comical scream. The rest of his troupe stared at me wide-eyed. I took a step forward, holding my red-glowing hands open at my sides. And just like that, they all promptly turned and stampeded away like a freaked-out herd of sheep. There was something... primal in fear of fire. You think humans are scared of uncontrolled flames? Hah. Horses and ponies have it sooooo much worse. "Blaze! That wasn't nice!" Silver piped up once the guards had left the scene. My mouth pressed into a thin line. "Oh, come on, that was barely a love tap. He’ll be fine." "But you could have just created a wall of fire in front of him, not shoot at his face!" “I have a learned reflex to shoot at whatever goes above a certain volume. Rise Against notwithstanding.” I flashed him a smirk. “Are you really that angry it wasn’t you?” That shut him up, like always. Maybe I should feel some remorse for my only companion in this world, but he can be so annoying at times... Anyway, those are Royal Guards, right? They accepted dangerous situations like this as part of their job, and they surely have insurance and hazard pay. Besides, it was nothing. He will only have to regrow his fur. Finally, we found a way out… only with one problem. “Another steel gate,” I noted, already raising a hand and preparing to blowtorch my way through. I was stopped by Silver, who slipped out from under my arm and walked straight up to the door. “No worries, Blaze, I got this.” “Aren’t you still recovering?” I raised an eyebrow. But Silver was already cracking his knuckles together and limbering up his neck like some hotshot Dragonball Z cosplayer. “O ye of little faith…” Oh, no, he did not just smirk at me. Silver, you better move right now, or— “FUS RO DAH!!” A wall of telekinetic force so thick I could see the air distorting around it slammed into the gate, snapping the middle bars in half and bending the others like the convex side of a magnifying glass. Silver listed slightly to the side, panting heavily, but still found enough energy to shoot me a thumbs-up. “See? What’d I tell ya? I’m— OW!” My fiery spark hit him dead center on the tail, making him jolt upright. It was nowhere near full strength, but just enough to express my extreme displeasure. “What did I tell you about wasting all your power, you moron?!” He swatted at his singed rear, giving me a dirty look. “Oh, come on, I’ve wanted to do that for years!” he complained, “Besides, I’ll just get it all back in a minute or two. It’s not like the Royal Guards are gonna mess with us anymore after our little show.” “Murphy’s law, Silver,” I warned. “Super Epic Interdimensional Space Jedi, Blaze,” he returned, already giving me that contemptuously annoying grin. A long-suffering sigh blew out from my lips. “Fine. Let’s just get out of here.” Thankfully, he didn’t say another word after that, so I didn’t have to spend my own stamina on another fireball. It would have been totally justified, though. Like I said, reflex. We stepped through the ring-shaped hole in the gate (I almost smiled at the irony) and finally exited the prison’s dim corridor, trading torches and glass windows for sweet, sweet full sunlight. I had to squint my eyes after so long a time spent locked up in the dark at first, but when they adjusted, I was treated to one of the grandest sights of my (second? Third?) life. So... this is Canterlot. The city was much, much more beautiful than it seemed in the show. When you saw Equestria's capital from the distance on TV, it was a ridiculous sight, a violation of the law of physics. Now, however... It was truly a place to behold. I've been to Canterlot before, but a millennium of prosperity has changed this place past all recognition. It used to be just the Royal Sisters' summer residence. After all this time it had practically become a second Rome, only instead of seven hills you had one giant mountain. Cobbled streets, renaissance architecture, wonderful parks with green trees, incredible panorama stretching for miles... It is not easy to amaze me, but this one time I was very impressed. "Blaze, look! An extra life!" I tore my eyes away from the beautiful landscape, and focused them on a giant jar standing next to the former door. If we would have just marched out of there, we wouldn't have noticed it at all. Inside of the jar was floating a picture of my face (and in Silver's vision it was surely his face). "How many lives do you have?" I asked. Silver closed his eyes and stood still for a few seconds. "Just three. It seems our last fight took a toll on us." I followed his example. Once I closed my eyes and waited a little, two numbers appeared... don't ask me how or why, but this is the way in which we check our status (number of rings and lives, to be precise). Believe me, it makes falling asleep very hard. "I have two lives and six rings. I need it more." I approached the jar and kicked it (unlike rings you need to actually hit them, not just run next to them or even through them like they were just air). It always felt awkward to me. As soon as the jar opened, however, I heard the cringe-inducing sound of some children shouting "YAY!". At least it's not Fluttershy’s voice doing it, but I swear, I'll murder that Merchant if I ever meet him again. He took away all the pleasure from getting an extra life. I guess that's exactly why we were called Dawwkward Duo. "If you spot some rings nearby, tell me. I have none," Silver informed me. "So... what’s the plan?" "Let's just continue with our efforts to return to Earth... also, we need to find a way to let us measure up against the Princesses, and fast. Maybe we should summon something nasty from the void... Right now we’re too weak to fight them, so we should first gather some rings and maybe a few Emeralds." Silver nodded. "So pretty much your standard action/adventure smash-and-grab. Cool! Let's go, we need to escape from the city before the Princesses come here personally." "Was that a pathetically obvious reference to Sonic Adventure 2?" I asked, getting into a position that would provide me with a good start. "...Maybe." Prison is, by definition, not the calmest place you can find, even if it's not Balkham Asylum. Prison after an escape attempt is much, much worse, just boiling with distrust and agitation. And if that attempt turns out to be not only successful, but also spectacular, everypony will be ready to go through Tartarus itself to find the perpetrator. After all, you need to either point at somepony or be the one who is pointed at. All the staff was in uproar. Medics and doctors were running everywhere, still not accepting that Blaze "I-will-burn-you-alive" the Cat restrained herself to scaring off ponies (and in corporal Sentry's case giving mere first degree burns). Two stallions that happened to be inside of the cell during the escape had been sent to the hospital. Royal Guards interrogated other Royal Guards, unicorns from the Magical Defense Unit were searching for the source of a small earthquake, unfed prisoners were getting noisy... Overall, the blaming and hoof-pointing was actually counter-effective. In all the chaos, nopony paid attention to a certain "janitor", who had casually left the boiler room. In a matter of a few hours the investigation team would check this place and find out that a valve keeping warm water away from the main cell's pipes was unscrewed. The saboteur calmly walked down the corridor until he found the door that definitely wasn’t on the building's architectural plans. He opened it with his key, and stepped inside. A few seconds later the door gradually faded away to look just like any other piece of masonry in the hall, which somehow went unnoticed by everypony in sight. The investigation team never found out who caused the escape or why. Speed. When it comes to many characters in Sonic's universe, this word was one of the most important in their description. At the same time this attribute was never explained in great detail. How fast is Sonic the Hedgehog? Nobody is sure, to be honest, but it is doubtful he indeed breaks the sound barrier without using the Chaos Emeralds. The same goes for the original Guardian of the Sol Emeralds. Blaze did not care about her maximum speed. As long as she was the fastest, she wasn't even questioning her top speed, no need for any strange diet stuffed with calories, AND ability to reach it despite wearing high heels. What she was questioning, however, was why she was able to think while being on the run through Canterlot's streets. Games from this series demanded full attention from the player. There’s no eating, talking, getting bored, etc. Gameplay is simply too fast. You just run and hope to finish as fast as you can. And yet, Blaze often found herself letting her reflexes and instinct handle all the work, while her mind wandered, as if running at extreme speed wasn't dangerous and exciting. She had no doubt the Merchant was once again the one responsible for that. Blaze was one of the few Displaced that was fully aware of their situation right after their first day in Equestria. She knew of other victims of dimensional misplacement, and there was no doubt the Merchant could change even the way minds worked. She was practically waiting for tokens from their brothers and sisters in misery, some of them she actually found interesting. She just hoped Silver and Gilgamesh would never meet... she couldn't handle those two clowns at the same time. Her body surely wasn't the only thing that had changed. Her mind was different, her soul was different. She could only hope it wasn’t broken beyond repair. There was hope. You don't have to be a genius to know that someone was going to eventually stand up to the Merchant. This... damn it, she had forgotten his name. It's even more awkward since she still remembered his ridiculous title of Fabulous Rainbow Magician. She had to show him the Emeralds, or at least someone familiar with the subject. There was a big chance they were the key to this multidimensional trap. There were seven Chaos Emeralds and seven Sol Emeralds. The original Emeralds were pretty much this ultimate plot device that gave the heroes the upper hand. Doctor Eggman woke up some ancient evil god? Get the Emeralds and go Super Sonic at him. Two Eggmans created an ultimate weapon and caused interdimensional collision? Go Super Sonic at them. Evil multidimensional god of time destroys everything everywhere in every part of history? Go Super Sonic at him. Hell, Sonic himself is dead? GO SUPER SONIC! If problems were headaches, then that was the universal aspirin. Two Emeralds... maybe even two Emeralds were enough to escape from this trap. That's all you needed to time travel. She didn't know for sure, she never had the chance to even test it... but maybe, just maybe, if she managed to get back to ancient Equestria, she would find a way home. A home she lost very long ago... I hated conventions. It didn't take me too long to figure that out once I found myself part of one. What was I thinking? How could I expect to have fun in this place? Sure, there were games, contests, stands full of copies of various well known fictional items... but... okay, there is no way around this. I hated crowds. And I went into one dressed up as Blaze the Cat, a character from the Sonic game series. And let's face it... this fandom has a really bad reputation. Many people see these games as childish... oh, who am I trying to fool, they are childish even when SEGA tried to do something more grim (yes, I'm looking at you, Shadow the Hedgehog, Sonic the Hedgehog 2006 and Sonic Lost World). At one point one of the girls I was passing giggled, probably at something completely unrelated to my costume, but it still angered me - sometimes I can be irrational like that. I wanted to leave immediately, but my parents were going to pick me up an hour later. Nothing stood in the way of just calling them except my pride, which was massive. I'd rather suffer in this place for an entire sixty minutes than admit I was wrong about something. After a few minutes I decided to look at the wares. Some of them seemed really interesting, like a working hidden blade from Assassin's Creed or helmet of the Brotherhood of Steel, but I had no intention of buying them. I need to be really into something in order to buy an item that would only collect dust on my shelf. Unfortunately for me, I found something just like that. A sudden flash in the corner of my vision caught my eye, and I turned around. There was a little stand in the corner squeezed in between two large ones, and in the center of the table lay... "Sol Emeralds?" I said aloud. All seven of them were placed in a little, elegant jewelery box. Right next to them was a rim... no, a ring. It might be huge, but it's still an item from games so I should call it by its right name. "Yes, stranger," a sudden, hoarse voice made me jump a little. I looked up and saw a Merchant straight out of Resident Evil 4 sitting behind the stand. I immediately recalled The Merchant and barely suppressed a smile. I really shoudn't read so many fanfics those pathetic bronies write, but... I just can't help it. I love to hate MLP and any related fanfiction. "Lookin' for your Emeralds, Princess?" Despite how incredibly creepy that sounded, I decided to play along. "Indeed. As their Guardian it is my duty to ensure their safety. Say, would you part with them in exchange for coin?" I'm sure he smiled under his guise. "It is possible, but I can sell only the entire collection. Only together can they show their full power. This Power Ring is a free bonus to them. The entire set costs eighty dollars." Eighty dollars for this? I'm not an expert, but these Emeralds seemed to be of a really high quality for something fake. I leaned forward and saw how they were shining in the open sunlight. If I didn't knew better, I'd say they were the real deal. I smiled. "Okay, I accept. However, I can promise you that if I suddenly find myself in Equestria because of this trade, things are gonna get ugly," I said, hoping he’d get the joke - the setting was too familiar in my opinion to be accidental. Turns out I was right. "And I can promise you that in such case all your efforts to return to this world would be for nothing," he chuckled. I handed him the money and took the jewelery box and Power Ring. "Oh, and one more thing!" he said when I was already heading the other way. I looked back. "It's dangerous to go alone. Take him!" And then... he created a fucking fireball in his hands and threw it at me. Everything went black. * Blaze actually did so once. Silver decided to collect as many rings as he could and then check if a world would get lag after him losing them all at once. The world was fine - probably one thousand five hundred seventy-six rings wasn't enough. Silver's expression after premature release of the rings was very rewarding and definitely worth that terrible feeling of guilt... like she had kicked a cute puppy. Author's Note I have two messages for you. One for the ones that does check my blog's entries and one for everyone else. For the first group: I'm sorry it took so long, unfortunately my assumption turned out to be incorrect. For the second group: the next two chapters are already at my proofreaders' desks, the fifth one is a crossover and it's almost done. I guess that's all. Hope you liked it.
Chapter 3 - Everfree Forest is the best pony [after proofreading... kind of]A monarch can work in two ways. They can either have a boring day of filing paperwork or suffer a really... hectic time. And nothing in between. Sometimes it makes you wonder which case is worse, as bad as it sounds. Princess Celestia did ponder about this. Right now it was clear that bureaucracy was much better than action. Recent events had put in motion a set of dangerous factors. Nopony could foresee the circumstances, but there was no doubt it would end badly. Such things happen when Prince Blueblood, aka. Royal Pain, actually tries to do something in politics for a change and accidentally insults the ambassador of Saddle Arabia by telling a bad joke about the saddles in general. As a result, Princess Celestia had to write a very, very good apology letter. It wasn't hard. She explained it was caused by cultural differences, that the saddles in Equestria have some bad history tied to Queen Platinum, that it was a reminder of enslavement of earth ponies by unicorns in pre-equestrian era... It was a good letter, really. Unfortunately, Princess made one serious mistake in its content - at one point she tried to belittle the entire problem. If the Saddle Arabians were resentful before, now they were completely enraged. Celestia had forgotten the importance of saddles in this old fashioned country... which was very embarrassing, since they put this word even in their country’s name. Now she wasn't only dealing with an international scandal, but with an international controversial debate about disrespect towards the culture of developing countries. Celestia sighed. It seemed she could no longer dispel the tension, since now the Saddle Arabians actually wanted this quarrel. After a few more minutes of flicking through a big pile of letters she decided to take a short break. She put all correspondence aside and raised a cup of tea in her magical grasp. Suddenly the door to the throne room burst open. What? You aren't surprised? You expected some action exactly in this moment since this is how every fanfic works? Wow, guys... Just wow. I need to came up with something surprising in the nearest future... Let's get back to the plot. "Your majesty!" shouted the Royal Guard, who galloped inside. Princess Celestia sighed once again and looked at the messenger. Duties first, enjoyment second. "Yes, my guard? What is it?" The guardspony took off his helmet and looked at his hooves in shame and slight fear. "Your highness, there was... there was a prison break half an hour ago in the Canterlot Citadel. The main prisoners have escaped." The teacup shattered on the floor in a million pieces. "Your highness?" inquired the uneasy guard. Celestia finally blinked. "The Duo?" "Yes, your majesty." Celestia looked down on the pile of letters, now covered in the tea. Suddenly the entire commotion with the saddles sounded like a very small and easy to fix problem. "Thank you for this news, my little pony, despite how grim it is. Dismissed." The guard put on his helmet with a noticeable relief and left the throne room. Celestia stood up and did the same, stopping for a second when passing guardsponies on the sides of the door. "Please, find captain Shining Armor and inform him he needs to immediately convoke a council of war. I will be waiting with my sister in the war room." with these words she disappeared from their sight. The stallions looked at each other with astonishment and anxiety. They had never received an order like this one before. Before they went into action Celestia reappeared for a second. "Also, tell the maids that's where they will serve afternoon tea." The guardsponies relaxed a bit. That was a much more familiar request. The city of Canterlot was a very easy place to escape from. Yes, it was. Especially when you possess an ability to fly or somehow slow down a deadly fall (so no cookies for you, earth ponies... again). This place wasn't created as a fortress. It had a lot of weak points. It was hanging. Have you ever wondered what would happen if something happened to... whatever is supporting this place? I did, and I think it would be a very sad day for all of Equestria. Especially for Ponyville. Which would take the impact. And that's not all. The city was built on terraces. You could just jump from the higher one to a lower level. It made navigating very easy, since I no longer had to rely on Silver in order to find the shortest way to the edge of the city. Also, now I could run on rooftops, as if I wasn't already feeling incredibly powerful. Silver was flying close by, keeping up with me without any problems since I wasn't in any hurry. I couldn't accelarate too much with how often I had to jump over the street below, but it was already too late for the Princesses to stop us - if we wanted to escape from any situation, nothing at this side of the Void could keep up with us. Simple as that. It took us a minute to get to the edge of the last terrace, which gives Canterlot a pretty small size (but, once again, we weren't in a hurry; I could cross that distance on a flat field in fifteen seconds max). There happened to be two unicorn officers (after all, only officers actually use swords). We used on them the most basic technique in the entire history of Sonic games - we just crashed into them. Yep. That's it. I'm pretty sure we are in some bad fanfic (I've read enough about Displaced to know that), so in case you don't get how we could survive such a collision, let me explain. First, I defy laws of physics, so I can get up after a collision with a brick wall at four hundred miles per hour. Second, if you are going fast enough, you actually barely feel any backlash upon impact with something. No, I'm telling the truth. That's why you need to hit very fast in karate in order to break anything except your bones. The universe needs some time to realize you delivered the blow before the third law of Newton kicks in and messes you up. If you are fast enough, you can retreat or smash through things before they make you sorry. In other words, it protected us, but definitely not the guards. Someone was going to the hospital pretty soon. "Nice. I collected twenty rings, I'm safe for now," declared Silver, leaning against the barrier of the terrace. I smiled and prepared a big fireball. "Wait. What are you... argh!" I burst out laughing when Silver got hit in the face and landed on his ass. Right after that all twenty rings... shot out of his body all around him. No other way to put it. He scowled and stood up quickly in order to gather his rings after receiving damage which would kill a normal person. What? Don't look at me like that. It's not like he felt all of it - we feel real pain only if we are struck while having no rings. Otherwise it's just a stinging sensation similiar to being hit with the full force in the face by a sea wave. Ironically, that was Silver’s own description of it, as I recall. "Very funny," stated Silver with a frown. There was no bruise after my attack; rings were a wonderful protection. Thanks to this it was very hard to really anger him... or maybe it was just Silver being Silver. He usually was happy again after finding some new toy or getting an opportunity for a stupid joke. Surprise, surprise, it was the case once more! Silver picked up two rapiers from the fallen guards. He smiled broadly. "No." Silver did his best to recreate the famous disarming move of Puss in Boots. It wasn't enough - hedgehogs aren't good at being cute and fluffy. "Just no. And don't you even dare to make a joke about Sir Percival." Silver snorted. "Fine. But it doesn't mean I can't wield a sword! This world better be prepared, for Sir Galahad shall strike swiftly!" Right after that Silver once again lost his rings. At long last I decided I had enough of this pointless banter and jumped over the edge of the platform, leaving everything in the hands of gravity. Shining Armor was very uneasy this afternoon. Okay... that was a big understatement. In the course of his career, he had been ordered to prepare a military council only once, right after Discord's escape. It... ended badly. Discord decided to leave the Elements of Harmony to themselves for a few minutes, and in this short time he completely crushed the meeting. Shining still had nightmares about a flying spaghetti monster. Now the circumstances seemed a bit milder (laws of physics were working without difficulties), but this time almost nopony knew much about the threat. So far Shining was only aware of some prison break, but he had yet to learn of the details. The Princesses had obviously decided to wait with explanations until all the military commanders arrived. Finally the door to the war room opened, admitting the Princess of the Sun.. There was a short moment of silence, in which Shining assumed that Celestia was pondering how to announce the news. Not a good sign. The assembled officers were casting troubled glances at each other. "Thank you for your quick arrival, everypony. Your devotion to our country is appreciated," started Celestia. "I'm sorry I had to summon you all here so suddenly, but the matter is urgent. Two dangerous prisoners escaped from Canterlot Citadel this morning." Some of the military commanders relaxed. "If it’s just a criminal from the Citadel, then why was this meeting arranged? It doesn't look like a danger to the entirety of Equestria," remarked general Blunt Edge. "Because they weren't standard prisoners, general," said Princess Luna, up until then grimly looking at the table. "They were imprisoned for almost eleven centuries and for a good reason. It's... Dawwkward Duo." Silence has fallen once more, but this time a lot of members of council had to stop themselves from snickering. Celestia looked a bit embarrassed. "...as an afterthought, we shouldn't call them such a ridiculous name, sister," commented Luna. "Your highness, you can’t possibly be serious," stated Shining Armor. "The Duo is a tale, a little scary story that makes foals behave." "Not all stories about them are real, captain," Celestia continued her explanation. "Blaze definitely wasn't born in Tartarus, she isn't using a burning whip as a weapon, Silver can't read minds and they are both only slightly bigger than the average pony. But everything else is at least partially true." The atmosphere was once again grievous - it was clear the Princesses weren't joking. "Then... who are they, really?" asked one of the generals. Celestia winced. "The most persistent, mad, deceitful and annoying terrorists in Equestrian history. I guess we should start at the beginning, from their first attack..." "So." Blaze looked up from little campfire she just started. "So?" "What should we do now?" I specified, sitting down across the flames, first making sure there wasn't anything nasty in the grass. It become a custom of mine ever since I accidentally took a seat on a splinter while having no rings. Learn from my mistake and never sit down without some pants on... I should find some pants. It won't be easy, it's ponyland after all, but a man can't run around naked, even if nothing indecent is on the view (thank God it was because of the sheath... fans were making so many jokes about that). "Didn't you ask me about this at the prison?" "No, I asked about our overall plan. Now I'm asking about this specific moment." She shook her head in pity. "You truly can’t think for yourself, do you? You always need someone's orders?" "Eeyup. But don't worry, I've just received an order from my stomach. There’s gotta be a chilli dog stand somewhere around here, and I’m gonna find it.” Blaze looked at me blankly. “We’re in ponyland, remember? Nothing but fruit salad here. And I’m already stuck with one.” “I’ll think of something!” I called back, already heading deeper into the forest. Ah, Everfree... it is indeed a perfect place for a camp, as long as you weren't an order-loving pony. Don't get me wrong, I have nothing against ponies... not much, anyway. They are just so... timid. When they can't control and understand everything, everypony runs in circles and screams. This place might be full of wild animals, but that sort of thing never stopped human explorers, right? A timberwolf here, a cragadile there... nothing my telekinesis or Blaze's flames couldn't handle. It was so nice of the Princesses to leave such a place intact in the heart of Equestria. No need to search too far for a hideout. Such a perfect place for every villain. After a few minutes of walking I stumbled upon a river. Good, problem of supply solved. I raised my hands and just levitated a fish out of the water. Hah! You jealous, fishermen? I gently put my future meal next to me and repeated the action several times. When I was done, I took one of them and with some difficulties put it in my hidden pocket. What pocket, you might ask? True, I don't wear any clothing outside of my gloves and boots, so I don't have any normal pockets. I'll answer this with another question. Have you ever wondered how Silver and many other video game characters are able to carry bulky remote controls, emeralds bigger than their heads, and radar scanners without any visible way to do so? I usually called it "pulling things out of my ass", because that's how it looked in Sonic games - our good ol’ blue hedehog is always just reaching behind his back and pulling Chaos Emeralds out of nowhere. After many awkward episodes in the first days of our banishment, me and Blaze found out that we have small pockets leading to miniature parallel dimensions; sort of like Bags of Holding for you D&D nuts. We wasted a lot of time on removing all the junk we accidentally put in there... Anyway, as long as an item fits in my hand, it can be stored there. And I have HUGE hands, so a few fishes throwing themselves in all directions are nothing. If you think that's strange, you wouldn't find a word to describe what happened next. It involved a random rain of various books, crystals and sharp objects, most of them landing on my head. No, mom, I swear I wasn't drinking with friends at the party... "Wait, your highness. I need to check to see that I understand everything correctly." Shining Armor rubbed his temple. "So... these two came to Equestria and released a powerful monster in the middle of a village. Said monster got out of their control and wreaked havoc across the land. In the meantime, Silver and Blaze decided to side with Discord once he appeared in Equestria in order to gather fourteen powerful artifacts they claimed were theirs. Shortly before the fall of their master, they found one of them and attempted to restore control over the monster with its help." Celestia nodded. "That is correct, captain. And since she was the one performing the ritual, Blaze couldn't fight and had to rely on Silver the Hedgehog on keeping us occupied. Fortunately, me and my sister managed to overpower him and imprison both in ice. Afterwards we banished the beast to the depths of Tartarus, where it has been imprisoned ever since." "Speaking of which," cut in general Blunt Edge with a frown on his face. "Why were these terrorists sentenced to Canterlot Citadel and not Tartarus? Even better, why weren't they just imprisoned in stone?" "It is because we deemed it unwise to keep them too far from Canterlot," explained Luna. "In order to restrain them, we had to use enchanted, temperature-absorbing limiters and make sure Silver remains ever unconscious. In the scorching heat of Tartarus, there is no way to easily maintain a freezing spell. As for the imprisonment in stone, at the time we weren't sure how long the Elements' effects would last. We used it on Discord only because there was no other option. Ice was a much more foolproof way; there was no chance of failure since we completely understand how this kind of magic works." In Shining's opinion it indeed sounded like a good enough solution. He decided to move this discussion forward. "Now we know the origin of the prisoners, but before we start to search for them, we need to figure out what they are after." "We do know what they are after." Celestia rose from her seat and a gem appeared in the middle of the table. "The Chaos Emeralds." The Emerald, despite its name, was yellow. It was cut in a brilliant shape and was of impressive size. However, the most fascinating trait was its glow - the gem was a source of light in itself. Shining Armor looked at the Princesses curiously. "What makes them so valuable?" Celestia grabbed the Emerald with her hoof and brought it closer to her. "They possess incredible power, power we still don't fully comprehend. For a long time we thought they were created by Discord as a weapon against the Elements of Harmony, but experiments conducted over a hundred years ago with advanced equipment revealed they are much older than Discord himself. The only other explanation comes from Silver, who stated, and I quote: "The Emeralds were brought to this world along with us, their owners, as a way to make shit happen."” One of the generals, who happened to be drinking tea at the time, choked. "I'm sorry, but that's exactly how he put it. Afterwards he added: "The servers are the Seven Chaos... Chaos is power, enriched by the heart... The controller exists to unify the chaos." It is still unclear what he meant by that, but we suspect Silver is this controller of Chaos Emeralds, while Blaze affects the Sol Emeralds in the same way." "Sol Emeralds are similiar to Chaos Emeralds." Luna decided her sister needed some break in explanations. "It is said they have similiar power stored in them, but for some reason, ever since they appeared in Equestria, they weren't glowing, which makes them useless for anypony." Shining looked at the Chaos Emerald. He sensed no magic coming from it; that, however, was absurd, since only magic stored in gems could make them glow. "What kind of power are we talking about, here?" Luna shook her head. "It is, once again, a mystery. This energy was called 'chaos' by Silver and Blaze, but it is clear it's not only not Discord's magic, it also isn't magic at all. It... it is a hole in the laws of physics. With a lot of concentration it can be used, though it is very dangerous. The only information about the Emeralds' power comes, again, from Dawwkward Duo. They can be used to transform a thought into power, and if the entire set is in the same place... a miracle happens. No, we do not know what kind of miracle. In short, we know very little about them, while our enemy seems to know quite a lot." "But we know we cannot let the Dawwkward Duo find them," Celestia declared. "Even one Emerald gives them frightening power, to say nothing of all seven. All the Chaos Emeralds were long ago hidden in safe places, while some Sol Emeralds went missing. We have to focus on Silver and Blaze. If we give them enough time, they will retrieve the Emeralds and it will be too late to stop them from whatever they aim to do to our world." Shining smiled. "Where do we start?" "You need to learn of their abilites first and inform your guards, Captain Shining Armor." With a glow coming from Luna's horn an illusion of a strange creature appeared in the middle of the table. "We will start with Silver the Hedgehog." "He doesn't look like a hedgehog," stated one of the generals. "That's how he identified himself. Let's start with powers." Luna looked down on a list she prepared. "His main ability is a very weird kind of telekinesis - it is not a spell in his case. We tried to defeat him by placing a magic limiter on him once, and he didn't even seem to notice. He also possesses no visible aura, but both Silver and Blaze claim he actually does and it is azure in color. He perfected this skill to a point when he can create and throw a giant ball made up from all kinds of things pressed together. He can also levitate a group of items and throw them with deadly precision and speed. It is extremely dangerous to get close to him even when he has nothing to attack with - he can immobilize anypony with his telekinesis and then throw them like anything else. Among his abilities is also a short distance teleportation and attacking with small waves of pure telekinetic energy. He usually travels by levitating himself at high speed, mostly at almost eighty miles per hour. He can reach twice as much if given a good reason, but it burns out his telekinesis very quickly*." The silence was so dense you could cut it with a knife. "Those are all his psychic abilites. Without them he can still move fast, but it is still a much less insane pace. He has a great physical and magical endurance. A lot of spells have no effect on him, and most of the rest is weaker against him. He has two strange reactions to blows that should be fatal - most of the time he starts to flicker, disappearing and reappearing for exactly three seconds. In other cases he just completly vanishes for ten seconds. There is also one more attribute to him - as long as he holds something, either by hand or telekinesis, it cannot be affected by magic in any form." Finally, general Blunt Edge had enough. "How are we supposed to stop somepony so absurdly strong?!" Luna smiled. "Silver has a weakness. If he is abusing telekinetic abilities, he quickly gains a terrible headache, which is so strong it keeps him from using his powers for several seconds. Sometimes it can even immobilize him. It's all about surviving until his skill fails him. Now, let's talk about his behavior, personality and other characteristic features. "Silver is very courageous, sometimes even to the point of foolishness. He seems very childish most of the time, but do not let him fool you, he is a very sly criminal. He isn't afraid to use your greatest weaknesses against you." 1089 years earlier... *knock, knock* "Hellooooo! Did somebo... somepony order pizza? I have pizza! Tasty and still hot!" The door opened. "A pizza, you say? Eeyup, we ordered it, I'm definitely not trying to cheat you into givi... Hold on. What are you?! You aren't the delivery colt!" "Wow, seriously?! I can't believe it really worked! Oh, whatever. Here, Mr. Guard, here is your delivery... WITH EXTRA KNUCKLES!" "Silver is an excellent shot, and has no mercy for his enemies. What makes him the most dangerous, however, is his ignorance when it comes to diplomacy and all rights connected to it. It's no use to try to talk to him, he'll just attack you anyway unless he is powerless at the time. In this case he will play for time until he is ready to fight." Again 1089 years earlier... "We art sending a messenger to thou, Princess Blaze!" announced Royal Canterlot Voice. "Do not dare to charm him!" Blaze rolled her eyes. "There is nothing they could give us in exchange for their own castle," she said to Silver. "Let's just wait until Discord is back from the Badlands. He’ll redecorate the fortress and we’ll be on our merry way. It's not like they’ll bombard their own home. Silver, scare off this little horse." "Okay!" *CRASH!* "Silver..." "I'm sorry! I was aiming at the ground in front of him!" "Thou dare to throw a piano at my messenger?! How dare thou?! Commander, bring the catapults!" "Do not expect Silver to act logically. He is mad without any doubt and you need to be prepared for anything when fighting him. Especially distracting exclamations." Once again 1089 years earlier... "Come at me, bro! When I’m done with you, you will see stars brighter than the one this planet revolves around!" "...but the sun revolves around the planet, not the other way around." "...not only weird, but also stupid as well? Damn, you are a hard case, that’s for sure. What’s next, is that brand on your ass is some kind of a prophecy?" "Well, actually..." "And one more weakness you can exploit: he protects Blaze by all means. There is nothing he won't do to save his boss. There is no doubt he holds much respect for her, and despite her terrible behavior towards him he sees her not only as a great leader, but also the most powerful warrior there is. His faith in her is fanatical." You know the drill... "Dost thou still disrespect us?! Dost thou not see our strength?! We art Celestia, the Princess of Flames!" "Nah." "What dost thou mean by 'nah'?!" "There are two women in this room who control fire... and I have no doubt that Blaze’s flames are much hotter than yours, if you know what I mean." In the next second Silver was hit by two fireballs at once. "I think that's all you should know about Silver," finished Princess Luna. "Now let's get to Blaze the Cat." The illusion of a hedgehog disappeared, replaced shortly by that of his companion. "She doesn't look like a c—" "Yes, we get it, general, they don't remind us of the animals they claim they are. We suspect they are either from a distant land or a result of Discord's magic." "Back to the topic." Celestia decided to return to discussion. "Blaze, as her name implies, is a pyrokinetic. She has the power to set on fire a part or the entirety of her body. Thanks to this, she possesses a unique set of attacks and abilities. Her physical attacks are strengthened by flames, so even one hit from her might end tragically. She often turns herself into a burning projectile and causes disarray on the battlefield, and almost at all times she is protected by a cloak of flames. Sometimes she summons large columns of fire, which rise from the ground. Pyrokinesis also enhances her mobility - she can propel herself high above the ground or soar through the air. There is also one extremely important detail - her control over flames is not restricted to the ones created by her. There is no noticable time limit to her ability. Blaze's secondary skill is how fast she can run. We don't know her maximum accomplishments in this regard, since we had no opportunity to precisely check it a thousand years ago, but we assume her favourite pace is somewhere around one hundred miles per hour, however she can easily increase that speed up to one hundred and seventy when the need arises. Both abilities have no connection to magic." Celestia checked on her list if she said everything about Blaze's powers there was to say. "That would be all when it comes to her exceptionally dangerous traits. Blaze also possesses many of the main physical features of her subordinate: endurance, magic resistance, strange reaction to blows that should have been fatal. The only difference is her much better tolerance to high temperatures. She has no known weak points. That's all." Luna flipped through her own notes about their enemy. "Blaze has a much more interesting background and personality than Silver. Without any orders from his boss he seemed almost friendly to ponies, but she was annoyed at best and furious at worst in all meetings with civilians. She harbors unexplained hatred towards ponykind. Additionally, if our intelligence is right, she is or at least was a ruler in some distant, unknown country. Thanks to this and her attitude we can assume she had probably lost her crown in her homeland and decided to conquer Equestria." "SILVER! I told you to just keep throwing stuff at this crazy horse, not waste all your ammo on Meteor Smash... which missed!" "Well, excuuuuuuse me, Princess!" "Blaze has even less mercy on her enemies than Silver. She’s committed crimes against laws so fundamental and innate that there wasn't even any rule stating how severe the punishment should be! And all of that just to get a cheap shot at the beginning of our fight." Princess Celestia was looking straight at the building covered in flames. She couldn't move; the fear paralyzed her. How... how could she? How could she burn this place with a knowledge of its purpose?! Celestia fell to her knees, dropped her magical shield she was keeping up for three days, raised her muzzle to the night sky and took a deep breath. ... ... ... ... "NOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO!!! WHY THE ROYAL BAKERY?!!!" "Finally! I was waiting here for ten minutes!" *WHOOOOSH* And that was when a heel hit Celestia's nose at the speed of one hundred and seventy four miles per hour. "During the chase, remember to be always watchful - Blaze is a great strategist and her wisdom is obscured only by her hatred. She greatly enjoys bringing pain to innocents and making even the toughest stallions scream for mercy. It is the main reason why ponies still call her 'a Princess of Tartarus' and describe her as a burning demon whose only desire is to immolate the entire world, which is allegedly why we are at this distance still feeling the warmth of her so-called prison, the sun. Be always alert." "Halt, evildoer! You are under arrest!" exclaimed the captain of the Royal Guard, dashing towards his enemy along with his fellow guardsponies. Blaze was calmly sitting on a rock at the other side of the river. A group of twelve panting unicorns finaly finished their so-called 'chase' and hesitated for a second. "Into the river, soldiers!" came the order, and nopony had any doubts anymore. Technicolor horses jumped into the water and started to swim across, not aware what was going to happen in a matter of a few seconds. "I think you shouldn't swim in the cold water after your little warm-up. You could get thermal shock," Blaze pointed out. "Here, let me help you." In her hands appeared two fireballs. Ever since that day those particular guardsponies were taking only cold showers. "I guess that's all you need to know about your enemies," stated Princess Celestia, and then looked up to Shining Armor. "Captain Armor, this enemy can't be defeated just by brutal strength. We will need an advanced strategy." An advanced strategy? No problem for me. "Since they're pursuing Chaos Emeralds, we could use that against them... Where are the Emeralds?" The Royal Sisters looked sheepishly at each other. "...ah, you see, that's the problem..." * I was thinking a lot on how to solve a little dilemma about characters' speed. If we were to estimate Sonic's speed only by games, it is clear he simply can't reach the speed of sound - obviously nobody could play at such speed. Because of that (and because Silver and Blaze are already powerful enough) I decided to ignore what SEGA said about their mascot outside of gameplay. We know Blaze is considered either an All-Around or Speed Type - she isn't as fast as Sonic, but she can still run at incredible speed. Silver is a bit slower than Sonic when using his telekinesis to fly (I ignore Sonic Rivals - he would be just OP with all these powers combined). In the end I said 'F*ck it, I'll do whatever I want' and decided to give characters an ability to easily reach and surpass the speed of sound, which however is very dangerous for everything and everyone nearby, so they simply won’t run/fly at such speed under normal conditions. Author's Note Here it is. I left the fandom for a few months and even before I had few reasons to actually continue this fic, so with as little support from readers as I receive, you guys have to get used to at least a month long break between chapters. So thats a first problem. Second? My main proofreader has decided to quit, so now you got half baked chapter (and you still will, unless I'll find someone new). Now move along, citizen.
Chapter 4 - Things to do: create an interdimenshional artifact, set village on fire, borrow a book [not proofreaded - you read at your own risk]It's very awkward to be a center of a solar system. Yep, I'm strange, no one should have such thoughts. In my position it makes more sense. You see, I have a certain... impulse when it comes to things falling on my head. I suppose I acquired it in all those small clashes with Royal Guards, when they actually decided to come up with some strategy, like shooting a hail of arrows at us. In such situations I were just freezing everything heading my way with my telekinesis. The problem? All this shit was revolving around me as if I was some fucking star. It was often pretty embarrassing - big or scary objects were just fine, but can you really take seriously someone who has a roll of toilet paper flying around his head? Now I was walking through woods with a big cloud of various items following me. Once some... things started to fall from the sky, I decided to pick them up with my power - I was too lazy to put them in my invisible pocket. Don't look at me like that! Carrying objects that fall from the sky is a very wise strategy, almost all games agree about that. Anyway, they were mostly coins, strange gems, amulets and various weapons. I was also holding a few ordinary rocks and a timberwolf... no, he didn't fall from the sky, he jumped on me on my way back. I wonder if timberwolves can be tamed... it would be awesome to have a tamed timberwolf. I think I’d call him Eastwood. It seems I wasn't the only one who experienced some issues with physics - back at the fireplace Blaze was gathering an entire stack of similiar items. "Okay... do you happen to know what all this shit is?" I asked. Blaze looked at me with disapproval. I don't get it - she has no problem with swearing herself, but gets all grumpy when I do that. I once questioned her about this and she said it was very out of character for Silver. Go figure. "Totems or tokens, whatever suits you. I recognize some of them. They are from other Displaced and can be used to communicate with them." Displaced... it sounded familiar. I think Blaze mentioned it once. "And by Displaced you mean...?" "Other people cheated by the Merchant and banished to Equestria in different universes." "Oh, right. Now I remember. We met that displaced fish woman with a spear, Undinner, I think. I wonder how is she after a thousand years... You mentioned some of those Displaced might help us escape." "Indeed." Blaze sat down and closed her eyes. "A lot of them are useless pony-loving faggots or they got too much into the role and become evil overlords, but some could be helpful." "Yeah. It would be unbelievable if we were the only pair of trolls who want to show a middle finger to the Merchant." I picked up some black stone with a strange rune. "So... how does it work?" Blaze's eyes snapped open. "Don't you dare to summon anyone without my knowledge... especially him. We have enough trouble with Chaos Emeralds as it is." I sat down next to her and started to put all the tokens into my pocket, one at time. "Speaking of Emeralds, any idea how are we going to find them? You can sense Sol Emeralds, but I'm not Knuckles, there’s no chaos shards' detector in my head." My companion answered instantly. "We will raid a library in Ponyville. Knowing these ponies, all necessary information is just in some book not read by anyone. Idiots... But there is one thing to do first." Blaze stood up. In her right hand suddenly appeared a power ring. "Let's create our own tokens." I shrugged. "Fine by me." I pulled my own ring from my pocket. It was different from other rings - I bought it from the Merchant along with the Chaos Emeralds, and unlike others I don't lose that one no matter how much damage I take. Unfortunately it also doesn't protect like other power rings. "How am I supposed to do that?" "It's very simple. You just take an item and tell a speech of sorts, which explains who you are and what is your goal. Let me show you." Blaze raised the ring to her face. "I am Blaze, wielder of fire and a tamer of the Flames of Disaster. My wrath is devastating and my speed unmatched. Call upon me, enemies of the Merchant, for I shall do whatever it takes to bring him to justice for what he had done to all of us. This I can promise to you." And then... nothing happened. Blaze frowned. "I don't get it. Why doesn't it work? It worked for the others." "Maybe you were acting too much out of character?" I suggested. "You usually don't use big words to declare what you want." She gave me an ominous look. "Silver, you are walking on very shaky ground..." Oh come on, why can't she take a joke? "And no, talking like that is normal when it comes to the creation of the token." "I still think you just need to act more like yourself. Watch and learn." I cleared my throat in order to prepare the world for one of my great ideas. "My name is Silver, Silver the Hedgehog. I travel across time and space as a Jedi of sorts in search of adventure, swag, shit and giggles. You want to kick some ass, find a magical artifact, or simply hang out with a wonderful, handsome guy? If so, then just summon me! Blaze is sometimes too much even for me and I'd gladly meet someone new. Ciao!" I wish you guys could see Blaze’s face when my token started glowing. Unfortunately I can't bend the fourth wall that much and I'm afraid the author might be too lazy to draw something, so you just have to settle for my words. Anyway, shortly after that her ring lightened up too. Both items raised into the air and floated towards each other. Somehow they connected like two links of the chain and cloned themselves. Then they did it again. And again. And again... Okay. I guess I should warn you before all of that - don't expect too much logic from this world. The two original rings separated and returned to their owners, and the copies disappeared in a black vortex... I guess that was this famous interdimensional Void. A bit disappointing in my opinion. Blaze facepalmed. "Splendid. Even the Void states we are doomed for each other." I smiled. "I personally don't mind that my life is linked with yours. Oh, how romantic that sounds!" Yeah, I didn't manage to avoid her incoming fist. I angrily munched a sapphire. I was left behind. Again. The return of Nightmare Moon? He could blame only himself. Discord? Too busy with spitting out all those scrolls. However, his sister insisted on keeping him away from troublemakers in all cases. True, Twilight wanted the best for him, but it didn't mean she should always leave him behind. He was strong. Let's say some fire monster appeared in Ponyville and started to demolish the town hall. With his fireproof scales he surely would be allowed to at least watch, right? Wrong. Do you know why I am sure? Because this is exactly what happened. After Applejack galloped into the library and informed Twilight about the attack, I was told to stay here and wait for them. I wish that for once I was in the spotlight. *crash* "Argh! Who in the right mind places a pile of sharp rocks next to the window?! Someone could get hurt!" I stiffened and slowly turned around. Right next to me was sitting... a thing. A very big, white thing. "That would be me." That was the first thing I said. "Don't you know it's irresponsible to do that? If someone were to enter through the window, they would land right on them! What’s next? Shards of Christmas tree’s decorations?" I looked at the entrance to the library. "But... why the window? The door’s better." The creature shoke his head. "No, no, that's just too normal. Do I look normal to you?" I paid closer attention to the visitor as he stood up. He had huge hands with the gloves, each one easily as big as my head. He was also wearing a navy-blue boots. His head was covered by quills. I couldn't even tell what he was. "No, you are a weirdo." "Indeed, so obviously I couldn't ent... hey, that's not nice! Ugh... Look, could you just point out where are the books about history and magical artifacts?" Another normal day in Ponyville. It would be funny if it wasn't so true. Huh... so that's why I was hit by the lightning when I raised that wooden pole back in medieval Equestria. Interesting. But I digress, I should prepare the meal. I closed the book and pulled out the fish. Blaze was right again, almost everything was simply in the history books. It took some time, but finally I found three helpful volumes. Obviously I couldn't simply borrow them (no library card and no way to obtain one right away), so I just flew out of the ~~tree~~ ~~library~~ treebrary, almost instantly returning to the Everfree. For some reason the little dragon was screaming something about being grounded because of me... meh. Not my problem. My friend didn't return for another half an hour... Seriously, she really thinks it would take me so much time to steal a book? My pride is hurt. At this point I was already at the fourth fish. "Do you have it?" was the first thing she asked. "Mhm. You know, we didn't miss out much during our imprisonment. The last millenium was very calm," I answered, finishing cutting the fish with a telekinesis. I handed it to Blaze. Blaze removed her right glove and took the fish. Shortly after that she was holding a perfectly cooked piece of meat - her pyrokinesis unlike my power could be very precise. Yes, I count fish as meat. Shut up. My POV, my rules. "Whatever. Where are the Emeralds?" "We know only about two of them, others are either missing or their location is classified. Dragon Wasteland and Manehattan. The dragon king isn't exactly subtle, he likes to show off his 'symbol of friendship with Equestria'. The second one is in a museum. I also think the Princesses have at least one Emerald." "I see. That's troublesome," said Blaze, sticking another fish on the stick and setting it aside to cool down. "We will need an Emerald to get to the Dragon Wasteland." "So we will hit the museum, since we are sure only about this Emerald," I concluded. "When?" "Tomorrow." Blaze pulled something out of her interdimensional pocket. "Want some apples? I stole them myself." "To the fish? I'm not THAT dumb." "Your highnesses..." The two royals stopped their chess match and looked towards the general. "In light of recent events, the council decided it would be wise to speed up the operation. Do we have your approval, your highnesses?" There was no hesitation. "Of course, general," said older sister. "It is time." The next day, at the train station in Ponyville... Express Delivery yawned loudly. He hated to work in the morning - in his opinion 'carrying packages' and 'the morning' should've never been put in the same sentence. Well, he couldn't exactly do anything about the mystical magic of cutie marks, coudn't he? At least it wasn't a troublesome transport, just some clothes. At least that's what he thought. His hopes were dashed once he tried to lift the biggest crate. "Oh my Celestia, my spine! Those are clothes? What are they made of nowadays, wood?" he exclaimed, dropping the crate. He looked at the label. Apparently it was a delivery of suits from 'Lady Rarity' to 'Mister Scooter'. That explained much. The stallion shrugged and decided to call for help. "Boys, help me with this. It's heavier than my wife." Thanks to the combined effort of three ponies the box in the end landed in the destined place at the train. After it went other packages and ten minutes later the porters closed the door to the freight car. The silence didn't last long. "I still think we should enter two different crates. Three cubic yards* are definitely not enough." "Don't grumble. This one was the biggest I could find. Knowing our luck, with two different crates we would get loaded into two different trains," answered Blaze, but without any enthusiasm. "Couldn't we just run to Manehattan? It wouldn't take much time." "But it would gather a lot of attention. We don't want the Princesses to find out what are we going to do." Silence. "Blaze." "What?" "I didn't go to the toilet this morning." "...somehow I knew you were going to say that." * Or over two cubic meters. Suit yourself. Author's Note This chapter is shorter, but the next one is a crossover, so I decided to cut it right here. Expect evil robots, shiny Emeralds and lots of lasers.
