Bright Lights, Colors All Around (1/3)

Author’s Note

You all remember what I said before (In a sneak preview 'chapter' that I've already taken down). The story of this chapter is based heavily on the plot of Sonic Colors. It’s not entirely a surprise considering that my other chapters have referenced video games more than anything else. In fact, you’re free to guess which games inspired a lot of the scenes in the previous chapter, but that’s not important. If this chapter seems too much like some sort of shameless copy/paste for you to enjoy, I won’t hold it against you.

In the meantime, I would really like to know what you think of these stories so far. Since no one’s commenting on this story, all I have to go on are my thoughts when I proofread and reread my chapters before posting them. I didn’t really like how One Year Later turned out. It felt like I didn’t express the characters’ emotions effectively due to poor storytelling/narration. Anyway, this is my last chapter before this story goes on hiatus and I work on other things. So enjoy the chapter, or at least try to, feel free to comment, and, if you feel that I forgot to add any category tags, please let me know.

Zero Volt woke up the following morning. In the last seven weeks, he had rarely woken up in the same place twice, so trying to remember where he was became a part of his morning routine. Today was no different as he rubbed his eyes and looked around. “Let’s see, dark cave and…” he trailed off as he noticed the lustrous rocks nearby. “Oh right, that dragon and… Fillydelphia.” He stood up, put his saddle pack on and walked out of the cave. On his way out, he noticed the dragon from last night sleeping underneath a pile of rocks.

“Looks like he decided to get comfortable out here,” Zero Volt said. He looked at the dragon then back at the cave. Eventually, he placed his hoof on the sleeping dragon’s snout and a green glow spread through their bodies. Seconds later, he teleported both of them back into the cave, pulling the dragon out from under the pile of rocks. “He’s got some cuts and bruises, but I don’t think I actually injured him last night.” The dragon stretched its limbs and rolled around, getting into a more comfortable position. He scratched his belly and continued sleeping. “Guess not,” Zero Volt said as he turned and walked back out. “Maybe he’ll just think I was part of some weird dream.”

“Did you think he was going to wake up and attack you?” Rainbow Dash said. She and the rest of her closest friends were still watching an abridged version of Zero Volt’s past before he reached Ponyville.

“Not really,” Zero Volt said. “I just felt sort of guilty back there. Kicking that dragon out of his own cave wasn’t one of my finest moments.”

Zero Volt moved sluggishly across the rocky terrain. Even though the skies had cleared up, the events of the previous day still took their toll on him, and he was feeling unusually lethargic. “What do I do now? Fillydelphia was the last town I recognized, and that one didn’t turn up any friends or family either.” He walked in silence for the next few seconds. “Maybe I should just pick a town, start over, and forget about my past life.”

“So at what point did you realize that you actually came from Baltimare?” Twilight asked.

“While I was recovering in Ponyville Hospital,” Zero Volt said. “That’s when I decided to stay in Ponyville.”

“And to this day, you still won’t leave us alone,” Rarity said.

“Shut up, Rarity,” Zero Volt muttered. “Just shut up.”

Nearly a week later, Zero Volt arrived at the edge of a forest. According to his map, this was known as the Everfree Forest. “Doesn’t look like the most inviting place in Equestria,” he said. His gaze shifted from the tangled forest canopy, which seemed to block out all sunlight, to the distorted tree trunks. The few shrubs and plants on the ground looked unappetizing, if not poisonous, and he didn’t know anything about the forest’s fauna. He looked back at the map, only to find that the forest was completely uncharted on it. “I guess the mapmakers of Equestria decided to stay far away from this place. Let’s hope it’s nicer on the inside than on the outside.”

Zero Volt stepped into the forest, making sure not to come into contact with any of the plants. At the same time, he wondered how his two-second warning would react if something threatened to poison or infect him. He considered the scenario in his mind, but figured that it wouldn’t show him something as innocuous as him touching a plant. It was more likely to alert him two seconds before he developed symptoms, by which point it would be too late.

Zero Volt hadn’t gone half a mile into the forest when it started to become foggy. The further he walked, the thicker the fog became, and after a minute, it became almost impossible to see in front of him. He could still discern the trunks of any trees in front of him, but he moved more cautiously. Before long, the fog started to become thinner, but something felt different to him. The trees surrounding him weren’t as contorted and sickly anymore. In fact, their trunks reached straight up, and they were more spread out. The underbrush also seemed different to him. The entire ground was covered in plant life that reached up to his chest, so he could no longer avoid touching it. However, these felt more like wild grasses than any harmful plants.

Eventually, the fog cleared up entirely, but when Zero Volt saw where he was, he couldn’t believe his eyes. Over the last ten minutes, Zero Volt had stepped out of a dark, creepy forest and into a grassy plain. “Whoa… look at this place.” Zero Volt walked slowly, completely stunned by the picturesque environment he had stumbled upon. Wild grasses grew all over, reaching heights that no pony town would ever allow. Flowers, trees and shrubs flourished around him as well, adding even more color and beauty to the landscape.

Each of Zero Volt’s friends looked on in awe. “Well Ah’ll be…” Applejack said.

“I know,” Fluttershy added. “I would’ve never imagined something like this in the Everfree Forest.”

“That’s because this isn’t the Everfree Forest,” Zero Volt said. “In fact, this isn’t even Equestria anymore, so how are we even seeing all of this?”

“It may be a different sun, but it’s still the sun,” Celestia said. “So I can see through it just as easily.”

“Your explanation is starting to make less and less sense as we go along,” he said.

“And yet the picture is no less visible than it was before,” Celestia said. “Maybe you should stop delaying the movie and let us keep watching.”

For the next half hour, Zero Volt wandered about this world he had discovered. Occasionally he would turn around and walk backward, taking in as much of the lush, verdant scenery as he could. Suddenly, a cyan blur brushed past his head. He turned to see what it was, only for two larger objects to rush on either side of him, chasing after the cyan blur. Zero Volt did a double take and looked in the direction all three had gone. He saw a small creature being chased by two larger objects. The objects were black, metallic in appearance, and about the size of a pony. Despite their rotund shape and bipedal movement, these robots were catching up to the cyan creature. One of them extended its arm toward the creature and fired a sphere at it. The sphere popped open in midair, but Zero Volt teleported the creature before it could be captured.

“Hey, either of you want to tell me why you’re both chasing this little guy?” Zero Volt said. The robots turned and saw him with the cyan creature floating next to him. Their right arms changed shape, each forming large cannons. Zero Volt moved his head left to dodge one cannonball and ducked to avoid another. “You don’t talk much, do you? Fine by me.” Zero Volt galloped toward the two robots, dodging another cannonball from each of them. He jumped onto one of them, knocking it down and smashing it into the ground before jumping off and kicking the other one. His hind legs punched through the second robot’s chest, destroying it as well. Zero Volt pulled his hind legs out of the robot’s chest and turned around. He watched as the remains of both robots vanished into a black fog. “Okay, that’s new,” he said. He turned toward the cyan creature, who flew right in front of him. “So, you mind telling me what that was all about?” The creature made a series of squeaks and chirps while moving its limbs around. “Uh, what?” The creature repeated its gestures and sounds. “Sorry, I don’t really understand… whatever it is you’re squeaking.”

“He’s asking you to help him,” Fluttershy said.

“You understood all that?” Zero Volt asked.

“He said that there’s a monster kidnapping his friends and draining their energy,” she said.

Meanwhile, Zero Volt was still trying to understand what the creature was telling him. “Maybe it’d be easier if you showed me what’s bothering you instead of telling me?” he said. The creature responded by pointing in one direction and flying off. “Alright, lead the way,” he said before cantering after the alien. Zero Volt followed the alien through the idyllic world he had stumbled across. Along the way, he took a closer look at the little creature. Its head was large compared to the rest of its body, with three appendages sprouting from the base of its head. The appendages were long and thin, and while the two of them acted as limbs, the third one seemed to double as its body. Zero Volt turned his attention back to the landscape. “This is a really nice place you’ve got here,” he said. “This is the first time I’ve ever slowed down just to check out the scenery.”

“I agree completely,” a voice behind him said. “This place is wonderful.” Zero Volt turned around and saw a yellow pegasus with a flowing pink mane flying next to him.

Zero Volt’s friends looked at the picture in complete shock. “Th-that’s not me,” Fluttershy said.

“Of course not,” Zero Volt said. “Take a closer look at her body.” They looked back at the picture. The mare looked almost identical to Fluttershy, but there were black veins along her coat and her hooves were also colored black. “This is where Nightmare shows up, or in this case, Nightmare Shy.”

“Are you going to name all of them?” Rainbow Dash said, rolling her eyes.

“I didn’t expect anypony to be living around here,” Zero Volt said.

“Well, I wouldn’t have normally approached you,” Nightmare said, “but um… you kind of hurt two of my friends earlier.”

“Oh, I’m sorry,” he said. “Maybe you could take me to them so I could apol- wait, I don’t remember hurting anypony recently.” The cyan creature was tapping Zero Volt’s shoulder, but he was too busy talking to the pegasus to notice.

“Oh it doesn’t matter,” she said. “I have plenty more where they came from.” Nightmare landed on the ground, and when her hooves touched down, a black haze spread across the ground and surrounded them. Zero Volt watched as several more robots emerged from the haze. “Now play nice this time,” Nightmare said as she spread her wings and flew above them, allowing the robots to surround him.

One of the robots aimed at Zero Volt and fired a laser from its cannon. Zero Volt teleported behind that robot and placed his forelegs around it. He tried to rotate the robot’s body, but it stopped firing its weapon. “Come on,” Zero Volt said, smacking the robot’s head with his hoof, “Just let me borrow that laser for a few seconds.” Suddenly, the cyan creature started glowing and flew into Zero Volt’s body. A cyan light flashed across the field for a split-second, and all of the robots were destroyed. Nightmare’s body was also struck by the cyan light, and she collapsed on the ground before vanishing. Zero Volt appeared two hundred feet away, and the alien emerged from his body and struck a pose in midair. “Whoa, what just happened?” He looked back to where they were standing a second ago, but only saw a black fog. “Was that you?” he said, looking back at the alien. The cyan creature took a quick bow and pointed off in the distance, and Zero Volt started following him again.

“I can’t even tell what happened there,” Twilight said. “Couldn’t you have slowed down the video?”

“We tried to, but it seems that Zero Volt was still moving too quickly at the time,” Celestia said. “From what we can tell, he ricocheted off of all those robots and barreled through Nightmare at the speed of light.”

“Speed of light?” Twilight said. “No wonder you couldn’t slow it down enough.”

Minutes later, the cyan creature brought Zero Volt in a front of a building in the middle of the grassland. “Well this thing certainly looks out of place here,” Zero Volt said. The building was colored in white and orange and had a capsule on top of it. Suddenly, the ground started shaking, and something else emerged from behind the building. “A killer robot Ferris wheel?” Zero Volt said, staring incredulously at the massive machine that appeared. The robot consisted of a head and two arms, and it used its arms to hold onto the Ferris wheel. “I change my mind; that looks out of place here.” He teleported to the top of the robot’s head. His plan was to pull the robot off of the wheel and drop it on the ground, but before he could teleport both of them, the robot’s head started spinning wildly, throwing him off. Zero Volt teleported closer to the ground, preventing him from getting too hurt after being thrown off. “Okay, that didn’t work,” he said. He stood up and looked at the cyan alien. “You want to try that laser thing we-” Zero Volt was interrupted when the creature flew into him. A soft aura radiated from his body for a second, and his bangs changed to a cyan color. “Huh, I guess you’re more ready than I am.”

He eyed the robot carefully, hoping to be able to aim himself. A second later, he took off, piercing the robot’s claw, traveling up its arm, shooting out of the robot’s eye, and smashing through the building. Zero Volt returned to the ground and looked back up. That one attack severely damaged the robot, which fell backward and broke apart when it hit the ground. At the same time, a spherical container rolled away from the wreckage. The container was transparent, and when Zero Volt stared at it he noticed something moving around inside. He rolled the container around until he found a lock and stomped on it. The container broke open, and another creature emerged from it.

Meanwhile, the cyan alien sluggishly floated toward the destroyed building. The container at the top of it had shattered, and a cyan colored light rose from it. Despite showing some fatigue, the creature managed to reach the light, absorbing it in its body and recovering its strength. With renewed energy, it flew back to Zero Volt and started communicating with the other alien.

“So this one is your friend,” Zero Volt said. “Are there more of you?” The two creatures turned and nodded to him. “Then let’s go find them.” A second later, Zero Volt’s stomach growled. “Maybe I could get something to eat first.” The two creatures exchanged glances and flew in another direction, followed by Zero Volt.

“You do realize you were surrounded by food, right?” Pinkie Pie asked. “You know, grass, flowers, herbivore?”

“Huh, I hadn’t actually thought of that,” Zero Volt said.

“I certainly hope not,” Rarity said. “I would never eat my food off the ground like that.”

“I’d be a little worried about fecal contamination,” Twilight added.

“And with that lovely image, courtesy of Twilight Sparkle, let’s move on!” Zero Volt said.

Zero Volt followed the two creatures for another hour. It was already late afternoon when he entered their world, and the sun was now starting to set. In the meantime, Zero Volt examined the other creature he had found. This one had an orange body with an oblong shape to it, as opposed to the cyan one’s more spherical shape. It also had three round pods at its base instead of the cyan one’s long, slender limbs. ‘That one kind of looks like a…’ Zero Volt thought. ‘No, do not compare it to a sex toy. Do not compare it to a sex toy.’

“You think it looks like a sex toy, don’t you?” Rainbow Dash whispered.

Zero Volt stared at her, speechless for the first few seconds. “Apparently, so do you,” he whispered back. He turned back to the screen, leaving Rainbow somewhat stunned.

Eventually, the two creatures stopped and turned around, causing Zero Volt to stop in front of them. Zero Volt had been lost in thought for the last few minutes, but when they stopped, something felt different. Once he finally looked at his surroundings, he realized that the two creatures had taken him somewhere radically different. “Whoa, look at this place,” he said. “It’s all made of candy!” He ran from one object to the next, excitedly calling out what each one was. “Giant doughnuts! Cotton candy shrubs! Hard candy trees!” He gasped when he reached the last part f the environment, a flowing stream of liquid chocolate. “Chocolate… river!” Zero Volt noticed some moisture on his muzzle, and realized that he was drooling. He tried to wipe the excess saliva from his muzzle, only to realize that the ground he was standing on was actually an enormous cake with pink frosting. The frosting was coating his hooves, and he got some of it on his muzzle when he tried to wipe his saliva away.

“Um, Zero?” Fluttershy said. “You’re drooling again.” Zero Volt looked down and wiped the saliva away from his mouth, only somewhat glad that he didn’t have frosting on his hoof this time.

“Now Zero, I’ve been known to act less than ladylike around certain confections,” Rarity said, “but that is just vulgar.”

“I don’t know. I think it’s a perfectly acceptable way to react to sweets,” Zero Volt said. “Twilight and Pinkie agree with me, right?”

Twilight was about to respond, but she noticed liquid dripping from her hoof. She turned and saw a large puddle of saliva. “Pinkie Pie, that’s disgusting!” Twilight shrieked, but Pinkie was too enraptured by the candies and confections on the screen to respond.

Rainbow Dash burst into laughter at the spectacle next to her. “We’ve got to start doing a movie night from now on,” she said after regaining her composure.

“Perhaps we could create a blooper reel of your failed aerial stunts,” Luna chided.

“Uh, let’s hold off on that for at least another winter,” Rainbow said.

“Now now, Luna, leave her alone,” Celestia said. “In spite of her crashes, she has earned most of that tremendous ego of hers.”

“You guys don’t mind if we take a small break, do you?” Zero Volt asked. The two aliens shook their heads. Over the next two minutes, Zero Volt galloped across the candied landscape, engorging himself on as much as he could. He took a large bite out of one of the giant doughnuts, inhaled cotton candy off of the shrubs, took another bite out of the same doughnut, and kicked one of the trees with his hind legs. Hard candy pieces fell off the branches, and he teleported several times to catch all of them in his mouth. Zero Volt swallowed all of the candy pieces and licked his lips, but a sad expression appeared on his face when he looked at the ground. “Aw, I missed one,” he said, looking at a piece of candy that had landed on the ground. He shrugged it off seconds later and ate it off the ground, getting some cake frosting in the process.

Zero Volt turned around and bent his legs, preparing to break into a gallop. “Chocolate river!” He broke into a gallop, leapt when he reached the river, and dove right in. The river’s current carried him as he tried to drink as much of it as he could, and he was eventually thrown off of a chocolate-fall (chocolate waterfall?). Zero Volt was covered from head to hoof in chocolate, which started to dry all over his coat as he plummeted. He landed on a metal platform several feet away, the impact shattering the chocolate shell that had formed around his body. Zero Volt looked at his surroundings. He was standing on a platform above a lake formed at the end of the chocolate river. He walked toward the cascading chocolate and pushed his muzzle toward it, trying to drink more. The liquid flowed down his entire head as he drank, and when he stepped back, it quickly dried around him. Seconds later, he moved his neck in all directions and pulled off the large piece of dried chocolate. “I’m going to be on a huge sugar rush by the time I’m done here,” Zero Volt said, staring at the hollowed out bust he held in his hooves. “Then again, I have a lot of energy as it is. Oh well, if I’m going to act the part, I might as well play it too.” He crushed the chocolate bust between his hooves and stuffed the pieces in his mouth.

“So that’s why you smelled like chocolate,” Pinkie Pie said.

“What?”

“When you first came to Ponyville, you smelled like chocolate for the first two weeks,” she said.

“That stuff was hard to get out of my coat,” Zero Volt said. “Wait, is that why you took such a liking to me that first day.”

“Maybe. Wait, I have an idea! If you found a chocolate-scented cologne, you could smell like chocolate all the time!”

“Save that idea for your special somepony.”

“That’s a great idea!” she said. “Wait, even better idea! At night I could pour chocolate syrup on myself and my special somepony would lick me from my chest all the way down to-”

“TMI!” Twilight shouted, pressing her hooves on her ears. “TMI!”

The two creatures managed to catch up to Zero Volt again. The cyan one pointed at the cake, as if suggesting that Zero Volt could try it as well. “No thanks, I tried taking a bite out of it earlier,” he said. “Too much icing, not enough cake. I’d have to really dislocate my jaw to get the right amount. Maybe if I had a spoon… or a shovel.” Zero Volt turned his attention back to the orange creature. “Hey, do you have any special powers like your friend does?” The alien spun its body around and floated up in the air. “Actually, you’re starting to look like… a rocket?” The orange creature flew back to Zero Volt and entered his body. His bangs turned orange and an orange glow appeared around his hooves, pushing them off the ground. “Oh I get it. I can use your powers by saying certain words out loud.” He looked back at the cyan creature. “That must mean that yours was… laser?”

The cyan creature jumped into Zero Volt as well. A second later, a cyan-orange streak traced the skies above the candied landscape. There were only traces of orange when the streak traveled straight, but more orange was added when the streak made turns. The streak punched holes through several objects in its path and crashed into solid ground. Zero Volt groaned as he stood back up. “Ugh, I’m starting to think that these little cephalopod things are more dangerous than whatever’s attacking them,” he said. Looking around him, he realized that the two creatures had taken him a considerable distance. There were still sweets around him, but he was now standing on solid ground instead of a massive cake.

“Hey, are you the pony that’s been ruinin’ mah land?” Zero Volt turned around to see where the voice came from and saw an orange earth pony with a blonde mane standing nearby.

“That’s s’posed to be me up there?” Applejack said, noticing the black veins and a black-colored Stetson hat.

“Yeah, that’s Nightmare Applejack,” Zero Volt said. “Or Nightmare Apple? Nightmare Jack?”

“I don’t know,” Rainbow said. “AJ’s name isn’t as easy to work with.”

“What do you mean?” Zero Volt said.

“Ah mean have you been eatin’ all the food ‘round here?” Nightmare said angrily. “This is all mah farmland, and Ah put a lot of work into growin’ all this food!”

“Wait, you actually grow and cultivate sweets?” he said skeptically. “I’m surprised that’s even possible.”

“That’s why it’s such hard work!” she shouted.

“Does this make sense to any of you?” Zero Volt said to the two aliens, not noticing a lasso thrown at him. The lasso fell over his body and tightened around his legs, knocking him off his hooves. Nightmare stood over the hogtied Zero Volt and lifted her forelegs off the ground. She was about to bring them back down on Zero Volt, but he teleported away and her hooves hit the ground instead. Zero Volt stood up, grabbed Nightmare’s tail, and slammed her into the ground.

Nightmare quickly stood up, unfazed by Zero Volt’s attack. She lifted her forelegs and slammed her hooves on the ground, causing an earthquake. Zero Volt stumbled as the ground shook, and Nightmare took the opportunity to gallop toward him for another attack. She whipped around and kicked with her hind legs, but Zero Volt teleported again. This time, he teleported behind her, tapped her shoulder, and teleported both of them. He returned to the ground and looked up to watch Nightmare plummet from a thousand feet up.

Nightmare crashed into the ground, leaving a crater on impact. However, she stood back up with little effort, unwounded from her landing. “Why did I have to pick a fight with Supermare?” Zero Volt sighed. “Or maybe she’s Wonder Pony.” Nightmare galloped toward him again, but Zero Volt teleported, causing her to crash into a wall behind him. The wall collapsed, trapping Nightmare underneath the debris. “Huh, is it just me, or was this miniboss harder than that last boss?” The orange alien gave him a confused look. “Maybe this isn’t the best time for video game logic. Anyway, weren’t we going somewhere?”

* * * * * * * * * *

Zero Volt and the two small creatures arrived at another building half an hour later. This time, the capsule on top of it gave off an orange colored aura. Suddenly, Zero Volt’s two-second warning took effect, and he rolled to avoid a cannonball. He turned in the direction it had come from and saw a ship floating in the sky. Nightmare was on the ship, using her ‘Applejack’ form, and a pirate flag waved at the top of its mast. “So now the farmpony with the southern accent is also a pirate,” he said. “You little guys have the weirdest enemies I’ve ever seen. Oh well, who cares? Rocket!”

The orange creature flew into Zero Volt’s body. Moving into an upright position and pointing his hooves downward, Zero Volt shot into the air using the creature’s power and smashed through the hull of the ship, splitting it in half. He rose high above the ship before the orange creature emerged from his body. As he fell back toward the ground, he noticed both aliens floating next to him. “Hey, how did you get here so quickly?” he asked the cyan creature. “Don’t tell me you stowed away with the two of us. Oh well, that makes things easier for me. Laser!”

Zero Volt used the cyan alien’s power as soon as it entered his body. He reflected off of several pieces of the ship’s wreckage and shot through the building on the ground, piercing the capsule at the top. As soon as he returned to the ground, the orange creature wearily made its way to the broken capsule, helped by his cyan friend. Meanwhile, another spherical container landed in front of Zero Volt. Seeing movement inside, he broke the container open and examined the creature than emerged from it. This one had a yellow body with a single eye on its conical head. “I might not need that shovel after all,” Zero Volt said, noticing the darker stripes that spiraled around the creature’s head. “Drill!”

As soon as the yellow creature flew into Zero Volt’s body, he jumped and dove into ground, drilling through the frosting and into the cake. Meanwhile, Nightmare stood up and scanned the area around her. Amidst the wreckage of the ship and the demolished building, she noticed the other two aliens floating nearby. The two creatures backed away as Nightmare approached them. A black fog seeped from her hat and formed a rope, with one end of the rope held in her mouth. Suddenly, the ground collapsed underneath Nightmare’s hooves, forming a sinkhole. When Nightmare tried to stand back up, Zero Volt emerged from the ground, drilling through her in the process.

“This cake is delicious!” Zero Volt said, licking his lips. He looked down and noticed the broken orange mare lying on the ground. “What happened to you?” The three creatures gathered around him and motioned toward the rest of the food. “No thanks, I’m already on the biggest sugar high in the history of sugar! Soon to be followed by the biggest sugar crash in the history of sugar but we’ll cross that bridge when we get to it. So! Where to next!”

“For once in my life, I knew what it was like to be Pinkie Pie,” Zero Volt said.

“You don’t know the half of it,” Pinkie Pie said.

“I know I’ve been saying this a lot recently,” Zero Volt said, “but whoa… look at this place!” Zero Volt stood on top of an airship thousands of feet above the ground. He and the three little creatures were in the middle of an enormous air fleet. Despite the similarities in the ships’ appearances, the sheer scale of the fleet overwhelmed Zero Volt. The view was made all the more stunning when set against the star-filled night sky, allowing the ships’ bright, vibrant colors to stand out even more. “One of your friends is somewhere aboard this fleet, right?” The aliens nodded to him. “Alright then, let’s go!”

Zero Volt saw a path of hard light appear above the deck of the airship. He galloped across the deck and jumped onto the path. As he ran along, the hard light stretched across the sky, weaving around many of the airships as it traveled alongside them. He had to make sure to keep a steady pace as he galloped. The path was only fifty feet long at any time, vanishing at the tail end as it extended forward. If he was too slow, he would have fallen behind and dropped off, but if he ran too fast, he would overtake the path and fall off the front end.

Looking on either side of the path, Zero Volt eventually found an entrance into one of the ships. H waited for it to come close enough and jumped off, landing next to the entrance. He was about to step inside the ship, but stopped in front of the entrance and looked at the interior. There were two more ships with openings in them, and Zero Volt teleported to both of them to scrutinize their interiors. “You know, the view on the outside is just spectacular, but on the inside, there’s not much going on,” Zero Volt said. “Your friend isn’t actually inside one of these ships, is he?” The yellow creature shook its head. “Alright then, let’s stick to the outside of these ships.”

Another hard light path snaked around the fleet, and Zero Volt jumped onto it and galloped along. The four of them continued along this path. ‘It’s about time I ran into someone friendly,’ Zero Volt thought. ‘I mean, I still have to clean up whatever mess these little guys are in, but after everything I’ve run into these last two months, I’ll take whatever I can get. I mean, they haven’t tried to kill me, they haven’t tried to take this thing off my leg, and they haven’t tried to… wait. How do I know they’ll let me stay after I take care of whatever’s attacking them? What if they’re only being nice to me just to use me, like Bruiser and Silver Wind?’ Zero Volt’s train of thought was broken when he noticed a pink earth pony catch up to them, now bouncing alongside them.

“Now she’s taking on Pinkie Pie’s appearance,” Twilight said.

“That doesn’t make any sense!” Pinkie Pie said. “She should’ve fought you as Nightmare Pink back where all the sweets were. The starry skies and bright colors are more Twilight’s thing, or at least Rainbow Dash.”

“Nightmare Pink?” Zero Volt said. “Maybe Nightmare Pinkie or Nightmare Pinkie Pie, but whatever. Anyway, she didn’t appear as Twilight or Dash that night. It’s just this and… Nightmare Rarity? Nightmarity?”

“You’re terrible at this,” Rarity said.

“Hey, when the score is this one-sided, I have every right to make a mockery of her naming system,” he said.

“Hi there!”

“Uh… hi.” Zero Volt examined the pink pony bouncing alongside him. “Are you with the other two ponies I ran into today?” he asked, noticing the black veins across her body.”

“Yup!”

“And are you going to attack me to?”

“Okie dokie lokie!” Nightmare said before trying to bash her body into him. Zero Volt, tried to move away, but had to teleport when she forced him near the edge of the path. Nightmare bounced toward him again, but he decelerated and ran around her to dodge.

“Wait, why are you attacking me?”

“Because you asked me to, silly.”

“What the… well could you please stop attacking me?”

“Aw, what’s the fun in that?”

Zero Volt teleported above Nightmare and landed on her with his hooves. He kicked off, throwing her off the path and landing safely. “Not having that happen to you,” he said, as he continued galloping.

Suddenly, Zero Volt’s two-second warning took effect, and he sidestepped to avoid a certain pink earth pony who almost landed on him. “Nah, still worth it,” Nightmare said.

“How did you…” Zero Volt started, but his two-second warning activated again, and he stepped away just in time to dodge several small explosions. He looked back and saw another pink mare. “Wait, there are two of you?”

“There’s enough of me for everypony to enjoy!” Zero Volt looked ahead and saw two more Pinkie Pies bouncing ahead of him. They both shook their heads about, throwing explosive party favors all around them. Zero Volt decelerated to avoid the explosions, but had to teleport when the other two Pinkies tried to run into him.

Zero Volt continued to dodge the Pinkie Pies as he galloped along the hard light path. The path ran between two of the largest ships in the fleet, and he saw a third one hovering above the path. A machine gun appeared on the third ship and aimed at the path. “Alright that’s it,” Zero Volt said. “Laser!” He took off as soon as the cyan creature flew into him. He reflected off of the two ships on either side of him, slamming into the Pinkie Pies and piercing the third ship multiple times. Most of the Pinkie Pie bodies simply crumbled when hit, but the real Nightmare stumbled and collapsed, falling off the hard light path when it left her behind. By the time the cyan creature left Zero Volt’s body, the path was clear of enemies.

Zero Volt was about to continue down the path, but the yellow alien pointed to one of the ships. A capsule with a yellow aura around it sat on the ship’s deck along with a broken container. The path swung closer to the ship, and Zero Volt jumped off and landed on the deck. The yellow creature appeared in front of him and pointed at the capsule. “You want me to smash that open?” Zero Volt asked. “Okay, let’s try drill.” He used the creature’s power to break through the ship’s deck and destroy the capsule. Once they separated, the yellow creature absorbed the energy inside the broken capsule and Zero Volt found himself face-to-face with another of the creatures. “Hey, I think I found you’re other friend! You all ready to go?”