Episode 2: Welcome to Gem City

Across the colorful and crystalline Gem City, gem people began to sing a short rap about Rarity. "Ohhhhh! She's a white pony with new gem powers! Cause she came to this planet from outer space! A refugee of Equestria's dark will! But now she's at your local Gem City! Rarity! She just morphed into Garnity! Rarity! She's super duper shiny! Rarity! She left Equestria behind! Rarity!"

Still in her Garnity form, Rarity heard this rap and began to walk down Gem City while several gem people took pictures of her. Then she reverted to her base form. "Why are you so glad I left Equestria? Oh that's right - Rainbow Power was no match for Equestria's dark will. Do I know you? You all look so familiar..." She tried to make sense of this strange familiarity.

”May I have your autograph?" One green gem boy held up a paper sheet. Nodding, Rarity levitated her pencil, signed her name onto the center of the paper, and glued three gems like her cutie mark's directly above her name.

At her side, Dr. Diamond showed floating footage of Friendship is Magic's villain episodes to another gem crowd. Having previously seen her epic battle with Gorvlitra and the Vlitroopers up close and personal, the now-angry crowds booed and threw tomatoes at Diamond's floating video screens, turning them completely red. "Those aren't real, old stallion!"

Diamond replied, "You're probably right. I have the feeling that the FiM villains were staged to promote relying on instant win buttons and letting known criminals slide. Not Equestria's dark will for some reason."

He and Rarity then arrived at an arcade. After playing various games, the two unicorns saw a blue gem boy inserting quarters into an "Elements of Harmony" arcade machine. The boy had counted "37, 38, 39, 40. This better be worth it" before his game started up. On the screen, the Mane Six faced down Discord with the Elements. He simply stood there for 30 seconds, took one blast from the Six, and turned to stone.

"YOU WIN" flashed on the screen, leaving the boy disappointed. He walked away and started sobbing.

"Broken Magnum!" Rarity, back in Garnity form, shot a spinning gauntlet through the Elements screen, destroying the whole machine in an explosion. Another machine took its place, revealing a virtual reality boxing game starting Garnity. "Would you like this one, darling? Wait...why did I just do that?!?"

The boy inserted one quarter in the game to start it up, thanked Rarity, and began to play the much better game. "Thank you, Rarity! This game is more awesome than those boring Elements of Harmony! Here, you can have this." He then gave her a light blue gem that also had her cutie mark engraved into it."

However, Rarity was concerned that there might by a massive anti-friendship conspiracy. "Thanks but...Those Elements of Harmony were powered by the magic of friendship." She then turned to Dr. Diamond. "What about the morphing gems, Dr. Diamond?"

Dr. Diamond shook his head and then chuckled. "No, because then you wouldn't have been able to use it alone! I sent you to Equestria to live as a pony with the magic of friendship, but knew you'd be separated from your friends eventually."

Then Mavlitracore, a Manticore with black hide and red veins, landed in Gem City, knocking over a gem statue of Rarity and beginning to snack on hapless civilians. As her horn flashed very brightly for a second, she announced "Gem City's in trouble! I'm sensing another Dark Equestrian monster!"

Rarity and Diamond then deployed to fight Mavlitracore. "Take this, ruffian!" Remembering her encounter with a regular Manticore back in Equestria, Rarity charged forward and performed a tail sweep to trip Mavlitracore. As Mavlitracore retaliated with a sideways claw swipe, Rares jumped and countered with a roundhouse kick to its left cheek, knocking it sideways.

White getting up, Mavlitracore began stretching its scorpion tail to attack Diamond, who formed a levitating diamond shield to repeatedly block the tail. Eventually, the tail began to drill through the shield. Before Diamond could get poked, Rarity changed into her Garnity form, grabbed the tail with her gauntlet, and slammed Mavlitracore back and forth repeatedly before it shot her with an exploding energy ball from its mouth, knocking her away. As Rares got back up, she yelled "Broken Magnum" and shot her right gauntlet at Mavlitracore, but Mavlitracore knocked it aside with a claw swipe. The gauntlet slammed into Diamond, who blocked it with his shield but slid back from the inertia. Rares then fired her left gauntlet at Mavlitracore's face, but Mavlitracore began to chew on the gauntlet. "Looks like it's time to use that other morphing gem I got from the gem boy...Pearlity Henshin!" Rares then gave off a light blue flash and materialized onto her a light blue shirt with a yellow star in the center, a bow on her back, yellow shorts, blue shoes, and pink socks. In addition, a spear then emerged from her foreleg and levitated in front of her.

Diamond and Rarity then switched positions. Diamond announced "Rarity, I'll take him from the front. Go for the tail!" before jumping over Mavlitracore's claw and treating its face to a Dempsey Roll. Meanwhile, Rarity used her new spear to swordfight with Mavlitracore's tail. Her unicorn magic allowed her to also kick Mavlitracore in the rump hard during the swordfight. As Mavlitracore then bit forward, Diamond evaded the bite with a sideways dodge and roundhouse kicked Mavlitracore to Diamond's left. Diamond then blocked one energy ball from Mavlitracore, then Rarity sliced another in half with her spear. "Now Rares, your spear can shoot lasers too." Rarity then pointed her spear at Mavlitracore's eye and fired a small laser at it, momentarily blinding the manticore long enough for Rarity to stab it through the head. However, the manticore was unfazed and began to pull the spear out of its head. Before the spear could be extracted, Rarity repeatedly kicked the manticore in the face while spinning back and forth on the spear. Then Mavlitracore threw the spear aside, at which point Rarity jumped off and drop kicked Mavlitracore sideways.

As Mavlitracore got up and then started flying really high, Diamond jumped and grabbed its tail to keep the tail stuck to the ground. However, the tail just stretched as Mavlitracore ascended. Rarity began to climb up the tail while still slicing through energy balls shot at her. "Please get down from there, darling", she quipped before slicing off Mavlitracore's wings and tail, allowing its body to fall to the ground. Then she accompanied this by charging up a powerful spear slash while descending. "Pearl Splitter!" Upon landing, she cut right through Mavlitracore. "Embrace the darkness and sleep, darling." Mavlitracore then split in half and exploded. Rarity then posed with Diamond and announced "Explosively completed!" But just before she could celebrate her victory, a single Vlitrooper with a glowing blue sword jumped out and took a swing at her, which she blocked with her spear. Meanwhile, four other Vlitroopers prepared to attack Diamond...

Author's Note

Today's Gem Fusion information: Pearlity. Wields an energy spear which Rarity can charge with lightsaber-like energy and shoot energy blasts. Can erase energy shots.

Next episode: The art of sword fighting.