After a while, Mark woke up and gave a sigh of relief, no longer feeling as exhausted as he was earlier. Rolling upwards and standing, he inwardly rolled his eyes at the fact that he no longer had feet.

"Hey, Entei? You awake?"

He looked to his left to see Twilight and the other Element Bearers approach.

"Yo." Mark replied. "How long was I asleep?"

"An hour or so." Rarity replied. "But we need to get moving to Haynalulu. Those nobles are having a council meeting to discuss the purchase of that sacred beach."

"Brilliant." Mark rolled his eyes in frustration. "Let's get going, then. That beach won't save itself."

As the eight of them thanked Lokoa Hai and the other tribe members, they set off to Haynalulu at a rapid pace. Mark soon realized that while his old human body was good for running, now he was quite faster than he thought he'd be.

"This might not be so bad after all." Mark thought, giving a small smile to himself. "I mean, I'm in the body of a Legendary Pokemon, I can breathe fire now, and I'm helping to save a sacred beach from a bunch of assholes. So far...it's okay being here. We'll see if that changes, though."

====

As they arrived in Haynalulu, Mark, Spike, and the Elements could see clearly that the residents were highly worked up over the situation at hand, as evident by the shouts and yells coming from the town hall. On top of that, the entire outside area was packed with ponies arguing, which were blocking the entrance in a living barricade.

"Great. What now?" Mark asked Twilight.

"One second, please." she replied, focusing her magic and teleporting them inside the town hall and straight into the middle of the meeting.

"The Princess and the Element Bearers!" Mayor Tide cried in relief. "Thank Celestia you're all here!"

"Not that they should be!" Gem Worthy retorted. "This is out of their jurisdiction! This is a local issue to be solved locally!"

"I disagree!" Twilight replied bitterly. "You're not a noble, you're a thief, plain and simple as that!"

As the entire room descended into chaos and arguing, Spike looked up and Entei, whose brow was twitching with anger, and growing more noticeable by every second that passed.

"Uh, Entei?" Spike asked. "You okay?"

Entei didn't respond, only he took in a breath and roared so loudly, the walls shook. At that, everypony went silent in shock and fear. Mark scoffed and took the podium at the front of the room.

"Okay, I've had enough." he growled. "If you're all still trying to debate building on a sacred beach, here's my response. If they said no, that's your answer."

"You have no business in this!" Gem Worthy replied angrily. "What do you even know about any of this, creature!?"

"A lot more than you, apparently." Mark chuckled, getting quite a few local ponies to laugh with him, along with the Elements and Spike. "Also, let me offer this as a rebuttal to your first statement. I live here too, so its my business as well, whether you like it or not."

"I beg to differ." Gem Worthy snarled. "That land should belong to those who are more civilized, and aren't primitives skulking about in the jungle!"

That caused quite a few more ponies to gasp and the Elements to growl in anger. Twilight had to hold back a furious Spike, claws out and ready.

"Okay, so you're not only a complete moron, you're also a prejudiced bigot?" Mark chuckled. "Just my luck. You keep giving me more reason to dislike you."

"Shut up!" Gem Worthy cried. "Just shut up!"

"Oh, that's a classic." Mark laughed. "Can't stand hearing the truth, so you try to stop someone from saying it. I mean, look at this clown! See what I mean?"

"ENOUGH!" Gem Worthy screamed, firing a beam of magic at Mark before charging at him. Mark, having taken self-defense classes during his summer vacations back home on Earth, easily sidestepped and slammed Gem Worthy to the ground, planting his paw solidly on his back.

"Wanna go again? I'll incinerate you this time." Mark growled.

"Okay, everypony stop!" Twilight yelled, firing a beam of light that drew everyone's attention to her. "Entei, let him go. Everypony else, sit down."

Mark did so, and Gem Worthy scrambled away. As Twilight cleared her throat, she gave a sigh of complete and unbridled frustration.

"This has dragged on for too long and gone far enough." she said with authority in her voice. "As of now, I am declaring that beach a protected site of the Equestrian Crown. Nopony apart from the tribes who frequent it may enter it. As for you, Gem Worthy…"

"Consider you and your little "Improvement League" officially disbanded as of now, am I correct?" she glared at him so harshly that he could only nod.

"Good. Everypony disperse and go home." Twilight finished. "This was more than enough for one day."

As the crowd dissipated and everypony left, Mark gave a sigh of pure relief. Following the Elements and Spike out of the Town Hall, Mayor Tide approached them with a grateful smile.

"I thank you, all of you." he said, tipping his hat. "If it wasn't for your companion, we'd likely have a riot to deal with, and that on top of the Improvement League. I owe all of you my thanks."
.
"Not a problem." Mark replied. "Anyway, we'd best find a good place to sleep tonight. Sun's going down by the looks of it."

"He's right." Twilight said, noticing the sun had set. "Entei, we leave for Equestria tomorrow morning. Would you care to come with us?'

Mark turned to the path that led to the tribe's village, and gave a small smile of gratitude before looking back at the Elements.

"Why not?" he sighed. "But before we go, I'd like to say goodbye to Lokoa and Kani Hai. That okay?"

"Sure! We should also tell them that the beach is safe." Twilight replied. "We'll show you back, and we'll meet here in the morning, alright?"

"Sounds good." Mark smiled. As the eight of them headed back to Lokoa Hai's village, the moon rose over the islands. Had the Elements and Mark turned their eyes upwards at that moment, they would've seen a shooting star fall to the ground, glowing red and orange, like flame.

Author's Note

Update!

This took too long to write, but I'm happy with it.

Next time - The arrival in Equestria.