The Five Heroes

Chapters

Chapter 1: Awakening
Chapter 2: The Barren Wasteland [The First Dimension]
Chapter 3: Sightings
Chapter 4: Encounter
Chapter 5: Investigations
Chapter 6: Heatherfield [The Second Dimension]
Chapter 7: The Escape
Chapter 8: Toy Town [The Third Dimension]
Chapter 9: Aerial Assault
Chapter 10: Middleton [The Fourth Dimension]

Chapter 1: Awakening

His eyes slowly opened, as his mind began to slowly become aware. As his eyes began to open, he almost had to shut them closed again; the blinding light of the sun overhead beamed brightly down on him. As far as he was concerned, he was lying on the ground in a place that he did not know. As his eyes began adjusting to the light, he began to survey his surroundings.

All that he could see, from his side-view perspective, was nothing but white sand. The sky was clear and a small breeze was present. Other than that, there was nothing; no mountains, no plant life, nothing but sand and sky.

As he began to take it all in, he tried his best to sit up and look around this strange environment some more. However, as he tried to sit up, a sharp pain filled his left arm, causing him to fall flat on his back again. It felt as if there were several needles sticking in his arm, causing severe pain to course through it like nothing he had ever felt before in his entire life. After a few moments of catching his bearings and letting the pain die down, the anthropomorphic blue hedgehog decided to inspect what was hurting him.

He lifted his arm and went wide-eyed at what he saw. All along his left arm were several long scrapes. He turned his arm around and saw that the scrapes were all around it. Furthermore, all the scrapes were red, almost as if they had been bleeding. With his other arm, he ran his fingers on the wounds and felt the sharp pain he had felt earlier. Then, he inspected his hand and saw traces of blood on them.

“These wounds appear to be fresh,” he said aloud, “Where did they come from? Where am I? How did I get here? What is going on?”

Like before, he tried to sit up again. This time, he didn’t lean on his left arm. Although it was a struggle, he was able to sit up. When he did, he panned his head back and forth to see nothing. A small breeze blew past, slightly causing his quills to sway to one side. Either than the small sound of the sand below him rustling with the breeze, there was no other sound, no other signs of life.

“What is this place?” he asked, as he continued to survey his surroundings. He decided to try and think back to how he got here in the first place. However, no matter how hard he tried, nothing seemed to click on his mind. He had no memory of what had happened or how he got there in the first place.

“Why can’t I remember how I got here?” he asked himself aloud, “What the heck is going on here?”

After several moments of wondering, he brushed off the red and white sneakers he wore and tried to stand up. Although it was difficult to try and stand up with one hand, he eventually got up and continued to wonder where he was.

He scratched the back of his head, trying to recollect the events that happened prior to his awakening. He tried to recall what he had been doing before he got here, before he was sent to this apparent endless desert he was in. He fished his mind, trying to remember where he was and what he was doing, anything that could help him recall what had happened. Try as he might, he just couldn’t find it in his memory bank. His memory, or at least certain parts of it, felt as if it had been erased, wiped from his mind so that he wouldn’t be able to know what happened.

“I can remember my name and where I’m from,” he said aloud, “But it seems I can’t remember what had happened to me or why I’m here. There’s got to be a reason why I can remember everything else about myself, except that. I don’t know why, but I’ve got a feeling that someone or something doesn’t want me to remember, but the question is who and why.”

He directed his attention back to the fresh wounds on his arm. Although no blood was streaming from the cuts and scrapes that infested his arm, it still stung like nothing he had ever felt before. He didn’t even have to touch it to feel the pain; the wind, as light and infrequent as they were, caused the pain to arouse.

“Whatever happened to me, it can’t be a good thing,” he said, coddling his arm close to his chest, “These wounds are still somewhat fresh, meaning that whatever caused this is still at large. I need to find out who’s responsible and put an end to whatever scheme they’re hatching.”

Before he could say or do anything else, he scoffed to himself as realization began to sink into his mind.

“First things first,” he said with a small flicker of a smile, “I need to find out where I am. Then, I need to find out if there is a way I can get out of here.”

Before he could go anywhere, his left ear twitched, which was an involuntary response that happened whenever he heard something or someone behind him. Before he could turn around, he heard a soft groan coming from behind him, making small movements, causing the sand beneath them to crinkle. His heart began to race as he turned around, his fist balled at his sides, ready to take down whoever was there. When he turned around, his fist loosened, his eyes grew wide and his mouth hung open at what he saw there. He took a few paces back and began breathing heavily, as his eyeballs panned back and forth at the sight before him.

He was not alone.

Lying before him were four others; although he recognized two of them as humans, the other two were like nothing he'd ever seen before in his entire life. One of them was a red-haired girl with a black shirt and brown cargo pants. Another was a blonde-haired girl with what appeared to be a Japanese school uniform, expect the skirt part of the outfit was much shorter than it was supposed to be. The third was a lavender-colored horse of some kind; a unicorn, judging from the small horn that was protruding from its forehead. The last being was a pink, bubbly-like creature with a long tail, short arms and rabbit-like feet.

As he looked at each one, he noted the red-haired girl was slightly moving; she was awakening just like he had moments before. Immediately, he rushed over to her and knelt beside her. She was lying on her stomach with her head facing him, but her hair over her eyes. Knowing how the light would be bothersome to her like it was for him, he positioned himself so that his body would shade her eyes from the sun. With his good hand, he brushed the hair from her eyes and saw that they were beginning to open. Although he was blocking the sun from her eyes, she still had a hard time adjusting to the light.

“Where...” she said in a low and quiet whisper, “Where am I?”

“I...” he said softly, not sure of how to answer her, “I wish I had an answer for you, but I don’t...not now, anyway.”

No sooner did the words leave his mouth that the girls’ eyes shot wide open. Despite the fact that she hadn’t fully adjusted to the light of the sun, her wide eyes panned their way to the blue hedgehog that knelt before her. The moment their eyes connected, she sprang her body up and faced him. She appeared to be in both fear and shock, for she had never seen anything like him.

“What...who...?” she managed to get out. No sooner did the words leave her mouth that she doubled over in pain, clutching her stomach like she had been punched in the chest. She fell to her knees, one hand held herself up while the other clutched her lower abdomen, just below her chest.

“Are you alright?” he asked, as he approached her.

The moment she saw the creature moving towards her, she gathered up all the strength that she had left and swung her free arm in an attempt to punch him.

“You stay away from me, you...you...whatever you are!” she growled at him, an angered expression on her face.

“I’m trying to help you,” he tried to reason with her. “You look like you’re injured.”

“Where am I?” she asked, her voice still on the defensive, “Are you the one who brought me here, because if you are, I demand to know why!”

“Of course not!” he answered, “We both seem to be in the same predicament. I woke up here, just like you did!”

Before they could say anything else, the two of them heard a sound of rustling sand coming from beside them. They both turned their head in the same direction to see the small horse staring back at them. It was standing up on all four of its legs and it had a shocked look on its face.

The hedgehog and the red-haired girl exchanged confused glances at one another; they didn’t know what they should do. After a few moments of nothing but staring, he decided to break the ice first.

“Don’t worry,” he said, as he extended his hand to the small horse, “I’m not going to hurt you. You can trust me.”

When his hand was only inches away from its face, it immediately backed away from him. As it did, the horn on its forehead began to glow a maroon-like color, as it pointed it at him. If he didn’t know any better, the horse was getting ready to strike at him.

“No need to be afraid,” he cooed, as if it didn’t understand a word he was saying, “I’m not going to...”

Before he could even finish his sentence, and to his and the red-haired girl’s surprise, the horse said, “You stay away from me, you...you...thing!”

Immediately, he backed off, wide-eyed and practically scared out of his mind. He didn’t exactly expect it to say anything to him. From the sound of the voice, he knew that the horse was a female. Because she had been able to speak, and probably was able to understand what he was saying, he decided to stop treating her like an animal and more like a person.

“Don’t be afraid,” he said in a much firmer voice, “We mean you no harm, miss. We are just trying to help you.”

Although he could see in her eyes that she was just as shocked and scared as they were, the small horse stayed on the defensive; no doubt earning her trust wasn’t going to be that easy. One thing was for sure, neither of them had seen anything like each other before. Her heart pounding and her adrenaline through the roof, the small horse began backing away, limping as she did so.

He noticed her limp and panned his eyes at her hind legs. He saw that there was long and deep cuts going down her left hind leg, as if some sort of claw or blade had been scraping at it. It was only then that he directed his attention to the girls’ stomach. He saw the injury there, despite her hand being in the way. She had scrape marks on it, much like the ones that were on his arm. Before any of them could say anything, a loud shriek filled the air, catching all of there attention.

The three of them looked to see that the blonde-haired school girl had woken up. However, instead of being on the defensive side, like they all were, she was more terrified by all of them. She stared at the three of them, eyes wide and breathing heavily. All of a sudden, the pink, bubbly creature stood up and stared at her as well.

The moment the pink creature saw her and the others, it slightly kicked off the ground and began hovering in the air. Because it awoke from the scream, the creature hovered in front of the blonde girl. The moment it was in front of her, she shrieked again and began kicking back, trying desperately to get away from them. After the fourth kick, she immediately grabbed her right leg, moaning in pain.

Like before, he looked at her leg to see the same marks going up her leg. Because her legs were visible, it was clear to see that they were injuries much like his. Then, he directed his attention to the pink creature. It, too, had marks going along the length of its tail, except they looked like they were rope burns instead of deep cuts.

The hedgehog eyed all of the people around him and began to think. All of them were injured, all of them didn’t know each other and, although it was only an inference, neither of them knew how they got there. Although they were all complete strangers, one thing was certain: standing around, ready to pounce on one another was getting them nowhere.

“Alright,” he said, putting his hands up in surrender, “It appears we all got off on the wrong note here.”

He began taking a few steps towards them. However, all of them began backing off. Some of them were in fear while others were on the defensive. The moment he saw this, the hedgehog stopped walking.

“Alright let’s try this. How about we all introduce ourselves first? That way, we’d all be a bit more formal and we can address each other properly. How does that sound?”

As if he said something they liked, the red-haired girl and the horse calmed their defensive stances, the blonde-haired girl worked her way up to standing and the bubbly creature hovered in a little closer.

Well, at least its progress, he thought, as he took a step closer to them. All of their eyes were on him, as if they were waiting for him to say something. He took the hint and couldn’t help but smile at them.

“I guess I’ll go first then,” he said with a shrug. He cleared his throat and said, “My name is Sonic, Sonic the Hedgehog, but you can just call me Sonic.”

Sonic turned his attention to the red-haired girl. She scratched the back of her head, as she hesitantly said, “I’m Kimberly Ann Possible, but you can call me Kim.”

“Kim,” Sonic repeated, “That’s a nice name, if you don’t mind me saying so.”

The compliment caused her to smile and blush a little bit.

Then, Sonic directed his attention to the small horse. When he did, she sat on her haunches and cleared her throat.

“My name is Twilight Sparkle,” she said in a calm and polite demeanor, “But Twilight is fine, too.”

“Twilight Sparkle,” Sonic repeated again, “You know, for a horse, that’s actually a very pretty...”

Twilight interrupted him. “Actually, I’m not a horse. I’m a pony, a unicorn to be more precise. There is a difference, after all.”

Sonic scratched the back of his head, unsure of what to say next. Seeing his loss of words, Kim replied, “Still, it’s a very nice name.”

“Thank you,” Twilight said with a smile.

Then, the three of them directed their attention to the blonde school girl. She was still scared out of her mind, but she tried her best to remain calm. After a while, they noticed that she kept looking at the ground, as if she was unsure if she should tell them her name.

After a seemingly long moment, Sonic cleared his throat and asked, “Do you have a name, miss?”

She nodded, scratching the back of her head, and said, “My name...is...is...Sailor Moon.”

Surprised, Twilight asked, “Sailor Moon? Is that really your name?”

Immediately, Sonic said, “”Not that it isn’t a nice name or anything, it’s just that...”

Twilight cut him off, taking the hint of what he was saying. “It’s just that we’ve never heard a name like that before. I meant no offense, honest!”

Sonic and Kim nodded their heads in agreement. They didn’t want her to feel uncomfortable around them. Furthermore, they didn’t want her to feel like she couldn’t trust them.

Shyly, she said, “It’s not my real name, but it’s the name I go by when I’m...like this...”

She gestured to the outfit she wore.

Sonic couldn’t help but raise his eyebrow while Kim scratched the back of his head. Twilight looked at the sand beneath her hooves, wrapping her mind around what she meant. A few moments later, it clicked in her head.

“Oh, I get it,” the lavender mare said, “It’s like an alter ego; a hidden identity of sorts, right?”

Sailor Moon nodded, her cheeks beginning to turn a light shade of red.

“Well, Sailor Moon,” said Sonic with a smile on his face, “It’s really nice to meet you.”

Then, out of nowhere, the bubbly pink creature flew in front of Sonic’s face. Its eyes were wide and its ears were focused on him, almost as if it was looking him over, checking if he was able to be trusted.

“Well, you’re a lively one, aren’t you?” Kim said, giggling as she watched it hovering around the blue hedgehog.

“Mew,” the creature purred, as it began hovering in front of Kim.

“So, do you have a name, little guy?” asked Twilight, as she trotted over to it.

“Mew,” it purred again. Then, it began hovering around Twilight, looking her over like it did with the others.

Noticing the pattern, Twilight asked, “Is your name ‘Mew’?”

“Mew, Mew,” it said in approval.

Sonic raised an eyebrow. “Is your name the only thing you can say?”

Mew nodded his head, smiling at him. Finally, it hovered in front of the still-frightened Sailor Moon. Although she was tempted to run away from it, she remained perfectly still, not moving a single muscle in her body.

“So, are you a boy or a girl?” she asked, her breaths shallow and more than a little forced.

Mew looked at her in the eyes, cocking its head in confusion. It wasn’t confused as to what to answer, but more along the lines of how to answer. Sailor Moon took the hint and began thinking of a way to help it. Then, she had an idea, even though she was skeptical about doing so.

She raised her right hand out and asked, “Are you a boy...”

Then, she raised her left hand out and continued, “...or a girl?”

Mew looked at the two hands, blinking twice before hovering over to her right hand, rubbing his head on it like a kitten. As Sailor Moon tried her best not to scream, the others couldn’t help but laugh.

“Alright, then,” said Sonic, calming down his laughter, “Kim Possible, Twilight Sparkle, Sailor Moon, and Mew. Have I gotten them all right?”

“You sure have, Sonic the Hedgehog,” said Twilight, smiling at him.

“Great. Now that we’ve been formally introduced, we need to get back to the more important situation at hand,” said Sonic as he crossed his arms. “We need to find out where we are, how we got her and if there’s any possible way of getting out."

Author's Note

Revised Version [Original Chapters 1-3 combined]

Chapter 2: The Barren Wasteland [The First Dimension]

Location: The Barren Wasteland
Dimension: -unknown-

No sooner did the words leave Sonic’s mouth that the look on everyone’s faces became one of concern. Up till now, the other four had been more transfixed with each other to really look at where they were. Now that Sonic had brought it up, they all looked at each other with confusion, and then turned their attention to the empty wasteland they were in. All they saw was nothing but sand and skies with no traces of life, no sign of anyone around.

They all looked at the horizons to see if they could make out anything useful. Even Mew flew as high as his small body would allow. However, when they all regrouped, not a single one of them were able to see any signs of civilization.

“Where are we?” asked Kim, as she directed her attention back to Sonic.

The blue hedgehog crossed his arms and said, “Like I said to you before, I wish I had an answer for you, but I don’t, at least, not now.”

Twilight inspected the sand beneath her hooves, slightly trotting as best as she could away from the others. Then, she trotted back towards them, her eyes fixated on the sand below. This caught the attention of the others and they all stared at the lavender unicorn as she trotted back and forth.

“You on to something, Twilight?” asked Sonic, a look of hope on his face.

Letting out an audible sigh, she looked up at them and said, “I was just looking for any kinds of tracks or prints in the sand. I was hopeful that whoever, or whatever, brought us here left behind tracks for us to follow. Unfortunately, I found nothing.”

Kim rubbed her chin with her hand. “That means whoever or whatever brought us here was smart enough to clear their tracks before they left,” she said.

“That’s not the only signs that whatever brought us here is smarter than we think,” said Sonic, as he put his hands at his sides.

“What do you mean?” asked Sailor Moon.

“What I mean is that whoever or whatever did this to us was also smart enough to make sure we didn’t remember what happened prior to waking up,” he explained. “Think about it for a second; what’s the last thing you remember before you woke up here?”

All of them thought for a moment, trying their best to recall what they were doing before they woke up in this empty world.

As he gave them time to think, Sonic said, “The last thing I remember was running through a mountain range, like I always do when there’s no danger afoot. Either than that, there’s not a single thing that I remember that connects to this place or to anyone, or anything, that may be responsible for this.”

“Strange,” said Kim, “I can’t seem to recall anything either. The only thing I can recall was heading home with my boyfriend after school. Besides that, I’ve got nothing.”

All of them shared similar stories of blank recollections: Twilight was heading to a picnic with her friends and Sailor Moon was running late for school (which she stated was a frequent occurrence for her). The only one that couldn’t explain what had happened was Mew, only because none of them could translate what he was saying into English, except for his name being repeated over and over and over again.

After several moments of reminiscing, Sonic said, “Like I said, whoever or whatever did this doesn’t want us to remember something that happened to us and was smart enough to erase certain parts of our memory.”

“The million-dollar question is ‘what’,” said Kim, “Looks like the key to finding out who, or what, did this lies in our forgotten memories.”

“It looks that way,” said Twilight, “Which leads us back to the situation at hoof: where are we and how do we get out of here?”

“There’s got to be someone here,” said Sailor Moon, “I mean, for all we know, this could be just a desert or something. I’m pretty sure that there’s someone here that can help us. I mean, we got here, right? Obviously, there must be a way out.”

“Maybe,” said Kim, “But there’s no way we can go and see if there is anyone out there. It doesn’t appear that way from where we’re standing and to travel on foot would take us too long. We’d most likely die of starvation or dehydration before we find any signs of life.”

“So, times of the essence, huh?” asked Sonic as he flashed a toothy smile. “Wait here and leave everything to me.”

With that, the blue hedgehog began running away from them, kicking up plumes of sand as he did so. After a small coughing fit from all of them, they all began to look in the direction Sonic was running in. Not knowing what he was doing, Kim did the only thing her thoughts told her to do: go after him and find out what he was up to. The others followed suit and began running after the blue creature.

“Sonic!” Kim shouted, as she began closing in on him. Because he was running on sand, he wasn’t able to go all that fast. However, she had a hard time keeping up with him because of the wound on her stomach. Despite the pain, she pressed on, determined on finding out what was going through his mind at the moment.

Sonic turned his head to see Kim and the others were following him. He slowed his run to a jog to allow her to keep up. However, he didn’t stop his momentum.

“What do you think you’re doing?” asked Kim, slightly out of breath.

Seeing that making all of them run after him was more dangerous than it was helpful, Sonic stopped running and allowed all of them to catch up.

As the others began catching their breath, Sonic decided to explain what he was doing to them. “I’m going to see if there is anyone out there who can help us,” he said.

“Are you out of your mind?” asked Kim, as she stood up straight, “First of all, there’s no way you can make it there and back in time to save us. Secondly, how do we know you’re not going to bail on us the moment you find help? For all we know, you could have been the one who sent us here and...”

“I already said that I wasn’t the one responsible for this,” interrupted Sonic, an annoyed tone in his voice, “I woke up here just like you and everyone else did.”

“And we’re supposed to believe you?” asked Kim, raising an eyebrow at him.

“She does have a point, you know,” said Twilight, “You could have told us what you were doing instead of running off like that.”

“Look, if you guys want any chance of surviving, you’ll let me do what I have to do,” said Sonic, as he began running away again. However, he didn’t take two steps when he felt some sort of restraint on his right leg.

It felt like someone had their hands wrapped tightly around his ankle and was pulling him in the opposite direction. Sonic looked at his leg to see what it was and went wide eyed in surprised at what he saw. A maroon-like aura wrapped around his leg and was holding him in place. He looked at the others to see who was doing it to him and why.

When he did, he saw that Kim, Sailor Moon and Mew were slowly backing away from Twilight. The maroon aura was surrounding the horn protruding from her forehead, making it evident that she was the one doing it to him. Before he could protest, Twilight squinted her eyes, making the aura glow slightly brighter than it did before. Then, out of nowhere, Sonic felt the force pull him towards her, making him lose his balance and fall face-first into the sand. Since he wasn’t fully where she wanted him to be, he felt his body being slightly dragged across the sand and towards the equine. When he was where she wanted her to be, he felt the force on his leg begin to loosen and soon, vanish completely.

Sonic rolled on his back and came nose-to-nose with the unicorn. The look in her eyes almost made Sonic shudder with worry.

“Listen here, hedgehog,” she said, her voice firm and direct, “I don’t know who you think you are, but if you’re not going anywhere without us. Am I understood?”

Before he gave an answer, Sonic saw the aura begin to glow from her horn. If he didn’t know any better, he’d say she was trying to threaten him. However, he didn’t take the threat too seriously, because he had something she didn’t.

“That’s a nice trick,” he said with a smile, “Wanna see one of my own?”

Before she could protest, Sonic kicked his legs on the ground, allowing him to slide on the sand and away from the equine. Then, he jumped onto his feet and came face-to-face with Twilight. He flashed a smile and a wink at her before jumping into the air and curling his whole body into a ball. Then, while he was still suspended in air, he began to spin like a ball, the quills on his back looking like saw-blades rotating out of control.

The motion caused Twilight’s eyes to widen with disbelief. Then, the tension rose even further when Sonic’s body hit the sand and began coming towards her nonstop. Unsure of what to do, Twilight did the only thing she could do; she closed her eyes and allowed her horn to glow. Then, there was a flash of light and the lavender unicorn was gone. Seconds later, she reappeared behind Sailor Moon, trying her best to avoid the spinning hedgehog. However, it wasn’t any good because, after Twilight reappeared, Sonic turned and began spinning towards her again.

The moment Sailor Moon saw Sonic coming at her, she let out a small shriek and jumped out of the way, leaving Twilight exposed. Like before, she closed her eyes and teleported away, trying desperately to avoid the spiky ball that was once a hedgehog. However, no matter where she went, no matter how far she went, Sonic was always right there, ready to take her down.

It went on for several moments: Twilight vanishing and reappearing out of Sonic’s way, only to have the hedgehog turn and come after her again. After several minutes had gone by (even though no one could really tell because there was no time), Kim let out an annoyed groan. She had had enough of the two of them going at each other and wanted them to stop. Furthermore, watching the two of them was doing nothing but wasting time.

It was then that Kim decided to intervene. However, she didn’t say anything to stop them, but rather did something to stop them. Watching Sonic’s motions, she was able to time where a certain part of his anatomy was going to be; he might have been a spinning ball, but that didn’t make him invincible, she figured.

Then, after Sonic turned and began heading towards Twilight again, Kim stepped in and, with all the strength she could muster, jumped and landed on one of her hands. Then, spinning her flat body parallel with the ground, she extended her right leg out towards the spinning hedgehog.

All of them watched in amazement as Kim’s foot connected with Sonic’s face, causing him to release his ball form and go flying across the ground. His body bounced on the ground, causing him to groan as he stopped moving. After catching his bearings, he looked up at the red-haired girl, an angered look on his face; in all the years he had been performing his famous ‘spin-dash’, no one was ever quick enough to stop him. Now that he found someone who was able to, it infuriated him to no end.

Kim faced the hedgehog, a smile beaming across her face. Then, Sonic began running towards her, hoping to knock her on the ground. However, because of his injury and the sand slowing him down, he wasn’t able to run as fast as he really wanted to. He didn’t let it stop him though, as he jumped into the air again. As he did, he began spinning like a ball again. Unlike last time, he didn’t fall to the ground but began heading straight towards her from the air.

Seeing his motion, Kim did the only thing she could do. Arching back, she began performing backflips to avoid the speeding blue ball. She jumped back, pushed off the ground with her hands, and landed on her feet again. When she did, she watched the spinning ball collide with the ground, kicking up sand as he did. Still in his ball-form, he jumped back up into the air and charged her again. Like before, she somersaulted backwards and avoided him.

When he landed on the ground, he released himself from his ball form and landed on his feet, breathing heavily as he did. His eyes looked directly into hers as a look of annoyance came across his face.

“You’re very agile for a human,” he said, wiping his mouth with the back of his uninjured hand, “I’ll give you that.”

Kim didn’t say anything to him. All she did was smile in response. She watched as Sonic put both his hands on his knees and begin breathing heavily. Knowing the fight was over, she lowered her defensive stance and began approaching him. However, she didn’t take any more than three steps towards him when Sonic looked up at her again and smiled a toothy smile. Then, faster than she could blink, he formed a ball again and charged at her, ramming into her stomach and sending her flying backwards.

She collided with the sand, her body rolling a few times before stopping. With her stomach facing down, she clutched her injury and began groaning in pain; it wasn’t so much because of his spinning attack but the fact that he nailed her right where her injury was. Still moaning in pain, she managed to look up to see Sonic standing over her, a serious look on his face. Then, she watched as he extended his hand to her, a gesture that she suspected was a trick of some kind.

Before she could accuse him of anything, the hedgehog said, “I am not your enemy. The enemy is what brought us here and all of this fighting between us is getting us nowhere.”

“If that’s how you feel,” she said between gasps, “Why did you attack?”

“You gave me no choice,” he said, his hand still extended to help her up.

“How do I know I can trust you?” she asked, refusing to take his hand.

Sonic lowered his hand and let out a sigh. Then, he turned his back on her and crossed his arms. He tapped his foot against that sand for a moment, almost like he was trying to think of an answer. As he did, Kim saw that the others were already regrouping on their position; no doubt they had seen and heard everything they had said and done.

Finally, after all of them gathered together, Sonic turned to her and said, “I know you guys have never seen anything like me. It’s because of this I can’t really expect you to believe anything I say. However, if there’s anything you should know about me, it’s this: I never turn my back on my word.”

Then, he extended his hand to her again. “I know it’s a lot to ask of you, given our circumstances and all, but all I ask is that you trust me. We all woke up here and, like it or not, we’re in this together. If that means we put aside our differences and work together, then so be it.”

Kim let out a sigh and reached out her hand to his. He gripped her hand and pulled her to her feet. When they were at eye-level with each other, Sonic said, “I’m sorry if I hurt you. Are you alright?”

“I’ll be fine,” she said, “I’ve dealt with worse, trust me.”

Sonic smiled and turned to Twilight. “Sorry that I attacked you too, Twi.”

The unicorn smiled softly and said, “No, it was my fault. It was me who intimidated you first, so it should be me apologizing.”

“Well, this is all well and good,” said Sailor Moon, “But we still have a problem on our hands. We need to find a way to get out of here!”

“Mew, Mew!” Mew said in agreement.

“Alright,” said Sonic, “Our best bet is to try and find anyone here who can help us. Maybe what Sailor Moon said was true; for all we know, this could be some sort of desert. No desert is endless, so what we should do is head in any direction and hope for the best.”

“Agreed,” said Kim, “But, I think it’d be better if we traveled together. ‘Safety in numbers’, you know?”

They all nodded their heads in agreement and decided to head north (or what they figured was north). As they began to walk, they all remained silent, focusing on where they were heading. The scuffle that had just happened might have been over, but there was a small part of each of them that felt that they should keep their guard up around each other. After seeing what some of them could do, the feeling of trust was still lingering with a cloud of doubt.

Chapter 3: Sightings

The five of them continued to walk in the same direction as the sun beat down upon them mercilessly. They didn’t know how long they were walking or how far they had gone since they started, but there was one thing all of them were absolutely sure of: no matter how far they went or how long they traveled, there wasn’t a single sign of anyone around.

Sonic looked ahead of the group at the horizon, trying to see if there was anything out there, anything that could help them even to protect them from the heat of the sun. Unfortunately, there was nothing, not even a hill on the horizon.

As they continued to walk, Kim kept a close look on the horizons on either side of them, doing the same as the anthropomorphic blue hedgehog. However, her findings of anything were just as unsuccessful as his were.

“I hate to be so negative,” she said aloud to the others, “But I’m getting the feeling that this is nothing but a waste of time. There’s nothing out here, no one and nothing that can help us.”

Sonic turned to the red-haired girl and said, “I think you’re right, but we have no other options right now, so we have to make do with what we can.”

“We can’t keep doing this much longer,” said Twilight, “If we don’t find anything soon, we’ll surely die of dehydration or starvation!”

Mew flew down from his position and rested on the lavender unicorn’s back. When he did, he let out a soft moaning sound and began rubbing his stomach with his tiny arms, signifying that he was hungry.

“Well between that and the sun,” said Sonic as he looked up at the sky, “I’d say we have a major problem on our hands.”

“What do you mean ‘the sun’?” asked Sailor Moon, “What’s wrong with the sun?”

Letting out a sigh and hanging his head, Sonic said, “It hasn’t moved since we got here.”

It was at that moment that all of them looked up at the sun, or at least, in its central direction. No one really noticed it before, but now that it was said, they all realized that the sun was in the same spot as it was when they first awoke in this barren wasteland.

Diverting her attention from the sky to the others, Kim asked, “Okay, so what are our options?”

Twilight looked at her and said, “Right now, we only have two. It’s either we keep wandering into this sandy world until we keel over or we stop right here and wait until we keel over. Either way, we’re dead.”

“That’s reassuring,” said Sonic as he rolled his eyes, “I know that our predicament doesn’t look good right now, but dwelling on the negative isn’t going to help us at all. Right now, the best thing we can do is hope that there is some way out of here. If that means we keep going forward, then that’s what we’ll do. Just sitting around, waiting to die is counterproductive.”

“Sonic’s right,” said Kim, “The only things we can do is push forward and pray we find someone or something that can help.”

Not waiting for a response, Kim began walking forward, clutching her stomach as she did; the pain from her wound was still there, even though she was really good at not showing it. Nodding his head, Sonic began to follow her, the others following suit when he did.

It wasn’t long before he caught up with her, slowing his pace when he did. He saw that she was in pain, clutching her wound on her stomach with her free hand. “Are you alright?” he asked, raising an eyebrow at her.

“I’m fine,” she said as she looked at him, “It just stings a little.”

“I know the feeling,” he said, looking down at the scrapes on his arm, “Are you sure you’ll be able to walk? You seem to be struggling quite a bit.”

“I said I’m fine, thanks,” she said, directing her attention away from him.

Sonic shrugged his shoulders and looked ahead of him, continuing to keep an eye out for anything useful. As he walked, he heard the sounds of the wind rustling the sand beneath his feet. He looked down to see the sand was shifting to his left, moving with the small breeze that blew by.

Trailing behind the group, Sailor Moon limped along, trying her best to keep up with the group. When she had dived out of the way from Sonic earlier, it had taken its toll on her already injured leg, making the pain that was already there much worse than before. After several moments of limping, she stopped walking and began rubbing her leg, hoping that what she was doing was enough to keep her going. She looked down at the wounds on her right leg, the deep scrapes that went from her knee down into her high boots. The boot itself was also shredded, meaning that whatever did it to her tore right through the material her boot was made of and into her skin.

Sailor Moon looked ahead of her, seeing that the others were still walking, but at a slow pace. Deciding that she would be able to catch up with them in no time, she looked at her right leg and began lowering the boot to her ankle. When she did, she saw that the wounds were pretty deep and very nasty looking. Trying her best not to get sick from the sight, she raised her boot up to her knee and stood up. Then, she began to walk again, still limping as she did, but not as much as before; resting her leg must have been enough to ease the pain down, she figured. However, as she stood up, she looked to her left to see if there was anything out there, mostly on impulse, since she had a feeling that nothing was out there. When she did, she froze where she stood at what she thought she saw there, her heart starting to beat faster and faster with each passing second.

She didn’t know if what she saw was real or not, but she found herself staring at a dark silhouette on the horizon. From where Sailor Moon was standing, it looked like a person standing there, a dark hood on its head and some sort of device in its hands. She stood there in fear, staring at the figure that was on the horizon.

It’s just a mirage, she told herself. It’s just the heat and the sun playing tricks on me, that’s all. There’s nothing to be afraid of.

However, her fear went through the roof as she saw the figure beginning to walk. It didn’t head in their direction, nor did it turn away from them. Instead it walked along side of them, like it was watching them, following their every move.

Not knowing if what she was seeing was true, she began walking toward the others, all the while, not taking her eyes off the figure; if it was a mirage, she had a feeling it would vanish the moment she turned away from it.

Her mind kept telling her to run, to scream, to get the attention of the others so they can see what she was seeing. However, fear in her body and the dryness in her throat prevented anything from coming out. The only thing she could do at that moment was walk faster, hoping that she was going fast enough to catch up with the others.

Sailor Moon limped as best as she could, praying that she’d catch up with the others soon. While she moved, she never lost track of the figure, which appeared to still be following them. It wasn’t moving fast nor was it moving too slow; it moved at the speed they were going, its hooded head locked on their position as if it were staring right at them.

“Guys...” she managed to choke out. However, it was nothing more than a quiet whisper as the fear prevented her from making the decibels any louder than that.

Just relax, she thought. Just keep your eyes on it and get to the others. Nothing bad is going to happen. Nothing bad is going to-

She couldn’t even finish her thought when she saw the figure raise its device in the air, holding it high above its head. She couldn’t even begin to speculate what was happening when she turned away from it and began running at full force to the others. Somewhere in between, she must have let out an ear shattering shriek because when she run towards the others, she could vaguely make out their shocked and surprised faces before she collided into them.

It all happened so suddenly for the blonde-haired school girl. One minute she was running towards them, scream out to them in a voice that she herself couldn’t hear. The next, she found herself airborne, having tripped over the lavender mare that she didn’t even see when she ran. Finally, she felt her whole body ache in pain as she landed directly on Sonic and Kim, knocking them both to the ground. When she regained whatever composure she could, she saw that the only one that wasn’t affected by her sudden charging was Mew, who flew down from the sky and hovered over her, investigating her, as if to check if she was alright.

“What the...” began Sonic, as he struggled to his feet, wreathing in pain, “What the heck just happened?”

“I’m sorry, I’m sorry,” cried Sailor Moon, as she rolled on her stomach and pushed herself to her feet. When she did, she looked in the direction where the figure was standing. However, tears began streaming down her face when she saw that it was no longer there.

Before she could say anything, she felt a hand push against her right shoulder, redirecting her attention to the others that were there. Sailor Moon saw that Kim had pushed her to face her and held her arms in place, looking at her in the eyes.

“What happened?” she asked her, not taking her eyes off her. Her voice was a mix of annoyance and concern. It was like she was mad at her for colliding with them but more worried as to what drove her to do so in the first place.

Blinking some excess tears from her eyes, Sailor Moon said, “I...I saw something...on the horizon...”

Twilight approached them, pain coursing through her back as she did and asked, “Do you mind explaining what you’re problem is?”

Sailor Moon turned her head away as tears continued to stream down her face. Seeing this, Kim released her arms, allowing her to use her hands to wipe them away. The annoyance in her face was gone, and in its place was genuine concern; something bad must have happened to drive her to tears, she figured.

The blonde girl fell to her knees, covering her eyes with her heads and trying her best to suppress her sobbing. When she did, Kim looked at Sonic, who simply shrugged his shoulders at her. She looked at Mew, who simply cocked his head to one side in confusion. Then, she looked at Twilight, who also had a look of concern on her face. Then, she knelt down beside her and began rubbing her back, hoping it would comfort her.

“It’s okay,” she said softly, “It’s okay, Sailor Moon. Just tell us what you saw, okay?”

Sailor Moon looked up at her, wiping the tears from her eyes again. “There was something out there. It was tall, dark, and had something in its hands.”

“Whoa, whoa, whoa,” said Sonic as he knelt beside them, “You mean you saw a person out there?”

“I don’t know if it was a person,” she said, breathing heavily, “It looked like a person but it had a hood on and some sort of stick in its hands. I tried to tell you guys, but I knew if I turned away, it would have vanished. Then I saw it raise its stick in the air, like it was going to attack us or something, so I ran to you guys. When I turned to see if it was still there, it was gone. I’m sorry, I’m so, so sorry.”

“It’s alright,” said Twilight, “What else did you see?”

“It was all a blur,” she said, her sobbing calmed to a soft whimper, “But it looked like it was following us. It was walking alongside of us, from a distance, but with us.”

Sonic looked out to the direction where Sailor Moon had indicated. When he did, he saw nothing but sand and sky. He turned his attention back to her and sighed.

“Well, it looks like we should head in that direction then,” he said as he crossed his arms, “If what you say is true, then maybe we can find footprints or something.”

Sailor Moon looked up at him with surprise mixed with a small twinge of happiness. “You...you believe me?”

He let out a sigh and began to walk. “There’s only one way to find out.”

Kim helped Sailor Moon to her feet, making sure she was able to stand. When she did, she saw that she was still able to walk, even though she was still limping. When Kim saw that she was able to move, she turned to Sonic and saw that he was already some distance ahead of them.

“Hey, hedgehog!” she called out to him, “You wanna slow down so we can keep up?”

Sonic let out a sigh and stopped walking. He turned to them and crossed his arms, his eyebrows furrowed. As he watched them slowly catching up to him, he tapped his foot impatiently.

Twilight saw this and rolled her eyes. “Sorry if we’re not going fast enough for you,” she said sarcastically.

“Well, excuse me for wanting to find a way to get out of here faster than you’re pace,” he shot back at her.

“Hey, leave her alone,” said Kim, “We all just had a ‘head-on’ collision with Sailor Moon. Some of us are in a little bit of pain. Can you blame us if we need a little time to recuperate?”

“Whatever,” said Sonic, “Can we just get there as fast as we can please? I want to get out of here.”

“Keep your skin on,” said Kim, “We’ll get there when we get there.”

It wasn’t long before the others caught up with Sonic, who was standing there with an annoyed look on his face. When they did, the five of them started walking again, heading in the direction that Sailor Moon had claimed to have seen the figure.

As they walked, Twilight looked at the blonde girl and asked, “You said it was holding something in its hands, right?”

Sailor Moon nodded in response.

“Well, what did it look like?”

“It looked like a stick of some kind.” she explained.

“And you said it held it over its head?” asked Kim, getting in the conversation.

“Yes, it looked like it was pointing it to the sky, as far as it could go,” Sailor Moon said, “Almost like it was...”

Before she could finish her sentence, she saw that Sonic had stopped walking. He was frozen where he stood, his head pointing to the sky. When the others walked in front of him, they saw his eyes were wide and his pupils were nearly pinpoints.

“What’s wrong with you?” asked Kim, raising an eyebrow at him.

Slowly, he pointed to the sky, not averting his gaze. When the others looked in the direction he was point, they all found themselves staring at the sky in the same manner. There, they saw that something was forming in the sky. It was a deep purple and white color that seemed to swirl in the sky, like water that was going down a drain hole. It slowly began turning and turning, heading inward at the center.

All of them stared at it in silence as it slowly swirled faster and faster.

Finally, Kim asked in a soft voice, “What is that thing?”

“I think,” said Sonic, as he slowly began backing away, “Whatever it was that you saw...it was summoning someone.”

Before anyone could question the blue hedgehog, there was a loud boom that echoed across the sky. It was so loud that it caused all of them to cover their ears and shut their eyes tightly. After a few seconds of this, they all looked at the sky again.

When they did, the purple and white swirl wasn’t there anymore but its place was something they had never seen before that froze them all in an instant.

Chapter 4: Encounter

They all stood frozen in fear at the thing that was hovering above them, slowly descending from the sky. It looked like a silver and gold oval pod. Its main body was all silver with what appeared to be blackened windows on the front. The bottom portion had gold-plated boosters, which emitted small jets of flame from them, allowing it to slowly descend to the ground. There were small doors coming from the sides of the machine, many of them too small to allow a person in or out.

The five of them stared as the machine slowly made its way to meet their gaze. When it was at a reasonable eye level, they saw that the machine was almost as big as they were; it wasn’t all that big in height, but it made up for it in length. Behind the machine were also gold-plated boosters; no doubt used to allow it to move forward.

Soon, the machine began to circle around them. As it did, the nose of the pod opened and a small beam of blue light shot out at them. When the light hit them, they all couldn’t help but flinch at it, thinking that something was going to happen. However, the only thing that happened was that the blue light widened its beam so that it was horizontal. Then, it began moving up and down, all the while, the main pod hovering in circles around them.

“What...” Kim managed to whisper to the others, “What is that thing?”

“I don’t know,” said Sonic as he shifted his eyes to look at it, “But I have feeling its scanning us.”

“Why?” asked Twilight, “What does it want with us?”

“That thing I saw must have sent it here,” whispered Sailor Moon, trying her best not to cry uncontrollably.

Before any of them could say anything more, the machine made its way to the front of them again. When it did, the blue beam retracted back into its nose and closed it up. Then, its bottom boosters blew jets of fire a little faster and moved them towards the five of them, allowing the machine to hover backwards away from them.

When it was a good 6 feet away from them, it eased its boosters to allow it to hover in front of them again. Then, it just stood there, watching them like a hawk.

“What is it doing now?” asked Kim.

“How am I supposed to know what it’s doing?” asked Sonic, a hint of irritation in his voice, “Your guess is as good as mine.”

“What do suppose we do?” asked Twilight, “It obviously wants nothing to do with us.”

“How can you be so sure if that?” asked Sonic.

“Because if it wanted to do something,” interjected Kim, “It would have done it already.”

“What do you think we should do?” asked Sailor Moon.

“Mew,” purred Mew, tilting his head at the others with a questioning gaze.

“Well, if what you say is true, then we should just walk away,” said Sonic, “Just slowly walk away and leave it be.”

With that said, the five of them slowly began moving backwards, putting more distance between the machine and themselves. While they moved, the pod just stood there, not moving an inch closer or away from them.

“Why isn’t it doing anything?” asked Sonic as they continued to back away, “Why is it just standing there?”

“Maybe it’s here to help us,” suggested Twilight, “Maybe that thing Sailor Moon saw earlier sent it here to help us out of this place.”

Before any of them could agree or disagree, they saw the machine beginning to move, freezing them in their tracks. It shifted back and forth in small intervals, as if someone or something inside of it was moving around, causing the whole pod to shift.

“Do you think whatever is piloting that thing is coming out to help us?” asked Sailor Moon as they continued to watch it.

Then, the small doors on the sides of it opened and two long cylindrical devices came out of them. Each device looked like a solid piece of metal, but with a closer observation, they saw that it was several smaller cylinders grouped together to make one cylinder. Each small piece had a hole in the middle and the base of all them had a gold belt that fed into it. The moment their eyes saw that gold belt, their eyes widened and their hearts began racing; they knew what the two cylinders were and what came next was to be expected.

“I take that as a ‘no’,” whispered Sailor Moon as the tears she fought so hard to hold back began streaming down her cheeks.

“Move,” whispered Sonic as the two cylindrical devices began to rotate. Knowing that keeping quiet was no longer a necessity, he shouted as loud as he could, “MOVE!”

In that split second the devices began firing at them, kicking up dust as the bullets began ricocheting off the sand, heading right towards them. In a heartbeat, all five of them jumped out of the way, avoiding the bullets firing out of the chain guns attached to the side of the machine. As they began running in separate directions, the machine began moving, firing its weapons at whoever was closer to it.

“What are those things!” shouted Twilight as she ran as fast as her four legs could muster.

“Those are chain guns!” shouted Kim, “They can kill you in an instant if it hits you!”

“Wait, you’ve never seen one of those before!?” asked Sonic.

“Not exactly!” shouted the unicorn as she broke away from them to avoid the plumes of sand coming at them.

Mew flew into the air, the best place it could be to avoid the machine. However, his brief moment of relief didn’t last long when he saw small doors on the top of the machine open. However, instead of more chain guns coming out, two missiles fired out the top, heading straight for him. As fast as the pink creature could go, it flew away, heading for the ground with all his might. He managed to look behind him to see the missiles following closely behind him. So, he did the only thing he could do: he flew as close as he could to the ground, hoping that the missiles would follow suit.

Luckily for him, the missiles did just that and collided with the ground, kicking up giant clouds of dust with their explosions. When the dust cleared out, Mew turned and headed back toward the pod.

“Keep moving!” shouted Sonic as he and the others kept running clear of the bullets flying towards them.

Kim dived out of the way of a string of bullets and shouted, “We need to do something!”

“You think!?” shouted Twilight, as she teleported herself to safety.

“We have to destroy it somehow!” shouted Sailor Moon, “Twilight, do you think you can hold it like you did with Sonic earlier!?”

“I’m trying!” said the lavender unicorn, “But I can’t concentrate long enough to stop it! It’s moving too fast!”

“We can’t destroy it!” shouted Kim, as she back flipped away from more bullets.

“Why not!?” asked Sonic, as he ran to the machine, hoping he could get underneath it and away from harm’s way. However, whenever he got close to it, the machine would move away and then open fire on him.

“That thing came here, right!?” shouted Kim as she began running alongside Sonic, “That thing might be the only way we can get out of here!”

“Interesting theory!” shouted Twilight, “Any suggestions!?”

“I’m working on it!” she shouted at the unicorn.

Then, the machine opened its top hatches again, firing two more missiles from them. However, instead of following them like it did with Mew, they went straight into the air and straight back down, hitting random spots on the sand. When they collided, more giant clouds of dust was kicked up, one of which was near Sonic and Kim.

When it hit the ground, the two of them were thrown into the air from the shockwave of the missile. They collided with the ground, rolling a few times and getting hit with the cloud of dust that followed.

It wasn’t long before the dust cleared out and the machine began coming at them, its chain guns at the ready.

“We have to move,” moaned Sonic as he struggled to get to his feet.

When he looked in Kim’s direction, he saw that she wasn’t moving; no doubt the blast from the missile had knocked her out. When he saw that she wasn’t moving and the machine was getting closer to them, he ran over to her, picked her up in his arms and began to run as fast as he could go. While he ran, he heard the sound of the chain guns firing and the bullets colliding with the sand behind him. It was only now that he regretted that he was treading on sand, preventing him from running at the full speed he was capable of going. However, he didn’t let that stop him; he needed to get himself and Kim out of harm’s way, whether he was going slower than usual or not.

He looked behind him to see that the machine was only focusing on him, the bullets getting closer and closer. He swerved to one side to buy more time for himself. Then, he shouted, “Twilight! Do it now!”

Not wasting any time, the lavender equine focused her magic, causing the maroon aura to form around her horn. Shutting her eyes tightly, she focused her magic on the machine, praying that it was enough to stop it.

Sailor Moon and Mew watched as the machine was engulfed with the maroon aura, holding the device in its tracks. However, they saw that the chain guns on the machine were still firing at Sonic and Kim.

“We got to do something,” she said to the pink creature, a look of worry on her face. Then, an idea came to her mind. Immediately, she began to search herself, hoping that she had something that could stop the pod from firing at the blue hedgehog. Unfortunately, she didn’t have anything of use that she could use against it.

“What are we going to do?” she asked, as she began running her hands through her hair. It was then that her palms pressed against something on her forehead. The moment that they did, her eyes lit up and she took the object off of her forehead and looked at it: her tiara.

“That’s it!” she shouted as she began running towards the machine.

“What...are...you...doing...?” Twilight asked between strains, trying her best to hold the machine in its tracks. However, it was difficult for her because the pod was fighting against her, trying to break itself free from her magical grip.

“I’m going to save them,” she said to the equine as she got a better grip on her tiara.

“How...?” Twilight asked, “That...war machine...is too...strong...”

“Trust me,” said the blonde girl. When she was close enough to the machine, she began prep her tiara to attack the machine.

Twilight and Mew watched as the gold tiara in her hands instantly turned into an oval of nothing but a white light. Then, she shouted, “MOON TIARA MAGIC!” and threw the white light towards the machine like a Frisbee.

The three of them watched as the tiara flew towards the war machine, as Twilight called it. Then, it clipped the side of the chain gun, causing a small section of the device to chip in the process, and returned to Sailor Moon’s hand. The unicorn was about to scold her for her plan not working when she saw that the chain gun began to disintegrate into dust, falling from the side of the war machine and into the sand beneath it.

Seeing that it was losing its weapon, the war machine disengaged the gun, releasing it from its body. When Twilight saw this, she adjusted her magical grip on the pod to allow the chain gun to fall to the ground. When it hit the ground, it faded into a small pile of dust and blew away with the wind from its boosters underneath.

“Moon dusted!” she shouted as she jumped for joy, pumping a fist in the air as she did so.

When Sonic saw that one of the chain guns were gone, he turned and began to head towards the others, making sure to stay clear of the other chain gun that was still attached.

“What...about...the...other...one...?” asked Twilight.

Before Sailor Moon could say anything, Mew flew to the back of the war machine, positioning itself behind the other chain gun. When it was level with the backside of the weapon, he focused hard on it, his eyes starting to glow a shade of indigo as he did.

Twilight and Sailor Moon watched as a pink beam of energy shot out of Mew’s body and clipped the side of the war machine. Not only did it destroy the chain gun in the process, but it also damaged the side of the ship. A glowing yellow fluid began splattering out of the gaping hole that was now on its side, splashing on the sand below it.

As the yellow fluids continued to pour out of its side, the boosters underneath it began to lessen and lessen with each passing second.

“It’s losing power,” said Sailor Moon, “Mew must have hit its fuel cell or something!”

Taking the hint, Twilight released her magic, collapsing on the ground as she did. The moment it was released, the war machine began floating into the air as far as it could. It opened its nose again, but instead of a blue beam coming out, the purple and white energy from before started to shoot out of it. However, because it was losing the fuel it needed to operate, the door on the nose of it didn’t open all the way. Because of this, only a small beam of the energy shot out, not enough to cause the big swirl from before to show.

“What is that?” asked Sailor Moon, as she pointed at the purple and white swirl.

“That must be what sent it here,” said Twilight, not averting her gaze from the energy, “That’s got to be how that thing came here in the first place!”

Try as the war machine could, it just didn’t have enough fuel to open its nose anymore and with its last bit of energy, it closed the door and fell to the ground like a stone.

Sonic, with Kim still in his arms, regrouped with the others to see the war machine collide with the ground. Fortunately for them, it wasn’t high enough to cause any more damage to it. So, when it hit the ground, it kicked up some dust and made a sound that was equivalent to a machine powering down. After that, the war machine was completely motionless.

Several moments went by as the five of them stood completely motionless, staring at the machine that had tried to kill them only seconds ago. As they stood there, Kim began to move in Sonic’s arms, signifying that she was coming to.

“What...” she moaned in pain, “What happened?”

“I...I think we got it,” said Sonic, as he helped Kim to her feet, “Twilight, Sailor Moon, and Mew stopped it from getting to us.”

Kim looked Sonic in the eyes and said, “You...you saved me.”

Sonic smiled at her and chuckled. “A hero’s got to do what a hero’s got to do. Besides, it’s like I said before, we’re in this together. That means we look out for each other until we figure out what’s going on.”

“Thank you, Sonic,” she said, as she offered him a light hug, “I owe you one.”

“You don’t owe me anything,” he said, “It’s what I do.”

“No, I mean it,” she said, releasing her embrace and looking in his eyes, “I’m usually the one who saves people from harm, not the other way around.”

Then, he turned to the other three standing next to them. “Speaking of ‘looking out for each other’, thanks for saving us back there. That was some quick thinking, taking out those chain guns like that.”

“No problem,” said Sailor Moon, “You two aren’t the only ones who have the responsibility of saving people. I do the same thing back home, too.”

“Same here,” said Twilight, “Well, maybe not all the time, but most of the time.”

“Mew, Mew!” said Mew as he hovered around the others with a smile.

“Really?” asked Sonic, his eyebrows furrowing as he did, “That’s interesting.”

“What?” asked Kim and Twilight at the same time. When they did, Kim pointed back at the equine and said, “Jinx! You owe me a soda!”

Twilight just raised her eyebrow at the statement, wondering what the red-haired human was talking about.

“It seems we all have something in common,” he said to all of them, “We all appear to have the same responsibilities as heroes. I’m just wondering if that has anything to do with why we’re here in the first place.”

Before anyone could say anything, they heard the sound of splattering liquids hitting the ground. The five of them looked to see that more of the glowing yellow liquids shot out of the war machine.

Straightening her posture, Kim said, “First things first, let’s figure out what this thing is and see if we can get out of here.”

“Agreed,” said Sailor Moon, “We’ll talk about this later.”

Sonic nodded as the five of them slowly began to approach the remains of the war machine, hoping that they could figure out how to activate the energy from before and get out of the barren wastelands.

Author's Note

Well folks, here's my failed attempt at becoming more original! LOL!

Chapter 5: Investigations

Slowly and with much caution in their movements, the five of them began to move towards the downed machine. The yellow fluids still oozed out of the gaping hole on the side of it, splattering and darkening the sand beneath it. As they slowly approached the machine, the five of them investigated it, making sure that there was no power left in the machine; the last thing they needed was for the pod to reactivate and catch them off guard.

“Do you think it’s safe to touch it?” asked Sailor Moon as she looked at the blackened windows on the front of the pod.

“Let’s make sure this thing is down before we make a move on it,” suggested Kim, “For all we know, it might try and pull a fast one on us.”

Mew hovered over the top of the machine, looking closely at the holes where the missiles had fired from. He got as close to them as possible, looking at the holes from all angles he could muster. Soon, he flew right up to the machine and, with his tiny arms, began touching the machine. When his hand made contact, he immediately flinched away, thinking something bad was going to happen. However, pink creature saw that nothing was happening, so he hovered over to it and touched it again.

When he was confident that nothing was happening, Mew flew over to the others and nodded his head.

“Mew, Mew,” he said as he hovered over to the machine again, touching it with his tiny arms for all of them to see.

“It looks like it’s not doing anything,” said Sonic, crossing his arms as he spoke, “I guess it’s safe to go near it. Still, we should be extremely careful.”

Cautiously, the other four began moving closer to the pod, looking for a way to identify what it was and for a way to use it to leave the barren wastelands.

Sonic and Kim walked over to the gaping hole on the side, where Mew had attacked it. When they got there, they saw several wires dangling from within and the yellow fluids pouring out of some of the pipes. They saw that there was a space inside of the machine, no doubt where the chain gun had been stored. However, as the two of them leaned in a little bit closer, they saw that there was much more space from within.

“What do you suppose this thing is?” asked Kim, as she leaned in closer to investigate.

“I have no idea,” said Sonic as he stood up, “But whatever it is, it was sent here to kill us. The question is who sent it here and why.”

“Clearly, that thing that Sailor Moon saw earlier sent it here,” said Kim, “Still doesn’t answer why, though. Hey, it looks like there’s some vacant space inside the pod.”

Sonic knelt down besides Kim and looked inside where she was looking. She pointed inside of the machine at the space where the chain gun had been stored. However, she leaned in a little closer and pointed to a much wider space inside.

“Looks like this thing has a hollow body,” said Kim, “That must mean there’s a way to get inside.”

“Okay,” said Sonic, “Let’s see if we can find a way in, shall we?”

As the two of them stood to their feet, they walked to the front of the pod. There, they saw that Sailor Moon was standing on the top of the ship, trying to look inside the blackened windows, while Twilight was investigating the nose of the ship, where the purple and white energy had fired from. Mew continued to investigate the holes on the top, where the missiles were fired from, as well as the back boosters.

“Did you guys find anything?” asked Sonic as he and Kim approached them.

“Nothing yet,” said Sailor Moon as she jumped down from the top of the ship. However, because of her injured leg, she stumbled a bit, losing her footing when she landed. Sonic quickly came to her aid and helped her stand up again.

“Are you alright?” he asked.

“Yeah, thanks,” she said, “Anyway, it looks like those things up there are windows of some kind. I’ve been trying to see if there was a way to see what’s inside, but they’re too dark; I can’t see a thing.”

“Well, we already know that the insides are hollow,” said Kim, “That must mean that someone or something must be piloting this thing. We just need to figure out a way inside.”

“Hey, Twilight,” called out Sonic, “Did you find anything yet?”

The lavender mare trotted away from the nose of the ship and approached the others. “No, I haven’t. I was trying to see if there was a way to open the nose of the ship, like it had done earlier.”

“What do you mean?” asked Kim, “Why did it open the nose?”

“Well, do you remember the purple and white swirl from earlier?” asked Twilight. Sonic and Kim nodded. “Well, after Mew destroyed the other gun, the machine tried to get away. It opened its nose slightly and that purple-white stuff came out of it. I think that must have been how it got here.”

“If that’s the case, then there’s no way we can use it,” said Sonic, “If we took out the fuel of this ship, as we think we did, we can’t reuse that energy from before. It doesn’t have the power to...”

“That’s what I was thinking, too,” interjected Twilight, “But I have a feeling that energy didn’t run on the ship’s fuel.”

“How do you figure that?” asked Kim.

“When the ship tried to get away, it shot out the energy from the nose. It couldn’t escape though, but not because it didn’t have enough fuel to activate the energy, but because it didn’t have enough power to open its nose fully.”

Sonic and Kim shot each other confused glances. Twilight could only face-hoof.

“What I mean is that the energy didn’t run on the fuel. As it was losing fuel, the energy remained perfectly intact and unaffected by it. It didn’t escape because the machine didn’t have enough energy to open the nose of the ship enough to exert more of that energy. If it had, it would have escaped, but because it didn’t, it shut itself down.”

“So, what you’re saying is that we can somehow reactivate that energy from before and get out of here?” asked Sonic as he crossed his arms.

“I think we can,” Twilight said, “But we need a way to give the ship enough fuel to open the nose all the way. That way, we can use enough of that purple-white energy from before.”

“So, we have a plan,” said Kim with a smile, “First things first, we need to find a way inside of the ship without damaging it any more than it already is.”

As they began to discuss what they were going to do to get into the ship, Mew flew over to the gaping hole on the side, investigating the damage that was done. When he did, he saw that the wires and cables where dangling down in different directions. He cocked his head back and forth, looking at all of them swaying and bumping into one another.

Then, the pink creature saw that one of the cables was still pouring the yellow fluids out in a steady stream. With caution, the pink creature approached the cable, hovering as slow as he possibly could. Then, using his long tail, he tapped the cable, causing it to sway a little more than before. The yellow fluids still poured out, splattering against the sand. Again, Mew tapped the leaking cable, a little harder this time, causing the momentum to increase as it did. However, when he tapped it with his tail, the cable swung a little too far and hit another cable that was dangling right near it. When it did, the unthinkable happened.

As if the cables had a mind of their own, they began intertwining with one another, wrapping around each other like coiling snakes until the tips of them met together. When they did, they connected with one another, sticking together like a plug going into a wall outlet. Finally, when they were connected, they dropped down, untangling themselves when they did. Mew was about to inform the others what had happened when they machine began shifting again, causing him to back away.

The shifting caught the others’ attention, also causing them to back away from the moving machine. Eyes wide and hearts racing, the five of them watched as the machine swayed back and forth like it had earlier, like something was inside of it, moving around.

“What’s happening?” asked Sailor Moon, her voice sounding a little shaky.

“I don’t know,” said Sonic, “Did anyone touch anything?”

Before they could answer, they saw the nose on the ship beginning to open. When they did, they all backed away again, much further than they already were. Out of the nose of the ship, the purple and white energy began to fire out of it. However, because the door was only opened a little bit, only a very small stream of energy was coming out, about the size of a red laser pointer light.

Then, the machine gave off one last sputter before it was motionless again. Unlike last time, though, the machine didn’t have enough time or energy to close the small door on the nose. Since it didn’t have enough power and it shut down as quickly as it was started up again, the door remained open, firing the small amount of energy from the nose.

Several moments went by and the five of them remained exactly where they were, staring at the purple-white energy with shock on their faces. It shot in a straight line from the ship, parallel with the ground. It went on for about 2 yards in front of the ship before it stopped in midair, as if an imaginary wall was preventing it from going any further. They saw that the end of the energy was flat against the air and trying to spread, stretching out as far as it could go. Because it didn’t have enough flow from the nose, it didn’t go very far and only stretched about half an inch on all sides, making a small circle in the air.

“What is that thing?” asked Kim, as she slowly approached the energy.

“It’s the energy from earlier,” said Twilight, “That’s what was coming out of the nose when we destroyed it.”

“Looks like what you said was true, then,” said Sonic, “That energy doesn’t run on whatever fuel this thing runs on. Still, how did it reactivate?”

“Mew,” said Mew in soft and guilty tone. The others looked at him, a saddened expression on his face.

“You did this, Mew?” asked Sailor Moon, “But, how?”

Slowly, Mew flew over to the hole on the ship, the others following suit. When they got there, they saw the dangling cables again. However, they saw that two of the cables were now connected with one another.

“How did you connect those cables together?” asked Kim.

As best as he could, he tried to explain that the cables had put themselves together on their own and that he had only touched one of them to make it happen. Unfortunately, none of them were able to comprehend any of what he was trying to say; all they saw was a pink creature flying around in circles and repeating his name over and over again.

When he had stopped, Sonic turned to the others and asked, “Did anyone catch any of that?”

“Does it look like I speak alien?” asked Twilight, raising an eyebrow at him.

Mew let out a small growling sound at the lavender equine; he might not be able to speak to them, but that didn’t mean he didn’t understand them either. Because of this, he felt a little offended at Twilight’s comment.

“Sorry,” said Twilight, “But it’s the truth.”

“Well, I guess it doesn’t matter how it happened,” said Kim, “What matters is that we know what we have to do. Since some of the work has already been started, we might as well finish it up.”

Nodding their heads in agreement, the five of them approached the ship again.

“Twilight, do you think you can do what you did before and open that nose a little more?” asked Sonic.

“I’ll give it a shot,” said Twilight as she approached the nose of the ship. Focusing her magic, she got a grip on either side of the nose compartments, causing them to radiate the maroon aura from before. Concentrating as much as she could, she began to strain herself, trying very hard to open the doors more and more. Magical sparks began flying out of the tip of her horn as she continued to struggle to get the door open. She only managed to get the door open a few more inches before she released her grip on them, collapsing to the ground when she did.

“I can’t do it,” she said, panting and sweating, “Whatever it is protecting the ship is too strong. My magic can’t seem to budge it.”

“Magic?” Sonic mumbled to himself. “Is that what that is?”

“It looks like the only way to get the doors open is from the inside,” said Kim as she looked up at the blackened windows, “We have an entry point, so let’s crack it open.”

Wasting no time, Kim made her way to the ship. Then, in only a few bounds, she managed to get up to the blackened windows in no time. She investigated the windows, looking for some kind of way to get inside. She tapped her fist against the windows and listened to the sound it made. When she did, she confirmed that it was glass.

“Well, it’s clearly glass,” she called out to the others, “Now, if we can only break it open, we can get inside of-”

Before she could finish her sentence, Sonic jumped into the air as high as he could. When he did, he entered his ball form again, spinning in a fast circle. When Kim saw this, she began to move to the top of the ship, unsure of what the hedgehog was doing. Then, Sonic homed in on the glass, his spinning body colliding with it. Once he made contact with it, the glass shattered into pieces, scattering across the ship and onto the sand. When it was broken, he released himself from his ball state and landed on the ship, a smile on his face.

Kim approached the now broken glass, shot the hedgehog a sly smile and said, “Show off.”

Sonic simply shrugged his shoulders as the red-haired girl looked inside of the ship. When she did, she saw that the inside was clearly hollow. However, the space inside of it was too small for anyone or anything to fit; the only one that could fit in there was Mew, judging by the size.

“What do you see?” asked Sonic.

“It looks like this thing is some kind of drone,” explained Kim, “There’s no pilot inside nor does it look like there’s room for one.”

“You mean this thing was flying on its own?” asked the blue hedgehog.

Kim nodded and stood to her feet. “What kind of things are we dealing with here?” she asked aloud, “They seem technologically advanced.”

“Apparently,” said Sonic, “Whoever or whatever they are seem to know what they’re doing on all aspects, from erasing our memories to the types of machines they’re using.”

Then, a small flash appeared next to the two of them as Twilight teleported from the ground to the ship, joining the others. Since they didn’t expect her to teleport, both Sonic and Kim jumped back in surprise at her sudden appearance.

“Surprising, much?” asked Kim as she put her hand on her chest.

“Sorry,” said the unicorn, “So, what’s going on?”

“It seems we can’t get inside of it,” said Sonic, “It’s too small for anyone of us. This thing isn’t piloted by anything either.”

“Maybe I can fit,” said Twilight, as she poked her head inside of the broken window. She managed to fit most of her body inside, but no more than that; her flank was still outside of the ship.

“What do you see?” asked Kim.

“I can see a screen of some kind,” she called out to her, “It looks like some kind of strange writing is on it.”

“How is that possible?” asked Kim, “I thought we took out the fuel. How is the screen working then?”

Sonic thought about it for a second. He recalled what they had seen earlier and said, “Well, the fuel was still seeping through the cables when we saw it, right?”

Kim nodded. “Well, maybe enough fuel has gone through it now to activate whatever screen is there.”

“Wait, you mean like a computer screen, right?” Kim asked Twilight.

“Depends, what’s a ‘computer’?”

Sonic and Kim gave each other a look of confusion and surprise.

Shaking her head, Sonic said, “Never mind that now. What’s on the screen?”

“It has some strange markings on it,” said Twilight, “They look like symbols of some kind. Celestia only knows what they mean.”

“Celestia?” Kim mumbled to herself, raising an eyebrow as she did.

Sonic shrugged at her once again and said, “What else do you see?”

“It looks like many buttons are below it,” she said. There was a small moment of silence before she called out, “Every time I touch one, the symbols on the screen seems to change.”

A few moments of silence went by when Sonic said, “Alright Twilight, maybe you should get out of-”

“Wait a moment,” called the equine, interrupting Sonic, “One of the buttons just began to glow!”

“What?” asked Kim, “What do you mean ‘glow’?”

“It’s shining red right now. It just turned on a second ago. What do you think it means?”

“I don’t know, but you should get out of there,” said Sonic.

Wasting no time, Twilight began backing out of the ship. When she was out, she shook her head back and forth, fixing the frazzled mane she had from being in there.

“A red button,” said Sonic as the three of them rejoined with Sailor Moon and Mew, “I wonder what that could mean.”

“How’s it looking?” asked Sailor Moon.

“I’m not sure exactly,” said Sonic, “It looks like we can’t really use that machine to get out of here, though.”

“Maybe we can,” said Kim.

“How?” he asked, turning to face her.

“Well, like you said before, maybe enough fuel has gone through it now, enough to activate the ship long enough to open the nose again.”

Sonic’s eyes went wide at the realization of her statement. “What?” she asked, raising an eyebrow at him.

“If that’s true,” he began, looking at the beam of energy again, “Then, that could only mean...”

He didn’t even have time to finish his sentence when the ship began to move again like it had before. Wasting no time, the ship used whatever power it had to fully open the door on the nose, shooting out the purple-white energy at full force. The five of them watched as the energy shot out of the nose and hit the air like it had before; it flattened against whatever invisible wall was there, spreading higher and higher with each passing second.

Soon, the purple and white swirl they saw earlier was only a few feet away from them, towering over everyone and everything in its path. They all stared at it, eyes wide and hearts racing.

Everything that happened after went by in a second. One moment they were staring at giant wall of energy. Next, they saw a blinding white light engulf them all. Then, they were falling. It was like something had picked all of them up and dropped them to the ground. Even the ones who were able to fly, like Mew, didn’t have time to react. The five of them fell like stones to the ground, colliding with it beneath them.

Luckily for them, they didn’t fall from an extremely high distance, but since they still had injuries on them, their landing was something to be desired. They all rolled on the ground, groaning in pain with eyes shut tight. Even the ship had fallen with them, colliding with the ground and rolling with them.

Several moments of this went by before they all found themselves able to talk again.

“What happened?” asked Sonic as he struggled to his feet.

“I don’t know,” said Kim, as she stood up as best as she could.

Before any of them could say anything more, they all looked at the ground beneath their feet. Instead of seeing sand, like they had before, they saw they were standing on dirt and grass. Looking around where they were, they saw dead trees and a dirt path leading down a road. The sky was no longer a blinding sun, but blanketed with gray clouds, slowly moving over head. Bits of paper and garbage were blown around with a much more frequent breeze than before as the five of them managed to stand to their feet.

After spending several seconds exploring their new environment, the five of them looked at one another with confused glances.

“What is this place?” asked Twilight, “We’re not in the barren wastelands again, that’s for sure.”

“I don’t know,” said Sailor Moon, does anyone recognize this place?”

All of them shook their heads as the continued to look around.

After a few moments, a small piece of paper blew by and caught onto Sonic’s leg. He saw it and picked it up from his leg to see that it was a small piece of a newspaper. He examined it, looking for a clue as to where they were. Fortunately for him, the bottom of the paper was still intact and showed where the paper had been published. He ran his finger on it and saw the name of the city next to the address.

“What do you see?” asked Kim.

Lowering and releasing the newspaper piece, Sonic looked at them all and asked, “Have any of you heard of a place called, ‘Heatherfield’?”

Author's Note

You get a cookie if you can guess the name of the next dimension before advancing to the next chapter!

Chapter 6: Heatherfield [The Second Dimension]

Location: Heatherfield
Dimension: W.I.T.C.H.

“Heatherfield?” asked Kim as she looked around at their new environment again, “It’s not ringing any bells.”

“Me neither,” said Twilight as she looked at the gray skies overhead.

Sailor Moon simply shrugged her shoulders while Mew cocked his head to one side, giving a confused look at the blue hedgehog.

Crossing his arms, Sonic looked at the dead trees all around them and said, “Well, I’ve never heard of it either but, apparently, it exists.”

“How can it exist when none of us have ever heard of it?” asked Sailor Moon.

“I don’t know,” said Kim, a hint of sarcasm in her voice, “But if blue hedgehogs and mythological talking horses exist, then a place like this is no surprise.”

Twilight rolled her eyes as Sonic face-palmed. They knew she was right, but she didn’t have to be so blunt about it.

“So, what do we do now?” asked Sailor Moon, “Should we look for someone or something to help us?”

“That depends on if we need help or not,” said Sonic, “First things first, we should try and find some food and water.”

“I agree,” said Twilight, “We might be able to find something here that’s edible, wherever here is.”

“What about the ship?” asked Kim, “What if it tries to release that purple-white energy again?”

“Then we’d better hurry,” said Sonic as he turned and began to walk down the dirt path before him. Exchanging unsure glances at one another, the others began to follow the hedgehog as he began heading no one knows where.

“What if this place is nothing but a dead forest, like the other place was nothing but a desert?” asked Sailor Moon. “What if this journey is a waste of time like before?”

“So not helping,” said Kim.

“She’s right,” said Sonic, “We should try and be a little more optimistic about this. Besides, no jungle has this much garbage strewn about. Where there’s garbage around, there’s got to be a...a...a...”

Sonic trailed off when the five of them reached the apparent end of the dirt path. When they did, all five of them went wide-eyed at what they saw. Before them were the remains of what looked like a city. There were streets and buildings and cars all around. However, many of the buildings were destroyed; windows and walls were broken while a few of them had been crumpled down to their foundations. The cars in the street were either toppled over, inside of buildings or cut into many different pieces. The roads were littered with building bricks, upturned gravel and other assortments of rubble. In short, the city they were looking at was nothing short of destroyed.

The five of them looked down the three-way road before them and saw that the majority of the city was in the same situation. Everything was practically destroyed by something; the only question that remained was what.

“It’s a city,” said Kim as she panned her head back and forth, “Or what’s left of a city.”

“What could have caused this?” Sonic asked in a hushed whisper.

“Something strong and powerful,” said Twilight, answering the question he didn’t intend on asking the others.

“Do you think those things did this?” asked Sailor Moon as she gestured a thumb back to the ship that had brought them here.

“Maybe,” said Sonic as he crossed his arms.

“I don’t think so,” said Kim, as she began taking a few steps towards the side of one of the buildings that was right in front of them.

As precariously as they could, the others followed her to the side of the building where she was heading. When they got there, they saw that one of the sides had deep claw-like marks going along it, carving into the concrete sides of the building. Kim ran a hand on the jagged edges of the building, letting her fingers go into the deep gash marks in the building.

“What is that?” asked Sonic.

“I don’t know, but whatever it is, it was strong enough to cut right into solid concrete,” she said, lowering her hands from the building, “What in the world are we dealing with here?”

“Whatever it is, it’s strong, smart and technologically advanced. If they are able to do this, then they are capable of doing just about anything,” said Sonic as he crossed his arms, “Still we should try and find some sort of sustenance before that ship opens that energy again.”

“What if whatever did this is still out there?” asked Sailor Moon, worry still in her voice, “For all we know, it could be waiting for us!”

“All the more reason to hurry,” said Twilight, “Now, where should we go from here?”

“How about that way?” asked Kim, as she pointed to the road in front of them.

When they all saw the road she was pointing to, they all had to raise their eyes up to see the end of the extremely steep incline that was the road.

“That...is one...steep...road,” said Sonic as he tilted his head up, “Are you sure that you want to go that way?”

“No big,” she said with a smile. Then, she began walking up what remained of the sidewalk, “Besides, it’ll give us a good view of this place, that way we can keep an eye on the ship and anything else for that matter.”

Shrugging his shoulders again, he began to follow her, the others close behind. Besides the sounds of them walking, there weren’t any other sounds, no hints that anyone or anything was around. As they walked up the extremely steep road, they kept their eyes and ears on a swivel, watching out for anything that could try and attack them.

Several moments later, the five of them reached the top of the road and looked around at their surroundings. When they turned to look down at the road behind them, they saw that what Kim had stated was correct; they had a pretty good view of the city they were in and it didn’t look much better.

They saw that the city was broken into two parts; both of which were connected by a bridge in the distance. There weren’t sure if there was more than one bridge from where they were standing, but all they saw was the one bridge. However, they saw that the bridge in question was in shambles, isolating the second half of the city. The other section of the city was leveled with only a few remaining fragments of buildings left over. The side they were on had more buildings intact, but they didn’t look all that different from each other.

“Oh my...” said Sonic, trailing off before he could finish his sentence.

For several seconds, the five of them stared at the remains of both halves of the city. As they looked at the destroyed city, they all shared the same expression of sadness, worry and confusion.

“This...” said Twilight, her voice no louder than a whisper. “This...this is awful.”

“What could have caused this?” asked Sailor Moon, sadness in her voice, “What could have caused an entire city like this to crumble into nothing?”

“I don’t know,” said Sonic, crossing his arms, “But whatever it is, we need to find it and put an end to this!”

“And how do you suppose we do that?” asked Kim, drawing her eyes away from the destruction to face the blue hedgehog, “We don’t know what we’re dealing with or where they are.”

Sonic let out a sigh and lowered his head. “I...I don’t know yet, but we will.”

A moment of silence had passed before Twilight said, “We’ll find who did this and bring them to justice when the time comes, but for now, we need to find food and water before the worst happens!”

“Mew, Mew,” said the pink creature as he rested on Twilight’s back. When he did, he began rubbing his stomach with his tiny arms, signaling that he was hungry.

Simply nodding his head, the blue hedgehog turned and began walking down the road that was before him. The others followed suit as they began making their way through the remains of the city. As they walked, they noticed that the roads weren’t as steep as the road they had walked on, but still headed in an upward direction.

When they saw that the roads were continuing to move upward, they decided to move along one of the level streets, giving themselves a break from trudging up in the same direction. So, the next chance they got, they turned right on the first side street they came to, which looked no different than the rest of the city, except that many of the buildings were more intact than the others.

“What exactly are we looking for?” asked Sailor Moon, as the five of them made their way down the road.

“We’re looking for a place we can get some food and water,” said Kim, “We need to move fast before the ship releases that energy again.”

“Hey, look over there,” said Sonic, pointing to what looked like a small convenient store that was a few yards away; it was hard to tell because any signs that were on the store had been broken off, the windows were shattered and a gaping hole was on the side of it. However, based on the look of it, they could have sworn that it was a small store that carried food.

“Looks like it’s been destroyed,” said Kim, raising his eyebrow, “I highly doubt there’s anything left in there.”

“It can’t hurt to look,” he said flatly, making his way towards the building.

Rubbing her temples with her hand, Kim began to follow Sonic, the others following close behind. When they got there, they saw that it was, in fact, a convenient store. Most of everything was destroyed, the electricity was out and rubble was strewn across the ground.

“Are you sure there’s something edible in a place like this?” asked Twilight as they all stared at the destroyed store.

“Only one way to find out,” said Sonic as he made his way to the gaping hole on the side of the building, “Just be careful where you step, there’s a lot of glass and debris everywhere.”

As carefully as they could, they entered the building and began looking around, trying to find anything they could salvage. The bad news was that the majority of the store had caved in, leaving only the front end of the store intact. However, the good news was that there was some packaged food in that front end, like chips and candy bars. Also, there was a small cooler with a few bottles of water and other beverages still intact.

“Well, looks like we found some sustenance,” said Sonic, a small flicker of a smile coming across his lips, “Let’s salvage what we can and get back to the ship.”

“Wait, is this a good idea?” asked Kim, looking at the debris within the store, “What if this place caves in on us?”

“Don’t worry about that,” said Twilight, “I know a few spells that can keep us safe, it a situation like that was to occur, that is.”

With that, the five of them began going through the store, gathering everything that they could. The next several moments after that were spent chowing down on what they could. Granted, most of the food was either stale or crushed and the beverages were the worst kind of warm one could imagine, but given their circumstances, they weren’t going to complain.

Soon, the five of them had finished and were ready to make their way back to the ship. They weren’t at all full, but they were satisfied that they had any food in the first place.

“That wasn’t filling at all,” whined Sailor Moon, “I’m still hungry!”

“Makes the rest of us,” said Sonic, “But that’s all we could get, so let’s be grateful we found anything.”

As they began leaving the store, Twilight caught the sight of something in the cooler. Looking closer at the label on the item, a small smile formed on her lips. Then, using her magic, she opened the door and levitated the object out. Finally, she made her way towards the others, but more specifically, towards Kim.

When she caught up with the red-haired human, she tapped her shoulder with the item, drawing her attention to it. When she turned and looked at the object, Twilight levitated it into Kim’s hand, releasing her magic when she had a grip on it.

Kim looked at the small bottle and raised an eyebrow at the lavender unicorn. “What’s this for?” she asked her.

“Well, you said earlier that I ‘owed you a soda’, right?” Twilight asked, “Well, here’s that soda I owe you!”

Kim let out a small giggle, rolled her eyes and said, “Thanks, Twi.”

The lavender mare smiled and began making her way down the road with the others. As they walked, Kim opened the bottle and took a sip of the disgustingly warm soda that was inside of it. As she drank, she tilted her head back to chug the whole thing down; since it had been sitting there for who knows how long, it no longer had its carbonation.

When she finished, she tossed the bottle on the ground, causing it to roll down an alley. When it did, a loud sound echoed in the air, freezing all of them where they stood. It sounded like metal colliding with metal, like a piece of scrap metal hitting a metal garbage bin. They all looked to the origin of the sound, hearts pounding and muscles stiffened.

“Sorry,” Kim whispered, “That was my fault. I threw a bottle down the alley.”

Sonic furrowed his eyebrows and said above a whisper, “That didn’t sound like a bottle.”

They all remained frozen in fear as they looked at the alley that the sound came from. Several seconds went by and nothing seemed to happen; maybe the sound was the bottle, but it sounded way too heavy to be a small piece of plastic.

As quietly and swiftly as they could, the five of them turned away from the alley and began heading down they had traveled on before. However, they only took a few steps away when they began to hear another sound from behind them, causing them all to stop where they stood. It wasn’t the same sound as before, but sounded relatively close. This time, the sound was like an aluminum can being crushed, a metallic crinkling that kept repeating in intervals. As the sound kept going, their eyes became pinpoints and their hearts began to race.

Slowly, the five of them turned around to face the alley that the sound originated from. When they did this time, all of them let out an audible gasp at what they saw there.

It had the body of a grasshopper, but its legs were a metallic silver color. It had two long back legs that were reversed, smaller middle legs and longer front legs. Its head looked like a grasshopper, except the eyes were smaller and glowing red. It had no antennae on its head and no wings on its back. However, resting on its back were two long pieces of sharp metal. However, the thing that startled them the most was its size. A regular grasshopper was very small, but this grasshopper-like creature was almost the same size as Twilight.

The five of them stared at the creature as it slowly made its way out of the alley, its eyes fixated on them. When it reached the middle of the street, the creature turned its head to face them others, soon turning its whole body towards them.

Like what happened with the ship in the barren wastelands, the five of them stared frozen at the creature, not taking their eyes off of it.

“What is that thing?” asked Sailor Moon, trying to hold back tears again.

“I don’t know,” said Sonic, “It looks like an over-sized grasshopper.”

“I don’t think so,” whisper Twilight, her breath shallow, “A grasshopper, up close, looks nothing like that.”

“What do we do?” asked Kim, her voice also in a whisper.

Before any of them had time to answer, the mood all changed when the creature lunged at the five of them, letting out a loud screech as it did.

Author's Note

Again, here's my attempt at being a little more original! Hopefully it's good.
Anyway, here's a link that shows the city, in case you have no idea where I'm talking about.

Chapter 7: The Escape

Before any of them had any time to react, the creature leaped at the five of them. In the blink of an eye, Kim was tackled to the ground by the grasshopper-like creature, ramming her in her chest. Just when she thought that the pain from her stomach wound was going away, the creature made sure it reminded her that it was still there. However, she couldn’t let that small pain interfere with the major situation on her hands: the fact that an unknown creature was pinning her to the ground.

Using her hands, she held the creature as far away from her as she possibly could. When she did, her eyes went wide at what she was face-to-face with. Its face had pincers like an ant, but they were all metal. However, the mouth from behind them opened, revealing sharp teeth and some sort of fluid spewing out of it. Its head and red eyes moved up and down as it wriggled its body to get free. All the while, the sharp serrated pincers snapped over and over again, each time, trying its best to get to her. Amidst the struggle, she could have sworn she heard someone scream, but because her focus was mainly on the dangerous creature trying to get at her, she couldn’t confirm who it was.

As she continued to struggle with the creature, she could feel with her hands that the creature was fuzzy and a little bit squishy, as if the body of the creature was organic. However, the majority of the body was glimmering with the shiny metal that made up the majority of it.

Before anything else could happen, Sonic kicked the creature off of her, sending it flying down the street. Kim quickly got to her feet and looked at the creature, which had regained its posture and was standing before them again. It readied itself, as if it was going to jump at them again. However, it remained completely motionless as it stood at the ready.

“What now?” asked Sailor Moon, tears streaming from her eyes. It was pretty clear that it was her who had screamed when the creature was on Kim.

“I don’t know,” said Sonic, “But get ready. We don’t know what it is going to do.”

The five of them stared at the creature, all of them ready to defend themselves from whatever it was they were face to face with.

In the blink of an eye, the long legs on the front of the creature extended, reaching over its own body. Then, it gripped the ends of the two sharp pieces of metal on its back. Finally, leaping towards them and screeching again, it used all the strength it had to throw the two metal shards at the five of them.

They all managed to jump out of the way of both the creature and the flying pieces of metal that approached them. As they all jumped to safety, they saw that the metal shards had flown into the upturned cars that were strewn about. When they did, the metal blades flew right through them and into the concrete behind it, getting stuck in the road when they landed. It was pretty clear that this creature was much more dangerous than it looked.

The creature didn’t cease to attack as it collided with a car and quickly leaped towards the one closest to it, Twilight. In a quick instant, the unicorn used her magic to capture the creature and levitate it in the air. It kicked around and tried to get away, a maroon aura suspending it in mid-air. Again, it shrieked loudly, as if it was trying to call out to someone or something.

As the five of them got up, they looked at the creature that was levitating before them. It looked at each of them, its pincers snapping and its legs kicking in different directions, thinking that it would set it free.

“What is that thing!?” shrieked Sailor Moon as she stared at the creature.

“I don’t know,” said Kim, gripping her stomach where her wounds were, “But that thing is like nothing that I’ve ever seen.”

“Speak for yourself,” said Sonic, “That thing is clearly some sort of robot of some kind.”

“That’s not what I mean,” said Kim, her breath slowly coming to, “What I mean is that it’s not a full robotic...thing. It’s also part organic, as if it is some sort of animal with mechanical ligaments.”

Sonic looked at her with a wide-eyed expression. “You mean like a half-robot, half-living thing, type creature?”

Kim nodded, as she looked closer at the grasshopper-like creature. As she approached it, it looked at her with its red eyes, its pincers slowly opening as she did. They could all see the fluids spewing from its mouth, as if it was salivating, starving like they were.

When Kim was only a yard away from it, the creature began to struggle again, trying to get at her like it had before.

“What are we going to do with it?” she asked, as she walked to its backside, investigating it some more.

“I don’t know,” said Twilight, her voice sounding a bit strained, “Whatever you plan on doing, you better do it soon. I can’t hold this thing forever. It’s struggling way too much.”

“There’s only one thing we can do,” said Sonic, crossing his arms and smiling, “We have to destroy it.”

“But how?” asked Sailor Moon, “This thing has too many mechanical parts protecting its body. We couldn’t destroy it even if we...”

The blonde human was interrupted when a beam of pink energy wisped in the air, causing all of them to jump back in surprise. Twilight, who had jumped back like the others, released her magic around the creature, causing it to fall to the ground. However, when they did, they saw that the upper half of it was gone, leaving only the lower half of its body and the reversed back legs.

The four of them looked up to see that Mew’s eyes were glowing indigo, just like they had when he destroyed the war machine in the barren wastelands. Realizing what had just happened, they all stood up and looked at the pink creature.

“You know, you could warn us the next time you’re going to do that,” said Twilight, her eyebrows slightly furrowed.

“Mew, Mew,” he said, imitating what looked like a shrug.

Directing their attention away from Mew, they five of them looked at the remains of the creature that lied on the ground. Since it was cut in half, its innards were slowly falling out of its body, creating a pool of velvet fluids on the ground.

“Well, it looks like you were right,” said Sonic, his eyes wide with shock, “This thing was a living organism.”

“What was it doing out here?” asked Kim, putting her hands on her hips.

“I don’t know, but what I do know is that we’ve wasted enough time with this thing,” said Twilight, “We need to get back to the ship before that energy opens and possibly strands us here.”

“Alright,” said Sonic, “Let’s get going before...”

However, they were, once again, stopped by a sound coming from behind them. It was a different sound than before, but one they were all quite familiar with. When they turned around to face one of the building remains behind them, they saw that a piece of the concrete from the structure had fallen, colliding with the street below it.

Before anyone could say anything about it, they saw another piece of the structure fall to the ground, and then another, and another. Slowly, the five of them looked up at the building, which was somewhat still intact, and went wide-eyed at what they saw.

Staring back at them were glowing red dots, much like the eyes of the creature they had just destroyed. However, in every window frame that the building had left over, there were red dots, each of them moving, each of them staring back at them. Whenever one of them moved closer to the ledge, it caused a piece of the broken building to fall to the ground.

They stood where they were as the eyes stared back at them. Eventually, they heard more of the building falling to the ground, this time, it was behind them. Slowly, they turned around to face the building opposite the one they were already looking at to see even more red eyes staring back at them.

Fear and panic began to course through each of them as they realized that they were surrounded, each building they looked at infested with the glowing eyes. It was pretty clear that they weren’t alone in this destroyed city and were probably being watched the entire time, ever since they arrived.

“Oh...my...” said Kim, her voice low and soft, “They’re everywhere.”

“They’ve been here the whole time,” said Twilight, matching her tone, “They’ve probably been watching us.”

“Then why didn’t they attack us before?” asked Sailor Moon, tears starting to stream down her cheeks.

“It’s probably because we didn’t pose much of a threat to them,” said Kim, her eyes shifting back and forth at the creatures.

“They probably saw us take out one of their own,” said Sonic, his fist clenching so hard that his gloves made an uncomfortable rubbing sound, “It looks like they’re angry.”

“What do we do?” asked Sailor Moon, trying her best not to break down into tears again, even though she was failing at doing so.

“The only thing we can,” said the hedgehog, “On the count of three, we run for the ship as fast as we can. One...two...”

He didn’t have a chance to even mouth the word before one of the creatures leaped from the building and right towards them, letting out a shriek as it did so. Not waiting for the last number, the five of them turned and began running down the road. As they did, they heard the sound of the clinking metal as before, only this time, it was like a sea of metal forming right behind them. They turned their head a little bit to see exactly what they feared.

From the buildings, the grasshopper-like creatures began jumping down to the street. Then, they turned and began giving chase, the streets practically covered with them. All of them began letting out the same sound as before, being pretty apparent that it was some sort of war cry. Focusing on where they were going, they began heading down the road, hoping against hope that they would make it to the ship intact.

“What now?” asked Kim, her voice in almost a shout.

“Keep moving,” said Sonic, “Don’t stop!”

Their conversation was short lived when they saw metal blades whiz right by them, cutting into a piece of concrete in front of it. When they looked behind them, they saw that many of the creatures were throwing their metal blades from their backs at them. Since they were in motion, their accuracy wasn’t that great and kept missing them, but many of them were getting too close for comfort.

“Turn down this street!” shouted Sonic.

The five of them turned down one of the side roads that became a downward incline. When they did, they looked behind them to see that several metal blades kept going straight down the road they were just on.

“Good thinking,” said Kim, “If we keep ourselves on a swivel, we won’t have to worry about those blades hitting us.”

“Yes, but that still leaves those hoppers coming after us!” said Sailor Moon, practically out of breath, “What do we do about them!?”

“Just keep going, full speed ahead!” said Sonic, as they turned down another side street. When they did, they heard the sounds of the metallic clinking again; they were safe from the blades, but the hoppers themselves were still hot on their trail.

Knowing that their options were limited, Twilight yelled out, “I have an idea, but you all have to gather as close to me as possible!”

“Why?” asked Kim, “What are you doing?”

“Trust me, this will work!” the unicorn shouted, trying her best to keep up with the others. Like with Kim, it was only now that she was reminded of the wounds running down her leg. However, she had to do what she had to do, regardless of the pain.

With no other choice, the five of them gathered as close as they could to the lavender mare. When they were close enough, they saw that her horn began to glow again. Shutting her eyes as tight as she could, a spark had formed and a white light flashed before all of their eyes, blinding them for a moment.

When they came to, they saw that they were in front of the steep road they had first traveled on, heading towards the dead tree area. However, they were all at the very top of it, which meant they still had to go down.

“What was that?” asked Sailor Moon, trying to keep her head from moving.

“Teleportation,” said Twilight as she collapsed on the ground, “I didn’t know if I could move all of us, but I managed it. However, I think it used up too much of my energy. I can’t...”

Before she could finish, they heard the sounds of the hoppers beginning to close in on them. Doing what he must, Mew focused on the lavender horse, squinting his eyes as he did. Then, a pink bubble formed around her, picking her up with ease. Not wasting any more time, Mew began flying down the steep road as fast as he could. The others, quite shocked at what they were all witnessing, shook it off and began running down the road as well, only a short distance away from the ship.

As they ran down the steep street, which allowed them to go faster than they had before, they heard the sounds of the hoppers approaching. By the time they reached the base of the road, they looked behind them to see the hoppers beginning to make their way down the road.

As fast as their legs could carry them, they made their way through the dead forest until they reached the ship. However, they saw that it was just lying there, not making any movement like before.

“How do we get the ship to open the energy?” asked Sailor Moon, trying to catch her breath.

“I don’t know,” said Sonic, panic also evident in his voice, “I think we need to wait for it to open it.”

“Not an option, look!” said Kim as she pointed down the dirt path. They saw that the creatures were beginning to close in on them.

Releasing Twilight from the bubble, Mew faced the creatures and fired his attack at them, destroying many of them. However, there were still many of them slowly approaching from all sides. Trying his best, Mew kept firing his beams at them, either destroying them or keeping them at bay.

Using what little energy she had, Twilight made her way to the broken opening of the ship, sticking her body in to see the panel from before. She saw that the red light from before was glowing again. Knowing what that meant, she wiggled her way out of the opening, hitting a few buttons on the panel as she did so, changing the symbols on the screen like before.

When she was out, she reunited with the others and said, “I think the ship is going to open up the energy soon!”

“How do you know?” asked Sonic.

“The red light is on,” she quickly explained, “It was on when it opened up the energy the last time, so that must mean...”

Again, she was cut off when they ship began to jolt like before. Then, the door on the nose of the ship opened, releasing the purple-white energy again. When it did, many, if not all, of the hoppers began backing away and retreating in fear, screeching as they did so.

“Where are they going?” asked Kim as they watched them jump away.

“They must be afraid of the energy or something,” said Sonic, directing his attention at the wall of purple-white in front of him. Knowing what was going to happen, he shouted out, “Everyone, brace yourselves!”

Somewhat warned ahead of time, they were all engulfed by the blinding white light again. Like before, they found themselves falling again. Since they were prepared, many of them positioned themselves so they wouldn’t fall and injure themselves. Even though they knew it was coming, they still had a rough landing; not as rough as the first time, but not as smoothly as they wanted it to be.

When the ship had landed on the ground behind them, the five of them rested for a moment, all of them trying to catch their breaths. They had barely made it out of Heatherfield alive. Now that they were away from the danger, they decided to take advantage and try to regain their composure.

“That...” said Kim, lying on her back and breathing heavily with her eyes closed, “That...was too close...”

“I’ll say,” said Sonic, doubling over and out of breath, “Whatever those things were, they sure didn’t want to leave.”

They focused their attention to Twilight, who was lying on her stomach. “How are you doing there, Twi?” Sonic asked her.

“Fine, for now,” she said, her eyes spinning in circles, “I don’t think I’ll ever get used to traveling like that against my will.”

“Is everyone else alright?” he asked aloud. Sailor Moon nodded while Mew made small moaning noises, hovering in front of Sonic with a dazed expression on his face.

“Thanks for helping me back there, Mew,” said Twilight as she stood on her hooves.

The pink creature hovered in front of her and offered a small embrace, smiling as he did so. Twilight returned the gesture, also smiling at him.

Now that they were safe, the five of them decided to look around where they were; no doubt the ship had brought them to another location. They looked around at the darkened sky overhead, blankets of clouds slowly moving overhead. There were trees strewn about as well, but like in Heatherfield, they were all dead. However, what caught most of their interest was what lay before them.

They stood at the entrance of what looked like a small town, not consisting of much except small buildings. One in particular had a roof that was an upside down cone, coming to a point at the very top. There were a few others that looked just like that one, but many of the other buildings looked very strange, as if it were meant to be an amusement park attraction for kids or something.

“Where are we now?” asked Kim as she stood to her feet.

“It looks like a small village,” said Sonic, “Does anyone recognize it?”

All of them either shook their heads or shrugged at the hedgehog. Sonic crossed his arms and looked at the town, his eyes furrowing as he did.

However, one thing that stood out to all of them was all of the broken and destroyed toys that were strewn all around them. Walking over to them, Sonic picked one of them up and investigated it. It didn’t look like much, except for the fact that it was broken and in pieces. Then, he looked at the town, his eyebrows still furrowed.

“What is that?” asked Kim as she and the others walked up to him.

“It’s...it’s a toy...” he said, dropping it on the ground, “It looks like this town is full of them. Look over there.”

He pointed down the main road of the village to show the others the broken and disheveled toys that were all over the roads.

Raising an eyebrow, Kim looked at the small town and said, “So...this is a town...filled with toys?”

A moment of silence followed as the five of them looked around at the village that looked abandoned.

After a while, Sailor Moon broke the silence by shrugging her shoulders and asking, with a small hint of humor in her voice and a smile on her face, “So...it’s a ‘toy town’, then?”

Author's Note

As always, if you can guess the next dimension before advancing to the next chapter, you win our valuable prize! Good luck!

Chapter 8: Toy Town [The Third Dimension]

Location: Toy Town
Dimension: Digimon Adventure

The darkness of the night, mixed with the deep clouds moving overhead, made the town they were in barely visible. Based on what they could see, the five of them saw that the village was mostly intact. Many of the buildings were still standing tall, save for a few that had broken windows or that had roofs that were caved in. The darkness of night mixed with the toys all over the ground, broken and completely lifeless, made the environment just that much more eerie than it already was.

“Well, now what do we do?” asked Sailor Moon.

“I’m not sure,” said Sonic, panning his head to study the environment some more.

Before anyone else could say anything, the sound of a muffled yawn came from behind them. All of them looked to see that Twilight had let out a yawn, trying her best to cover it up with her hoof. When she finished, she saw that the others were staring at her. When she did, the lavender mare smiled nervously at them, her cheeks feeling slightly warm from embarrassment.

“Looks like we know what we should do,” said Sonic, offering a smile, “We should try and get some sleep.”

“So not a good idea,” said Kim, “We don’t know what’s out there waiting for us. Also, we don’t know when the ship will open the energy again. If it leaves without us, then we’re stuck here...wherever here is!”

Sonic tapped his chin with a finger, thinking about it for a moment. Then, he snapped his fingers and said, “One of us will keep watch.”

Kim raised an eyebrow at the hedgehog, as if to say “what are you, crazy?”

Sonic saw the gesture and rolled his eyes. Then, he said, “Very well, I’ll keep watch. The rest of you should try and get some rest while you can.”

“What about you?” asked Twilight as she trotted over to him, “How are you going to go all this time without any sleep?”

“I’ll be fine,” said the hedgehog, “I’ve gone days-on-end without sleep. One night isn’t going to kill me. Besides, that energy will open soon and we’ll be out of here before you know it. I’ll get plenty of rest when this is all over.”

“Very well,” said Kim, putting her hands on her hips, “Where should we bunk down for the night?”

They looked around at the abandoned town, trying to find somewhere they could rest for a while. Although many of the buildings were still intact, they were very skeptical about going inside of them; who knew what was hiding inside of them, waiting to spring out and attack them like the creatures in Heatherfield. Still, they needed to find somewhere they could lie down for a while.

“Looks like we don’t have much of a choice,” said Sonic as he looked at one of the buildings that was closest to him, “We should try and rest inside one of these buildings.”

“You know that’s not a good idea, right?” asked Kim in an annoyed tone.

“I’m very much aware of that,” he said in a flat tone, “But, like I said, we don’t have much of a choice. It’s either in one of these buildings or out here where we’ll be more exposed.”

Kim was about to make a rebuttal, but when she realized that he was right, she let out a sigh and made her way to one of the buildings, the others following close behind. When she got there, she saw that one of the doors was already broken off, leaving only the doorframe still standing. She poked her head inside as she looked around, making sure there was nothing in there.

The inside of the building was just as dark as it was outside of it. Only dark silhouettes were visible, making out what looked like a couch in the middle of the room. There were other things, like a table and a cabinet of some kind, but what she was more concerned about was the fact that there was no lights on in the room; anything could be lurking in the shadows waiting for them.

“I’ve got this,” said Twilight from behind her.

She made her way past the human to the middle of the room, trying her best not to step on anything along the way. Then, using what energy she had, she allowed her horn to glow with its maroon aura, creating a makeshift light for them to see. Aside from a little rubble on the ground, the room seemed to be pretty safe; at least no creatures were hiding in the room.

When they saw that the room was empty, the five of them entered the room and made their way to the center.

“Well, it looks pretty safe,” said Kim, “I guess we should try and get some rest here for now.”

Sonic nodded at them and made his way to the doorframe, leaning against it and facing the outside. The others huddled together in the center of the room, getting into any comfortable positions they could to get some rest. As they all got ready to get whatever sleep they could, Sailor Moon couldn’t help but look at the blue hedgehog, who stood in the doorway with his arms crossed and his back facing them. A part of her felt guilty that the rest of them were attempting to get sleep while he stayed awake and kept watch. However, she tried not to let it bother her too much and agreed with herself to attempt to get some sleep.

Sometime had passed, maybe about ten minutes, more or less, when the sound of low snoring could be heard; it was quite a surprise to see that Mew and Twilight had fallen asleep so easily, given their circumstances and all. Then again, the fact that they, out of all of them, had used up most of the energy they had to protect everyone made it perfectly logical and reasonable.

As Kim began nodding off, looking as if she was trying to fight her fatigue, Sailor Moon was still wide awake. Not only was she feeling guilty about Sonic being awake for all of them, but she was just too scared to fall asleep. So, deciding against her better instinct, she quietly got up and made her way to Sonic, making sure not to make any noise and disrupt the others.

As the school-girl approached, Sonic’s left ear twitched, causing him to turn his head to face her. When he saw that it was her, he turned his whole body to face her, his face expressing concern.

“You alright?” he asked softly.

“I’m fine, I guess,” Sailor Moon said, leaning against the other side of the doorframe.

“You should try and get some sleep,” Sonic suggested.

“I can’t. I’m too worried about all of this to sleep.” She gestured to the darkened town they were in.

Sonic nodded and said, “I know the feeling. Still, you should try and close your eyes for a while. Any form of sleep will help.”

The blonde girl sighed and said, “I really wish I could, but...I...I just can’t.”

Sonic shrugged his shoulders, deciding that arguing with her wasn’t getting them anywhere. He then focused his attention to the outside, panning his eyes back and forth for any signs of movement. However, his focus was interrupted when Sailor Moon asked him something.

“Sonic,” she said softly, “What do you think is happening?”

He looked at her and said, “I really wish I knew. None of this is making any sense.”

Thinking back to what Sonic had said earlier, and for lack of anything else better to say, Sailor Moon asked, “Do you really think that the five of us were chosen for something?”

The blue hedgehog tapped his chin with his finger and said, “It’s a theory. I mean, we all have something in common. We all have the responsibilities as heroes. Something tells me that it’s not just a coincidence.”

He looked out at the town again, sighed and said, “I think something big is happening, but the question is ‘what’ and ‘why’.”

A small breeze blew by, making a small, audible whistle in the air. When it hit them, they could feel that it was slightly chilly, causing them both to shiver a little. Sonic looked at Sailor Moon, who had her arms wrapped around herself to keep herself warm.

Offering a small smile, he asked, “Don’t you ever get cold dressed like that?”

The human turned to look at him, an eyebrow raised in bewilderment at his question.

He pointed to her bare legs and her short skirt and said, “Why don’t you where something besides...that...like leggings or something?”

She was about to make some sort of snide remark at him when the two of them were interrupted by the sound of a clank in the distance. It wasn’t the same metallic sound as before, but something different; it sounded as if one of the toys were picked up and dropped. Both of them on edge, they directed their attention down the road of the town, looking for the source of the noise. However, given the fact that it was dark, they couldn’t see where or what it was.

“Did you hear that?” she asked, looking down the road.

“Yes,” he said in a hushed tone. Then, he began making his way down the road, his head on a swivel.

“Where are you going?” she asked, trying to keep her voice down.

“I’m going to see what it is,” he explained.

“What about the others? Shouldn’t we wake them?”

“No. We’ll draw more attention if we all go. It’s best if I just went. You should stay down and keep an eye out.”

With that, he began making his way down the road again. However, he only took a few steps before he felt a hand grab his unscathed arm. He turned his head to see that Sailor Moon had stopped him in his tracks.

“I’m coming with you,” she said, trying to sound confident.

“No,” he argued, “It’d be best if...”

“Trust me,” she interrupted, “It’s better if I went with you; safety in numbers and all that.”

Nodding, Sonic signaled down the road with his thumb. Then, the two of them began making their way down the road, trying to remain hidden by sticking as close to the buildings as they possibly could. They had the advantage, since the sky was thick with a layer of clouds and because it was night, but they decided not to take any chances.

Several minutes went by when they reached a break in the road. They saw that it branched into two directions: left and straight. When they reached the crossroad, they looked at each other, unsure of which way to go. However, when they heard the clank again coming from their left, they nodded at each other and began heading left, avoiding the toys that were strewn across the ground.

As they continued down the road, their eyes on a swivel, they saw that the road was heading towards what looked like the main square of the town. It broke off into four directions and the tall building that stood out among the rest of them was in the center. To avoid any unwanted attention, they remained as close to the other buildings as possible, staying hidden in the shadows.

As they reached the main square, they stopped and listened for the sound again, hoping they’d find whatever it was that was making it. They ducked down in front of a building, keeping their eyes and ears open. Aside from the whistle of the breeze that blew by, they didn’t hear anything. They remained where they were for what felt like ten minutes, even though it was probably less than that, keeping an eye and ear out for the noise again. However, they heard nothing except the wind as well as the suppressed breathing from each other.

“Do you see anything?” Sailor Moon asked in a voice that was lower than the wind.

Sonic only shook his head in response. Then, he pointed to the road they came in on, gesturing that they should go back and regroup with the others. The blonde human nodded as the two of them stood up and began making their way to the ship. All the while, they kept quiet and hidden, hoping that they wouldn’t run into anything they didn’t want to.

“Do you think it’s those hopper-things again?” she asked.

“I don’t think so,” he replied, taking each step he took carefully.

Soon, the two of them were back at the first crossroad they came across. Turning to their right, they continued to make their way towards the ship, keeping their breaths shallow and quiet.

“Should we inform the others?” asked Sailor Moon.

“I’m not sure,” Sonic said, “We’re not in any real danger. No need to cause a panic unless we’re absolutely sure we’re in trouble. As far as we know, one of the toys could have dropped from one of the buildings.”

When they saw the ship up ahead, both of their hearts began to ease down. If they kept hidden, they were confident that whatever was out there wasn’t going to attack them, if anything was out there.

“Okay, when we get back to the building, you go inside and stay hidden,” explained Sonic, “I’ll keep an eye out for anything that might try and...”

He didn’t even get to finish his sentence when the two of them saw something that froze them in their tracks. They’d like to say it was their minds playing tricks on them, causing them to see things that weren’t really there, but the sight of something crawling on the top of the ship proved them wrong.

A silhouette of a creature was all they saw on the top of the ship. The moment they saw it, the ducked down in the shadows, watching it slowly and quietly crawl on the top of the ship. Both their hearts began racing as the creature appeared to crawl off the ship and on the ground, looking at the side where the gaping hole was. Because of the darkness of the night, they couldn’t see exactly what it was or what it was doing.

Based on the silhouettes, they thought they could make out a tail of some kind, poking at the hole on the ship. If they didn’t know any better, they could have sworn that it was repairing it, fixing whatever damage could be fixed.

Sailor Moon had to hold her hands to her mouth, trying her best not to break down into tears, as the creature continued prodding the side of the ship with its apparent tail. Then, they watched as the silhouette quietly made its way to the front of it, using its tail to poke into the broken window of the ship.

Then, exactly what Sailor Moon tried so hard to avoid finally happened. As much as she tried to stifle her crying, he couldn’t help but let out a quick and audible breath, sniffling as she did so. When she did, the creature looked as if it turned to face them, hearing their presence. Its tail moved away from the ship and faced where they were. When it did, it appeared to open its tail at them, turning into what looked like a mini-satellite. Then, a blue beam shot out of it, much like the ship did when they first encountered it, scanning its surroundings. Eventually, the blue beam hit the two of them, staying on them for several seconds. Sonic and Sailor Moon didn’t move a muscle as the beam scanned them up and down.

Then, the beam disappeared and the creature appeared to be heading towards them, very soft and quiet clanks coming from underneath it. As quickly and quietly as they could, the two of them got up and began backing away, hoping they could avoid the creature coming at them. They tried putting as much distance as they could between them and the thing that slowly approached them, the noise coming from it making it much more terrifying than before.

All of a sudden, the clouds overhead must have broken for a moment, letting the light of the moon shine down on the town. It illuminated everything, not only exposing the two of them, but showing them exactly what they were looking at.

As the moon lit up the town, both of them gasped in horror at the sight of the creature, as it looked directly at them and continued approached them.

Chapter 9: Aerial Assault

The light of the moon illuminated the creature, as it slowly approached them. The body looked like a scorpion’s, low, long and a slick-black color. However, instead of eight legs coming from its sides, there were only six. Also, based on the moonlight shimmering off of them, the legs were metallic. It didn’t have claws like a scorpion, but it had a tail like one. Unlike a stinger that was usually at the tip, it appeared to be a regular pointed tail. In place of the claws, it had a long neck and head similar to that of a snake. Its eyes were like a fly’s, except they weren’t bulbous and jutting out of its head, but small and completely black with no signs of irises or pupils. Based on the moonlight, they also saw that other parts of the creature were metallic, like the tip of the tail and its long neck.

The moment the moon shone above them, Sonic and Sailor Moon froze where they stood, staring at the creature that slowly continued to make its way to them. Because the eyes appeared to be all black, it was hard to tell if it was looking at them directly. However, judging by the fact that it crawled towards them, it was obvious that it was.

Tears streaming from her eyes, Sailor Moon managed to let out a muffled “I’m sorry” to Sonic, cupping her hands over her mouth.

Sonic didn’t say anything to her, focusing his attention at the creature that approached them. He had a stern look in his face and his fist clenched at his sides. As it was closing the gap between them, Sonic began to back away from it, lightly gripping Sailor Moon’s arm, motioning her to follow suit. She slowly began backing away with Sonic, trying her best not to lose her footing as she did so.

“What do we do?” she asked in a hushed tone.

“We need to get away from it,” he said, not taking his eyes off the creature.

“What about the others?”

“It appears that it doesn’t know they’re there. We need to lead it as far away from them as possible.”

“How do we do that?”

Sonic looked at the ground, searching for an answer. As he did, he saw the toys still on the ground. Then, he looked back at the creature with a knowing smile, an idea coming to mind.

“Okay, here’s the plan,” he whispered, “I’ll distract it with whatever I can. When it looks away, turn and run as fast as you can. Head for the main square as quickly and quietly as you can. Once you get there, hide anywhere you can.”

Sailor Moon nodded, her heart beating so fast that she could have sworn she felt it pound on her ribcage. She watched as Sonic positioned his foot on one of the toys, getting ready to kick it towards the creature.

Then, he looked at Sailor Moon, nodded and said, “On three. One...two...THREE!”

At three, he kicked up one of the broken toys at the creature, causing it to hit it in the face, making it flinch in surprise. When it did, it made a soft sound, like a growl of some kind. The second that it flinched, the two of them turned and began running down the street, trying their best to stay quiet as they made their way towards the main square of the town.

As they ran, Sailor Moon managed to choke out, “How do you know we’ll lose it?”

“Judging by its legs,” said Sonic, “It doesn’t look like it can run very fast.”

“What if it’s like those hopper things?”

“I highly doubt that. Its body doesn’t look like it’s able to jump with much distance like the other things did.”

After running for what felt like an eternity, the two of them made it to the main square of the town. When they did, they ran towards the tall building in the center. As they approached the building, they could have sworn they heard a low sound in the sky, almost as if something had let out a bellow of some kind.

Then, both of them froze in a heartbeat as they saw the creature fall out of the sky and land right in front of them. When they did, they saw that the creature had two large black wings, similar to that of a dragon’s, on its back, both of which were unfurled.

In the split second that it appeared in front of them, they saw the tip of its tail open, as if it was a mechanized claw of some kind. Then, it reared its backside at them, causing the tail to reach out for them. When it did, it looked like its tail extended from its original length to accommodate for the distance that was between them.

As the claw headed for Sonic, he used his arm uninjured to try and protect himself. When he did, the mechanical talon grabbed a hold of his arm, clamping down as hard as it could. The tips of the claw appeared to dig into his arm, causing small streams of blood to leak out of them. Sonic tried to free his arm from its grip but as he struggled to break free, he saw the claw began to gash his arm, creating deep cuts in his arm. When it did, he saw that the wounds that were being formed were similar to the ones that were on his other arm.

Using his other hand, he tried to open the claw and free himself.

“Hold on!” Sailor Moon said, gripping the tiara on her forehead.

However, before she had time to help, the two of them saw the eyes of the creature beginning to glow a blue and white color. Then, they saw the body beginning to emit sparks, like it was conducting electricity from its body to the base of the tail. All of a sudden, the whole tail began flashing a white color, going from the base all the way to the tip, which was embedded in Sonic’s arm.

Everything else that happened to Sonic was all a blur for the two of them. The last thing Sonic felt were large surges of electricity beginning to course through his body, causing every part of him to go numb. At some point, he could have sworn he let out an agonizing scream of pain before he blacked-out completely.

Sailor Moon watched as Sonic’s body went completely limp, his eyes appearing to roll to the back of his head as he fell to the ground. Not wasting any time, she gripped her tiara and yelled, “Moon Tiara Magic”, before throwing it at the creature. The tiara clipped the tail of the creature before returning to her hand, causing it to disintegrate into moon dust.

The moment it saw what was happening to it, the creature released the blue hedgehog and spread its wings, attempting to fly away. However, it didn’t even have time to lift itself off the ground before its wings slowly chipped away into dust. In the last second that it had before it wasn’t able to do anything, the creature lifted its head to the sky. When it did, the creature opened its mouth, a mouth that neither Sonic nor Sailor Moon noticed it had before, and let out a loud bellow. It had several small, jagged teeth in its mouth and two major fangs in the front, much like a snake did. Then, its neck and head went limp before it slowly disintegrated into a pile of moon dust.

As the remains of the creature began blowing away with the small breeze, Sailor Moon rushed over to Sonic, kneeling besides him. She placed her ear on his chest, hoping to hear any signs of a heartbeat. Fortunately, he still had one, but it was very faint and weak.

“Oh no, oh no, oh no,” she said to herself as she tried to drag him to the others, “Hang on, Sonic, we’ll help you and...”

Before she could finish her sentence, she heard low sounds beginning to converge around her. Looking up, she saw that the rooftops of the buildings around her had more of the creatures on them, all of them looking at her with their tails open. Her breathing began to become shallower as they all began making low moaning sounds, similar to the one that she heard before.

Sailor Moon’s heart skipped a beat as one of the creatures spread its wings and flew over to her. When it did, she noticed that it didn’t have the mechanical legs that the other one had. Was this creature different from the others? Did certain types have legs while others didn’t? As if answering her unasked questions, the blonde-haired human watched as the six legs unfurl from the bottom of its body, as if it was curled underneath it, hugging the body in some way.

When the legs were out, it landed in front of her, settling its wings on its backside and opening the tip of its tail at her. Unlike the claw, the tail seemed to be like a small satellite. Like before, a small, blue laser began scanning her like the other one had, except this one didn’t do it for as long. Then, Sailor Moon watched as the satellite tip retracted in itself, disappearing for a moment before returning. When it returned, she saw that the satellite was gone and in its place, was the claw that the other creature had.

Something inside of her told her to run away from the creature, get out of there and hide until she was sure she was safe. She took a step back in an attempt to listen to herself when she caught a glimpse of Sonic out of the corner of her eyes.

When she saw his body, lying completely still, she stopped moving, her thoughts racing in her mind. Sailor Moon knew she couldn’t leave him, but she didn’t have time to drag him to safety with her. It was then that she knew what she had to do. She had to stand and fight, fend off the creatures to, not only protect herself, but to avenge her fallen friend.

Nodding her head to herself, she got in a ready stance, her eyebrows furrowing and her hand gripping the gold tiara on her forehead. When she did, the tiara turned into its white discus shape again, ready to be used to turn these winged beasts into moon dust.

No turning back, she thought to herself as she bared her teeth at the creature. When she did, the black creature lunged at her, letting out a loud bellow when it did.

The three of them awoke the moment they thought they heard sounds. In an instant, Kim, Twilight and Mew got up, all of them startled and completely taken off guard. The first thing they noticed was that Sonic and Sailor Moon were gone. The second thing they noticed was that the sound they heard was similar to that to screaming, as if someone was being injured.

Not wasting any time, the three of them got up and left the small building, looking around for their missing cohorts.

“Look,” said Kim, pointing down the road. They saw that faint flashes of lights were coming from what appeared to be a crossroad of some kind.

“Let’s go,” said Twilight, as the three of them began making their way down the road towards the light. As they began making their way through the broken toys on the ground, they noticed that the flashing lights immediately stopped.

“Now what?” asked the lavender mare as they continued to make their way down the road. Before anyone could answer, they heard the sound of a loud bellow in the distance, confirming that something was down there.

“What in the world was that?” asked Kim as they rounded the corner of the crossroad. When they did, what they saw was beyond comprehension.

On the ground, they saw Sonic lay unconscious. They could see Sailor Moon, using her tiara and any agility she had to avoid strange winged creatures that kept trying to get at her. One by one, the winged creatures would jump from the tops of the buildings and swoop down at her. They’d only struggle for a few seconds before the white glow of Sailor Moon’s tiara attack blasted them into dust particles. Many times, the creatures came close to getting the school-girl, but she had enough cunning and agility to stay clear of them.

They didn’t have time to make out what the creatures were exactly or what had happened to cause this; they needed to help her in any way they can.

Not waiting for an order, Mew flew ahead of them, his eyes turning indigo as they had before. Then, the pink beam that he used before fired out towards the creatures. The attack severed limbs off some of the creatures while completely obliterating others. Nodding their heads in response, Kim and Twilight charged at the creatures as well, hoping to help their teammates.

“Sailor Moon!” Kim shouted as the two of them approached her, “What’s going on.”

“They’ve injured Sonic,” she shouted as she threw her tiara at another creature, “Get him to safety!”

“Alright,” said Kim, “Twilight, keep them off me while I get him out of here.”

“Right,” said Twilight as her horn began glowing with its maroon aura. When the two of them got to the unconscious hedgehog, Sailor Moon and Mew engaging the endless wave of the winged creatures, Twilight used her magic to create a force field around the two of them, preventing the creatures from getting at them.

Kim lifted the hedgehog on her shoulders and said, “I got him! Let’s go!”

Releasing her magic, Twilight and Kim began running down the road as fast as they could, yelling out to the others to follow them. After fending off a few more of the beasts, Sailor Moon and Mew began following the others. As they made their way towards the ship, Mew would occasionally turn to fire its pink beam at the creatures, keeping a few of them at bay.

As they neared the crossroad, they saw that a few of the creatures flew in front of them and began swooping towards them from the sky. Their tails were fully open and ready to grab at anyone it could.

The moment she saw it, Twilight used her magic to levitate anything she could, namely the toys, to defend themselves. When she had a few of the broken objects in her grip, she flung them at the creatures, catching them off guard and causing them to move out of the way. When they regained their focus, they tried to get them again, all the while, letting out loud bellows in the night sky.

“What do we do now?” asked Twilight as they rounded the corner to where the ship was.

“We need to get to the ship!” Sailor Moon shouted, “They did something to it!”

“What do you mean?” asked Kim, trying to keep her breath balanced.

“Before they attacked, Sonic and I saw one of those...things...on the ship. It was doing something to it with its tail, almost as if it was...”

Before she could finish her sentence, the four of them saw that the ship was beginning to rise off the ground, the boosters on the bottom beginning to power up. Then, it turned its back to them, facing the dead forest where they had entered. The moment they saw the purple and white energy beginning to come out of the nose, it was pretty clear to them what was happening.

“It’s trying to strand us here!” Kim shouted, “Hurry!”

Going as fast as they could, the winged creatures still hot on their trail, the four of them ran towards the wall of energy that was in front of them. As they neared it, they all shut their eyes and continued to run, praying that they would reach the wall in time.

Mere seconds after they all squeezed their eyes shut, all four of them felt completely weight free; they knew that they were all falling again, just like they had the other two times. As much as they tried to steady themselves, they all fell to the ground, tumbling on what felt like hard pavement.

They didn’t have time to look at their environment for long when they heard the sounds of mechanical moaning coming from above them. All of them looking towards the sky, they saw that the ship was hovering over them. In an instant, the ship backed away from them, almost as if it was ready to attack them again.

Not wasting any time, Mew kicked himself off the ground and came face-to-face with the war machine. The moment he saw the silo doors on the top of the ship open, he used all his strength to summon the pink beam of energy and fired it at the ship. Instead of hitting the side, like he had before, his attack hit the lower section of the ship, destroying the silver boosters underneath it. However, the attack also took off a tremendous chunk of the bottom, causing the ship to emit an explosion before it was flung backwards, colliding with the ground and rolling in a ball of fire.

Several shards of debris came right at the others that were on the ground, causing the two humans to flinch and hold their hands up to protect themselves. Using her magic, Twilight summoned a force field around them, causing any debris that came their way to be immediately deflected.

After several minutes, when the debris had died down and the ship was completely motionless, the lavender unicorn removed the force field, breathing heavily as she did. All of them remained motionless, staring blankly at the sky in shock and relief.

“That was close,” Kim managed to say, “Too close for comfort.”

“I’m...I’m sorry,” said Sailor Moon, sadness in her tone and tears streaming down her face, “It was all my fault. I’m the reason they spotted us. None of this would have happened if it wasn’t for me.”

“No point in beating yourself up about it, now,” said Twilight as she got herself up, “We have bigger problems to worry about. Look.”

All of them looked to see that the majority of the ship was destroyed, making it completely useless to them now.

“Great,” said Kim, “Now how are we supposed to get out of here? Where exactly is here?”

All of them looked around at the environment and noticed that they were on a city street again, similar to that of Heatherfield’s. However, they didn’t need to look for long before they saw Kim’s eyes widen with horror. Immediately, she began turning and looking at every angle of the destroyed city they were in the middle of.

After several seconds of looking at the remains of the city, she began to breathe heavily, falling to her knees and tears beginning to stream from her eyes. Immediately, she cupped her hands over her mouth, trying her best not to hyperventilate.

“Are you alright?” asked Twilight, as she trotted besides her.

Kim whispered something to her, but since her hands were over her mouth, it was hard to make out what she said.

“What was that?” the lavender mare asked with sympathy in her voice.

Lowering her hands and staring blankly down the road, she managed to say, “I...I know where we are. We’re...we’re...home.”

Author's Note

I'd ask to guess the name of the next dimension, but it should be obvious.

Chapter 10: Middleton [The Fourth Dimension]

Location: Middleton
Dimension: Kim Possible

Kim buried her face in her hands again, tears streaming from her eyes as she knelt in what remained of her hometown. All around her, buildings were destroyed and left in complete ruin with shards of their walls strewn all over the place. Suburban houses had been crumbled down to their foundations, many of them with cars and other pieces of debris from the city within them. The streets were littered with cars and wreckage from either the surrounding buildings or from pieces of the pavement itself. There were only a few buildings that were still intact, but even those had windows and giant chunks of the sides missing. The sky was covered with a thin layer of clouds that allowed some of the sun to peak through.

Softly, Kim began sobbing as all of her thoughts began rushing through her at once. What had happened here? Was everyone alright? What happened to her family? Her friends? What in the world could cause so much devastation like this? Sure, these thoughts had emerged in the other places they were in, but this was her home and it hit her like a blade through her heart.

As she continued to sob in the middle of the road, the other three shot each other sad glances; neither of them knew what to say to her. Tears began streaming down Sailor Moon’s face as both Twilight and Mew hung their heads, their eyes softly closed.

After a while, Sailor Moon slowly walked up to Kim, knelt beside her, and placed her arms around her, bringing her into an embrace. She rested Kim’s head on her shoulders as she tried her best to contain her own crying, but to no avail.

“I’m sorry,” she said softly, rubbing her back in an attempt to comfort her. “I’m so, so sorry.”

“Why?” Kim asked softly through tears, mostly to herself. “Why is this happening? What’s going on? What’s causing all of this devastation?”

Sailor Moon didn’t respond. All she could do was hold her, her tears falling down onto Kim’s hair. Mew flew up to Kim and began nudging his head against her arm, trying his best to comfort her like a kitten would its owner. Even Twilight trotted up to her and placed a hoof on her back.

“My condolences,” she said softly.

After a few moments, Kim eventually looked up, her eyes red and glossy from her tears. She looked back and forth to try and make head or tails of where they were. Although they were in the middle of carnage, she was able to identify some of the more familiar landmarks nearby. Slowly, she stood up, making the others back away from her and follow suit.

“I have to go,” Kim said as she began walking away. Soon, her walking became more of a jog, slowly turning into a limped jog; she wanted to run as fast as she could, but with the wounds on her stomach and the events they just went through, she couldn’t.

“Where are you going?” asked Sailor Moon, following her as best as she could.

“I have to see if my family is okay,” she said, not turning or slowing her pace.

“Kim, wait a minute,” shouted Twilight as she used her magic to levitate the unconscious hedgehog. Then, she began trotting after her with Mew and Sailor Moon not too far behind. “We need to stick together, remember?”

“Mom...Dad...” Kim said softly, as if she were in a trance of some kind.

“Kim!” Sailor Moon shouted. “Please, wait for-”

A loud boom echoed across the sky, interrupting Sailor Moon and stopping all four of them in their tracks. They all turned around to notice that the same purplish-white swirl was in the sky again, just like they had seen before.

“Something’s coming through,” said Twilight. “No doubt we attracted unwanted attention. We need to hide somewhere and fast!”

Quickly, they all looked around for the most secure-looking building they could hide inside. Instantly, Kim’s eyes locked onto the remains of a small restaurant that she was all too familiar with: Bueño Nacho. Fortunately, most of it was still intact, save for half of the building that was caved in from what looked like the wall of a building. The windows were all shattered and there was a gaping hole where the doors used to be.

However, the mere sight of the eatery instantly brought back memories, like how she and her friends used to go there all the time. It was in that quick moment that an image of her boyfriend, Ron, flashed before her eyes, causing her heart to sink further down in her chest. She clutched it as the thoughts of something terrible happening to him began racing through her mind, causing fresh tears to stream from her eyes.

“Kim,” Twilight said, snapping her out of her thoughts, though it didn’t relinquish them. “We need to get out of sight, now!”

Wiping her eyes, she pointed to the restaurant. “Over there, quickly!”

They all ran towards the half-standing structure, leaping through the entrance and ducking down out of sight. Since the booths on the wall adjacent to the door were destroyed or crushed and the windows above it were shattered, they were able to duck underneath it, being careful not to kneel on broken glass. Then, they all peaked out to see what was coming through the portal-like spiral. From the spiraling swirl, three different things fell to the ground. One of them they instantly recognized as the winged scorpion-like creature from the Toy Town, but the other two were completely different. Now that they were looking at them in the light, they were able to see every detail of the creatures, and it terrified them even more.

The second creature appeared to look like an oversized dragonfly, except without the bulbous eyes they often had. Instead, it had one red light in the center of its head and the mouth that looked like an ant’s. By the looks of it, it didn’t appear to have any legs underneath it whatsoever. It still had its elongated body and tail, except the body looked much bigger; it was as if it were meant to hold something inside of it. Using its mechanized wings that glistened in whatever sunlight was available, it slowly hovered its way to the ground.

The third thing wasn’t a creature at all. Whether it was because of the distance, they couldn’t tell, but the third thing looked like a small ball that hovered in the air with the dragonfly. The only noticeable features on it were the black color that it was made out of and a small red light that was in the dead center of it.

Practically holding their breaths, the four of them watched as the three creatures hovered around the wreckage of the ship that Mew destroyed. The scorpion unfurled its legs and landed on the ground, slowly walking around while the blue beam from its tail scanned the ship and the surrounding buildings. The small orb did the same as a similar blue beam shot out of where the red light was. All the while, the dragonfly creature hovered above everything, almost as if it were waiting for instructions.

When they saw the blue beam from the orb heading towards them, they all ducked down, literally holding their breaths this time. From above, they saw the beam scan the insides of the restaurant, going from one end to the other and back again. After 3 rotations, the beam disappeared.

Twilight got ready to peak her head up to see if it was safe, but was stopped by Kim. She placed her hand on her shoulder and whispered, “Not yet.”

A minute or two went by before they were convinced the creatures didn’t know of their presence. Slowly, the four of them peaked over the wall to see that the three things were now focusing on the ship, both the orb and the scorpion’s blue beams scanning what remained of it. While the latter hovered above the wreckage, the former crawled all over it, investigating the damage with its head.

After a few moments, the scorpion unfurled its wings and flew up to the dragonfly, no doubt giving it some kind of orders. The orb remained with the ship, hovering around it and inspecting it from all angles.

Then, all four of their hearts jumped as the sound of a loud cough filled the air. The second the sound was made, the orb turned in their direction, forcing the four of them to duck down. They all turned their attention to Sonic, who was slowly beginning to regain consciousness. He let out a cough again, making their hearts skip a beat again as they heard the whirring sounds of the orb approaching them.

Quickly, Kim placed a hand over Sonic’s mouth, trying her best to muffle his coughing without suffocating him. Sweat began running down her face as she heard the mechanized whirring of the orb coming closer and closer.

It sounded like a low humming sound at first, but the closer it got, the more it started to sound like a small fan blade, spinning fast and loud. It hovered above the wall where they were ducking, shooting its blue laser in the building to scan it again. They didn’t move a muscle as they watched the orb, waiting for it to vacate.

Across the street, they all heard the sound of a piece of wreckage, more than likely from one of the destroyed buildings, fall to the ground and create a loud bang. In the blink of an eye, the ball quickly turned in the same direction and fired its laser at it. However, instead of the blue laser they were familiar with seeing, they saw that it was firing a deep crimson laser. It made a loud zwoom sound as it swayed the laser from one side to the other. Moments later, they heard the orb float away in the direction it had just been firing.

Slowly, the four of them peeked from their hiding place to see that the laser had cut right through a building like a hot knife through butter. They could see that the laser left behind a clean cut right through the building, the foundation still standing glowing red from the heat of the laser.

The ball hovered in front of the building, scanning its blue laser at what it just shot at. Then, the scorpion flew over and landed besides it, resting its wings closed as its legs unfurled from underneath it.

The four of them watched as the two of them faced each other and began making noises at one another. By the sounds of it, the scorpion was making deep moans and groans while the orb made continuous whirring sounds.

“What are they doing?” whispered Sailor Moon.

“Looks like they’re...talking to each other,” Twilight hesitantly said, tilting her head at the sight.

“Any idea what they’re saying?”

“I don’t know, it’s hard to tell,” Kim answered. “It doesn’t sound like anything I’m familiar with. Perhaps it’s some sort of alien dialect only they understand.”

They continued to watch in silence as the two creatures continued to talk to each other. After a few exchanges, they watched as the orb hovered away, heading towards the dragonfly. Being left alone, the scorpion looked at the wreckage, hearing the sounds of metallic clanks as it slowly crawled towards it. Then, all of their hearts jumped when they heard Sonic let out a cough again, forcing the creature to turn its head towards them, a gravely hiss sound following shortly.

Quickly, they all ducked down to hide. Instantly, they saw Sonic slowly trying to get up, his eyes slowly adjusting to the light.

“What’s going on?” he asked uneasily, rubbing his head with hand. “Where are...?”

He was immediately interrupted by Kim putting her hand over his mouth while cringing.

Then, all of their hearts came to a complete standstill as they heard a loud clang coming from above them. They all looked up to see the scorpion looking at them, its tail scanning them before switching to its claw-tail.

As it beared its teeth at them, Kim yelled, “RUN!”

In a heartbeat, Twilight levitated the closest piece of debris she could find and threw it at the creature, knocking it back from the window-frame. Then, all of them got up and began running out of the building and down the road. From behind them, they heard the beast let out a bellow as it flew towards them.

Turning her head to catch a quick glance, Kim shouted, “DOWN!”

All of them dived forward as they watched its tail swoop above them, swinging back and forth as it tried to get a grip on any of them. When it missed its target, it circled around for another attempt.

“Looks like I didn’t miss much,” said Sonic as they all got up and began running again. Immediately, they all jumped out of the way as it tried taking another dive at them, missing once again. As they all got up and began to run, Sonic nearly lost his balance as he gripped his head; running for his life having just woken up from an unconscious state wasn’t really mixing well with him.

“Are you going to be alright?” Twilight asked as she galloped alongside of him.

“I’ll be fine,” he fibbed, flashing a weary smile. “It’d help if we could slow that thing down or something!”

“Mew, Mew,” said Mew as he flew up into the sky and turned to face the creature. Quickly, it fired its pink beam at it in an attempt to hit it. Unfortunately, the creature rolled out of the way by spinning to the left with its wings close to its body. Then, it unfurled them again, let out an angered roar and continued to advance on him, appearing to flap its dragon-like wings even harder than before.

Mew began flying towards the others, the creature closing in on him. When he was closer to the group, he turned again and fired his attack at it. Like before, it spun out of the way and let out another bellow as it seemed to go faster and faster.

“I think you’re only making it angry,” said Twilight. “Still, it’s a valiant effort!”

“Any idea where we’re going?” asked Sailor Moon as she tried not to lose her balance on the uneven pavement underneath her.

No one responded.

“Kim, this is your home, right?” Sonic asked as he leaped over an upturned vehicle. “You do know where we’re going, don’t you?”

She didn’t answer him, her eyes looking back and forth at the wreckage all around them. As she avoided the debris all over the streets, she tried her best to make out where they were. Unfortunately, with everything nearly in shambles and the dire situation they were in, it was difficult to pinpoint certain locales they could find refuge in.

“I...I...,” she said in a breathy voice. “I don’t know! I can’t get my head straight! I’m...I’m sorry.”

As they turned down a street and headed towards what looked the remnants of a school, Sonic said, “Not for anything, but is that the only one after us?”

No sooner did the question leave his mouth did the others see the dragonfly creature zoom over their heads and hover in front of them. In a split second, all of them stopped moving and got ready to run in another direction. However, the bottom of the creature exposed a grey cylindrical device with a red tip; a missile, most of them recognized. Before any of them could start running, the dragonfly fired its primary weapon at them, moving too fast for any of them to react. It may not have hit any of them directly, but it was close enough for the shockwave to knock all of them on the ground; even though Mew was in the air, the blast was enough to push him down to the street.

For Kim, everything began to turn into a blur as a ringing sound echoed in her ears. Time seemed to slow down as she tried to make out what was happening. Although it was blurry, she saw the two creatures hover over all of them before making its way towards her, the claw on the scorpion’s tail opening. Desperately, she put a hand up to try and stop it, her vision starting to turn black all around her. Then, something must have happened because the two creatures stopped advancing on her, both of them turning their heads in another direction.

The ringing in her ears was slowly going away, but her normal hearing was still muffled. Therefore, she couldn’t hear what it was that was being shot at the creatures, but the blaster-like beams of light hit the scorpion and sent it flying backwards, shattering in multiple pieces before it hit the ground, lifeless. Immediately, the dragonfly turned and tried to fly away, only to suffer the same fate as its cohort.

Her eyelids began to feel heavy as the blackness began to consume everything. In the remaining moments she had, she could have sworn she saw a humanoid stand over her, some sort of gas-mask on its face and a gun-type of weapon in its hands. It stared at her for a few moments before it began making gestures with one hand; it was like it was signaling something else to take a look at her. Out of her distorted peripherals she could see more of them surrounding the others.

In a matter of seconds, another humanoid stood over her, looking just like the other. This one knelt down in front of her, almost like it was closely examining her. Then, she could have sworn she heard it say something, something that she didn't expect it to say, but couldn't respond to in time.

"It can’t be! Kimmy...is that you?"

Then, she completely blacked out.

It stood in what remained of the wreckage, only turning its head back and forth to oversee the damage that had been done. The flames had died down, though smoke still came from the bottom where the boosters used to be. The yellow fuel began pooling across the ground, making it take a few steps back to avoid making contact with it.

The being stood in what appeared to be a long black coat, a hood covering its face and a long golden staff in its hands. The coat was kept closed to conceal the rest of its body from being seen.

Lifting its head, it held the staff in front of its body, raising it and slamming the bottom on the ground. With an echoing sound like a small mallet hitting a small bell, the orb that oversaw the wreckage hovered in front of its cloaked face. Then, the two of them began speaking to one another. [Although it was in an unknown dialect, it’s able to be translated into English].

“Damage report,” the cloaked creature said.

“It’s salvageable,” the orb said. “The dimension-opener is inoperable, but the transport-core is still intact, my lord.”

The “lord” nodded its head. “Excellent. It’s only a matter of time before they come back for it. Better make sure it leads them right where we want them.”

The mechanical ball gave what looked like a nod to the “lord” as it hovered towards the ship, disappearing within the openings. Then, it took its staff in its hands and looked at the upper tip of it, where a spherical crystal with what looked like black smoke inside of it, rested. It placed its hand on the crystal, making it glow a bluish color.

“They’ve managed to survive, but we need to be sure,” it said. “Send in the first wave. I need to see if they truly have what it takes.”

Then, it removed its hand from the crystal, the blue hue disappearing. It wasn’t long before the orb returned.

“The core has been re-coded, my lord,” it said. “It will send them to the ‘Tractor’, as per your orders.”

“Excellent,” the lord said. “That will certainly finish them off. That is, if manage to survive the five we are about the send.”

“Not to question your orders, but what if they do survive? They could try to interfere with our operations in that dimension.”

The lord let out what sounded like a chuckle. “Let’s not get ahead of ourselves. We will deal with that as it comes. For now, see to it that the five have been fully prepared to stop these so-called, ‘heroes’ at any cost.”

“Understood, my lord,” the orb said. Then, it began making several whirring and beeping noises before hovering away.

The lord looked down at the wreckage before focusing on the crystal on the tip of his staff. As it radiated its blue hue, a single triangular eye, glowing a crimson color with a hint of orange, could be seen underneath its hood.

“They may have what it takes to survive this little test,” it said. “But, in the end, they will come to understand that I am in complete control of their fate. No matter how far they go, no matter how hard they try, they will die.”