My Brave Pony Starfleet Magic: Season 4

Sapphire found herself in a all white void. "Hello... is anyone there? Lightning? Starla?"

Suddenly, she heard footsteps behind her. She turned and saw a large stag pokemon walking towards her. It was blue with four pairs of horns. "Woah... who are you?" Sapphire asked.

"I cannot tell you my name yet. But for now, you must know that I am an ally." the pokemon said. "And I am here to tell you of a great power you will unlock in the future."

"A great power? What is it?"

"That I cannot tell you. All I know is that your power is something you must unlock on your own."

Sapphire was speechless. Another power. Sure she had her scepter, Uniforce and her magic... what other power could she need? Suddenly the void began to waver. "What's happening?" she asked.

"You are beginning to awaken. Farewell Sapphire Sunlight, we will meet again soon." the pokemon said as the void went up in a bright flash...

... Sapphire woke up in a shock in her bed. "Lycanoc?"

"Ampharos?'

"Hoot?"

Lycanroc, Ampharos and Noctowl looked at Sapphire concerned, "I'm alright you guys... Just had a weird dream." she said to them. She knew herself that what she dreamt was not a dream. "I need to talk to everyone about this."

In the Dark Future, the remaining minions were still outraged, but slightly not surprised about Nomed’s demise. “We cannot keep losing like this.” said Tnaig

“Indeed not.” said the Dark King. The minions all bowed in presence of their king. “Your majesty, what shall we do?” asked Neila.

“You know perfectly well!” the Dark King snarled “Already the future is beginning to shift because of all these blunders. If things continue on this path, we cannot hope to gain true mastery of all that exists, and our very way of life will be threatened!”

Ergo picked up a large rock in his bare hands and crushed it into dust just like that. “I’m ready to go!” he said “I swear I’ll make those punks pay for destroying Nomed!”

“You sure you’re feeling up to it, Ergo?” asked Neila.

“Trust me, I got a whole set of Cardinals that’ll squash ‘em like bugs.”

“You may proceed, Ergo.” the Dark King said “However, do not allow yourself to get carried away. We must avoid altering our own future as well.”

“No problem, boss.”

Meanwhile, all the ponies, Spike and Krysta were at the Palace dojo for their training drills, but also to give Professor Brain a chance to examine Lightning and Starla’s transformation insignia’s more closely, hoping to learn more about the Mega Mode power.

Sapphire had told everyone about the dream she had last night which added even more confusion to the group. Their majesties have never heard of a creature that looks like the one Sapphire described in her dream but there was no doubt the creature was a friend and not a foe.

Rarity especially needed extra training, as she was now magic-less and needed to beef up her strength more than ever. She was offered many times to be given a small blaster, but Rarity refused insisting “I am a lady, and ladies do not use such trivial weapons.”

“That’s not true.” Starla said, and she demonstrated by shoot her bow at five targets, hitting the bullseye perfectly. “Have I made my point?”

“Quite.” grumbled Rarity, but Lightning assured Rarity if it was what she wanted, they wouldn’t hold it against her this time, after all, he usually battled without much weapons or using too much magic. “I’ll be a great chance to help you evolve and see a whole new sight of how to win battles.”

Rarity was secretly just hoping to beef up her skills so the next time she found the Phantom of Magic, she could beat him silly until he coughed up her magic and cutie mark. Applejack secretly felt the same way, wanting her own cutie mark back.

The friends all continued to train and spar until the period was over, as for Sapphire, she was training her pokemon and dinosaurs as well. “Lycanroc, Stone Edge!” Lycanroc howled and slammed the ground with his paws, making large, glowing rocks appear and head for Ampharos. “Amphaross, Ice Punch!” Ampharos’ right fist glowed in ice energy and it punched the stones, breaking them. “Now use Wild Charge!” Amphaross covered himself in electrical energy and charged Lycanroc, knocking him into the air, but he recovered and landed on all fours. “Way’d a go!” Sapphire praised.

Next, there was a meeting held in the throne room to assess everyone’s knowledge of the enemies, preferably the Dark King and his evil minions. Princess Cadence and Shining Armor were present as well.

Evidence was weighed, talked about again, and ultimately there was no other explanation, everyone else was inclined to agree. “They come from the future; our distant future.” said Lightning.

Though it was agreed, everyone was still astounded, even their majesties, and again, it explained everything. “We never stood a chance against them before.” said Rarity “They obvious have mastered new skills and forms of magic we have never seen. That’s why our visors were unable to detect their powers and weaknesses.”

“They also have at least a century of training on them, maybe even a millennium.” added Artie.

“But here’s the weird thing. If they come from the future then why is Sapphire able to do damage to them if they mastered new magic?” Spike pointed out. He did have a point. So far, the Cardinals and Nomed succumbed to Sapphire’s magic, pokemon or her dinosaurs in some way. “Maybe they haven’t seen magic as powerful as Sapphire’s and that’s why they’re weak to it?” Starla suggested.

“Perhaps, but one thing is for sure; Sapphire’s magic and her allies are very helpful in this war.” Everyone agreed with that statement completely. Still, they had no way of knowing exactly how far into the future they were looking at. “The real question is what to ultimately do about them.” said Spike “We may have beaten Nomed and all his Cardinal beasts, but I’ve got a feeling there’s a lot of more of them to come after us.”

“You may be right, Spike.” said Celestia “We also need to know another great question, why are they attacking us here and now, and also why they only seem to be attacking specific places?”

Pinkie Pie raised her hand up crying “Ooh, ooh, I think I know, I know, pick me, me, me…!”

“Um… yes Pinkie?” said Lightning.

Pinkie then took in a huge breath and spoke really fast. “Maybe they’re water supply has been contaminated, and their food has gone all out, and they have no place to live, or any comforts, so they’ve come here to take over our world because we still have all the things they don’t have, and the reason they attack us is because they want it all for themselves… It makes perfect sense.”

Everyone else was shaking, literally, feeling all choked up. “It’s a… very wild thought Pinkie, but I don’t believe that is the answer.” said Grand Ruler.

Rainbow Dash suggested, “Maybe we can go look for them? Maybe we could come up with a spell that could take us forward in time we could search each year…”

“That sounds like a good idea.” said Fluttershy.

“No it isn’t.” protested Starla “Do you have any idea how long that would take? For all know they could be hundreds, maybe thousands of years away.”

Rhymey was inclined to agree…

“That’s far too many for us to try and track,
Besides, we can’t go forward in time, just back.”

The others realized this. The only one of them to ever really know about time spells was Twilight, she only ever traveled back in time about one week, and she only ever saw images of the distant past. Traveling backwards in time was hard enough, but traveling forward was another thing entirely, and possibly was too dangerous to even experiment with, even for their majesties.

Spike felt a little down, as it reminded him how Twilight was gone, and all the others shared his downheartedness, but they knew they had to be brave for their planet. It was best decided to continue trying to research and come up with clues or answers that would help them, while at the same time continuing to protect the planet.

“Which brings us to another item…” said Lightning “…The Phantom of Magic.” Rarity and Applejack clenched their fists angrily at the mention of that, and softly felt down by their flanks, which were still blank under their pants. “It seems every time we corner him, he manages to overpower us and slips off.” said Buddy Rose.

“Eeyup, and what’s more, he seems to be gettin’ stronger with every bit of magic he steals.” added Applejack “Worst part is, we don’t even know why he’s doin’ it.”

Fluttershy shivered “Maybe, you don’t think… he’s planning world domination do you? With all that power, who knows how unstoppable he’ll be!”

The Spanish twins disagreed. “I don’t think it’s that simple. Even all with all that power, he hasn’t really done anything us but take more power.” said Dyno, and Myte agreed “He must be gathering the magic for something else… like he’s waiting for something, but what?”

“Whatever it is, it can’t be good.” said Shining Armor “We’ve got to catch this guy, maybe set a trap for him.”

“Well, we know he usually only maneuvers at night, and that he’s only interested ponies that have cutie marks.” said Cadance. This indeed narrowed things down, and also meant creatures like Space Alicorns, dragons, fairies; even statues like Goldwin and hybrids like Sapphire were in only slightly less danger.

“Oh, I still feel worried about them all out there.” Goldwin said “You know I almost feel lucky now that I can’t go outside, but we do we do about them?” He had a point too. As was said, even if the friends managed to get the Phantom in their sights, he proved to be really strong and powerful, even able to paralyze them on the spot so they couldn’t even try to fight back.

“Hang on here…” said Applejack “Aren’t we forgettin’ the one itty bitty thing? He’s an Earth Pony.”

Everyone caught on to her idea, and even their majesties approved, to organize search of every Earth Pony on the planet in attempt to unmask the phantom; find out who he really was, by sensing for magic. “It sounds rather extreme, having to suspect every Earth Pony as a potential suspect” said Celestia “But I see no other way, and at least it would help narrow the field even more.”

“Right then, we’ll organize a worldwide search immediately.” said Grand Ruler, and he sighed “I just hope the citizens don’t feel we are trying to harm them.”

Cadance and Shining Armor agreed to pass the same order at the New Crystal Empire.

Just then, Professor Brain came from his lab, after spending quite some time analyzing all he could about the Mega Mode powers, but again his results were inconclusive. I am dreadfully sorry but I am afraid there is nothing more I can do for this case. I… I have never seen technology like it, although it does seem to operate on the same forces as our normal methods do.”

The others all sighed, but it wasn’t as if they didn’t expect it, knowing the mega mode obviously was from the future as well, just like the super strengths that everyone had gotten, enforced by a magic spell. At least they knew why they were given it, but still didn’t know who gave it to them, and why they couldn’t tap into the power at will, and why it strained their energies after just a short while.

“I am sorry, I wish I could help you more.” said Brain.

“It’s all right, prof. We understand, and we don’t think less of you.” said Shining Armor. Blitz walked over to Shining Armor wanting to be picked up. Shining Armor picked up the little chibi dino. “Alright, Blitz what do you want?” Blitz then reached with his mouth and bit Shining Armor’s horn. “NO! Stop! Gah!” he cried.

“Blitz.” Sapphire groaned. She prided the little chibi dino off of his horn. “No munching on unicorn horns.” Blitz just chirped. Sapphire rolled her eyes. “Your dinosaurs and pokemon seem to do more damage to these guys than we thought as well as your magic. I wonder why.” Spike wondered. Everyone else wondered that as well.

It was still a baffling mystery to everyone, but before they could investigate, the alarms sounded. Goldwin rushed to the window and peeked through his telescope. “There’s something heading this way!” he cried.

The ponies all gazed at their majesties. “Go!” snapped Grand Ruler. Lightning nodded and everyone leapt out the windows down towards the village. Once they were gone, Celestia and Grand Ruler gazed at one another and nodded, and then used their magic to raise stronger shields on the buildings below to at least avoid collateral damages.

While at the same time, Krysta helped a squad of her fairies warp all the civilians to safety. “Come on, keep moving! Keep moving!” she yelled as the ponies hurried along into the portals.

“Okay, Krysta, we’ll take it from here.” Lightning said. Krysta nodded and vanished through the portal herself. No sooner had she gone did the friends all transform while they had a chance.

Just then, they all felt the ground give a huge lurch, followed by another and the collapsing of trees as whatever it was got closer. “Here it comes!” cried Lightning. The others all stood ready, Lightning’s friends got out their weapons and held them tight.

Then, all at once, a giant blue ox-like creature, coated in armor, leapt through the trees, and roared at everyone. Everyone gasped hard in shock, some in fright, and Fluttershy was almost too shaken to even scream, but she looked up atop the Ox’s back, and saw someone riding him. “Who’s that?” she cried.

“Wait, look at his forehead!” said Spike. Everyone could see that same black crescent moon, three black stars, and red eyes. “That’s the exact same mark Nomed had.” said Starla.

Ergo heard that and he glared down at them all. “So you’re the punks who destroyed Nomed!” he snarled “Well, now you’re gonna pay for it. Go get ‘em, Big Bull!” The Cardinal roared and began to charge. “Scatter!” shouted Lightning, and everyone leapt out of the way as the big ox slammed hard on the ground.

Lightning then leapt up high and kicked the ox in his huge face, but hardly even hurt him much. “Uh, oh…!” he peeped as he was grabbed and flung hard to the ground. “Lightning!” cried Starla. He was okay, but just that one hit did him a ton of damage. “Pathetic!” snarled Ergo “You haven’t got the muscle to beat my Cardinal, he’s built for muscle.”

Ox snuffed angrily and slammed the ground again causing a small quake, but strong enough to knock everyone off their feet. “Whoa! This can’t be good!” cried Applejack.

“EARTH SLIDE” Bull shouted, and in a small tremor, he pelted the gang was many large stones, damaging them all harshly. “That was for Nomed!” growled Ergo “…And so is this!” He acted like a cowhand riding his faithful steed, the way he commanded him to charge, stomp and bash the fighters.

Applejack and Buddy Rose tried to lasso his legs together, but his legs were just too big, and the both ended up getting kicked hard enough to have stars spinning around their heads. Rhymey, Artie, Starla and the twins flew up high towards the Ox’s face and tried their attacks…

“DRILL QUILL”

“PAINT BOMB”

“STAR SHOWER”

“BOOM-BOOM ROCKETS”

All the attacks hit resulting in a small explosion. “Hey!” Ergo roared as he shielded his eyes, but when the smoke had cleared…

“Look at that, not a scratch!” cried Artie.

Bull snuffed angrily again and thrust his huge head right at them. “Look out!” shouted Starla, and they all zipped out of the way of those huge horns.

“Hey! No one does that to my friends!” snarled Pinkie, and she, literally, grabbed the bull by the horns “Gotcha!” but suddenly was rocked and jerks about as the Ox shook his head vigorously. “Beat it, punk!” snarled Ergo as he reached over to sock her hard, but Rarity quickly came up and grabbed her friend, pulling her away, and Rainbow Dash came soring in fast straight for Ergo…

“SONIC RAINBOOM”

…colliding into him hard and knocking him clean off his ride, and crashing to the ground below. “Not so tough without your ride, are you?” Rainbow mocked. Ergo got up, and turned red in anger “You’ll pay for that!”

“Oh, yeah…? Bring it!” snarled Rainbow, and she dashed over to rush Ergo down, only for him to simply raise his fist and let her run into it. WHAMM!! Rainbow skidded across the ground. “Oh boy, do I have a headache!” she groaned.

“Let’s get him!” shouted Spike, and he along with many other charged for Bull together. “DRAGON FLAME-WHEEL” curling himself up in his flames, Spike launched right at Bull’s chest, colliding right into him but hardly even making the big brute flinch. Bull merely thrust his chest out, flinging Spike right into the others, knocking them over like bowling pins.

“Sorry, guys.”

“Apologize later…! Here he comes!” cried Buddy Rose.

“GEM MISSILE” at his command, Bull’s horns fired magical diamond-shaped rockets at everyone, creating massive explosions. “It’s no good! We need a Mega Mode power!” cried Starla, but sadly neither her nor Lightning’s insignias were glowing. “We’ve got to keep fighting. Maybe it’ll wake them up.” Lightning suggested.

“Or better yet, maybe we can tire him out.” added Dyno. “Ah, Si, then maybe he’ll be easier to crush.”

The others agreed, and the fight waged on, but Bull proved to be really a tough contender, still hardly breaking much of a sweat, while his attacks continued to crush them all. “We’ve got… to keep going!” cried Rarity.

Ergo was enjoying himself “You morons, you can’t make a brute like this tired that easily. Why he’s so big, he could go on like this for days. Too bad you don’t have that long to live!”

“Oh Yeah.” Sapphire took out another card.

“STARFLEET SLASH, STYRACOSAURUS CHARGE IN!”

Blitz appeared and roared and Bull and Bull roared back. The two horned beast charged each other and locked together in a power struggle. They pushed each other back and rammed each other again and again, neither one willing to give up.

Meanwhile, Ergo jumped in to beat up the friends more. He went after Fluttershy first, grabbing her and picking her up in attempt to squash her like a grape, but Rhymey came to her aid, high-jump kicking under Ergo in the side, not really hurting him but forcing him to drop Fluttershy, right into his arms.

They smiled at one another, but Rhymey turned to face Ergo who was stomping towards them “Big mistake, pal!”

Rhymey stood tall and fierce.

“I’m not your pal, I’m you’re foe!

When you disgrace Fluttershy, let’s go!”

Fluttershy stood by his side, giving him her angry stare.

“Aw, ain’t that sweet… Not.” grumbled Ergo “I can take on a whole army of you creeps. Let’s go!”

The fight was on, and just as Ergo promised, he was as tough as, maybe even tougher, than his monster. He punched, and bashed the two ponies hard. Even grabbed Rhymey’s sword, and actually tied it in a knot like it was made of simple string.

Rhymey was outraged, and made his sword vanish so it could repair itself.

“You may have tied my sword in a knot,

But it’s not the only thing I’ve got!”

Ergo growled, but soon found that some of the others were surrounding him. “Let’s get him all at once!” snapped Pinkie.

“Yee-ha!” hollered Applejack.

But Ergo’s eye gave a small twinkle. “You all are making this too easy for me!” He chuckled wickedly as he eyes began to glow, and the friends began to glow as well. “Hey! What’s going on?” cried Rainbow. She tried to dash forth with everything she had, but she only seemed to be going barely at half, giving Ergo the perfect chance to sock her hard in the head again.

The others tried to rush him, but found they could only move at half speed too, and ended up getting pummeled hard. “You thought Nomed’s special ability of Energy Absorb was rough, well my Speed Down effect is just as nasty… for you!”

“Then try this on for size.” Sapphire took out her scepter. “Blast!” and fired a beam of light at Ergo. He roared in pain. “Grr… you’ll pay for that.” He charged Sapphire but Sapphire dodged and whacked him with her scepter. “Blaze!” she launched a fire attack at Ergo. Ergo couldn’t stop chuckling. “I don’t know why Nomed ever had so much trouble with you guys. This is almost kiddy-play to me.”

The others glared angrily at him. They were still able to stand, but hardly able to fight. Sapphire then shot a beam from her Element of Harmony crown and Ergo was knocked back and was severely injured by the magic. “So this little Princess has powerful magic and light. Not good.”

Ergo decided to split before he got destroyed like Nomed did “He who fights and runs away lives to fight to fight another day!” he shouted as he vanished, leaving his monster behind. Blitz rammed Bull away but Bull was not done. Bull scraped the ground and they both charged again, locking together until Blitz threw him to the ground. Bull looked severely weakened, but still not defeated, and still nobody had enough power to use a finisher… until Dyno and Myte’s insignias started glowing! “Ay’ Carumba! It’s working.” cried Dyno. “Well, what are we waiting for?” snapped Myte, and they both transformed together, into their Mega Mode forms.

They both felt their powers returned to full, even higher than normal. Now it was time to try their new attack. They both held hands, and stuck out their other hands, shouting…

“RED FIRE”

“BLUE FIRE”

The colored flames burst from their horns and hands, and began to mix into a tornado. The boys shouted together, “FIRE-STREAK TWISTER”

“Blitz, LIGHTNING STRIKE!” Blitz sent a large beam of electricity and the twins and sent the powerful blaze right at Bull, the blasts combined and engulfed him in the flames, disintegrating him back into his card, which fell to the ground and the picture faded. Blitz roared in victory and the boy’s Mega Mode suits also powered down, and they felt exhausted again, more than before. “Boy, are you okay?” cried Lightning.

The boys each gave him a thumb up, and everyone was just grateful that the fight was won. Just the same, they barely made it out this time, and they were right about the Dark King sending stronger creatures to face them, but at least they had learned a little bit more about them; that regardless of their powers, there were ways of beating them through conventional means, outsmarting them, just like when they fought Nomed and Dark Scales.

“Let’s get back to the palace. We’ve got to tell their majesties.” said Lightning.

While at the palace, everyone saw everything and they were very pleased and relieved that the battle was over. Although minimal damages were caused to the area, it wasn’t so serious and could be easily fixed. “We must get the repair ponies to work at once.” Grand Ruler said. Celestia agreed.