It's Hero Time

When all of the students finally stopped falling, they were now in a city. They all stood up from a street as Gallus suddenly noticed that he was wearing something silver. Looking at one of the building windows for a reflection, Gallus was surprised to see he looked just like his hero, Silver Watch.

"Where are we?" asked a voice that sounded like Sandbar. Gallus looked over and could see a pegasus with dark fur, red eyes, a white mane, and a ghost for a cutie mark.

"Sandbar?" Gallus questioned. This grabbed the attention of the pegasus who looked over to Gallus.

"Gallus is that you?" the pegasus questioned. The pony and griffon then noticed all the other creatures that were with them. All of them were the superheroes that they had suggested. Shimmy Shake was Sun Regional, Kelpie was Scope, Ocellus was Atom, every single one of them was their own heroes.

"Wow, Discord really outdid himself," Sandbar commented.

"You think he could've warned us," Gale stated.

"Clearly, you've never met Discord," Gallus remarked.

"Guys, look at me," Silverstream cooed. Her body was now all rubbery. She pulled on her wing and it stretched out. "Sweet! Shimmy, Kelpie, grab one of my wings." Her friends did so and they started walking in opposite directions and the hippogriff's wings stretched like taffy.

"So, what does Discord have planned for us?" Pate asked.

"Not sure," Ocellus admitted.

"Maybe it'll be like when we were playing Ogres and Oubliettes," Ocellus commented.

"Again, we probably should've seen this coming," Gallus commented.

"I think he might be taking this too far," Peridot spoke. "I can't see."

"And I can't walk," Emerald added.

"Okay, maybe Discord went a little too far," Sandbar commented.

"How you ask something new?" asked a voice. The students looked across the street to see Pyther leaning against a street lamp. She appeared to be warring a dark pink and marron kimono.

"Pyther, there you are," Shimmy Shake said.

"Can you tell Discord to stop this game?" Moss asked, a little agitated.

"Now, why would we do that?" the dragoness asked.

"I don't like this where this is going," Sandbar muttered.

"Pyther, what are you planning?" Smolder asked.

"Oh, just this." Suddenly, a spear appeared from her back. They started swinging around, trying to attack the heroes. Before they could question this, a mace appeared and smacked Sandbar and Pate into the air.

"How is this possible?" the changeling turned earth pony questioned.

"That's what you're questioning?" Sandbar asked. He flapped his new wings and grabbed onto Pate before bringing him to one of the building rooftops. They weren't the only ones up there. They found Pearl sitting up there as if she was waiting for them. She was wearing an opera styled dress along with a scarf that was covering her beak.

"You too?" Pate asked worriedly.

"Don't worry, I'm actually going to explain what's going on," Pearl replied. "Pyther, Sulcus, Tanz, and I secretly teamed up with Discord so we could make our own supervillains. He said it would be good to give you some challenge."

"What do you mean a challenge?" Sandbar asked.

"Well, it works like this. Downtown, there's a museum that holds a statue of one of the most powerful creatures. AKA, Discord. Your mission is to catch the four of us before we can steal the statue. If you catch us, you win. If we get the statue and release Discord, we win."

"Sounds like a good comic situation. So, what's you're power?"

"First clue, cover your ears." Seeing this as a warning, Sandbar and Pate did so before the hippogriff removed her scarf. She let out a scream that was so loud, it sent to the colts back down to the ground. This time, Gallus flew up to catch Pate as Sandbar managed to bring himself down with his flight.

"What was that?" the griffon questioned.

"It’s Pearl," Pate replied.

"They say we have to catch the four of them in order to win this game," Sandbar explained.

"Of course Discord would do this as a game," Gallus muttered. They flew back to the ground, where Pyther had appeared to leave them alone.

"She must've headed towards the museum," Sandbar commented.

"What museum?" Kelpie asked. Sandbar and Pate quickly explained what Pearl had told them before she screamed at them.

"So, we have to stop them before they release Discord?" Ocellus asked to get confirmation.

"Seems like it," Pate responded.

"So, where exactly is the museum," Shimmy Shake asked.

"We'll split up and looked around," Gallus proclaimed.

"Sounds like a plan," Silverstream said. The griffons and hippogriffs took to the air as everyone that couldn't fly split up on the ground.

"So, you think I can make myself bigger?" Kelpie asked Silverstream.

"It's worth a shot," Silverstream replied. Kelpie looked at the button on his wrist and pressed it. In about two seconds, the hippogriff had doubled in size. "Amazing!"

"Yeah, look at me." Kelpie looked quite proud to be much bigger now. "Hey, try changing your form like a changeling." Silverstream nodded before flying down to one of the rooftops. She bounced a little when she landed and she started remolding herself. While she struggled a bit at first, requiring Kelpie's help, the rubbery hippogriff manage to change her form.

She molded herself into a bear, a pony, a dragon, Silverstream was enjoying herself. "This is so much fun!"

"It is!"

As they were having fun practicing their powers, the creatures on the ground were trying theirs out as well. Emerald was trying to get the hang of her wind manipulation she’s struggling. "If I knew Discord was going to turn us into our superhero, I would've used something simpler," she said.

"Yeah," Ocellus agreed. Looking behind her, with each step she took with her forehooves, she accidentally turned the ground into small patches of grass.

"Remind me not to touch your hoof," Pate requested, stepping back a little bit.

"Discord really couldn't warn us about these?" Moss questioned.

"Discord just does things without rhyme or reason," Ocellus remarked.

Pate helped Emerald onto his back so she would have an easier time getting around. "Let's just keep looking around," the dragoness said.

Meanwhile, Smolder was holding Peridot's claw as they walked down the street with their group. "Did he really have to take my eyesight?" the blind dragoness questioned.

"He's probably trying to be accurate," Shimmy Shake said.

"This isn't really the first time he's done something like this," Smolder commented. "We were in a world based on Ogres and Oubliettes one time."

"Seriously?"

"Yeah. It was honestly fun. Once we figured out what we were doing."

"Yona wondering how Yona communicates with animals," Yona spoke. She held her head for a minute and within a few seconds, a flock of birds flew right up to her.

"Well, it looks like you got it working," Shimmy commented.

Sandbar suddenly swooped down nearly crash landing. "Man, flying looked much easier for the griffs," he muttered.

"Sandbar okay?" Yona asked.

"I'm good. Discord probably turned down the pain for this world."

"That's good to hear," Peridot said.

"Did you find out where the museum is?" Shimmy asked.

"I think so," Sandbar replied. “Follow me.”

He led the group down the street until they came across the building he found.

"This looks like a museum to me," Smolder commented. "I'm going to go find the others and tell them we found it." The dragoness took off as the remaining creatures walked inside.

Looking around, there some interesting artifacts on display. Several paintings, some skeletons of creatures they've never seen, but then they noticed a statue that looked like a very familiar draconequus.

"There's Discord," Shimmy Shake cried.

"Now we just have to prepare for the worst," Sandbar spoke.

"For things like me?" asked a voice. The heroes looked across the room where Sulcus was standing. He appeared to be wearing a black jumpsuit with a couple of green stripes.

"Sulcus, is that you?" Peridot asked.

"It is. Can you see?"

"No, because Discord's taking this game too seriously," Sandbar commented.

"I had a feeling this might happen," Tanzanite spoke. He walked up beside Sulcus as he had a few new looks. His horns were a little longer, he wore some gloves and a white lab coat. "So, do you guys need to get your barrings on your powers work?"

"Not really," Yona replied. "Yona just started trying out powers."

"And I think my powers are just from gadgets," Shimmy Shake added.

"Yeah, this doesn't really seem fair," Tanz added. "I mean, Discord gave us time to train."

"I guess that's how villains work," Sandbar commented. "Not a lot of them fight fair so the heroes can win."

"Could you give us some time until the others show up?" Peridot asked.

"Sure, take all the time you need," Tanz said.

The heroes walked away for a moment as Sandbar started flying around. He flew up to a wall and tried to phase through it, but only ended up banging his head. "Darn it."

"You struggling too?" Gale asked.

"Yeah." Gale simply rose his talon, which caused a storm to appear.

"Gosh darn it."

"Hey, guys," Kelpie said. He was still quite big, much to the shock of his friends. "Pretty cool huh?"

"Yeah, it is," Sandbar commented.

"Hi, guys!" Silverstream cried. The rubbery hippogriff landed on the brim of Kelpie's nose as she changed her form into a cow. "What do you think?"

"That's pretty cool," Gale commented. Simply pointing at Silverstream cause a bolt of lightning shoot down from the storm and struck her, but because of Silverstream's rubbery body, it didn't do much. "Sorry."

On the ground, Pate walked up to Shimmy and Peridot with Emerald sitting on his back. "Any luck with your powers?" the dragoness asked.

"Not quite," Peridot replied. "I really wish I could see."

"Remind me to tell Discord to tone these kinds of things down in the future," Gallus said.

"Got it," the girls said.

"At least you can move around easily," Moss said as he slowly walked over to his friends. "I weight practically three tons. I can't even change my form."

"Well, you're not really a changeling anymore," Gallus commented.

"You think I don't know that?"

Pearl had joined Sulcus and Tanz, who were watching them in the museum. "Maybe we should've thought this out better," the hippogriff villain said.

"Yeah," the boys agreed.

"You know what?" Gale said, "I can still throw punches. I'm going into the museum." He flew right through the entrance and land right in front of Pearl, Tanz, and Sulcus. "Okay, what are you planning?"

"Do you want us to go easy on you?" Pearl asked.

"That might be a smart idea," Ocellus commented.

"No way," Gale said, "As soon as you're defeated, we can get out of here."

"Well, that is the main idea of this game," Tanz commented.

As the rest of the heroes walked in, Pyther flew in. She had a katana floating by her side. "You ready for this?" the dragoness asked.

"I guess we might as well," Gallus muttered. The multiple heroes and four villains soon charged towards each other engaging in battle.

Sandbar and Pyther flew around with Kelpie right behind them. The hippogriff flew closer to the dragoness and made himself bigger. Once he did that, Kelpie grabbed onto the dragoness with his giant talon but ended up smacking his head on the ceiling. Pyther chuckled as she slipped away. Sandbar tried to follow, but he nearly got hit by her katana.

Silverstream, Shimmy, and Smolder fought on against Sulcus, who was doing surprisingly well. "Okay, so what exactly is your power?" the rubbery hippogriff asked.

"Let me show you," the changeling said. He suddenly pressed his hoof on Silverstream's chest. When Smolder then launched a punch at him, this sent him back a bit and he gave a bit of a bounce. Smolder decided to use her new powers. She placed her claws on the floor as she could see they were getting coated in stoney texture.

Once she did that, she flew towards the changeling villain, who countered her punches. Suddenly, Sulcus stretched just as Silverstream did. "How are you doing that?" Shimmy questioned.

"You can say I'm a bit of a copycat," the changeling chuckled. "Just call me, Dupe." He then morphed his hoof into a hammer before smacking Smolder in the face.

For Tanz, he didn't seem to display any sort of powers until Moss started charging up a laser. "This should be easy," the cyborg scoffed. He fired a laser that the drake dodged just as it was fired. "What?"

"Take a guess at my power," Tanz smirked. Looked around the room, he shot some fire at the ceiling. He made it look like he was aiming at Gallus, who simply dodged it. Unbeknownst to the griffon, the fire hit a chandelier, causing it to fall and land on top of him. "Let's say I'm a little clever." Without even looking, he dodged an attack from Sandbar.

As they fight carried on, Yona managed to keep a couple of the villains at bay until an orange blur dashed by and smacked her. "What hit Yona?" she questioned.

"Oh, just a secret weapon," Pyther informed.

"And what would that be?" Gale questioned.

"Wouldn't you like to know." With some assistance from Sulcus, Pyther started lifting the statue of Discord up and out of the museum. This would've made them an easy target if it wasn't for Pearl letting out a scream. The heroes all covered their ears as the carriers of the statue slipped away.

When the heroes recovered from the loud screaming, the villains were gone. "Darn it," Gallus groaned.

"Did we lose?" Kelpie asked.

"No, they said they still needed to release Discord from his prison," Sandbar noted. "They must have some device that can free him."

"So, what do we do?" Kelpie asked.

"Track them down and stop them," Gallus declared.

"So, do we split up again?" Pate asked.

"Seems like the best idea," Ocellus confirmed.

So, that's what they did. Splitting up into two groups, they all spread out across the city. Sandbar's group searched the south side of the city, while Smolder's group took the north.

"We really need to figure out how to use our new abilities," Emerald said while riding on Sandbar's back.

“Yeah, but we don’t have time to understand it,” Shimmy said.

“Hmm,” Sandbar pondered. He thought back on how Discord threw them into Ogres and Oubliettes. He just took a deep breath before thinking like Spirit Shade. He remembered the incident, his first fight, and using his powers.

“Ugh, Sandbar, we’re heading towards a wall,” Emerald stated. Sandbar could see that, but instead of stopping or turning, he kept flying and... Phased right through the building along with Emerald, much to their friends’ shock.

“What Sandbar do?” Yona questioned.

“Just trying and think like your character,” Sandbar said. “What would they do in situations like this.”

Emerald thought for a moment. She imagined herself in the situation of Ruby Sparks. She held her claws out and some wind started to blow. Slowly, she started raising off of Sandbar’s back as a small twister appeared around her legs. She was now floating in the air.

“Alright,” she cheered. “I’m getting the hang of this.”

“How are you doing this?” Shimmy questioned.

“Just try and put yourselves in your character’s shoes,” Sandbar said. “Think of yourselves in your stories of how your character starts and how they learn about their powers.”

Yona thought for a moment. She closed her eyes and thought of calling many different animals. Birds, rodents, and other various animals came racing towards her. “Yona getting powers to work.”

The rest of the heroes did what Sandbar instructed as they all started getting the hang of their abilities. With Smolder’s team, they were also getting the hang of their powers, just not as fast. Ocellus grabbed a pipe that was just lying on the ground and she turned it into a shield.

“Okay,” she said, “We should be able to handle what they throw at us.”

“We just need to figure out where they are,” Gallus groaned. Suddenly, an orange blur raced past him. “Uh oh.”

“What is it?” Moss asked.

“We’re about to have company.” Just as he finished, Gallus got smacked down to the ground by the strange blur.

The orange blur kept darting around until Ocellus decided to try and warp the terrain. She slammed her hooves on the ground to set up a couple of walls, but the blur just flew right over them.

“Okay, this thing can fly,” Moss commented.

“How do we stop it?” Silverstream asked.

“Try and cover more ground than it can travel,” Ocellus said. Silverstream decided to stretch herself out flat as Kelpie held her like a net. The blur quickly bounced off her and raced in the other direction.

“We’re going to be wasting our time if we do this,” Moss stated. “Let’s just find that statue and get out of here.” He walked off as fast as he could, which wasn’t very fast at all.

Suddenly, Emerald and Peridot flew by with assistance from their wind and earth powers. “Hey, they’re already getting the hang of this?” Gallus questioned.

“I say that’s good in my book,” Ocellus commented. “Let’s keep going.”

The heroes kept looking around. Peridot suddenly stopped as she listened around. She could hear some talking. “Look, couldn’t you just use that brain to make this machine ahead of time?” asked an unknown voice.

“We wanted this to be somewhat fair,” a voice that sounded like Tanz stated.

“You think we should give them some sort of clue?” a voice sounding like Pearl asked. Peridot grabbed her sister’s attention and took her to where she heard the conversation. They found a factory, which had the four villains inside, along with Garry, who was wearing a yellow jumpsuit that had some orange lightning bolts on it as well as some goggles.

“So that’s who the blur was,” Emerald commented. “I’ll keep an eye on them, you go get the others.” Peridot nodded before floating away.

Emerald stayed floating by the window as the villains kept talking. “So, Sulcus, how does your power work again?” Tanz asked.

“It’s pretty simple,” the changeling replied. “I just have to touch anyone with any superpowers and I then copy their abilities. Though, I can only use one at a time.”

“Sounds pretty balanced to me,” Pearl commented.

“Well, I’m going to run around again,” Garry said. He quickly took off, not taking time to notice Emerald floating next to the window.

“Ugh, come on guys,” the dragoness muttered, “Where are you?”

“I’m right here,” Pyther said, taking Emerald by surprise. A chain mace suddenly chained the wingless dragoness up. “Did you think we didn’t see you?”

“It kind of took you a while,” Moss stated. The dragoness could see the heroes were now showing up. Pyther quickly called for Pearl and Sulcus, who helped her attack.

This fight went much better than the one at the museum as the heroes actually understood what they were doing now. Shimmy was jumping and flipping around, being able to keep pace with the three villains. However, the orange blur made itself known again.

“Not this time,” Gallus cried. He slammed on his gauntlet and managed to stop time and could see Garry was the one running around. “Okay, buddy, let’s slow you down a little bit.”

Gallus looked over to the mace that Emerald was tied up in and decided to take it off her claw and gave it to Garry. Once the speedy griffon was tied up, Gallus resumed time and Garry went tumbling. “Gah, what the heck?” Garry questioned.

“I can stop time remember?”

“And you’re a joke without your shield,” Pyther added. She threw the griffon in front of Pearl, who quickly screamed at him to send Gallus crashing to the ground.

Pearl was then taken by surprise when a giant Kelpie. He grabbed her in his talons and shook her around like a snowglobe before taking a peek inside. “Are you okay?” he asked.

“I’m fine,” Pearl responded. “Discord said he worked around the pain.”

“Okay.” With that out of the way, Kelpie flicked Pearl away like she was a tick.

The battle carried on with Sulcus racing around and copying everyone’s powers. Emerald thought about this and made the changeling copy her abilities. This caused him to start floating because of his new wind abilities. Knowing this, Emerald quickly made him chase her into the air.

“Gale, over here!” she cried.

The weather-controlling griffon listened and flew after his teammate. Gale started creating storms to shoot lightning at the copy cat. Sulcus was barely able to move his wind before he could get hit, but he was able to fly up to the griffon and copy his power. However, since he wasn’t using Emerald’s powers anymore, he started freefalling.

Fortunately, Gale was able to catch him as Emerald flew down to her sister. Peridot quickly started creating a stone prison to keep the changeling from escaping. Garry ran up and tried to attack the prison, but Silverstream pounced on his and trapped him by turning herself into a rubber ball.

“Let me out!” the griffon ordered. He kept bouncing off the wall to little avail.

“Sorry,” Silverstream said, “But baddies like you belong in jail.”

“Just three more to go,” Emerald added.

Pyther could see they were starting to lose and she flew back into the factory. “Anyway now,” she said to Tanz.

“I’m working as fast as I can,” Tanz stated. He pressed some buttons on a keyboard as some lasers were aiming at the statue of Discord. Suddenly, Smolder flew in, coated in stone, and started smashing one of the lasers as the other one was shot down by Moss’s missiles. “Drat.”

“Welp, time to abandon ship,” Pyther said. The two dragons flew off and helped Pearl escape from the carnage as they flew away.

“See you later,” Tanz cried. Suddenly, they saw a roc flying straight towards them. Yona and Shimmy Shake were riding on its back and they slammed into the three of them.

Pyther and Pearl landed on the roc’s back, where they started throwing a few punches with Yona and Shimmy. “You enjoying this?” Shimmy asked.

“It’s way better than I thought this would be,” Pearl said. She was about to let out a scream until she tripped over her dress. “I don’t think dresses are suitable for combat.”

“Probably not,” Shimmy commented as she pinned the hippogriff down.

Pyther meanwhile wasn’t going down without a fight. She grabbed Yona by her horns, but the yak turned pony stood her ground. A mace came out of Pyther’s back, but Yona had one last trick up her sleeves. The dragoness held her head as she quickly felt light head.

“Wait,” Pyther grunted, “I thought you only control animals.”

“Yona can cause headaches and lightheadedness,” Yona stated.

“Oh, yeah.” Pyther lied on her back as she was clearly defeated.

All that was left was Tanz. He quickly breathed fire on the roc to cause it to lose control, leaving the two mares onboard behind. “Phew,” he sighed. “I guess I’m too hot for them to catch.”

“But I’m way cooler,” said a voice. Sandbar suddenly appeared beside Tanz. The drake didn’t have enough time to react as the ghost pony as phased into his body. Tanz’s eye changed from blue to red as Sandbar took control. “Wow, this is weird.” He brought his new claw to his face as he pondered. “I think it’s safe to say we won.”

Sandbar made Tanz fly down to where everyone else was. Ocellus looked at Tanz’s eyes and could see the coloring was off. “Sandbar?” she questioned.

“Yeah, I know,” the colt in the drake replied. “This is a little creepy, but still kind of cool.”

The roc landed nearby as Yona and Shimmy carried Pyther and Pearl with them. Silverstream wrapped herself around all the villains as Sandbar left Tanz’s body. “Ugh, what just happened?” the confused drake asked.

“I’m afraid you lost,” said a voice. Suddenly, Discord appeared out of nowhere with a party cannon, which fired out some confetti. “Congratulations heroes. You’ve won.” Several Discords then showed up to cheer for the heroes.

“Got to admit,” Ruby said, “This was fun.”

“Could you turn us back to normal now?” Pate asked.

“Of course,” Discord replied. Snapping his fingers, he teleported them all back to the school, with them all back to their normal selves.

“Hey, I can see again!” Peridot cheered. Emerald was glad that she was also able to walk again.

“Discord, that was fun and all,” Moss said, “But give us a warning next time.”

“No promises,” the draconequus responded.

“Figures,” Gallus said rolling his eyes.

“Well, this was fun,” Shimmy said.

“Yeah, we should do this again sometime,” Gale added.

“So do I,” Moss agreed.

All the students started walking off to do their own things, leaving Discord with the Young Six. “So, you want the next session to be Ogres and Oublettes?” Discord asked.

“Oh, yeah,” Sandbar confirmed.

“I wonder what classes the others could be,” Silverstream pondered.

Discord smiled at the students liking his ideas. “So, same time next week?” The six agreed. “Alright. See you in a while.” He snapped his finger and warped away.

“So, what did you guys think of being superheroes?” Smolder asked.

“Yona’s love being able to talk to animals,” Yona spoke.

“Yeah, stopping time was cool,” Gallus added. The six students walked off chanting about the adventure they just went through.