Ponyville Library, Basement
The summoning circle is nearly complete; a large pentagram drawn on the floor with four of its corners adorned with an elemental sigil. The sigil of earth, fire, wind and water, each have their respective elemental manifestation hovering above them. In the fifth corner however, instead of a sigil, stood a certain shy pegasus wearing a necklace with a butterfly motif.
"A- are you sure this will work?" Fluttershy asked her purple unicorn friend.
The unicorn in question is none other than Twilight Sparkle. Earlier, Fluttershy had asked Twilight for help concerning the disappearance of an entire species of birds that usually fly to Ponyville during summer. Twilight tried her best and read every book in the library but she could not figure out why an entire species of birds would just disappear like that. However, she did come across something in her research that might be of use: a spell that would summon an elemental hero. Unlike regular elementals, that can only embody and peruse a single element, elemental heroes can use more than one and they have a consciousness of their own. With no other option available, Twilight decided upon using the spell to summon an elemental hero to aid their cause.
"Of course it will work. Now let me add some finishing touches...." said Twilight.
The book she read about summoning elemental heroes states that each hero is an individual and no two heroes are alike. The same could be said about the method of summoning: each hero has a certain combination of elements needed to summon them. Thankfully, the book was kind enough to mention which combo summons who. Twilight and Fluttershy decided to summon the one called Captain Planet due to the book's description of him being a champion of sorts in preserving the natural environment. In order to summon this particular hero, five elements are needed: earth, fire, wind, water and heart. These elements need to be combined at the same time. Hence the pentagram.
After exhausting the entire library for the second time, the only sigils that she could find was for the previous four elements. She could not find any sigil that can embody the fifth element: heart. Still, for her friend, she would not give up.
Suddenly, in a moment of startling revelation worthy of an episode of House, Twilight realized that the magical embodiment of heart was standing right next to her, which brings us back to the pentagram.
"Done!" she exclaimed. "Now all we need to do is activate the sigils by calling out the elements. You ready, Fluttershy?"
"I guess"
"Earth. Fire. Wind. Water." with each word, their corresponding elemental sigil began to glow and their physical manifestations started to fluctuate. Twilight looked over at Fluttershy and urged her to call out the fifth element.
"Heart"
Fluttershy's Element of Harmony began to glow and all of the five elements moved toward each other thanks to the magical link provided by the pentagram. Before the elements collide, Twilight pulled Fluttershy out of the summoning circle in fear of an explosive repercussion. Fortunately for the spell, the glow from Fluttershy's Element of Harmony never left the pentagram. Twilight then overturned a nearby table to turn it into a makeshift fort and pulled Fluttershy by her hoof to join her.
They waited behind their shelter for a few heartbeats until a telltale magical burst of light followed by a cacophony of un-equine screams of anguish lets them know that the summoning circle has brought them the fruit of their labor. The two ponies then walked out from behind the overturned table to see the results.
The ceremony produced no visible damage to the library's foundation, a fact Twilight is glad about, but it did leave a slightly sulfurous odor in the air. As the two friends walked toward the summoning circle, they noticed that the pentagram itself, originally drawn with white chalk, has turned a sickly reddish brown as if it was drawn in blood. "That only means that it worked" explained Twilight as they approached their newly summoned aide.
The elemental hero they summoned sat quietly in the middle of the pentagram with its eyes closed. It looked like a regular earth pony stallion. His coat is light blue with some red patches, his mane and tail is green and his cutie mark is a yellow sphere with its latitudes and longitudes clearly marked. The blue-red pony then stood up.
"By your powers combined..." he started, eyes still closed for dramatic effect.
"I am CA- c-c-ca- caap..." he opened his eyes and his dramatic introduction got caught in his throat. Lo and behold, a pale horse as he cast his eyes upon the ones that summoned him.
"Yes... Go on. Don't be shy..." Twilight urged the stuttering stallion.
Ponyville
"AAAAAAAAH!!!"
The morning activities outside the library suddenly stopped when everypony heard the scream. The scream held the ponies' attention for a few seconds until, at the same time, they all proceeded....
...to continue about their business as if nothing happened.
"Twilight's at it again" one of the ponies commented
"And she was doing so well"
Ponyville Library, Basement
"AWAY FROM ME, DEMONS!"
Ever since his failed speech, Captain Planet has been running around the basement, looking for a way to escape while throwing colorful titles ranging from "beasts" to "demon children of the white molester" to the two ponies that summoned him in the first place. Apparently, the sight of a purple unicorn and a yellow pegasus frightened him so much that it changed his speech pattern.
Twilight and Fluttershy chased him around the basement, with one pony covering the basement entrance/exit while the other kept on the chase, for a full forty five minutes and the elemental hero did not seem to show any sign of tiredness. All the while, the two friends have been trying to explain the whole situation to him.
"I don't know why you summoned me here but I will not help YOU or any of YOUR KIND anymore!" he blurted out when Twilight and Fluttershy finally have him cornered.
"What do you mean our kind? You're a pony too aren't you?" Twilight retorted.
Twilight's words seem to have an effect on Captain Planet. He fixed her with a look that was a mix of skepticism and horror. Slowly, he lifted his trembling hooves to his face as if to confirm the unicorn's words.
Everfree Forest, Zecora's Hut
"AAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAARGH!!!"
When the scream reached Zecora's ears, she was in the process of settling a dispute between Applebloom and Scootaloo. The two fillies were about to come to blows when the scream interrupted them.
"Hm... Twilight" Zecora whispered
Ponyville library, Basement
Fluttershy poked the unconscious elemental hero with her hoof.
"Is he okay?" she asked Twilight.
"I don't know, but I think it's best that we restrain him somehow"
Twilight walked up the basement stairs and flipped a hidden switch. A section of the basement floor opened up and from the gap, an operating table attached to the end of a large, hydraulic-powered robotic arm rose up.
The table's surface is made of chromed metal and it is equipped with straps positioned in such a way that any unfortunate soul to end up on it would be strapped in a crucified position. The back of the table is attached to a hydraulic rotary hinge on the robotic arm so that whoever is in control can change the patient's/victim's position at a whim. Victim, thy name is Captain Planet.
It took the two mares five full minutes to get the hero-turned-pony onto the table and to properly secure the straps. Apparently, their would be aide is heavier than he looked.
And he looked pretty heavy to begin with. Fluttershy thought.
"Alright. Now, we wake him up" said Twilight as she levitated a baseball bat from out of nowhere. She is determined to make him pay for making her exercise.
Twilight took the bat in her front hooves and prepared herself to deliver an overhead, downward chop right onto Captain Planet's noggin.
"Wait!"
"What? We need his help, don't we?" Twilight replied to Fluttershy's sudden outburst.
"Well... yes. But can't you wake him up in a gentler, kinder way? I mean, he might not like it if you wake him up like that"
"Urgh, fine...."
Twilight then fished out a cattle-prod from the same nowhere she got the bat
"Kinder, gentler and less fatal" mumbled Twilight before the device is slapped out her grasp by the normally timid pegasus.
"How about we wait for him to wake up? That way, we'll have time to plan out how to talk to him" suggested Fluttershy.
Her voice may have been gentle but her eyes spoke murder as Fluttershy's signature stare bore into Twilight's. She didn't take too kindly to ponies that do harm to other ponies.
"S- sure, let's do that" said Twilight, nervously.
10 minutes later
Twilight sat next to Spike as he is happily munching a bowl of gems in front of the TV. The young dragon is watching his favorite series: Animal Mechanicals Extreme.
--TV--
"Look around you! Look at all this destruction!"
A yellow robotic mouse encompassed the apocalyptic background to a blue robotic sasquatch. All around them are collapsed skyscrapers, burning buildings and smoking craters.
"If you had just done your job, none of this would have happened and Rex would still be alive!" the robotic mouse cried.
"But no, YOU had to be Sasquatch: Mechana-RETARD!!!"
"Um, Twilight? I think he's awake" Fluttershy called out to her.
"Alright, I'm coming"
The two mares walked back down the basement where Captain Planet is still crucified. The operating table is positioned six feet above the ground and is facing downwards at sixty degrees.
Earlier, Twilight and Fluttershy had been rehearsing on how to present their predicament to the frightened elemental. In each of their simulated scenario, the results were the same: he would freak out and most probably have a heart attack, assuming that his anatomy is the same as a regular pony. There was only one solution.
As they approached the blue-red stallion, he was in the middle of a desperate struggle to free himself of the straps. He then noticed that his captors are suddenly standing right below his position.
"Let me go or I'll- rrrmph rr, rrrh!" his outburst is silenced by Twilight's spell: one that caused his teeth to stick together like polar opposite magnets. The only way to get him to listen is to get him to stop talking.
"Alright, you're up, Fluttershy"
Fluttershy walked up to Captain Planet and presented her case. After she was done, she asked Twilight to remove the spell so that she can hear what he had to say.
"What surprises me is that you actually think I give a damn" came his response.
"B- b- but.." the yellow pegasus stuttered. She isn't used to having anypony talk like that to her.
"You turned me into this... THING, strapped me to this contraption and you expect me to help you!?"
Her eyes started to water.
"Awww.. Are you gonna cry?" Captain Planet asked sarcastically. "Then, let me sing for you the song of my people"
He inhaled deeply and shouted "YOL TOOR SHUL!". From out of his mouth came a jet spray of fire that nearly roasted Fluttershy had her fear reflexes not compel her to duck.
Reciting the Thuum was not necessary for he can already control fire. He did it because even in a state of panic, he had a flair for the dramatics.
"My basement!" cried Twilight.
"Spike! Quickly, get some water!"
Captain Planet watched as a purple baby dragon walking on two legs clumsily run down the basement with a bucket of water. The purple unicorn is busy using cold spells to put out the fire that he caused. The yellow pegasus however, is either frightened or crying because she is seated in a corner with her face buried in her hooves. If there was ever a time to escape, it would be now.
With all his strength, Captain Planet pulled at his strapped hooves until one by one, they snapped and his trapped limbs are finally free. Surprisingly, the unicorn did not turn her attention to him despite the loud snaps when the straps gave way and the pegasus is still..... doing whatever it is she is doing. While they were all distracted he made his way out of the basement......
...and into a town full of ponies
Ponyville
The relative peace of the small town is shattered once again but this time, it is because of the library's door exploding from a freak gust of wind that came from inside the library.
Captain Planet made his way out of the library through the hole where the door used to be. He thought to contact Gaia or any of the Planeteers so that they can get him out of here.
One can only imagine the amount of shock the elemental hero felt when colorful equines swarmed his vision. Everywhere he looked, there were ponies.
He looked left, ponies
He looker right, ponies
He looked up, ponies with wings
He looked down, a pink pony with a poofy mane said "Hiyya, you must be new here"
Something inside him snapped as his left eye started to twitch.
Ponyville Library, Basement
It took Spike and Twilight ten minutes to put out the fire caused by Captain Planet. The purple unicorn exhausted every ounce of magic within her body to combat the flames while the equally purple drake was physically tired from running up and down the basement stairs carrying water.
"Done" Twilight panted. "Spike, why don't you go upstairs and rest. You've earned it"
"Wow, really? Thanks Twi" said Spike before dragging his tired legs up the basement stairs.
When the young dragon is out of sight, Twilight reached behind a cupboard and pulled out a questionably shaped blunt instrument. She pressed a button on the bottom of it and said instrument began to vibrate.
"No more Mr. Nice pony" said Twilight before breaking into an evil laugh
"For making me exercise, almost burning down my library AND making my friend cry, I'm gonna take away your dignity" Twilight still hasn't noticed that the operating table is vacant.
"PREPARE YOUR A-" her one-liner died in her throat as she finally noticed Captain Planet's absence. She turned to her pegasus friend who is still crying.
"Fluttershy, he's gone!"
Fluttershy looked up at her friend when suddenly, the ground shook with such ferocity that the blunt instrument fell out of Twilight's grasp. As hanging fixtures fell and cupboards collapsed, Twilight's secret compartment of torture devices is suddenly revealed.
When the earthquake stopped, Fluttershy picked up one of the torture devices: the cattle prod that Twilight wanted to use earlier. She gave the unicorn a questioning look.
"Twilight..."
"We're not talking about this" Twilight interrupted. "Now, c'mon. We've got to find the source of that quake. It's likely that crazed elemental's doing"
"But I thought you're cured. We even brought the priest-"
"WE. ARE. NOT. TALKING. ABOUT. THIS! Now, let's move!" yelled Twilight as she raced out of the basement and into town.
"And you were doing so well"
Ponyville
Captain Planet's eyes are glowing. He is floating in the eye of a fair sized tornado. Blue fire snaked up the funnel like an anaconda wrapping itself onto its prey, occasionally whipping out to lash at nearby structures. Rings of water and chunks of earth orbited the raging maelstrom. Despite the chaos, his voice can somehow still be heard.
"Nos protegam eum!"
His voice is carried by the winds to all the ponies around him who are cowering for their lives.
"Salvus est a vobis!"
The force of his elemental powers caused chaos to all of Ponyville.
The blue fire melted houses.
The tornado lifted objects and ponies into the air.
The water rings that are actually shards of ice moving at high speeds gladly mulch any unfortunate creature caught in its orbit into pink mist.
The chunks of earth the size of apple carts rained on the homes of the Ponyvillians like a freak meteor shower.
"Vos mos non nocere ei!"
Twilight and Fluttershy watched in horror as the rogue elemental hero is laying waste to their beloved town.
"Twilight, what do we do!?" Fluttershy shouted so that she can be heard above the roaring winds
"I'm sorry Fluttershy, but I think we have to unsummon him!"
"But-"
"Fluttershy! You've seen what he was like, and now he's destroying Ponyville! Face it, he's more trouble than he's worth!"
Fluttershy returned her attention to the freak storm that is destroying everything.
"...okay" her words drowned in the wind but fortunately the unicorn was reading her lips.
"Crap" Twilight swore. "I forgot. I'm all out of magic!"
"Wait, how can you forget that you're out of magic!?"
"Shut up, that's how! We'll have to subdue him somehow while my magic recharges!"
At that moment, the winds suddenly died down and Captain Planet suddenly appeared in front of the two mares, startling them. The literally bright-eyed stallion sniffed the air around them and then pointed a hoof at Twilight.
"Vos anhelitum EAM!"
"What did he say?" Twilight whispered to Fluttershy
"I don't know, but I don't like the way he said it!" a voice responded.
All three ponies turned their heads to the direction of the voice and saw, in the distance, Pinkie Pie, her face covered in blood and her left eye absent from its socket, pointing a pink bazooka in their general direction.
"Don't you dare harm my friends" she said as she cocked the weapon and an eager looking head of another Pinkie Pie poked out of the barrel.
With a wave of the stallion's hoof, a large tsunami of rock sped towards the pink pony but with leg strength befitting an anime character, she jumped high in the air and launched the bazooka from above.
"Cowabungaaaa!" screamed the ammo-Pinkie as she attempted to belly-flop on to the rogue elemental.
But he proved to be quite crafty. He sidestepped causing the ammo-Pinkie to miss and create a Pinkie shaped hole in the ground.
Nearby, the real Pinkie landed on her feet, nimble as a ninja, and cocked her weapon again. Another ammo-Pinkie poked her head out of the barrel.
Captain Planet then stomped his hoof on the ground and Pinkie's body is suddenly sucked into the dirt, leaving only her head exposed.
"Vos nunc moriatur" said the stallion as he made his way toward her. When he arrived, he lifted his front hoof as he meant to stomp on her head. Pinkie braced for the impact.
"No!" screamed Twilight. When her pink friend was sucked into the ground, her bazooka fell out of her grasp. Twilight took the bazooka and fired it at the rogue elemental before he could finish off her friend.
"Falcon Pu- urk..." the ammo-Pinkie's meme inspired battle-cry is cut short as she flew into a sharp icicle that grew out of the front hoof that was meant for the original Pinkie.
Without taking his eyes off the real Pinkie, he broke the icicle off and put his hoof down. The stallion took a deep breath.
"Yol Toor *crack*" Fluttershy broke a plank of wood against his temple before he could completely recite his Thuum. She know well what would transpire should he finish it.
"Nice swing, Flutters" said Pinkie Pie after the yellow pegasus poked the elemental hero's unconscious form to make sure that he's out for the count. "Can you help me out here?" she asked Twilight.
"Say, you wouldn't happen to know a spell that can regenerate eyeballs, do you?"
Ponyville Library
They secured Captain Planet on the same operating table but this time, the straps are reinforced with magic.
Twilight wanted to use the rest of her magic to unsummon the elemental hero but she remembered that her friend needed a new eyeball.
"Alright, now hold still" she told her pink friend.
She touched her glowing horn to Pinkie's eye socket and with a disgusting slurping noise, her eyeball grew back anew.
"Thanks, Twilight"
Pinkie then gave Twilight a bottle of blue liquid.
"What is it?" asked Twilight
"It's a mana potion. It'll recharge your magic"
"And where has this potion been when we were fighting Mister Ballistic over there?" Twilight asked as she drank the potion.
"In my secret mana potion stash behind Cheerilee's house"
Twilight sighed but with her magic back she can finally put an end to this nightmare.
"Um, girls" Fluttershy called out
"Yes" they replied
"Well, now that we know where Pinkie stashes the potions... I was wondering if.... maybe... we could try asking for his help again? I mean, you can just unsummon him if things go wrong again.... please..."
Twilight and Pinkie looked at each other. Doubt written all over their faces.
"I don't know, Fluttershy. He might go crazy again" reasoned Twilight
"Yeah, Flutters. Like super-duper crazy, like when I first saw him, he was looking around all scared, so I went to him and said 'Hiyya, you must be new here' and his left eye started become twitchy and then he went all Avatarry and genocidal towards everypony" Pinkie said in one breath. "If I didn't know any better, I'd say he's not even a pony himself"
"That's ridiculous"
"I don't think so, Twilight. The book did say that the elementals were from a different dimension. Maybe his original form is not a pony" said Fluttershy
"If that's true and he changed his shape into a pony, why didn't he change back to his original form?" asked Twilight. Unfortunately, nopony knew the answer.
"How about you transform one of us into something he's familiar with and ask for his help? Maybe he'll agree" Fluttershy suggested.
Twilight thought about it for a moment.
"Alright Fluttershy, you get your chance. But if something goes wrong, I'm sending him back to where he came from, got it?"
Fluttershy nodded her head as the purple unicorn searched the library for a book concerning inter-dimensional creatures.
"Found it!" the unicorn cried triumphantly. "C'thulhu, Mind flayers and other inter-dimensional beings. First edition"
The three ponies flipped through the pages looking for the page that best describes their captive. Unfortunately, the only pony/creature that can properly tell them what it is is still unconscious.
"How about this one: the Yautja"
"Too scary, this one: Lamia"
"Nononono, this one: the Beholder"
They argued throughout the research and before they knew it, they have looked at and read the description of every single creature, each uglier than the last, in the book and still couldn't decide which one Captain Planet is.
"Well, since we can't decide which one, we might as well do it on a trial and error basis" said Twilight. "Pinkie, go get the potions"
"Okie dokie lokie" Pinkie sped off out the library's, now destroyed, door.
"Fluttershy, hold still"
Twilight's horn glowed again as she cast a spell that transformed her shy friend into the creature at page fifty.
Fluttershy, now taller, looked down at her friend and then at a mirror. She didn't like her new form.
"It's only temporary" explained Twilight. "Besides, you're the only one of us who is dexterous enough to take this form. And we can always try another form if this one doesn't work"
"And just in case you need a conversation starter..." Pinkie began as she returned with the bottles of mana potion
"...I've brought this" she pulled from behind her, a silver tray. Its contents hidden under a silver dome.
"....Alright... here goes nothing" Fluttershy said, nervously.
Ponyville Library, Basement
The first two things that Captain Planet noticed when he awoke is that he is once again crucified and that his head really hurt.
He tried the straps again but they wouldn't give way no matter how hard he tried.
He heard footsteps of something approaching. Something heavy.
What is it now? He thought. He looked up at the entrance of the basement and got his answer.
The creature's oily black carapace shone in the meager light. Exposed vertebrae lined the creature's back, beginning behind its kite-shaped head and ending at the stinger on its long tail. It stalked toward him on powerful back legs bearing sharp talons. Its equally taloned and equally powerful looking arms pushed debris from the earlier chaos out of its way. On its chest, two smaller arms carried a domed tray.
When the creature finally reached him, its smaller arms removed the dome from the tray, revealing its contents.
"Cookies?" the creature asked
Dear Princess Celestia
Today, I learned that even though you try your best to help a friend, it is sometimes never enough and you may never be able to find the solution.
Earlier today, Fluttershy asked for my help to figure out what had happened to the golden blue sparrows that usually migrate to Ponyville. I read every book in my library and found no solutions there. When I couldn't think of any other way to help, I summoned an elemental hero named Captain Planet to help us out
Apparently he was hippophobic for some reason because at the second he laid his eyes on us, he started freaking out and calling us names. (one of which is "demon children of the white molester". You wouldn't have had anything to do with that, would you?)
Anyway, we managed to subdue him for a while and strapped him to the table that I usually reserve for your "special" visits but he escaped and nearly destroyed Ponyville using his elemental powers. Fortunately, Fluttershy was able to knock him out with a plank of wood and we were able to get him on the table again. That's when we realized that he may not originally be a pony. Even though he was in the shape of a regular earth pony.
Fluttershy suggested that one of us transform into something he's familiar with so that he would agree to help. But the problem is that none of us knew what his original form looked like, so we referred to Father Flapjack's "C'thulhu, Mind flayers and other inter-dimensional beings" book.
Using the information from that book, I transformed Fluttershy into the creature that best describe him out of all the other creatures: a queen xenomorph.
But that only made him freak out even more. Poor Fluttershy tried to calm him down by injecting a paralyzing poison from her stinger but he was still thrashing around. She tried stinging him again but she panicked and the stinger went right through his chest and the table he was strapped to. Thankfully, I was able to unsummon him before his injury killed him.
It took us a while to get Fluttershy to calm down and convince her that she was not a murderer. We never did find out what happened to those birds but rest assured that even though my previous attempts ended in disaster, I will not give up.
Your faithful student:
Twilight Sparkle
PS: The chaos Captain Planet caused exposed you stash of "toys" in my basement. Can you please pick them up? I can't keep covering for you because I've already had enough grief from my friends the last time something like this happened.
Alaska, Bering sea
"Earth"
"Fire"
"Wind"
"Water"
"Heart"
The beams from five different rings collided in the air, collecting itself into a ball of light that started to develop into the silhouette of a man.
Normally, the Planeteers would have handled environmental issues by themselves but this time, it involved pirates with firearms, Hoggish Greedly's bio-engineered sea monster and a cyborg gorilla that will not stop dancing the Macarena. They needed Captain Planet for this.
"Something's wrong" said Kwame, the leader.
When Captain Planet is fully formed, he did not greet the Planeteers with his customary greeting. Instead he just fell to the ground, limp and the hole from the attack of a certain xenomorph queen visible for all to see.
"Well" said Ma-Ti. "We're boned"
