Luckily, things ended better for us than I could have imagined.

Alphabittle thought he would be easily winning this one, given he was a veteran of the game and he (wrongly) assumed Sunny didn't play this ever in her life.

But what he hadn't reckoned with was that we weren't originally ponies and had seen the movie. The benefits of being able to break the fourth wall.

As the backing music went into high gear, things went into action. No sooner had proceedings started Sunny jumped on the first combo and generated a mark on the combo metre.

And it kinds just went from there. Sunny bounced and bounded between the buttons, almost as if she was a natural at this. I could only assume that she'd been a pro at dancing games back in the human world. She leaped and bounced between buttons as she generated combos at a faster rate than most ponies could say 'peppermint pie'.

Oddly specific, I know, but it's something ponies do actually say, so the comparison was entirely appropriate comparison in my opinion.

Onwards they went like two gladiators locked in the arena of dance. Sunny was, of course, absolutely flattening the competition with minimal effort. A confident smirk was spread across her face as she leaped back and forth, the bar continuing to feel over on the display as she continued to fill the combo metre.

"Keep it up, Sunny!" Izzy shouted, keen to encourage her on. I must admit I was pretty excited too. If we got these crystals together and magic back sooner, the sooner things could return to a state of peace. After all, a long peace is better than an age of perpetual tension we have to suffer through.

"That's the spirit, Sunny!" Pipp shouted, echoing the sentiment from earlier. "Let the rhythm take you over!"

Although it wasn't really needed, we'd all started quoting lines from the movie anyway for the sake of it, even if several conversations had gone rather differently to how they'd gone in the movie. I looked on still, a smile forming on my face. "She's actually doing it..." I whispered to myself.

"I'm certainly feeling it!" Sunny said, as she danced about with a happy smile. She was demolishing the competition in nothing flat, which had certainly caught the eyes of the unicorns watching. Many of them were starting to wonder who this new orange unicorn was who was so good at dancing games.

One pony who didn't seem to be happy was Alphabittle, whose eyes were wide in shock and was puffing and panting loudly like a traction engine grinding to a halt on a steep hill. "How... is... she... doing... this?" he wheezed loudly. "I've... never... seen... somepony... play... this... well!"

The metre continued to build as Sunny demolished more combos under her hooves. It was filling so rapidly it was hard to keep track of where it was exactly. But then it all suddenly came to a very dramatic end.

With a surge of light and a blast of confetti, the flag deployed on Sunny's side of the machine. Everything seemed to stop in that one moment.

Had we just won?

Had we just gotten the magic back?

Sunny herself looked at the display in disbelief for a moment, her eyes wide. Everything seemed to have stopped in that moment.

Magic was ours.

"I... I did it!" Sunny said quietly to herself. "I won!"

Seconds later, it was like an entire transformation had taken place, as she jumped in the air. "Yes! Only had to win one round!"

Now, that's the Sunny I know. I smiled as we crowded around her in celebration.

"Sunny, we did it!" Izzy said, her face plastered in a smile so wide it could have fallen off her face.

"We sure did!"

Alphabittle had retreated to another part of the room, grumbling to himself (clearly he was a sore loser), but I was busy talking with my friends to particularly focus on what he was doing,

But as we talked, I suddenly heard a whistling noise. The sort of noise produced by a small projectile travelling at high velocity. I looked in its direction to suddenly see a small ball travelling through the air.

Time seemed to slow to a crawl as I had no proper chance to react to it travelling. The small projectile struck the horn Sunny was wearing and disconnected it from the mounting. It and the maneband holding it on fell to the floor, bouncing briefly before being scattered upon the ground.

Sunny looked down, seeing the fake horn upon the floor. In that instant her smile vanished and was replaced by a look of shock. "Oh shit."

Sunny, enough with the swearing already! Honestly, for Celestia's sake...

I then realised what Alphabittle had done. He put down a blowpipe he'd retrieved from behind the counter and looked at us, looking very cross. So that's what he'd been doing when he's gone behind the counter. "Just as I suspected," he said. "An earth pony." He then began to close in on Sunny, looking like he was barely resisting the urge to strangle her. "Now give me back my crystal, and the other one too."

"B- but I won!" Sunny stammered, looking very confused and frightened. I mean, she has a point there. You can't retroactively change the rules of a game after somepony else has won it. That's the sort of things foals do in schoolyard games.

"No you didn't," Alphabittle said, snorting loudly. "The paperwork you signed specified any unicorn who wins. You aren't a unicorn, so cannot win by default. That and you tricked me. I know exactly what you are."

Oh, so he basically hid a trap in the paperwork. Fantastic. I hate people who do that sort of thing. I looked around as the scene continued to descend into chaos.

And then Alphabittle threatened to hang Sunny. Really? I know there are plenty of trees, but wouldn't that severely inflame tensions.

One thing he said really stood out to me, though.

"Did you really think we'd let you go and report back to your spymaster especially given Fillydelphia recently started rearming?"

Fillydelphia was our own capital, and it was rearming? The government was putting us back on a war footing? How did this help at all?

I looked about to see Sprout looking awkward. I shot him a glare. We would talk about this later.

As we tried to figure out what to do, Pipp suddenly tore her disguise off, revealing to all assembled that she was a pegasus. Last I checked she still is. Next time I'm in Zephyr Heights I'll check.

And this act started a chain reaction amongst us. First Sprout removed his, then I pulled mine off as well. "I'm an earth pony as well. And I will not tolerate my friend being spoken to that way."

Alphabittle looked astonished at this alliance of ponies from the three tribes, and seemed to be having a hard time processing this in his mind. A unicorn had claimed earlier that the earth ponies and pegasi had allied again to take their land, and Alphabittle had alluded to that not working at Thunder Bay.

Thunder Bay... that had been mentioned back at Hope Hollow. But the mare I'd been talking to had stated that Thunder Bay was an earth pony victory against the unicorns and the pegasi! And here was Alphabittle claiming that the unicorns had won the battle!

Something very odd was going on. But none of that matched the bit of oddness that came next.

Misty was the last of us to step forward into the light, an act she must have found pretty hard as, based on my interactions with her, she's very shy. "And I'm also a unicorn, but you probably didn't know that seeing as I'm not from here."

The entire room suddenly seemed to grind to a halt, with Alphabittle seemingly recognising her. But we had to get out of here.

"Wing! Feather! Magic! MAYONNAISE!"

As they began doing the rituals, we ran for it, grabbing the crystals as we left. Only then did I realise Sunny had left the cafe without paying for her drink, but that seems like a minor indiscretion compared to the chaos breaking out across Bridlewood.

But then things happened very quickly. Zipp and the Queen arrived with some soldiers, and then Alphabittle turned up with some soldiers and a tank or two. There was then a shouting match and all went pear shaped when Pipp's phone suddenly fired up with a message from the crazy General guy.

Things did a complete turnabout after that. The Queen offered to form an alliance with the unicorns to overthrow the General. That was a sudden turn of events.

So, it was heading back to where we had come from, just this time as a small army rather than a roving band of misfits. This really was turning out like Lord of the Rings.

Author's Note

Well, Hitch has witnessed firsthand all three tribes now, and safe to say things are not always easy between them. This chapter combines elements from several different bits of the story to wrap up Phase 4; Phase 5 commences in July.

Hitch briefly alludes to a common dirty tactic used to try and sink legislation; sneaking random things in via amendments and later edits. However, this can backfire; the provision in the 1964 Civil Rights Act that outlaws discrimination against women started life as an attempt to sink the entire bill, but the proposer of the amendment underestimated the popular support for legislation that outlawed discrimination on the basis of sex/gender.