Bridlewood

Amy expected a lot when she decided to help Izzy protect Bridlewood from the imminent arrival of Eggman's Egg Fleet ships.

The simple fact of having arrived earlier was in itself a great - although pleasant - surprise for both of them, since they would have plenty of time to prepare any defense against Bridlewood... The problem is that the only thing Amy did not expect was That Izzy's defense plan... was to use a lot of glitter.

Izzy dragged Amy into her old cottage on Bridlewood. It was a big beautiful tree entirely decorated as a house. There wasn't really much to say about the outside, but there seemed to be interesting stuff inside, like a portrait of colorful macaronis, which startled her when it looked at her, or an instrumental object with colorful glass bottles hanging by strings. When she cranked the lever, it played a familiar tune, courtesy of spatulas and spoons attached to the roller.

Yet as interesting as all this was, it wasn't what dragged Amy's attention in the end: The fact that Izzy has a closet with 4 shelfs of 40 glitter bottles MINIMUM is what finally made her jaw drop into the floor.

"...Izzy... Why do you have this much glitter?" Amy asked, not sure if she should feel concerned about Izzy having this much glitter, or just believe that she sells it to explain why there's around 120 glitter bottles in there.

"One can never have enough glitter!" Izzy replied with a smile. "Besides, this is just my backup closet supply. I have, like, thrice the bottles somewhere in the house."

That made Amy's eyes widen even more, and she looked at Izzy like if she was completely crazy. "...You're sick if you really think you need that much glitter..."

"Oh, Amy, Amy Amy..." Izzy said, closing her eyes and patting Amy's back. "There's not such a thing as that much glitter. It's never enough!"

"Izzy, who in their sane sake would need this much glitter?!" Amy asked confused. "And what do you wanna use it for, anyways?"

"Well, my original plan was to save all this stuff for a big fashion party where everypony would use glittery clothes! But considering there's a creep out there after our magic, then I had a change of plans!" Izzy replied.

"So you wanna use this much glitter as some kind of weapon against Eggman and his machines?" Amy asked confused. "That's not a really good idea––"

"Oh, I'm gonna make all kind of weapons with this much glitter!" Izzy declared with a smile. "I'm not talking only about bombs! I'm talking sharp objects, heavy ones, and even more explosive than just a simple bomb!"

"...Izzy, there's nothing more explosive than a bomb..." Amy pointed out, still feeling confused.

"Have you ever tried putting some mints on soda?" Izzy asked, still smiling, which started to make Amy believe that she smiles even when someone's dying right in front of her.

Amy raised a finger to replicate, but then she thought better on Izzy's words and then shut her mouth, realizing she was right. "Huh... You have a really good point... Still, I believe there's a lot of stuff we could use instead of glitter, Izzy."

"Well, I can hear suggestions, but they'll have to wait!" Izzy declared, then she brought out a pair of goggles and put them over her eyes. "First of all, I got weapons to create and a trap to plan!"

"You have a plan?" Amy questioned, and she was not getting lost at this point.

Suddenly, the scene transitioned when Izzy threw some glitter into the air, and once it went away, Izzy was now melting something metallic with a welding while some strange music began to play out of nowhere.

What up
Look out, it's Sneaksy
Style is on fleek, see?
Take something dull and go all masterpiece-y

As Izzy began to sing, Amy looked around confused, not really because of Izzy singing since she kind of expected something like this to happen eventually considering her friends stated they defeated one of their villains with a song. What has her confused was the fact that both the music and the lyrics came out of nowhere, since Izzy's voice was singing, yes, but she herself was not.

"Where the heck is that music coming from?" Amy questioned confused. "Hey, Izzy, you––"

Gonna take something average and make it shine
Gonna add that beauty to the Maretime

Amy was cut off when Izzy moved a piece of metal in front and made another transition, now showing Izzy building up a whole catapult with actual wood and, and the piece of metal from earlier was now the part from the catapult that throws the stuff one puts in there.

This made Amy's eyes widen, not only because of the transition, but also because of the catapult showing up out of nowhere. "H-How and when did you built that?! And seriously, where's the music and lyrics coming from?!"

Make these dreams a reality
Gonna turn this place into a gallery
Just let it all out for all to see
'Cause we know art's for everypony

Another transition followed as Izzy grabbed Amy's hand with her hoof and dragged her away, causing her dress to change the scene to see the two of them cutting a huge log of wood with a double-handled saw.

Amy, however, was confused as to how she even got to this point, since she doesn't even remember grabbing the other end of the saw on her own. "This is getting ridiculous..." She said with a deadpan.

It goes round and round, yeah
We know that art makes the world go
Round and round (makes the world go round and round)
'Cause art is for everypony

Soon, another transition occurred as Izzy levitated a piece of cut log with her magic and threw it away. The log changed the scene and now Amy was wearing a welding bag, just like a solder, and she stopped abruptly to even see where she was. She apparently built a stronger catapult made only of metal.

For her part, Izzy began to spin several bottles of glitter around her, as well as large enough bags to fill with the glitter. This, coupled with the fact that she was welding part of the catapult, confused Amy greatly, as she lifted her helmet and looked at Izzy in confusion.

"How are you doing that?!" The pink hedgehog asked.

You dye it
You paint it
You draw it
You shade it
We know that art makes the world go round and round

Soon, Izzy made another transition thanks to her tail passing in front, and was now scattering glitter like crazy around a giant ball of spikes.

When Amy noticed that she was now filling a large sack with glitter, she scratched the back of her neck, but then she noticed the spiked ball that Izzy was filling in glitter, and that made her eyes widen. "And where did you get that from?!"

You dye it
You paint it
You draw it
You shade it (round and round)
Art is for everypony

Finally, Izzy placed all of the glitter bombs, large bags of glitter, catapults, and balls with glitter spikes in the middle of her house, smiling and nodding happily at the result.

Amy, for her part, didn't understand how they had done that in such a short time, nor when they had done it, and she was still baffled by the number of times he moved from place to place, as well as the sudden music and lyrics that I still didn't understand where they had come from, or how Izzy sang if she was busy the whole time.

"Phew! That was a lot of work, but we did it!" Izzy cheered with a smile.

"...How did we even did it?" Amy questioned anxiously.

"Oh, you mean building this up in short time, even though we actually lasted like an hour, as well as the sudden music and song?" Izzy asked, still smiling. "That's how we do things in Equestria!"

"I was expecting a song coming out eventually, but... this is not how I expected it..." Amy confessed.

"Eh, you'll get used to it." Izzy assured. "Oh, and by the way, I made a little addition to your hammer!"

Izzy brought out Amy's Piko Piko Hammer with her magic, and as Amy grabbed it, she checked it up and down, but it seemed exactly as usual.

"...What did you added, exactly?" Amy questioned.

Izzy replied by pointing at a hidden button on one side of the hammer. Amy pressed it, and then one of the sides of the hammer, the one facing Amy, opened and literally threw glitter straight on her face, covering it up entirely.

"Ta-dah!" Izzy sang. "Now no one will expect a surprising glitter attack!"

Amy had lots of things in her mind she could tell Izzy right now, but all of them were offensive, so she choose to remain calmed and polite, followed by a resigned sigh as she spit some glitter of her mouth and opened her eyes, deadpanning.

"...Thanks, Izzy..." Is what she ended up replying.

Angel Island

After the fight in Maretime Bay, Eggman returned to Angel Island to monitor that everything was going according to plan.

Allura already informed him of how successful the plan was to attack Zephyr Heights with robots and freeze the leaders of ZH and Bridlewood alike. That dragged their daughters, and apparently Tails too, managing to freeze them in the same way.

Now that Allura was heading to Bridlewood to apply the same thing on the unicorns; Sage, Orbot and Cubot have returned to Angel Island as well. Allura could take care of the unicorns on her behalf, and if it's true that one of Sunny's friends and Amy are there, then he would get two more birds off his back. The fewer rivals were close to the Crystals, the better.

True, Sonic and Sunny were currently watching them, but he's already managed to beat up Sonic in the past, and Sunny is inept and very weak when it comes to magical and combat strength, so she's not a problem... Although it does have him intrigued.

The fact that she seemed to want to redeem him was laughable, and if what Sage told her when she was scanning all of Equestria is true, even Team Sonic thinks it's a bad joke... But part of him is also curious to know why did she even believe that it would reach him, that it would make him change his mind just by saying a few nice words.

Whatever the case, he didn't care. Eggman enjoyed seeing the hope of others being destroyed to pieces, and when he got the Crystals, he would destroy Sunny's hope, he would shatter it mercilessly. He wanted to see that smiling face be replaced by a terrified one, that would make her see then that someone like him cannot be redeemed, that not all villains can change for the better.

The problem was the magical barrier around the Brighthouse, however. Sage said that she tried to listen closely to everything Team Sonic and the Mane 6 had talked about, but that there was a magical barrier around the Brighthouse that wouldn't allow her.

"There's gotta be a way to pass such a thing..." Eggman muttered while rubbing his chin. "Even the most powerful of the shields can shatter, no matter how resistant it is. But then how am I suppose to brake a barrier that's pretty much made of pure magic?"

"Father," Sage's voice called out from behind, and Eggman turned around to face her. "I think I have the solution to your dilemma."

"Which is?" Eggman questioned.

"Better show you what it is." Sage declared, then turned around and left the control room of the Egg Fleet's main ship, since that's where Eggman's been standing.

Eggman himself raised an eyebrow, but still choose to follow up his daughter outside.

Sage guided Eggman back to the Altar of Emerald, where both the Chaos Emeralds and the Master Emerald rested.

"The barrier around the Crystal Brighthouse is powerful, made of magic on its purest state..." Sage began to explain.

"Pretty much courtesy of those crystals..." Eggman deadpanned, while he had his hands on his back.

"However, if we were able to use the fused power of the Chaos and Master Emeralds to open our way into this dimension, with enough power, we could also create a strong enough force to brake down the barrier around the Crystal Brighthouse and get the Crystals." Sage explained.

Eggman rubbed his chin as he analyzed her words. "And how exactly are we gonna do that?"

Sage snapped her fingers after her father asked that, which made the Egg Beater show up. However, the robot didn't had the wrecking ball it could throw around, but instead it had some kind of giant golden glove with seven small empty tubes and then a bigger one over them.

"This Egg Beater has been updated. The glove will contain the Chaos Energy coming from all the Emeralds." Sage explained. "I will charge the glove when you tell me so."

Eggman grinned after hearing all of this. "Excellent. Then charge it up, dear! We got some Crystals to steal!"

Sage nodded, then she pointed her right hand at the Emeralds and started to drag some Chaos Energy from them, before pointing her other hand at the glove and pass the energy on, filling the tubes with all that Chaos Energy.

Bridlewood

Amy never thought that Bridlewood would have such an original and functional defense system, even though the weapons used were mostly made of glitter. Maybe, if she was still that somewhat immature girl who chased Sonic around and didn't let him have his space, she would have thought that using glitter as a weapon was the best strategy of all.

However, having experienced firsthand a war where Eggman controlled the world for 6 months has made her mature. She knows that the glitter won't do anything against the badniks or Eggman himself, so unless the unicorns actually know what they're doing, she has a lot of doubts about this plan.

She choose to approach Izzy after a while, since the unicorn mare was trying to put a catapult in a certain angle. When she finally did, she sighed relieved and then nodded with a satisfied smile.

"Izzy?" Amy called out, and Izzy turned to her with a smile.

"Hey, Amy-loo!" Izzy greeted happily.

"Hey. Um, look, I'm not doubting you nor your unicorn friends' abilities, but... Are you entirely sure that you guys know what you're doing?" Amy questioned. "I really hate to doubt you all, but when you're told the best weapon one has is glitter, well––"

"Oh, Amy. I understand why you doubt us. If I were you, I'll doubt all this operation as well," Izzy confessed, and for the first time, her smile didn't looked kinda creepy nor forced, but it actually looked like a genuine smile.

"...Really?" Amy asked, and she was genuinely surprised to hear Izzy saying that.

"Our last enemy, Opaline, was attacked by all of us in an attempt to keep her away from the ones we still had a Cutie Mark," Izzy started to explain. "We failed, true, but we managed to hold her back for a bit! Ever since, we decided to strengthen our defense forces against any kind of evil that would come our way. It may not be what you expect, but you know what they say: Never judge a book for it's cover!"

Amy chuckled a bit after hearing that last thing. "I guess you have a point. And I gotta admit something: Those spiked balls covered in glitter? As ridiculous as they sound... I actually like the idea!"

Just hearing this made Izzy gasp with sparkling eyes and out her hooves on her own cheeks, then she proceed to hug Amy a bit, and Amy felt startled by this, but she limited to smile and pat Izzy's back a little bit.

Soon, however, the entire forest was covered by a huge shadow. Looking at the sky, the unicorns and Amy realized that these were the two ships of the Egg Fleet. From them, hundreds of badniks jumped, and all - except for the flyers - landed on the empty streets of Bridlewood, and soon began marching towards the ponies.

Izzy frowned at this, and then ran in a certain direction, with Amy following close behind.

"Okay, ponies! They're here! Stick to the plan!" Izzy reported, before throwing herself behind a bush next to Amy. "Cupcake Squad, your turn!"

The Cupcake Squad, made up of two mares and a unicorn stallion, was present when they came out of the bushes and began throwing glitter bombs with their magic. When the bombs exploded, they completely covered the badniks, leaving some disoriented as they crashed around.

Amy was going to comment something about it, but she was stopped by Izzy as soon as she was there. She raised her helmet and covered her mouth, then pointed it at the badniks so she could see more carefully. As she did so, Amy realized that there were electrical sparks electrocuting the machines, before causing them to fall to the ground and rendering them useless.

"...Electric... glitter?!" Amy questioned completely surprised. "That shouldn't even be possible!"

"I told you not to judge a book by its cover!" Izzy said with a confident smile, then looked ahead again. "Okay, Needle Squad, your turn!"

After saying this, a group of several unicorns came out of their hiding places and pulled ropes, thus activating the catapults that began to launch the balls with glitter spikes. The badniks most affected were the flying ones, such as the Spinner and Buzz Bombers, but others such as the Caterkillers and the Egg Pawns were also crushed by those balls, literally remaining like metallic pancakes on the ground.

"Horn Squad, attack!"

After hearing Izzy's orders, several unicorns, dressed as if they were charging into a war, came out of the bushes and levitated some of the large bags of glitter, then began to throw it at the badniks and then threw themselves against the bushes again. This caused more badniks to be covered in glitter, but at the same time, that glitter began to shine, and soon, the covered badniks exploded into confetti.

Seeing this, Amy was speechless. If she had known what kind of effect the glitter was going to have, she wouldn't have said anything about it. Izzy was right, and she was wrong to judge her.

"Okay, Izzy. I owe you a big apology. To you and your unicorn fellas, that is." Amy said with a little smile. "You were right all along: Never judge a book by its cover. Who would've though that glitter is that effective?"

"Apology accepted! Although again, I don't blame you for doubting us," Izzy remarked with a smile.

Now that there were fewer badniks on the road, Amy pulled out her hammer and decided to take some action of her own. She walked up to a Moto Bug and smashed it with her hammer, then threw the hammer at a Buzzer, deciding to put it aside for a moment to charge up her own Spin Dash and then speed into several badniks. Then, she took the hammer from her that had landed on the ground and began to spin it while she stood on one foot.

With her movements, every idiot robot that approached her ended up being crushed by her hammer, since it keeps spinning in her place. And just when she finally stopped, she put her hammer on her shoulder with a smile. Suddenly, however, an Egg Pawn jumped at her, but Amy didn't even turn around. In her place, she pressed the button on her hammer which opened the face of the hammer facing the badniks and released glitter. Shortly after, the robot exploded into confetti.

As the confetti fell, Amy placed her hammer on the ground and lay on it with smile. "I'm just gonna say it: Glitter is the best!"

Izzy gasped dramatically after hearing this, and then she went to hug Amy once again, but this time, Amy did returned the hug. "You actually mean that?!"

"Sure thing!" Amy nodded with a cheery smile.

Izzy squealed excitedly after hearing this, but then, the two of them felt a figure flying above them. Looking up at the sky, they saw a flying figure, and soon, said figure landed in front of them. It was Allura, and behind her was Twitch, both watching Amy and Izzy with sinister smiles.

Izzy gasped at this, and then frowned. "What the hay are you doing here, Allura?!"

"Doctor Eggman's orders." Allura replied. "To get what I need from him, I must freeze this stupid forest until nothing but your frozen bodies remain!"

"Oh, you sided with Eggman?" Amy asked with a frown. "Well, too bad, because you messed with the wrong ponies!"

"And hedgehog!" Izzy added, since she wanted Amy to be a part of the sentence. "Come on, unicorns! Let's show this winged kitty what we can do!"

The unicorns and Amy cheered in agreement, then they all charged against Allura, with some of them even levitating more bags and bombs with glitter.

Allura growled at this and spread her wings. "Bring it on!"

And so, the leopard launched herself against Amy and Izzy, throwing a sound wave with a roar, while the unicorn mare lightened her horn, and Amy raised her hammer to mercilessly hit Allura with it.

Author's Note

Allura's time is not here yet. But I promise: After next episode, she'll show off what she's made of!

Also, based on your comments so far regarding Sonic's personality, you're either gonna love or despise him next chapter.

Constructive criticism is appreciated. Thanks for reading, and see you next episode!