Prologue: The Calm Between the Storms

Part 1: Awakening to the War

It's been several weeks since the end of both the Storm Empire War over Equestria and the Great Forces war between the Resistance Force and The Eggman Empire. It seems that the repairing process is going smoothly. Civilians are busy repairing the damages caused by the two wars. It's a long process, but it will be worth the effort when it's done.

But something happened after the two wars took place, reversing the repairing effort and restarting the war. Now with yet another war rising, the heroes have to do things all over again.

Warning: This story contains major story spoilers for My Little Pony The Movie (2017) and Sonic Forces. Look at these two works before proceeding if you don't want the story of these two works to be spoiled for you.

"Ugg…" a voice moaned.

Eyes opened up to reveal that someone is lying on the ground surrounded by lots of debris.

"What…happened?" a girl weakly asked.

A girl with red and yellow hair with cyan eyes got up from the rubble. She is wearing a black jacket with orange stripes across the sleeves over a orange shirt with purple pants. Her foot wear consists of orange running shoes.

This is Sunset Shimmer, and for some unknown reasons, she has found herself in this mess of a place.

Sunset woke up after seeing the damages that surrounds her. She got up to her feet.

"What happened here?" Sunset asked herself. "Where am I? What am I doing here?" She continues to look around the area she has found herself in. Then she ponders for a moment. "Last thing I remembered before whiting out was I saw a big white light coming from the sky. Is this Equestria? It looks like it took quite a beating.

She turns towards where Canterlot is and saw that it is under attack by several ships. Wondering what's going on here, she decides to rush to the area.

Before she starts to run, Sunset feels something strange on her head. Is that a crown on her head? Last time she checked, she wasn't promoted to princess anytime in her life. Not since she abandoned her studies. Well, there must be an explanation for this, but there is no time for thinking. She must get to those airships that are attacking Canterlot as soon as possible!

Stage P-01

Canter Mountains

"Stormy Road"

Sunset starts off the stage (and thus, the game) by running on the walkway to Canterlot. That's strange. Last time she looked off into this side of the mountain, there wasn't a path there, was it?

"Where did this path came from?" Sunset asked herself as she ran on the path. "And what's with all these…soldiers?" She encounters several robots and knights in armor along her journey. She takes a while to take them down before moving on.

Up ahead on the path, there are more enemies. As she approaches them, Sunset wonders, "What's this crown on my head?" She gets closer to the enemies. "Let's see what this…"

In a short time, Sunset accelerated to the point where she became a rocket. She plows through the enemies like they were nothing.

"Wow! That's powerful" she exclaims. "But now I feel a little exhausted. Looks like I can't go any faster unless I wait."

She passes through a capsule containing small, white aliens. They escape from the capsule and entered Sunset's body.

"Whoa!" she said. "These white aliens just gave me a surge of energy! Now I can boost!"

With her newfound powers, Sunset boosts her way through the mountain path, plowing through any enemy that she comes across.

After going through the third section, Sunset encounters some rails that lead up to the ships ahead. She jumps on them and grinds her way up the rails. Joining alongside her, though, are flying enemies who seem to be more interested in trying to knock her off the rails than helping her. Reacting to this, Sunset leaps from rail to rail as each laser approached her.

After about 45 seconds, she leaps up and lands on one of the nearby airships. "Ha! I infiltrated one of your ships!" Sunset taunted. "How's that make you feel?" And then she finds herself surrounded by enemies. "Oh dear," she remarks as she attacks every single one.

After fending off the enemies, Sunset finds a spring and uses it to launch herself into the cargo bay of a nearby airship, ending the stage.

[Time Elapsed: 01:55:00]

Upon landing in the cargo bay, Sunset finds herself witnessing a battle between a crimson pony and a human, just like her. The pony has a deep purple coat with violet-red hair, wearing a black armor with a insignia above the hind legs. The pony appears to be a unicorn, except it's horn is broken. The boy is in a dark jacket just like her, sporting black hair with crimson highlights. His clothing is entirely black, save for a red shirt under the black jacket.

The boy and the pony continued to fight. The boy then began to use a strange necklace wrapped around his neck, ready to unleash an attack. The pony, not wanting to see that happen, tackles the boy before he could let out the built energy. Sunset gasped as she saw the boy being knocked into the rear of the cargo bay.

"It's all over now," the pony said. "I'm going to rip you to pieces."

Who is the enemy? The pony? Or the boy?

Sunset caught a glimpse of the boy turning his gaze towards her. She caught her gasping. Knowing that he must be an ally, Sunset gets ready to rocket towards the pony.

The pony gets ready to crush the boy with her front hooves. But before she could press down on the boy, Sunset use her rocket ability and slammed into the pony, interrupting her attack and knocking her to the side of the cargo bay.

"What?" the pony said. "Impossible..."

"How pathetic," Sunset commented. "You seem to be suffering from tunnel vision because you did not detect my presence." She then reached down and helped the boy get up back to his feet. "You okay?" she asks the boy. "You seem to be fighting that pony."

"Thanks for the help..." the boy replied coldly. "Found myself aboard this ship when I woke up. And that pony...she was there waiting for me."

Sunset turned back towards the pony. "Who's that?" she asks.

"I have no clue," the boy replied. "She appears to be like that other guy. Always thinking she's edgier than me. I don't want to see that pathetic face near us again. Sar is over the same eye."

"Who are you talking about?" Sunset asks.

"None of your business," the boy said. "All you need to know is that my name is Shadow."

"Oh, so your name is Shadow?" Sunset asks. She offers her hand. "I'm Sunset. Nice to meet you."

Shadow coldly refuses to shake hands with his new friend.

Suddenly, alarms began to go of around the airship. Shutters leading in and out of the cargo bay have been shut, and the room has been tinted red.

"Guess they find out we are here," Shadow comments. "Come on. Let's get out of here before we get surrounded by enemies." He then sprints off into the other side of the cargo bay.

"Hey! Shadow!" Sunset calls out. "Wait for me!" Sunset then runs after Shadow deeper into the airship.

At the rear of the cargo bay, the pony twitches a little, having heard the nasty comments she for from those two people that she had fought.

"Did they..." the pony mumbles. "Did they just call me pathetic?" Slowly, she begins to get up. "Me...pathetic...are they implying that I'm weak? No..." Her voice only gets louder from here. "No...I am...I am not...weak...I am not weak...I am not weak. I AM NOT WEAK I. AM. NOT! WEAK! Hrggggg!"

And then her screams echo throughout the airship.

Stage P-02

The Sky

"Storm Fleet"

Shadow runs down a corridor with his new friend. He leaps over barriers and hurdles as he increased his speed. Upon reaching one end of the ship, he turns around, ascends to a higher floor, then continues onward. This repeats until he is out on the deck.

As he his running, Shadow receives calls from his teammates down on the ground.

"Shadow?" a woman calls. "Shadow, are you okay?"

"I'm fine, Rouge," Shadow responds. "Just found myself waking up on an airship and fighting a pony. A pony who's probably just like that other guy. Also, I made a new friend."

'Oh no," Rouge said. "You don't think-"

"My head is hurting due to that...merge...whatever you want to call it," Shadow replies. "I don't who that pony I was fighting is, nor no I know the friend who saved me."

"What's going on in there?" Sunset asks as she and Shadow continued to run down the corridor.

"Ugg," Shadow groans. "If you want to communicate with the outside world, here. Have a communicator. It appears that I have a spare handy." Shadow rummages trough his pockets and pulls out a earpiece with a microphone. He tosses it to Sunset. As they both run. "Attach this to your ear and you will be able to call to others."

Sunset does what Shadow instructed and puts the earpiece to her ear.

After this, the duo escaped the corridors of the airship that they're in and entered the deck. They are then greeted with a fleet of airships, several of which have balloons on them.

"What in the-" Shadow said as he saw the airships. "What have this egghead done?"

"That can't be a good sign," Sunset comments, not realizing that she had the communicator on.

"Who's that?" Rouge asks after hearing the new voice.

"That's Sunset," Shadow introduced. "She found me in a cargo bay."

Sunset and Shadow leaped from airship to airship, encountering waves of robots and foot soldiers along the way. Sunset gets ready to attack these enemies with her newfound powers, but Shadow stopped her before she could do it. "Stand back," he orders. "I got this."

Using the strange necklace, Shadow builds up energy preparing it for an attack. Then, he unleashes the energy outward, producing a shockwave that knocks back every enemy.

They continued to leap from airship to airship, grinding on rails and attacking flying enemies as they pass through. This goes on for a while, until they spotted a fleet of several red airships. Plastered on the side of the airships is a unsettlingly familiar insignia.

"Oh no..." Shadow muttered. "No...no! Not this again! I thought we defeated that Eggman last time!"

"Something wrong, Shadow?" Sunset asks.

"None of your business!" Shadow dismisses. "I just hate seeing that mad egghead coming back constantly."

They ended the stage by landing on one of the Egg Fleet's many ships. They have a long road ahead of them, it seems.

[Time Elapsed: 03:25:00]

Stage P-03

The Sky

"Egg Fleet"

"Man, when will this evil egghead give up?" Shadow asks. "It seems this world can't rest for a few days without him coming back to execute his next plans! I really hope the merge was not his working, because if it is, then I'm going to beat him to within an inch of his life!"

"Really have a grudge against this Eggman dude, whatever," Sunset remarks. "We really need to terminate his career before we does any future harm." Sunset then chuckles at the little pun she just made.

"Hey! Knock it off!" Shadow yells as they leap into another airship.

"Uhh...how did you managed to create that?" Rouge asks.

Sunset decides to explain the joke. "Well, I've discovered a strange connection between our names and-"

"Not our biggest priority," Shadow said. "And don't ruin the joke for everyone else."

"Okay, I'm sorry for making that pun, okay?" Sunset apologizes. "Man. I'm surrounded by harsh people. Where are my friends when I need them?"

After that interesting conversation, Shadow and Sunset have entered the main airship, which is the largest amongst the others.

"I'm getting sick of being so high up," Shadow suggested, feeling a little nauseated. "Let's grab some parachutes and get out of here!"

A few moments later...

"Perfect!" Sunset said. "Now we just need to find a way out and-"

"Shadow is here?" they caught Eggman speaking. "Grr! What is he doing in my airship of all places? One of you idiots, eliminate Shadow before he gets to the main reactor! Or the deck!"

"Grr..." Shadow growls. "Doctor, doctor, doctor. When will you learn from your mistakes?"

"Does he ever learn?" Sunset asks.

"This has been going on for a while," Shadow replied. "Let's just say that we don't have the best relationship in the universe."

This gave Sunset an idea. "Hey! What if I bring some of my friends over and-"

"No amount of friendship power is going to change the relationship between me and Eggman," Shadow interrupts. "It's been going on for too long. We cannot change that, no matter how hard you try."

"Oh..." Sunset replies.

The duo eventually reached the deck of the main ship, with lots of robots chasing after them.

[Time Elapsed: 03:50:00]

Sunset and Shadow eventually reached the edge of the ship, with robots in hot pursuit. As they are running, they can hear Eggman yelling from behind them.

"Don't let them escape!" Eggman commanded. "Get these two now!"

The robots ready their fire and directed them towards Sunset and Shadow. They fire several laser pellets, but they both leaped off the airship without looking back. As soon as they disappeared, the robots stopped their firing. Eggman then threw a rage.

"Ugg!" he yells. "I can't believe that he escaped again! What's with me and that slimy black rat?"

"Fretting about your losses, I see," a villainous voice said.

"Who said that?" Eggman asks as he looked around, trying to find the source of the voice. He turns his back and saw a yeti with horns welding a staff. "Who are you? And where did you come from? Haven't seen you around anywhere."

"I am the Storm King," the yeti introduces himself. "I am a power-hungry conqueror, wishing to lay waste to the lands I take over."

"Conquer?" Eggman asks. Then, he growls at the Storm King. "This world is not big enough to hold two global conquerors! Out of my sights before I blast you to pieces!" He reaches for a ray gun and points it at the Storm King, ready to shoot him.

"Relax, Egghead," the Storm King reassures. "Why must we fight, when we can join forces?"

Eggman lowers his gun. "Joining forces?"

"I see that you are a conqueror like me," the Storm King points out. "You and I share a common goal. Why don't we combine our forces? We'll be twice as strong than ever before. Plus, thanks to the merge that helped to revived me, we now have whole new lands out there, just waiting to be taken over by us. You with me? Are you ready to take this deal?" The Storm King offers his hand.

Eggman took a look at the hand he was offered. After a short amount of consideration, he accepts the deal. "I take this alliance," he states. "Just as long as you don't betray me. It seems like every evil force I try to take over always wants to backstab me."

"Don't worry about it," the Storm King reassures. "I'll always be by your side. No matter what."

In the cargo bay where the pony is at, she pounds on the walls sobbing about her loss and the fact that she was called weak by her enemies. The pony's name is Tempest Shadow, right hand woman of the Storm King. Her real name is known to others, but it appears that she was forgotten about it. As she continues to pound on the walls, a figure walks up to her. As a shadow casts down on her, she looks back to see a masked figure.

"I see that you want revenge on the world for calling you weak," the figure said. "You're just like me, in a sense." He then pulls out a red gemstone the size of a fist. It has darker red stripes going down its sides, emitting a red glow and a noise. "Take this clone of the Phantom Ruby, child," he instructed. "And you will feel more powerful than you'd ever imagine."

To be Continued

From the Author::

What...what happened here? What in the world just-how come...where did that continent came from? And...nearly everyone looks a bit...different. Last thing I remembered is a big bright light and then...this happened. What? My mind is totally messed up. Been getting headaches just from trying to think about it. And uh...oh great did the WAR just have to happen again? I thought we finished that war weeks ago! What caused all of this to happen?

Wait a second...is that a giant metal planet floating in our sky? What is that thing doing there? What...I'm so confused...

Stage Descriptions:

Stage P-01: The opening stage of this game starts off with a boosting section. There are several enemies scattered throughout the area. Near the end of this segment is a long path filled with several different paths. This place is the perfect spot to demonstrate some of the runner exclusive abilities. After that is done, we are off to a small area where the player must face off against several enemies. After that is done, a long rail section then proceeds. Flying enemies come into the area in an attempt to knock the runner off the rails with their laser attacks.

Once that's done, after grinding on the rails for about 45 seconds, we enter an arena on a ship in which all enemies must be defeated before moving on. The stage ends by entering the cargo bay of a nearby ship.

Stage P-02: The stage starts off by having our runners go thorough a long hallway section filled with various enemies and obstacles. Once they're out of that airship, then then exit onto the bridge, faced with several enemies. This section takes elements present in the stage Egg Fleet from Heroes. Runners must get from airship to airship by grinding on rails or hopping from platform to platform. After going through about 4 airships, the stage ends with a view overlooking the coming Egg Fleet.

Stage P-03: Also taking inspiration from the stage of the same name, this stage has the runners hop from airship to airship, busting enemies and solving puzzles. After going through about 5 or six airships, depending on the route taken, the runners are then taken to the main ship, where they have to go through corridors once again. After getting out of the hallways, they then exit onto the bridge, where they pass through the goal.

Written by: TheAPPstore

Sonic Forces: Developed by Sonic Team and Hardlight, Published by SEGA

My Little Pony The Movie (2017): Produced by Hasbro, Distributed by Lionsgate