"Well, I don't know about you guys, but I recall baking a very suspicious looking pie over in my recital hall earlier that I think we should investigate immediately," Harmony said, mocking Braveheart's orders.
"What sort of pie was it?" asked Loyalheart, who suddenly looked very excited.
"It was an apple pie," Harmony explained.
"Apple you say? Why I can't think of a more suspicious flavor than that," Share added.
"I think it would be a terrible shame if we didn't follow up on this lead," Loyalheart continued.
"Well it's decided then; we should all go to my recital hall and investigate ourselves the pie!" Harmony giggled as they headed off.
Wish was lying on the Hall of Hearts table looking up at the ceiling dreamily while Cheer was slumped over in one of the chairs looking bored.
"I wish Tenderheart would get back," Wish sighed.
"I command that Tenderheart get back," Cheer replied apathetically as she closed her eyes, tired and bored. A few moments passed.
"Did it work?" Cheer finally asked, opening one of her eyes.
Wish rolled her head to the side, looked at Cheer and said, "Nope."
"Well then I command we go eat ice cream."
"Oooh, ice cream!" Wish exclaimed as she sat up.
Just then they heard a sound like the main doors opening up a little. Wish looked at Cheer, a little surprised.
"You didn't ACTUALLY wish for Tenderheart to come back, did you?" asked Cheer.
"Um…I don't think I did."
"Well if it's not Tenderheart…"
"Who is it?" Wish finished Cheer's sentence.
Harmony, Share and Loyalheart were lying about on huge, oversized pillows, up near the front of the main stage of the recital hall. The hall itself was enormous, two stories high, including a balcony, a large main stage and two smaller stages off to the sides. Behind the stages was a prop room, various dressing rooms, a kitchen and a dormitory (used when Harmony would hold all night practice sessions with some of the others, often times just for fun). The ceiling of the recital hall was made entirely of stained glass, with multiple layers, so throughout the day the sun would shine through the layers at different angles, creating multiple, changing patterns of colored light.
"That certainly was a suspicious pie," said Loyalheart as he patted his stomach.
"I concur, it's good that we investigated it, you can never be too sure about apple pies after all," Harmony added as they all laughed together.
They were all relaxing and enjoying the quiet, warmly lit ambiance of the hall when suddenly the front doors opened and in walked Swiftheart.
Suddenly Goodluck walked into the room, much to the surprise of Wish and Cheer.
"Goodluck!" exclaimed Wish.
"We were so worried abo-," Wish was cut short as Goodluck suddenly charged his tummy symbol and fired it straight at Wish. She barely dodged the attack, rolling off behind the table where Cheer joined her.
"What the heck is he doing!?" demanded Cheer to Wish.
Wish stared at Cheer for a moment with a puzzled look on her face and then shouted out, "Cheer wants to know what the heck are you doing, Goodluck!"
He replied by firing another stare in their direction which blasted one of the chairs to pieces. Wish and Cheer looked at each other, quite startled and then ran into the closest room where they slammed and locked the door behind them.
"Uh…is that really Goodluck?" Wish asked aloud.
"I don't think it is. I have a bad feeling about this."
Just then Goodluck fired another stare that blasted straight through the door.
"We need to stop him!" Cheer commanded.
"Right!" exclaimed Wish as they both stopped hiding and took offensive stances.
Goodluck burst through the doors, ready to fire again, but was countered by Wish and Cheer who both fired first. The blast knocked him out of the room and against the Hall of Hearts table. What looked like Goodluck phased for a moment and that's when they saw Trick's creation, Morph.
"Okay, that is DEFINETLY not Goodluck," Cheer stated.
Wish nodded in agreement as the creature, now fully phased back into the form of Goodluck got up and shot towards the door.
"He's getting away, we have to stop him!" shouted Cheer.
"I know how we can stop him!" Wish said as she powered up her tummy symbol, closed her eyes and began to concentrate. "I wish the door was locked!" she shouted.
The front doors slammed shut and they could hear the doors locking.
"It worked!" exclaimed Cheer.
But Morph just kept running towards the door as his tummy symbol lit up.
"Is he really going to try using a stare against the main doors?" questioned Wish.
"Well if he is, he's gonna be in for a surprise, those doors are blast resistant."
Morph's tummy symbol stopped glowing and he simply held out his paw in front of him. He ran straight into the door and it opened right up without any resistance.
"What?! The lock broke!" cried Wish
"He must have Goodluck's power too, not just his appearance," explained Cheer, sounding somewhat annoyed. "Come on, let's go after him!"
"I'll stop him this time!" Cheer said in a determined tone.
"Swiftheart! You woke up! Would you like to investigate some suspicious pie with us?" Share shouted out.
Swiftheart didn't respond though, but started walking down the long isle way towards them.
"That is Swiftheart, isn't it?" questioned Share.
"Powder blue...long ears…big heart with wings on her tummy…yeah it looks like Swiftheart," Loyalheart chuckled.
"Hey Swifty, where did you leave Friend and Secret?" Harmony shouted.
Still Swiftheart didn't reply, but kept walking towards them. She was about a third of the way down the isle at this point.
"Hrmmm…that's weird, how come she's so quiet and reserved?" Share questioned aloud.
"Maybe that shock Trick gave her scrambled her memory or something," Harmony purposed.
Loyalheart sniffed for a moment at the air towards Swiftheart, who was now about halfway towards them.
"What is it, Loyalheart?" asked Share.
"Something isn't right," he replied as he powered up his tummy symbol for a brief moment.
Loyalheart suddenly jumped to his feet and took a defensive stance as Swiftheart suddenly stopped walking towards the three.
"What is it, what's going on?" asked a confused and startled Harmony as she and Share got to their feet and looked at Loyalheart in concern.
"That's not Swiftheart," Loyalheart growled.
They were chasing him across Care-a-lot now, moving farther and farther from the Hall of Hearts. Cheer powered up her tummy symbol and suddenly rainbow colored bands of light shot out of her tummy at Morph. The bands encircled him and before long had him completely tangled up as they tied themselves around his body.
"Good job!" shouted Wish.
"Those bands are tied tight, he won't be able to esca-," she was cut short as Morph unexpectedly pulled free from the bands and started running again.
"Hey! My rainbow ribbons! How did he get loose?!" questioned Cheer, quite frustrated.
"He must have used Goodluck's power again." Wish said as they once again started to give chase.
"If that's not Swiftheart then who is it?" questioned Share.
"It's something evil, I used my power to sense where its loyalties lie…and it's not with us."
Share and Harmony then joined Loyalheart in defensive positions against the fake Swiftheart. Still quite a distance away from them, it cocked its head to the side and then exploded at them at hypersonic speed. The attack was so quick it blasted the three apart as they were tossed about like rag dolls. Loyalheart and Share were both thrown into the public seating area while Harmony was blown into the orchestra section directly in front of the stage.
The fake Swiftheart flew about the room for a bit and finally stopped on the main stage.
"Let's run for it!" yelled Loyalheart
All three made it to their feet and started running towards the entrance, but before they could even get within 20 feet the fake Swiftheart was already there. They all quickly stopped in their tracks, but before they could even think of how to move next the fake Swiftheart started speeding back and forth across the room in front of them so fast all they could see was a bluish blur, then suddenly the bluish blur had a bright glow to it, followed shortly by a giant wave of energy that hit them with such violent force that all three were thrown clear across the room and up onto the main stage. They probably would have been hurt severely if it hadn't been for the closed curtain that caught them and broke their fall.
"What are we going to do!" cried Share.
"I-its too fast to fight against, there's no time to counter," Loyalheart responded as he tried to get to his feet.
The fake Swiftheart was now stopped again near the entrance. It cocked its head again and then began running in circles at hypersonic speed.
"What's it doing now?" Harmony wondered aloud.
Faster and faster it circled until the bluish blur unexpectedly erupted into a funnel cloud that began to tear about the room.
"No way…that's unreal!" Loyalheart exclaimed.
"Oh no, it's starting to come towards us!" screamed Share.
Harmony suddenly got an idea.
"Everybody, I have a plan, blast the curtain down, RIGHT NOW!" she yelled.
The two wasted no time as they fired stares across the top of the curtain. The thick, heavy fabric flew to the floor after it was cut free. The cyclone was getting closer and closer and they all started to feel it sucking them towards it.
"What now?" asked Loyalheart.
"We need to get underneath the curtain!" Harmony commanded.
"I don't think that's going to stop it!" Loyalheart exclaimed, somewhat skeptical as Share was starting to look really worried.
"Just trust me!" Harmony cried.
"Okay, we're trusting you," Loyalheart said hesitantly.
The cyclone was starting to rip through the orchestral section now, in just a few more seconds the violent fury would be on them and there would be no escape.
"Where is he going?" Wish wondered aloud, as they were now reaching the outskirts of Care-a-lot.
"Yeah, why is he running away?" Cheer affirmed.
"It's almost like he's trying to get us away from Care-a-lot."
Cheer and Wish suddenly looked at each other in alarm.
"The alarm! We didn't sound the caring alarm before we ran after him and nobody is left to activate it."
"If Trick is in Care-a-lot…"
"We have to stop this copy cat, tummy symbol stealing thief right now!"
Wish nodded and said, "I got it!"
The three draped the fallen curtain over themselves tightly.
"Okay, now what?" Loyalheart screamed, barely able to even hear his own voice over the howling wind being generated by the fake Swiftheart cyclone of destruction.
"Now I'm going to blow the ceiling!" Harmony screamed back.
"You're going to WHA-," Share started to scream just as Harmony powered up her tummy symbol. In an instant an incredibly high pitched, piercing scream of sound sliced through the room and hammered into the ceiling with such a destructive force it shattered every piece of every layer of the tempered glass ceiling.
Wish Bear's tummy symbol lit up as she closed her eyes again and said, "I wish he couldn't move!"
Suddenly there was a loud thunderous boom as the entire cloud bank the three were on broke to pieces. Wish opened her eyes just as she was about to run off the edge of the cloud section she was on. She tried to stop herself, but slipped right off the edge. Cheer saw what was about to happen the moment before Wish was about to fall and made a running dive towards her. She hit the ground and slid across to the edge of the cloud, just barely grabbing Wish's paw before she could plummet to her death.
"Whew, that was really a close one!" Cheer exclaimed as she pulled Wish up onto the cloud section that was left.
"You're telling me! I thought I was gonna die!" Wish cried out, close to tears and quite upset over the whole thing.
"Well, I guess the lesson here is to be careful what you wish for. Look," said Cheer as she pointed towards Morph.
"He's trapped on a cloud section, he can't move!"
Cheer didn't hesitate and immediately powered up her tummy symbol. More of the rainbow light bands from before came shooting out from her tummy. This time they flew all around Morph, but didn't try to wrap him up. Instead the bands circled around and around until they had formed a ball of rainbow light all around him.
"He won't be getting out of that," stated Cheer, very sternly.
But Morph just cocked his head to the side as his tummy symbol lit up for a moment, then died out, then lit up again, this time much more intensely than they had seen before.
"What's he doing?" asked Wish.
"He's used Goodluck's power to boost his staring energy, it looks like he's going to try and break out."
Wish suddenly looked alarmed.
"But that wouldn't be good luck at all, what if it really is Goodlu-," but she was cut short by Cheer.
"If it is…then he won't try it."
Morph suddenly let out an unbelievably powerful Care Bear stare, but it didn't break through the rainbow light bands. Instead, the bands reflected, magnified and accelerated the energy back. The inside of the ball became a violent swirl of pure energy that instantly ripped through Morph like a paper doll, basting him into nothingness before the energy threshold reached critical mass and the ball of energy detonated with such incredible force that all of Care-a-lot shook from the explosive concussion.
Share Bear was just screaming now, overwhelmed with fear and anxiety. The three huddled together tightly underneath the curtain as the ceiling exploded above them. Thousands of tiny shards of glass were instantly sucked into the vortex of the cyclone which suddenly broke apart. The howling wind stopped and the room quieted. All the three could hear underneath their cover was a loud crash as something fell from the air hard against the ground followed by thousands of pieces of glass chiming and tinkling as they hit the ground.
Harmony pulled back the curtain and they saw what had happened. The ceiling was now completely gone and there was damage and destruction all through the recital hall. Splintered and broken chairs mixed with colored shards of glass littered the floor. It didn't take long to spot the fake Swiftheart. It was thrown towards the middle of the room and was covered in slivers and fragments of glass that stuck into it from every angle. It no longer looked completely like Swiftheart though now. Parts of it where the glass had stabbed in deeply had reverted back into their natural state…it was Trick's creation again, Morph. The mish mosh, deformed looking mess of Swiftheart and Morph didn't cry out in pain, but just stood hunched over, apparently not able to move. It shuffled for a bit, like it was trying to stand up straight but then it suddenly stopped moving altogether and just sat there for a moment; after which is began to loose coherency and started oozing into a large black puddle on the floor.
"It's melting," whispered Harmony.
"Ding dong, oh what a…whirl," Loyalheart whispered back as the three of them lay there underneath the curtain, completely stunned by the whole event.