The Adventure of Two Dimensions
Chapter 11: The Rush To Fillydelphia!
One thing before we begin. Good news, at last! I have the rest of the story, the sequel, my OC story, and a story that is unknown to you all planned, so expect the rest to come along a bit faster now, so enjoy!
As Ponyville slowly disappeared on the horizon, the passengers breathed a sigh of relief for their stowaways' safety and returned their mind to more pressing matters. "Alright, now that that's done, we need to find that 4th Emerald before Eggman and Discord do. We've got the train in full throttle, but I doubt we'll make it before them due to our latest… well, we'll call it a setback." Shadow said. "Well, Fillydelphia is not that far away, and who knows? He could be building more of those ruffian machines and not paying attention." Rarity said. "That could be true, but he could be destroying Fillydelphia as we speak! We could have lost the Emerald already!" Pinkie said, not helping the tension much. There was silence. "Aaaaanyway, back to business. However, I have a question. Is it just me or did everyone in Ponyville feel… off to any of you?" Sonic asked, shattering the muted situation. "I felt a bit of a shiver when somepony said hello to me. But, maybe that's because I'm a recluse. I'm not used to social contact without you girls and Mobians yet." Fluttershy said. "You must have been feeling something then that we didn't, Sonic." Twilight said. "Hmm. I must be losing it. Years of fighting off Eggman can do that to a guy." Sonic said. "Right, now that we have deduced that Sonic is nuts, we need to prepare for a fight. Who knows what forces Eggman will use to stop us this time?" Rainbow alerted. "Rainbow, he may have already moved onward from Fillydelphia. If he has, we prepare for an Egg Pawn armada. If not, we still have time to find the Emerald before he gets there." Tails replied. "Well, I think we would not be having this discussion if we could GO FASTER right now?" Twilight said, glaring at Shadow as she emphasised those two words. "We would, but the train is already going at its maximum speed for safety. We don't want to die before we reach the Emerald now, do we?" Shadow rebutted. "Well, no, but we still could go a little bit faster." Twilight said. "Look, we can still pass the time in other ways. Maybe we could play that Cards against Equines game ag-"Rainbow began to say, but was met with a collective "NO!" so she didn't continue. "Well, I have another idea. I went to my boutique and grabbed a few board games to pass the time on these journeys. Anybody up for a game of Pony Trap?" Rarity asked. Everyone else then agreed and began to set the game up.
After a few hours, the game had been played for 3 rounds and Twilight had won 2 of them with Tails winning 1. "Right, that was fun, so what now?" Sonic asked. "I don't know, maybe we get some sleep and let Shadow drive the train. Speaking of which, do you even sleep?" Pinkie replied. "I do, but I don't need sleep for a few days, so I can drive the train without risking us crashing. Perks of being the ultimate life form, I guess. Also, I let Spike drive when I do sleep. I taught him the controls myself." Shadow replied. "Alright then, it's getting dark outside anyway, so we might as well hit the hay. Goodnight, everypony." Twilight said. "Goodnight, Twi." came the collective reply. After that, they all went to their separate bunks (minus Shadow) and climbed in.
As the night reached its zenith, Rainbow awoke with a start, sweating bullets. "Damned things, don't they know I hate the sound of the lute?" she muttered as she got up and went to the front of the train. 'The others are asleep, so I have no-one to talk to. Maybe Shadow will have a chat so I can get back to sleep.' Rainbow thought as she opened the conductor's door. As soon as the door creaked a tiny bit, Shadow said "Hello, Rainbow." Rainbow jerked back a bit at being discovered so quickly and asked, "How did you know it was me?" Shadow shrugged and said, "Just a hunch. I think Pinkie may be rubbing off on me.", while not taking his eyes off the tracks. "Anyway, how have you been throughout this?" Rainbow asked. "Ah, it's okay, I guess. It's been a hell of an adventure so far. Now, if Sonic or Tails had told me about a few weeks ago that we would be transported to an alternate world with magical ponies, I wouldn't have believed them. I probably would have gotten them shipped to Mobius Sanitarium. In fact, I will probably still ship us all there when we get home to Mobius." Shadow replied. As Shadow said 'home to Mobius', Rainbow's ears began to visibly droop. "Ok then, good to know. Anyway, it was nice having this chat, Shadow. I'll let you get back to driving the train." Rainbow said, walking away, towards the door. "Rainbow, wait. You're hiding something, I know it." Shadow said, curious. "I'm not hiding anything, Shadow." Rainbow said, firmly. "Rainbow, you're nearly worse than AJ for lying. Spit it out." Shadow said, as he stepped closer to Rainbow, hoping to extract any answer from her. "I am not lying. I may be reckless, brash and arrogant, but I am no liar. Now, Shadow, goodnight." Rainbow said as she stormed out of the room. Shadow sighed and went back to driving the train.
The next morning came quickly for Rainbow. After her spat with Shadow, she didn't get much sleep and mostly lay awake thinking about that one phrase, "Home to Mobius." As she awoke, with bloodshot eyes and a contagious yawn, she internally pledged to never pull an all-nighter again, and wondered how Twilight survived with barely any sleep in her (frequent) all-nighters. She rose from her bunk to find her friends were gone. She figured, "Eh, they've probably gone to the dining car without me. I'll just head there now." And began walking down the train to the dining car. Suddenly, a giant robotic arm burst through the hull of the train and nearly grabbed Rainbow, but she quickly dodged the oncoming attack, despite her tired state. The arm then retreated, allowing Rainbow to see what was happening. Metal and Sonic were duelling over the fallen bodies of Pinkie and Fluttershy, Rarity was blasting Egg Pawns, combining Twilight's magic with hers for a devastating blast and AJ, Shadow and Tails were fighting a giant robot emblazoned with the nickname 'Hog Killa', which had been the machine that pierced the train and almost crushed Rainbow.
As Rainbow, now fully awake, flew out of the hole, she flew upward at phenomenal speeds, nearly reaching the speed necessary for a Sonic Rainboom, and came back down with a crash onto Hog Killa, leaving a rainbow aura, signifying that a Rainboom had been achieved, severely damaging it and sending sparks and electricity out of the crater. Rainbow attempted to do this again to finish it off but was then caught by Hog Killa and was about to be impaled by its giant blade arm. Luckily, AJ lassoed the titan's hand, allowing Rainbow time to escape. As the beast's hand was caught, Shadow fired hundreds of tiny Chaos Spears at the machine, stunning it for a second, allowing Tails to blast it with his arm cannon. While that was happening, Metal activated one of his upgrades, giving him a bit more speed and power behind his strikes, with all but a few of his attacks connecting with hedgehog flesh and leaving his enemy reeling. With Metal poised to finish off his stunned foe, Rarity saw it as she was blasting back Egg Pawns and used her magic to hold Metal in place, giving Sonic time to recover and deal a powerful blow to the imposter's carapace, sending an attack into his core, causing a minor malfunction for his weaponry. Metal deduced that it may be time to retreat and sent a message through the Egg Network, telling his troops to flee, but telling Hog Killa to keep fighting and give the mechanical horde time to escape.
With Hog Killa being the only bot that wasn't running, all focus of attacks went onto him. Sonic attempted to land a Homing Attack, but was swatted out of the air like a fly, leaving Rainbow to come to his defence and finish it. However, as Rainbow flew, Hog Killa's blade arm made a lucky connection with one of her wings, sending her plummeting out of the air. Enraged, the remainder of the group laid all of their attacks into Hog Killa at the same time, with Shadow charging up a Spear, Rarity calling upon Tom and his brothers to throw at him, Twilight charging up a lance spell, AJ calling upon her inner strength, Tails over-charging his arm cannon, and Knuckles waiting with a flurry of punches to unload into him.
Needless to say, Hog Killa was pummelled and seeing his job was done and Metal and minions had escaped, he did the same, barely holding his parts together.
"Bucket of bolts! Get back here!" Tails shouted at the fleeing robot, in a very uncharacteristic, insane manner, leading to the others shuffling away a little. Shadow laid a hand on his shoulder and said, "Tails, leave it. He'll be back, eventually, when the doctor decides to fix him. We'll finish him off then. Right now, let's just check whether the others are okay or not." Tails' anger quickly retreated and he said, "Yeah. Let's go." After that, they all ran to where Knuckles had retrieved Sonic and Rainbow from the wastelands. "Are they going to be okay, Knuckles?" Twilight asked. "I'm not sure. They're not dead, I know that much, but Sonic's going to be out cold for about a day or two at the least, and Rainbow will be grounded, as the damage at most broke her wing, and at least it's dislocated. It wasn't hit with the actual blade, thank Chaos and Celestia for that, but it still did a lot of damage, so expect her to be earthbound for about a day until we can get to a doctor in Fillydelphia." Knuckles replied. "Good to hear. Also, where did Pinkie and Fluttershy go? We need to check if they're okay." Tails asked. "HERE WE ARE!" Pinkie shouted, leading to many ponies and hedgehogs jumping like they were on the Moon. "Holy Celestia, Pinkie! You scared the heck out of us all! Also, where were you? Last I saw, you two were knocked out!" Twilight said, containing her anger and happiness. "Well, we were knocked out, but all of a sudden, we saw this weird hooded pony and he brought us back for the remainder of this scene, seeing as we would be unconscious until next chapter otherwise, and that isn't in the script!" Pinkie explained, while blowing a party horn into Twilight's face, covering it in confetti. "Scene!? Chapter!? Script!? What are you going on about, Pinkie? This is reality, not a story!" Twilight said, shaking off confetti. "I'll explain later, but for now, END SCENE!" Pinkie replied. "Pinkie, wait! What are you talking abo-"Twilight said before all went black for them.
A few hours after the battle, the hole in the train that Rainbow flew through was patched up using scrap metal from the Egg Pawn armada. "Right. It's not perfect, but it will do. So, how are they?" Knuckles asked, his arms slightly aching. "Well, Sonic woke up a few minutes ago, but Rainbow's still down for the count. I doubt she's going to be very happy when she does, so we might be grateful for her being out, sort of." Twilight replied, lifting a blowtorch that Tails had kindly provided in her magical aura. "Right, by the way, where's Sonic and Shadow? I haven't seen them since we fought off the bots." Knuckles asked. "Did someone say my name?" Sonic asked, poking his head out from further up the train. "Speak of the blue devil and he shall appear…" Knuckles muttered, thankfully being out of Twilight's earshot. Shadow then walked into the room and asked, "Twilight, can you go tell everyone that we're three minutes out from Fillydelphia?" Twilight nodded and ran through the train. "Knuckles, are we finished up with repairing the train?" Shadow asked. "Yep. This wall could withstand an apocalypse if it had to." Knuckles replied. "Let's just pray it doesn't come to that." Shadow said, walking back to the front of the train. With Fillydelphia only minutes away, and Eggman's forces hot on their tails, Shadow knew that the group would have to hurry to get the Emerald, if they weren't too late already. With the bright, colourful city looming, the group shared one depressing collective thought, "How long will it take before it all turns to ashes?"
And, done. That took a lot longer than a few weeks, and I apologise. However, the next update from me will be the first chapter of my OC's story. Hopefully, you'll stick around. See ya there.