Chapter Eight
Barbie raised her arms to the ceiling of the room. Magical winds began to rise and toss the hair of all living creatures present. "I summon forth my minions of chaos!" she uttered to the winds.
Rainbow Brite found the star sprinkle she had been searching for and was about to shout her success to the little ponies when the roof of the room was no longer there.
It had disappeared in a swirling mass of blackness. In the seconds that followed Barbie released yet another curdling laugh, Heart Throb screamed and things began dropping from the sky.
Rainbow had no idea of most of what happened previous to the events unfolding before her. First she was enjoying a good book, then Starlite shouted for help after discovering a group of beings in Rainbowland that obviously hadn't belonged there, and now she found herself a pint-sized little girl even smaller than a pillow. And this woman named Barbie called them all "toys". Poor Rainbow had no idea what she was talking about, but she wasn't going to let her keep manipulating the universe.
Unfortunately the items dropping from the black hole yielded something far more unsavory than what Barbie might do.
Before her stood a young girl, long straight blonde hair nearly touching the carpet and she was wearing a pink and bright green jumpsuit with matching sneakers. Something was far too unsettling about the way she smiled at Rainbow after she had softly landed before her.
"Hi." She spoke at last in a sugary sweet voice.
Rainbow blinked and said "Hello. Who are you?"
"Me?" She asked innocently. "Why I'm Rainbow Brite."
Rainbow stared at her in disbelief and couldn't help but ask, "What?"
She giggled. "I'm Rainbow Brite silly."
"You can't possibly be...."
Raibow Brite wasn't the only one having identity problems. A trio of slim ponies had sauntered up to the three pegasi nearby. One wore glittering butterfly wings, another was a unicorn with a shimmering silver horn and the third was a simple green. All had glinting jewels placed in their eyes and were adorned with symbols on their flanks.
Wind Whistler was intrigued.
Heart Throb continued to scream.
Medley nearly fainted.
Shady whimpered.
Bouncy realized who else was there and turned to the frightened brightly colored earther. "Shady? How in the Rainbow did you get HERE?"
And all the while more creatures continued to slowly fall like feathers from the ceiling while Barbie drank down more witchweed potion.
"I don't know," Shady sobbed. "Posey t-told me to go with the search party and all of a sudden I was here. I must have done something wrong when I was looking for you guys." The pink earthling hung her head, then brightened. "But I did find you, didn't I? That was good, right?" She looked around hopefully, but the others were silent as a magical wind whipped around them.
"W-wind Whistler? Heart Throb?" Why were her fellow ponies so . . . still? Wind Whistler and Bouncy were both balancing oddly on the tips of their toes, staring straight ahead. Heart Throb was posing with her head tilted to the side, delicately bending one leg.
"What's going on??" Shady wailed.
"Can't . . . move," Wind Whistler managed to say out of one corner of her mouth. Shady gaped. She knew things were out of hand when Wind Whistler used short words.
The ponies weren't the only ones in distress. Soundwave looked down and discovered his knee joints were . . . well, gone. Any articulation that wasn't necessary for his transformation just didn't exist anymore and the ponies--in fact, the world in general--suddenly seemed distressingly large. As for Megatron and Starscream . . . well, it would be interesting to see if they could still hug without elbows. Not that they seemed to mind.
"Remember that time when you tricked the Dinobots into defecting, Megatron? Such a brilliant strategy!"
"But if only I had listened to you when you said the energy they helped us collect was unstable, Starscream--"
Soundwave considered. The leader and second-in-command of the Decepticon army were insane and he was stuck. It looked like they would have to depend on . . . "Ravage!" Soundwave looked around for the panther as Barbie smirked and began bouncing shoes off his head. Soundwave gave her a look. She giggled.
"--and THEN I'll make send my armies of Skippers to loot your world! And THEN I'll make you build me a car that transforms into a pink dress--"
"WE'RE ALL GONNA DIE AND IT'S ALL MY FAULT!!" wailed the only unaffected pony.
"YOU can't be Rainbow Brite because I'M Rainbow Brite!" one of the blond girls was protesting to the other.
"Don't you think you'd be happier if you let yourself care about other people, Barbie?" Tenderheart coaxed.
"Ravage!" Soundwave repeated, with just an edge of panic on his monotone voice. "Return!"
*No.* The internal transmission cut off as suddenly as it began.
"Assistance required!"
*I'm not coming out until this humiliating color wears off.*
This time Soundwave caught a growl of disgust and spotted a pink paw behind a tangle of computer cables on the desk far above.
"Ravage! Operation: Come Down at Once!"
*No. I'm a deadly spy and I will NOT be seen like this.* The paw withdrew.
"No dessert," Soundwave said ominously.
Silence.
Well, it would've been silence if not for the cackles of Barbie, the weeping of Shady, and the shouts coming from the two Rainbow Brites. The Care Bears were unsuccessfully trying to aim their "Care Bear stare" at Barbie. The furry yellow Popple had scrunched into a ball when the ruckus started and hadn't moved since. Soundwave thought she had the right idea.
"Ravage! Help!"
*Well . . .* Pause. *Okay. But only if you give me a vocal synthesizer. I'm sick of having to communicate like this.*
"Your chassis is not built for--"
*Rumble and Frenzy can talk!* Soundwave hadn't known that internal communications could achieve such a high-pitched whine. *All I can say is "Mrowr!" and "Grrr!" Who do I look like, Scooby-Doo?*
"Who's that robot talking to?" Barbie demanded suddenly, staring at Soundwave.
"I don't know, sweetums," Ken replied, hiding a yawn. "Maybe he's broken. Try hitting him with wrench a few times; it works on TV."
"Vocal synthesizer . . . agreed," Soundwave said hastily as Barbie began kicking cluttered piles of clothing and accessories aside in search of a pink wrench.
Ravage crept towards Soundwave, as shadowy and mysterious as a pink robot can be. Despite being thinner than usual and unable to turn his head, he still had all of his leg joints. *I'm warning you, one joke about "the pink panther" and I'm gone.*
"Ravage--" Soundwave glanced to the side and saw that the chartreuse-haired pony was weeping because she'd accidently knocked over one of her friends. "Take the pony, the bears, and the girl. Get help."
*Ugh. Flesh creatures.* Ravage shook a paw daintily. *And how am I supposed to get them to follow me? They can't hear me.*
Good point, Soundwave thought. "Pony!"
The bright pink earthling looked up in surprise, scrubbing her tears away with one hoof. "M-m-me?"
*Rhat's right, Rhaggy!* Ravage rolled his optics.
"Yes. Follow the cat. Go through the vortex."
"B-b-but . . ." Shady's eyes widened as she stared at the swirling energy above them. Strange creatures were still dropping from it.
Soundwave's optics returned to Barbie as she pulled out the Pretty Pink Powertools accessory set, crowing gleefully. "Hurry!"
Shady nodded uncertainly. "Come on!" she cried to the blue-outfitted Rainbow Brite. The girl jerked herself away from her argument and leaped onto Starlite, who seemed strangely plush at moment--but still mobile. "Come on . . . work!" Rainbow muttered, pressing the star on her belt. A rainbow appeared, wavering and weak, and Ravage jumped onto it, followed by Shady, Starlite and Rainbow, Wish Bear, Tenderheart, and (unexpectedly) the popple.
"What are they doing? Stop them!" Barbie whacked Ken across the head with her hand, which was unfortunately holding a pink hammer at that moment.
*Everybody out of the pool!* No one except Soundwave heard the remark, but the mismatched group leaped into the crackling vortex anyway. The panther paused a minute, looking back as he stood on the fading rainbow. *Watch yourself, Soundwave. We'll be back.*
