December 24, 2016 UPDATE: the next chapter will take a while. I've been enjoying my time procrastinating on some games. So far, I've only corrected a few grammar mistakes and wording in this chapter.
The Master Plan
"Lyra is taking too long out there." Bon Bon said worrying about her friend. It has been hours and Lyra hasn't come back home. Normally, her antics would be nothing more a temporary ruse as humans are never proven in Equestria. But what if Lyra's right, and she is indeed meeting up with them? The Mane Six, particularly Pinkie Pie, had confirmed of their existence. But still, humans are a mystery to Equestria. Nopony knows whether these unknown beings are friendly or hostile. These "robots," as the armored beings are called with Bon Bon eavesdropping on their neighborly dragon's comments, may be products of human creations. Who knows what else they could make, and what they can do once they have a unicorn with them? She had to go to the Everfree Forest for Lyra, despite the dangers it poses. Thankfully with her training and skills as secret agent, Sweetie Drops, she should be able to handle any animal she had come across. Along the way, she brings a Ponyville resident as backup and to cover more ground in her search for her unicorn friend.
"I don't even know why you had to bring me along." said the purple earth pony name Berry Punch.
"If you help me along, I'll give you barrels of that grape juice you like."
"Oh right, score!" Berry Punch already has a cup-sized worth of those grape juices in her purse pouch. Supposedly they're helping her to be more aware of their surroundings in the Everfree, but at the same time. "Haggadah! I'm not seeing anything!" Her ramblings can draw in unnecessary attention from Berry Punch's sugar rush. Bon Bon improvises by using her friend's outbursts to draw attention should they find the beings that took Lyra or other carnivorous animals. But something is out of the ordinary in the Everfree.
"Everything seems so quiet." Bon Bon said of the Forest. "Too quiet..." She looks around and doesn't see anything much other than soundless vegetation. Not even rustling sounds from leaves were made. Berry Punch wasn't paying attention to Bon Bon's analysis, but glad of the situation.
"At least they are no animals trying to eat us," said the town drunk. Bon Bon had only rolled her eyes, but relieved that she doesn't have to unethically use her neighbor as a distracting bait for meat-eaters. What feels like walking halfway through the forest, they did found something.
"Hey Bon Bon, look!" Berry Punch spotted something that isn't all green, but an orange, two-tailed, inanimate creature with some kind of string attached to a red jewel on its head. Bon Bon looked in, but neither could figure out what kind of being it is. Something cat-like? A dog? A fox? Judging by close-up inspection, they can agree that it's some kind of toy, or a doll.
"Strange, you don't often see a toy with two tails." Both Earth Ponies were thinking, at least from what they usually see dolls carried by foals or as carnival prizes. They both can agree on how creepy it looks.
"Come on. We have to keep moving." Bon Bon reminded of their investigation to find Lyra.
"Yeah...right." Berry Punch commented with Bon Bon walking further away from her drunken neighbor. Right when she's away from hearing distance. "I'll be right with you...after I have to hear what this doll is saying." Berry Punch looks closely at it, hearing strange voices. Everything around her, her vision became dark, and music is played.
"Can you feel the sunshine..." The doll started floating towards Berry Punch. She could see deep from its eyes of a darkness beyond the abyss. From there, Berry Punch screams in terror.
Bon Bon turns back to see what's wrong with her friend. But immediately, she got hit by a quick swipe from afar, passing her. Feeling misdirected, she tries to find the being that attacked her, and which way leads back to where Berry Punch had found the toy. After seconds of remembering the location, she hurries back, only to find that her neighbor and the doll are nowhere to be found.
"Berry Punch!" She shouted. "Where are you?!" She looked around and found no trace of her. But from lookingabove. "Berry?" She could see that the doll is floating, using its arms to lift the body of her companion.
"What have you done? Let her go!" To her surprise, it did. Dropping Berry Punch at a tree height. Bon Bon rushed to her falling friend and catches her. She checked her pulse. Berry Punch is alive, but with symptoms of little response, faint breathing, and saliva dripping; she's in a coma.
Bon Bon looked at the floating toy getting close to her and starting to hear strange songs. Her sight became slightly darkening of her environment. In immediate response, she gives a forehoof jab to the enigmatic being where it fell to the ground. All the abnormality has stopped. Everything is set back to normal, other than her unconscious friend and the toy lying around.
Bon Bon questions herself on what that toy was and what to do next. Bring Berry Punch back to Ponyville for hospitalization or continue her mission in finding Lyra? In pondering of her options, she was given a quick swipe from a similar unknown, but could now see shades of red. The being had come to visible sight, hovering from the ground before standing put. Bon Bon doesn't know what to make of this creature, only that it's metallic red with dreadlocks, green glowing eyes, two-large nails for claws, and standing on two feet. Probably one like one of those "robots" entering the library with a black spiky creature and leaving town. What she doesn't know that this being is also equipped with rocket-powered flight on its back.
"Oh ho ho! Earth ponies. This is just my lucky day." Eggman said to himself watching computer visuals of Metal Knuckles and its live footage. Metal Knuckles dashed in on his pony opponent with a punch. The earth pony dodges. The echidna did a claw swipe. Again, the equine dodges. "Hmm, it seems that these horses are not all incompetent," seeing as how the past unicorns he captured were taken down with ease by Mecha Sonic. But this is no ordinary pony.
Bon Bon has been training to take down a bugbear with its fast flying and ferocity. Going up against the red metallic isn't much different, only smaller than what she had been training for. After its frequent attacks, she found an opening under the arms, charged in towards the armored being, and wraps her hooves around it.
The red figure flies up, but this is exactly what Bon Bon is trained for. She climbs up on top of the being's head and began pounding on it. She expected it to go madly swinging, but instead it somersaulted and curve into ball. Causing Bon Bon to fall to the ground. As she lands, it uses its ball form to do a drop on her and then jumping off.
Bon Bon is flinched, seeing as she is not going up against a bugbear, but something else entirely. The being, after jumping on her, grab hold on the bark of a nearby tree. From there, it rocketed off and glided towards Bon Bon. She ducked and gives it her all a hard uppercut to the torso. It was send flying up from the hit before falling down. Bon Bon then bucks it hard to the same tree. It ricocheted from its back and landed on the ground. She is severely bruised from the recoil of assaulting its hard armor. The armored being got up slowly, but then broke down. From a human perspective, it's rocket boost is damaged from being landed on the tree by the back, and its damaged torso from the hard uppercut prevented further movement in the limbs.
"Ugh, should've upgraded them from racing mode to combat." Eggman complained, referring to both Metal Knuckles and the Tails Doll. Metal Knuckles was more of a racer than a combatant. It was given similar qualities from the echidna such as being able to do punches, swipes, and glides, but never can much up to the strength and reflexes to that of the original. The Tails Doll originally doesn't do much but float around. Eggman did later gave it a psychiatric gaze, disrupting an organic's neurotransmitters to the point of hallucination and comatose. But only when the victims stare at its gaze for more than a few seconds. This stare is shown to be useless after being swiped at immediately by the second pony.
"Racing? I thought you were for world domination?" His recruit, Mod the rogue GUN scientist, had arrived from the infirmary fully recovered from falling off some stone stairs because of a certain, human-obsessed unicorn. He was overhearing the doctor's comment and began browsing history logs in his computers on 'racing.' Turns out, the Doctor has been involved in myriad types of competition against the hedgehog and his allies from vehicles, non-vehicles, and Extreme Gears to fly alongside the Babylonian Rogues.
"Those were past plans in leading Sonic into a trap." Eggman answered the GUN turncoat recruit. "Afterwards, I can proceed to taking over the world."
Mod didn't respond out loud to Eggman's answer, but mentally rants. "If you were leading your nemesis into a trap, wouldn't he be done by now? Like maybe detonating a nuclear explosive in the stadium with Sonic in it, or have a hidden sniper shot him right at the start of the race?" The former GUN scientist left Eggman to find Mephiles within in the Egg Carrier.
"Hmph." Eggman focuses on the battle in the Everfree Forest. "I guess I have to bring in the big gun." The doctor sends in his better robot to the designated coordinates.
Bon Bon is panting, taking breaths from the fights and injuries she endured. She could see that the red armor is twitching, but poses no threat. After breathing, she got up to focus on her new objective. Get Berry Punch to a hospital and then resume looking for Lyra by herself. But then another sound was made from a distance.
"Another one already?" the secret agent got irritated. She tries to hide somewhere around the trees, but it's too late. That something has already appeared. It looks similar to her previous opponent, only this time it's blue with a spiky head, red eyes, five-fingered claws, and have some hole in its chest. It started making beeping strange noises.
"Target scan." Metal Sonic speak in his unique language only the doctor can understand. He can see that the pony is going into defensive position, expecting him to attack at the front. The blue robot made a hand gesture taunting her, tempting the horse to strike.
Bon Bon understood that this being wants her to attack, despite how appendages are uncommonly seen in Equestria other than the claws of a dragon in her neighborhood. The secret agent of Celestia resists by remaining in defensive formation. She needed to preserve her strength and energy after her last fight. She also needed to analyze how this unknown being fight and how different it will be from the last. That way, she'll adapt and find ways to overcome this opponent. However...
"If you will not attack, you will be first struck." It spoke in its un-translatable dialect. The blue armor ejected faster than the eye can see, appearing to have disappeared right before the eyes. Bon Bon is cut off by its incredible speed and struck in the face, launching her to a nearby tree.
"How?" Her mind and senses were torn asunder. This comes a major surprise. She didn't expect this armored biped to be as fast as Rainbow Dash. Bon Bon leaped off to hold her ground and leads a barrage of forehoof punches against it.
"Not bad for a quadruped." Metal beeps as he dodges. He scans every sign of movement and muscle tension, finalizing his data of copying his opponent into his combat memory. It is uncommon for a four-legged animals to fight with their forelegs punching like fisted hands. While he won't need to apply these meagre attacks in the future, it does give him foreknowledge should he continue fighting these strange horses. He counterattacks by grasping her forehooves, overloading electricity in his hands, and shocking her.
Bon Bon gets a taken back, only for her armored opponent to continue its assault. It has been attacking her from every direction, so much so that she couldn't defend herself. It's like this being is fast enough to be everywhere at once. Perhaps much for more so than the fastest flyers in Equestria.
"It is futile." Metal Sonic gloats to his inattentive foe. He snatches her by the hindleg and throws her up in the air. There, he rocket-boosted towards her, bashing her from all sides. All while launching her around like a pinball. Finally, he grabs hold of the pony, electrocuting her, and throws her unconscious body to the ground. Metal charges his electric energy for a finishing blow until...
"Halt," ordered Doctor Eggman. "I need these earth ponies alive."
"Earth ponies?" Metal wasn't updated of his mission. Neither was he aware that he is in an entirely different world. He could also see another horse, a purple one, in comatose. No doubt caused by the Tails Doll, which it recovers from the ground by hovering.
"I need you to extract these earth ponies for research." Eggman further instructed. "Return to the Egg Carrier!" He let out an order to all his robots. Metal lifts the yellow pony and the purple one to make an instantaneous dash. The Tails Dolls had to lift Metal Knuckles and slowly catch up to Metal Sonic back to base. All the while, they are being watched by a resident of the Everfree.
"My home in the Everfree is no longer safe." Zecora said, noting of these armored beings capturing wild animals in the past hours and now her fellow ponies. "I need to be far away from this place." She swiftly went back to her home in the Everfree to pack up her things and go into hiding. "I cannot risk being discovered," she mentally said to herself of feeling watched. "Into distant parts of Equestria, I must remain undercover."
Back in the Egg Carrier...
"I'll also need to set you and all my combat robots to non-lethal until I say otherwise." Eggman said while uploading information to Metal Sonic. After he was done, the doctor went to analyze the ponies he captured and had them placed inside stasis tubes alongside the four unicorns and two pegasi.
"Oh ho ho." He said to himself, reminding him of his galactic amusement park. "These horses do indeed have their energy of magic in them. They are similar to the aliens I've captured, but I wonder. What if I were to capture alicorns in the ruling Princesses of the Equestria? Being able to levitate both sun and moon. Hah! It'll be powerful enough match the Master Emerald." Eggman then went to an intercom, "Mod. I need you and Mephiles here." He also signals Cubot and Orbot in their comlink to return.
Mod was trying to meet up with Mephiles, a Shadow clone secretly bio-engineered by GUN originally designed to take down Sonic if he had gone rogue. He was informed by Eggman's computer logs how his GUN experiment is in a different room handling the wild animals of this foreign planet. As he enters, he could see the manticore he saw earlier when meeting with the ponies, and many creatures thought to be myths to humans. He discovers Mephiles standing in front of a cage from a distance.
"Yo Meph!" the man in white called out to his experiment-turned assistant. He didn't receive a response. "You there?" the human scientist closes in on Mephiles. Upon closer inspection, he could that his Shadow look-alike assistant is in stone. "Huh, petrification." He observed his findings. "Supposedly a Medusa in mythology does that." He looks in front of the petrified hedgehog on the caged animal of what appears to be a chicken for a head and a body of a snake; a cockatrice. The said creature began to stare at the pale human with its red eyes.
"What the!" Mod could feel his feet are not reacting to his senses. "Even my clothes?!" seeing from his shoes to pants are slowly turning to stone with the rest of his body being next. He pulls out a Desert Eagle handgun from his lab coat and point it at the Medusa-like creature. "Stop with the stoning, right now!" He demanded.
The cockatrice isn't intimidated, for it has never seen a gun in its life in Equestria. Mod fires two rounds of ammunition before his hands got petrified and onto his neck. He missed those two shots passing the cage, but the deafening noises from his handgun is enough to cause the cockatrice to lose focus and panic. From there, the stoning process has reverted, so is Mephiles cured from being petrified.
"Mephiles," Mod said to him while calming himself. "You alright?"
"What happened?" The genetic copy of Shadow was confused, looking around himself. "All I could remember is taming a bunch of animals until I saw a chicken with a snake body."
"That would be the cockatrice." The former GUN scientist pointed to the creature. "It seems to have the ability to petrify by gaze, turning others to stone like the Medusa in legends. But I want to experiment…could you try looking at its eyes again?"
Mephiles is hesitant, but he does what he's been told. The cockatrice regain posture and began staring at him. The stoning began from Mephiles' feet. Mod then fired another gunshot at the cockatrice. This time grazing it. As it felt closer to death, it covered itself shivering in fear while letting Mephiles go of being petrified.
"Hmm."
"What exactly are you planning?" Mephiles asked his former GUN scientist creator.
"I'm testing it. Seeing that its petrification not only affects organics, but clothes as well. But what happens when if it tries to stone a non-organic, such as a robot?" Mod calls in a nearby Egg Pawn and order it to stare at the cockatrice. It did just that, and the creature does its part to react in self-defense. So far nothing has happened to the Egg Pawn. "I see…" Mod concluded his scientific findings of testing the cockatrice's ability. "It can only affect organic life, including their clothes but not of a machine. Interesting…"
"Mod?" Mephiles asked his creator.
"I will inform this to the Doctor. In the meantime, we have to meetup with him."
"But what about the animals?"
"I believe these Egg Pawns should suffice." The GUN turncoat orders the robots armed with taser staves as he and Mephiles move back to the Captain's room for Eggman. Along the way, they met up with the robotic duo of Cubot and Orbot. Both of whom were glaring at Mod for his past abuses, which the human scientist paid little attention to their staring. They all saw Metal Sonic in meeting up with the Doctor, whom Mephiles and Mod were given introductions to after providing info on the cockatrice and the potential resistance against magic from robots.
"Gentlemen," Eggman let out a speech for all sentient beings present within his vicinity. "As you all know, we are in the world of Equestria, moving away from the likes of Sonic and his friends. From there, we are to build up firepower and develop our schemes against our enemies. But in order to focus our attentions to Earth, we must establish a strong base of operations. To do so, we must take over this world, and establish the Eggman Empire of Equestria."
"Huh?!" cried out Cubot.
"Oh, where do we start?" Orbot said after his companion's shock. Both Mod and Mephiles were silent, eager to hear more of Eggman's speech.
"We already have begun. The natives get the impression that we are a private company of Eggman Enterprises seeking to learn more of this world. They were willing to share their knowledge with us." Eggman noted of Mephiles' past mission of obtaining books from the Ponyville library. "I have send in surveillance robots across Equestria." Eggman shows computer monitors from his bee-shaped camera bots in distant parts. "To add bonus, I have given Gamma to the ponies, all while acting as a spy for me." He shows clips of Gamma being in the presence of the six colorful horses.
"He is acting for you?" Mephiles asked.
"For the moment, no." Eggman verifies. "I had lent him to the ponies as compensation. He is not officially working for me, but he'll come around."
"Back to the Egg Carrier?" asked Cubot.
"No, to our new base of operations, the Egg Castle." The egg-shaped scientist pointed to the Ancient Castle of the Pony Sisters remodeled into his design.
"What about our forces back on Earth?" Orbot stepped forward.
"They will be our backup reinforcements."
"We will be using Chaos Emeralds to bring them along? I thought we only needed one."
"We only need one," Eggman reminded. He moved onto the topic of using Chaos Gems, raw gemstones excavated in Equestria synergized with Chaos Energy from the original Emerald. "With your method, Mod, we'll not only bring in more robots, we'll also upgrade our models to the best of their conditions." The GUN turncoat had nodded of his contributions to the Eggman Empire. "All the while, we have discovered new energies of magic from these ponies."
"I know unicorns have magic," Mod said from first-hand experience. "But so do these pegasi and... regular horses?" He look closely on the recently acquired equine.
"Yes, they all do. The most powerful of which are alicorns," the doctor explain their concepts of magic and the ruling authorities of Equestria, who can lift the sun and moon and live over thousand years. "They are our primarily targets, but I have a plan; a master plan, to take them and have this world under my control." Eggman formulates his strategy, giving everyone roles, including the yet produced robots, on his grand strategy of conquering Equestria. After everything was set in motion and everyone knows their objectives, Mod went to his room in the Egg Carrier for a debriefing with an unknown.
"It looks like we'll be here for a while." The former GUN scientist said in secret to the entity. He can sense the being's impatience, "Relax, we'll get back to Earth. At the same time, we'll have to deal with this intruder of yours."
"She will not return," said the mysterious voice. "I have made it so...but she knows of my presence..."
"She may be a liability to our plans, but I have a suggestion," the former GUN scientist conspired for the days yet to come.
I am the Eggman, it's what I am.
I am the Eggman, I got the master master plan
I am the Eggman
Yep, there you have it, folks. The plan to take over Equestria and built the Eggman Empire in its place.
When I started the EEE in 2013, Bon Bon wasn't secret agent, Sweetie Drops, until 2015 in the Slice of Life episode. Berry Punch is the town drunk as usual. Either high on sugar from grape juice or secretly wine in disguise.
One purpose of this Sonic MLP crossover fanfic is to bring back all the old enemies of Sonic, including the Metal Knuckles and the Tails Doll from Sonic R. The Tails Doll in the Archie comics was some kind of Lovecraftian monster. In Sonic R and later mentions, he's just a floating robot with creepy design. In my headcanon, he has the creepypasta stare if his victims look at his eyes for more than a few seconds.
Three years since I made the EEE at 2013 in dA, Eggman finally decides to act on the fanfic title.
I still will not say who that 'unknown being' is. Even I don't know who or what that is.
Long Live the Eggman Empire
Sonic the hedgehog characters, settings, and related materials are © to SEGA and Sonic Team. Created by Mr. Yuji Naka.
My Little Pony: Friendship is Magic characters, settings, and related materials are © to Hasbro and DHX media. Created by Lauren Faust for television.