A/N: Very long and heartfelt note at the end. It would be much appreciated if you took the time to read it. As for the redux, the opening segment is mostly the same.
It was about midday now, and Applejack and Sunset Shimmer were sitting in the barn at Sweet Apple Acers. Applejack was sipping a bottle of cider, and Sunset was writing in her journal.
"Dear Princess Twilight. Things have been pretty wild here as of lately. There's this guy named Sonic from another world, and there's these really powerful gems called the chaos emeralds. I think they might be stronger than the elements of harmony! I would have written to you a few days ago. but somehow it just kept slipping my mind. It's ironic, I know. Anyways, just figured I'd write while I wait for the others. Your friend, Sunset Shimmer."
Sunset closed the book, and it glowed for a second. "I wonder what Sonic wanted to show us." she pondered.
"Me too. But I also wonder what was up with Sonic, Rainbow, and Rarity yesterday. They seemed like they were in a rush." said Applejack.
"Hello girls!" Rarity greeted them as she came in the barn. "I see the others haven't arrived yet."
"Nope. It's just us." Sunset smiled.
"Well in that case, I have something quite interesting to show you." Rarity sat down next to them and pulled out her phone.
"Does it have somethin' to do with your new line of clothing?" Applejack said sarcastically.
"No, it is not." Rarity's smile widened as unlocked her phone and went to her gallery. "It's something you probably weren't expecting."
Rarity turned her phone around and showed them the picture she took of Sonic and Rainbow Dash kissing at the park. Applejack started bursting out laughing, and Sunset was also pleasantly surprised.
"Wow! Of all people!" Applejack held her stomach as she continued to laugh.
"Huh. Who would of thought it? I never saw Rainbow Dash as the romantic type. Although, those two do have a lot in common." Sunset said.
"Yes! And I must say, they look absolutely adorable together!" Rarity squealed.
"So, do you plan on showing them this later on?" Applejack asked, still out of breath from her laughing fit.
"And did you even spy on them?" Sunset added.
"Well, of course I'm going to show them at a later time. I wanted them to have a memory of their first date together." Rarity explained.
As time went by, more of the group showed up, except Sonic and Rainbow Dash, allowing Rarity to show them the picture she had taken.
But as Rarity was showing Twilight, there was a bright flash, and Rarity quickly out her phone away. She turned around, and saw Sonic and Rainbow Dash, the former juggling the two emeralds in his right hand.
"Sup! Sorry we're late!" Sonic said.
"Oh, it's quite alright darling." Rarity said.
"So, what was it you wanted to show us, Sonic?" Fluttershy asked, breaking the silence.
"Well, now that we have two emeralds, there's this neat little trick I can do." Sonic smirked.
"And what would that be?" Twilight persisted.
Sonic stopped juggling the emeralds and held one in each hand. "I can show you guys the past as if it were a movie!"
"Really? How could you possibly do that?" she asked.
"It'd just be best to show you!" Sonic held the emeralds in the air. "Chaos control!"
Suddenly everything went black around them, and it seemed as if they were floating. A cloud of fog appeared in front of them, and it began to morph into an image.
"Woah… freaky deaky…" Pinkie said in amazement.
"How did you do this?" asked Rainbow.
"It's something that Silver showed me how to do. He said he did it by accident." Sonic shrugged. "Anyways…" Sonic aimed one of the emeralds at the rectangular cloud formation, and a video started playing, as if it were a hologram of some sort.
The video was of a young Sonic, in his mobian form, running through a forest close to the speed of sound.
"That's you in your normal form?" Fluttershy said in shock.
"Yup. I'm a hedgehog, and prouuud of it!" Sonic slicked his hair back and smirked. He was met with deadpanned expressions, except from Rainbow Dash, who just smiled.
"Um, anyway, this was quite a while back. I was tasked with the mission to destroy a shield around a city that Egghead had taken over, so that the air force could bomb it into a crisp."
"Air force? You mean you mean you were fighting in a war as a child?" Rarity asked.
"Yup. But it's not like I had a choice. Back then Egghead occupied almost 80% of the entire world!" Sonic replied.
"So you've been in two wars in your lifetime already?" Applejack said.
"Yup. But I don't dwell on it too much. As bad as those times were, it made me who I am today." Sonic smiled. "So, in the end, I wouldn't really have it any other way."
Sonic aimed the emerald back at the screen, and it skipped to a few minutes later, where the young Sonic was sitting on a cliff where the city was visible. He watched as buildings were ripped apart, bomb by bomb, explosion by explosion. But it didn't matter to Sonic much. The city was devoid of life anyway. It was simply a place for the evil Eggman to gather and distribute his robotic forces.
"Wow… it looks… so desolate…" said Fluttershy.
"It was a dark time. But it wouldn't be long until things got better!" Sonic waved his hand, and the image on the screen morphed again.
It was then showing a lush green area with dirt that had a strange checkerboard pattern. The area was full of loop-de-loops, corkscrews, and floating platforms.
"Those platforms! They're just suspended in the air! How is that even possible?" Twilight looked to Sonic in confusion.
"Chaos energy. The emeralds laid dormant for an unknown number of years." Sonic explained. "The residual energy caused the environment to behave in supernatural ways."
"Does that explain the loop-de-loops too?" Sunset asked.
Sonic raised an eyebrow. "Your world doesn't have loop-de-loops? Man, you guys are missing out!"
"You're telling me! I bet those things are awesome to run around!" Rainbow Dash exclaimed.
Sonic chuckled. "You bet!"
The image then snapped to a blue blur blazing across the scenery, running through the corkscrews, tunnels, and bouncing from rock formation to rock formation. As the blur came into focus, it showed the young Sonic once more. But instead of a serious frown, he had a cocky smirk.
"Even as a little fella, ya sure could move partner!" Applejack complimented him.
Sonic rubbed his nose. "What can I say? I guess I was just born this cool!"
The young hedgehog suddenly came to a stop in the middle of an open field. There were motobugs everywhere, harassing the small woodland creatures. The ones that were caught were being locked a large grey capsule with a big blue button on top.
"Oh no! Those poor little animals!" Fluttershy was already on the verge of tears.
"Don't worry, darling. I'm sure Sonic did something about it." She looked at Sonic, who smiled and nodded.
On the screen, Sonic frowned as he jumped forward once again becoming a blur. Within seconds all the motobugs had been reduced to scrap metal. Sonic jumped onto the large capsule, opening it and releasing the animals inside.
"Another win for Sonic!" Pinkie cheered.
"The first of many." Sonic waved his hand, and the scene changed again. "But they don't always come easy."
Now it was showing a scene from outer space. The planet Mobius shone brightly in the background. And surrounding the image was some kind of space station, with many platforms and railways.
"That technology looks so advanced… and it's in space!" said Twilight.
"Epic adventures into space are actually are pretty common occurrence for me. This is the third time I'd been to space." Said Sonic.
The scene began to play, and it started with two streaks of light flying across the screen. One was a familiar blue, the other was an intimidating bright red. The streaks ran close to one another, jumping from platform to platform, sometimes violently circling each other. They finally came to a stop just a few meters away from each other. It revealed a slightly older Sonic, and a black hedgehog with red streaks in his quills.
"Who's he?" asked Sunset Shimmer.
"That's Shadow, the Ultimate Lifeform. It's a long story, but basically, he was created by Eggman's grandfather as a way to cure an incurable disease. But the government shut the project down, and Shadow was kept in a top-secret laboratory for 50 years." Sonic explained. "Eggman released him and allied with him to take over the world."
Past Shadow smirked between labored breaths. "I must admit, I'm impressed Sonic. After our first bout, I thought disposing of you would barely be an inconvenience. Yet every time we've fought since, you've gotten stronger and stronger."
Rainbow Dash pumped her fists. "Heck yeah, he did!"
Past Sonic grinned in response, pointing to his chest. "Of course, I'm stronger! I get stronger and faster every second!" he boasted. He got in a running stance as blur energy built up around him. Shadow did the same as red energy gathered around him, and the two took off and clashed once more.
"Hold on…" Twilight pursed her lips in thought. "If Shadow was created to cure an incurable disease, then why would he team up with Eggman to take over the world?"
"Shadow was borderline amnesic at the time. Gerald's meddling with his memories confused him, and made him think his purpose was to get revenge for… the incident." Sonic trailed off.
"Incident?" Rarity inquired.
Sonic looked down. "Like I said, it's a long story. But the day that Project Shadow was shut down, something tragic happened to someone Shadow really cared about. Her dying wish was for Shadow to help people, but because of his trauma and cryogenic imprisonment, he misremembered it… as a wish for revenge."
The girls all had saddened expressions. "That sounds horrible…" Pinkie said, tears about to escape her eyes.
Sonic nodded. "It is. But it wasn't long before he got his memories back."
The girls all smiled.
"And then he died trying to save the planet."
The girls all gasped.
"But then he was saved by Eggman and had to go on a journey of self-discovery to get his memories back, which ultimately led to him vaporizing one of his creators." Sonic explained.
The Mane 7 stood there in disbelief. Is this really the kinda stuff Sonic and his friends go through?
"Anyway, onto a more lighthearted note." Sonic smiled and raised his hand to change the scene.
Suddenly they heard a bang as they appeared back in Applejack's barn. The roof was torn off, and a giant robot was looking down at them. In the cockpit, which rested inside the robot's face, was an egg-shaped man laughing hysterically.
Sonic frowned. 'Or not.' He thought. "Finally decided to show yourself, huh Egghead?"
Eggman just smiled evilly. "You're the one that brought me to this world, and now you're going to pay for it!"
Hey, everyone. Sure has been a minute, huh? I can't believe I posted the original Chapter 11 over three full years ago. A lot's changed since June 2020.
When I first posted the original Chapter 11, I had just graduated the 8th grade. (Unfortunately, due to you know what I didn't get an actual graduation.) Now I'm almost through my first semester of senior year, and I've had a job for over a year already.
A lot's changed with the fandoms too. When I first posted this story, the 1st Sonic movie had only come out a few months prior, and the series finale of FiM wasn't a full year old yet. Now the 2nd Sonic movie is older than a year, we've gotten an amazing new game with the final update less than two weeks away, another game coming next month, and a frickin visual novel.
As for the MLP fandom, I don't really know what changed in the fandom itself. When I wrote this story, and any Sonic x MLP story before this, most of my knowledge of these characters and stories were secondhand, only coming from other's fanfictions and maybe a few ytps and ewws.
I recently binged all of the EG content and am currently on season 5 of FiM. I really wish I had allowed myself to enjoy these shows back then, but for whatever reason I just never did, despite loving the concepts and designs for these characters. I think at the time I had always planned this trilogy (Yes, I had vague plans for a trilogy. Even has the titles planned. "Chaos and Magic", "Battle for Mobius", and "Liberation") to be Sonic-dominant, especially after the first story. And it was really only because I didn't have context of MLP's lore, concepts, or characters to write a story where they shine like the Sonic characters do.
I've had a lot of ideas recently. So many that my biggest difficulty is finding the right one to expand on, and most importantly, actually write. But I think I really had something going with this story, even if I lost it due to hyper focusing, burnout, and self-doubt/consciousness.
I guess I'm writing all this to say… I'm still here. And eventually, I'll post, and maybe one day even finish, a new story. It might be a month, a few months, a year, two years, or maybe longer than that. It might be a rewrite of this story, a story similar to it, or a brand-new AU with a brand-new world to explore. But I'll come back. I love these fandoms too much to just not post anything ever again.
So, to however many people end up reading this… thank you. Maybe you're here cause you're reading this story for the first time. Or maybe it's because you thought the story that's been dead for 3 years was finally getting a new chapter (Sorry if you thought that). But to all of you who still lurk around this niche little fandom, thank you.
(Wow, I rambled a bit more than I planned.)
-Someguy27
