//------------------------------//
// 12 Developments 
// Story: Hard Landing 
// by Flash_Game 
//------------------------------//

Chapter 12
Developments

I woke up feeling uneasy, the feeling of the dream not leaving me for a second. Throughout the whole morning I kept checking behind me, I still felt watched. During breakfast Celestia noticed my unrest and told me to see her after. I told her the dream, or nightmare I really don't know, and she suggested that maybe being in the room when Naghtmare Moon's dark magic disperced with out the protection of the elements had something to do with it.

Rick still had no way of communicating and waited for me to return so we could go see the reaserch team. As we made our way to the research wing of the castle, being escorted by a guard, Rick and I talked a little. I aked how he slept and apparently I was the only one who didn't leep well, but I didn't tell him that.




"This is the laboratory" said the gaurd as he opened the door

"Thank you" I say giving Rick a slight push to the room

"If you need anything the Royal Guards are at your service, Prince" I turn to him slightly shocked

"Prince?" Without breaking composure the guard responds

"You were adopted by the Princess herself, Prince Luis" I rub the back of my neck; True...but it feels weird 

"Right, but Luis is just fine"

"With all due respect, Prince, it is my duty to adhere to the Royal Guard Conduct Guidlines"

"Fine, you win. But don't call me 'Prince' unless necesary"

"Yes, Sir" He says with a salute and walks away. I turn to Rick who was obviously trying to follow the conversation 

"What?"

"I'm going to go out on a limb here, are they calling you 'prince' by any chance?" I nod and walk in to the lab

The lab is like a large study but diveded in half with a workshop, bookshelves on the walls, desks with scrolls pilled on and a couple of ponies reading and writing on the scrolls, on one side, and workbenches, test dummies and all sorts of instruments to measure... stuff... magic stuff on the other

One of the ponies notices us at the door and stands up, putting a scroll away, and begins to walk our way. He stops infront of us and extends a hand towards Rick 

"You must be Rick" Rick take his hand and shake it, then the pony turns to me and tries for a handshake "And you must be Luis" a Pony behind him jumps form her seat and runs to the Pony greeting us, giving him a smack behind the head

"You idiot, Thinker, that's Luis the adoptive son of Celestia" says the second pony "He's a prince" she then bows pushing Thinker to bow aswell

"WOW wow, relax no need to bow. And just call me Luis" they both rise and then Thinker leans to the second pony and whispers 

"Told you. You owe me ten bits" to which she sighs

"Anyways. Yes, my name is Luis" I point at Rick "and this is Rick, he's the one who doesn't understand you" I extend my hand to the second pony "Nice to meet you miss..."

"Quick Study" Seriusly?

"Now that introductions are over" Thinker is jumping the gun a little "You needed a translation crystal for your friend here, no?" Translation crystal? I was expecting like a spell or something

"Yeah, just tell me what you need" I hear Rick give a nervous chuckle; He's still thinking about probing or something...; Quick Study put her hand on her chin in thought; ...probably

"First we'll need a basic form of communication so you don't have to be in the middle all the time" Thinker snaps his fingers and jumps in

"How about we teach him how to read and write and we continue from there?" I've been able to read their language, but it might be my power... I know

"I can translate anything, right? So write down your alphabet and I translate that to something Rick can understand" I hope this works Quick seems to get doubtful

"I don't know... Maybe you won't be able to translate it as easily as speaking" She's got a point, but we have to try

"Just do it, if it doesn't work then we'll see, ok?" Quick then goes to her desk writes down on a scroll and comes back showing me the contents

"Here that's the Ponish alphabet" It looks like the normal 26-letter alphabet to me I reach for the scroll 

"May I?" she nods and hands me the paper, I then turn to Rick and show him the writing "Can you read this? It looks like normal English to me" He just stands there looking perplexed

"How do you read 'horseshoe'?" That different, huh? "At least there's twenty six symbols, it might be just like English when written but not when spoken. Just need to replace the... letters??" I look at the two ponies in front of me about to say something but Thinker talks first

"How different is it to your written language?" Honestly i'm not sure

"It seems to be just a matter of replacing the letters, but to be sure I have to ask you one really important thing: Are they letters or symbols? Meaning, when you write them down do they always mean the same thing or can they change meaning entirely based on what word follows?" Basically, is it like Latin-born languages, or is it like Asian languages?

"They are just letters. They just represent themselve until stringed together, but the first one can be used alone to conect words or specify a singular object" Quick is the first one to answer. Just like 'A', cool

"Ok, so it seems to be similar" I look down at the paper, then back at Quick "Can I have a pen?" she looks at me slightly confused; Not that technologically advanced, right "Quill, I meant quill" She quickly runs to her desk

"Can you actually read it?" Thinker with the real questions; I nod as Quick comes back and hands me the quill

"Thank you" I redirect my attention to the scroll and begin to write down the conterparts of the alphabet. As I finish I hand the scroll and quill to Rick 

"Thanks, bud" He gives the paper a quick read and turns it around to begin to write something, turning it back from time to time to look at the symbols. After finishing, he double checks everything is good enough and hands it to Quick who immediatly begins reading it

"He wrote 'thank you'" she then looks at Thinker with a huge smile on her face with an audiable 'squee' "We can now learn a language nopony in this world speaks" She then looks at me "You have to teach us your language" I don't want to turn her down, but I won't be able to

"Remember, I translate everything. I can't teach you, but-" I point at Rick "-if you teach him, then he can teach you"

The door to the room opens which catches my attention, I look to see a gaurd walking towards me. He stops infont of me 

"Sir, your presence has been requested on the training grounds by the Captain of the Guard" Ok. Why?

"Sure, just give me a sec" I turn to Rick "They want me somewhere. Use their writing to comunicate, and write as if you were writing English with their letters. I'm sure it will make it easier for them to create the translator" I then turn to Thinker and Quick "Don't make him feel unconfortable, it's really easy" I quickly turn to the guard "Take me there"

"Follow me, sir" I do as told and as walk out the door, I look back and give Rick a thumbs up




We went down the hall took a few left's and several right's, not specifically in that order, went to ground level, out the castle through the front courtyard across castle grounds in to a building to the side. That was the barracks, which we went through to the back of said building into what was definitely the training grounds. Dummies to one side, bullseye targets to the other, a running track in between, with a sort of arena in the middle which kind of looked like a basketball court without the baskets or areas on either side, just the part in the middle.




As we stop at the door he points to a pony in purple armour
"That's the captain" I turn to the guard

"Thanks, I got it from here" he the salutes and walks away the way we came. I begin to walk towards the captain

The captain of the Royal Guards is Shining Armor is a white unicorn stallion with a navy blue mane with a royal blue accent, same as his tail. He's almost as tall as me, which makes him taller than every guard around us, as well as well built with a body that reminds me of Triple H. He's wearing purple armour with gold accents and a magenta star on the chest piece

The captain sees me and walks towards me. As he gets close enough he extends a hand "Hello there, I'm Captain Shining Armor" I take his hand and give a solid shake

"Hello. I'm Luis" Twilight's brother is a hulking beast, sheezus

"Prince, I am not goin to 'beat around the bush' as they say, I will be going to do some physical tests on you. As seeing you out ran the Royal Guards on your first day here in Canterlot" Ok, basically just going to see how I out ran them for over an hour

"Sure, what's first. Oh, and by the way, don't call me 'prince', Luis is just fine" This might get really annoying fast

"Sorry prince Luis, but I am bound by the Royal Guard Conduct Guidlines. As for the first test, it's just a simple 100m dash" He turns and begins to walk to the track; I guess I follow then; I begin to folow behind

As we make our way to the track, I feel the eyes of most of the guards following me, some with simpathy and others with rivalry.

We get to the track's start line for the 100m dash, he turns to me "You should remove your... coat, it'll make it easier" Ha, coat I look at him and unzip my hoodie then take it off and throw it aside, only to have it reappear on me "Oh..." I zip the hoodie back up and roll my sleeves "Anyway, get in line and wait for may signal" I do as told as Shining Armor makes his way to the end of the dash with a stopwatch in hand; Where did that come from?. With me ready to go, he turns around and lifts his hand giving the '3,2,1' before yelling "GO!"

I run as fast as my legs can take me, no sense in being slower than I actually am. I pass the finish line and slow down as fast as possible, turning to Shining as I do so "How did I *pant* do?"

"12.96 seconds" Shiny, you're making it sound like it's a bad time

"Well, that's a new record for me. Nice" Shining turns to me with the most neutral face he could make

"Seeing as how my slowest guard did it in 10.32 seconds... That was pretty bad" That's Usain Bolt levels of speed, holy shit!

"Bad for me or bad for you?" I mean I did out run them He looks slightly up in mock thought

"At this point, I'm going to lean towards 'bad for us'" He then looks at me "So how did you do it? How did you out run the Royal Guards?" With determination; I chuckle a little

"I'm pretty sure I didn't out run you guys as much as I out maneuvered you" I lift my hands and begin to gesture "I mean I was running on rooftops, jumping down them, jumping streets, droping to the streets, taking alleyways, climbing walls and buildings, I was dodging a few of the guards who decided to cut me off" I cross my arms "I think that's what helped me. That and that the guards wear amror that slows them down while I had light civilian clothing" Shining then gets a smug look on his face

"My guard's personal records in armour are still faster than your attempt" Well... shit, that's fast I then feel a hand on my shoulder "So how did you do it? And can you teach me and my guards?" I'm suposed to... do somthi-ah nevermind, sure

"Sure, why not. It's not that complicated, just a lot of practise, which I didn't have to do thanks to my power" Let's see here, there is the safty roll, the wall climb and run... there is more to it than I remember I look back at Shining Armor and he's already getting the guards together; Looks like I'm going to be the teacher... great

"Alright everypony! ATTEN-HUT!!!" And a military-esk pep-talk happens with child like language; Shining Armor is going to be 'peeved' if they under perform, and somehow that is intimidating some of the guar-HOLY SHIT!! Is that Flash Sentry?? Blue spiked mane, short tail, orange fur, blue eyes. Yep, I think it is "...NOW GET OUT THERE AND DO NOT DISAPPOINT!!"

"I've seen newby military drill sergeants that are more intimidating, but sure, you do you Shiny" Shining shoots me a disapproving look "Anyway, the most important move of parkour is the safety roll" A few of the guards seem to get a little confused "Two things before we begin, if you have any doubts, ask away, secondly, 'parkour' is what I did to out run you on our first meeting, it's what we call 'efficient running'. It's all about mantaining momentum and slowing down as little as possible" Their doubts seem to clear; Cool, now back to the class 

"The safety roll is the most basic of moves in parkour, it allows you to follow up a drop with running without slowing down too much, as well as allowing you to fall further without getting hurt, you might feel pain but you won't go to the hospital unless you do it wrong or fall from higher than recomended. Anyways, basically the roll allows you to reduce the impact of a fall by not only increasing the time it takes for you to slow down, but also increasing the area of your body that recives the impact effectivly reducing the amount of force any specific area of your body will experience"

A Couple Hours of Teaching Parkour Later

You just have to skip the boring parts don't you? At least do a cool montage with 'eye of the tiger' or something

I don't feel like it, now shut up

And he responds

What did I say?

Almost all of the guards are tired now, Shining is one of the few still on his feet, or hooves whatever, along with the General from the first day and a few others "I think that's all for today, you did well" One of the guards looks at me a bit amazed

"How come *pant* you're not *pant* as tired as *pant* we are?" How do I even aswer that? 'Hey it's my special talent' or what? ... ... That can actually work...

"Well, simple-" Time to, posibly, bullshit "-my special talent allows me to do things that are beyond normal logic, we call it 'videogame logic' which let's me regain my stamina within a few seconds, and a few other things"

"Sir, your presence has been requested by the Princess" WHERE DID YOU COME FROM?; I turn around to look at the guard

"Sure, let's go" as we walk towards the building I turn around and wave at everyone




The walk to the throne room was mostly uneventful, but I convinced the guard to talk to me a little. Apparently Celestia is planning on assigning me a personal guard, that's going to be interesting, as for the reason for calling me to the throne room, well, he has no idea only that it might involve my appearance in this world. 

This guard also turned out to be Lightning Hooves's brother, Thunder Guard. The naming conventions of this world still make no sense. Anyway, I inveted him just like Lightning Hooves just in case they get the same day off, which apparently happens more commonly among sibling guards.




"The Princess is already waiting" said one of the guards by the door, both of the guards horns glow and the door begins to open. I turn to Thunder

"See you later" he gives a salute and walks away. I step into the throne room and begin scanning my suroundings; I don't think she might assign me a guard now, but who knows; as I continue walking towards the throne, I take note the two guards are present, as well as Luna and two other, this time, batpony night guards; In the show they always have two guards each, so maybe no guard for me today. What would the other thing be anyway?; The two Princesses begin to make their way down the stairs

I arriave at the foot of the stairs and Celestia gives me a tight hug "Hello, Luis, How are you today?" Nice and warm, thank you; I return the hug

"I'm doing fine, how about you, mom?"

"I'm doing just fine" Celestia lets go of the hug

"That's great" I turn to Luna, she seems slightly confused "How about you aunt Luna?" Which changes to shock

Luna looks at Celestia who gives her a nod and then turns back to me, her expression changeing to excitment with a 'squee' and hugs me very tightly "We art doing fine, nephew" Luna gives a quite happy squeal "We art very joyous at the news" I return the hug tapping her back a little; I can't breath. I submit I submit

"Air. I. Need. Air" She let's go blushing a little "I'm happy you're happy *deep inhale* But, be gentle with you happiness *audible inhale* Please" Luna backs up a bit and rubs the back of her neck

"Thou has our most humble apologies" Celestia takes a step towards me and put a hand on my shoulder

"Now that you are an official part of the royal family, you are going to need a personal guard to protect you" So I AM getting a guard. It couldn't be one the four present could it? "So I decide that you should get on of the night guards as your guard" Why a night guard? "If you are wandering why a night guard, it's because when we first arrive at the castle you mumbled something about being a friend of the night" I feel a blush on my face; Did I really mumble that that loud?

"Did I really mumble that? I though I was just reading it" Celestia then walks back next to Luna with a smirk

"The night guards are still part of the EUP Royal Guards, they are trained, skilled and most importantly dedicated to their job" E.U.P. Earth. Unicorn. Pegasus. PEGASUS Taking a loud inhale at my realisation, I look up to see a batpony hanging from the ceiling looking directly at me in shock. The batpony then drops, does a flip and lands infront of me; It's a she...

The batpony is a pegasus mare with bat wings intead of feathery ones. Her fur is a brown-ish drak grey, almost can't see the brown, while her mane are tail are a really dark grey and probably as long as Fluttershy's, but not covering her face so much. She's wearing normal clothes with really light armour on top, kind of like the leather armour in Fallout 4. The armour has a crescent moon on the right shoulder. The clothes themselves are similar to what you would find in England in the late industrial revolution, a white long sleeve shirt with a black vest, black pants and, surprisingly enough, black boots. Or what can be considered boots on a hoove, I guess.

She's got red eyes... "Red..."

"Luis, stop staring" I jump a little at the sudden whisper in my ear; Wait staring... for how long?.. I start to blush again "This is Noctis Umbra and she will be your personal guard" Night Shadow... interesting name 

I extend my hand for a hand shake, but Umbra salutes instead; That hurt my feelings a little, ouch.

"Noctis Umbra at your service, Prince" And she sound slighty Scottish, why does she sound Scottish?

"Speaking of 'prince', would it be possible to not make it public knowledge that you adopted me? I want to have a normal life for as long as possible, if you don't mind" Celestia gives me a knowing smile

"How would you explain having a royal guard?" Good question...lets see

"How about we don't? Just let everyone find out at their own time. If I get asked I won't lie, but I will avoid the subject" That should work

"Thou needs to behold the political side of thy dilemma" Fuck! She's right it could cause an uproar amongst the nobles of Equestria; I sigh in defeat

"Ok, you win" I look at Noctis "Be casual with me" She opens her mouth to say something, but I point at her and interrupt "And don't give me a 'I have to follow the Royal Guard Conduct Guidelines', got it?" She was about to salute but stoped herself and only gave a nod. I turn to Celestia "I'm guessing this wasn't the only thing you called me here for"

She nods, then looks at one of the guards "Bring it in" the guard salutes and walks out the door, Celestia returns her view to me "I've had a team investigate the area where you first appeared" The guard returns with a box and gives it to Celestia "Thank you" she looks back at me "And they found this" she opens the box

"wha..." Inside the box is a smoke grenade; 'M18 SMOKE RED', why is it here? I look at Celestia "They found it where I first appeared?" I look back at the grenade

"Yes, do you know or have any idea on what it is?" I nod and reach for the grenade "So, what is it?"

"It's a smoke grenade" I hold it infront of me "Specifically an M18 smoke grenade" Why would it be here?

"What does it do?" I look at Noctis surprised she talked

"It creates a smoke screen, but this model specifically is more to mark a spot for..." My eyes widen "...a care package. This is used as a signal" Where can I use this? The courtyard "Let's go to the courtyard. I'm gonna use it"

One Walk to the Outside Later

Seriously? I stand grenade in hand in the middle of a clearing in the courtyard "Here goes nothing" I press on the lever and pull the pin out, then let go of the lever, letting it fly off, and drop the grenade taking a few steps back as the red smoke leaves the chamber. I the distance I hear a pop

"So... Is anything going to happen?" Noctis, patience I look up to see a crate falling

"Give it time" a parachute deploys on the crate

"What is that?"

"A care package, or supply drop" The crate makes contact with the ground and the parachute banishes; That's weird; I walk up to it and open it