Flurry Heart's Story: Let My Ponies Go!

by AleximusPrime


Chapter 5

Somnambula sat in the cage, worrying over her friends and the fact that she could do nothing to help them except pray for their safety. She was still for a few moments until she heard the sound of tiny wings buzzing. It got closer and closer until she lifted her head and saw Storm Streak, hovering right in front of the cage with a big smile on his face.
“Somnambula! You’re alright!” he said, happily, trying to not be too loud.
“Storm Streak?! How did you get in here?!”
“I’ve watched enough of the Daring Do Saturday morning cartoon to know how to get through these dungeons. That dumb sphinx didn’t expect me!”

Stormy began looking around until he found the keys to the cage and brought them over to free her.
“You are a brave little colt, Storm Streak, but it’s still dangerous in here. Where are the others?”
“We got separated from the grownups. Pound and Flurry kept arguing over what to do, so I just decided to come in and save you myself.”
Stormy finally opened the cage and Somnambula leapt down onto the ground.
“We have to go help them and stop Anatankha. If we escape from here, Anatankha will probably follow us and lay waste to the entire village just to find me. I think I know what is wrong with her though. I must get to her.”
“Get to her? Don’t we wanna escape from her?”
You must escape, but now that I know she set this all up so I would find her and be captured, it’s quite clear she wants revenge, but I think there is something else.”
“Wait, she set this all up?”
“Yes, she just told me she turned herself into stone and made sure I would find her years later. No one would go to all the trouble of doing that without a reason, and I think it is more than just wanting to get back at me. I am going to get to the bottom of this.”
Somnambula began to walk towards the door and pushed. It was heavy, but just enough for her to get it open since Anatankha didn’t bother to lock it. Stormy stood still and thought for a moment if he should do as she told him and try to escape, but he wasn’t ready to give up on any of his friends, especially his mother. With a confident smile on his face, he flew over next to her.
“I’m coming with you. I gotta save my mom and the others.”
“Well, if you insist. I would be glad to have company.”
Somnambula smiled and walked on. Stormy followed close behind, with hearts over his head.


Flurry and the others quietly made their way up a fleet of stairs after getting past several empty rooms. Getting through this temple was much easier now that everyone with wings could fly again and all of the traps had been turned off. Most of the torches were still lit, though the rooms were still quite dark, so Flurry and Pumpkin used their horns to brighten things up. By the time they had gotten to the top of the stairs, there was a large set of doors with two regal sphinx statues next to it.
“Is that where Anatankha is?” Annie asked, trembling behind Applejack.
“I reckon it is,” Applejack replied.
“So what are we gonna do once we find her?” Pumpkin asked Flurry.
“I think I know how I can stop her,” Flurry said. “That zodiac undid her spell so we have our flying back. Rainbow Dash, do you think you can distract her while I try charging up some magic?”
“I can try, but I’m a little more concerned with finding Stormy,” Rainbow Dash replied. “That kid is gonna get a scolding when I find him!”
“Well we should really try not getting in the sphinx’s way. We should try to find Somnambula and Stormy first and then escape with them,” Mrs. Cake suggested.
“Yeah Flurry, this is why I thought we should let he village know,” Pound told Flurry. “We could have at least told the Teachers or Discord and let them take care of Anatankha.”
“Well if this doesn’t work, we’ll have to get her to hand over Stormy and then we go alert Discord or the Teachers or somebody. Hopefully this won’t be as bad as the situation with Cozy Glow was the other day. At least Anatankha’s only crime so far is kidnapping Somnambula. Makes you wonder why she didn’t go attack the village again. Anyway, let’s see what’s in this next room.”
Flurry used her magic to push open the door, with Spike, Rainbow Dash and Applejack helping her. Once the doors were opened, they entered a large audience room with light shining in from some windows on the side. There was another set of doors at the other end with a picture of Anatankha on it.
“Looks like we’re getting close,” said Spike.
“Let’s try to be as quiet as we can,” said Pound. “If we can rescue Somnambula without Anatankha hearing us, we don’t have to worry about the latter.”
“Yeah, that’s going to be the challenging part,” Flurry responded.
“If Anatankha comes, just leave her to me,” Rainbow Dash said. “I’ll show that sphinx a thing or two about…wha…AGH!!”
Rainbow Dash’s wings suddenly closed up and she fell to the ground, grunting as she landed.
“Whoa! Rainbow, you okay?” Applejack said, helping her up.
“Uh oh guys…my wings closed too,” Spike said, trying to open his wings.
“Mine too,” Flurry said, trying to do the same.
“Great. I thought we undid that spell earlier!” Pound complained.
Just then, the sound of gears and machinery began to go off throughout the temple and slabs of stone covered all the windows. The entire room was dark until some torches lit themselves. Large stone blocks began to move out of the walls on both sides, forcing everyone to separate. Without flying, they were unable to escape from the traps currently in play. Flurry was scared these blocks would crush them until she realized what was happening. She, Pound and Pumpkin were together on the floor while the others were separated. Circular tiles on a huge corkscrew began to spin upwards out of the ground with her friends on top. Chip, Annie and Spike were on their own platform, while Rainbow Dash, Applejack, and Mrs. Cake were on the other. The blocks finally retracted back into the walls. They were all being purposefully kept apart and some of them were on objects that they would not be safe to jump down from. Anatankha had detected them and was now on the move.
“GUYS!” Pound shouted.
“FLURRY, POUND, PUMPKIN, STAY PUT! WE’LL FIND A WAY DOWN!” Spike shouted.
“Oh no you won’t…” said Anatankha’s voice, echoing in the entire room.
“Anatankha?” Flurry asked.
“So you’re the princess of the group, are you? Funny, I remember a time when alicorns were far more common in Equestria. I don’t know if they’ve nearly gone extinct now, but I can already tell you have much potential as a magic user.”
“We’re here for Somnambula, Anatankha! We just want her back!”
“And my son Storm Streak too!” Rainbow Dash shouted.
“Ah yes. I’m guessing that is the mouthy little colt that cannot pronounce my name. Wherever he is right now, it matters not.”
“How did you take away our flying? We undid your spell earlier!” Pound shouted.
“The riddle on that zodiac was meant for Somnambula to solve. Just because you solved that riddle doesn’t mean I cannot cast the spell again.”
“Then what was the point of capturing her to begin with?”
“Foolish little pegasus! I set up this temple to be for Somnambula to play my games. If she solves the riddle, I congratulate her and then everything resets and she goes back to her cage. This entire place was made for me to have my way with her as revenge for what she did to me!”
“So you set this all up?” Flurry asked.
“And in case you are wondering, I am the one who turned myself into stone. Only she could undo the spell so I waited until the day we would both come in contact. Her wizard friend’s spell would not last forever. Somnambula made a grave mistake standing up to me years ago, and you fools are making an even bigger mistake coming back in here!”
The doors then burst open. Light shone in with Anatankha’s silhouette in view. Anatankha slowly walked forward with her paws pounding on the ground with each step. After she was close enough, the doors closed.
“I was going to just throw you all out and seal this temple, but now that I have overheard you discussing to get help from powerful beings like Discord, I’m afraid I have no choice but to keep you all prisoners.”
Pound stepped in front of Flurry as if to defend her. Pumpkin nervously stepped forward with him and took out a muffin, which had fallen out of her mother’s satchel on the ground in all the commotion.

“You stay away from Flurry!” Pound barked.
“Uh…muffin?” Pumpkin asked nervously, offering it to the sphinx.
Anatankha shot a low-powered beam out of her eyes and turned the muffin into ashes in Pumpkin’s hoof. Pumpkin looked down at the remains of the pastry and rushed back to Flurry.
“Uh, Flurry? Any ideas?” she said, nervously.
“Just keep her distracted,” Flurry whispered.
Pound and Anatankha stared each other down for a few seconds until Pound finally rushed forward between her legs. Without his flying, he had to rely on his footwork this time. Thankfully he had enough practice with running due to his time playing baseball during the school year. Like a cat chasing a laser pointer, Anatankha tried to catch him as he ran around. She suddenly felt something land on her back and then something grabbed her tail. She looked back to see Applejack had jumped on her and used a rope to lasso her tail. Anatankha spun around, trying to get Applejack to fall off. Finally Applejack was flung off against the wall and slid back down with a thud. Next was Rainbow Dash who had hopped down onto Anatankha’s back, surfed down her tail, and grabbed onto the rope with her teeth. She ran it around the pillar that Spike and the kids were on. Anatankha pulled hard on the rope until the pillar began to crumble. Rainbow Dash jumped to save Chip just in time while Spike held onto Annie and let himself land on the ground, back first.
“Spike, are you okay?!” Annie asked.
“Bit of a rough fall, but I’ll live,” he said, getting up.
Spike then rushed forward to Anatankha and began blowing fire at her. Anatankha roared and backed up into a wall but eventually charged up her own fire breath. She blew against his column of fire until Spike ran out of breath and was overcome. Flurry ran in front of him to use a magic shield to protect against the sphinx’s fire. Anatankha stopped blowing and saw Chip, Annie, Mrs. Cake and Pumpkin off to the side, throwing some snacks at her as a distraction. Pumpkin had used her magic to bring her mother down to the ground to fight back. Anatankha started to walk towards them, when suddenly she noticed Rainbow Dash behind her, crawling up her tail to get onto her back.
As this happened, Somnambula and Stormy anxiously watched the battle from a balcony above.

“What do we do, Somnambula?” Stormy asked.
“We need a plan. If I could get that rope on Anatankha’s tail, I might be able to use it to swing down to her level, but I cannot fly right now. Storm Streak, Anatankha cast her spell too far away from you, so you’re the only one of us that still has their wings open. Can you fetch me that rope?”
“You got it!” Stormy said heroically as he zoomed down to Anatankha and worked to pull off the rope while his mother kept the sphinx busy. He finally pulled it off and brought it back to Somnambula.
“Here you go, Somnambula!” he said as he handed her the rope.
“Storm Streak? Is that you up there?!” Rainbow Dash called.
“Hey Mommy! Don’t worry, Somnambula’s got this!” he called back.
With Rainbow Dash momentarily distracted, Anatankha reached back with her head, bit down on Rainbow Dash’s tail, and yanked her away. Rainbow Dash tumbled around on the ground and skidded to a halt. This enraged Stormy.
“YOU…YOU’LL PAY FOR THAT!” he screamed.
“STORM STREAK, WAIT!” Somnambula called.
Stormy flew as fast as he could around Anatankha’s head like an annoying fly that could not be touched. Anatankha swatted at him with her paws but could not land a hit. Flurry took this opportunity to charge up a beam like the one she tried to use on Scutellum. She shot Anatankha in the face with her beam, though it didn’t seem to do much damage. Anatankha roared and then shook her head around and looked back angrily at Flurry. Spike ran in front of Flurry to protect her.
“You are becoming a thorn in my side, little princess!” the sphinx said, angrily.
“HEY ANADORKA!!” shouted Stormy from behind.
The sphinx looked back to see the thing that was bothering her earlier.
“Why don’t you try picking on someone your own size! Or better yet, try me! You can’t catch me; I have my mom’s jeans! I don’t know what that means cuz I don’t wear pants, but that’s okay cuz I can still do this! NA-NA-NANA-NA! PFFFFFFF!”

Stormy turned himself around and spanked his butt while sticking his tongue out at the sphinx. Anatankha gritted her teeth and her eyes glowed green. Stormy’s wings folded up and he fell to the ground. Meanwhile, Somnambula finally managed to tie the rope onto a nearby torch and prepared to use it to swing into action.
“You’ve forgotten wings don’t work in my temple, little one. You should have taken this outside!” Anatankha laughed, walking towards Stormy who was now cornered.
“Oh no…” Stormy said, backing up, nervously.
Anatankha drew closer and closer, growling. Finally Somnambula swung down on the rope, let go, and landed on the ground, skidding to a halt right overtop Stormy to protect him.
“ANATANKHA, THAT’S ENOUGH!!!” she shouted.

“SOMNAMBULA! How did you get out of your cage?!”
“Nevermind that. We did not finish our conversation earlier. I know you want revenge on me, but what else is bothering you?”
“That is none of your concern, Somnambula! You humiliated me and I am making you my slave now! That is all that you need to know!”
“But you said you followed me and the other Pillars to Ponehenge where you witnessed us trap the Pony of Shadows in limbo. That was several years after our first encounter. Why would you wait that long?”
“Stop it!”
“What happened after you left the village that caused you to be this way? You promised you would leave forever!”
Anatankha reached her breaking point and roared as loud as she could, causing everyone to cover their ears in submission.
“DO YOU WANT TO KNOW WHY I HATE YOU SO MUCH?! DO YOU WANT TO KNOW WHY I SPENT YEARS PERFECTING THIS TEMPLE AND PREPARING ALL THESE TRAPS?!”
Anatankha used her magic to lift Somnambula and Stormy onto a platform so they would be at her level. She then zapped a nearby wall with a laser from her eyes and some animated figures came to life as she spoke.
“After I left your village in defeat, I returned to the other sphinxes and they demanded a report on my plundering. I tried to avoid them, but eventually they got the answer out of me. And do you want to know what happened next?! They laughed at me! The very name of Anatankha became synonymous with ‘coward’ or ‘joke!’”
As she told her story, the character that resembled her on the wall sat down crying as the other sphinxes were surrounding her, pointing and laughing.
“I was chastised and shunned by the other sphinxes for not being tougher on the ponies. I was supposed to leave after you completed my challenge as is the tradition of the sphinxes, but it did no good to explain this to them. Everywhere I went I was always met by this ridicule until I could take it no more. I had been driven to insanity so I vowed revenge on you. After I failed to catch you at Ponehenge, that’s when I started devising my plan to bring you back and I began working on this temple and then I turned myself into stone. When you released me from stone, that was when I would finally have what I want. It was all I could do. The only thing that made me happy was the very thought of getting back at you!”
Anatankha slammed her paw on the ground in her anger and shook the room. She stood there, panting. After a few moments, tears finally began to form in her eyes and she removed her nemes headdress. Somnambula looked up at the sphinx. For the first time ever, she finally saw just what was wrong with her archenemy. Anatankha’s desire for revenge wasn’t because she was pure evil; it was just the result of years of bullying from the other sphinxes. Everyone else in the room looked equally shocked to hear this story. Finally, Anatankha threw her nemes off to the side and opened her eyes.

“Oh what is the point anymore…” she said as she snapped her fingers.
Somnambula, Stormy, Flurry, Pound, and Spike’s wings all opened up and the temple powered down again with all the traps being turned off. The windows to the audience room opened up to let in some light again and the torches were snuffed out. Anatankha had shut the temple down entirely, but she was in no mood to talk. She walked past Somnambula and opened the doors to return to her throne room. Somnambula reached out her hoof as if to stop the sphinx, but Anatankha had already slammed the doors behind her.
“Storm Streak!” Rainbow Dash shouted, rushing over to hug her son. “Are you okay?”
“Yeah, Mommy. Are you?”
“Don’t you ever run off like that again! And don’t ever antagonize someone who knows how to take away your flying WHILE you’re flying!”
“I’m sorry, Mommy.”
“Is everyone else alright?” Spike asked, looking around.
“Bit of a rough ride back here, but I’m okay,” Applejack said, rubbing one of her shoulders.
“Alright, let’s get out of here while we still can!”
“You said it, Spike!” Mrs. Cake replied.
Everyone started walking towards the door they came in until Stormy nudged Rainbow Dash to get her attention.
“Mommy, what about Somnambula?”
“Somnambula? You coming?” Rainbow Dash asked, looking back.
Somnambula stood still in front of the door Anatankha had left through. She hadn’t moved an inch since the sphinx had left and hadn’t said a word. She had her head down.
“Somnambula, come on, girl!” Applejack called. “You heard that sphinx. She doesn’t want ya anymore.”
Flurry walked forward as Spike followed her.
“You all go back to the village. I’m not giving up on Anatankha,” Somnambula told them.
“What?!” Spike exclaimed. “Somnambula, are you crazy?! She’s giving you the chance to leave now! Do you really think you can talk some sense into her?”
“I think I can.”
“Flurry, come on. Let’s just go.”
“No Spike. We have to try,” Flurry responded.
“Flurry, we’ve already failed at getting Tirek and Cozy Glow to listen. I don’t think right now is the best time for a villain reform session. We’ll tell Discord about her later.”
“She already feels sorry or else she wouldn’t have let us go like this. There’s good in her. If we just tell everyone else and send someone after her, that won’t do any good.”
“Okay, but shouldn’t we let Somnambula deal with it.”
“I want to help Anatankha, Spike. I already feel bad for her. Maybe I didn’t come to Ponyville to reform some villains, but I think it can work.”
Spike thought for a moment and then smiled confidently at Flurry.
“Just one favor. Can you fly real quick back to the village and get me my Journal of Friendship?”
“Sure.”
Spike spread his wings and flew up into one of the open windows to go retrieve Flurry’s book.
“Well, think we should help out?” Applejack asked, cautiously.
“I mean I don’t see why not,” said Pumpkin.
“Pumpkin, dear, I’m not sure that’s a good idea,” said Mrs. Cake.
“I agree. I don’t really think we should bother anymore with that sphinx,” Rainbow Dash said, skeptically.
“Mommy, we can’t leave Somnambula to do it by herself though,” Stormy said.
“You really like her, don’t ya, kid?” Rainbow Dash teased as Stormy blushed.
“Well guys, Flurry and I fought earlier over whether we should come back in here and help rescue Somnambula or just go back and get help and I honestly didn’t think Anatankha would admit that,” Pound said, stepping towards Flurry. “Maybe Flurry’s right. Maybe we can help her.”
Everyone stood and thought for a few seconds until Applejack finally walked forward.
“Come on, ya’ll. We might as well give it a try.”
Rainbow Dash followed her to help Somnambula push the door open. Soon everyone else smiled and joined them.
“We’re coming too, Somnambula,” Stormy said excitedly.
“Thank you, everyone,” Somnambula told them. “I wouldn’t ask you to stay, but help would be nice. I think that sphinx just needs a friend or two.”