//------------------------------// // Chapter 2: Saving the Princess of Magic // Story: Pony Heart-Break // by Tythen //------------------------------// Saving the Princess of Magic In Rainbow Plains, a teleporter next to a big tree started to intensify the aura radiating from it. Flash Sentry appeared on the teleporter and stepped out of the circle. He looked around and saw a path leading to a river. "Hmm, It be easier to find the Princess in the air, there also seems to be something wrong in this area" he thought and prepared his wings to fly. However, as soon as he started hovering, he immediately fell back to ground. "What? I can't fly! What's happening?" Flash said to himself in horror. "There must be some way to scout the hills up ahead. But how?" Flash looked around to find a high spot and his eyes rested on the huge tree. "Ah! This should work, now, how to get up there...Of course! One of the actions!" Flash trotted in front of the tree and sharp studs mechanically appear on Flash's Horseshoes and Flash started climbing the tree. As he reached the top, he looked at the view of the area in front. He saw a river, a mini piece of land in the middle with a log and a magical rod used as a bridge to cross the river. He saw a path heading up to a big mountain covered with Sunflowers. At the bottom of his eye, he saw a purple speck walking on the path away from the hill. That purple speck was enough for Flash Sentry to know who that is. "Princess Twilight!" Flash concluded when he finished analysing the Purple Princess. He climbed back down the tree and also thought "Hmm, maybe I should shine these horseshoes and fix my hair. I need to look good in front of the princess!" So he scratched his hooves, front then back against the large tree and it gave a very good gleam and shine. Flash then made his way on the path to the river. Flash got to the bank of the river and saw Twilight trotting down the path to him and then turning to her left on another path. A split minute later, a loud noise and a crash happened which shook the ground. "Eeeek!!!!" Twilight cried and all was silent. Flash heard the entire thing as was worried like never before. "Princess Twilight!" He cried and crossed the large rod and log and ran to the right, the same path Twilight took. As he approached further, he saw a giant rock in the way. "Oh Celestia... Please don't tell me she's under the rock!" As he approached the rock, he heard a faint amount of crying on the other side. "Thank goodness! The Princess is safe! But by the looks of it, I need to get to her right away! He crossed the dual bridge back to the other side and stopped to inspect and pick up 5 bits lying on the ground. "Captain was right! There are random bits lying on the ground". He went to a different path from the path to the teleporter. On the other side of the river, he manages to see Twilight crying... Flash assessed the situation, Twilight was crying because she was trapped between two large boulders, with no escape. "That's not good. I've got to rescue her!" Flash said determined "Excuse me, you look like a soldier." Flash turned to the source of the voice and saw a peach coloured unicorn looking at him just a few meters away. "Oh um, good morning!" Flash greeted "Well, good morning to you too! What's your name and what are you doing? I'm interested to know what a soldier does because I would like to join the Royal Canterlot army!" The pony said with interest. "Very well then, my name is Flash Sentry. I'm a high-ranking officer and the Captain's right hand man! Right now, I've been given a mission to find Princess Twilight, she's the fourth princess of Equestria." "Really? Wow! Its so lucky of you interact with the princesses! Did you find her?" "Yes, she's on the other side of the river, trapped between two boulders." Flash Sentry sadly concluded. "Oh dear, that's not good, I'd easily help her with my magic but for some reason, my magic's not working." The pony said "Funny, my wings aren't working either. Something's wrong with this atmosphere." Flash agreed. "Now, I'm not a soldier like you but I think I can help. Do you see that miniature pier near where the Princess is? You can dock there and rescue the princess if you have a boat. Last time I saw a boat, I think it was on the other side of the mountain near the waterfall. To get to the boat, you need to scale the mountain." The pony informed "Thanks for the information! You know, you would really work out as a soldier. In that case, stay safe" Flash said and started galloping back to the crossroads between the dual bridge and the path to the teleporter. He got the other side of the river and then started to hear some rustling bushes, Flash immediately halted at the sound. "What was that?" he thought and looked at the rustling bushes. "I wonder what's in there? Better know from afar." He grabbed his Sentry Spear and poked the bush twice. A random pony jumped out of the bush with an "Ahh!". The pony was in the bushes to relieve himself and Flash's poking seemed to have disrupted his concentration and it made quite a mess on the pony. The pony blushed very hard in shock, stood up on his two hooves, covered his eyes using his ears and shook left and right 6 times then proceeded to run off saying "Hyaah! I'm so embarrassed!" "Well that was awkward." Flash concluded. Suddenly a blue light was coming out of Flash's saddlebag. "Wha?" He stammered as the Code of Actions levitated out of his bag surrounded by a blue sphere of aura, flew to Flashes face, the book opened up causing the aura to disappear. On an empty box, a miniature star covered in magic flew on to the empty box in the code and filled the box with the word "Embarrass". The picture at the bottom of the four boxes illuminated and the two ponies on the picture showed the action. After a few seconds, the code closed and the same blue aura appeared enveloping the code and flew back into Flash's bag. After that, the action was immediately recorded in Flash's memory. "I see, so that was a new action that I haven't seen, the code of actions must have some strong magic to implant the action in my mind" Flash thought and started to scale up the mountain. Midway up the mountain covered with sunflowers, he sees two earth ponies, one pink and one blue, down on their luck. "Buenos Dias! How can I help you?" Flash greeted using Spaneighsh. "Huh? Oh, Hi! We... we don't have time to be trading greetings with one another!" Both ponies spoke at once "You see, were are trying to find a way to get all the apples at once from that tree" the blue one said pointing to a nearby apple tree and continued "There's got to be a way!" "Exactly, kicking the tree over and over is really degrading you know? We'd like to get the apples using a more sophisticated way!" The pink one concluded, both sighed and started thinking on what to do. "Well, I'll find something that can help you but in the meantime, take care." Flash said and after kicking the tree and inspecting 5 bits that fell out, Flash picked them up and continued all the way to the top of the mountain. At the top of the mountain, he saw a young purple dragon holding a gemstone crying. As Flash approached, he recognised the dragon to be Spike, Twilight Sparkle's library assistant. "Spike! What's wrong?" Flash greeted with concern. "Oh, nooooooooo!! Listen to my story will you Flash? My..my... Rarity! She's really, really mad! We were talking away when she just got very angry and stormed off! I...I don't really know what's going on. Ohhh!!!! I'm so sad! Waaah! Waaah!" Spike said after he calmed down, after finishing his story and when at the point on when he said sad, tears welled up in his eyes and he started crying again. The code of actions flew out of the bag again and opened, Flash recorded the sad action and learned it in the process. As the code flew back into the bag, Flash decided to climb up on the stump next to Spike. "Heeeyyyyyyyyyy!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!" A voice rang out. Flash went confused, "I thought I heard a pony's voice far, far away..." he said. "Heyyyyyyyyyy!!!!!!!!!!" The voice rang out again. Flash caught the sound this time and started to look around. "Heyyyyyyyyyyy!!!!!!!!!! I'm... over... here!" Flash immediately turned around and found the source of the voice, a pony located on a far away mountain. "Heeeeeeeeeeyy!!!! Thanks... for... noticing! I'm the one... who was... calling out to you!" The code popped up again and Flash recorded the action to call out. As the code flew back into the bag, the yelling pony continued "How's your mountain? This...one's... great! What...a...view!" Flash smiled in agreement "See yaaaaaaaaaaa!" The yelling pony yelled. Flash stepped of the stump and continued through the mountain leaving Spike behind. After poking a few bushes that had frogs in them and passing a mannequin of a horse that is wearing a rather dapper shirt pointing to a door, he decided to kick a big tree which caused and apple to fall. Flash inspected it, picked it up and continued. However, his hooves came to rest upon a handkerchief. "Hey! STOPPPPPPPPPPPPPPPPP!!!" A pony voice yelled. Flash immediately looked around to see what that voice was and did not notice a pony charging towards him very angrily. "You! Do you have any idea what you are doing?" The pony said "Umm... No?" Flash answered, really unsure of why the pony was angry "Arrgh! The handkerchief? Hand-ker-chief! The one you happen to ride on" the pony stood on its hind legs, pointed its front legs into the air, crouched with his arms facing the opposite direction of where he was looking, jumped into the air and did three quick somersaults before landing on all fours and continued "right now! IT'S MINE!!!" Flash thought this was a good time to record the action since the book appeared. "Um, Hello? How long are you going to stand there?!?" The pony continued and yanked the handkerchief underneath Flash nearly tripping him up. "You inconsiderate lout! What kind of a soldier are you? How rude!!! Sheesh!" The yelled and trotted off angrily. "Well I'm sorry, I actually didn't know..." Flash apologised even though the pony didn't hear him. As he trotted along the mountain, he came across a dirt patch. Flash dug there and unearthed 5 bits. He came across a yellow pony with a cowboy hat on, rummaging through some bushes. Flash greeted him. "Hm? Could ya please keep it down. Ah'm busy gathering apples you know?" The pony said and continued on finding apples. Flash always liked to help so he decided to inspect for apples. That caught the pony's attention. "Excuse me? You are also looking for apples too? Well, you see, I actually find these apples around Rainbow Plains because its very important for my family business. If you have any apples on you, I would love to trade them for bits." Then he eyed an apple in Flash's bag. "You've got one! Well ah'll be! Would ya be willing to trade me that fer 20 bits?" The pony asked with joy in his eyes. "Well yes! Why not?" Flash agreed and took the apple out of his bag and gave it to the pony, the pony accepted it and returned 20 bits to Flash's hoof. "Thank ya very kindly for the apple! Mah name's Braeburn by the way. I like apples and hot springs, is there anything else? Nah, I fergot. The apples here are very scrumptious. I'd love to trade em' if ya find some more." "I'll sure do! See you later Braeburn!" Flash said as he left, waving bye to Braeburn. Flash arrived at the top of the waterfall, marking that climbing down this cliff means he'll reach the base on the other side of the mountain. He noticed a young pegasus filly located there waiting for something. "Hello young filly. How may I help you?" Flash greeted, the filly turned around excited. "Arnie! Is that you? I'm so glad your home! I've been waiting for sooooo long!" The filly said mistaking Flash for Arnie and realising a few seconds later. "Hey! You're not Arnie! Who are you? I'm sitting here waiting for Arnie to come home. I don't want to talk to you!" The filly cried and turned her head away and kept on waiting. "Why is everyone being so rude today?" Flash said to himself and approached a large red feather and looked up the sky to see where it came from. A cry of a Phoenix was heard and a shadow swooped over Flash and the waterfall. "What a majestic Phoenix" Flash concluded admiring the bird. Flash saw a few vines leading to the base of the mountain and climbed down. Flash arrived on a medium sized platform sticking out of the cliff near the midpoint of the waterfall. Flash found a white aura-radiating teleporter that looks exactly like the one near the giant tree at the base of the mountain where Flash used to enter Rainbow Plains, and a smaller platform sticking out of the cliff higher than the platform Flash was on that appears to have a White pony with a very stylish looking mane. As Flash inspected 3 diamonds as the pony's cutie mark, Flash knew the pony as Rarity, one of Twilight's friends. Flash continued climbing down another vine leading to the bottom of the mountain. Sure enough, like the peach unicorn said, there was a boat. However, there was a rope tied on to the boat, and Flash didn't know how to break it. "It must be one of the actions that I forgot, oh why did I get my code wet?" Flash wailed. Flash walked on the only path and saw a pegasus. "Hello." Flash greeted "Oh yeah... Hi. I'm kinda busy." The pony replied and continued looking around. "Everyone is being busy, what is going on?" Flash said and continued talking the the pony "well so am I, I'm looking for something." "Yeah that's right. My little sister had lost something, it was this object that looks like a swan." The pony described "Actually, what I meant to say was that I was looking for somepony. Have you seen someone by the name of Twilight Sparkle? She's purple in colour with a dark purple coloured mane with pink streaks." Flash said hiding Twilight's true identity. "Really? Well you know, I think I heard a girl calling out from behind that boulder. It should be her but, that is a really big boulder. You could bite it forever and get nowhere!" "Oh well, I'm positive that there is another way around the boulder but thanks for the help!" Flash thanked while he recorded the bite action in the code. Flash jumped back into the boat and bit the rope setting the boat free. Horror then spread across Flash Sentry's face realising as the boat was free, the current started moving the boat on its own! Flash sailed away through the river and passing Twilight Sparkle on the way. Twilight managed to se Flash on the boat but she gasped in shock as he passed her. Tears came back into her eyes and she started crying again. The boat hit the rocks and floated to a mini pier where the same peach unicorn was. Flash tried to make the boat go but it won't budge. Flash rushed out of the boat in anger, crossed the bridge to where the boulder was blocking Twilight and started biting it as hard as he can but to no avail. So he rushed back up to the mid-point of the mountain and decided to call out to the skies with an "AHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHH!!!" In anger of failing to rescue Twilight. Little did he know that the two blue and pink earth ponies was near him and Flash's scream caused the pink one to to jump onto the blue one. "What are you doing? Why are you yelling? You scared me half to death!" The pink pony spluttered "...And you!" The blue mare said to the pink colt "why are on top of me? Get down!" she bellowed. "Huh?" The two ponies said in unison and stopped moving, the pink colt jumped down and said "On...top? Yes that's it!" The ponies cried in delight and headed to the tree next to them. "Piggyback!" they said and the Pink pony hopped onto the blue. The code flew out and opened, then flew back in again. Flash tried to do the same thing, but failed. "What? I can't seem to learn this action!" Flash said in horror. "What's this?" The blue pony said "are you trying to learn our action alone? Ha ha ha! That's impossible if you ask me!" "This action requires two ponies! See? One and two!" The pink one said pointing at his partner then himself. "If you really want to learn it, you'll have to find a partner!" The blue pony continued then both ponies concluded in unison: "No partner, no action!" Then they turned around and started collecting the apples. "Wow! This is great! Its like an all-you-can-eat buffet!" The pink one said with glee "Hold it! You can't eat all of those apples! Time to switch!" The blue pony yelled angrily. Flash sighed, "I need to rescue the Princess and learn actions as well! Now I need a partner to do it? Can't this day just get any worse? And who will be my partner anyway?" Flash thought, he decided to head back and report in a mission failure, he wondered what punishment he would get from the Captain, especially if the victim was his sister. As he crossed the bridge, the peach unicorn came up to him. "Hey Flash! Do you think this boat would be fun to drive?" She said "Hmmm... Yeah, It would be." Flash agreed "That right! It would be very fun! But there's no power to move the boat! If it should work the way I think it works, put something in the middle of the boat and it should move." Flash recorded the action and noticed a rather peculiar looking object that looks like a Swan floating... against the current, as he looked closer, it turned out it was not a real swan. Flash got really suspicious "Something must be moving it! But what?" Flash wondered so he called out to the object. "Glubahhhhhhh!" A magic mint coloured unicorn rose from the water with the Swan object stuck on her back. "Hi there! I'm Lyra Heartstrings! Water doesn't scare me! In fact I love it! After all, I do have seapony ancestry and swimming is what humans like to do and I want to be like one of them!" Lyra swam to the river bank and climbed out. "Oh yeah! You've got great timing! I need you to do something for me. Something's stuck to my back and I can't get it off. Remove it for me would you?" Lyra said as she flipped onto one side landing on her front hooves then flipping forward while not moving and landed on her hind legs before moving back to her original position. Flash recorded the move then proceeded to remove the object neatly. "You saved me greatly! Thanks a bunch!" Lyra thanked then continued "by the way, what was that thing?" Flash gave the Swan shaped potty training seat to Lyra after finding out what it was. "Eww! This is a training seat used for potty training? That's gross! However, I find it rather funny so I'll keep it for now." As, Lyra put the seat in her waterproof saddlebags, Lyra then recognised Flash's face. "Hey, aren't you Flash Sentry?" Lyra questioned, "Yep, that's me!" Flash answered "I see, Shining Armor has told me all about you being his second-in-command and all! You see, I got a job at the barracks where you are currently residing at: Running a photo studio. Since Photo Finish is currently away, me and my best friend Bon Bon are now doing all the photo taking. The studio should be already complete by now so wear your fancy clothes and dazzling accessories down at the photo studio and Bon Bon and I can get your picture taken! Just so you know, you need a partner if you want to get your photo taken so we can't take a picture of you unless you find yourself a partner! Don't worry, you're the second-in-command so it shouldn't be that hard to get a girl! I hope we can be friends, see you in the Barracks!" Lyra said waving goodbye and heading to the teleporter near the big tree Flash climbed. Flash grumbled "Wow! Everyone is telling me that I need a partner to do this and that! This is annoying, who would want to be my partner anyway!? No one likes me!" At that moment, Flash noticed the magical rod used as a bridge. Then he remembered the peach pony's words 'put something in the middle and it should move.' Flash immediately knew what to do. He removed the magical rod and trotted off to the boat. There, he put the rod in the boat and it fit perfectly! Flash hopped in the boat, and as he stepped on the gas, it moved against the current!!! "Yes! It worked! I'm coming for you Princess!" Flash cried and drove the boat to the miniature dock where Twilight was. Twilight ran over to Flash and started speaking in shock "Oh Flash! I'd never thought I'd escape for sure! I came here to investigate this area because there is this invisible field around here that is disrupting most of the unicorn's powers such as teleportation or lifting heavy objects, all the unicorns can only levitate small things close to their range and the Pegasi can't fly either! I guess you can't fly over here can you?" "Nope, my wings don't work." Flash agreed "Well, I was looking around here when suddenly, a big boulder came crashing down! If I had been standing underneath it... No! I don't even want to think about that!" Twilight continued, when she said 'large', she used her magic to temporarily enlarge herself then reverted back to her original size. Flash recorded that action. "You know, I had enough bad things happening to my liking. Having most of your magic disrupted and getting trapped between a rock and a hard place, literally! As a Princess of Equestria, I'm assigning you to be my part- uhh, a personal guard from now on so do the oath of partners with me!" Twilight declared before Flash can complain on what her brother, his superior would say. Now that Flash was forced into this, he had to preform the oath to become partners with Twilight. Flash inspected Twilight, then Twilight inspected Flash, both nodded at each other, then jumped and raised their hoofs to the air symmetrically. "By the way Flash, why did you come here again?" Twilight questioned "Your brother was worried about you so he sent me to look for you." Flash answered "I see, but...I can't go yet. You see, Spike thinks Rarity is really angry with him so he's really depressed as ever. I need to ask Rarity what is going on but I can't get to her due to this magic disruption and she up on this hard to reach spot so I can't talk to her. Oh yeah! Now that you're here Flash, we can work together to reach her! I just hope we can lend a hoof before its too late!" "I spoke too soon of getting a partner..." Flash mumbled to himself as he Twilight hopped on the the boat.