//------------------------------//
// I Am Going to Kill You, YOU SON OF A-! 
// Story: The Princess and the Sentry 
// by Neroson40 
//------------------------------//

	Flash Sentry
I was not looking forward to asking Twilight out. There were a lot of possible answers to the question that Commander Shining told me to ask that I was prepared for… though I have to wonder why he ordered me to ask his sister out, anyway out of all the potential answers, at least sixty five percent were definite no. I thought I’d just ask her out and get it over with in ten seconds flat… but nope! Twilight’s friends apparently had a sadistic streak against me and told her to drag me out on the floor to dance. A slow song popped on the speakers and Twilight looked to see a friend of hers pulling a few strings with the DJ.
“Don’t look back, just look at me,” She said. She was moving very conservatively for someone for her reputation on the dance floor, even when the song is for slow dancing.
“You’re holding back.”
“Shut up and dance.”
I did as she told me, not just because she’s a princess. I don’t know why, but I wanted to enjoy this while I could, not like I was getting that date anyway. We were enjoying the music, swaying to the sound and leaning against each other… but then they showed up.
“Hey, Sentry!” I heard that mocking tone and knew I was in trouble.
“Summerbolt,” I said. “Don’t you have any form of a life?”
“What could any insult from you mean to me?” I didn’t have to look at that yellow face with the fiery hair to know he was smirking.
“Do you get bored so easily that you have to taunt the handicapped for fun?”
“Air Patrol LOSER like you who can’t even fly? Why’d you even get drafted?” I had a feeling that if I bucked right there, I’d hit him in the face, but Twilight was still there and I thought that’d be… inelegant. “Dead weight like you isn’t needed in the guard!” okay, SCREW ELEGANCY! I prepared to lift my hind legs up when all of a sudden;
“Who’s the dead weight here!?” Twilight yelled. “If you’re antagonizing one of your own I don’t think your superiors would take kindly to the degradation of his productivity!”
“What’d you say, M-!” I was certain that Summerbolt would’ve called her a mule (bitch), but he saw who he was talking to just in time. “Princess Twilight!”
“You will stop making fun of him, or I will see you three demoted! Or worse, discharged!” I got one look at the satisfying look of fear on the faces of Summerbolt and his twin goons Argen and Auren, before they gave their acknowledgement, bowed and left.
“I owe you one,” I said.
“Then…” She blushed “How about a date?”… I was silent. I was ordered to ask her out and I never got the nerve to pull off that order due to an inferiority complex. Now she’s asking me out? What could I do besides say what I did?
“Yeah, will you be here tomorrow?”
“I should be, you got somewhere in mind?”
“Yeah.” The Gala ended, she found her friends and went back to… wherever they were staying. I headed back to my quarters and bumped into Com- Shining on the way.
“How’d it go?” he asked. I realized he ordered me to ask her out and started laughing quietly. “What happened?”
“I didn’t ask her out…” I said. He looked annoyed for like twenty seconds, putting his hoof to his head and closing his eyes like he had a migraine. “But we do have a date.” His eyes shot open and  he swiftly turned his head to look at me.
“Oh the Anvil of Irony!” Shining said. “I did NOT see that coming.” He looked embarrassed for not predicting it.
“I swear!” I said in my defense, because brothers and boyfriends. “I didn’t know she liked me!”
“Not the liking you part, I saw that coming,” he said. “I meant I didn’t predict that she’d ask you out.”
“Wait…” I just pieced it together. “YOU KNEW!?”
“When you got a wife like mine, you pick up on a few things,” I wanted to yell at him, but he was my boss. “Good luck with the date.” He patted my shoulder and went back to his office. I sighed, returned, to my quarters, changed out of my suit and into my nightclothes, and went to sleep. Dreams about the whole night danced through my head, like bumping into Twilight again being yelled at by Shining for my Inferiority Complex and dancing with Twilight… all leading up to setting up a date with her tomorrow. It was shinier than I remember it actually happening, and there were a lot more bubbles and lens flares (don’t ask), but the only other thing about it was that while we were dancing, everypony around us was in black and white, and they were looking at us. I wish it happened like that and lasted forever. But nope! I had to wake up to Col. Shiner’s screaming whistle and an order from Shining saying I had the day off, but I wasn’t allowed to leave the empire.



Twilight Sparkle
I had no idea how Shining was gonna take this. I mean, you ask one of your brother’s employees to go on a date with him? If he doesn’t blow a gasket there’s something he needs to explain. I waited for him to show up, because I already knocked enough to know he wasn’t there. I finally saw him round a corner. He looked exhausted and was mumbling to himself, before he looked up and noticed me.
“Twily!” he said. We rushed and hugged each other. “What brings you here? Besides the Gala, I’m sorry I couldn’t be there, guard business and shield spell stuff, and Cadence was told to keep away from the Gala this time as Celestia wanted to see how you’d do.” That explains that, I guess.
“I came here to talk to you about something you might not be happy with.” He stopped in his tracks, slack-faced and wide eyed. Then he put his hoof to his muzzle and closed his eyes like something was hurting him.
“I knew this was coming,” he said. He unlocked his office door and ushered me inside. “Is this about dating one of my guards?” now it was my turn to be slack-faced and wide eyed.
“How did you know!?” I asked. He sighed.
“Allow me to repeat myself; Oh the Anvil of Irony!” I was confused. “Flash Sentry, right?” I confirmed that. “Okay, he has a bit of an Inferiority Complex, and for good reason. His life for the past five years was… less than tolerable. When I found out that he like you brotherly instincts were first thing to kick in, but he said and I quote ‘I’m not good enough.’” I was confused but okay. “For a while this was a re-assurance… then it got annoying, tonight was the last straw, so I used my position above him to order him to ask you out.”
“Wait what? What!? WHAT!?” three different reactions all let out at once. One, I was severely confused, did that mean Flash didn’t want to go out with me, or did that mean he wouldn’t have asked? Two, Shining told my date to ask me out, ergo he tried to have some control over my love life, just because he was annoyed, who was he Cadance!? And three, my Brother ordered his subordinate to ask me out? I repeat; WHAT!? Most brothers I know about try to stop their sisters from dating, but not my brother! He got me a date by ordering him to ask me out!
“I know it’s infuriating and confusing, if not just infuriating,” he said. “But I swear! He likes you! He just wouldn’t have gotten the courage to ask you out if I didn’t tell him to!”
“Well… he didn’t…” I said. “I asked him.”
“I am also aware of that,” he said. “I strongly doubt you’ll forgive me… but in case you do, I’m sorry.”
“Don’t worry about it,” I said. “Your heart was in the right place… I guess.”