A thousand years is a long time to be cooped up in a city full of crystals.
Two years after the return of the Crystal Empire to the realm of Equestria, Flash Sentry was itching to board the next train to anywhere the first chance that he got. That chance came in the form of a reassignment when Equestria and the Empire merged their royal guard corps. He was shipped off to Canterlot to become one of Prince Blueblood's personal guard, a position of great honor and prestige. Flash was determined to perform his duties to the best of his abilities.
Of course, his best may not be enough seeing as how almost every mare on the planet wants to murder the good prince.
Editing by Sassy Ned and A Wild Hores
Chapters (16)
This is incredible.
Hmm. So the Empire was...what, in a void for a thousand years? Did they actually FEEL time passing? And yet nobody aged...I think...some kind of stasis or what?
And may God have mercy on Flash Sentry's soul.
5237517 Explained in Ch2. Read on, bro.
That was fantastic. I really like what you are doing with Flash (behold the joys of having essentially a blank slate
), and it is looking like this is going to be a riot all the way around. The hordes of bungling assassins are looking like they will catalyze a lot of humor, although my favorite so far was the mental image or Princess Flash Sentry you gave me.
This was a great intro to what I kinda feel is gonna be a killer rest of a story.
This is great, but is this story also have Flashlight in it?
5238350 Hehe killer.
5238476 derpicdn.net/img/2013/6/29/359906/large.png
Plus, projecting a huge as f*ck magic shield, big enough to hold back an army by himself.
Miss Rarity of the Elements of Harmony would like to have a word with you, sir...
Ah well, it's the same guy who failed to mention Shining Armor's forcefield. What can one expect, really? 's not like the rest of what he said made him sound any smarter^^
Oh wait, I was supposed to like this guy and despise Blueblood, wasn't I? Sorry, sorry, I'll try next chapter. No promises though!
... This is honestly quite different to what I expected. And that's not an easy thing to do. I like it!
One of my guesses so far is that BB has a squadron of exes out for his blood^^ Teal? Exceptional flyer? Could be some background pony, or Lightning Dust trying her hoof at being an assassin.
5242477 Eh, you weren't supposed to "like" or "despise" anybody. He was just establishing the fact that it is generally accepted amongst the guard that most rich people in Canterlot are dicks. 'Specially BB.
*cough* TURQUOISE *cough*
Continuation of my lame joke aside, I cannot confirm or deny that the color of the mare in black is significant to the story whatsoever. Your guess as to who she is, as they say, is as good as mine.
For now...
I for one like this version of prince blueblood you've got here. He feels friendly but at the same time I can assume hes got a smart mouth that has likely gotten him at the aimed at end of many pony's spear.
5244933 What would any fanfic be without a designated sarcastic snarker?
Fillies and Gentlecolts! BEHOLD! PROOF THAT TWO NEGATIVES DO MAKE A POSITIVE! This is a fic with Flash Sentry and Blueblood as main characters and there is a net upvote ratio!
*slow claps*
I'm impressed, author. Things are quite interesting so far.
That author's note...I like you.
I would like you more though, if it wasn't the most overplayed Pink Floyd song this side of "Money". Something like "Hey You" or "Comfortably Numb", but I'm just being a hardass Pink Floyd Connoisseur since the new album is coming out tomorrow.
How are you making both of them likable? Stop it
5250346 Behold, the magic of fanfiction! For my next trick, I will make a hipster brony appear in Ponyville!
Kidding. I'd never do that to you guys.
5250366 I wanted to post a song that was kinda-sorta relevant to the chapter in my head. I just sort of defaulted to Pink Floyd. Perhaps Young Lust would've been more appropriate, but what's done is done. I am too excited for the new album. Considering how they haven't released one since I was born, this will be a completely new thing for me.
5250719 I'm having fun and you can't stop me!
But actually, since Pony!Flash has the blankest slate since Sombra or Chrissy, I can do whatever the hell I want with him. Who says he has to be the same as Human!Flash? For Blueblood, I just made a "He turned his life around offscreen!" excuse since we haven't seen him since S1.
I might record this later.... don't know yet.
5251633 I am very much with you on Flash (although I strongly disagree on Chrysalis which you can read about here if this was not enough of a megapost for you
). Military service tends to significantly alter someone's worldview weather they like it or not, and that is on top of the other little divergent events from living in two different worlds, growing up with different people/ponies, and the fact that only one of the two has wings. That means human Flash provides at most a very vague generality for writing pony Flash so he is really not much more than a canned name and appearance like a random background pony.
As for Blueblood, I feel like you honestly went overboard on that one. We really only have a handful of data points on him which are far from painting the ridiculous asshole picture of him the fandom seems to have latched onto instead of actually thinking about what the evidence really says.
The first is that we know Rarity fantasized about marrying him for his looks, wealth, and position which is very typical gold digger behavior. While this does not say much about Blueblood himself, it does very strongly suggest that he is something of a dream stallion for a lot of mares the way some celebrities are in the real world. This in turn suggests that Rarity is far from the only pony to have these kinds of feelings because we know she is not the most frivolous and superficial of individuals even if she does place a high value on appearance. This logically means that Rarity is far from the only pony to make moves on him so we have to keep this in mind when considering his actions.
The second is his Cutie Mark. While we obviously do not know what it is actually about because there is no canon story, we can make some observations based on its shape. It is very clearly a compass rose which is usually found on a map which indicates that his talents may lie in cartography or exploration based on its similarity to Daring Do's. This is very different from other public figures like Mayor Mare and Fancy Pants or business figures like Filthy Rich who tend to have marks that seem to indicate talents relating to administration or money and would seem to indicate that Blueblood's talents may be at odds with the life of a noble. If true, this would mean that he would rather be off exploring the Everfree than going to the Gala which would in turn imply his ideal date would be someone more like Zecora (who I personally ship him with based on this logic) or Daring Do than Rarity. It is of course also possible that his mark is more symbolic like Cheerilee whose Cutie Mark seems to indicate something related to flowers which is very different from her actual talent of teaching, but this is still something to keep in mind even if a compass can be extremely symbolic.
The third is what actually happened at the Gala. While he was most definitely an asshole to Rarity, it is worth noting that he was slowly stepping up his bad behavior which could be interpreted as him making a deliberate effort to drive her off. This is further supported by the fact that we can very easily assume that Rarity is far from the only pony who does this and the implications of his cutie mark as discussed earlier so he could very easily have made a game of driving off his numerous suitors. If you doubt this logic, just ask yourself what you would expect to happen if you cooped Rainbow Dash up in the trappings of nobility all the time and threw a never ending stream of gold diggers at her and compare that to what Blueblood actually did.
The fourth is his appearance in season 2. He briefly appears during Rarity's "Becoming Popular" song where he is standing next to Rarity as she launches the airship and they seem to be getting along well. This is a fairly quick shot and hard to draw a lot of information from, but it does seem to indicate that they have made up at some point since the Gala which would in turn indicate that he is not nearly as bad as many people like to make him in their stories.
Anyways, the point of all that character discussion rambling was that I did not feel like you needed to have him turn around off screen and that this whole concept and especially the discussion about it in this chapter felt like an excellent jab at the silly portrayal of Blueblood in most other stories to me. Don't get me wrong, the whole thing is hilarious and stands on its own very well as a comedy, I just feel like it gains a lot as a jab at the silliness of this community.
5271807 I love wall of text comments.
Flash is my new favorite character. Not because of him in EQG or his blink-and-miss-it appearances in the show, but because I can do whatever the hell I want with him (his waifu memes are hillarious too). I always had a thing for the Royal Guard as well. Sometimes I think of them as super-stoic highly-higly trained hardasses, or as bumbling stormtroopers in shining armor, the latter being more likely in show canon.
You are correct in saying that BB is a jab at the fandom's tendency to make him an insufferable prick. It's been pretty much the default characterization of him since the get-go, barring a few decent fics out there. This story will poke fun at the fandom's assumptions about Equestria and its characters without going full on meta every now and again. I do promise more backstory for the prince in the future detailing BB's mellowing out. After all, it's just as much about Blueblood as it is Flash. I haven't really thought about his cutie mark yet. Perhaps I can pull something together later on down the line.
5271899 Well, I am very glad to hear we are on the same page on all of this, although I think the best analogue to the canon guard in the real world is Segway-riding mall cops.
Ok Zebra shamaness learns a valuable lesson, do NOT correct and upset princess who has you in her unbreakable telekinetic grip. This fiction is really quite funny, the idea that Twilight basically stood there while Katrina and the guards fought, but once she had enough "antics" shut the would be assassin down with just a little effort my me giggle. Of course the idea that Blueblood defile a shamaness and just sort of forgot, it really does fit the "clueless cad" characterization your going for here and is very funny. How many half-blood princelings and almost princesses has his royal culelessness produced I wonder?
Well, that was rather amusing, although I think it would have been funnier if Flash had stabbed first and checked the identity of his target later.
I am also kind of wondering how this Blueblood managed to sleep around this much and failed to bang Rarity because this chapter is making it sound like he was sleeping around rather than brutally shunning advances like we saw in the show.
Also, I found a little typo. It looks like you managed to hit the "m" key instead of the space bar here.
5276186 I wouldn't say he "defiled" her and forgot about it. It was as consensual as it gets. This isn't the last chapter with Katrina, and I'll go into their relationship further next time. Also, Blueblod might've been a real party boy back in the day, but he was still smart enough to be careful. But then again, Murphy's Law of Averages states that if it CAN go wrong, it WILL go wrong.
5276370 That's what I get for making half-baked edits in the middle of the night without running them by my editor.
Also, I have thought about the Best Night Ever in relation to this story quite extensively. I have an answer for his interactions with Rares, but that would be spoiling it. Just you wait and see.
5276847
I could see some Unicorn coming along and going to a whole tirade about "Where you really ALWAYS careful Blueblood?". The fan consensus is ponies have a mating season, so in all likely hood contraception is unheard of, they just don't do it during mating season. But all it would take is getting drunk during the season once, or encountering a mare who for some medical reason had her cycle thrown off, or even a mare who tricked Bluey into mating with her during her season.
5276973 I've only ever seen the heat cycle thing used in clop fiction before, and I don't think I'll ever use it in my forever SFW works. As far as Doing His Duty is concerned, ponies can have children as easily as we can since they're really just human in every way besides biology.
"Went", not "when"
A Minotaur Librarian?! Why didn't I think of that? Brilliant! Must
stealborrow!5277157 *commits seppuku*
5277349 ALL CAPS BOLD LIBRAIRIAN IS BEST LIBRAIRIAN.
5276847 That's good to hear, I am looking forwards to seeing what you do with it.
5277109 Well, it is used in all the spinoffs of Xenophilia which tend to use its fascinating world building without any of the sex it originally came with, although Xenophilia itself was very much full of explicit sex so I am not sure if you would count that or not. It is also briefly touched on in My Little Pony - Journey which is most definitely not clop, although it also has a lot of other unnecessary changes to canon like gender flipping Discord for no discernible reason besides making him and Fluttershy lesbians so I am not really comfortable recommending the story.
Regardless, I do think it is an interesting piece of world building that has a lot of use in more serious works to help make ponies more culturally distinct from humans. Yes it does have obvious use in clopfics to avoid having actual character interactions or plot so the "story" can get right to the sex (which Xenophilia does not do), but there is absolutely no reason you cannot treat it in a mature and interesting way rather than using it as a cheap excuse for sex.
"Bleeding out, here" Yeah I'd probably be the same way.
Everyone is distracted by some psycho-killer, while one guy is on the ground in agony, bleeding.
I really do love what you've done with Flash. This backstory is the most interesting I've seen: a guard before the rise of King Sombra and living a thousand years in time stasis in the Crystal Empire. He's had a long time to pick up some quirks, going between wacky and serious even in his thoughts, Who knows what else he's picked up? The literature thing was classy.
Also, that Loremaster is awesome.
So be honest you had Xander not have a tongue so you wouldn't have to write in rhyme.
5280868 Not all zebras speak in ryhme. I'll elaborate on that in the next chapter that I post.
...what just happened?
Yes! Flashlight best light. :3 This is a fun fic.
5292253 Someone actually.... likes Flashlight?
Dafuq?
5292379 One of the few, I think they'll make it work decently in the show for season 5. It's not like he's that different from the other non main ponies that people have written and done good stories with. Not too sure where the hate comes from. I like thinking of him as a laid back metalhead.
5292693 I don't think they've confirmed Flashlight for season five. If they have, the shitstorm would rival the confirmation of Twilicorn.
5293150 They've hinted at it with giving him cameos in s4. We'll find out in march I suppose.
Hit by the books! And you're to blame!
5301124 You give literacy a bad name!
*guitar riff*
So Kat gets to be Zecora's new apprentice? So lots of wacks to the noggin with Zecora's staff and inflicting Pinkie Pie and the CMC on her as teaching tools?
Error in the description.
You realize SJW's are possibly gonna rip you a new one if they see this, right?
5320945 Sorry to say this brochacho but this is where Katarina gets off. She ain't coming round here no more. The story won't be following her.
53209Thank'ee kindly, Princess Purple. I'll fix the hell out of that error.
5320982 I don't even know what would be offensive about this story, but let them come. Come and post their angry comments. I'll reply to each and every one individually, my popcorn in hand.
Darn I was hoping that it was 1revenge seeking Mare using others as proxies to avoid detection. And then rose would be possessed and then the whole thing unravels as flash knows she didn't mate with blueblood.
But zecora threw that out the window
5321036 Following Katarina would be spin off territory I would think.
Wow! That is great. Go try to murder the Prince and get reformed.
Zecora, as usual, is awesome. She can hit Kat over the head with her Yoda stick.
I wonder if similar things happen to other mares who got caught. Would make sense given Equestria's reformation streak. Blueblood's pickup lines must be super effective.
I'm really enjoying this story
I'll admit it... part of me was hoping for Blueblood/Twilight shipping... *ducks and covers head* I know no one really likes shipping that, but seriously!
Just think about this non-jerk Blueblood being shipped with our Twilight...