Shine
An hour and a half later...
Flash Sentry found himself constantly squinting. The streets, the building faces, the benches—they were all on fire. A merciless reflective glare murdered his eyes at every angle, and he was finding it exceedingly difficult to see, much less trot in a straight line.
"You doing okay there, Brad?" Soarin asked. The stallion was within earshot of several other Wonderbolts. While still uniformed, the group had been relieved of duty. Nevertheless, they were casually escorting Fancy Pants and his partners into the heart of the Crystal Empire. Lithe hooves clopped against mirror-smooth streets burning with light. "Hah! This is your first time in the Crystal Empire for sure!" Several other equines chuckled.
Flash Sentry gulped, veering left and right with a rattle of Vinyl's headphones. "Wh-what gave you your f-first clue...?!"
"It's a sight for sore eyes upon the first visit," another Wonderbolt squeaked. "Literally! Hahaha!"
"Why's..." Flash winced. "...is it so friggin' bright?"
"It's the time of the day," Soarin said calmly. "The sun's catching the crystal surfaces at all the right angles. Or—in your eyes' case—all the wrong ones."
"Grnnngh..." Flash rubbed his face, wincing even more. "How does anybody actually live here?"
"It probably doesn't affect them the same," said another Wonderbolt.
"Here..." Flash felt Soarin's strong hoof reaching out to him and dangling a pair of goggles. "Put these on. They're tinted to handle bright solar flares."
"But..." Flash shifted in mid-step. "What about you? Won't your eyes be hurt?"
"I can deal. I've spent more mornings than I count flying towards the sunrise in unbreakable formation. Just take the friggin' goggles already, Brad."
"Okay... okay!" Fumbling, Flash grasped the article being hoofed to him. With more than a little bit of fumbling with his tiny horse ears, he finally succeeded in putting the goggles on. Almost instantly, the world faded into comfortable focus, and Flash found himself gawking at polished streets with pearlescent architecture and ocean-blue motifs. "Whoah. They actually work!"
"Of course they do!" Soarin chuckled. "What, was I gonna let you go blind?"
"Pffft... friggin' wuss," another Wonderbolt said.
"Fleetfoot, if we were all still on duty, I'd make you fly twenty laps."
"Hah! No you wouldn't!"
"And why not?"
"Cuz you're not Spitfire."
"Heh... guess you have a point there." Soarin suddenly cupped a pair of hooves around his muzzle and shouted towards a crowd of locals. "Hey! Everypony! Check it out!" He pointed at Fleetfoot. "It's Rainbow Dash! Defender of the the Princess of Friendship!"
Gasps lit the air—mostly from young foals.
"Rainbow Dash?!"
"Wow! She's really here!"
"That's so awesome!"
"Can I have an autograph?!"
Flash Sentry watched with blinking disbelief as a crowd of shiny equines rushed in, swarming around the flailing female wonderbolt. Fleetfoot's voice cracked as she fought and struggled with the sudden pile of obsessive bodies.
"Hey! Damn it! I'm not who you think I—Ow! Watch it! Does my mane look anything like a rainbow—?!"
"What's the Princess of Friendship like?!"
"Can you do a Sonic Rainboom for us? Oh please please please!"
"How many times have you protected Princess Twilight from certain doom?!"
"Sign my dress! Pleeeeeeease!"
"Grnnnnngh!" Fleetfoot shook an angry hoof from the crowd that was tackling her. "Soarinnnnn! I'll get you for this!"
Soarin tossed a smirk over his shoulder. "Sorry! Take it to Spitfire! Maybe she'll make me do twenty laps!"
"Uhhhhh..." Flash stared at the gathering crowd as they trotted past. "Wow."
"I know, right?" Soarin nodded. "But—believe me—Fleetfoot asks for it. And she secretly envies Rainbow Dash for how much fame she's gained while still being a rookie. That's the brutal irony—"
"No, I mean the ponies," Flash squeaked. "They're... actually made of crystal."
"Well... chtyeaaaah..." Soarin nodded dramatically. "What did you expect?"
"A bunch of meth-addicted-Mister-Eds? I dunno..."
"What are humans made of back home, Flash?" Soarin asked while the two were out of earshot of the rest. "Cotton candy?"
"Only some of us are pink. But even that's a stretch."
"Heheheh..."
"Which always made me wonder..." Flash Sentry blinked through Soarin's protective goggles. "Like... in Star Trek Enteprise, Jeffrey Combs' character—Shran, an Andorian—always calls Captain Archer 'pink skin.' But Jonathan Archer—played by Scott Bakula—is a caucasian human. Does Shran just not know about brown-skinned people? I mean friggin' Travis Merriweather is sitting right there on the Enterprise's bridge. Not like Shran can't see him. Then again, whenever the Andorian ship is hailed, you only ever see Shran's face on the viewscreen. So maybe there's this future computer interface that locks in on just the Captain's face and that's all the spacefearers get... so no wonder that Andorians only ever think of humans as 'pink skinned.' They've never seen a non-Caucasian before, which is patently absurd because anglican people make up such a relatively finite fraction of the overall human population, and you would think that greater diversity would be statistically reflected in the future population of Terran space-explorers. Then again, it is about a century and a half before Benjamin Sisko farted around on the Defiant—"
"Is this your way of trying to make it an even playing field?" Soarin asked.
Flash snapped out of his monologue. "Huh?"
Soarin smiled as he enjoyed the sights of the Crystal Empire around them. "Surrounded by so much you don't understand, you feel forced to spout out a bunch of stuff we don't understand..."
"... ... ..." Flash Sentry blinked. "Wow. I think you finally figured me out, dude."
"Heheheheh. It was only a matter of time."
"Uhm... I-I guess I'll just stop rambling, then—"
"No! Don't!"
Flash looked aside at his friend. "Why?"
"Because it's goofy and it makes me smile."
"Heh... whatever you say, bro—" Flash did a double-take at a massive object standing in the middle of the street. "Whoah."
"What?"
"What's that?"
"What's what?"
Flash pointed. "That statue. It doesn't look like a pony."
"Pfft. I would hope not."
"Who is it?" Flash cocked his goggled head to the side. "...looks like Warwick Davis doing a Geico commercial."
"It's Spike the Dragon."
"That's a dragon?!" Flash cackled.
"Mmmhmmm!" Soarin nodded. "And careful what you say about him. The little dude's a hero in the eyes of the locals."
"Why? Did he star in this world's version of Willow?"
"Actually, he and Princess Cadance rescued the Crystal Heart from King Sombra—which led to the evil king's spirit being banished forever."
"Oh." Flash gawked at the statue as the group trotted by. "That sounds... surprisingly epic."
"Ha! I know, right?" Soarin grinned wide. "Our world's history is full of badflank souls who've saved the day time and time again. It's just the right kind of mojo to keep our society going." He looked aside at Flash. "Don't humans have any heroes back at home?"
"Yeah, I guess."
"Name one."
"Well..." Flash raised a hoof to rub his chin, then continued trotting with his buddy. "...long ago, before I was born, we had this brave warrior who slew many a foe and basked in the glory of their spilled blood."
"You don't say..."
"Yeah, his name was Michael Jordan." Flash Sentry smiled crookedly. "And—while we're at it—I guess you could say that Bugs Bunny was essentially his Enkidu—"
"Oh hey! a friendy voice shouted across the street. "Hey, Lieutenant!"
Both Soarin and Flash fumbled in mid-trot, looking confused. Flash sensed a forelimb waving in his peripheral. He turned to look, spotting a crystalline mare and her two children lingering along the street corner.
"Good afternoon!" she smiled. "Are we having visitors?"
Flash merely blinked, stupefied.
"The Wonderbolts!" Soarin paused to bow. "At your service!"
"Here to escort Prince Blueblood and his fellow negotiators!" shouted another Wonderbolt. "They're off to meet with the Stewards right now!"
"Oh, how wonderful!" The mare chuckled, her coat glistening in the sunlight. She trotted off happily with her children. "Well, keep at it, Lieutenant! Make them feel at home!"
Flash watched the family leave. "Funny..." He spoke aside to Soarin. "...you didn't tell me that your rank is Lieutenant."
"It's not," Soarin said. "I think she's got me confused with somepony else."
"It isn't Rainbow Dash, is it?"
"Pfffft. Heck no. Hey!" Soarin grinned. "I just remembered something! There's a place here you've gotta see."
"Well... lead on, bro." And Flash trotted after his traveling companion.
Stats
Page generated in 0.042 seconds
Total duration
780 users online
1,169,357 hits today, 2,280,440 yesterday
FIMFiction
My Little Pony: Friendship is Magic Fanfiction
Designed and coded by knighty & Xaquseg - © 2011-2024
Follow & Support Us
Support us
SubStar
Chat!
Discord
Follow us
Twitter
MLP: Friendship is Magic® - © 2024 Hasbro Inc.®
Fimfiction is in no way affiliated with or endorsed by Hasbro Inc.®
And thus, Flash Senty, troubled teen, meets Flash Sentry, successful Royal Guard.
... interesting.
Getting interesting
I'm super looking forward to the double flash meet-up. Here's hoping it's SPICY.
Him and Soarin' could write a bad bromance. Is Flash sure he needs to meet Twilight again?
The first signs...
ohherewego
Looks like pony Flash is pretty popular and well known in the empire.
It coming... maybe.
I would not be surprised if it was a bait and switch, and Shining/ Cadence/ other Flash, never actually meet this Flash.
But I can hope.
Can never remember with leiutenant.
Are they resident of a toilet block, or remain in the barracks?
So he did not know Spike in is world or he just didn't make the connection?
And oh boy, first contact with the locals... spark are going to fly soon.
How many will cry "Changeling!!" before this is over?
Tick, tock, goes the clock, the moment's getting clea~rer!
Tick, tock, goes the clock, your double's getting nea~rer!
MAYBE IF WE ASK POLITELY, MORE CHAPTERS WILL APPEAR?
"Si tu plais, ecrites beuxcau. Merci Beuxcoup."
"If you please, write more. Many thanks."
Oh boy, it's time awkward misidentification with Flash Sentry! If he's that well known in the Empire this is going to get super awkward super fast.
8772966
That looks like butchered French. Did you mean "S'il te plait, ecrites plus. Merci beaucoup."
Let's go where the crystal guard hang out boys.
Y'know, if Sci-Twi had known how much of a nerd Flash was, he might have had a chance with her.
You know what's fun, reading this story.
You know what destroys the emersion?
When Flash Sentry from the Equestria Girls universe starts spouting human names and thoughts from OUR reality.
Considering Equestria Girls in-cannon is a mirror of the Pony universe, they have NO Caucasian or African skinned characters, they have the same skin tones and identifying traits common to the ponies of Equestria. Therefore there should be no Star Trek, no Scott Bacula, no anything in that universe. If anything this would have been a prime opportunity to attempt to create an alternative. Like, instead of our Star Trek television show, Equestria Girls could have this series of science fiction adventures based on the Sinister Changeling Hegemony, where Changelings are sci-fi aliens who work for the evil Empress Chrysalis in an attempt to enslave all of known space. Thus the dark skin tones of the Changelinges due to the alien make-up used to make them as ebony as the Changelings in Equestria.
Then again Flash just seems to be spouting Pop Culture references in this tale without rhyme or reason, and when he does sometimes it comes off as a glorified self-insert story changed into a EQG style adventure.
I'm not saying all of this to upset the apple cart, as it were, but I do feel the need to point out that these Out of Context References to our own Pop Culture is a jarring disconnect from everything established and known of the EQG universe and kind of fails to take advantage of world building. It's all well and good if Flash wants to wax philosophical, but if he's just going to spout the author's existential debates and be a mouthpiece for said author it kind of makes him superfluous to the narrative being attempted here. At least in my opinion.
8772435
You know it
8774434
Welcome to Shortskirtsandexplosions. Normally the orientation is on Wednesday, but we can establish some ground rules before you're given the tour proper.
1. SS&E gives zero shits about your immersion.
2. Don't be a dick.
There. That should get you by till someone else can explain post etiquette in your language. I don't speak 'entitled sperg'.
8775205
Post etiquette? For giving an opinion on views of how a story is going? Or, you know, critiquing the writing technique going on here?
Yeah, I'll be sure to keep in mind proper etiquette... what does that entail exactly? Kissing up to the author and praising them as doing no wrong? If that's the case I guess I'm reading the wrong tale. Do forgive my opening my mouth and explaining why I felt the current chapter was lacking in tone.
I have no idea what my post had to do with being entitled incidentally, I was explaining my position and did it in as polite a fashion as I could, as I did not signal anybody out or anything and gave an example of how I felt the story was failing to keep itself grounded in the fictional reality it is set within. But whatever.
Oh god, friggin Space Jam reference. I love you forever for that one.
8775373
Honestly, you were spot on about immersion, and I think the guy who replied to you was out of line, but you do have a...let's say a *tone* about you that might rub some people the wrong way. On the other hoof, the guy called you an "entitled sperg", which kind of automatically makes him an assfart nine times out of ten, so...best to let this one go. You do you. Just maybe do you about...94%.
I'm no fan of the pop culture references either. Mostly because I live under a rock and pretty much everything flies over my head, but it does throw me off whether or not I get it.
Lieutenant Flash Sentry, eh? Intemeresting...
Hecc yeh