Twilight is looking to hire guards for her castle. Derpy is looking for a new job. Lightning Dust is trying to find a way forward after her falling out with the Wonderbolts, and Flare Warden is just trying to get a position far far away from her brother.
Immense thanks to Fylifa for countless hours of editing and proofreading.
Cover art by Anchorxx
Well, this is definitely an interesting idea... I'm looking forward to see where it goes.
Wonderful to see this up!
I somehow guess that Tempest was part of some secret test.
Give me a thumbs up if you guessed that as well.
This is good, i like it.
Hope to see more of this soon.
I was with you right until you made a negative remark about Flash Sentry.
My god, the meme needs to be dead. Let it die.
I am ammused by there antics
9527169
What negative remark did you mean?
So Derpy I can see how she's going to be helpful. A mix of friendly peacemaking, insight, and utter chaos. Imagine that accident power applied to invaders...
Now we just need to see what Lightning Dust and Flare Warden bring to the table.
It's understandable why Derpy is qualified. She's already demonstrated a willingness to take a bullet (aka petrification spell) for Twilight. I'm surprise Tempest didn't remember that. Add to this the obvious chaos she can unintentionally create and the bad guys are going to have a rather bad time of it.
9527169
The fact you react like that is part of why people still dislike Flash. His fanbase is defensive to the point of cringe. You jumped the gun on trying to put down this story and author over Flash Sentry. And most importantly?
Unless we're talking about an 'Author Mouthpiece' issue, the author is NOT THEIR CHARACTERS.
An author can write about Twilight Sparkle not liking Flash Sentry, hating his guts even, but be a nutso-for-him fan. Let alone this OC of theirs is Flash's sister so they likely don't hate Brad all that much - if at all. Twilight's not even confirmed to dislike Flash yet. You come out looking like a jerk, instead.
9527543
Well said.
Also as one could point out. This is pony Flash. A stranger. I imagine it's as awkward of a thing for Princess Twi and Pony Flash as it was for Sci-Twi and Human Flash.
Ohh tracked. This looks interesting.
You have my attention.
I will be keeping an eye on this.
This is something I'll certainly enjoy reading
I would say something about "regret" with these, but... Let's face it - it'll be an interesting journey regardless.
Wait I know this story I met you at ever-free northwest! You were part of the group I was in with my gf at the time.
9528385
Glad to see you still remember it! It took me a while, but I finally got it up and working. If all goes according to plan, you should have the whole story by the time the next Everfree Northwest comes around. I hope it was worth the wait.
9528546
Yeah, I'll have to find time to read this when I can. If you noticed I put the story I mentioned at Ever-Free on a long hiatus I got other more popular stories grabbing my attention. I took a lot of what was talked at EF and applied it to my writing. Anyway, keep up the good work I look forward to seeing more.
9527587
IF he's a stranger, then why did Twilight speak with a dismissive tone about him?
9529051
I am not sure what you expect her to say? Twilight’s life is pretty weird even for a pony.
vs what we got:
But to be more serious. Flash is not a bad character. He got a lot of hate in the day as an extension of backlash against Hasbro of trying to turn twenty-something hero and co-ruler princess Twilight into a high school girl blushing and stammering and wedging in a save-the-damsel plot when Twilight in every other situation has been competent.
But Human Flash as a character himself? He helped out a cute girl he saw once. Danced with her and oops turns out she’s a magical horse girl. Oh well. Happens to the best of us.
What did Pony Flash do wrong? He bumped into Twilight once and gave her a smile of acknowledgment in a random two second appearance in an episode. He doesn't deserve the hate he gets and I'll be the first one to tell you.
But I’ll bring back to what you said about the story before:
That’s a bit worrying? The bar is that a negative seeming remark can’t be said about Flash, ever, in any context?
If that’s the case you’ll likely never see Flash used in stories because if people have to walk in eggshells or else they get downvoted why go through the effort of ever trying to give him characterization or interaction?
I won’t spoil anything that happens in the story, but… look at the description. Flare’s relationship with her brother is literally written out there. Throwing a downvote on a kneejerk to saying this fic is bashing Flash when his sister is a main character and their relationship a story plot point is heartbreaking. Maybe see where the story takes it before passing judgment? I hope you give it a chance.
9529438
9529051
It was a two-sentence throwaway gag. Do we really need to fight about this?
Mmkay, I'll bite and see where this goes for awhile.
It's really nice to see this make it to publishing at last; the stories we sit on for ages trying to get right are the ones that mean the most.
I liked how it felt like a cartoon, matching the show in tone with the slapstick moments. I'm a little wary about the inclusion of an OC, but she's been fairly harmless so far. This is definitely a nice take on Derpy
9527664 Actually, it's a Fave. I'll read later
Derpy is clearly the superior guard they should just pushing her into the mirror pool so she can guard the whole castle by herself
It's rare that I favorite a story on just the first chapter by itself. Usually if it looks interesting the story goes under tracking. You had my curiosity, and now you have my attention.
Also I read through looking for the supposedly "negative" comment about Flash and saw nothing worth whining about.
9529438
You... You do realize that she literally ran into his pony form? And blushed about it. And the girls teased her about it.
9529679
I don't really call this a fight. So far we haven't thrown insults. I've stated I'm tired of the meme in the fan of and they are defending it.
9532968
I addressed this in my post? I wrote:
I know my last post was a little bit on the long side, but the TLDR was that I agree that Flash doesn't deserve hate in either version of him.
But if you think this fic is bashing him, it's not. You said before you were liking this fic. I rather you not give it up on a perceived fear or make people think its going to trash someone when it doesn't. Really, give it a chance!
"To be fair, I did give them all the day off for the Festival of Friendship."
"And decisions like that are why you're not in direct command of your personal guard."
"I didn't want Starlight Glimmmer either, but no one asks me how I feel. They just fill my hallways with yarn."
In any case, odd choice in introducing Flash's identical twin sister, but you definitely have me intrigued. Looking forward to more.
Good start so far. Although the part where they have to find the barracks was a bit confusing. And I wish we could've seen more of Flare Warden's personality, but I feel like we'll see more of it shine as the story progresses. It does make me wonder why these three specifically decided to become guards to Twilight, like what their motivations are.
And then Tempest Shadow tries to take over one of the Grimdarkquestrias... and is impaled by 500 crossbow bolts the instant she strides down the ramp of that (horribly 1990s-level CGI-animated) airship.
It's mental images like that which always bring a smile to my ancient, withered face.
But really, the movie didn't even try to make it's plot make sense.
this is amazing!
"Those are what, soldier?"
"Hoofcuffs, Ma'am."
"And just what are they made out of?"
"Yarn, Ma'am."
Nice job. Derpy.
I don't know if it's going to be canon or not, but I love the idea that a rumor spreads about how one of Twilight's guards has a magic eye which is able to track things that are even invisible to normal sight, and who is able to strike an opponent unexpectedly.
Neither, really. She's just Derpy.
Actually, on that note, if I were to take a guess, I think Derpy's the one Tempest has her eye on the most, currently. She may be completely inexperienced for the field and totally lacking any of the past training the other two have, and yet she's almost consistently managed to successfully do something the others couldn't in some manner, and she's the one most likely to keep the peace between the more headstrong Lightning and Flare.
Plus, she has a heart of gold. That's gotta count for something.
'tis a fact, a trainer will wear more armor to spar with a novice than they will with a journeyman. This is because they have no idea what the novice will think to do, whereas the journeyman is predictable.
9538933
Speaking as a 90s kid who was very interested in the then-developing field of CGI at the time, I have to say you're overestimating the quality of CGI in that era a bit. If it wasn't Pixar doing it (who in of themselves were still just getting started, but were always in a bit of a league of their own and not really a fair overall comparison I've found), then it was all pretty subpar (by today's standards at least) until about the tail end of that decade, even more so if it was a mixed media work that only used CGI in select instances and not entirely, much like the MLP film. MLP film's use of CGI is, from a technical standpoint, better than what was the standard during most of the 90s.
Not to say that said CGI in said MLP film couldn't have been better, because it could've. I, too, was largely meh about the MLP film.
Part of the CGI's problem in that film was less the quality of the CGI per se, I think, and more the style it was implemented in--they were clearly trying to make it blend in with the rest of the film's more conventional 2D animation, to give it the visual appearance as if it was all the same medium of animation when it wasn't...but they didn't quite succeed. They probably would've been better off going the extra mile to 2D animate all of it instead.
But I will say that at least the traditional 2D animation was top notch. It's been a good long while since I'd seen traditional animation like that of such good quality in a feature film. Pity that's really the only thing about the film I can get that excited about, then.
Just a friendly reminder that no force in the universe is more powerful than dumb luck.
9527540
I was wondering if Tempest recognized her. Would be nice to see Twilight or Tempest mention it, if for no other reason then the reactions of Lighting and Flare.
Or the three of them coming across a window showing the scene of Derpy taking the hit for Twilight.
Most have heard of Drunken style kung fu. But all who oppose Princess Twilight fear facing her guard, the master of Muffin Fu.
"andsped" is missing a space. "prisms prisms" is a duplication. "sweeped about" should be "swept about".
Derpy's just too cute, fluffy and innocent for my poor heart
I’ve got it! Derpy is a Smedry!
Given that mark, Harmony help them all of she ever gets drunk.
Discord must be so happy!
Aw... I was kind of hoping the stealthy guy would survive a bit longer and eventually either develop a chronic fear of Derpy and/or muffins... Or that he would end up seeing her as his personal rival and end up having an awesome 1v1 fight against her at the finale where he uses Derpy-like technicues to avoid her accidental attacks xD
Please keep this guy around? :3
Derpy is an oblivious subvariant of the Crouching Moron, Hidden Badass trope.
Trope Talk: Crouching Moron Hidden Badass
9539490
My mistake. Somehow an older version of the chapter got posted here instead of the final one. That's been fixed now. Thank you for pointing out the mistakes.
Yes! The ominous villain in the shadows is dealt with right out of the bat! That's such a nice change of pace from the usual "*Spooky haunted noises* looOOOoook, there is scary puppet master in he shadows, I wonder who he is, even though it is either painfully obvious or completely out of left field with no foreshadowing whatsoever, *more spooky noises*". Man, am I the only one who thinks that the villain that just keeps observing things from the shadows and acts all like "Lackey, go and get rid of her, zevil laghter*" to be a bore now days?
9539904
Makes me wonder if she's scarier when she's drunk.