Mobile Suit Gundam: Alicorn - Volume 2

by Alines Reinhard

Chapter 23

After the mock battle, Flash could not sleep that entire night. Strange sounds of ponies talking constantly echo, cold breezes keep blowing their wind into his bed, and the room seems to be more cramped.

“I told you… this guy is a new breed!” a voice said “He does NOT deserve to be alive, let alone helping us in this situation!”

“Rainbow Dash, how dare you!” a soft, comforting voice said in an angered manner “There are enough creatures killed in this war. We don’t want to take lives, let alone do it so… irresponsibly!”

“Fluttershy…” the voice called Rainbow Dash said “I know you are the Elements of Kindness… But there are some doesn’t deserve them, you know?”

“Yes! But… this guy is different, RD!” Fluttershy said back to her “And you know it!”

Rainbow Dash said sarcastically: “Yeah! Because he is ‘friends’ with Luster Dawn?”

Flash flinches when she mentioned the name Luster Dawn. It is scary enough to hear her voice again in that angry manner, let alone be forced to face her. Someday he will, but he’s not sure he will have the gut to talk to the Leader of the famous Wonderbolt, the famed aerobatics demonstrators of Canterlot.

But that’s only his second thought. First and foremost, he has to face THE Twilight Sparkle, the one who has the crown he has stolen from. He doesn’t know whether that much of a heartbreak he causes for her will be forgiven, nor how she will react when she learned that he has access to the ‘prison’ that she is in.

But one thing is for sure: it will be extremely awkward.

He still remembers her tears when she learned about the failed heist in its full detail in his infamous military court. His friends were shocked at the scene of the hoof-cuffed yellow stallion, with multiple bruises on his face due to beating during the interrogation period. He gave them the truth, after all, but the hate for him is enough for them to make punches.

To add the fuel to the fire, he was also dating Twilight Sparkle at that time.

The rest, as they said, are history.

And now, the past has come back to haunt him in an extremely direct way. “What will she do to me? Scold me? Make my life a living hell?” he thought. He fully anticipated that the Princess of Friendship can create a curse that will be indescribably worse than the “haunting curse”. The paranoia is so immense he nearly wishes death upon himself. He hugged his head just as hard as when he crashes, trying to block his ears from hearing their voice.

Suddenly, all the voices were rapidly silent, as if someone blocked their mouths all as once. He doesn’t know why, and it scares him.

“Come on Flash, come on… Wake up!” he knocked his skull to force him to wake up, forgetting that he is powerless in situations like that.

And, if it happened, it happened. A familiar voice, the one that has scared out Black Wine and every creature who is unfortunate enough to understand what it means, yet this time, it is surprisingly comforting:

“Flash… Flash?” asked Twilight Sparkle with a slight concern.

…

“Darn it… where’s that ship?”

Starlight cursed herself for not paying enough attention while arguing with her friends. The ship has well hidden inside the fallen snow, and she doesn’t have any idea about which place it will come next. Carrying with her are some small bags with essentials: a few grams of dry food, a thermal bottle, the map that Sunburst has held previously, and a compass.

“Celestia, please tell me how I can sneak onto that ship…”

“Disguise? Could be! My magic might be enough for me to think that I’m a ship’s crew. But… what if they found that there is a doppelganger on the ship?” she thought while trying to look for the Cloudsdale. She has started to feel the mountains graze through her, making her think she might not gain enough altitude. But just after that, she saw the six bright rocket exhausts of the ship, and soon, the Cloudsdale showing its full stern to her.

“Oh yes! I’ve seen this ship before. The infamous Clousdale!” she exclaimed in the middle of the breeze. But then, another question soon arises: how can she get on the ship? The main launch pad? Too risky. The ship bridge will spot her right away, and those AA guns on deck will certainly shoot her. She can block them with ease, but she doesn’t want the appearance of the ship too noisy.

“Hmm… are there any random… doors I can enter?” she asked herself while levitating around the ship. It helps to notice that the ship's radar is not moving, indicating it isn’t working, thus explaining why they haven’t noticed her appearance. Needless to say, she is quite amused with that finding. She has seen the Cloudsdale’s radar in operation before, so it’s no surprise she knows how it works in hindsight.

“Hmm… Ah ha, found it!” she exclaimed right after seeing some seem lines that formed into a shape like a normal, human-sized door. She levitates right next to it, trying to figure out where is the handle for her to enter.

“Hmm… this is hard to figure!?” she carefully use her hooves to feel the surface of the door, finding any sign of a handle or a button to open the thing up. Several minutes later, she finally gets to find a large round knob that is cleverly disguised into the surface itself.

“Hmm… How can I open it? It didn’t like a normal doorknob, right?” she asked herself. Yet again, she has to ask her magic for help. “Perhaps this would do!” she mumbled before casting a “Universal key” spell onto it:

“Alohomora!” she shouted. She was afraid that someone behind the door might hear her.

But thankfully, after it was successfully opened, no one is behind it. She sighed in relief. But that’s not mean she is completely safe from any threat, which she quickly finds out why. Yes, she can close the door all on her own, but an external door opened midair for no reason is enough to trigger some alerts on the main bridge, to which captain Madison took notice.

…

“An opened door in mid-flight?” he questioned his first mate when reported about the incident.

“Yes, and it seems to open and closed all on its own. The one behind it was a mysterious pony-like creature, as the camera at that section has recorded.”

“Equestria and its magic never fail to surprise us, eh?” he sighed as if the incident is just Tuesday for him. The human crew has seen countless instances where the creature of Equus have used their magic for reasons they don’t even know to try to get onto their ships or simply infiltrate their facility, to which they assumed most of them are enemy spies. Just the week before, they caught a changeling that have successfully infiltrated the base in a failed attempt to enter the ship. The reason why they managed to stop him is that he has no concept of what an ID Card with QR Codes is. It’s also how they learned how much the general Equusians public knew about mobile suits, the Federations, or their operation in their world.

“It is like we are the CIA of the old world here. Everyone knows about them, but unless they declassified stuff, no one got a single slightest idea of what the heck they are doing!”

But this is the first time that a pony, potentially from the enemy, that have successfully infiltrated right into their ships with ease. It is a magical world, after all. Some have feared this “creature” might be a powerful one with incomprehensible capability.

But Madison and the rest of the crew seem like they couldn’t care less, and quickly established 3 search parties with some assistance from on-post crew members. “Shoot it the moment you see it!” he ordered straightforwardly.

…

“Flash, is that you?” Twilight said with a soft yet concerned voice.

Needless to say, he was speechless upon hearing her voice saying his name out loud. To add more awkwardness, there are precisely ZERO voices coming up between them, despite her having her friends presented right next. “She knows I’m listening! She can feel my fear?”

“Yup, I can feel your fear from here, Flash!” she said calmly “It is NOT a reason for you to kill yourself! “

The next he knew there is a cool breeze washing throw his body, bringing along with it a familiar sight.

It’s the “Map Room” of the so-called “Castle of Friendship”, a place where the Cutie Map is located. He remember it was a large round table with seven seats around it. On the table is the holographic map of Equestria and some parts of Equus, which serve as a guiding map and some sort of a “phone” to call ponies who have cutie marks for their intended duties. The map will lighten up the cutie marks on their flank and show their cutie marks on the location where their missions will take place, the process is called the “Cutie Marks Call”. He knew that procedure. He has seen it take place when he accompanied the princess when she addressed the mission to her friends.

Perhaps he will see a version of it behind that door, where THAT princess and her friends are sitting.

Flash sighed, trying to comfort himself with the experience. After the “mock battle” with Black Wine in the mountains of the Frozen North, he has lost contact with his friends in Alicorn entirely, forcing the experience but emotionally fragile Flash to face everything all on his own. Through his friend's hiatus in his life, he has realized how many dependencies he has on the group, and how many friendships bond they have.

He slowly opened the door. It creates a grinding sound that caused Flash to flinch a little. But he has to get in. Flash use all of his strength to open the door, only to see the famous “Council of Friendship” all looked at him in shock. None of them even moved, and their eyes glowered at him.

He was speechless. That is the same face when they learned about his heist. He remembered how disappointed they are in him. They care enough for Twilight that spilled over to the hope that Flash’s competence can safely protect Twilight from all of the dangers that are too much for her. But in turn, he only shows that he is just a worthless and harmful addition to her friendship circle.

The two sides stared at each other for nearly half a minute, until a pink, fluffy hair pony actually raise her hoof and say “Hello” casually.

“Hi!” Flash replied, with his word barely even heard.

It takes a few more seconds until another pony has any new movement. This time, it is a familiar rainbow mane, blue coat
pegasus mare called Rainbow Dash face-hoofing upon seeing the interaction.

“Uh… There he is, guys. Let me introduce you to Brandon Cultrich, more widely known as Flash Sentry, the Gundam pilot!”

“Ooh… Nice to meet you… again!” Rarity, a white coated unicorn with a set of curly dark purple mane and tail and a stylish thick cotton filled purple winter coat, said sarcastically. “It’s been several dozens of moons since we last saw you break my dear's Twilight heart, you good looking rude stallion!”

“Ah, I remember! Yer Flash Sentry, ex-personal guard and ex-coltfriend of mah Twilight Sparkle right?” speaks the orange earth pony with her blond mane and tail braided in a frustrated manner “Yeah… I remember yer rotten apple personality pretty well.”

“Guys, I don’t think we should just sit around and be angry like this! We are being imprisoned by Black Wine, remember!” the pale yellow and shy pegasus with long straight mane carefully tied tries to calm her friends down, but they still get to continue their anger.

“Oh, thank you! But don’t you see that, Fluttershy?” Rainbow Dash spoke up, “First, we are imprisoned by our own Chancellor, Black Wine. Next, this guy! Remember how he singlehandedly ruin the Royal Guard's reputation by stealing your crown!” the blue pegasi turned to her tall lavender friend with flowing mane and tail “She betrays you Twilight! I really don’t know why we have the ability to attract asshole stallions… Hay, blue hair! If you feel you want to die because of shame, you can kill yourself. Sorry, not sor…”

“Rainbow Dash, I can’t imagine you can say something like that!” Twilight Sparkle yelled.

“Ponies… we are here to discuss how to get out of this prison, not hating on a pony that has paid his price in an extreme way.” She said calmly to her friends “Now… what are we talking about?”

Only after that scary experience, Flash was getting to see how different they since the last time he saw them. They all change drastically, this time with wrinkles as well as longer mane and tail…

“Oh… forget you are here, Flash!” Twilight, who he can recognized but with a taller posture and with flowing magical mane and tail, wearing a large set of regalia, turned to Flash after the argument “Hi, you probably know us well, didn’t you?”

Flash was caught by surprise to hear her voice and suddenly asked him. He quickly turned himself into a normal obedient soldier with his straight standing and his hands behind his back. He replied straightforwardly with a focused face: “Yes, yes I am!”

It is. Even in his time, their legendary status is undisputable, let alone many moons later when they have ruled the kingdom together and Twilight have become the most powerful pony in the entire Equus.

But they are now right before him, and he is perhaps the only one who have real interaction with them ever since the “assassination”. It is too much for him since he also has to handle the mission to rescue his friends that are stuck in the Alicorn as promised.

Because of all of that thought, he has ironically learned that the Council of Friendship can read his mind whenever they wanted. Turnouts Twilight noticed his focused mind as he looked down when she and her friends are having a conversation, so she decided to find out what he is thinking.

“Don’t be stressed, Flash. Just because we’re celebrities doesn’t mean we’re less friendly!”

“Yup, she's right, bud! We’re still friendly like apple to the core!” Applejack added.

“Uh… those apples pun again!” Rainbow Dash groaned at her wife.

“Yeah, they’re right! You might to eat some delicious cupcakes when we get on this adventure together!” Pinkie Pie popped up right behind him and hugged his neck “I remember you liked strawberry smoothies a lot back when you are with her, right?”

“Uh… uh… yes… I think…”