It began like any other day. Flash woke up, had breakfast, said goodbye to his siblings and went to school. They were going on a field trip to the Canterlot Art Museum to see a few new paintings. Nothing could go wrong then right?
Right?
A simple field trip. Nothing can go wrong.
When they got to the museum, there were advertisements everywhere for a new piece of art of something called “Tantalus”. Flash thought that they were talking about the dude from Greek myths where after stealing food from the gods (or serving his own son as food to them), they punished him by holding food right out of his reach. Pretty karmic for a guy like him.
So obviously the art had to do with him.
Flash was surprised that it was instead an art piece of some sort of airship. A very familiar airship he might add. He swore he recognized it from somewhere. And the painting seemed to be partly obscured by purple clouds. Strange.
As he was thinking about this, he saw Pinkie rushing towards him. She was apparently excited since there was apparently a painting that she wanted to see right next to the “Tantalus” painting.
This can’t be good.
Before Flash knew it, Pinkie slammed into him in her rush to get to the painting.
“Woops, sorry Flashy!” she said.
“Pinkie! You can’t run in here!” Sunset scolded.
But as the two were talking, Flash stumbled. And fell straight into the painting. No, scratch that. He fell INTO the painting. It was some sort of portal. He fealt his foot being grabbed by someone, but whoever grabbed him lost their grip and he fell right through the painting. He saw a swirl of bright light and then, he blacked out.
“Owww,” Flash moaned as he struggled to get up.
“Hey, Flash, are you okay?” a voice asked.
“Yeah, yeah, I’m fine,” Flash groaned.
“That was some fall you took there,” the voice continued, “you fell right off the ladder as we were climbing down,”.
“Yeah, wait what?”
Flash opened his eyes. He was on a wooden floor. As he slowly got up he looked at the person who was talking to him. He was about his height, had blonde hair, and a long…tail? Oh.
Oh no.
He was staring at the face of Zidane Tribal.
Back at the museum, there was much panic. For one thing, Pinkie’s antics had gotten security involved, so a guard was placed in front of the painting. Which was preventing anyone from getting close to it.
Sunset did not know how, or why, Flash fell through the painting, but she needed to find some way to rescue him. During lunch at the museum cafe, she got out her journal and began to talk to Princess Twilight, to see if she knew of anything like this.
"Hi Twilight,"
“Hey Sunset, what’s up?”
“Oh nothing much except Flash Sentry fell through a painting at a museum here,”
“What!?”
“Yeah, you can thank this world’s Pinkie for that,”
“Wait, so the painting was some sort of portal? Did it look like it led anywhere in Equestria?”
“Well, not really. At least nowhere I’ve heard off. Rainbow tried grabbing him, but her hands slipped, and now there being guarded, so we can’t stage a rescue mission,”
“Do you need my help?”
“Are you sure that’s a good idea? I mean, aren't you busy with princess stuff?”
“If I was, I wouldn’t be able to go on crazy adventures here, now would I?”
“Point made,”
“How is Flash by the way? Er…just wondering if he’s asked about me,”
“He’s been doing fine. He was a little depressed earlier in the year, but he’s gotten better,”
“Why was he depressed?”
“I sort of told him to…get over you,”
“...”
“Twilight?”
“Why? Did I ask you to break us up?”
“Well, I figured since you’ve only interacted twice, I’d figured that a relationship would not work between the two of you and…well he did gain an interest in your human self, but she’s taken so…I’d thought I’d help him get over you. And it’s not as if you were actually dating or anything,”
“I mean, I get your point, but you could have had him talk to me through your journal. And I probably should have visited a bit more. I was kind of disappointed how our last interaction went down,”
“You mean how Trixie basically ruined your first--”
“YES, and…well did he ever feel bad at all about his…actions under the influence of the Sirens?”
“I don’t even know if he remembers that, but before he was influenced, he was asking about you,”
“And, I admit, while his words did hurt, he was right. I was in over my head about it. At least the hug he gave me was nice”
“Er, maybe we should figure out a way to rescue him first. Who knows how much trouble he could get into, with not having magic at all. We don’t know where that portal leads,”
“Alright, sit tight, and meet me at the statue later. I’m going over there. We should meet at night,”
“Right, how should we do this then?”
“I’ll go alone. I’m very sneaky when I want to be,”
“I didn’t know you are willing to…break in and enter a locked building at night,”
“Would not be my first time!”
“You will need my help to get over to the museum though. You probably don’t know where it is,”
“Right. I’ll be over there later,”
It was late at night when Twilight entered the human world. Sunset was waiting for her when she exited the portal.
“Okay, the museum is not actually that far from here,” Sunset said, “so we should be able to get there pretty easily,”.
“Are we going to walk all the way there?” Twilight asked.
“Well, no,” said Sunset. “We would have to drive. Fortunately, I got us a ride. She pointed to the car that was sitting in the school’s parking lot.
“Since when did you get a car?” asked Twilight.
“It’s Flash’s. I got my license not that long ago. And since I do not have my own car to drive, Flash made a spare key for me so I could use his car,” Sunset explained.
“I see,” said Twilight.
“So how are we going to break into a museum?” asked Sunset.
“Oh, I have a few magic tricks up my sleeve,” said Twilight.
Later at the museum…
“Okay, we are here,” said Sunset, “now what?”
“First, we, or in this case, I should unlock a window,” said Twilight, “I know of an unlocking spell that can unlock it,”.
They went over to one of the windows. After Twilight had cast a spell on it to unlock it, she opened it slowly. She looked around to see if there were any guards around. Once she was confident that none were around, she climbed in.
“Be careful in there,” said Sunset.
“Always,” said Twilight.
Twilight looked around. According to Sunset on the way there, the painting that Flash fell through was in the featured art section. After searching for a little bit, she eventually found it. Unfortunately, there was a guard standing right next to it. She would have to distract him somehow. Perhaps a small spell to make him fall asleep would work. She casted a small sleep spell at him which made him fall asleep.
“Okay, now that we got that out of the way, let’s see what this painting is all about,” Twilight said to herself.
She walked over to the painting to see that the airship was still there. And it was still partly obscured by purple clouds. Twilight wondered how Flash could have fallen through it. She decided to reach out to see if it would react to her. Suddenly, it seemed to have grabbed her and started to pull her into it.
“Well, here we go then,” Twilight told herself as she was pulled in.