It was the following day after the marriage proposal, but yesterday as we promised ourselves, we all spent a quiet day whilst most of it was with my now engaged fiancé, Rarity. It was now the day that all of us were waiting for, the Equestrian Games which was to take place at the Crystal Empire. Rarity and I woke up in the morning and we were ready to go, we left her home along with Sweetie Belle before we all met up at the station, along with the other CMC's, Silver Spoon and the other pegasuses who were on Rainbow Dash's team.

Coco and Trenderhoof were there to see all of us off as they volunteered to watch over the boutique store. When the train arrived, we got on board and we got comfy on the chairs with me and Rarity snuggling up close as engaged lovers. All the ponies could think of was the games.

We were approaching the Crystal Empire and I could see Rainbow Dash was getting excited as some of her team members were busy keeping fit and the CMC's were holding the Ponyville team flag, Silver was there to support the team...it made my heart sing, knowing that she's a much better filly these days and Spike was checking over the travelling cases.

"This just got real!" Dash said as he turned to her team, "Listen up, gang! We're almost there, so I've got a few things to say. First off, who here besides me thinks this is the best Equestria Games delegation in Ponyville history?"

"YEAH!" Bulk replied in his way as he was lifting weights.

"And no matter what your sport is, we gotta give it our best, because we've all got a genuine shot at Ponyville gold!"

Her team cheered.

"With the possible exception of Bulk Biceps, Fluttershy, and me. I mean, we're good and all, but we're up against the Wonderbolts in the aerial relay, so gold's kind of a stretch. Let's not kid ourselves."

"Don't feel bad, Rainbow Dash!" Scootaloo replied, "We have absolutely no shot at getting gold either!"

"Uh, that's because you're carrying the flag for Ponyville in the opening ceremony. There are no winners."

"Winners or not, we still have the chance to be awesome!"

"That's the spirit! You hear that, everypony? Winners or not, we all still have the chance to be awesome!"

We all cheered in agreement.

"But, uh, let's still try to win lots and lots of stuff too, 'kay?

The team then went back to their training and shortly afterwards, we arrived at the Crystal Empire. We then got off and I noticed Spike was carrying a heavy bag until he placed it on a huge pile of other bags.

"It's all in there, gang! Leave it to Spike, champion gear-carrier for all your gear-carrying needs."

"And the Ponyville flag? You sure? And what about the flagpole?" Applebloom asked.

"In with the portable ramp." he then fell to the side as he laid his arm on the trolley which moved an few centimetres.

"Give it a rest, Apple Bloom." Scootaloo said.

"Aw, she's just nervous, that's all. Perfectly understandable. Whenever I'm afraid I'll forget something or start to panic, I have a simple trick. I count to ten, and by the time I'm done, I've calmed myself enough to get the job done right every time. Easy-peasy, cider-squeezy!"

Just then, a pair of crystal palace guards turned up towards me.

"Umm, can I help you?" I asked.

"Prince Bond Racer! We are honoured to have you at The Crystal Empire" one of them said as they both bowed

"You are requested to meet with Princess Cadence and Princess Twilight." the other one added.

I looked at Rarity and thought of something,

"I will guards, but only if my fiancé can come along too." I replied as I stood my ground like a boss.

"As you wish, Prince." one of them responded.

I held Rarity's hoof and we were escorted to the centre of the empire tower where Twilight and Cadence were waiting.

"O Great and Honourable Prince Bond, the Brave and Glorious." one of them announced before they walked away from us.

"Bond Racer, it's great to see you again." Cadence said. "Oh and I heard about your news from Twilight, congratulations on your engagement with Rarity."

"Thanks Cadence...Rarity means the world to me."

Rarity blushed as she held onto me tightly.

"Don't worry about the others, we'll all be together at the stadium." Twilight said. "We have to go to the castle first and meet with the other princesses."

We walked into the castle and we then approached the throne room to find Luna and Celestia already there and Shining Armour.

"Hey Twily!" Shining said as he went over to his sister. "Wonderful to see you again."

"Same here, Shining." Twilight replied.

I approached Celestia and Luna and greeted them with Rarity still by my side.

"Prince Bond Racer, we are thrilled to see you with us again." Celestia said.

"As I am too, Celestia." I replied before I looked at Luna, "By the way, thank you so much for helping Rarity out a few days back."

"You're very much welcome, Bond." Luna replied, "My sister and I heard the news, we offer our congratulations to you and Rarity."

"Thank you Princesses." Rarity replied, "Bond here turned out to be my one and only Prince when he proposed."

"It is quite a romantic moment." Celestia stated, "Now, Luna and I must now go and be seated with the other important ponies in Equestria before the games begin."

Celestia and Luna then left the throne room along with Shining who had to go to the stadium on security protection duty.

"So the ponies here believe that I am their greatest hero?" I asked.

"Well the last time we were here, you got the Crystal Heart to Princess Cadance in time to save this entire empire from destruction!" Twilight replied.

"Oh yeah, I remember that now."

"You are known throughout my empire as 'Great and Honourable Prince Bond the Brave and Glorious'. Cadence added.

"Wow, that is a long title to call me." I giggled. "Wouldn't it be better if I was the pony formerly known as Prince?"

Cadence giggled at my random joke.

"Well anyways, isn't that awesome?" Twilight added. "You're a big shot here."

"Really, whereabouts?"

Twilight went over to the balcony, Rarity and I followed her and we looked to see a crystal statue.

"See that? That's you!"

Sure enough, there was a statue of me in all of my crystal glory.

"Well, look at me...I am totally working it and they got my good side.

Rarity laughed before she kissed me.

"That is one of many reasons why I love you, darling." she said.

"This is why we all hope you do us the honour of lighting the torch at the opening ceremony with your magic." Cadence added, "It would mean so much to my citizens of the empire."

"Of course, I'll do it for sure." I replied with a smile.

"Thank you."

"Well, we best get going to the games as well." Twilight said.

"Then we must not keep everypony else waiting." Rarity replied.

We all began making our way to the stadium and when we arrived, the guards told us that only the most important ponies or alicorns can be up at the exclusive seating area where the other princesses were.

Rarity looked at me and kissed me, assuring that Pinkie and Applejack will keep her company until the games is over. I walked with Twilight and Cadence until we were with Celestia, Luna and all the other important ponies.

There was a seat for me by Twilight and it had the design of my cutiemark on the top of the seat which was quite classy and impressive.

"Places for the procession, everypony! Two minutes!" Shining announced from the ground.

I looked around the entire stadium from my view and it was quite enormous, not even the training stadium was as big as this. Soon, the whole ceremony was about to start.

"Everypony, we are ready to start the Equestrian Games!" Shining announced as the crowd went wild.

"First, welcome the delegation from Cloudsdale!"

I saw the Wonderbolts come from out of the tunnel way, although I had a sneaky feeling that Soarin would want Dash's team to win so he could spend more time with her.

"Next up, welcome the delegation from the Griffon Kingdom!"

"Griffon Kingdom?" I asked myself, "Since when were they part of the games?"

"It is quite a humorous story." Luna replied, "We'll tell you about it sometime."

"Next, welcome the delegation from Las Pegasus!" shining continued to announce.

Las Pegasus sounds very high class, I thought. Maybe that could be where I take Rarity for our honeymoon.

"And finally, please welcome the delegation from Ponyville!"

The CMC's and Silver Spoon came out with their team opening part, followed by Ponyville's team of Dash, Fluttershy, Bulk and Derpy.

We heard Pinkie, Rarity and Applejack cheering from the row that was above where Twilight and I were sitting and we were cheering loud as well, forgetting that we were in the presence of the other important ponies.

Silver Spoon brought out the team flag and stuck the pole on the ground along with the other flags from other cities and towns.

I then heard a hoof tap from my left from Celestia.

"Prince Bond, that's your queue to go up to the torch and bring it to light." she said.

"Right, I'll do it now." I replied.

I then got off my chair and flew upwards to the torch where Ms. Harshwinney was there.

"You may light the torch now, Pince Bond." she said.

I nodded as I flew up from the stand and concentrated my magic...and just so, I created an aura around the rim below the torch and then in one big whoosh, a fire wall appeared before it went into small blue flames around it. The crowd went wild as I breathed in my moment of pride and saw everypony smiling at me. Especially Rarity who blew me a kiss from afar. I then flew back down and gave Rarity a quick kiss before I flew back to my seating area with the Princesses.

"Let the games begin!" Shining announced and the crowd cheers as the first game got underway.

Some of the games passed and so far, Ponyville were doing really great but so were Cloudsdale, I guess I was wrong about Soarin...unless he's waiting for the right time to cost his team the win.

"Our next event...the aerial relay!"

"That's Rainbow Dash's team." I said to Twilight.

"I'm sure they'll win this one, just how they learnt at Rainbow Falls." she replied.

The event began and our team had a bit of a slow start but we knew that Dash would bring it back for us...the race was then over and we could see that Cloudsdale won the gold in that event whilst Dash's team took silver.

We could hear Pinkie cheering loudly from where we were. Shortly, the top three teams took their places on the podium.

"Congratulations to all our medallists. And now, the anthem of Cloudsdale will be sung by Lightening Dust!"

I pondered, I didn't know Lightening could sing, I guess we'd have to wait and find out what her singing voice is like. She got on the small stage by the mic and began to sing and to our surprise, she had a great voice, when she was finished, the crowd cheered.

"And so the Games conclude as they always do, with the ice archery finals! Ice archers, take your places!"

"Too bad Ponyville doesn't have any ice archers competing. We don't have anyone to root for." Twilight said.

"That's okay. Ponyville has thirty seven medals, and Cloudsdale thirty six." I replied, "So it looks like we'll be the overall winners of the Games anyway!"

"I wouldn't be sure, Cloudsdale has two ice archery finalists down there now! If they both place top 3, Cloudsdale wins the medal count!"

"So you're saying that it all comes down to this one event?"

"Pretty much."

The final event began and they used thier teeth to aim and fire with the bows as they began hitting the arrows on the targets.

"Hmm, they don't look like normal arrows to me." I commented as one of the arrows covered a part of the target.

"They freeze whatever part of the target they hit. Whoever encases their entire target in ice first wins." Twilight explained.

The event continued as one of the two pegasuses from Cloudsdale managed to cover up his target in ice. The other one next to him then fired his bow, but he tripped up on his stick of arrows and the arrow ended up going up to the sky towards a huge cloud above the stadium...I gasped and knew that there was trouble coming.

The ice arrow went deep into the cloud and it suddenly turned into a huge spiked ice cloud then began to fall down slowly, the ponies underneath it galloped away to safety whilst several pegasuses flew up and tried to stop the iced cloud.

"What can we do?" I asked, "We can't just sit here!"

Just when Twilight was about to reply, Spike suddenly showed up from the field.

"Leave it to me!" he yelled as he ran onto the field and jumped up. "Dash, Fluttershy! Move!"

He jumped on the backs of the pegasuses and confronted the ice cloud and with his all his strength, he breathed in a much as me could until he breathed out a huge dose of fire which stopped the iced cloud from moving before it began to melt and turn into rainfall. Spike to my surprise had an umbrella at the ready as he opened it to protect himself from getting wet.

We all breathed a sigh of relief and the crowd started cheering at Spike's bravery. We couldn't sit here, we had to go and praise him and Twilight agreed. We left our seats and reunited with the others with me hugging Rarity and kissing her as Spike came towards us.

"That was awesome!" Dash praised.

Cadence then showed up with us.

"I just wanted to thank you personally for saving those ponies and the Games, Spike." she said, "You must be very proud."

"I guess." he replied, feeling a little unsure.

"You guess?" I asked.

"Well yeah Bond, these crystal ponies here still see you as a hero. I just saw what needed to be done and reacted. Just so happens I can breathe fire and...if any of you could do that, you'd have done the same."

"Forgive me for bein' blunt, Spike, but you're not makin' a lick of sense." Applejack said.

"Well, it's just how I feel."

"Wait a second. I think I get it. You keep saying you let everypony down, but we all keep saying you didn't." Twilight said, "You know who's disappointed in you, Spike? You. And only you can make it right with you again. What would that take, Spike?"

"Meh, I don't know."

"Well, since Prince Bond opened the ceremony with the torch, would you do me the great honour of lighting fireworks at the closing ceremonies tonight?" Cadence asked.

"Come on, Spike." I added, "I saved the Crystal Empire, but you saved the ponies here and the game from certain disaster. I believe you deserve to have your moment with the fireworks."

Spike then changed his expression from sad to determined.

"Hmm..okay, I'll give it a shot!"

We all cheered, it was now time for the medal count and before that happened, the pegasi who fired the arrow into the cloud was willing to be disqualified for nearly putting everypony in danger because of his recklessness. Shining Armour accepted the claim which meant that after the final event, Ponyville won the medal count by one medal.

The closing ceremony arrived and it was time for Spike to light up the fireworks and just as before, he breathed in big and breathed out fast and his fire lit up all the fireworks as one by one they went into sky and exploded, revealing several colours and the crowd wooed and gasped at the display.

It was the beginning of the night when the event was finally over, we all began walking back to the station. The CMC's along with Silver trotted over to where Applejack, Dash and Rarity were there, already waiting along with Pinkie and Fluttershy.

"Oh! There are our little superstars! You were fabulous!" Rarity complimented as she hugged Sweetie.

"Made me sit up proud like a cornstalk in August!" Applejack added as she hugged Applebloom.

"Ya done good, squirt!" Dash said as she messed Scootaloo's mane playfully.

"You three really were wonderful." Twilight said.

"I would have to agree and Silver, you were terrific as an interim team member." I complimented.

"Thank you Bond...I feel so happy to be with these many friends." she replied as the CMC's gave her a group hug.

We all agreed that it was time to go home, so we got on board and we were on our way back to Ponyville. Across the table, I saw and listened to what Spike had to say when he wrote down today's lesson.

"You know, it's kinda weird. No matter how many times others tell you you're great, all the praise in the world means nothing if you don't feel it inside. Sometimes to feel good about yourself, you gotta let go of the past. That way, when the time comes to let your greatness fly, you'll be able to light up the whole sky."

"Great lesson there." I commented.

"Thanks dude...I also wanna thank you for letting me have my moment, you're one amazing friend." he replied.

We then did a bro hoof/claw before I heard a few yawns from around us.

When we all got back to Ponyville, we all shared one group hug as we all tired from today's event. Silver, Bulk, Derpy and the CMC's already went home, leaving the seven of us and Spike outside the station.

"So, with the Equestria Games now done, what are gonna do now?" I asked.

"Well, we still have the objective to open that crystal box." Twilight replied. "And according to the journals you've all written, we may have all of the keys to unlock it."

"Not quite sugarcube, you've yet to find yours." Applejack said.

"Yeah, but I don't know where to get mine."

"We'll just have to wait and see if any event comes up that might have the last key." Rarity said.

"In the meantime, I think we should have a few days to ourselves. It'll do us a lot of good." Fluttershy suggested.

"Great idea...I think we can all do with that for a while." Twilight agreed.

"Well, apart from me and my fiancé." I smirked as I looked at Rarity, "But I get what you mean."

I then shared a loving kiss with her before we all had a group hug and exchanging our farewells. I walked on into my home and the more I think about it, the more I realize that it's becoming no longer the same on just sleeping on my own in my own home. If I'm going to marry Rarity in the future, I at least would be willing to find a welcoming home for the two of us.

But for now, getting that crystal box unlocked is now our main concern, but I had an inkling that it was going to take something huge in order for that to happen...oh well, time to sleep and have a chance to dream... Next Chapter: Twilight's Kingdom Part 1. Estimated time remaining: 7 Hours, 4 Minutes