When the door opened, Princess Flurry Heart lifted her head to watch and wait, as did her companions. Moondancer could be seen for a brief moment, and she was holding a yowling, spitting, sputtering, screeching furball in her magic. She unceremoniously dumped Megara into the room, let out a sniff, and then slammed the door shut as she departed to deal with the crisis.

Right away, Megara began to beat on the door.

“It’s not fair,” Flurry Heart muttered to her companions. “A crisis comes, and rather than let us help, they lock us up in prison.” The little princess lifted her head and struck a noble pose, something she borrowed from her father. “Meg, save your strength. They’ve learned from our previous escape attempts. The room is ray shielded, warded, the lock cannot be picked, we’re trapped.”

Hearing this, Megara let out a feline yowl of displeasure, it sounded like two violas screeching during a romantic stringy interlude to create a little violin, but she ceased beating her paws against the door. The manticore spawn turned about, paused for a moment, and then waved at her accomplice, Boomer. “Hiya, Boom Boom. How’s things?”

“Boring, ya know,” Boomer replied.

“Professor Egghead, do you have a plan to get us out yet?” Flurry Heart asked as she turned her head to look at Sumac. One eyebrow arched and for a moment, Flurry was a duplicate of her mother.

“Actually, yes.” Sumac lifted a hoof and gestured at Boomer. “My dragon assistant is the key to our escape.”

“Professor Egghead, may I remind you, the locks are protected against both magical and mundane means of manipulation.” Flurry Heart gave Sumac a sour, disappointed look. “Her lock picking skills have been rendered moot. It’s not right that they do this to us.”

A somewhat crazy grin spread across Sumac’s muzzle, the sort of grin that made his companions all shiver. “Yeah, but they are not warded against high yield explosives.”

Lips puckering into a somewhat fearful moue, Flurry Heart took a moment to consider Professor Egghead’s words. She also took a moment to think about what her nanny, Sleet, and her tutor, Sunburst, might do to her if she continued in her course of action. Her mother had warned her that Lady Lulamoon’s son was just a teensy, weensy bit on the crazy side, and she was seeing the undeniable evidence that her mother was right.

“Professor Egghead, might I ask, what is going to keep us from being blown to smithereens?”

“I think you can shield us,” Sumac replied.

The little princess took a moment to consider her subject’s words. He was confident in her abilities, and who was she to disappoint him? She probably could shield them from the explosive blast in the tight confines of their prison. Flurry wondered if Sumac was using his slick grifting magic on her, and was curious if she would succeed through her own power, or because she had been conned into believing that she could. Sunburst had spent a great deal of time trying to explain to her how Sumac’s magic worked, and Flurry found it a source of fascination.

Sumac could make ponies do things they normally couldn’t do, simply because he made them believe that they could. It was a subtle, clever power, and little Princess Flurry Heart considered it one of her most valuable assets. Professor Egghead was hers, the other princesses just didn’t know it yet.

“Boomer, we need some explosives,” Flurry Heart announced.

“I can’t poop with everypony watching,” Boomer replied as she clutched her claws together and somehow managed to look very shy. “Let’s see you take a poop with somepony watching.”

Frowning, Flurry didn’t like being told no. It was right up there with being told it was bedtime or that she had to eat her alfalfa sprouts. Blech! “Meg, give Boomer a motivational speech to help her achieve her potential, if you please.”

The much larger manticore spawn advanced upon the much smaller tree dragon, and Boomer backed away. Meg smiled, revealing her horrendous teeth and her lion’s tail swished from side to side. Her claws tapped upon the floor of their miraculous prison, making clicking sounds. With a smooth, fluid motion, Meg pounced, and she captured Boomer in a fierce hug.

“GIVE ME YOUR POOPS!” Megara roared, drenching Boomer’s face in manticore spawn slobber.

There was a faint whiff of something that smelled like rotten eggs and charcoal, then there were three distinct plops as something hard fell to the tiles. It sounded like three marbles being dropped to bounce upon the floor. After a delay, a fourth plink-clink could be heard as something else that was also hard hit the tile, and Boomer let out a tiny grunt of embarrassment. Then, there was a squeaky sound like a balloon deflating, and an eye watering sulfurous stench filled the room.

“Splendid!” Flurry Heart shouted, sounding very much like her mother in her moment of triumph. “Soon, we shall be free from this prison and we’ll be able to save Ponyville from the mud monsters. Professor Egghead, blow the door, if you please.” Flurry stomped her hoof to show that she meant business and that she was in charge.

“I’m sorry, Boom Boom,” Megara said, apologising to her friend.

“You’re buying me a milkshake for this,” Boomer growled as she gave her friend and fellow accomplice the stinkeye. “A big one. A chocolate and celery milkshake from Sugarcube Corner.”

Humming to himself, Sumac collected the four hard, flinty dragonstones, the highly explosive droppings of dragons. He had done this for so long that it didn’t bother him in the slightest. Lifting them, Sumac cast a sticky spell and then began attaching them around the door latch. Princess Flurry Heart admired his courage, as the colt showed no signs of concern that he was handling high yield explosives. There could be no doubt, he was the son of Lady Lulamoon, noted explosives expert and maker of the exquisite fireworks loved by the Crystal Empire.

“Yeah, this door is gonna go,” Sumac said as he squinted at what he had done. “I think four will do it.”

The colt retreated from the door and Flurry Heart pulled her companions into the corner with her. With her tongue sticking out of the side of her mouth, she cast a shield spell, something she had learned from her daddy. After a moment’s thought, she also cast a sound muffling spell, as this was going to get loud, no doubt. For some reason, all the adventures she had with her friends got loud, and her mother liked to lay the blame on the crazy Lulamoon colt.

Which was fine, because Flurry, like her mother, knew that she was innocent.

In fact, Sumac was about to make a big noise right now, because she saw his horn sparking. He was going to ignite the dragon dookie dynamite and blow the door. It was going to be loud and the door was going to go away. Hopefully, she and her friends would not share the door’s fate, and Flurry doubled down on her efforts to hold her shield up.

The room was filled with a thick, choking smoke. The door and most of the wall were gone and Flurry’s ears were ringing. She had muffled most of the sound, but the force of the explosion striking her shields had done a number on her head. Again, she wondered if she could have shielded them on her own, or if Sumac had somehow influenced her ability with his suggestion, a confidence trick done by her treasured con artist.

Megara the Lioness, her loyal and most trusted henchcreature took the lead. Boomer fell in behind Meg and Flurry shoved Professor Egghead into place in front of her. Any adults that came along would have to be dealt with, as Flurry wasn’t in the mood for play. Ponyville was in trouble, and it was up to Flurry Heart to save them.

Megara’s enormous batlike wings fanned away the smoke and dust from them, clearing the way. Sumac’s horn was glowing, an indicator that he was at the ready, and Boomer was using her keen senses to detect any incoming threat as the group made their way down the crystalline hallway of Twilight Sparkle’s castle.

“You scared the poop outta me, Meg!”

“I said I was sorry,” Meg replied.

“One day I scare the poop outta you, mammal!”

Flurry listened as Sumac began laughing with Megara and Boomer. Morale was good, she felt. She had learned about the importance of morale amongst her own troops from her father and her mother, both experts. Already, she was planning her next moves, her next steps. She needed something to give her sorcerer some zing and they needed to get out of Twilight’s castle.

Also, some sort of emergency plan had to be thought up quick, just in case they ran into Twinkleshine. Her nanny Sleet, could be dealt with, her tutor, Sunburst, he could be reasoned with, his logic could be appealed to, but Twinkleshine was death incarnate, the end of all things. Of Sumac’s three mothers, Twinkleshine was the fierce one, the protector, and Flurry had listened to her mother’s lectures about maternal love and fury. Twinkleshine could not be appeased, she could only be stopped by returning Sumac unharmed so she could fawn over him.

A very rude sound made Flurry halt, and so did the others. As the four companions watched, one of the mud monsters came waltzing into view. It was a short, squat, bipedal creature made of mud and a cloud of dust swirled around it. Everywhere it went, it left behind a trail of filth. In front of the companions, it paused, turned about, and presented its disgusting butt crack, wiggling it at the young ones.

Reaching back, it slapped its butt cheeks with hands made of mud, making gross squelches, and then it farted, spewing out cloud of dust with a few muddy squirts. The hand slapping continued, making a staccato rhythm. It farted again and a muddle puddle formed in the hallway.

“Gross! It farted at me!” Princess Flurry Heart cried in a disgusted voice. “Meg! Kill it!”

“I dunno if I wanna—”

“Meg! Kill!” Flurry demanded in a way that only an alicorn princess could.

It was Boomer who reacted, she inflated, causing her spines and frills to stand out. Like a furious chuckwalla, Boomer appeared to grow three sizes, and then she countered the disgusting mud monster’s flatulence with a belch. A gross, gurgling, horrendous belch issued forth, it rattled the walls and Boomer’s companions, and then Boomer’s blastastic burp ignited. Green flames spewed forth and curled around the super-grody mud monster.

Princess Flurry Heart suffered a bad, bad reaction. She sat down, her pale pink posteriour hitting the floor, and she pounded her barrel with her dainty front hoof. She too, burped, she burped in a way that only an alicorn princess raised around soldiers could. The mud monster in front of Boomer vanished in wisps of smoke, and reappeared a moment later when Flurry Heart belched it out.

Gagging, Flurry Heart almost spewed, because this taste was never coming out of her mouth. The mud monster gave Flurry a crepitatious goodbye, squirting mud and filth in Flurry’s face. It fell to the floor with a splat, picked itself up, and then ran away, squirting slimy, sticky, bubbling mud and farting with each step of its stubby, disgusting legs.

“Sorry!” Boomer cried as she clapped her claws over her mouth. “I can’t control that just yet!”

“Your princess demands a toothbrush and some toothpaste!” Flurry Heart stomped her hoof upon the floor, gagged, and then tried spitting her own tongue out of her mouth.

“Serves you right for having Megara scare the poop out of Boomer.”

Turning her head around, Flurry faced Professor Egghead and gave him a frosty, domineering, Storm Princess Glare from beneath her mud mask. He didn’t seem impressed though, not at all, and Flurry knew that her Storm Princess Glare needed work. She gagged again and wondered if this taste would ever come out of her mouth.

In the distance, screams could be heard along with squishy, trumpeting blasts.

“Ponyville needs us!” Megara cried, spreading her wings and revealing a glimpse of the manticore spawn that she would one day become. A grotesque wet splattering could be heard nearby, and Megara turned her head in the general direction of it.

“Wipe-Outs! Assemble!” Flurry Heart commanded, still trying to recover her princessly composure after spewing out a mud monster dragon mailed to her by Boomer. “Prepare to be heroes! Prepare for glory! Prepare to be majestic!”

“Prepare to be grounded forever,” Boomer added with a smokey huff.

“Yeah, maybe that too, but that’s the price of a good deed!” Flurry Heart, still sputtering a bit, struck a regal alicorn pose, spreading her enormous wings that she still needed to grow into, wings only rivaled by Megara’s for sheer, ridiculous size. “I’m gonna show my fellow princesses that I gots what it takes and all of you are my special princess helpers!”

“Twilight usually spends less time chatting and more time splatting,” Megara remarked, her deadpan sounding very much like her mother’s.

“Quiet, you big hairy mug, or I’ll murderise ya!” Flurry cried, sounding very much like her uncle. Reaching out with one wing, she gave Megara a hearty swat to the side of the head, which Megara ignored. It was nice having friends who were as nigh-invulnerable as she was. “Come, friends, let’s go save Ponyville!”

Author's Notes:

This'll be a short romp. I wrote this for my friends. Yes, you. Yes, you right there. That's right, you. You know who you are.