Sleet, snow, rain, and hail were all things that Trainees of the Royal Guard had to slog through whilst undergoing training. On paper the exercise looked exhaustive, in real life the exercise was deadly, but only for the unprepared and I was never unprepared.
“Private Heart! Keep up with the group. I’ll not have your sick little be-hind lollygagging under my command. Understand?”
“Yessir!”
Others… not so much. I am Shining Armor, Private First Class of the Equestrian Royal Guard and I’m keeping up with Sergeant Taskmaster despite him being… well, a taskmaster. Original, I know. His stringent requirements are no problem for me. However, for the smaller and weaker guards like Private Flurry Heart, my squadmate and best friend, Taskmaster’s ‘tasks’ are grueling but she would never admit it. Now I don't know if it is the high altitude or her recent cold or both, but Hearts was struggling far more than she should’ve been. Her usually upbeat and funky demeanor were non-existent. So, me being the good friend that I am fell back to check on her.
“Hey Hearts, you don’t look so hot. You okay?”
The faint whispers I heard coming from my friend made me pale then shiver in fear under my armour. If Taskmaster ever remotely heard a scrap of what Hearts was muttering then he’d shove his boot so hard and so far up her rear that he’d launch her into the moon. Like I said, she wasn’t acting like herself at all. Trying to snap her out of whatever funk she was in I reached over with my right hand then tapped it on her left shoulder pauldron. The ‘clink’ sound my finger made seemed to give her a jolt of energy and she spun to the left. Now I don’t know if she tripped or if she just ran out of energy or something, but when she turned to face me, she fell face first into the snow.
“Guard down!” I shouted, letting everyone know that there was a problem that warranted immediate attention. If Hearts’ behavior was anything to go by then she was not supposed to be out here. Taskmaster never should’ve let a sick guard be exposed to these harsh elements. My emotions aside, I quickly knelt down next to Hearts and loosened the straps of her breastplate in order to give her some breathing room. Of course, doing so also opened up a gap in her armour, and almost like fate wanted to screw me over snow immediately found a way inside, courtesy of the squad medic, Magic Touch. To say he pushed me out of the way would be an understatement. A fitting statement would be that he took pleasure in seeing me launched away left to sprawl in the snow as he brusquely stole my place at Hearts’ side.
Despite the manner in which he started helping Hearts, I couldn’t help but know that she was in good hands. However, there was a problem, every time he would go near her head she would flinch and pull down on her helmet straps preventing him from removing it. Understandably that caused some immediate problems between Touch and Hearts. I’ll give him credit though, he tried everything short of physical force to get her to remove the helmet. I knew I would have to step in soon, even if Magic Touch didn’t want me to, but I figured that I might as well let him try one more time.
“Look Flurry, I understand that you don’t want me to take off your helmet but I have to make sure that you’re okay.”
Great, his plea didn’t work. Time to intercede.
“Hey Hearts.” I cooed as I strong armed Magic Touch out of the way. “I just want to -uhg!”
I had only been kneeling down for two seconds when I found myself launched away from Flurry. Again, I found myself stunned and sprawled out on the snow. Clambering to my knees I looked at Hearts’ sprawled out form and met her scared eyes.
“Flurry! What was-”
‘Dink’ “-Ow-”
“-That for?”
Flurry’s unexpected action suddenly made sense as I saw and heard the piece of hail land on her helmet, denting it. She, however reacted as expected. Her helmet took the brunt of the impact but there was now a large dent at her temple. I watched as her body shivered then fell to the ground, her eyes rolling upwards as she did so. Time seemed to slow down as Flurry went down, but as soon as her body came to rest on the snow time seemed to move twice as fast as it normally did. I was helped up by Magic Touch and Sergeant Taskmaster was bent over Flurry trying to remove her helmet. Just as he got the last strap undone another piece of hail hit the Sergeant in the chest, knocking him over.
In that moment of chaos I looked up and I saw that the slate grey sky had become a roiling black sea. The top of the mountains had become shrouded by the rapidly descending cloud layer leaving our valley in shadow. Looking closer I could see the winds tearing across the mountainside; racing towards us. Wheeling around I shouted to Sergeant Taskmaster,
“Sergeant! We have a storm coming in, we need to get to safety!”
Upon hearing my yell, the ponies of the search and rescue squad quickly obeyed the orders that our Sergeant barked.
“Private Dancer, fire off the ‘danger’ signal flare. Private Armor, grab Flurry Heart. Corpsman Touch, grab Private Flurry’s belongings.”
We all scrambled to obey his commands, Private Dancer sent up the red signal flare; I grabbed Flurry and slung her over my shoulder; Magic Touch quickly gathered Flurry's scattered armor and shoved it in her pack then lugged it onto his shoulder. Under the command of Sergeant Taskmaster we worked like the well oiled machine that we were. Within a minute we were on the move and not even thirty seconds after our signal flare went up, we received an answer from the ‘Virtuous’. We changed direction and made for the airship and safety. But we wouldn’t make it before the storm hit us, Looking over my left shoulder I could see Magic Touch struggling with the additional weight of Flurry's armor. He wouldn’t make it if he had to carry all of that equipment. Calling out to Private Dancer I told him to get back here and help Magic with Flurry’s armor, divide it up or something.
Even then, even with us all trying we wouldn’t make it anywhere close to the ship. Already our line of sight was dropping with the oncoming storm. We all shivered as the first gust of wind knifed through our armor and insulated jackets.
“Shin-ing… Shining.”
I slowed as I heard Flurrys voice in my ear.
“Hearts? You awake?”
“Shelter nearby.”
That stopped me in my tracks. There was shelter nearby? And we didn’t know about it? I needed to be sure.
“Hearts, how do you kno-”
“-Daring. Daring Do told me about these caves on this side of the mountain.”
Our conversation was interrupted by the bellowing voice of Sergeant Taskmaster.
“Whaddya two lovebirds think you’re doing! Get a move on soldier or we’ll die out here!”
Turning to him I quickly explained our situation and Flurrys information. He begrudgingly accepted our explanation and told us that if Flurry really does know where a better shelter is then she should lead us to it. So, we followed her directions. It took some time and although the storm did catch up with us we quickly found the cave entrance and made our way inside. We were all relieved to be out of the tearing wind and hammer like hail. Everyone's armor was dented and would need to be replaced when we got back to the ship; I couldn’t bare to think about what Flurry was feeling like right now. Depositing Hearts’ body on the floor of the cave I turned to make sure that everypony in our squad had survived the onslaught of snow and ice; however, Sergeant Taskmaster had beaten me to it.
“Shining Armor!” He called out going down the roll call.
“Here!” I responded, drawing his and Magic Touch’s attention. Taskmaster nodded then moved on to the next pony’s name. After his name was called Magic Touch proceeded to walk past me to Flurry Heart.
“Hey Touch?”
“Yeah Armor?”
“You want help with her?”
No, I got it all under… control.”
“Touch? You okay- oh Celestia!” I shouted in shock as Flurry Hearts’ helmet was finally removed revealing a stunningly beautiful heart shaped face and pastel rainbow hair. Magic Touch and I shouted in unison,
“Princess Cadance?!”
Hearing her name the revealed Princess Cadance turned and looked at me then shifted her attention behind me as the rest of the group stopped what they were doing. Her cheeks glowing a cherry red Princess Cadance sat up and wrapped her arms around her knees then looked at me again.
“H-Hello Mr. A-Armor, fancy seeing you h-here.”
Author's Note
--- This One-Shot does not represent the finished version.---
That's two out of thirty-one down. I have 29 more to go!
Done for One-Shot-Ober. As for the inspiration, it was the 'Uncharted' series. The story itself, whenever I get around to writing it, should be adventurous and well, for those of you who played the Uncharted Series because of the stories and settings, raise your hand. So... yeah, I hope all y'all have a 
keen day.
