p class="normal" style="color: #2c3635; font-family: Verdana, sans-serif; font-size: 13px; line-height: 19.5px; background-color: #fffffa;" align="center"CHAPTER 2/p
p class="normal" style="color: #2c3635; font-family: Verdana, sans-serif; font-size: 13px; line-height: 19.5px; background-color: #fffffa;" /p
p class="normal" style="color: #2c3635; font-family: Verdana, sans-serif; font-size: 13px; line-height: 19.5px; background-color: #fffffa;" /p
p class="normal" style="color: #2c3635; font-family: Verdana, sans-serif; font-size: 13px; line-height: 19.5px; background-color: #fffffa;"as the days pass more than a year passed in equestria sense i come to this world i've watched twilight and her friends travel all across equestria but while they had adventures i had my own to attend to with my friends Aileron, Bharral, and rudder we began a small scouting operation called "the Cloud Busters" it mostly began small missions like helping find lost ponies in the everfree forest or relaying messages to and from the outlying districts around equestria mainly between the crystal empire and canterlot but to be honest i really don't mind the calm of this world wars are almost non-existent problems are often solved easy as the routine flights started becoming more and more... well routine i begin to miss my friends back home and i wish i could show them the world around me. after our flight we return to our base, the old store next to rudders workshop when i notice aileron looking at me with a face of concern "hey cloud i'm going to fly over to the crystal empire. I need to check to see if they have any missions for us." when i think about her flying such a far distance on her own "alright i'll fly with you." "no thanks it's alright it's not a scouting mission it's mainly a joy trip i made a friend in the crystal empire and i was going to go see her and while i was there i was going to see if any missions for us i was actually just going to take the train this time." seeing how she desperately wants to go alone i look at the others rudder calibrating his buster pack a unique pack that shoots out thin ice shards at high rates similar to that of the digimon move needle spray, and bharral who looking up from his latest project of studying the history and geological information of the crystal empire gives me that look of reassurance and i look back to Aileron giving me a set of puppy dog eyes i can't help but agree and with a light sigh I nod and witness the happiness spread across her face"just take your buster pack just in case" she jumps up and grabs her goggles and buster pack that she lovingly named "snow shell" because of its shot style firing a snowball encased in a thin layer of ice like a more fragile coconut allowing for her specialty high flying so they survive the initial shock of most temperature altitudes thus snow shell. as she rushes out the door i hear bharral behind me "she's worried about you it's not hard to see you've got things on your mind. i won't ask what they are but you can tell she wants to." i look back to rudder who is now looking at me and bharral with concern "frankly bharral he might be thinking about his family" me and bharral give him a confused stare. when he stands from his workstation he walks over to a picture on his wall "well he asked about my family and yours but we haven't even thought about his." he and bharral turn to me rudder with stars in his eyes but bharral having had a kind of emotional event relating to his parents doesn't look to thrilled to bringing up mine. "well my family were mostly small town ones we lived in los-Pegasus for most of my life not really a small town but after a while we moved our household was anything but quiet though because my sister and my father had a tendency to fight with each other a case of counteracting ideologies she was a big town small world unicorn and my dad was a small town big world earth pony one wanted the world given to her the other believed everything needed to be earned with hard work, my mother just tried to keep the peace amongst us. i being raised by a hard working stallion and a generally modest mother i grew up more wanting to discover the world around me though anyway i could be it by my own adventures or the stories of everyone around me. actually despite how i seem i didn't have many friends growing up but the ones i did have i trusted with all my heart. but coming here i had to leave them i guess it's just realising now that they are now living their lives but because of where i am now i might not hear from them again." not telling them that the Pegasus, unicorn, and other pony analogies were made up on the spot i can see the stars in rudders eyes faded into a look of shock."wow cloud i mean i had no idea i guess it explains how you know so much about what happens around equestria even in places that no one around here visits often." bharral looks at the photo of rudders family and i can see the gears in the inquisitive ponys mind turning at max. "well gentalcolts enough story time i'm going to head on home and get some sleep i've got to run to canterlot in the morning. some of the royal guard captains invited me over to cover anything we might have seen in our flights." as i step on out of the headquarters i hear bharral and rudder talking about doing a scouting run over the everfree forest after aileron and I return./p
p class="normal" style="color: #2c3635; font-family: Verdana, sans-serif; font-size: 13px; line-height: 19.5px; background-color: #fffffa;" /p
p class="normal" style="color: #2c3635; font-family: Verdana, sans-serif; font-size: 13px; line-height: 19.5px; background-color: #fffffa;"after returning home i take a moment to remember the ones i left back in my world and in my dreams i remember those who impacted my life my direct family, my close friends i saw as family, and the girl who i once loved who gave me both memories good and bad while i dream of these people it plays like home videos i watch the world from my human eyes like from the lens of a camera when i hear a familiar voice behind me "so this is what your life was like prior to coming here so many fond memories even the ones you saw as bad at the time you still look at them with a smile, why?" i turn to see luna standing in the seating area of a movie theater like seating "well i guess at the time i saw them as problems but now i see them as lessons that i've learned from like that one there" looking twords the one of the day my friend came to my house in tears " my best friend for years who i saw as a brother, he showed up at my house in tears the running joke with me is i was a therapist at heart but mentally i was crazy turns out he was having a problem understanding what to listen to because the girl i was dating he had a heavy crush on for 3 years so he was torn follow his heart and tell her how he felt and risk losing a friend but gain a girfriend or give up on the girl of his dreams but get closer to his best friend who may or may not be there for him when he truely needed him." luna gently sits next to me and uses her magic to create a holographic version of what was happening around me " what did he decide?" with a tearful smile "he chose to let me have my time in the light and gave up on her and he was right after that we became greater friends i guess because before knowing of this world i didn't know exatly what to look for to say what made me feel that he was my best friend he has the 5 elements of harmony loyalty choosing to let me be happy then him to be happy. generosity selflessly choosing my happiness over his. laughter we both shared our idiotic adventures. truth whenever i was in a situation where i needed to hear the truth he would be there to be a hand reaching out to catch me as i fell or a straight kick to the face to snap me out of my false hope. kindness when i lost my girlfriend he was the first to talk me off slowly crumbling ledge i found myself standing on." "and what about the sixth one magic?" i turn back to see us having a laugh about a stupid joke we made to lighten the situation "the magic was the fact that after all the fights, tears, and the general chaos of our world we stayed best friends always willing to be there for each other." i turn to see luna smiling "thank you for letting me glimpse into your world through your eyes and memories" with a smile luna walks to the back of the seating area and i turn back to my memories and the dream continues untill i hear the sound of my alarm wake me up and i rush to canterlot to meet with the royal guard captains and explain the little i've come into contact with in my flights except for one thing. "so far the only thing i've noticed in our flights is around the borders between the crystal empire we have noticed what looks likes small camps when rudder investigated most seemed abandoned the few that weren't just had some normal travelers that were just camping we did a bit of a fly by to get a better idea of how many were there aileron counted around 20-30 camps but only 6 were active at the time of investigation." the captains nodded at me and told me to keep up what i was doing. and i left to return home when i hear a voice "Cloud nice running into you here." i turn to see aileron happily trotting up to me. "wow what are you doing here aileron? i thought you were going to the crystal empire?" "i did i was on my way back i stopped here so i could grab some treats for everyone on the way home. according to spike the doughnut place here that is crazy good. would you like to join me for a treat?" i nod and we eat and get a couple of doughnuts to go before heading home on the next train to ponyville and return to the HQ where rudder and bharral are looking over a map of the everfree and a message from zecora asking for assistance finding a plant not found near her hut when they turn to us and rudder jumps from his seat "Aileron, Cloud! we got a mission to do a scavenging mission! "he then sees the box of doughnuts from canterlot "DOUGHNUTS!" he happily swipes the box and darts back to the table and begins munching on his doughy treat when bharral turns back to me and aileron "well like rudder was saying before getting a bit distracted zecora asked us to find a fruit in a bit of an odd place in the everfree forest what about you two? did how did the guard meeting go?" he turns to me and smiles "well i told them about the camps we have been seeing around the crystal empire region they said to just keep an eye out for anything odd like that but that was mainly it." he then turns to aileron and she look at me "well i got a mission from cadence for scouting the icy mountains to the north of the empire shouldn't be to hard, she said it was because of a rare occurrence that she needs someone to document she was going to give it to one of her regular guards but i showed up right when she started looking. so i figured we might be able take it on Cloud." she smiles and lightly cocks her head to the side and i nod in agreement "so be it rudder and bharral are on zecoras hunting mission and me and aileron are on a research mission ill get the paperwork done and i'll borrow a mountain map from twilight aileron go grab some winter flight gear from the storeroom. bharral pick up some medical supplies from the hospital mainly antitoxins rudder-" he is still happily eating his doughnuts "try not to over eat and get a stomach ache before going into an unknown forest." we all nod and go about our prep tasks when i get to twilight's castle and i ask spike and twilight about a map of the mountains they ask what i was needing all these items and i explain the basics of the mission when they both turn to me "rare occurrence? what could it be that area is frankly dull?" when i look at the map of the area around there it is very dull but it is on a farther northern area of the map. "well it could be an aurora borealis" after a short while of getting a questionable look from spike "its the northern lights it's caused by energy from the sun conflicting with the planets magnetic fields on the north pole then after another short while of questionable looks from now both twilight and spike i realise that that tends to be an occurrence on earth but somewhat different on equestria in a couple of seconds to them but hours for me "it's a shield that no one really knows how or when it got put around the planet it keeps the heat from the sun from roasting the planet." then the look on there faces lessons and both just kinda nod and agree after getting the map and recon instruments i walk out muttering to myself "nice work you've been here for around a year and you keep forgetting some things in the human world don't match up with this world." then with a slight chill of someone watching me i turn to see that i was walking past lyra who is now looking at me with a combination of confusion and happiness then as she runs off i can hear her distent "I KNEW THEY WERE REAL!" and i just pretend that never happened and i return to everyone conversing about what happened while aileron was away well into the night when we soon sleep to prepare for the new day new events and new secrets./p