heya everypony! this chapter will be a bit of an authors note. I will put up a poll about Maelstrom's future career choice. this will have a large influence on the story as a whole seeing as it will define his cutie mark, relations with family, friend groups and his additude towards stuff. I have three choices ready, and will be explaining those and the effects on the story in a minute.

also:

from this chapter on, every chapter will have a short about Maelstrom's childhood with the apple family. an omake if you will. I mean it would be a bit of a shame to just skip to halfway into his teenage years and leave a big plothole just to let the plot pick up. so some will be touching, some silly and some serious.

career #1: royal guard.

in this career, he'll become a member (or captain) of the royal guard. his cutie mark will become a shield with a green apple in the middle with two swords crossed behind it. his friend group will consist of several OC guards,Flash Sentry and Shining Armor. (of course by extention Cadance, Spike and Twilight too.) he'll have a friendly rivalry with Shining Armor, with the two constantly trying to one-up each other. he'll also have regular contact with Blueblood much to his displeasure. the relations with the Apple family will be good, but he won't always be around to help them out when needed since due to his job, he'll live in canterlot.

career #2: musician.

in this career choice, he'll be taught to play the guitar by hard Cider and form a band. his cutie mark will be a flaming blue guitar. his friends will become Vinyl Scratch, Octavia, Rainbow Dash, Pinkie Pie and the members of his band (which will also be OC's). Vinyl, he and Octavia will constantly bicker which music style is better: techno, classical or hardrock. he'll live on his own in ponyville but he'll help out on sweet apple acres regularly, giving him a very good relationship with his family. he'll also, either regularly get pulled into Pinkie's misadventures, or go on a pranking spree with RD just for shits and giggles.

career #3: professional magician.

with this, he'll be like Trixie in a sense. performing magic tricks for audiences in his free time, while helping the younger generation unicorns develop their magical abilities. (think of Sweety Belle and Dinkie Doo.) his cutie mark will consist of a magic book with red stars flying off of it. unlike trixie, he won't brag about his magical ability and prefer to just sit down and either watch the chaos unfold, or grab a magic tome and read it. he'll become fast friends with Twilight due to her thirst for knowledge and Rarity due to him teaching Sweety Belle to control her magic. his relationship with the Apple family will be good, with him often helping them out in the orchard when he has some free time.

so yeah, those are the three career choices he'll get. do NOT put your choice into the reviews because I won't take those into account. the ONLY way you can choose is through the poll. I'll put the poll up today, and it will close on for one full week. meaning that on 13-07-2014 the poll will be closed, and I will immidiately start working on the next chapter. now without ado: the first omake!

omake #1: friendship is: making childish schemes.

both Maelstrom and 'big' Macintosh were now three years old and both young parents couldn't be happier. Maelstrom and Macintosh both turned out to be relatively quiet children. they got along just fine and shared almost everything and both of them, especially Maelstrom, turned out to be quite intelligent toddlers. a little too intelligent sometimes. hard Cider sometimes had a hard time to keep his eye on both foals as they often seemed to work together to get what they wanted. sometimes Macintosh would try to make a conversation with his father (which is quite hard since he mostly spoke in one word scentences), while Maelstrom would sneak into the kitchen and grab a couple of applefritters, or Maelstrom would perform a small magic trick (usually just making things fly randomly or conjuring sparks from his horn) while Macintosh would run outside to go 'adventuring' in the orchard, only to be dragged back by a very amused Granny Smith.

"mommy? daddy?" Maelstrom ran up to his father with an 'innocent' smile on his face. Cider and Peachy both stopped bucking the trees and turned to see their eldest child.

"yes sweety?" Peachy asked with a pleasant smile on her muzzle while Cider wiped the sweat off his brows.

"why do you kick those trees?" he asked innocently.

"to get to the apples, dear." Peachy answered.

"why?" he asked again.

" to gather an' sell 'em." Cider answered for his wife.

"why?"

"to gather money."

"why?"

"so we can buy you food and clothes sweety."

"why?"

"so y'all can stay healthy." Cider grunted curtly, getting more then a little bit irritated by now.

"why?"

"so you can both grow up big and really strong."

"why?" by now Granny Smith was silently snickering in the background while hard Cider was desperately trying not to eat his own hat out of frustration. let it be known that hard Cider was never a patient pony. Peachy tried to keep smiling as she kept answering his questions.

"so that you can- wait a minute-" she narrowed her eyes in realisation. " BIG MACINTOSH, IF I CATCH YOU NICKIN' APPLEFRITTERS AGAIN, YOUR ASS IS GRASS!" she suddenly roared as she turned towards the farmhouse. her roar also drew Cider's attention as he too, turned his head to the farm. big mistake on their part because as soon as they turned around, little Maelstrom started sprinting towards the barn like the timberwolfes were hot on his hooves with Macintosh right behind him.

"Maelstrom!" both parents roared at their sons retreating forms while Granny Smith was by now rolling on the floor in laughter.

"tactical retreat!"

"eeyup!"