//------------------------------// // Chapter 2 // Story: Friendly Skies // by Liquidfirest0rm //------------------------------// Twilight Sparkle stood on the outskirts of town, her coat completely soaked from the storm that was slowly moving towards Ponyville. The high speed winds making the raindrops sting, and causing debris to be cast about, making it even more dangerous. She had already been saved twice now by the cyan Pegasus who stood dutifully at her side, keeping a constant vigil for any more deadly objects being hurled by the wind. While weather over the Everfree Forest was unusual in the fact that it controlled itself for the most part, this particular storm had come across some ancient magic somewhere in the forest while forming. The magic causing the storm to intensify, producing severe rain and almost tornado scale wind. The storm had started to slowly drift in the direction of Ponyville, and while the Pegasai of the weather team would usually have no problems dissipating the storm before it could cause any damage, the magic within the storm would continuously thwart all of their attempts at breaking up the clouds. For the third time, Twilight closed her eyes and reached out with her magic. Visualizing the storm, she started casting a magic dispelling field and a cloud evaporation spell simultaneously over the area that the storm covered. The rain started to slow, and there was an almost imperceptible shrinking effect on the edges of the storm. Gradually the storm became visibly smaller, when suddenly Twilight’s eyes shot open, a look of fear upon her face. “Something is happening!” She shouted over the wind. “The magic inside of the storm is reacting with-” She was suddenly cut off by what sounded like a massive explosion. Without warning the storm suddenly shrank in on itself and disappeared in a blinding light. The howling wind was replaced by an ear piercing noise that they had never heard before. Covering their ears, they looked up where the storm had just been, and they both saw something streaking away over the Everfree. They barely got a look at it before it was out of their sights, some sort of large, grey, flat object. Both of them felt a chill run down their spines that wasn’t caused by being soaked the bone. “We need to tell the Princess about this.” Twilight said, both of them still staring out over the forest in the direction the object had gone, the same look of fear on both of their faces. “Yeah. I’ve never seen anything move that bucking fast before. Except me of course.” Rainbow Dash said, the cockiness that was meant to be there was lost in the feeling of fear that was running through her. “Let’s get back and get dried off before we both get sick.” Twilight said and turned around as they both started heading back towards the library so she could send her letter to Princess Celestia about what they had seen. ------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- ‘Great, now we’re dead. Wait is this what dead feels like? It feels like I’m still moving.’ He thought to himself. As his hearing slowly started to return, it brought with it the sounds of the aircraft he was used to hearing. ‘Guess I can check dead off the checklist.’ As his vision slowly returned, he blinked several times. Rubbing his eyes and blinking again he had a hard time believing what his eyes were seeing. Below him, in every direction, was a sea of green. Instead of the barren desert that had been under him moments ago, there was now a vast forest of green trees. “Alex, are you seeing what I’m seeing?” He asked over the headset. “I’m seeing it, but I’m not believing it.” “Was there even any place nearby that could have this many trees?” “Not within flight distance.” He slowed the aircraft down to subsonic speeds as Alex tried to raise the base on the radio. “Radio’s busted.” She said in an annoyed tone. Alan looked at the fuel gage, noting that they were at half. Looking around in every direction, he noticed no signs of civilization. He banked left and started back the way that they had come from. After another five minutes heading this direction, he noticed the edge of the forest slowly coming into view, along with a welcoming sight on the horizon. “Hey, check it out, ten o’clock low.” He told Alex. “Finally! I was beginning to wonder if we would ever find signs of life.” She replied, her voice gaining a bit of pep. He looked back at the edge of the forest and noticed that there was a road running parallel to the forest. “I’m going to set us down.” He said as he started slowing for the descent. Lining up with the road he continued to slow down, hitting the switch to lower the landing gear. After the indicator showing the landing gear was locked lit up, he finished the descent. This landing however was his least graceful by far. The rough dirt road was much more uneven than the area they had practiced on. More than once he had gone off the road to either side. They finally came to a rest sitting at an angle across the road. Both of them just sat there for a few minutes, catching their breath and realizing how close they had come to no longer being with the living. “Let’s never do that again.” Alex said, the fear evident in her voice. “Agreed.” Alan replied, just as shaken as she was. “Alright, enough talk. Let me out of this death trap.” “Right there with ya.” He said, flipping the switch to open the canopy. Relief flowed over him as he watched it slowly slide rearward. Once the canopy was all the way back, he turned everything off and undid his harness before climbing out onto the wing. He was quickly joined by Alex who started removing the pistol holster from her leg. “What are you doing?” He asked, raising an eyebrow at her quizzically. “Getting out of this flight suit and heading to the nearest tree.” She said in a hurried tone as she unzipped the flight suit and extracted her limbs from it before tossing it back into the cockpit. She picked up her holster and proceeded to climb down before running to the tree line. Alan just shook his head and laughed. “When you gotta go, you gotta go.” He chuckled to himself as he tossed his own flight suit into the cockpit before closing the canopy. He reached down and reattached his own holster to his thigh, making sure that it wasn’t too tight. After he climbed down, he took a few minutes stretching out his muscles. He was just about to start looking the airplane over for any damages that may have been inflicted, when he heard two gunshots ring out in the quiet air from the direction Alex had gone. He un-holstered his pistol and took off into the woods in search of Alex.