• Published 16th Apr 2012
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The First Steps of the Rest of Your Life - Rhino



A vet, an engineer, and a power company intern all walk into a town... it's not a joke it's a story.

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Chapter 13: Blue Breeze

Before this chapter begins it’s time to get a disclaimer/plug out of the way. *Ahem* I do not own the character of Blue Breeze, he is the creation of the account Blue Breeze. If you wish to use Blue Breeze, then contact said account. That said, go read his stories! His main one, Continuing the Dream, as well as its prequel, The Mark of Blue Breeze, its prequel/spinoff, Those Awkward Teen Years, and its silly spinoff, Cooking with the Author and OC. Do it. Go read the main one at least.

***Saturday, Day 9, after noon***

“This is the place.” Twilight says, looking at the address again to be sure.

In front of us is, actually a normal house. Pretty much what you’d expect, white, two stories, made of clouds. It took us a bit to find it though. Apparently anything larger than a 3-4 pony balloon has to be parked at an air dock, which are in the upper areas of Cloudsdale while the residential area that was our destination was more in the middle areas. This left us with two options: either take some out of the way bridges to the lower levels, or do some cloud jumping. After I was outvoted we ended up following through with the latter option.

I don’t care what Rainbow or Hydro say, it is completely reasonable to not want to jump off what is essentially a floating cliff, not matter how fluffy it is. At least Pinkie seems to be having fun, what with the clouds giving her about 5 seconds of hang time with every hop, almost feels like she’s just not going to come down one of these times.

We stroll up to the door and Twilight knocks. After a moment the door is answered by a mare with a blue coat, wave white mane, and teal eyes. We had elected Twilight to be our spokesmare earlier.

“May I help you?” The blue mare asks, giving our group a once over.

“Hello, is this the home of Blue Breeze?” Twilight says, getting straight to the point.

“Yes, may I ask what you want with my son?”

“We need his help with something.” We had decided earlier that it would be best to be vague with everypony not directly on the mission in order to keep things simple.

“Alright then,” she looks over her shoulder and says loudly but cheerily, “Blue! There are some ponies at the door that need your help with something!” She stands in the door a moment longer before heading back into the house while her spot is taken by a stallion that looks the same age as the rest of us.

Blue is, as one might think, blue. The pegasus sports the look of unshorn fetlocks, revealing his light greyish hooves beneath. His mane and tail are both solid bright yellow with the mane being in a well kept style not out of place at a school and the tail being a medium length natural look. His eyes are a startling red and his cutie mark is that of a tornado.

“Blue Breeze?”

“Yes, you said you needed my help?”

“Correct, is there somewhere we can talk?”

“Well, there’s quite a few of you… here follow me.” He looks over his shoulder, “Mom, I’m going out for a bit!”

“Stay safe honey! And if you take a fancy to any of those mares I want to talk to her first!”

A short walk found us at a secluded cloud park, apparently they have those. Pretty much think of your normal park, except whiter and fluffier. One explanation and some supporting documentation by the mighty purple one later, and we had Blue’s attention.

He seems to understand so far, “So you guys need my knowledge of Everfree weather to fight Fluffers.”

Everyone besides Twilight and Blue is pretty much half asleep by now since Twilight got a little bit detailed with the story and fluffy clouds are very comfortable. But what Blue says next starts waking us up.

“Well that might be a bit of a problem.”

We all perk up and give him a questioning look.

“Now don’t get me wrong, I’d like to help, but I’ll need my notes.”

Guessing it’s a little more complicated than that.

AJ asks what we’re all thinking, “Ain’t they just at yer house?”

“In a manner of speaking, but not the house you are thinking of. You see there’s a reason I’m living with my parents despite being out of college.”

Pinkie hops up to him, “Is it because your mom makes awesome cookies?!?”

“Well, no, originally I was living in one of the cheaper apartments on the lower areas while I had a house set up for me in Ponyville to be closer to the forest.”

“Something happen?” Hydro asks.

“Yes, about 2 weeks ago a gang called the Wraiths moved into the area and started claiming it as their own. Unfortunately I didn’t know about this because I only went there to sleep really. I found out about them one night when they broke into my home. I was able to hold them off a little but there were way to many of them to fight so I ended up flying out the window to get away. I left everything behind, but the only thing of real importance was my journal full of my notes.”

“Well what are we waiting for let’s go get them!” the rainbow pegasus of the group exclaims, starting to fly off just before AJ grabs her tail to keep her in place.

“Woah there Rainbow, let’s try and get a plan before we go.”

Blue looks a little worried, “You guys don’t have to help if you don’t want to.”

Twilight answers for us, “We need both you and the notes Blue, so anypony got any ideas?”

Blue is very helpful in this area, “From what I’ve heard around town, the Wraiths have the place my apartments at as their base, they tend to do most of their activities at night, that and the darkness that naturally comes with it, means that a night raid is probably our best bet to get the notes.”

I finally speak up a little, “Seems straight forward enough as long as we are careful.”

***Night Falls***

We arrive at the lower part of the residential districts and start making our way towards Blue’s old place. The atmosphere is bleak, no ponies can be seen and buildings appear to have been wrecked partially. Small smoke stacks can be seen coming from alleys in some spots. Most of the group seems to be coping well at the start, Fluttershy being the noticeable exception trying to keep herself as small as possible and in the center of the group. I am personally attempting to keep a relatively calm facade whilst kind of freaking out a little.

I do not like this, I do not like this one bit. Not only is this an unfamiliar place, it’s also night, there’s hardly anypony around, and it’s inhabited by a violent gang. I do not like this. Okay okay focus, make sure to keep an eye out for threats.

I try to keep my mind relatively under control as we pass a few buildings whose windows are all broken and a few others that have some graffiti on them. The others seem to be getting a little less comfortable now, Rarity is starting to notice how filthy it is, Pinkie is actually a little subdued, and the oppressive atmosphere is starting to get to the rest of them. I find myself able to keep a little calmer for some reason by looking at Fluttershy.

I suppose having others panic has always been a way to keep my mind off my own panic while I try to keep them calm.

I try to keep the yellow pegasus calm as we enter the building Blue’s apartment is housed in. I find it a bit strange that we haven’t seen a single pony yet but I’m trying to look a gift horse in the mouth. As we make our way up the steps we find ourselves trying to be extra quiet as every sound seems to echo while we are in here. We reach the door to the apartment and freeze trying to hear anything. Thirty seconds of complete silence pass by, and the lack of sound seems to creep us out even more than the presence of sound would.

We sneak into the apartment and Blue starts looking around for his journal. I was about to close the door when I hear a low sound of triumph from Blue. We all head over to him as he picks up a small green journal with his mouth, sets it on the floor, and opens it to verify what it is. He looks up at us and smiles before putting the book into his bag. When we turn around though we get a nasty surprise.

Standing between us and the door are seven pegasi stallions all wearing dark jackets and red streaks across their eyes. All of them leering at us with smiles on their faces. The one in the middle speaks up.

“Well, well, what do we have here?”

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