The Lost Soldier

Sorry for the long delay between these chapters but I have been getting ready to go on vacation so I won’t be updating for sure this upcoming week. Sorry for the bad news…

Ray paused and stood up to stretch his sore shoulder. It had been a week since the wedding and the wound was healing well, but it still hurt.

“Are you okay Ray?” Twilight asked.

“Yeah, just my shoulder,” Ray said as he rubbed it.

“Do you want to take a break? I can finish preparing the balloon if you don’t want to,” Twilight responded.

“No, I’ll finish with you,” he replied.

“Suit yourself” she said, shrugging.

As he worked on tying the large balloon to the basket, Ray thought about the wedding. The events after the battle were
relatively boring actually, only consisting of watching the actual wedding and returning to Ponyville.

“Hey Ray, you almost ready?” Rainbow Dash said as she flew in from town.

“Yep, just gotta tie off this rope right here and… there! All done.”

“Awesome! Twilight, you gonna come too?” Rainbow Dash asked.

“No, sorry I have work to do in the library. You two have fun anyway!” she said and trotted back into the library.

“Pffff, egghead,” Rainbow Dash commented as Ray hopped into the basket. “Do you know how to work that thing?”

“Well Twilight said that I just need to say where I want to go and the balloon should go there by itself,” Ray
explained. “I guess it’s enchanted or something so let’s try… ‘Cloudsdale’!”

The balloon suddenly lurched and Ray fell over. Rainbow Dash started cracking up in laughter “Hahaha, nice one Ray!”

“Ow…”

Ray stood up holding his shoulder and moving it around.

“Haha, you okay there?”

“Yeah, it just hurts a bit…” he replied.

He took a deep breath, allowing for the quick spike in pain to die out. Ray inspected his injury, checking to make sure
it hadn’t opened up. Even if it had, it wouldn’t have been a big problem.

“So how long will this flight be captain?” Ray asked as the pegasus flew alongside the balloon.

“Not that long actually. You can see Cloudsdale easily from here” she replied and pointed to a large group of clouds.

Ray looked on with wonder as the large city came closer into view. The first thing that came to his mind however
was, “It’s Greek…”

“What?” Rainbow Dash asked with a quizzical expression

“Never mind… Just reminded me of something. I must say though, this city is just amazing!”

“Cool right?”

“I don’t think cool even starts to describe what I am seeing,” Ray murmured.

Finally, the balloon came to a halt on the edge of Cloudsdale. Ray looked down at the cloud with an unsure look.
Slowly, he began to haul himself over the basket and step onto the cloud. Once over, he actually fell for a very brief moment, but
then the magic of Twilight’s spell kicked in and the operator was now standing on the cloud. He exhaled loudly.

“Scared?” Rainbow Dash teased.

“No, I was terrified.” Ray let out a light chuckle.

“C’mon, let me show you around” Rainbow Dash said, excitement creeping into her voice.

Ray noted that the temperature here was much colder than it was at ground level. He wondered if that is how it was in
Equestria or if the pegasi maintained the temperature that way. He wouldn’t have been surprised at either explanation, but if the
former was true, that would be another way Equestria was like Earth.

“So, where are we going first?” Ray inquired.

“We will be going to see the weather factory,” Rainbow Dash answered.

“Sounds nice! Will we be able to go inside and see how the weather is made?”

“Well duh! I wouldn’t show you the outside of the building and leave, would I?”

Ray opened his mouth to respond, but decided against it. Rainbow Dash let her friend marvel at Cloudsdale as they
walked past the different structures and buildings towards the weather factory. Ray drew more than a few strange glances from other pegasi, but Rainbow Dash glared daggers back at them. Needless to say, Rainbow Dash’s reputation certainly helped cause the other ponies to continue walking as if nothing from another world had set foot in Cloudsdale. The only ponies she was secretly worried about were the three bullies from her childhood: Hoops, Dumb-Bell, and Score. They had stopped ever since she had performed the sonic rainboom however.

“And here we are! The weather factory,” Rainbow Dash said as they arrived at a large cloud building.

“Wow, so we get to go insi-?”

“Rainbow Dash!” A stallion with a lavender coat and lime green mane quickly flew up.

“Oh, hey Lightning Flicker. What’s up?” Rainbow Dash asked.

“Three clouds as a cutie mark so weather related talent?” Ray thought to himself, taking note of the new pony’s cutie
mark.

“Today is Wednesday and the sky is supposed to be clear! So why are there so many clouds floating around?”

“Bingo.” Ray suppressed a grin.

“Sorry boss, I’ll get right to it! Ray, I’ll be back in a jiff. Don’t go anywhere!” Rainbow Dash said as she took off.

“Sure, c’ya in a few minutes,” Ray replied.

“No more than two!”

Ray stifled a laugh. He stood there for a little while, taking in more of the beautiful city, when he saw three stallions trot up.

“What the hay are you?” The one with a dumb-bell cutie mark said.

Ray was somewhat baffled at the sudden question. “Well I’m a human so-“

“You look like an ape” The pony with three basket balls as his cutie mark interrupted.

“Yeah, we should take him back to the zoo. Maybe we’ll get un-grounded!” the last one said.

“Un-what?” Ray asked, taking a step back.

“Grounded. We can’t fly cause we broke some rules,” “Triple basketball” said.

“Well I’m not from the zoo so-“

“Get him!” the third one shouted and they all pounced forward. Ray tucked forward and rolled under the three pegasi
and came up running. His hand reflexively went to the pistol strapped to his thigh, but he pulled it away quickly. He was going to
do this without harming the three chasing him. In other words, run.

“Catch ya later guys!” Ray taunted as he turned around the corner of the weather factory. “Ok, where to go?” Ray
thought to himself. “The streets are basically clear, so I can’t out run them for long, so maybe the balloon? No, it’s too slow; they
would get in. I guess I have to use the parachute. Good thing I brought it.”

Ray began to make sure that it was properly strapped on. Up until now he had been wearing it like a backpack with
only the shoulder straps, but now he began to secure all of the clips tightly.

“There it is!”

“Ok, well I’ll send the balloon back to Ponyville so I can come back to this place,” Ray thought to himself as he found
the balloon again. He quickly jumped inside it.

“Ponyville!” Ray shouted and jumped out again before it could take off with him.

Rainbow Dash flew back to where she left Ray.

“Ray, I’m back! Told you two minutes!” she boasted. Then she realized Ray wasn’t present. “Ray? Where are you?
Hey, are you hiding from me?!”

She flew up to get a better look around her. Rainbow Dash turned around and saw Ray some yards away. He was
running… from three pegasi.

“Oh great, they had to show up when I was gone…” she muttered to herself.

Rainbow Dash started to fly towards them and almost stopped in shock. She watched as Ray leapt off of the edge of
Cloudsdale.

Ray enjoyed the feeling of free fall almost more than anything else. If it weren’t for the hectic events leading up to it, he probably would have enjoyed it more. Ray tilted himself forward and pressed his arms to his sides to streamline his body and fall even faster.

Rainbow Dash shot forward and tilted downward and frantically looked for Ray. After what seemed like an eternity to
her, she saw a tiny black dot against the green grass of Ponyville below and aimed for that small speck. Rainbow Dash struggled
for every bit of speed she could muster as a mach cone started to form in around her.

Ray transitioned into a spread eagle position with his arms and legs outstretched to slow his decent as he prepared to
pull the ripcord. He waited thirty more seconds before yanking on the ripcord. The parachute unfolded and Ray’s legs pivoted
forward and then settled down. He reached up to grab the handles of the control line. Ray angled himself towards Ponyville and
quietly drifted down. His relaxing ride ended abruptly as a train plowed into him and being blinded by a very bright light. The
soldier got twisted up in the parachute lines and started to plummet towards the ground at a dangerous speed.

Rainbow Dash completed a one hundred and eighty degree turn and shot back towards Ray again. The parachute
had surprised her and she had shot right by him. Now Ray was in real danger all because of her and she wouldn’t forgive herself
if Ray got hurt because of that mistake. They were much closer to the ground now; Rainbow Dash estimated that this was her
last chance to catch him. She took a deep breath and charged forward, grabbing the struggling Ray. When he felt his
acceleration change out of the blue, Ray’s struggles stopped. He rubbed his eyes in order to regain his vision as Rainbow Dash
descended towards Ponyville at a much safer pace. She landed and let Ray down, who stumbled around for a moment.

“Ray? Ray?! Are you… okay?” she asked, out of breath.

“Oh yeah, I’m great…” Ray responded, refocused now. “That was fun!”

Ray slowly untangled himself from parachute cords and unclipped himself from the pack.

“Rainbow Dash, did you just do a sonic rainboom?” Twilight asked as she quickly galloped up from the library.

“You know it!”

“Was that what you did and I almost missed it?” Ray asked. “Right, I guess technically I didn’t, but I was blinded
because of it. Did you hit me?

“Heh, yeah… Sorry about that! I didn’t know you had that para… thingy,” Rainbow Dash replied with a bit of
embarrassment.

“It’s okay, you did what you thought was best. I can’t really blame you for doing that. Anyways, I think I’ve had
enough excitement for today. Did the balloon return yet Twilight? I told it to come here.”

“Yes, it has. I was quite confused when you weren’t in it…”

“Yeah, things got a bit… complicated and I had to find another way down, but I sent it back because I need to pack
my stuff!”

“Why? You’re not leaving are you?” Twilight responded, tilting her head.

“No, I can’t yet! I’m waiting on you to get that teleportation spell right, remember? By the way how’s that going?”

“It should be ready in a few days, but why do you need to pack?”

Ray saw Rainbow Dash shift slightly when Twilight reported the news to him.

“Well, Rainbow Dash offered to let me stay in her cloud house, now that I can walk on clouds, so I think it’s only fair
to let you have your basement back. And thank you very much for letting me use it! I really am grateful.”

“Oh, it was no trouble at all! I hardly use the thing anyway! Come on, let’s get you packed up!” Twilight said. The
sniper and the pegasus followed the unicorn back to her home at the library.

Thanks to Lightning Flicker for the OC, and hope you have a great time while I’m off on vacation.