Searching in Eternity

"You don't have to have anything in common with people you've known since you were five. With old friends, you've got your whole life in common"

Lyle Lovett

******Chapter V: We are here******

So far, all night, Slades dreams had been plagued about his reunion with Minuette. How was he going to do it? It had been sixteen years since they had last seen each other, and if Slade forgot about it, Minuette probably did to. The only solutions Slade could think of was to play it by ear or something. Well that would have to wait, there were more pressing issues at hand, getting rest and staying alive.

Slade awoke the next morning, tired, and clueless on where to go next. This was like nothing he had done before, because usually when going on missions for the CIA, he had some background knowledge on the country he was going to. But Equestria, other than ponies living there and some city names, Slade was blank.

**Part 1; History Lessons**

After some arguments with John (which had died down since entry into Equestria), the group decided to walk north, and hopefully stumble onto a path or a town or something. After walking clueless for two hours the group came across a statue /memorial of some sort. It depicted a tall armored unicorn mare, with a long mane and tail, she had an evil and serious face, but much to the groups confusion, she had wings.

"What the hell do you think this is Slade?" asked Alex.

"Probably some messed up deity or incarnation of the devil" replied John blandly. But Slade did not agree with this statement. Ever since his encounter with the crazy demon shadow lady and his necklace enabling, Slade had been getting visions. He didn't say anything earlier because he didn't want John and Alex thinking he was a schizophrenic, but the visions were happening. The visions usually showed events that were relevant to what was going on at the time.

So when Slade looked at the statue, he got a vision. He saw the same mare in the statue, except she seemed younger, and more innocent. Then the vision flashed and the mare seemed older and had a look of jealousy when next to a tall, white, and truly beautiful mare. The vision then flashed again and the dark mare from the statue was identical to her statue. Slade heard her yell at the white mare "there can only be one princess in Equestira! And that princess...will be me!" Could the white mare possibly be Celestia? He then heard the dark mare yell "Luna? I am Nightmare Moon! I have but one royal duty now... To destroy YOU!" The white mare had to be Celestia, she matched Minuette's childhood description perfectly. The vision then flashed to the two mares fighting, after a fierce struggle, Celestia was victorious, and Nightmare Moon was gone. Did Celestia kill her? Did she banish her? Slade had so many questions that weren't going to be answered.

"You good Slade?" asked John, interrupting his thoughts.

"Yea I'm good, just figuring out who this statue is" replied Slade.

"Who is it? If we are travelling in this world I would like to now a little bit about its culture." asked Alex curiously.

Slade then began his lecture, "well the statue depicts Nightmare Moon, who pretty much tried to be the Napoleon of her world an dethrone the current leader Celestia, she........"

***

Slade continued telling the story for fifteen minutes. After that the trio decided they were rested enough and continued their journey. After pushing through some trees, the group found a path, finally some good luck! They followed the path for an hour, until they reached a town.

The trio took cover in several bushes along the towns outskirts, they were still aliens in this world, and didn't want to be confused with some type of monster and cause a crisis. They simply took the time in hiding, to investigate their surroundings, a ruralish town that matched German like town architecture, in its center it had a town hall, and on its outskirts it had a large crystal like castle. It bustled with different types of colorful ponies, both male and female. One thing Slade noted is that they all had some type different of symbol located on their flank, could this be a social class or something?

Well that was another question he would have to ask Minuette, if he could ever find her. After some close thinking Slade and
Co. decided the group should simply head to the crystal castle thing, that looked royal enough for a princess to live in. So the group began to maneuver through the cover of the bushes towards the castle. All this sneaking around had brought back memories of Moscow to Slade, which was just a few days ago, but felt like a lifetime ago. At least now the only threat was a bunch of colorful ponies offering their friendship to him, not an angry group of Russians with machine guns.

After a while of maneuvering the trio had reached the castle, there were no walls or anything so it would be fairly simple to enter. Not only had luck allowed them to find a path in the forest, it now bestowed them with the gift of a small window being opened on the castle. It was not too high up, so Slade threw one of the ropes they had brought with them, and prayed it would latch onto something, it did! Luck was just on the groups side today because no ponies or any form of life were in the room with the opened window.

This infiltration was slight work compared to some of the missions Slade had experienced in his life. Now he just had to find a map or something that would show him where Canterlot was.

Slades heart then stopped, he heard a noise from another room. He then put his mask on and cocked his pistol and headed to the room where he heard the sound.

**Part 2; The Encounter**

Princess Twilight Sparkle sat alone in her castle's library, submerged within the pages of her book. She had been so busy lately, she didn't much time to herself. Spike was out on an errand, and all her friends had their respected chores to do, so she now finally had some free time.

She quickly levitated the mug next to her with hot chocolate in it and took a sip. After the sip, Twilight put the mug back down on the table, which caused a sound to happen. Right after she put the mug down, she swore she heard a sound coming from the storage room next to the library. It was probably her mind playing tricks on her, she was tired and had a late night the previous night. Not less than a second after brushing the sound over as mind tricks, she heard it again. Now she was convinced that someone was in there, and they were moving around. Perhaps it was Spike, he probably forgot to tell Twilight he had arrived home, but that was one of his habits ; announcing his arrival. Perhaps it was Rainbow Dash trying to play a prank on her, she did usually sneak in through the extra room's window, they had to leave open to regulate the temperature in there. Well only one way to find out, investigate.

Twilight got up and creeped towards the door, making little to no sound as she moved. Upon arrival to the door, she heard breathing out there, somepony was there and they breathing heavily as if they were anxious. Twilight then planned her strategy, open the door and confront whoever was out there, and she wasn't afraid to use violence on some burglar.

She then counted to three, and then used her magic to do it, she opened the door quickly and very strong. Much to her surprise it wasn't Spike nor Rainbow Dash, nor was it anypony at all. It was a big, creature that stood on two legs, its face was divided by two colors, black and orange. Orange on the right and black on the left. On the right side she spotted an eye, she could see the look of fear and surprise in the creatures eye. She saw it was holding some kind of device, perhaps a wand or something, she wasn't going to risk being ponynapped.

So Twilight quickly screamed and slammed the door on the creature, she heard it yell at the top of its lungs, "SHIT!!". Twilight used a spell to keep the door locked, after regaining her confidence she leaned her ear against the door to hear if it had left or not.

Much to her surprise Twilight didn't hear the sounds of breathing near the door, nor the sound of hoofsteps running away, but she did hear two masculine voices, and one female, conversing. She heard muffled phrases such as "Slade....what the hell happened....why was there a scream?" And "If you didn't wear that stupid mask everywhere....we wouldn't have this problem, now some poor pony thinks we are terrorists or something!"

Twilight put all the events through her mind, perhaps these weren't some evil beings trying to capture her. After some quick deep thought, she decided she was going to give them one chance, and one chance only to be peaceful. She yelled through the door "Alright, whoever you are, I'm going to open the door! If I see any signs of hostility, I will shut the door and call for the royal guard to come and apprehend you, understand?"

She heard some quick whispers from the other side "alright, we agree to your terms, open up the door."

For Twilight, time seemed to stop as she opened the door for the strange creatures, standing outside her library. After the door was finally fully opened, she gazed right at them, three tall creatures, wearing different types of clothing. She noticed the one she had seen earlier had removed his mask thing, and had an eye patch over his left eye. For was an awkward silence before the male without the eye patch came up to Twilight and said, "hi, we're from America."

**Part 3; Gathering Confidence**

It had to be a straight half an hour before the trio could get it through Twilight's head, about what and who they were and why they were there. Twilight then asked again "So your telling me that some dark magic bearing cult, is stealing young children, planning to overthrow the governments, enslave the entire population, on both our worlds. And Slade here is looking for a pony that has some type of magic that can repel the magic of this cult, is that all?"

The trio shook their heads and Slade said "yea that pretty much sums it all up".

"I'm really not sure what to say" stated Twilight, "I've never heard of this cult or any type of magic like this before, we have to consult the princess's and my friends about it, but first we must list down our tasks at hand!"

It was evident to the group that Princess Twilight Sparkle had OCD, since they first introduced themselves. It was thanks to her that they now knew where Canterlot was, what an alicorn was, and what these "Elements of Harmony" were.

While Twilight was rambling on and writing her list, her helper Spike the dragon walked in with some food and drinks on a plate. While taking one of the sandwiches off the plate, John asked the young dragon "is her OCD always this....extreme?"

Spike just chuckled a bit and said "Boy you haven't seen anything yet! Just wait until you see how she organizes her books!"

John then took in a deep breathe and muttered to himself "wow! How did some child snatching case, escalate to this? Me a U.S marshal talking with a baby dragon about a magical pony princess's OCD issue, you really got to stop taking those whiskey shots in the morning John."

***

After Twilight had finally finished making her list the trio set out to go meet with Twilight's friends and discuss the situation at hand. Much to Slades disappointment, the train to Canterlot wasn't going to leave until that evening, so another few hours until seeing Minuette again.

The first place they went was an apple farm known as Sweet Apple Acres. Apparently one of the Bearers of the Elements of Harmony lived and worked there, her name was Applejack or something.

So the group now walked to the very rural area of the town, where they found a few acres of farmland, and in the middle of it, lied a classic barn house and silo. Animal pens surrounded other certain portions of the farm. And out to the northwest of the property was a tree area, where a orange mare, with a blonde mane, and a cowboy hat was working. She kicked at the trees until red and ripe apples fell from it, and into her bucket.

It took Twilight several attempts before she could get the orange mares attention. "Applejack, can't you hear me?!" yelled Twilight for the third time.

The orange then looked over, and took notice to Twilight and Co. "Howdy Twilight, sorry I didn't see y'all over there.....say what in Equestria are those things!" The startled orange mare pointed a hoof at Slade, John and Alex.

"Don't worry Applejack" started Twilight "those three are not evil creatures here to take over Equestria, they are actually really civilized and nice creatures called "humans"."

"Howdy y'all, I'm Applejack, and this is my home; Sweet Apple Acres, making best cider in Equestria for as far back as I know!"

"That sounds very nice, Ms. Applejack..." began Slade.

"You can call me AJ" interrupted Applejack.

"But we kind of have a crisis on our hands, one that threatens both of our worlds, is there some where more private we can talk about this?"

***

The group now sat in the middle of the living room in Sweet Apple Acres, Applejack's younger sister Applebloom had been bringing food and drinks to the guests as they explained their experiences and theory to Applejack.

"Well you call me rotten as an egg, that sounds absolutely horrible, what kind of cruel and vile creatures would ever think of to do something like that. Say if my younger sister Applebloom was taken by evil fellars, I would do anything in the world to get her back, how can I help you."

John was quick to reply "I am glad to see you are with us AJ, something you could really do to help s right now, is to gather the other four bearers of elements of harmony, and tell them about this to, about us, about the abductions, about everything". John quickly took in a breathe and continued "then have them all meet at Twilight's castle at half past 12, we shall than take a train to Canterlot and carry on after then."

**Part 4; New faces**

The trio then met the rest of the bearers of elements of harmony (or the Mane Six as they referred to themselves as). They met the kind but very timid Fluttershy, the egotistical and athletic Rainbow Dash, the energetic and happy party pony Pinkie Pie, and the generous and creative Rarity. They all had the same reactions as AJ and Twilight, and were ready to do anything to help them, this was good, things had changed and turned in the favor for Slade and his companions.