Desert Getaway

by TikiBat

Rating: teen
Tags: Profanity, Slice of Life, Human, Original Character, My Little Pony: Friendship is Magic, Bat Pony, Alternate Universe
Length: 20220

A group of weather ponies take a much needed vacation out west to a little Oasis in the desert... Oh, and they're not exactly there to see the sights.

Set in the Pandemic Universe

A group of weather ponies from up north take a much needed cross country vacation to a little Oasis out in the middle of the Arizona desert. What better way to get out of your element than to see the sights, enjoy the great outdoors... help conduct an illegal weather management program?

what could possibly go wrong?

This is a collaborative project with Lawra. Huge thanks for co-writing and collaborating with me on this, it's been a ton of fun!

Special thanks to Halira for allowing us to use some of her characters for this story and offering some feedback towards the end, and of course ASGeek2012 for creating the original story that sparked all of these little side projects!

Pre Read by:
Halira and Alias_the_J

Published 2019-07-15 16:40:01 UTC
Last updated 2021-08-01 17:09:59 UTC

"Practice Makes Perfect!"

Silver and Scarlet were already sitting at the table, chatting and watching the sun rise over the horizon when the guests came down to meet them. “The range on that thing’s amazing! I’m so glad you were able to get it all up and running last night.”

“Me too! I didn’t think I’d be able to get it all calibrated in one night, but they’ve really streamlined the whole process on the newer models.”

“I just love seeing you get in the zone with this kind of stuff, it makes me happy that you’re happy.” He noticed the trio entering the room, pausing his discussion. “Oh hey, good morning! Hopefully you all slept well?”

“We’re still a little-” Emily began before Dazzle cut in.

“Oh absolutely! It was so nice to just curl up and relax after the long flight.” Dazzle cheerfully interjected.

“Well that’s great to hear. Please, take a seat and we’ll get some breakfast for you, we’ve got a big day ahead of us and I’d like to get you set up with the weather team as soon as possible.”

The three took their place at the table and sat in silence as they ate their breakfast.

“Pssst, you ever going to introduce me to your new friends?” Scarlet asked in a whisper.

Silver looked back over at Scarlet, nervously chuckling, “Sorry, this is Scarlet, my marefriend and the best astronomer in the Oasis—”

“I’m also the only astronomer here, but thanks for the compliment,” she interjected with a smile. “I hate to just make an introduction and leave, but I’ve got some more work that I need to get done before I get to sleep today.”

“Wait, who’s going to give them the grand tour?”

She flashed Silver a wide grin, “Why you of course.”

“Me? But I need to go meet up with Stanley and talk about the operational changes that we’re—”

“—Oh come on, Stanley knows that this is more important. Besides, you wouldn’t want to leave our new friends to just figure it all out on their own right?”

He glanced back to them, “Well.. er— no, I wouldn’t. I apologize, if you guys are all finished up here we can head over to the weather team.”

“That’d be great, I’d like to see what they’re able to do and then we can go from there. The sooner we see them the better.”

“Right, follow me, I’ll give you a little tour of the town while we’re at it.” He leaned in to drape a wing over Scarlet and give her a hug, “I’ll see you after work, have fun in the observatory!”

“Thanks, I will!”

He stood up and walked towards the door, leading the trio outside. “Alright, they’re on the opposite side of town, we’ll fly over there, but make sure you stick by me.” He gestured around at the framed buildings, “This is still an active construction area so in the interest of safety, it's best to keep away from those.”

“I think we can manage that.”

Silver nodded and took to the sky, leading the trio along, pointing out a few details along the way. “So right now we’re over what I like to call Old Town, It’s what’s left of the original town, and it’s where all our amenities are right now.”

He pointed over to a cozy-looking building that was currently the largest hub of non construction activity, “That’s basically our rec center, we’ve got a little bar and theater set up in there, though if I’m going to be honest with you calling it a theater is being very generous at best, we’ve got a projector and an old screen set up on one side of the room. It’s still fun all the same though.”

He excitedly gestured over at the little mountainous hill at the edge of town, “Oh and we’ve got a great little campsite and hiking trail over there! It’s not my preferred brand of activity, but Scarlet loves to stargaze over there so I find myself over there more often than not.”

“I actually almost wouldn’t mind vacationing here for real, quaint and cozy.”

“Well hey, when you’re all done please feel free to enjoy the sights, tell your friends too, the more word we get out about this place the better!”

“I’m sure Sapphire would love to hear all about this place when she gets back from studying on Equestria. Well… she’ll make us explain it all anyways.”

Silver gazed down at the group of pegasi that were currently running through their usual morning warm up. “Ah perfect, the team’s all out and about, I believe they wanted to show you what they’re capable of doing.”

He came to a graceful stop next to his assistant, Diamond Glider, leaning in and lowering his voice a little. “Hey Diamond, these are the new visitors, they’re going to help you guys out but they want to see what you’re are all capable of first. Is the team all set up for the demonstration?”

“Yep, we’re all set to go, they wanted to make sure that they’re properly warmed up to really showcase what we can do.”

“Alright, they know this doesn’t need to be perfect right?”

“Absolutely, you know how Tinker is though, he’s more of a scientist than a weather pony but he’s one of our best all the same.”

Silver nodded, “Alright, go ahead and round ‘em up, I need to run off and get some stuff done before I wrap up for the day, you can cover this right?”

“Yeah, no sweat man. I’m assuming you’ll meet up for dinner at the usual time?”

He shook his head, “No, I’ll be up a little earlier just because they’re probably still getting used to the time difference.”

Diamond scrunched his face into a concerned grimace, “That can’t be healthy… but hey, you’re the boss.”

Silver nodded his head, “It probably isn’t, but waking up a little earlier a few days in a row won’t kill me.”

“I see, well you do you.”

Dazzle cleared her throat, getting Silver’s attention. “Sorry to interrupt, you wanted to show us the weather team?”

“Ah yes, sorry about that, just some directorial business popping up, you know, fun stuff,” He waved over at Diamond, “This is my assistant, Diamond Glider, he’ll be here to answer all of your questions while I’m away. I hate to just leave you guys here, but I need to get a little work done before bed, but I’ll meet up with you guys again for dinner.”

“No worries, no worries at all, I’m sure you’re a very busy pony.”

“I’m glad you can understand, besides, Diamond’s more qualified to discuss this stuff, he is a pegasus after all.”

“Yep, so if you have any questions please do not hesitate to ask them.”

He glanced up at the sky just in time to greet Tinker and the rest of the pegasus team. “Oh, perfect timing!”

A red pegasus landed first and stepped forward to greet the group, “Greetings! Name’s Tinker, one of the main researchers here, as I understand it you’re here to help us out?”

“We sure are, isn’t that right Will?”

“Huh? Oh yeah, if you can show us what you’re able to do we can figure out how to address what you’re unable to do. Does that make sense?”

“It certainly does, we’re a bit rough, but I can assume you’re probably already expecting that.”

Will nodded his head.

Silver cut in, “Well, if you’re all set here I’m going to go ahead and take my leave. I can’t wait to hear about this later, thanks again for doing this, see you all at dinner.”

Tinker stepped aside, gesturing to the rest of the team, “Alright, so here’s the the team, we have Zipper, Ocean Breeze, Blue Spring, Golden Atlas, Emerald River, Spectra, and lastly, Kevin, the Intern.”

“The intern...”

The green pegasus rolled his eyes, “I got press ganged into weather duty. I’m from Florida and apparently all the humidity must mean I’m some kind of cloud expert or something.”

“And where are the others from?”

Tinker spoke up, much to Kevin’s delight, “Oh, all over the place. Zipper and Ocean are from Nevada, Spring’s from Colorado, Atlas is from lower Michigan, Emerald’s from Texas, and Spectra is from Alaska; she’s one of the few who was actually fully transformed up there.”

She looked at Atlas, “Lower Michigan? Ah, so you’re a troll! Where you from? Petoskey? Traverse?” she started to guess waiting for him to answer to one. “Bay City? Detroit? Flint?”

Atlas smiled, “Ann Arbor actually, I wound up catching ETS working at Detroit Metro and decided to head out west after everything blew over and travel was unblocked. Heard a lot of buzz about the pony communities out here but I honestly didn’t really buy into it all, wound up passing through Phoenix trying to get back home and that’s where I heard about this place. Thought it was an interesting idea and well, now I’m here.”

“Well if you ever make your way further north look us up, maybe get you some real time in the clouds.”

He nodded, “Yeah sure, I wanted to go back and visit some family sometime, I’ll definitely have to stop by when I’m up there.”

Dazzle nodded her head with a smile, turning back towards Diamond, “And what about you, are you a part of the team?”

Diamond cleared his throat, “Me? No, I’m Silver’s assistant and the interim director when he’s away. I’d love to work in the team but that’s just not possible.”

“Well this whole charade is meant to train your pegasi in what we’ve been able to learn on our own and with what Equestria has been allowed to tell us. So if you want to join in on any of the lessons please feel free to do so. I understand if you’re a little busy but you’re more than welcome if you have the time.”

“Alright, well… I’ll definitely think about it,” Diamond looked over to Tinker, “Are you guys ready to show them?”

Tinker nodded, “It’s not much, but let’s run through a few things. I guess a good starting point would be showing you what clouds we can make, and go from there.”

The team took to the skies in unison, proceeding to quickly but clumsily form a series of weak cirrus clouds, moving them around a little before bringing them to a stop.

Dazzle looked around at the wispy clouds, turning back towards Diamond, “Well… that wasn’t… bad. But I can see how you’re making some missteps right from the get go and that’s stopping you from actually doing what you want to do. But you all clearly have the ability so it’s just a little different mindset you need to work on.”

The white pegasus flew up and tried to stand on the clouds but they almost immediately fell apart. “First mindset is that you probably should have tried to find a source of moisture, ‘cause really the air around here is just going to be way too dry,” she said and the weather team looked mostly embarrassed for the simple mistake.

“What have you considered for a water collection system? You have a river, did you plan to use it at all?” Will pointedly asked.

“Did we have plans for that?” Tinker looked over to Diamond for the answer.

“Not at the moment,” he answered with a brief pause. “There’s an old well that supplies just enough for drinking water, but it’s really inefficient for anything else.”

“I suggest you come up with something for the river you said runs through the valley,” Will said, idly scratching at some dirt with a hoof in thought. “You could power a pump with a water wheel to collect it in a simple tower to provide enough pressure to get it over here. Pipes, or if you don’t want to do a tower do an aqueduct, but that’s going to require some decent engineering to map out the slope properly.”

Diamond bit down on his lower lip considering the proposal. “I see, well I suppose we have a couple projects we can put on the backburner, this is more important than they are. I know Silver will agree so I’ll go ahead and get that put into motion as soon as I can.” He looked back over to Will, “Did you come here with plans already thought up for this? We have ponies that could get some drafted up if you don’t.”

“Not exactly like that, but I kind of do in my head. But you’ll need to keep in mind that I can only give you a plan, you’ll need to modify the basic outline to work with your setup. You can’t just plop down complex machinery and expect it to work. You’ll need to scout out locations on the riverbank with good consistent water flow, you don’t want a bunch of stagnant river water for this after all.”

“Maybe they could even set up a misting system around town, it’d give you some definite advantages if you needed to create clouds at a moment’s notice,” Dazzle added.

Diamond nodded. “I’ll pencil that into the plans, I’m sure Silver would have no problem at all with it, plus the residents would probably enjoy it, especially when it gets really hot in the summer.”

Dazzle looked at him dubiously. “Are you actually taking notes or do you have some weird memory thing?”

He smiled and gestured down to his foreleg, “Notes, it’s a voice recorder so I’ll just play this back to Silver later, saves the frustration of having to tediously write everything out. I’d love to get actual voice transcription working but that’s a long ways away.”

“Kay, well, the other major issue I caught was that you guys don’t really have good team coordination, you should really have somepony who’s clearly the leader to direct, rather than expecting everyone to be on the same page.”

“Who should the captain be?” Tinker interjected, a look of concern spread across his face.

“That’s something we can’t really say, your team is going to have to chose the pony they feel best fits the job. You’re going to want to find a pony who’s a strong flier but is also a good leader. You can’t just have a bunch of brawn with no brains. Why don’t you all take a break and try to decide amongst yourselves. If you can’t decide, we could always try a bunch of drills with each getting a turn to see who naturally fits.”

The assembled team nodded amongst themselves and began their discussion.

Dazzle watched as the team practiced the same routine as earlier, though this time led by their newly elected captain, a gray pegasus with a white, purple, and black mane and an annoyingly large ego. He wouldn’t have been her top pick, but if that’s who the team had decided on she would respect their choice, however weak it was.

The team came to another landing as the captain glided forward, introducing himself. “Hey there, the name’s Zipper, all my friends just call me Zip though. How’d we do now Daz?”

She rolled her eyes, “It’s Dazzle. That was definitely a lot better, but you guys still have a lot of work to do. You should really practice a little more, just so you can get comfortable working as a team, that’s by far the most important thing you need to be successful.”

Diamond looked towards the team and nodded, “Alright, that’s you guys.” He cleared his throat, “So Dazzle, do you happen to have those plans? I’d like to run them by the construction team as soon as possible, they’ll be able to get everything figured out.”

“I do, but they’re really only good to use as examples. You’re going to need specialized plans that work with the area here, Will can help you out with that. Did you go ahead and scout out some areas like we talked about?”

Diamond nodded, “We did, we had a few options but I think we’ve narrowed it down to one that should suit us best.”

“Alright, well go ahead and show Will, he’ll work on getting some actual plans drawn up for you.”

“You got it,” He looked towards Will, “It’s right over this way, the crew’s already set up there.”

Zipper, touched down with his team. “Alright guys, take five, we’ll jump back into routine 4 after.” He trotted over to Dazzle, greeting her cheerfully, “Hey Dazzle! What do you think so far? Think we might be good to go on some of the more advanced stuff?”

“You guys have definitely gotten the hang of this, if you feel like your team can handle something a little more advanced we can give it a try.”

“Of course we can! You saw how we handled up there right? I mean we’re not perfect but how hard could this be?”

“Just keep practicing and we’ll get to that. Patience is important.”

Zipper rolled his eyes and reluctantly directed his team, “Alright well I guess we’re doing some more beginner stuff.”

Diamond and Will flew above the site, shouting directions down to the crew below, “Alright, go ahead and stage the piping over there, we’ll lay it out once we have the collection system set up.”

He looked towards Will, “What are we going to be using for the collection system?”

“Nothing too complex, just a simple water tower with a little waterwheel to help pump the water in, it should give enough pressure to get the water all the way to town so you guys don’t need to fly out so far just to get water. It also leaves room open for upgrades and expansions if you guys decide you need to do that.”

“I see. Is the system designed to be easily upgradeable like that?”

“Easy is such a vague term. It’ll depend on what you get and what you want to upgrade with.”

“Right…” He flew down to the foreman, “Go ahead and put in an order for a water tower and wheel, that’ll go right there along the riverbank per Will’s instructions.”

The foreman nodded, “Going to take a week or two before we’ll be able to get one, but I’ll put the order in ASAP. What should we do in the meantime?”

“Just the basic stuff, clear and level the land for where the tower is going to sit, if you want you can figure out how you want the pipes to be placed. I’m not a construction pony so if you think it’s better to get that all set up before you have the tower in place, then be my guest, as long as it’s not going to be an issue for you later,” Diamond said as he came to a landing.

The foreman looked to his team, “Alright, well you heard him. The sooner we get this done, the sooner we can break for lunch.”

The team sprung into action, following their instructions and laying out all of the prepwork while the foreman ran back to the office to send in his orders.

Dazzle continued her lesson, flying around the team, “So you guys need to learn how to properly form clouds, there’s not a lot of air moisture here, so for now you’re going to have to find sources of water to use,” She gestured towards the nearby river, “Hopefully you all realized that it’s your best friend right there, we’re going to get a collection system set up so you won’t have to fly all the way out here, but for now you’re going to have to. Show me that routine you all did earlier, but use the river as an aid this time.”

“You want us to just do the basic level stuff again? We already know how to do that, how ‘bout you show us something a little more advanced, I think I’m up to the task!” Zipper smugly said as he flew a few circles around her.

“Look, I don’t think you realize what the more advanced stuff is, you keep pushing to do more but I don’t see anything from you warranting it. Did you just get those wings? You fly like a drunk monkey and can’t even do basic weather patterns.”

“What?! I’m an amazing flyer!”

“You wanna actually prove it?”

“You bet I do! How bout a race? An obstacle course through the city? If you’re such hot shit then you’ll have no trouble beating me.”

“I guess there’s time for me to give a little demonstration, Tell you what. You win the race and I’ll show you whatever you want to learn. However, if I win you’re going to zip your lip and let me teach you the way I want,” she started to laugh to herself and looked over to Will, “Hey can you help me set the course up? I’ll make us up some clouds for obstacles but I want you to place them all so it’s random and fair for both of us.”

He smugly smiled, “Cool, can’t wait to learn all those advanced tricks you’re holding out on when I win.”

Dazzle shrugged before taking off to gather moisture from the river to form the clouds.

“Hey Zip, aren’t you going to help setup too?”

“Of course not, she’s obviously all talk. I bet they’re not even showing us better stuff cause they can’t do it themselves. Plus It’ll be waaayy more embarrassing for her if she makes the course and gets left in the dust. I’m the Captain for a reason right?”

He rolled his eyes, “Alrighty, well they’re these big weather hot shots and you’re some carney from Nevada… Just make sure you’re thinking this through okay?”

“I mean I’ve already won, why do you think she’s even doing this? It’s all some bluff, why else would she hold back so much from us?” He flew around the air in a few circles, striking a dramatic pose as he came to a clumsy land.

Diamond shrugged, “Alright, well I hope you know what you’re getting yourself into…”

The pair flew over the river, carefully crafting different cloud obstacles and positioning them off to the side for Will to place before the big race.

“Go easy on him Daz, do you really want to embarrass him in front of his team?” Will asked as he quickly dove through a cluster of clouds, effortlessly creating a series of rings that he then began to refine.

“Oh yea,” she nodded her head, flying over to help move the new rings, “He’s in desperate need of someone to knock him down a few pegs so he can actually lead his team instead of showboating around constantly. I know it’s harsh but sometimes you have to be harsh if you want to really see somepony be successful.”

“Alright, that’s fine, but do you think it’s going to actually help? I mean we hardly even know these ponies, we have less than a week to get them into shape,” He asked, coming to a hover.

“Uh huh, he needs to learn that he’s supposed to be doing a job, and if it takes being a little harsh and trimming his wings a bit than I’m willing to do it.”

“I just hope you’re right, if it winds up driving a wedge between him and the rest of the team it’s only going to make our jobs a lot harder.”

“Well that’s my problem to worry about then. Your job is to figure out a way to get this all to work with your talent. So are you just questioning my methods or are you getting the itch to tell me this won’t help?” she asked seriously.

Will didn’t immediately answer before sighing. “I’m just not a fan of all this posturing.”

“You’re such a softie,” she teased. “So that will just leave their ground crew getting their collection and distribution system up. While we need to whip them into a team that can work together. And if we have time start them on cloud anchoring and how to figure out microclimates. I honestly don’t know how they live out here like this, it’s so relentlessly hot you can’t get comfortable.”

“Agreed on that. But… you’re just trying to show him up, right? He’s trying really hard to impress you, I think he likes you.”

“He’s not exactly been subtle about it.”

“You mean you weren’t impressed by his little show earlier when he puffed his wings up and pranced around bragging about himself?”

Dazzle slowly turned to look at Will with a flat humorous stare. “This is my impressed face.”

Will and Diamond flew back over, nodding to the two pegasi, “Alright Daz, we’ve got the course all set up, you guys are all set to go whenever you’re ready.”

She nodded, turning towards the interim director, “Hey Diamond, would you mind overseeing the race for us?”

Diamond’s face lit up with confusion and then joy, “Huh? Oh, not at all, this is kind of cool. I never get to do any of the fun stuff, that’s usually Silver’s domain.”

“Wonderful!” She dropped the cheerful facade and turned towards the cocky pegasus, “Are you all ready Zipper?”

He did a little trot in place, flaring his wings out as if to make a point, “Ha, I was born ready! Go ahead and count us down Diamond!”

The pegasus nodded his head, “Mhm,” he cleared his throat, “Alright, the first pony to make it through the course and back is the winner, on your marks, get set…. GO!”

In an instant the two were off, quickly flying through the outskirts and around a handful of cloud barriers, gradually increasing their altitude. The remaining weather team watched on in delight as their captain immediately pushed forward, taking an early lead for the first checkpoint.

Zipper looked over towards Dazzle, smugly shouting out to her, “Ha, this is an obstacle course? I could fly through this with my eyes closed!”

“Oh this? This is just the warm up, the real race starts up ahead.”

Zipper looked ahead at the various cloud rings that were scattered all throughout the area.

“This is your challenge?! Ha, alright. See you at the finish line!”

Dazzle smirked and shot forward, effortlessly banking through the first few rings and around the framed buildings, Zipper beginning to struggle as he followed close behind. He quickly banked through one of the buildings and around City Central, briefly glancing into the window of Silver’s office, pulling forward just enough to beat her to the last ring.

He continued through the next stretch of the course, continuing to hold the lead, “You get lost back there or something? First place sure feels great!” He made a few overly dramatic swoops to emphasize his point, not drawing a reaction from Dazzle in the slightest.

“Oh no, how ever will I beat you now?” she replied back in mock concern, continuing to keep her pace.

A few more tight banks through the framed buildings followed by a sharp dive down led them around to the Old Town stretch, where a vast array of cloud barriers were set up, easy enough obstacles for any competent pegasus to navigate around. He began to laugh at the simplicity of it, “Ha, easy money!” He sped forwards skillfully navigating between the barriers, following through to the final checkpoint. A seemingly simple combination of the previous two obstacles now sat before him. A small twinge of confusion ran through his head as he could hardly believe that the home stretch could be such a simple challenge.

He effortlessly glided through the first few obstacles, smugly glancing back towards Dazzle who was still holding her relaxed pace, meeting him with an indifferent look. Not seeing the reaction he had wanted, he broke into another round of dramatic swoops and rolls, hoping to make a spectacle for the onlookers below. Dazzle began to slowly pick up the pace while Zipper was distracted with his theatrics, a smug grin beginning to creep across her face as he took the bait.

The two raced through the sky, dodging and weaving between an increasingly narrow and complex field of clouds, nearing the final stretch of the race. Dazzle continued to push forward slowly but steadily until the two were neck and neck. The two racers entered a narrow stretch of clouds, forcing them closer together. As they continued to press forward the walls began to narrow into tighter turns, forcing the cocky pegasus to slow his velocity just long enough for Dazzle to suddenly blow past him in a blur of color, rolling through the turn and navigating through the remaining obstacles with casual ease to put herself firmly in the lead much to Zipper’s dismay.

She effortlessly flew through the remainder of the course, taking each obstacle in rapid succession, without any hesitation. Zipper was starting to get desperate, and in a blind rush began to increase his pace, crashing through any obstacle he couldn’t immediately clear, desperately trying to regain his stolen lead. He struggled to stop the distance from growing, watching as she passed through the finish line with a decisive lead.

“Dazzle wins!” Diamond cheerfully called out and the team let out an excited cheer.

Zipper came to a land, worn out from the race but still feeling up to fighting for his pride. He began to shout over to her in between pained breaths, “That’s… that’s not fair, you knew that turn was coming up!”

“Yeah? And so did you, I had no hoof in setting up the course past making obstacles. You’ve got the same two eyes as me,” Dazzle said with a smug smirk and sounding barely winded.

“I…”

“Listen, up north we didn’t just choose our names, we wanted to earn them. Maybe you earned yours by needing to zip your lip.”

“I… No...” he said, lowering his ears and turning away.

“Oh? Well do me a favor and try it out some time. You might think yourself a fancy flyer, but you’re part of a team, so work on building them up rather than showing yourself off.”

Silver walked into his office and laid down on the soft cushion that was set up in front of the large floor to ceiling windows, closing his eyes and shutting out the rest of the world around him. His breathing slowed and his face was devoid of any expression. To any normal passerby it would appear that the director had simply fallen asleep sitting up, however that was far from the truth. He often spent his nights meditating like this, keeping an eye on the Oasis’ sleeping residents and enjoying the relative peace that the experience brought.

He gazed out at the vast field of stars, noting the ones that shined brighter than the rest. These particular dreams were the ones of his friends and family, the brighter they shined the closer he personally was to the pony. He ventured towards a few of the brighter ones, trying to get a sense of the dreams within, pleased that there were no nightmares to be seen tonight.

This wasn’t an actual part of his job as Director, but it was something that he felt was important. Maybe it was his night pony instincts kicking in, but he felt that he owed it to his residents to make sure that they were able to dream in peace. More importantly, it helped him get a sense of what needed to be done and whether his ponies were happy or sad. Dreams had a strange way of reflecting one’s inner feelings, and as such this was one of the most valuable tools he had at his disposal.

A sudden rocking pulled him from his trance as the dream realm dissolved away from his vision, quickly returning him to the waking world. He blinked his eyes a few times, trying to get his bearings after the sudden transition.

“Hey Silver, sorry for the wake up call, you have a guest though.”

He looked up at Scarlet and rubbed his eyes, “A guest?”

“Yeah,” she gestured towards the glass door with a wing, “One of the visitors.”

“Oh, well my bad, please let them in,” he paused, “Are you staying or are you heading back to the Observatory?”

“I’ll probably head over there if you don’t mind. Wanna meet up later?”

“Of course, I can’t wait to see what you’ve got all set up there.”

“We’ll talk later, don’t just leave our guest standing around okay?”

“Alright, well have fun.”

“I sure will, see you later,” She walked out of the room, nodding to Emily along the way.

Emily looked on in curiosity, slowly walking into the office, “So were you meditating or dreamwalking?”

“Both,” he answered. “Helps me keep an eye on the city when everypony’s asleep. I find that it brings me a sort of peace unlike anything else. Do you want to join me? We can chat while I check on the residents.”

She shook her head, “No, I’d rather not, I don’t dreamwalk anymore. Other night ponies think something is wrong with me, but I just don’t enjoy the experience.”

“Mhm… I’ve been there before. I used to stick to my own dreams all the time, kind of drove me crazy for a while but it was the only way I felt like I could really be in control of my situation,” he paused for a moment, “I noticed before that you keep using human pronouns… is there a reason why?”

She shrugged, “I just don’t really see a point in using pony pronouns, it’s not like I really wanted to be a pony but that choice was taken from me,” she gestured down to her cutie mark, sparking a realization in Silver.

He paused for a moment, reflecting on his own situation, before nodding his head in agreement, “I’ve been there too… I wasn’t too thrilled when it sank in that there wasn’t a going back. A lot of humans in my hometown kind of avoided me like the plague and I started keeping to myself more than I should have. It’s sort of rare to meet another pony who hasn’t embraced their new selves, and I used to think that maybe I was alone in it.”

“I thought there was something wrong with me until I met Will. He won’t ever admit it but he has accepted it more than me, but it’s been really nice having someone who hasn’t left it all behind.”

“This might be a personal question, but how does it work out between you two? I mean, you’re a night pony and he’s a day pony, doesn’t that make it hard for you to spend time together?”

“It does come with complications. It’ll probably never be easy to be on such different schedules, but we just sort of clicked. Though if I’m being honest like a pony is supposed to be,” she rolled her eyes. “We do sort of grate on each other’s nerves enough that regular breaks works out well.”

“I can’t imagine that it’s ever going to be easy, but good on you two for at least trying to make it work out. Feeling like you’re all alone in the world is such a brutal experience and I would never wish it upon anypony.”

“Would you ever go back if you could?”

“Go back… as in rehumanize?” He asked, raising an eyebrow.

“Yeah. If getting your cutie mark wasn’t the end of the line, would you go back?”

He struggled to give an immediate answer, finding himself lost in thought for a moment, “You know, sometimes I ask myself that. It’s hard to answer that question when I look at how much I’ve gained in the last few months despite what I’ve lost. Sure, I could be bitter about losing my humanity and former way of life, but I’ve met somepony that loves me for who I am and we feel so sure in our relationship that we’ve already got a foal on the way. I never would have met her if ETS hadn’t happened and I could never give any of this up just to go back to where I was before.”

“I guess that’s a good point, I might have never met Will if this hadn’t happened.”

“You can still be unhappy about it, it’s only natural to be. Your entire life was changed against your will, even if a lot of good came out of it. I’m still not perfectly happy with everything, but that’s why I want this place to be a success, if we can find a way to make a better world for others than this might not be such a bad thing in the long run. What about you? Would you go back now if you could?”

“I can’t say, everyone I know or care about was changed by ETS, for a while I was shocked to even see a human. It’s really scary to consider walking away from the life I struggled to build just so I was back in a human body that would need to start all over. It wouldn’t solve my problems anymore than becoming a pony did.”

He nodded, “That’s fair enough, there’s so many that just think that becoming a pony fixes every problem when it’s blatantly clear that it couldn’t be any further from the truth. It’s kind of nice to see others that don’t just buy into all of that, I’m honestly glad we were able to talk about this. It really gives me a different perspective on all of this.”

Silver walked over to the large windows, staring out over the valley, “It’s never going to be easy to fix those problems, but that’s what we’re trying to work towards,” He paused for a moment, “I know you’re hesitant to, but would you be willing to give dreamwalking another chance? You might be more comfortable if you’ve had a better experience.”

Emily, who had been stretching her neck out in order to see out the window immediately recoiled with a quick flick of her tail. “You’re not some Dreamwarden who’s going to make me say the vows as soon as we go in, are you?”

He chuckled, “I can assure you that I’m not, we’ll just go to the persistent dreamscape I’ve created. Nopony but us and occasionally a few friends who drop in. A perfectly peaceful place that’ll let you get the feel of it. And besides, they should have no reason to pay us a visit unless we’re breaking their rules.”

After a long moment of hesitation she nodded her head, “Alright, how do you do it while you’re awake? I’ve only ever dreamwalked while asleep.”

“It’s not as challenging as you’d think. The way some night ponies talk you’d think they were narcoleptic,” he chuckled and walked over to the couch, grabbing a few cushions off of it and set them on the floor near the window, “Here, just make yourself comfortable and close your eyes,” he instructed and Emily took a deep breath before she settled down on the cushion and closed her eyes. “Now take a few calm relaxing breathes. Don’t try to really think about anything in the physical world, seek out your connection to the dream realm and it’s not always easy the first time but sort of shrug yourself into it. Once you know what it feels like it becomes pretty easy..”

She closed her eyes and nodded her head, following his instructions as he took his own seat. For the first time in a long while she reached out to that instinctual flow of magic, focusing on it until it was all she could perceive. And then she passed some invisible threshold in a moment of relaxation, her vision immediately being engulfed by the starry expanse of the dream realm, the strange, almost alien feeling catching her off guard for a moment.

Silver felt her cross over and he quickly joined her, finding her almost easily like she was broadcasting her presence to anypony nearby. “See? You’re practically a natural,” he said reassuringly as he appeared next to her. Closing his eyes he summoned his dreamscape before them taking the form of one of the countless stars of sleeping ponies around them. “This is my dream, like I said, they won’t visit us unless they have a reason to.”

She hesitantly nodded her head before shifting into it ahead of him, “I heard you before,” she good naturedly jeered as her body vanished.

A peaceful island held in perpetual twilight shimmered into Silver’s vision around him as he entered his dreamscape. Exotic plants covered the landscape all around the island, many glowing with bioluminesce giving the place an otherworldly feel. Taking a deep and wholey unneeded breath in the dream realm, he glanced upwards towards the star filled sky, smiling as a wave of contentment and peace washed over him. Walking forward, he felt Emily come into his space at a much slower pace, but eventually the other night pony did materialize next to him, “Welcome to Somewhere!” he announced proudly.

She blinked a few times, trying to gain her bearings, and looking around at the unusual scene, “Somewhere?”

“Well it’s not Nowhere, is it?” He gestured around at the calm bay that was surrounded by large canyon walls on all sides, “It’s my home away from home, a nice peaceful island paradise that I can just build up and change to my heart’s content.”

“This… wow, I take it you spend a lot of time here?”

He shook his head, “Not exactly, I figured out a way to make a… I guess persistent dream would be the best description. I don’t have to create it from memory every time I enter the dream realm.”

“So even when you’re awake someone could come here?”

He paused for a moment, “You know, I’ve never really thought about that before, I kinda wonder if anypony’s ever paid it a visit while I’m awake. I guess we’ll have to try sometime.”

“So is this what you wanted to show me?”

Silver started to walk over to the large mountainside castle that loomed over the bay, waving Emily over, “Not this in particular, I just wanted to show you that you really don’t need to shy away from dream walking. I know you’re not a fan of the wardens, but they’ll never bother you unless you break one of the rules. It’s a risk but that urge to look out over all the stars and find a pony to help be a hard one to resist. We may not have chosen to be night ponies, but deep down we’re protectors of dreams.”

“What does this have to do with them though?” She asked as they approached a large set of doors that opened for them as they entered the large library overlooking the bay.

Silver trotted over to one of the large stained glass windows, gazing out at the dreamscape below, “I specifically started to build it because I wanted an escape from the world around me, and treading out into the dream realm meant more potential for encounters with them. It was a stupid excuse that I used to justify keeping to myself, but can you really blame me? I knew they wouldn’t bother me here unless I was breaking their rules,” He turned to look at her, “Do you ever read often? Watch movies?”

“Sometimes, it’s not really all that easy to read books with hooves. Why?”

“I used to read all the time when I wanted to relax, when I learned I could make anything I wanted in here I started pulling scenes from some of my favorite books and tried to make them here. It’s like a whole different level of relaxing for me, if you ever wanted to start doing something like this that wouldn’t be a bad place to start.”

“Is it really that easy?”

He shook his head, “No, but like anything all it takes is some practice. That’s why I asked, the clearer the visual or scene, the easier it is to craft it in here. I like to take inspiration from memories too sometimes,” He gestured towards a small house in the distance, “See that building over there?” She nodded as he continued, “That’s the home I grew up in. I don’t remember it as well as I wish I could, but it’s as close to the real thing as I can get.”

“So it’s just like remembering something but filling in the blanks on your own?”

“Exactly, if you really want to try, we can go to your own dream.”

“I think I’m alright for now, thanks for the offer though.”

“You’re welcome, I’d give it a try sometime though, it really is such a relaxing experience and you’d be surprised at the kind of things you’re able to do in a dream.”

Emily walked towards the windows, looking down at the rest of the dreamscape, “So what are all those buildings down there?”

“Those? Well they’re for friends and family, each one relates to the thing they value most,” He pointed over to the large observatory, “That one’s Scarlet’s. It’s supposed to look like the Griffith Observatory out in LA. I used to visit it all the time. Scarlet loves astronomy so I made her something in here that related to that.”

“Well that was nice of you. And what about the others?”

He smiled, “Let’s take a little walk, they’re all unique in their own right, words could never really describe them accurately.”

“Alright, well I’ll let you lead the way,” She said as she suddenly found herself outside again, catching her off guard for a moment.

“Right this way, we’ll start at the Lighthouse…” He said as he waved her along.

A couple days had passed since the big race through the Oasis. Much to Dazzle’s enjoyment the spectacle had worked out better than she ever could have hoped for. She had to admit that it may have been a bit harsh at the time, but Zipper’s attitude had improved greatly and the positive impact was definitely showing with how he directed the rest of the team. His statement had caught her off guard and she did a double take as she tried to process it.

“What’s that? I don’t believe I caught that.”

Zipper shuffled his hooves around on the dirt, raising his voice slightly so she could hear better, “I said I’m sorry.”

“Sorry? For what?” She asked, leading for him to be more clear.

He lowered his head, “For trying to be a showoff… you were right.”

She smiled, “Apology accepted. Now are you ready to lead your team?”

He jumped up, coming to a hover, “I am. We’ll go at your pace.”

“I’m glad to hear that, now go grab them and we’ll get back to work.”

Zipper nodded, taking to the skies with a newfound confidence.

Silver walked around the observatory with Scarlet, who was cheerfully talking about her new telescope, “I didn’t think I’d be able to calibrate it so quickly but they’ve really been pulling out all the stops with the newer models! Do you think you could update the one in here to match it?”

“The one in here doesn’t really work, remember?”

“Yeah of course, but that doesn’t mean you can’t work it in. I mean the new one looks so much cooler too!”

He chuckled, “Alright, where do you want it? Same place as the old one?”

She looked around the room, tapping a hoof against her chin, “No, I think you should move it over there, so it frames the mountain better.”

He nodded, shifting the room around to accommodate her request, “Like that?”

She walked around a little, taking in the view from every conceivable angle, “Hmm, maybe a little to the left?”

He shifted it as requested, “Is that better?”

“Yes, perfect!” She shouted as she hovered in the air for a few moments.

“You know, I like it. It gives the whole building a more dramatic feel,” He paused for a moment, sensing that a dreamwalker had entered the landscape, “I think we have a guest, mind if I bring them in?”

She shook her head, “Nah, go ahead.”

He nodded, warping their guest in to the center of the room, “Oh, Hey Emily… this is kind of a surprise, did you decide to give dreamwalking another try?”

“I don’t think we’ve really had a chance to chat, Emily,” Scarlet cut in before she could reply.

Silver spoke up quickly, “Don’t worry about her, Scarlet, I was just showing her what you could do in your own dream. She was a little hesitant at first because of the wardens, I was explaining that they won’t really bother you here unless you give them a reason to.”

“So what brings you here tonight then? Just stopping by or what?” She asked flatly, ignoring Silver’s explanation.

Silver stepped in between the two, “Hey, we still need to adjust the outside, let’s just step out there for a moment so you can tell me what you want changed,” He said, trying to break through the tension he could sense was starting to creep up.

“You go do that, I can keep her company here.”

“Are you sure? It shouldn’t take too long.”

“That’s fine I’ll trust you to get everything done right, you’re the architect here. I haven’t really had a chance to properly introduce myself, I think now’s a good enough time.”

“Alright, well I’ll be back,” he said hesitantly, pausing for a moment before vanishing.

Scarlet walked over slowly, “I don’t want this to get ugly, and I’m really not trying to be hostile, but Silver and I are together. So if you have any, drop any plans towards him, alright?”

Emily backed up slightly, taking a more defensive stance, “This is your idea of a proper introduction? I’m taken too you know, didn’t you notice Will and I cuddling up close during breakfast?”

“But… you’re a night pony and he’s a day pony—”

“—and what is wrong with that?”

“I, well no, but—”

“—simply put, I’m not going to try and steal Silver away from you. I don’t care about all of the night pony drama anyways.”

“Alright, well I just had to make sure, you never know who’s going to just swoop in and try to steal somepony away from you.”

She nodded her head, “I get it. Way too many night pony mares get too aggressive with that.”

“Well I’m sorry, I just didn’t want to take any chances. I kind of lucked out with the situation here, the others aren’t in any serious relationships but they’re still going to respect boundaries.”

“That’s fine. Apology accepted,” She awkwardly looked around, finally changing the subject, “So did he really make all of this?”

“Silver? Yeah, he did. It’s kind of been his little past time. I dabble in it from time to time, but I really just enjoy seeing what others can come up with a lot more. Do you ever craft dreams?”

She shook her head, “No not really… at least not since the vision. After seeing how Silver was able to craft such a tactile place I wanted to give it a try. I was coming to invite him into it to see what he thought.”

“Well since he’s busy, you care to show me? I mean if you’re comfortable doing that, that is.”

Emily paused in consideration for a few moments before nodding her head, “Thank you.”

“Let’s go let Silver know what’s up so he doesn’t panic.”

A beautiful landscape filled with green took form around her, tall leafy trees and a small field of perfectly green grass surrounded a two story white home. Taking in a full three sixty, she saw that the grass actually ran all the way down to a vast body of water. Hesitantly, she began to walk around, exploring the tranquil setting.

For a moment she forgot this was a dream until she noticed the parts of it that could only exist in the dream realm. Where she stood was clearly summer, but a short distance away sat a hill covered in a dense inviting fluffy layer of snow with wooden sleds at the top. She found herself walking towards the snow, marveling at the strangely nostalgic sight. Her thoughts going back to the years spent sledding in the mountains as a child, bringing a smile to her face. An aged wooden swing sat away from the snow on another part of the hill, the ground around it covered in fallen leaves stained in bright oranges, reds, and yellows.

Scarlet flapped her wings to fly up to the swing and landed on it carefully. In an instant her vision was filled with the sight of an endless forest whose leaves were caught in the middle of changing colors. Turning her head shifted the scene to look out over a lake without end, the sun beginning to set, reflecting off the waves like glittering diamonds. If she looked up, the sky shifted in hues, turning from sunset to night with an aurora dancing across the sky. Letting out a small sigh, she clutched her hooves to her chest, overcome with a sense of child-like wonder and amazement.

“Do you like it?” came the tentative voice of Emily behind her, “I know it’s a lot of stuff mixed together.”

Scarlet smiled, “It’s wonderful, you really have a special talent for this.”

Emily shifted around a little, “It’s really nothing special, just my childhood home on Lake Superior. It’s mostly from memory, we had to sell the house and move when I was twelve, so I don’t really remember it all that well.”

“Don’t sell yourself short, It’s amazing!”

“I saw what Silver had made and wanted to see if I could bring something to life like he did. I don’t think it’s as stable as his dreamscape, but I wanted to give it a try anyways.”

“How’d you do it? Silver’s the only pony I know who was able to do that.”

“Well I sort of used a similar method to when I spread the vision. It’s not perfect but it’s a good framework to build off of.”

Scarlet raised an eyebrow and backed up, “Wait, you’re not messing with my mind are you?! Is this why you steer clear of the wardens?—”

“No! I—Scarlet relax, I wouldn’t do that,” She sighed, “But— my special talent was spreading the vision. I got my cutie mark the first night I helped spread it.. It felt so right at the time, like I was doing something great, helping to instill ponies with good values. I never realized how wrong it was to meddle with so many minds”

“But you’re doing something good with it now right?”

“I think so… I wanted to make something that could show Will why I love the area so much, so that he’d stay instead of going back to New York. I needed an outside opinion though, to me it feels so flat without family and friends to really give meaning to these memories.”

She walked up to Emily, resting a hoof on her shoulder, “This place— and you are amazing, If he doesn’t realize that, you should dump him and get yourself a good stallion who will.”

Silver calmly walked through the hallway, leading the group with him, “Seriously, I can’t thank you all enough for this, it really means so much to us, we wouldn’t have been able to do it without you.” He said, stifling a yawn as he squinted his eyes at the sunlight that was beaming in through the windows.

Dazzle beamed, “Don’t worry about it, I’m so glad we were able to help you out. Sapphire’s always been one to say that If you can help a pony do something good, you do it.”

“I really do owe you, if there’s anything that we’re able to do for you please let us know, no matter what it is we’ll work to get it done to the best of our abilities, it’s the least we can do to repay all of your kindness.”

“I appreciate the offer, but you really don’t need to do anything, funding our trip out here was help enough.”

Silver led them out into the sunlight and to the waiting van, cheerfully replying, “Well in that case please do give Jasper and Sapphire our regards, you guys are always welcome back here.”

“I’ll definitely pass that onto them, I’m sure they’d love to hear that.”

He paused, turning towards Will and Emily, “It was really great to meet you both too, I know we’ve barely met but it’s been such a breath of fresh air to meet other ponies that felt the same way, it really makes this whole situation feel a lot more normal in a weird way.”

“I’m glad we were able to help, it was a nice change of pace for us too.”

“If you ever want to chat again I’m sure you’ll be able to find your way to Somewhere.”

“Where?” Will asked in confusion.

Emily smiled, “Don’t worry about it Will, it’s a night pony thing.”

“Alright, I guess I’ll just take your word for it,” He said as he nodded his head.

“I hope you all have a nice flight out there, I wish I could ride along with you to the airport but there’s some important work I need to get done before noon, I hope you’ll understand.”

Dazzle smiled, “Don’t worry about it, you’ve been a wonderful host, you don’t need to fret about something small like this.”

“Alright, well thanks again, if you guys ever want to make another trip down here we’re just a call away.”

“You take care Silver,” Dazzle said as she took her seat, leaving the back seat for Will and Emily.

Silver smiled and waved a final goodbye as the van pulled away, leaving the group alone again. He looked over to Diamond Glider, “Well that went unbelievably well.”

“Yeah man, it sure did. Let’s just hope Zip keeps the team in ship shape so it’s not all a waste.”

“Oh I’m sure he will, you saw how serious he took it after the race right?”

“Yeah and I saw all those glances he kept giving Dazzle, hopefully he wasn’t just putting his ego aside to try and impress her.”

“Well I guess time will tell,” He said in between yawns.

“I guess so man.”

The sun beat down on the pegasi as they continued to anchor clouds over the Oasis. It had been a week since Dazzle and Will had helped train the team and already they were putting their training to good use. Zipper hovered a short distance away, directing the team and making sure that they weren’t missing anything, “Spectra, Atlas, I need you to move that just a little to the left, there’s still a few gaps we need to fill.”

They nodded their heads and went to work, making a few small but important adjustments, “How’s this Zip? Looking better?”

“That looks perfect! I think you’ve all done your parts for now, let’s go ahead and break for lunch.”

The assembled team nodded in unison and filed down to the clear patch of dirt below as Zipper began to speak up again, “Alright, I just want to say how great of a job you’ve all done! Seriously, we’ve worked so hard and come such a long way, I couldn’t be any prouder of you all than I am right now!”

Spectra stepped forward, “Thanks Zip, what’s the plan now?”

“Relax and enjoy the nice cool shade you’ve all worked hard to make.”

“Really?”

“Yeah, there’s not really much more to do right now, so just relax, you’ve all earned it.”

“Well thanks Zip!”

The team dispersed, enjoying their own lunches while Zipper sat off to the side on his own, idly doodling in the dirt. Diamond walked up, smirking as he noticed that one of those doodles was of Dazzle’s cutie mark, “You still thinking about them Zip?”

“Huh? Oh no, just doodling random stuff, you know?”

“You know, I could always call them back up if you wanted to chat with Dazzle some more,” He commented, failing to stop the snickering from entering his voice.

He flashed him a frantic look, his face lighting up red as he quickly brushed away his doodles, “Nope that’s fine— h..hey we should probably get back to work anyways, we’ve had plenty of break time!”

Diamond snickered to himself, “Oh come on, I’m sure she’d just love to chat with you again.”

“Do you think so?!” Zipper asked hopefully.

Diamond just laughed and walked away.

Epilogue - "A Pony of Storms"

Silver trudged towards his room, feeling like he had been run over with how sore he was from being on the move since he woke up. Stopping at his door, he couldn’t even raise a hoof to push the door open, so he just decided to use his forehead, but couldn’t muster the energy even for that. He stood there for a moment just resting his head against the wood and almost falling asleep. The desire for his own bed won out against the urge to just lay down and sleep in the hall, so he pulled himself together enough to open the door.

Just in time to nearly be ran over by Diamond Glider “Silver! We need you outside, NOW!”

“Can’t it wait a few hours?” he slurred, gazing longingly at his bed.

“Listen man, it really can’t!” Diamond shook his head and hurriedly spun him around before pushing him back down the hall the way he had just come.

Deciding it’d be easier to move two limbs over four, he flapped his wings enough to hover a few inches off the ground, and let Diamond push him back outside. ”It’s really dark out today, it’s noon isn’t it?” he wondered, only having to squint a little bit against the sun’s light.

Most of the office staff were all outside together looking up and muttering to each other. Silver looked skyward finally to see what was causing such a commotion and his eyes widened in alarm as he dropped back to the ground with an awkward landing. Looming only a couple hundred feet over the entire town was a deep black rain cloud that covered almost the entire sky. Several flashes of lightning from within the storm cloud and the deep rumble of thunder silhouetted a lone blue pegasus mare with silver mane and tail floated halfway to the cloud looking down at them.

Art by Lawra

“Okay, I guess this can’t wait,” he commented in awe, having never seen a storm that size purposely holding its place ominously overhead before.

The pegasus dived downward then with a quick flap of her wings shot back upwards. Becoming a blue streak of motion too fast to follow, she ricocheted off the storms boundary, punctuated by a flash of lightning and a deafeningly loud clap of thunder. Silver stared in shock as the massive cloud formation recoiled from the strike and actually began to move. An increasingly intense rain began to fall, the storm needing no further pegasus intervention to continue moving on it’s own away from the town towards the river.

The pegasus circled once at incredible speed creating a literal contrail of blue behind her before shooting directly down towards the ground. Cries of alarm went up from several pegasi on the ground but the mysterious pony pulled up close to the ground and shot straight towards him. Nervously backing away, the mare came to a jarring halt an uncomfortably close distance to him, and a burst of wind nearly bowled him over.

She delicately landed but left her wings spread wide to look more imposing allowing him to get his first good look at the pegasus causing such a huge disruption to the Oasis. As gracefully as she landed, it belied the impressively toned muscles that visibly rippled under her blue coat. She was quite tall for a mare, which left him looking up at her making her seem even more imposing. Her piercing hazel green eyes bore into him and he struggled to meet her gaze, his eyes trailing along her flank to where he could make out the hint of a cutie mark made up of curved white lines in an abstract shape.

“Silver Eclipse?” she asked calmly, singing his name more than speaking it. She wasn’t even breathing heavily from flying so fast, or from bucking an entire storm she must have worked hard to create in an arid desert.

“Of all the ponies that could be pissed off at me it has to be an equestrian, Well this is just great!” He mentally screamed in alarm as he realized what her singing pronunciation and odd verbal inflection of his name meant. Silver nervously gulped before nodding with a stuttering reply. “Yes, can I… uh help you?”

“We need to talk.”

“S...sure. F.. follow me.” He anxiously said as he began to lead the furious pegasus into the conference room. “It’s just up this way.”

He walked through the now empty office, up a flight of stairs, and into the empty conference room at the top floor. He nervously stared out the large panoramic windows, watching the powerful storm continue down it’s path towards the river. The weather team flew up to the windows, frantically gesturing towards the raging tempest flooding the valley that they were unprepared to deal with. Unsure of how to respond to them he quickly waved towards it, hoping that they’d get the message to try something. Much to his relief a band of them, led by Zipper, raced towards the storm while a few stragglers remained hovering outside the window staring in disbelief.

“Well? What do you have to say for yourself?” She sternly asked.

He slowly turned back towards her, trying to keep the team in his peripheral vision, afraid of how dangerous it would be for inexperienced pegasi to deal with such a storm. “I… don’t really know what it is that I did,” he gulped. “I don’t even know who you are. Please, if you’re from Equestria, I swear we haven’t done anything wrong. If the Princesses think we did, it’s all a horrible misunderstanding.”

“What? I’m not Equestrian, I’m an Earthling just like you, my name is Sapphire Sky,” she corrected with an annoyed snort. “Listen, just tell me why after breaking several federal laws to help you while I was away, I come back to find out that you’re trying to recruit my own ponies and threatening them with releasing information about what they did to the feds if they don’t!”

“You’re that Sapphire Sky?! Well it’s very wonderful to make your acquaintance, hope you had a great time in another dimension, seeing a whole new world and all must have been really fun, and you already know my name it seems,” he started with heavy sarcasm, “What gives you the right to come here and imply that I’d betray somepony else like that?! If anything I owe them for helping us and not going to the feds when we first brought it up with them!”

“So you’re blackmailing them preemptively to cover your tracks, I see how it is!”

“It’s nothing like that, I promise you! I only ever called you guys once and that was to only see if you’d be willing to help a bunch of desperate desert ponies who couldn’t figure out how to manage their own weather properly! I haven’t even had time to send them a proper thank you card yet! Let alone come up with some scheme to blackmail them!” He shouted back in anger and frustration.

The glare she shot him caused him to flinch back in fear, “Uh huh, and next you’re going to tell me that you have nothing to do with UMAD?”

He raised an eyebrow in confusion, “UMAD…? Uh… no… actually we do, they’re the company that is set up to manage things while we are establishing the town and working out our own contracts… But can we just sit down and talk about this like civilized ponies, I’m sure this is all one big misunderstanding.”

Sapphire’s glare softened and she moved at a relaxed pace to sit down on one of the conference room cushions, making a big show to wrap her tail around her legs and settled her wings against her sides. “Explain it to me.”

“Look, we’re just a bunch of nobodies out in the desert trying to make the world a better place. We needed help training our weather team so we could actually have a shot of self sustainability out here. I had heard about this big government weather program up north and figured that it wouldn’t hurt to at least try and talk with them, the worst they’d say is no, that’s all.”

“Nobodies? You expect me to believe that a bunch of nobodies, bought up all this land, a town, and have enough left over to begin your own construction?”

“I… admit that it looks… not great when you put it that way… SPEC agreed to give us some funds in return for partnering with them for a few projects. BUT, we run this place ourselves, I have no reason and would never attempt to blackmail other ponies, that’s just completely against what we stand for here!”

“So what do you stand for?”

“Doing what’s right and trying to make a better world for all of us to live in. It’s not an easy task and it’s kind of impossible to really ever do on our own which is why we’ve had to resort to partnering with other groups just to fund this. We’re funded by SPEC for now, but that doesn’t mean we’re onboard with their ideals. I don’t really care much for the whole Shimmerist agenda, I’d rather we all just work together to at least try and make a better future for ourselves.”

“SPEC has a Shimmerist agenda?” Sapphire asked and arched an eyebrow.

“Yes… kind of, didn’t you know?” he nervously admitted, worried by her reaction. “But not like SHIMMERIST Shimmerist, all the world needs to be ponies yesterday kind of stuff. They’re more into long term get humans to want to become ponies through good examples, not force… I think.”

The blue mare didn’t say anything for an uncomfortably long time, sitting still except for her wings stretching out then returning to her sides. “Sorry, it feels like I’ve been gone a very long time and came back to a world that’s a lot different. I wasn’t aware that they were actually Shimmerist, I thought they were more apolitical,” she said in a small unsure voice.

Silver was slightly taken aback by her sudden shift in tone, “It’s… understandable. I’ve been here this whole time and I even feel like I’m in a different world sometimes… I hate to break up the nice mood though but what about the storm that’s currently rampaging through the countryside, the desert soil’s way too dry to handle this much rain. Will you help stop it so all of us don’t lose the homes we worked so hard to make? Please?”

Her muzzle split into a big grin and with a little hop was up floating above the floor. “No need to be melodramatic, I was just thinking of the best way to correct my mistake.”

He gestured to the small grouping of Pegasi out on the balcony, “Well you got a whole group of recently trained Pegasi out there who may be able to help, a few even jumped into it already.”

Sapphire looked around at the frightened weather ponies who hadn’t flown off to chase the storm and then back to Silver. “Well... I wouldn’t say a week of general instruction counts as training,” She flew out past the balcony to hover in the air, quickly inspecting the group. “Listen, all that,” she turned slightly to point at the storm. “Looks really bad because you don’t have the experience of dealing with something that big. But I’m going to talk you through how to deal with it, consider it a free lesson, one I learned from some of the best in Equestria.”

Silver hastily ran out after her, “Wait… You mean you can’t stop it on your own?!”

“Sure I could, but if I did, what are you going to do the next time a non-magically created storm rolls through? I’m life and I just gave you lemons, what are you going to do with them?” she asked in a grand theatrical way.

“Make you take the lemons back?” Golden Atlas, a gold pegasus stallion answered timidly.

“Yes!” Sapphire nodded and pointed towards the stallion. “Now come on before the bat has an aneurysm,” she turned and took off after the storm ignoring his glare at the derogatory name for night ponies.

Silver continued to glare at her rapidly retreating form towards the storm before noticing that none of the pegasi were following, and were instead looking to him for orders. “Well you heard her, get moving, you’re all on the clock! GO! GO! GO!” he shouted and flew up behind the quintet with several loud flaps of his wings and a high pitched whinny.

The five pegasi beat the air with their wings as they took off as fast as they could to try and catch up to Sapphire Sky who hadn’t slowed down to wait for them in the slightest.

Zipper grunted as he struggled along with Ocean Breeze and Blue Spring to push a mobile home sized chunk of cloud away from the storm’s mass. “Alright, this should be far enough!” he called out and turned to prepare to buck the raincloud. “Three, two, one!” he shouted and they kicked the cloud as hard as they could. A crack of thunder erupted in protest but it began to rapidly move away from the town and river.

Catching his breath, he motioned for the other two to follow him so they could cut off another section. Just as they finished cutting it away, their attempt was interrupted by the blue and silver mare that had started all this mess come in for a graceful landing on their recently separated cloud segment, halting it’s motion much to Zipper’s annoyance, “So is this how you think you should handle a big storm?” she asked.

Noticing behind her that the rest of the weather team were slowly arriving, his trademark smile immediately dropped, “Gee so nice of you all to finally join us, it’s kind of hard for three ponies to break apart something so big you know? So you wanna tell us how to break this up or are you just up here to get a front row seat and treat us like a bunch of foals?”

“I’ll help but it’s impossible to do it like how you’re trying to.”

“Are… are you serious? Just who the hell are you?!”

“Sapphire Sky, nice to meet you.”

He was taken aback by her cheerful demeanor, muttering out a weak response, “I’m Zipper… Can we skip the pleasantries and talk when this is over?”

“Right. It’s not that the storm’s too big, you’re just thinking of this way too small, we need to tackle this from the center as a team. We’re going to spread out its surface area, it’s far too condensed right now to tackle like a simple rain cloud.”

“O… kay,” He raised an eyebrow not understanding what that would do to help more than just breaking it up from the edges. “Alright, everypony to the center, it’s gonna be a real doozy but I know you guys can do it. Let’s follow the angry blue pony who set this nightmare upon us and see if we can’t clear it up.”

“Yup, what he said,” Sapphire agreed, launching herself from the smaller crowd with enough force that it was sent downwards at least fifty feet.

Zipper didn’t immediately move, his jaw dropping at where the cloud had been in front of him. It had been hard enough just to push the cloud with help. “Okay, I see why Dazzle’s group mentioned her.” Shaking his head he flew around towards the rest of the weather team to get their attention and head off after the monstrously powerful pegasus.

His team followed after him up over top the storm and into the sunlight above, finding the blue pony already having reached what looked like the center. His group of ponies reached her and she started flying around positioning them in a vague circle before resuming her place at the center.

“Kay so this might sound counterintuitive, I want you to push down on the storm as hard as you can, and then push it out from where I am as far as you can. You’ll repeat and repeat until you reach the outer edge. It’s like a big giant wad of cookie dough and we’re going to spread it all out so we can divide it up into smaller cookies. Just for the first time I’m going to remain here anchoring it so nothing moves. Got it?”

Zipper mulled over the instructions in his head. Technically it would spread the storm out over more of the valley but at the same time it would lessen how much rain was being dropped in this one specific area. It would also make the storm less dense allowing them to work with it easier. “We can do that, right everypony?” he asked and received nods and verbal affirmatives.

“I know you can, it’s going to be easy as long as we work in a team,” she reaffirmed swinging around in a circle to look at all the team. “Let’s get started, on three.”

Silver sat down and breathed a sigh of relief as he watched the weather crew finally spread the fearsome storm apart until it was so thin that only a light mist of barely noticeable rain was falling over the entire valley. The main battle was over, there were a few straggling clouds left for the exhausted team to dissipate. After a few minutes he stood up and hesitantly surveyed the damage, his heart sank as he gazed over the washed out landscape. Miraculously the storm had only started to rain in earnest outside of the town limits, something that at least eased his fears.

What was once an arid expanse of desert was now a path of eroded earth leading to a nicely sized and serene lake that the small river that had supplied all the water for the valley now flowed into. He was surprised at how cleanly it had ended up, if not for the bit of damage just out of town and the lake water needing to let it’s accumulated dirt settle, their new source of water could have always been there. Perhaps even had been there long ago but had dried up. “It could have been a lot worse,” he thought to himself.

It was at that moment that Sapphire chose to come to a land next to him, the rest of the exhausted weather team coming in behind her at a much more sedate pace.

She beamed with pride so much he could hear it in her voice. “You got a really good group of pegasi here. They did fantastic. You should really be proud of them, they’ve learned well.”

He slowly turned his head towards her, “That’s all you have to say? After all of this?!”

She shook her head, surprising the enraged night pony, “No, I definitely I owe you a huge apology. I’m very sorry, I shouldn’t have been so quick to jump to conclusions and to put your town at risk because I couldn’t control my temper. It’s something I’m working on but my counselor isn’t available in this plane.”

He dug deep trying to be angry but with her sincerity he couldn’t muster the energy. A pony forgave and she knew she had been in the wrong and seemed to genuinely regret her actions. He sighed, letting his anger fade, “I guess I owe you a little apology as well. You thought you were after the ponies who wronged your friends, and I can’t say you weren’t justified in that when I’m partially at fault for taking help from a pony I should have suspected had ulterior motives.”

“It seems that we both could have handled this a lot better.”

“Ya think?” Zipper muttered with a tired sigh.

He chuckled, lightening the mood a little, “Yes that’s definitely an understatement if I’ve ever heard one… that said, if I was in your shoes I don’t know what I would have done… though I’m sure it wouldn’t have been… all that.”

“Yea… I went too far. Sorry again.”

He nodded his head in understanding, smirking at the thought, “Look, I think we both got off on the wrong hoof. Sure, I’m a little frustrated that you barged in and did something so extreme but I’d be lying if I said I wasn’t impressed by it. That was a crazy amount of water to see out in the desert. And for all the bad it might have done, you may have also done us a favor or two.”

Sapphire raised an eyebrow, “Oh? What do you mean?”

He walked towards the balcony, gesturing out over the valley, “We have a lake now!” he gleefully announced with a small hop to a lot of glares from his weather team who were filtering past him to head inside. “Sure you may have rerouted the river by a lot, but in the long run it’s going to be a really useful thing for us to have, especially with it being so close to the city, and just imagine all of the plant life it’s going to bring with it. By tomorrow this place will look like a real oasis, and who knows, maybe we can keep it that way! Giz is gonna have to pull a little overtime for that but I don’t think he’s going to complain.” he lowered his head, letting out a sad sounding sigh, “It’s going to cost a lot to repair the systems we just installed that washed away, we’re already pouring almost every cent we make into buying the land back from Sunset Blessing.”

“Yea that sucks, but I’m not going to just walk away and leave you. I’ll pull some strings and make sure you get a new collection system. It’s the least I can do.”

“I really appreciate that, Sapphire,” he paused, “I think we could have survived that hit but even though this place doesn’t look like much, all of us here have put our heart and soul into making it a reality. It would be awful to lose it all over a nasty misunderstanding.”

“That would have been awful,”

He smiled, raising his head and extending a hoof, “I could stay angry at you for doing this, but as they say, a pony forgives. It wouldn’t be right to hold a grudge after you took the time to help stop the storm, I know we didn’t necessarily meet under the best circumstances, but I hope we’ll be able to keep in contact. You’re welcome back here anytime Sapphire.”

“Thank you,” she bumped her own against his hoof. “Not that I deserve it so quickly, but I’ll do my best to make up for this.”

A week had passed since Sapphire had paid her little visit, and Silver had calmed down quite a bit. However, being here and scheduled to meet up with her had sparked up his anger again. He forewent the usual meeting place, instead opting for a blank white landscape with a couple worn chairs set out. He was far too exhausted and angry to even bother crafting something else. It wasn’t fair to just blindly assign blame to Sunset Blessing, but this whole incident had her hoofprints all over it, it was just a matter of catching Tonya in a slip up and figuring out how to go from there.

The feeling of another dreamwalker’s presence entering his dream pulled his attention back to the task at hand. He put on his best poker face as the orange pegasus approached him with a smile. “So… you wanted to talk about something?”

Silver rolled his eyes, his usual cheerful and optimistic tone completely absent, “Well you could say that. It’s about those weather ponies that you were so eager to help fund.”

Tonya furrowed her brow. “You don’t really sound all that happy, it’s been a couple months now, I thought everything worked out well with them.”

He sighed, coldly replying, “Yes it did work out fine, everything went according to plan. They came, helped get us going, and then they left….” he began, voice beginning to rise in pitch and becoming sarcasting, “...and then their boss, Sapphire Sky showed up a week ago to pay us a visit. I’d like to think we’re just the best of friends now though, she even invited Scarlet and I to visit.” He paused for a moment, a look of mock sadness creeping across his face, “I hate to bring it up this way but I don’t think we’re going to be able to make our planned trip out to Riverview, maybe in the future though.”

“Sapphire Sky came to the Oasis?” Tonya asked, ignoring the latter part of his reply, she continued, “We saw the report about the exchange ponies returning to Earth, what was she doing down there?”

“She wanted to come and test our weather team. Ya know, see that the risk was worth the result, and that we had developed since then.”

Her ears perked up as she began to hover in place, “I wish I could have seen it, a storm that big over the desert must have looked amazing!“

“AHA!” He jumped out of his seat suddenly and flew around her before coming to a stop in front of the confused pegasus. “So Sunset is spying on us!”

“I.. Sorry? What do you mean?”

“I never mentioned anything about a storm and it’s been kept quiet around here. Your wife knew about this didn’t she?”

“I’m afraid I don’t know what you’re talking about, big news like this kind of spreads fast.”

“Really? News about some massive storm in an isolated community full of researchers in the middle of the desert spread fast? By who? It somehow barely made the nightly news in Phoenix. It’s not going to reach all the way to Riverview without you having some sort of mole. The cat’s out of the bag Tonya, just be real with me, did Sunset try and recruit those ponies through blackmail or not? Because whoever did, royally screwed us over and I’m not happy about that at all.”

“I really don’t know what you mean,” she answered avoiding answering any of his accusations.

“How much are you going to make me spell out? Someone from UMAD’s office tried to recruit those ponies under threat of blackmail for the work they came here to do under Sunset’s nose. Sapphire was NOT happy to hear that her friends were being threatened after they risked their necks to help others. I sure didn’t order a call from here and Sunset’s the only pony in the know who has any kind of major sway in that office.”

“Alright fine, I’m very sorry that you got dragged into this but you’re not the only group we work with. Obviously Sunset wants you to succeed, but she also has every right to try and network with other ponies that may prove to be useful assets.”

“Networking is not blackmail! Tonya, if this is what we might run into every time you get involved, I have to tell you now that we’re not capable of handling this kind of… backdraft. Sapphire summoned a storm the size of the Oasis in the middle of the desert just to show off, and sent it flying across the valley effortlessly like she was kicking a ball! Do you realize how much the damage is going to set us back?! We even had a few humans show up to serve us lawsuits because the overflow flooded areas outside the valley. I’m half tempted to just part ways entirely if this is how we’re going to be treated!”

“Huh, that’s interesting, she definitely shouldn’t have been able to do that before,” she started, completely dismissing Silver’s concerns, “Her file clearly showed that her PREQUES rating was only slightly above average. Do you happen to have any security footage of the event? I’d love to see… I mean have some of our pegasi analyze it.”

He began to tap his hoof on the ground impatiently, “What kind of help are we going to get to deal with the damages?”

“I can’t really promise anything right now.”

He face-hoofed, trying to keep his anger in check, knowing that she was only the messenger, “Look, I really shouldn’t be surprised, Sunset offering to help us without asking for anything in return upfront should have been the first red flag that we might eventually get the short end of the stick. I’ll tell you what though, you get us some funds and I’ll send you the footage and going forward we’ll pretend like this whole incident never even happened. Does that sound fair to you?”

“Is the damage really that bad?”

“Well, her storm dropped so much rain that then rerouted the river and created a small lake in a few hours, we’re looking at some serious water damage with the flooding along with needing to alter our plans for the Oasis pretty significantly which will take time to redo.”

The dreamscape suddenly shifted into a wide desert expanse caught in a torrential monsoon, catching Tonya off guard and making her fly up into the air with a surprised squeal. Arcs of lighting danced around an immense cloud that dwarfed the town below. The terrifying show of force replayed in the dream, racing through the landscape and dumping torrential rains that washed away everything in its path apart until it finally reached the river and then the dream came to a pause, holding around that moment with the storm hovering in place.

Tonya looked on in bewildered amazement, evidently not sharing Silver’s frustration. “She did that?! Amazing! Er, sorry I can get a little worked up over weather, I am a pegasus after all.”

“Uh huh, so about the repairs? should I just send Sunset the full bill or am I going to get screwed over with that too?”

“Unfortunately I can’t promise anything right now, It’s all going to depend on how much damage there is. She can’t just throw a bunch of money into some under the table operation like this.”

“So you’re saying that I shouldn’t hold my breath that we’ll have a repair budget soon? You know we still have projects to get done, projects that she specifically contracted us to do. Is she going to give us some leeway on those or are we going to get chewed out for not meeting her deadlines when we’re working in damaged facilities?”

“No, I just can’t promise anything right this minute. If SPEC’s ponies determine that the damage is too severe, I'm sure you’ll get some leniency. Sunset’s not cruel after all. You’ll just have to hang in there for a few days until Sunset can look into this.” She chuckled adding, “If you’re really that desperate for funding then maybe you could put your new lake to use, I’m sure it’d be a nice little vacation spot.”

He stepped back and threw his hooves up in defeat. “Alright cool. Just what I wanted to hear. Please do give Sunset my regards, hey, maybe she could even come give us a visit, I’m sure she’d enjoy our new lake. We’ve got plenty of beachfront property to spare now if you two want a little vacation house down here.” He continued to pace around in frustration as the bewildered pegasus looked on in disbelief. “What’s next? You want to offer us some of your wisdom about all this, Sha’am? I know you hear me, feel like making my night even better by gracing me with your presence?!”

As if on cue an irate voice echoed throughout the landscape. “Conduct yourself like a grown stallion and contain such foalish outbursts,” Sha’am’s voice barked.

The two dreamwalkers quickly jumped to attention, hurriedly shouting out their oaths in unison, “Psychic Calm, we promise ponies shall dream in peace, Yinyu Wu Yan, we shall not allow our passions to lead us to folly; Ghadab, the Wardens' anger is unyielding and just; Phobia Remedy, fear of the Wardens keeps us safe; Tikhiy Krik, we shall keep the secrets of the Wardens; Sha'am Maut, better to die than to face the Wardens' justice.”

The skeletal form of the Warden of Death materialized from a dark mist between the two, facing Silver and striking an uneasy fear in him with her empty socketed gaze, “What is this waking world problem that you drag into the dream demanding that I settle?”

“I apologize, Sha’am, but Sunset Blessing used me to try and blackmail a couple weather ponies into joining her program knowing full well that I’d take the fall for this. Their boss was understandably upset and went overboard in chastising us, causing serious damage to our home that they are refusing to help with. I’m just trying to secure funding so we don’t get shafted by Sunset’s mistake any more than we already have been,” he explained, confused on why he wasn’t just being eaten alive by a flock of vultures for calling out this particular Dreamwarden so rudely. She was everywhere in the dreamscape so she had to have been aware of their conversation but it didn’t seem like something she would bother to take a personal interest in even after he called her out as it didn’t concern her at all.

She turned towards Tonya, “Is this true?”

“Yes, but Silver is well aware of how we have to operate, we can’t just give him a bunch of money under the table and expect it to just work out fine. I very politely told him that he’d have to wait until we could investigate the damages ourselves,” Tonya reiterated as if it was a settled matter.

“Compensate the colt for your organization’s mistake.”

Tonya gulped but stood up very straight. “Again, we will have to investigate the extent of the damages ourselves and make an assessment of how much we are willing to cover, if any.”

“Immediately.”

“With all due respect, Warden. Sunset’s actions in the waking world are not subject to your jurisdiction, we really can’t do anything other than what I’ve agreed to do already, it’s already going to put a strain on our organization to send out adjusters to inspect—..”

The skeletal night pony somehow gave a disturbing bone-chilling smile, “You will tell her to respect our contract,” Sha’am commanded and her skeletal form quickly dissolved out into black mist that vanished a moment later.

The pegasus nodded numbly and sat back heavily with a bewildered look on her face as the warden left, leaving them alone in silence for a few long minutes.

“Uhh… So… was that news to you too?” He hesitantly asked, breaking the silence.

The pegasus nodded her head, “She never mentioned anything about this to me.”

“Right… well Uhh... I think this meeting has been a real eye opener for both of us then…”

“Do you? Do you really?”

Author's Note

Once again, special thanks to both Lawra and Halira for collaborating on this project, it's been a fun little crossover between three different sets of characters and I'm really happy with how it's all turned out!

Here's a little lineup of some of the characters in the story:

This will likely be the end of my Pandemic projects at least until sometime after Monsters We Make is finished up.

Epilogue - “Tomorrow’s Child”

Something has gone wrong. We don't seem to have an archived copy of that chapter.

"Just a Normal Everyday Vacation..."

Author's Note

Very special thanks to Lawra for collaborating on this project and letting me involve her characters in it, it's been such a fun process and I really love how it's turned out!

Updates will be every other day.

"Just a Normal Everyday Vacation..."

“Do you think we’re forgetting anything?! I feel like we’re forgetting something!” Silver frantically paced around his office, his now cold cup of coffee sitting off to the side, long forgotten.

Scarlet shook her head, “Silver, they’re just coming here to give us some help, not actually vacation. Do you really need to stress about this so much?”

“Well… well no, I guess I don’t,” he answered, jumping up to fly over to the window of his office and look out nervously. “But first impressions mean everything! These three could honestly give us so much useful information! Not to mention this whole trip is on Sunset’s dime…”

“The whole city is under construction. We can’t make everything shiny and perfect just for them. They’re coming here because they already know that you guys need help, I don’t think they’re even remotely expecting perfection.”

“I… Well… alright fine, you’re right.” he conceded, returning to the floor.

She smirked. “I don’t want to say I told you so, but just relax a bit okay? You’ve woken us up way earlier than usual, you’re overthinking everything.” She yawned and walked over to the window, squinting her eyes shut at the afternoon sun. “I’ve got to get some work done down at the observatory so I can’t stick around just to make sure you’re not over stressing yourself over nothing. It’s good to get out of your comfort zone every once in a while, but you have to relax and pretend like these are just some new friends visiting on vacation like everypony else.”

“I… I’ll try.”

“Try harder, you’re the director and you need to learn how to deal with the stress, and that means without me being here to hold your hoof and tell you sweet things to make you feel better. We’ve got a foal on the way remember? It’s only going to get even more stressful from here on out so you better get used to managing it while you still have the time to.”

“You’re right…” he walked over towards her, “Maybe I’d be less worried if I knew what Sunset’s goal was for covering it all. Tonya jumped really quickly at the opportunity.”

“It’s just a good faith gesture. You know how Sunset likes to wine and dine influential ponies, get into their good graces with gifts and favors. Same way humans do.”

“I know, it’s just not her usual method. Every deal we’ve made with her has had some catch to it, this is the first time that she’s asked nothing in return.”

She shrugged, “You don’t have to question everything Silver, it’s not really your problem to deal with at this point.”

“I know, I know. I just want everything to work out.”

“If you know then I’ll leave you be, I’d love to spend the rest of the day with you but I need to go get some work done while I still can, and you need to stop agonizing over stress induced conspiracies.”

“Thanks Scarlet, sorry for keeping you away from your new telescope, I know how excited you are and I’ll come by to check it out the moment I get back.”

The two hugged each other goodbye. “Well you better not keep Marcus waiting, he’s the only one that can drive you down there right now.”

“I’ll see you later Scarlet, have fun in your astrology wonderland.”

“And you have a nice ride down to Phoenix, Silver. Tell our guests I’m sorry I couldn’t be there to greet them.”

He chuckled and trotted over to the waiting van, warmly greeting Marcus as he stepped in.

“All set to go boss?” Marcus asked.

“Sure am Marcus, got everything ready?”

“I sure do, I’ve got the minibar all stocked, even snagged some of those fruity drinks you love so much.”

His eyes widened at the thought of the refreshing mango beverage. “Wait really!? I’m not going to lie, I could really use one right now.”

Marcus eyed him with obvious concern. “Nervous?”

“Yeah— is it really that obvious?”

“I mean you’re sweating like crazy and keep trailing off like you do when you’re nervous about something. Silver… Silver?”

“Mango—,” his eyes lost focus and he licked his lips. “Huh? Oh sorry, I was daydreaming again.” He absently said as he shook his head to clear his thoughts.

“Yep. You’re nervous.” He reached into the back and grabbed a drink. “Here, just chill out, and enjoy the ride, okay?”

“Th..thanks Marcus,” he replied nervously and used his teeth to twist off the top of the bottle and start sipping away at the sweet beverage as he tried to just let his thoughts and worries melt away.”

Silver nervously paced around the baggage claim, carefully scanning the crowd that was currently flooding through. It was mostly humans, but every so often he’d see small groups of ponies make their way with the crowd. He desperately wanted to fly above the wall of tall humans to get a better vantage point, but the no flying warning signs scattered throughout the terminal were enough to quickly dash those plans.

Marcus glanced down at the nervous night pony from his spot against the wall. “Silver, you gotta take it down a few notches, security’s been giving you some strange looks and I don’t think they really have the patience to deal with a frantic night pony.”

“I know… I just want to make sure we give them a good impression, this is like one of the biggest hurdles we’ve needed to get over and they could be the ones to help us do that.”

“Yeah? Well they sure won’t be able to do much if you get yourself tossed outta here.” He straightened up and walked over to him, lowering down to a knee and getting to his eye level. “Hey, I know you want to make a good first impression but you just need to take it easy, relax a little. Want me to go grab you a drink or something?”

He shook his head. “No, I think I’m good.”

“Alright, well if you say so.” He stood back up and glanced around at the newly arriving crowd. “So who are we even looking for anyways? Besides them being ponies.”

Silver glanced down at the note he had his assistant write out for him. “We’re looking for three ponies, one will be a tall pegasus with red wing tips. That should make it kind of easy, I can’t really imagine that we’ll miss him. Not with how few ponies are getting off planes.”

Marcus glanced out over the crowd again, pointing out a lanky pegasus stallion that stood a little taller than the two mares that were accompanying him. “So like that one over there?”

Silver’s eyes frantically darted over to the gate. “Yes! I think so.”

“Alright cool, I’ll go pull the van up while you go introduce yourself.”

He frantically glanced back to Marcus. “Wait what?! You mean by myself?”

The human simply nodded. “Uh huh, you’re the big shot director. And unless you want to make your guests walk all the way over to where we had to park the van, you know out in the hot sun at the far end of the hot parking lot? That might not be the best first impression to make.”

Silver shuffled around on his hooves nervously. “I.. uh… alright fine, you go get the van.”

Marcus nodded as he walked away, leaving Silver alone.

He took a deep breath and exhaled, remembering what Scarlet had told him earlier, giving himself a little mental pep talk. “Alright, just gotta relax and act like they’re regular guests here for a visit. Just don’t think about how they are here to do something highly illegal on Sunset’s dime...” He gulped and shook his head, trying to clear his thoughts before pressing on.

Nervously approaching the trio, he extended a hoof in greeting when he got close enough. “Hey there, I’m Silver Eclipse, I’m the director over at the Oasis. Nice to finally meet you all.”

The light brown stallion with bright red primary feathers reached out a hoof to return the greeting. “Hello, I’m Will Monte, this is Dazzle,” he gestured towards the pegasus mare with a white coat, orange mane and tail, and green eyes before indicated the tired night pony. “And Emily Korpi,”

“Hi,” Emily greeted, but it sounded more like a yawn as she was clearly tired and must have been sleeping on the plane.

Dazzle cut in abruptly. “Can’t wait to check out your little oasis in the desert, I’ve never left the UP so all this is pretty exciting and I heard you guys might be hard up for some tourists,” she said with a knowing wink.

Silver took a moment to parse her pronunciation of U P as the individual letters, shaking his head to dispel those thoughts,“It’s wonderful to meet all three of you and I can’t wait to show you the Oasis, unfortunately it is a bit of a ride from Phoenix, but we have a comfy van with some drinks waiting.”

Dazzle spread her wings wide and gave off a few quick flaps that ended with sharp snaps. “I’d really prefer to stretch my wings, but the view from the plane kind of convinced me that we’d be lost within five minutes here,” she admitted.

“That's a smart choice, it wouldn’t be a good start if you wandered off into the hot, dry desert and got lost. Speaking of the heat, it’s a scorcher today, so my friend Marcus is bringing the van over so we don’t have to suffer out in the heat,” he cheerfully remarked to the trio. “We can talk a bit on the way out or we can all just take a nap, I’m sure you’re all tired from the flight out and I’m tired just cause… ya know, night pony,” he joked with a quick nervous chuckle.

The three nodded their heads in agreement, easing some of Silver’s anxiety as they all started walking towards the drop off area.

Emily let out a big yawn before she spoke. “Not having to worry about leg room was nice, but I’m not a fan of being up so high trapped in a metal tube.”

He let out a small nervous chuckle. “Oh I bet, it sure wasn’t fun for me as a human, I’m not looking forward to my first time flying like a human now that I’m a winged pony. You might want to hold off on stretching your wings out until we’re a little further away by the way, Security’s been cracking down on ponies flying around here, I guess it’s a pretty big concern having ponies that could easily fly right into a restricted area.” he said as he started to relax a little.

Marcus’ van rolled up to the curb and came to a stop. So far everything had gone off without a hitch, something he couldn’t have been any happier for. “Ah yes, looks like our ride’s here!” As if to emphasize his point the door slid open. “We’ve got plenty of refreshments inside if you’re hungry or thirsty, nothing super amazing but probably better than whatever poor excuse for food they served you guys up there.”

Daz nodded, “I think I can speak for everypony else when I say that anything is better than the human produced food we got up there.” The two others nodded in agreement.

The three quickly took their seats and made themselves comfortable, much to Silver’s relief. Emily and Will ended up sharing the back seat alone with Emily almost immediately leaning against the stallion asleep. Dazzle took spot so she could watch the landscape pass by outside. Satisfied that everyone was loaded in Marcus closed the door and returned to the driver’s seat, Silver settling for the passenger seat.

“Alright, well please feel free to make yourselves comfortable, we’ll be at the Oasis in a couple hours, maybe sooner if the traffic’s light.” He cheerfully called back as he finally managed to relax. “I hope you weren’t expecting to see anything exciting on the way down, there’s nothing but desert as far as the eye can see… but hey maybe that’ll be interesting enough in itself.”

The van came to a stop in front of the guest villa, a cozy little building right in the heart of the town. “Alright, everypony, we’re here!” Silver hopped out of the van and cheerfully gestured to the buildings that surrounded him. “My friends, welcome to the Oasis!”

He waved them over and started to walk over to the villa. “It’s not much right now, but it’s a start and that’s better than anything I could have ever hoped for. This’ll be your home for the next week, please feel free to make yourselves comfortable. Oh and if you feel the need to fly around, stretch your wings, or do any weather magic feel free. All this land is privately owned by us ponies so there isn’t any restriction as long as it stays in the valley.”

The group looked around at the metal skeletons that would someday become buildings. “It’s not from scratch but all this is definitely an impressive amount of construction for such a small group to accomplish,” Dazzle interjected.

Silver nodded, “You know, you’re right. It’s a lot of framing right now, but someday it’s going to be our way to change the world.”

“Change the world? You’re a little late for that,” Will chuckled.

“Not like ETS obviously,” he laughed. “We’re funded by SPEC and I fully intend to use every cent we have from them wisely. A lot of our research is just getting started but we’ve got some big plans going forward. It’s been of a mix of magical and mechanical research, but right now it’s mostly a lot of quality of life stuff more than anything,” he gestured to the device strapped to his leg, “This is a big focus of ours, it’ll make working on projects a little easier for our non unicorn researchers. It’s kind of like a swiss army knife that’s strapped to your leg. Has some simple tools you can deploy to make your life easier, kind of like those straps that have been popping up lately but a little more sophisticated than that.”

Silver gestured around to the buildings, “The city itself is merely phase one, the next step is getting to a point where we can be fully self sustainable, which in the desert means a consistent source of clean drinking water, but we want to go one step past that and change the climate. Our weather team is trying but don’t have enough experience to make it work in such an extreme area. Hopefully you’ll be able to help us get started on that.”

“All of them are from around here?” Emily asked, looking more awake now that the sun was slowly starting to go down.

“Not all, a couple are from more… humid areas but never really got into it while there,” he answered, trying to remember if any had been from an area worth mentioning.

“So… since they aren’t really here to meet us, I take it we’ll be making their acquaintance tomorrow morning?” Dazzle asked, hovering with lazy but powerful flaps of her wings.

“First thing in the morning. I’m sure you guys must be hungry, so want to come to the dining room for some dinner?”

“Oh Silver, I thought you’d never ask,” Dazzle gushed and zipped over to his side to be uncomfortably close, fluttering her green eyes and earning a frantic look from him. “You had me at hungry.”

“Wha? Uh,” he jumped away from the pegasus. “Sorry but I have a marefriend, I wasn’t trying to imply anything else,” he hurriedly explained.

“I’m joking,” she grinned, “But hungry, so yes, let’s go go go.”

He hurriedly nodded his head, desperate to end the awkward interaction.

Silver was thankful that the Oasis’ primary chef, Julienne, had laid out a simple yet delectable dinner, some pasta and salad. Silver didn’t want to keep the group awake, knowing that they were likely exhausted from the trip and had purposely planned a simple selection, not seeing any reason to try and impress them with some big fancy dinner. Despite everything, it was still a quiet and awkward affair.

“So are you all from the Northeast?” He asked. “I have to imagine that it’s a little different out there, I mean it was even before ETS. Not a lot of ponies here want to reintegrate with the rest of society, but there are a few small businesses and other ventures popping up around Phoenix. Rest seem to like the commune life the vision showed. No traditional currency and bartering.”

Dazzle smiled, “In the UP it’s sort of a mix. Ponies outnumber humans like nowhere else outside of the homestead lands. Barter is preferred because it feels more personal but money and credit is alright with most, not like everypony can just come up with something worth trading all the time, ya know? We have integrated back with humanity fairly well though with the weather program bringing a lot of humans in to help with monitoring on the ground. It’s also big business for CCI to get the iron ore mines back up so a lot of pegasi took up really high paying jobs to filter the dust from the air. Everypony collapsed on the most populated areas when ETS ran through and then never saw a reason to go very far out unless it was to help run all the new farms we created.”

Silver raised an eyebrow in confusion, “Pegasi can do that? I thought you guys could only do stuff with the weather.”

“Well it’s not THAT easy to do, but I take it you’re aware that the air is made up of more than just… air, right? Like there are all these impurities to it you can’t see but can really mess you up, same with water. Well once it becomes fine enough to mix with the air, even if you can’t see it’s possible to, and it’s really hard to explain to a non-pegasus how, draw it from the clean stuff and dump it. So every weekday when they blast at noon to open up more of the iron ore, it and the trucks they use to haul it release those micro particles in the air, and a team works to keep it from spreading. They used to have contracts with all the homeowners around the pit to come and clean their homes every spring because it would turn them all red. Much cheaper to pay a few pegasus to stop it from happening in the first place and keeps down on pollution. We do it without thinking when we make clouds for rain, that’s why a pegasus made cloud is always going to give you the best water to drink,” she finished.

He shrugged, “Huh, well I guess we really have a lot to learn about your capabilities. Scarlet and I wanted to take a vacation sometime, It might be fun to take a trip up there and see what you’ve all done. Riverview’s like the only place out there that I’ve really heard about post ETS and even then it’s probably not a great example.”

“Well if you ever want to take a trip North, we’d love to give you a tour of the area. Pictured Rocks at sunset is stunning,” Emily added.

Will sat back briefly to hold up his hooves, “I haven’t been in Michigan very long and out in New York it’s more like you’re expected to be human or get run over. So wouldn’t really encourage a trip that way until they relax some of it. I do wish I had taken more pictures of Sapphire trying to process the tall buildings though, she made the goofiest of faces without realizing.”

Silver smirked and nodded as he continued eating, the other three following in suit. Before long they had finished their dessert and were well beyond ready for bed.

The three followed Silver up to their villa, a large apartment that took up most of the building’s second floor. Dazzle looked around and turned back towards him. “You know, you really didn’t need to give us the VIP suite, a couple small rooms would have been fine.”

Silver smiled, “This is the only place we have available, the others all belong to our permanent residents. This used to be our main living area when we were still getting everything sorted out, It’s actually the only guest accommodations that we have right now, I hope it’s comfortable enough.”

“Oh, it definitely is, thanks!”

Will spoke up, glancing towards Emily. “Are we all just sleeping in one big room?”

Silver let out an embarrassed laugh, “Oh, my bad. No, the bedrooms are off to the side,” He gestured towards the unmarked doors, “this is just the common area, feel free to choose whichever room you want, the bathroom’s that door in the center. If you guys need a little midnight snack or anything feel free to help yourselves to whatever’s in the pantry, I had my assistant, Diamond, stock it up before you guys got here. He’s one of the pegasi that you’ll be meeting tomorrow.”

“Thanks Silver, we’ll be up and waiting in the morning,” Dazzle replied.

“I’m going to sit with Will for a bit until he’s ready for bed, no issues if I want to get out and fly around your town?” Emily asked.

“Of course not. There are a few of us night ponies around who know you were coming so expect a warm greeting, though.

He nodded and started to walk away, pausing briefly and turning back towards the group. “It was really nice meeting you guys. We’ll have breakfast ready for you bright and early, the weather team wanted to show you where they’re at so I’ll take you over there after. I have some work I need to get done, but if you need anything feel free to head downstairs and ask one of the night ponies, they’ll be around until the morning crew comes in.”

Dazzle thanked him again as he turned and left, closing the door behind him. She trotted over to one of the couches and sat down, making herself comfortable. “Well, he seems nice, a little young to be heading up this big a project but hopefully we can help him out.”

“A lot to do with not a lot of time to do it in,” Will pointedly responded.

Dazzle glanced out the window, squinting her eyes as she looked out over the landscape. “Hot, dry, and I wouldn’t even know that river was their if I didn’t look this place up before we came. Sure would have been a lot easier if they had started this Oasis closer to water.”

“Why anyone builds a town in the middle of a desert, I will never understand,” Will snorted.

She nodded in agreement, “Yeah… not my cup of tea but you work with what you got, right?”

“Work, like working ultimately for by Sunset Blessing…” Emily interjected harshly speaking the unicorns name.

“Even if it is ultimately funded by some Shimmerist fanatic, what really matters is that they asked for our help. I agree with Jasper when she decided that Sapphire would agree to give them a chance regardless of who’s footing the bill,” Dazzle answered.

He shook his head, “Not if you ask me, but Jasper isn’t my biggest fan so here we are, right?” Will said sardonically and nuzzled Emily briefly.

“I told you, Jasper is like that with everypony,” Dazzle rolled her eyes and yawned. “I don’t know about you two, but I could really do with some shut eye, let’s talk about things more in the morning”

“Have a good night, Daz, see you in the morning,” Emily replied while Will just nodded.