<Personal Log: Dreams of Flight>
Date of creation: Nova Aetas 3, Feb 23

Hours went by as I tweaked the design of my new monoplane. I originally planned to go with a biplane, but I pivoted when I my calculations showed that monoplanes are superior with the advancements in lightweight engines. The lines on the blue background converge and diverge with each other, tracing out the sleek shape of a fighter aircraft.

As I attempted to fit the weapons into the wing, recollections of my past started to play out in my mind. I remembered the time I witnessed a sonic rainboom, an event that was only seen in ancient texts and mythology, or sometimes in calculation of extreme magic dynamics. I was just 5 at the time, and it completely blew my mind. I was hit with a sudden craving to reach the skies by the means of technology, and set out on building a flying machine with no airbags. Three months later, the process was complete, I was so excited that I threw out all my usual secrecy codes, and flew it over a group of hikers. However, instead of getting impressed, they immediately turned hostile at me. "What do you think you're doing in OUR sky, you greedy filthy unicorn!" The yellow pegasi yelled, "The sky belongs to US, the pegasi, you unicorns had better STICK TO THE GROUND!" The others cheered her on, "Look! She had wings as well, that's a bucking changeling!" "BEAT HER UP!" "Get your sluggish flying object on the ground so we can burn it as firewood, it would make it much more useful!"

I put my aircraft in a series erratic movements to dodge the random objects hurled at me, but the aircraft couldn't make such violent turns. After ripping apart a few structs, I am concerned about the structural integrity of the wings and put a stop to the turning. Luckily, the spinning propellers are enough to deter them from actually going near the aircraft. They turned away as I flew over the Everfree Forest and into a valley of the Everfree Mountain Ranges, where I originally took off from. The aircraft was fairly damaged from the rocks and my reckless flying, but it was a piece of cake to repair it, since it's just in essence some planks and cloth. What couldn't be repaired though, was my trust. After that day, I told myself to never be seen again.

The next day, I stealthily watched as Princess Celestia herself investigated the site. She and her guards waited for a few hours before leaving, but they left behind an envelope. I waited until they were completely out of the vicinity of the site and retrieved the letter. Of course, I scanned it and removed any tracking enchantments and spells first before picking it up. I brought it back to the base and extracted the contents.
"Mr/Miss Inventor,

We have received word of something unheard of in Equestria being showcased here, we cordially invite you to return tomorrow at noon to meet us. Equestria will greatly benefit from your ingenuity.

Although the prospect of bringing Equestria a new era of technology is attractive, I'm too traumatized by that encounter, so I made my decision.
"Equestria in not ready for the new era.

I watched as the princess picked up the letter, and shook her head with a face of regret. I was tempted to head out, but my newfound fear took hold of me. I have nothing against these ponies, they don't know what they've done. I will not take down the princess and topple the regime. Yet they will pay, with the brilliant future they never knew would have happened.

As the sun sets, the princess rode off in her carriage, while I tore a portal and stepped through, back to the place I call home. I opened the door to the hangar, and on the workbench was a blueprint of a monoplane, with guns, fuel tanks, hydraulic lines, and a pair of landing gear perfectly slotted inside her semi-elliptical wings. I snapped out of my trance, and looked closer at my final result. With no problems found, I sent it for production, and admired the night sky.
<Personal Log: Somnium>
Date of creation: Nova Aetas 3, Feb 24

I looked at my surroundings, everything seems to be just so slightly off. I know I am dreaming again, and steeled myself for what is to come.

A black blob ripped open the ground, seizing me and shoved me its body. Plunged into complete darkness, I helplessly waited until my eventual awakening. Suddenly, everything started to brighten up, I realized what is happening. Princess Celestia has found me, as I am now synced with the sleep schedule of Equestria. This only made me more terrified as I don't want anyone finding me and my work.

A silhouette formed in front of me, it was the princess herself. She smiled warmly, "Is there anything wrong?" "D-Don't worry, this is a normal night for me, I've went through this hundreds of times before." "Who are you? My little pony?" I gave her the reply by focusing my thoughts to materialize the invitation she sent me years ago, and gesture it to her. "Oh, I see," as she went through the lines, "So it was you who had done the impossible. Do you actually have wings and a horn?" "Yes and no, they are wings and horn, but technically I'm a hybrid, not an alicorn, so both of them are flawed. I have a nice replacement horn though, since they broke the real one." "They?"

Darned it, I messed up...

"Sigh, you may not like hearing this," I warned. "Go on, I've seen a lot through the years." "Alright then, they are the Storm Empire, which I'm currently trying to fend off. Also, they nearly took my life twice, but in both incidents I got out alive, somehow." Princess Celestia's face went from calm, to a near-spit take, to one of a mix of surprise and horror, "Are you sure they are the Storm Empire?" "Yeah, so what?" "They nearly took over equestria three hundred years ago if not for me channelling the sun's power to scorch them all, and that created the badlands you see today." "Uhh, they are currently blocked by just a couple hundred thousand PoniBots, which is about similar in combat power to normal ponies. I did arm them with slightly more advanced equipment though."

The princess continued questioning, "Are you sure they are the Storm Empire?" I just frowned, "They said they were, and they are huge bipeds with a turtle-shell-like exoskeleton." "I don't remember them being stopped by a couple hundred thousand soldiers?" "I have a better arsenal than you do, such as a thing that spits out metal chunks so flying fast it kills, and other things that rain explosives on a desired location, and another that is just a moving armored cannon." "You what?" "It doesn't matter, Princess. All I can say is that they were held back by the bots." "What are bots?" "Bots are like golems, but no magic and all science. Just get to the point, please." "Okay, would you like to have reinforcements?" "No."

She was immediately intrigued, "Why? It isn't embarrassing to recieve help." "I raise you a question, how would you transfer your army across the entire planet, and fight with reduced magic of unicorns, reduced flight of pegasi, and reduced strength of earth ponies? The ambient magic is much weaker here in Newland." "I see where you are going with this, since the peace treaty signed ages ago forbid them from going into a war, we have a casus belli to declare war on them. As they will definitely move onto others after you go down, we will declare war to stop them now." "No. Are you out of your mind?" "Pardon me?" "They, fight like this", as I willed a screen into existence, showing some clips from the video feed, "And how do you plan to defeat them? You can't summon a sun plasma beam thing again because they can evade it as they've seen it before, you can't just scorch half of Equestria to eliminate them, right?"

"You raise... some valid points... I'm going to just leave them be for now." "I'm glad to see that Equestria will not fall next week." "That's some sarcasm there." "It's a fact... One more thing, keep this between us for now." "Understood."