In the skies of Equestria there was a fairly diverse amount of things that contrasted upon the bright cyanish background… ranging from your regular birds that occasionally flew in a V formation, like if they were going to bomb something; the Pegasus that tried to push the packages of cumulonimbus out of the way both for safety of other ponies in the air and in the ground; the very same clouds that were occasionally a mild annoyance to the local weather team, and even larger; more complex things like hot-air balloons, zeppelins, and plane ponies, all soaring through the wind despite being unable to flap their wings around. Oh, and there was the usual balloon that a poor filly had stopped gripping and decided to cutely float away, thanks to the helium mixture inside of them (Of course accompanied with the kid crying. And thank goodness this wasn’t the alternate reality where Berry Punch had a balloon head, but I digress)

All in all, there was usually some kind of activity high in the clouds. Sometimes it was just a simple Pegasus flying to and fro, occasionally a zeppelin from a fancy place arriving at Canterlot to either invade or visit peacefully, or even your casual cloud that decided to become a master troll and move themselves on top of some poor hapless civilians before unloading their entire cargo of water onto them… well that often happened mostly because a Pegasus with rainbow mane and tail decided to prank somebody, but otherwise it was common to see something in the air.

This was a case way different yet also admittedly similar than these. Really really sky high, hidden neatly by any barrage of clouds that decided to drift under them, was an unidentified flying object with the shape of a giant pony casually floating in the stratosphere. Nobody particularly relevant on the ground had spotted it, minding their own business on the ground and not being in the mood for balloongazing today. But alas, there’s always got to be that guy, that one pony, that dude, who completely ruins the fun surprise, as he exclaims in a confused tone “Hey, what’s that thing in the sky?” while the object slowly abandoned the blanket of white under it, becoming briefly visibly in the space between fluffy white belonging to the clouds.

And, as expected for ponies, when one got interested, suddenly others realized the same thing. Of course it was enticing that random pony pointing at the sky and seeing something that was unknown for you, and as such, other ponies looked in the sky with him, as it soon started to become a group, a crowd, and finally the entire town, looking at that huge yet tiny -by the distance- floating thing just… passively go around their business… And because ponies are just a tiny bit scaredy, and because that balloon shaped like a pony was floating there menacingly, this caused consternation in the general populace, enough to let know the Royal Equestrian Air Force to realize something weird was in the sky and promptly send something to investigate.

And up there, it was a bit of a different story… instead of the mix of wonder, fear and curiosity, there was…
“Yaaaaaaay, being out here in this cold climate high in the sky with no one to talk to and nothing to do is so freaking fuuuuuuun!” The balloon pony said as he looked down at the ground, the gaseous mixture inside his body allowing him to keep the flotation in such a way to remain fixed in a specific altitude. His voice was so filled with sarcasm and irony that it could easily turn any sarcasm-detector into a mini-nuke of 2 kilotons, thankfully the ponies hadn’t invented that just yet, though it’s uncertain if in a secret lab somewhere a detector exploded.

“Goddamnit why did I agree to do this… oh yes Floaty, you can go high up the sky and take pictures of Equestria for surveillance, the pay is good, and carry this heavy stuff around” The balloon berated himself as he seemed heavily irritated for agreeing with whoever was the conscription guy that told him to do this in the first place. He felt like this was a very dumb idea that didn’t have sense, and his opinions were profusely worded when the balloon pony took a deep breath and, having nobody nearby to listen to him, let out a long winded and extremely long string of cuss words and curses and swearwords, the only witness being the accompanying clouds that got visibly shocked upon his deflagration of exasperation.

“Not even close enough to take good pictures, hmph… It’d be better if I could… idk, take pictures of that giant needle in France or that big tower in Dubai… what was their name? Burger Caliphate? No wait that’s not it… ugh!” The poor white pony flying without wings seemed so angry that he was talking with himself, though to be fair he was also lonely, and when someone’s lonely they have the tendency of talking to themselves. “God-freaking-damnit… and I have to carry this stupid surveillance thing around! Fuck!” He added shortly afterwards, grunting as he tried to propel himself with the very smol propellers installed in that satellite-like artifact hanging underneath him. It provided limited maneuverability and propulsion, but it wasn’t definitely a turboprop, so he was slow

The poor lone balloonpone let out a heavy sigh as he looked downwards at the shifting green-white-brown doormat under his hooves; the Earth, being so far away. He had to admit that there was some grandiosity in being so high in the sky and feeling like a looming giant, able to step on these tiny cities, but alas he was just flying really high (Though he still was giant by pony standards, about 45 meters tall or so right now, by the virtue of being a big ass balloon). And that didn’t really change the odds neither the many disadvantages this compromising position had. “Well I guess I’ll just take the darned pictures and get over this… oh well atleast the pay is amazing…”, and at the finishing of this sentence he proceeded to get hold of his black super camera magically infused with high resolution and took pictures… but there was still some grumbling “They didn’t even let me have one of those fancy earpieces…”

A flash of white appeared in the camera’s front, which annoyed even further the living balloon “Damnit, no, I don’t want flash, what flash will be useful for anyways? Disable Flash! Disable him! I mean, it!”. He pressed one of the buttons of his camera and took another pic, this time the bright light emanating from the little LED light in front of the black device not appearing. He kept doing this for a few minutes, gradually starting to calm down as he did his hobby; photography. Unbeknownst to him, there was another plane pony even higher than him; an U-2 ‘Dragon Lady’ that recently came in and found the balloon floating randomly amusing and took selfies with the flying object without their express permission, even giggling silently at his prior showcasing of insulting skills.

“Okay… pose for me babeh, yeesss there we go, your face looks shining today!… Despite being extremely far away… got to admit this camera got a dope-ass amount of resolution…” The white fluffy floating thing joked around, trying to be positive and cheerful for his own sanity, as he stared at the picture of the camera. He just effectively took a picture of the Canterlot castle like if he was just ten meters of distance from it, despite being atleast 60.000 feet (18.000 meters) off the ground. He continued to take on pictures and generally attempt to enjoy his alone time somewhere up in the clouds, not realizing that, aside from the unwanted and unnoticed company of the spy plane taking pictures of him in the distance, there was also another gray plane pony quickly approaching him with an insanely fast speed.

“Okay…. I think these are all the pictures I had to take… wait… is that some sort military command? Huh, smile for me please” The cute big white ball of fluffiness with foreign words on his cheek took a picture of some weird radar installation in the distance, very very far away from the Canterlot Castle. There were also some… weird… circle shaped doors on the ground… is that some kind of underground missile complex? Or he did just discover one of the secret sites of the SCP Foundation?… His lazy drifting thoughts were interrupted harshly as, out of sudden, he was surprised by an “Ahem” as someone in front of him tried to make himself noticed.

“KYAAAA” The Floaty pony said as he almost rotated/hurled in a random spinning direction by the sudden surprise, the surveillance equipment hanging precariously from his belly before coming to an stop. “O-Oh… h-heh… h-hi officer! E-eerr… I mean plone!” He said, almost like if he was drunk, before realizing it wasn’t actually a police officer in front of him, damnit stupid Freudian slip, it was a whisper of his past life as a criminal balloon… okno it was just him thinking he got in trouble, which he did “S-s-such a fine morning, right? T-t-the sun is so precious! H-heheh…” he managed to stammer out despite his anxiety and fear, looking at the sun, it was at this time he realized that there was a second plone watching the events from afar but considering the circumstances he couldn’t exactly tackle that situation right now. Wait, did the U-2 pony get out the popcorn?

Expectedly, the plane pony that was tasked with intercepting such invasive flying object out of the sky and interdict any of their sneaky purposes didn’t seem like wanting to be friends. She was probably very annoyed because she was woken up from her deep slumber and now she would probably miss B-21’s lunch, and that pony was one of the best cooks the whole airbase had, to not mention the obvious annoyance of being called to take down a fucking balloon again, and being mocked for having her first air-to-air victory an inanimate balloon last time, in her words (Tho to be fair she also had the highest altitude air-to-air kill. Weird thing to flex but okay). All these things combined at once made this F-22 a very grumpy pony, as he furrowed his eyes looking at the white nervous thing without speaking a single word.

It was at this time that the balloon pony noticed the extent of his predicament and, upon looking down at the thing hanging between his legs (No innuendo plz), he stared back at the plane pony, glancing at the camera, and he managed to blurt out “I-I-I s-swear t-t-this is not w-what it looks like!”. The plone was seemingly having none of it, and she effectively was pissed off, partly by the balloon pony and the other part by the ramifications of bad events that expanded outwards upon the balloon’s appearance, like missing lunch, and she was damn sure that Blitz would ravage it all and leave nothing for her.. “You’ll have to accompany me and I’ll confiscate your camera and… whatever that is” He said, pointing a hoof dismissively at the complex technological installation of radar dishes, antennaes, small propellers and what seemed to be solar arrays.

“U-Um… U-Uh… W-well I guess I can, I prefer giving y-y-you that than you… a-a-ahem… exploding me… t-tho if you’d like m-me to follow y-you… uh… I-I’m very slow… c-can you drag me? I-I’d love if you do” The balloon explained, one of the two propellers that were on the metal frame rotating lightly, exposing just how small they were to the plane pony (haha small ProPeller), and indicating they only allowed limited self-steering capabilities. The F-22 just facehooved intensely, very close to leaving an U shaped print in her cockpit-like face, as he took the balloon by one arm and tried to tug him away, “Ugh, come with me, I’ll take you into custody. If you want to visit Equestria again please don’t do it with spy equipment and request permission for flying so high” The plane pony said, almost like if she had said before. The balloon just tried to continue their masquerade of “I’m a w-w-weather b-b-balloon, really! T-T-T-That’s why I-I have all that antennae a-a-and stuff. I-I c-c-can pred-predict there’ll be storm in C-Canterlot by evening! A-And i-it’ll p-probably b-be sunny in Philadelpia!”

“Shut up; be thankful I realized you were a living object pony before I fully locked on you. You have the right to remain silent and I’d really love if you do” The gray plone berated sternly, seemingly either not getting the joke or not giving a damn about it, as the white floating pony decided to follow her instructions and remain silent for the duration of their journey, feeling nervous, drops of sweat trickling through the fur in the back of her head. Meanwhile for the U-2 pony far away, he was enjoying the heck out of this scene, but he really ought to remain hidden or he’d get fucked up sideways by that F-22 back in the base. And so they went, the F-22 pony with the annoyed expression and a > :< face, and the balloon pony that was really rethinking his life choices that led up to this point. ‘Oh fuck that conscription guy so much; when I get back home, if I do, I swear I’ll cast my cloth balloon wrath upon him!’ The white floating thing said, seemingly intent on accomplishing his promise, but it was unclear how a soft, fluffy giant thing could pose any danger to a regular pony… unless he picked him up and took him to a few thousand meters in the sky.

Yay such an old drawing, I literally make drawings of things that are completely irrelevant now! I feel so proud :D. Being serious tho this is a silly idea I had for a while and wanted to make but college and stuff didn’t allow me D:. Also please don’t get political this is just a silly drawing and I wanted to draw a cute balloon pony trying to take a picture DX

The letters in the cheek of the balloon pony say “Surveillance Balloon” in Simplified Chinese if I remember correctly; I drew this a long time ago and procrastinated hard on it Xp. The whole weird complex of antennae’s and stuff is based on the pictures taken by the U-2 aircraft on the real life balloon (Yes a U-2 took a pic of it!). And the F-22 plane pony is visibly annoyed and based off a regular F-22, but with added coat markings and stuff to make her look like she’s a bit more robotic in nature compared to the cloth-made balloon. Oh and she has that little balloon ‘killmark’ on her cheek as a joke, as for the balloon pony, the ‘stitches’ and stuff on his body are part of the fact he’s… well… a balloon. Yet still he’s as fluffy as any random object pony I do XD

The background is supposed to be dark cuz high up there you’re basically seeing space or some crazy shit, and what’s below it’s a blanket of clouds that cover the sky. And that giant ball of yellow is the sun, which in retrospect looks like an 8th years old attempt at trying to draw a sky xd. And the F-22 plone has blue eyes vs. the balloonpone’s red because of the colors generally used to portray both countries.