“It smells so nice here!” A Tangerine orange Pegasus was trotting along a path lined by wildflowers. “And it feels good not having to walk on clouds anymore” She galloped forward and then let her wings loose and glided forward but she didn’t flap so she landed amongst the flowers letting up pollen and dandelions. She rolled over onto her back and looked up into the sky. “I’m glad we pushed the clouds out and the sun let all of this grow!” The Pegasus smiled and closed her eyes so that she could feel the rays into her feathers but it was getting darker. “Huh?” She opened her blue eyes to a bunch of dark storm clouds thundering and blocking out the sun. “No! No! They’re not supposed to come back yet!” She jumped up and gasped when she looked around and the ground around her turned to barren wasteland with the dirt swirling into the air as the wind picked up.

“N-no…” She was standing on a hill now looking out at the fields that she was just a little while frolicking through the flowers. In place of all of that were pools of greenish liquid and smoke rising from fires.

“Sunny! We have to go...” The panicked voice of a mare was coming through the ear piece inside the Orange Pegasus’s helmet.

“No…” she was staring at all of the death and the rain that was getting closer. But a pony got in her face and they were wearing dark armor that was covering everything ear to hoof and even her wings as for the tail it was also covered and it ended in a stinger kind of like a scorpion tail. They raised a black covered hoof and pushed a button on the little machine on her other one and the visor of her helmet came up and a gingerbread brown pony with green eyes looked back at Sunny with a worried look. “Sunset we need to go now! Everyone else is already evacuating you and I are the last ones we need to go!!”
But Sunny just looked up into the sky and a raindrop hit her in the snout and rain down into the neck of her armor giving her the shivers. “We can’t just leave…it’s…why Gingy…” She looked over to the brown Pony with such a sad look.

“I’ve said it before you can’t call me Gingy when we’re out on the field you have to call me Captain Ginger or Ginger Drop!” Her voice went from worried sister to higher ranking officer.

“I don’t care! We can’t leave! I’m not going!” She stopped her hoof and more droplets came down.

“Yes you are! You’re a Lieutenant in the Grand Pegasus Enclave and I’m your Commanding officer and I’m giving you an order you need to leave right now!” Ginger poked sunny in the middle of her armored chest and the drops came down some more giving sunny more shivers and the wind picked up throwing some dirt in her eyes making everything kind of blurry.

“We need to help and you know that as much as I do Gingy and I don’t care what the stupid Enclave says!” Sunny chucked her helmet away and heard it roll down the hill.
Ginger was standing there with a shocked look on her face. “Sunset…you…you know you can’t say stuff like that! It’s recorded!” She stepped up to her and started to whisper. “You need to come home…please!”

“No! I’m not…I’m staying down here!” Sunny took a step back and just had a serious look on her face.

Ginger’s complexion turned a little pale but she cleared her throat. “Are you disregarding a direct order from your superior Lieutenant Sunset Winds?” She was speaking louder so that her official mike picked up her voice over the loud winds that were coming from the front of the storm.
Sunny was looking at Ginger sadly and her wings seemed to drop a little as well as her whole posture. “Y-yes…I-I am… Ca…captain Ginger Drop…” When she looked up Ginger had a bright smile on her face but before Sunny could even raise a hoof to ask her what that smile was about there was a loud thunder clap and screams that were echoing in a metal place.

There was another thunder clap and water droplets were falling onto Sunny’s orange fur going through her thing blanket.

“AHHHHH!!!” There was a loud girly scream and then a loud thud as a scared Pegasus had instinctively shot up into the air and ran into the metal lined cloud barrack building that Sunny and her squad spent the night in all of the time. Everypony else that hadn’t fallen out of their bunks or shot into the ceiling were groaning about being woken up so rudely.

“Everypony be quiet!” Sunny sat up in her bunk and looked out at about half her little cloud squad standing up already out of bed and about 2 or 3 sprawled out on the floor in pain from hitting the ceiling. “Now is everyone awake?” She waited for everypony to sleepily acknowledge her question. “Well then you better get dressed and ready by the time I get back or whoever isn’t gets to stay behind and make every ponies bed!” She smiled at herself when she heard a bunch of hooves started to run around the barracks.
She got out of her own bed and slowly walked through the throngs of pegisai flying and shooting around getting their things ready and their uniforms on. She flew up to the emptying thundercloud that somepony had pushed in there and pressed her hooves into the side and helped it on its way back outside of her cloud building. “When I find the pony that did this I’m going to…”

“You’re going to what?” There was an innocent sounding mare’s voice that if it was a little higher pitched it would sound like a little filly that for some reason made her sound even more innocent. It was coming from the other side of the front doors of the barracks.

“Polar Vortex…” Sunny froze on her side of the doors and landed before opening them up where she saw a haughty looking Pegasus with a ring of other uppity looking pegisai standing around her all wearing perfectly ironed uniforms and all higher ranked then she was. “That’s First Lieutenant Polar Vortex to you Sunset” She didn’t seem angry but she had some smugness in the way she reminded sunny about it. “Did you hear me though Sunset? What were you going to do to the pony responsible?” She lifted a perfectly hooficured hoof to her ear and smiled at Sunny.

Sunny grit her tooth and just stood there glaring at her. “…report them to my superiors…” She didn’t look away from her.

“Oh well…then it’s a good thing I showed up huh? I just came over because I heard all of the yelling and commotion and I thought somepony was trouble what happened?” She frowned a little and put a worried look on her face.

Sunny kept gritting her teeth and stood there staring at the 5 ponies that had been hell for her ever since she got assigned the CO of the cloud teams. “…Somepony had put a stray Thunderhead into the barracks to wake everypony up today…it didn’t rain enough to damage anyone but it caused three of my squad to vault themselves into the ceiling…”She glared to a stallion that had chuckled a little and her glare seemed to turn it into a coughing fit.

“Well as long as no pony was seriously hurt? They are alright right? They know their up from their down still…” She was still playing the innocent pony and it was starting to make Sunny mad.

“Why you stupid spoiled chi…” Sunny had lifted off the ground and was about to like rocket into the mare in front of her but a white streak came between the two of them and stopped Sunny in her tracks.

“Second Lieutenant Sunset winds and First Lieutenant Polar Vortex what do you two think you’re doing?”The Enclave Pegasus in the complete set of armor was looking at Sunny. “What are you doing out of uniform soldier?”

“I just got out of bed Gingy and she put…” Sunny pushed a hoof at Polar but the Pegasus pushed her hoof away. “When we’re on base Lieutenant Winds I am Captain Ginger Drop to you and I do not care what polar did or what she didn’t do you are supposed to be in your uniform now go!” Ginger Drop pointed a hoof back at her barracks and waited till she turned and walked in to scold Polar who started to whine about something or other but Sunny was already inside the barracks but she couldn’t hear what Polar was lying about.
Her whole squad was standing at the door and they all looked guilty like sunny had caught them doing something bad. “Um…Lieutenant?” A pink Pegasus lifted a hoof up.

“Yes Pink?” Sunny rubbed her eyes with her wings kind of guilty that she’d been their CO for over 2 weeks and she still didn’t remember all of their names.

“My uh…my names Tender Rose…” Tender’s ears were pulled back a little.

“Yes…Tender? What is it…?” Sunny had walked through the mass of pegisai and over to her bunk.

“Is…Polar going to get in trouble this time? Cause this is the third time she’s done this and…um” The more she was talking the softer her voice got but a dark green pegisai stallion pushed in front of her and looked ticked off.

“And we’re fed up with it! All of us! We hate it that she keeps getting away with this just because of her father being so high up in command!” He kicked one of the bunks with a hoof and the sound echoed around the room.

“And you don’t think I am?” She turned and looked at him. “MY Father is also in the higher command? Do you think I got my ranks boosted to fast huh?” Sunny with her whole uniform draped across her back strutted up to the green stallion and glare into his eyes. “Huh? Do you think I’m not qualified to boss you around?”

“Wh-what…n-no…sun…”But Sunny had pushed her face into the stallions.

“That’s Second Lieutenant Winds to you Airpony! Say it!”The stallion was taking some steps back to get away but Sunny just walked toward him keeping the distance the same.

“Se-sec…”He tripped over a box and looked up at her.

“Now I need everypony ready to go once I’m finished we’re scheduled to work on the southern cloud field…the clouds are starting to thin…be ready to move got it?”

They all stood at attention even the green stallion that fell over and they all saluted her with their wing tips. “Understood!” They all single file trotted out of the barracks and outside onto the cloud cover.
Sunny sighed and walked herself to the back of the barrack building to the showers that still had some humidity from the ponies that had just taken a shower. She stopped a small calendar that was hung up next to her on the front door of the shower. “Come on…” She sighed and leaned her head on the wall. “I have our stupid quota Polar Vortex and now I have to deal with being in heat on top of all of that…I better get the stallions to clean out the extra building then…”She hung her towel onto the hook nearby and turned the faucets lifting a hoof into the water waiting for it to get to a good high temperature.

‘Why do I keep dreaming about that…’ she was frowning and remembering what she dreamed about and then a memory surfaced into her head on what came after her sister had knocked her out on the surface.

“Captain we need to follow protocol! We need to get her to wake up and then we need to clean off all of the surface pathogens and foreign matter!” Dim Panicked voices were urgently speaking to somepony. But sunny was asleep and this was all a dream and she would wake up in her room in the large apartment that she got to escape her father.

“I don’t care! I need you to call General Burnt Tinder right now! Tell him it’s urgent!!” Another mare this one was closer and also sounded distressed about something.

“We need to do it with you as well! We need you to be in the chemical Shower captain…” One of the mares came closer. “We’ll go and get the general but we need you to follow our instructions okay…get in the shower captain!” then the mare’s voice trailed off and a door closed somewhere.

“Gi-gingy…” Sunny’s voice sounded croaky for some reason.

“Sunset! You’re awake! Thank the president…” Ginger kneeled in front of Sunny and smiled.

“…Where am I? Am I at home…did I drink too much?” She tried to sit up but her armor was still on and making it a little hard to sit up with it off.

“Don’t try to get up it’s okay we’re in the medical wing on base…I you passed out when we had to get back don’t you remember? “She was smiling but there was something behind her eyes that were pleading to her about something that sunny was too tired to remember.

“…Why…” sunny started to cough until ginger brought her a cup of water on her wing. “Thanks” Smiled at her. “Why did you want dad? What’s going on…what happened?” Now that she wasn’t so thirsty anymore and she was waking up everything that happened down below on their mission was flooding back into her head and she was gasping and trying to sit up again. “Y-you!”

Ginger put a hoof on her mouth and shook her head. “Shh…don’t say anymore you’re hurt you need to rest a little more” but her hoof was pointing at the little microphone on her color and then at the one at Sunny’s color and sunny glowered a little and looked over to Ginger.

“He’s the general In charge of this part of the Enclave Sunny so…he probably already knows that you disobeyed one of my orders?” She smiled a little.

“No I didn’t Gingy I just wanted to…” But Ginger put a hoof on her mouth again but sunny pushed it away. “Stop that! I can say what I want you don’t have to keep protecting me we’re not in school or basic training anymore I can take whatever consequences come at me alright!” Sunny was trying to sit up but her armor was turned off so it was a little too heavy for her to move right.

“Need some help little sister?” Pokes a button on the side of her armor and then a whirr and a hiss and her armor split open letting her pull out of it and drop it onto the floor.

“Thanks…now you need to get your chemical shower or whatever…a surface pony sneezed on you and you don’t want to danger the enclave and have them fall out of the sky” She rolled her eyes and looked away from her.
The doors burst open and an Orange red colored Stallion with a graying mane in an immaculate uniform with a lot of medals and ribbons. “Ginger? Sunny…”

“Over here daddy!” Ginger turned around and opened her wings and smiled at him trotting over to get a hug but he stepped back.

“Ginger you know you have to clean off as soon as you got here!” He looked at her worried.

“She was about to do that dad…then you came into the room” Sunny was sitting up on her bed and opening and closing her wings stretching them out.

“Sunny!” He walked over to her but she held a hoof out.

“No dad…I need to wash up too I just was unconscious for a while…” Sunny didn’t want to look at him hoping he didn’t know what she almost did.

Ginger had already taken her armor off and had placed it in one of the quarantine baskets for a cleaning and stepped in the chemical shower for one of the nurses to clean her in.
He cleared his throat and straightened his uniform. “Now Ginger Drop I know why you called me in here but I’ve already told you how I feel about it…” He looked over to Ginger who didn’t seem to look like she wanted to argue about it.

“That’s not the reason I called you in here dad…” She turned to see the nurse gathering some soaps and various plastic containers that had symbols on it that told her that they shouldn’t really be used on ponies. “I can take it from here…you don’t have to do it for me?” She smiled a little but she had a look in her face that said leave now.
She didn’t seem to want to leave but one look at the General made her nod and then hurry out of the nurse’s office. The General lifted a rag and threw it over one of the cameras and sunny just sat there looking confused.

“What…?” She looked between her father and her sister.

“I had to do it daddy I just…I had to make sure that Sunny wouldn’t get in trouble for what she did”

“What are you talking about? You mean when I said that we had to do something about the surface before something bad happens to it!” Sunny jumped off her bed walked over to them. “That what I saw down there…”

“I told you that sending her down there with you was a bad idea Ginger she wasn’t…she couldn’t handle it…”

“I handled it dad! I handled what I had to do down there but I didn’t want to leave! What we did down there…”Sunny turned away and walked back to her bed.

“We did what the Enclave ordered us to do Sunny and it might have been bad but their surface ponies and they were deemed a threat to the Enclave as a whole so we had to do what we had to do” Ginger was mixing a bunch of the chemicals together in a little bucket so that she could put it inside the shower water that she was standing in.

“I don’t care what we had to do it was still bad!” Sunny stomped a hoof.

“Now Sunset you know that we…might see some of Enclaves rules and orders are a little harsh but it’s for the greater good of the Pegisai up here…if it harms some of the ponies on the surface but doesn’t harm anypony up here it’s fine!” He smiled and nodded a little and walked closer to Sunny.

“No! Dad!” She wheeled around and advanced on her father who tried to get away from her as fast as possible. “It’s not fine! A pony is a pony it doesn’t matter if their hooves are touching clouds or the dirt on the earth it’s still not fine…and once I’m able to…I'm going down there and helping them! And there’s nothing you can do to stop me!” She reared up on the tips of her hooves and looked deep into her father’s eyes.

“Sunny…”Ginger was standing there frozen before putting the chemicals into the shower looking a little worried.
Sunny’s father stood there and the whole room was silent except for the sounds of the water hitting the tile floor of the shower. Then her father cleared his throat and stared down at Sunny just looking up at him with the expression of a pony that wasn’t going to change her mind for anything less than a pegisai’s wing beat.

“Well First Lieutenant Winds I think that you’ve expressed your feelings on the matter and they have been duly noted” He was taking the formal tone that he’d always make when he was angry and he didn’t want to yell at anypony that he actually liked.

“Now Dad you don’t have to start talking to me like that I’m not a litt…” But she was stopped short by the gaze that he was giving her and she closed her mouth.

“That’s General Burnt Tinder to you Lieutenant and if you think I won’t be able to stop you then you would be wrong” He reached underneath one of his wings and held out an envelope with her name on it. “From here on out you shall be demoted to the rank of Second Lieutenant and formally transferred to the cloud core effective immediately!” He nodded and walked over to the door.

Sunny stood there looking at the envelope and was frozen in place.

“Wait daddy! Don’t…go” But he had already walked out of the door and her and Sunny were the only ones in the room. She sighed and looked over to sunny who was still staring at the envelope in her hooves. “You know he still loves you sunny…he just had to do what he did because of his job and him demoting you probably hurt him more than it did you, you know how excited he got when I got promoted to captain he’s doing it to protect you…and us the whole family because you already know what’s going to happen if you just decide to take a flight down onto the surface” she was slowly working the soap and chemicals into her fur and onto her feathers and into her mane and tail.

“Sunny…Sunny can you hear me? Sunny!!” Her sister’s voice was coming from somewhere breaking her out of her memory trance and Sunny was back in her barracks standing in front of the shower that had already turned cold. “Sunny…are you alright?” Her sister’s concerned voice was coming from the bathroom door behind her.

“Are you here to command me to take a shower or not waste water or something…we’re pegisai we get water from the clouds we step on I don’t think we’re going to just run out of it…” Sunny didn’t turn around or walk into the water just stood there waiting for her sister’s answer.

“No none of that…I came here because I wanted to see if you were alright? I know what I said outside was” She started to say before sunny just turned to look at her.

“No you don’t have to apologize It was your job and I was out of uniform” she stepped into the water and gasped when the cold water hit her and she was standing there shivering but she was continuing with her shower.

“Still I know what Polar Vortex did but you already know that if I put in a complaint that she’s going to get her father to find some way of discrediting it and she’ll just get off again”
Sunny didn’t say anything to her but she knew Ginger was right and nodded and shampooed her mane. “I know but I still don’t like that she can just do what she wants because of her daddy besides she could have hurt some of my squad today” She turned around and wiped some soap from one of her eyes.

“I know she did Sunny” For some reason Ginger didn’t look so good right now and seemed to be leaning against the wall for support even though she was trying to make it look like she wasn’t.

“Are you okay Gingy? You seem tired…” Sunny stuck her head into the water and squeegeed off the soap.

“Huh? Oh yes I am its…well I didn’t get enough sleep last night that’s all don’t worry about it” She smiled and pushed herself off the doorframe but her shoulders were still hunched over a little. “So what are you doing today? The western front?”

“Southern one today the clouds are starting to thin” She took the bottle of shampoo and squeezed some on her loofa and started to scrub her back and sides under her wings as well.

“Really? That’s weird…they were just recently re-fluffed and replaced like last week?” Ginger took a step back and looked at the schedule calendar lifting it with a hoof and then releasing it. “It also seems that your heat cycle starts today” She leaned into the shower room and smirked at her. “Do I see any orange pegisai in your future huh?!”

“Ginger!” Sunny turned around and even though her fur was orange you could still make out a slight blush in her face. “You already know that it makes me uncomfortable too talk about it…especially since dad told me about it…” She looked away and she shivered and it wasn’t from her cold water shower.

“Well I think you got off pretty light…from what I overheard when he was telling you mostly came from the schools medical book you should’ve heard mom tell me she actually showed me pictures of like…the disease’s that ponies back in the prewar days used to get thank the president that we have all of that new medicine right?” She walked near her stall and sunny was looking at the drain. “What? Are you alright…”

“Yeah…” she sniffled a little and looked away. “I’m alright but no there’s no new foals in my future Ginger you already know that I’m not having any” She closed her eyes so she could scrub her face with the loofa.

“Well maybe you should? Before you get all old and wrinkly and your plot gets old and wrinkly and then you find a stallion that’s all old and wrinkly and when you two bump ugliest it’s all old and wrinkly and…” But sunny threw a bar of soap at her.

“GINGER! GET OUT NOW!” She was completely red faced and soapy.

“Fine fine but remember this” She was in the door frame. “If you’re thinking of getting it on with one of your squad mates…the best place to do it is the abandoned hall on the west…”

“OUT! NOW!” She shrieked and threw another bar of soap at her sister before she disappeared around the corner and she was left alone in the cold water.

“Stupid Ginger…” She was grumbling but now with all that talk she was acutely aware of her situation and she was glad for this cold shower.
After about another 5 minutes she had washed everything else up and put on her Lieutenant uniform and got her hair down up in a bun that every mare had to do due to some regulation like…50 some years ago or something. And she was staring at herself in a mirror that she had hanging on her locker and she looked just like she always did like a lieutenant in the Grand Pegasus Enclave.

“Lieutenant...?” Tender walked back into the barracks and saluted her. “Everypony is ready to go and they are all waiting for your orders…mam” She was standing as still as she could but her wing was quivering a little bit.

“That’s good Tender have everyone form up into two flight teams and then we’ll be off as soon as I’m out” She was straightening her bun but before Tender could leave. “Oh…and Tender?”
She turned around. “Yes mam?”

“I need you to go around and let the stallions know that they are to clean the spare barracks and sleep in there for this week okay?” Grabs some sunglasses and places them onto her face.

“Oh uh…o-okay understood lieutenant” She saluted sunny again and hurried outside looking a little more pink than usual.

“I understand your uncomfortableness Tender I truly truly do” She straightened her sunglasses and then once she was done she trots out of the barracks and out into the sun.