“Ahhhh!” A hoof wiggled out of a thick set out clouds, waving back and forth in a frantic motion.
“Hahahaha!!” Two pegisai flying laughed as they raced by toward their destination.
“Tender!” Another Pegisai, this one was a light yellow, flew over to the hoof and started to pull. “Lieutenant! Help!” No matter how hard the yellow pegasus pulled, the clouds wouldn’t loosen their hold on the pink hoof.
Sunny, in the mean time, was hopping around to little holes that her squad were leaving open. “No wonder we never get the good clouds…” Sighing, she looked up and saw one of her underlings trying to pull another out of the cloud layer. “What’s going on here?” She demanded, a scowl plastered on her face underneath her visor. “Why are you messing around? We aren’t even halfway done yet!” She flew over and lifted the visor on her helmet, looking down at the yellow pony and the pink hoof, which was still wiggling around.
“We’re not messing around Lieutenant! Tender got caught between two of the clouds and she’s stuck” The yellow Pegasus was tugging at the hoof, but it still wouldn’t budge.
“H-hhelllpp!” Screamed the pony in which the wiggling hoof belonged too. Her voice, although muffled, didn’t sound all that scared.
“Lieutenant we’re done wi…”
“Then continue with another section,” she snapped, glancing up at the dark Green Pegasus who was standing with the other two in her squad. “We’re not done yet and there are still large holes in the eastern section!” Sunny waved her hoof at them, which they responded with a quick salute, and then flew off toward the remaining holes.
“Lieutenant how are we going to get her out we can’t just leave her in here?!” The yellow Pegasus was twitching her yellow ear and kept looking around like she was waiting for a bomb to go off. “She…she..!!” Her breaths came out in rushed gulps.
“Now calm down…um…yellow?” Sunny just nodded at the hoof. “Did anypony see what happened to her? Did you?” She said, poking the pink hoof, causing it to bed a little.
“My name’s Glinty Ray Lieutenant, remember?” She whispered nervously as she stood up and moved to the other side of Sunny. “I can go and get someone else to help you dig her out?!”
“No, it’s alright I can get her. Go and start filling the holes with the others…Glinty” She pulled down her visor and stared at the pink hoof in front of her, obviously irritated at not only the pink mare that got herself stuck, but at the intense heat coming from her legs. Sighing, she looked at Glinty, who was still sitting there, and only after she waved her off did she salute and fly away toward the others in the squad.
“Tender can you hear me?” Sunny asked, poking the hoof.
When there was no answer, she sighed once more. She was doing that a lot today. “Guess not” She muttered, sitting back on her haunches and looking at the hoof. “How am I going to get you out of there…I can’t dig out the clouds. You’ll just fall out and then you’ll get struck by the lightning rods. If I try to pull you out.. well that’s just not going to work.”
The clouds were thick, and the hoof was still wiggling, but only the sound of the wind could be heard, even through the little microphone that Sunny had inside her Enclave helmet. She eventually tried to pull the hoof, and the pony it belonged to out, but all it did was cause the pink mare to let out a weird moaning noise.
“Sorry! Sorry…” She stopped pulling and stared at it once more. As she stared blankly at it, she put a hoof to her com and spoke into it. “This is Second lieutenant Sunset Winds requesting permission to fly just below the cloud layer” She then pulled her hoof away to listen for a reply, but the only thing she got was some static and some burst of words.
“…..lei….nt…..nd…..” Groaning in frustration, she tapped it and even wacked it once.
“Stupid Microphone…” She tried again, holding the mic with her hoof this time. “This is Second Lieutenant Sunset winds requesting permission to fly just below the cloud layer, come in? Anypony?”
“Lieutenant Winds? Did I hear you correctly? You want to go below the cloud layer?” The voice on the other end belonged to a stallion, who sounded very surprised at her request.
“Yes, that’s right. I’m requesting to create a small hole for me to go inside and get one of my underlings. She got stuck in a thick layer of clouds, and I have to pull her out before she suffocates.”
There were some rustling noises and angry yells on the other side of the speaker, then the stallion was back. “Lieutenant Winds still there?”
“Yep I’m here…and so is my smothered Underling!” She grumbled, flicking the pink hoof and it caused her to make some more noises.
“Well…you’re wearing the appropriate armor, and I was able to clear it with my superior. You’re allowed to go beneath the cloud layer but just beneath it, and the lightning rods will be keeping an eye on you, so you better not be trying any funny business all right lieutenant!?” He sounded like he was talking from experience, then he started to yell again, and the speaker went quiet, leaving Sunny there on her cloud.
“Tender? If you can hear me I’m going to be digging a hole,” she yelled over the wind, poking her pink hoof. “And I’ll be getting you out so stay calm…” She poked her hoof again, and Tender wiggled it wildly, as if she was trying to hit her.
“Hey! No hitting! I can always leave you in there! For all I care, you can sit there all-day Tender!” Sunny sat down and crossed her legs in front of her until Tender started to make whiny noises and she tried to find Sunny. “No hitting okay.” She said as she pulled her visor down so that the glare from the sun didn’t blind her anymore and started to dig. Slowly, she pulled out little cloud chucks and piled them around her, adding to the pile that created a little fortress around her the more she dug.
When she finally had gotten through the cloud layer, she had a modest sized hole that she would be able to squeeze through with her armor on. “Almost there Tender…” Sunny was just talking to herself now, trying to calm down. She HATED tight spaces. Before she could even to get her head through the hole, her com sprang back to life.
“Lieutenant Winds? Are you still there? Have you gone through the cloud layer yet?”
The pony on the other side sounded very irritated. She sighed and sat back down, poking her com. “No, I haven’t commander, I just broke through the cloud layer and was about to head out before you contacted me!” It was obvious she was relieved that they decided to contact her at that moment.
“Well we got reports that there’s some…activity near you. It has some of the pegsai a little on edge…so you should be careful out there.”
“What kind of activity?” Her brain was coming up with a bunch of things that just kept getting worse thought by thought. Radiation surface, cloud missiles, ghosts from beyond the grave, even Zombie Dragons going around killing ponies. “Is it a danger to me or any of the ponies under me?”
“No Lieutenant Winds nothing that would hurt you it’s just…little blips on the radar and that kind of stuff. Nothing to worry about but we wanted to alert you, so just in case you see anything you don’t have to panic alright?” His voice was a little strained and there was a weird whispering noise coming from it as well, but before Sunny couldn’t say anything more, Tender flailed her hooves around and grunted.
“Fine but I need to get Tender out so Lieutenant Winds signing off.” She tapped the microphone and sighed. “Sorry Tender I’ll be right there” She stared at the hole she had made and at the haziness below with the horrible things she had imagined playing through her mind. “Here we go…” Taking a big breath, she dived in head first into the hole.
The tunnel went through the thick layer of clouds all Pegisai lived on, and by the time she got to the bottom side she had been crawling through it for about 10 minutes. Which wouldn’t make any sense in normal situations, but Sunny kept getting stuck, and she even had a panic attack, which took up about half that time. Another 2 minutes were spent staring straight down into the abyss of the empty sky leading down onto the wasteland. Besides...It was a big cloud.
“H-horsefeathers…” Sunny swore, something that she usually doesn’t do unless something bad was happening- such as staring down at your doom. She was holding onto the clouds as if her life depended on it, which it technically did. This high up, the wind was blowing some stray rouge wisps of cloud to fly by, along with the sound of distant thunderheads zapping some unfortunate ponies trying to escape…or come into the cloud layer.
She didn’t know how long she was sitting there until her wings were started to twitch with the anticipation as well as the sound of grunts coming from Tender, who wasn’t too happy about being forgotten. “Sorry! Sorry! It’s alright Tender I’m right here…don’t worry I’m coming…”
She looked down into the valley one more time, and closed her eyes and slowly- really, really slowly- crawled out of the hole and even more slowly hooked onto the bottom of the cloud with specialized clamps that came out of the bottom of the armor, so she wouldn’t have to flap her wings to keep ahold of the cloud. A little bar appeared on the HUD of her visor, showing the power in each of her little hoof clamps and they all seemed to be working at 100%.
“Here we go Tender. Once I start to dig around you, try and wiggle as slow as you can. Don’t fall out of the cloud and I’ll hold onto you until the blood comes back to your wings, ” Sunny said, poking at the mane sticking out of the cloud, and Tender made a noise that could have been a what, but sunny took it as a yes, and started going to work on the clouds that engulfed Tender. She pulled out small chunks and medium chunks like she was trying to build another hole into the other side of the cloud when some little droplets of water hit Sunny’s visor obscuring her vision.
“Tender you don’t have to cry I’m not leaving! I’m getting the clouds out, so you can stop crying now!” Sunny rubbed the water away with the cloth of her uniform and continued to pull out chunks of cloud as more droplets started to come down and hit her visor, running off the surface as they came to take their place. Sunny looked up only to see that Tender’s head was still inside the cloud, so she couldn’t have been crying enough to get the water on Sunny. She looked up and then around trying to figure out where the water was coming from. Then because of her expertly trained pegisai senses, she felt the cloud she was standing on contract ever so slightly. It was just enough to pull her hooves into it by half an inch, but from that it was clear what was going to happen.
“Tender I don’t want to alarm you, but you have to try and get out as fast as you can alright…I need you to try while I’m still working” Sunny was starting to pull out more chunks even large pieces while Tender was starting to wiggle. That’s when there was a loud roaring that was getting increasingly louder making Sunny work even harder at pulling cloud chunks.
“Lieutenant!” Tender was able to get a hoof out just when there was a crack of thunder and the cloud opened and a torrent of water came out immediately shorting out the electronics on Sunny’s advanced armor basically locking her up and opening the clamps that were holding her to the cloud and she dropped like a stone. “LIEUTENANT!” She reached out for her, but she was still stuck in the cloud and Sunny was too far gone.
The only sounds that Sunny could hear within the suit were her breathing which was surprisingly slow and steady and the sound of the water droplets hitting her visor. ‘I’m falling right now…and I’m not scared…’ she was falling back first, and she couldn’t feel any of it even the air outside rushing by her ears was being muffled by the helmet on her head. ‘I always thought that I’d die an old mare in a home…not splattered on the wasteland like a bug…’.
There was a crackling noise and then a screech from an intercom coming from her neck. “LEIUTENANT WINDS! LEIUTENANT WINDS!” It was the voice of the pony from before who gave her clearance to save Tender.
“Yes…”
“Oh…you’re not? Are you okay…are…”? His voice muffled near the end like he was holding the microphone in his hoof.
“Of course I am…I got Tender Rose out of the cloud layer but someone started the rain and I was still underneath so…I’m falling right now” The wind under the cloud layer was starting to move her around and it turned her around so she could see the ground coming up and even though she was all Zen about it the fact that she was coming straight toward the ground managed to elicit a gasp from her mouth.
“Somewa- you’re falling! Have you started emergency procedures? Are you wings opened…”? He sounded like he was scrambling along for some papers or something of that nature.
“Yes I am no I haven’t and I can’t move the whole suit is fried…someone forgot to make sure the seals were watertight so I’m locked in and it’s okay…I can finally see the wasteland up close and personal” She was still high up to see anything but the top of large buildings that were able to poke up through the haze of the heavy rain falling.
“But you can’t…it’s…” He sounded like he was the one that was falling because he couldn’t seem to find the air to talk. “Do…do you have anything you want to say to your sister and your father…”
She was quiet for a while as she fell through the haze. “Tell my father that I’m sorry for being a disappointment and then my sister…just tell her that I love her, and I’ll say hi to mom for her” Before she said more there was a tiny ping from her back leg. “huh?”
“Lieutenant what was that?”
“It was nothing? Just probably a rock or a stray hailstone somepony dropped from up top no biggy” That’s when another ping happened to the side of her head and it was loud enough to make her ears ring.
“That didn’t sound like nothing lieutenant can you see through the visor? Are there hostiles in the area?” The radio pony was speaking fast like he was trying to see through her helmet.
“Like I already told you…my suit isn’t functional my Eyes forward sparkle doesn’t work, and I can’t turn my head so even if there were hospitals around I couldn’t tell!” Sunny just yelled at him and she could feel some of the raindrops find their way into her air tight helmet wetting the area around her eyes.
“Sunset…”
“No don’t Sunset me! I’m going to die, and I want to do it without anyone listening shut off the com!”
“Lieutenant I can’t do that it’s…
“I SAID SHUT IT OFF NOW GODDAM IT!!” She was sobbing now that she was close enough to the ground to see it. It was as drab and dead as she saw in her dream the night before. There was another clunk and this time it hit her right below her wing joint which was on her belly and force almost knocked the wind out of her.
“That…wasn’t a rock…” She tried to look out of her visor, but she could only see brown and tiny little metal buildings and just destruction of the large buildings standing around the area.
Some more thunks resonated through her suit causing her to spin in the air and she was able to see more. And what she saw surprised her. “They’re…they’re shooting at me!!” There were small colorful dots on the ground. Some were moving around franticly others were standing there and others were starting to glint then the thunks would happen. “I’m falling to my death and they’re shooting at me!”
Giggles were coming out as more and more shots were taken at her hitting her helmet her tail stinger and a bunch underneath her undercarriage and as she got closer she could take a closer look that them and they were covered in a bunch of make shift armor made out of leather or what looked like giant bug pieces or stop signs or sheet metal and some out of just cloth and they were all either Earth pony or Unicorns and they kept shooting at her but there was one Unicorn that wasn’t shooting at her or running around or even talking to the others.
It was one of the ponies that was only wearing cloth and from this height she couldn’t tell if it was a mare or a stallion, but she could tell it was a unicorn because she could clearly see their magic field holding up what looked to be a high-powered rifle. And it was pointed right at her. “oh…guess I’ll be dead before I hit the ground that’s a small mercy I guess but whoever that is will have to get it just right to pierce my head” She just kept falling looking right at the one pony who was not randomly shooting at her.
They lifted the barrel of the rifle and it was almost like she was falling right at it since it was getting larger and larger as she fell she felt it. There was a large tugging feeling in her stomach area as the bullet…completely missed her head.
“This is Airpony Tender Rose reporting that I have caught the lieutenant and we are hightailing it back up to the cloud layer repeat I have caught the Lieutenant and we are flying back up” Tender was slowing rising above the ground carrying Sunny’s limp body somehow. “Lieutenant…hey lieutenant are you alive…” Tender wiggled her a little and knocked on the side of her helmet.
Sunny just stared down at the pony who had only shot at her once. He or she Sunny couldn’t tell with how high up she was but she did see that they were aiming back up at the both trying to line up the shot again.
“Lieutenant hey!” Tender knocked a little harder on Sunny’s helmet but all she was focused on was the barrel of the large rifle that was pointed up at the two of them. But before they could take their shot Tender shot through the first layer of fog that had formed during the untimely rainstorm.
“LIEUTENANT CAN YOU HEAR ME!” Tender was yelling directly into her armored ear.
Sunny just grunted and tried to wiggle around inside her broken suit but there was some liquid leaking into her suit, so she wiggled some more trying to get the feeling of the water getting into her suit off of her. But the more she moved the more the liquid came into her suit and the movement was starting to make her lightheaded. “uugghh…”
“Lieutenant?” Tender slowed her ascent toward the clouds and moved her around. “Lieutenant are you okay…you’re moving a lot and I can’t hear you here let me get…ung…got it!” Tender got her hoof down and was able to push the manual helmet clip around her neck down so that the visor popped open and the color drained from her pink face. “Lieutenant!”
Sunny was squinting cause the sunlight hitting off the fog and clouds was really bright, but the liquid was still running down the inside of her suit even though it wasn’t raining.
“Oh…my…Lieutenant hey can you understand me?” Tender was starting to hyperventilate, and she lost a little bit of altitude as soon as she saw her lieutenants face.
“Stop…stop” Sunny was trying to block the sun from going into her sensitive eyes but for some reason her arm wouldn’t lift when she told it to and Tender’s up and down wing movements were starting to make her feel sick to her stomach.
“Lieutenant! What are you saying talk to me…”?
“Tender I need you to keep flying” Sunny was still trying to lift her hoof but it was still just hanging there, and the liquid was starting to make her bottem hooves freezing cold and she was starting to shiver “Tender…please…” She leaned her head against Tender’s neck while Tender gasped and started to hyperventilate again.
“Okay never mind just hold on tightly if you can” And then up Tender went straight up through the cloud layer and the mist and all of the rain hugging a hoof around her to keep her from sliding out as Sunny decided to take a little nap.
‘I’m so sleepy…I guess it’s from falling for so long or maybe I’m sick I am freezing cold maybe I got a fever…” Her vision was starting to darken and then she heard words or maybe they were just thunder from the thunderheads above them ready to strike them down from the sky thinking they were enemies.
“STOP! STOP IT’S AIRPONY TENDER ROSE! I WENT DOWN TO SAVE FIRST LEIUTENANT SUNSET WINDS FROM HITTING THE GROUND” Tender screamed through the microphone in her helmet as the lightning was starting to build in the large clouds.
There was nothing but static on the other end of her speaker even when she clicked It on and off again.
“HELLO! ANYONE! PLEASE!!” She kept flying higher and higher not caring when the little static electricity sparks were running down the black material of her power armor.
“THIS IS AIRPONY TENDER ROSE! I’M CALLING TO ANYONE WHOS THERE I HAVE FIRST LEIUTENANT SUNSET WINDS WITH ME AND SHES IN CRITICAL CONDITION SHES COVERED IN BLOOD AND I THINK – “Tender’s voice cracked a little and her wings were starting to strain with the vertical ascent along with the weight of carrying sunny and the threat of being baked alive. “PLLEASEEE…SOMEONE ANNYONNE…anyon---!!” She kept going but the sounds of Tender’s screams and the sounds of her mechanical wings straining to carry 2 ponies upward into the clouds slowly faded away into silence. As Sunny was pulled deep into the coldness of her dreams and the glinting light of the large scope she had been falling toward in her mind.