> Fallout Equestria: When Time met the Sun.
>  by orgo-member-XV
> --------------------------------------------------------------------------

> Sunset Winds
> --------------------------------------------------------------------------

	“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.


> Time Weaver
> --------------------------------------------------------------------------

    “Hey! Sweetie come over here a minute I want to talk to you,” said the voice of a stallion who seemed to have way too much to drink waved a hoof and smiled.
A dark grey mare with her black mane tied up in a ponytail - levitating a tray and walking among the tables picking up empty glasses and smiling at all of the rough looking caravanners who always happened to show up in these place-looked up and smiled at him. “Yes?” She said trotting over to the table, “Do you need anything else?” She looked between the three of them, and one of them was already passed out, but the other two seemed to be having a drinking contest. 
The hairs on the back of her neck stood on end and she tensed a little when a hoof contacted with her left flank where her cutie mark was, which was hidden by the uniform that she had unluckily had chosen for her since she was the newest girl that Cinnamon employed. “You have some pretty strong legs for a callmare sweetie?” He said smiling, his hoof  still swirling around the edge of her uniform.
“Well…um…I’m not a callmare…exactly I’m just a server sir,”she said as she tried to ignore the hoof, like it wasn’t there, and holding  out the platter she asked, “Do you want me to bring you anything?” She was trying to keep her magic steady and the platter as well but the glasses were slightly vibrating, which the stallion seemed to enjoy.
“What’s wrong? Is this exciting you…” he said as he chuckled and rubbed a little harder while trying to get it closer to her tail.
“Pork…stop it…look at her you’re scaring her” The second stallion put his hoof out and pushed Pork’s dark orange hoof away. “You can go now, Pork and I will be heading out soon” He smiled and waved a little.
“What! No!” Pork reached out and grabbed the grey mare’s tail in his mouth and pulled, causing her to drop the tray on him and cover him with a bunch of unfinished liquor, beer and water.
The grey mare gasped and was apologizing,  when a familiar metal tube was pressed against the top of her head.
“GET UP! RIGHT NOW!” Pork sounded so angry that the mare could understand what he said even though his mouth was around the handle of a gun that was pressed against the top of her head.
“Pork! Stop it! Do you want to get us kicked out of here just like every other brothel in this stupid town!” 
“No! No, Drop,I’m not having this slut of a pony drop all of this stuff and not get me anything in return! So stand up!” Pork said as he pushed the gun against the grey mare’s head again, and she slowly started to stand. “Now I want you to come with me and help me clean all of this up and then we can spend the night together!” He smiled and still held the gun out, but before he could do anything else, a glass of Wild Pegasus was smashed on his head, causing him to fall in a heap but not before closing his mouth- due to the glass- and shot off a shot hitting the wall right behind the mare, who had curled up into a ball.
“Miss Weaver are you alright…are these ponies bothering you?” A large dark brown unicorn wearing a thick armored coat was peering down at her, but the mare just stayed on the ground and kept whimpering. Frowning, the unicorn looked up at the second Stallion that had tried to get Pork away from the mare, and he was getting closer to the mare trying to help, but the unicorn stopped him. “Step away from Miss weaver or you’ll suffer worse then your friend right here!”  He said, picking up another half empty glass and levitated it near him. The other stallion just backed off trying to wake up the third stallion who hadn’t stirred the whole time.
“Come on miss Weaver we should go see the boss…he’ll want me to bring you to him” He slowly scooped up miss Weaver and carefully put her on his back and walked through the bar. All of the ponies that had stopped what they had been doing to watch, but as he walked by they went back to what they were doing.
He opened a wooden door that was set behind the bar and walked through it, leading into a long hallway that looked like somepony had tried to clean it up to the best of their ability, but it still looked dirty. Soon, he was passing by the two bathrooms and one…sounded like it was getting used very well at the moment, but even so they kept walking toward a door at the very end of the hall that had a large sign that read BOSS.
The unicorn knocked with a brown hoof. “Sir…we have a problem”
There was a commotion from the other side of the door and then some hoof steps. “Why are you here? You know that I don’t like anypony just knock on the door” The pony on the other side sounded tired.
“You told me to bring any of the girls to you as soon as possible if anything bad happened to them and one of them…Miss Weaver was threatened at gunpoint and she’s a whimpering mess right now…” He turned his head and Weaver was sniffling now.
“OH! Oh why didn’t you say so! Come bring her in here right now!” The unicorn heard a bunch of locks being turned and keypads pressed and then the door swung open and a tiny earth pony with a messed up mane and an eye patch over one of his eyes was looking at Miss Weaver. “Come on put her on the couch and then you can leave Brick” He scurried over to an old freying couch and he swept off a bunch of old papers onto the floor.
When the unicorn put Miss weaver on the couch she just turned away and curled up trying to hide inside it’s cushions.
“You can go now Brick if you’re not out there then more of my girls are going to get hurt!” The boss pony  waved a hoof toward the door and kept doing it till the brown unicorn walked out. Then he just closed all of his locks down again. “Time…Time Weaver hey…” He walked over and patted the Grey mare.
She just curled up some more and a sob finally came out of her mouth.
“There we go…let it out. What happened? Can you talk to me about it?” He asked as he  sat on the couch and turned his patting into small little swirls on her coat. “Want to take off the uniform? I won't send you back out today…it’s okay come on talk to me” He leaned in to try and get a look at her face.
She sat up a little and looked up through her tears. “I…I almost…died…” She whimpered a little and looked at him hoping he’d make her feel better. 
He smiled sadly and looked back at her. “I know…and I am sorry about that but you knew that this job would be dangerous  when you took it. Now don’t get me wrong,  you’ve heard about Sticky Slick’s operation at the end of the street right?” He continued when she nodded. “Well somepony went in and killed two of his girls when they wouldn’t do what he wanted them to do, so you’re safer here then anywhere else and you’re safestr with me.” He rubbed her cheek and she giggled a little.
“I’m glad you let me stay boss..though some of the other girls…they don’t like how you hired me right off the bat when I just walked in that day” She looked between two of her grey hooves, a little embarrassed. 
“Well what do they know? I knew a good girl when I saw one and you are one!  You’re nice to the customers, you don’t get all mouthy when they touch you,  though we’re probably going to have to work on that. Especially since you’re a unicorn and most Stallions love magical…favors from the other places that they go to.” He smiled at her but he was looking somewhere else other than her face.
“Well some of the girls have been…” She shook her head and her mane came a little loose from her ponytail and fell across her face. “I shouldn’t say…they wouldn’t like it”
“No come on tell me what are they doing!” His voice and expression hardened a little. “Are they hurting you Time? Cause if they are then I’ll tell them to stop!” He said,  scooting a little closer to her.
“What! Oh nononono” She waved her hooves around. “They’ve been doing some of that stuff on the side and they’ve been talking about leaving you and going to somepony else” She looked like she had done something bad and she was starting to sulk.
“Don’t be like that Time, you didn’t do anything! Do you know who’s been talking about it? About who’s going…” He didn’t seem worried about it and he had gotten a little bit closer to the point where he could smell her. But she didn’t seem to notice that he had been getting closer. “I don’t want to say…they’re not going to want to talk to me if they know I told you what they want to do” she said,  starting  to sniffle again and tears were rolling down her face.
He was close enough to put a hoof on hers and she looked up and he was smiling at her. “You’re really beautiful Time but when you cry it hurts me that you’re so sad..” He was frowning now and the hoof he had touched her hoof with brushed away the tears. 
Her eyes went wide and she tried to wiggle back but she was already  up against the couches arm and she couldn’t retreat any further back. “S-sir…boss what are you doing?” She sounded a little worried and the thoughts of the other mare’s not talking to her were forgotten for the moment. 
“Time you already know that you’re a mare not like any of the others right?” His hoof met hers and he rubbed it a little, but she pulled it away. “You’re also one of my favorite girls here.” With a smile, he moved his hoof from her hoof to her side and rubbed it across the uniform that she hadn’t taken off. “I am also glad that the girls decided to take my advice and left you the maid uniform for today’s shift. It’s always been my favorite”
She jumped off of the couch, her eyes wide. “You told them to give it to me…but we drew straws!” She sounded confused. “They also told me that the maid uniform is the one they liked the best and they all looked jealous when I got it…why did you tell them to give it to me!”
He sat there on the couch, looking a little sad that she had jumped away from him. “Because I always choose one of my girls to wear it every two weeks or so, but when I saw you…I knew that you’d be the one to wear it. Even if you’ve only been mine for 2 days” His smile turned from a warm loving one to one that almost mirrored the stallion that almost shot her back in the front of the bar.
“Y-yours…” She stepped back, almost tripping over a metal coffee table that was in front of the couch and in doing so, she pushed over more papers. “I’m not yours! I don’t belong to you! I work for you!” 
He laughed at her, and she stopped moving backwards, hoping that this was all a joke and that she could go back to her little room next door and take a nap. “You do belong to me! You belong to me because without me you’d have been picked off by some nasty in the wasteland or like some of the more unlucky girls taken by slavers and sold to ponies like Sticky Slick and then get killed. You don’t want to get sold do you?” He had gotten off the couch and had walked around the coffee table to the other side so not to scare off Time. 
She was sitting against the wall far away from him and she shook her head. “N-no…I don’t…” She looked around the room hoping to see something that she could use to defend herself if he decided to attack her, but all she saw were the same things that she saw when she was here the first time.
“Do you know why that outfit is my favorite Time?” He asked, a little oddly as he walked over to a shelf that had some stuff on it that looked a little to complicated for Time to understand.
She was still trying to find something to protect herself with so she didn’t hear that she was being asked a question.
“Time Weaver? Are you listening?” She gasped and turned to look at him like he had snuck up behind her and poked her and she nodded. “Good now I’ll ask again do you know why your outfit is my favorite?” She shook her head and looked down at It. “Well don’t worry none of the other girls knew about it either so you’re not alone in your ignorance” He turned around and he had a little box in his hoof.
It was a small black cube that only had a red dial on the top of it. He carried it as carefully as possible back to the table and placed it in front of him then he sat in front of it. She was looking at the box and for some reason she had a weird pressure near her horn like when she had been using too much magic and it would overload or right before it was about to overload but she didn’t know what was wrong with it it’s probably just from her emotions of what’s going on right now. 
“Turns out that your little number was made before the war do you know how wonderful that is!” He clopped his hooves together like he was applauding its ability to survive a Magical apocalypse and not get destroyed in the 200 plus years after that. “It’s an ancient bondage outfit!!” He seemed overly giddy but Time just sat there looking confused and looking at her maid outfit.
“Bondage? What do you mean…is there something wrong about it?” She didn’t know what he was talking about and she didn’t matter unless it meant that it was dangerous for her to wear it and she wanted to get it off as soon as equinely possibly.
His smile came back just like the stallion from the front and he grabbed the little box in his hooves. “Well then let me have the pleasure of showing you just what that means” He chuckled and then he turned the dial to the left a little and looked up at time. 
Time flinched when he turned the dial on the cube but once nothing happened she opened them again and looked at him. “I-is…is it going to do something…” She had worry in her voice hoping that it wasn’t broken and she’d just implode from ancient magic clothes. 
“Yes just be patient Time oh look there it goes!” 
She looked down but she didn’t have to look to know that something was happening because she wasn’t sitting down anymore the outfit had made her stand back up all on its on. “What’s it doing!” she was starting to panic now and was trying to set her haunches back onto the ground but the outfit’s skirt wouldn’t let them go down.
“It’s keeping you from moving…that’s the first setting there are 4 more!” He placed the cube back onto the table and slowly walked his way over to her and smiled when he saw her wiggle her head trying to get her body to move against the outfit. “Now you won’t move away when I’m near you” He got close enough and he reached out for her face even though she tried to move it away and rubbed her cheek. “Everyone of you always tries to fight me…and I don’t like it I take you in I treat you nicer than everypony else I give you anything that you need or want but you still run from my advances”
She still kept trying to move herself she even tried to use her magic but the pressure near her horn made it hurt to much to do anything.  
“But the good news is that by the 3rd setting you’re all begging for me to do it to you again…but you know what I found out” He pushed her away from the wall so that he could walk around her. “I like it a lot when you girls fight it, it makes me more excited when I finally get to what I want” he slid his hoof across her side along the skirt and lacy blouse that was attached to it. 
“What do you want!” She cried it out to him and tried to move away from his hoof starting to hyperventilate at how helpless she was just standing there and all he was doing was rubbing his hoof along her side.
“I want you Time…I want you to want me but most of all I just want me in you that’s all I want” He stopped in front of her. “I want you to let me inside you Time Weaver!” He turned away and went back to the couch and the little black cube.
Time didn’t say anything and she even stopped moving and just looked at the floor then everything started to come back to her the real reason she came here in the first place and why she had stayed here for two days. She was pretending to be Time Weaver the grey Unicorn Mare that was stuck in a bondage uniform she wore to work.
“Setting 2 is probably my favorite it lets me give little commands to the outfit and it moves your legs for you it’s not too strong mostly because this isn’t made for body control but it has it’s uses until we get to number 3 and then you submit and then you can have fun as well” He turned the dial to setting two and looked up at time. “Come here Time I want you to sit next to me again” He put the cube down and patted the couch next to him.
Time slowly walked back over to the couch and still didn’t look at him. She sat down where she was before she jumped off the couch and still didn’t look at him but she wasn’t struggling against the forced movement.
“Hm? You’re taking this easier than the other girls Time, is it sinking in that you aren’t able to fight against it and it’ll be easier just for you to listen to me?” He sat up against her so that he was touching her.
Time lifted a hoof and rubbed it against his face. “Come here you…”  she looked up and was smiling at him. “You didn’t have to do this…you could have just asked me” Leans in so that her face was right next to his and she nuzzled his neck.
He gasped and put one of his hooves on her sides and tried to get closer to her. “But…all you girls say no…you always say no…” He sounded so sad and he turned his touching into a vulnerable hug.
Time hugged him back and patted him. “It’s alright I would have said no too” With him in her hug she looked up at the cube that was sitting on the table and with her magic she turned the dial back down to off and floated it behind the couch.
He sat up and looked dismayed. “Y-you would! But…” He seemed so hurt but then he saw her face and the sadness turned to confusion. “Time?”  He frowns. “Can you give me another hug…”He held his hooves out and time came in and gave him another hug and squeezed him. He leaned up to kiss time but she leaned back and they both fell off the couch. 
“Boss? Why are you trying to kiss me? I just told you that I don’t want you” Time held her hooves against his chest and because she was taller than him his hooves were flailing toward her.
“Time I want you to put me down and kiss me back!” He stopped moving waiting for her to put him down and kiss him. She lowered her hooves and puckered her lips but before he was able to lean down to get at them her puckered lips turned into a smile .
“Psyche!” She pumped her hooves and sent him flying into the wall and he just fell in a heap on the floor. She stood up and walked behind the couch and lifted up the box with her magic and she trotted over to the boss pony.
He was coughing and trying to stand up but all he did was look up at her. “Time Weaver…why!” He started  coughing and tried to sit up but his legs wouldn’t hold his weight. She walked up and sat down in front of him patting him with her hoof just like he did when she was brought in to his office.  He winched in pain and she just pressed her hoof against his side and heard some crackling.
“I guess I broke something huh? Well I’m sorry but you were coming onto me pretty strong” He cried out when she pressed against him to stand up.
“Wh-where did…Time Weaver…go” He was gasping for air and it sounded raspy. 
“I’m right here silly!” giggles and pats him making him wince. “Oh sorry but I’m her but not her do you get it?” She was purposely prodding at his broken ribs knowing full well that they were broken. 
He nodded and tried to crawl away from her but he couldn’t move without getting hurt. 
“Alright now…” Floats the cube near his face. “I came for this and only this so I’ll leave you here with your broken rib and anything else that broke when I threw you into the wall” She gets up and turns away from him. 
“Wait! Please! Time…” He wraps his hoof around her hind leg to keep her from walking away. “Don’t…” He was wheezing now. “I'm…sorry…that I…tried…to…take…you…”He was having a hard time talking now. “Please…don’t…hurt…anypony…out there…” He was holding onto time’s hoof even more trying to convey his message. “If…you’re…angry…” But time kicked his hoof away and turned around just to look down at him. 
“I’m not angry” Keeps looking down at him like she was thinking about something. “And I’m not going to hurt anypony like I said I just came for this cube” She shook the cube in his face and it softened.     “I’m sorry that I had to deceive you and then hurt you…” For some reason a thought of her staying and taking care of him till he felt better ran through her mind and she just stamped a hoof to clear it out. “But you deserved it for what you wanted to do to me!” And she turned away again and walked over to the door with the too many locks. She turned her head to look back at the pony who had taken her in and gave her food and a place to stay and helped her feel safe when some of the ponies had tried to attack her on her first day there. “NO!” She hit her head against the door. “That wasn’t me…stop it…” She focused on the locks and used her magic to unlock them.
“Time Weaver…”
“My name’s not Time Weaver!!” Turns and glares back at him.
“Fine…” He had managed to sit up against the wall and he was holding his side with a hoof but he was still wheezing. “For…whatever…reason…you’re doing…this…if…you…ever…need…a…place” He started to cough and sat there wheezing. “…you…can…come…back?” He looked up and smiled at her and time stood there frozen looking at him then she yelled and kicked at the door open after she had unlocked it and then just stormed right out of his office.
“Bye…Time Weaver…”
She managed to get to her room without bringing any unwanted attention to herself and then she was raging inside magically throwing the stuff that the other girls had given her around the room and throwing the chair against the wall and pulling the covers off the bed and then just spinning them around hitting the walls and the ceiling and the floor. “ARRRGGHHH!!!” She managed to break a leg off of the chair and start whacking a pillow until the feathers started to come out.
She stood among the mess of her room with feathers floating about and landing on everything breathing hard then she picked up her hoof and stared at the dark blue scar among the grey fur on her hoof. “This is all your fault!” she glared at it like she’s been doing every time a job went bad or her thoughts were turning against her and made her want to help the ponies she had just hurt. “Always your fault! Always! Whenever I’m about to leave you…you always make it so hard!!” She slammed her hoof against the wall but it hurt her and she yelled. “OW!”
“Ms. Weaver?” The Brown Stallion opened her door and looked surprised when he saw all of the damage around her room. “Are you okay! Is there somepony in here” He magically pulled out a baseball bat from behind him and held it out.
“What? No! No…I…I did this…” She looked around almost like she was seeing it for the first time. “I’m…sorry I was…” She sighed and sat on the bed and looked back up at him frowning. “You don’t have to call me Miss Weaver anymore…that’s not who I am.”
“I know you’re not” He walked in and closed the door but he still had the baseball bat out.
“What!” She looked up and leaned back. 
He walked up and pointed the baseball bat at her. “I recognized you from before…”  He nodded. “Back when I was working as a mercenary I was hired by a pony named Corn Chip” But time just kept looking at the baseball bat. 
“That…doesn’t ring any bells” She shook her head. 
“Well to many of the mares that he fancied he would use the name Big john” He chucked when her eyes got big and then she sighed. 
“Oh him…I well…I wasn’t the one who you know cut it off…you know I was just…” She was starting to panic now that she remembered who he was talking about.
“Calm down I’m not here for that he got what he deserved he never paid me what he agreed to which is why I came here to work for the Boss” Then his smile faded and he was glaring now. “Who you just came back from hurting and you just left him there!” He swung with the bat and Time jumped back avoiding it and cowered in the corner.
“I’m sorry! I…he was going to rape me!” She yelled it back at I'm and held her hoof up trying to protect herself.
“Don’t start that! You’d say anything to get yourself out of here he treats his girls way nicer than any of the other stallions around here” He tried to hit Time again but she ducked down and curled her head down. 
“STOP! PLEASE!” She was shaking a little. “C-corky…p-please!” Time looked up at him and he faltered a little just enough for Time to jump at him taking the bat away from him and crashing into him throwing them both to the floor. 
Corky kicked out with his hoof connecting to one of Time’s eyes and she lay there dazed from the force of the kick. “Now you’re coming with me Time Weaver if that’s your real name and you’re going to get what’s coming to you for hurting the boss!”He magically put his baseball bat away and grabbed the edge of her blouse near her neck and slowly pulled her back into the hallway with his magic. 
Time was groaning from the kick to her eye but when she noticed that she was moving away from her room she started to struggling and try and get the outfit off of her.
“Stop moving or I’ll tie you up and bring them to you!” Bangs her head against the wall of the hallway and she stopped moving but right before they got to the end of the hallway she managed to twist around and bit down on his hoof causing his magic to dispel and him stop walking to get Time off. “GET OFF OF ME!” He was about to hit time in the head with his hoof but she rolled away and turned to run off but before he could react and stop turning around to stomp her she reared back and bucked him with her rear hooves when he leaned down to stomp her. With that he fell on the ground with a loud thud knocked out.
Time was breathing heavy and sweating a little from all of this physical activity she was doing that she wasn’t used to she was just a waitress not a fighter. “Wait…no I’m not a waitress!” She headbutted the wall again but winced when her eye started hurting again she turned around and looked at the brown stallion that had saved her life. “I’m sorry Corky…I had to…you need to forgive me…” She patted his shoulder and he moaned and rolled over onto his belly.
“…and you know that I didn’t want to do it but he didn’t give me any choice” the voice of one of the other girls was coming from the other side of the door.
“Can’t let them see me!” She turned and trotted back to her room right before the door opened and she heard the gasps of the two other girls when they saw corky on the ground asleep. “Man…I didn’t think it would be so hard to get out of here…” She sighed and looked over to the mirror that had miraculously not shattered when she was having her tantrum and the mare that was looking back at her had a black eye already forming. “ow…” She was prodding it a little and it was tender already.
“TIME! DID YOU SEE WHAT HAPPENED TO CORKY HE’S ON THE…woah did you finally let some stallion rut you into a hole?” A light blue earth pony with a dark blue mane was looking around the room at all of the damage. 
“What?! No! I just…what were  you talking about Corky?” Time had spun around and just clopped her hooves together nervously.
“Oh…IT’S JUST TERRIBLE SOMEONE HAS KNOCKED HIM OUT! AND NOW SPARKLE IS FREAKING OUT!!” She was screaming again even though she wasn’t freaking out anymore
“Shiny…stop screaming please! It’s hurting my head…” Time covered her ears.
“What do you mean…”She gasped and somehow closed the distance between them faster than time could blink her eyes. “Somepony hurt you too! Who was it what did they want!” She gasped again and pushed time onto the bed. “The boss!” then she just ran out of Time’s room and closed her door.
Time was laying on her back on the bed just staring at the ceiling. “That is one pony that I’m not going to regret leaving!” Time rolled over back onto her hooves and went back down to the door. She opened the door and stuck her head out and looked left and right in the hallway but all she saw was the body of Corky on the ground still on his back and then the voices of Shiny and Sparkle in the boss’s room and shiny just screaming.
Time slowly walked out levitating her cube behind her and quickly walking out to behind the bar and into the front of the building where things were dieing down.    
“That explains Shiny and Sparkle…” She looked around the corner not seeing anypony looking her way and she casually walked or as causally one can when wearing a tight fitting maid’s outfit and magically levitating a magic cube behind her. Some of the patrons were hooting and trying to call her over when she walked by them and she was biting her bottom lip whenever she felt hooves or even magic getting underneath her skirt. And one of them even had the balls to actually try and stop her walking and try and kiss her. 
“Come here sweetums I haven’t had you yet, want to take out an experienced stallion for a ride tonight hm?” He leaned in with his eyes closed like he was expecting Time to just lean into him and take him to the back. But all she did was step away and watch him lean a little too far and because he was inebriated he ended up falling fast first into the floor where his friends just laughed at him and Time kept on walking straight out of the bar into the cloudy day beyond.

> Tender Rose
> --------------------------------------------------------------------------

“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.
> Ginger Drops
> --------------------------------------------------------------------------

“AHHH!!” Sunny shot up and immediately went back down just when her vision doubled and her head was swimming. “Gruhh…” She closed her eyes as she rode the waves her head was going on while she tried to recover from the dizziness. 

“OH MY GOSH LIEUTENANT!” A hoof grabbed Sunny’s and tightly held it.

Sunny opened her eyes and a spiraling vision of Tender who had tears coming down her face was in front of her holding her hoof. “T-tender?” 

“Yes! Yes you’re awake! Are you okay? Are you feeling better? Can you see me? How many hooves am I holding up!?” Tender lifted both of her forehooves in front of her face. 

“Now Ms. Rose, you need to calm down, she just woke up” A mare’s voice light and smooth was coming from the doorway which just opened.

“I’m sorry doctor…” Tender sat down on the chair in front of Sunny’s bed and looked a little exhausted.  “It’s just…she’s been out a while and I wanted to make sure she was okay”.

“No need to be sorry dear it’s just she’s probably very confused and just waking up after what she’s gone through has got to be very confusing” The doctor moved her glasses up her nose with her magic and looked at Sunny. “Sunset…Sunset can you hear me?”

Sunny looked confused and she tried to turn her neck but a sharp pain went down her spine and a shrill shriek came out of her mouth.

“Sunset stop no '', the doctor placed a hoof on the top of Sunny's head and pushed it to the right a little and the sharp pain dulled down to a slight ache. “You can’t turn your head right now…not till we get the bandage on it”

“Wh-what…happened…” Sunny was breathing heavily trying to overcome the sudden intense pain that was slowly dying down now. 

The doctor walked over to the front of the bed so that Sunny could see her.

She was a middle aged unicorn, her red-orange mane was starting to lose its sheen and there were white and gray streaks here or there. Her auburn coat was nice and dark but it was also starting to get a little faded and there were slight laugh lines and crow’s feet on it showing her age. But the most unique thing about her was that she was a unicorn…in a hospital for pegisai…In the clouds.

“D-doctor…how?” Sunny tried to move to look at her feet but she felt the pain coming back so she froze and sat back on the bed.

“How?” She asked, tilting her head to the side and blinking a few times. “Ohhh! Oh you mean how am I standing here right?” She hopped in place a few times, her mane bouncing along with her. “It’s a spell my dear Sunset all the unicorns in the Enclave have to know it otherwise it’s a very far drop to the next solid place to set hoof on” Her horn lit up a light dark orange color almost brown and levitated her chart.  But before she was able to say anything there was a loud crash somewhere else in the hospital.

“SUNNNYY!!!” A familiar mare’s vice echoed across the halls In the hospital and sunny pulled her ear’s back and sack deeper into the bed. “SUNNNYYY WHERE AARREEE YOOOUUU WHHEERREEE AARREEE TTHHEEYYY KEEPING YOOOUUUU!” The same mare’s screams were getting closer to the room that sunny was in.

There were some familiar power armor sounds coming from right outside the hospital room door.

“OUT OF MY WAYYY!!!” screamed a mare right outside of the door.

“Mam please slow down no one is allowed inside” A stallion’s voice was heard from outside the door.	

“Only the two witnesses are allowed into the room and the doctor herself so please wait in the waiting room with the others while…” but the second stallion didn’t get to finish his sentence cause whoever was running at them down the hall crashed right into him slamming him into the cloud wall causing him to fall right through it and out of the hospital. 

“No one and I mean no one tells me when I can and cannot see my baby sister in the hospital!”

“But... mis-'' Her words were cut off when there was a loud smack and a crack of plastic on plastic as the mysterious mare on the other side hoofed him right in the face.

“I’m not miss, I’m Captain Ginger Drops and I’m here to see my baby sister so get out of my way!” When she finished the door opened to the hospital room and Ginger Drop walked in looking a bit miffed with her visor open showing the determined look In her green eyes which softened a bit switching to a look of big sister worryness. “Sunny! Oh my…” She ran over and poked her around. “What…what!!”

“I was just about to explain that Captain when you started to scream and yell your way to this room” The doctor pushed her glasses up with a hoof and looked at Ginger a little miffed as well. 

“Sorry doctor it’s just they wouldn’t let me see her and I thought…”

“I’m not dead Gingy I’m alright” Sunny took her sister’s hoof and smiled at her. “I’m not dead right?” She looked back at the doctor with such a serious face that Tender gasped and almost bit her tongue. 

“No Sunset you’re not dead but you almost did if Miss Rose here hadn’t gotten you straight here you probably wouldn’t be here anymore” The doctor pointed at Tender who was blushing under her pink fur smiling a little nervously. “When she brought you in you had lost quite a lot of blood you lost so much that your fur was red instead of the pretty tangerine color it is now you were passed out but you were breathing” The doctor was flipping through the charts on the clipboard. “You had sustained a serious laceration to your jugular vein on the left side of your neck Sunset from a bullet…”

“A-a bullet? Sunny what does she mean by a bullet where were you? What happened?” Ginger was pressing her for answers by poking at the bed with her hoof. “You were supposed to be cloud patching!” 

“May I finish captain?” The doctor pushed Ginger’s hoof off the bed and strengthened the bed sheets.

Ginger sighed and went over to sit by Tender who looked so Tense she was sitting at attention not even blinking for a few minutes.

“As I was saying you had lost lots of blood sunset and you had a large laceration on your neck so we had to sew it up and take out the little pieces of power armor that had gotten lodged in there when the bullet broke through but we weren’t able to use magic bandages or health potions till you woke up just to make sure nothing bad was happening now that you’re awake we can get you healed up enough to discharge you to the council” The doctor put the charts down before Ginger stood up in her way.

“The Council? What are you talking about? What happened? Why does the Council want to see her!”

The doctor was looking down at her through her glasses like telling her that I am not intimidated by you. 	“Captain please move to the side. I have other patients to take care of along with bringing Sunset her bandages and potions so please” And the doctor just shoved past and out the front door.

“Ginger please…calm down everything’s okay it’s probably just cause I went under the clou…”

“YOU WHAT! You…you went under the cloud layer Sunny? You…how…you know that’s illegal! You know you’re not allowed under there unless you have permission or there’s an emergency!!” Ginger was panicking and she never panicked unless something really bad was happening. 

“It was an emergency captain. I got trapped in a cloud and I couldn’t get out…she had to come and get me…” Tender held her hoof up like she was back in school.

“Still Sunny, you know that the other council members have been trying to get dad off the council for a very long time ever since the incident with mom!” Ginger stopped and looked at her. “They're going to use this as evidence against him that he isn’t fit to be part of the council because he can’t even handle his daughter…”

“Is that all you came here to tell me? That just because I went under the cloud layer dad’s going to lose his job! It’s not because someone turned on the rain which caused my suit to lock up which it shouldn’t have because they're all supposed to be waterproof and that I was almost splattered across the wasteland” Sunny was running on adrenaline from the pain in her neck to keep her momentum going in this argument. “You should talk to Polar Vortex! I bet she’s the one who turned them on when I was down there!!”

“Lieutenant Polar Vortex?” She tilted her head a little nad squinted like she was a little confused. “Sunset I know you don’t like her but that’s no excuse for…

“For what!!” She turned her head just a little and her eyes widened and she screamed again. “AHHHHH!!!”

“Sunny!” Ginger pushed Sunny into the bed and tied her head back down with the restraint that was attached to the bed so she couldn’t turn her head anymore. “Stop moving, you're just going to open the stitches and you’re going to die on this bed!!”

Sunny was crying from the pain and the tears that were coming from her eyes were leaving little tracks in her fur and making it darker then the rest of her fur around her face. Ginger rubbed her mane whispering things into her ear as the pain in her neck started to dye down. By then the doctor had come back in with a small metal table with bunches of glass bottles and rolls of bandages and gauze and other medical supplies one would use to sterilize and clean cuts and wounds.

“Alright Ms. Winds are you ready…Sweet Enclave what happened!” The doctor left the cart in the front of the room and quickly rushed over to Sunny who was sweating and looking ready to pass out again as the stitches that she had in her neck were starting to leak blood onto her fur and down the spotted hospital gown they made all ponies wear in the hospital. 

“We were talking and she turned her head to look at me and it pulled out her stitches a little so I had to tie her head down” Ginger was standing on the other side of her.

“Captain I’m going to need you to sit over there with Ms. Rose”

“But…”

“I said sit captain I need to stitch up her neck and clean everything then put on the bandages and feed her the potions but I can’t do that if you’re standing there gawking at me like a fish!”

Tender covered her mouth with her hoof cause she was snickering and trying not to laugh out loud but Ginger grumbled and slowly walked to the back of the room and sat in one of the chairs that was over there and she kind of glared at Tender when she was still laughing which made her cough and look down at the cloud floor.

For the next ten minutes the unicorn doctor would levitate multiple things around her head while she was pulling at and restitching the large gash the bullet had caused when it went through her neck. She was pressing cotton balls and most of the gauze against her neck to take most of the blood that was coming out of her neck wound but soon the stitches were finished and she threw the blood cotton and gauze onto the bottom shelf on the rolling table and picked up one of the large bandages. 

“Okay Ms. Winds this is a magical bandage okay when I place it onto your wound the magic inside will speed up your body’s healing process so that you can get back to serving the Enclave okay” The doctor pat her chest as her magic slowly placed the large bandage on her neck and firmly pressed into her flesh. “But because it’s magic it's going to be very itchy as your skin starts to come together” She said as she walked back over to the small cart and she levitated over a beaker with a pink liquid inside. “Now you need to drink this so it’ll keep any infections from spreading inside you and speed up the healing of the gash in your neck” holds it up so Sunny could take it.

She grabbed it in her hoof and sloshed it around. 

“Don’t worry about the taste it’s enchanted to taste like well the text’s say they taste like strawberries but since we don’t have any anymore we don’t know how well that holds up” She just shrugged her shoulders and pulled over 2 more of the beakers and set them on Sunny’s lunch table. “Once you finish drinking that one you have to drink the other two right after each other otherwise you won’t heal fast enough once you’re done you’ll be free to be discharged and off to do whatever else you’ll be needing to do”

“That’s all?” Sunny had already taken a swig out of the beaker and she scrunched her mouth up a little at the taste.	

“Of course that’s all? All you got was a small bullet wound in your neck if your hoof had been shot off that would have been a different story but it didn’t so that’s all” She was fixing all the stuff on the table so that she could roll it back out the door.

“Thank you doctor” Ginger stood up and held the door open for her. “I’ll make sure she drinks everything down to the last drop” Nods and looks over to Sunny who had taken another swig of the potion and looked about ready to throw it all up.

“No thanks necessary it’s my job I need to make sure you’re all ship shape enough to serve the Enclave and our way of life” The doctor raised her hoof in the ordinary salute but being doctor she didn’t really do it the right way and all it did was make her a little unbalanced. She quickly put her hoof back down and smiled as her magic engulfed the cart and it plus her just walked out of the room closing the door magically.

“I don’t want anymore” Sunny whined as she put the beaker down on the bed threatening to spill it all over her but Ginger came over and turned it a bit. 

“Sunny stop you need to drink all of this…otherwise you’ll end up being tied down and we will need to force it down your throat now do you want that?”

“No…” She said glumly then she just downed the rest of the beaker and groaned and laid against the bed with the empty beaker smacking her lips and sticking her tongue out to get rid of the old strawberry taste. “Water? Can I have some water…this taste…” Se reached up and started to poke at the bandage on her neck before Ginger smacked it away.

“Sunny no touching she said it’s going to be itchy that means it's working just leave it alone”

“Here Lieutenant” Tender walked over with a glass of water as Ginger smacked Sunny’s hoof away from her neck and they glared at each other.

“Thank you Tender” She reached over and took the glass and downed the whole thing. “So how long is the healing going to take?” She glumley just laid there crossing her hooves.

“It doesn’t matter Sunny it’ll take as long as it will take and you’ll sit there and wait besides you can’t do anything anyway till you go to your hearing” 

“Oh that’s right Lieutenant! I was only going to be here till you woke up the council wants to talk to me to tell them everything that happened today…I think they're trying to see if any of us lie about what we’re going to tell them’

“Tender…” But she was cut off by tender’s hoof.

“No it’ll be okay Lieutenant I’ll take whatever punishment they give me and I’ll come back if you’re not out by the time I’m done okay” She slid her hooves together and saluted. “Lieutenant Captain!” She turned and walked out of the room leaving behind the two sisters.

Sunny was laying there staring at the sheets that were covering her and she wasn’t saying anything but she was thinking about all the stuff that had gone on today.

“Sunny…everything is going to be fine Tender isn’t going to get In trouble she was stuck and you saved her if anything she might have to maybe do some menial labor but other then that everything will be okay same thing with you it was an emergency and you acted it wasn’t your fault that you forgot that it was supposed to rain today” Ginger leaned forward on the chair and rubbed her leg.

“That’s just it! It wasn’t supposed to be raining today, we were cloud patching! That part of the sky was taken off the rain list for today. And also the armor I was wearing is supposed to be waterproof you know it is but the moment the rain started it leaked in and short circuited it locking me inside that’s why I fell the hoof clamps failed” Sunny’s eyes got a little half lidded as the magic in the bandage and the potion she just drank started to work on her body making her tired. 

“That’s true…”She rubbed her chin. “Well I know the council will look into that and into the emergency technician that you got ahold of so like I said you should be fine Sunny”

“Mmmhm…” She was already nodding off.

Before she could nod off into dreamland through the door to the room opened and the doctor walked back In with a clipboard floating in front of her. 

“Ms. Winds?” 

“Hm? Huh…” She jerked away and groaned at the pain in her neck. “D-doctor…no more potions please”

“Oh no I'm not here for that we took some blood when we were stitching up the flesh In your neck you know Just in case anyway we found some elevated hormones in your blood”

“What’s that mean?” She looked over to Ginger who just shook her head. 

“Well it means that you’ll be going into heat soon, maybe later tonight or early tomorrow does that line up right?”

Sunny nods and she blushes a little. “Y-yes mam…it is a little late. I thought it was going to start today but thanks for telling me…”

“Do you need anything for it?” Looks at her.

“Wh-what!? N-no no I don’t…doctor” She looked away from her.

“Okay well you need to rest ms. Winds let the medicine do it’s work and when you wake up we can take the bandage off and check the progress if it looks good you’ll be discharged if not you’ll need another potion”

“Nooo…” Sunny whined and looked miserable but then she yawned.

“I guess that means I should go,” Ginger stood up. “I’ll let father and the council know how you’re doing” she nodded and just like Tender turned and walked out of the room. 

Sunny snuggled into the pillow she was laying on as the doctor took hold of the empty flask she took with the healing potion in it and even filled her glass with water. “Thanks Doctor” Sunny smiled. “Oh! Also if… a pony name Jazzy comes can you send him in please even if I'm sleepy I want to see him”

“Okay Ms. Winds we’ll send him in if he shows up sweet dreams” The doctor walked out levitating all of the beakers out of the room and shut the light off and closed the door leaving her alone.

“Doctor…” Ginger was standing right outside of the room the doctor walked out of.

The doctor sighed as she continued to make her way past Gingy. “Captain I already told you everything that you’re allowed to hear even though you’re a higher rank then your sister in my power as a medical professional I am not at liberty of divulging any medical information!” 

“That’s not why I’m out here. I came to ask you in my capacity as Captain not as an older sister the main reason I’m here at the hospital…is what you said true…that you pulled out a surface bullet from the neck of Lieutenant Winds?” Ginger trotted up alongside the doctor straightening herself up to stay out of the way of nurses and other doctors in the hallway.

“Captain you already know…” But she stopped when Ginger put out a wing.

“Doctor, the moment the lieutenant went under the cloud layer it became a state matter…”then she lowered her wing. “All I am asking is what did you do with the bullet fragments?” The doctor was putting away the medical supplies into their appropriate places in the drawers and boxes they came from with her magic without answering the question. 

“Doctor –“ but just like she had the doctor lifted up a clipboard surrounded in magical energy to keep her from continuing.

“Captain, if what you’re saying is true and you’re here in official capacity I will inform you through the proper channels not in the middle of the hallway!” She lowered the clipboard and trotted down the hallway before stopping halfway and looking over her shoulder to check if the captain was following her. 

“Oh…gotcha!” Ginger trotted after the doctor passing some nurses as they continued down the hallway. 

“You are not the only pony who has come here claiming to be representing the Council Captain…” took a left down another long hallway.

“Somepony else showed up asking you questions about the Lieutenant?” The captain continued to follow the doctor down a hallway on the left.

“The same ones that I assume you want to ask me about yes and I’m going to tell you everything that I ended up telling them” The doctor’s horn lit up and there was a clicking sound as a lock on the wall opened up a door that they were standing in front of and she walked inside.

The Captain followed her into the room just as the door closed and locked up again right behind them. The room wasn’t very big, almost the size of a small bedroom a little larger than a closet filled with shelves and glass vials and a metal table right in the middle where one of the glass jars was sitting on. 

“And what are you going to be telling me about Doctor?” The Captain walked up and eyed the glass jar on the table filled with a clear fluid, probably water or Alcohol but nothing else.

“That there is nothing left of the bullet that shot the Lieutenant” 

“Nothing? What do you mean nothing didn’t you get the fragments out of her?” She sounded a little more worried then she should have officially sounded but the doctor didn’t seem to care or mind that she was. 

“This is the specimen jar that the surgeons used when they were looking over the lieutenant when the operation was conducted the fragments were placed in this jar magically flown into this room where only employees are allowed access too and placed on this table per council instruction” 

“Are you telling me that someone, in the hospital… stole the fragments from this room so that no one could trace where these bullets came from?” 

“No of course not the other pony had the same kind of reaction when I told her but no no”the doctor shook a hoof. “The bullets evaporated…”

There was a silence between the two of them and only the sound of the air system moving air in and out of the room was making any noise.	

The captain tensed her leg muscles getting ready for either a fight or to run away thinking all of this was a trap when the doctor lifted the glass vial from the table. 

“Captain these vials are magically sealed to prevent tampering” the doctor flipped the vial over and nothing came out of the top some liquid inside sloshed around a bit but didn’t come spilling out. “The unicorn who seals it is the only one who’s able to unseal it. You can’t even break the class even though you probably couldn’t anyway since everything in here is made of clouds!” She flipped the vial back over. “The reason I say the bullets evaporated is because they were designed too…”

“They were designed to…evaporate?”

“Yes they were designed to evaporate during extraction by unicorn doctors when they come across any kind of magic they slowly just evaporate into magical essence leaving no trace of where it came from and sometimes causing a victim to bleed out if they were magically taken someplace before they were helped” 

“How could…surfacer’s have access to bullets like that, especially ones that are capable of being shot reliably high enough to actually hit a pegasus in the sky?!” 

The doctor shook her head. “That is all I know captain, that's everything I told the other pony who came asking from the council” her horn flashed and the door clicked and swung open again. “Now if you excuse me I have a lot of other patients to look after” 

“Wait doctor!” The captain lifted her wing again to stop the doctor from walking past her.	“Captain I told you I do not know anything else officially for the council to know about and if there’s anything you want to know about your sister you can come back unofficially and I’ll let you know about that when we are inside of her room”	

“No, that's not what I want to ask about who was it that came and asked you about all of this before I did?” Captain Ginger lowered her wing and turned when the doctor walked past her into the doorframe. “Did they give you a name”?

“I’m sorry Captain they did not they came in waving documents around asking for information concerning the Lieutenant they didn’t even remove their helmet so I can’t even tell you what they looked like all I can say is that they were a mare” 

“Wait if…they had paperwork requesting the information why did you tell me all of this with me just telling you that I had council business?”

“Because your sister was the one who was shot,” The doctor turned back around and gave her a smile. “You already know how much reach the council has and that it doesn’t reach as far as they think it does here in the hospital we’re here to help ponies not hurt them” She turned back around and walked out into the hallway. “I know that you’ll do anything to make sure your sister is safe so just make sure that you’re safe” 

“Thank you Doctor…”Captain Ginger looked back at the vial on the desk and swept her wing over it before trotting out after the doctor as the doors locked behind her.