Cloudsdale Army F.O.B. 1-A, 2 years into the war...

BOOM!!!

The explosion snaps me awake. I look to my left, and see that Night Rain was woke up as well. Of course she was, I wouldn't be surprised if the whole base was on High Alert. I stumble out of bed and look at the small bedside clock, 4:00. Perfect fucking time for an attack. I get on my gear and head for the door. Vest? Check. Saddlebags? Check. Rifle? Where the hell is it? I try to think of where I could have left it. No time, another explosion rocks the house. I need to find a weapon. Fast.

I go outside, and see the damage done. The airfield is a mess, about two dozen or so of our fighters were demolished, wrecked by what I can only assume was an Earth Pony bomber. I look up, but it's too dark to see anything in the sky except for the stars and moon. And then I see it, just a faint silhouette in the darkness, but it's definitely there. I look around for a rocket launcher or something to shoot the bomber down with, and am satisfied to see that some of our anti-aircraft guns are still in one piece. I run for the nearest one, and hop on.

Using the joystick that controls the gun's aim, I place the reticule a few inches in front of the bomber's silhouette, and slam my hoof on the pedal that serves as the weapon's trigger. The large tracer rounds tear through the sky, leaving a bright yellow trail behind them, and impact on the bomber's left engine. The engine bursts into flame, and the plane starts doing a spiral nosedive, and crashes into the ground below. The other bombs inside it's hold detonate, and the entire plane explodes in a brilliant ball of fire.

I step off of the gun, and see that everyone is surrounding me.

"Good job Sharp!" Ace says, patting me on the back.

"Any time." I say

Just as I finish speaking, the barracks explodes.

"Holy shit!" I hear someone yell.

"Was anypony still inside when that happened?" Rainbow Dash asks.

I turn around and mount the gun for a second time, and it doesn't take me long to spot the second bomber. I aim a few inches in front of it, and open fire. The bullets drive deep into the left of the plane's hull, and I must have hit some of the ammunition because the center explodes. I watch as the now bisected plane falls to the ground, and explodes like it's predecessor. I move the joystick around, scanning for more targets, but there are none.

"Hey, Dash!" I yell.

"What?" she responds.

"Now would be a good time for a High Alert, wouldn't you agree?"

"Yeah." she says, turning to the crowd of ponies. "Alright everypony, you heard the stallion. Put the base on High Alert, watch for anything in the sky!"

"Yes ma'am!" rang out among the crowd.

I let somepony more qualified take my place on the AA gun. Sure I knew how to operate it, but it wasn't exactly my forte. I decide to resume the search for my rifle, since I'm pretty much useless to the Army without it. Plus, I think Night Rain would kill me if I lost it. After all, she did have it made especially for me and it couldn't have been cheap. I see Ace, running around and getting the troops organized. I run over, since we were all hanging out until Night and I decided to hit the sack, he might know what I did with it.

"Ace." I say as I stop a few feet away from him. "You seen my rifle?"

"Yeah, you left it in the mess hall. I tried to knock on your door last night to give it to you but you must have been asleep, so I didn't bother." He says.

"Asleep? Man, if you think we were asleep, you clearly don't know us as well as you think you do." I say, remembering the night with Night Rain.

"What do y- oh... Oh...kay." he says, realizing what we were really up to, (the look on his face! I wish I had a camera). "Well, I left it right inside my door. Should be right there when you go inside."

"Thanks buddy." I say.

"No problem." he says, and goes back to organizing everything.

I gallop for his house as fast as my legs can carry me, forgetting the wings attatched to my sides that would have made this a lot quicker. Once I arrive at the house, I open the door and see it. My rifle, propped up against the wall, and the lights glowing as bright as ever. I whisper a silent thanks to Ace for keeping it safe for me, and check to see if it's loaded. To my surprise, and even greater relief, it is. Five bullets, its maximum capacity. Perfect.

I run home to grab some extra ammo. Five rounds was great, it meant not needing to load the gun as soon as I picked it up. But it was still only five bullets, not a lot considering the fact that I'd need a lot more it Earth Ponies started parachuting down on us. I enter my and Night's room, and open my box of bullets. it was filled to the brim with bullets that fit my rifle, and scooped several dozen into my saddlebag I have thouseands of the things. They weren't specific to this gun, so I just grabbed as many as I could from the armoury. Either nopony noticed, or nopony cared. Whichever it was, no one tried to stop me. It wasn't stealing though, so I can't see why I would be stopped. We were all allowed to. Take what we needed from the armoury so long as we didn't go shooting each other.

I walk back outside to see that everything was getting reorganized. The fires were put out, the debris from the bombs was being cleaned up, and everything that wasn't damaged beyond repair was being separated from that which was.

I see Rainbow Dash walking over to me, and greet her with a nod.

"Looks like the last of them." She says.

"Are you sure?" I ask, unconvinced that the Earth Ponies would give up so easily.

"Yeah, pretty sure. If not, the entire base would have blown up by now." She says.

"Well, if that's the case, then I'm going back to sleep. I do not appreciate being woken up like this at four in the morning." I say.

"I hear you. See you for breakfast." Dash says, and she leaves.

I head back inside, drop my gear because I'm too exhausted to properly put it away, and collapse onto the bed. I fall asleep in seconds...

When I wake up, the sun is shining through the window and into my eyes. I squint as I turn to look at the clock. 7:30. Good, I managed to get another two and a half hours of sleep in. I get up and walk around the house, which is completely empty except for me. I wonder where Night went... Must've stayed up. I walk outside to see that everything is gone. All the tents, the armoury, everything.

"What in the name of... where the hell is everything?" I say to myself.

Ace flies up to me. "Moving day, pal." He says.

"What?" I ask him.

"Well, since the attack last night, Rainbow Dash thought it was a good idea to move our base. Some place way up on the mountain. No way any earth pony is getting up there on hoof." He says.

I nod, understanding him.

"Where's Night Rain?" I ask.

"With Rainbow Dash, at the new base. They're putting together the huge cloud that will serve as our cover." He says.

"Alright. Well, you know where we're going, so you lead the way." I say.

"Grab everything that you want to keep, we aren't coming back here." He says.

"Oh, really?" I say, surprised.

"Yeah, now get your shit and let's go." He says, getting impatient.

"Give me a minute." I say, turning and opening the door.

He comes in to help me get anything that I can't carry alone, and we leave for the new base.

After several hours of flying, I finally see it. Way up near the top of the mountain, a huge, dark storm cloud looks overhead. That has to be it. We fly over the cloud, and above it is a smaller, white cloud, which must be the true base. I doubt that any earth pony or unicorn would ever figure out where we are.

I am so fucking stupid! Of course we get attacked, why in the hell did I think that we wouldn't?! Two days after the move, somepony on watch spotted several earth pony bombers headed straight for us. Two hours later, it was total chaos. The unicorns must have used their little "Walking on Clouds" spell, because earth ponies jumped out of their planes, and instead of going through the clouds and plummeting to their deaths, landed softly on them .

I run around with my sidearm drawn, squeezing off rounds into any earth pony or unicorn stupid enough to get in my way. Dozens of bodies lay strewn on the clouds around me, earth ponies and pegasi alike.

While I'm running and gunning, I come across an earth pony with a minigun.

"Are you fucking kidding me?!" I say to myself.

The earth pony was gunning down any pegasi he could see, and there were a lot of pegasi around. I leap over the earth pony, spread my wings, and put a bullet in his dome before he can kill anypony else. As I land, I keep running forward. I have to find Night Rain, make sure she's safe. I see Ace, along with Basil Crowcross, a new guy who we found fending off a bunch of earth ponies who were looking for any stray pegasi who were otherwise defenseless.

He was tan, with a black mane and bright orange eyes. His cutie mark is a torch burning blue. I slow my pace as I get closer to them, they are fighting off a couple of earth ponies, so I fire a few shots I to the last one to provide some assistance.

"Ace." I say, stopping a few feet away from them. "Basil, either of you seen Night Rain?"

"No, was going to ask you the same question." Basil says.

"Why are you concerned about my wife?" I ask suspiciously.

"Oh! Can you two not do this right now?!" Ace says, frustrated. "Sharp, I'm worried about her too. For your sake. I know how much it would kill you of she were to get hurt."

"We should find Rainbow Dash." Basil says.

"Right." I say. "They might have been hanging out or something when this started. And besides, the more of us we have together, the better a chance we have of getting out of this alive."

"Agreed." Ace says. "Now let's go!"

We head for Rainbow Dash's office, where she would occasionally call each of us to check up on us and see how we were dealing with the war. I honestly wonder why she did that, but it was probably because she knew that some of us like to discuss that sort of thing in private. Whatever was said in her office, stayed there. She never brought it up, and if you wanted to discuss it some more, you told her, and went to her office.

I reach the door first, but wait for Ace and Basil before opening the door. Inside, I see that Rainbow Dash , Night Rain, Spitfire and many others have taken shelter here.

"Come on!" Ace yells. "They're starting to drop bombs on the buildings. We gotta move!"

"You heard him." Rainbow says, standing up and standing next to the door. "Move it ladies!"

The mares and stallions inside file out of the office, and we all fly off. Night Rain flies at my side, and I reach out and grasp her hoof in my own.

"So, where are we going?" She asks me.

"I don't know. Anywhere but here. We need to hide, or we're all screwed." I say.

"Agreed." Rainbow says. "Ace, Basil, fall behind. Make sure that nopony is following us this time."

"Yes ma'am." They both say, and fall behind the rest of us.

6 hours later...

We finally managed to find somewhere relatively safe to set up camp. The entire surviving military force, which was about three to four hundred pegasi out of the seven hundred we had, was spread out along the edge of the Everfree Forest. Some ponies weren't sure about using the Everfree as cover, but we managed to persuade them that there was no other option.

I walk over to the tent that Night and I share, which is situated fairly close to the perimeter of our camp. I don't like the lack of protection, but there's nothing I can do. I'll have to bring it up to Rainbow Dash at some point, but for now, I'll have to put up with it. I do have my rifle of course, but this is the Everfree Forest we're talking about.

I enter my tent, and see Night Rain organizing our ammunition.

"Well, look at you." I say teasingly.

"I know you can't help it." She says with a laugh.

"Yeah? Well, who's stopping me?" I say, inching closer to her until I'm right behind her.

"No one." She says, turning around and pressing her lips against mine.

I kiss her back, and wrap my forelegs around her neck. We stand there, kissing and hdimg each other. She trips us and I land on my back, with her standing over me. She lowers herself onto me, and we press our bodies together.

Before we can get started, however, Ace chooses the perfect time to yell to me.

"Sharp!" He yells.

"Fuck!" I hiss under my breath. Night Rain lets out a soft giggle. "What?" I yell.

"Come out here, we got a situation." He says.

Night Rain stands up, and I follow suit.

"Why can't we just get some time alone?" She says.

"Not our fault." I say, lifting her chin up with my hoof. "We'll pick this up later." I say, kissing her on the cheek and going outside.

As I exit the tent, I can see what appears to be almost everypony in the camp in one big circle surrounding... what? I can't see into the middle through the crowd, so I make my way through.

"What the hell is going...?" I say as I make it to the centre of the crowd, but stop myself as I see what they're all looking at.

"Howdy Sharp." Says the mare being restrained by two big stallions.

"Applejack?" I say, astounded to see her here. "What're you doing here?"

"Came for a visit. Was wonderin' how y'all were fairin'." She says.

"How do we know that you weren't sent here to spy on us?" One of the stallions restraining her says.

"Because Ah ain't got no ties ta either side in this war." Applejack says. "Except for, maybe, Rainbow Dash."

"She's right." Rainbow says, flying in and landing in front of Applejack. "In fact, I'm the one who called her and told her where we are. So you all can just get back to whatever it is you were doing." She says to the crowd, then she turns to the stallions who are restraining Applejack. "That means you too." She says.

"You heard the mare, beat it before I shoot you myself." I say. I didn't mean the threat, just said it so they'd leave AJ alone.

They all do as told, and go back to their quarters. The two stallions release Applejack, who hugs Rainbow Dash . Dash hugs her back, and the two share a passionate kiss. I turn and head back inside, I have unfinished business with Night Rain to attend to.

Author's Note

There. Finally done! This is why I threw this story into the AppleDash group. Though it isn't entirely focused on AppleDash, it still has some in it. Like what you saw at the very end of the chapter. I'm sorry it took this long, but I was having trouble thinking of ideas... Anyway, hope you liked the chapter! I'm taking a break from this story so I can write my Christmas themed AppleDash fic which should be out in a week or so. Expect the next chapter of this to be out after Christmas. Bye for now!