Author's Note

Apologies for the long, agonizing wait that you've to go through. I hope this chapter satisfies your craving for this story. The next chapter will be up shortly.

Again, please comment on any grammar errors that appeared in this chapter. I greatly appreciate the support that you guys have been giving.

Please note that this chapter was written in the latter part of 2013 that included additional rewrites throughout the years. So, be wary of the quality dips.

Interudes: The Rebellion

“Die, IMPERIAL SCUM!”

The venom of a bellicose pony lashed out amongst the crowd of protesters on the steps and pavements leading to the city hall made of clouds, reverberating across the roar of the morning winds, as the ruby-colored pony propelled a bottle of alcohol with the top of it covered with burning paper, impacted the reflecting, golden shield of the Royal Guard, unleashing its scorching, liquid contents onto it. Pieces of the broken glass cascaded after painting the shield with remains of flames, passing through the cloud cover under him. Sweat began to bead down his alabaster coat as the lone guard, among his comrades, desperately tried to contain the escalating situation from erupting into a full-scale riot as more, and angrier, Pegasus began to arrive out of nowhere to join the rioters in their cause against the government.

Behind the bludgeoned guards was the second cordon of steel as they recomposed their fellow comrades. This time, not carrying shields but muskets, their silver color reflecting off the cloudless sun. Barrels of their ranged weaponry hung above the first line of guards, bolstering their defense. Aiming them at the amassing crowd of rioters ahead, stymieing them not to cross a certain line, but as the crowd continued to grow immensity, intimidation won’t work for long for them.

Inside the grand city hall, a place once housed many of the governmental functions of operating the city above the clouds, promoting the bureaucratic normalcy that always takes place, was now turned into headquarters for the military. With the previous governor fled, and running to who-knows-where with his family, had left the city in a very fragile state, waiting to be lit, and destroyed any in its path, swallowing any that is left in wake by the iconoclasts of the new order.

The chaotic cloud city was known as Saint Abdías, named after the general who served the Princesses during the Chaos Wars and was granted a charter for settlement by the princesses who ascended to the throne after their mother’s death at the end of the war. Originally, it was supposed to be a ground settlement for the Unicorn and Earth ponies to settle but was soon build to be a clouded city for the Pegasus. Though it did suffer criticism over it, the construction of the clouded city proceeded as planned, and was completed two years ahead of schedule.

As the Equestria nation expanded outwards and with the population growing from the aftermath of the war with the Humans, the city of Cloudsdale wasn’t able to produce enough clouds to provide rain to the ever-expanding farms that’d pop up, allowing the abundance of food to be exported to many of the cities, furthering increasing the population.

With these two factors, it quickly altered Saint Abdias from a small clouded backwater city into an economic powerhouse as one of the first new cloud factories was elected, curbing out clouds and other commodities for the average citizen that immigrated to the city for a new life.

Soon the small city soon transformed, grower larger and larger, as thousands of ponies, especially Pegasus, and a small minority of Unicorns and Earth Ponies that have access to cloud-walking spells and potions, that come to build new lives for themselves in face of overcrowding from the settlements down south.

But, it also raised a new problem as thousands poured into the city, bringing their sapient property along with them: Human slaves.

While the city itself was never attacked or pillaged, given the high altitude it was stationed, by roaming humans armies that lacked the expertise of flight, the fighting faculty did earn grant respect from some military Pegasus that heard of human victories against overwhelming numbers of their kind, but with the war dictating towards Equestrian victory, chaining humanity as a result to “tame” their violent nature to help them become civilized among the Equestria people, but to the Pegasus, the selling of flesh was somewhat moral.

Despite the concept of indentured servitude being known, the Pegasus never, in their history, had driven a slave economy, even before the unification of the three tribes. With the exception of only a small percentage of their population in bondage, but mainly in the nobility as servants and non-support staff in the military, the majority were free from these restrictions.

And then another factor was the fact that humans don’t have the innate ability to traverse the clouds like their horned and Earth cousins, furthering the point that an entire underclass of slaves would prove to be wasteful and ineffective for a warrior species that relies on its military power to have control over their economic duties.

These factors have exacerbated tensions between them and the other two breeds, the Unicorns and the Earth ponies.
While centuries have passed since the conclusion of the Winter Wars, the Unicorns, in their typical pseudo-superiorly complex, have abandoned their own feudal system, replacing their serfs with human slaves to work in the fields, promoting their gracious power. Or the Earth ponies with their breeding farms, making the slave population to explode in the millions, exporting out of the nation to sell to the Militate Griffin Empire and the festering wound that is the Zebraica Empire has boasted an entire monopoly for them, making their coffers inundate with riches from the backs of the slaves being shipped to other parts of the world to serve their masters, giving Equestria the economic power to influence or deterrent others from going on a warpath on the nation.

But to the Pegasus, they never experience this kind of social change in centuries. The auction of sapient flesh on the market down below was never something that they could truly comprehend. The centuries that whirl by, their children grow up and laid to rest in the clouds without even seeing a human slave in their own eyes without reading the historic scrolls or the occasion conversation from outside Pegasus that live with the ground walkers.

This has persuaded many Pegasus to decried slavery as ‘immoral’, a blasphemous affront to the Equestria ideas of Harmony and friendship of Empress Faust afford of unity. Several groups, though small, began to spread towards cloud villages-settlements that had been established by Pegasus around the major cloud cities that produced and churned out clouds for the ground walkers-spreading their beliefs across the continent in religious fever in the name of Faust and the newly formed rejuvenated sects of religious groups that began popping up in Pegasus cities, proclaiming that the old gods of the world would come and punish the wicked for their sins against Faust.

Even problems from the sky began appearing on the surface as massive numbers of Pegasus, in disgust with their cousins over the immoral economic system of trading flesh, migrated back to their cloud cities and small estates. Though some have stayed, simply out of potential economic interests or not abandoned their unicorn or Earth pony love ones, articulated their decision to not get involved in the schism.

The Diarchy, while having a history of proclivity towards the Pegasus, including dealing with numerous rebellions during the founding (and after) of the unification of Equestria. But the huge migration of Pegasus and reports of mass desertions in the Royal Guard has caused a backlash, mainly from Earth pony farmers that needed the rain to help saturated their crops and the Unicorns, despite their reputation as one of the few races to use magic properly, could not handle the task of regulating weather across Equestria due to having one of the smallest populations out of all of the breeds.

The government, especially the local council, in response to the disruption of their country and betrayed of their Pegasus brothers to the crown, immediately crackdown on the dissent, locking down every Pegasus under martial law- suspending all civil libraries as the Royal Guard soon dug in using the Cloud-walking spell and any loyal Pegasus Royal units that still serve the Crown. Airships patrol the skies around the floating cities, ready to fire their cannons at anyone in a moment’s notice.

The heavy crackdown, while overwhelming at the sheer power of the response of their tyrannical Diarchy, the people did not yield. Riots broke out across many towns and cities that house a Pegasus population as deaths began to rise.
But it only grew worse when the Royal Guard, lack of reinforcements due to containing the ELA on the ground, were ordered to bring in the auxiliumis units.

Much as the ponies could go on about their all-mighty Royal Guard during its military history, the hard fact was the equestrians made for shoddy military powers in open warfare. First Discord, then Nightmare Moon, whatever threat faced Equestria borders, they’ve, on occasion, proven to be poor leaders, neither in skill of fielding large-scale professional armies, nor possessing biological conducive to the long-term rigors of combat, despite the victories set against the Mad Spirit of Chaos and the Night Demon of the skies.

But as Equestria finally entered the industrial age along with the rest of the world, the old guard of its military coiled itself against the brash, younger generation of their military kin as they pull away from the old, ceremonial values of Equestrian martial tradition, learning rash tactics as they fought their rebellious Pegasus brothers in the skies and the human rebels on the ground. Even with the new version of the muskets, the Thunder Cracker, imported by the Griffin Empire, they still are having a hard time adapting to the changes, especially the unicorns with their reliance on their magic throughout their history.

The war with the humans nearly destroyed Equestria, despite the small population of their species. The humans had proven to be one of the few warrior species on the planet perfected at the art of war. Soldiers with both the strength of body and discipline of mind for the harsh realities of war and a well-equipped force that could defeat any foe in devastating results.
Even outnumbered, they still prove to be a lethal force in combat, especially in hand-to-hand.

The Equestrians, while proven to be equal in areas of close combat, could only apply that to others that carried physical similarities to their own kind. But to Griffins and Minotaur, given their physical dexterity in warfare, has given the Equines a detriment in that kind of warfare.

The Zebras, while genetically related to them, are the only non-pony species that is equal to them in this sort of combat, despite their declining power and pseudo-governmental paranoid over every nation. Their alchemy skills of potion-building emulate all others, including several of the mage guild’s top researchers in Canterlot, given them the advantage of vicious potion bombs that are more efficient and in quality than made by the ponies.

But since the Equestrians aren’t quite adaptable to attritional warfare in a prolonged war, they were forced to pool in large numbers of slave expatriates, mainly from the southern lands of Equestria. While the arming of slaves has been outlawed due to fears of rebellion, the recent bold moves made by the ERA and the situation with the Pegasus had drawn many of Equestrians armies and navies, leaving only internal policing actions against Equestria only client state, the Crystal Empire, and some of the most populous provinces suffer from attacks from Diamond Dog slavers, to be largely outsourced to either to guns for hire or to slaves that were inculcated through the ‘Uplifting’ procedures in several facilities in central and northern Equestria.

Yet, could it be enough to stop the chaos from unraveling thousands of years of civilization?

“This is outrage! You can’t utterly expect that the rebels would flee if you deploy the Auxiliumis, It’d only fuel the already, raging cyclone that could drown this city in blood!”

The voice, guttural and crisp with an eastern Manehattan accent, belches across the rotunda. Sunlight drape across the delicate tiled floor, enchanted by Unicorn magic keeping it afloat with the clouds. The grandiose hall was an ancient Agora, one of the first to be established when the burgeoning city was first starting out. One of the oldest edifices to weathered the coming changes to its home for centuries, it had become the official building for lawmakers or the local Pegasus Strategoi to converge for the daily bureaucracy to be held there, another norm of the diligent machine of politics in an Equestrian city.

But not anymore.

The high, arching columns stuttered as an explosion goes off in the distance, not close enough to endanger the inhabitants inside. The howling voices between the remaining nobles in the city and military personnel quickly died down as the pony ensconced at the very end of the great hall brought down his gavel, his thunderous voice punctuated throughout the room, silencing the vitriol and dissenters, quickly resuscitating order among the myriad ranks of noble in the room.

“As Mister Pocket Watch was… vulgarly speaking before our little interruption outside, does this grant council approve of his initiative: decline deploying the Auxiliumis to bolster the Royal Garrison in our home, or let our brothers and sisters in arms be slowly butchered by this insurgency alone?”

No one in the grand chamber made a sound, swiveling their eyes towards each other in their seating, ambivalent about the proposal. Eyes darting left and right across the room, silence prayers muttered beneath their crisp breaths to the gods above. The stillness of their voices permeated the grand chamber, stalking and prompting them to make a move, startled that their words would either bring chaos or order to their home.

One noble, a creamy-colored on from the far right of the seating, dressed to the nines, raised his foreleg in the humid air while the others were concocting on what to do. Some merely watch as they held the air inside their lungs.

“Nay,” He spoke amongst the seating. The Noble’s silk suit gleamed faintly in the dim light from above. Other behind and below looked at each other for a second before rising up and vocalizing their final decision.

A chorus of ‘nays’ and ‘yays’ billowed from the members, the head petitioner watched in absolute horror as he mentally counted the number of votes in his diligent mind. He quietly muttered prayers, hoping that the heavens above were on his side. The stallion knew that, despite the desolate situation outside the halls, calling up the reserves would only spark more outrage from the Pegasus. Beads of sweat trickled down the poor stallion’s jaw towards his impeccable suit, his teeth clenched and grind against each other as the final votes were tailored in. His breath slow to a crawl, the repugnant tang in the back of his throat was returning.

“The final votes are in: 20 to 40. The proposal of starving the royal garrison of reinforcements of our fair city is declined.” The stallion’s eyes widened, his brown irises retracted in petrified shock as the gavel struck down, destroying the final chance to stymied escalation has failed. His actions of saving his childhood home shatter into pieces.

“You may leave, Pocket Watch. Your services are no longer required during this time of distress.” The mediator nonchalantly waved him off, scurrying back from his high pedestal of impotent power to hide. Watch’s jaw grind against the upper parts of his teeth as he simply turns his back against them, fury making manifest in his mind. His face contorted in disgust as he trotted away.

“You asinine idiots will pay for this”. HE spat out as his hooves carried him to the grand entrance, flanked by four guardsmen, their eyes peering at him, observing his every move as he approached the giant, dark cloud doors.

But before he requests one of them to open them, the doors slammed open, causing a gust of stringing cold air to blow in the elongated grand hall.

Desperate and frightened eyes flashing left and right, heavy hoof falls pounding on the tile floor silencing as he came to a stop. The armor the guard adored was wrecked and scrapped, a far cry from the well-scrupled and gaudy form that echoes Equestrian military power. His breathing heaved in and out before he recomposes himself in front of the assembly.

“They’ve broken through.” The words belched out from his lips, hollow booms of gunfire exemplify his words. Shrieks and cries echoed out in the distance but were blotted out by the increasing cough of barking soldiers outside.

The building then began to tremble, columns shivered, tricking off the dust from them, pieces of stone intermingling. Cries and shouts once again pervade the assembly hall. Calls for order and reassurance were blotch out from the pounding of petrified hooves. Bubble fear that was once contained erupted from all corners of their mouth, tramping verbally over each other.

But Pocket Watch didn’t care, his hooves marching past the guard in front of him towards the hallway as chaos descent all around him. He knew his pleas for de-escalation were futile. That farce of a war council could see the chaotic example right in front of their eyes. The constant and insistent droning of gunfire did nothing to erupt his thoughts.

Passing frantic guards, their hooves pounding against the solid floor, and paralytic employees huddled in their rooms and under their desks, he enters the main reception hall. Gone were the piercing and insistent noises of business, the natural mechanism of governance; it was now a disaster. Detritus strewn around the room, shredded paper and turn over furniture obscured the once scented opulence that festers visitors and newcomers. Broken glass marred the elegant coal-colored tilts. Faded sunlight oozed down from the broken windows above, almost block by puffs of smoke outside.

The only objects in the room that were not scarred were the plants, their greenish tendrils long have lost their etiolated color due to neglect. Ember eyes scanned the area. Making sure that nothing was going to jump on him, the young politician trekked the ruined area. Hoofs crunched on glass, their angles sharp but not enough to draw blood. The riots outside were getting worse.

On the edge of his peripheral, his eyes caught another portal, the entrance leading to a hallway. Seeing that the front doors weren’t an option, punctuated by the physical diatribe outside, he took the latter. Striding through without getting cut, he made it.

Before he could take one on the polished hallway floor, a gust of wind wafted through, passing through layers of his mane. The clothes-his garment of noble importance-felt weighed against him. The air around his body lingered with dust, remnants from the destruction inside. He closes his eyes for a moment, preventing them from getting puffy.

Pocket Watch coughs, his throat beginning to hurt from his bellicose stance during the meeting dreadful memories coming upwards. They wouldn't listen. He had wasted his breath trying to convince they were wrong, and he was struck the right. He had used all of his persuasive power, his connections, and even blackmail, to make them come around; to realize that their arrogant folly would only get them, and everyone, kill in this city.

He turned his head back at the lobby again, his eyes spotting small, puffy clouds in the distance, small parts of their bodies obscured by the broken windows. The gunfire outside still continued, but it barely concerns him.

The clouds began to swell, their indolent forms expanding outwards, inky blackness creating a canopy. Pocket Watch’s eyes scrutinized then evinced in horrification. Lines of gold pierced through the sky, raining down thunderbolts, the very air vibrating.

To many, this would seem to be one of the roaming weather clouds that sometimes went off course, left neglected by the workers either left or joined the rioters tearing up the city. But it was different, it spoke of something deep inside the fearful pony. Something primal, something that festers finally began to gush upwards towards his rain.

He ran, heavy hooves galloping deeper into the hallway.

The clouds continued to compact, violent thunder whacking the air, drowning out the belligerent and rancor cries of the fighting. Then it struck the building, slabs of stone break off, falling and impacting in the maelstrom of violence. Tiny specks to large rock-size fragments made impact. Some merely spatter against golden armor, bent and warped by fighting; others simply struck unsuspected heads, painting the purity of the road in red.

But the ponies below continued to fight, regardless of the calamity above. Faces of the young and the old jeer at their once royal protectors as they crossed swords and hoofs. Faces, once innocent and wise, cast their pejorative senses onto them. Fury was borne upwards through their mouths and snouts, but their cries were again outspoken b the canopy of the storm.

Another dash of whip lighting came down, striking another large chunk of stone of the building, followed by another. The marvelous structure was beaten. The Equestrian flag placed on the top of its spire, smoke and filth chugging to it, vibrated once. Then it began to fall, the lower part of itself bending. The woven fabric of the flag torn away, losing itself amidst the swirl of the chaos below. Metal screech as the pole finally became separated, becoming yet another piece of a fallen epoch.

Pocket Watch slam against the emergency door, the ancient wood creaking loudly. The building around him continued to crumble. Applying more pressure to his hoofs, he hit the door once more. It works. And the door yawned open, revealing the corybantic scene of his home breaking apart in front of him. The pony ran, his elegant cloth now drenched in rain, sticking to his fur like glue.

His wings stretch out, muscles making tiny pops as they spread. The young stallion leaps, applying added pressure to his legs, and took to flight. His breathing labor, blood pumping faster into his muscles. As he flew over, his heavy eyes set upon a sad site.

Burning buildings, wisps of torched cloud materials choked the sky. His eyes watered from the ash and dust that lingered in the air. Some of the fires were already put out either from the torrent rains or simply losing their vigor after turning the last of their fuel into ash. Hollow husks remained, their likeness cutting out like deranged skulls.

He flew, avoiding the worst of the calamity that has claimed his home. The streets below were deserted, its people long gone, either hiding or fled to the outskirts, too petrified by the events outside, or had joined the rioters at city hall, fighting around a crumbling city.

He bowed his head in solemnly, remembering the good times before all of this: the cheering laughs, the blooming resolve in his soul towards his job, the admiring gratitude he always receive from his fellow co-workers, and the towering acceptance of emulating the ones he admired when as a simple colt in a tedious village.

Another flash of lightning crosses his vision. It didn’t even matter anymore. He felt tired, exhausted from what had occurred to him. Directing his wings to a new destination, he gave one last look towards one of the few monuments, relatively untouched by the fighting and the storm. A monument he considers special to him and the rest of his kind.

It stood erected amongst the carnage and the sheets of hard rain pounding on it, definitely excluding itself amongst the torrent masses of buildings that could not surpass its height. It was a simple pillar. Nothing more. Nothing less. A callback to the second age of Pegasus expansion into the southern regions of Equestria in the aftermath of unification. It was a constant reminder of those ashes scattered across the four winds. A reminder of the sacrifice and toils that hang upon many Pegasus, including himself.

The Earth ponies may have their magic reaving the ways of nature, preventing famine unlike the days of old and the Unicorns’ blossoming magic that drove the unified nation to new heights, exterminating the Sunder Beasts of the East and established contact with the lost tribe to the north. But for the Pegasus, it was their driven, unbending military might; it was the soaring, gleaming legions that made the enemies of Equestria tremble in fear. Their swords, lightly edged by fire from Celestia’s sun itself, would push the darkness away scurrying away by their resilience and their duty. Stories of untold heroics were inscribed into the very monument; stories of driven hope of the Legion, of the iron-bended strength of the warrior, and the pertinacious experience of the general. Every inch of the alabaster stone had words dung into its very skin, not willing to allow its gifts to be decrepit until the end times came about.

But the lone Pegasus continued to flap his staining wings, struggling against the slicked wings created by the prosthetic storms use to punish vultures and rioters staining the streets of his home. The air clasped around him as if processed by some godly power. His eyes stick to the scene of destruction; thunderclaps ring in his ears as lighting crisscrossed across the brutish-colored sky. Smokes from the fires, directed by the hostile wind current, brought on a charcoal tang to the air. It burns his lungs as he sucked in new air, his vision hazy from tears as it assaulted his eyes. The city behind him became a nebulous glow, rioting and the fires corroding its iron surface, its beating heart being torn from within.

He continued to fly, gliding towards whatever destination his strength would permit, leaving behind a defeated and ruin life, along with what detritus of it that’d be scattered to the winds when the sun’s set. Moving with soggy grace, his jumbled with thoughts on the future and what it would portend for the fate of his nation, his life, and his loved ones.

But the only one that answer was the swift and brutal crack of lighting.