The Birth of a Rebellion

Frost almost fell asleep, gently rocked by the jolting of the tram belonging to the Luna’s line of the Manehattan’s public transport net. The recent creation of the reduced size magical motors had improved the efficiency and speed of transports across all Equestria, but overall in Manehattan, now beacon of the technological development, where the changes had been drastic. Despite the effectiveness of these new motors, they lacked of autonomy as they needed a constant energy supply to operate. Frost smiled as she thought the possibilities that these new motors would have combined with the project she developed in collaboration with the M.C.A. Company. Leaving her thoughts aside, she focused on the city that surrounded her. It was early in the morning and the sun hadn’t rise up yet. Nevertheless, the light of dawn already allowed her to see the high skyscraper’s of Manehattan. She got off the tram and looked up to one of the imposing skyscrapers, where Ponytec headquarters were located and headed there for another long shift.

She got through the revolving door into the marble covered hall. Some ponies waited patiently sitting in several sofas displayed around several tables with some magazines on them. Some of them read the newspaper while many other just stared nowhere immerse inside his thoughts. In the middle of the hall a fountain with the motif of a mare holding a ceramic vessel with her forehoof from where water poured emitted a relaxing sound.

“Welcome back, Miss Cloud. Your schedule for today has been transferred to your office, as usually. Also, mister Steelskin wants to meet you in his office as soon as possible.” said the receptionist mare. Her coat was of a pale yellow colour and her dark blue mane was tied in a bun. Every morning she received every employee of Ponytec with that standard greeting, but today it was slightly different. A meeting with Steelskin… That was something she didn’t expect.

Steelskin was the director of the research and development branch of the company and, therefore, her immediate superior. Apart from that, he had only been a pen-pusher lucky enough to direct the development team that created and configured the first gemstone. He took all the merit for the research when he did nothing, and was rapidly promoted. He was just a lucky idiot.

“Crap… What does he want now?” Frost murmured to herself. She couldn’t hate that stallion more than she already did. He always displaced her from the most interesting projects and pushed her to tons of useless paperwork he should do by himself.

When she got the occasion, she got herself displaced as a consultant to M.C.A., trying to escape the nightmare that supposed working with that scatterbrain. And that did the trick for a time, but she still had to come to the headquarters weekly to deliver a report on the development of the project. That weekly visit doesn’t meant anything apart from writing a boring report and having to stand the mockery and nuisance of Steelskin’s presence. That usually didn’t involve anything further than him appearing in her office speaking of the star projects of Ponytec, and telling her she should be there to do this, or to see that... But a meeting… A meeting at his office was something completely different.

Frost didn’t even bother turning around to say goodbye to the receptionist as she got inside the elevator. Those receptionists changed weekly as a part of the firm’s policy.

‘Any kind of emotional attachment between employees is discouraged’ Frost recited inside her mind with the plain voice tone belonging to the welcoming record for new employees she was forced to see. It was an unbearable torture of two hours of duration that had as an objective to explain something you could easily have read in the company’s manual. What they didn’t say anyway was that, when this attachment was unavoidable, usually one of the two ponies involved was reallocated to one of the subsidiary companies outside Manehattan. Such stupidity… Frost never understood it, but, even though she disagreed, this was the only company where here talents could be used properly.

This was not the only policy that the company applied. The elevator was filled up with ponies wearing the standard complete body uniforms of Ponytec. Several ponies dressed in a blue uniform got down at the tenth floor that belonged to the marketing and distribution section. Each one of the sections of the company had a colour assigned. They said that the uniforms policy was supposed to ease interdepartmental communications, but it just pulled off any distinctive trait that anypony could have, transforming the employees of Ponytec into a mass of workers without any kind of personality. Frost tried to convince herself that this wasn’t as bad as it could seem, but it truly made difficult outstanding.

The elevator suddenly stopped at floor 32, where the research and development department was located. Only Frost stepped out of the elevator this time, getting into an almost empty floor with a couple of desks where a two mares dressed with black uniforms took care of the incoming calls, and some offices at the other side. Though R&D was one of the biggest departments, almost everything related to the administration was allocated at the BlackMane facility, near Canterlot, and all the laboratories were in the Manehattan’s outskirts. Therefore, this floor objective was to be a simple consultancy place and to ease the communications with other departments.

Frost rushed through the floor heading directly to Steelskin’s office. The door of his office was the typical opaque crystal door. At eye level could be read, written with golden letters, ‘Mister Ore Steelskin, R&D Director’. Frost sighed deeply and faked her best smile before pushing the door and going inside.

“Good morning, director Steelskin. Did you want to see me?”

The office was a big room with white walls. Hanging from them, a couple of cheap and horrid paintings decorated the office, filling the spaces in between the shelves, full of books about mechanics and electronics. Frost was pretty sure he hadn’t opened these books even once. In the middle of the room was a big oak desk, full of paperwork and on the other side of the desk, Steelskin sat on a huge leather armchair, staring directly at Frost. Behind him, an enormous glass that substituted the whole wall granted a wonderful sight over Manehattan. In front of the desk, a couple of old chairs completed the essential kit to receive employees in the most uncomfortable atmosphere possible.

“Welcome miss Cloud, I awaited your arrival. Please sit down.” seriously said the grey coated earth pony as he pointed one of the rusty chairs with his hoof.

Frost approached the chair and sat resigned. This wasn’t going to be a short talk as she hoped it to be, but instead it was going to be either bad news or a long talk. Both options were simply bad.

“Tell me, mister Steelskin. What’s the matter?” asked Frost

“I’ve spoken with your immediate superiors in Magic Crystal Automation about your work in the development of the prototypes of high energy portable crystals. They are pretty satisfied with the work you carried there.”

Frost had been happily working for the M.C.A. for the last few months. She was employed because a project to reduce the size of the high energy generator gemstones was stuck, obtaining only explosive results… Though she isn’t a unicorn and therefore she can’t program the gemstones, Frost was one of the most successful developers of crystals and systems the company had, and she was proud of it, and therefore she was sent to help in the project.

“Well, I just did my labour the best I could…”

“Despite of that fact, it has been decided to dispense your services as a consultant and developer…”

“WHAT!?”

Crimson slowly walked through his flat’s door, tossing his saddlebags to the side of the hall. He was exhausted. Though he had only to work for half of a shift today, Saturday mornings were definitively the worst moment he could have chosen to have it. Every single pony took their mares around town, and even though they bought nothing, Crimson had to show hundreds of jewels to every single pony.

He had to take this shift because he overslept the day after the party in the warehouse nearby the docks. The fact he overslept wasn’t nothing surprising. The surprise came when he woke up not the next morning, but the morning of the day after, realising he had slept for a whole day.

He remembered everything that happened that night until the moment he touched the ‘flowing light’. After that, the next thing he remembered was waking up inside his bed, wondering if everything had been a dream or if his conversation with Black Claw had been real. Any shade of doubt disappeared a moment later, when he saw a small wooden box with a note beside it on the living room’s table.

‘I thought that you may be upset of that old smoking pipe. I hope you like this.

B.C.’

Remembering this Crimson opened one of the drawers of his studio’s desk, floating the wooden box carefully out of it. Slowly he opened the lid, filling the air with the strong smell of rolled zebra cigars. Those were a delicatessen, difficult to get even within the zebra territory. Crimson only had one chance to try them once, and he was amazed by their flavour. If Black Claw wanted him to join his cause and help him with whatever he planned, he was just doing it in the bucking right way.

Crimson levitated one of the cigars approached it to its muzzle, gently sniffing the pleasant smell. With a smile, Crimson jumped on the sofa, landing softly on his back closely followed by the cigar that floated beside him as well as a small box of matches. This cigar was far too special to be lightened with magic. With several short but strong drags, he lightened it, floating it away from his mouth as he exhaled with pleasure a dense cloud of smoke.

For a time he just laid on the sofa, gazing aimlessly at the room, simply enjoying the flavour. Several questions came to his mind. Why would Black Claw want him to join his rebellion? It wasn’t that Crimson was especially talented for fighting in the streets or was an exceptional strategist. He was just an archaeologist and somehow an anthropologist who had the bad luck of having an uncontrollable urge of making questions, usually uncomfortable for some ponies that shouldn’t be bothered, and finding their answers.

When he was in the party, it seemed that anypony assisting there would be willing to help Black Claw anyway they could. Then, why did he bother so much to get Crimson in? Crimson didn’t trust him much, but he was intrigued about how he planned to make a revolution arise from the repression and the brainwashed minds of the Equestrian ponies. He started to think in the further consequences that a successful revolution would have for the country. Did Black Claw planned to establish a republic in Equestria, or was he an overambitious pony that wanted to be a monarch himself? Crimson shuddered in view of the idea. Perhaps he was just fooling everyone with his speeches about freedom, free thinking and development. Those were beautiful ideas that could easily ignite the rebelliousness inside any pony. They could be easily used a lure as well, turning them into an easy way to recruit ponies…

The cigar slowly consumed with each drag Crimson gave, finally becoming nothing more than a butt inside his mouth.

“Pity, only nine left…” Crimson said as he turned off and tossed the butt, aiming blindly from the sofa to the bin nearby his studio’s desk.

Boredom started to haunt Crimsons mind as he sought for an occupation. Going out wasn’t an option at all as , even though the day was wonderful, sunny and unusually hot for this season, he wasn’t in the mood of just having a walk alone. He couldn’t hang out with Opal as she still was busy in the jewellery, and she would be stuck there working until late-night, and Frost… wasn’t an option either. These mares were the only true friends Crimson had; anyone he had met in Canterlot would be defined as a colleague or a companion better than as a friend. The only friend he thought he had within the walls of Canterlot was Copper , and right now he didn’t even know if he was still alive, or even if he cared about that. Though he didn’t want him dead, Crimson would not shed a tear for him.

Crimson woke from the sofa and headed to the studio. Perhaps reading would make him snap out of his drowsiness. Opening the second drawer he floated out the logbook.

“Damn him, damn him, DAMN. HIM!” Frost shouted inside her office, releasing all the anger she had stored meanwhile Steelskin explained the reasons of her dismissal. Grabbing several of the books and folders in the shelves with her mouth, she started tossing them around the office, creating a blizzard of paper that slowly settled down as a white blanket over the floor. Finally, as coup de grace, she knocked down the filing cabinet that fell to the floor loudly. After stopping to see the chaos she had created, still panting from the outburst, she started settling down and trying to breath slowly. As she turned around, one of the mares that was sitting outside behind one of the desks stared at her, impressed by the huge mess the room was.

“Do you need any help with the…reorganization?” she asked with a little smirk on her face.

“Buck. Off. NOW!” Frost yelled furiously answering the mocking question the mare shot at her.

The mare flinched a bit and, after standing the full of hatred stare of Frost for a few moments, she turned around and smoothly closed the door.

She didn’t believe a word of what Steelskin told her. She couldn’t believe that the decision came from M.C.A. directives; without her work they would be stuck having clock bombs instead of reliable sources of energy. She had invented a way to dissipate the excess of magic so it didn’t accumulate inside the gemstone causing it to crack and explode, turning everything surrounding it into plasma. Whatsmore, she invented a way to rechannel that excess of magic and reload other gems and do parallel processes. For Celestia’s sake, that would make them rich in the span of a couple of years, when the production processes started! How could they fire her!

Frost collapsed on the office chair, staring aimlessly at one point lost in the infinity of her sight. Her mind was a chaotic mass of crossed ideas, concepts and feelings, until one idea arose from the mess of thoughts that assaulted her. Why? It was such a simple question, yet she didn’t have the answer. Perhaps the chief developer of the project wanted all the recognition for himself… No. She wouldn’t allow that. She deserved to be recognised, even if she had to steal all her work from the headquarters. Frost got her eyes wide open as she realised the idea wasn’t as crazy as she first thought…

Crimson was absorbed by the history the logbook revealed, anxiously turning each page once he finished reading it. Once the remains of the battered defence left Philopolis through the portal that Commander Star, who seemed to be the author, Luna and their guards fought to protect, the survivors were gathered in the northern city of Stolegrad. Though the climate was merciless in the northern city, where in middle of the winter temperatures went deeply under cero even during the day, they truly didn’t had any other option rather than hiding there. That same savage climate that menaced to kill them from starvation and exposure was the protection they needed against the seemingly unstoppable army that crushed their resistance in Philopolis.

Though the forces they were able to gather for the defence of Philopolis almost had been wiped, the republic still had enough willing ponies to stand their foe, and the massacre only made their determination to defend their now home rise.

The problem wasn’t the will to fight, but the lack of food. Philopolis was the main source of food of the republic. The well treated land and several farming techniques allowed being productive even during the winter, but without it, it was impossible to supply the entire republic. Commander Star knew this as well as Celestia did. Her strike was merciless, her strategy, intelligent and her objective, their surrender.

But not everything was lost. With the exile of the freethinkers, Celestia lost the only ones capable of controlling the portals that were created during the period before her recently established reign. The portals remained there as a reminder of what happened to the ones that faced Celestia. It was time to take advantage of them. Luna was the one that came out with the risky plan that would grant them the needed resources; a simultaneous attack across several cities of Equestria, attacking food supplies and several important monuments. The objective wasn’t to hurt civilians of course, but to show Celestia that they weren’t defenceless. They even stroke the Capitol city. Crimson felt impressed for the success of the almost suicidal plan as Celestia retreated a great amount of her forces from the republic’s territory. That was the reaction Luna expected, it was time to recover Philopolis…

A knock on the door made Crimson rise his sight of the logbook with an eyebrow risen up and a puzzled expression in his face. He did not expect anyone to visit him today. Crimson quickly stood up as he heard the door being knocked again. He rushed to the studios desk, quickly opening one of the drawers and hiding the logbook inside. He had no time to think for a better place anyway, as a voice yelled at him from the door.

“Manhattan police! Open the door!”

Crimson turned around in disbelief. The police? They couldn’t be here to arrest him, it was impossible that they could have related him to anything that happened in the palace…

He closed the drawer and swiftly trotted to the door; it was better not to get the police angry. He opened the door and found in front of him two stallions, one a dark blue coated huge pegasus with a blonde mane and a badge as cutiemark and the other a smaller brown coated earth pony with a black mane, his cutiemark hidden by a gabardine of a similar colour to his coats’. They both wore sunglasses.

“May I help you misters?” Crimson said with the most polite tone he was able to use. Years living in Canterlot proved at least useful in this sense for once.

The brown pony took a step forward, getting inside the hall swiftly. He was observed by the gigantic pegasus that stood at the doorframe. Wasn’t this illegal? Crimson didn’t even have the time to answer himself as he was soon interrupted by the brown pony.

“We must speak with you, mister Zephyr. We have been investigating the recent disappearance of the expedition sent to Everfree forest depths, and we have been informed that you had a close friendship with the expedition’s leader, mister Copper Compass.”

The brown stallion headed directly to the sofa, taking seat comfortably and placing his hinderlegs over the coffee table in front of him. The blue pegasus stood at the doorframe, blocking any possible escape route, trapping Crimson inside the walls of his own house. Realizing the discomfort that this provoked to Crimson, the brown stallion sat up and with a slight gesture of his hoof commanded the blue pegasus to close the door and to wait outside.

“Well mister Zephyr… Please sit down, I must talk with you.”

Crimson slowly approached the sofa immersed in his thoughts. Perhaps he wasn’t looking for his involvement in the events that occurred at the palace. Black Claw said that he was being chased secretly by Celestia’s agents themselves. Were they looking for him? Could they know he had met Black Claw? If they did, how could they have discovered it? Crimson sat on the armchair in front of the laying policepony, uncomfortably pierced by his stare.

“Oh, where are my manners… I haven’t introduced myself!” he said as he stood up again approaching his forehoof to Crimson over the coffee table. “My name is Crafty Tail”

Crimson stood up, and after shaking his hoof, he sat back on the armchair. This whole situation was uncomfortable. Crafty remained silent for the next minute, just staring Crimson from behind the dark lenses of his sunglasses. Even though Crimson couldn’t see his eyes, he felt his stare analysing every single bit of his body, as if the stallion wanted to get on his nerves. Though he was doing it perfectly, Crimson knew the stallion was just trying to get over his patience and he could play that game too.

The room remained silent while an improvised staring contest took place, putting to the test the patience of both ponies. Finally, Crafty leaned forward and took the sunglasses off. His eyes had a dark green colour that reminded Crimson of the depths of the Everfree forest. Even though the memories of that damned place came back to his mind, he couldn’t stop a smile, he had won the game.

“Do you think this is a funny game, mister Zephyr?” asked the policepony aggressively.

Crimson immediately erased the smile from his face and leaned forward also.

“Even though it may sound foalish, you were the one who started mister Tail”

“Stop losing my time mister Zephyr. Now, its time that you answer some questions…” said the brown stallion opening a notebook and placing it over the coffee table.

Crimson leaned back into his armchair and stared at the brown stallion. Inside his mind several ideas struggled for having the privilege of being worded first. Crimson tried to control himself, discarding the most… impolite answers that came to his mind. The display of arrogance the stallion had made demonstration of made him angry at least, but Crafty Tail was a policepony after all, and getting him angry wouldn’t benefit Crimson in any way.

“It is?” Crimson finally answered. He was not going to tolerate this. He knew his rights; they were few after all…

“Beg your pardon?” the policepony asked, astonished by the question.

“I will not answer any questions unless you bring an order. You have invaded my house as, from what I recall, I didn’t invited you to come in anyway, and the lack of an order makes this… visit, quite illegal.” Crimson answered with determination.

“You are funny, mister Zephyr. Hehehehe… Now going back to my questions…”

“I didn’t intend to make a joke, mister Tail. I’d like you to abandon my house right now.” Crimson said standing up and pointing with his hoof the door. He knew he was going to deeply regret this…

The policepony stood up and approached Crimson, standing the challenge of Crimson’s stare. They locked their stares for a few moments until the brown stallion approached his hoof to the table and picked the notebook and his sunglasses, putting them on.

“Feel lucky, mister Zephyr; today I’ve got a tight schedule. The next time we meet, be sure that I will not be this friendly… You’ll answer my questions, one way or another…” said the stallion threateningly highlighting these last words as he approached the door. Opening the door difficultly with his mouth, the stallion steps outside and looks the blue coated pegasus.

“Head on, we’re leaving.”

Turning around for a last time, Crafty Tail looked at Crimson.

“Mister Zephyr, don’t leave the city. We shall meet soon.”

As soon as he closed the door behind him, Crimson collapsed on the floor with his heart beating fast. He had a truly bad feeling about this…