Second Chances II: Love and Courage

Second Chances II: Love and Courage
By Hero541
Chapter 15: Breaking the News

Rainbow Dash, Twilight, and Spike were all in the library, the rainbow pegasus engrossed in another Daring Do book while the unicorn and her assistant continued to sort a box of new books onto the shelves. The only dialogue between anypony was the occasional question from Spike as to where a book went. Everypony was too caught up in their own activities to do or say much. However, that silence and serenity was broken as somepony began to frantically knock on the front door to the library.

“Coming!” said Twilight, cheerily strolling to the door and opening it.

There stood Rarity and Fluttershy, both with puffy red eyes and looks of deep sadness painting their faces. Twilight, who had a wide smile on her own face as she’d answered the door quickly dropped that look and gained one of concern for her friends.

“Are you girls okay?” she asked, causing Rainbow to look up from her book for the first time in hours.

“Something’s happened, Twilight.” said Rarity, tears beginning to form in her eyes once more, “Something w-with… Josh.”

“What’s happened?” asked Rainbow, setting her book down and floating towards the door to join Twilight, “Is he okay?”

“F-Filthy Rich… he’s…” stammered Rarity, unable to find her voice as she began to cry again, Fluttershy doing the same next to her, “He spoke at town hall this morning…”

“I remember getting a flyer for that yesterday.” said Twilight, looking to her left and seeing the paper she’d seen plastered on her door the night before, “But, what does that have to do with Josh?”

“It… It was a rally against Josh…” said Fluttershy, now beginning to shake from the force of her own crying.

“What the buck?” said Rainbow, her eyes growing wide, “Why would he do that? What’s all this about?”

“Maybe you two ought to come inside.” said Twilight, moving aside to allow the two mares to enter.

Almost immediately, they delved into that entire day and what had happened, from the rally that morning, to when Filthy showed up at Josh and Vinyl’s home and insulted the human and his marefriend. Fluttershy, at that point, very quickly lost the ability to form a coherent sentence as she wailed, making Rarity have to finish the tale.

“The m-mayor came to the house and arrested him not even an hour later.” she said, trying her best to comfort the crying pegasus next to her.

Rainbow and Twilight sat in stunned silence for awhile, both unable to believe what they had just heard.

“B-but… Josh is never violent…” said Twilight, watching as Rarity broke down next to Fluttershy.

Rainbow, meanwhile, simply sat there, a feeling of anger washing through her. Josh was one of her best friends. She loved him like a brother, the two having spent many a night together at the local pub, or just hanging around for a day to be around one another for awhile. She couldn’t believe that somepony could be so bigoted towards her friend that they’d turn an entire town against him and then have him arrested for doing the right thing and defending his marefriend after she’d been insulted. After a few minutes, she rose from her sitting position and made her way to the door.

“Where’re you going, Rainbow?” asked Twilight, rising herself and following the colorful mare.

“I’m gonna go see Josh.” she said simply, not stopping to look back at her friend, “Then I’m gonna go give Filthy Rich a piece of my mind. And maybe my back hooves…”

“Do you wanna end up in jail like him?” asked Twilight, grabbing Rainbow’s tail in her magic and pulling lightly on it to stop her friend, “You can’t just go out and attack Filthy Rich! Especially now, when he’s got the entire town of Ponyville on his side.”

Rainbow turned around to face Twilight, rage burning in her eyes.

“What do you suggest we do then?” she yelled, unable to control her anger any longer, “Just let him sit in there and rot? Let Filthy just take everypony here who loved Josh and turn them against him? He hasn’t done anything wrong, Twilight! He doesn’t deserve this!”

“I know, Rainbow.” said Twilight, tears beginning to well up in her violet eyes, “It’s not right. I agree with you there. However, that’s no excuse for us to just rush out there and do something brash like that! We have to be there to support Josh and Vinyl through this, and it’ll be kinda hard to do that if we’re in jail too. Or worse.”

Rainbow opened and closed her mouth, unable to find anything to refute Twilight’s words. Finally, she lowered her head and gave in, feeling a wave of hopelessness fill her heart.

“What do we do then?” she asked, not looking to Twilight.

“Rarity and Fluttershy can stay here.” said the unicorn, turning back to her still sobbing friends, “You and I are gonna go visit him in jail. If there’s one thing he needs right now, it’s his friends.”

“What about Vinyl?” asked Spike, watching the whole scene from atop a shelf, “I can’t imagine she’s taking this real well herself…”

“I’ll send out Pinkie and Applejack to visit her.” said Twilight, glancing to the dragon.

“S-she’s at Octavia’s house.” said Rarity, able to calm down just enough to speak, “Josh had her g-go there to stay safe.”

“I’ll let them know.”

With that, Twilight and Rainbow made their way out of the library, both heading for the local jail. Neither one could yet comprehend the situation at hoof, how this had all come about, or how it could possibly end. However, that didn’t matter now. What was important was that their friends were taken care of now.

*****

Josh sat in a very small holding cell in Ponyville jail, his head in his hands and a feeling of sadness and exhaustion filling his body. He’d only been in here for about two hours so far, and yet he was already longing to see Vinyl again, to hold her and let her know that everything was gonna be alright. The sight of her tear stained face haunted his vision as he sat there, making his already sad feelings intensify. He never noticed the guard standing outside his cell watching him, a concerned look on his face.

“This your first time in trouble here?” he asked, startling Josh a little.

“Wha… Yeah.” said Josh simply, looking towards the blue uniformed pony.

“Hmm. I figured.” replied the guard, pacing back and forth in front of Josh’s cell, “I know it can seem kinda scary at first to be here. However, I can assure you that we were given strict orders by the mayor to make sure you were treated fairly, and I’m gonna see to it that we do just that.”

“Thanks.” said Josh, returning his head to his hands.

An uncomfortable silence fell as Josh just sat there. The guard continued his slow pacing, his hooves making a loud echoing sound all around the room as he walked. Josh honestly found the sound rather annoying, but realized he wasn’t in much of a position to ask the pony to stop.

“Ya know,” said the guard finally, stopping his pacing, “I may have to uphold the law around here, but I can’t blame you for what you did.”

Josh looked up again to the pony, seeing a smile cross his face.

“I can’t stand Filthy Rich.” he said, resuming his pacing, “He thinks that just because he’s a high roller here in Ponyville that his word is law. More than once, I’ve heard about him trying to pay off one of my officers to save a friend of his, or throwing somepony under the bus when they had nothing to do with anything that happened. Such a scumbag.”

Josh chuckled at those words. He sat back a little on the tiny bed he was sitting on, watching the officer pace once more.

“Glad I’m not the only one around here who doesn’t agree with him.” said the human.

“Believe me. You and I are hardly alone here.”

“I do wanna know how he managed to turn everyone against me if he’s so unpopular.” said Josh, remembering back to Filthy’s speech to the crowd at city hall.

“He’s an excellent speaker.” said the guard, stopping his pacing again and frowning a little, “Not to mention that most ponies here are afraid of him. He’s not afraid to step on as many ponies as he needs to in order to achieve his goals.”

“That can’t be legal.” said Josh, crossing his arms and staring at the officer.

“A lot of it isn’t.” he said simply, continuing to frown, “We can never get any sort of evidence against him though, and most ponies won’t speak up against him for fear that they’ll be sued out of town.”

“He’s pretty damn cutthroat, isn’t he?”

“Like you wouldn’t believe.”

As the officer finished his sentence, another guard cantered up to him and saluted before speaking.

“Warden, sir,” he said, dropping his salute, “there are some ponies here to see Josh. Should I tell them that visiting hours are over?”

The guard looked to Josh and smiled, “No. Let them back to see him.” he said, causing Josh to smile, “And they can stay as long as they like.”

“Yes sir.”

The guard turned and made his way back towards the entrance as Warden turned back to Josh, his smile still present.

“Thanks.” said the human, feeling a little of his sadness dissipate as he thought about his friends’ smiling faces.

“Not a problem.” said Warden, turning and preparing to leave as Twilight and Rainbow made their way up to Josh’s holding cell.