Equestria: The Days of Blood and Steel

Chapter I

The 8 A.M. work whistle blew and a black stallion with a short yellow mane with black streaks, and scars covering his body shuffled out to the street. He joined a line of dirty worker ponies all heading to work. On the other side of the street ponies returning home after a thirteen hour work shift shuffled on not looking at anything, barely staying awake on their hoofs. As Nightwing, the black stallion, headed to work a shadow passed overhead, it was a “Dator pax” or in the common language “Giver of Peace.” but most everypony called them “Peacegivers”. These “Peacegivers” were an altered alicorn breed, bred by by the Government that patrolled the skies and kept everypony in order and took away bodies of dead or injured ponies. They also killed those who resisted, thus the alias of “Peacegiver”. The weapons which they used were strange devices wrapped around their foreleg, it was a band of gold with a small base and a barrel, it made a loud noise (Most likely altered to sound louder so as to add a fear effect.) and almost instantly killed anypony hit by the “bullets” that come out. The Peacegiver flew on not looking down.

Nightwing lived in the capital city of the nation, a large smoggy city of at least one and a half million ponies. It was dubbed “Victory City” due to the fact (As the Government said) that this was where the tyrants Luna and Celestia surrendered and gave their rule to the “people”. The two disappeared after that, and nothing was ever heard of them again expect when the Government mentioned its defeat of them. The Government was a group of ponies run by an all powerful pony “The Leader”, as the workers knew him. Almost nothing was known about him but he was posted everywhere and treated like a god. The story goes that there were two tyrants named Princess Celestia and Princess Luna, they ruled over the land “Equestria” and abused the people, but “The Leader” a general in the Royal Guard raised an army and after a long and hard war that lasted many years the Princesses were defeated and their top generals Twilight Sparkle and Rainbow Dash with them. But nothing is known of what any of their fates had been. All that was known was that the Air Divison Commader had given in and surrndered. Being allowed to live.

The nation had been gutted by the war, and “The Leader” promised pardons to those who helped rebuild the nation and he declared a new capital for all ponies at the site where the Princesses had surrendered. The nation’s population soared as the Government had ponies produce new foals. The new city was built in a number of years, new factories and buildings, it was huge. Ponies could now live in peace. But as Nightwing looked around he wondered how that was possible with the smog, dirty buildings, disease, and sometimes days without food. What kind of peace is this?

He strolled on, his factory was only four blocks in a straight line from his housing complex, so it was a short walk, but always depressing. As he approached the factory one of the loudspeakers above the entrance blared an all too familiar quote: “Remember valiant workers, Crystal Ponies are among you! Be vigilant and rout out the traitors! Any help will be rewarded with great praise and thanks of the nation.” That was another thing, the Crystal Empire was a northern nation that had supported the Princesses in the war, but when Equestria had fallen, they stood alone and it was said that the rulers, Princess Cadance and Shining Armour had gone slightly mad in their determination to restore the Lunar/Celestian monarchy, and that they enslaved and tortured their citizens.

But Nightwing’s mother had told him different. She had told him that Princess Cadance and Shining Armour, (The latter head of the Equestrian Royal Guard and brother to Equestrian General Twilight Sparkle.) Were caring and loved their ponies, and that they fought for what was right, in fact Princess Cadance (as his mother had told him) was the embodiment of love. That sounded a little cheesy to him, but what did he know? But he shrugged and entered the factory, he clocked in, just on time as usual and checked his wings to see if everything was working properly. His wings had never fully grown due to him never practicing or learning how, so instead he got a set of metallic wings to place over them, they were powerful and the one thing he loved besides his mother’s earring. His wings were in working order and he headed to work. His job was to supervise everypony and make sure they were doing what they needed to do right. He also cleaned out the chimneys to keep it clean and clear for more smoke to pump through.  His rank was symbolized by his blue shoulder pads with a black line through it, his boots represented the same thing. He had held work in this factory since he entered work at a young age, he was viewed as the senior of the factory and he knew about everypony in the factory, even do many ponies died or were transferred.

He sighed and stretched his limbs, ever since his mother died he had always felt alone, sure he talked to the other ponies at work, but he didn’t really know them and life was always the same thing, with nothing to do. He had contemplated suicide once when his emotions had gotten the better of him, but he remembered that he had promised his mother to live on and see the beauty in the world. He had yet to find that beauty.

Luckily work kept his mind occupied, and he always pressed to do better, maybe even incorporate tricks to entertain himself when no-one was looking. Staring at 8 A.M. work dragged on for 13 hours until 9 P.M. then the night ponies took work until 8 A.M. It was long and hard, and it wasn’t uncommon to have a pony die in one of the factories nearby. This factory crated and boxed containers of different kinds of foods, most of it fancy upper class food like “Caviar”, "hors d'oeuvres" and other fancy foods, sometimes they processed normal food that the workers ate, which was usually a coloured kind of mush.

As he took off an earth pony whom he had never seen came up. He was a brown stallion with a spiky mane that was a darker brown than his coat.

“Hello! Are you...Nightwing? I’ve been told to report to you.”

“By Celestia! Who are you?” As Nightwing scanned him he came to the conclusion that this must be some kind of upper class pony, he was clean, looked like he never worked a day in his life, and had the slightest accent that was almost impossible to pick out.

“Umm, yes I am. Who are-”

“Wait did you just say Celestia?” The stallion whispered the name as he cut Nightwing off.

“Uh yes I did...” Nightwing replied with no emotion to his voice. Was he in trouble? Was he being tested? What was going on, and what did this stallion want?

“So you are a rebel? A supporter of the Princesses? Well I want to talk to you later, we have things to talk about!”

Nightwing would have been scared to death, thinking that this was a Government agent or something, but the Earth pony had excitement in his voice and his stature told Nightwing that he most likely wasn’t working for the Government.

“Umm, I’m sorry-”

“Oh, uh Crimson Whooves.”

“Right, Crimson... Look I got work to do and i’ll get in trouble if I don’t set to it, so if you could hurry up.”

“Right sorry, I was sent to work here by my father, because I refused to learn medicine like he did. So I was told to report to you to be sent to my work station.”

Nightwing just stared at him then nodded and checked the list of workers on the wall, it was a list with room to slide in and take out the little pieces of paper with the names of workers on them if needed, and a little light next to each name to indicate that they had checked in for work that day. If the light didn’t turn on and the pony didn’t show up, it was Nightwing’s job to report it to his superior who then inform the Peacegivers who would hunt the pony down.

Sure enough Crimson’s name was newly added.

“Allright Crimson, just check in with this. And i’ll show you where to go.” He handed him a new work card that was designated to “Crimson Whooves” that had been sitting in the card holder.

Crimson did it easily enough and Nightwing escorted him to his new station. After showing him how to work the machine and letting him try it out, he turned and asked,

“So where are you staying?”

“Hmm? Oh nowhere at the moment, I just got here and was hoping to find somewhere later.” Nightwing looked at Crimson,

‘Is this pony insane? Wing it down here? He will starve! I’ll have to let him stay with me awhile.’

“Why don’t you stay with me? Just for awhile, it’s better than leaving you to die.” Crimson looked up,

“Oh really?! Thank you very much!” Nightwing nodded and flew off to complete his duties.

After a hard work shift Nightwing was the last to clock out just like usual, he looked around hoping to see if Crimson had waited for him. Nightwing would feel guilty if he left Crimson without a place to stay for at least one night. He scratched his head, maybe he was still at his post? But surely he would have seen everypony leaving and heard the whistle signaling the end of the work shift, right?

Nightwing took to the air and looked around, and sure enough Crimson was still there working the controls even though the machine was off, he was mumbling to himself and sweat poured down his face, his eyes were bulging.

“Crimson! Crimson!” when the earth pony did not respond Nightwing went over and yelled in his ears,

“CRIMSON!” The earth pony jumped and looked around as if suddenly awoken.

“Huh? Oh, is work over?”

“Yeah, you must have overdone yourself, you were talking to yourself and working even though everypony else had returned home.”

Crimson tried to smile but wavered, he looked as if he had not slept for a week, but this was expected seeing as how the earth pony hailed from the class of the citizen ponies and had never worked so hard in his life. Nightwing came over and allowed Crimson to lean on him as he lead him out of the factory, they slowly made their way down the street to Nightwing’s housing block and up the stairs to Nightwing’s home on the 8th floor. When they entered Crimson coughed,

“Argh, it’s even more dusty in here than outside.”

“Well what can you expect? There’s not much I can do with my life but work and sleep.”

“And eat.”

“What?”

“Well you eat surely?” Crimson gave a grin, and Nightwing just shook his head.

Nightwing helped Crimson into the chair in the small room that took up the house. He then went into the “kitchen” which was a small part of the main room with a box for holding Government rations, a small machine that warmed up the rations that no longer worked, and a small container that pumped out water when activated... rationed of course. After opening one of the ration boxes and mixing the contents, which like usual was some strange or plain coloured mush. After doing that he headed back into the main room giving one of the ration cartons to Crimson.

After they ate in silence for a few moments Crimson brought up a strange subject, that Nightwing could only fathom how it entered his mind,

“So Nightwing, do you have a certain pony? I mean like a special somepony?”

“You mean like a lover? Uh no, I’m sure i’ll get one soon though. I’m getting close to age.”

“What do you mean?” Crimson was obviously unaware that the Government assigned worker’s wifes/husbands to have foals with.

“Well you see, while the Government never cares who one chooses to fall in love with, or mate with, even if it is a pony of the same gender. But they always assign each pony a mate to have a child with, so that there is a constant stream of new working ponies. For each foal born the assigned couple receives a bonus, this can mean more food, or new beds or something.” Crimson nodded as he took the information in, he had never known this. But now that he had brought it up, Nightwing wanted to know why.

“Why did you bring that up Crimson? Any reason?” Crimson just shook his head and they continued in silence. After a few moments Nightwing asked the same question.

“Well kind of...You see there is this mare. I always sorta liked her, she always seemed to play along with my advances but rejected me in the end. My father told me that she was a tease and I should stop wasting my time with her. I don’t know if I could, I mean nopony else ever interested me.”

Nightwing looked up, was he being serious? Obviously this mare was just playing with him but here he was, loving her.

“What does she look like?”

“Um, she is cyan. A light blue, with rainbow hair, she always keeps her hair nice and straight and wears nice clothes, unlike her mother who always goes without clothing and has her mane ruffled. Her and her mother don’t get along, it’s rumored that they don’t even talk to each other anymore.”

Nightwing just nodded, but then as he thought about it that sounded familiar, a cyan pony with a rainbow mane? He knew he had heard that before.

“What was her name? I mean the mother?” Crimson looked up, a little confused but answered anyway.

“Uh, Rainbow Dash, she is famous among us citizens for what she did to protect the land in the days before. Because we can access the Government histories in the library we have. But whenever somepony praises her or brings it up she gets mad, she even almost beat somepony one time.”

Nightwing eyes widened, Rainbow Dash! His mother had known her and talked about her alot and all she had done with her friends to save Equestria before the war. Maybe Crimson knew more of the ponies he had heard about.

“Um, who were your parents? Maybe I have heard of them in my mother’s stories.”

“Well my mother goes by Derpy Whooves ever since she married my father, Dr. Whooves now retired from being a doctor. I also had a sister named Ditzy Doo... but she, uh died.” Crimson looked uncomfortable as he said this, obviously it hurt to bring it up,

“I’m sorry, I didn’t mean to bring up bad memories.”

“No, no you wanted to know so there’s no worries.”

They in silence awhile until Crimson yawned and stretched.

“I do not mean to be rude, but I am very tired, if I could...?”

“Oh of course! You’ll have to sleep in that chair, the bed can’t be sleep in, and I have no blankets to offer.”

“Whew, you better get a kid soon than!” Crimson chuckled at his joke and got as comfortable as he could in the chair and almost fell asleep instantly. Nightwing went into his bedroom, he looked at the bed and sighed remembering his mother. He pushed the chair in the room out to the main room, curled up in it and fell asleep.