Equestria: The Days of Blood and Steel

Chapter I of Part II

The sun rose on the morning after their deadly meeting. When Crimson and Nightwing arrived at work a crowd of ponies were forming a circle around Silver Dust he was there telling them (most likely exaggerating) the events of yesterday, of the defiance of the all the workers who had shown up, the promise of the eight leaders to resist and fight for their rights and defy the only leadership they have ever known. When Night and Crimson came onto the edge of the group Silver suddenly yelled,

“Look everypony! Heroes of our movement!”

Before they knew what was happening everypony had surrounded Crimson and Night, and began to thank them and congratulate their bravery. Crimson smiled and shook each ponies hoofs, and gave each “Thank you” a proper “You’re welcome!”. Nightwing on the other hand just nodded and said nothing. Nightwing wasn’t planning on becoming a celebrity, Besides, what had he done that was so special? He felt wrong taking all this attention. Luckily for him a loud voice cut out everypony,

“Hey what is going on?!”

The factory supervisor, was a blue earth pony with a stocky build. He had a black suit shirt on, with a white undershirt, a bright red tie rested around his neck, but he was not wearing the pants that went with the suit. On his face he had large dark sunglasses, hanging from his mouth was a large smoking cigar. He took this out of his mouth and said,

“I said, what is going on?!”

Silver answered,

“We were just saying good morning to each other, sir-” Silver drew out the last word and scowled.

“Well say that on your own time Silver! Nightwing get these ponies to work!”

    Nightwing nodded and rose his voice,

“Alright everypony, break it up! Let’s get to work.”

Everypony grumbled but listened to Nightwing’s instructions and headed off to where they belonged. As Silver passed the supervisor took his glasses off and watched him with suspicion. It looked as if he was about to stop Silver when he flinched and grabbed his eye. Over his right eye there was a large red scar, that had to be fresh if it still hurt. Mumbling he slapped his glasses on and trotted away to his office.

The work day dragged on at it’s slow painful pace, finally coming to an end just after the sun had set. Nightwing wiped the sweat off his head and made his way out of the factory, he waited for Crimson to catch up, a few minutes later the brown earth pony arrived.

“Whew, that day seemed longer than usual... Are you coming?”

“Coming where?” Nightwing was completely puzzled by this question.

“To our meeting... Remember?”

“Not exactly, I wasn’t paying much attention after we broke our hoof pile... kinda thinking how i’m going to come out of this alive you know?”

“Well, we decided to meet up today. Just after work. You should come along.”

    Nightwing just shook his head, it was too dangerous to meet up again just after what had happened yesterday.

“No you go ahead. I’m just going home.”

“But Nightwing-”

“NO!” Nightwing sighed, he didn’t mean to backlash suddenly, but he had made up his mind.

“No, Crimson. Sorry but not this time.”

    Crimson looked deflated but just nodded.

“Alright Night, i’ll see you later.”

    With that he trotted off in direction of the park.

“Yeah... See you later.” Nightwing mumbled as he head home.

Nightwing was too distracted to eat or sleep, he could not even think in the oppressive air of his home. He needed to stretch. Getting up he walked outside, it was night, just around 21:00 hours, but some light from small headlamps on the side of buildings made enough light for him to have a idea of where he was stepping. Near the end of the street there was a box upside down, Night sat down on top of it and shut his eyes as he leaned against the building. Surprisingly it was quiet. Nightwing sighed and began to doze off, but then suddenly a loud speaker across the street blared news:

“Our glanant troops have just beaten back an attempt by Crystal ponies to raid our countryside! Lead by Shining Armor himself they attempted to burn our farms and take our fillies! But our brave soldiers beat them back across their own border! Celebrate ponies! For you have been protected at the cost of your brothers lives!”

Nightwing just grunted and sighed. After what seemed only moments he was being shaken, he must have fallen asleep, suddenly defensive he blurted out,

“Huh what?!”

“Night! Nightwing wake up!” Nightwing just shook his head and saw that it was Crimson shaking him awake.

“Night, we were found out.”

Nightwing was fully awake now, he sat up and images of Ice Charmer being taken away, or even killed came to his mind. He shook his head and looked at Crimson,

“What happened?! Is everypony alright?”

“Well we had decided that it might be dangerous to meet in the park so soon after the last meeting-”

“Yeah, no kidding!”

Crimson ignored Night’s comment and continued,

“All went well, we basically discussed future plans and the like. But halfway through the meeting a peacegiver had shown up and demanded to know what we were doing. We simply told him we were just keeping warm by telling each other stories. He just laughed  at us and demanded we go home at once. We had no choice but to listen we all upped and left the alley well enough, until Fire’s Return, being the idiot he is, spat on the peacegiver.”

“He spit on him?!”

“Right in the face! Fire got a hoof in the face for that, and probably would have gotten more if the peacegiver had not noticed we all suddenly surrounded him, we didn’t even have to say anything, you could just feel the tension saying ‘Go on you bastard, hit him again!’ . Now this must have been a smart one because he just ordered us to go home again and he flew off.”

    Nightwing shifted and then got off the box, his flank hurting from being there so long.

“Ow... My flank. I hope Fire’s is all right... He is... right?”

“Yeah, the stubborn pony refused help, and just walked home alone, he was a bloody mess.”

Night sighed, now he felt guilty he had not been there and promised himself to show up next time.

“When have you guys decided to come together again?”

“We were flushed out so quickly we never came up with a time or place. But don’t worry Silver will figure it out.”

Night just nodded and motioned for Crimson to follow him home. They arrived and settled down. They then prepared themselves a small meal and sat down in the main room to eat what they had made. But before either could take a bite a loud knock was heard on the door. Neither moved but looked at each other, who could possibly be here at this hour?

“Open up! Now! In the name of our great leader open the door!”

A peacegiver. Nightwing had no choice but to open the door. He rushed over and opened it, a male peacegiver filled the doorway and looked down on Night with a menacing stare.

“By order of the Revolutionary Government, Worker Nightwing you must vacate this room immediately following the close of work tomorrow. If you reside here still when a Dator Pax arrives at 21:00 hours you will be arrested.”

“Where will I-” the peacegiver continued as if Nightwing had not spoken.

“Citizen Crimson, you are advised to return home. Though choice if you shall stay with the workers for the time being until your father recalls you, or if you return to where you belong are up to you. Though if you are here at 21:00 you will be escorted home.”

And with that the peacegiver slammed the door shut with his magic, and his hoof-steps descending the stairs could be heard.

Nightwing turned to Crimson. Neither could speak as they started at each other with a loss of words. For almost three minutes they sat there until suddenly Nightwing’s anger snapped.

“What are we going to do? Crimson, where will we go?! We are going to die! I’M GOING TO DIE! Crimson we-”

But before he could say another word there was another knock on the door, much softer than the peacegiver had knocked. Nightwing turned to the door, weariness suddenly overtook him as there was another knock. Sighing he walked over and slowly opened the door, not finding what he expected Nightwing was taken aback, before him stood a grey pegasus mare with a clean blonde mane, and light orange eyes stood before him. Her eyes closing as she smiled a strange voice, as of one with a slight voice handicap said,

“Oh Nightwing! It has been so long!”

The mare wrapped her front hooves around Nightwing’s neck in a hug.

“Uh, who are you ma’am?”

The mare backed off but her smiled remained,

“Oh silly me! hehe, i’m Crimson’s mother! Derpy Whooves!”

Nightwing's jaw dropped.