Equestria: The Days of Blood and Steel

Chapter III

Nightwing shut the door behind him as he entered the place he had called home for the last 19 years of his life,

“We need to grab what we can. Food, maybe that blanket on your bed. Hey Nightwing can I-”

Crimson turned and saw that Nightwing was standing near the doorway looking around the room with sadness entrenched on his face. Sighing Crimson trotted over and patted Night’s shoulder.

“Hey buddy. I know it will be hard, but we have to do this.”

Sighing Nightwing lowered his head, and closed his eyes as if trying to shut out the sudden flood of memories as the realisation that he would never see this place again hit him. He lifted up his head and just sulkily made his way into the bedroom and shut the door. Crimson just sighed and began to stuff some of the food cartons into his saddle bags. Luckily, unlike the water, which the machine cut off when a certain amount was taken, the food was just delivered each week to the workers to consume until they ran out.

‘This should be enough for me and Nightwing for a week. I should grab those pillows in the main room.’

As he stuffed the first one in the other saddle bag he heard mumbling come from the bedroom. He slowly made his way to the door and pressed his ear against it,

“Goodbye mother. I hope I can make you proud someday...”

Crimson instantly pulled away.

‘Poor Night, he has nopony like I have mom.’

“Nightwing, are you okay?”

In answer Nightwing opened the door,

“Yeah i’m fine, let me just pack some things and we can... leave.”

The two packed whatever they could and made their way out.

“Shouldn’t we go see Silver?”

“Oh yeah. I guess we were supposed to do that...”

Nightwing lead the way out of the building and across the street to the building Silver lived in. They made their way to Silver’s floor, and knocked on the door of the room he lived in. After a couple of seconds and the sound of shuffling an old looking mare slowly opened the door and peered around it.

“What do you want?”

Looking up she saw it was Nightwing and let out a ‘Oh!’. She retreated back into the room, and fully opened the door.

“What can I do for you Night?”

“I actually wanted to know if Silver was here.”

“No. He left this morning saying he would be back soon. He didn’t say why he was leaving, but he took a saddlebag full of stuff with him... Speaking of which, what are you doing with those bags? Are you and Silver up to something?”

Immediate suspicion etched her face, but Nightwing reassured her that everything was fine,

“Don’t worry. We aren’t up to anything. We just... Need to go away for a bit. Not far, just...away.”

The mare obviously thought this was not enough to satisfy her question. But she trusted Night, unlike Silver he had some maturity.

“Well whatever you are doing, be safe Nightwing.”

“Of course Mrs. Dust.”

The two hugged quickly than she shut the door as Night and Crimson went on their way.

“Well if his mother says that he left this morning where do we go now?”

Nightwing just shook his head and began to walk away down the street. Crimson trotted up and fell in line besides him, they were making their way towards the park it appeared.

“Nightwing, are we going to the park? Why?”

“I don’t know Crimson. I just feel like we should.”

Crimson didn’t question this but just kept following. As expected the park was empty at this hour in the middle of a working week. The two ponies made their way to the fountain where a good number of encounters had been made. They settled down and a cold breeze blew through causing Crimson to shiver. He rummaged through his saddle bag and pulled out a blanket.

“Uhh, I only have on-”

“Just hand it over.”

Crimson threw the blanket over them, they held it close as the city turned dark and the air turned colder. They sat there, shivering against the cold under that blanket for what seemed an eternity. Nightwing felt a sudden weight on his shoulder and turned to see Crimson leaning on him, asleep. Nightwing began to feel awkward, but before he could move he heard a voice, a voice that had been in the back of his thoughts for the last few days,

“I’m not interrupting anything here... Am I?” Ice Charmer.

Nightwing turned his head to face her. She was standing right behind them, a smirk on her face.

“No. Want to join us?”

“Haha, you wish don’t you?”

Nightwing flinched at that, he didn’t know why, but that stung him a bit.

“I’m guessing you got told off by our great and powerful leaders.”  in a mocking tone she stretched out the last part and spat on the ground, causing Crimson to stir. Nightwing slowly made his way out from under the blanket, and Crimson conunited to dose, laying on the bench.

“You two look cute together.”

Ice Charmer flicked Nightwing’s nose giggling.

“I think you are being what Crimson would call a ‘tease’.”

“Ha! Me?! Impossible!”

Nightwing rolled his eyes at her mock despair.

“On a more serious note... Have you made contact with anypony?”

Ice Charmer turned serious and shook her head.

“No, I haven’t seen anypony, I just hope they get the same idea as us and come here. I myself didn’t bother to go to work. I mean, why give them more labour when they don’t even want me anymore? So I just stayed home, said goodbye to everypony I knew in my area, then made my way here. Well not right away of course. It’s pretty late.”

Nightwing nodded, but before he could say anything a low whistle came from the far side of the park. Ice Charmer whistled back almost right away, and a group of ponies made their way through the darkness. It was Silver, behind him was Steel Strider and Dawn’s Blaze. Silver walked up with a smug look on his face.

“Look who I found, these two had no idea where to go! Luckily I found Steel Strider easy enough. We went to look for you Ice Charmer but it looks like you didn’t need to be found.”

Silver laughed a bit, but before he went on he saw Crimson on the bench.

“Haha! Poor Crimson!”

Silver walked over and tapped Crimson on the head,

“Come on lazy wake up.”

Crimson stirred and opened his eyes. He slowly sat up and stretched. When he suddenly realised where he was he let out an, ‘Oh’.

“Hi there sleepy! Have fun?”

Ice Charmer giggled when Crimson looked confused at her joke.

“All right. Now that’s enough, we need to get serious. Long story short, I was able to find and bring only Steel Strider and Dawn’s Blaze here. When we went to find Twilight’s Blessing only one pony had seen her, they said she had ran off towards the heart of the city, but had disappeared down a back alley. We don’t know where she went, but we can only hope that she is okay.”

Each pony nodded as Silver made a pause.

“When we went for Fire’s Return nopony knew where he was. There was no sign that he had taken anything with him. He was just... Gone.”

Nightwing looked around and a sudden thought came to mind.

‘He wasn’t? No he’s not that dumb... Is he?’

“Uhh, you don’t think that maybe... Maybe he was-”

“Taken away?”

Ice Charmer looked serious as she finished Nightwing’s sentence.

“I know he is a little arrogant, but I don’t think he would get himself in enough trouble for them to take him!”

“I hope you are right. If he was taken then we need to free him.”

“Yeah Steel Strider why don’t we just storm the Government prisons and free everypony!”

“Why don’t we Ice Charmer?”

“Come on you two. We need a plan. And quick, it’s really dark now and we need someplace to go.”

Everypony knew Silver was right, but where could they go?

“There isn’t necessarily any place we can go. We are traitors. Nopony would take us in.”

“Dawn’s Blaze has a point. But I think I know a place. Now I don’t know how we can get food or the like, but I think we should be okay for a week or two.”

“I think I can help here.”

Crimson slipped off the bench and tripped falling face first on the pavement, Crimson quickly picked himself up though, blushing at his self-embarrassment.

“I think I could help, my mother promised to send whatever I need, I could get some things from her, but she could only send so much before it would be missed.”

Steel Strider scoffed.

“Before it’s missed? Yeah because they don’t have enough of everything all ready!”

“Hey, come on. By doing this she runs a risk herself.”

Silver turned to Crimson.

“If you get the chance thank her for us.”

“I will.”

    Ice Charmer pushed her way into the middle of the group.

“This is nice and all, but we should get going. It’s almost the middle of the night.”

“Shes right, let’s go.”

Steel Strider began to walk off toward the park exit, but then Silver called out,

“Hey Steel Strider!”

    The grey stallion turned.

“It’s this way.”

Everypony laughed as Steel Strider tried to hide his embarrassment and turned to go the right way. They stalked away into the darkness of the night, a darkness that mirrored their deeper feelings.

A brown unicorn made his way down a familiar metal hallway. Like the last time he had been here the hall was dim and empty. A new poster was on the wall, this time encouraging the farmers to work extra hard for harvest time. The unicorn stopped outside the metal door at the end of the hall. He slowly breathed in, than out. He had to give a report to the greatest pony alive that he knew, the Great Founder and Leader of this new worker’s Equestria.

He slowly knocked on the door, which quickly slid open. The unicorn was taken aback.

“They are new. They came up with electronic doors. Waste of money I think, but come in.”

The brown unicorn quickly walked in and the door slid shut behind him.

“Sir, i’ve compiled the report you wanted. I’ve gathered all I could on Crimson Whooves, and i’ll start on whichever pony you want next. Sir.”

“Right. Give it to me.”

The brown unicorn nodded and walked forward. He cleared his throat and began,

“Crimson Whooves, born to medical doctor, Dr. Whooves, or Time Turner. And pegasi Derpy Whooves, unemployed. He was born, like most of the young ponies in our nation, in 0 R.Y. he completed the whole 4 year school program and the extra 5th year-”

“I remember when we had more than five grades. Ha those were the days... Go on.”

“Right. He excelled and after completing school he was constantly at the citizen’s library reading about Astronomy, History, and Politics. He didn’t do much but read, he had a potential girlfriend but she turned him down. Otherwise he has had almost no friends. One day his father demanded he begin to learn medicine like he had. But Crimson refused. Dr. Whooves refused to acknowledge his son and sent him to live with the workers until he conformed to his wishes. Otherwise all he has done is live with this Nightwing, and work at factory 291."

The white stallion scratched his chin as he received this new information.

"Interesting, now that I know how he got there, I want to know what happened to him today."

"I actually have that report with me sir."

"Really? Excellent. Read it."

"Well, it appears only Nightwing, Crimson Whooves and Dawn's Blaze worked today, the others thought better of it. We did have to arrest one, he resisted and actually mortally wounded a Daxtor Pax."

"Yes? Which one was it?"

"His name is Fire's Return sir."

"Fire's Return hmm? I think I have plans for him... Yes, I do."

The stallion made his way to the large window overlooking his great city.

"Yes, I shall pay him a personal visit tonight... These rebels better expect a dark future."