Equestria: The Days of Blood and Steel

Chapter IV of Part II

Crimson and Nightwing quickly made their way down not to familiar streets which were almost empty save for the occasional stray piece of trash. They made their way through a winding alley onto the familiar grey street were the large dirty factory that once occupied most of their time and lives appeared. The last of the workers were making their way into the factory, one in particular caught Crimson’s eye. It was a grey earth pony who he remembered talking to a few days ago, the same pony he had told off for striking,

“Nightwing, who’s that?”

“It’s Ash Fall... Hey Ash Fall!”

The earth pony turned and seeing Crimson and Nightwing he smiled. He met the two halfway and greeted them in the street,

“Hey guys! You’re almost late, that’s unusual for you two. Especially you Nightwing.”

Nightwing looked at him with a serious expression,

“Well that’s because we don’t work here anymore. We have been forced out on threat of death.”

“What?! Death! They can’t do this! It’s not right! Tell me what to say and i’ll get everypony within a mile radius up in strike!”

Nightwing quickly shook his head,

“Don’t worry Ash Fall. You don’t have to do anything, well anything right now. We just want you to tell everypony that we have been forced out and for them not to worry. We are planning something soon and we need everypony to wait, not only for their safety, but for everypony’s... Can you do that?”

The earth pony’s face turned into one of resolve and he nodded.

“I’ll see what I can do Nightwing. Don’t worry, I better go now before they do something to me. Good luck. Both of you!” With that he ran into the factory to start his long day of work while the other two began to head back to where they had come from Crimson sighed and said,

“I hope this goes well.”

“I do to. Crimson if he... and the others can’t convince the workers to wait and remain calm, we could have half the city up in arms and before we know it, two-thirds of it dead.”

“I hope they can, we just need a plan that will work, a plan that will make any war or uprising we stage successful, with as little casualties as possible.”

Nightwing turned his head towards Crimson, he scrunched up his face as he tried to pronounce this strange word,

“Cas-ua-”

“Deaths.”

“Oh... I hope we can. Let’s just hope the others had success as well.”

Crimson nodded and the two made their way down a side alley, fearful of what the next few hours could bring.

Unfortunately for the two they became lost. The winding alleys and streets of this huge city were confusing. Every building looked the same, each factory the same tall building with polluting smoke stacks. The two were lost, they would have to find their way back to the park and wait for Silver Dust.

Ice Charmer however had fared better. She found her way back easy enough. The warehouse, as she found out, was in District Seven of the city. Evident by the large 7 painted on the front of the warehouse that she had not seen in the dark of the other night.

The city itself was split into Seven Districts, making strange shapes that fitted together and wrapped around in a circle with District One in the center. But each District was the same, large factories, cramped worker’s houses, starving ponies. The only difference was what each District of the city made and did. At the most northern end of the city and centered at the top, was the Main District, where the nation’s capital was, a large white dome standing over the city with large houses and other buildings, housing the officials and Government offices. The entire zone was cut off from the workers. The Citizen ponies on the other hoof had (as was rumoured) their own floating city away from the mess of the budging, cramped mass that was Victory City. But only Crimson would know that.

Making her way off towards the side street that the alley connected to she headed down it and came to the red door, the shards of glass from the exploded light bulb laid off towards the side,

‘Good thing I thought to move these shards earlier, one of these idiots would have had stepped on one, then we would be in trouble.’

She opened the door and slipped inside, it was almost afternoon and the Sun was directly overhead making the inside of the building slightly dark.

“Hello? Anypony here?”

Ice Charmer looked around and waited for an answer but none came.

“All alone... Great.”

She sighed but before she could do anything else a low voice behind her spoke aloud,

“Hello Ice Charmer.”

The maya unicorn jumped and quickly spun around, there standing before her was the missing purple pegasus Twilight’s Blessing. The pegasus had a smirk on her face. But the way she looked at Ice Charmer and the way the lighting was in the room her face did not look amusing but dark, and almost scary.

“Where... Where were you?”

Twilight’s Blessing flinched, her eyes flickered back and forth as she tried to come up with an answer. Ice Charmer was suddenly suspicious, all she had asked was where the pegasus had been, and suddenly she looked as if she was trying to make something up.

“Well, uh, you see... After the peacegivers came I was frightened, I didn’t know what to do and ran, I ran and ran finding a dark alley to sleep in. After morning came I collected my thoughts and looked for you guys. I had a feeling you would go to someplace where you could hide and I had heard about this place and had a gut feeling you might be here. Thankfully you were here to prove my gut right... So yeah. That’s how it happened.”

The pegasus nodded as if to confirm the story. Ice Charmer however did not believe any of it.

‘A gut feeling? Give me a break will you?!’

But before she could object the door creaked open behind them,

“Hey! Twilight! You’re here, excellent.”

The purple mare breathed out in relief. Ice Charmer just narrowed her eyes.

“Have you seen Fire’s Return? We couldn’t find him, or you. But you are here now so we just need to find him.”

The pegasus shook her head,

“No sorry. I hope we do find him!”

Silver smiled,

“I’m glad you are safe!”

Ice Charmer however shook her head,

‘Don’t believe her for a second Silver! She’s hiding something, I know it!’

The stallion turned to Ice Charmer,

“How did it go? Were you successful?”

“Yeah, almost didn’t pull it off but I did it.”

“Did what? I don’t understand.”

Silver turned to the purple mare and explained,

“We decided to head out and tell the other working ponies of our districts what has happened. We also tried to get them to understand that patience is needed and that they needed to wait for us to plan something before they go crazy and try to burn the city down.”

Twilight nodded as she understood. Ice Charmer cleared her throat,

“I’ll try to be quick about this, we all can’t stay separated long.”

Silver nodded, and she drove into her story.

It was still morning, the sun was shining weakly, like usual, through the offending pollution clouds above the city, Ice Charmer was making her way at a nice pace towards her former workplace, a large power plant that took black hoof-sized rocks called coal, and by burning it made power for the city. Her’s was the largest in the city, but not the only one. Many of these plants were required to power such a large industrial city. This one however out did the others, with hundreds of ponies working in it day and night. It was grueling work, extreme heat, soot and ash in the air, and tiring shoveling for hours on end.

Being a mare Ice Charmer could not shovel coal into the large furnaces, but mares could cart the wheelbarrows of coal around the factory and act as supervisors, which was what Ice Charmer had done. She would stand there and yell at the stallions to shovel quicker and not fall behind in the amount of coal needed to make the right amount of power the plant needed to make. Sometimes she would help with physical work, but even when she didn’t she came out dead tired and covered in soot and sweat. It was in these terrible conditions that die hard supporters of a revolution were born, mares and stallions wanting the ability just to see a next day, and thought  they deserved more beyond the small and dirty little living spaces for all this work. They were the heart of the city and they payed for it.

She was almost glad she no longer worked here but missed the ponies she had formed bonds with beyond what the “softer” workers could have formed. She made her way down the large main street that ran between District Six and Seven, it was full of ponies making their way to work. Some of them never to return. Due to the fact that Six and Seven had the largest industries in the city, power production and manufacturing of much needed goods like weapons, beds, etcetera, it was naturally the most populated area. And thus this road was crowded with at least a hundred or more ponies, and a large number of peacegivers standing guard on top of buildings and watching... waiting. They well knew these workers were the ones most likely to start a revolt. But these ponies were cautious. And were waiting for the day when the whole city would stand behind them, and with this new movement Silver Dust had founded it looked like that day was soon.

Ice Charmer wasted almost an hour making her way through the crowd. She pushed and shoved until she came to where her factory resided, she sighed as she took it all in. The plant was a large brick building like any other factory, but this was at least three times larger, huge smokestacks pumped black, choking smoke out of it all day long, in front of the plant was a large cement plaza of sorts where ponies would gather and talk. Not the most slightly of places to relax, but better than nothing. It felt weird for Ice Charmer that she would not be entering it to work. Her eyes began to scan the crowd of ponies filling the plaza and the ponies around it, looking for somepony she knew and could talk to. As a familiar grey stallion’s head came in her view she smiled.

“Hey Dusty!”

The stallion she had seen turned and grinned, making his way past a group of arguing workers he headed towards Ice Charmer. He was a muscular build, made from hard long days of shoveling coal and moving wheelbarrows of the dusty black lumps constantly. He always wore a smug look and cursed constantly, but he was honest and was just in his judgments and cautious at being too hasty about making decisions or acting. But he had a charisma that made you know you would want him by you in a fight. He had deep blue eyes that Ice Charmer had become lost in when they had first meet, leading her to believe she had been in love with him. But it had been nothing but a short infatuation, but he had began to gain a crush on her, one that had grown so much he had even confessed his love for her... publicly... to her great embarrassment. She had always teased him about it though to get him back. But one thing was certain, the two were the best of friends, they were always together, talking, laughing and enjoying life, while others miserably pulled their way through the day, it had even been rumoured that they were lovers and that Ice Charmer had left because she was pregnant. However she felt guilty for leaving without saying good-bye, but now she could apologize.

“Hey, come here and say hi to your bestest friend why don’t you?”

The grey pony laughed,

“I don’t think bestest is a word!”

“How would you know?”

“I wouldn’t!”

He placed his hoof on her head and gave her a noogie, causing her to giggle and thrust her hoof up into his stomach. The other pony let out a ‘Unf’ and stumbled back. He regained himself and stared at her, they both started at each other with looks that a passing pony would think they were about to kill each other. But then the two broke out in laughter and wrapped themselves in a friendly hug.

“It’s about time you came and saw me... Where in the Hell have you been?! I’ve been worried and not so good rumours have been floating around.”

“Rumors? Ha, if these old mares have time to gossip and not be miserable than maybe we needed longer work hours!”

Dusty laughed and nudged her in the side,

“Now come on, where were you?”

Ice Charmer sighed and put on a face showing that she had given up,

“Alright i’d better tell you...”

She told him everything that had happened to them, but left out the part of her dream and her moment with Nightwing. That was something she wanted nopony to know about yet. Once she had finished he nodded slowly,

“I understand, you need to get all these ponies to understand that we can’t spring into action now. I think most of these ponies will understand we are the real workers and understand the value of patience, I think I can convince them, it will require telling others though there are just too many in this district alone.”

“Of course.”

Ice Charmer looked up at the dim and hiden Sun, then around her.

“Work will start soon, you need to hurry up and get in there. I’ll try and see you again soon.”

“I would appreciate that. Good luck.”

He gave her a quick noogie which she responded with a punch to the shoulder, the two laughed and quickly hugged. Once they broke apart they both headed their own ways, him into the dark burning hell of the power plant, and her back to her friends who hoped to free him from that hell. She left without looking back, but the other watched her disappear, a deep longing in his heart.

Nodding Silver Dust concentrated as he took this in,

“Yes... I think your friend is right. We can rely on the manufacturing ponies to remain strong while we plan.”

He scratched his chin then looked up through one of the larger windows, the light from the Sun was beginning to come in at a angle, meaning that it was well past noon.

“Hmm, we better go and get the others. They must have gotten lost. Hehe, too bad there aren’t peacegivers giving out directions to a hapless lost pony.”

Laughing he lead the way towards the door, but before he could open it Steel Strider and Dawn’s Blaze opened it.

“Oh there you are! We were just going to go look for you, but we found you so lets go get Crimson and Nightwing.”

The two nodded and fell in behind the other three as they walked out, making their way to the park. They headed down the path they had come from that night only a day earlier. Silver knew where he was going but the others became lost, but this time it was even slower going, they had to hide and wait for Peacegivers to pass over when they went onto the busier streets, sure they were unemployed workers, but being them one could not be too cautious.

Luckily for them they made their way to the park without trouble, where as they had hoped the two missing stallions were waiting. The group trotted up to them, but the two did not turn to look at them, they were staring up at point in the distance. Silver opened his mouth to make a greeting but Steel Strider shoved his elbow in Silver’s side. Silver turned to look at him but Steel Strider only pointed in the direction that Crimson and Nightwing were looking. Raising his eyebrow Silver Dust turned and looked, he almost thought he was being pranked, but when he saw what they were staring at, his jaw dropped.

On the largest brick wall surrounding the park where one would usually see the bright Government posters, there was a large thin black... thing. Silver had no idea what it was, it was reflective and two ponies were on top of it, doing what appeared to be some kind of work on it.

“Hey uh, Crimson... What is that?”

“I don’t know... I think it might be called a ‘Telescreen.’ It plays moving images and stuff with sound. I’m not sure, they are new and i’ve never seen one.”

“It’s huge! What do you think it is for?”

“I don’t have a clue. Probably just more propaganda.”

“Well we need to head back, we can find out later. I don’t feel safe out here.”

The others mumbled agreement and the seven turned and walked backed to their hideout.

“Sir? We are ready to begin broadcasting.”

“Good, good. Thank you.”

The pony dipped his head and trotted away. The stallion fixed his glasses, the recent advent of something called a ‘Telescreen’ would allow him to broadcast what he wished live to his entire nation. And it had come at the perfect moment. There was a thorn in his side one he could not remove. A group of ponies thought they had it in them to overthrow and crush all he had worked for and he could not remove this threat. But now, he had a chance to pick part of the thorn away. A certain “Fire’s Return” had fallen into his grasp, the stubborn pony would not bend to Intelligence Agency’s tries to get anything out of him. He refused to speak, eat, drink, or open his mouth in anyway. So the stallion had better plans for him now.

He had ordered telescreens set up at major meeting places of workers like parks and squares, not just in Victory City, but in every town and city in the country. Everypony was ordered to go the closest telescreen that same night that a certain group of ponies had been running around Victory City.

“Uh, sir? We are on in five.”

The stallion nodded and walked out of the building. In a central plaza just near the capitol building a stand had been set up, many large and long plastic devices called ‘Recording Cameras’ were aimed at the stand. He had planned an event that would burn in the minds of everypony in the land, he hoped it would be a lesson to them all. He waited off to the side and the broadcast began, out of nowhere a announcer said:

“Loyal ponies of Equestria, please turn your attention to this screen and welcome, the one stallion who cares for you all. Our Great Leader!”

Pre-recorded clapping was heard as he made his way onto the platform and to the podium in the center. The claps stopped and he cleared his throat.

“Ponies of Equestria! I know you all love your nation, and your brothers and sisters who strive everyday to make life great and good for you and me. I know you love your soldiers who die in the fields and skies protecting us from those who crush us and enslave us! But there are those who would disrupt this system within our own ranks! Ponies who have formed a movement bent on destruction and murder. We have captured one of their leaders, and have asked for him to give us information and in return have pardoned his crimes. But he refuses to corporate, and his friends only grow stronger in will! We ask that you stop what you are doing and think! Do the ponies of this nation really want change? Are you sure you are not the only ones in the same mind manner? We exist for one reason! And that is to protect all of you from harm! And to keep you all alive with food and shelter. All we ask in return is obedience and work. But if somepony can’t not do this, than he must be punished.”

As he said this, a opening opened on the platform a certain white pony was brought up, held between two army soldiers in full wear, they had long but small wooden barrels in one hoof, the other rested firmly on Fire’s Return’s shoulders. The Great Leader walked over and placed his hoofs on the traitor's shoulders and looked him right in the eye.

“Fire’s Return, my child. Will you not repent what you have done? Come and rejoin your comrades in peace and unity!”

Fire’s Return looked up with a scowl on his face. He answered in a croaked voice full of strain that may have come from beatings...or worse.

“Never! It’s all lies and i’ll have no part of it.”

He then spat in the other’s face. The two soldiers made a move to retaliate but the stallion held up his hoof.

“Are you sure you do not wish to repent of your crimes and tell us what you know?”

The other just closed his eyes and lowered his head, his face holding a stern look.

“So be it.”

With a flick of the wrist the two soldiers dragged Fire’s Return to the back of the podium were a metal pole stood. The two tied him to it upright and took a couple paces back. At an unheard order they took the barrels in their hoofs and aimed them at Fire’s Return.

“Would you like to say some last words?”

Fire’s Return slowly raised his head and opened his eyes.

“Yes... Yes I have something to say.”

He stopped, most likely to clear his throat because it had cracked.

“I say only this: Unite together and die in freedom... Or live in Hell!”

As he uttered the last word a loud crack was heard and two flashes came from the barrels the two army stallions held. Fire’s Return slumped instantly, blood dripping to the ground...

On the other side of the city a maya blue unicorn gasped,

“By Celestia! Fire’s Return!!”

She could not move. Paralyzed by the sudden shock of what had just happened Ice Charmer stood there as tears formed in her eyes.

‘Is this what my dream had meant? Fire destroyed, put out? Now Night will end... Oh Celestia! Nightwing are you next?!’

And with that she burst out crying as ponies all around her gasped and stood frozen in shock and horror.