Z42, or How It Continued?

What did I want ask from that pony? ‘Are you blind, ugh?’ Yeah, I shouldn’t start with this... Alright, alright, let just my mind come up with something!

…

Okay, this isn’t working. Darn.

“Uhm, me and my wife just arrived here, we moved here actually, and we don’t know the city yet. I was wondering if you could give me some advice about some basic places, like now we are in a search for a shop to buy food..”  Okay, this could’ve go better.

The pony stares (or is he?..) me for a few seconds, then the edges of his mouth curl up, forming a first small, then normal sized smile.

“Welcome to Trottingham! I will be your guide then, my name is Blind Justice.” He takes a deep breath. “Yes, I am blind, and my name is a pun, thanks to my father. Nevertheless, I can see just fine.” He explains.

“Uhm, o-o-okay... h-how exactly?” I ask back, my curious self activating.

As an answer, he snorts once, chuckling a little. “Magic. No seriously, I can see you expression, colors and such, all I need is to use a special spell on myself, but it’s very complex to explain and I’m sure you wouldn’t understand it, no offense.” Well at least he is honest.

“None taken, though I know somepony who would be jumping around in glee just to ask about this magic you have...” Yes, I meant Twilight there.

“Quite... to answer your first question, I can and will lead you around now, what is your name again? “ Oh I forgot to introduce myself...

I turn to Tavi and sign to her to come here. She arches an eyebrow then trots to us. After turning back to Blind Justice, I start my intro. “My name is Zephyr Verve, retired Royal Guard, this is my wife, Octavia Philharmonica, master cellist and the most beautiful mare you can lay your eyes on, even if you can’t see the normal ways, heh. Oh I’m terrible.” No seriously, I suck.

“Oh sweetie..” Tavi says and nuzzles my neck, I wasn’t so bad then?..

“Pleasure to meet you Zephyr and Octavia. My name is Blind Justice, as you may know,” (he turns to look at me when he says the last part) “and now as we are through the formalities, we can be more friendly I hope.” He looks up at the sky. This is the moment when I noticed that he actually have a short, well trimmed beard, it looks nice on him.

“I don’t know if my husband already asked it or not, but can you show us around? We are new here.” Tavi says looking around, wearing a clueless expression.

“Of course, of course. Follow me!” Justice says and starts to walk in a random direction. “Say, Zephyr, what was your last job?” He asks, looking up at the sky again.

“Uhm, I was the part of the local Weather Patrol in Ponyville, why?”

“Because you might find a new job as a weather pony. Take a look.” He points upwards.

And indeed, the sky is spotted with tiny, roaming clouds, only a single pegasus chases them and have little to no success catching them.

“Poor thing... they need your help sweetie.” Tavi exclaims, making her adorable worried expression.

“I will check in the office, don’t worry.” I reply, shaking my head. That up there is too easy for me.

Continuing our way, Justice leads us to the marketplace of the city.

“You can find almost everything here, and fortunately for you, most of the shops are placed here, in this shopping street.” He points at a street and he was right: shops, shops everywhere!

“Whoah, never going to get lost. Nah, I’ll get lost anyway.” I say, smirking. This reminds me the time not that long ago when I got lost in Canterlot.

/Flashback, 5 weeks ago.../

“Dark, I’m telling you, the shop isn’t here!” I say, annoyed, Dark just don’t want to listen to me. We were here for at least an hour, searching for that damned place he wanted to visit, it was some kind of hidden shop. And so we got lost. And I just wanted to go home. But nooo, Dark wants to find it, no matter what...

“It HAVE to be here... just.... just gimme a few more minutes!” He says and frantically looks around for the umpteenth time.

Did I tell you about how we got friends? Well yeah, after I raced him, we got lost and long story short: we grew on each other as good friends, I enjoyed his company so did he mine.

“It’s not. Now come on, let’s go home.” I tell him. Then look around for the usual landmarks I use. I can’t see any. “Uhm.... Dark, we might have a problem!..”

“Yes, I can’t find that shop!” He replies a bit angry.

“No, I don’t know where are we now!” I tell him, actually worried.

“What do you mean you don’t know where are we?” He asks back, frowning.

“You heard it, I... I don’t know this place! This city is huge, WE GOT LOST!” I say, and shake him at the last part, like a crazed madman.

“Sweet Celestia help us..” He replies.

“She is near, maybe she hears us...”

Well she didn’t. We only got out of the city after 4 hours.

/Flashback ends.../

“Oh Dark..” I whisper, it picks up Justice’s attention.

“Hm, did you say something?” He asks, not the suspicious way, but I think I will just tell him.

“Yeah, I just remembered to something happened to me and my friend Dark Lightning, it’s not important, but it was.. ‘fun’.” I tell him.

“Ah, I see. Well, there are the...”

I stop hearing him, my attention is dragged out by something else.

And it is nothing else than a small filly, wearing a bit strange looking metal bowl, it actually fits her head, but it’s still blocking her sight by hanging before her eyes. Nevertheless, she is running quite securely. The other thing I notice about her is the red colored jacket she wears, it have a yellowish patch on its shoulders, with a stylized, orange colored cupcake sewed on it.

And last but not least, she have a weird tube strapped on her back, I have no idea what could it do. Other small details are the little saddle-bag like packs on her flank, covering her cutie mark, if she have any of course. And... two big, orange and black colored gumballs strapped on her chest with a belt of some kinds.

She is getting away. I have to ask her, dunno why though.

“Hey uhm, I will be back in a few minutes, I saw something, I gotta investigate..” I tell Tavi and Justice, and in the next second I’m flying towards the filly...

I catch up with her soon, though she got away quite nicely.

“Hey, uhm, can I disturb you?” I ask her, I don’t know what to say to children...

“Huh? Are you a Spy?” She asks suspiciously, then-

*clonk* “OW! My head! Why did you do this?!?” She hit me with a SHOVEL! Where did she get it anyway?

“You are not a Spy!” She exclaims, now with a bit of cheer in her voice. “I am Private Cupcake!” She introduces herself, then opens one of those little bags on her flanks and grabs a blue, gingerbread pony figure. “I will eat you!” She then eats it... “It was a Spy!” She tells me with a grin plastered on her face. I can't help but notice how soldier-ishly she speaks, similar to my former Drill Sergeant...

“Ooookaaaay? Is this some kind of game you play?” I ask her. Private, spy, the uniform she wears, the pieces are falling in place.

“Yes! Uhm, I mean NO, this is WAR, and I LOVE it!” She replies, grinning even wider: she looks up in my eyes, it’s a bit difficult to her thanks to my height and the helmet on her head, but she does it anyway.

As I look at her, arching an eyebrow, thinking about what did she just say, her further appearance sinks in.

She is a pegasus filly with (a bit dull) orange coat, sky blue eyes, bright red, neatly cut straight mane, she is like the mix of Scootaloo and Apple Bloom...

She seems to wear a never ending smile/grin, but she is not creepy, she is just... adorable.

“So you are a soldier, huh?” I ask her, playing along as much as I can.

“No! I am THE Soldier!” She exclaims. “This is my rocket launcher!” She pats the metal tube on her back. “This is my shovel!” She hits her head twice with it. “And these are my Gunboats!” She points on her hind legs, on her hooves, and indeed, they are covered in small shoe-like metal protectors. How didn’t I notice it before?

“Rocket launcher you say... what does it do?” I ask, I have seen rockets before of course, but those were fireworks rockets.

“Launches rockets!” She tells me simply, wearing an impatient expression.

“Of course, silly me. I wish I had a game like this to play when I was a little colt...” I sigh, the old memories of being alone, or hanging out with only a few friends are still hurting to remember.

“You can join us! Team RED needs the mercenaries, or Team BLU will overpower us!” She says, making a worried expression.

“Oh, so there are two teams, now this have some organization, I like it. How can I join?” I ask her, a little fun is all I need in the dull everydays.

“What’s your name, son?” She ask. I would be surprised if she weren’t speaking in a way my old Drill Sergeant spoke to us back in the RG Academy. But instead of surprise, I play along again.

“Zephyr Verve, Ma’am!” Heh, she is cute.

“Follow me soldier, we need to defend the Intelligence!”  With that, she runs away, good for me that I can easily follow her.

/5 minutes later, in front of a red building.../

“This is our base!” She points on the front of the building, it have a big emblem on it, with a single word written on: RED. “See? RED!”

“A HeadQuarter of Operations, yes, a bit striking for an HQ, but whatever.

“Yes!... Wait, what?” She is confused.

“Nothing, lead me forward.”

She trots in, revealing me a bunch of lockers, an office and lots of other places, mostly behind half-closed doors. As she leads me through the ‘base’, I see other foals as well, everypony have some kind of red uniforms, though they are all different. Not paying too much attention, I just follow Private Cupcake...

/In a basement of some kind.../

“This is the room of the Administrator! She will administer you!” She explains, pointing to a door. The door have a sign on it, (not so) surprisingly: Administrator. “Dis-missed!” She says and salutes, then trots away...

Okay, so I got myself into a war fought by foals, and I’m about to join them, alright. Tavi will kill me.

Oh, did you think that it’s over yet? Nu-uh, ya got fooled!

After a few knocks I enter the room and see a desk on the opposite side. Behind it there is a map of the city, with red and blue sticky-notes on it. and most importantly, there is a big chair. It slowly spins around, revealing an unicorn: an adult mare, with a frightening expression.

“Good day, mister?...” She says, probably asking my name?

“Zephyr Verve. My name is Zephyr Verve.” I reply with a gulp.

“Mr. Verve. I assume our tiny friend, Private Cupcake recruited you.” Her voice.. it’s.. it’s menacing..

“Uhm... yes? I-I just moved here with my wife and we were looking around for-”

“Irrelevant.” Huh, how rude..” The thing that is important, is the question. Are you willing to join the ranks of Team RED, or no. Choose now. If yes, then you are welcome here. If no, then leave and never come back again.” She explains.

“Uhm-uhm, I... *whine* “ You figure..

The Administrator’s face twitches, then she erupts in laughter, hitting her desk while laughing. “Oh, oh, the look on your face, priceless, priceless I say!” What now? ”Calm down Zephyr, don’t worry about anything. I’m Mrs. Victory Goal, and the filly you met, along with the other foals you saw the way here, are my students, I am their teacher.” What.

“What.”

“Oh, don’t make an expression like this, my sides hurt!” She says, suppressing another fit of laughter.

“So... this is a school? Of some sorts?” I ask, still confused as heck, I don’t even know what’s going on!

“Yes it is. Me and my husband decided to change the usual, boring way of teaching and set up a brand new way! It makes our students cheery, healthy, their senses are better than you would expect, and their grades are fantastic! They can learn a lot about almost everything this way.” She explains. Okay, what the heck.

“So you want to tell me.... that this is an actual school... oookay. Aren’t they get aggressive? I mean, war is a violent thing to say the least.”

“No, I’m recording everything they do and all of their ‘violence’ is deducing while they are fighting each other. I can assure you, they are not hurting anypony.” She seems to be sure about the things she say. Time to tell her the cold truth.

“Mrs. Victory. War is not a game. I am a retired Royal Guard, I know the real face of the war.”

“So you know what they feel when they are fighting, good!”

“No, you don’t understand. I was a Squad Leader. and my whole squad got KILLED. I almost died there too. You have NO IDEA what war is.” I feel a tear leaving my right eye, I remember their faces, I remember them... and it hurts...

“I.. I didn’t know, I’m sorry.” She apologizes.

“No. It’s okay. Just... don’t try to create a war. They have to enjoy their childhood, not fight.” I sigh, wiping that tear off.

“They actually enjoy it. Trust me.” She explains.

“Show me. I believe you if you show me.” I say and walk right in front of her.

/Back at Tavi and Blind Justice.../

“We were standing here for at least a quarter an hour, where is he?!?” Tavi half-shouts, she can get impatient more easily since the little one is on the way.

“I-I don’t know, maybe he found something. I think we should just continue this tour. I can find him later.” Justice responds, though he actually knows where I am.

“How?” Comes the simple question from Tavi.

“I am an unicorn, remember? I have a few searching spells. Besides, it’s a full moon tonight, my magical power is enhanced.”

“Enhanced? Because of the moon? How does it works?” Tavi asks. Not because she can (or more likely, she can’t) do magic, but because she is curious and have unicorn friends.

“Well, you see the...”

/Back at me.../

“Fascinating... I’m genuinely surprised. Especially because of the magical engineering your husband made. Stupendous!” I say, grinning. I have never seen such an organized and well created way to educate and train foals.

“See, I told you this works. And just to clear everything you might fear of: my students get jobs completely irrelevant from any kind of war. Pastry chef, carpenter, ski instructor, hay, one of them became the mayor of the city!” Mrs. Victory explains.

“Hm. Well, I’m convinced. You won. How can I join?”

“Oh, now this is the thing I like to hear...”

/20 minutes later.../

Finally, I find my way back to Tavi and Blind Justice. By the looks they had and have an interesting conversation.

“Hey, I’m back! Sorry for being... very late, you won’t believe what did I find!” I say excited, somehow this whole thing gives back the good memories from my childhood.

“Oh, you are back sweetie! Did you know that the moon gives extra power to the unicorns? Justice told me a lot of things!” Tavi responds to me, looks like she was having fun afterall (and not mad, trololo).

“Huh? Never heard of it. Anyway, this can wait, you have to hear what did I find!” I say, this time slightly distracted.

“I believe you found the school, correct?” Justice asks.

“Y-yeah... how did you?..”

“I saw it. I can see a lot of things.” He explains, smirking smugly.

“Ooooo-kay, I’m not going to ask how.” I respond, facehoofing.

Well, looks like things just got interesting, and we just arrived... oh sweet Luna, what will happen later?