//------------------------------//
// Epilogue. The end so far. 
// Story: The sons of Barricade. Part 2. Chisel 
// by Askre 
//------------------------------//

 Epilogue
 
“Look, I’m seriously busy, I’m behind in going over these insurance papers I need to turn in for the customers and employees who got injured during the magic drain!” Barricade snapped when there was a knock on his office door. He narrowed his eyes when the door opened and Barbell peeked in, smirking.

“You have an important visitor,” she simply announced and opened the door a little wider to let Chisel in.

“Hi daddy,” the boy greeted him with a wide smile.

“Oh, hey sport,” Barricade dropped the papers and the frown. He rose up to walk around the desk and to the boy. Chisel was looking around his office with mild wonder. “Something wrong?”

“What you doing?” the colt asked and turned to his father.

“Well, I’m going over papers, so that the ponies that got hurt in my gym when the magic drained get compensated,” the stallion explained to the boy.

“What compinsat?” Chisel asked, furrowing his brow a bit over the big word.

“That means, if they needed to go to the hospital to help with their owies, I pay it for them,” Barricade explained, thankfully there hadn’t been that many serious injuries.

“Oooh,” the boy nodded, though he probably didn’t understand fully what all of this meant.

Barricade chuckled and sat down close to him. The boy was adjusting to his new life. He had by now met most of his new family. Chisel had been stunned that he had so many sisters and one older brother.

He couldn’t complain about his new grandparents. Mirage Rock and Hard Shovel were already sneaking him treats when dad wasn’t looking. Barricade just thanked his lucky stars that they lived in Trottingham and not next door.

There was still grief. Sometimes Chisel would remember his mother and cry. Barricade was becoming aware when that was about to happen. The stallion was quick on the scene to comfort the boy. They had already gone two times now to visit the gravesite and decorate it some more, with pictures the boy drew.

Barricade and Barbell also learned it the hard way that the boy woke early, when few days after he first arrived, Chisel was bouncing on their bed just as the sun was coming up, while they were still sleeping in it.

“Well, now you know how your father and I felt when you were that age,” Mirage had remarked to her son when he had grumbled about it. Barricade absolutely refused to acknowledge that.

“Come to think of it, you and your brother sometimes both did it together,” his mother had then added. Both Barricade and his brother Private claimed to have no idea what she was on about.

Dinky had been thrilled to meet her younger brother finally. She had been so long the youngest of the known children Barricade had. Coal was several months her senior, so she was practically jumping off the walls. Chisel, for his part, was just happy to meet the siblings he never knew he had.

“Daddy, you sometimes miss mommy?” Chisel asked and sat down with his father. Barricade looked at him, then placed a leg around him.

“Sometimes, yes,” Barricade said solemnly. The boy nodded and hugged his father.

The door to the office opened again and Barricade’s oldest daughter, Cara, peeked in. The stallion immediately mock glared at the gray-brown pegasus filly, then pointed at the colt next to him.

“You were supposed to watch him,” Barricade claimed.

“I had to go to the bathroom, give me a break, I asked Thunder to keep an eye on him while I did,” Cara grunted and walked inside.

“Thunder Cloud say you were in da office, so I come here while wait for Cara,” Chisel helpfully explained.

Oh, when I get my hooves on that lazy featherhead, Barricade grumbled in his mind, outwardly he just nodded. “Very well then. Chisel, I have to get back to work. You will be okay with your sister, right?”

“Come on, Chisel, I’ll show you the exercise balls you can play with here,” the teen filly offered her brother, who jumped to his legs again and rushed over to her.

“Okay, bye, bye, daddy,” Chisel called and then hurried back out with Cara.

“Have fun,” Barricade waved after them, then he walked to the office door and looked outside.

As usual in his gym, ponies were working out and his employees were assisting. He looked further in and saw where Cara had gathered some of the gym balls for Chisel to play with; Barbell had trotted over to join them.

Barricade’s eyes then rested on the light yellow pegasus stallion operating the counter. The unicorn’s eyes narrowed a little, the pegasus noticed, gulped and sunk a little as if trying to hide from view. Then Barricade just chuckled and pulled his head back into the office.

The stallion returned to his desk and started going over the papers again. After a few minutes, he realized there hadn’t been that much left to do actually, and he completed going over the last one.

Since he was done, the stallion rose back up and headed out of the office. He stopped just outside of it and watched where Cara, Barbell and Chisel were still playing around with the exercise balls.

Barbell had known from the start that she would be in a tricky situation. Chisel had really loved his mother and there was a big chance he wouldn’t accept a new one, even though the earth mare was his stepmother. However, there didn’t seem to be any outstanding issues so far. Barbell was different enough in attitude that she never came across as if she was trying to replace Sunny.

The unicorn was distracted from the playful scene when a pony in a postal uniform came rushing into the gym.

“Telegram for Mr. Barricade!” the pony announced.

“What? Why is it being delivered to my gym?” Barricade asked as he walked over to the pony, who offered him the telegram.

“It was addressed to your gym, marked urgent,” the delivery pony shrugged.

Barricade arched his brow, but then grabbed the telegram from the pony and looked at it. He noticed immediately that it was from his parents. For a second he just read what it said, then his eyes opened wide in shock before his expression twisted into a sneer.

“Private is going to be the custodian of WHO!?” he snapped furiously.

To be continued in Rage of a Queen, Wrath of a Mother.