Flashbolt and Skychaser patrolled the skies of their city with no more than bored and unhappy looks on their faces. The way patrols had worked changed a bit, no longer was border patrol a duty, every solider flew around and over the city just to keep a watchful eye on the citizens and each other. Whereas before you could slack off on your duties or act like you were doing something important there were too many eyes up here now and ponies that would make sure you were actually following orders. The various patrols were like an insect swarm in the skies above the city, so many soldiers taken from normal daily training at the barracks to do this.
“What a miraculous use of our time this has been. Nothing like keeping your own people pointlessly afraid and downtrodden,” Flashbolt sarcastically quipped to his cousin as they flew around.
“I would prefer if you didn’t say that so loudly,” Skychaser muttered as he looked around at the other pegasi soldiers flying.
“Oh cry some more about it,” Flashbolt rolled his eyes. “Unless you’re telling me you don’t mind what’s happened? It’s been a solid week of this, we don’t even know if Rainbow Dash is actually okay or not, our squad has practically been broken up thanks to this constant work, and we hardly see the rest of our family anymore either.”
Skychaser narrowed his eyes at his cousin. “I am not happy about it either, I just don’t want to get thrown in prison.”
“Coward.”
“Oh yeah, so cowardly. I’m sure you’d be happy to be thrown into prison where you could complain some more and do absolutely nothing.”
Flashbolt grunted, his cousin did have a point. “Fine, it’s true that I wouldn’t want to get thrown in prison. It would be pointless and counter-productive. But I’m not afraid of it or Blizzard like you are, don’t you even care about what happened to Rainbow Dash?”
“Of course I do!” Skychaser defended himself. “It’s true I was never her biggest fan even after what we went through but she didn’t deserve what happened to her… and I think what Blizzard’s been doing is wrong too. I’m not some stooge like the other soldiers who are just happily flying around and letting him be our new king.”
“Sorry...” Flashbolt apologized. He was used to his cousin ignoring troublesome things and sweeping things under the rug, it was easy to forget he had feelings of his own sometimes.
“It’s alright,” Skychaser shrugged.
The two cousins flew in a moment of silence after that. They had a specific route and schedule they flew on with the new patrolling, any lollygagging wouldn’t be tolerated. At the moment they were on one of the higher levels of the city with larger houses and mansions of important pegasi beneath them. Well, formerly important might be more accurate. One thing about Commander Blizzard was he didn’t care in the slightest about who you were or what you did if you didn’t fight. Even with him now being officially and totally responsible for the whole city his attitude wasn’t going to change.
So the ponies here were under the same curfew and restrictions as anyone else, although currently it was still early in the day and they had a passing amount of freedom. Enough to go outside and fly around the vicinity and go to any functions if they at least notified an officer in the army first. There was probably a lot of complaining from them too, but none would actually do anything with Blizzard in command. If anyone directly tried to challenge him on his policies and changes he might skip the coliseum entirely and just break your jaw then and there.
Flashbolt looked down and saw a father and son playing catch with a ball. At least nice things like that were still going on. Ponies were probably looking for any way to lift their spirits right now. Flashbolt had no idea what he would be doing right now to feel better if he didn’t have to patrol. Complain? That’s what he normally did. Skychaser would probably have some dumb idea or tell him to just relax. Which might’ve been some begrudgingly good advice in the end.
It was all wistful thinking though. Their lives were taken up by practically endless patrolling only broken up by sleep.
“How do you think the others are doing right now?” Flashbolt suddenly broke the silence with a question.
“I dunno,” Skychaser replied, almost apathetically. “Probably the same as us. If there was really something important the Lieutenant can still contact us.”
“We’re just not allowed to meet up for anything less than major duty since it would break our patrolling,” Flashbolt snorted.
“The others are probably fine, we’re all tough,” Skychaser tried to reassure him.
“Yeah… I just hope I can see Rainbow Dash again sometime soon,” Flashbolt looked up at the sky, deep in thought now.
Skychaser nodded. “Believe it or not but I hope so too.”
Fierce Current was, much to his displeasure, relegated to watching over the massive farms as his new daily duty. Everyday he flew or walked around inside the hollowed out mountain keeping a semi-watchful eye out for things and making sure farming and the food business was going exactly as it should. What “things” he was exactly supposed to be looking out for he didn’t know and he didn’t bother to ask about when Iron Star gave him the duty on account of his father being a major figure in the farms.
He figured it was just typical paranoia of Blizzard thinking that maybe some ponies were spreading a bad word or two about him in a place he couldn’t so easily check up on yet was vitally important. Well if that was really the case as Fierce surmised then Iron Star was probably missing one or two brain cells since Fierce wouldn’t have reported anything bad even if he did see it.
But sometimes being quiet was all you needed to do as a soldier. When Iron Star talked, Fierce Current shut up, and the sergeant saw that as acceptance.
For now the cherry pegasus walked on the far side of the farms, where rows of lettuce were pushed up right to the walls of the mountain. There were a few ponies out picking the heads of lettuce up, and thanks to the nature of lettuce and how it grew he could see all across the entire field. Which meant he knew for sure that his father wasn’t around. Fierce had done an excellent job of avoiding him these past days that he started working solely in the farms.
Still, he had no intention of just looking at a bunch of lettuce all day. Fierce Current continued his walking along the perimeter of the farms where the next crop for him to see was lentils. He didn’t care for lentils and had no idea how they were harvested but he walked up and down some rows of them anyways, acting as if he was inspecting them. There was so much enjoyment to get out of looking at some lentils, he wasn’t bored at all.
Fierce Current sighed. “Maybe I should just go over to the tunnels and watch things there. There’s always a ton of activity, I’d probably run into my dad at some point but still...”
The pegasus flew up into the air for a bit to look out across the farms. As usual there were a few clouds floating around and dropping either rain or shade on some of the crops. Currently a big group was watering the corn, moving the clouds all over so every last bit of the cornfields were able to drink.
When he flew by them he called out- “Keep up the good work.” And kept flying right on by without a second look.
So he didn’t notice that they stared at him like he was an idiot, although he suspected that’s what they were doing.
His eyes kept searching around the farms below, looking at whatever he thought was interesting, or wherever there was a lot of movement, and trying to make sure he saw his dad before he saw him and could avoid him. He saw a glimpse of a familiar red color down at the potato fields but upon closer inspection it was just some random pony. If he was being sensible he didn’t really need to do this or worry about it so much, he just didn’t want to be bothered. It was good Rainbow Dash never actually felt like teasing him enough to force a meeting with his dad.
Rainbow Dash… Fierce Current frowned. He really missed having her around, she was a lot of fun. And what had happened to her was just frankly horrible, fights in the coliseum were never supposed to get that bad. Hopefully she was okay. He knew she was too tough to be taken out by something like that for good but she probably still needed a while to recover.
“I hope we can hang out again,” he muttered. “All of us.”
It wasn’t just her he missed, but the entire squad. They were never separated this much for this long. It was just so weird not having any of his squadmates to talk to for over a week when most days they were all around each other the entire time. He even missed Crescent Moon, that was a shocker to realize.
All of this really only further soured his opinion on Commander Blizzard. He was never a real fan of his to begin with but he believed in loyalty and more or less was fond of their Empire.
That had changed.
Fierce Current wasn’t entirely sure just how negative or pessimistic he felt now but it definitely didn’t make him feel good.
Getting to the area of the farms in front of the tunnels where the food was packed up and carted off to the outside he lowered himself to the ground and walked off to the side, keeping himself out of the way but in prime position to keep an eye on everything. Because it would be so bad if something happened to cause some chaos or problems in this city now wouldn’t it?
Fierce Current grinned.
Clear Skies for the umpteenth time after coming home from his new elongated patrol schedule was immediately accosted by his little brothers. Not his fellow soldier brother but the much littler brothers. The ones who didn’t quite grasp how tired he was or what had fully been going on in this city lately. They just wanted to play with their big brother who they unfortunately got to see even less of lately.
And being the good big brother he was he couldn’t exactly say no, now could he?
The colts practically climbed over him, treating his body like a playground since their normal one was off-limits thanks to Blizzard. His littlest brother brought out the red ball that Clear Skies had borrowed for Buckball and started bouncing it off his head as he flew above him. The noise from them was a cacophony as they pulled him this way and that and pleaded, pleaded, with him to pay more attention to them and do what they wanted to do.
His patience was nothing short of heroic.
“Please—hold on—just hold on a moment,” Clear Skies tried to get his little brothers to calm down and listen to him for just a second, tried to get them to stop fighting with each other over him.
Down the hallway of their house he could see Mellow Skies watching from behind the doorway, a grin on his face at what his older brother had to go through.
Clear Skies frowned. I wish I could go watch a coliseum fight right now...
While the coliseum hadn’t been officially closed a notification had been spread about how only truly meaningful fights should occur there from now on and not just petty squabbles. Add to that that because of the curfew and other things there wasn’t as much contact between ponies or opportunities for these big problems to break out that would normally be solved by a bout in the coliseum.
“Why don’t you go embarrass yourself in front of the whole city some more?” He said to Mellow. “Go have some fun with your fiance, oh, right, you don’t have one.”
Mellow glared at him and disappeared behind the door frame. At least that was one thing dealt with.
“Okay, can you at least let me take my armor off first?” Clear said to the other little brothers still jumping all over him. “I really want to stretch and relax for just a second.”
His pleas were ignored.
Clear Skies groaned as he dragged himself through the house while his hyperactive siblings continued doing whatever they wanted. If one of his squadmates was here they could at least help him out or take some of the attention away from him, if it was Rainbow Dash he was sure all of his brothers would be way more interested in her. But for obvious reasons she was indisposed. Clear Skies had a strong enough belief in fighting being a good way to solve problems, but he didn’t like what happened to her. Not just because she was his friend and how badly she was hurt but because he really believed in and respected her too. Blizzard winning the fight didn’t make him right. It was something he had to admit to himself even if it clashed with his previously held beliefs.
There was nothing wrong with Buckball either, even though his team had gotten absolutely obliterated in the one serious game they played, he wanted to play some more and get other soldiers into it too. He was a fan of that kind of spirited competition and truthfully he could care less about if it was “subversive” or not. And he was just sick of not getting his usual coliseum fight fix. He needed something.
Besides being a playground for his brothers.
The orange pegasus sighed as two of his brothers tugged on his wings and tried to pull him two different directions at once. With a tired face he tilted his head to at least let his helmet far to the floor, just in time to be pegged between the eyes by that rubber ball. No apology for that was given as he flexed his wings to shake off his other brothers and shimmied his way out of his armor and walked to the nearest couch to plop down on it like a tired cow.
“If I promise to bring one of my friends along next time will you let me relax for now?” He asked his brothers.
The hyper cadre settled down and looked between each other, at last his youngest brother, Blazing Skies, spoke up. “Can we meet Rainbow Dash?”
Clear raised an eyebrow at them and frowned. “Been hearing a lot about her lately have you? And… that might prove somewhat difficult.”
“Everyone was talking about her. They still are,” Blazing Skies told him.
“We know she was on your squad too, we really want to see her!” Another of his brothers, Rolling Skies, said while the others wanted.
Clear rubbed the back of his neck, chewing on the inside of his cheek. “Well you must already know what happened to her and why all of this other stuff has been going on. I can’t really guarantee anything...” He looked down and saw the depressed and pleading looks on his brothers faces, their lips pouting and their eyes close to tearing. “Ugh, fine. I’ll do my best okay? I promise you you’ll be able to see Rainbow Dash sometime in the future, okay?”
“Yay!” All of them started cheering and jumping up and down at the same time, being far too loud for Clear Skies to relax.
He groaned and rolled over, trying to drown out the noise.
Wild Wind wasn’t one to think too hard about, well, pretty much anything. He had a quiet and normal life for the most part and he followed orders well enough that he didn’t think anything would ever really disturb that quiet life. He didn’t have grand ambitions to progress in the army and make a higher rank but if the opportunity had presented itself he probably wouldn’t have said no to it either. Despite his name the white pegasus was the definition of a pony who let themselves be carried along by the wind, doing whatever needed to be done with little or no fuss. He reacted ambivalently to most things and didn’t pay attention to what didn’t directly concern him.
That had been changing bit by bit since meeting Rainbow Dash.
She was so fascinating, so different, so completely opposite his neutral and quiet self. Naturally he couldn’t help but be drawn in by her big and magnetic personality.
He still was only drifting along, following her now instead, but he felt happier about it somehow. As if it was better for him. And he stopped being so willingly deaf, dumb, and blind about everything else around him. No longer would he just be a simple drone of the Empire, not when he had been confronted with so many problems of it and after his close friends had been mistreated. He wouldn’t be that pony.
Wild Wind thought that now he could be someone better. And he thought his city could be something better too. He really felt excited to be doing something for once, to be a part of something with Rainbow Dash, he had real goals and desires, and even with her being beaten and imprisoned that didn’t change. Wild Wind would still help her, somehow, someway. He promised himself that.
And he was certain the others in his squad would help him too. They needed to all get back together and talk about things. Even Crescent Moon too.
Right now he was busy watching over the lowest level of the residential district. Because Fierce Current had been placed in the farms they had an uneven number in their squad and Wild Wind was trusted with the duty of patrolling alone. A nice benefit of always being so unproblematic and capable, now he had plenty of time alone with his thoughts. He needed to know Rainbow Dash was okay before he actually did anything though and unfortunately he had no way of knowing that. And even though he knew the rest of his squad would help they needed to be able to talk and meet up more regularly.
So he was still in something of a pickle. Crescent Moon probably still had a way to contact everyone in his squad, unless the Captains specifically didn’t want him to, so Wild Wind should probably try and meet up with his lieutenant first. Then maybe they could learn about Rainbow Dash’s condition.
He frowned as he thought of that. Even with some time passing she likely wasn’t doing too good. Not after the vicious beating she took. It looked like Commander Blizzard was doing everything short of outright killing her in that fight.
Wild Wind yawned, it was still early in the day, his patrol shift had just started. Below him there were a few ponies walking the streets. Probably out to get whatever work or errands they needed to do done well before the curfew began. He didn’t envy the civilian ponies right now, Blizzard had no respect for anyone that wasn’t a fighter and with the way he’d been handling things so far Wild Wind wouldn’t be surprised if living in the city got worse and worse for everyone who wasn’t a soldier.
It would probably get worse for the soldiers too, just not as drastically.
He glanced down an alley and saw some colts playing around, technically it was something he should’ve broken up but he wasn’t about to do that. Let them have their fun. Wild Wind just lazily flew around his scheduled route, keeping to it and doing his job enough that he at least didn’t get in trouble or look suspicious to some of the more loyal soldiers out here.
Rainbow Dash wouldn’t stand for something like this at all. He knew that, but he wasn’t Rainbow Dash. He just couldn’t act on his own with the same boundless confidence and courage she had. Nor did he have the same charisma she possessed, not by a long shot. But he’d support her if given the chance. It was the least he could do to repay her for making him see how sedentary and willfully ignorant of a life he was leading and how he was letting bad things happen by his inaction.
Wild Wind glided over a few smaller family homes, eyes looking down but not seeing anything. “Don’t worry, Rainbow Dash, it won’t be pointless. You’ve already done so much, and we’ll help you finish it. Soon.”