The time of two weeks passed by in a flash. All throughout the city things had been deceptively quiet, making Commander Blizzard think the pegasi of the Empire had fully resigned themselves to his rule and new decrees. He was as close to ecstatic as a pony like him could ever get. It really felt like things were going his way and that all the pegasi of the city were, if not fully coming around to his way of doing things and his beliefs, at least not getting in the way or doing anything to stop him. His repudiation of everything Rainbow Dash and Equestria stood for would come soon and finally he could see the Empire as a true success. The weakness and dissent he had seen slowly growing over the recent years would be utterly extinguished thanks to him.
At the moment he was standing on the steps outside the administration building, still giving him a great vantage point to see the rest of the city, as the morning went by. It was darker than normal thanks to the large storm they were having today, the clouds that made up the barrier between the city’s aerospace and the outside world had taken on a dark and aggravated look while above there were rumbling storm clouds blocking out most of the sky. It would be a heavy rain around them with plenty of thunder and lightning later tonight.
Good.
It would set the mood perfectly for what he was doing and announcing later today.
“Commander? You wanted to see us first thing this morning?” The voice of West Wind came from behind him.
Blizzard turned to see the two loyal twins standing before the door leading into the administration building, the three of them the only ones out here at the moment.
“Yes,” Blizzard smiled, something that still made the twins uneasy. “Yesterday Rainbow Dash’s doctor came by and said she’s made a full recovery. I’m going to speak to her later today and remove her from the prison. Today’s the big day, with her by my side I’m going to make an announcement to the entire city.”
“What is it?” East Wind asked.
His unsettling smile widened and Blizzard brought a hoof up to his chest, clapping it on the metal breastplate. “We’re going to war.” He allowed that to sink in with the two before continuing. “I wanted her back to normal before I said anything, because she’s going to be coming with us.” Blizzard chuckled. “You know there were so many times when I thought about visiting her and gloating but I held myself back so all she could do was sit there in silence. And now it’ll be so much more impactful when I see her again and reveal my plans for her after all this time.”
“We um, understand that you wish for Rainbow Dash to help us with this new campaign, sir, but who are we going to war with?” East Wind asked again.
Blizzard looked at him and his brother as if the answer was so obvious he shouldn’t even have to say it. “Equestria. Who else?”
The twins shared an uncertain look before West Wind responded. “As always we fully support you sir but how exactly are we going to do that? I do think this could be a great thing that unifies our soldiers and people though, especially if we’re able to convince other Equestrian pegasi to join us.”
“Rainbow Dash is going to lead us to Equestria, to the average soldier and citizen it’ll look like she’s willingly joined me after realizing the futility of defying me. Unfortunately since she still grasps onto her silly Equestrian ways in reality she’ll just be my prisoner. Forced to help me or suffer the consequences,” Blizzard frowned. “The two of you know the ponies she has become closest to in her time here?”
“Yes,” they both nodded.
“Good. Because next time I talk with her I’ll let her know for certain that there will be no more idle threats from me. Disobey and the ponies she’s come to care about will suffer. She brought this on herself, I still need her to be my symbol and if this is the only way then so be it.” His smile returned as he thought about the future. “And she’ll even fight against her own country for me.”
West Wind raised an eyebrow. “But she’d never fight against Equestria. Even leading us to it safely would be a stretch for her, I know her well enough from our encounters, there’s no way she’d actually fight against ponies from her home.”
“I think I still understand her the best of anyone,” Blizzard grinned vilely. “If she doesn’t fight for me I’ll make it clear to her that I’ll be utterly unforgiving and brutal to any and all Equestrians. Her loyalty to them will be her own weakness. She can see them suffer harshly, or help me conquer them far more… peacefully.”
East Wind shrugged. “Well either way it’s not like she’ll be able to do anything about it. Flying away won’t even help her since you can just threaten the pegasi living here with retribution.
“Exactly,” their Commander nodded.
“So later today do you wish us to retrieve her from the prison and bring her to you?” West Wind asked.
“Yes but not for a while. I also need you and some of the leftover legislators to spread the word that I have a big announcement to make, all the soldiers and any other stallion who wishes should come right here outside the administration building around… let’s say right before evening when the storm is fully underway. I find myself having a sudden taste for theatrics,” Blizzard smiled.
“Sudden?” East muttered under his breath.
“Of course, sir,” West answered instantly so the Commander wouldn’t hear his brother.
“There won’t be any need for her to be shackled either. It’s not like she’ll run or try to fight me and I want the pegasi of the city to see her standing free with me,” Blizzard puffed out his chest and turned around again, looking back at the city. “Everything is coming to fruition today, Equestria has always been our true enemy and now everyone will know that we are finally going on our grand crusade to right the wrongs of the past. This day is going to be perfect.”
Commander Blizzard smiled and flapped his wings, taking off into the sky and flying back over the top of the administration building, probably heading back to his residence or office inside to plan a speech or something.
The light rumbling sounds of early thunder reached the ears of East and West Wind as they watched him go. The two twins had a lot to think about and do now.
East Wind let out a long breath through his nostrils and without turning to his brother spoke. “Do you ever feel like some sort of impending doom is approaching?”
“All the time.”
Summer Rains was feeling nervous at the start of the day. How could he not? He was decently sure things had been going well but considering what was about to happen he was still worried. Mostly for Aurora and Snowshine but the whole rest of the city too. Crescent Moon had contacted him yesterday and told him that they were all, minus Tornado who he couldn’t get a hold of, meeting up at where they had last met two weeks ago in about an hour and from there they’d move onto the prison to free Rainbow Dash while the rest of the city rose up.
The lime-green pony was currently affixing his armor and getting ready to head out to their meeting spot. He’d probably be early but that was far better than being late.
What were all the other ponies in the city thinking right now? The ones who they had spread the word to, would they actually start protesting and ignoring Blizzard’s new laws even before Rainbow Dash was rescued? It’s not like they had a sign or a blowhorn that they could just scream into when the time to rise up was here. For all he knew there were ponies already rising up and facing down the local soldiers loyal to Blizzard. And what about Fierce’s efforts with the farms and Crescent’s with the other soldiers? He supposed he’d learn soon enough.
It was going to be quite the day.
He finished with his stuff and flew to the warehouse and the stuffy basement below it. Still early in the morning he only saw other soldiers flying about and one or two other ponies on the streets below. Quiet, the calm before the proverbial and literal storm.
It would be good to see Rainbow Dash again, he knew that much at least.
On his flight over he spotted some familiar figures also in the sky. With a grin he happily realized that he wasn’t the only one who decided to arrive early. Flashbolt, Skychaser, Clear Skies, Wild Wind, and Fierce Current were all coming in from different directions. If it looked suspicious to anyone paying attention he didn’t care, things were about to go down anyways.
He waved to the others as they came to a landing together outside the door of the warehouse. “Hey everyone!”
“Sup?” Fierce Current grinned to them.
“My cousin and I were stuck on late-night patrol so we didn’t get too much sleep,” Skychaser said while Flashbolt yawned behind him.
“I was just told to patrol like normal today so I figured I’d just come here now,” Clear Skies shrugged.
“I snuck home before dawn to say hi to my grandparents and then flew here,” Wild Wind said. “They’re early risers.”
“I guess we’re only missing Crescent then?” Summer Rains looked around.
“Unless he’s already inside,” Clear Skies said and pushed the door open before anyone else could say anything.
The rest all filed in after him and went to the stairs that led into the basement, descending down the crossing steps in search of their missing officer. Summer Rains was the last to walk down and thus the last to see the rather amusing sight of Lieutenant Crescent Moon sleeping hunched over on the table with a pool of drool leaking out of his mouth.
“Our fearless second-in-command,” Fierce Current rolled his eyes and walked up to the table. “He must have slept here overnight.” The cherry pegasus banged a wing on the table, startling Crescent Moon awake.
“Huh?! I’m up!” Crescent shot up in his chair, head whipping from side to side with a thin strip of drool trailing from his mouth. Finally he seemed to realize where he was and calmed down. “O-Oh, that’s right, I stayed here last night...”
“Well now that we’re all together should we discuss our plans?” Wild Wind said as he took a seat next to the Lieutenant, the other members of the squad joining him.
“Do we have plans?” Clear Skies asked. “I mean, I thought we would just go bust Rainbow Dash out of jail right now.”
“I want to hear what everyone else was doing these past two weeks and what we might expect for today before going to her. If we break her out but nothing else is happening then we might not have the revolution we wanted. We know that Rainbow Dash doesn’t have a plan, she left it up to us so we can’t let her down,” Wild Wind said.
Fierce Current cleared his throat. “Well on that note I have some good news. My dad will be leading a farmers revolt early this morning, I mean he may have even started already. They’re just gonna trash the place and the big depot where all the food is distributed from. That’ll definitely get a lot of soldiers’ attention and I bet it’ll inspire plenty of other civilians around to join in.”
“I also have excellent news,” Crescent said as he wiped away his drool. “I’ve convinced numerous soldiers to outright disobey orders given to them today and take a stand for Rainbow Dash. I didn’t tell them that Rainbow Dash was going to be freed but once they see her flying about I know they’ll join us and fight those still loyal to Blizzard.”
“Quite a few others will probably join us when they see Rainbow Dash free and railing against Blizzard again. Lots of civilians too. We just need to be as loud as possible,” Flashbolt said.
“Speaking of civilians, my wife is organizing a protest with many other mares, that should be starting soon too.” Summer Rains said, a smile on his face as he thought about his wife.
“So we wait a little bit for the chaos to start and then we go rescue Rainbow Dash?” Clear Skies asked.
Wild Wind nodded. “I figure that will be best, now we at least know what we can expect from others in the city. I just hope it doesn’t turn to violence so quickly.”
“I don’t think the soldiers loyal to Blizzard will attack civilians without being directly ordered,” Crescent Moon said. “It’s one thing to arrest someone but I can’t see even the meanest of soldiers striking someone without being provoked first.”
“The problem is that there will be far too many revolting at once to arrest, so they might see they don’t have a choice but to get physical,” Skychaser reasoned.
“Then either way we as the soldiers will need to occupy them once we go out there and rescue Rainbow Dash. They’ll definitely see us, and Dash especially, as the biggest priority,” Wild Wind said.
“However long it takes Blizzard to be notified and react to the protests is important too. He may not think it’s a big deal at first but I think he’ll change his tune immediately as soon as he learns Rainbow Dash is free and leading the charge against him,” Crescent said. “At that point it’ll probably be all out war as he orders every soldier to stop us. And he knows he’s the only one who can stop her so he’ll certainly come for her too.”
“She said she would be the one to handle him and we didn’t have to worry about that though, we should just deal with the other soldiers,” Fierce Current said.
Summer Rains grimaced. “It’s true she said that but she also clearly has no idea how to beat him—none of us do.”
“So we should stay and fight with her?” Crescent asked.
“She’d probably tell us not to,” Flashbolt said.
“Whatever happens then happens, we’re getting ahead of ourselves,” Wild Wind cut in. “The day is still young, but in two hours we rescue Rainbow Dash. It’s going to be storming out there soon in more ways than one.”
Shooting Star raised a barrel of wheat over his head and threw it to the ground, shattering it and watching its contents spill all over the ground while the farmers beside him cheered. They had been making a huge ruckus all morning and were trashing the depot. The tunnels leading down to the farms were blocked off by overturned carts and wagons and the farmers were snacking on potatoes and carrots meant to be distributed throughout the city. They were having such a blast doing this that they had even forgotten that eventually they’d have to clean it all up. But that could come later, right now this was a protest against Commander Blizzard’s tyranny.
There were others watching from homes and buildings around the depot built right up against the mountain. So far no one had explicitly joined the farmers in their protest but none of them looked like they had a problem with it either. Shooting Star led them all in their activities, doing exactly the kind of stuff his son had said they should today and being as loud and obvious about it as possible.
Normally he would never do something as destructive like this even with his problems with Blizzard, but he’d call it a favor to his son. Fierce had convinced him that it would lead to something better happening with their city. And apparently that Rainbow Dash pony that everyone talked about had something to do with it too. He didn’t see her fight against Blizzard but he had heard how she stood up to him. That made her a friend in his book.
As the farmers were busy with their partying a squadron of soldiers who had been alerted to it thanks to all the noise flew overhead to see what was happening and put a stop to it.
“Hey!” A corporal yelled out to the farmers below while his comrades flew behind him. “Just what do you all think you’re doing?! Stop this at once and return to your farms! The Commander will be notified of what you have done here! Destruction of property, subversion, disregarding his law and direction, you will all be punished!”
“If we’re gonna be punished anyways then why would we stop?” A farmer yelled, getting a chorus of laughter from the others.
“This is our protest against Blizzard! We’re not listening to him anymore!” Another said as he bashed open a crate of corn ears.
The soldier scowled but the squad of six was vastly outnumbered unless others were brought. “You all are going to regret this! We’ll have you thrown in prison by the end of the day!”
“Get lost!” Shooting Star shouted up at them.
The soldiers reluctantly and angrily did so, the corporal telling one of the others to fly to the administration building to notify Commander Blizzard of what was happening immediately while the rest dispersed to gather more soldiers to put down this uprising. Little did they that similar things were happening all across the city, and those soldiers loyal to Blizzard were finding themselves quite spread thin…
“What do you stupid mares think you’re doing?!” The same soldier that was savagely beaten by Crescent Moon only a couple weeks ago said to Snowshine and her friends as they held a get-together at the formerly public playground. A lot of the other mares had their young children with them too, all playing around.
“What does it look like?” Snowshine sarcastically said up to him and then shared a laugh with her friends.
“It looks like you’re disobeying the direct orders and proclamations of Commander Blizzard! Return to your homes immediately or you’ll all be arrested!” He glared at them.
That just got another fresh round of laughs as the fillies and colts playing totally ignored everything around them.
Fire Wing, a heavyset mare with a curly orange mane, scoffed at the threat. “You can’t arrest all of us, sonny. There aint enough room in that jail and you know it! Just fly off and tell that darn Commander that we’re not listening to him anymore.”
“Tell him that this is for Rainbow Dash!” Snowshine yelled.
“Mares all over the city are rising up!” Another shouted.
And while that was going on, Sergeant Iron Star was having a particularly difficult time getting a group of soldiers to listen to him…
“What are you all lounging around for?! You’re supposed to be on patrol!” He shouted to the warehouse full of soldiers lazing around and snacking. “Don’t you know what’s going on out there? We’ve been getting reports all morning of ponies causing havoc and breaking the Commander’s new laws! Get out there and stop them!”
“Why should we?” One of the soldiers snorted. “You know those are our families and friends out there doing that, right?”
“Yeah! We’re sick of Blizzard doing all this awful stuff, you can take your orders and shove em!” Another said and spat on the ground.
“You insubordinate worms!” Iron Star screamed.
That got more than a few angry glared thrown his way and some of the soldiers began stalking their way towards him. Iron Star quickly realized that he was alone and didn’t have anyone to back him up on this. A single bead of sweat fell down the side of his face as he tried to keep the most intimidating scowl he could make up on his face.
“And what do you think you’re doing now?” He said to the soldiers. “You should just listen to me, go outside, and restore order to this city!”
One of the soldiers narrowed his eyes and stood up right in front of Iron Star, raising a hoof he stiffly pushed the sergeant in the chest, making him stumble backwards. “We’ll go out there and restore happiness to this city. For our families, for every pegasi, and for Rainbow Dash.”
“You stupid traitors...” Iron Star growled, his anger overriding his common sense. “You’re going to have to go through me first then!”
The couple dozen of soldiers happily formed up together in front of him…
Elder Tornado meanwhile had been awake for a few hours at this point, he could hear and see the chaos starting to unfold in the city from the administration building and a wide smile appeared on his face. He really wished he could fly to get down there faster and find Rainbow Dash but instead he’d have to walk and hope they crossed paths soon. Was she free yet? She should be soon if not, he had made sure of that. He managed to ignore the pain in his bones as he shuffled down the steps of the administration building to travel into the heart of the city. This was the big day, everything would change here.
Since she was fully healed now she didn’t need to wear a cast anymore and neither was she stuck lying on her back. But this was still a jail and she was still a prisoner so Rainbow Dash found herself shackled to the wall once the doctors had removed the casts around her. It was really annoying since she hated being caged up and restricted like this. She needed to move. She was finally okay enough where she could fly or walk around her cell but that had been denied her thanks to these shackles.
And because of where she was in the prison and the lack of windows she had no idea what was going on outside right now, being unable to see or hear any of it. She only knew that two weeks had passed since she talked to Elder Tornado so something should be happening soon.
That’s when she heard the door to her cell block opening up and the sound of some quick hoofsteps coming down the hall to her cell. Rainbow Dash perked up and waited to see who it was.
This time though it wasn’t a doctor, Tornado, or any guard she recognized, it was a dark blue stallion with a wavy white mane and tail and a nervous expression on his face. He carried two rings of keys on his wing and he came to a screeching halt when he made it to Rainbow Dash’s cell. Nervously he grabbed one set of keys and started going through them to find the right one to open up her door.
“Uhhh, who are you?” Rainbow Dash asked him.
“I’m Dusty, Tornado told me to let you out today—well, really he said I’d know when the time to let you out was here. And he was right,” the pegasus finally got the right key and unlocked her cell door, stepping inside and pulling up the other ring as he went right to her shackles.
“What do you mean?” She raised an eyebrow.
“You can’t hear but the whole city is going crazy out there, ponies are protesting and fighting against Blizzard’s rule all over. I knew Tornado must’ve meant this was the right time to free you so I stole the keys from the head jailer and, well, here I am,” he smiled at her despite the sweat running down his brow.
“Seriously?! Awesome!” Rainbow Dash grinned.
He chuckled. “I’m not sure if I totally share that sentiment but I sincerely wish you the best of luck.” He found the right key and put it into the lock of her shackles, the multiple chains keeping her bound slipping off after a quick turn.
Rainbow Dash cracked her neck and stretched her body, wiggling around her joints and wings to make sure everything was in order. She hopped on the ground and finally flapped her wings a few times to lift off and fly in a small circle around the cell. Her grin got wider with each passing second as the familiar feeling filled her up with joy. “Aw yeah, feels good to fly again!”