//------------------------------//
// Chapter 40 
// Story: Bad Future Crusaders 
// by TonicPlotter 
//------------------------------//

        Crimson Sky was silent as he descended to the gate of Canterlot, guided to the ground by two sentries. As if things hadn’t gone bad enough, the only reason showing ID at the gate would be mandatory is if there had been a situation in his absence. He landed and shoved his card in the face of the young guard at the entrance, making it quite clear he was not happy with the distraction given the circumstances. The kid faltered, too busy staring at the injured blue mess that was draped over Sky’s back, and he snapped, “She is INJURED! Let me pass. NOW!”
        “Y-yes, sir! Sorry!” sputtered the armored yellow mare as she nodded to her partner who opened the gate.
        He broke into a light trot, trying to move as quickly as possible without jostling his injured teammate. Admittedly she wasn’t in as bad of shape as he had thought when he first encountered her, flopped lifelessly on her back with a badly pummeled face, but he wasn’t willing to take any chances. “You’re a fool, Dust,” he scolded softly as he turned the corner to the infirmary, “A stupid, arrogant fool. I told you to take a squadron. I told you to take me and Merrilay. You didn’t listen and look at you: you got the ever-loving crap kicked out of you. You’re tough, Dust, but you’re not a one-mare army. You have an entire air force at your command; use it. What’s the point of spinning those recruits all the way to Tartarus and back on the Dizzitron if you’re going to leave them at home twitching their tails while you go in alone? What were you even trying to prove?!”
        “Sky…” slurred the weak voice of Lightning Dust from his back, struggling to form consonants through a painful and injured mouth, “you mouthy piece of trash… I’m conscious… you know…”
        “I know,” he said coldly.
        “You disobeyed a direct order…”
        “I know.”
        Crimson Sky shoved the door open and the medics inside jumped to life, one running for a stretcher while another ran to ask what happened. “Sky…” said Lightning Dust weakly, “You can’t tell anypony I got trashed by a cripple… I’d never live it down…”
        “What happened to her?!” asked the medic.
        “Training accident,” said Crimson Sky as he helped ease her onto the stretcher they had brought, “She was being stupid in the mountains and got herself hurt.”
        He ignored the insistence of the medic that he wait in the lobby and followed the stretcher to a room, keeping his gaze locked onto Lightning Dust’s venomous glare every step of the way. She didn’t like it one bit when he talked down to her and this time he didn’t care; he didn’t like it when she pushed her luck for no good reason. The medics milled about the room, getting their gear ready as Sky just sat beside the stretcher, staring at her beaten face.
        “Don’t ever pull a stunt like that again, Dust,” he said softly, the way he would speak to his daughter, “Dust. We lost Twitch. I… lost Twitch. Don’t make me lose you too.”
        “Sir?” said one of the medics in an understanding tone, “We really need you out of the way. Your friend’s injuries thankfully aren’t severe, but we need to be able to focus if we are going to treat them.”
        Crimson Sky hesitated for a moment and nodded. “Fine,” he said as he stood up and began to leave.
        “Thanks for coming for me,” said Lightning Dust, quickly and quietly as if she didn’t actually want him to hear it.
        He gave her the embellishment and left the room without so much as a glance, grumbling softly with frustration and exhaustion as he let the door shut behind him. Technically he had followed his orders to get some sleep: he took a nap before his meeting with the inspector and ultimately flying after Dust to keep an eye on her, but it wasn’t nearly enough to and he found himself feeling almost sick with fatigue. Still, he could push himself a bit longer; he wanted to know exactly what had happened while he was out and if it was something that concerned the R.E.A.F. With Dust out of commission for the time being he was the acting commander, which meant he had some decisions to make before he could even think about sleeping.
        With any luck it’s some trivial guard matter and I can spend a solid day in the sack.
        Before any of that, though, as long as he was at the hospital he had something else he wanted to check in on first. He had been meaning to check in on Pinstripe all this time and hadn’t gotten around to it yet. After a quick trot down the hallway and, silently hoping he had gotten the room right, he entered 116.
        Both Pinstripe and Sandback were chatting and abruptly threw their hooves up in a salute, with the former quickly letting out a hiss as a bolt of pain quickly reminded him of his injured shoulder. He clutched it and clenched his eyes shut with a deep breath before looking up apologetically.
        “Easy, now,” said Crimson Sky with a weak laugh and a half-hearted salute of his own, “I don’t need any of that right now. How’s the shoulder?”
        “Good, sir. I’m supposed to be out of here tomorrow,” said Pinstripe as he nervously studied his bandages, no doubt afraid he had reopened his would, “Figures, right? I finally get a roommate to keep me company a day before I’m released.”
        Crimson Sky glanced over at the pony in the bed next to them, a white stallion and undoubtedly a guard judging by his build, was sleeping off some manner of injury. Sky sat at the foot of the bed and patted the small stack of letters on the bedside table, “From the family?”
        “No, sir, the unit,” said Pinstripe, his voice sounding somewhat somber, “…My parents never even bothered to answer the letters I wrote them.”
        Sky felt a twinge of guilt from bringing it up as Lightning Dust’s words from the other day about their unit being built out of ‘castaways’ came to mind. “I…” he began and trailed off; he simply was not good at this kind of thing. “So… Was there some kind of incident last night?”
        The kid’s face lit up nervously, “Uh… I don’t really know the details. Uh, sir. I overheard some doctors talking though. There was a prison break in the holding cells last night and a lot of guards were injured. Sir.”
        “WHAT?!”
        Both Sandback and Pinstripe recoiled from the outburst. “I don’t think anypony was killed,” said Sandback as he gestured over at the sleeping white stallion, “That guy there was one of the sentries. He got stabbed and they stole his keys.”
        Crimson Sky came this close to losing his temper but kept himself in check. Both Silver Spoon and Twitch’s killer were in those cells, along with those two little Rainbolt punks. The guards, the R.E.A.F, and even that glue bag Featherweight and those disgusting little things that followed him around had devoted way too much time trying to capture those prisoners and in one deft little act of stupidity they all escaped. He threw himself to his hooves and stormed over to the guard’s bed determined to get some answers, and felt another set of hooves wrap around him and hold him back.        “Sir! NO!”
        Sky glared at Sandback who, having seen the anger on his face, was restraining him. He took a few deep breaths to calm down and let his muscles relax, and the young medic released him. Calmly he walked up to the side of the bed and gave the frame a firm kick, “Rise and shine, soldier. I want some answers.”
        The stallion flinched in the bed and grumbled as he awakened to the apparent pain from his stab wound. He rubbed at his eyes and faced the captain, his white disheveled features looking tired and sore beneath his shaggy mop of a mane, and silently stared as if he wasn’t sure what to say.
        “Hold on,” said Crimson Sky as he instantly recognized the guard from the other day, “I know you. I thought you were an inspector; since when do you guys do sentry detail?”
        “I… oh…” said the stallion nervously as he spotted a faint red patch that bled through the white sheets, “I… yeah. They were short-staffed, a schedule mix-up I think, and I owed a sentry a favor.”
        “Sandback,” said Sky, “Fix that bandage of his.”
        “Sir.”
        As the young medic went to work, the old captain scrutinized the guard. His gut was telling him something wasn’t right about all of this. “Double-tasking, huh?” he said, holding his suspicion behind his usual cold mask, “Wasn’t aware you guys did that kind of thing.”
        “Not often, sir,” he said, giving a silent nod to Sandback in appreciation for the fresh bandage, “Desperate times and all that, right?”
        “That’s for sure,” said Crimson Sky. He stared, trying to think exactly how to word himself. “Listen. I know us and you guys don’t have the most… amiable… of backgrounds, but it’s like you said: desperate times. I need you to help me out here. Tell me what happened. How did four prisoners escape their cells and waltz out of Canterlot?”
        “Five, sir,” corrected the guard, “They had help. A teenager, by the looks of it, got in and jumped me. I took him down no sweat but one of the prisoners got my spear. One of them managed to drive those… things that Environment Equestria drives around and they brute-forced their way out of the city.”
        “A cloud carriage?”
        “Nopony’s ever pulled a stunt like that. We weren’t ready and had no means to stop it; even Captain Rumble was injured.”
        “He’s not—”
        “You kidding, sir?” said the stallion, “He’s indestructible. Bit of a limp and a scuffed knee is all. But—”
        “Starlight!!!”
        Crimson Sky stepped back as the inspector and a young stallion he didn’t recognize burst into the room. She threw her hooves around him, quietly ranting about how glad she was that he was okay while inadvertently crushing the life out of him. A quick gagging noise caught Sky’s attention; Sandback had a hoof over his mouth and was making an almost successful attempt to keep from laughing at the sight in front of him. Crimson Sky wasn’t amused; he couldn’t help but be somehow troubled by that young stallion with the inspector. He looked young and harmless enough, too young to be a guard, and there was just something… off about his movements. Sky had been a fighter since his youth and knew how ponies moved; earth ponies, pegasi, and unicorns had subtle differences in their movements and postures that were quite noticeable if you knew what to look for. This earth pony moved as if he was used to having wings, and for some reason it was bothering Sky to no end.
        Focus, Sky. You’re just rattled from all that’s happened. Leave the kid alone.
        “Inspector,” he said abruptly enough to surprise the huge mare and catch her attention, “About your offer the other day…”
        The inspector’s face lit up and almost instantly became worried. It took her all of a second to realize why he changed his mind; she was good. “Why the change of heart? What happened to the Major?!”
        “She was taken down,” he said, pausing long enough to shrug off the worried glances from his subordinates, “She’ll be fine. But the perps got away and I found no sign of this ‘element’ thing they were talking about. However, I found this.” He reached into his flight suit for the tattered bandana he had found stuck on a rock near the cliffs, the same one that one-eyed pegasus from the other day had worn, and gave it to her. She perked up at the sight of it, her eyes becoming wide as she stared down at it. She definitely recognized it. “What do you make of it?” he said.
        “I… don’t know. It’s old, I know that much. Looks hoof-made, probably by a foal.” Her eyes shifted between the bandana and Sky, “Sorry. I thought I recognized it but… this ain’t what I was thinkin’ of. No, I don’t know what to make of it.”
        “Alright,” said Crimson Sky. “Thank you, Inspector. Hang onto that, why don’t you? I’ll be in touch so we can formulate a strategy, but for now if you’ll excuse me, I’m acting-lacking until the Major recovers and I have work to do. Sandback, I need you with me.”
        “I’m coming too, sir,” said Pinstripe as he stumbled and stood up straight, keeping his one leg curled and held against his chest.
        “No,” said Crimson Sky, “You’re in no condition to fly. Stay put.”
        “Sir, with all due respect, I can still do paperwork. Load munitions. …Sweep the unit?”
        Crimson Sky found himself smiling in spite of all that had happened. “You won me over. Head to the unit.” He shot his hoof out and stopped the kid from saluting on impulse. “Get going. Inspector, thanks again.”
        He and Sandback left the room and headed for the door as Pinstripe hobbled toward the lobby and in the other direction to clear out of the infirmary. “Sir… um… not that I’m criticizing—”
        “Criticize,” ordered Crimson Sky as he held the door open, “You know me better than that, Sandback. Speak up; I won’t bite your head off.”
        “It’s just… well… we never work with the guards. Is the situation really that bad?”
        As they headed outside Crimson Sky abruptly turned and headed to the side of the hospital, beckoning the young medic to follow him where nopony would hear them. “Sandback, did any of that seem strange to you?”
        “Yes, sir. That stallion with the inspector gave me the creeps. Don’t know why.”
        Somepony shows up and springs them right during a short-handed shift. What are the odds?”
        “High, sir,” said Sandback as his typical joker smirk slowly encroached his face, “The guards aren’t exactly… competent.”
        “Let’s try to keep this at least somewhat serious, Sandback.”
        “Sorry, sir,” said the medic as he quickly wiped the smile off his face, “Who knows how long he or she had been waiting? They might have just gotten lucky and pounced on an available opportunity.”
        “Maybe… hopefully.”
        “Sir…?”
        “I know exactly where that bandana I gave the inspector came from. It belonged to the civvy I found near Loamstone Valley. No doubt the same one who beat the Major senseless,” he said in a low growl as he reflected on having helped her soon-to-be attacker, “The inspector recognized that bandana; she was lying her ass off. Why?”
        “Uh… I don’t know, sir?”
        “I was talking to the Lieutenant. The red head who murdered Twitch and escaped that cell is the inspector’s cousin. The same one who happened to escape thanks to a convenient little screw up—”
        “Sir, hold on,” said Sandback as the gears finally spun in his head, “You don’t honestly think…”
        “At this point?” interrupted Crimson Sky with a shake of his head, “No. Nopony in the Criminal Investigation Department has access to the sentry’s schedules. Personally I think she’s loyal and want to give her the benefit of the doubt… but the possibility’s there and I’ve been wrong before.” He took a moment to stare up at the sky. The sun was just rising over the mountains in the distance; most everywhere but here ponies would be going on with their daily lives as if nothing bad was happening in the world. It was a blissful ignorance he found himself envying more and more with age. “For now, this stays between you and me, understood? There are enough waves in our forces without pointing hooves at that inspector. But we’re keeping her close so we can make use of her talents and keep an eye on her.”
        “Understood, sir.”
        “Now where’s the Lieutenant? Don’t tell me she went off after the escapees?”
        “No, sir,” said Sandback, “She took part in the chase last night; got cut up by broken glass and took a good blast to the chest from a unicorn. She’s being treated as we speak, sir.”
        “Then I hate to do this to you, Sandback, but you’re on roundup duty. I want every available airpony at HQ in a half-hour. Lose the lethal munitions and suit them up with flashbangs.”
        “We’re going non-lethal?”
        “Yeah. We’re dragging those fugitives back here kicking and screaming so they can tell us who sprung them. And if somepony in our ranks is a traitor…” he said, feeling a low anger build over the possibility, “They’re going to wish all I do to them is drop some bombs.”
        Sandback stood at attention and sharply saluted. “Sir, yes Sir!” he said, all fired up at the thought of it, and exploded from the ground and tore away so fast he missed Crimson Sky’s proud salute and vanished from sight before the Captain’s hoof lowered. He took to the air himself, soaring high enough over Canterlot that he could no longer hear the ambience of the guards as they scrambled about the streets. He couldn’t see the damage the fugitives had done to the city from this high up but could still feel the impact they had left. He thought of one of those cloud carriages, those bulky and ungainly things that rolled about at the whims of some strange engine he didn’t understand, rumbling down the streets and simply overtaking anything and anypony that got in its way. He thought of it slamming into the bodies of guards, rolling over Captain Rumble with enough weight to injure him…
        …and what if it had been daytime? Civilians everywhere and Skedaddle, still too young to fly, trotting home from kindergarten as it tore around a blind corner…
        He cringed and forced the thought out of his head as he hovered outside the bathroom window of his home; they always kept it unlocked so he could swoop in at any hour and make use of it without disturbing the household. He let the sink run to get good and cold so he could splash water in his face and stared into the mirror. He looked like death warmed over. He washed his face in the cold water and rubbed it briskly with a towel when he caught a glimpse of the door slowly opening.
        “…Daddy…?”
        “Oh Skedaddle…” he said softly as he turned off the sink and scooped his little filly up, cradling her head over his shoulder, “Did I wake you?”
        “Mm-hmm…” she said quietly, still dopey and half-asleep.
        He rocked her gently as he carried her past her room and to the master bedroom, wishing every step of the way he could have a few hours of sleep as well, and tucked her into bed with her mom. She looked up at him, blearily blinking her young little eyes, and he gently ran a hoof over her head and sat beside the bed. He watched her with a serene smile on his weathered old face as she closed her eyes and rolled over, hoping she would dream something pleasant for him as well, and kissed her and his wife on the foreheads. He took one more look at his family, snoring softly in a place he’d give almost anything to be in as well, and quietly closed the door behind him.
        “Daddy’s got some work to do,” he said darkly as he climbed back out the window and soared towards headquarters.