In old Manehattan

by Askre

Chapter 13. New chance.

Chapter 13

Barricade could barely contain his relief when seeing Cara as he burst into the abandoned building. Grabbing her in a hug, he just held on tight. He and the others had heard the explosion, seen Caballeron’s lackeys make a mad dash away and had feared the worst.

He didn’t even pay attention to it while the crusaders desperately explained to Applejack that they had really honestly not intended to be here. His whole focus was on his daughter right now.

“I’m so sorry, Cara. You were never meant to get tangled up in my messes,” he whispered, trying to keep his tears in check.

“Mess is putting it mildly. What the heck is going on? Who were those ponies?” Cara growled, but didn’t really struggle to get free, secretly glad to see her father again.

“Ponies that just made my life miserable once before I broke away,” Barricade simply explained as he let her go and got back to his legs. He glared around. “By the way, where is Caballeron? I got a hoof I want to crush into his skull.”

“That’s the other crazy thing. The wall over there exploded. Some big pony appeared in it and then the shadows just grabbed that guy and pulled him away,” the teenager told him. Her father looked at her stunned.

“The shadows grabbed him…?” he whispered shocked. He looked at Barbell and Blue who just shrugged and looked more confused than him.

“Well something grabbed him,” Cara snorted, glancing towards the fillies who were still trying to explain to skeptical Applejack that they were here by pure accident. She could confirm their story. They had asked her for directions back to Hooflyn before they were all abducted, however that would mean confirming she had snuck out. Then she realized that her father probably already knew she snuck out. Sighing, the pegasus walked over to Applejack.

“They are telling the truth, they ran into me a few streets away from Hooflyn and asked me for directions back there,” she told the mare.

Cara expected to hear some snark from her father about why she was there, but nothing was said. She glanced back at her father and arched her brow. Barricade was just staring down at the ground, eyes wide open and he seemed completely and utterly lost.

“Dad?” she approached her father. Barbell was already by him, trying to address him as well.

While Cara, Barbell and Blue tended to Barricade, Applejack was still confronting the crusaders about their story. Although Cara had confirmed they had been on their way back to Hooflyn and had gotten lost, they still hadn’t quite explained why they were lost in the first place since Sunflower was supposed to take them and Babs back to the Oranges.

“It’s my fault,” Scootaloo confessed with a sigh. “I wanted to warn Snow Heart about Caballeron like you were going to warn Barricade. Mom still sometimes talks about her and has been trying to find her and I think she still wants to be her friend and… I wanted to tell her that as well. The girls snuck off to stop me and turn me back.”

Applejack looked at Sweetie Belle and Apple Bloom who both nodded to confirm what their friend had just said. The mare shook her head, still a little angry at her sister and the other crusaders for being in Hoofington again, but this time around two of them had tried to prevent that, so she just smiled instead.

“Alright, Ah’ll forget this instance, Ah think ya’ll have been through enough,” she said. “Okay we will go to Snow Heart and Tango before going back to Aunt and Uncle Orange and you can tell her, Scootaloo.”

Scootaloo grinned and jumped a little in joy while her friends were sighing in relief that they wouldn’t be in trouble over this. The Ponyville ponies then turned their attention to the Hoofington ones. Barricade was just at that moment shaking himself out of his stupor.

“Uh sorry, I zoned out there. Let’s get the out of here,” he recommended, putting a hoof for a moment on his concerned-looking daughter’s back.

“We’ll be accompanying you back. Scootaloo has something to say to Snow Heart she didn’t get a chance to tell her the last time,” Applejack said as she and the Crusaders walked over to them.

“Yeah sure.” Barricade nodded and the group walked out and made their way out of Junction, not knowing that green and red eyes were watching them high above on top of one of the buildings.

Silver Axe continued to watch them walk away, his right front leg firmly wrapped around Caballeron who was wrapped up in shadow like tendrils. The earth pony tried to struggle but found himself unable to move much.

“Come, Caballeron. I think it’s high time we meet face to face,” the dark voice spoke through the pegasus. He spread his big wings and took off to the air, disappearing swiftly into the night, carrying the frightened pony in his legs.

---

Tango opened the door to the apartment and was surprised to see the Crusaders standing outside. All three of them greeted him cheerfully. The former officer could only really say a stunned hi.

“What are you girls doing here?” he asked, bit worried they had snuck off once again. Then he saw Applejack further off as the mare was walking up the stairs to the next floor.

“Scootaloo wanted to talk with Snow Heart about her mom, Scootaloo’s mom that is,” Apple Bloom explained. All three girls grinned.

“I didn’t get a chance to do so at the diner, after we mentioned that mare you knew and died,” Scootaloo pointed out, rubbing the back of her head with a hoof.

“Oh,” Tango frowned a little, then he glanced back into the apartment. “Snow Heart has actually gone to bed. This has been a bit of a trying day for her. Ah, do you know if they found Cara.”

“Yes they did. Uh we’ll let Barricade tell you about that, but Cara’s back home, safe and sound,” Sweetie Belle informed him. The stallion sighed in relief when hearing that.

“Can you at least tell Snow Heart that mom has been trying to find her? She wants to contact her but never knew how because nopony would tell her where she was on parole.” Scootaloo said, not wanting to have Snow Heart woken up if she was already retired.

“I will,” Tango assured the filly before chuckling weakly. “Yeah it’s been a bit of a secret where she’s living because she’s not exactly a very popular pony as you well know.”

The fillies nodded. Tango glanced back out. “Say where did Applejack go?”

“She said she wanted to talk with Barricade a little before we went back to Hooflyn. She was going to meet us back here,” Apple Bloom explained.

“Well, I guess you can wait inside while she doing that. The living room here to the left,” Tango offered and stepped out of the way to let the Crusaders inside.

On the third floor, Applejack was waiting just outside Barricade’s apartment. He and Barbell had told her to wait while they took Cara inside. Though the teen hadn’t looked terribly upset over her ordeal, the mare figured they wanted to have a little private talk with her first.

She didn’t need to wait too long. Soon enough Barricade stepped outside and stood face-to-face with her. The unicorn looked tired, even if the situation had been resolved rather miraculously.

“Ah got to say, Barricade. Ah’ve been mighty impressed by what Ah have seen so far of you,” Applejack stated and crossed her front legs. “You ain’t the foul-mouthed jerk that took advantage of Derpy all those years ago.”

“Heh, glad you noticed,” Barricade chuckled weakly. “Thanks for the help by the way, even if we didn’t really need to do much.”

“No problem. Seems like you got someone watchin’ over you. Ah’m still confused how Silver Axe fits into all of this. Ah’m going to report it to the authorities that he was spotted here before my sister and I head back to Ponyville in few days,” the mare said. There were still a lot of questions unanswered, but she had already noticed that even Barricade was as confused as her. There was one thing though she could ask. “You could tell me though, what happened in the Crystal Empire?”

Barricade frowned and looked away. He had a feeling Applejack knew more than she was letting on. It couldn’t be a secret what generally happened in the Crystal Empire a few months ago. Then again, few probably knew all the details.

“My brother was possessed by a monster and that same monster took control of me. He invaded my mind, showed me my worst fears and then had me attack others. He killed an inn full of creatures just by sitting there in the possessed body of my brother. He and things like him are the reasons I prefer living in cities, deep inside cities, so I stay far away as possible from these kind of things,” Barricade muttered, still not going into full details but giving enough.

“Worst of all, because of my stubbornness, because of my brashness… I almost got my brother killed. Private could have died in that cave and there was nothing I could do to help him.” The stallion stubbornly tried to hold back a tear, quickly wiping it off with a hoof.

The unicorn fell silent, giving Applejack time to digest it, recalling now more from the short briefing Twilight had given her and the rest of their friends about the incident in the Crystal Empire. Most of it was though just that an old enemy had been resurrected and two ponies, Private Iceland and Barricade had been involuntarily been involved.

“And he’s the reason for the changes?” she asked carefully, though she was mildly impressed how cooperative Barricade was being.

“Yeah. After I got back, I realized just how pointless everything was that I did. I had seen what it really is like to rule through fear and I didn’t want to have anything to do with it. I figured Hoofington deserved better, so I made it better, the best I could. I completely drove out other gangs, had my gang stop harassing other ponies, stopped enforcing loans. It isn’t much, but at least Hoofington is safer now than it was,” Barricade sighed and sat down. “I want to do more, there is so much that needs to be done, but I can only do so much. It’s the city that has to pay for some of the repairs that need to be done here, but this district just gets pocket money to do some minimal upkeep and most of my money goes into… paying for all the foals I have all over the place.”

“How many foals do you have?” Applejack frowned. She knew about at least three of them.

“Well, Cara lives with me, then there is Dinky, Coal. I allegedly have two sons, Cooper and Chisel,” Barricade sighed as his thoughts went to all the mares he’d mistreated.

“Wait, Cooper as in Junebug’s Cooper?” the mare blinked in surprise when Barricade nodded. “I can see now why Junebug never said anything about his father.”

“Don’t blame her… wait she lives in Ponyville now?” Barricade asked and got a positive nod in response.

“Have you even met them?” Applejack wondered, from what little she knew from Derpy was that Barricade only had daughters.

“No. I just send them money. I was really horrible to Chisel’s mother, I just stay clear away. The boy doesn’t need to meet me and if Junebug doesn’t want to tell Cooper who his father is, it’s fine by me. I don’t blame them for it,” the stallion sighed.

Applejack furrowed her brow as she thought this over. Perhaps it was too late to help with Cooper and Chisel, but she had an inkling that things were still possible for his daughters.

“So, tell me Barricade, how good are you at building bridges?” she asked.

“Horrible, I’m better at destroying them from orbit,” Barricade grunted, having caught on what kind of bridges Applejack was talking about, considering their conversation. He raised an eyebrow in puzzlement when the mare suddenly grinned.

“What if you had a little help?” Applejack inquired slyly.

End chapter 13