Thunderlane heads towards where his brother is being kept at the Canterlot Hospital. The staff is ignorant of his presence, but he is thankful for it, for he does not want anyone getting in his way, right now. He is still fuming about how his father thinks they can suddenly be friends now that he has a medal. After decades of verbal assaults, enforcing impossible standard and dictating his life, how can Gale rightfully come to the ceremony and act like no abuse has ever been delivered by his words or hooves?

So lost is Thunderlane in his angry, mental ramblings of “Why?” that he does not register his surroundings. His hooves guide him based on muscle memory alone of when he saw Rumble for the first time after the bombing. The whitewash walls, the health posters, the shining tiles, the quietly conversing staff making their rounds, none of that sparks his attention.

Just his thoughts. Just the audacity of his father now paying positive attention to him after he got a medal for participating in the killing of a bunch of goats.

'Make this right!'

That snarl from Gale pierces Thunderlane's thoughts, and the only thing he can do is sniff and nod to no one in particular. He has started on the road to redeeming himself, as his conditional father has proven with the convenient proud smile and sudden desire for chit-chat. But at this point, he is not doing any of this for his father's love or Amber Grain or the Hurricane Family. He is doing it for Rumble.

He killed for Rumble.

He turned down a chance for a better tomorrow for Rumble.

He is going to kill again for Rumble, and he will trudge through Hell if he has to to make up for what he failed to do. Then, when Rumble gets out of the hospital, he will take care of him again without his parents' assistance, like he has always done.

Thunderlane turns the corner and sees Amber Grain staring straight ahead at Rumble's room window, her distant eyes and wet cheeks shining from hours worth of tears. She is actually curled up on the floor, choosing the cold, hard tile over the cushioned bench, and when Thunderlane approaches her, her ears barely flick from the clip-clop of his hooves meeting the tile.

He tries to push back the angry thoughts that are hungrily gnawing at his conscious like starving scavengers. He forces his frown to disappear and takes a moment to wipe the angry tears from his eyes before he continues his walk. Once he is by to his mother, he lays down next to her and places his wing over her back while looking at Rumble's window, only to feel disappointment pile on top of the anger when he sees a crimson curtain covering everything.

Thunderlane feels Amber Grain's eyes on him, but he keeps his attention trained on the curtain, and he reflexively puts his hoof around her and hugs her closer when she sniffles and snuggles against him.

“Hi, Thunderlane. I thought you would be celebrating your award,” says the older mare.

Thunderlane shrugs. “I don't like parties that much. Besides, I wanted to check up on Rumble.” He looks at his mother hopefully. “Have the doctors said anything about his recovery?”

Amber Grain nibbles her lip and looks between him and the curtain shielding everyone from Rumble's state. A moment later, she looks at her reflection on the tile, nodding.

“Doctor Heartbeat said that there is a chance he will recover, but he won't be able to fly again and would need reconstructive surgery to rebuild his face and a permanent cast over his hooves,” explains Amber Grain quietly.

Thunderlane nods and stares at the curtain, wishing he can move it so he can see his brother.

“Thunderlane, I wanted to see that medal pinned on you, but...” Amber Grain looks at Rumble's curtain and her voice drifts to a sniffle obscured by her hoof over her mouth.

“I know, Mom. I understand,” says Thunderlane. He takes a breath and hugs her with one hoof and gently pulls her close so he can nuzzle her as he softly speaks. “I'm sorry I let this happen.”

“Please don't apologize,” sniffles Amber Grain, lowering her eyes to the floor.

“But this is my fault.”

Amber Grain shakes her head, her eyes still on the floor. “No it isn't. Nopony could have seen what happened coming. Nopony could have known that Bernese would do this.”

Thunderlane folds his hooves under his head to make a cushion and rests his chin on them, staring at the window with tears of anger and sorrow pooling in his eyes.

“It was my job to protect him, though, and I failed. I failed Rumble, I failed you and I failed Dad.”

Amber Grain sits up and gently runs her hoof up and down Thunderlane's spine while softly speaking to him. “Thunderlane, I know it is hard for you to understand, but not everything can be controlled or make sense. What happened that day was beyond your control, and it may never make sense to us why someone would do this. All we can really do is accept that and move on.”

Thunderlane shakes his head, feeling a frown and annoyance creeping in his from his mother's terrible advice of “moving on”.

“I can't do that. I can't move on. Not until I make this right,” says Thunderlane, trying with great difficulty to keep his voice even around Amber Grain. He exhales depressingly and sits up so he can be at eye level with her and places his hoof on her shoulder. He wrestles with the idea of whether or not he should tell his mother the news, but it does not take long for him to make a decision. Regulations be damned at this point. “Mom, I'm going to be going to Bernese very soon to go after the ones who did this. This mission... This mission will help me make this right and when it is done, I will move on and go back to taking care of Rumble like I've done before.”

Amber Grain balks and recoils with her wings expanded slightly, letting Thunderlane's hoof drop to the ground. “What? No. No, no, Thunderlane, no I don't want you to go on that mission!”

Thunderlane scowls. “Why?”

“Because I don't want to lose you! You might not come back if you go to Bernese!”

Thunderlane snaps his hoof Rumble's room, now growling with the anger bubbling out. “Did you forget what they did to Rumble!” he yells, making Amber Grain retreat slightly with a scared squeak. “Did you forget what they did to all those innocent people! I have to do this! I have to make this right!”

“How can I forget about Rumble when I've been sleeping here almost every day!” retaliates Amber Grain, her voice quivering and tears snaking down her cheeks. “But what about you, Thunderlane? What if you come back and you aren't the same colt I raised? Or what if you die over there?”

Thunderlane's snarl fades, but the anger in his eyes remain as he sniffs heavily and flaps his wings.

“Mom, I'll be fine,” assures Thunderlane in a grim tone, but now that his mother has mentioned it, the fear of death does seep in. “I will come back from Bernese and everything will be alright. The mess I made will be fixed and-”

“Please stop saying that!” begs Amber Grain, placing her hooves over her ears. She shakes her head, then throws her hooves on Thunderlane's shoulders and peers into his eyes, meeting his growing wrath with terrified humility. “None of this is your fault, Thunderlane! Why can't you accept that?”

Thunderlane stomps the floor with a resounding thud as yet another angry growl leaves his throat and a darkness forms around his eyes, which now shimmer in the light from returning tears.

“Because Dad made it clear that this all my fault! Why can't you see that?” cries Thunderlane, his explosive voice ringing off the walls and his wings expanded fully. “I was supposed to protect Rumble, but I didn't and now he is crippled for life because I couldn't do my job!”

Thunderlane jabs himself in the chest, barrel heaving and tears dripping down his cheeks from the despair eating away at the fury.

“You see this uniform that I'm wearing because of you and Dad!” continues Thunderlane angrily, voice cracking and shaking and his whole body quivering. “This uniform means I am supposed to protect others! And I can't even do that right!”

“Thunderlane, I-”

“And ever since I got Rumble blown up, Dad never said another word to me or even looked at me until I got a shiny medal for a uniform I never wanted to wear! That tells me enough about him and the kind of jerk you married! He forgot he loved me because he never loved me in the first place!”

Amber Grain holds up her hoof in an attempt to calm the stallion down. “Thunderlane, please listen to me, he does care about you. He does love you. You are our son, we both love you with all our hearts, and I'm sorry we weren't better parents. I'm sorry that you felt this path was the only way you felt that we could love you. I'm sorry I wasn't the mother I should have been, and if I could, I would go back in time and fix every mistake we made.”

Thunderlane scoffs and wipes his eyes, muttering: “Why do that when you could go to the root of all this mess and stop yourself from meeting Dad? Then you wouldn't have me to mess everything up and Rumble wouldn't be around to have his face blown off.”

Thunderlane is immediately assaulted with a very sharp, stinging slap right across his face. The impact stings him and brings a flash of white and a ringing to eyes and ears. It takes him a moment to comprehend what just happened, considering he has never seen his mother raise a hoof to anyone for any reason. Sure she yells and gets stern from time to time, but slapping? That is completely alien to him, and now that she has done this, Thunderlane realizes that he just said something completely stupid. So stupid, in fact, that it is making his mother tremble in rage and is choking them both, with grief for her and guilt for him.

“How dare you wish something so horrible!?” yells Amber Grain furiously. “How dare you! Being angry is no reason to wish something so awful! Without Gale, I wouldn't have you or Rumble! I would have nothing but a darkness and misery that I do not want again! Yes, Gale is hard to be around, but do you know why?”

When Thunderlane answers with a swallow, Amber Grain sniffles and takes a step back, lips quivering and head lowered with her hoof covering her mouth.

“It is the pain he is carrying with him,” she whimpers. “You don't remember what he was like before the guilt and anger and sadness took him like it is taking you.”

Amber Grain takes a deep, shaky breath and looks at Thunderlane with bloodshot eyes and her soaked cheeks shining in the hospital's light.

“Back then, he was happy and soft and always searched for a bright ending,” says Amber Grain, taking a depressing breath after and staring at her hooves, “but when he lost his brother and parents, everything became dim. He blamed himself, and only himself, for what happened to them.”

Thunderlane swallows again, trying to keep the ball of tears at bay as he watches his mother falling apart in front of him, feeling helpless and unsure what to do to stop it.

“Watching Gale breakdown was one of the hardest things I endured because I was powerless to stop it!” continues Amber Grain, her voice cracking into nigh hysterical weeping. “He-He was his greatest enemy and he thought he could starve all that hopelessness, all that despair by holding it in, but it only grew worse and it ate him alive! It ate him... It ate him like it is eating you. His joy became bitter, his softness hardened, and now he is just a shell of the pony I fell in love with. But I know that the real Gale is still in there somewhere.”

Thunderlane frowns skeptically at his mother, despite the tears bleeding down his cheeks. “How?”

Amber Grain smiles at Thunderlane and blinks tears out of her eyes. “He still tells stories.”

Thunderlane raises an eyebrow. “Really?”

Amber Grain nods. “You two were more alike than you realize. Like you, Gale was once very caring, fragile, easy to embarrass and was very reserved.” She chuckles for a moment and wipes her nose before she glances at Thunderlane with a sad, reminiscent smile, blinking away the tears wetting her eyes. “He even looked like was going to be sick when he first started talking to me. But he was always trying to please others, especially his parents. Why, at one point, he even tried getting his cutie mark in storytelling like his father! He would tell his mother stories and would watch his father do his ghost-writing, and before we started officially courting, he always asked me if I had time for a story when he would get his morning coffee at the cafe I worked at. He really does love telling stories to others, and when we have company or are at an event, he would tell others about the day we got you.”

Thunderlane points at himself, unsure that he heard her right. “Me?”

Amber Grain rolls her eyes up in thought. “Well, he also talks a lot about when I gave birth to Rumble and how he had to run out because he got sick from seeing it, but, yes, he talks about you a lot, too.” She looks back at Thunderlane, gently places her hoof against his cheek and starts rubbing it in smooth, loving strokes while looking in his eyes with a proud smile tainted by her tears. “You are a gift to us, Thunderlane. I know you don't believe it, but you are special to me and Gale and I know you have a purpose. I know you are meant for great things, and when the time is right, you will know what that purpose is. But, please, stay as the kind soul I know you are. Don't lose yourself the same way I lost Gale.”

Thunderlane nods, sniffling and trying to clear the tears from his eyes as his heart becomes heavy with a sense of guilt and confusion while he grabs his mother's hoof.

“Okay,” says Thunderlane quietly.

“You promise?” asks Amber Grain.

Thunderlane hesitates. “I promise.”

“Good.” Amber Grain leans up and gently kisses him on the forehead, then pulls away and nudges him up. “Now, go out with your friends and be happy for just one day. Please.”

Thunderlane almost tells her that the only friend he really has is Rainbow Dash, and that is very loosely speaking, but that would take the conversation in another sharp turn, and possibly make things awkward. Quite frankly, he's not sure if he can handle another emotional curve at the moment, so he simply nods, hugs his mother really quick, then walks away with his head down and all that has been revealed to him holding his mind hostage.

Sitting just around the corner, in the darkness of the desolate hallway, listening to the whole conversation and hearing Thunderlane leave, is Gale. He cannot move, only listen to Thunderlane's steps fade from his ears. He wants to move, he wants to go to the stallion he raised, but he cannot get himself to stand. His back remains pressed against the cold brick, and his wet eyes are shut, leaking trickles of tears down his wrinkled face as he presses his hooves against his muzzle.

Seeing the pain in Thunderlane's eyes when he tried to talk to him, seeing the anger, the sadness, all the resentment, it is something he knows all too well. He remembers giving his father that same look, and turning him down the same way like Thunderlane did to him. With angry words and furious steps, he turned his back on his father when he wanted to talk, leaving him broken and alone at the Air Guard graduation ceremony. Those big eyes, red and wet, and trembling lips void of words is the last face he has of his father before alcohol finally claimed him shortly after his brother was taken in Bernese.

Gale carefully removes a photo from his pocket, and he has to squint his eyes in dim light to see the details, but it amazes him every time he sees it. The stallion in the picture can easily be mistaken for Thunderlane, and the little sleeping colt wrapped in the blanket looks just like him, too. They are near perfect copies of each other, made all the more obvious with how the outgoing stallion is pressing his face against the oblivious, sleeping baby's cheek to show off this amazing outcome.

The more Gale stares at the picture, the clearer that day becomes when he first laid eyes on Thunderlane.

“What are you going to name him?” asks a thirty years younger Gale brightly as he stares at the charcoal coated baby in the crib. The crib that he is looking at is set in uniform with a dozen other cribs, all occupied by newborns and shielded by a pane of glass.

Next to Gale is the father of the child. He is a few years older than Gale, and has a dark coat with a gray mane, and a cutie mark of a syringe inside a red cross. Though, unlike Gale, who is wearing his blue and green uniform of the Frontier Watch, he is wearing a simple tie and is carrying a saddle full of books and papers. The older stallion is about to answer, but stops himself when a couple of nurses walk by and give Gale some flirtatious looks. Gale pays no mind to this, though, and returns the look with a teasing smile and a shrug.

“Sorry, ladies, already taken,” says Gale.

“Lucky mare,” chirps one of nurses.

“Yes she is!”

The pair of nurses giggle and trot away, and the two stallions shake their heads, smiling broadly, then they look at the sleeping colt and sigh.

“Man, that Grape Muffin guy corrupted you, big time,”teases the father. “The Gale I remember would have a heart attack if he saw what you just did.”

Gale shrugs. “What can I say? Some dirt stompers are actually decent if you get to know them. Now, for the baby. Have you and the missus thought of a name, yet?”

“Well,” begins the father slowly, tilting his head this way and that. “I was thinking something cooler than Gale.”

Gale playfully slugs the dark furred pegasus in the shoulder. “Hey, don't you start with me! Anything is be better than your name, Good!”

Good snickers and tenderly rubs his shoulder. “Yeah, our parents sucked at naming us. I don't know, though. How about Bob?”

“Okay. No! Definitely not! You're still a Hurricane, whether you changed your name or not, so your boy needs something a whole lot stronger than Bob.” Gale taps his chin for a moment, eyes to the floor and lips sealed as he hums thoughtfully. Seconds later, his eyes light up and he points at the father with a wide grin. “I got it! How about 'Thunderlane'?”

The father returns the grin with more glee than Gale, and he ruffles his feathers as he rubs his hooves together eagerly. “Sounds, cool. I'll run it by milady!”

Gale wipes his eyes and bows his head, then he takes a deep breath and hugs the picture tight against his chest, and in the dark hall, no one sees the hardened soldier cry.

Rotes stares down at a ditch, his glasses freezing against his coat and puffs of iced air floating in front of his face with Gilda and Grim flanking him. Grim is actually standing further away, peering down the recently dug grave, pulling off the curious look, but Rotes knows that the buff griffin is trying to keep his distance from Gilda. He knows he would, too, if he were in Grim's position. He also knows that what happened between the two can work to his advantage if he plays his cards right. The Painter has made a grave mistake by thinking he is clever by having these griffins watch him, fully prepared to kill him once his use has run out for the strange unicorn. But, just like all of Rotes' enemies, the Painter has underestimated him and will pay dearly for it.

Thinking about the best way to counter the Painter and preserve Perfect Harmony's ascension, Rotes glances at the stone in Gilda's mechanical hand. He remembers how it had glowed an eerie green a few minutes before, but he is not sure if it had the same effect when he punished Post for his betrayal since he was not looking at Gilda when it happened. Seeing the glow had actually been a mistake since he saw it out of the corner of his eye. Nonetheless, regardless of the situation, interest in stone from its activity has been growing in Rotes, and he feels a a strange lusting in his heart for it.

When Gilda shifts in her spot, clenching her mechanical hand into a fist to shield the stone from the outside world, she looks at Rotes with a suspicious glare. Feigning disinterest of the mystical object, he looks back at the ditch. The ditch is now being filled with frosted sand and lime to cover the corpses inside. The bodies are easily buried since their grave is about six feet deep and eighteen feet long. It took a great amount of time digging it, but it was nothing that the dozen executed detainees with shovels couldn't handle.

The armed guards watching them encouraged the doomed prisoners to dig faster, but it did not keep them quiet. Some cried and others muttered prayers, which annoyed Rotes to an extent, but it also interested him to a degree to see if they will be delivered from their troubles. By the time the bullets tore into them while they were still inside, he got his answer.

Faith has once again failed the faithful, and now the foolish are being sealed in their mass grave.

“What's the reason for killing this batch?” asks Gilda when a shovel full of lime covers a young ibex barely in her teens, soon to have some frozen dirt tossed on top of her.

That makes her face scrunch in disgust behind her mask, but Rotes merely releases a bored sigh as another round of lime and dirt covers yet another body.

“They were uncooperative when I asked them about Ozean and Post,” he replies simply. “It really is no different than you killing ponies because they didn't pay on time or griffins for lying to you when they said they weren't informants.”

Gilda growls at him, her natural and bladed talons flexing and the gears clicking as she stretches her robotic fingers. “I didn't do mass graves, dip-shit, and rather than assuming you know me and what I did-”

“The Painter already told me everything I need to know about you, Gilda,” interrupts Rotes impatiently. “So, unless the rejected child wants to explain to me how she was a saint for poisoning the lives of the desperate for greed, I would suggest you let me assume freely. Chances are I would be right, anyway.”

Gilda narrows her eyes, but Rotes ignores this and the distorted rumble coming from her breathing mask, and he approaches Grim. The buff griffin's face is covered in more scars from Gilda's sudden rampage, and anyone can see that the muscle of the two now has a meek appearance to him. No longer is he standing tall and daring someone to say something insulting to him. Now he is sulking and finding any reason not to look at Rotes or Gilda. Even if that means staring at bodies being buried under a mountain of lime and dirt.

When Rotes is next to Grim, he sizes up the griffin, studying the muscles under his dark gray coat and gray plumage. They are impressive, even for a griffin, and he sees more faint scarring covering his body, and he notices how one of his talons is slightly crooked, as though it has been broken at some point. Rotes hums quietly to himself and glances at Gilda out of his peripheral vision, prompting Grim to look at him quizzically while ruffling his feathers and tensing his muscles. Gilda, from what he can see, is back to inspecting the stone in her hand.

Rotes knows the stone is special, he can feel it, and a growing part of him knows that he can use it to his advantage if he can get a hold of it.

With the thought of apprehending the stone, Rotes looks at Grim and flashes a thin, toothless smile at the large griffin and gently pats his shoulder before staring at the grave. Grim twitches and glances at Rotes curiously, but the ibex casually scans the corpses, finding his focus on a pair of bloodied ibexes hugging each other in their final moment of comfort. It sends a shiver all through his body, thinking about how eerily similar this scene is to when he had been fleeing Bernese.

The mass grave, the lime and dirt being shoveled on top of the bodies, the officer barking the order before the barely heard sobs and begs are silenced by a volley of gunfire. He remembers having the same fear that his executed prisoners had, and while some hugged and others tried climbing out, most remained frozen, knowing their end has come. It is the same fear that froze him while other refugees walked past him with Post and Cutter shepherding them through the very same forest he is in now.

Rotes closes his eyes and inhales the chilled air, freezing the lump in his throat and stiffening his shaking legs.

"Keep walking. You are almost safe," is what Post whispered to him so the executioners would not find him.

Rotes exhales and opens his mouth to break apart the clog that has taken his throat hostage. A layer of tears freeze on his cheeks, and thinking about Post and how similar his execution and the executions of his accomplices are similar to the purge in Der Tal thirty years back threatens to bring more tears.

A pair of militants shovel the lime and sand over them and Rotes sniffles and looks away from the bodies with a growing frown and his eyes freezing from a thin amount of tears building up in them.

“The things I do for us,” he says quietly.

With a depressed sniff, Rotes strolls towards the motor wagon he arrived in, where Kirche is standing, ignoring Gilda's raised brow look, and stops when he is by the Commissioner.

“Kirche, what is the status of the quarantine?” says Rotes, forcing his depression back so no one can see his weakness.

Kirche sighs and nervously rubs the back of his neck. “We are very fortunate that the operation is a lot simpler than anticipated, Herr Leinen.”

A thin smile is forced across the blonde ibex's muzzle. “Do tell, Commissioner.”

“With your army and my police, we have managed to keep this valley sealed, and even the military seems blind to us. We are very fortunate that the Chancellor has not ordered the military to attack us, but what if our luck ends? We are in no condition to engage the Republican Guard should they do large operations against us.”

Rotes sighs and puts his hoof on Kirche's shoulder. “Commissioner Kirche, the Chancellor will not dare wage war on us, for if he even so much attempts such an act, the retaliation will be devastating, and he knows this.” Rotes pats the older ibex's should and continues in a louder voice when Gilda approaches. “Besides! You honestly did not think I would do all this without positioning my assets in key positions, did you?”

Kirche smiles nervously. “I guess not. Forgive me for being foolish, Herr Leinen.”

“Ah, not to worry, as long as you are loyal to me and to my cause, I will forgive you for just about anything, but...” Rotes glances at Gilda out of the corner of his eyes. “If you give me reasons to doubt your loyalty, then you should have reasons to be afraid.”

Gilda stops and snorts a puff of frosty air from her breathing mask, and Rotes smirks and looks back at Kirche, who now appears more uneasy now than before.

“Go back to town and talk to Birch,” orders Rotes. “Perhaps he has remembered more about Post and this assassin after some days of rest. Then ask March if he has gotten any word of Cutter.”

“Yes, Herr Leinen.” Kirche says with a quick nod.

“And be kind to Birch. He has proven to be loyal, and loyalty needs to be treated with kindness.”

Kirche nods again. “Yes, Herr Leinen.”

The old ibex trots away and barks at a couple of the local guards. They are smoking and chatting quietly amongst themselves, but are quick to snap to attention with one even going as far as stomping his cigarette out. After Kirche explains their orders, they nods and hastily get inside one of the armored wagons with the Commissioner and drive off, leaving a cloud of gray exhaust and kicked up smoke in their wake.

Rotes coughs and hacks hysterically, and waves his covered hoof in front of his face to beat the poisonous fumes away from his nose. Even though the deadly mix of snow and exhaust is thirty feet away from him. Once done expelling his lungs of the threat, he glares at the leaving vehicle, silently cursing himself for forgetting his gas mask.

Seconds later, he releases a loud sigh and lowers his head to look at the white ground while inhaling the wonderfully crisp, cold air, no longer ruined by the lingering pollution.

“I was wondering why we haven't been bombed, yet,” says Gilda from behind, “but now that you mentioned placing moles all over the place, I'm surprised that you haven't found Nasty Hick.”

Rotes sniffs up more of the great air and straightens himself out. “Some individuals are sneaky, others think they are sneaky.” He looks at Gilda from over his shoulder. “Your friend is the former, surprisingly.”

Gilda's hum is like a weakly purring engine, and Rotes catches what he thinks is a flicker of pride in her eyes. That suspected pride quickly turns into annoyance, though, when she realizes that, just like Rotes, Nasty Hick was grossly underestimated in her eyes.

“When you do get him back, he better be in one piece,” says Gilda.

“Duly noted,” replies Rotes, now walking back to the ditch.

When he is next to Gilda, she stops him with her mechanical hand, inadvertently placing the stone above his heart, giving it Rotes' undivided attention.

“Hello?” whimpers a familiar voice.

Rotes furrows his brows, thinking he is just hearing things, but then a painful tingling, like that of a hundred pinpricks, runs through his hooves. A cold seeps through his veins like mercury, where it pools at his hooves and commands the snow to lift up around. It barely rises a thin cloud, though, and Rotes is too stunned at the sight to see if he can do more. However, Gilda does not seem to notice this anomaly and her emerald eyes have once again reverted to the gold color as the familiar voice seeps into Rotes' head, like a rodent seeking refuge from the cold.

“Rotes?” says Post weakly.

Rotes' immediately recoils from Gilda, with his heart racing and breathing ragged as he stares at the robotic hand with his eyes large enough to explode and his pupils tiny like dots.

“I mean it,” growls Gilda, dropping her robotic appendage to the ground. “Grim and Nasty are all I have left, and if anything happens to them because of you, I will rip you apart and gut you like a fucking fish.”

Rotes swallows and hastily leaves Gilda's side to get back to the ditch where the traitors will rot.

“And yet you beat Grim senselessly that one time for a mere slip of the tongue. You are truly caring. Now, if you will excuse me, I have work to do,” remarks Rotes with a tone as brisk as his panicked steps when he restarts his trek. The taste of power lingers in his mind and body, and in spite of the pain he felt, he wants to stay to feel it again, but at the same time, he does not want to hear Post. There is no way he should have heard him. He knows what he hears and just the sound of that voice is a terrible reminder of what he had to do to ensure the safety of his comrades, Storm Cloud and the rise of the Gold Star Movement.

“You mean like killing more unarmed people!” yells Gilda, her angry voice booming over the frozen landscape.

Rotes stops cold in his tracks, staring at the ditch and thinking about the gunfire that ruthlessly mowed down unarmed ibexes like him during the Prosecutions. The guards covering the bodies stop their shoveling and look at Rotes and Gilda, as does Grim. The androgynous ibex's hooves start to shake with the memory of the blood in the snow and the cries of mercy from the defenseless swirl in his mind, blurring into one mass of confusion.

“We'reunarmedcloseyoureyesyouralmostsafeabominationshelperofgriffinswe'reinnocent!”

Rotes slams his eyes shut and bangs his hoof against the snow, then he spins to Gilda, scowling as threateningly as his soft facial features will allow and starts towards her.

“Gilda, you are not a saint, please stop acting like one!” orders Rotes. “What I am doing is what is best for all of us!”

“You are so full of shit!” Gilda storms over to Rotes, and the militants rush to his side and aim their battle saddles at her while Rotes remains standing firm, meeting her fiery gaze with his narrowed eyes.

A pair of guards keep their guns trained on Grim, though, and he takes a couple of steps back while reaching for his holstered pistol. When Gilda is a few paces away, she stops and flaps her wings challengingly while blowing puffs of air through her mask.

“None of this shit makes any fucking sense!” accuses Gilda. “You said you have 'assets' all over the place, and yet you are playing this fucked up game by putting the whole damn world at war and ordering your chumps to kill kids because they don't know a damn thing about Ozean or Post!”

Rotes scoffs. “Well, someone is emotional, today.” He looks at the militants aiming their weapons at Grim, and he frowns and motions them to lower their weapons. “Please, lower your weapons. He is no threat.”

The militants reluctantly lower their weapons, and Grim sighs with relief and relaxes as Rotes looks back at Gilda.

“As for you, Gilda,” continues Rotes. “You obviously do not understand how things work. An idea does no good if it constrained. Ideas are meant to be spread in the most efficient way possible, and believe me, if I could, I would not have Storm Cloud, I would have fairy dust and wish Perfect Harmony graced the world like rain. But not everyone wants progress and I have seen first hoof that the only thing that people truly respond to is fear. Fear united Bernese during the Griffin Invasion. Fear kept Equestria out. Fear led to the slaughter of my kind! Fear is why we don't have progress! Storm Cloud will use fear to unite the world into a perfect state of harmony! Are we clear, Gilda?”

By the time Rotes is done, his face is red and he is breathing heavily with a bubble of snow surrounding him. He does not even realize how cold he is until he stops talking and gets a feeling of his hooves being ripped apart by the cold and his eyes freezing over. He looks at the Gold Star Militants and at Grim and sees their shocked expressions, then he looks at Gilda and sees her defiance still stands. It actually looks like it has gotten stronger, and that is infuriating to him, but, rather than making her explode like he wants to, he merely closes his eyes and takes a deep breath. After opening his eyes, the cold in him fades, but his anger remains in his eyes.

“The Gold Star is rising, Gilda,” says Rotes grimly, “and when Storm Cloud ends, when Perfect Harmony has taken its rightful place, you best have found where your loyalties lie.”