The ceiling of the jail cell was grey, just like my old room long ago. I looked back through everything that had happened to me, almost like my life was flashing before my eyes. I remembered many things, some from long ago and some so new they could've happened Yesterday. There were some things I couldn't remember, names I got wrong, and probably plenty that never happened. So is the way of life.

They were certainly going to put me down, it was a heavy feeling. So it's at times like this that I would look to the skies and see what my options were.

There weren't many, so I just tied the bedsheets around the jail cells bars and used the bed as some sort of a stool. I made sure that the sheets were short enough to keep me off the ground, then wrapped the other end around my neck.

Something inside me died, maybe it was pride.

I leaned forwards, and began to dangle from the ground by my neck. My face went from blue to black in a matter of seconds, as I kicked around the sheets managed to turn me around, facing the rest of the prison. This was when the guard walked by just as it was almost over.

I sat quietly, as I always did. The room was dark, as if my life were filmed in black and white. On my right was the door, and on my left was a small window. It was all I had in this room. I'd given up everything long ago. I just stared at the blank TV screen, waiting for the speech to come on. I was numb, carrying myself as though I were already dead. Truth be told, I've been dead for years.

The time, as it always was when we did this, was 6:30 PM. The whole country stood in silence, to commemorate the fall of the princess and the rise of the Golden Era. That program would say the same thing ever night, that we were brought from the princesses as we created a government for ourselves. We would sit here for 30, 40, sometimes even 50 minutes at a time watching the blank TV screen. The town was silent, even bags rolling across the street could be heard.

Then the screen came on, it was black and white but all of the Steel Empire could recognize the figure well. Steel Spirit had instigated the rebellion fifteen or so years ago, and he's been in control ever since. We do not talk about the times before, such words in his eyes are evil. He opened his mouth, and the sound carried through the entire city.

"Comrades, hold steady on your course, fight for each-other. The war against inequality is soon to come to an end. We were slaves and now we're free! I brought you light in the dark, and I brought you food when you were hungry. Some say we are running on a shortage of food, I say we have plenty! Let us celebrate our liberation once more!" The TV turned off again. Nopony was allowed out after the ceremony hours and all conversation was regulated to be about the glory of Steel. To others it resounded with pride, some with fear, but with me it was regret.

I lived alone, however. So there was no conversation. I just sat quietly for fifty minutes, thinking about the times before he brought himself to this country. My regret deepened when I remembered that I was part of this, flowing freely like a bag in the wind. I recognized my sorrow, accepted my sins, and fought my remorse. It was ten minutes in when my door opened. We were not allowed to lock doors, as it goes against the rules Steel put forth. It slammed behind. I dared not stand, what if they were watching me? I couldn't see who it was, so I kept still and waited for the pony to make it's presence known. My mind was numb, and for the first time I felt that.

"Shhh."

I looked up, standing in front of me was a white on grey pony with crystal blue eyes. We had no need for wings or horns, and as such this pony had none. I remained silent, talking during this time was forbidden.

"Cover for me, if they ask I'm not here." She started.

It was confusing but I had to agree or things would only get worse, probably because if the politburo found her in MY home they'd be inclined to search the whole place. That was something I absolutely didn't want to happen. Above all that but I had a sense that we were two of the same breed. The thing is, ponies that have seen war before can instantly identify each other. It is almost as if we're wolves, part of the same pack. To be honest that holds a lot more truth than it should, we aren't ponies disguised as wolves. We are wolves disguised as ponies. It takes war to make you realize that.

That was when there was a knock on the door. I was puzzled, but the pony motioned for me to answer it. I stood up and walked to it, the room was a square with no other rooms so it didn't take long to get there. There was also a lack of places for her to hide. It'd be ridiculously easy for a guard to see her in the room, but something told me she was smarter than that. All there was is the Couch, the TV, the pictures of the revolution, and the closet. The closet was always empty, for all we had would be given up for the glory of the leaders.

I opened the door, and two members of the Politburo stood there. They wore black uniforms with cross rifles on their necks. On their fronts was the symbol of steel, three bronze bars.

"Good evening, are you housing a pony that is not supposed to be here?"

For the first time in years, I lied.

"No, anypony who isn't family is not allowed in anypony else's living quarters under order 2217 of Steel."

"Good, we're looking for a degenerate. Glory to Steel."

"Glory to Steel."

They left almost as quickly as they had came. When I closed the door the white on grey pony put her back against it. She was hiding between the door and the wall.

I nodded my head over to the couch, if they assumed we were related then there'd be no issues. There was a camera facing towards the couch from the TV. It was how they enforced the regulations of praise. I nodded to her and she caught on quick. When we had sat, she stared at the TV with me, the only thing on was the emblem of Steel, 3 iron bars. She then broke the silence.

"You fought in the war didn't you?"

I almost forgot about the two flags above my TV, they rested in a tri-fold box. One was Equestrian, the other was for Steel. They were only given to veterans. If there's one thing I'd never forget, it was the sound and smell of death. The sight of piled bodies. Those were the things that stuck with you. I was roughly forty years old at this point, and it stuck with me for the last twenty years.

"Yes, those flags are mine."

"Then I'm sure you already know something is wrong."

It was the first time I had heard this. I'd never been told the truth in years. Who was this pony sitting next to me and where did she get the authority to speak like this? So many questions, so few answers.

"I've noticed."

"You were lied to."

I responded out of fear.

"No, Steel never lied to anypony."

"You know that isn't true. The camera in your TV is a myth. They can't reinforce any of their rules, especially the time of praise. I have a feeling you only do it because you're too scared to see what you fought for, is that true?" her voice dropped in tone, it was more of a mocking yet understanding voice.

I couldn't hold it anymore, I finally snapped.

"What do you want? I've given all I can to this country."

"Well, what if I told you that there was a fifth alicorn?"

"Bullshit."

"Oh but it's real, her name is 'Flurry Heart'. She's 20 now but she was born just before the war. She is the last of her kind."

"And I'm supposed to believe you?"

"Well no, but it's probably in your best interest to." An obvious yet serious threat, she sure as hell wasn't subtle.

What was worse is that I actually believed it. I don't know why. There was a rumor of a fifth alicorn just before the war, but for it to reemerge now was beyond strange. Faith has an odd way of linking ponies together, but I still remained skeptical.

"So, can you tell me who the parents were?" A trick question, nopony can remember their names. The reason for that being was the simple fact that nopony was educated on the topic anywhere in the New Equestria as it would probably cause yet another civil war, and the mare looked to be something along the lines of mid to early twenties. Even if she was born before the war she wouldn't have ever known the names or even the rumor.

"She stresses that her father was the military executive for the Equestrian Guard"

It's now or nothing, lets see if she can get my old bosses name right.

"If I remember correctly his name was Shining Armor. The mother she knew well, her name was Cadence."

That made it two for two, I had to find another way to verify this. It just couldn't be true.

"Where did she come from?"

"The Crystal Empire."

She wouldn't have even known what it was, and her looks disproved my initial idea that she may be my age. Guess that it was time to ask.

"Where is she?"

"Hiding, but I'm interested. Why do you defend this nation still? You know it's been broken ever since the warlords split it into pieces."

I couldn't hold the supportive act anymore, I knew she was on the same page as me. I let all bets go off.

"What am I hiding? The only reason I'm still here is that I fought for this nation to keep it strong, there's no other reason to keep going. Nothing needs to be changed as long as all the ponies are safe."

"They're not safe, don't you know that?" She got up and lifted up the drapes at the window. I already knew what she was referring to.

"That is reserved for ponies that put us in danger."

"But most of them have done nothing wrong! Can't you see what you're looking at? Danger to them is decided by one stallion and enforced upon all."

She was right, once again.

"I don't defend his actions, but I understand them." I was trying to keep my restraint, I'm not going against Steel. Doing that is suicide on any level.

"But if you understand them why can't you defend them? You know what he's doing is wrong."

That was it.

"Where is this princess?"

"Depends, did you keep your weapons?"

"I'm not supposed to do that."

"So what? DID you keep them?"

We walked two blocks down, and sweat dripped from my eyebrow. I didn't want this to go south, one slip and we were both shot on the sight. I hadn't felt like this in a long time, comfortable yet worried about my position in things. I knew that the ponies in this province would either love me or hate me for what I am about to do. I felt lightheaded, excited, yet anxious all at the same time. It was an awkward feeling that I always remembered from the old days.

There was a roadblock ahead, standard procedure for the Politburo groups and militia. The idea was to keep everypony from leaving their block. We ducked into an alleyway to keep out of sight.

"Just follow my lead."

"Wait where are we going?"

"Can't say, but I will say it like this: If you really believe that we are the only two to know about this then you're an idiot. The ELM has been around since the war broke out."

"And ELM stands for?"

"Equestrian Liberation Military. You'll see when we get there."

She knocked on a brick wall, twice each second for five seconds. It was slow and steady. I recognized what she was doing almost instantly. The door opened. It was a clever paint job that added a few optical illusions. It made it look like it was just another part of the wall, but it was actually a door with the knob only on one side. I felt my pistol pressed against my chest under my leather jacket. It was a familiar comfort, knowing that if anything happened I had it.

The door swung open, and a black on orange pony ushered me us through. The mare dragged me through the hallways until we reached the roof. We weren't really on the roof but more of in the attic. There was a small window with a pony sitting next to it in a brown chair. He was reading some book when the mare kicked his shin. He looked up and opened the window, stuck his head out, and felt that the coast was clear. He then walked over to a dark end of the room and came back with two long boards. They were old and rotten, I had a real bad feeling about this. I knew that protest would be in vein but I did anyway, after all if there is a way to get out of walking across nearly collapsed boards ten yards off the ground bet your ass I'd do it.

"No, I'm not doing that." I tried to make the situation perfectly clear so that there was no mistakes. Sliding down a railing into another window is one thing, but doing it at this many feet up is a hell no. Two things could happen: The boards could break or I could just fall and slap into a brick wall. I wasn't sure that was better actually.

"Too bad, you're doing it."

As soon as they set the boards up, the older pony knocked on a window in the adjacent building. The window opened and another pony took the board.

I was about to protest when she grabbed me and slid me down the makeshift slide. I slammed my face into the brick wall. It knocked me out cold.

I had a dream. It was one I'd had for years, and each time I had it I realized more. It was in my first deployment, which was during the Equestrian days. I was part of the Equestrian Marine Corps, where we went into the far north to fight off the Yaks. The first time we had made contact with them their diplomat took offense to our culture, and decided ethnic cleansing would be a great option. He took all the ponies that looked Equestrian and brought them to a ditch they'd never come back from. When word got to Equestria the operation was a go.

What I remember the most though wasn't the first pony I'd killed, for after all the ponies I've killed I can't remember who came first, but this was just one of the only ones I ask myself about. I still remember it.

It was roughly 12 PM, midday. We were in the middle of a raid on a hostile town, Yashmal, where there had been a car bombing. There was a weird feeling about going to fight, you're more excited than you've ever been but you're scared shitless. In the end though you don't understand what it is really like to fight for you life until you get shot at, then you get what we call '7.62 attitude'. It's more of a way that you act after you realize that somepony just tried to kill you, but it doesn't matter. We took fire as soon as we drove in, the doors that were supposed to block rounds instead just let them go right through. Our driver got scraped in the face with a 7.62. It took off his left eye and ripped part of his nose off, spraying chunks of blood and skin across the windshield. It was like a big, red, dark spider web. Probably because of the broken glass absorbing most of the blood. I was in the passenger seat while the fifty on top was roaring thunder down on the target. I instinctively took the wheel and steered it manually.

"Stay on the gas buddy stay on the gas!" I shouted, he was still conscious and did as I said.

"I can't see shit!"

"I know just hit the gas!"

One yak ran out into the street blazing his AK at the vehicle, we just ran him over and kept going.

"What the fuck was that?" The blind driver yelled.

"Nothing, just a Yak." We all giggled for a second, you'll find weird peace amidst chaos. It was a difficult type of humor, not the 'Oh that's genuinely funny' kind but more of 'Holy-shit-we're-really-fucking-doing-this?' type of humor. We got used to it after a while.

We kept driving until we reached the target building, which contained 3 high ranking officers of the Yaks' organization, the TJY. When we got there I told the pony to slam on the breaks, when he did we all lunged forward and I decided to fish tail the vehicle to keep it from flipping. I tucked him in the back and we ran into the building. The only problem was, it was empty.

Bad intel, common in the military nowadays and even worse when what you're fighting is an unorganized military that has almost no ranking system except 'You get a radio, you command. You get gun, you fight'. There were two ponies, a Stallion and a Mare. They were of no threat, at least for that time. The stallion was obviously threatened, either of religious execution or of me. I still can't think of which was worse. As soon as I turned my back to leave, the Stallion rushed me from behind. I heard the scuffle and turned around in time to see a small pistol in his hoofs. I grabbed the gun and threw him against the wall, kneeing him in the stomach. He dropped it so I threw him into the corner and smashed his face with my boot. He was out cold but not dead. That was when I heard the distinctive click clack of a shotgun.

I ducked low and raised my rifle, a long and rugged Equestrian built M16A4 assault rifle. It was the mare, she was holding a child in one arm and a sawed off in the other. It was common for stallions to use their wives to fight wars, but not for the wife to willingly fight. At least so I though. I flinched at first, part of me wanted to think she wasn't going to do it. I didn't shoot, until she put a 12 gauge slug into the plate on my vest. It bounced the round off but threw me to the ground. As soon as I hit the deck I recovered my weapon and fired a three round burst into her. She dropped cold.

I didn't know how to react, so I ran towards her to check if she was dead or if the child was alright.

The first round passed through her arm into the kids head. It was like what you see when a watermelon get's cut in half, just mush out on the other end and a semicircle where it once was. The rest of his body was grotesquely deformed as the round had done enough hydro-shock to mix up the whole body. He was dead on impact. A tear rolled down my cheek, it was like what I was doing finally caught up to me. This wasn't a game, this was war. I've been stuck in that state ever since.

It's reasons like these that I am afraid to go to sleep. I still hear those screams. I still feel that slug. I still feel the warm liquid dripping down my face. It's a nightmare, a nightmare I've lived and cannot escape. It is my hell.

When I woke up, there was a bag on my head and sweat dripping from my face. I almost screamed, everything that had happened before was still blurry.

"Name." The voice was unfamiliar. It took me a minute to remember it after that bang.

"Cloud Dasher." It was a mechanical response.

"Rank."

"Staff Sergeant."

"Deployment."

"Two accounts to the east sector, one to Yakyakistan."

"Military Occupational Specialty."

"Combat Engineer, Specialist."

"Welcome to the team."

She took the bag off, and I was blinded by the lights.

I wasn't tied to the chair, which was awfully ironic considering that I was pretty much a prisoner at this point. There was the mare from before, but in front of me stood an alicorn, the light was in my face but I could only get the details of the wings and horn. I'd never seen one in years, and I almost instantly recognized that things were terribly wrong.

"I will need the caliber of your gun."

I looked to the wall, I had just realized that I was locked in a stone room. Almost like a wine cellar. The small pistol was on a wooden table by a iron door, ironically still loaded. Most ponies in this place never have seen a gun before and are too scared to touch them. It's a good fear, but misplaced. What is really deadly is the pony behind it.

"Nine by nineteen. Standard Equestrian cartridge for more than fifty years. Why?"

"I need to find more of it, we'll have a use for you."

I was unsure about what to make of this, I really couldn't turn back now since they'd probably kill me or expose me. I had to go with it. They were going to pull me into it one way or another so I might as well just sit back and do what they say. I stood up, I knew I wasn't a hostage and they knew I was here to stay. I looked into the white mare's eyes, the one that pulled me out of my apartment.

"I never got your name?"

"I am Bellona. They just call me Bell around here. I'm bad with names though, what did you say it was?"

"Cloud Dasher, call me what you want."

"How does Crow sound?"

"Why Crow?"

"I don't know, I just see you as a Crow."

"I have no idea what that is supposed to mean."

That was probably the polite way of putting it, since I knew just what she meant. Ponies like me are very much like a crow, nopony sees how useful we are and inevitably wants us gone. That is, they want to keep ponies like me out until their garden is ruined from the unsavory ones that came and ate everything else. We are the ones that, as much as ponies hate to admit it, keep them alive. Their metaphorical garden would die if it weren't for ponies like me.

Bellona led me out of the chamber after I grabbed my pistol. It was an old Italian pistol, the Beretta 92FS. It was just what I liked, compact and powerful. It held a higher capacity magazine than most handguns of it's type, so it had that going for it as well. The only problem with it was that firearms are becoming increasingly less common. They're banned in the Steel province, which didn't stop me from owning one. The only place with working manufacturing for these types of weapons, however, is the Brotherhood of Blood, run by the prince himself. If I ever had to transition myself into old weapons I can always use hoof to hoof or improvise. On top of all that it's relatively easy to homemake ammunition if I ever need to.

I was in a daze thinking about how it was long ago, where many ponies owned guns. Now they're outlawed. Bellona had woken me up from this and dragged me back to reality.

"Were you even listening?" Her nose was scrunched up a bit, and there were noticeable red spots under her eyes. To be fair any emotion was easily noticeable on her white coat.

"Nope, say it again."

"You need to prove your worth." This didn't sit well with me. These ponies are technically terrorists, and if they have a use for me it can't be good.

It was then that I was no longer a pony, but I was a tool. An instrument of change, where one bullet can change the face of the world. In this life that I had wandered back into after being away so long I remembered the one thing I was told by my brother.

"Open your eyes wide, the truth will come to you."

Author's Notes:

WELCOME WELCOME WELCOME! This is a rewrite of the old story 'The hunter and the hunted'. Bear in mind the only thing that'll be reused is some of the names and Cloud's identity. Everything else is new! If you want to read the older (cancelled) version by all means!

Welcome to Red Skies.