Chapter One: “Welcome To the ESP”
I slowly walked into Celestia's room where she was reading letters and replying to them, as was her usual. As I walked in she looked up at me. “Ah lieutenant Vegard, I've been meaning to speak with you.”
As I shut the door I turned to face her. Even sitting down on the floor, as she did while reading letters, she still looked me in the eye. I have never felt that nervous near her before. Despite the immense powers she holds, she never particularly felt intimidating. But now, now I was here to tell her that I think she made a biased decision and cheated me. I was about to confront our ruler, and not just question, but contradict one of her decisions. As I met eyes with her I could see she knew why I was here. She always knew these sorts of things. I swallowed while I tried to remember what she had just said to me as all of those thoughts had been going through my head. She waited patiently, she knew it would take me a second, she knew what I wanted to say, but she was going to let me choke it out. “Uh, hello Princess, I... I wanted to discuss something with you.”
“Of course, what can I do for you lieutenant?”
It was too late to change my mind. I wanted to at that moment, but for the life of me I couldn't think of an excuse that would justify having come in to speak with her. I didn't have a choice. “Well... it's about your recent pick for the new captain of the guard.” She kept looking at me without saying a word, I just wished she would cut me off to make easier. “I feel as if I was more qualified than Shining Armour for the position.” I waited to be told off, but as usual the Princess surprised me with not only her answer, but the tone she delivered it in.
“Yes Vegard, you are more qualified, however I need you elsewhere.”
I was stunned. She admitted I was right? “Elsewhere...?”
She stood up and stared down at me. I think she only stayed sitting not to intimidate me while I told her my position on things. “Yes, your talents are too important to waste on the guard.”
Was I about to be reassigned? What had I done? “Princess, with all due respect, the guard is my life, all I wish to do is protect you and the kingdom.”
“No need to be so formal, I've known you for quite some time now, and I've been following your progress. You are quite committed to your duty, and are good at what you do.” At that point I felt like she was leading up to dismissing me, but I let her continue. “So after some consideration, I have decided to promote you to the ESP.”
I just stared at her confused. “I'm afraid I don't know what that is.”
“As you shouldn't. The ESP is my personal task force. They do the work that I need done in secret. Do you remember three years ago, on your third ever case, a mysterious mare showed up with some official paperwork telling you to hand over the case to her?”
I remembered that day. There was a large increase of theft in Canterlot. Reports of stolen jewelry right off of the victims necks in broad daylight. No one could figure it out, until that mare showed up, with those official documents stating that we were to relinquish the case and all information we had to her. Since then it was as if it never happened, all the documents had been turned over to her, and we never heard about it again. How the Princess managed to remember that it was my third case was beyond me. “I remember.”
“She was a member of the ESP.”
“You want me to become part of this secret task force?”
“Yes.”
“What exactly does the ESP do?”
“Everything the guard can't do.”
What the guard can't do? What could the guard not do? I have been in it for years, and have everything from thwarting robberies to being the watchdog over an elementary school. “I'm sorry I don't get it, what is it that the guard can't do that you need them for?”
The Princess sat back down and telepathically pulled a small box from a nearby shelf toward her. She opened it to reveal the Elements of Harmony inside. I stared at them in awe. The most powerful artifacts ever sat before me. She looked at my stare of amazement and smiled. “What would the guard do if these fell into the wrong hands?”
I looked at her. I ran through all the battle plans and contingencies in my head for numerous situations involving a large scale powerful magical assault. I considered all of our options, every trick and maneuver in our arsenal, nothing seemed to even have a remote chance at success. “I... I don't know.”
She knew me well, she knew that I had every procedure memorized, and that I knew how to utilize every single one of them to their maximum potential. “Exactly.” She shut the box and but it back on the shelf she had pulled it from. “What if I told you the ESP had a plan for that?”
I starred at her, mind ablaze with the huge number of tactics I knew, desperately trying to formulate a strategy of my own for such an attack on the kingdom. She waited for me. After several seconds of staring off into space I refocused my eyes on her. “How?”
She smiled even broader than before. “Am I to assume that means you are interested in my offer to become an ESP agent?”
“Offer?”
“I wasn't going to force you, in fact, I will warn you now, The ESP is dangerous. They do things that you would never imagine could be done. You will be tried on a near daily basis, and your life will be put in danger, but you will be serving Equestria.”
I looked at her. Five minutes ago I would have never imagined being in this position. I expected to get fired, I hoped to get promoted to captain of the guard, but this, this was different. I liked the sound of it. “When do I start?”
The remainder of that day was filled with signing paper work dismissing my self from the guard, and telling everyone goodbye. The Princess had sworn me to secrecy, I was to simply make it look as if I was retiring early. Nearly everyone was wishing me fair well. I would miss them all dearly, but I would pay that price to serve Equestria. After everything was said and done, I headed home. The Princess said I should expect someone to arrive within the week.
As I walked in to my home I looked around at all the pictures of myself in guard uniform. All the achievements mounted on the wall that I was so proud of. Now I would be doing something more, but yet I would never receive another achievement again. That was OK I supposed, I mean I would be helping protect the kingdom more, I didn't need the recognition. I reached up and picked one of my medals I had one off the wall and looked at it.
I had had it bestowed on me after I had managed to stop a bank robbery attempt that had nearly succeeded. I had managed to spot a Pegasus flying away with the money that the Unicorn had stolen. Their plan was to have the Unicorn plead innocent on the account he didn't have the money, and when he was freed for lack of evidence, split the money. I quickly cast a spell to bind the Pegasus and brought her and their plan crashing to the ground.
While deep in thought about my past exploits I heard a voice behind me. “You sure do have a lot of those.”
I quickly turned around in a hunched stance, horn aglow, ready to defend myself from the intruder. She was laying on my couch staring at me with a slight smile on her face. I relaxed a bit, seeing how far away she was, and seeing she was a Pegasus. I let the spell go out, and stood up straight. “How long have you been there?”
“You shouldn't underestimate me just because I'm a Pegasus.”
I wasn't sure how to react to that. How did she know that I had relaxed because she was a Pegasus? “What do you mean?”
“Don't give me that, I know guard procedure, you're a Unicorn, which means you think that because I'm not you can easily overpower me. You think you have range advantage, well let me tell you, you don't, and you're going to need to break those guard habits real quick if you want to be ESP.”
I looked her up and down. She was a black Pegasus with a dark red mane. An interesting color scheme to say the least. I saw no cutie mark, I supposed she died herself that color. She didn't appear to be any threat at all. She had no weapon, and besides flight and agility, Pegasus had no upper hand on Unicorns, especially in doors. “You're from the ESP?”
“Yeah, I'm here to pick you up, Celestia said you'd probably accept.”
“Wait you mean you haven't talked with her about this since I've quit?”
“No, she's been planning you for weeks. She gave us orders that if you suddenly resigned to come and pick you up.”
I wasn't liking the sound of her story. How was I to know she was a member of the ESP. “OK where is your paper work?”
The black Pegasus laughed hysterically. After several seconds of laughter she looked at me and saw I wasn’t laughing. “Oh, your serious? Wow, we really are going to have to break you of some habits huh? OK listen Vegard, we don't do paper work. We don't need it, do you even know what ESP stands for?”
I shook my head. “No.”
“It means Equestrian Secret Police. Emphasis on the secret. We really don't leave a trace.”
“Then how am I supposed to trust you?”
“I said ESP, before today have you ever heard that term before?”
“No.”
“Then obviously I'm from the ESP.”
“That doesn't make any sense.”
She rolled her eyes. “What do you want me to do, make up some fake documents for you? We don't technically exist, so we don't do paper work, it would be meaningless.”
The more she talked the more I was believing her. But no paper work still felt wrong. So unofficial. “All right, I suppose I get it, so what now?”
“Well first we get that cutie mark off ya.” She reached into a small bag she had tucked under her wing and pulled out a small round rod. It looked to be nothing more than a small iron rod. As she walked over to me what she said registered.
“Wait what?”
Before I had time to react she passed the rod close to my cutie mark and it vanished. “All done.”
“How did you do that?”
“Cutie marks are a psychological thing, all this does is erase your memory of what you had, but not actually getting one, that way you won't get a new one because you know you got one, but you won't have one because you can't remember what it was.”
I listened to her explanation in disbelief. “That's ridiculous I...” I trailed off as I tried to remember the cutie mark I had just seconds before. “I can't remember.”
“Yeah, I told you you couldn't.”
“But how?”
She held up the little rod in my face. “I told you it was this.”
“But your no Unicorn, how did you manage to wipe my memory like that?”
“I told you not to underestimate me just cause I was a Pegasus. In our line of work, underestimating anypony is a seriously bad idea.”
I was still stuck on trying to remember my cutie mark. “Bring it back.”
“I can't, besides you don't need it. You get a new one like daily with us.”
“What?”
She hovered the metal rod near her flank and suddenly a scroll cutie mark appeared. “See, just like a real one.”
“If you can do that why can't you bring back mine?”
“Well if you just wanted one that looked exactly like yours I could, but those memories you had are gone, this thing can't bring those back, just plant new ones.” She said as she waived the rod over her scroll cutie mark to make it disappear.
“Why didn't you tell me that before you did it?”
“Because then you wouldn't have let me.”
I turned around to look at all my pictures on the wall. Hoping to find one of me with my cutie mark showing. All of the pictures I had were me in uniform or me as a kid, not one with a cutie mark. “How do I not have a picture of me with my cutie mark?”
“We went ahead and removed em.”
I turned to her with anger in my eyes. “Why?! Why would you do that?!”
She calmly blinked. “Look, I'll tell you what the agent who picked me up told me. Trust me, you'll thank us for it eventually. You don't want to remember your past when your with us. You'll be too busy living in the present and thinking about the future.”
I was still fuming on the inside. Everything was so sudden. This promotion. My cutie mark being gone. Being told I will never remember a big part of my life. “Why is it so important not to have a cutie mark, why is it so important not to remember my past?”
“Any ESP agent has to be unidentifiable. If you have to be seen, we want you to look nothing like your normal self. Changing your cutie mark constantly is the easiest way to do it.”
I looked at the blank teal patch of my coat where my cutie mark used to be. I sighed. I understood why such a secretive organization would do such a thing, but I was still a little unnerved by the fast pace at which this was going. “Please tell me that's all you'll be taking.”
She smiled a little. “Not even close.” She put the little rod back in the bag under her wing, and pulled out a small red sphere. It looked almost like a marble, but it's crimson red swirled slightly. “Ready to run?”
“What? Why?”
She smiled broadly. “Cause.” She threw the red sphere at the other side of my house. When it the wall on the other side there was a small fireball. Everything on that side of the house caught on fire.
“Why would you do that?!”
“No time, follow me.”
She ran outside. I looked back at my house, now burning before my eyes. What had I gotten myself into? I dropped the medal I had been clutching through our conversation. Somehow it felt like letting it go was the same as letting my old life go. In retrospect I suppose it was.
As I ran outside behind her, I saw her darting into a nearby alley, she was quick. I chased her for several minutes darting in and out of alleys. Finally I hit a dead end. I looked up, expecting her to have flown over the wall that was blocking my way. When I saw nothing I turned around to see her standing behind me with a disappointed look. “You are slow, what good are you? You didn't even give me a challenge. You're going to need some serious agility training.”
“I was the fastest Unicorn in the guard.”
“Not good enough. Anyways, this looks like a private enough spot.”
“Private enough for what?”
She reached into her bag again and pulled out a small brass key. I looked around for a door, but there was none. What was she going to do with a key here? She again reached in to her bag and pulled out a small piece of chalk. “Watch this, this is one of the coolest parts, pick a wall.”
I hesitantly pointed to a wall. She walked over to it and drew a small keyhole shape and filled it in with the chalk.
“That's vandalism!”
She rolled her eyes and put the chalk back into her bag. She held up the key to the drawn keyhole. The white chalk drawing slowly faded from white to black, and then she stuck in the key. She turned to look at me. “Are you ready?”
After everything that had happened to me within the past hour, I was sure I could handle anything. “What could you possibly do to make this day worse?”
She turned the key in the wall and the outline of a door opened up from the brick. She walked inside and motioned for me to follow. I walked in behind her and found myself in a room stacked to the brim with books and files. “What happened to no paper work.”
She chuckled. “Well I suppose there is some, but it's all mainly detailing how you nearly got killed on any given day.”
“Do I have to file one on how many times I nearly killed you today?”
She laughed again and walked over to a small panel that had a bunch of buttons on the far side of the room. She hit one of the many unlabeled buttons. “Hey Fox, the new arrival is here.”
After several seconds a voice came back from the console. “Give me a second, I'll be right there.”
I looked at the mysterious black Pegasus for a moment, thousands of questions flooding my mind, but one rose above the rest. “What is your name?”
“Me? Just call me Midnight, none of us go by our real names.”
“What, like code names?”
“You could say that, I usually just call em nicknames.”
“Do I need one?”
“Oh we've been discussing what to call you, we even got bets going on what you'll pick from what we've come up with.”
I felt like I was the only one who didn't know that I was going to be here today. “How many of you are there?”
“The people who actively manage this place? Me, Fox, and good old Clear.”
“Just three of you run an entire organization?”
“We don't make the decisions, Fox keeps stock of the dangerous stuff, Clear tells us what to do and where to go, and me and my partner go and get stuff done.”
“Your partner? You only mentioned three.”
Her smile faltered a little, but came back quickly. “Duh, that's you idiot.”
I thought about that for a moment. This chaotic, wild, seemingly irresponsible mare is going to be my partner. My SENIOR partner. What had I done?
Just then Fox walked in. He was a Unicorn with a light red coat and a white mane. He had no cutie mark just like midnight. He looked me up and down. “So... you're the new replacement huh?”
I didn't know what to say so I simply nodded. Fox turned to Midnight. “What's he any good for?”
She laughed. “To the point huh Fox. OK, this one is an ex-guard. Pretty much top of his class in everything, he had over ten years under his belt when we asked him to join.”
“Handpicked or, did Celestia give us this one.”
Midnight frowned a little. “Celestia.”
Fox looked me up and down again and sighed. “Well I suppose if she insists.”
I was thoroughly confused. Midnight just told him I was top of my class in everything. What more did he want? “Whats the matter with me?”
Fox looked me in the eyes quite calmly. “Nothing I suppose. Realistically speaking there isn't much more we could ask for, but replacements are so hard to train. No one comes to this job prepared, no one. It's always so annoying to have to go through the huge amount of details with someone new.”
“I'm a quick study, I learn quite quickly. Just point me to whatever manuals I need to read and I will have then done as soon as possible.”
Midnight laughed at me. “Told ya Fox, such a hard nose, I wanna calm em paper boy.”
Fox looked at me sideways. “No,no, I insist we call him Vice.”
“You and your letter thing, it doesn't have to start with a V just cause his real name does.”
“Easy for you to say, since you already went by a nickname before you came here.”
I stepped in. “Don't I get to choose.”
Fox looked at me. “Of course, but you must admit Vice sounds 'cool'”
Midnight stepped between us looking at me. “Yeah but wouldn't you rather not sound like a jerk? How about Bind? Seeing as you are kinda famous for catching that one thief by magically tying her up.”
“Shouldn't I be training rather than arguing over my nickname?”
Just then a brown coated Earth Pony with a brown mane to match walked in the same door Fox had came in. “Yes you should.” He said in an authoritative tone.
Midnight looked at him. “Ah come on, it's his first day, and he needs a name.”
“Then call him 'V' for now, I don't care.”
Midnight looked at Fox. “That's pretty cool, and I guess it starts with a V!”
Fox shook his head. “It's not exactly Vice, but I like it.”
“I thought I had a say in this.”
The brown coated pony looked at me angrily. “Then you thought wrong.”
I straightened up. “Yes sir!”
Midnight rolled her eyes. “Clear, don't mess with the new guy, he still thinks hes in the guard.”
Clear looked at her coldly. “Then fix that problem with some training, we don't have any time to waste, you never know when you'll need him out on a case.”
“OK, OK, I'll get him started, come on V, follow me.”
She walked towards the door that Clear and Fox had both came through. I walked behind her. When we entered the room I stopped dead in my tracks. The building we were in was enormous. The ceiling was miles high. There were shelves stretching for even longer in all directions. The room we came from seemed to be situated in the middle of this gigantic expanse. Midnight turned around after noticing I wasn't following. “Oh yeah, you kinda forget how big this place really is after a while. Kinda looses its shock value after the first five times or so.”
Still starring up at the huge ceiling, and then at the miles of shelves I asked. “How does all this fit in here, I've never seen a building this large in Canterlot.”
She laughed at me again. “Of course not, we're not in Canterlot.”
My eyes shot to her in confusion. “What?”
“We are not in Canterlot anymore.”
“Then where are we?”
“Nowhere.”
“No really, where are we?”
“No really, we are nowhere.”
“What does that even mean?”
“It means that if you attempted to describe the physical location of this building, you couldn't, because it doesn't have one.”
“How is that possible?”
“How do you levitate objects into the air Mr. Unicorn?”
“With magic.”
“There you go, with magic.”
“What kind of magic is strong enough to make a building this big, and keep it... nowhere.”
“The kind you'll be dealing with everyday, now let's get going before Clear gets all yelly again.”
She began to walk around the building we had just exited, so I followed her. When I turned the corner she was already drawing another chalk keyhole on the wall.
“Where are we going now?”
“If I told you it would ruin the surprise.” She stuck the key in the chalk keyhole and once more the brick opened up to reveal another room. It was definitely not the one we had just came from. Inside was several levers and a door. She motioned for me to go inside. “After you.”
I walked inside and looked around. The room was very plain. It was a dull grey color with nothing but the small metallic door on the other side, the three levers on the wall, and the door that Midnight had opened. I turned around to see Midnight still standing outside the door. She smiled broadly. “Welcome to ESP, good luck!” She pulled the door shut that she had opened. I ran over to it to find that it was now nothing more than a wall. What had I gotten myself into?