The smell of blood filled the air as a large colt and a small filly rushed towards a small shack, timber wolves following close behind. They had to keep running, if they stopped, they would die, if they looked back, they would die, if they thought about death, they would die. So they kept running, like no pony ever ran before, though timber wolves are fast they were barely keeping up with their potential prey.
“OPEN THE DOOR!” the colt yelled, nearly out of breath, “OPEN THE DAMN DOOR!”
With not one second of hesitation, the shack’s splintered wooden doors opened, and with only inches between them and their chasers, the colt and filly fell into the interior of the shack. The two colts already inside closed the door on the lead predator and with a loud crash the door buckled, nearly knocking back the two foals holding it.
“Hey, bro, why is she here?” the unicorn colt asked, pointing at the filly “did you forget the ‘no fillies aloud’ rule?”
“I think that this situation… calls for some of the rules to be… forgotten…” the colt on the ground said weakly, holding his side.
“Are you hurt, bro?” the unicorn colt asked looking at him, “oh wow, your wing is trashed. Little bro get the bandages, big bro’s hurt, he’s bleeding a lot.”
The other colt simply nodded as he walked towards a makeshift cabinet. The filly, taking very deep breaths crawled towards the injured colt and looked him over. The colt was barely conscious, blood pouring out of his claw shaped gashes. She just kept staring at him while the other foals started to get what they needed to help him. Her small hoof moved toward his face then to his wound, she felt awful, after all if she wasn’t frozen in fear earlier he wouldn’t have that injury.
“I, I-I’m sorry,” she said meekly, beginning to cry “t-this never should have happened.”
“Don’t be… don’t be sorry…” the colt responded barely awake.
“W-why d-did you save me?” she asked, “Y-you barely even know me…”
“Because everypony needs something to live for…” he responded weakly, “or life’s not worth living…”
“Hey, guy, yin there?” Ridge Cracker’s voice snapped the pegasus out of his trance. “You sure are sweaty, guy, blood not yer thing? If it ain’t, I’d be shocked.”
“I’m fine, Ridge Cracker,” the pegasus said as he placed his hoof on his head, “just lost in thought…”
“Right…” Ridge Cracker replied, with a raised eyebrow, “The Princess fixed up Flare Flash like new, he’s in recovery, but she’s waitin’ fer ya and yer buddies at the front door, Commander Garrison said he’d guide y’all once ya get in the vault, Comet’s gonna stay back with Flash, but Cannon Fodder and Lug Nut ‘ll be comin’ long with ya.”
“Thanks, Ridge Cracker.” the pegasus said heading to the front door.
When he got through the doors he saw everypony Ridge Cracker had mentioned. After the several thanks from the 1025th were done the three, Commander Garrison, Cannon Fodder and Lug Nut all walked towards the Princess. She looked down upon all of them and smiled. They looked up at her and smiled back. They were ready to head toward the vault.
“Follow me.” Princess Celestia said as she began to lead the small group.
The party made their way through and through the seemingly endless passageways of the lower castle. Until finally, they were all standing in front on a large vault door, it looked as if it had been years since it had been opened, Princess Celestia then turned to her followers.
“Here we are,” she said, “Commander Garrison, I’m positive that you can escort them from here.”
“Yes, my lady.” Commander Garrison replied, again bowing towards her.
“Excellent,” Princess Celestia smiled, “I shall take my leave now, and to you I wish the best of luck.”
“Again, Princess thank you for your help.” the pegasus said while she walked past them.
“I do what I can for all my little ponies,” she responded looking back at him, “and if you need any further help, all you need to do is just ask.”
“I’ll keep that in mind.” the pegasus said watching her walk out of sight.
“All right, stallions,” Commander Garrison said to gather their attention, “we are about to go into the black ops vault. Stay close and don’t get separated, there are documents in there dating back to the pre-Discord era, so we might be in there for a while.”
They all nodded while the Commander used his magic to turn the vault’s combination lock, and after a few brief moments a loud clunk noise echoed down the castle halls. An eerie creaking sound followed as the door opened, dust and cobwebs falling all around the now coughing ponies.
“Now,” the Commander said, “shall we enter?” he lifted his hoof in an ‘after you’ sort of manner to the five other ponies standing next to him.
The six entered the vault, one after the other. As they entered they were greeted by a very nice, but small, office and at one side of the office there was a single white bodied unicorn with a long maroon mane. She was sitting behind her neatly organized desk, looking over a few files. She looked up at the ponies that now stood before her. She smiled at the Commander and his guests. She started to look over the ponies that Commander Garrison had brought into her quaint little office.
“I was not expecting something like this…” Cannon Fodder said. She only smiled again and turned to Commander Garrison.
“Good morning, sir,” she said politely. “I see you have guests today. That’s new.”
“Good morning, Record Keeper,” Commander Garrison said back to her. “Me and the boys need to get into the personal files section, you mind getting us there?” The other five ponies looked in confusion at the two unicorns, of the ponies there, only Commander Garrison had been in the vault before.
“Of course, sir.” Record Keeper said as her horn started to glow a strange ruby color. “I hope you find what you’re looking for.”
“I always do.” Commander Garrison said smiling back at her.
Cannon Fodder saw Record Keeper‘s horn glow brighter as he frantically began to say, “Wait… Wha-”
Before Cannon Fodder could finish his statement, the six ponies were teleported to a location somewhere in the vault. The ponies had no idea where they were, except for the Commander. They looked around, all very confused about what just happened. Then they saw that there were row upon row of dusty, cobwebbed scrolls and files. All of them with the exception of Commander Garrison began to stumble and stagger as a result of being suddenly teleported. He quickly gathered his still disoriented counterparts and lead them to the first row of scrolls.
“Sir, wha-what d-did, did tha-that, that uni-unicorn do to u-us?” Cannon Fodder asked visibly very shaken by the experience, “cause I-I have a BAD feeling about it…”
“I teleported you to the personal files section of the vault.” Record Keeper said to the group of ponies, they all jumped when she appeared from behind the first row of files, except for Cannon Fodder, the shock from seeing her appear out of nowhere made him faint.
“Oops,” she said covering her mouth with her hoof. “I forgot that Cannon Fodder is a complete nervous wreck, I’m sorry…”
“No need to be,” Commander Garrison said reassuringly. “To tell you the truth, I think he needed that.”
“Oh, ok…” Record Keeper said giggling; “Now gentlecolts, if you would gather your friend and follow me, we can get started.”
She motioned them to follow her, but Lug Nut was rather surprised by how much she knew about them, which prompted him to ask a question. “You’ve never meet Cannon Fodder, but you know his name and that he’s a nervous wreck, how do you know that?”
“Oh, I know all about him and you too Lug Nut…” Record Keeper said to the now the even more baffled silver unicorn, “I file all the records back here, including personal files. In fact Lug Nut, you and I lived about five minutes away from each other when we were growing up in Baltimare.”
“Stalker…” the unicorn said smiling as he looked over to Lug Nut.
“Oh Celestia, no, it’s my job to look over all the files before putting them in to storage. My special talent is memory, that’s why I got this job.” she said smiling back at the group of ponies, “but I don’t know you three, that’s odd because if you were in special operations, I should know you…”
“Not the first time we herd that today, ma’am.” the pegasus said lowering his head.
“Oh my, Princess Celestia herself couldn’t identify you?” Record Keeper’s face went into a mix of worry and surprise, “That must be why you three are here as well, well I hope I can help.”
“Thank you, Record Keeper.” he said raising his head, giving her a charming smile.
The small group of ponies continued down the seemingly endless rows of special forces documents, some looking hundreds if not thousands of years old. Looking through files that appeared could contain any information about the three, but with no success. They were of other ponies who were either still in service, retired or dead. As the hours passed a few members of the group grew increasingly frustrated. It all came to a point when they looked through what appeared to be their millionth file.
“Are we really still doing this?” Lug Nut said slamming a document shut, and forcibly putting it back into place, “It’s been at least five hours since we got here, why can’t we just make up new names for them and be over it already?”
“Because you did not have nearly twenty years of your life taken from you…” the group froze, it was the first time the earth pony had said anything since they had met him. “I’m greatly displeased too Lug Nut, but I know that if somewhere in this place had the slightest clue to who I am, I would tear this whole place down to find it. I know that if you were in our situation, you would do the same, and you would appreciate anypony trying to help you. Go if you must, but I am staying, I need to know who I really am…”
His words met Lug Nut’s ears with the force they were meant to. He lowered his head in shame then he looked back up to the stoic earth pony. “You’re right… I’m sorry,” Lug Nut said, looking back down, “we’ll keep looking until we know this place has no information on you three…” The earth pony just smiled and nodded as they went back to searching the documents.
“Guys!” Cannon Fodder’s usual nervous voice was now nearly as loud as Princess Luna’s. “I think, I think I got something over here!”
“What do you have there, Cannon Fodder?” the unicorn said as he and the others ran towards the sound of his voice. “Do you have our records?”
“I-I think I do,” Cannon Fodder said as he pulled out three separate files from the rack with his magic, “here, look at these…”
All the ponies in the group looked very closely at the front of the three dusty files. On the front they simply said, ‘Greatsword’, ‘Battleaxe’, and ‘Warhammer‘. The three gathered the documents floating in front of them, each grabbing the one that’s name was the same as their cutie marks. They opened the documents in their hooves, and as looks of shock ran across their faces the other ponies wondered what they were looking at inside the files. After a few brief moments the pegasus closed the document he was looking at, a stoic look on his face.
“What was in there friend?” Lug Nut asked, “Was there any-”
“My name is not ‘friend’, Lug Nut…” the pegasus said raising his hoof to cut Lug Nut off mid-sentence, “My, name is…” he began again as a smile came across his face, “My name is Greatsword.”
“And I am Battleaxe… now that’s irony for you” the unicorn said smiling at Greatsword.
“Warhammer… fitting.” the earth pony said standing with the other two ponies.
“That’s terrific news! Now you three have your identities!” Record Keeper said smiling at the three, “But what about memories? Is there anything is those files that reveal anything about your pasts?”
Greatsword gave Record Keeper the file he was holding, she quickly opened it. All that was in the file was a picture of him, and under information it only had his name and that he was the oldest of three brothers, Battleaxe, his twin and Warhammer the youngest. Nothing about their parents or other relatives, a home town, or any history of a past other than his date of entry into the service, nearly three years ago. She looked up at Greatsword with a small frown, though he knew his name and the other ponies were his brothers, there was still much that they didn’t know. It was almost as bad as not knowing who they were again.
“Well at least you have your names and, apparently, each other.” Commander Garrison said with a smile. “We still don’t know yet but we can assume that you three were in the 1025th, and that Warhammer is the youngest, says here he only signed up six months ago.”
“I wish there was more,” Battleaxe said lowering his head, “like where we’re from and who our patents are… AND if they’re still alive…”
“I do too, brother,” Greatsword said placing his hoof on Battleaxe’s shoulder, “but as Commander Garrison said, at least we have one another.”
Warhammer simply nodded as he walked towards his brothers. They all stood there smiling, looking at each other, brothers, all three of them. Though they knew they were kin and their names, the other questions in the back of their minds lingered, but now they were content with the information that they had. After a short time the three broke from their huddle and moved back towards the other ponies that had helped them in their search.
After a few quick ‘thank yous’, Cannon Fodder was the first to speak, “So now that this is all said and done… C-can we please leave this place, I’m getting a little more freaked out the longer we stay here…”
“Of course Cannon Fodder,” Commander Garrison said to his jumpy subordinate, “Record Keeper, if you please.”
“Of course, sir.” she said happily as her horn began to glow the same ruby color as it had before, and with a flash of ruby colored light they were back in her office, were they started so long ago.
“Alright boys,” Commander Garrison began, smiling at his counterparts, “let’s head out get some chow and hit the stables, we still got our hearing tomorrow and we need to be rested for whatever her majesty has planned for us.”
They all began to walk towards the exit, but Greatsword stopped and turned towards Record Keeper, “Thank you again,” he said to her with a smile, “for all your help.”
“It’s my job, Greatsword,” she said smiling back at him, “I’ll be off duty in an hour if you feel like waiting.”
“I guess I could wait that long…” Greatsword said, “I have to tell Comet the news anyway.”