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// Backstory 
// Story: Pony Fortress 2: A tale of nine friends 
// by Thetrainenthusiast 
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        So our story begins in a very prosperous land. A place where dreams could come true and ponies could lead a rich and lavish lifestyle. Well, at least the ones who managed to make a fortune off of some product that was in high demand. For some it was food, others raw materials, but one young stallion managed to make his fortune in a  much more interesting product. Weaponry.
The land, or country I should say was called Unicornia. And the stallion was named Flame Mann.
First of all don't ask me who came up with the name Unicornia because I honestly don't know. The one thing I do know however is that the name suits the country pretty well. The entire population was made up of unicorns. for what reason I'm not entirely sure. I think they're all extremely racist or something. Either way it was a place where industry boomed.
And now onto Flame Mann. Now I know what you're thinking. Weird name for a pony right? Ok weird name in general. Well I'm not too sure how he got his first name but his last name was something that interested him since he was old enough to think. From studying what it meant he learned of humans and their ways of life. Especially their destructive ways. He absolutely loved learning about all the wars that humans had fought and it led him to a life of weapon manufacturing. 
His company Mann and sons, better known as Mann Co, Was the largest weapons manufacturer in the world and was the leading company for armies in many countries. Mann Co Weapons were used in many great wars such as the gryphon wars or the equestrian civil war. 
Now before I move on I should tell about a few other important characters. First of all there was his maid, Violet. She'll be important later trust me. Then there were his two sons, Flim and Flam Mann. 
Now lets just establish right now that these two were idiots. You could put a brain dead toad next to them and it would look smarter. And of course idiot siblings leads to idiot sibling rivalries. Throughout their colthoods the two fought and argued to no end. 
Of course this annoyed their father but he never hated them for it. Until they made him make the worst business decision of his life.
Mann Co  was growing at a tremendous rate and Flame wanted to expand to other countries. And there was one country he especially had his sights on. Equestria. 
Now originally he was going to set up shop near the main city canterlot so he could be close to business opportunities. But his sons kept insisting on this patch of land that was fairly cheap.
"Just look at all that land dad!" Flim would say. "All the raw materials and space to set up our company".
"And at such a great price!" Flam would add.
It took a whole lot of persuasion and persistence but eventually they convinced him to buy that patch of land. Boy did he regret it. The "raw materials" the brothers had claimed to be there turned out to be nothing but gravel. The patch was a barren waste land of cacti and dirt as far as the eye could see. Flame hated them with a passion for the rest of his life. I'm serious, he barely left them anything in his will.
Oh yeah! Flame died. While he was in Equestria he contracted quite a few illnesses which didn't help much with his feelings towards his sons. But he did meet a good friend while living there. A stallion named Barnibus Biceps (seriously, who the hell comes up with these names?). Anyway in his will he left his company with mr Biceps making him ceo and left his sons with nothing. Except the land they made him purchase. And get this. He made them share it. 
his maid Violet also got something in the will but that first requires a bit of explanation.
Ok so it turned out within that patch of useless land there was a little known substance embedded within the rock. Equestrium (Once again with the stupid names). Equestrium was a gold substance with amazing qualities it could make even the most idiotic person smart. With this sciences such as teleportation and cloaking were discovered. The one thing that it really had going for it though was that it could extend the lifespan of a pony. He gave the Equestrium supply to violet for safe keeping.
Ok so now we're at the point where the brothers are at each other's throats. Both of them want all of their father's land. And they're still idiots. So they're pretty much at a stalemate. Right? Nope. One of the brothers, Flim, decides if he wants the land he's gonna have to take it by force. So he hires a team of mercenaries to get it for him. But get this. The other brother did the same exact thing. So now the two mercenary teams keeping pushing each other back a forth. And it's still a stalemate. 
this battle goes on for a long time. No, I really mean a LONG time. The brothers got to be very old, I think in there nineties, and their stupid land war was still going on. 
one of the the brothers, Flim, realized that he was near death. So he hired an engineer by the name of Appleseed to make him a device that would make him live forever. 
That night however Appleseed came back to his home to find somepony had snuck in. That somepony happened to be Violet. She tried to convince him not to make the device, but she couldn't. So instead, she convinced him to also build a device for Flam. In exchange she would give him a hundred pounds of Equestrium. Appleseed then used the Equestrium to make himself a genius to build the two machines. 
So now it was a stalemate. Again. And the war kept going on. It kept going on until it reached the year 1968. Barnibus's grandson, Bulk Biceps, was now in charge of Mann Co. And Violet's granddaughter, Velvet, was in charge of a company called tf industries which ran the operations of the mercenaries. She also had an assistant, Ms. Yearling, who pretty much did all her dirty work. At this time though both Flim and flam needed more mercenaries, and Velvet was prepared to resupply them. 
But this story isn't about any of that. It's just for context, you know? No. This story is instead about nine ponies who couldn't be more different from each other and somehow manage to find a connection. This is Pony Fortress 2.