Lost Memories

I wake up in the library again; the pain in my leg has stopped but I have a killer headache.
“Ah, you’re awake” I heard a voice say. I opened my eyes to Twilight, her horn glowing a shade of pink. “Now, this shouldn’t hurt too much.”

I wander what she means by that, but only when it felt like my insides were being beaten by a club did I realise what she means. The pain lasted a few seconds before subsiding, “I feel nothing…”
“Don’t worry, you will gain feeling again in a minute or two,” she reassures me.
“So, have you spoken to Celestia lately?” I ask
“No, she won’t reply. I’m not sure why. I’m rather worried about her.” The unicorn replies.
“Oh, I think I know why, try telling her to come to this library, say, that you have a surprise for her.”
“What surprise?”
“That would ruin the surprise, now, wouldn’t it?”
“Fine, Spike take a note please: Dear Princess Celestia, I hope that you are in good health. I would like you to come and pay a visit to Ponyville sometime soon, I have a surprise for you that can’t wait. Your faithful student, Twilight Sparkle."

“I don’t see what this is all about…” The unicorn continues
“You’ll see, where’s everypony else?” I ask, while getting up.
“I’m not allowed to tell, it would ruin the surprise.” she tries to imitate my voice as she says it, failing, but she didn’t care, she just giggled. I look down at the floor without me realising it, and start to lose myself in deep thought.
“What’s wrong?” The unicorn starts to move closer to me, I move back.
I can’t formulate a reply, I just stand there in silence without noticing the lavender unicorn move so close our bodies are touching side by side. She nudges me a little, I don’t notice though, it’s surprising how lost in thought I can get myself.

She tries to get my attention again by nudging me again I notice it this time, and step to the side. I prepare myself quickly and bash Twilight in the side, she falls to the floor.
“Wow, that was… impressive,” she started “I didn’t know you were that strong… Ow.”
“I should have warned you, I’m sorry” I feel rather bad about knocking her over. “I was just… thinking…”
“Thinking? About what?”

I shake my head lightly to give a hint that she shouldn’t know. She looks a little confused so I try to reassure her by smiling, while doing so Spike walks in. “A letter from Princess Celestia!” he started to read it aloud, “Dear Twilight, I am sorry but I am in great mourning, I should have told you but I don’t want you to feel the same sadness I do. I will not be able to leave the palace until a few weeks have gone by. Princess Celestia.”

“Oh” is all that the unicorn could say.
“Spike, write a letter to the Princess,” I request “Dear Princess Celestia, I know who you are mourning, but there is no need, I am well, your student Twilight Sparkle took me into her home so I can recover. I have already met a few of her friends in the last day. I wish to speak to you in private, so I kindly request that you make your way over to Ponyville and see me, we have much to discuss. Your most loyal soldier: Aros Blade.”

“So you’re Aros Blade…” Spike started “anyway, I’ll get some drinks and food, you look hungry.”
“That would be nice” I reply. “Do you have a school here in Ponyville?”
“Yes, but it isn’t open now, today is Sunday.” Twilight replies with a hint of sarcasm.
“Do you have a metal worker in this village?”
“Nope, what do you mean by a metal worker anyway?”
“… Seriously!” I sigh, “A metal worker is someone who creates metal objects, like armour for …Redleaf Fighting Academy…”
“Oh, then no, we don-” she is interrupted by a knock on the door. The lavender unicorn looks at me in surprise. She opens the door to Rainbow Dash

“Hey! What’s up? Is Aros in here?” she asks
“Oh, yeah Aros is right behind me, he just woke up about ten minutes ago,” the unicorn starts, but I interrupt as I move past her.
“Why do you need me?” I ask, “Is something wrong” I ready my body as if to say ‘I am ready for a fight’.
“I have a note from the Princess: Aros, I can’t believe it is you, you are to report to the Supreme Commander from Redleaf Fighting Academy at the town hall; he will show you to me. Bring anyone you want.” The cyan coloured Pegasus is smiling as she made gestures to take her with me.
“No, Rainbow Dash, I will see her alone. But can you escort me to the town hall?” I ask.
“Sure thing” she replies.

I head out the door and the Pegasus flies about a metre above my head as she directs me to the town hall. As we approach the town hall I see the bulky figure of the Supreme Commander from Redleaf, man I hated that place!
“Thanks Rainbow Dash, that will be all I need. You better head home now.”
“Ok, If you need me you know where to find me!” she flew off into the distance punching a few clouds as she goes.

“Stealth, long time no see.” The Supreme Commander started “You were reported KIA a week ago, what happened?”
“I …I don’t know, I don’t want to know.” I start. “The Princess told me that you would take me to her… And, do I still have the power I used to have, the same priority…?”
“Well you didn’t when you were reported KIA, but since you still alive, I guess so. You will need to ask Celestia though.”
“Where is she?” I ask starting to become impatient.
“Over here” he leads me into the town hall, but he waits at the entrance saying he is not allowed in.

I walk in cautiously only to find Princess Celestia looking rather excited about something.
The alicorn lets out a yelp of joy as she sees me enter the hall “AH! You’re alive! I thought you were dead.” She runs up to me and gives me a hug, something I was not expecting. She starts crying with what I hoped were tears of joy.

“It’s ok, I’m here, I’m safe, and you have Twilight to thank for that.” I try to stop her crying, but she just hugs me tighter and tighter until I find it hard to breath. She pulls back from the hug and places a gentle kiss on my cheek. “Twilight has been very worried about…”
I was interrupted by Celestia repeating the phrase ‘I thought you were dead!’ several times.
“Shh, I know you did. Don’t worry, I’m fine.” I put one of my hooves on her shoulder.
“Oh, it’s terrible, it’s just terrible over in Canterlot now with you not there. Please return,” she says with a great solemn tone in her voice.

I think for a moment, “I don’t think I can just yet…” I trail of a bit, “It’s just that… there’s this mare here in Ponyville…”
“That you like a little more than a friend?” the alicorn interrupts, “I know, I felt the same way a few months ago, but I’m sure I told you this when you served me at the castle.”
“Wait, I don’t serve you anymore… oh…”
“Well it was just because you were reported dead, I didn’t want to believe it at first, but then I guess I had to.”
“I’m here now, and willing to serve,” I reassured.

“Well then, you can’t really serve in that state, you don’t have your armour!” she moved to the side to reveal a guard holding my spare armour set… It was a grassland camouflage design, so it fitted in quite well in the fields of this quiet town.
“Do the voice commands still work?” I ask.
“Why don’t you try it out?” she replies.
“Ok then” I think for a moment and try a simple activation command, that should if done correctly open the suit up and allow a pony to step inside, “Stealth, open!” The suit opens up as the guard holding it is startled and drops it. I step closer and closer until I am right in front of the suit.

I cautiously step inside… “Stealth, close!” the suit closes around me, the visor covering my eyes with an advance HUD. “Oh, how I missed this…” I start to test how it moves. I start with a simple walk and gradually increase it into a jog and then a sprint. I try some more advance athletic movements; I have to admit in my mind that this spare may actually be better than the original… I try out how strong the suit is by asking a guard to attack me, and quite frankly the guards aren’t all that scary. “I think this one may be better than the original…” I trail off.

“When will you return to the guards post at the palace?” the Princess asks.
I think for a few minutes “I don’t know… there’s things here I need to do and things I need to make clear before I leave,” I reply, “I’m sorry Celestia but I need to go, now. I will return to the palace when I can or send you a letter with my return date.”

The alicorn takes in what I just said and runs up to me and gives me a small hug before agreeing to the statement. “Before you go… can you tell me who this lucky mare is?”
I remove the visor form the helmet and it slides off to the right before I speak, “Fluttershy…”
“Oh! One of Twilight’s friends, please do tell them I’m fine, I don’t want them worrying anymore.”
“Ok, I will. Don’t worry.” I turn around and walk out the door. I see Rainbow Dash up flying around in the sky, and decide to join her.

I think in my head ‘wings, out’ as a pair of metal shafts and to propellers surrounded by the same design of metal slide out of the top of the suit. “Ok, let’s see if these still work…” I jump a little and think about flying up in a straight line upward, to my surprise the wings actually work, being only an experimental part of the suit. I fly upwards until I think of a different direction to fly; I’m surprised that the mind control actually works. I keep gaining speed until I’m going faster than Rainbow Dash and I catch up with her.

“Hey! Rainbow Dash!” I call.
“Huh? AH! What’s that!?” she yelled almost falling out of the sky with surprise to see a flying pony shaped piece of metal.
“Rainbow, it’s me, Aros Blade. The Princess found my spare armour set. I can fly just like you now.” I say as I remove my visor
“That’s pretty cool. How did your chat with the Princess go?” she asks
“It was, unexpected to say the least…” I start to lower the volume of my voice, soon the sound of my propeller engines were louder than me so the cyan Pegasus can’t hear me.
“You ok?” she asks. I can’t manage to raise my voice above my engines anymore. Rainbow Dash looks down to where I’m looking and see the pink party pony hopping around near the forest.
“Wait… Do you… Like what you see down there?” she asks with a serious voice.

I look up at the Pegasus and show a dead serious face. “I’m going to kill her! I’m going to KILL HER!” I yell. I close my visor and pull out a small sword, I start to swoop down but the cyan Pegasus is faster than I imagined.
“Whoa! Whoa whoa whoa! What are you doing!?” she pulls me up a little and tries her best to restrain me around the propellers.

I sheath the blade and close the wings; I would have fallen if Rainbow Dash wasn’t holding me. “I… I don’t know…” The Pegasus struggles to keep the weight of the suit up so starts to descend and place me on the ground. “I need to get some things straight; can I be alone for a bit?”
“Something’s wrong… I know that, but I want to know what” the Pegasus starts to say, as she lands next to me.
“You will know, in time…” I say in a annoyed voice as I push her away, “I just need to be alone…” and with that my wings came out and the fans started spinning and before Rainbow Dash could say anything I shot off into the air faster that she was expecting from a ‘piece of metal’ she called it under her breath.

I need to sort some things out. I need to find Twilight, and Fluttershy.

I know where to find the library thanks to Fluttershy giving me a tour of the town. I fly above the library and call for Twilight. “Hey! Twilight! You in?” I don’t get an answer. I fly a little lower and hear somepony screaming. As I look down I see a flock of birds fly away and a mass of other animals scatter into all different directions.

I fly down and close my wings as I reach the floor. “Hello? Is anypony here?” I open my armour and step out, I hear another scream, and this one seems more like a frightened gasp. I look behind me and see some pink hair. I step closer and realise Fluttershy is trying to hide. “Oh, I’m sorry I didn’t notice you down here. Are you ok? I’m so sorry.”
“It’s fine, really. I didn’t know it was you…” she trails off a little. “Look, there’s um… something I want to tell you.”
“I know, I told you, I did read my mail back at the castle.”
“So, you know how I, uh… feel?”
“Yes… I do know… if only you read the letter I was going to send before… this happened.”
The Pegasus looks at me rather confused. “What do you mean?”

“…A lot of different things happened in that week…” I don’t want to say what I say next, but she needs to know. “Pinkie happened.” She jumped back at the sound of that combination of two words.
“WHAT!?” she yells in a rather loud voice considering how shy she can be. “What do you mean, Pinkie happened?”
“Well,” this is getting rather awkward for me now. “I will explain everything if you can get Twilight, Pinkie and Rainbow Dash together in the library in an hour.