Brothers of War

Chapter 4: Born on Earth, Raised in Hell

Written by Scope (me). Illustrated by Mailbox of d00m

Scope gets to the communications room in no time flat. He pushes through the double door and enters the room. There were computers monitors in every inch of the room, papers all over the floor and ponies yelling across the room trying to relay messages to each other. Scope stumbles through the mass chaos in the room as he tries to reach the door on the other side of the room. He barely manages to grab hold of the door knob; he opens the door with haste as he rushes inside.

Upon entering the room he notices several other ponies in the room giving him a weird look. Scope coughs as an attempt to shake off the looks as he fixes his beret and walks to the table they’re all gathered at. While approaching the table he notices some of the ponies were wearing gold armor. Aw come on why are these douche bags here…

The colonel, who’s at the other of the table, stands up and greets him.

“There you are, you know you’re an hour early right?”

“Well the sooner we get this over with the sooner we can end this war.” Scope replies.

“I like that attitude. Keep it up and you’ll be in my seat in no time.” The colonel compliments.

“Scope, you probably already noticed the Canterlot Royal guard is here with us.”

Scope looks back at them again but pays much closer attention this time. He saw that some of them stood out. One of them was a bit bigger than the others; he was a stallion that had a red coat. The other was a stallion who was as big as the red one with what appears to be better armor than the rest and had a shining white coat with a blue mane. The last one that stood out was a purple mare that had no armor on but carried a saddle bag on her.

The shining white stallion walked up to Scope and extends his hoof out to him. “So you must be Captain Scope, I’m Shining Armor, Captain of the Royal Guard.” Scope reluctantly shakes his hoof.

“It’s nice to meet a fellow captain.” You fucking jerk I hope you choke on a prick. Scope thought to himself. Scope still had a hard time accepting the fact that his company has to work with ponies who belittle and degrade them.

The purple unicorn approaches Scope this time giving him the same friendly gesture. “Hello, I’m Twilight Sparkle, head of the Royal Intelligence Agency. Although I’m only temporarily working this position until this war is over. Even though I’m not much of soldier like the rest of you I want to help my big brother here the best I can.” She spoke with a friendly tone.

Great the captain of the Royal Guard has a little sister. I bet she’s a sl-wait head of intelligence?

The colonel decides to cut the formalities as he steps in. “Since we’re working with them now you can except to see them more often so get used to it.”

Fuck my life.

“Before I assign you your next mission let’s get business. Ms. Sparkle you take it from here.” Shining Armor gives the other soldiers a notion to leave the room and guard the door.

“Thank you colonel, first things first I need to ask you something if you don't mind Captain Scope.”

“Like what?” Scope asks.

“Have you been receiving letters from Ponyville recently?”

Oh great here we go… “What's it to you?”

“Well you see a teacher at the school there assigned her students a pen pal essay to write to the soldiers to give them a little bit of a moral boost. The students we’re given names of some of the soldiers to write to.”

“Wait so how did I end up on that list? I don’t work for you.” Shining Armor and Twilight gave each other a quick glance before they looked back at Scope.

“Well, here’s the thing Scope. You actually do.”

“Yes I know I we technically work for you since you hired us but that doesn’t me-”

“No, I mean you WORK for us.”

“I don’t get it.”

Twilight reached in to her saddle bag and grabbed a folder out it and passed it to Scope. He opened it with hesitation and looked through it, after a moment or two Scope’s mouth hit the table.

“What the hell is this!?” he asked Twilight with fury in his eyes. Twilight jumped back a bit in her chair

“Scope, for some time now you’ve been enlisted in the Royal Guard, the folder your looking into right now is your profile.”

“She’s not kidding sir.” Shining Armor spoke out.

Wait did he just say sir to me? “ Uh, why did you call me sir?” Scope asks.

“Keep reading the profile sir.”

With an annoyed look Scope keeps reading the folder. Within a minute Scope flies back in his chair and hit the floor.

“BRIGADIER GENERAL SCOPE!? WHAT!?”

“We recently dug up that profile Scope. Apparently you’ve been jumping up the ranks pretty quickly, you were just a captain until a few days ago until somepony gave you a promotion but we don’t know who gave it to you. We were going to give a reward for being the youngest brigadier general, until now.”

“…Twilight?”

“What is it?”

“How could I have been enlisted?"

“That’s another thing that came up while looking through your profile. Apparently you’ve been in service for twelve years.”

“Since when did we let six year old kids join the military?” Shining armor noted.

Twelve years!? …no wait… but that was when Hawkeye and I got…

“Mr. Sparkle” The colonel interrupted. “That's enough about that we’ll get to that later, let’s move on if we may.” The colonel looked at Scope and gave him a nod. Scope gave him a nod in return.

“Oh um, ok, anyways Scope that was only the tip of the iceberg of what you and your team found on your last mission a week ago.”

What was my profile doing in a rebel base anyways?

"The colonel and I have been analyzing the rest of the documents for an entire week and we’ve found some…interesting information.”

“Go on.”

“For one we’ve obtained all the files of all the soldiers of the base you took out. The soldiers that were there weren’t exactly normal soldiers.

“What are they some kind of alien mutant zombies?”

“Uh, no.” She gave Scope a stern basically telling him to get serious.

“We looked over all their records and none of them match any citizens in Equestria.”

Scope just sat there with a confused look on his face.

“That doesn’t make any sense Twilight, how is this considered a civil war if none of them are actually from Equestria?”

“That’s the question we’re trying to figure out as well. We checked to see if they were mercenaries from different countries, but we’ve confirmed that’s not the case either. So in the end, somehow all of these ponies came from nowhere.”

From nowhere... Scope sat there as he rubs his chin. Flash backs went through his head as Twilight spoke. All he could hear in his head were screams, gunfire, the crackles of burning flames and the crying of young children everywhere. After a few minutes of ignoring Twilight Scope interrupts her and speaks up.

“Colonel…you don’t think tha-”

“No.” Getting cut off by Vic. “That would be impossible, you were there, I was there, Logan was there, we were all there, we all saw what happened. There’s no way-”

“But colonel,” Scope cuts him off this time. “what if there were more? What if you didn’t get them all?” He said with a shaky voice.

“What are you two talking about?” Shining Armor asks.

Scope looks at him then looks back at the colonel as if he was asking permission.

“Scope…you know this is classified information.”

“Colonel, if they’re still alive then this is our chance.”

The colonel turned and face the monitor. He was in deep thought for about minute. Then he turned around and looked at Scope. “I won’t force you to tell them. You can keep it to yourself if you want.”

Twilight and Shining Armor both looked at Scope as if he was about to tell a ghost story. “I-I don’t like to talk about this part of my life, especially to strangers like you, but if it helps clears things up then I’ll tell you. It was about twelve years ago you see…”

12 years ago

Inside a dark warehouse at night six year old Scope was tied to a chair blind folded. Two other ponies were standing by him keeping guard.

“M-mister?” Young Scope asked. “It’s really cold in here and I can’t see.”

“Kid just shut up and this will all be over.” The guard said to him.

A few minutes later a door could be heard opening with a loud rusty screech. All scope could hear were two ponies yelling and screaming to let go. The blind fold quickly came of Scope eyes reveling his two yellow orbs. He had the look of terror on his face when he say the two tied up on the ground below him.

"Mommy? Dad?"

“Scope!” His parents said simultaneously. “Thank Celestia your ok.” His mother said as tears came into her eyes.

“Are you alright? They didn’t hurt you did they?” His father asked him.

“Not yet.” A mysterious said from the shadows. “If he doesn’t make the right choice then I’m afraid we’ll have to throw him out with the rest of the trash.”

“Show yourself you coward!” Scope’s father yelled out to the air.

The pony stepped out from the shadows being reveled as a old faded red unicorn with a grey mane and purple eyes.

“You see, your son shows promise so I’m giving him a chance to live, if he makes the right choice.” The red stallion says to them.

“What choice will that be?” Scope’s father says with anger in his voice.

“As you know I’m afraid we can’t allow you to leave. So your son has two choices to make.” The red pony lowers himself to their ears and whispers “Either he kills you or I’ll kill all three of you.”

The parents are overcome by shock and horror by what they just heard. “P-please no! Don’t make him do this! He only a foal!” His mother screams with more tears gushing from her eyes.

The red pony walks over to Scope and unties him. He tries to run towards his parents but is held back by one of the guards. The red stallion puts a Mauser in the hoof that Scope was reaching out with.

“W-what’s this?” Scope asks.

“Scope I need your help with something.” The red pony says with a grin. “I need you to put your mommy and daddy to sleep.”

“But why?”

“You see, your parents asked me to put them to sleep because they are very tired.” He talks a bit slow to Scope so he could understand. “But I want you to put them to sleep, but I understand if you don’t want to do this, I can put them to sleep for you but that mean you have to go to sleep as well and you won’t wake up for a very long time.” The red pony lets out a bit of a evil chuckle as he amuses himself.

Scope looks at him mother seeing her shake her head furiously trying to tell him not to do it.

“Come Scope let’s get to it” The red stallion tells him as he pushes Scope over to his parents

.

“Scope please no, we’re your parents! Don’t do this to-”

“Stop.” His father says to her. “Let him do it.”

“WHAT!?” she screams at him.

“Listen, do you really think its ok to know your son was killed by a bunch of murderers?”

“WELL THAT’S BETTER THAN HIM BECOMING ONE OF THEM! AT LEAST HE’LL COME WITH U-.”

“No. I know my boy. He went end up like these goons. He’s too good for that. He’s only six for Celestia’s sake, he hasn’t even begun to experience life to the fullest yet. Are you really ok with knowing your son died without having a chance to live? Do you really think that’s ok?”

She cries even harder trying her best to give him an answer. “N-no…”

Scope’s father looks at his son right in the eye’s with a straight face.

“Scope, I know you’ll never be like these clowns so I want you to do something for your old man. When you’re finally ready, I want you to escape this place, just run, run and live free. I want you to grow up to be a fine young stallion. I want you to be who you want to be. Not what these jerks force you to be. Scope, we want you to live. So do it. I want you to put your hoof on that trigger and put mommy and daddy to sleep ok?”

In Scope’s mind he couldn’t comprehend what was happening, but in his heart he know exactly what was going on. He didn’t know why he was beginning to cry but he did anyways.

“So what’s it going to be Scope?” The red pony asks.

“Hurray up boy.” His father demands. “Always remember Scope, we’ll always love you.”

Scope slowly pointed the gun at his father head. His father closed his eyes awaits his fate. With hesitations Scope pulls the trigger.

*BANG*

Blood spills onto the ground as so does his father’s body. Scope yells in fear as to what he just done.

“Scope.” His mother calls. “Don’t worry, he’s asleep now. Please just let me sleep too.”

Scope was shivering out of pure fear. “B-but mommy-”

“No buts just do it.”

Scope was beginning to cry harder as he started to understand what was going on.

“Goodnight sweetie, I love you.”

Scope slowly pulls the trigger again and quickly closes his eyes.

*BANG*

Her body drops like a rock and hits the ground with a hard thud. She still had smile on her face knowing her son will be ok. Scope drops the gun and stares at her for a while. He stops crying and just stands there with a shock expression. The only thing Scope could think about was when his parents were going to wake up. He turns to the red pony and speaks with in a quiet voice,

“When will they wake up?”

“In due time, but in the mean time let’s get you ready.”

“Ready for what?”

The red pony laughs with evil intent and looks at Scope again. “Oh don’t worry, it won’t hurt…much.”

Sometime later

Scope sits in a pure white room with blood and cuts all over his body with a bullet wound in his back left leg. He sits quietly as he his best not make a sound besides a an occasionally cough of blood every now and then. Scope looks up into the lights above him not minding the blinding light. He wonders if his parents will wake up anytime soon so they can take him away from this horrible place. His daydream is cut short by the sound of a door opening and the red unicorn stepping inside.

“You’re doing well Scope, you’ve passed the survival tests. Now you only have one last test to go.”

Before Scope can speak he hacks up more blood and tries to get a hold of himself. “W-when can I go home?”

“After this you and your parents can go home.”

That’s all Scope needed to hear, he slowly overcame the pain that was in his hooves and stood up and followed the red pony out of the room. As the two walked down the dimly lit hallway Scope saw two ponies carrying what seems to be a dead filly down the hall, but since Scope didn’t really understand the concept of death yet so he thought she was asleep just like his parents.

After a few seconds of walking Scope can hear the screams of a little colt as they walk past a window. The red pony stops and looks through the window, Scope hops up and down trying to get a peek but the window is too high for him. Through the window was a colt being held down shackles on a test table, unicorn with lab coat and a mask levitates a syringe with purple fluid in it and sticks it in the colt’s leg. After a few moments of observation the colt lets out blood curdling scream again and tries to wiggle his way out of the shackles. As his screams of pain continue his chest starts to expand the scientist right down the results on their check boards.

During the scientist’s little show with the colt his chest expands to a dangerous level. The scientist backup a bit fearing what might happen, the colt’s chest explodes with massive amounts of blood and destroyed organs splattered across the walls and ceiling. The red pony burst out in hysterical laughter after witnessing what he just saw. Scope thankfully only saw a small amount of blood splat on the bottom of the window.

They continued to walk down the hall, out of curiosity Scope speaks to the red pony

“Hey what’s your name?”

“Oh well…my name is…Dux. Yeah Dux that’s what it is. No more questions we’re here.”

They entered a room just like the one the colt was in. Two ponies walked up to Scope and picked him up. He tried to rustle his way out but he was no match for two grown ponies, they slam him on the test table and put shackles on his hooves and underbelly. They turn the table up vertically and blind Scope with the surgery lamp. A group of scientist approaches Scope with rags soaked in alcohol and wash his entire body with it. Scope grunts in pain feeling the stings of the alcohol in all of his cuts. After drying him of a Unicorn levitates a syringe with black fluid in it and ejects it Scope with it, after a few minutes of waiting for results the scientist declare that it’s a dud and retries another one.

Before they eject Scope however he starts to feel painful burning in his eyes as they become watery. Scope desperately tries to rub his eyes but is force to endure the pain due to being held back by the shackles. Scope’s attempts of furious wiggles and shakes end in futile, he starts to cry but he notices something is wrong. Instead of crying tears he’s crying blood, his eyes get puffier with each moment. Scope yells at the top of lungs each second that he feels the pains in his eyes but when in a few minutes he passes out.

“Is he dead?” Dux asks.

“We’re not sure sir, he may be unstable at best from the looks of it.” A scientist replies.

“I don’t care, if he wakes up then I want him on the plane and shipped off with the other successes.”

4 years later

Out in the middle of a grassy field on a unknown island the sounds of gun fire and explosions can be heard with the smells of fire and death. Deep burned holes caused by mortar fire and dead body we’re seen everywhere. These weren’t the bodies of soldiers however; they were the bodies of children. Most of them we’re around the ages of 5-12. A group of children with blue arm bans armed with ak-47's charged through the battlefield with a squeaky war cry. Most of them manage to make it to cover behind a bunch of rocks while others were shot dead. The ones pinning them under fire were kids that had yellow arm bans armed with the same weapons. They sat upon a hill top gaining the advantage; some of the yellow banned children brought out RPG-2's and fired at the rocks.

The blues were dealing with heavy losses with 10-20 kids getting killed per minute. “Throw some grenades up there!” A young pony commanded. He tosses a frag grenade as far as he could up the hill with it landing next to a small earth pony.

“NO GRENADE!” But the explodes the second she spoke, she get sent flying back about a couple feet away lying dead with shrapnel all over her body.

A young gryphon drags her dead body to cover and examines the damage on her body. “Damn, there's nothing I can do…” A unicorn rushes to her side and grabs her by the shoulders and looks her dead in the eyes.

“Hawkeye we got more wounded to the west, we need you!”

“Alright I’m on my way.”

She runs with the unicorn next to her who provides cover for her as they run across the hill top. Another grenade reaches the top of the hill top near the unicorn and explodes the second it touches the ground. The unicorn’s bloody corpse rolls down the hill as Hawkeye runs towards the edge of the hill top and watches the unicorn rolls to his grave. She looks up a bit and sees a blue banned Pegasus takes aim at her; she froze in fear and cringes as she awaits her death.

*BANG*

Hawkeye stands in her frozen position for a few moments and slowly opens her eyes. She see the pegasus that was about to end her life lie dead next to the unicorn. She looks around to see how her savoir is but fails at her search. She continues to runs towards the wounded children that needed her help.

The blues begin to gain ground on the yellows; motors began to rain upon the yellows eliminating about 20 of them. They fall back deep out of the field trying avoid the raining hell. One motor hit a diamond dog pup sending him across the battlefield in the direction they were falling back in. He makes a hard landing in the dirt with both of his legs and left paw replaced with bloody stubs, he reaches out as if anyone was going to help him but dies quickly after getting bombed by another motor.

The blues cheer with pride as they climb up the hill, but their cheers of victory were short lived as a shot was heard from the distance. They all stop and look around for the source of the gun fire, but all they see is a dead zebra rolling done the hill with a huge bullet wound in his head. As they continue to look around another shot was heard with this time an earth pony rolling down the hill. The blues scatter in panic, some keep moving up the hill to catch up with the yellows while some raced back down the hill to take cover the rocks again.

It didn’t matter where they went though; one by one another mysterious shots fell upon one of the children. Some of the yellows take notice of the blues disarray and turns back around to finish the job. “Hey look, it’s him, he’s here!” one of the kids shouted. Every yellow ban makes a 180 turn back into the fight. They charged at the disabled blues and sweep the field for the stragglers that were left by the sniper. One after another a blue was killed in action getting mowed down by the yellow bans.

As a last ditch attempt the last blue jumps out of cover and sprays down a few yellows. He hears a clicking sound and looks at his gun realizing he’s out of ammo. The pony throws his gun down and retreats back down the hill. None of the yellows follow him for they knew his fate.

The blue runs through the rocks from where the blues came, as he runs for his miserable life he looks back and sees that none one is chancing him. He laughs with joy until runs into an object and falls to the ground. He rubs his head and gets up to examine the object that blocked his way. With a terrible realization after examining it he knew it wasn’t an object but a pony, a pegasus in fact. The pegasus stared at the other pony with his multi-colored orange and gray eyes with killer intent.

The Pegasus stuffed the barrel of his m25 right into the other pony’s mouth. The pony instantly started to cry as he tried to muffle out his last words.

“Please, No Scope!”

“As you wish.”

Scope pulls the trigger without hesitation. The pony’s brains splatter onto the ground leaving a gaping hole in the back of his head. He takes the barrel out of his mouth and lets his limp body fall to the ground. Scope walks up the hill and meets the gazes of hundreds of other kids. He walks towards them and stops when he passes by Hawkeye. He turns and looks at her in the eyes, after their awkward moment of silent staring Hawkeye breaks the silence. “Um, were you the one who saved me?” Scope continues to stare in her eyes but doesn’t respond to her question. “Uh, thanks.” She put her claw out towards him as a gesture to shake, but he ignores the gesture and turns around and walks back into the direction he was going with everyone else following behind.

3 hours later

The children stood in order in rows of 20 in some sort of auditorium. They stood patiently waiting for something to happen. Then the red pony that goes by the name of Dux walks on to the stage in front of the children. He gets onto the podium and fixes the microphone on it and begins to speak. “Well done my little soldiers. Once again you have proven yourselves combat worthy. This marks the 796th undefeated victory. You will be the shining stars of the next generation of soldiers; it will be up to all of you lead your lesser counter parts to victory. I expect more out of all of you in the future. As your reward for today’s outstanding performance there will be no battle for you to fight tomorrow. Your all dismissed.”
The children march out of the auditorium as they head back to their camp.

They approach a large field that is divided into 7 colors; there was orange, blue, yellow, red, white, purple, and green. Each section was filled with thousands upon thousands of children. The yellow ban children enter their sections as the gate closed behind them. They enter their tents with each being shared with 4 kids. Most of the tents were filled with holes due to surprise attacks from other groups.

Scope walks through the camp trying find his own way back to his tent. He walked by several injured children, some had huge cuts, others we're missing entire limbs, and some died in their sleep. He felt a tug on his tail, she saw a young pegasus filly that was about Scope's age who could barely hold her gun, gazing at him with sad but innocent yellow eyes. She barely spoke up in a low tone voice.

"Um, hey do you have any food? I was to afraid to go fight today so Dux didn't give me food, can I have some of yours please?"

"Get your own."

"Please! I really need some! It's not for me but for..somepony else..."

"...How long have you been here?"

"Two years. Why?"

"Listen, we all have to fight to survive, either you grow up and fight with us or just sit here and die and trust me, dieing is the last thing you want. You have to look for friends if you want to survive this. I'll be that friend if you want."

"Y-you will?"

"As your leader I must help my soldiers survive this conflict but there are somethings that gotta face head on out there on your own, but since your my friend I'll help ya every step of the way."

The filly instantly tackle hugs Scope with tears of joy in her eye's. "OH THANK YOU THANK YOU THANK YOU!"

"Ah hey remember who your touching here!"

The filly's face turn a slight red before she realizes what shes doing and hopes off Scope. "Oops, heh heh sorry."

"Yeah yeah yeah whatever, look just come get you food."

She nods with understatement and follows Scope. He leads her to a rock that is out of sight from the other kids and guards.

"You want to give me a rock for my o- I mean friend to eat?"

Scope couldn't help but face hoof himself for the stupid question she just asked. "Yes I want them to munch on rock, no you dummy it's what's under the rock." Scope push the rock aside that reveals a hole that was under it. He sticks his head in there and takes out basket with the contents of it being covered with a white sheet. He takes the sheet off and shows the batch of muffin's that is hidden under the sheet.

"Muffins?" She asks.

"Yep, I love these things, can't get enough of them." He takes one and takes a bite out it.

"Where do you get these from? Dux doesn't give out muffins."

"Better than the slop he gives us. I sneak into the cafeteria kitchen every week and sneak out with a fresh batch just for me, but I'll give you the whole thing since you need them more than I do. I hope you friend enjo-." Scope stops his sentence with shock on his face followed by a light blush. The filly pulled him into a tight hug that she refuses to release Scope from. Scope just stands there with a dope expression, it's been a full four years since he's ever been shown any kind of affection, the only affection being from his parents that is, but this was different. Scope was ignorant about stuff like this, four years of killing and hatred quickly erased things like this from his mind . Scope doesn't respond this action physically of vocally. The filly frees Scope from the embrace.

"Thank you so much, you don't know how much this means to me."

"Uh, yeah, sure no problem."

The filly smiles and winks at Scope. "Well, I'll see you later I guess."

"Sure."

She walks away with the basket of muffins in her mouth while Scope just stands there and stares at the ground. After trying to figure out what just happened to him. He looks up and sees that the filly is long gone but then realizes the mistake he just made.

"NOOOOOOOOOOO I GAVE HER MY LAST BATCH OF BANANA MUFFINS!"

Scope had his own private tent since he was the best out of all the yellows. He got into his tent laid down on the hard dirt as he tried to fall asleep and forget about the terrible mistake he made. He heard unfamiliar steps into his tent. He quickly sat up with his gun ready; he lowered it when he noticed it was Hawkeye who entered his tent. “The other kids told me your name is Scope. So I just wanted to ask something.” Scope rolled his eyes at her as he was willing to hear her question. “Why me? I never seen anypony just get randomly saved by a sniper until this morning. So why did you it?” Scope lays back down and closes his eyes not really caring at this point.

"Cuz I felt like it." He replies.

Hawkeye sighed with annoyance and walked closer to him. “By the way, the names Hawkeye. I got kicked out of my tent by a bunch of bullies, can I stay here tonight?”

"Whatever..."

She lays down next him and slowly shut her eyes. Before she slipped into her subconscious state she heard a Scope speak to her.

“Nice to meet ya.”

An hour later.

Scope could feel shaking while he was asleep. As he did he best to wake up he faintly heard his name being called.

“Scope! Scope wake up!”

Once he was fully awake he felt Hawkeye’s claw on his shoulders trying to shake him awake. He saw the look of distress on her face and heard the air raid sirens. Hawkeye runs out the tent first with Scope not far behind. When Scope looks up he couldn’t believe what he was seeing. Planes and helicopters flew over head with hundreds of paratroopers floating down from the sky. The night time sky was filled with smoke with the normal blue background turning a deep red. Artillery fire can been seen coming from the naval ship firing at the guards barracks and armory

“Holy crap! Hawkeye do you know what this means?”

“No.”

“This could only mean two things, either this the real deal or-”

“Or this is our ticket out of this hell hole!”

“Exactly, come on let’s go!”

The two grab their weapons and ran towards the gates. They see the other children fighting the guards realizing their opportunity to escape as well. Most of the kids were getting killed by the second for they were no match for truly trained soldiers. As escape seemed to impossible the guards were being flanked from behind by the soldiers that we’re invading the island. Scope and Hawkeye manage to run through the crossfire and make it to the soldiers. They both turn around and start adding fire to the soldier shooting at the guards. Once all the guards were eliminated the soldiers start guide the children back to the ships. Two soldiers run up to Hawkeye and Scope.

“Are you ok? Are you hurt?” One of the soldiers asks who was a unicorn.

“We’re fine let’s just get the hell out of here.” Scope says.

The four of them towards the naval ships dodging the fire they were receiving from the rest of the guards.

“Hey what’s your names!?” Hawkeye shouts over the explosions and gunfire.

“I’m Sergeant Major Logan Baxter! Guy next to us running is Captain Vic!”

“Can’t the introductions wait till we get ON the boat!?” Vic yells at Logan. He was never really one for introductions in the first place. The four continue running for their lives, Scope looks back to see most of his fellow comrades we’re getting cut down short by machine guns. “There’s our ride!” Vic points out.

They approach a small boat as they proceeded to jump in it. Logan turns the motor on and the speeds off, before getting far however a guard on shore with an rpg fires at the boat.

“Shit we’re gonna get hit!” Logan shouts.

Scope grabs his sniper and in one quick motion aims and takes his shot. The bullet flies out the barrel spinning in perfect motion. The rocket, still flying straight for the boat, was now about to make head on contact with the bullet. The bullet connects with the tip of rpg causing it to explode. The four sigh in relief of not having to worry about being blown up.

Logan pats Scope and back. “Congrats kid”

“Thanks, I really thought I was going to miss for a sec.”

“I’m not talking about that.”

“What do you mean then?”

“I mean that.” Logan points down to Scope’s flank.

Scope had a huge grin on his face to what he was witnessing. Thanks to the shot he took he finally earned his cutie mark.

After they get onto the battleship they sail away a few miles out from the island from with the rest of the survives. Scope and Hawkeye sit on the deck of the ship and watch the island disappear in the distance. Logan come to the deck and sits next them.

"Don't worry. We'll make sure they never do what they did to you to other kids."

"How?" Scope asks.

Logan just looks up to the sky as if he was look at a shooting star, but it wasn't a shooting star, it was a rocket.

"What's that?" Hawkeye asks.

"That my friend is what we call an atom bomb. Just sit and watch"

And so they did. After there three minute wait they sat and watched the impact of the explosion. The atom bomb made the night time sky looked as if dawn was on the way. The bigger the mushroom cloud got the bigger Scope and Hawkeye's smiles got. They can finally rest easy at night know they'll never subjected to the horror of what that island brought them.

Present day

Twilight had her hooves over her mouth nearly about to break down in tears to what she had just heard. Shining Armor couldn’t even respond to that story due to his mouth being left on the floor. The colonel had his eyes closed and arms crossed the entire time as he listen to the story for the 3rd time now.

“Oh my goodness Scope, how are mentally stable after everything you’ve been put through?”

“I guess my mind was able to handle it. Hawkeye and I were lucky though. Every other child they brought back either committed suicide, died due to late effects of the experiments, or lost their mind and tried to kill anything that moved and had to be put down.”

Twilight didn’t know how much more she could take as she started to break down and cry. Shining Armor held her and let her cry on his shoulder for a while. After she claimed down she down and wipe her eyes. Even though this was a terrifying story she still wanted to know the rest.

“S-so how come your still here? Why didn’t you go home?”

“Home? HA that’s a good one. My parents were dead and I couldn’t remember where I came from, I still don’t know where I'm from. I and the other kids refused to go to adoption homes. The only thing we knew how to do is kill, besides who wants to adopt a kid who got tested on by mad scientist and were basically raised to kill?”

“I guess that's understandable, but what about your education? You’re all grown up now so must know other things.”

“I may not have some fancy collage education like you do but when I arrived here they thought me all I could and what I needed to know, but unlike the others I decided to take the extra mile.”

“What effects of the experiments did you experience?”

Scope pointed at his eyes. “They use to be yellow.”

“Do they still hurt?”

“Quite the opposite, with my orange eye I can see through the brightest of lights. I can even stare at the sun for as long as I want. With my gray eye I can see through the darkest of darkness, sort of like night vision but better.”

“What about Hawkeye?”

“Somehow she was given the ability to heal herself at an extreme rate. Mind you she can’t regenerate limbs or entire organs.”

“That’s actually impressive, besides the fact of how you acquired you abilities.”

“They're not exactly super powers or magic but at least it’s something. The experiments they conducted on us was part of some kind of super soldier project. The effects of the experiments changes and enhances our natural abilities or transforms a part of us. He was using those camps to capture young kids and raise them to be soldiers while training them to use their enhance abilities. They also capture the parents and force their own kids to kill them, to "prove" their loyalty to Dux. The survivors who last till adulthood will become part of his army. What he was going to do with us for, I don't know.”

“I’m sorry about what you two went through, I didn’t mean to-”

“You can keep your pity Twilight I understand.”

“Let’s get back to business before any of this gets anymore personal.”

“Agreed.”

“So you’re saying this madpony named Dux, or at least that’s what he calls himself, kidnaps young children and their parents and force the kids into training so they can become part of his private army and disguises them to be rebels?”

“I’m not claiming it to be correct but that’s what I’m thinking.”

“We’ll try to dig anything we can on him.”

“Fine by me, sooner I find that bastard the better.”

The colonel finally steps in. “Now that we have that out the way Scope we got a new mission for you; The Equestrian Alliance attacked Fillydelphia yesterday. The Royal Guard has been dispatched to there but it won’t be enough since they’re spread out thin across Equestria. We’ve sent in about 5,000 of our troops there to assist the liberation. But taking the city back isn't your job.”

“So where do we come in?”

“I’m sending your team with to capture the enemy's commander and bring him back ALIVE. We don't know his identity but we do know where he's located, and if your theory is right Scope, and I hope it's not, you should be able to recognize. him. Remember we need him ALIVE!”

“Alright alright I get it.”

“Good. We’re giving you anything you need to get this done Scope so just tell me what you need and we’ll get it, good luck.”

“Thank you sir.”

“And Scope…”

“Yeah?"

“No more stunts…”

“Got it sir.”

The four of them rise from the table and proceed to the door. Before Twilight could get to the door Scope put his hoof on her shoulder.

“Hey Twilight I need a favor.”

“Yeah what is it?”

“I need a profile of a certain soldier of yours.”

“Scope I don’t think-“

“Please Twilight this very important.”

Twilight sighed. “Fine, who do you want?”

“I need Daniel Hooves' profile.”

“Duncy…oh yeah I knew him. He was the mailmare’s husband in Ponyville. Poor Derpy, she must miss him a lot.”

“I could sympathies with you but I’m in a bit of a hurray.”

“Alright then, when you get back I’ll have his profile ready for you to look at.”

“Thanks Twilight I owe you one.”