A Hero Untold

"Alright, mares!" the sergeant shouted, looking at the trainees like a bunch of prey.

"And stallions." he continued, glancing briefly at the only two females in the room.

"We are facing a tough enemy today! The Royal Guard has sent a team of their finest to bring us down, but no way in Equestria are we going to let them fulfill that task!" He continued, his voice was loud, but clearly damaged.

The whole squad of nine ponies shouted in agreement. The whole squad, except Wolfram.

"You are going to retrieve the package and come back here. I don't want any joking around. This isn't a search and destroy mission, this isn't an elimination mission, this isn't a scouting mission. We need the package delivered!"

Another chorus of shouts rang throughout the squad. An earth pony mare with light blue fur, and a dark blue mane spoke up.

"Permission to take over the speech, Sergeant?" she asked.

"As you will, XO Thunder." the sergeant gave his consent.

"You heard what the sergeant said. We take that objective, and we do it together. I don't want any freelancing. That means you, no-name." She said, obviously referring to, and glaring at Wolfram.

Wolfram took a lot of heat for being both adopted and unknown to any record. Wolfram saw no logic to his bad reputation. After all, he was just as good at fighting as any of his squad mates, if not better. He even tried his best to help others who needed it. But even by those who he assisted, he was given glares of distrust, and insults for his unknown past. He did his best to not take it seriously, and today his best was good. He didn't even flinch at his XO's comment.

"Now are we going to kick some royal ass, or not?" Thunder asked. It raised a storm of battlecries from Wolfram's squad. Even he partook in stamping the ground, though he did not vocalize his agreement.

The squad marched out of the cement room, and into the lush forest. The mid day sun shone through the canopy above them, and the birds were each singing their own tune. If it weren't for the impending combat, the scene would have been one to strike joy into anyone. It was beautiful, and the temperature of the air around them was just cool enough to seem calming. The condensation in the underbrush left everything sparkling, and it created an upward shower of prismatic light on the trees.

Thunder signaled for the squad to move up behind a large rock that was not far from them. The squad took cover behind the rock, it was just large enough to provide cover for all nine of them. Thunder looked at a young pegasus with a light pink coat, tinted blue. Her mane was a rich brown, and one of her wings was non-functional. A birth defect, it was vestigial for one reason or another, and so this mare, Moxie, stuck to the ground.

Moxie clearly didn't want to be there, and Wolfram knew that if she had any choice in the matter she would leave. Clearly she was more suited for creativity and such than physical conflict.

"Give me eyes on your side, Moxie" The XO commanded to the unicorn in a hushed tone.

Moxie looked around the corner, with a surly frown on her brows. She non-chalantly pulled her head back soon enough. She spoke up, with a smart-ass voice.

"How many eyes did you want, exactly?"

"Quit it, Moxie. We've been over this" Thunder said angrily, "What did you see?"

"A guy, probably an enemy." Moxie said grumpily.

"Only one?" The XO asked.

"Yeah."

Thunder grinned cockily, and gave the signal for the whole squad to surround and assault. But just as the squad was beginning to move, Wolfram objected.

"I doubt that the Royals would be stupid enough to send one soldier out alone; they have a good tactician. If we attack, we're getting ambushed." He said in the best commander's voice he could muster.

"If you don't like the way I command, maybe you should start a mutiny." Thunder joked, but Wolfram was already considering the option. He decided against it, remembering that just about everyone disliked him as much as the XO did.

"We move out and take this guy down, he deserves it for standing out in the open like that." Thunder ordered again.

The squad moved out, but Wolfram slipped around the other side of the rock quietly. He began venturing through the thick spots in the underbrush toward the package, making sure he was effectively invisible. Unfortunately, he was still loud. He was very heavy for a pegasus, and he couldn't help but make a light thud with each step he took on the packed down, but damp morning soil. He pondered flying over the canopy for a moment, but concluded against it. flying back down to get the package once he was there would telegraph his position for a distance, even in the relatively dense forest.

Wolfram's ear twitched backward as he heard the sounds of combat. His squad had almost certainly been ambushed as he had predicted. The shouting and crashing went on behind him for another few moments, before he heard the announcer speak up.

"You are he only one left. Good luck." the old mare said through the loudspeakers in her strained, not so encouraging voice. Obviously damaged by her bad habit of smoking, which not many ponies took to.

Wolfram felt no fear at the news of his squad's defeat. He only saw it as more reason to succeed. Unfortunately his confidence was somewhat shaken when he heard a voice pipe up.

"Hey, are you hearing that?" A deep male voice said, followed by a second one agreeing. Wolfram could hear the hoofsteps of two ponies approaching his position. The many options shot through Wolfram's mind, his heart was racing with both fear, and anticipation. He judged that attacking was his best course of action. He could not continue moving without making many sounds, and he would not be much faster at running than either of the two enemies closing in on his position.

He waited until he judged by his ear that they were just close enough he could charge and overpower one of them. Then with all his force he used his hind legs to burst out of the bushes. He quickly assessed the locations of the two ponies. Unfortunately his hearing was a bit off, and they were closer than he had wanted. He adjusted his course to the right, and went for the slightly farther enemy. The royal guard was surprised, and not ready for a sudden attack. Wolfram plowed into the white stallion with all his force, and despite not having as much time to speed up as Wolfram would have liked, he knocked the guard over, who then slid until his head hit a tree stump with audible force.

He proceeded to jump upward, and used his wings to extend the jump as well as turn around. He was now high above the still standing guard, and facing him. At the apex of his leap, Wolfram pushed himself downward and into the second enemy with the help of the earth pulling him down. He struck the guard's shoulder with his own, and felt the enemy's joint shift. He was familiar with the feeling of dislocating another's shoulder, and he knew he had done it flawlessly.

Before the second guard fell, and before Wolfram had landed, he spun around at kicked the guard in the ribs with his hind legs. This sealed his enemy's defeat, and gave Wolfram a much needed boost toward his goal. With that first blast of energy, he began running through the forest. In very little time at all he managed to reach the entrance of the cement bunker which the package was meant to be in.

He trotted inside, slowing his pace to catch his breath. Wolfram could run fast for his size, but it was hard work. He panted heavily as he turned the corner into the bunker. Nobody was anywhere within sight. Wolfram had actually made it to the package single-handed. But when he looked at the table it was meant to be placed on, he found that it was, in fact, vacant of any package at all.

"Looking for the flag, no-name?" Wolfram heard a taunting voice not far behind him. He turned around to see a white coated, yellow maned stallion wearing the armour of a royal commander. The unicorn was holding the piece of purple cloth which Wolfram had been ordered to retrieve.

A moment of silence fell throughout the room, until the unicorn began to speak again. However he was interrupted by Wolfram roaring in frustration. A team was not allowed to move their own flag, that was a very explicit rule. So in attempting to right this wrong, Wolfram charged at the royal commander. But the unicorn was swift, and he sidestepped Wolfram, who ended up flying past the commander, and rolling into the side of a tree. The tree shook from the impact of the heavy colt. A severe pain was pulsing in the back of Wolfram's neck, where most of the impact hit, But he stood back up, fighting through the hurt. He was just about to take another charge at the commander, when out of no where he felt a heavy object strike his left flank.

He had been knocked to the ground, tackled, by another enemy. Before he could begin trying to wrestle his way out of the grapple, yet another guard came from the thickets on his other side and pinned him down in unison with the guard who had tackled Wolfram initially.

"Valiant effort, for a slummer," the commander said as he approached the helpless pegasus.

"But I'm afraid we can't be defeated by a no-name. I'm sure you'll understand."

At this point two more stallions came from the forest behind Wolfram. One was limping, and had a bleeding wound on his head, the other was leaning against the first with a limp front leg. Wolfram couldn't help but derive some pride from so easily beating two trained guards.

"We ought to knock his head against a rock as hard as he did to me!" the guard with the head injury said.

"Now that is a bit excessive, we wouldn't want to appear savage. would we?" the leader asked rhetorically.

"No, we will simply eliminate him. It's all we need to do to win." he continued. Walking up to wolfram, he grinned with joy at the pegasus's defiant expression and silence. The commander knew that Wolfram's anger was only contrasted by his helpless position. It was almost ironic. The commander bent down, and tore the dog tags off of Wolfram's neck. Leaving behind his crude necklace.

"All Slummers defeated, Royal Guard wins. Again." The announcer's voice rolled throughout the forest. She held a tone of boredom, and disappointment. The repeated success of the Royal Guard was beginning to bore almost everyone.

"Good game, no-name. I hope you haven't founded some kind of vendetta against me." the commander said teasingly as his squad released the defeated Wolfram, who only gave an angry snort in response, and they trotted their separate ways.

"How could you all get taken out?" the sergeant roared in disbelief.

"Those pure-bred idiots can't be that hard to stomp into the earth!" he continued to rant for some time. His voice only lowering occasionally at the beginning of a sentence, before raising it to a deafening volume again. The whole squad was shamefully silent throughout the sergeants fury.

The grey coated old stallion then did something which Wolfram would highly disapprove of. He walked up, face to face with the physically inferior Moxie, and shouted at the top of his lungs.

"I'll bet it was your fault! Why do we even have you on our squad? You probably tried to leave the arena as soon as you got pounced on! Coward, deserter!"

Wolfram winced, and stepped forward, he could already see the rage building in Moxie's eyes. She may not have been much of a warrior, but she was still a fighter, and she was about to get herself in serious trouble.

"Leave her alone." he said plainly and sternly, before Moxie could yell anything.

"I'm not one for pulling rank, cadet. But if you didn't realize, I give the damned orders around here!" The sergeant shouted.

Wolfram's expression did not waver. He did not give any heed to the sergeants anger, and chose the most logical path, which was to give credit where it was due.

"I left the squad during the ambush, sergeant. Moxie fought to the end, while I tried to sneak around the combat. Blame me." he said with some strain.

The sergeant dramatically paced over to Wolfram, and spoke in a surprisingly hushed, but still angry tone.

"So you are admitting to dereliction of duty?"

Wolfram nodded.

"In that case," the sergeant began before shouting "You are suspended from all team activities until further notice!"

Wolfram's mane was actually blown back a little bit by the sergeants yelling. But he still did not waver, determined to show that the sergeant held no authority over Wolfram's emotions, even if he did have authority over wolfram's actions.

Wolfram knew the drill, he had been suspended before. He walked over to the equipment rack and hung up his rough chain vest, as well as his water skin, and he trotted dejectedly toward the exit. When he was out the door, and it was closed behind him, he heard the sergeant speak again, muffled by the wooden portal between them.

"Now that we got rid of the coward, all of you can report to the mess hall."

Wolfram tensed up at the old stallion's cruelty. He had half a mind to walk back in there and attack the sergeant outright. But he was determined to show no emotion. He knew it was the only strength that the sergeant could not take from him, and he was sure to not take it from himself. Wolfram began his walk home.

When he was only a few more minutes away from his house, he heard the sound of hooves trotting up behind him. They started fairly far away, so Wolfram didn't note them until now, but it was clear enough they were closing on him now. So he turned around, to see Moxie behind him.

"Hey idiot, why'd you get yourself kicked out?"

"Not in the mood, Moxie." Wolfram said angrily "Unless you're here to provide comforting counsel, I'd rather be alone." At Wolfram's word Moxie assumed a sort of confused expression. For only an instant she raised one eyebrow and frowned slightly.

"Suit yourself, kid." Moxie retorted, regaining her careless demeanor. She then left Wolfram, at his request, and Wolfram realized that he managed to ruin a social prospect yet again. He thought for a minute, and decided that maybe everyone didn't dislike him because he was adopted, but maybe they were using it as an excuse to dislike his social idiocy.

He knew going back and talking to Moxie wasn't an option. he couldn't say anything that would reopen the door he just closed, and Moxie wouldn't just forget it either. She was as stubborn as he.