//------------------------------//
// Chapter 1: Basic Training 
// Story: Teaching Others of Friedship, The Hard Way 
// by baconator900 
//------------------------------//

	War, it’s not a term used very often in a place so nice and used to peace as Equestria. Yet with every civilization, there has to be a war with the one who decides to take too much control of their area, and wants to take other areas. So there will be war, no matter who your neighbors are, and no matter who you are. But with technology advanced, using ancient war tactics and arsenal seemed unneeded. Even then, a pact was made, to use only ancient technology from the age of the humans. This technology consisted of guns, planes, bombs, and tanks. All were sealed away when discovered to avoid any compulsions of war. Once war was started, they were unveiled. Several pieces of ancient human technology, the era of humans ended by their own fault of nuclear war. But enough of history of war, this is the story of a certain six ponies, and their journey to spread friendship through the others who won’t take it nicely.
-Kerthunk!- -Screeaaaaachhhhh-
The giant metal sliding door opened to an open, and empty looking hangar. 6 Ponies peered inside, curious as to what’s inside. They searched for any previous existing life forms, and finding none. A seventh pony clears his throat.
“Ahem, so this will be your garage girls. You will return here after every battle. Here you will repair, maintain, upgrade, and buy tanks. If in the case any of you are injured, making it back here and you will be healed. However, make it here dead, and there is nothing we can do. Is that understood?” 
All six of the ponies nodded very quickly before entering the garage, then flipping a large power switch. Lights suddenly illuminate the clearing in front of them. There are a selection of a few tanks. Big and small, fast and slow, they are all terrifying to a pony first experiencing them. The ponies stare in half amazement, half uneasiness.
“There will be other tanks the will look just like yours, but the only indicator of who we are fighting is the HUD installed in the driver’s viewport, the gunner’s viewport, and the commander’s viewport. Not all of you will fit in one tank. Purchasing more tanks will let you have more ponies in one tank. Be ready for who you are fighting, we have no idea, as far as we know it is a type of changeling, they have the same technology as us, some have even better technology. Just hope you don’t see the bigger tanks out there. For now you should be safe, we will be sending you out on missions with tanks of your type. We have divided the tanks into tiers based on speed, armor, gun, camo, and etcetera. We will try to keep you evenly matched with their tanks if we can. Is that understood?”
The six ponies nod once again, one steps forward and hugs the seventh pony.
“Thanks bro for watching over us, we won’t disappoint you.”
“I have no doubt you girls will, but stay safe Twi, I don’t plan to lose my sister in this war.”
The embrace is soon ended and followed by a salute from everypony. Shining then turns and leaves out the garage door. Twilight turns to the other ponies and sighs. 
“Alright, we have a few days to situate ourselves, take a few test runs, run a training course, and get ready before we are taken into real battles. Now we can pick one of these tanks, but the government won’t give us bigger tanks of upgrades until we prove we can handle the tank we are using, so we need to work for them. So let’s get started.” Twilight takes a deep breath and walks towards the tanks, scouting for a starting tank. 



The six settled on using three separate tanks. Three T1 Cunninghams. In hopes of tripling the amount of experience gained from each pony. They went in in pairs. Twilight went in with Pinkie Pie. Rainbow went in with Applejack. Rarity went in with Fluttershy. They each marveled at their tank. The drivers of each tank were Twilight, Rainbow, and Fluttershy, the other ponies took on ever other job of the tank, loader, gunner, commander, and radio pony. 
Once inside and settled inside their tanks, they each started up their tank, each one sprang to life with a deep rumble, shaking the each tank as the engine started to idle, ready to go. Unfortunately for the ponies, every tank didn’t have a radio. Instead, there were signal flags. Pinkie popped out of the first tank and waved the flags around silly, until Twilight took a flag with her magic and smacked pinkie on her head. Pinkie rubbed her head and properly signaled for them to roll out. Twilight’s tank moved forward, then Rainbow’s and lastly Flutters’ followed.  
They all stopped at a shooting range, a target in the shape of a tank about 100 meters away. They three tanks all lined up facing the target and took aim. Each loader loaded their gun, although slowly at first, they all finally loaded. Then the loaders aimed at the target, waiting until they were sure they would hit the target. Then they smacked the fire button and three shots were heard. One hit, the other missed just short, the third missed to the left. They reloaded and tried again. By the end of the day, each tank could accurately hit the target. Most of the time.