> Teaching Others of Friedship, The Hard Way
>  by baconator900
> --------------------------------------------------------------------------

> Chapter 1: Basic Training
> --------------------------------------------------------------------------

	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.


> Chapter 2: The First Battle
> --------------------------------------------------------------------------

	A clink was heard followed by laughter and chatter. The six ponies were sitting in their bunks in the barracks, enjoying soda before the next day where they will be assigned to their first real battle. They spent the last few days learning how to use their tank, and are confident to use it in battle.
“Alright girls, ah wanna call a toast, to our first battle!” Applejack raised her bottle of soda and so did the rest repeating simultaneously “our first battle.” The girls enjoyed the rest of the night with the sodas and went to bed.



-KERWHUM- 
The sound of a very large cannon was the first thing each six ponies heard, jolting up in bed and scrambling around, searching for a source of danger, until they discover it’s only Shining Armor in a tank many sizes larger than the six. Twilight is the first to step forward and lets out a snarky remark, “Hey brother, compensating for something?” Shining’s face scrunches up blushing furiously.
“N-no, you are lucky you are my sister or else I wouldn’t have let that slide. Now I have your assignment girls. Ready up and I will assign it to you.” The six girls run around quickly, trying to quickly get ready until they are lined up, in uniform and helmets.
“Alright girls,” Shining hops down from his tank, “You will be heading to a place called mines……”



Twilight took point, her tank in the lead while the other two side by side behind her, forming a sort of triangle. Based off her HUD and calculations, they should be close to the place called, “Mines.” They come over a hill and Twilight stops.
“Pinkie flag the others to stop, I think this is it”
“Okie Doki Loki,” Pinkie says playfully before popping out of the commander’s hatch, making different signals with the flags. Twilight sighs, “I’ll be glad when we get radios.” The other two tanks come to a stop beside her. Every pony opened up their hatch and poked their head out, looking around. Twilight initiated the plan, “Ok girls, there should be a scouting patrol coming around here, three tanks only, so long as we stay together and attack them at once, we all should be fine. Everpony got that?”
Many “Affirmatives” were heard and a very distinct and upbeat “Yup, I sure do!” Twilight nodded and closed her hatch, as did the other girls. 
“Ok Pinkie, now is serious time, no playing around or we and the other girls may get hurt, ok?”
“Got it!” 
“Good, now let’s head forward,” the engine roars from idle as they move forward.
The Area was a pretty small space. From where they were, there was a small village to the right. Towards the center was a hill, where it seemed to lead to a platform where a vantage point could be taken. The left had a beach like area, and a side route towards the same place the other two ways led. The left included a lighthouse which doesn’t seem to be in use. Twilight thinks for a second before heading straight for the center, deciding the vantage point will help them spot the scouts. 
The only sound heard was the sound of the three tanks, moving together towards the center. As they started climbing the hill, they noticed a lack of speed, moving along slowly. Pinkie suddenly got a twitch.
“TWILIGHT, LEFT NOW!” Twilight moved to the left just in time to dodge a shot coming from an unknown source. A few seconds later, Pinkie spots the tank, identifying it as a lone MS-1. She pokes her head out of the Commanders port, then starts quickly swinging flags, alerting the others of the tank. As she’s making her last moves, another shot sounds out, this time, missing Pinkie barely, ripping a hole in one of the flags. She yelped and ducked back under cover inside the tank. 
“Pinkie are you ok?” Twilight glances back but keeps her attention on the tank ahead.
“Y-yeah, I think so, nearly got me.” She focuses on her task, aiming her gun before another shot sounds out, this time from behind us. It hits the tank and it explodes gloriously. A southern yell is heard from inside the other tank as it is now known Applejack fired the shot. The celebration is ended prematurely as a shot pierces Applejack’s tank from the side. A flag is suddenly visible, a green one, signaling they are good. 
All three tanks turn towards the source of the shot, finding a T1 Cunningham in the bushes hiding. Pinkie aims the gun before shouting, “BOOM!”
-POW-
The shot rocks the tank, not much, but enough for pinkie to have to reset the aim once she reloads. Before she can, another shot is sounded, from Rarity’s tank. This shot sends the tank up into flames as the gas tank of the enemy seemingly erupted. After a few seconds, the tank explodes similar to the other one, being put out of use. 
Numerous shouts were heard from each tank, but Twilight still remembered the third one they needed to face, not sure to where it was. They make it up to the vantage point and settle down. Pinkie pops up from the commander’s hatch, only a bit to look around. From Applejack’s tank behind them, a yell was heard to catch the other tanks’ attention. Pinkie turned and looked, to see Applejack waving flags, signaling a Medium tank. Twilight turned quickly turned the tank, facing the direction of the third tank. Upon getting closer, they find the tank. It is weirdly angled, facing its front armor 45 degrees to the side, exposing half front half side armor. Applejack is the first to shoot, from her angle, it bounced off the armor. Pinkie took the next shot, less of an angle from her position. 
“We didn’t penetrate their armor!”
“What? How can we not?”
“The way they are angling their armor makes it harder to penetr-“
-POOM-
A shot hits their tank, the shell pierces the front and hits twilight in the shoulder, leaving a deep gash, any more damage could mean a lost limb. She lets out a loud pained yell, before she casts a spell, a painkilling spell. 
Pinkie sticks her head out of the hatch and yells while waving a yellow flag, “Twilight’s injured, we won’t be moving as fast!” The other two retreated, and so did Twilight, still in pain, grunting below Pinkie. Twilight yelled to Pinkie to signal the others. Pinkie popped out of the hatch, waving the flags. The other two tanks move towards the enemy Medium. Twilight slowly heads forward, their plan coming into motion.
Rainbow Dash with her need for speed comes out fast. She quickly dodged one shot, then turned so she started to circle the tank, but before she could, the Medium takes a shot. Luckily it did no actual damage to the hull, but it de-tracked the, leaving them vulnerable. A shot penetrates the Medium from the side as Rarity’s tank charges towards the tank, managing to take a shot. She can’t out run the Medium’s turn and turret as they turn to target Applejack, one or less shots from being destroyed themselves.
The sound of a shell being reloaded is heard.
-POW-
The Medium tank blows up in a glorious fire, Pinkie looks away from the view scope, aiming at a weak spot in the armor, “Boom.”



As the garage door opened, ponies rushed to the tanks, doing checks. Pinkie popped out of the drivers hatch. “WE NEED A MEDIC HERE!” 
At the call, a cart arrives with a red cross on it. As twilight’s tank comes to a stop inside the garage, the medic ponies comes and pulls Twilight out of the Tank. She is barely conscious, lost a lot of blood. She hangs limply as the unicorns levitate her onto a stretcher gently. Once on the stretcher, they place her on the cart and head off towards the infirmary. Pinkie bows her head and exits the tank herself, hoping joining the other five ponies as they embrace. Each one of them hugging, happy to have survived, but scared to lose a friend.



FOOTNOTE: 2x XP per day, XP Earned: 2,230, Credits Earned: 3,643, Awards earned: Sisters in Arms, Master Rank: 3, Tanks Destroyed: 3, Modules destroyed: 1, Modules damaged: 2