FD Imaginations presents:

"Today is the day..."

"Righteous!”

"...my chance to prove myself..."

“Maize!”

"...to prove to everypony, I have what it takes..."

“Sprint!”

"...to become the best of best..."

“Crossword!”

"...A Steel Ranger."

"Crossword! For the second time!" shouted the Paladin at the panel. His helmet was off revealing the turquoise, dreary face half covered by a navy mane, laying it on his hoof, clearly taking pride in his next task, but I didn't care. It was my chance today to go on my first hunt. I will be assigned to a squad today and sent out on my first mission by next week. All my training had been leading up to this, all the trials, protocols and painstaking training exercises. But no longer. It was for real this time, and I will show my worth, despite anypony else's doubts. I took my first step through the tight crowd of other 'knights-to-be', slipping through all their circles and groups. Some turned their heads to look at me with disapproving glares, like I didn't know how they already felt. I knew they all didn't want me here, but I am, and I have every reason to be.

Here in question, was what we initiates called the Watering Hole. Its name was taken from the location the base was set up in, which was a huge crater that was rumoured to have housed a lake long ago. As for why it was said to be a watering hole, it had many stories, to many to recount. The watering hole was one of the bases of the Far South Contingent and was used as a training facility for initiates. I had been in the central hall for the past 2 hours waiting for my name to be called, so I may confirm my entry in the the Knights.

I broke away from the condescending crowd of ponies to lay my eyes on the place that would decide my future, a slightly rusty, scrap-metal desk. Planting both of my fore-hooves on the desk in front of me, I awaited my instructions. Upon the desk was an assortment of paperwork, some in seemingly unorganised piles, some scrawn up into balls and left everywhere else and the floor. The only organised part of the desk was the fixed name tag at the front: Paladin Iron Sight.

"Certification?" He asked monotonously, probably for the hundredth time today

I delved into my saddle bag to retrieve an envelope with a broken seal; it was of a Steel Ranger Helmet with a Gear around it, belonging to the Council of Elders. Within it contained my official certification stating I had passed military induction. I handed this over to the Paladin who dropped it upon his desk. Opening it swiftly, he analysed the document checking everything is in order, but he stopped at something. He closed his head in further to ensure he had read it correctly.

"It says here that you fell just short if passing your self-defence module? Is this correct?" he inquired, showing a slight bit of interest, probably the most he has had all day

"That's... correct" I replied as firmly as possible.

But this got me worried, it only took one stamp, and I would have to redo everything. It was true that I had 'slightly' failed my self-defence, and it is also true that out of everything, that is the most important thing a ranger must know how to do. But what I may have lacked there, I made up for in strategy, leadership, analysis and navigation. Better than anyone the Far South Contingency had ever recruited.

"Hmm... Are you sure you can handle yourself in the field? Last thing we need is someone as achieving as yourself being lost in the wastes, in my opinion you would have made a better scribe." he admitted, showing a slight amount of worry, but I could be wrong.

"I... I... will be fine." beginning to crack from the pressure, his eyes were breaking through my facade. This was as good as over, I tried at least I guess.

Releasing a sigh, he lifted his hoof to the stamp on his right and lifted it above the paper. I shut my eyes, not being able to bear the sight of him crushing my dreams with his red ink.

*Clunk*

"Leave through the room on your right." he commanded, slightly reluctant to give his answer

The bottom of the paper collided with my hoof as he returned the certificate. I slowly opened my eyes, relinquishing a tear as looked upon my decided destiny for the next year.

Green. Pass. I was in?

"You passed me?" shocked at his strange decision

"Yeeeahhh... I'll probably regret it later on, but I can't be bothered to fill out the paperwork for failed initiates." he explained rather selfishly.

But that didn't stop me from forgetting my common sense as I launching myself over the desk, knocking over his already disorganised paperwork, and throwing my hooves around him.

"Ahhh, get off me!" he roared, capturing everyponies attention in the room.

It took me 5 seconds afterwards to realise what I had done and collapsed to the floor in front of him below his desk. I stared up to be greeted by an extremely menacing expression emanating from the Paladin. He poked his head down so he was only millimetres from my muzzle. I could smell the rage in his breath, the shear fury emanating from his eyes and hitting my emotions hard.

"You dare do that again, I won't just reject that certificate, but I will leave you out in the wastes to rot! You hear me?!" he shouted under his breath, maintaining his furiousness, yet preventing the rest of the room from hearing.

"Y... Yes S... Sir." beginning to whimper again from the atmosphere he was creating.

"WELL!? GET MOVING, BEFORE I DO IT!" he screamed in my face. The sudden changes in tone making me slam my head into the desk above me. I then scampered out from under it, snapped up my certificate in my mouth, and galloped through the door on the right.

I dropped my tray onto the table grabbing the attention of my friend, Cherry Strudel. Cherry had a dark cherry coat with her namesake cutie mark. Her mane was naturally curly with streaks of beige and chestnut and had cerise irises. She met my face and then returned to eating her Apple. I sat my flank on the bench and planted my head on my hooves and carried on staring at her. She knew I was waiting for her to speak, but she knew whatever she could say, wouldn't hold off the prevailing argument. She eventually met my face again when she finished the apple and sighed when she saw her efforts to ignore me had failed.

"Nice lump" she commented, pointing out the large swelling below my horn stub from where I hit the table. But I didn't reply, she was dodging the argument, I just maintained my scowl. Eventually after finishing her reconstituted juice, she sighed again

"What do you think I can do?" she said, avoiding my gaze still and looking to her right at the stallion tables.

"Umm, I don't know, how about throwing in a word to get me off the lame border patrol they put me on. You know I wanted to be on a scouting mission, or a hunting mission, or something that would get me out of here, not one that would keep me here." I complained.

"Yeah, I have a say in where each initiate gets put, but they voted unanimously against putting you out into the field. Just be glad I got you a job that gets you outside in power armour, otherwise it would have been canteen work for you after how you tried to romance Iron Sight." she smirked after mentioning his name.

I began to blush, but quickly shook it off. Cherry Strudel, being the star initiate of the Watering Hole was given the unique ability of having a say in job placement for new knights. I was hoping that me being her best friend, she would fight for me to get a good job, but that didn’t happen.

"You knew how much it meant to me getting into the Knights. You can't blame me for showing a little happiness. It’s one of the most important days of my life"

I heard her mutter some sort of comeback under her breath, something to do with my love life.

"Hey, just you remember who got you through that thing with hacking Crusader Mellow's terminal so you could delete that dirt he had on you. You still owe me for that." I argued

"And I held up my side of the bargain, you’re in power armour tomorrow, and without me you wouldn't, what else do you want me to do? Huh?" she shrugged

I sighed; clearly my destiny was going to be taken in baby steps. And I guess border patrol isn't too bad. I would get to be in power armour, and have some more chances to practise firing weapons. Plus it gives me the chance to earn the trust of the governing rangers here at the Watering Hole. And it definitely beats having to spend the next year of my life with Little Miss Cranky Hooves in the canteen; even thinking about it brings premonitions of scrubbing the floor as she pours more of her tasteless slop on the floor. I admit defeat and got stuck into my food, forgetting it had gone cold by wasting my time in that argument. Hopefully tomorrow will be a little more heated and interesting

"In my opinion, the best way to get this job done is to treat everywhere like a blank piece of paper, a huge one. Try to tell your mind that everything here is normal, so then you can better notice anything unusual." my mentor droned on.

"Umm, Hmm." my show of interest was clearly lacking. Heated and interesting my flank! Who was I trying to fool, this is horrifically boring. My mentor's enthusiastic attitude overlooked my disinterest entirely, just as well I guess. Despite the hatred of this job I was now developing, I had to face the facts, this armour was pretty cool. I had been in training armour before as an initiate, but the many of the features were stripped back to allow for errors we may have. We were only equipped with stun weaponry so we could cause little harm to each other or the mentors teaching us. We were taught to use many different weapons however such as grenade launchers, sniper rifles and Gatling guns outside of the armour against targets, but we were also tasked with killing another being, half alive. A ghoul.

It was our final ballistic weapons trial in the self defence module; we were tasked with killing a moving, hostile target. I was pretty skilled in taking down the targets with little ammunition spent; enough to keep up with the average pass level. The initiates in the assessment with me all thought it would just be another moving target that instead of staring at you, fired bullets randomly over the range. We were a surprisingly under-equipped contingency from what I have learned, which made this assumption add up, but we were completely wrong. We were led roughly half a mile from the Range where we arrived at a cage, alone towards the edge of the Watering Hole. It contained a simulated wasteland environment with wreckage, random holes and small bodies of water which we were told to be treated as radioactive. We were instructed that one of us would enter at a time and we would have to defend ourselves from the hostile target. Following our normal order of ability, I went last. The leading rangers went into the small building connected to the cage to monitor us from afar. Up first was top of the class, Cherry Strudel herself. She entered the cage and took cover behind some sky wagon wreckage. At the other end of the cage from here was a small steel shutter where the 'target' would deploy from. We all waited silently, not expecting what would come next. The shutter hit the top of the frame with a loud clack which made a few of us, including me, jump in fright. However nothing emerged, we all uniformly peered around the corner to see inside the doorway, but all that was enclosed within was darkness. But suddenly there was a groan. A deep, quiet groan that sounded painful. I looked to my left to see who made the noise but they all stared between each other asking the exact same question. Then a putrid smell of something rotting reached our muzzles that made us all gag. We returned our gazes to the doorway.

"Is it broken?!" Cherry Strudel shouted from the other end of the cage.

I was about to shout back to her 'I think so' when something emerged from the shutter at last. A dark green leg left the confines of the darkness and made its debut in the cage. We all gasped as it occurred to us that the hostile target was not in fact another cardboard cut-out, but a living target, possibly a raider! But then another foreleg entered the light and I then connected the smell. The second leg had lost all its fur, and was even stripped of flesh in places, revealing the yellow tinged bone beneath. The head then drooped out, revealing its pupil less eyes. It wasn't living at all, it was undead. A large gulp came from the stallion next to me, also beginning to shudder at the sight of the had-been pony. I however did not show or feel any form of fear, as I had in fact read about these beings before. These ponies had been alive but after death had been kept alive by excess amounts of radiation, referred to as Ghouls. Many treated Ghouls as hostile beings but many in fact remain sane of mind, only going feral after a long time after resurrection. This ghoul did not appear to be feral, it was definitely aware of our presence as it had painfully raised its neck to look at us all. It looked to me, much longer than the others. It appeared to want to say something by how its mouth was shuddering, but was unable; it also showed a little sadness in its expression. It then began to meander towards the perimeter of the cage, closer to me. I stayed my ground as my classmates began to back step away from the edge. It stopped with its head pressing at the cage, making no attempt to gnaw away at it or free itself, but stared what appeared to be longingly into my visor. I then began to feel pity for it, it clearly was not feral, it may have been confused as it was unable to talk, but it did not deserve to be locked away here, it was a pony at the end of the day, not a monster. I lifted my hoof from the ground and began to place it on the fence.

BANG

1 inch away from the fence, the entire form of the Ghoul in front of me exploded, knocking me back on to my flank. I look up to see that the Ghoul is no longer there, leaving a few bones strewn across the ground. I was speechless.

"Did I pass!" shouted Cherry from the centre of the cage, reloading her grenade launcher.

"Congratulations, Cherry Strudel, 100% as always." came the voice of our mentor from the intercom

I remained there; shocked at the atrocity she had just committed showing no regret. She had just killed an innocent pony, with no remorse. How could she live with herself, let alone jumping for joy about it?

And you can guess what happened when it came to my turn, I stood there in the cage, a grim feeling down my spine, knowing I would have to kill one. If I didn't, I would fail my entire weapons handling module and doom any chances of me becoming a knight. But at what cost? Was it worth it? To end another life so I could succeed?

I look to my side to see all of my classmates watching eagerly with their helmets off, Cherry smiling at me, lipping to me "You can do it". I was still angry at her for what she had done, but I didn’t let it get to me, I had to focus. Before I could fully make the decision, the shutter opened again for the last time, revealing instantly a yellow pegasus ghoul. It was missing a wing, exposing the conjoining bone but was otherwise fairly unscathed compared to some of the others here. The only other scar I could see was a large strike stretching from behind its neck and up to its right eye, preventing it from opening. It stood there for a few moments as did I, holding my nerve. Maybe I could find some way of knocking it out rather than killing it, possibly fooling the mentors to think that I had killed it. At least its life would then be off my conscience. However I was equipped with dual 50 Cal shotguns which would definitely rip its head off rather than knocking it out. I scanned my surroundings looking for anything I could use, a rock, some debris, anything. But nothing here looks harmless enough to knock it out without killing it; all I could see was jagged pieces of wood and sharp metal. But I then heard the sound of hoof steps. They were quick in pace, and rapidly speeding up. I glanced up and did a double take. The ghoul was galloping right towards me, snarling and flapping its one remaining wing. None of the ghouls we had seen today had done this, but why this one, unless... It was feral!

"Shit! Shit! Shit!" I shouted as I panicked and began to run.

I heard gasps from outside the cage as my panic was shared with them. The ghoul stayed hot on my tail as it carried on snapping at me. I didn't know what to do, it may not be able to harm me while in this suit, but that's an absolute guess, plus it was emitting radiation also, which will definitely do me no good as these initiate grade power armour suits had no form of anti-radiation. The sooner I got rid of it, the quicker I’ll be out of the cage, but it was still a living being, it’s just suffering some serious mental problems, it’s still a pony. I carried on contemplating my next move as a galloped away until my hoof was met with some wreckage and I toppled over onto my back. I was dazed by my clumsiness but was soon brought back to attention when the ghoul dived on top of me, landing face to face. It began to bite at my visor, scratching it, I tried to remain calm so I could think of a resolution, but that was before a chip appeared in the visor. I screamed. This was the end of me here. Forget becoming a knight, I was going to become ghoul chowder. I screamed for help for what seemed like ages as the cracks began to stretch across my visor.

BOOM

Everything went black as I was thrown upwards into the air and landed with my armour taking the impact. I opened my eyes and looked at the carcass of my former enemy. I rolled onto my back as help approached me, bringing a stretcher. I drifted between conscience as I was taken to a medical bay, but I later found out that I had passed my module, but not by my own doing, but from one of Cherry's leftover Remote Explosives, which she activated stealthily when she saw me in trouble.

That moment that made me famous around the contingency as the Ghoul Hugger. But it soon turned negative when an investigation found out about Cherry's explosive, so in the end they gave me a pass but not a full one, as well as giving both of us a 3 week long punishment of cleaning the Watering Hole locker rooms, definitely a bit harsh.

Two hours had passed since I had started my second shift on lookout, and it had only just occurred to me that this job really doesn't get any more interesting. All there was to do was look at rocks, dirt, the odd crevice or two and... Oh, and nearly forgot, more rocks. Occasionally a party of knights left or entered the gate, going out to bring order to the wastes and bring back whatever treasure they may find. That's what I found exciting about becoming a knight, we get the best of both worlds, and we help others and hunt down lost technology. That's what I had learned in my orientation and made me 100% set on becoming a knight.

I examined one party returning from their mission. As they walked through the gate, the Crusader at the back looked up at me and nodded. His armour had a long red smear going from the lower left part of his neck down to his left foreleg. I returned the nod but I noticed something drop from his armour. I couldn't get a good look at what it was but I took note of where it was. I looked to my left and right to see nobody, not even my mentor monitoring the gate. Taking the best chance I had while the gate was closed, I sneaked down from the post above the gate and approached the location where the object was. Below me I identified it; it was an electronic key, very rare, only the select few carry these as they are used to access restricted areas of the Contingency. I had seen them before when we had to learn about the various forms of technology used by the Rangers. I picked it up and clipped it to the bar on the side of my neck; I would return it to him when my shift was over. But then as I returned to my post, it got me wondering. Crusaders had a direct influence on the placement of new initiates in the Contingency. Maybe this key could let me get an inside scoop on why I was placed here, because I honestly think Cherry played me here to save her own flank.

It was settled, tonight was Stakeout Night, and hasn’t done one of those in a while. I chuckled at the thought of it, it got me really excited, but I would need some help. And it definitely wasn't going to be Cherry Strudel.