The first day of what the Commander called “boot camp” was tough. The physical aspect wasn’t nearly as bad for Silver as it was for everyone else, but he had to admit, the marksmanship section was grueling.
He had thought numerous times that the Guard lacked proper marksmanship training, mostly because flintlock firearms were still a rarity among the military and the general populace, but even if he had been trained, it would have only helped him so much with these.
“This is a pneumatic crossbow,” The Commander said, holding a strange weapon that barely resembled a musket. A long, wide tube sat to the right side, while a the trigger mechanism and a large yellow gem was to the left. “Powered by an elemental gem of air, this crossbow silently fires silver tipped, yew wood bolts. Silver for lycans, yew for vampires, refer to rule number four.”
“Silver kills lycans, not vampires!” the rookies answered, reciting the rule that had been drilled into their heads.
“Correct, too many died because they believed some watered-down romance garbage,” the Commander told them taking another drag on his cigarette. “Now I have heard some complaints that these are not more powerful than the ‘new’ flintlock available to the public, to which I have to say that we were using those almost ten years ago.”
He passed the pneumatic crossbow to Neon Kick, who stared at the weapon with a mix mistrust and awe.
He obviously never held a weapon before.
“While the flintlock has superior power and range, it loses speed, accuracy, and silence, both of which can be the difference between living till tomorrow, or taking a dirt nap by evening,” Spike continued, staring down the line. “You will practice with these crossbows until you can take them apart, put them back together, and hit a full magazine of bullseye’s. Am I understood?”
“Sir, yes, sir!” they answered.
“Then stop wasting time and get to work!”
And so began the most grueling marksmanship class Silver had faced. Admittedly, it was maybe his second in his entire life, but grueling nonetheless. While the pneumatic crossbow did not have much in the way of recoil, the power of the bolts as they slammed into the target was almost surprising.
It took some time to get used to the slight drop on the bolts, as well as the the sheer speed in the rate of fire that the pneumatic crossbow offered. Even so, despite the apparent accuracy of these weapons, Silver was having trouble, and wound up unloading half a magazine to the left of a target.
The crossbow simply fired far too fast, if he held the trigger down for longer than five seconds the magazine would need to be replaced completely. If he was off target when he fired, anywhere from five to ten bolts stuck into the side missing completely.
He was just not having luck with it.
And the second and third day was not better.
“Hold fire!” The Commander yelled on the fourth straight day of firing practice.
Silver sighed as he brought up his crossbow. At least most of the bolts hit the target this time.
Spike walked down the line, smoking another one of his paper cigarettes, and checking the targets. “Silver, stop re-aiming. Keep your groupings tight, then work on accuracy.”
“Sir, yes, sir!” he replied.
“Mandible, good to see you can finally hit the target now.”
The changeling grumbled something that sounded like a thank you, sir.
Silver took a second to snort out the scent of burning paper and stared down at his target again. As he waited for the Commander to order him to collect their bolts, he found himself wondering once more why the dragon insisted on smoking empty cigarettes. It took him a while to identify the smell of paper smoke in the cigarette, as he was sure that it would have to be something else. Yet here it was that—
“Silk,” the Commander said, nodding. “Now that is some excellent shooting!”
“Sir, thank you, sir!”
Silver looked over, to the mare’s target, and almost gaped at the tight group of forty bolts all piercing the bullseye.
“Do that again,” Spike ordered, handing her a full magazine.
Silk Star nodded, and took aim, firing her bolts in disciplined bursts, forty new bolts shot forward, each digging straight into the bullseye with ease, and Silver felt a twinge of jealousy at the sight of her shooting. Spike nodded, impressed as she kept hitting the center of the target with every shot, until only the hiss of air sounded, signalling that the magazine was not empty.
“Do it again,” Spike said, handing her another magazine.
Again she fired into the target, and again her accuracy was spot on.
“One more time and I can move you up to the next training stage,” he said, handing her the last magazine.
Once more she emptied the magazine into the target, and once more Silver felt a twinge of anger at the sight of her marksmanship.
Spike nodded again. “We’re probably going to move you to sniper,” he said, as he looked at the target.
“Ah, so zees are zee new recruits, ja?” a new voice said, and all eyes turned to a mare that was making her way down the stairs. The yellow-coated unicorn smiled as she descended, her snout at a thirty degree angle in the air with a pair of large, fashionable sunglasses hiding her eyes. Her baby blue mane was hidden behind a hunter green cloth hat that clung to her head.
She smirked as she finally stepped down onto the firing range, and removed her sunglasses, revealing the two, blood red eyes beneath them.
Silver instantly felt captivated by those eyes. The depths of which almost swallowed him whole. His world simply became a great swirling pool of red and darkness. There was nothing beyond those eyes, nothing before, and nothing after. There was only those eyes.
And then, as if he was suddenly released, the world around him returned, and the new mare’s horn was in her hoof.
A fake.
“Ja, ja. Zees are fery strong, no? Zey schoult do vell,” she said, before a previously hidden pair of leathery wings stretched out from her sides.
“Ah, Fluttershy,” Spike said, giving her his attention. “I was wondering when you would get back.”
“Atatatata!” The pegasus chided as she held up her hoof. “Kommandant Shpike, you schoult know better by now. I am Dame Butter Streusel, and Dame Flutterschy vill shtill take some time to adjust. But don’ten sie vorry, Herr Shpike, you vill shtill receive your report.”
Spike gave a long-suffering sigh. “How long before the report?”
“At least until after lunch,” she said, removing the hat, and revealing the blue wig and her flowing pink hair beneath. “Ve schall zee, sough.”
Another sigh from the dragon. “Fine,” he said.
The vampire nodded with a smile, before walking away, heading back up the stairs.
Spike then stood, and said in an incredibly commanding voice. “But you will eat in the cafeteria.”
The mare froze, and Silver could swear a tiny little “eep” escaped her lips.
“What?” she asked, the strong accent gone from her now almost pitiful voice. Her posture had transformed from that of a confident mare to that of a tiny filly, hiding from the dark.
“I let you get away with it for long enough, Fluttershy. You’re going to eat in the cafeteria.”
“I…” she squeaked, and Silver wondered that had happened to the strong mare once known as Butter Streusel. “I…”
“Fluttershy,” Spike said, in an admonishing tone.
“O-o-okay…” she finally said, before backing away from the dragon.
When she finally left the room, Spike sighed. “That poor mare…” he then turned to the others and spoke. “Alright, rookies, break for lunch, when you come back, we’ll discuss team composition, and all kinds of good stuff, dismissed.”
===ᐁ===
The mess hall was a large room with a low, domed ceiling. A hundred and fifty feet long, there was more than enough room for everypony in the entire facility to sit down and eat all at once.
As it was, many of the long table were empty, but Silver did see a few familiar faces; Caramel Crystal, Velvet Storm, Fluttershy, and the almost-as-green team Gamma.
Team Gamma had apparently arrived two days before Silver’s own team Alpha, and while they did tend to stay apart, this massive brick wall of a pony named Chestnut had done whatever he could to be amiable.
Even so, Silver’s attention was being split between his team’s conversation, and the mysterious mare he had first met just minutes before.
“Luna’s Teeth, Silk!” one of the earth ponies in his team exclaimed. “Where did you learn to shoot like that?”
“Oh, it’s nothing,” she replied. “My uncle just owns a farm out by Baltimare, and I spent a few summers out there shooting his musket. It was pretty much the only fun thing to do out there...so I guess I just had a lot of practice is all.”
“Oh is that all?” Mandible sneered.
Silver rolled his eyes. “Easy prisoner,” he said.
“I hope you choke on your meal, Guard,” he answered back.
Mandible was perhaps the most problematic member of the team. He grunted, growled, and spat bitterness at every opportunity. Every other word he spoke was filled with vitriol and disgust, up to the point where he pushed everyone else away.
To be fair, though, Silver wasn’t the most social of ponies himself, and there were a lot of ponies on his own team that he still didn’t know the names of.
As they grabbed their aluminum trays with their plates of rice, oats, and salads piled high, Team Alpha quickly found a place to sit, and began eating away. All the while, however, Silver watched the neighbors. The Headless Horse, miss Caramel, had opened the top of her jar and dropped ground lettuce into the green, jelly-like liquid.
Velvet Storm sat alone, eating slowly as she enjoyed the salad with a simple oil and vinegar dressing.
And then there was Fluttershy. The pegasus with the leathery wings and the blood-red eyes stared, not at the blood pack he assumed would be there, but at four apples sitting on her tray. She didn’t make a sound as she stared at them, and didn’t so much as move for them, even as everypony around her ate.
Silver was fascinated with her as she stared at her food. There was an obvious hunger in her eyes as she stared at the apples in front of her, and yet she did not eat. She carefully lifted her hoof, and traced the gentle, sloping curve of the bright red apple, in an almost disturbingly loving way. She smiled as she watched her hoof trail against the soft, shiny surface of the fruit, and she licked her lips to wet her mouth, and revealed the fangs behind her smile.
And then, she suddenly looked up, and her eyes glanced around the room.
And then Silver saw those eyes once more. Those impossibly deep, red orbs that commanded his attention and sapped at his will.
“Look away.”
The words echoed in his head like a bell knoll, and he turned away out of a compulsion he could not explain. The second he turned away he wanted to watch again, eager to see the vampire that wanted to eat apples, and try to understand her shyness.
But he couldn’t. He had to stare at his tray. He literally could not turn around. Sweat began to bead on his forehead as he tried to so desperately hard to turn and watch.
Then, his head finally sapped back, staring at Fluttershy and her tray.
Or at least...the tray.
Fluttershy was already gone, and her tray sat on the table, with only four desiccated apple, no larger than a core.
===ᐁ===
“A team is composed of eight different duties.” Spike explained as team Alpha sat in the training grounds next to the armory. “They are; Assault, the close quarters combat specialist; Sniper, long-range support; Medic, pretty self-explanatory; Heavy Weapons, again self-explanatory; Support, the all around; Scout, the guy who’s going to give you all the info you need; Demolitions, for when you have something big to get rid of; and Infiltration, guess who’s going to get that job.”
A few chuckles from the ponies in the team as a few glances were shot Mandible’s way.
Spike continued without losing a beat. “Each duty or class has their own special equipment and kit. Two of you have already found classes that fit your skills, so now the rest of you have to figure out your placement. First, you’re going to run through various tests and training regiments to figure out where you fit best,” he said, picking up a strange looking rifle.
“In the meantime, you all will continue using the pneumatic crossbows until you can consistently hit something in the morning, in the evening, you will work on trying to find your niche. But, as a taste of things to look forward to, Silk, catch.”
He tossed the rifle at her, and Silver looked at it with a curious gaze. It’s long, sleek barrel was encased in an angular, heavy-duty plastic casing. Down the rifle, closer to where the chamber should be was a gem, glowing a dull red like hot steel. Silk looked it up and down, feeling the weight of it in her hooves.
“That is a Thermal Shot Long-range rifle, or the TS longrifle for short. Unlike the pneumatic crossbows, the TS fires beams of heat-based magical energy. It has no projectile drop, and a far greater range than any other weapon here, and the only reason why it’s not the standard, before any of you get smart enough to ask, is because of the rate of fire. The gem takes too long to cool after a shot that powerful, so it’s not suitable for close range combat, where you can be surrounded by few dozen zombies.
“But,” Spike continued, as he grabbed a couple of bundles, “the important thing is, this is only the start of the equipment you get to get your hooves on here, so the lesson to learn is, the harder you work, the sooner you get your toys. Am I understood?”
“Sir, yes, sir!”
“Then move out, Alpha Team.”
===ᐁ===
It took two weeks before Silver was given his class. He still had a few issues hitting things with his pneumatic crossbow, but his guard training did leave him with quite the proficiency in melee combat. The Commander did make a crack that maybe he’d hit something now that he’d be closer, but Silver was willing to live with that.
His special gear was the same bog standard pneumatic crossbow, but he did also a very nice short sword. A strange thing with a silver blade with a magically reinforced obsidian body. At first, he was incredibly confused by the stone composition in the blade, but he was soon informed by Sweetie Belle that obsidian was able to affect ghosts and such.
Apparently, that was part of rule 27.
“How many rules are there?” he asked.
“How many?” Sweetie answered, as she floated next to him. “As many as Spike wants at any given time. But he does have a few important ones that he repeats constantly.”
“Which ones?”
“Rule number one, typically,” she said, before turning on her back and continuing to float forward. “Whatever you do, don’t die. Then there’s rule number two, if you have to die, try to die in such a way that you don’t make the enemy stronger.”
“Make them stronger?”
“You know, becoming a zombie, vampire, lycan, being the last sacrifice to release a Great Old One, that kind of thing.”
Silver’s brow furrowed. “Does that happen often?”
“Often enough that it’s a rule!” she replied.
Silver looked her over, an eyebrow raised. “Are all ghosts as chipper as you?”
“Nah,” she said, righting herself, before she continued. “I’m not like most ghosts. I was a soldier here. I knew there was a good chance I wasn’t going to finish my business here, I was prepared for it.”
Silver shivered, suddenly very aware how cold it was in this hallway.
“No...most ghost think too much about how they passed. They all think about the one who murdered them, about how their life was stolen from them at their most vulnerable moment.”
The hallway was getting darker, but Silver could only stare at the ghost beside him as she appeared to swallow the light around her, her eyes now glowing orbs surrounded by shadow.
“No, all they think about is how everything they have was stolen from them, how the world has ceased to be their home. They think about how the stallion that murdered them still walks this earth as their own body rots in the earth if it’s not already gone!”
She was seething, and the hallway seemed to breath with her every word, shuddering as her anger filled the darkness around them. The very foundation of the world seemed to pulsate with her every word.
“And they think about how they want to kill them! How they want to strangle them! How they want to pierce his body with every single item in his house! How they want to kill him so that feels every single thing and I felt when he killed me!”
Her voice was that of a dark lord, resounding, terrible, and full of malice.
“I want to watch his life bleed from his eyes as I strangle him! I want to watch him struggle to breathe! I want to watch as his soul is yanked from his body and flies straight into the abyss!”
Silver was backing up slowly.
“I want him dead!” she wailed, and her voice screamed through his soul.
He backed up again, and as he did, he felt old wood touch his flank.
The ghost stopped suddenly, and the world went back to normal, but she was in his face, her big green eyes panicked and pleading. “What are you doing?” she asked. “Are you insane?”
He felt ethereal hooves pull him away, and he stared at the thing behind him that broke the ghost from her monologue of revenge.
And he saw a door.
A simple, wooden, red, triangular door with a simple candle carved into its front.
He blinked as he looked at it, confused for a number of reasons.
The first was the door itself. Every other door he had seen in the entire complex was a thick, steel door that opened by some hidden mechanism that slid them down into place. This was the first wooden door he had seen since…well since he got here.
The second was the absolute terror that had flashed in the eyes of the ghost next to him.
“W-what is that?” he asked, baffled and confused.
“That’s the door to the Commander’s room,” she whispered, as though they were the words of some dark tome.
“The Commander’s room?” he asked.
She turned to him, and she shook her head. “You know rule number one?” she asked.
He nodded.
“Rule zero: Do not, under any circumstances, enter that room.”
Silver blinked again. “Why? W-what’s in there?”
“You don’t need to know,” she said, gently pulling him away. “All you do need to know is that the Commander killed the last pony that went in there, himself. It was not a pretty death.”
Silver blinked once more, letting himself be dragged away by the ghost who so desperately wanted to get him away.
And yet, even as he was being pulled, he chanced one last look back.
And the little red door, with the little yellow candle burned into his mind stronger than the memory of the sun itself.