//------------------------------// // Chapter 5: (dis)Orientation // Story: Monster Hunter: Equestria // by Bugsydor //------------------------------// It hadn't been easy to get used to, but having a second opinion about things was actually kinda useful. Even if Shadow wasn’t quite up on all the latest on home values and the like, he was pretty good at reading ponies when they were trying to take advantage of me. He was always keen on pointing out predatory behavior in ponies I came across, especially when it was directed at me. Speaking of home values, my and Dinky’s new nest was just about everything I could have hoped for. Four bedrooms (I’d planned to turn two of them into guest rooms), two bathrooms (in case both Dinky and I needed one at the same time), a kitchen with crystal counters and a thaumic induction cooktop (it could make a pot of water boil while you watched it), a wide pantry with high shelves and a stepladder, and even a nice open reading room with a wall of windows on the north side (Dinky told me this was her favorite part). It might not have been a mansion like what the Riches had, but it was a good house. Owning it outright, no strings attached, was a big weight off my mind as well. I only ended up spending seventy of my one-hundred chips on the house itself, which left me with a still pretty sizable onety chips to spend or save for whatever. I spent one of them on a cloud bed for myself, since Dinky insisted. She wouldn’t let me not get myself one after all the grumbling she’d heard me do in the mornings about how comfy clouds were compared to box springs. It was a fancy one, too, even for a cloud bed. Its outer shell was some kind of new synthetic fabric, with its insides coated in enchanted gold foil. At its core, according to the brochure, was a base made from structural stratus topped with a layer of fluffy cumulus. The result was a bed firm enough to withstand the assault of a bouncing unicorn filly, yet soft enough to accept a weary pegasus who’d just had a wonderful, exhausting day without forcing her to contort herself in ways Twilight never meant pegasi to bend. That was the best night’s sleep I’d had in a long time. Not before Dinky and I had celebrated the move with an entire tub of cookie dough ice cream, though. At my insistence. \|/-Her Highness's Hunters Campus-\|/ My new workplace was actually pretty close to my new house, which was really nice. Until recently, I’d had much longer mail routes than my new commute. I’d describe the campus as being not so much imposing as it was sprawling. It might not have been one quarter the size of Ponyville, but I still had to fly up a ways before I could see the whole thing. Weren't very many ponies there, though. Only ones I saw from above were moving construction equipment out of there. I landed in front of the central building where we’d meet for the orientation (with about onety minutes to spare), walked inside, and almost immediately found one of my new co-workers. “Howdy, stranger! M’name’s Steely Hoof,” the iron gray earth stallion said as he extended a… steely hoof. “You must be one of the new recruits. What do ponies call you?” One of the blessings of having a wandering eye is that ponies can’t really tell when you’re staring. I didn’t mean that his hoof was steel-colored (though his other hooves kinda were). I meant that his hoof was literally made of steel. As in, his left foreleg had been replaced by a collection of magically moving metal parts a little below the elbow. “I see you’re ogling my mechanical hoof,” he said, a smirk on his muzzle. ‘Horse apples! How the hay did he notice?’ “Don’t worry,” he said with a chuckle, “I ain’t offended, ma’am. I mean, it is kind of an eye-catcher, and I’m all about catching eyes.” ‘Did he just pose?’ ‘Yeah, Shadow, I think he did.’ “Wanna hear the story of how I got it?” “Sure,” I said, after a few seconds of continuing to boggle at him. “It is kinda mysterious, I guess, heh heh.” “Let's walk and talk. Apparently there's this big orientation meetin’ in a few minutes that everypony’s supposed to be at,” he said with a wink. “So it all started with my being in that most dangerous of situations—I was bored. Bored out of my gourd. You’d think it would be darn-near impossible to get bored when you're in the EUP, but it's easy if you try. “Anyhow, I’d heard word that a posting had opened up in one of our bases overseas, and I completely failed to hesitate to volunteer. My superiors were pretty eager to recommend me for the post, too, which should have been my second clue as to what I was getting myself into…” It was quite a story. To hear him tell it, the frontiers of Neighpon are four times wilder than the lands around Dodge Junction that he hailed from. Rogue ronin galloping across the countryside like pre-classical knights errant in search of honor, adventure, or profit, corrupt daimyos fighting each other for land both on the battlefield and in the shadows—there was even a ninja. “So the reason this ninja was so dangerous was because there was exactly one o’ them, and they – I never did figure out if they were a mare or a stallion—” “Steeeeee-leeeeeee Hoof! You corruptin’ the new blood again?” A light-golden-brown unicorn shouted as she rounded a corner in front of us. She took a position in our procession between me and Steely, her glare cooling from furious to wry as she turned to address me directly. “Has my little brother gotten to the part where he was partnered with a fully-grown dragon for the seven-legged race yet? That’s always one of my favorite parts.” “Why, Golden Gleam, I was just getting acquainted with this fine mare. And besides, there weren't going to be any dragons involved at all this time. This one was going to have me lose the hoof putting on a fireworks show for the Emperor of Neighpon. His Highness loved the show, by the way,” he said, turning to wink at me again over his sister’s back. “Anyhow,” he continued, “me and miss… Shoot, I never did catch your name. My mama would tan my hide ‘erself if she caught me yammering away like that to a lady without even finding out what to call her.” “You incorrigible scoundrel!” Golden Gleam said as she conjured a bright goldenrod-yellow ball of light and pinged him in the head with it. “Already hitting on the new recruits? What would Mama think about that?” “Technically speakin’, we’re all new recruits, Goldie. And I’ll have you know Mama would think I was bein’ a perfect gentlecolt.” ‘Yep. Definitely siblings,’ I thought. ‘Indeed.’ “Anyway,” I butted in, “my name’s Derpy. Derpy Hooves. It’s nice to beet a couple of nice ponies so soon after getting here.” “...Beet?” she said. ‘Ehhhghgghg.’ “Sorry. Sometimes my mouth says things my brain doesn’t tell it to. Ha, ha?” I said through the nervous, way-too-wide smile on my probably beet-red face. “Y’mean like three quarters o’ everything Steely here says?” “Hey! I resemble that,” he fired back, glaring at his sister with a scrunched-up face. She returned his glare, and they shared it for all of three seconds before they both broke out laughing. I stared for about one more before joining in. “You’re alright, Derpy,” Golden Gleam said. “Anypony who can laugh at us and themselves can’t be too bad, I reckon. Come on, we’re not far from the room.” As we rounded a corner in the hallway, we ran into Bon Bon. (Not literally, thank Twilight.) “Derpy Hooves. Steely Hoof,” she said. “I see Golden Gleam managed to track you down for orientation. I was starting to worry you ponies had gotten lost in the complex, so I was coming to look for you myself.” “They, or Steely more really, didn't exactly make themselves hard to find with all his yackin’. He’d about talked that poor mare’s ears off when I found them.” “With all due respect, ma’am—” Steely winced as another ball of golden light pinged off his head. “We’ve still got three minutes until things are s’posed ta begin.” Two more lightballs pinged off his head. He gave his sister a brief glare. “That’s not quite necessary, Gleam,” Bon Bon said. “Steely Hoof isn’t wrong; I’m just… anxious to get going. This team is important to me, and I want us all to get started on the right hoof. “The other two ponies are already inside,” she said as she kicked a plate to open the door. As the door swung open, I saw a small amphitheatre with a few small cushions lying around on the lower levels, and the sort of blackboard, retractable screen, and projector combo you’d expect to see in a university classroom. Or, at least what I’d assume you’d find in one of those. Completing the picture was a black-topped demonstration desk – the kind that looks fire-, acid-, and just-about-anything-proof and has a ton of storage space. I wondered what we’d need all that for… There were two ponies in there already. One was an overcast gray pegasus stallion with a dark gray-blue mane and what looked like a permanently sour expression on his face. He was sitting on a cushion near the far side of the amphitheatre. The other was standing between the desk and the blackboard. He was a middle-aged pale burgundy unicorn stallion with a close-cropped crimson mane, and he was smiling softly at us like he’d recently finished a good nap. “Ah, Bon Bon!” the unicorn said. “I see you’ve located the rest of the team. Shall we begin, then?” “No, let’s wait for two minutes twenty,” she said, casting a playfully baleful glare at Steely Hoof. “We wouldn't want to get started early now, would we?” The amphitheatre was clearly meant to hold a way bigger audience than four. I found myself a seat on the cushion between Steely Hoof and the pegasus. Golden Gleam took a seat on the ground between me and Steely Hoof, leaving the cushion on the sour pegasus's right empty. The remaining seconds ticked away on the simple clock hanging in the top right corner of the room until the clock struck the hour and Bon Bon cleared her throat. “Welcome, everypony, to the halls of Her Highness's Hunters. This campus is where we will meet every morning for the rest of our foreseeable lives. This room is where we’ll begin and end our days for the next few weeks while we train you to fight monsters. Now, some of you are going to need more training than others, but—” Sourpuss raised a wing in question. “Yes, Thunderhead?” “I am here to fight monsters, not play soldier. Why should I be here doing drills and reading books when I could be out there, killing monsters? I thought the point of this was to be more proactive than that joke we call the Royal Guard.” A dangerous look flashed onto Bon Bon’s face. “Thunderhead, since you're so obviously ready to get out there and kill some monsters, please come to the front of the room for a demonstration.” He walked briskly up to Bon Bon and started to say, “Okay, what sort of demonstration do you wa—” Bon Bon kicked his two right legs out from under him with one leg, only to catch his wing with another when it flailed out for balance. She used his wing as a lever to flip him over and slam him onto his side, and then pinned him in place with one hoof locking his wing and another putting weight on his barrel. Her demonstration in effect, she looked up from Thunderhead and addressed the rest of us. “There are way worse things out there than kittybolds and cockatrices, ponies. Things that will tear out your throat before you can scream if you're not taught the tricks to spotting them from a distance. Things that will make your mind and body lock up with supernatural fear if you haven't been trained to resist it. Things that will take advantage of your first instincts like I just did with Thunderhead, unless we replace those instincts with better ones through extensive drills. Things that I and others have been trained to fight our entire lives, and that we’re willing to teach you to fight effectively. “Now if any of you would rather not go through with training, or if you don't plan to follow orders with exactness, I will remove you from the team now before some monster does the job for me. “Any further questions?” she said, looking over the rest of her audience. None of us made a sound. “Good,” she said, releasing Thunderhead from her painful-looking pin. “Demonstration finished. You may return to your seat, Thunderhead. “Now,” she continued, “you all know me as Bon Bon. As far as you’re concerned, I am the leader of this outfit. Generally speaking, I will be leading you in the field. “This fine stallion here is Crimson Tape. He might not be working with you in the field, but he is a wizard at slicing through his namesake in bureaucracy and paperwork, and is half the reason why Her Highness's Hunters exists today. He’s in charge of budget, requisitions, waivers, pay stubs, and anything else you can imagine that requires forms in triplicate. “Our mission at Her Highness's Hunters is to fight monsters so that other ponies don't have to think about them. We are Equestria's peace of mind when she goes to sleep for the night, and we are the reason why she doesn't wake up with a vampire on her neck. “You report to me, Crimson and I report to Luna, and she reports to absolutely noone. We’re ghosts in this, like the garbage pony. You can tell ponies about what we do if you like, about the monsters you’ve fought and the towns you’ve saved... but if we do our jobs right, nopony will care. “At this point, I would like to turn the time over to Crimson Tape. “Crimson, If you would.” “Certainly, my dear,” Crimson replied. “Greetings, everypony,” he said. “As Bon Bon has previously stated, I am Crimson Tape, bureaucrat extraordinaire. I would like to speak on what will be expected of you as members of Triple H, both in the immediate future and in general. “For the next few weeks, starting tomorrow, you will be expected to report to this room by onety-one-hundred hours for classroom instruction. Anypony who shows up late will be running extra laps at the end of that day’s physical training regimen: one lap per minute late for a unicorn, and two laps per minute late for an earth pony or pegasus. That rule and each of the others is delineated in the charter, which you will each receive a copy of at the end of the orientation. “The start and end times are subject to change depending on what we will be doing that day…” He continued on about rules and expectations like that for a while. I wished that I’d brought a pencil and notepad to take notes, though I supposed that having the charter would work if I ever forgot anything and needed to look it up. It looked like I’d be spending some extra time away from Dinky over the next few weeks, but it didn't look like it would be too hard to arrange a few sleepovers with her friends to cover those times we’d be training at night. “...And that brings us to what will be expected of you in terms of general conduct and responsibilities throughout your career. “First-off, collateral damage: Try to keep it to a minimum. While I can’t, per the charter, dock your pay for it, doing significant damage to your environment means more paperwork for me, including interviews with you. Besides, it would mean missing out on your 'No Collateral Damage’ Bonuses for that mission. Whether it's worth missing out on that bonus or not is up to your judgment. A guideline I suggest is that a pony’s life is generally worth more than a building's structural integrity. We can, after all, always rebuild a building. “Secondly, civilians in a combat zone: It's a scenario that comes up more often than we would like. It is not your job to remove them from the combat zone – leave that to other first-responders – but it is your job to remove the combat zone from them, if feasible. That is to say you should do your best to steer fights away from populated areas. In the event that a monster is possessing, mind-controlling, coercing, or otherwise forcing a civilian into the line of fire, then you are to use non-lethal force to remove them from combat. You will be taught a variety of non-lethal takedowns as part of your training. “In the event of civilian fatalities,” he said, his prim joviality switched-off, “the pony or ponies involved will be taken off of active duty for at least a week for investigation and evaluation. While it most-likely will not result in expulsion from the team – Ms. Bon did not recruit bad ponies – it could result in paid long-term suspension paired with mandated therapy. Her Highness looks after her hunters.” He let his audience take that in for a few seconds in silence. “Thirdly,” he said, once-again full of levity, “Looting: For the love of Luna, do not loot combat zones. With what the crown is paying you, you could likely just buy whatever you’d find out there anyway. “I believe that about covers my part of the orientation. Back to you, Ms. Bon.” “Thank you, Crimson.” “Now, I personally recruited each of you ponies, and I recruited each of you because you are exceptional.” Bon Bon’s eyes unfocused, like she was reading off of a clipboard only she could see. “Steely Hoof: Earth pony stallion, brother to Golden Gleam. Has a love for pyrotechnics and semantic technicalities, and rumor has it that one or both of these earned him that shiny prosthetic hoof of his. He’ll be our demolitions expert, and we’ll be needing him for that more than you’d expect. “Has a special talent for manipulating life energy, which means he can pick a pony back up if they get hurt. It’s also how he has such fine control over his prosthetic hoof. Steely Hoof preened, flexing his metal hoof. “Also has a tendency towards tall tales and 'enhancing the truth,’ so all should be prepared to take his stories with a block of salt. That, along with his tendency to think inside the chimney when it came to following the letter of his orders, kept him from climbing the ranks of the EUP.” His preening was replaced with a look of chagrin. “In combat, Steely Hoof prefers to be in-the-fray on the front lines, and has developed the close-quarters-battle skills needed to thrive there. The rest of you could learn a lot from him there,” she said, giving a pointed look to Thunderhead. “Golden Gleam: Unicorn mare, sister to Steely Hoof. Has a special talent for creating hard-light constructs, and she’s honed that talent to make deadly attacks and form impervious defenses at range, among other applications. “Gifted with planning, implementing, and improvising battlefield tactics, and has been the EUP wargaming champion three years running. Despite this, she has consistently turned down promotions until now. Steely Hoof may be able to pick you up when you fall down, but listening to Golden Gleam will keep you from falling down in the first place. Of course, her shields are a lot of help there too, so try to stand behind those.” Golden Gleam nodded subtly, a small, pleased smile on the tip of her muzzle. “Derpy Hooves: Pegasus mare. Ponyville lost a great mail carrier, but we needed her more. Her special talent is her entropic touch. Her innate magic causes things to catastrophically fail in seemingly impossible ways, typically in ways harmful to the immediate target of her ire and the surrounding area. As a pony used to civilian life, her talent needs refinement to be more directly useful in combat. Properly trained, she could turn a fortified bunker into a death trap on a whim. Without training, she can still do that – just not as reliably, or as precisely. In short, she is not a mare whose bad side you want to be on.” ‘Well, I guess that’s a fairly positive spin on it.’ ‘Spin is a necessary skill for any good leader, my host.’ “Beyond her talent, she is durable to a point most earth ponies would envy. I have seen her shrug off being flattened, clobbered, electrocuted, and all sorts of other things that would have had another pony calling for a medic. Just last week, she killed a vampire with her bare hooves in Canterlot. She then flew home to Ponyville to make sure her daughter was all right before being taken to the hospital.” “Well once ya’ve been through childbirth,” I said, “All the other pain is kinda meh.” That got a chuckle from Bon Bon, a polite nod from Crimson Tape, a smirk from Golden Gleam, a snort from Steely Hoof, and nothing from the still-fuming Thunderhead. “Thunderhead: Pegasus stallion. Has a special talent for weather magic, particularly weather magic involving electrical storms. Results-focused to a fault, and ruthless in their pursuit. He is the sort of pony that, once he has a goal in mind, will power through anything and anyone that gets in his way. Though he was also, until recently, a civilian, he proved to have what his coworkers on the Stratusburg weather team described as ‘an alarming proficiency with weaponized lightning’ in the official report the city filed on the kittybold attack several months back. Other words they used to describe him included ‘proactive’ or ‘did not hesitate’ or ‘I never knew lightning could fork that way.’” ‘He hasn’t moved an inch since he got back to his seat,’ I noted. “And me, Bon Bon: Earth pony mare. Your commanding officer. I have a special talent for making alchemical candies. I make ‘chocolates’ with effects ranging from explosives to sedatives, and more other effects than any of you will be able to keep track of. I can tell them apart easy enough, but I doubt that any of you can. Accordingly, I advise against eating random candies that you see lying around campus. If you get lucky and eat a benign one, I will make you run laps until you puke it back up. If you eat one and come down with a case of the explosions, then that will be its own punishment.” She paused and looked around at this point, probably to let her last statement sink in and to drink in our queasy, unsettled expressions. “I’ve been hunting monsters since I was onety-five,” she continued, “and had been training to do so for seven years before that. Believe me when I say that it is very hard to be overprepared for fighting monsters, but for you I will do my best. “One thing we all have in common,” Bon Bon said, “is that we’ve all been government employees of some sort or another. Golden Gleam and Steely Hoof are both from the EUP Armed Forces. Thunderhead was a weather pony from Stratusburg out east. Derpy Hooves was a mailmare in Ponyville. Crimson Tape and I, well, we’re the last vestiges of the old organization. “Together, we make up Her Highness's Hunters: An elite team of monster hunters that takes on those things that go bump in the night so other ponies don't have to think about them. Or really, an elite team is what we all will be, assuming none of you wash out of training.” 'Ah, the cycle of violence continues. You see that, my host? That is a predator’s grin. It appears you are in for some interesting times.’ ‘I noticed,’ I replied, more than a little nervous. 'Good. That means you’re learning.’