The Equestrian Honor Guard
Chapter 22 (Dubs)
By Honored Service
The chariot touched down lightly on a large platform located in the Royal Gardens. I threw myself off of it and unto the ground.
“And I made it perfectly clear that I had asked for a Vin Délimité de Qualité Supérieure and yet that lowly server brought me Vin de Table. Can you believe the nerve of her? So that’s why I had her fired and sent to Ponyville. My wine specialist should have known better.” Blueblood stepped down lightly onto the platform and stared at me. I was too busy to notice as I was slamming my head onto the marble landing area.
“Well I know humans are strange, disgusting creatures, but don’t ruin anything with your brutish ways.” He flipped his hair and turned away from me. That. Was. Fucking. It.
I raised myself to my full height and walked up behind the snooty unicorn. “Hey asshole!”
“Excuse you! You will apologize at once you barbari-“ I shot out my arm and punched that damn unicorn right in his jaw. Now it wasn’t a full out K.O. punch, just a punch to shut him up.
“Listen here buddy.” I grabbed his little collar and pulled him closer to me. “I just sat and listened to you bad mouth have the fucking city of Canterlot. You have no respect for anyone other than the Princesses and that’s only because for some unknown reason they give you what you want!” Prince douche bag’s eyes had shrunk to pinpoints and sweat began to break out across his brow as I held him in place so I could vent on him.
“You are the most stuck up, pompous, jack ass on this world! And I came from a world filled with people like you. And they always were hated by everyone around them.” I pushed him backwards which caused him to stumble and fall onto his back. He began to crawl away from me, but I wasn’t done yet. It had been a long flight.
“If you don’t fucking get your act together Blueblood. Then we are going to find out if your name really is true.” I finished by smashing my balled up fist into my other hand with a satisfying SMACK.
“I….I….” Blueblood bolted like a frightened little girl. I mean he ran off quicker that Rainbow Dash, it was crazy fast.
“Hey, did you really mean that?” I turned around to face the group of guards that had been pulling the chariot. The four of them had gathered behind me in a square pattern. Their armor shined in the early morning sunlight. They ruffled their wings and tucked them up to their sides.
“No. It was meant to scare him silly.” I looked back to the direction the cowardly prince and vanished to. “And I’d say it worked pretty well.”
The lead Pegasus reached up and removed his helmet. As he took it off, his white coat shimmered and turned light brown. A short cropped red mane covered his head and he looked me over with his teal eyes.
“Thanks for that. We had to listen to that on the way to get you. We can’t tell him off. Doesn’t fit with the whole ‘serious guard’ thing we have to do. The names’ Fast Trail, Sergeant Fast Trail and you just made our day.” He gave a smile, and began to trot off with the other three white Pegasus.
“Hey Sarge!” I hollered after the group.
“Yeah?” He stopped and looked over his shoulder.
“You all have enchanted hlemets?” I always wondered why the guards had looked copy/paste in the show.
“Sure do, it helps keep the officers hidden. No enemy far away would know who was leading.” He continued off with the other guards. I watched them go until they were out of sight. Now it was just me and the garden. Well better take a look around.
I strolled through the garden, just waiting for somepony to come and get me. I thought that Celestia would have been waiting for me, but I guess I was wrong. Wait, what is this. Oh no way.
I found myself starring up into the statue of chaos. Discord. Now I respect the man, I think that he had gotten some bad rep. He wasn’t all that bad, just a little over the top with chaos and things.
“So you're Discord. Got to say I'm kind of a fan. I mean not the whole take over Equestria part, but your ability to have fun. Rules can be boring sometimes.” I walked up to the statue and noticed a sign planted near the base of it.
No Fighting Near The Draconequus
“Oh yes, that will keep everything safe. I hope you don’t come back buddy. I’m going to be in the guard you know. And with me in it, let’s just say the Elements of Harmony won’t be working alone anymore to save the day. I'm going to be saving the world with them. Because this place is my new home now.” I sat on the base of the statue and leaned back against the frozen creature’s leg.
“Yup, my new home.”
“I hoped you would think of this place as that.” Ah right on cue. I cracked one eye to see the flowing pastel rainbow mane of Celestia in my view.
I stood up and gave a slight bow to the Princess. “Good morning mam.”
She smiled and looked up to Discord. “I hope the flight wasn’t too bad.” She gave me a look from the corner of her eye. A tiny smile appeared on her lips.
“Oh yes. It was a pleasant flight; although I could have done without Prince Stick up his Ass.” I was still a little pissed about that. That had been a terrible flight.
“Now Honored, that isn’t very nice.” Celestia walked beside me and put a wing around my shoulder. “So are you ready to begin training?”
We walked out of the gardens and began heading towards the rear of the castle. As we neared the destination I started to hear the sound of hundreds of hoof steps and the muffled sound of yelling.
“As ready as I’ll ever be Princess. Am I going to be training with other ponies, or is it really going to just be me and Shining Armor?”
We rounded a corner that lead to a massive gate opening into the barracks of the Canterlot Guard. “Youll be with other ponies Honored Service, just have some…special circumstances.” We stepped into what I would forever call ‘the pony army’ camp. Ponies were everywhere preforming physical activities in ever section of the base. A group of ponies were being pushed to do pushups while a tall armored unicorn counted off their progress.
“120, 121,122,122”
Groups of Pegasus were being chased around track field by another officer. They were flying low and fast trying to stay in front of the yelling Guards.
A group of unicorns were levitating boulders across a huge field and then throwing them right back to the starting position where another group would perform the same task.
“Princess Celestia.” A voice came from behind us. We turned to face Shining Armor who was wearing his purple colored armor minus the helmet. He stopped and bowed to Celestia and then looked me up and down. “This is the human that you and Twilight have been telling me about?” He walked in a quick circle around me, coming to stop on my right side.
“He doesn’t look like he could take on Timber Wolves and live to tell the tale; kind of tall and lanky.”
What? After six months of grueling freshman year and to him I was tall and lanky? I had to to do 216 pushups at a time! This is bullshit. Sorry Shining that I'm not some huge rage monster covered in muscles. I am a precision warrior.
“Oh but I assure you he can. His species is able to craft extraordinary things.” She nodded towards my rifle resting at my side.
“Prove it.” Shining Armor had a smirk on his face. For a moment there, he looked exactly like Prince Blueblood with blue hair. OH IT’S ON MOTHER FUCKER!
I smiled as nonchalantly as I could and brought my rifle’s but to my shoulder. Keeping the barrel pointed at the ground I walked casually over to a group of unicorns that were shooting arrows at targets a hundred feet away. They all stopped mid draw and stared in awe at this creature that waltzed near them. They then hit the ground as the Princess and Captain of the guard came behind him.
“You may want to cover your ears.” I said to the Princess and my soon to me impressed trainer. I brought the rifle up to firing position and pulled the charging handle.
CLICK
The safety came off and I breathed slowly as I aimed for the center of the circle target down range. I squeezed the trigger on my beautiful weapon.
BOOM
Tink
The target that was down range exploded into bits of wood and straw. All the unicorn archers shrunk back and cringed at the loud noise that my weapon had emitted. Princess Celestia and Shining Armor both were awe struck at the now obliterated target down range.
“Well is that good enough?” I was feeling a bit cocky now. I had entered the guard camp and blown away everypony with my weapon. And they hadn’t even seen my pistol Spike, or the knife Bad Bertha.
“I’ll admit that is a very…unique weapon.” Shining Armor trotted up next to me. “And welcome to the Canterlot Guard. I’ll lead you to the barracks where you're going to stay while in training.”
“Honored, I must depart back to the castle, but be assured that my sister or myself will stop and check in on you. And don’t hesitate to come to us if you need to. For anything.” Princess Celestia smiled and bowed her head. I returned the gesture to her.
“Thank your majesty. You have been the most welcoming host to me. I owe you my life as a guard.” She walked off towards a set of golden doors leading into the castle. As soon as she was away from me, a group of golden glad ponies appeared beside her to escort her.
“And now you're mine.” Shining Armor said with a hint of joking in his voice. “Come on, let’s get the pack of your dropped off. Your real training starts tomorrow. Today I’ll get you settled and ready. Tonight you rest, tomorrow you work. Hard.” I agreed to him and we moved out to a series of small rectangle building tucked away into the left coroner side of the camp.
“Are you really going to be my personal trainer?” I asked him, it seems a little unofficial for one recruit to be placed under one officer; even if I was Equestria’s only human.
“OH no, you'll be with the other recruits for basic training. But when the time comes to make you Honor Guard, you’ll be with me specifically. And any other ponies who qualify.”
We rounded a turn and head straight for the building in the back. “Wait, ponies can be in Honor Guard too? I thought it was just humans. You know four humans, two to each Royal Sister.”
Shining smiled and replied, “It was like that, but no pony has been able to meet the standards that the human guards established to be an Honor Guard. They were the toughest, or so I'm told. I’ll let you know tomorrow what the standards are. I'm sure you'll make them.”
He opened the brown wooden door leading into the rectangular building. Above the door was a sign and it gold lettering it said сsaедddлleо. Um…I did the quick translate trick pinkie tought me, and ah Saddle. That must be the pony version of the NATO phonetic alphabet. Instead of Sierra it was Saddle. Clever ponies.
“Captain on deck!” I heard a voice scream as we walked into the large room. I saw five multi colored ponies scramble out of beds and chairs and to attention along the rows of beds.
“At ease ponies.” The Captain walked up to an empty cot, and patted the small matress. “This is your bunk, recruit. Get settled in. Tomorrow you work.”
“Squad leader.” An orange unicorn with a light brown and black mane ran forward and stopped in front of the Captain.
“Sir squad leader reporting as ordered sir.”
“This is Johnson, or Honored Service. He is a human and is in traning to become an Equestrian Honor Guard. Explain to him the basics, so tomorrow isn’t a day in Tartarus for him.”
“Sir yes sir!”
Shining Armor turned and walked out of the barracks leveling me alone with this new group of ponies to meet.
“Well hi.” I gave a small wave to the five ponies who gathered around me. They all had a look of anger and malice in their eyes. “So, what are you guys doing?”
“So we get to be the company with this thing in it?” Said a large blue earth pony, he had an image of hammer striking an anvil as a cutie mark. “Command is going to ride our flanks with him here.” He gave me this wicked evil eye.
Great, not even here for 5 damn minutes and I was being hated by my fellow recruits.
“I think we need to show this human his place here.” A pegasus, a mare pegasus said while slowly flying towords me said. She got in front of me and raised a hoof into the air.
Fight back, or just take it? My body and mind had already taken this for 6 months on earth delivered by upperclassmen at the college, but this was a fellow recruit this wouldn’t stand okay in my books.
I caught her hoof in mid-flight, before it had made connection with my face. I then pushed her back to give me some room and widened my stance to give myself balance. If they wanted to brawl, then I was going to brawl damnit.
“Woo okay stop guys. He’s cool.” The unicorn squad leader came forward. He was smiling now and seemed happy. He stuck a hoof out, “My name is Short Blade.” His cutie mark was the image of a sword being slashed upwards.
I cautiously extended my hand and wrapped my fingers around his hoof and gave it a firm shake.
“We didn’t meant to scare you so badly, it’s just we wanted to see what kind of recruit you were going to be. Shining came to us and told us that we were the company getting the human guard, and well we wanted to be sure we were getting a solider and not some recruit that would take hits from fellow recruits. Good to see ya passed!” He smiled and trotted over to his bunk and flopped onto it.
Clever ponies again. “By the way, that’s Hammer Strike, Fast Skies, Battle Plan, and Quick Flurry.” Short Blade pointed to each of the ponies who had returned to their bunks.
Hammer Strike was the big blue earth pony. He had a short cropped dark blue mane. He nodded at me.
Fast Skies was the mare that was going to hit me. She had a sleek light red coat with a slightly long orange mane that curled at the bangs. Her cutie mark was a bolt of lightning slicing through a cloud.
Battle Plan was a sage colored unicorn with a silver mane. He had a pair of glasses on. His cutie mark was of a queen and a king chess piece. Somehow, I felt that he was the one who came up with that scheme.
Quick Flurry was a yellow pegasus with an orange and yellow mane. His cute mark was of a snowflake being chased with a zig zag lightning bolt.
“Welcome to Saddle Company, Honored.”
Sorry if there are a few more mistakes than previous chapters. i dint have to re-re-read as i had to pack for BRONYCON! If you feel like finding me if you are going, ill be the guy cosplaying as Braeburn. and ill have the name tag JOHNSON I know, im sexy.