The Equestrian Honor Guard

by Honored Service


The Ffffuuuuun Park

The Equestrian Honor Guard
Chapter 24
By Honored Service



“Welcome recruits to the fun park.” The gruff drill Sargent strolled in front of the line of multicolored ponies and one tall human, all who had dreams of becoming members of the royal guard. “You worthless excuses of ponies…and um a human…are going to be able to complete this course in under 2 minutes by the time you graduate. And if you don’t, then you are going to back up and get the buck off of my training course. Are we clear?”

“Sir yes sir!” cane the echo from the throats of the assembled ponies and one human.

“Let’s see who the lucky company is that’s going first…Saddle Company, step up to the starting point, the human is running this first.”

I stood at the front of the line staring at the impressive course laid out in front of me. There was a 50 foot rope wall that o had to climb first, after that was a 30 foot plank wall, how a pony claimed that I have no idea, and then the giant mud pit, then to finish it off the ungodly course was a barbed wire crawl and a mad dash to the finish line. Piece of cake. Fuck.

“Hey, don’t sweat it human.” Quick Flurry patted me on the back. “I heard that the drill Sargent is the only pony that has completed it on the first try.” I swallowed and took a deep breath.

“Well, I'm not a pony.” I crouched low the ground and waited for the signal to begin. The drill Sargent looked at me and raised his whistle to his lips.


TTTTTTTTTWWWWWWWEEEEEEEEEEEEEEETTTTTTTTTTTT

I bolted from the starting line and rushed up to the rope wall. I leapt up onto the rung I could reach by jumping which was about 4 feet above my head. I hauled myself up the rope wall with amazing speed. Hand over hand I pulled my way to the top of the wall, I swung my left leg over the top and followed with my right leg. I then lowered myself down the wall fast. So fast that I could feel the ropes burning my palms. I was going to feel this in the morning.

I jumped down the last 10 feet and preformed a shoulder roll to absorb most of the impact. I sprinted towards the plank wall while rotating my shoulder to make sure I hadn’t damaged it in any way from the roll. Nope all good here, lets climb this wall. Again I jumped as high as I could and slipped my fingers into the cracks between the boards, and kicked up with my feet repeating the process till I reached the top. Kicking my left leg over the top I shimmed my way down till I could kick myself off the wall, Assassins Creed style and shoulder rolled again; coming up running to the large pit of mud.

I jumped as far as I could over the pit of brown gooey liquid and struggled to walk through the mess of mud. There was no trick to this, just sheer will power to get through it. I trudged my way through the muck till I reached the other side and leapt out through the mud, landing on my feet and zoomed to the barbed wire overhanging section.

I dropped to stomach and crawled as fast as I could to under the razor sharp wire. I pulled myself along the ground grunting as I moved one arm in front of me just a little too high and felt the pain of metal slashing through my sleeve and into my flesh. “Fuck!” I continued till I was out from under the wire and stood up. I saw the finish line 50 yards away. Time to end this.

I gave it my all as I sprinted the final stretch of the fun park. My lungs were on fire and all of my muscles were aching in pain as I pushed myself to cross the finish line in the shortest amount of time possible. My arm was bleeding profusely as I ran the last leg of the sprint. I saw the white line pass underneath me. I stopped just after the line and collapsed to the ground panting like a dog.

Pant “Piece” Pant “Of” Pant “Cake”

TTTTWWWWWWEEEEEETTTTTTTTTT “TIME” I heard the gruff drill Sargent yell out.

“1 minute 26 seconds.” Said the timid Corporal that was following the DS around the course keeping record of recruit’s time.

“WHAT?” Barked the Sargent as he spun to face the Corporal. “HOW IS THAT EVEN POSSIBILE? SHINING BUCKING ARMOR COULDN’T EVEN DO THAT TIME. TARTAUS, I COULDN’T EVEN DO THAT!” Every recruit cowered in fear from the exploding ball of rage that was the Sargent at this time.

I stood up on shaky legs and walked over to the drill Sargent. He stopped screaming as I neared and just stared me down. “Sir, permission to retrieve medical supplies for my arm sir?” He grunted and gave a simple nod.

I wandered off towards a building that had a large red cross on it. As I passed by the line of recruits; all of them watched me go with jaws on the ground or expressions of awe on their face; everypony but the members of Saddle Company who were all cheering and screaming for the success of their newest company member.

“Way to go Honored!” Quick Flurry did a flip in mid-air.

“Damn!” Hammer Strike pumped a hoof in my direction.

“Good job little human.” Fast Skies said as she waved a wing at me.

“Your strategy of conquering the rope wall was brilliant.” Battle Plan said as he scribbled something down into a blue notebook.

“Excellent work Johnson.” Short Blade trotted up to me. “You may be a human, but you have the strength and endurance of a damned earth pony.” He slapped me on the back and walked with me to the infirmary to bandage up my arm.

*********************************************************

“Sarge, are you okay?” Corporal Hayseed asked his slightly dazed and angry Sargent.

“Kid, I have been training guards for 40 years. and that, that was something I can’t even describe. They way that creature carried out the obstacle course was insane, He was a precision machine that was made to do it.” The Sargent spun around and looked at the Corporal. “Did you see what happened when he sliced himself on the wire?”

The Corporal shock his head.

“All he did was curse and move on. He was bleeding a lot and didn’t even let it affect him. That wasn’t a recruit; that was an artist.”

*****************************************************************

“There we go, those stitches should heal it up nice and clean. But it is going to leave a wicked scar.” Dr. Careful said as he finished the last stitch on my arm.

“Thanks Doc!” I said as I got up from the reclining chair I had been seated in during the quick fix procedure. Now I had bad ass scares on both arms. I was going to get all the ladies…mares?

“Let’s move back to the barracks Honored, the others from Saddle should be finishing soon.” Short Blade trotted in front of me and opened the door. I followed him back to the barracks, I could sure lie down for a while and rest. The fun park had left me feeling very drained and tired.

“So, how’d I do Blade?” I hadn’t been focusing too much on my time, more on breathing and stopping the bleeding that was occurring on my arm.

“Well Service, you just set a new record for the time it took to complete the fun park. The drill Sargent that was leading us had set the record at 1 minute 45 seconds, almost 43 years ago when he was a recruit. You dethroned the king, so to speak.”

“Wow, really? Damn, it felt like it had actually been a lot longer to me.” We walked up to the door leading back into out barracks. Short Blade, slowly pushed opened the door and we stepped in.

I was greeted by my new friends cheering and gathering around me to throw me into the air. They set me down and continued to congratulate me on a job well done.

Maybe this pony training wasn’t actually going to be too hard. If I had just broken a pony record without even trying, than maybe this whole royal guard thing would be a snap.

That night during dinner, I watched as Captian Shinig Armor walked over to a large board on the side of the mess hall wall that displayed the times and names of ponies that had completed to fun park in record time. The drill Sargent, Gallant Banner, was lowered to spot number 2, while a new named was placed at slot number 1.

Johnson, Honored Service. – 1min 26sec

I had just made my first mark on the Royal Guard training camp, and I was sure that it wouldn’t be the last.

“Attention Companies; Charlie Horse, Saddle, Bridal, Equine, and FoalTrot you are to report to hoof to hoof training at 0930. Weapons of any type are not allowed as this is hoof to hoof, not close combat. That is all.” Shining Armor walked off, but not before nodding at me and giving me a sly wink.

Shit, what was that for.

*************************************************************

“Listen my subjects, my minions. We may have been stopped, but rest assured, that I your Queen, have found a source of power that will rival that of the entire population of ponies that stand against us.” The dark shelled leader stood atop her castle as she addressed her loyal followers. She carefully and gracefully cantered her way over to a door and opened it removing a small white orb from inside the room. Holding it above her head in a sickle green magical aurora she showed it to the thousands of insec-toid ponies bellow her.

“This is the object of immense power, once it is opened; I will be unstoppable and then not only will Canterlot fall, but all of Equestria.” The entire population of the hive, exploded into evil, maniacal laughter. The pearly white orb, slowly turned pitch black and began to swirl as two dark red eyes formed looking out into the see of shelled creatures.

For the first time since being stopped by the Elements of Harmony over 2 years ago, the Evil that was known as the Nightmare felt something stir inside of it; a feeling that it hadn’t felt in thousands of years. Hope. Hope for another chance, to rule and ultimately destroy this world.