//------------------------------// // Carefully Please Help Me To Repair The New Tank! // Story: Mares und Panzer // by re- Yamsmos //------------------------------// "So, with her assistant and fillyhood friend in tow, Twilight Sparkle left her hometown of Canterlot and traveled by chariot to a little town nearby. Does anypony... know the name of the town she went to?" A simple question with an equally simple answer, one you could decipher if you just craned your neck around, stared past the whispering group of cool kids nestled in the corner of the room, and looked out the window at the early morning sun and the early morning clouds hovering mindlessly over Ponyville. The only town even remotely close to Canterlot was Ponyville and, plus, the answer—if you didn't know basic history and, thus, the answer—was all in their Equestrian Past history book they'd all been given yesterday. Chapter 4, Section 5, to be exact, on Page 78 in the second paragraph. A simple question with a simple answer that not a single pony was willing to raise their hoof up and thereafter give. She was sure that everypony knew it, but... nopony wanted to let it be known that they did, which was kind of... weird. Wasn't the whole idea of a teacher asking questions for them to answer them a kind of... reinforcement to make sure of what all they knew? It seemed that everypony knew the whole dilemma—looking around, there were a few heads turning to face each other, as if there was an unspoken dare with no actual reward for the... fool who would risk life and limb raising up one of the latter—but, with no comprehensible dialogues for him to respond to apart from a sparse few yawns and sharp murmurs, Mr. Bon rose from his seat on the front table near the whiteboard, adjusted the collar poking out from underneath his sweater vest, and chose the mercy rule. "Twilight Sparkle went to Ponyville, children." His addressing of them as "children" tickled a few ponies, who giggled and laughed as the pressure of the answer began to finally, finally leak and piddle away. A colt in the front spoke up out of turn. "Didn't she go to Ponyville to, like, learn about friendship?" Mr. Bon nodded, smiling, "Yup!" He faced the rest of the class. "She was sent by Princess Celestia herself to learn about friendship, because it turns out—and I might be smited for saying this—that Twilight Sparkle was a bit of a... shut-in." Duck leaned forward, her spine having bumped awkwardly against the back of her chair. She scooted in an as well, bringing in her elbows and causing her table partner to fuss at nothing in particular and roll her eyes with a heavy, very-well-unneeded sigh as she, in turn, scooted a bit away from the apparently disease-ridden pony next to her. This morning had already been a bit of a doozy, and Duck just wanted to claw her way through first period so she could get her bearings and figure out what all she could try doing. Thanks to returning to her little complex late into the night the other night, she'd ended up finishing her homework red-eyed early into the morning, taken a few minutes and double-checked it over a half-hearted piece of toast, took a nap that lasted all but an hour or so, and then promptly forgot it on her kitchen table as she left for school, dropping her messenger bag at the threshold and spilling what she had remembered onto her floor, understandably receiving no help from the other Ponyville High student walking past her in her own hurry, stuffing the assorted papers, books, and pencils haphazardly back into her bag, and sprinting all the way to school, only to trip around the corner, mind her new bruise, and limp the rest of the way. Her brain returned to the purple bruise and she, involuntarily—because she knew how astronomically bad it was to do so—reached a hoof down and scratched at it. She realized herself quickly and flinched back up to her prior position, eliciting a snicker from her table partner, who crossed her forelegs and shook her head mumbling something incoherent. Duck risked a look her way, then, realizing she was probably being noticed in her doing so, lifted her chin and pretended to look at the movie poster for The Nice, The Unkind, And The Fierce on the oddly-angled wall in the corner of the room, then, finding a few narrow-eyed, clearly annoyed glares directed her weary way, attempted to pass it off as the first step in popping her neck. She suddenly tilted her head both ways, found no sound, and returned to a normal sitting position. Duck cleared her throat and reached for her pencil again, finally coiling her hoof around it and returning to the paper in front of her. She moved her history book around and adjusted her paper's position, craning her neck to look around for the answer to the ninth question on the chapter questions for the week after next week's homework, the entire subject of the chapter being, mostly, the adventures of the Elements of Harmony after Shining Armor and Princess Cadance's wedding, starting in the Crystal Kingdom. The ninth question... oh Gods, what was it again? She scanned the bottoms of the pages facing her to look for the gap she'd made with her pencil's detachable eraser, found it, threw the page open, and leaned forward in her seat to look for what she needed. Her eyes immediately soared down the lines of text, definitions, and assorted pictures to the orange box labeled Chapter Questions, and, ignoring the first eight, found the ninth and mumbled it to herself. "Who threatened the Crystal Empire, and was defeated by the efforts of Spike the Dragon and Princess Cadance?" That was... King Sombra, wasn't it? He trapped Twilight Sparkle atop the spire, causing Spike to run down and steal the Crystal Heart where he fell, and a gliding Princess Cadance swooped in just in time to save him, and together, they returned the Crystal Empire to its former glory. Both were hailed as heroes, and Spike even got his own statue in the town square to commemorate his immense, incomparable bravery. Duck thought for a few seconds, nodded to herself, flipped back to the page in case she looked up to read from it to further confirm her answer, and wrote her thoughts down, her penmanship resembling an arthritic five-year-old. Her table partner fiddled with her jacket's silver buttons. "Yeah, Twilight Sparkle had a bit of a party that night!" Mr. Bon's voice rose back up to her recognition, the old stallion chuckling heartily as he leaned against the door, still facing them all. He brought up a hoof and shook it. "No alcohol, though!" A few of her peers chose this time to go and make a small attempt at a joke, a usual, constantly rehearsed thing of theirs to try and get everypony to laugh and like them. "Aww!" "Laaaame!" "That's boring." Mr. Bon hummed. "I can tell, by the way you all are right now, that you guys might have had some parties yourselves!" "We're all just tired, sir." Duck's stomach gurgled at her. And hungry, too. She hadn't had a lot of time to make herself breakfast when she woke back up, and had had to settle for the bare nothings of two more pieces of toast atop her first one she'd disinterestedly munched on while reviewing her homework. She was beginning to regret not simply ignoring the aching for a morning meal. It might have been much better for her stomach to have empty space instead of trying to break down two slices of unflavored white bread she'd scrounged around in the back of her fridge and reached for. She'd have to see if she could get something from the cafeteria, or maybe from one of the vending machines in the rear of the commons. A proper sandwich, or a protein bar would be a much better present for her woefully underused and underutilized body. A kind of sharp pain suddenly erupted deep in the depths of her gut, and, caught by surprise, Duck hunched over in her seat with a low whimper. Gods, she should have grabbed a granola bar or something on the way here. Maybe she could sneak away during passing and rush over to get something quicker. With the way she was hurting at the moment, she didn't think she could make it two whole periods before eating again. She sunk in her chair and, now in a sour mood, remembered her uniform. Or rather, with her new knowledge after perusing the school handbook before class started, lack of uniform. As she'd guessed based off of Flurry's daily wardrobe, she'd have to go out at some point here soon and buy a white collared shirt and a black necktie, confirmed to be part of the school dress code according to Section 2 under the bold, italic header entitled Dress Code that she had apparently missed her first time leafing through it. She fastened the topmost button on her navy blue jacket to hide her lack of proper attire... and suddenly bumped her elbow across the top of the table, sending her pencil down onto the floor where it rolled around. In an instant, Duck scooched her chair back and promptly clunked her head against the table's edge to look for where her tool had gone to the wayward, two-second-long gaze of her table partner... who was, conveniently, now sitting directly atop of it. Duck bit her lip, finding the strength to ignore the pain on her brow. This wasn't going to be fun. "Um..." They looked at her, a frown deadset on giving everypony that looked at it a terrible, horrible, no good, very bad day. Her bangs were choppy and parted down the middle to allow her horn free space to elegantly extend from her forehead, and she flicked them away as Duck realized she hadn't continued speaking and was now extending the presumed one-sided conversation's time with a pregnant pause that the Unicorn might find outrageously embarassing and then laugh at her and call her names and make fun of her and draw attention to her and she was still thinking and not talking and thereby digging herself a much larger trench than she had the other day with Arco and Flurry about what kinds of things happened during Tank Battles by lying to them and now she realized that she had forgotten her words that she was going to say and the Unicorn was getting more and more impatient she could tell by her eyes they were still narrowing oh Gods say something or– "Can you get my pencil for me please?" The Unicorn tilted her head, sinking her face into a hoof propped on the top of her chair. "It's... it's underneath your chair and..." They rolled their eyes with the weight of a Jagdtiger—which was approximately 158,000 pounds—lit their horn, bent over to search around for it on the carpeted floor, and, finding it, quickly sat back up and uncaringly flung it onto the table. It rolled forward, almost falling back onto the floor in front of her, only stopped by Duck's quick, awesome, reflexive maneuver: jumping out of her chair unexpectedly, a single foreleg darting upward and catching it just in time. A few ponies nearby turned around at the ruckus—a few, including her table partner, even snickered—but she sank back into her seat and, ignoring them the best way she could, returned to her homework. to commemorate his immense, incomparable bravery She violently stabbed the space after her last 'y'—accidentally making a much darker dot than the rest of the paper would lead a reader to believe she was capable of—and declared question nine finished. In one swift, deft motion, she collapsed the end of her mechanical pencil back into its hub and placed the entire tool next to her binder, a small smile on her face. Grabbing her newly finished papers, which, looking at it now, equaled about four, she stood them up on their feet and neatly lined them up by thumping them on the table to yet another dirty look from her table partner, whose apparent sole purpose in life was to be offended by literally everything she did and every way she went about doing them. A hoof propping up the papers, the other went over to her binder, unzipped it, and opened it for the first to lightly place them inside, where they collaborated in a final effort and zipped the whole thing closed again. For the first time that morning, after forgetting next week's homework and not being able to turn it in already, giving herself practically nothing to eat, dropping her bag in front of her door, seeing a dog on her way that was scolded by his owner, almost getting run over by a half-track toting around a few Preparatory Recruits, finding the plates she'd been earlier eyeing in the window of the antique shop sold, scraping her leg next to the school, and about five minutes ago feeling right on the edge of hunger pains, Duck felt... good. Well. Now if she could only just get rid of the constant, mouth gaping yawns and teary-eyed blinking plaguing every minute or so of her early morning time, she'd be much, much happier sitting in her hesitantly admittedly creaky, terrible purple chair. Mr. Bon had taken a seat at the edge of a student's table, who had moved her stuff so he could get more comfortable. Duck didn't know her too well, but she seemed nice enough. Maybe she could try talking to her. Mr. Bon's mouth opened, and a trio of hushed voices drowned out whatever he was, importantly, conveying to them. "...and, like, he comes over to me, and he's wasted, and..." "And he just falls on the ground!" "Hahahaha!" It was coming from the usual spot, at the opposite side of the room next to the secondary whiteboard Mr. Bon claimed he never had a genuine need for and had instead used as a place to hang up his assorted movie posters and literature quotes ranging from the likes of Casablankflank and Citizen Mane to Princess Celestia's planned Infamy Speech and the lyrics to the Ponyville March that Duck was fairly certain everypony in the entire world was much too embarrassed to even think about singing along to. Putting it up on the board was probably a cruel joke to remind his students that, yes, somepony did meld together a terrible tune that our bands have ended up doing an instrumental of for the past fifteen years and that, yes, this was still a thing. Three colts, their school uniforms altered in some way or another to preserve their apparently perceived high amount of coolness, were facing each other in an L shape directly under a tattered, laminated art piece of paint streaks. The leader, clearly considered the "cooler" of the little group, looked like he'd stepped into a wind tunnel and had let nature take its horrid toll on his blonde mane A fourth joined in, turning around and having to begin his sentence three times before feeling he had become actively involved in the conversation, even with one of the participants literally inches from his own muzzle. "Was this... was... was, hey, was this... was this during last Saturday?" The leader laughed. "Yeah, dude. You should've been there." "Got grounded, remember? I'm free this weekend, though." "Oh we have got to do something, then." "We're totally gonna get smashed on Friday. You guys should come on over. I'll talk to Olive at lunch and see if she wants to come over to with her friends." Gods, it was hot in here. Why was it always so hot in here? Duck brought up a hoof and grabbed at the collar of her jacket, shaking it like a piece of wobbly sheet metal and directing her attention elsewhere. The rectangular tables of her EQ History class—and the rest of Mr. Bon's classes, she guessed—were in simple lines extending from opposite sides of the room, two tables each, with eight lines in total. The sides of the classroom were divided fairly easily: the far left side in the middle line was where the cool kids sat and talked about "getting smashed" (whatever that meant), the rear tables on the right near the middle of the classroom was where the lesser cool kids—the more... fun ones, for lack of a more fitting term—talked about wanting to die, how garbage they all were, acted like they were absolutely hilarious every second they spoke, and overall displayed just how little they realized that what they were joking about was a real thing... some ponies regularly had to deal with. On the last table on the left side near the back of the room, a young mare and stallion were seated, the former being easy to talk to and the latter being obnoxiously loud and willing to yell across the room to get one of the lesser's attention. Okay, obnoxiously loud was a bit of an over-exaggeration. Way to be rude. Maybe she was just quiet too much, and her lower volume skewed what she believed to be a proper one. Insult somepony you don't even know. Wow. She shook her head. Well, the lessers constantly told him that he was loud... but then again, they were kind of friends, so they could say that. She couldn't. She... didn't really know anypony in her class at all, actually. Not even her table partner's name, though that was because the Unicorn had instead talked to the other pony next to her and introduced herself even though the two were already longtime friends, and even though the line between both them marked two different tables and wasn't just a jagged, stray pencil mark like her's and Duck's was. The other table was a lot cleaner, as well. Duck's was riddled with graffiti, a possible result of it being in the corner and thus safe from the eye of, seemingly, every living being in the world. "Gods Save The Queen" over there, "I wish I waz in Trottingham" over here, and, to her dismay, a racial slur that she immediately turned her pencil over and vigorously erased. Next to her success was... a body part. She erased that too. Next to that was a series of tic-tac-toe games, the player holding the position of 'X' having an unfortunate win-loss ratio of about zero-to-fifteen. Speaking of which... she had to admit that last night may have completely muddled her over in terms of sleeping and eating, but it was definitely worth sticking around for. She was relatively glad that the class had managed to find all of Ponyville's tank with no big issues, aside from the trifecta's sidelining and the muddy stomp through the Everfree late at night, and, looking back at it from a much further standing point... they had a pretty good line-up of vehicles at their disposal. If they were really going to do this—and she had to ask Mrs. Red at sixth later who they were first going to be up against, if they had any practice matches at all—they had a very diverse selection that might stand a chance. The Comet may have been notorious for having the fragility of a Crumpish Rose, but its cannon wasn't one to be messed around with, and it had pretty great mobility to boot thanks to its Christie Suspension that it shared with the Cruiser, which—changing subjects—could make for a great baiting tool like an anglerfish way down in the bathypelagics, an easy prize in the form of a light tank but packing an okay amount of firepower and amazing maneuverability that could easily help it get around any turret it faced. The SOMUA made for a pretty sturdy, but very very expensive tank, and could be a good all-rounder if the trifecta found it in themselves to quit butting heads. The Tiger H could pull an easy twenty-eight miles per hour, with its incredibly tough armor and fearsome 88mm gun only helping it. It could make for an incredible defensive tool, but its handlers might want nothing more than to recklessly charge, feeling invincible with their tank of a tank. She hoped that they'd at least be open to soaking up shots. The Stuart could make for an outstanding scout if Pine and the others didn't want to do such a thing, being the fastest tank at their disposal with an equally speedy reverse speed to boot if they ever got into a bad position. Its crew could take it anywhere and fire from anywhere! The whole thing was pretty much a racecar! As if hearing her inner thoughts, the world's activity caught her attention once more and directed it to a few of the lessers near the middle of the room, who were talking up a quiet storm about the Never War and getting countless facts completely wrong—Manetgomery wasn't the leader of Crumphill, as a matter of fact, instead leading the Crumpish Eighth Army who would have fought at El Alamein and later gotten beaten to Walnut by her own mother, Pumpkin Bread, who would have powered through the woods in the Pegasus-crafted blizzard to surprise Griffonian forces in the area, and, no, the Type 89 was not a light tank, but a medium tank—to the point that Duck felt the overwhelming need to correct them, only able to stop herself by reminding her body that it wasn't in her place... and that they'd probably make fun of her voice, and she'd end up ruining her explanation and get surrounded and get called names and get fact-checked and thereafter hated because she was a massive nerd and oh wait you're Pumpkin Bread's daughter haha she would have died in Walnut there's no way she could have been able to move all of her troops all the way through the country in such little time Manetgomery was so much better you're stupid she's stupid but you're still stupid quack. She really hated the quacks. "...and so, unfolding her wings, Rainbow Dash took to the sky above Spike and Twilight Sparkle's heads and cleared the skies to prove them wrong." Ah, this story. Mr. Bon was grinning now, apparently caught in a little belly laugh and covering his mouth to stop it. "Can... snort, can anypony tell me how quickly she did it?" Now, Sergeant Rainbow Dash was an expert pilot, having been entrusted with Equestria's first P-51 Mustang and world-famous for pushing the aircraft to pretty much every fighter plane's limits in its first public showcase with ninety-degree dives, aeliron rolls straight toward nearby mountains, tight loops, and upside-down ascension, but... she acted... silly upon first meeting Twilight and Spike, clearing the skies in... "Ten seconds flat," which the class, although very boredly and tiredly, apparently had the gall to actually admit they knew. Duck hummed, leaning forward in her seat and cracking a small smile. She wondered what it would be like to be a Pegasus; she could go anywhere, at any time, and not have to worry about mountains, or roads, or traffic, or mud, or anything, really. She could just go outside during lunch, stop right out the door, unfold her wings, and just fly to McDuckle's instead of, apparently according to Flurry's recounting, dealing with the construction near 4th Avenue and listening to nearby students—also going to the chain—talking about what all they were going to buy and how outraged they'd be if their favorite sauces weren't in stock like children throwing a tantrum. To be a Pegasus meant... no worries. Mind, there was the obvious Equinity of it all still, and the mixtures of self-worth and self-esteem that she seemed to lack anyway, but there was a... an easier access to a stress-reliever, in the form of flying away and hopping up onto a cloud or something. Maybe ponies would think she was cool if she could fly. Oh hey, Duck Bill, right? Heard you could fly pretty well up there! What's it like, huh? Is it nice? Do you feel free when you're up there? I bet so! Oh Duck, that's so awesome! I bet you could give Rainbow Dash a run for her bits! Heck, I bet you could join the Wonderbolts at sixteen, and be the youngest Commander there's been! High, and high, and high into the sky she'd constantly fly, where the troubles and worries that worried and troubled her couldn't very well reach her. Her gaze drew to the nearby window as Mr. Bon's discussion of weather patterns faded out of recognition. It seemed that both her complex's builders and the school's builders had the same idea for the places she occupied, only showing the beautiful mountains and hills and trees that lay outside Ponyville's borders, and not the ugly oil drilling rigs on the Eastern hills or the weapons factories at the far corner or the training grounds next to it or the food production line situated adjacent to Sweet Apple Acres or any of the things related to Ponyville's more recent past, phasing out the glamour and beauty and hopefulness it presented back in the Elements' days. The early morning sun smiled at her and glowed brightly. She gave it a likewise gesture, and a wave of warmth passed through her bones. High up. Way up. Watching the sun sink below the horizon, a breeze on her face and her wings in a lazy hover. A cloud underneath her, soft and fluffy and cozy, perhaps. Way, high up, where the pleasantries of the skies were nothing but centimeters from her face. High up in the sky. "Lower it! Gently now!" Duck took a step back and watched as a mare clad in pale green overalls and saddle brown gloves pushed a large, wheeled pallet topped with crates and assorted boxes toward the nearby concrete ramps leading up to the garage. The mare, clearly a mechanic of some sorts, regarded her with a look as she went and, shortly afterward realizing she was part of the class, a smile and a wave and a chipper, "Hi!" that Duck returned only a third of the way. The mass amount of noise she'd first caught upon walking toward the school's fields had tripled in volume, the sources now very clear to her. Dusting her jacket off, she watched as another mechanic backpedaled, one of her hooves flitting rapidly about as signed directions for the operator of the nearby crane, whose mechanical functions were currently being used to bring down even more pallets of what she now realized to be ammo crates and spare parts from the bed of a truck, the latter of which were poking out of their metallic confinements, much too long to simply stay inside and wait patiently. Loud beeps overlapped each other, accompanying the different vehicles that were taking things over to the five tanks presently sitting out in the sun in front of their respective garage doors. Crowds of ponies—some she recognized, others in overalls—gathered atop, around, behind, in front of, or at the sides of each tank, working and talking amongst themselves as they went along. Duck narrowed her eyes at the Comet, and suddenly launched forward, ripping up a few bits of grass in her wake as she tore toward her newly assigned tank. Flurry, Arco, Bluebell, and another overall-dressed mare were sat atop the front, a forklift fitted with ropes lowering what Duck realized to be the replacement for their bent-back turret barrel into their waiting, and now definitely straining hooves. Ascending the ramp with her teeth grit, she brushed past Pine Needle—who was in the middle of giving her a nice bit of salutations—clambered up the Comet's side with a trio of loud knocks, and propped herself beneath the barrel just in time to avoid it giving Flurry's head a good old five-star-rated concussion. Straining herself, she pushed her forelegs up and, with Bluebell pushing it from the opposite end, placed the barrel just inside the lip of the mantlet. As the fresh barrel thunked into a more comfortable position, Flurry, Arco, Bluebell, and the mechanic rose from their selected spots and wiped their hooves together, flashing grins and flinging sweat from their brows. Flurry looked down at Duck, who was lying down with her spine against the Comet's upper glacis in a very uncomfortable, borderline bone-shattering position, and beamed as bright as the sun shimmering from behind her shadowed figure, shutting her eyes. "Good save, Duck! Barrel almost got me there!" More than you'd think, Flurry. Arco was busy fiddling with his hooves, most likely attempting to get the grease off his blue fur. "Thing's a lot heavier than I woulda thought!" About... actually, she didn't know that one. Checkmate, Duck. Checkmate. They were apparently taking turns, as Bluebell dismounted with a small, "Oh whoops," to allow the mechanics to swarm the right side and pull up a long metal rod that, as the mechanic swung it around, almost clocked Bluebell upside the back of her skull. The mechanics, being the only ones noticing apart from Duck, exchanged looks and sucked on their teeth audibly. Duck swallowed a lump down her throat, then lightly tapped on Arco's flank to allow her access next to their repairmare's side. Flurry and Arco both seeming to notice their needed exit hopped off the Comet. The repairmare nodded at Duck happily, then moved over and held the barrel in place as Duck grabbed hold of the rod and placed it within the two holes of the cannon's muzzle break. She returned to the opposite side of the barrel, and the duo began to slowly turn the business end of the cannon like a vice's handle with eerily—mechanically—similar end goals. The mechanic grunted and pulled her end downward. "You're Duck Bill, huh?" Duck Bill minded her friend's position and, finding them staring up at her with their hooves over their eyes near the front of the left track, pushed her end upward. "Mmhm." "Kickass." Down. "I'm Crescent Wrench, and, no, that's not a nickname." Up. Duck giggled. "Pleased to meet you, Crescent Wrench." Crescent nodded again. Down. "All the mares in overalls here are members of the Vehicle Repair class, specializing in... well, the obvious." Duck pulled her end up. "Our first... erugh... our first assignment was gonna be fixing up some old cars in the back of the parking lot inside some shipping crates for the Driving class." Duck's up. Crescent's down. "Came in this morning and the teacher told us we'd be helping the Tankery class repair their new tanks." She snorted like a feasting pig. "I much prefer the new task." Up and a down. "Hey, you guys mind helping us with these?" Came a voice from down below that Duck, completely focusing on her current job, couldn't see. Not one she recognized, but apparently one Crescent did, who, with her mane matted against her forehead, whipped her neck around and smirked at. "Oh, yeah, sure," went Flurry. "What's all this?" asked Bluebell. Crescent roared with amusement, throwing her head back to show the sun her uvula. "Hahaha! Phillips, are you putting these poor Tankers on scrubbing duty again?!" Arco's response was instant, and tinted with a stuttered bout of sarcasm. "O-Oh you rat bastard!" Something plunked into a bucket of water. "Hey!" Phillips replied, prompting Duck to involuntarily look over for a split second, find a head of short, curly brown mane atop a lime-green coat of fur, and speedily return back to the turning rod. It was her turn, and she almost missed Phillips' voice as she continued, "Take a look at the poor thing! Covered in dirt, rust, and Gods know whatever the hell that white stain on the back is!" Something slapped... something. "Put some elbow grease on it, Tankers! Get back t' scrubbin'!" It was Duck's turn to screw in the new gun barrel again, and, finding an excruciating, multi-disc-popping amount of trouble at it, realized that the two of them were done with their task. Stopping herself in a diarrhea of vowels and consonants before she could screw up, she motioned to Crescent and began pulling out the rod. Crescent, finding a bit of a hard time positioning herself properly to assist, lightly pushed it upward with a hindleg until it was about halfway up, where she then sprang to her hooves and brushed up against Duck's side to yank it out the rest of the way. As it came free and landed in Duck's hooves, it made a last-ditch effort in taking someone's life for the day and caused Duck to stumble backward toward the edge of the Comet, but she, albeit panickingly, wobbled the stick around like she was a tight-roper and kept her balance long enough for Crescent to reach over and pull her back toward the center of the glacis. Breathing a sigh of relief so her inner turmoil wouldn't show, Duck rolled the rod onto Crescent's waiting hooves underneath her own, made sure that the mechanic had a proper hold of it, and ducked under it before quickly hopping off the side of the Comet. Landing on the concrete with a thump and a small jolt of shock in all four of her legs, she looked over at Arco, Flurry, and Bluebell, two of which were in the process of scrubbing away at the front mudguards while the other one sprayed the rest of the tank's head with a garden hose. Walking over and grabbing a sponge from the bright yellow bucket on the ground next to Flurry's hindlegs, Duck took her place next to the Alicorn and asked shakily, "S-So... how's your day been?" Flurry giggled sweetly, playfully bumping her rump against Duck's and causing her to scooch over as Flurry's sponge invaded her space like Operation Barber-Rosa. "Well!" Flurry started, giving Duck a flip of her mane and a dipping of her chin in a... vaguely... um, pose. She went back to scrubbing. Duck looked away, her face red. "Arco and I got here a bit early because I was actually a bit excited to see all of the tanks we'd found and Arco said he'd left a few of his things in the garage so it was kind of a win-win, and it turns out that Bluebell and the rest of the class had the same idea!" Arco poked his head out from Flurry's left, waving his sponge around wildly. "Don't think we all came here for the same thing, though!" He pointed down the line, and Duck followed it. "Case in point, our M5 Stuart, everypony!" Simultaneously surprised he'd remembered the name and dizzied from the quick movement, Duck's eyes widened as she found the four nerds... taping... paper to their tank's exterior, the current one looking to be an uncomfortably detailed stick figure with curled forelegs, with a grammatically incorrect caption "y u no go fast?" underneath it. Apparently satisfied with their work—much to the more vocal chagrin of the repairmare working on the treads next to them—they took a step back and high-hoofed, showing Duck what all they'd... done to their Stuart! A red-bodied, hyped-up stick figure yelling about shooting "all the things!" near the front of the turret; a heavily-armed Unicorn clad in olive green armour against a fiery background with the words END beneath it on the rear plating; a simple strip of white labeled with the phrase "dance like there's nobody watching" running along its side. Duck gaped. Arco laughed. "Yup! The nerds memed up their tank." Oh... oh Gods... what of all the others? Duck dropped her sponge into the bucket to Flurry's sarcastic, "What, you're already done?" and trotted away from the Comet to the front of the ramps. Making a fair amount of distance on the concrete, she stood where she'd halted, closed her eyes, sucked in a breath, shot it out calmly, fanned out both her forelegs to further allay herself, braced herself with every bit of strength in her body, and about-faced to look at her team. Her jaw dropped. On the far left stood the Cruiser Mark IV, a new pale green coat of paint covering its every nook and cranny, accompanying its equally fresh olive green leaf pattern—betrayingly—nicely. Covering the pattern however were long, white lines of paint spelling out what she realized to be phrases of some kind. "Shed fur like an owner" there, "Your love will be secure in my hooves" under it, "Sky was womb, and she was the moon" upside-down for some reason, and what looked to be the same scissoring 2's Duck had noticed on Pine's coffee cup the other day painted on each of the Light Tank's roadwheels. The Tiger H was now a navy blue colour, with gold and purple stripes running along its side plates that were bisected by five pairs of black-lined, white-filled jersey numbers. Accompanying the jocks and mechanics were... cheerleaders, Duck noticed, who were in the midst of painting cheerful wishes and hyped-up messages anywhere they could get their pom-pom fixed hooves on. The jocks, meanwhile, were yucking it up and occasionally talking to the poor Vehicle Repair students assigned to work with them. She closed her eyes and thanked the Gods above as her eyes landed on the Comet, finding no additions to its figure apart from the new barrel and the five ponies washing away its damage. She opened them and returned to the terrible task of unveiling. She skipped over the Stuart. She already knew what had become of it. Finally, the SOMUA, which had been painted a vertical—from her position—three-color scheme of red, gold, and blue completely hiding its former Prench camouflage, with a donkey, a maple leaf, and an elephant standing out proudly on each color respectively. It seemed that only the trifecta had been able to find glossy paint, as the SOMUA almost blinded her and caused her to strain her eyes and look away. Gods... what had they done?! These paint jobs provided no tactical advantage whatsoever! They'd be spotted from miles away if they ever got onto the battlefield! That would end up leaving only her Comet to fight off their enemies... and she didn't think she could handle that kind of pressure... oh Gods... A particularly Arctic chill coursed through her legs despite the warm weather now remembering to cook her from the inside, and Duck shook her head and stared at the floor as she returned to her friends, who appeared to be about finished with their task... which puzzled her, because explosive damage and the charring of metal was more than impossible to simply scrub away... was their effort some kind of magic? She jostled her mane again and hopped up the front of the Comet while Arco spoke up, "It really looks like you're about to kill everypony here, Duck. Are you okay?" She looked at Arco. "Mmhm," she gave him, and she did a little jump onto the 77mm HV cannon and about teetered off its edge. Thankful that nopony had seen her little mess—or at least finding comfort in the fact that nopony was giggling out of nowhere assuringly about it—she bent over and pulled the half-circle hatch fixed atop the Commander's cupola. Placing both sides against the top of the turret, Duck approached the now open space slowly, sat her rump against the rolled homogenous armor of the roof, and carefully slid into the cupola to finally, finally get a look inside her new machine. Immediately, she slammed her hindlegs on the scope overhanging the Gunner's seat and let out a small curse she immediately regretted and covered her mouth for. "Darn it!" Sucking on her teeth and groaning, she sniffled a bit of snot back into her nose and plopped herself onto her haunches to get into a proper Commander's position. The familiar scent of wires, iron, and grease assaulted her nostrils and mixed in with her sorrow, and she suppressed the urge to clench her muzzle shut with a hoof as she directed her attention directly upward and reached for the down-facing handles hanging from the lip of the cupola. Coiling her hooves around them, she flexed her chin and puffed out her cheeks, then slowly found herself able to rotate the cupola itself. She went about a full sixty-degrees with it before feeling good enough with her efforts and dropping her hooves into her lap. She looked around and noticed, even without additional ponies occupying its few seats, that the interior of the Comet was... cramped. Already, she was close to dangling her hindlegs in her imaginary Gunner's face, and, if she turned about with her elbow even slightly raised up, she'd be giving her Loader a nice shiner she'd likely be mutinied over. Her eyes having drifted over to where the Loader would be sitting—notably awkwardly she might add, with ammo bins keeping them tightly secured in more safely than any seatbelt could—a large box situated on the wall caught her attention near her head to her right. She raised up a hoof and knocked on it, assuming it to be where spare parts would lay. Instead, a sudden stream of old, gunky water began spewing out from a little tap she'd now gravely discovered lying at the bottom of it. She opened her mouth to scream and was already in the process of jumping away from it, but was saved from a concerned pair of friends and a searing head injury as the water swiftly stopped just as quickly as it had appeared. Scrunching up her nose and wiping the small puddle it had formed with a sleeve, Duck muttered something to herself that even she didn't understand a second later, and returned to her observations. Truth be told, while she knew a lot about tanks, their origins, and their armour and guns, she... didn't know a lot about their interiors. Case in point, her incredibly lost dancing about inside the prior seemingly-familiar Crumpish-born Cruiser Tank. Though, her family's Valentine was an entirely different story, only able to hold up to a cramped four that was usually, stubbornly, restricted to three in a proclaimed interest of not being too "clammy", according to her mother. Oh Gods, even the Gunner's seat was a tight fit. Did Crumphill know the ways that ponykind sat? They were in another country much like their own, but you'd think they were on another planet their practices were so incredibly odd! Case in point, again, the Comet she was sitting in, and just how much there was to take in at the moment! Her mind having returned yet again to the subject of the Loader, mainly asking just how terrible it would be to sit in their seat, she looked over at its overwhelming amount of boxes and tins and moved her sights over just an inch... ...to the light tan rectangular box lining the wall right in front of the Loader's face. The radio. She... no. That wouldn't do. Whoever ended up taking the Loader's seat in the end didn't deserve having to pull double-duty by clumsily loading AP rounds into the breech and thereafter responding on allied comms about locations, formations, and movements. Which brought up the question of who to give it to instead. Duck narrowed her eyes and brought a hoof up to her chin. She'd rather not hold responsibility for every little switch and dial and receiver plaguing the whole darn thing, and she'd probably end up just screwing the whole operation up and costing them losses left and right. The Gunner was an obvious out, and as was the Driver... She hummed. But there was another seat, at the front. She'd noticed the MG and its rectangular cradle on the left side of the vertical stepped plate as she'd climbed up the glacis. The Machine Gunner's seat, now... there was an idea. But no, that would mean no MG, which would prove useful for adjusting their aim and distractions. But, with the MG still sitting in its place and easily able to screw up their makeshift Radio Operator's moving around, it could spell even further trouble for the Comet. She shook her head. She'd have to see the situation first. Looking up toward the cupola again and finding the blue sky and its white clouds, she threw her hooves up and rose from her haunches, emerging from the dimmed interior of the A34 back into the reality of Ponyville High's tank garage space, still buzzing about with activity from beeping, to cranking, to zipping, to whirring, to talking, to spraying, to thumping, to hammering, to tracking, and to... Lovercolt's Working In The Week's End which was blasting from the now more closely parked delivery truck sitting in the grass in front of the class' tanks. Flurry regarded her as she pulled herself out of the cupola and hopped back onto all fours atop the cannon. "You find anything in there, Duck?" Duck nodded. "Don't think you're gonna like it, but, yes, I think I did." She had expected Flurry to ask what she'd found so she could display her immense knowledge and detective sleuthing skills, but the Alicorn opted on reverting her attention to elsewhere. Duck took matters into her own hooves as said hooves helped her descend the front of the mantlet and onto the left side of the glacis, where she brought up a foreleg, rapped on the armour to gather Bluebell's, Flurry's, and Arco's attention, and pointed at the MG's cradle. "That right there is a Machine Gun cradle, designed to keep the Machine Gun in place and accurate as can be." Her history lesson over, she looked down to find out where the Machine Gunner and Driver hatches would be... and promptly blanched. Oh Gods, she knew... this was going to be... arthritic. She checked to see if her crew members were, hopefully, looking away, but grew steadily more and more red-faced as she realized their attention was completely fixated on her and her alone. It wasn't the two circles at the front of the glacis—those were the optics—it was the side-opening hatch located on the... sides. She looked at her crew. They looked back at her. She blinked. They blinked. Arco even tilted his head. Duck swallowed, and began to crawl into the Machine Gunner's position with the agility of a molasses-covered, panicking, writing-about garden snake, with all the hissing and fussing to boot. Though not as bad as she'd thought—which she owed to her admittedly small stature—she politely clunked her head against the ceiling once she fully made it in and passed it off as her hoof smacking something once Flurry checked in on her from outside. Settling into her seat, and noting how very uncomfortable it was (just like the rest of the tank, now that she thought about it), she stared straight ahead, her back up against the cushion, and, though keeping in mind what she said, took a few of it back. This was actually fairly decent of a setup. Her own periscope dangling from the ceiling to her left, and a complex-looking mechanism surrounding what she judged to be a Crumphill-modified Checkslowwalkie BESA Machine Gun on her right with its own Gunner sight for maximum accuracy she didn't see in too many tanks. Though it was decent, it posed a problem... which was, itself, the BESA sticking right up in the Machine Gunner's face, and would restrict their right foreleg to the bare minium of movement, the likes of which was necessary for controlling a radio. So there was no conceivable way to have both the MG and the radio up front... and she was finding the radio being up front to be a very advantageous idea. Back to the issue of the BESA, however... "Hey, Flurry?" She asked the still-open Machine Gunner's hatch, hoping her voice carried properly. "Yeah, Duck? What is it?" came the swift reply. "Actually," Duck began, raising her forelegs up and starting to pull herself out of the seat, "give me a second, if you would." She found it much easier to crawl back out into open air than to scramble down into claustrophobic choking, and was back on the concrete floor in less than twenty seconds. Brushing herself off, she looked over at Flurry, who was awaiting her continuation, and... continued with a point at the BESA's cradle. "Would you mind taking that out, really quick?" She hoped it wasn't too much to ask of her. Flurry cocked her head. "The... which part of that?" Duck walked over the stepped plate and leaned forward to tap a hoof against the BESA's barrel in a position she was only now realizing was incredibly dangerous, especially with a gun that—presumably—hadn't been fired in three whole years. "Just the gun. I'd like to free up some space in there, if we can... I hope it's not a big deal... if it is, I mean, I can try and get it out myself–" Flurry waggled a hoof. "Say no more. I gotcha." She lit her horn and, just like that, the BESA disappeared from the cradle Duck was looking at and right into her waiting forelegs. She grunted at the weight, but flashed her teeth and turned about to inform her crew of its information. She looked down at it, noticed the first thing that was wrong with it, and presented it to the three ponies watching her intently. "BESA Machine Gun. Made in Checkslowwalkia, modified by Crumphill for use in their tanks with permission." Tipping its butt down and adjusting her grip on its underbarrel, she moved her right hoof over to the receiver and added, "Chambered in 7.92 mm Mauser rounds," as she pulled the bolt toward her breast, dislodged the prior jammed bullet casing that flew onto the ground and clattered loudly by her hindlegs, and let the receiver fly back into a ready position before grasping the whole thing casually once more, finishing up with a simple, "and, usually, able to fire about twenty-five-hundred rounds before needing a refill at a depot." She looked back up at Flurry, Arco, and Bluebell... who were now all staring at her wide-eyed with their jaws touching the floor. Her ears pinned against her head, and she shied away. Had she done something wrong? Funny? Stupid? Like most of the time? She shook her head. No. Quit it. Her hooves brought her over to the nearby trolly, and she placed the BESA on it before turning around and heading back to her crew. "Thank you, Flurry." Flurry shut her mouth and nodded quietly. Duck looked back at the BESA and flopped a hoof absent-mindedly. "We don't... really have much reason to have a bow Machine Gun, and the radio is, right now, part of the Loader's duties, whose main job is to load the tank's cannon. I'd rather not put whoever takes that position under that kind of... pressure, so I'd like to maybe move the radio around to the Machine Gunner's seat and have our own designated Radio Operator like most tanks do." She turned back to face them. "Which asks us... 'who's our Radio Operator'?" Arco took a step forward, looking over at the 77mm. "Wait, how many seats are there?" Duck replied, "Five. You have a Commander, a Loader, and a Gunner in the gun itself, and a Driver and a Machine Gunner in the front section." Flurry frowned. "And there are four of us." And with Duck being incapable of even talking to people without one of her constantly busy-for-better-purposes friends, leaving only Bluebell who she'd rather not be stuck together with for more than a span of half a second alone... oh Gods, who could they even ask? Where would they even start? Where would they go to? Would they have to put up Help Wanted signs around the school? Even then, who in the world spent their time fiddling with radios if it wasn't part of their electives? As far as she knew, there were no Radio Communication classes offered at Ponyville High—though she may have missed it on the electives form she barely looked at in the first place—so... they were stuck, weren't they? They needed five, and, as of right now, they only had four. And she didn't want to even think about having the Driver co-op manning the tank's movements and holding comms... which she realized she was doing right now stop it! Arco looked at everypony, disturbing her train of thought. "You guys know anybody good with a radio?" "No," Bluebell said immediately, though mostly—probably—so she wouldn't have to have a long conversation with any of them. Flurry shook her head. "Nopony good with radios, but I know a few mares in the Debate Club who might be up for it." Arco snickered. "What, you want them to talk about their country's earnings and declarations of peace?" "That's Model U.N., idiot." "Ohoho, whoops." Arco's humorous retort was echoed from nearby, prompting Duck and the rest of her crew to turn head and look over at the Tiger H standing... very blue next to them. Its assigned mechanics were sitting next to its left side, one of them pointing at its torsion bars and, now, its interleaved roadwheels with a combination wrench. "Inner leaf? The hell's that supposed to mean?" One of the jocks—Duck recognized her (barely) as Hail Mary—asked, elbow against the side of the Tiger. The lead mechanic rolled her eyes. "Interleaved." She tapped the roadwheels for emphasis. "They overlap one another, as a total of eight to distribute its weight better on the ground." She smirked, pointing at each piece as she went, "You've got an idler wheel in the back, your eight roadwheels, and a drive sprocket in the front. I mean, if you want me to, I can take all those out and just put tires. Make you go faster." The jocks, seemingly, didn't seem to understand the sarcasm until the rest of the nearby mechanics began laughing, and, only then, bore their teeth and hissed at them. "Don't get funny with us, grease monkeys. We can just do this ourselves if we nee–" At once, as if they'd rehearsed it, the four mechanics prior "helping" the jocks work on the Tiger dropped what they were doing or holding like they were surrendering, stayed their positions, and began to quickly walk away. The leader called, "Hear that, guys? They said they could do it themselves! Go find another group to help, these guys have got it under control!" The jocks, understandably, looked as if they had now just lost all semblance of knowledge they had on the Griffonian behemoth standing imposingly next to them, but swiftly changed their expressions and gave their new ones to each other. "Pssh, we don't need them! We've got this!" "Hee-yuh, totally!" "Let's get some!" The jerseyed mare Duck recognized as Lily Pad marched over to the wheeled tool chest a few inches away, bent over, and picked up a flimsy piece of tarnished paper that she brought up to her face closer than one probably should to read. The rest of the Hoofball-born crew gathered around her as she mumbled to herself. After a span of about five minutes—half of which Duck spent scratching her head, yawning, or idly moving a foreleg—Lily lowered the Griffonian manual with a puffy huff, looked kooky-eyed at the Tiger's suspension, and seemingly asked the entire area, "We have to take out three of these wheels to fix up one?!" "Wait what?!" "Lemme see that, Lily!" A hoof tapped at Duck's shoulder, and she turned around to find Arco placing his foreleg back against the ground. "Think Mrs. Red wants you or something." Duck looked over Arco's head—which he lowered in a courteous response—and, sure enough, saw their teacher waving at her from next to the SOMUA, still dressed in her army green uniform. She raised a hoof herself to begin walking over to see what Mrs. Red needed, but gritted her teeth and covered her ears as a piercing wave of noise erupted from somewhere up high. Duck, and—as she looked around in a panic to discover—the rest of the ponies in the immediate area whirled about and found the culprit near the three flags waving over the garages. CRRRKT! A voice clicked into place. "Will Gingersnap please head to the office? Gingersnap, please..." Duck lowered her forelegs from her ears. She didn't know a Gingersnap—not that she'd... really known anyone apart from Flurry, Arco, and Bluebell—but maybe it was one of the mechanics? The voice returned, "...oh, is this... oh, oh Gods, this isn't Chemistry. Sorry, uh... whoever I'm speaking to instead...! Which... isn't Chemistry...!" Duck and the rest of the class looked at each other quietly, but held looks that definitely had hundreds of things they wanted to say. "...Uh, Gods, this is– oh whoops!" CHHHH! "Ah, darn it! That was my coffee! Uh, sorry, Mr. Cheese! ...No, it wasn't your trophy! Don't worry! It was– it was just my coffee! I'll wipe it up, don't worry! Sorry guys, gonna– am I still on? Godsdamn, hold on a sec, gotta get outta my seat and– aaaah!" THUMP! After a few seconds of quiet crackling, "Ughhhhhh! That hurt...!" CREEEEEAK! "No no no no nononononono!" CLUNK! "No chair why?! I thought we were friends!" By now, the two temporarily combined classes were in fits of light snickers and belly laughs. Duck stared up at the intercom system, pursing her lips. After another short while... "...hey, Mr. Cheese." Silence. "Hello, Graham." Clip clop clip clop. "Sorry about that, everypony." "Sorry, guys!" went the other one. CRRRKT! With the white noise over, the classes roared with laughter. Duck, instead, turned to Flurry, who was giggling in one of her own hooves. "Who was that?" Flurry cleared her throat, whipped her mane around, and gave Duck a goofy smile. "That was, ahem, that was one of the morning announcers. She's pretty much known throughout school for being a bit clumsy, but some of us love her anyways." Duck turned around to let the Alicorn go back to whatever she was busy doing, and looked back up at the now silenced intercom. She hummed, and flexed her chin idly. She had safely planted herself against the open doorway of the front office, and as she watched the clock above its frame tick over to two o' clock, she didn't even have to move out of the way as the rush of escaping students Blitzkrieged through the commons and toward both sets of doors behind her to head home. But she moved anyway, flinching and peeling her ears back in case a stray pony found an alternative route that just so happened to be inside her personal bubble that was about five times her own length. She waited as groups of Freshmen, Sophomores, Juniors, and Seniors flooded the area, anticipating an unwanted bout of contact, but, finding none and seeing the number of students quickly dwindle down as the first wave finished, Duck adjusted her messenger bag's strap over her chest, fiddled with one of the buttons on her sleeve's end, and turned the corner to walk into the front office. And slammed head-on into another pony who was leaving the same room. They both—judging by the much louder cry of surprise accompanying her own—fell back and hit the ground in a daze, the sounds of paper and books hitting the floor already causing Duck a large amount of despair she hoped wasn't audibly petering out. Sitting up onto her haunches and rubbing at the back of her head, she grit her teeth and stared across the way with one eye to find another mare her age doing the same, her light gray and black mane a bit curly and a bit shaggy at the seemingly impossible same span of time. Her wings fluttered in little twitches, as if they'd tried to start flapping as a reflex of some kind. "Oww... geez." Duck raised her forelegs and bent them against her chest. "I'm so–" "–rry!" Duck tilted her head back. The Pegasus did the same. Duck spoke first. "I didn't mean to–" "–do that I'm so sorry." They blinked at one another. The Pegasus opened her mouth. Duck opened hers. The Pegasus shut hers. Duck shut hers. Duck examined the damage around them, finding her books and her papers. The Pegasus looked around the floor wobbly-eyed, catching sight of her own things. Duck intended to get back onto all four hooves. "Um..." "...yeah." Duck got up and began to gather her stuff. The Pegasus did the same, bending down and stuffing papers into her backpack. "Oh, that's mine–" "–oh, sorry." SHK SHK! CREEEN. ZZZZZIP! THUMP! "Darn it." Duck looked over at the Pegasus, who, after safely stowing her fallen binder away in her bag, stared up. Duck's green eyes into the mare's brown. "Uh... I'm Duck Bill." She extended a hoof... and promptly dropped her book she'd forgotten she was holding. The Pegasus pushed her mane up and brought the same hoof over to shake Duck's. "I'm Graham Cracker." Graham looked away, bit her lip, then dipped down to grab Duck's book before Duck herself could get it. Placing it into Duck's hooves, she added, "I'm sorry about that..." Duck flailed a hoof, almost dropping it again. "No, it was my fault!" A staff member exited the front office behind Graham, flashed her a grin, frowned, looked at the ground, sucked on his teeth, mimicked Graham's following neck-craning-back-thing, and laughed as she laughed. "Have a good one, Graham." "You too, Mr. Lane!" Graham turned around after waving Mr. Lane off, and her giggle died down upon meeting Duck's gaze again. "I really should have been watching where I was going–" "–no, I should have looked before going inside." Graham raised an eyebrow. "Did you need something in there? I hope I'm not stopping you or anything." Duck beamed. "No, actually! Well... not in there anymore." Graham's eyebrow looked about ready to escape her face. "I, um... I heard your announcement earlier..." Graham, immediately, blanched, turning around and displaying a large brown stain on the backside of her school jacket. "Ughhh, you heard that? Who did I call?" "The Tankery class." Graham looked at the ceiling, her eyes shut. "Ugh huh huh, I'm so stupid." Her gaze went to the stain. "Now I've got coffee on my friggin' jacket, I broke my mug on the floor, and my stomach still hurts from the seat adjuster doing a piledriver on me." Duck snickered. Oh, that's right. "Actually, I wanted to ask you about that." Another eyebrow. Wait... was she using the opposite one this time? How in the... never her mind. "About what? Me being dumb?" Duck shook her head. "No, about... um, do you know radios?" Graham's facade of below-average self-esteem faded away in an instant, and she struck a pose and bore her teeth. "Do I know radios?!" She flailed a leg. "Pssh, I come from a long line of school office workers known for their accuracy and their poise, with the voices of angels and all the heaven-bringing as well!" Duck bunched up her cheeks. This was... amazing! "That's great! We were wondering if–" Graham cut her off. "I'm not so blessed." She pointed at the stain, then at the bits of porcelain sticking jaggedly out of one of her bag's side pockets. "Case in point." Duck's ears fell back. Oh. No! She could still ask! It didn't hurt! She scratched one of her ears to make it rise again. "It's just that, um, the Tankery class is due to start our actual lessons tomorrow... and my team needs another member... and... what?" She had paused, noticing Graham's eyes shrinking to pinpricks as she took a few stumbling steps back from Duck, teeth grit, before letting out a little squeal and sprinting the other way as quickly as an Equestria Games gold medalist. As scraps of paper flew in lazy U's down to the ground in the Pegasus' wake, Duck stared at the spot she'd previously occupied and listened as the dead pieces of wood finally crinkled onto the carpeted floor. She sighed, adjusted her bag, grabbed the rest of the papers, and trotted toward the front doors, anxiousness bubbling in her gut. Now what was she going to do?