My Little Destroyermen: Walker on Water

by The Atlantean


Chapter 18

“Strike! Block! Strike! Block! Right step! Left step! Strike!” Twilight panted to herself as sweat dripped from her nose. Without magic, her standard-issue spear and shield had become agonizingly heavy in the two hours since the session started. Her left arm was on fire from constantly holding the large iron-reinforced wooden rectangle at chest height, and moving the spear was killing her right.

“Alright, girls,” Sergeant Alden called, “Spear drill is over.” His thundering voice washed her adrenaline away, and she nearly sagged with exhaustion. “Listen up! Chack and I have talked about this, and I’ve brought it to Captain Reddy’s attention that although we have enough of you for three regiments, there aren’t enough of us. Because of this, I have asked Miss Sparkle to be your commander. She will be treated as an officer of my Marines and will go through the same training all of you are experiencing now. In fact--” he waved her over-- “she has already been training with you for the past two hours.”

Twilight did her best to stand straight. She was still exhausted, having been a skinny bookworm her entire life, but that title of Marine dangled before her. All she needed to do was get these trainees caught up with Alden and Chack’s own regiments and “graduated” on time. Then, she felt, she would be able to properly lead her troops.

“Miss Twilight, I turn over command of the Third Marines to you,” Alden said, snapping her out of her thoughts.

Her mind raced to figure out what to say. “Uh, I accept,” she finally stumbled. “What do we do?”

“A little formation drill wouldn’t hurt. Get them into formation with the commands I taught you.”

She turned around. “Marines, form up!” They quickly shuffled into platoons of twenty-five ‘Cats each. “Atten-hut!” They snapped to attention. She looked sidelong at Alden, who nodded his satisfaction. “At ease.” The ‘Cats relaxed slightly.

“Good job,” Pete said. “That’s enough for today. Call them to attention and have them fall out.”

“Yes, sir. Atten-hut!” After a pause, she continued, “See you at the next session. Fall out!”

The ‘Cats slowly spread to other parts of the city, bringing their weapons home with them. To their credit, they acted professional despite their obvious rookie walks. They were trying too hard.

“Sergeant Alden, may I train them to be Royal Guards rather than Marines?” she asked.

“What do you mean?”

“Just add a little extra touch to the regiment. Make them special.”

“Absolutely not. This is war, Twilight.”

“Sergeant, these are the rejects from the First and Second, and you know it. I know it. Most importantly, they know it. I’ve talked to some of them, and they feel like they’re the leftovers. Everyone wants to be like the other two regiments, but they physically can’t. Give me a chance.”

“You want to train them to be some kind of personal guard.”

“No! The Royal Guard is the best of the best in Equestria. They’re entrusted with keeping the Princesses safe, which they’ve done successfully for over a thousand years. But…”

“But what?”

“They fight best as commandos, my brother found. They’re not front-line soldiers. Guards are trained to act in small groups of about five to ten each.” She let out a short laugh. “That explains the Canterlot Wedding. Anyway, they’re most effective when they’re not part of the main force.”

“Twilight, what we need is an army, not a rabble of skirmishers.”

“This won’t be a rabble, Sergeant.”

“Will they be able to competently function as part of the main force alongside the other troops?”

“Of course. With a couple of modifications to the training regimen, they’ll be better than even your Marines.”

“Fat chance. The Marines are the absolute best.”

“There is only one way to find out,” Chack said. “I, for one, believe that your idea will be invaluable against the Grik, Princess.”

Pete Alden sighed. “Then I see no problem. You may proceed.” As Twilight turned to leave, he asked, “One last question. Do you plan on using some kind of magical weapons?”

“Yes. I hope to eventually have rifles much like yours that shoot magic rather than bullets. At the very least, we will have handheld artillery. The sooner I figure out how to capture this world’s natural magic with technology, the sooner we may be able to use it as ammunition or explosives. But I plan on using standard rifles as well. There would be very few mage guns.”

“These ‘mage guns’ will be rigorously tested?”

“To the best of our abilities.”

He thoughtfully bobbed his head. “This will definitely be an interesting class. Train them as you will, Twilight Sparkle, but remember that they are Marines first and foremost, and they will adhere to regulations as such.”

“I would expect nothing less.”

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A broken woman in tattered, filthy rags huddled against her only consolation, a broken man, in a cage deep in the dark, dank hold of a wooden-hulled sailing ship. Lack of nutrition had turned her normally-slim build into a bony, ribb-counting shell of a person. Her eyes had sunk deep in their sockets. Her hands trembled in fear despite barely her barely having the energy to stay awake.

The man was not much better off. He was in worse shape, having given her most of his share of food, and his once-pristine military uniform had withered away. Presently, his weakened arm wrapped itself protectively around her wiry frame, the meager warmth of her body giving him the resolve to fight the insanity at the edge of his mind. Unbeknownst to either, magic dripped feebly from her many cuts onto his skin, and that was what was fighting the brokenness. The hold around them was filled with similar scenes of despair, as the cat-monkey things usually used as rations here wasted away much quicker in captivity.

Their captors, lizard-things that looked like velociraptors, clambered down a stairway leading to the upper decks. Above them, the light of day failed to reach the deck. None of the five had weapons--their long, razor-sharp claws worked like knives.

One of the lizards unlocked their cage. It beckoned for him to move out, and when he did, it pointed to her. He pulled the woman, helping her to climb out of the cage and letting her lean on him once she stood on her bloody, shit-smothered feet. Drawing magical strength from her, he followed the lizards up the stairs with her ragged breathing at his side. For some reason, the lizards had elected not to blind them in contrast to the several times when they were transferred to other ships.

The midday sun momentarily blinded him. When his eyes adjusted, he could see the tangled orange, yellow, and red streaks in his companion’s hair and her yellowish skin. The topside salty ocean smell morphed into a blend of rotting meat and defecation. He immediately regretted searching for its source, as a large city of all things--a city--of lizards loomed on shore. The architecture was a mix of abode-shit and clay for the most part, but a grand stone palace presided over the mess like an overseer.

He held her tighter as her weak legs buckled with a sharp cry of pain followed by fearful whimpering. Turning his head, he saw that one of the junior lizards--probably hungry--had swiped at her skinny calf. Its razor claws split what was left of her skin wide open, causing a gangrenous mess of blood to spill onto the deck. Her unconscious magic told him that an artery was cut. Immediately, he followed its instructions, ripping one of his destroyed sleeves and tying it into a tourniquet around her thigh. His other sleeve became a wipe to deal with the wound.

Then a miracle happened. As he tried to stem the loss of precious blood, invisible magic flowed around her cut and absorbed itself into her veins. The flaps of skin closed and sewed themselves back together again. She opened her eyes briefly to look at her leg and paused. Her hand weakly fluttered around the newly-formed scar, searching in vain for a bloody mess. Her eyes widened, the unknown strength shared between the two of them filling her mind with realization. Before it returned to him, he heard her say something.

“I still have magic.” Then her eyes sunk back into their sockets again and she returned to her weakened state. Pulling her back to her feet, he unconsciously looked around and almost lost the little control he still had.

Sitting outside the harbor, with its anchor lowered, crew relaxing, and meatball flapping in the wind, was Amagi.