Aces High

by CrazedRambling

A Shot In The Dark - Ditch

It was a few hours before Gravesend awoke from her period of unconsciousness again. I can assume that the length of time she spent knocked out wasn't aided by Blood's anesthetic spell. At least I assumed he had used one, I wasn't actually in the room when he cast it since I was getting the trash can. I really hoped that he hadn't operated on Gravesend like that with the possibility of her waking up in the middle of having her skull cut apart, because there wasn't a single scenario I played out in my head that ended with a pleasant response.

Not that any of that mattered now though, seeing as how it was all said and done, and now Gravesend was waking up, sounding perfectly healthy as she called out to me. "What am I doing on the bed?" she asked of me. Well, shouted at me really since I was still sitting on the couch. While I waited to see how long Gravesend would take to wake up again, I had turned on the television with nothing better to do, considering I couldn't really train without her, and that even if I wanted to, Blood had explicitly said to only perform limited physical activity. Even without that warning though, I figured it would be best to give the injured pony time to rest and heal her battered mind.

While I thought about what exactly to tell her, and what to leave out, considering I had learned some more personal information about my roommate than she might want me to know, I heard a thump come from the room. I bolted over to my room at the sound, worried that Gravesend might have just hurt herself even more. Instead, as I came in and turned on the light, I couldn't help but burst into laughter as I saw Gravesend upside down on the floor entangled in the sheets of the bed, her legs flailing wildly in a fruitless attempt to remove the trappings from her body. "Oh, you'll be laughing when I run you into the ground throughout the rest of your training..." she mumbled in response to my amusement at her dilemma.

Waving off her threat, I walked over and began to unravel the sheets from around her since she couldn't seem to handle their removal by herself. Disorientation was one of the typical consequences of a concussion, so Gravesend falling out of the bed and her ensuing inability to remove the sheets she had wrapped about herself in her sleep made sense. Still, the logic of the situation didn't deduct from the hilarity of the results, and I continued to let out a few giggles as Gravesend looked at me helplessly. That couldn't have been easy for her since she was used to handling her own problems.

After being fully extricated from the sheets that had been holding her hostage, I helped Gravesend up when her first attempt at getting on her own hooves only resulted in her immediate collapse back onto the floor. After she was up, Gravesend took a few wobbly steps around the room with my assistance before declaring that she didn't require any more help. When she was done assuring herself that she could remain standing for the moment, she faced me, an inquisitive look on her face. "So what was I doing on the bed like that? We didn't... you know, did we?" she asked, looking somewhat worried about what my response would be.

Right. Concussion. That has the small side effect of amnesia.

In response, I simply took a small step back, raising an eyebrow and looking at her before bursting into laughter once more. Gravesend took on an annoyed expression as I laughed at her for the second time in only a couple of minutes. "I'll take that as a no then." she said without humor before walking into the living room, reacting barely noticeably to the brighter light that the windows offered. It was getting late, only about three hours before Luna would call the moon to us without fail, but the sun still offered enough light to be brighter than the dimmed lights of my bedroom. I figured I had been holding the details of what had happened over the past few hours over Gravesend's head long enough and decided to explain it all.

"So, what's the last thing you remember?" I asked Gravesend, causing her to turn and regard me, opening her mouth to respond, and then quickly closing it again. A perplexed expression played itself across her features as she tried, with effort, to recall the last thing she had been aware of. "Back in the gym, we were training, and we were about to finish when... when... when I woke up here and fell on the floor." she began hesitantly, only to break into a distasteful tone as she couldn't recall exactly what had happened.

I nodded in agreement, though I was somewhat surprised that she couldn't recall her outburst at my actions. Should I really tell her that part? She was enraged when the event had actually happened to her, but now I would have to tell her that it was because of the fact that I had almost killed her that she couldn't remember anything past our training. What if she get even more angry at me because of that? What if-?

I let the thought trail off. I had to tell her, not just because it was the right thing to do, but also because we had to trust each other if we were going to be in the same squad, and concealing the truth now would only make it worse when some mention of it was inevitably thrown into conversation. To that end, I made up my mind during the single second that it took all of these considerations to process through my brain. I tried to take on a friendly tone, perhaps to mitigate any forthcoming anger at the details that Gravesend was now missing out on.

"So, we did finish training, it was a good session, but... It was really the way that it ended that wasn't so good." I said, trying to sound positive as Gravesend stared at me with skepticism. "I um, kind of got out of control, I mean I was already in fighting mode, and the memories were persistent, and I was-" I continued to explain, though I was cut off as Gravesend rolled her eyes at me. "Get on with it!" she said forcefully, tilting over, off balance from the force of her own words. I blushed a little as I realized I had been beating around the bush, still trying not to tell Gravesend every little detail.

"Well, let's just say that I may have used a killing blow technique on you by accident since I was caught up in the whole fight thing." I told her sheepishly. I shied away some, only squinting at Gravesend as I prepared for her rage to be taken out on my form physically. Instead, it seemed I was cringing away from nothing as I cracked an eye open after a few seconds of not experiencing any physical trauma. Gravesend stood there, silently, looking as if she was struggling with her own thoughts, not a hint of malice on her face. I could tell that she was reliving her own experiences with using a killing blow, only that time the technique had performed to its name and ended a pony's life. Her own mother's life in particular.

Because of the fact that I could see the pain of her memories on her face, I continued my explanation to Gravesend in an attempt to shift her thoughts away to current matters. "So, yeah, I kicked you in the face and threw you on the floor, which made you throw me against the wall and yell at me," I explained, almost casually so as to finish the story as quickly as possible. "After that, both of us were pretty messed up, so we hobbled back here, and you fell unconscious, so I went and got Blood. Long story short, you had a concussion and 'intracranial' something or another and blood was building up, so we had to drill a hole into your skull to drain it out, but Blood patched you up pretty good after that and we let you sleep it off." I continued, giving Gravesend an awkward smile at the end of my explanation.

The turquoise pony did seem to be overwhelmed by my elaboration, leading her thoughts elsewhere, and allowing me to give myself a small grin of success. Gravesend was silent for a moment a she considered the events she had forgotten, her eyes rolling to either side of head as she weighed the authenticity of what I told her. "Yep." she concluded suddenly. "Sounds pretty believable to me. In fact, I should probably be angry with you right now, but you did end up saving my life." she told me casually. "But don't you dare think that gives you any bonus points with me considering that it was because of your reckless actions that I almost died in the first place." she warned me threateningly.

I had to admit, there was no way around owning up to that fact; I had almost killed her and I was damn lucky that I hadn't caused even more damage while I was... what? In a trance, or whatever the state I was in should have been called?

I looked at the ground, feeling a mixture of shame and embarrassment now that the victim of my attack was confronting me, only sparing a glance or two as I was scolded. When I did glance at her though, Gravesend's expression wasn't that of anger, or disappointment, or contempt, or... any other emotion I imagined would be present. Instead, she looked at me with something approaching disbelief, though not the kind of shocked disbelief that you can see on many ponies muzzles when they are told something horrific, such as the destruction of Ponyville. Rather, Gravesend's look of disbelief was akin to skepticism, perhaps a hint of disgust as well.

"Really? You're going to get all shy now? Come on, I'm not dead, now am I?" Gravesend expressed to me. She certainly wasn't willing to let me wallow any more than I already was. "Last I checked, you're still stuck with me for the next three weeks, and I'm not going to train any sniveling filly that won't get over their mistakes." she told me sternly. I looked towards her, more motivated now that Gravesend had in essence told me to knock of the cringing, only to let concern take over once more and Gravesend wobbled again, nearly falling down once more.

Despite her protests assuring me that she was fine, I directed her to the couch and forced her to lie down. It seemed that that was as far as I was going to get her though, as once she was settled comfortably she waved me away with the hoof. Gravesend shook her head with mild annoyance at the circumstances forced upon her by her condition. Surely this wasn't something that the Pony of Death was used to dealing with.

Weakness, was not a virtue to her.

"You know, you really should relax some. If today's training session was any indication, you work yourself pretty hard all the time. Not to mention, you know, doctor's orders after all." I told Gravesend, attempting to persuade her to limit herself from any further injury, which simply caused her to protest more. "Pfff. Hardly, today was nothing! If I hadn't been running the shields on both of us for that long-" she began to boast with a tone of confidence which began to turn to offense at the perceived underestimation of her endurance. She cut herself off suddenly, inhaling deeply through her nostrils and making some odd motions with her hooves as she did so.

Visibly calmer, she continued. "I suppose you're right. If Blood caught me doing to anything to jeopardize his 'care', he'd probably beat me near to death himself and then complain about having to fix me up for that too." Gravesend said with a hint of amusement as she rolled her eyes at the prospect. Even if that line of reasoning opened up more opportunities of violence, I was satisfied that it managed to keep Gravesend off of her hooves for the moment. Gravesend suddenly shifted the conversation drastically. "Hey, this couch is pretty comfortable. Have you even sat on this thing yet?" she asked, looking surprised at her own observation.

'Why yes, I have sat on my own damn couch. But I was a little preoccupied with being worried about the potentially dying pony that had been unconscious on my bed in order to give a-' I stopped myself from retorting so angrily. Yes, the comment was entirely inane and unrelated to anything we had been talking about. Yes, I was also slightly perturbed by the fact that Gravesend seemed so apathetic about the fact that I had almost killed her. Heck, I would have almost taken anger over 'sounds pretty believable to me' given the circumstances.

But I also wasn't going to allow myself back into the hot-headed and snarky rut that I had called my attitude only a few short months ago. Not out loud anyhow. Instead, I appeased the small talk that Gravesend seemed to be searching for.

"Yeah, I have sat on it, it's pretty comfortable." I responded coolly. Calm and collected. Don't get mad at the 'teenager' for being the way she is. In turn, Gravesend yawned in my direction, managing to surprise me once more with her relaxed mannerisms as she reclined further on the couch, propping her forehooves behind her head and closing her eyes before responding verbally. "Yep. S'pretty nice. Been an interesting day today, can't say I've ever come closer to death than this, not even that one time in Stalliongrad..."

I rolled my eyes and began to turn towards the restroom. Hey, nopony could say that they didn't answer the 'call of the wild', and frankly, during all of the day's excitement, I hadn't taken the opportunity to relieve myself. Also, three words: heated toilet seats. Hadn't gotten to try out that little accessory of my accommodations yet either. Perks. Of. The. Job.

But no sooner had I lifted a hoof to make my first step towards my destination than I immediately had to redirect it into a full on face-hoof as I heard one of those soft snores that Gravesend produced when she slept. 'Oh, I'm fine, I'm fine, really, its no big deal. You didn't nearly kill me or anything. My name's Gravesend, I eat nails for breakfast and shit out small decorative steel sculptures for the souvenir shop at the castle!'

Right. That's why you're out cold sleeping on my sofa after a five minute conversation 'tough stuff'. I looked towards the ceiling, mouthing 'Really?' to any divine beings that may have been looking down on me. Perhaps one might take pity and just put me out of my misery right then. I wouldn't have to worry about anything then. No war, no crying friends, no sadness, and at the moment perhaps most importantly of all, no Gravesend.

With no merciful death incoming, I sighed, embracing the cruelty of the fact that the universe wouldn't let me get off that easily. I perked up a bit at the fact that I realized Luna must have been busy with her work, as the Sun was slowly lowering to be replaced by her own luminous celestial body designated as the Moon. The only reason this was of any importance to me at all was the realization that I got to keep my bed to myself for at least one more night. Maybe that was a sign that things would be looking up in the near future?

Or not.

I felt a mild burst of heat flash past my ear, the projectile that I knew caused the heat moving with a quickness that barely allowed me to perceive its sudden arrival and immediate passing.

"Damn it!" I heard a voice shout into my earpiece as I moved my bulk into better cover. Riff. He had just missed a shot that he should have hit since I wasn't even aware of his presence in my haste to avoid being spotted by Wrecks. I checked my rifle to make sure it was properly loaded and the safety was switched off as I considered the fact that the pony who had barely missed me had surely been rushing himself.

Luckily for me that still meant that I was still in the game. I allowed myself a little smile at my good fortune, since I had managed to trace the direction of the shot back to where Riff would most likely be. Out of habit, I tapped the wall I had my back to with my hoof as I rolled to the left side of my cover and into the open. Working quickly, I put my eye to the scope of my rifle, and the comforting black, white, and grey electronic glow greeted my vision. A bright white pony shaped blob stuck out from the side of another concrete slab, one of many on the hilly obstacle course. Narrowing my eyes and smiling once more, I steadied myself and bit down on the trigger of my rifle, which was attached to the bridle I was wearing.

Quicker than the blink of an eye, an even brighter diminutive white blob exploded out of my rifle and struck the warm pony shaped figure that was pressed against the cool concrete block. I watched with satisfaction as I saw the heated pellet impact against Riff's training fatigues. I relived my satisfaction as I heard the familiar voice of Riff cry out in annoyance. "Double damn it!"

I took a moment to hide myself away behind my own concrete slab before I said anything over the radio, though I couldn't help but comment once I checked my surroundings to make sure I was safe. Assured that I could divert my attention for a few seconds, I felt obliged to give a brief assessment of my victim's performance. "You need to slow it down a bit Riff. I didn't even know you were there; I should have been an easy mark for you. And try to be more aware of your cover's effectiveness before hunkering down." my voice rumbled out.

Before any response could be given, I heard a click, and felt a hot splash on the fur covering the back of my skull. Calmly, I reached a hoof around to the back of my head and wiped away some of the warm liquid that soaked the fur there. Pulling the hoof back into eyesight, I saw the soft green glow that lit up the limb and revealed my brown fur. I had taken a moment to praise myself, to try and help a squad member, and in quite an out of character moment, boast. Wrecks had taken the opportunity to sneak up behind me and eliminate his competition.

These hotshot squad members were rubbing off in the worst way.

"Learn to follow your own advice first big guy." Riff retorted across the radio with a short laugh attached to the statement. I silently noted his assessment of my own actions as correct before turning to my 'killer', almost knocking into the barrel of Wrecks' rifle as I did so. Clearly the pony had fired the shot almost at a point blank range, further reinforced by the stern glare I received as I locked eyes with Wrecks himself.

Opposite to his expression, I gave the pony a big grin as I towered above him. "Nice job Wrecks. You took the moment I let my guard down to act and take me down. That's about as smooth as it gets." I complimented. Wrecks scowled at me before turning away to return to the barracks being as Riff and myself had been the last remaining members of the squad in this training bout, uttering a short response as he did so. "Eyes open at all times. Be alert, at all times. Stick to the objective. At. All. Times. There's no time to brag if your target's still alive, Ditch." the sharpshooter muttered coldly as he moved away.

Real serious pony, but he does his job well.

"That's the end of the match, folks." said a female voice over the loudspeakers hidden about the grounds.

Storing Wrecks' words in the back of my mind, I headed back to the barracks as well.

It had only been a few days since graduation, which would normally have barely been enough time for each incoming trainee to get acquainted with their fellow squad members. Typically, the operation was as such when students were rotated out:

The first day was simply the arrival of the incoming trainees, whereupon they would be led to their barracks and allowed to set up their bunks. Luckily, the quarters provided for each soldier were better than the living conditions in basic training. Instead of one bunkhouse containing around fifty ponies, housing was arranged apartment style, with rooms the size of the average Canterlot home set up for six to ten ponies. Furnishings had also been provided for each 'apartment', though such decorations were spartan in design and utility, being provided by the military after all.

Each of the four wings of a housing complex held twelve apartments, and each apartment was assigned to a different training squad with a different instructor, though instructors had their own housing complex that was slightly larger and better furnished than that of their students. While each apartment had modest bathrooms for the inhabitants, the military deigned to use communal showers as a way to save space, so the entire complex had a community bathing facility which the inhabitants were tasked with maintaining themselves.

The second day was a guided tour of the facilities available to the cadets. There were a total of four housing complexes, three for trainees, and one for instructors, allowing for a maximum capacity of roughly two thousand ponies, though there had never been more than thirteen hundred trainees at a single time, which was achieved in the months following the Changeling attack on Canterlot. On average though, less than six hundred trainees, roughly ten percent of the cadets that made it out of basic training each month, inhabited the sharpshooter division training grounds.

Aside from the housing complexes, several other facilities were available to the cadets. There were seven shooting ranges on the training grounds, more than enough for any relatively short range shooting that squads needed to do. Long range shooting was done on outdoors shooting ranges which could vary in range from one thousand feet to two miles in distance, though these were strictly shooting ranges for live ammunition. A smattering of administrative buildings were in the center of the X-shaped path leading to each housing complex, along with a decent medical station. Other than those buildings, there was little of note nearby since the training grounds were on the outskirts of Canterlot to keep the impact of noise from high-powered rifles from bothering residents.

The third day would be the first day of any real activity. The first meeting with your squad's instructor would take place then, and each squad member would officially introduce themselves and give some background information about themselves to everypony else. The instructor would then introduce him/herself to the squad, usually recounting their service history, glorifying the role of being an eagle eye overlooking some backwater town. Perhaps an instructor might have had the good fortune- or misfortune, depending on how you looked at it -to have ventured into the unsettled parts of Equestria on scouting detail and faced down some of the nastier creatures hiding in those lands.

Once pleasantries were handled, the squad might perform a light training activity so their instructor could see each cadet's skills for their own eyes. Everypony could shake off the couple of days of rest between basic training and their advanced training, poke fun at each other as they went through the paces, nothing too strenuous, perhaps the only thing being tested would be the patience of the instructor for some of the hotshots who thought they were a big deal. After all of the minor exercises were finished came the most anticipated part of those initial days of sharpshooter training: visiting the armory.

The armory was indeed an impressive place, I could attest to that personally after having seen it. Wall after wall, row after row of cataloged rotating racks loaded with weapons, from decades old firearms that still proved their reliability, to the most modern and technology laden guns imaginable. Glistening bridles, shining barrels, pristine metal, these were the weapons that each and every pony at the academy would get to test, a prospect which set every pair of eyes twinkling with wonder. If there was one thing the every single sharpshooter at the academy had in common, it was guns, and before the cadets was an arsenal big enough to take over Canterlot itself.

However, those first few days of my stay at the academy didn't quite go that way. These were no normal circumstances that Equestria was facing after all. Instead, the three days of 'warming up' to my surroundings of the next month were jammed into my first true day of training.

When it had been publicly announced that Equestria had come under attack, the typically content machine that was the military kicked into overdrive. The normally lax number of instructors leased by the military was quickly bolstered by veteran graduates, retired service members, and even a few private security contractors with extensive experience in marksman positions jumped at the opportunity to help their homeland. But the Sharpshooter Division was hardly the only part of the military that received an outpouring of support from the expertise of military and paramilitary veterans from all over Equestria. Engineering, Demolition, R&D, Medical, Air Forces, all of them were surely receiving vast amounts of support from the citizens of Equestria, though I could only attest to my own particular branch.

The advantage of having hundreds of experienced ponies helping train up and coming cadets was that the quality of their training would increase due to the pooled knowledge at their hooves. This also meant that the fresh graduates, the ones who had come out of basic training at the same time as my squad, and the next two months worth of cadets would probably become the greatest fighting force Equestria had ever seen. Sticklers for tradition and their tried and true practices, the powers that be in the military would keep basic training at three months of instruction before graduation, so the influx of recruits in response to the war would have to wait to fully impact advanced training divisions for that time.

With basic training beginning at the start of every month though, that meant the comparatively small groups of sharpshooters nominated from those who graduated at the same time as myself and the next two months would have the advantage of being the main focus of the instructors who had been immediately accepted by the military. Without such large groups to instruct, the groups passing though the academy during that time would bear the brunt of the instructor's desire for vengeance through what they taught. The additional time spent with each trainee would also lead to a more thorough 'education' than the larger numbers of their successor groups, very similar to the allure of going to a private school over a public school: with smaller 'class' sizes, the 'professor' can spend more time teach each 'student'.

The objective for the moment was to turn this current group into the newest wave of Equestrian defenders, and to bolster the strength of the ponies already on active duty. It went without question that the military would want to get more troops into active duty to beef up security around any vulnerable cities, and as always, the equation was the same. More soldiers equals more security. As such, the training had been intense from day one. This day- night, rather -was no different, and the sharpshooter squad was being trained in the use of thermal optical attachments and nighttime warfare strategy through a mock soldier on soldier firefight.

Armed with air rifles, the nine ponies of my squad, myself included, fought their way through the dark maze of a training ground/obstacle course that was used by the sharpshooter's division to mimic the different environments that a sniper might face. As such, the surroundings had been varied individually, and intentionally mixed together. Certain areas were adorned with metal scaffolding and thin tin walls, other parts held large concrete slabs, such as the one I had been taking cover behind, while others still were forested areas. Other, smaller areas existed for more specific training exercises, though the entirety of the sharpshooter training grounds, no matter the particular environment, had artificial mounds and valleys interspersed to create strategic locations. Unfortunately, this meant that climbing hills had become routine.

It was on these hills and in these valleys that much of the actual training and combat practices took place outside of the shooting ranges, and, once again, this evening was no different. Each pony had their training fatigues on, a thick durable material making up the outside of the suits, and the inside lined with padding to soften the blows from non-lethal rounds fired from large caliber rifles. Non-lethal rounds were always used when not firing at a designated shooting range, and reckless use of live ammunition was not tolerated. However, non-lethal rubber bullets still hurt to be shot with, and even through the padding, bruises sometimes formed.

Tonight though, the armor was an unnecessary precaution since the rounds had been soft plastic pellets filled with two small packets of chemicals that would grow hot and glow a florescent green when mixed together. Since we had been training with thermal optics, each pellet had been enchanted by R&D to heat up briefly when fired, the magic enabling the shooter to track the shot as it went, and the chemical reaction of the mixing packets allowing vision from either normal sight, or the thermal sight of the scope. The government seemed to be perfectly willing to spend enormous sums of money to make training soldiers easier, as proven by these enchanted pellets. Time and money had to be spent designing, testing, modifying, and enchanting the rounds to proper specifications, even before mass production began, and this was a practice that had spread to all branches of the military.

While the guided lessons from instructors were important, most of the day was taken up by training with whatever gun the cadet wanted to use at the time, with only one or two guided lessons taking place during active hours. Trainees had full access to the armory and shooting ranges of the academy, along with a nearly limitless supply of ammunition or weapon modifications available to choose from. The indoor ranges were open at all hours of the day, while the outdoor ones and the obstacle course were closed at night unless training exercises such as the one I had just completed were taking place. The golden rule of the academy was to always have options available. After all, the lessons of instructors could only do so much with the time they had to improve their cadets. It was up to each individual pony to hone their skills on their own time to become the best they could be.

Of course though, everything was not golden at this time, and that line of thought led me to recall my own reaction to the declaration of war as I trailed behind Wrecks back to our apartment. The gryphons and minotaurs attacking. The destruction of Ponyville. I still can't quite put a name to all of the emotions that I felt. Shock, at the fact that Equestria was under attack. Sorrow for the ponies who died, and the families that were left behind to hear the news. Disappointment... that both my talents would surely be called upon for whatever was to come.

'I'll mark my targets, and bury them too.' I thought morbidly as my hooves crushed the leaves on the floor of the 'forested' section to dust.

It even hurt me some when I recalled the fact that Rainbow Dash was from Ponyville, though only Marble and myself had asked about where she was from. She had to feel even worse about the destruction of her home, and even if she had been around, I would never be able to truly sympathize with her loss. My home had the calm of the grave about it, both figuratively and literally, and the majority of the small number of ponies who deigned to live there had probably never even heard of Ponyville before the attack.

My train of thought was interrupted by the greeting of a particularly unique member of my squad.

Now, let me start off by saying that i have no problems with my squad. In fact, we're the best of the best; the most accurate shooters from our respective squads, not that it was very difficult to get into the sharpshooter division. At least it hadn't been very difficult for me. This also made us the best shooters out of all the other ponies in the academy at the moment, but back to my point.

We're one motley crew of ponies to be perfectly honest. The nine of us really didn't have anything in common with each other aside from being the placed in the same apartment. We probably wouldn't really have associated with one another, and we certainly wouldn't have hung out together of our own free will. Given the circumstance though, other options weren't exactly available, and I found my squad to be perfectly suitable myself. But everypony certainly was interesting, and I just loved to hear about what people did before they got where they were now.

Now Riff, that was the pony that was hailing me at the moment, I liked him. He was pretty easy going, he wasn't too concerned with what other ponies though about him unless it was something good. I didn't really take after that whole vanity aspect of his mannerisms, but I could appreciate that he was relatively laid back, if a little foul mouthed. But right now, he was looking at me with a smug grin on his face.

"Looks like someone got it good." he commented as he observed my body for the telling glow of the chemically enhanced pellets. "Ooooh, looks like Wrecks got you good." he said as he found the glowing mark on the back of my head. "That one probably hurt." he said, bobbing his head understandingly. "Not that bad really. It's more the chemical burns than anything else." I retorted. The chemicals didn't actually burn my coat or the flesh beneath it, but the agents used to heat the chemicals up and create the glow left an irritating prickling sensation as a reminder that you got hit.

Riff was the guitarist from some, big heavy metal band I'd never hear of called 'Iron Mareden', but that wasn't really my kind of music, a little too loud, a little too intense for me. I was confused as to what exactly he was doing in the military when he had been successful in his musical career. So naturally I asked him on my first day here. He wasn't exactly forthcoming with the exact reasoning, but he at least obliged me with an answer when I asked him to explain.

"Got kicked out of the band. Dad kicked me out of the house. Mom supported him, said I 'needed to make something of my life', as if I wasn't doing something with my time already. Didn't feel like going homeless and I heard that the military paid well and gave you three square meals a day, along with a bed to sleep in. Never expected to be in a war, but I can't exactly turn back now. Government doesn't like deserters, and this isn't really the best time to pull off that kind of stunt." he had told me. Well, I told him that I never expected to be in a war either. Heck, non of us probably ever had a reasonable expectation to be involved in an actual armed conflict.

I also felt that it was crucial to tell him that I was happy he had decided to join the military, though he kind of laughed at me the first time I told him that. "Yeah, well, I didn't really have very good prospects when I chose to join. I was either here, or a prison cell. Hey, rack up enough misdemeanors, and eventually somepony'll want to put you away for a while." he explained to me sarcastically. "Figured this way I'd at least get paid while I did my time. That, and I didn't really want to get put in the 'slammer', if you know what I'm sayin'."

I didn't know what he was saying, so naturally I asked about that too. He told me, 'Everypony gets desperate eventually, some ponies more than others. Let's just say I didn't want to get too 'friendly' with my cell mate.'

I still didn't really understand what he meant at the time, but I told him I was still glad that he was here, and he sort of sighed and laughed while shaking his head at me. "You know, you're alright... uh... hey, what was your name again?" he asked me. Bear in mind, that had been the first day, so I hadn't really expected him to already be acquainted with me. I told him my name was Ditch, and he kind of nodded at me and waved his hoof in approval. Anyhow, I probably like him the most out of all of my new squad members, not that I had any problems with the others, don't get me wrong, but I liked him the most. Ironically, he also happened to be the worst shot among us 'best shooters.' That's enough about him though.

"Wrecks got me alright; I got careless when I thought it was safe to help you out some." I told him flatly, my voice rumbling out of my chest. Riff chuckled at the fact that my good intentions had caused me to lose another training bout. "Hey, listen, I know that I'm hardly the most serious pony around here, and I'm definitely the laziest... but listen to me for a second here." Riff said, suddenly growing serious.

"I've only known you for a couple days now, but my gut says you're a good pony, and the fact that you try to help everyone you take down during the training bouts gives it away too. I don't know why you would ever choose to become a soldier like you are since you might have to hurt somepony," he said with the closest thing to concern I had seen in his expression over the past three days. "And I don't know if you really have it in you to hurt somepony. I really don't. So, I'm just warning you, that you need to prepare yourself for just such an event. We're at war, and there are some folks out there that are perfectly willing to hurt you, hell, some of them are downright fuckin' eager to." he continued grimly.

"I just want you to know, when we get out of here, I've got your back. We both know this squad is going to stick together once we graduate, and we both know that we're going to be deployed to fight these bastards back. I'm perfectly ready to exact some righteous vengeance and splatter some gryphon or minotaur's brains on the ground." Riff told me almost viciously, softening a moment after he just described himself coldly ending a life. "But I don't know if you can do that. And I want you to know that I've got your back if you can't do it, and if you can't bite the bit, I'll do it for you." he told me solidly. He meant those words.

I was taken aback by the oath. I knew that I was having an inner conflict over the possibility of shooting anything living, even an enemy. I'd been around enough dead ponies that I wasn't quite sure I was up to the thought of killing, and I had never expected to ever have to face that personal fear since war hadn't been on the horizon at the time of my enlistment in the Royal Army. And now camaraderie was winning out again as a pony that hadn't express any drive or eagerness in any aspect of his admittedly short military career pledged his personal aid to me.

I didn't really have any words for Riff right then, I had simply wanted to get back to the apartment so that I could wash the chemicals off my neck and get ready to sleep. To that effect, I kind of looked at the pony in front of me awkwardly and rubbed my forehead nervously. "Okay." I squeaked out in response. Yes, even big ponies such as myself can 'squeak' under pressure, and yes, it is rather comical.

Riff smirked and patted my shoulder with his hoof, sealing his deal. "Now, I've got to go get this uniform washed before that little paint ball you tagged me with stains it. I'll probably head over to the indoor shooting range after that and test out a few of the guns that I liked from the armory. Feel free to join me if you want." he told me before giving me a mock salute and pushing past me to attend to his uniform.

'What an odd pony.' I thought as he walked away. I liked him the most.

That same could not be said about the next pony to interrupt me along my path to by bunk.

A mare walked right up to me as I was working my way over to the aforementioned bunk to stow away my gear in the hooflocker at the end of it so that I could get this glowing stuff out of my mane before it dried and caked in the hair there. She had an ear to ear closed mouth smile as wide as the Moon that was even now hanging in he sky. The smile made her already exotic features appear even more intriguing, and it certainly made her seem far more friendly than the only other mare that I had become acquainted with over the past few days; Captain Eva. I wasn't comforted at all by this fact though, since something was just off about this mare.

But that was Simone after all.

I shot her a fake smile back as I sidestepped around her, far more intent on removing my bulky training vest at the moment. I noted as I placed the garb in the hooflocker at the end of my bed, and Simone stood by me silently, that she had a familiar green splatter mark in the fur around her neck whose faint glow was already fading away. I more than likely had a similar looking green splat on the back of my head, though it was probably a bit more spread out since the shot came from close range. Presumably, she was going to follow me to the washing basin and attempt to converse with me as I rinsed away the spent chemicals in my fur.

This was Simone after all.

Simone hailed from some little town at the Southeastern border of Equestria, skirting the forests of the Zebra Republic. A little town where the cows were more like citizens than the farm hands they were around here, and the zebra and pony bloodlines intermingled. Surely that zebra blood played a part in giving Simone her exotic features, a more angular muzzle, sharper corners to her eyes, and while it might have just been a trick of the light, there did seem to be streaks of lighter coloring in her coat. I thought it was might strange, this little town she was from, not that I have much room to talk considering my hometown grew up out of the need for burial grounds outside of the city limits of Fillydelphia.

Once my vest had been stuffed into the box that held all of my other personal possessions, and my air rifle was securely stored in the weapons locker next to my bed, I turned around, only to find Simone standing almost oppressively close to me, still beaming her smile. I have her about as charming a smile as I could manage in the face of such flagrant invasion of my personal space. As I tried to step around her to make my way to the washing basin, she moved aside to let me pass, much to my relief, only to rejoin me at my left a moment later.

"So, I saw you did pretty well again. Second place as usual." she told me happily. Yes, 'as usual', as in the third time in as many matches. I nodded uncomfortably in affirmation of the statement. Simone was nice and all, but something about her all-too-friendly manner creeped me out, and she seemed to have a bit of a problem with recognizing the personal space that everypony else respected. The others in the squad talked about her having some kind of mental complex that made her want to be nice and friendly with everypony, but not in the good way. It was like she did it out of desperation, because she needed it like a drug fiend needs a fix. However, I found it just plain rude to talk about a pony like that behind her back.

"Eeyup. Got distracted, let Wrecks sneak up on me for an easy win." I told her without looking directly at her. I may not be some kind of fancy psychologist or anything, but to me, in the case that Simone did have some sort of complex that made her need attention, then it made sense to me that if I didn't feed the addiction, she would get over it. But that path of reasoning didn't mean that I had to be cruel to the mare. I could still speak to her, she was a member of a squad after all, and I needed to interact with her, but I wouldn't go out of my way to shower her with affections or anything of that nature.

"Oh, well don't feel too bad, jerk got me too." she said with a bit of a pout and distaste. "Things were looking up, too!" she continued. "I had already taken Bucker and Temple out of the game, and I had even spotted the nasty unicorn himself, but he was ready for somepony to trot up behind him and he had booby trapped the little approach down to his little nook. Ooh, I knew I should have just shot him when I saw him, that's what we're supposed to do, but I couldn't help but try to see the look on his face when I snuck right up behind him." she elaborated on her failure. "Captain's probably going to give us both flak when she shows up for lights out. We've got to stay focused on the task at hand rather than our own preferences." I responded blandly, somewhat telling myself through the small talk to hurry up and make it to the washing basin.

I found that I still had to concur: something wasn't quite right with Simone's head. For now though, it was just sort of weird for those around her, she was not danger to herself or others, probably far from it in fact. Well... okay, all of us were dangerous to others, but that was our job, we were sharpshooters, but for now our only targets were the minotaur and gryphon invaders. Besides, this was why the Royal Army employed mental health experts and gave each enlisted pony a full psych workup before even allowing them into basic training, they wouldn't allow a danger to society have access to not only the dangerous weapons available to us, but also the training to use them.

These considerations, however, were low on the chain of priorities, and the goop really was starting to dry in my mane, so that took precedent. Simone continued following me to the basin like a lost puppy, still cheerful, still smiling like she constantly had a bad joke on her mind that she wanted to share, and still babbling her happy smalltalk. "So, what do you think of those air rifles we got to use tonight? Pretty neat, huh? Thermal optics, chemical rounds, imagine the things you could do with one of those if it were a real weapon!" she exclaimed.

"Oh, they'll probably have something like that for us by the time we make it to the battlefield. In fact, this is probably prototype testing we're performing right now, it's not like the military to waste the opportunity to gather data about their new 'toys'." I told Simone. For the life of me, I just couldn't recall the name of that odd little town she was from... not that it really mattered; she had ended up in Canterlot anyhow. Simone told us in great detail about how she 'ventured out from her hometown seeking something new and exciting.'

Now I'm hardly qualified to go around being judgmental about what exactly is is ponies find 'new and exciting' considering I buried dead ponies for a living and enjoyed it. But, I hardly considered anything about the flower shop she ended up working at exciting, even if she had eventually become the owner and operator of said flower shop. It had been through her 'hard work, dedication, and sympathetic nature' that she had become the proprietor of her own flower shop, at least, that's how it came about according to her. Quite frankly, I wasn't going to argue with a pony over what they enjoyed doing, so more power to the mare if she could make a living out of it.

The fact that she also happened to be the primary supplier of flowers my family put on the graves of the ponies we buried had luckily managed to elude her though. If Simone knew that my family was one that supplied her with a lot of good business, then I would never hear then end of it from her.

Fortunately, Simone was content to stand there patiently and quietly, grin still plastered on her face as I removed the nearly dried glowing chemicals from my coat and mane. The stuff wasn't too hard to get out, but since I couldn't see exactly where I was hit, I wasn't sure if I had actually gotten it all out, so I continued to run my head under the faucet of the basin. "You know, I could help you with that. You're missing a lot of it." Simone told me. Reluctantly, I agreed, humoring the mare and allowing her to guide my head under the spray of the water.

Strangely enough, Simone seemed to work with practiced hooves as she went about her work, not something I expected of a flower store worker. What, had she been a hairdresser too? I intoned that question aloud, seeing as how I had nothing better to do at the moment, and that Simone would appreciate the small talk. "Why yes I was, I'm glad you noticed," she said with enthusiasm. "And let me tell you, it's a lot easier to work with ponies than it is with zebras. Their manes are a lot stiffer, and they tend to wear their manes in peculiar styles compared to Equestrians. Something about traditional fashion or some kind of nonsense like that, but I got pretty got at putting up with it since there were a lot of zebras back home." she continued.

What I expected to only take a minute or two ended up taking several since Simone continued on about some minute differences between zebra manes and pony manes. Then of course once the goop was out of my mane, she scrutinized the results and decided that while she was at it she should grab some shampoo and conditioner and give me a full workup. I agreed, though I was admittedly tempted to just dry my hair and leave while Simone was busy gathering her supplies, but the little pony in my head said that that would just be a mean spirited thing to do. Whatever you say little pony, whatever you say.

Eventually Simone returned with all that she needed and finished what she had started, babbling on about one irrelevant thing or another as I essentially went through the whole 'smile and nod' routine in response. When she was satisfied that my mane was now twice as nice as it was before she started, she let me up from the basin. I thanked her and gave another cheesy, cheerful grin, and swept my leg out towards the basin, indicating that it was available for her use at the moment. In response, Simone gave me the pretense of a curtsy, though the real thing was quite impossible to perform without a gown or dress of some sort. Once she had passed fully behind my back and out of sight as I walked back towards my bunk, I dropped the facade a little.

I couldn't say I didn't like the mare; she had done nothing to me, unlike Baluchi and his final prank. But there was just something... unsettling about Simone that I couldn't quite place.

All of which didn't really matter to me as I slinked my way over to my bed without further incident. Both beds to either side of mine had their lights out, the one to my right being Riff's, and he was out washing his uniform, while the one on my left belonged to Temple, who was already asleep.

Temple didn't really stand out to particularly from the other members of the squad, though I had to say that his descent into the military had been the most extreme change of occupation compared to the other ponies I had met in the military. Turns out, Temple used to be a neurosurgeon before he was part of the Sharpshooter Division. He didn't really like to talk about why exactly he had become a soldier other than to say that his medical practice had been ruined by malpractice claims stemming from his assistant surgeon's ineptitude. This, 'ineptitude', as Temple put it, had led to several ponies being left dead or in a vegetative state shortly after recovery, and that this new profession was really one of the only worthwhile things he could do with his time at this point.

To put it as he had, his parents were also religious whack-jobs, and had named him after the building of the same name. It seemed that both of them were in mental institutes currently due to their deranged psyches. Doomsday predictions, hallucinations, supposedly had contact with an otherworldly being that threatened the balance of life on this planet in general, the whole nine yards of insanity. Temple even says they had a name for this being, Kazin... Kerazine... some crazy name that began with a 'K' he said since he couldn't remember and didn't really want to remember their ramblings. On a side note, Temple likes to think that the name was simply a premonition of his future occupation, though that could very well have just been wishful thinking on his part.

I remember telling myself that that was quite a far way to fall from a respected surgeon to an grunt in the Royal Army. I respected Temple's choice of employment though, since this was a fresh, if lower paying way for him to help out Equestrians. I did think that it might be difficult for Temple to kill when his former career had revolved around saving lives, but he didn't seem to have any of the reservations that I had. It was fair to say though that I had seen far more death than he had, and I didn't exactly like to see ponies dying, even if it supplied me with my living.

I shook away the thoughts of ponies and gryphons and minotaurs dying, though I realized I would have to face that prospect soon enough once I was sent to the front lines, there was no way around being involved in this war at this point.

But for now, I could occupy myself with other things. This particular evening, reading. I tucked myself in my bunk, the length of the frame barely containing my bulk, and pulled out my trusted and worn copy of "The Adventures of Buck Finn" and set to rereading it one more time.

Oh, Buck Finn. You're so lucky you don't have to be alive in this era.

Okay, we were officially the worst ponies in all of Equestria.

That was my assessment on Gravesend and myself at the moment. Currently, Gravesend had reclined her Lazybuck fully, but instead of sitting in the chair as a normal pony would, she was lying upside down in and aptly lazy manner and was stretched out across the the hoofrest area, her head hanging over the edge in the same upside down position. In her hooves she held an Xbuck controller, using her magic to keep the device firmly in her grasp while she hoof operated it, unlike many unicorns. Granted, she had only promised to do so because we were currently competing against one another in a match of Maretal Kombat. ((Honestly, that one was just terrible and I have no shame whatsoever.))

We could have been doing something productive, I could have been learning to do something, or improving on what I already knew. Instead, we sat here and played video games, and when I voiced my concerns to Gravesend, she had a rather simple answer for me. "Hand-eye coordination, reflexes, strategy building, what part of this isn't training?" she had responded, and I was entirely guilty of being perfectly willing to suspend my disbelief if that meant that I got to have some leisure time.

Now, to be fair, Gravesend was supposed to be on bed rest, so any physical activity was off the table. Even then though, there was still plenty that we could have been doing that didn't have anything to do with getting too roughed up. Gravesend was supposed to be showing me all the ropes after all, and that included the development of things such as basic hacking skill, which Crawler would improve upon whenever I got around to being his student of the day. In fact, I would have been better off working on that since I was terrible with computers, but... it had been months since I had really taken time off to relax, and it's not as if Equestria needed my skills right away, and this was incredibly therapeutic since it took my mind off of the war and Ponyville's destruction, which I desperately needed to forget for at least a short time.

Okay, so that was all a terrible excuse, we've been at this for three days straight. We'd be kidding ourselves if both of us used Gravesend's concussion as an excuse to do nothing after today. Fortunately, the only exciting news to us in the form of Twilight Sparkle on the second day of our goofing off.

A knock had interrupted the conversation between Gravesend and myself about the merits of and Xbuck over a Ponystation, and vice versa as we continually competed with each other in-game. I was surprised by the noise since the only interruptions we had received thus had had come from Blood, who was checking in on his patient, or from one of the castle servants bringing us food. Considering that the syrupy remains of several waffles sat on the cleared plate atop the computer desk of my apartment, and I hadn't ordered any more food. I knew Gravesend certainly hadn't, she had some sort of peculiar body image concern that most ponies left behind in the teens, despite being in just as good shape as I was, and I knew I had the body of a professional athlete. Regardless, Gravesend had been feeling guilty enough for indulging in the waffles, so it was highly unlikely that food was of concern at the moment.

So who could it have been?

I was surprised to find Twilight looking at me with a tired smile when I opened the door, a rolled up parchment hovering above her horn. "Hey," she said in an a voice that matched her tired appearance, sounding like the past few days hadn't been kind to her. "Mind if I come in? I've got something to show you." she inquired. My eyes lit up at the request since I had never found the proper opportunity to thank Twilight for the picture, along with giving her a reasonable scolding since she could have very well died had she stayed in Ponyville just a little longer. The attack had begun less than an hour after I ran off to Princess Luna, and it had been during that time that Twilight had gone back to Ponyville for the photograph from my cloud home.

"Yeah, come right on-" I managed to say for a shout from Gravesend interrupted me mid sentence. "Hey Rainbow Dash, who is it?" she asked before continuing. "By the way, I'm still counting this as a win since you gave me the tactical advantage by leaving the match unpaused!" she informed me as she mercilessly assaulted my defenseless avatar. "Oh, I'm sorry Rainbow Dash, I didn't think you'd have any company over, or even if you be here... I can leave if-" Twilight began in an embarrassed tone before I cut her off. "No, no, it's fine, come in." the, turning to shout back at Gravesend "And I thought you'd play fair and wait patiently!"

"War ain't fair, kid!"

I was a little embarrassed myself as Twilight walked in since Gravesend was sitting in her ridiculous manner in the Lazybuck. "Oh hey, it's you." she said with surprise to twilight as she took a pause from pummeling my character to death. "Whoah, headrush..." Gravesend said as she fought to remain balance when she rapidly put her controller down and stood up, forcing the blood in her head to disperse to the rest of her body. "Been a few years since you've graced us with a stay here 'teacher's per'." she said playfully as she regained her composure.

Twilight looked at Gravesend awkwardly. "I'm sorry, I'm afraid I don't have the pleasure of remember you." she said nervously as she stared at the turquoise pony in search of some form of recognition. "Oh, well, I suppose that's because you've never really seen me. But you know me. Platinum armor, big gun, spears, sound like a stallion from the voice filter." Gravesend responded casually. The thought had never occurred to me that Twilight might know many, if not all of the Guardians, considering she been Celestia's personal student for nearly a decade.

"Oooh, you... Gravesend right?" Twilight asked in an 'old-friend-you-hadn't-seen-in-years' manner as she recognized the description and received a nod from the pony in question. "Sorry again, I can't really say that we've had a chance to speak together, even after all the years I've spent here at the castle." Twilight said apologetically. Gravesend nodded understandingly at Twilight's statement. "Well, I don't talk unnecessarily while I'm on duty, and I always have my armor on while I'm on duty. You've probably seen me out of it before in passing, but I don't... exactly... mingle with the rest of the crowd here at the castle." she explained to Twilight.

"Well, it's good to see you're alive and well anyhow." Twilight said happily. "Yeah, well, you're friend here gave me a run for my money and nearly killed me. No exaggeration." Gravesend retorted. Oh boy, here it comes. "You almost killed one of the Guardians, one of Princess Luna and Princess Celestia's personal guards? How?" Twilight turned and asked of me, sounding entirely astonished at the news. "Yeah, well, it's not quite that simple."

Yes it is. you kicked me in the head, punched me into the floor, drilled a hole into my skull, and left me with a concussion. See how easy that was to explain?"

I shot Gravesend a silencing glare, which she responded to by giving me a rebellious 'you can't tell me what to do' look. That look could only have been made better if the mare had been sticking her tongue out too, but that would have been way too adorable... and there I was thinking of Gravesend as 'cute', or 'adorable', when in actuality she was a hardass killing machine. "Like I said, it's a bit more complicated than that. Now what did you have to show me?" I asked after breaking away from the silent confrontation.

Right... well," twilight began, trying to break herself from the distraction that the spectacle between Gravesend and I had caused. "Spike has sent us a new letter." she informed me as the parchment above her horn unfurled to allow her to read it aloud.

"Dear Princess Celestia,

"Sorry if I'm waking you up right now, but I figured I'd update you on what's happening around Ponyville, and it's safest for me to send these letters at dark since the patrols don't roam around here then. So, first off, we gained two more survivors from Ponyville, putting us at fifteen unless our critical burn victim doesn't make it. He looks pretty bad... Anyhow, we're holding up for now, but the first aid kit that one of our new additions dragged in is running dangerously low on medicine and bandages, and we can't make it to the hospital to scavenge any supplies since a group of minotaurs decided to leave that building standing and make it their base of operations." Twilight paused to let me consider the conditions that the group of survivors were, well... surviving in before continuing her reading.

"I've been thinking about running over to Zecora's for some medical supplies, but I'm afraid that if Sweet Apple Acres were attacked while I was gone that Big Macintosh wouldn't be able to hold off long enough for everypony to escape. Applebloom is the only other one out here that knows how to get to Zecora's, but she a little too small to carry very much in her saddlebags, and a cart would be too heavy if it was fully laden. Seems kind of funny to me since she's older than I am, but I am a dragon after all. Anyhow, I also thought that it might be a good idea to just move everypony to Zecora's hut, but while she probably has enough medicine, I don't think she'll have enough food for all of us, not to mention that moving twenty ponies isn't very inconspicuous, and the gryphon sentries that patrol the sky at night would notice."

"On that note, the gryphons and minotaurs seem oddly content to leave us alone, but I think they only know that the farm is here, not any survivors, so they're taking their time in setting up the ruins of Ponyville as a rallying point for both armies. That's what I assume they're doing anyhow since more and more armed gryphons and minotaurs show up each day. The most amazing thing happened last night though."

In the dead of night, and Ursa Major and an Ursa Minor (friends of ours?) went crashing through Ponyville, tearing up all the tents and killing a bunch of the unaware gryphons and minotaurs. I couldn't tell for sure how many the bears got before they were put down since I didn't want to get too close, but I think that they got about two hundred minotaurs and a few dozen gryphons (though I was trying to judge based on the amount of feathers fluttering to the ground as they were swatted out of the sky). That was all they managed to get before the armies could properly retaliate, but that still leaves several thousand more gryphons and minotaurs camped here. Quick note, Fluttershy didn't have a hoof in this did she? It seems like she's the only one who could get animals to go berserk like that."

"Okay, I've probably taken up too much of your time by getting you to read all this, and Applebloom is telling me there something I need to see. I just felt that I should let everypony know what the situation was like around here and that we're all alive for now. That's all though, Applebloom really wants my attention."

"Signed,
Spike the Dragon"

Twilight was silent for a few moments after concluding the letter as she rolled the parchment back up, only speaking once she was finished. "Celestia show me the letter this morning, and I immediately wrote Spike back, but I don't expect a response any time soon unless something big happens. Otherwise, Spike will probably want to gather some more information before he sends anything else." the purple pony told both of us. Gravesend was listening, but I knew that this was primarily for my benefit since Gravesend didn't have any stakes in Ponyville, and Celestia had already analyzed the letter for any tactical details. There was nothing for her bodyguard to be worried about.

I took a several seconds to digest the news. "Thousands of them..." I mumbled under my breath, lost in thought as I gave the floor a hard stare, as if it would give me some kind of answer. "Suppose they're serious then." Gravesend said, speaking for the first time since Twilight had begun reading the letter. "Good news is, they're slow. If they really wanted to capitalize on their blitz, then they should have moved on to a different town already instead of trying to establish a camp. That can be handled by relatively few soldiers, so all they're doing is burning their supplies right now as they wait." she told us encouragingly.

"Unless there's some sort of ulterior motive behind delaying a full invasion." Twilight said unhappily, as if she expected the worst already. Gravesend analyzed the information that we had in her head, trying to come up with some kind of explanation for the actions, or rather, inaction of the interlopers. "Well, both nations are to our west, so they can't try and close in on us from both sides, not unless the zebras are in league with them, but Celestia would know if the zebras intended to betray us, and our sources amid their government can attest to that." Gravesend said, her eyes flitting around the room as she continued to think.

"A consolidated full frontal attack would just be poor military strategy, we're way too prepared for something like that to work, and unless they drafted a large number of soldiers preemptively, they simply don't have the numbers for something like that. Think about it, Equestria is home to nearly twenty-one million ponies, while the gryphon and minotaur territories only have five million and four million inhabitants respectively. We put out about seventy thousand soldiers annually, and the enlistment rate is bound to shoot up since war is upon us. Sure, there are several strategic resource locations that are close to the western border, so capturing those might be on the agenda, but raw resources alone won't win a war, and we have our own stockpiles of just about everything we could possibly need." Gravesend continued in her assessment.

"We certainly have a technological advantage due to the resources I just told you about, not to mention the money and minds that have been put to work for advancement of military technology in recent years. In regards to their own technology, our enemies are behind, though they have some interesting equipment of their own. The minotaurs have their massive battle tanks, and they can use larger weapons than any non-unicorn pony, but with the anti-material weapons we have combined with our bombers, tanks are out of the way. The size of the minotaur's weapons don't really count for anything when we simply have more guns on our size; though their heavy body armor means that a lot of our lower caliber weapons will be less effective. Unless the minotaurs plan to debut some new kind of technology that we haven't thought of, then they won't have the advantage." Gravesend explained further.

"Gryphons, for all of their skill in the sky, aren't as skilled as our own pegasi, and they're even more behind technology wise than the minotaurs. They don't even have numbers on their side since there are about as many pegasi living in Equestria as there are total gryphons in their own lands, though I have to burst your bubble Rainbow Dash and say that a gryphon is worth more in a firefight than a pegasus. The fact that they can use higher powered guns without being thrown off-course, and the extra strength that allows them to fly with heavier armor helps, but they don't have the sky chariots like we do, and those can easily take dozens of gryphons out of the sky with a well coordinated driver and weapons team." Gravesend concluded with a confused expression on her muzzle.

"The more I think about it, nothing adds up in this war. We have the numbers, we have the technology, we have the resources, and we're on our own turf." Gravesend added before shaking her head. "As unsettling as it may be to consider, I think your friend is right Rainbow Dash. I can't think of any logical reason why the gryphons and minotaurs would possibly think they can win this. Something's up." Gravesend confirmed.

I sighed as Gravesend's assessment and subsequent support of Twilight's statement drove the point home. Sure, it didn't make sense, but wasn't that a good thing? Wasn't the fact that the gryphons and minotaurs clearly didn't know what they were up against a good thing? I may not have the same tactical training or thinking as Gravesend, or the bright and overly analytic mind of Twilight, but in this case I felt that fact was an advantage. It gave me room for hope, and a lot of it, based on what I had just heard Gravesend explain. But my hope couldn't help but be diminished by their insistence that something was up, something was wrong, and that they didn't know what it was.

"Well, while we might not know what's going on precisely, we do know that the odds are in our favor. I like to believe in probability, and right now, we're ahead by a lot, so hopefully we can work this out without too much damage being done." Twilight said, bringing her own opinion to bear on the matter. I felt sorry for my friend, sorry that she still had even the smallest bit of hope that there was a way for this to be 'worked out' that didn't involve the massacring of one side or another. I felt sick suddenly at the word 'massacre'. Hundreds of ponies had died in Ponyville, 'massacred'. Now, vengeful ponies were lining up to return the favor in an all out war.

How far would we push, if everything went as expected? Would our enemies surrender, or would we have to drive them all the way back into their own territories? What then, do we take our vengeance on their at that point defenseless populations, to teach them a lesson? If so, what would that lesson be, what would our cowed opponents be forced to believe they were getting out of this? Don't fuck with us, we're bigger than you? I had no answers of my own, and I had no desire to heart he one from come from either of the ponies in the room, since I felt the two would have differing opinions on the matter.

I stood wordlessly between the two of them, lost in my own thoughts before anypony said anything that grabbed my attention. "Oh, hey, my head feels kind of funny, I think I'm going to go lie down for a little while. Hey Rainbow Dash, why don't you have a little chat with uh... Twilight here." Gravesend said, looking right at me as she said so. Twilight clearly missed the hint, but I could tell that Gravesend knew I needed some time to think, perhaps some time to talk with an old friend.

An uncomfortable silence followed the sound of my bedroom door closing, Gravesend deigning to give us some more privacy. Wordlessly, I waved my hoof towards he couch, and Twilight's expression warmed at the offer. I took a seat as well, and the awkwardness took hold once more, but this time, I found I could combat the silence.

"You almost died, you know." I told Twilight, clearly startling her with my conversational topic. "Well, I mean... I never even..." Twilight sputtered, trying to find the right words to respond with. I simply shook my head and chuckled at the tongue tied mare. "But you didn't." I said, forcing Twilight to stop frantically searching for something to say. "And I'm happy that you didn't. Past the whole... stupid, 'Elements of Harmony' thing. We're friends you know?" I told her supportively. The words did seem to have a calming effect on the unicorn, and she leaned back fully against the cushions of the sofa, tilting her head to stare at the ceiling before she sighed, sounding almost relieved.

"You know, I hadn't even thought about that. I mean, I didn't know at the time that Ponyville was about to be... removed." she said, choosing to use a relatively non-violent term, perhaps saving herself from feeling more emotional at the moment. "I suppose... if I had decided to take a break for just a little while, visit a few ponies before teleporting back to Canterlot, I would have been caught up in that whole mess. I mean I could have gotten out just fine-" she said quickly, trying to abolish any concerns I had that she really could have died. But I didn't feel any better about the fact, and she only helped my case with her next statement.

"But I couldn't have left if I wanted to. Ponyville was my home, even more so than Canterlot. I made my first real friends on my own there, I lived there, I built up ties with all the ponies there. I was an essential cog in the community at times. There's no way I could have lived with myself if I had teleported myself out of Ponyville without helping any of the ponies trapped in there. I mean, I'm not really a fighter, and there's not really much I could have done against gun toting gryphons and minotaurs even if I wanted to, but I could have helped some escape. Maybe I should have been there, then maybe I could have saved some lives, even if it cost me my own..." Twilight trailed off sadly. Despite her pained expression, my friend refused to let any more tears fall for her home-no-more. I allowed a pregnant pause to follow.

"I would have done the same, you know. I don't think I could have just flown away from Ponyville without any second thoughts, without helping anypony."

A lie. Well, maybe not. I didn't rightfully know if I could have forced myself to stay and help the ponies of Ponyville despite the risks. I liked to think I had become a better me in these past few months, but I didn't think I would ever be able to match the selflessness of any of my friends. Selflessness wasn't acquired, it wasn't something that could be gained by simply being nice, and loving, and caring, it was something ingrained in each individual, whether they wanted it or not. Violent criminals had risked their lives while imprisoned to help prison guards under attack by other inmates, while a regular community service volunteer and disaster relief worker might not.

It all comes down to the moment when something is actively happening, no matter how much you think about the even in question. That prisoner might not normally give the guard the basic respect that a life deserves, but in that moment, he realizes he wouldn't be able to live without a heavy conscience if he didn't help right then. The relief worker might be able to convince himself that if something akin to that situation were to occur then he would logically rush to help. But maybe when faced with the actual circumstances, he gets afraid, he knows that he could get hurt, heck, he could even get killed, there was no way he could do anything to help the guard, even though he wanted to!

Ponyville was that situation for me, and I couldn't even convince myself after the fact that I would have gone in heroically and saved as many ponies possible as I fought off hordes of minotaurs, even to my valiant demise. How better would I have fared if I had faced such circumstances? That wasn't even a question of self sacrifice; that was making a request to face the primal fear of the end of your life! But it wasn't really, was it? It was the same thing, and I knew better, I just wouldn't admit it to myself. What a Guardian I was turning out to be, huh? What if the time came that I had to choose between Celestia or Luna, and my own life, could I possibly make that choice?

None of these fears would help Twilight though. She needed to know that I had her back on this, that even if she hadn't done what she considered the 'right thing', that under the same circumstances I would have helped too, even if I had to lie to her to make her feel that way. So with that in mind, I lied. I lied and I knew it. Gravesend would probably have known it too, but Twilight, even after knowing me for so many years, she was too innocent to think that I would have lied to her about such an important decision as this. The lie gave me a nasty feeling in my gut, but the knowledge that I was helping my friend out overwhelmed my discomfort.

"Thanks Rainbow." Twilight said with sincerity as she turned her head away from the ceiling to look me in the eyes. I could see a little spark in her eyes, a small hint that some of her faith in the goodness of the world had been restored. I liked that glimmer, it made me feel good, like maybe I had done right by lying after all, and perhaps it was just a little white lie, insignificant in the end of all things.

I felt some small talk was called for at this point, the conversation having elicited some hard thinking on my part already. "So, how've you been? I'd be lying if I said you don't look a little... off your game." I asked of Twilight. My friend returned her gaze to the ceiling as she gathered her thoughts about events since I had last seen her. "Well, Fluttershy was a mess for a while after your last visit. She's such a kind soul that she just can't understand the violence that happened in Ponyville, but, she's starting to cope finally." Twilight told me of the shy pegasus I had grown up with.

"Applejack and Rarity fumed for a while after Princess Celestia told them that it wasn't safe to send a rescue party to Sweet Apple Acres just yet, even if it was both of their families and the survivors. She can't possibly go too much longer without sending help though, can she? Not after we learned that there are more survivors making their way to Sweet Apple Acres, or at least those two that made it already." Twilight reasoned with herself before making it back on topic. "Anyhow, both of them have kind of been going through the back channels to see if anypony is willing to go out there against Celestia's will and at least bring supplies if they can't rescue the ponies trapped there." Twilight continued. "Pinkie Pie is, well... sort of warming back up to her normal self. Her mane has managed to come back to its normal fluffy style, and she's starting to crack jokes every now and again, but it's been slow." she concluded.

Twilight didn't sound like she was going to say anything past that, so I nudged her, forcing her to face me again. "Right... me." she said solemnly. "As usual, I haven't really helped anything at all. I've tried to see what I can do to help out, but... my skills aren't exactly needed right now. Nopony wants a bookworm when all they want to do is cry." Twilight told me dishearteningly. Well that's no good. Some appreciation was clearly needed at the moment.

"Hey, cheer up," I told her. "I'm sure you can do plenty to help out around here, you can do more than read books, I've seen it." I encouraged. "Like Winter Wrap Up, how about that? Without you, we would have kept being late with cleaning up Winter, as usual. Instead, you took charge and made us work together, and for the first time in a long time we actually managed to finish everything on schedule." I elaborated. "And what about that time on the train, when we were transporting the Cakes'... whatever Pinkie Pie kept calling that masterpiece. I mean, even though I took a chunk out of it myself, you called me on it. You sleuth you." I told Twilight, not backing down in the slightest. In fact, I was just getting warmed up.

"Or how about Trixie, or me and AJ competing like mad mares during the Iron Pony competition? Maybe Nightmare Night, when you reintroduced Luna to the rest of Equestria? Come on, you even got me to like reading, and I thought that was impossible at the time. Face it Twilight, you solve problems, and right now, Equestria has a lot of problems in its hooves. We need somepony like you to help keep the country together while the rest of us keep it from falling." I told my friend, starting to grow enthusiastic with how well I seemed to be making my point. Twilight on the other hand seemed less thrilled, and had an expression of mixed feelings.

"You're right Rainbow, I do solve problems." Twilight said with courage once I was finished with my tirade. But as quickly as the courage came, it was gone. "Unfortunately, I also cause just as many. Think about it. That week that I went crazy and cast the 'want it need it' spell on Smartypants? The way I constantly antagonize Spike? And my start to Winter Wrap Up didn't go so well either. I mean, sure, I don't have nearly as many major disasters anymore, but I'm such a klutz that if I tried to help with anything important I'd just ruin it. And that, is something that Equestria doesn't need." Twilight said, her head and ears drooping at her self imposed demoralization.

Well shit, I didn't help anything at all. Think fast.

I leaned over and took hold of Twilight's shoulders, locking eyes with her. "And that's what makes you a pony, just like the rest of us. All of us make mistakes; all of us have our bad days and our low times. We laugh, we cry, we make fun of each other, we date, we get married, we make little baby ponies, we tell stories, we grow old together, and we die together. That's just something that every pony has had to deal with, and that's what we call life. Ponies have been following that trend for thousands of years, and we're not going to stop any time soon, least of all now. The things you think you've messed up, you'll remember those things years from now, maybe when you're old and dying, and you know what? You'll laugh. You'll laugh, because despite everything that you've ever done, and everything you've ever messed up at, you're still alive right now. That's what matters Twilight, nothing else." ((Inspirational speeches +1))

As if there hadn't been enough of it yet that day, Twilight sat in stunned silence, mulling over my words. I gave her a light shake, jarring her out of her thoughts. "You got that Twilight? That's all that matters." I reinforced, trying to mentally force those words into my friend's head. "That's all that matters..." Twilight whispered in acknowledgement, unblinking. Before I could react, Twilight had grabbed me up in a big hug, where she seemed to try and squeeze the life out of me. It was killer on my wings, but I let her hug me tightly, and I returned the embrace with a softer touch. Eventually Twilight's grasp loosened some, allowing me to shuffle my wings around some so that I wasn't as uncomfortable. "Thank you Rainbow Dash..."

I almost cried when Twilight said that. She just sounded so sad, but I knew that what I told her had helped immensely. In fact, I might have helped myself some by trying to inspire Twilight, and thereby creating an impromptu speech. I couldn't help but play it off casually, some deep seated part of me just found it too humorous to resist. "Feel better now?" I asked empathetically. "Yes. Yes I do." Twilight responded far more calmly than she sounded moments ago. "That's good and all, but, can we kind of hurry this along, you're crushing my wings some." I said somewhat playfully. I wasn't lying about that. My wings were starting to hurt from Twilight's legs being wrapped around them so tightly.

Twilight quickly released me, looking at me sheepishly. "Sorry, I... got a little grabby there didn't I." she apologized. "I'll be okay, I was a little more worried about you after all. I haven't been your friend this long for you to get depressed now of all times." I informed her. Without warning, Twilight went from calm to rushed in an instant, standing quickly from the couch, while I followed suit, surprised by Twilight's sudden burst of movement.

"Whoah there, what's the problem Twilight?" I asked, intoning my concern. "I'm running late!" Twilight said without hesitation as she bolted for the door. "Princess Luna wants to see me, and I only meant to stop by for a little while, and now I've got to hurry so I don't keep her waiting." Twilight explained to me as she fumbled nervously with the door handle until she simply used her magic to resolve the issue. "So, I'll see you around Rainbow, but I have to dash for now." ((See what I did there? This is what makes me a terrible person.))

"Um... seeya then Twilight. Check by once in a while, won't you? I can't ensure that I'll be able to get out much while I've got Gravesend here." I asked of Twilight as I bid her farewell. "Sure thing." Twilight said without turning back around to say so, leaving me in the doorway as she ran. Twilight turned to face me again once she was several yards down the hall, staring at me as if she were questioning her actions. Without warning, the purple unicorn teleported herself just in front of me, and planted a swift kiss on my cheek, the kind of peck a pony gets on their first date. Twilight's cheeks flushed immediately after she drew back, and I was too stunned to react before she teleported herself back down the hall and continued her run.

I stood at the threshold as a a minute went by, and then another. Gravesend finally broke me from my shocked reverie. "Is it safe to come out now?" she shouted to me from the bedroom. "Were you listening to our conversation?!" I responded angrily. "Oh loosen up, I didn't actually listen. I just wanted to know when your friend was gone so I could get back to kicking your ass, that's all." Gravesend explained. And you know what?

That's exactly what she did when we started the match back up.

All of that excitement had been yesterday though. Now I sat here, controller in my hooves as Gravesend beat me for... what, the sixth time in a row? The mare was as dangerous in a game as she was in real life, which disturbed me since she had a penchant for finishing me off by ripping out my spine. While I couldn't confirm them, I had my fears that Gravesend could probably perform that maneuver on a live pony as well if she chose to use her magic to help her. I had no desire to witness such a spectacle.

As I waited for the next match to load, my thoughts were drawn back to the previous day's events. Twilight's little peck on the cheek and her subsequent embarrassment and retreat burned its way to the foremost of my thoughts. I liked Twilight, but only as a friend. That was what I was trying to do when I helped her yesterday, I was being a friend. Now though, I had concerns that she felt a greater connection that friendship towards me, and if so, I'd hate to break her heart by rejecting her. The mare had been through more than enough heartache recently, I didn't deserve to add to those hardships.

But what could I do?

I've been in relationships before, sure, several in fact. None of those had been either lasting or successful, however, since all of those times had been when I was younger and more prone to change my preferences at a passing breeze. No, my love life had been decidedly barren since I felt that I had more important problems to worry about, namely the very issue of dedication that held me back from a meaningful relationship. Loyalty came easy to me, if I set myself to achieve a goal, I would do it, but it was that elusive initial pledge of devotion that I had trouble with. Even now, after I thought I had finally managed to find myself, I didn't really feel up to the task of finding a partner, especially now that I was going to be involved in this was.

Distractions, distractions! Always there seemed to be something to draw my mind into the cloister of my thoughts, even more so lately it seemed. Invariably, unless I was working intently on something at the moment, one thought or another would crop up, and while it felt like I kept choosing hard topics of thinking, I knew that the majority of my thoughts were entirely inane and useless. No great mysteries of life that I felt needed answers, no impossible philosophical questions to be repeated for ages to come. Silly thinks like, 'I wonder what a manticore would taste like?' or 'Why is Blueblood a prince if neither Celestia nor Luna had children?'

Okay, so the last one was reasonable, the jerk had no right to be in such a high place as 'Prince'.

There I go again. Doctors say that this type of constant thinking is perfectly natural for pegasi, that pretty much everything about pegasi mental processes and physiology is faster than the other pony species. That's also why we tend to have shorter natural life spans than other ponies. On average, pegasi lived to about eighty years old, ninety if they're lucky, anything past that is considered ancient. Fun fact, the oldest pegasus on record lived to be one hundred and twelve years old, though that's only about as old as Earth ponies get to, averaging somewhere between one hundred and ten and one hundred and twenty-five years old. As usual, unicorns have the advantage, typically making it to at least one hundred and fifty before kicking the bucket, and some have lived well past that estimate, such as Star Swirl the Bearded who managed to live to two hundred and fifty.

Kind of fits in with the hypothesis that unicorns have some dragon blood in them from way back in history, which is what gives them their magic and... and that's it! I need a distraction from my distractions!

"Gravesend, please, teach me something!" I begged of the oddly reclined mare, grabbing her attention with my request. In response, Gravesend lifted an eyebrow at me. "What's gotten in you? You're the one that encouraged the little 'vacation' we're on right now." the mare retorted, continuing to pummel my avatar as I put my controller down. "Seriously? It's been three days since you got the concussion, you're fine to at least do a little walking around, and we don't have to do something that involves me punching you in the head." I told Gravesend angrily. This drew her attention even more. "Well, look who grew some balls from be kicking your ass in a game." Gravesend said sarcastically. "Alright, what do you want to work on hotshot?"

I recalled what I had thought about hacking earlier, that that particular skill would be pretty difficult for me to learn, and I figured that would be a good place to start, intoning the suggestion to Gravesend for approval. "Yeah, no, let's not." she said after a moment's hesitation. "What?" I asked, confused. "Aren't you the one who said we'd do whatever I wanted to learn?" I questioned accusingly. "Hmmm, yeah, well, it might sound cheesy, but you should believe me when I say that it physically hurts to think too hard, and computers require a lot of thinking. Concussion, tough luck. We can do it next week though, assuming you don't grievously wound me between now and then." Gravesend responded.

I rolled my eyes. "Well, so much for getting to choose 'whatever I want to learn'." I scoffed. "Well, so much for not getting a cranial hemorrhage and concussion from a sparring session." Gravesend fired back without hesitation.

Okay, I totally deserved that.

Come on, thrust me, this'll be fun." Gravesend encouraged me. I was actually inclined to believe the mare as she led me out of my room and through the maze of hallways, based on the enthusiasm with which Gravesend had said the words. Still, she hadn't told me just what we were getting into, so I was wary as to what this fun might entail. Perhaps she was going to have a revenge of some sort. That would be fun.

For her.

I take back any doubts I had earlier, this was definitely fun.

It turns out that Gravesend's alternative offering happened to be basic medical training, just in case I managed to hurt her again. See, the reason that this was fun was because we got to make use of these weird gel models which were molded to match the shape of a pony. Presently, Gravesend was demonstrating different types of traumatic wounds and their effects on the body. The fun part was that we got to causethose traumatic injuries, slice, stab, slash, and crush the models to our heart's content in order to create the wounds. The models made use of synthetic blood and bones to make the models more realistic; in fact, there was a show that used the same type of models in tests to pit the different types of warriors throughout Equestrian history against one another. The side effect of this was that blood would spray, skulls would shatter, and 'brains' would be turned to mush, just as they would in real life.

It was actually kind of disturbing just how much fun I was having mutilating the models, and I slowed my pace as I realized that the model could have been a real pony had I turned out to become some sort of sadistic murderer. The most disturbing part had come as I was in the middle of causing some damage to one of the models, and the memories that had been oddly silent over the past few days came buzzing back.

I had flashes of the memories, crushing, stabbing cutting. War, assassination, self defense. Training, and cold blooded murder. Subconsciously, my brain was trying to learn from these memories by reenacting the actions of the very ponies whose knowledge I drew from, to improve me. I stopped the instant the memories began to materialize, terrified of what I could do to Gravesend now that we had weapons that we were using to cause the wounds I was supposed to learn from. I didn't want to learn out of desperation if I hurt Gravesend even more than before, I didn't want anything to do with any weapons at the moment.

When I stopped actively poking holes in a pony model's gut, Gravesend commented on why I had stopped. I didn't hold back from revealing why I had stopped, that the memories were back, and I didn't want to risk hurting her, or possibly this time around, her hurting me. "Uh, yeah, good idea. I don't know what you could do with a weapon, so, let's leave the violence to me for now." she had said warily to me. I was more than happy to oblige, and we were currently resuming lessons.

"Now, I don't know as much of that fancy medical shit as Blood," Gravesend said before telekinetically jabbing one of her spears into a gel model's body. "So instead of 'laceration', or whatever this type of wound this is supposed to be called, I tend to just cal this wound 'big fucking hole in your chest'. Symptoms include death." Gravesend said as she casually ripped the barbed spear head back out, leaving a gaping hole where a pony's heart should be located. Noticing the missing organ, Gravesend looked around, confused until I pointed a hoof at her spear. I had to stifle a giggle as she found the synthetic tissue stuck to the tip of her weapon. How morbid of me.

"Assuming that the wound doesn't go this deep, or his a less critical area, there are a few treatment methods that I like to refer to as the 'Triple M Factor'. First 'M'; mercy. Treatment is a bullet to the head or a snap of the neck, preferably only if you're sure the pony will die before help arrives and you would like to spare them a few minutes, or even a few seconds of untold agony. Use with discretion, others won't take too kindly to a pony who kills somepony that could have been saved if you were a little more prudent." Gravesend told me. "I also feel that this would be an appropriate time to mention that all Guardians receive an explosive implant in our head that is triggered by dead. So, in such an event, please refrain from standing next to or even near my corpse unless you would like to die in the explosion as well and set off a chain reaction, or so that you don't get covered in flying gobs of me." Gravesend warned.

I looked at Gravesend with horror as I imagined the pony before me suddenly exploding, showering me with gore. In the midst of my mental terror, a giggle and smirk from the pony in question tore me from my imagination's work. "Sorry, I just couldn't help myself. We don't actually get explosive implants, we keel over nice and quiet like, same as everypony else." Gravesend said dismissively in response to my glare. "Moving on then...

"Second 'M'; medicine. Obviously, this one will vary from case to case depending on severity. Sometimes a bandage or two will do it, maybe a few pain killers, even a nice cold glass of 'quit your bitching' works wonders every now and then. On the battlefield, there are going to be some pretty gruesome wounds, and since we aren't training you to be like Blood, you probably won't be able to help, so a wound like this one is best handled by either 'M' one, or 'M' three, which I'll get to in a moment. I'm not trying to teach you surgery, there are some ponies beyond your skills, but we like to think 'positive' around here, so let's change the variables a little."

Gravesend walked to the back of the pony model and carefully scrutinized both hind legs before shrugging and casually snapping one leg bone in half with a brutal kick, and severing an artificial artery in the other one before turning to me again. "Both of these are fairly common injuries both on and off of the battlefield, so you probably already know how to treat them, however, I'm supposed to cover all the bases for posterity. So, for this cut, which could be sustained from any number of sources, sword, knife, bullet, what you should do is create a tourniquet to slow blood flow by placing it above the affected area. The tourniquet itself doesn't have to be pretty, just tight enough to stop the bleeding, but try to be clean and conservative with as you bandage the wound itself, disinfect the wound if you have to, but remember that you could need your supplies elsewhere, so don't be too liberal." she told me of the wounds, and then proceeded to show her own treatment.

Gravesend levitated over a nylon strap and a roll of bandages before applying pressure by tightening the strap around the leg, just above the cut. Once the 'artery' was shut and the synthetic blood stopped flowing, she took the roll of bandages wrapped the material around the wound itself, just as instructed, wrapping it only a few times to conserve her bandages. After poking and prodding the leg a few times to make sure the bleeding wouldn't begin anew, Gravesend gave a satisfied wave of her hoof, indicating that I should look up her work. "So that's how it's done." she told me.

"Now, as for this broken leg, a simple splint should do, unless you have a nasty compound fracture so that the bone pops right out of your skin. Trust me, I've seen it, and it's not very pretty, but since this one is a complete, closed fracture, treatment should be simple." Gravesend told me. "So, first thing you're going to want to do is give your patient some ibuprofen or something to shut them up, that or a gag, because broken bones don't typically feel very good, and they'll probably be screaming. That's a good way to be found by enemies if you're trying to be silent, and it's really damn annoying to hear anymore than a few times. The second thing you should do is immobilize the limb so that your patient won't flail about and cause even more damage." Gravesend explained as she levitated a few more objects into view.

A splint and some medical tape, as well as the same roll of bandages from before floated towards Gravesend, who promptly moved the splint down to the model's leg. There, the splint was gingerly slipped onto the leg, the foam padding of the splint engulfing the part of the limb it covered. "So this is the fun part, if you've got a moment, you get to pop this sucker back into place so the bone can heal properly." Gravesend said as she wiggled the splint covered leg around to try and position the bone correctly back together. Once she was satisfied with the placement, she floated the medical tape over and wrapped a portion of the leg in the tape to keep it relatively immobilized. Standing from the kneeling position she had taken to better see her work, Gravesend dusted off the non-existent mess on her forehooves. "And magically we have a wonderful splint job by yours truly. Time for the compound fracture, because we have nothing better to do with our time."

Gravesend strolled to the front of the gel model, pretending to whistling inconspicuously as she levitated over a metal pipe and bashed one of the forelegs in just the right way to make the fractured part of the bone pop out of the 'skin' of her victim-to-be-patient. "Oh dear, how unlucky a pony you are, wandering into all of the accidents. You appear to have suffered from a compound fracture and now part of your skeleton has decided to pay a visit to the world outside of your body! And for bonus points, the fracture is also... ummm... what does Blood call it?" Gravesend said in feigned sympathy before she pondered her question aloud. A book levitated off of the table behind me and into the waiting grasp of my 'instructor'.

Gravesend quickly shifted through page after page before finding the table of contents and the page was looking for before she gave a little 'aha!' and slammed the book shut again. "A comminuted fracture. Means that the bone is now in more pieces than it should be essentially. So, my little med student, this is a fun version of the run-of-the-mill fracture, and as you can see, it's a little more complicated than before. But that's not something for you to worry about as much as the surgeon who'd fix this poor bastard up. Onto the treatment."

"So," Gravesend said as she levitated her materials back over, along with a flask of water. "First things first, take some water, though alcohol works better since it's an anti-septic, and wash out the wound and the surrounding area so that you reduce the chance for an infection to set in." Gravesend instructed, going through the motions herself and washing the synthetic blood, and perhaps a bit of shattered bone or two onto the once sterile floor. Now the floor was a mixing pool for the blood and fake brain matter that was seeping towards the center of the room where a drain collected the spilled liquids.

The sterile white hospital-esque room we were in had been prepared specifically for medical training from these basics, all the way to full surgical training for the in-castle medical staff. Chances were that this very room could be converted to be used as an actual medical facility since the cabinets that covered the walls held every that a doctor or surgeon could need, syringes, assorted surgical tools, over-the-counter medicine, a locked cabinet with prescription medication, even a small blood testing lab in an adjoining room. For now though, we had booked the room, and were using it for the very training purposes it was provided for.

"If you happen to use non-medical alcohol to clean the wound, don't be tempted to give your patient a few sips to dull the pain, since the painkillers you should probably have given them won't work in combination with the alcohol. The next step is very similar to the first step of the last fracture, but this time you should split the splint length-wise and only put the two pieces perpendicular to whatever direction the fracture is facing. While the pain from a little bit of pressure by pushing the splint against a closed fracture isn't too bad, comparatively, it's hell for an open fracture, so all you're doing is keeping the limb immobilized. You're not going to try and set the bone, just wrap the open area lightly in bandages to block any particulate matter and try to control blood flow and catch the loose blood. This kind of fracture is something for the real doctors to handle in a surgical room." Gravesend told me, following her own instructions to the letter, putting the splint on and securing it with tape towards the far ends of the splint, rather than at the fracture itself.

Gravesend stepped away to admire her work, finding it up to snuff. "And that's how it's done. No need for applause, I only do what I can... well okay maybe a little bit." she said cockily. I snickered at Gravesend's self appraisal and constant sarcasm. "Okay, master of medicine..." I said, playing along with my companion's confidence. "What could 'M' three be that might possibly be better than the miracle you just performed?" I asked in a perfectly snarky voice. I didn't expect expect Gravesend to play off of my own sarcasm so well.

"What is 'M' three, you ask?" Gravesend responded melodramatically. "Why, 'M' three is only the one thing that could outdo even my medical aptitude. 'M' three, is magic." Gravesend said with a flair. We both had a good laugh when she was finished being entirely too dramatic about this final method of treatment. Somehow, Gravesend managed to strike a fine balance between amusing me, annoying me, and making me fear for her or my safety, and right now, amusement was winning out. "Okay, that's enough of that, down to business." Gravesend said once her giggles were relatively removed.

"Really though, magic wins out every time in treatment capabilities unless your patient is already too far gone to save. Now, since you can't perform magic yourself like a unicorn, you get the pleasure of using the wonderful prepared magic of potions." Gravesend informed me. "Now, unfortunately, potions don't work on dummies, so I'll need a volunteer..." Gravesend said maliciously, which filled me with dread at what she could possibly mean. "Yeah, heh heh, not sure where you're going to find one of those around here." I said nervously, my eyes darting to the door which Gravesend now blocked. "Ahhh, well, I've already been kicked in the head, so I'm afraid I'm not up to the task myself. But hey, you look healthy enough." she told me, taking on an evil grin before she hit me with a translucent green blast from her horn.

I immediately collapsed to the floor, losing control of my major muscles, though luckily the anesthetic spell allowed me to keep some minor control, such as my bowels, which allowed me to keep some of my dignity. Otherwise, mostly only the muscles related to life function remained active, allowing me to breathe, my heart to beat, and my eyes to look around with terror. Was this the revenge that I had feared earlier, only to dismiss as an impossibility? Was she going to kill me, right here in the room where lives should be saved?

No, there was no way she could do that. Aside from the fact that we were both registered for this room at the same time, there were some brilliant minds in the castle, there was no way for Gravesend to get away with murdering me, and she knew it, so long as this wasn't a suicidal vendetta killing. Even though I reasoned through logic that I would be fine, all I could feel was a pulse-pounding terror. Gravesend seemed to read my mind though, which hardly set me at ease at all.

"Oh relax, I'm not going to hurt you. Well, actually I am, but you're going to be fine after that, I promise, just try to remain calm." she said with a sincerity that I found all too believable. There was no sarcasm or malice present, in fact, quite the opposite. Gravesend sounded afraid herself, which was something that I was sure she wasn't accustomed to, and I was hardly expecting such an emotion from the incarnation of badassery that was my roommate either. Still, she kept walking slowly towards me, levitating one of her spears towards herself as she did so, pausing once she stood over me. "Come on now, if I really wanted to hurt you, I would have let you feel everything still, even if you couldn't move." she said, trying to reinforce her previous statement of not really wanting to hurt me further. I hadn't noticed my lack of sensation, but at the mention of my physical feelings, I realized that she was right, and I couldn't feel a thing.

"So, here's how it's going to work. You sit still on the floor... check. I grab this spear and poke a tiny little hole in your side..." Gravesend said as she followed through with her words, jabbing me lightly in my side. My eyelids widened and my heart raced faster in terror as I watched the tip of the spear enter my flesh despite the fact that I couldn't feel a thing, and watched as the blood began to flow when the spear was retracted. "Check." Gravesend said in conformation of her previous statement. "And now you sit there thinking, 'Gravesend, you twisted, sadistic, evil fucking bitch, what the hell is wrong with you?', at least, that's probably what you're thinking, because that's what I was thinking when Blood did this to me, oh, nine years ago. By the way, don't worry, I can fix you right up, and even if I can't, you only need one kidney to survive." Gravesend rambled almost absentmindedly as she opened one of the cabinets and rummaged through the contents.

"Bonus points, my parents were both there for it, and they actually encouraged Blood to cast the anesthetic spell so that it would immobilize me, but dull the pain, and despite his protests, he followed through with it. In fact, that spear I so gently poked you with was the exact same one that I was not so gently stabbed with. It was my father's before he 'retired' so that room could be made for you. The other one was my... mother's." Gravesend said, stumbling over the last sentence. Even in my fear, I could still feel some sympathy for the mare as I listened to the brutality of her introduction to the magical aspect of medicine.

My eyes were trained on Gravesend as she continued to search through the cabinet, only glancing away to sneak a peak at the hole in my stomach that was slowly but surely trickling blood out of the wound. I felt that this was the revenge part of my treatment, the three shelves of the cabinet couldn't possibly have taken this long to look through, and I found it hard to believe that Gravesend could possibly have planned so poorly as to not have a stock of whatever she was looking for readily available. To my relief, Gravesend only prolonged my anxiety for a few seconds more before she yanked a small clear bottle filled with a bluish liquid from the cabinet and shut the doors, locking them again with her key and walking mack over to me.

"Behold the product of years of combined magical and scientific experimentation: the healing potion. Don't mind that fact that those 'years of research' were about three centuries ago, the doctors who make use of them still hail it as a miracle of modern science despite the fact that we have proof that potions were used hundreds of year before that and they simply rediscovered the recipe. But don't tell any of them I said that, it ruffles their feathers, so to say, even if they aren't pegasi." Gravesend rambled, which simply annoyed me more since the cure to my ailment was hovering a few feet away from me. I tried to manipulate my eyelids in such a manner that I could express my displeasure to Gravesend, which was difficult since my eyebrows had been immobilized. Fortunately, she stopped her ranting about 'tightwad doctors who act like they're higher than the Princesses themselves' as she noticed my eye movements.

"Hmmm. I suppose that you want this now, don't you?" Gravesend asked innocently, "I don't know if you've earned it yet, maybe you need to sit here for a little while longer and think about what you've done? I'm not sure, what do you think brain?" she pondered aloud and rolled her eyes up as she pretended to stare at her brain, just to torture me a little longer. Gravesend spent a few tense seconds- tense for me -mumbling a few sounds and statements of consideration to herself, 'hmmm', 'maybe', or 'good point' being the most as she messed with my head a little more before coming to a conclusion.

"Well, my brain says you need to sit there for a little longer, but my conscience is a kinder soul and told my brain to, and I quote, 'Shut the hell up and give the girl the damn potion'. Fortunately for you, I'm more inclined to go with my conscience over my brain since I'm more compassionate than my parents were. They let me sit there on the floor for a little longer, telling me 'This is what war is like, nopony cares, nopony listens, least of all your enemies'. I didn't like that one bit, so I'm going to give you this potion now, and take off the anesthetic spell." Gravesend said as she tilted my limp head up and poured the potion down my throat. I could still taste, and to my displeasure, the potion had the taste of what I imagined sweaty socks tasted like. Once she was finished, I stared at my wound, which immediately closed, leaving only the blood that had already made it out of my body as a sign that there had ever been anything there.

As she went back to the table behind me, Gravesend muttered 'click' and I immediately felt control of my body returning to me. I tried to move a leg, but apparently it would take some time for the anesthetic effect to actually wear off since the leg barely nudged, despite my best effort. In short order, Gravesend had returned with the same flask of water from earlier, and a rag, proceeding to pour some water over the bloodstained area of my fur, taking the rag and wiping away the drying crimson fluid. A sniffle and the sight of a falling tear drew my attention away from the stream of red water that washed away from me, and towards the pony kneeling over me.

"I'm sorry Dashie. I don't know why I did this, I knew better." Gravesend apologized, keeping an even tone despite the couple of tears that squeezed from her eyes. "I thought that maybe my parents were doing right by trying to teach me something from this... torture. That maybe I was just too weak to take anything away from it, and maybe somepony else would have responded better. You've already shown promise, I thought maybe that meant you would be the one to learn from this, that life is cruel, and we're on our own... I couldn't. I cried, and my dad just laughed. 'Do you think someone who really wanted to hurt you would care? If you cry, all you do is empower your enemy.' he told me." Gravesend said, lost in her memories.

"He said, 'I don't want to hurt you. I want you to learn. I've tried to tell you before that your opponents don't care, but you didn't listen, so now I'm showing you.'" Gravesend quoted her father. "I didn't get it then. My father wasn't like that all the time. Sure, neither of my parents were excessively touchy, or caring, but they weren't cruel. I realize now that this job took something away from both of my parents, something I'm scared as hell to lose. They lost their conscience. That's how loyal they were to Equestria, to the Princess, they were willing to torture their own daughter to teach me a lesson. They didn't care. Nopony, cares. That's what I learned from my parents that day." Gravesend told me depressingly.

If I wasn't sad before, now I was. Gravesend wanted to help, she knew better than to do this to me, but she went ahead anyhow in case she was wrong. She said her parents weren't monsters, but to me they were, regardless of what she thought of them, scum of nearly the highest caliber. I was overcome with emotion at the moment, anger at Gravesend's parents. Fear, of death. Sadness, at lost innocence. Gravesend was becoming more and more pitiful as I tore away layers of her life history, I was beginning to understand just why she acted the way she did, like more of a teenager than a grown mare. The normally cheesy excuse of 'my parents didn't love me enough' was sounding more plausible as I sat with a pony whose parents essentially tortured her to prove a point.

"Brayn and Blood have both been here long enough that they're starting to get like that themselves. Blood has always been a bastard, but he cares about ponies, it's was makes him a good doctor. This war is probably going to test him, to break him or force him to rise above. It's probably already too late for Brayn, he's the tactician and leader. He's the one that has to decide what 'acceptable sacrifices' are during missions. It's a conflict he has to deal with due to his role, and unless he gives up his place, I feel that he's beyond saving." Gravesend expressed about the two senior members of the Guardians. I could feel full sensation returning to my body, but at the moment, all I was concerned about was my mouth.

"You're... still alive right now though."

Gravesend stopped washing away the blood on my fur for a moment, and looked at me, perplexed. "Despite... everything that you've ever done... and everything that you've ever messed up..."

Hopefully this speech worked twice...

"You're still alive right now. That's all that matters."

I might make a miracle worker out of myself yet.

Gravesend, looked at me for a second, still confused. "That's the exact same thing you told Twilight." she said quietly. I laughed softly, but it was a real laugh, one full of mirth, that kind bottom of your stomach laugh that you get that makes you feel good in your soul. "So you were eavesdropping you little liar, you." I said, though there was no accusation in the words, nor malice. Just a hearty chuckle that was building up in me. As full laughter began to take hold of me and I forgot all my sadness, and anger, and fear, Gravesend smiled at me and let a little school-filly giggle escape her muzzle.

But laughter, as they say, is the best medicine, and it's virulent in its spread. Before long, I was sitting there on the floor, laughing like a moron at the fact that somepony had lied to me, and you know what? I didn't care. I was sprawled on the floor, laughing like a madmare with my still non quite functional limbs flailing about as I tried to cover my mouth and stifle the laughter some, but my own silliness combined with the numbness caused me to be entirely uncoordinated. When that began, Gravesend never stood a chance as she buckled over in laughter at seeing me waving my legs everywhere uselessly, just before she collapsed to the floor too.

It was just one of those things that you find funny, even if it was the stupidest thing in the world, something that should have only been funny for two seconds at most, and you just couldn't stop yourself from finding funny minutes later. All of us have experienced it, even if we're to embarrassed to admit it, or unwilling to say just what it was, but it's impossible to live life without a moment like that. Something like you're watching the news one day, and it's one of those in-between segment kind things where they show the anchors getting ready to do their reports, and one of the anchors is applying her make up when she sneezes and powder just flies everywhere, and you laugh like it's the end of the world and you have nothing better to do with your time. One of those moments.

Well, at least, that's how this felt, Gravesend rolling on the floor and laughing, me trying to do just about anything coordinated really, laughing at each other as we did so. If somepony walked in and saw us, they'd probably stare at the two idiots rolling around on the floor before calling security and checking if there were any escapees from the nearest looney bin. This felt like bonding, and it was completely moronic. This mare held me against my will, stabbed me, lorded the power to heal me just over my head, and proceeded to tell me a sob story to make up for all that, and as cliched as it may sound, it was working. At the slightest wisecrack that I made, we were rolling around like we'd been friends for years.

And I was entirely okay with that.

I was not okay with this.

Captain Eva had indeed taken her anger out on me for losing the competition due to my helpful nature. I didn't help myself by telling her that Wrecks could still have won the match even if I had remained silent and alert. I was simply trying to get facts straight with everypony, and to give Wrecks credit where credit was due, but Captain Eva didn't take it that way. She took it as back talk.

The other golden rule of the Sharpshooter Division, the whole military structure in fact, was that the only thing back talk earned you was a punishment. In this case, my punishment was rather unique and unexpected. Instead of having to clean the community showers by myself, or perform hundreds of pushups, or some other tiring or repetitive task, I was simply placed differently during our next training match. In this case, I was placed with the worst ranked ponies in my squad, which currently meant Eclair and Bucker. The only problem with this punishment though, was that to me, this wasn't punishment.

The intent behind ranking each squad member was to encourage growth and competition between the ponies in the squad. This was because, as a whole, ponies that made it into the Sharpshooter Division tended to get a big head, and inflated ego. Due to that fact, everypony always wanted to be the highest ranked, to be better than the rest of their squad, to show that they really were the hotshots that they felt they were. Therefore, placing me on a team with the lowest ranked ponies of the squad should have been insulting, degrading even.

It wasn't.

"You want to help your squad get better? Fine. You're grouped with Eclair and Bucker until my next rankings go out. Then, you can be grouped with the two lowest ranked members from that list, and you know what? When the list after that comes out, you can go ahead and join the two lowest ranked members from that list. I'll let you know when to stop." Captain Eva instructed me, perfectly calm when she spoke. One major difference between Blindside and Eva was that Eva never exploded like Blindside had if anypony was out of order. She never sounded angry, or disappointed, or even happy. She was completely calm and carried little inflection in her voice.

I was okay with all of that.

What I wasn't okay with was our current situation in the training match. It was a three on three on three competition, the primary objective being to take out each other team so that yours came out on top, with secondary objectives that varied for each team. One team might be tasked with holding a certain strategic point for an unspecified amount of time, another might have a 'VIP' that had to be protected at all costs, while yet another might have a requirement of a certain number of confirmed kills. If a team failed their secondary objective, they were immediately disqualified, upping the ante since each team was told their secondary objective in private, though sometimes it was possible to tell what a team's objective was by their actions and reactions.

Right now, my team's objective was to not run out of ammunition, while starting off with a smaller reserve of rubber bullets. The only thing that had worked to our advantage was that we had been allowed to select whatever weapon we wished to use for the match. In this case, I had chosen a Colt M4 Commando, causing my teammates and the pony heading the armory requisitions to look at me funny. There was a perfectly good reason behind my choice though. I'm a really good shot.

I feel some elaboration is in order. The confusion resulted from the fact the the Commando was a carbine, a relatively short-barreled version of the M16A2. This results in several changes, including change in muzzle flash, projectile velocity, and power, all of these being reduced in the case of the Commando vs. the M16. However, this was an advantage for my particular team.

Part of the reason why Eclair and Bucker were the lowest ranked members of my squad was their accuracy, sixth and seventh respectively. I, on the other hoof, was ranked second, with Wrecks being the only pony more accurate than I was on the shooting range, though we were very neck and neck each time our skills were measured. This impacted my choice in two ways: the magnification of the scope I was using could be smaller than the magnification my teammates needed, and with combined with my natural ability, I could switch between targets quickly. Sure, I couldn't shoot as far, but that still played into my plans of simply being a distraction. The fact that the Commando has a very noticeable muzzle flash, and the fact that I would being moving around a lot to get closer meant that I would become an irresistible target for the opposing teams.

I was very confident in my ability to find cover, even if my size worked against me. So, with the our opponents distracted by trying to hit me, Eclair and Bucker would be able to spend more time getting a clear shot on them, while I would (hopefully) make it out untagged. One final advantage was, being an assault rifle, the Commando had larger magazines, so I would be afforded more shots than either of my teammates, a very precious detail considering the diminished reserves we would already be starting with. My one true disadvantage in this case, projectile velocity, still didn't matter too much, as a bullet will still fly faster than my target can react to consistently.

But despite all my planning, my tactics, and my clear explanation to my teammates, we weren't winning. We were, in fact, losing.

Bucker, easily the most sarcastic pony that I had met in my life, made even better by the fact that he was form Stalliongrad, was the first victim claimed in the match. We had only been in the match for about seven or eight minutes, and we were already down a member. I had watched from my cover as Bucker popped his head up and honed in on Temple, who was occupied with trying to get a better view of me in my hiding place. As Bucker rushed his shot with his eagerness, he missed, and instead of immediately ducking back into his own cover, he slammed back the bolt action on his rifle, ejecting the spent blank propulsion cartridge, and cycling another rubber round into the chamber. To my dismay though, I noted during Bucker's rush that Wrecks, who was on Temple's team, had shifted his aim from me to my then distracted teammate, and drilled a shot into the left eye socket of Bucker's protective goggles.

The blast knocked Bucker off his hooves as he clutched at his more than likely now bruised eye socket, the rifle he had been levitating clattering to the ground. "Private Bucker... escort yourself off the field, and leave your weapon there for your teammates." came Captain Eva's voice over both the loudspeakers, and our headsets. Bucker got to his hooves slowly, taking off his goggles and allowing me to see the bruise that was even now swelling up around his the eye he had been shot in. His protection had done its job though, and he was just a short visit to the infirmary away from being back in shape. Despite the fact that I was glad Bucker was unharmed, I was silently annoyed at why he hadn't taken cover following his missed shot since he chose a bolt action over a semi automatic rifle, and more upset over the fact that he had put us at an early disadvantage.

I could use the rifle that Bucker had been ordered to leave behind after he dropped it, but it would take a couple minutes to get it attached to my saddle since he was a unicorn and had no need of the saddles that Earth ponies had to make use of. Those minutes would be precious, but my saddle allowed for two weapons, and this was an opportunity to bring long range warfare into the mix, combined with my smaller weapon. The weight would be irrelevant, dragging pony corpses in their caskets, along with their tombstones conditioned me for heavy labor, and the extra few pound of the rifle would be nothing, even when added to the even bulkier training fatigues and protective gear I wore today.

The time it took me to get the rifle functional could prove to be a boon though, giving Eclair and myself time to let our opponents whittle each other away. Being a batter tactician than Bucker, Eclair noticed this opportunity and asked what I wanted to do over our personal headset frequency, indicating the rifle as he spoke. "It's you or me Ditch, and I've already got a rifle. You can do more with it, I'll cover you if any try to advance while you get the sucker attached." he told me. I nodded in confirmation and readied to sprint to the adjacent wall that Bucker and Eclair had taken cover behind.

I probably liked Eclair the second most out of the members in my squad. He was relatively well meaning, just trying to make his way through training without causing too much of a stir. This goal was proving problematic for the stallion for a few reasons. First and foremost; he was pink, no matter how much he denied the fact, claiming that he was just 'lightish red', he was in fact pink, even more pink than Cherry Tresses was, and in such a way that he nearly glowed the color. A couple of the others in the squad decided to single Eclair out for being such a feminine color, faithfully giving him the pet name 'Clair', which he hates for it being a 'filly's name'.

Eclair really didn't help himself out very much by actually being rather effeminate in his manners, enjoying things traditionally deigned to be pastimes for mares. Baking, grooming, gossip, a few not-so-hidden copies of Seventeen, the typical fare for a teenage mare really. For this, Eclair was singled out, not aggressively, just some jokes and pokes at his masculinity since intolerance of ponies in the military based on their preferences was... well... not tolerated, and a quick way to be discharged. The Royal Army wanted cooperative forces that had a tolerance for every creed of pony that could show up in training, it was something they were dead set on after years of protests and clashes over homosexuality and ethnic tension centuries ago.

That time period was rather peculiar, since such protests had been almost nonexistent before a spike in activity that led to the first mandated rules of equality being formed. For hundreds of years before those centuries dead protests, nopony cared about gender roles, or where a pony was from, or what their sexual preference happened to be. Inexplicably, a conflict arose on those topics of pony behavior out of nowhere, leading Celestia to intervene and put an end to the few short years of discrimination and segregation that had popped up in towns supporting the protests. That was nearly three hundred years ago, and luckily the outburst only managed to hold its steam for six years, even before Celestia brought her hoof down on the matter, though it never should have arisen in the first place.

Anyhow, such were the rules of the army; equality for all.

The second issue that Eclair faced was a rather general and unavoidable one. A combination of regular klutziness interspersed with sleep walking events proved rather humorous for the squad, and Eclair couldn't even do anything about this particular problem. Three days ago, the very night that I had failed to perform to expectations and was put on this team, Eclair had stumbled out of his bunk and jumped upon Wrecks in his unconscious stroll. If his ensuing scream of 'Mom, I'm scared!' didn't wake everypony in the apartment, Wrecks' immediate angry shouts of protest did.

"You damned daft fool, what in the hell are you doing? Get off me!" Wrecks had shouted as Eclair refused to detach himself from the startled stallion. As the light from each uninvolved pony's bedside lamp lit up the room, Riff was the first to laugh at the sight of Eclair grappling Wrecks as he attempted to force Eclair off as the pony repeated his statement of 'I'm scared'. "I do not care if you're scared ya' girly oaf, get off!" Gravesend answered as he finally managed to distance himself from the whimpering pony, falling off of his bed in the process. While everypony else was laughing, neither Wrecks or Eclair found the situation funny.

I myself only found it amusing for a moment, cracking a small grin, but I felt that after Wrecks had fallen down that the spectacle had reached an end. Walking over to his bunk, I offered Wrecks a hoof to help the shaken pony off the floor as he grumbled about being 'woken up in the dead of night by a simpering foal'. I calmly looked over at Eclair, who was curled up in a ball on Wrecks' bed, eyes shut tightly as if he were experiencing a bad dream. "Go back to your bed Eclair." I told the huddled form of the pony on the bed. I felt bad for trying to make him move since he was clearly experiencing a a terrible nightmare which caused his sleep walking episode, but he didn't budge at my words.

"I'm not going to sleep until you get back in your bed." I added, still calm, but slightly more forceful with my words. Eclair suddenly stopped shivering, and turned his head towards me, eyes still closed. "Dad?" he asked fearfully. "Dad the monsters are going to get me." he continued timidly, resuming his shaking. I sighed, feeling that this wasn't going to be easy to deal with. "No, they aren't going to get you... son. We'll protect you, right guys?" I said, surveying the rest of the apartment and emphasizing that they should back me up in my claim.

There were a few halfhearted murmurs of support from everypony else as they realized that this wasn't as funny as it had been starting off. Wrecks stubbornly refused to say anything, grumbling to himself until I nudged him with my hoof, glaring at him until he rolled his eyes and spoke up. "Fine, I'll help the sissy half-lass if his 'big bad monsters' come after him, but only if her doesn't jump on me in the dead of night again." Wrecks compromised. I took a look back at Eclair, who stopped shivering once more. "Go back to bed." I told him gently. This time, he responded, and head back to his bunk. Since then, we hadn't had any more disturbances, but just under a month remained to see if it would remain that way.

To think that I would occupy my thoughts with that particular memory as I added Bucker's dropped rifle to my saddle might have seemed preposterous at any other time, but at the moment, it was the only thought that occurred to me as I worked with practiced hooves. Eclair remained true to his word, peeking over his cover to see if any of the other teams were advancing every ten seconds or so, changing the rhythm of his movements intermittently to throw off anypony that might have been trying to anticipate his movements. The effort paid off, as twice rubber bullets flashed past where his head would have been had he kept his pace even. Once I was armed with both weapons, I gave Eclair one of the two extra clips of ammunition for the rifle that Bucker had left behind, as I noticed that his weapon of choice used the same caliber of bullet. Eclair indicated that team two, which included Temple, Wrecks, and Simone was on the move and headed towards the slab of uneven cover about forty-five yards from my three o'clock.

"On three..." I whispered to Eclair, intending to dive out of my cover and surprise the three cautious ponies who were trying to cross into safer territory. Eclair gave me the go ahead, signaling that the three were still moving and hadn't noticed him, declaring that Wrecks and Temple were checking behind them as Simone led them, far too focused on reaching the relative safety of the rocky outcropping she was aiming for to notice my companion popping his head up.

I tapped my hoof against our own protective slab of rock, keeping in time with my count.

"One..."

Eclair tensed up, checking the breech of his own bolt action rifle, ejecting a spent casing. I was glad he had checked, such an error could have proved costly.

"Two..."

The ejected casing bounced off ground near my hindlegs, causing me to flinch at the noise. I hoped we hadn't just alerted anypony.

"Three!"

I jumped out of my concealment, performing what Riff liked to refer to as a 'dolphin dive'. I meant to fire at Wrecks and take him out, as Eclair had agreed to take Temple out since both had their backs turned to us, but I changed my target in mid air. I realized in an instant that Simone was acting to nervously about getting to cover, and her teammates were too paranoid about checking their rear. I made a split second decision to fire on Simone instead, hoping that my assumption would prove right, and that I wasn't just wasting an opportunity to take out a greater threat...

Four shots rang out, one louder than the others as I bit down on my bridle trigger, three rapid reports of thunder following as my Commando spat out an equal number of rubber bullets at my target, the louder explosion coming from Eclair's much larger rifle.

All four shots were true, two of my shots connecting with Simone's Kevlar breastplate, the third one smashing into her armored neck while Eclair's shot hit Temple squarely in the ball joint of his left hindleg, not considered a confirmed kill, but protocol dictated that he was immobilized by the wound.

I allowed my momentum to carry me to a far smaller outcropping of rock which didn't cover me fully, but only left non-vital targets open to retaliation. While I might have been exposed, and my coat clashed with the sand colored rock I was hiding behind, Eclair was fully sheltered behind his cover by the time I checked on him. Expecting the worst, I waited for Wrecks to take his shot at my exposed flank and immobilize me at least.

But the shot never came.

In fact, the next sound I heard beyond the fading echo of our gunshots was the voice of Captain Eva over our headsets and the loudspeaker. "Team two, your VIP has been killed in action. Report back your apartment, or the infirmary if you think a few bruises are going to ruin your day." she instructed the trio coldly. I was interrupted once more by way of the private radio channel on my headset. "I'll be damned if you manage to pull this off Ditch. Maybe this punishment will actually pay off for me." Captain Eva told me. I held back from commenting on the fact that I hadn't really done much, and all it took was cooperation, but it was a comment like that which had earned me the 'punishment' I was enduring right now. The next step probably would be pushups and cleaning the community showers.

Despite our success, Eclair and I weren't in the clear yet. We were still outnumbered and down on ammunition, and Captain Eva hadn't told anypony to leave their weapons for us this time, not to mention the fact that our position was now compromised due to the sound of our gunfire. On the otherwise silent course, tracking the sound of a shot would be easy, easy enough that the remaining team could be upon us in mere minutes. "We need to move. Fast." I told Eclair over our radio, to which he nodded eagerly.

On the remaining team were Riff, Traynor, and Lou Tenant. I had already stopped to consider what effect Riff would have on their tactics, but established quickly that while I liked him, he had a lot to work on tactically, and while he could be a good shot on the firing range, he wasn't as good as the rest of us when it came to firing on a moving target, which is what I intended to be. Both Traynor and Lou would be assets to their team though, both had come from the same squad in basic training where they had traded spots for the best shooter the entire way through their stay on the Training Grounds. At the moment though, Lou was ranked number three, and Traynor was ranked number five. The funny thing was, outside of their skill with firearms, the two were completely different.

Lou was what one could consider a 'leader', certainly somepony to naturally look up to since he had the most worldly knowledge in the squad since he was an unusual forty-three years old at the time of enlistment, which was almost twice the average enlistment age. I myself was twenty-five when I enlisted, but I got to spend a wonderful birthday with Marble, Rainbow Dash, Cherry Tresses, and Baluchi, feeling spoiled by a cake that Rainbow Dash had managed to get to us from her friend in Ponyville. Pinkie Pie, I think her name was?

Anyhow, Lou always had something to say, typically attempting to be constructive, but he wasn't always gentle about it. In some ways, he was a lot like Blindside, he was helping us, but he wasn't afraid to get nasty with anypony in order to do so. This quality is probably what led him down his previous line of work as a landlord, and as a building manager, he had to deal with all of the problems his tenants had. Manehatten isn't necessarily known for its courteous ponies, and Lou told us of a few of the 'issues' he had to resolve in his tenure as the hired building manager for a slumlord in the seedy side of the city.

Given the circumstances, Lou had the be the muscle against some particularly rowdy tenants. Several different conflicts with the same knife wielding maniac trying to break down his ex-marefriend's door, an alcoholic pegasus who would accidentally land on the balcony of the wrong apartment about twice a week, a hoarder with an odd infatuation with rolls of toilet paper that refused to move out when evicted, even a pair of gun-toting gangsters who were about to perform a hit on a prostitute that was keeping a little too much of her earnings. Stuff that ranged from weird, to humorous, to downright sick in some cases. It was that very sickness of life in the slums of Manehatten that Lou couldn't stand anymore, causing him to flee to the nearest recruitment center to be shipped off to the comparatively posh life of a cadet in Canterlot.

Lou had lived an interesting life so far, but it seemed like he had been trying to tone it down before this war broke out. Of course, this gave Lou plenty of fodder for jokes along the lines of 'Time to serve these fools an eviction notice carved in a bullet. Read this fine print you bastards!', which happened to be his personal favorite so far. I wasn't sure if letting him handle this as if the gryphons and minotaurs were out-of-line tenants would be a good thing or not. Only time would tell.

Now, for all the 'rough-and-tumble' tough guy aspects and leadership capabilities that Lou had, Traynor was quiet, kind, and... honestly a little on the slow side. Traynor was good with a gun, but I question whichever pony thought it would be a good idea to allow him near such dangerous weapons in the first place. Luckily, while he was gullible and didn't know a whole lot of the 'book smarts' that many ponies learned as they went through school, Traynor ate up knowledge about guns like it was second nature. I expect that if he makes it through this war unscathed, a career involving guns would be promising for the youngest pony in the squad.

Lou seemed to have taken Traynor under his proverbial wing, trying to teach him about life in general. Traynor was, in fact, the only pony that Lou seemed to soften up for, acting as a father figure. It seemed like a rather strong bond to have developed over the past few months, but stranger things had happened between ponies before, and this wasn't a harmful relationship for either pony involved. Perhaps Lou was just regretting not having any children of his own yet?

Regardless, what this meant was that Lou and Traynor were fairly in synch with each other, having grown used to being in the same squad during their time together, which would probably bring me and Eclair nothing but trouble if we wanted to win this match. As much as I regretted saying something about the pony that I was beginning to consider my friend, Riff was the chink in their armor, the weak link, so taking out either Lou of Traynor would force the 'survivors' to work together, and far less efficiently than if Riff were eliminated first. With a strategy in mind, I let Eclair in on my plan to 'divide and conquer' our opponents, picking off just one of two primary targets.

We moved cautiously as we maneuvered from one slab of rock in the artificial ravine that Temple, Wrecks, and Simone had come by, unsure of what we might have been walking into. There were a total of four caves in the ravine, with one that had an opening to an overhang that a sniper could perch from in nearly impenetrable cover, while another had a path leading to the ridges above the ravine that a whole team could camp at. The caves were a popular place to order a team to protect for the entire match though, and checking them would probably be for the best.

Eclair volunteered to walk in front so that he would go down first, saying that he thought we could actually win if I was the last 'alive' instead of him. I hardly wanted to be seen that way, my father taught me when I was young that humility was a priceless quality, and trying to show off because you the best didn't stack up to remaining silent and being the best. I found when I began to work in the family business that corpses didn't need to be impressed by anypony, that the living were hardly worthy of the attention of the dead. Because of this, I didn't want excessive praise or glory, all I required to feel satisfied was the knowledge that I had done a job well.

Other ponies needed to put value on each other though, beyond the value of being who they were. Everypony always wanted to be number one, to be the best in the world, to make themselves so well known that they were untouchable in their grandeur. Well, I felt I certainly wasn't that special, and luckily I hadn't done anything impressive enough to get too important, but even this token gesture of Eclair essentially making me an unspoken VIP made me uncomfortable. What could I say though, 'No, I'll walk in front, you can handle this by yourself even if I'm not around to help'? Eclair would argue quite the opposite were I to say something like that. Being important just... wasn't something I was used to.

So I let Eclair do as he pleased, which did involve him walking in front of me to catch any errant bullets seeking me out. Our path led us to the first cave, which was devoid of any sign of ponies inhabiting it at the moment. The second cave, the one with the overlook, proved to be just as deserted, though we took a careful approach from the hardest angle to shoot from while on the overhang, which proved to be a wasted effort as we discovered not a single soul. The third cave proved more promising as we approached.

Sounds carried very well in the caves, echoing off walls for hundreds of feet beyond where they originated. Such was the case when we stopped by the entrance to the third cave, as pony voices were carried out of the hole in the sheer face of the ravine. Peering inside, I could see that at the point where the natural light from outside of the cave ended, and the artificial light of several glow sticks jammed into crevices in the rock walls began, there was an alcove the perfect size for a pony to hide in. A new plan budded in my mind, which I shared with Eclair.

Moments later, I was hiding in the alcove as Eclair stood in the dead center of the passageway that led deeper into the cave. He looked at me and tapped his hoof against the floor once.

'You ready?'

In response, I tapped the floor twice.

'Your move.'

I could barely make out Eclair's determined nod in the dull glow of they dying glow sticks before he let out a loud whoop and fired a shout down the tunnel. Eclair slammed back the bolt action on his rifle to reload, standing still for a second as the previously relaxed voices became shouts of confusion. Eclair began to slowly back up, trying to make sure that at least one pony saw him and alerted the others before he booked it out of the cave. I couldn't tell who saw Eclair first, because soon all three ponies came around the bend and began firing at him, though as luck would have it, by that point Eclair was only a few feet from the end of the tunnel. I heard a yelp as a round bounced off of his flank, be he avoided the worst of it, making it out otherwise untouched.

Now, the last part of this plan was a little shaky. I was running under the assumption that after having been cooped up in a cave and doing nothing for nearly half an hour had made this trio restless and that they might give limited chase to Eclair. If that didn't work, then I would have to think up some new plan, and the only recourse after that seemed to be an all out attack, and given the fairly defensible positions deeper in the caves, that wouldn't end well. The gunfire stopped, the echoes dying out before I heard the the clop of hooves as the trio walked closer to the exit, exhibiting caution since only one pony had been seen, and they knew that at least one more pony was out there.

"I think he's gone." I heard Traynor whisper. "We should head back, we've got the advantage in-" Lou began to advise before Riff cut him off. "Screw that, we've been waiting here for way too long." Riff stated loudly, not at all trying to conceal himself. "Look, I know I hit a pony, so as long as he plays along with this little honor system of ours, he should be laying on the ground out there, or trying to drag himself away. Now I know we can at least check outside for a few seconds, Eva probably won't be too bothered by that." Riff explained to his teammates. "You're little 'sitting and hiding' works for a while, but somepony has to finish this, and it might as well be us. We outnumber them, and one is disabled. If they got away, we can head back in there and wait it out." Riff said with a note of finality.

Silence reigned as Riff's echo died out. "Ummm... Lou? He kinda has a point. I'm getting tired of hiding here, even if it is safer." Traynor said tentatively, unsure of the wisdom of going against his 'mentor'. Lou gave a low growl, indicating his displeasure with his teammate's choices. "Fine, we pop out, then we pop back in, got it?" Lou asked threateningly.

They needn't have worried.

The moment that all three ponies were past me, I pressed myself as close as I could to the wall and banged the opposite side of the alcove with my hoof, causing the trio to jerk backwards at the same moment Eclair received my signal and toss a rock into the passage just in front of the group. At the second unexpected noise, the group turned towards the entrance of the tunnel, distracting them so i could step out of the alcove and bring my Commando to bear. I bit down on the trigger of my bridle as quickly as I could, sending six shots of semi-automatic fire into the crowd before me.

When the echoes of my gunfire died out, Riff looked up at me from the floor he immediately dropped to as he felt the thud of two rubber bullets hitting his protective Kevlar vest. "Damn that was dirty Ditch. You were there the whole time?" he asked me as Lou rose to his hooves, grumbling about how 'and that's why everypony should always listen to me, but noooo, we'd rather take the exciting path'. Traynor just stood up and shook off the shot he took to the back of the head without complaint.

"Well I'll be... looks like we've got an upset in the making here." came the voice of Captain Eva one more time over our headsets, and apparently from a loudspeaker somewhere further down the tunnel. "Riff, Traynor, and Lou. You've all been killed. Ditch, Eclair, and Bucker win this round. Back to the apartment everypony, I'll have a new list of rankings up for you by the time you arrive." Eva said, leaving us all to our own devices as we sorted ourselves out.

"Yeah, take that! Who's pink now, huh? Who's pink now?" Eclair shouted enthusiastically over the general radio. "Can it Clair, you're making my head hurt." Wrecks chimed in. But Eclair wasn't going to be knocked down this time. "You know why your head hurts? It's cause you can't comprehend how this light red pony kicked your-"

I shut off the general radio, just as Wrecks probably had immediately after making his comment to Eclair.

Now was that time I mentioned where I could feel good about a job well done. I had managed to carry my team to victory despite our limitations, and I felt that I had at least managed to make Eclair a better soldier than he was before the match. Bucker may not have been around to learn from this experience, but he probably would be for the next training match if Eva planned to continue my punishment as she said, and you know what?

I was entirely okay with that.

"Private Ditch, meet me in my office after you've replaced your gear at the apartment." came an order from Captain Eva over my private headset channel. "Yes ma'am, quick as I can ma'am." I responded.

Just as I promised Captain Eva over the radio, I put some extra hustle in my jog back to the apartment complex.

When I got back to the apartment, everypony congratulated me on my surprise win, giving me a pat on the back, or a supportive comment, something along those lines.

Everypony except Wrecks.

Instead, he sat in his bed, fuming, giving everypony who met his gaze a look of hatred. I stopped by his bunk, unfazed by the scalding stare he gave me. "Hey, good job Wrecks, you did what you could for your team." I told him, trying to remain cheery sounding. Wrecks didn't say anything back, just sat there and gazed at me as if he could kill me with his eyes alone. I just didn't understand him.

That was just one boring pony.

See, most ponies have a story to tell, even if they don't know it. It might be something they think of as plain, or standard, something that wouldn't be of interest to everypony else if they shared it, but it wasn't true. There was something about every individual that made them unique, something that made them interesting, whether it was something they had done, or something they had seen, some dream of theirs they wished to fulfill. Just.. something to make them really stand out from the next pony in line.

But not Wrecks.

I found it almost impossible to convince myself of this fact, but there was no way I could work it out in my head, there was just nothing interesting about Wrecks. Not a single thing. Before joining the Royal Army, Wrecks had been a crane operator at a waste disposal site in Phillydelphia, the very city that I grew up not so very far away from in my own little graveyard town. His mother died in childbirth, his father was an alcoholic that was crushed to death in the very waste disposal site that he worked at before leaving. Foster care had been rather dull, he went through his entire life in the same home, surrounded by several siblings and the kindhearted but overworked mare who took care of them all.

When he grew of age to leave the system, he stepped out of his foster home, small suitcase of personal belongings in tow, and immediately walked over to the waste disposal site his father had died at. Once outside of the reeking landfill, he stood there and watched the towering crane as it hoisted tons of garbage and refuse high into the air, dropping all of the trash into the magically powered separation system that weeded out recyclable materials from biodegradable matter. The forepony of the whole operation happened to be just outside the gate as well, taking a smoking break.

Upon seeing the barely of age unicorn standing outside of the gates of the reeking landfill, dressed in tidy clothes and rolling a small suitcase along with him, the forepony asked what the lad was doing there. Wrecks told him his relatively bleak and uninteresting life story, the only part that piqued the forepony's interest being the part about the colt's father, recalling the very stallion who had died when he was still just one of the workers, and not the head of the operation. The forepony proceeded to ask if the young unicorn happened to be looking for a job, to which Wrecks simply said maybe.

"He told me, 'Well, if you find yourself in the neighborhood at eight o'clock sharp, and the gate happens to be open, and you manage to get lost somewhere on the East side of the landfill, feel free to knock on one of the doors of the office building. Somepony will let you know where to go'." Wrecks told us of the forepony's less than subtle suggestion. Wrecks told him thanks, and to have a nice day, and wandered a few blocks away to a seedy little apartment complex, a lot like the one Lou had been working at before coming here, and paid for an apartment with some of the money he had saved up over the years. His walls were whitewashed, there was no furniture except for a cot, and the room smelled vaguely of mold. Wrecks left his suitcase by the cot, and climbed up on the bed, proceeding to stare at the ceiling until sleep took him into its comforting grasp.

The next day, Wrecks happened to be in the same neighborhood as the waste disposal site at precisely seven thirty. The gate leading into the facility just so happened to be open. He happened to be lost on the East side of the landfill, and he just so happened to knock on the door to the forepony's office at precisely eight o'clock. When the door opened, the foreman looked at him knowingly, not at all surprised that the colt had shown up after all. Wrecks was shown to a locker where he could store his tidy clothes, and was given a uniform and hardhat to put on.

When his tidy clothes had been neatly stored away in his rusty old dented locker, Wrecks came back to the forepony, who showed the colt around the site. He led the young unicorn up the steps to the crane, and showed him how to operate it, Wrecks' mind gobbling up every detail, every button, every lever, every switch, where every single paint chip and coffee stain was inside the enclosed compartment of the crane's control booth.

That had been thirteen years ago, and Wrecks still worked at that same exact waste disposal facility, with the same exact forepony, in the same exact crane. In school, he had been smart, but not too smart. He had never played any sports, he had never played an instrument. He had never held a relationship with anypony, and he was only marginally friendly with his peers. He had never gone into detention, he had never been told to finish his homework, he had never been told it was bed time.

Wrecks told us all of this in excruciating detail when his time had come to share about himself, and I spared myself the small details of his dull life as I recalled what he had told us. Wrecks, was boring.

He was utterly, and completely, boring.

For twenty-nine years of his life, from the very moment he was born, he had been boring.

Yes, Wrecks was an anomaly by being so utterly boring, something that typically would interest me in its uniqueness. But it was by his very nature, that I found him boring. He had a story, one unlike and I had ever heard, or had ever imagined, but through the entire length of him telling us all the miniscule details of his life, I wanted him to stop. It would be easy to say that my own life was boring, and quite frankly, it was if all I said was that I carried around dead ponies and their tombstones, and buried them, but that was ignoring all of the intricacies of what I was tasked with. I had at least some part in every integral process, embalming, inscription of the tombstone, really I could go on further, but my point has been made. What I did was extraordinary, not in a sense that nopony else could do what I do, but in a literal sense of the word, that my job was beyond ordinary, it was hardly mundane.

But even as Wrecks went over every minute detail of his job, and his day, and his life, it still seemed boring, when that was what should have made him extraordinary. I was completely and irrevocably baffled by how a pony could be so extraordinary, and yet so boring at the same time, but the proof sat before me, trying to burn me to death with his eyes. I settled on the fact that Wrecks didn't feel like talking right now, no matter how nice I was being to him, so I made for the hooflocker at the end of my bed and busied myself with stowing away all of my gear.

Then, I left the apartment, heading off to the administrative buildings to meet Captain Eva in her office.

A few minutes later, I found myself sitting in a surprisingly comfy chair in Eva's office. Captain Eva herself was a shockingly orange unicorn with a charcoal colored mane and tail, and she was prone to chewing on her lower lip while she concentrated intently on something. I only knew that she did this because she had been staring at her computer monitor since I sat down in the chair I was still waiting patiently in.

When I had arrived at the door with Eva's nameplate on it, I knocked politely, my instructor answering the door personally and bade me to take a seat in the chair in the corner. Afterwords, Eva returned to her computer and continued to click and type away at whatever she was working on, so I observed the furnishings of the office.

In one corner, there was a bookshelf filled with military guides and manuals, some based on strategy, some based on history, and more still that I couldn't make out the fine print of on the spines. In another corner, there was a stereotypical office water jug, you know the kind with the warm and cold nozzles, but you only use the cold one because you're afraid of what the 'warm' nozzle might do. Another bookshelf was situated across from the previous one, though there were a variety of photographs and knick knacks adorning the shelves of this particular one. Medals, commendations, slips of certification, all of these were on one shelf, orderly and precise, very much like a veteran military officer had set it up.

The shelves above and below that one had a personal touch to each. The upper shelf was home home to several picture frames with old and slightly faded photos of what appeared to be a younger Eva, and what I assumed to be her husband and children, two twin fillies that looked to be about the age I was when I got my cutie mark, and a baby colt who was still of nursing age. On the lower shelf, there were three pictures that looked far newer with no fading at all. There was a picture of one of the two twins and who I assumed was her husband in a hospital, the mare holding the newborn foal that she had most likely given birth to only moments before the snapshot. There was a picture of an unhappy looking teenage colt, the same one from the faded picture on the shelf above based on the similar colors, not to mention the two smiling twins that were squeezing the colt in a big hug, probably the cause of his unhappiness.

The final picture was a match to one of the pictures from the top shelf, a family gathering looking photo with all of the ponies sitting on different levels of a picnic table, some on the bench, some on the tabletop itself. It appeared that the photo was taken in the exact same place, underneath of an ancient oak tree which looked unchanged in both pictures. Everypony was striking the same pose they held in the original photo, with the only difference being that one of the twins was holding a filly the same age as the colt had been in the original. For some reason, the matching photos and smiling faces tickled me on the inside, and made me realize that these instructors, and drill sergeants, and any officer in the military really, they were all normal ponies like the rest of us when the uniform came off. They had families, friends, children, everything that the average pony had.

My thoughts were interrupted as Captain Eva spoke for the first time since I sat down. "I expected a lot more excitement out of a hotshot like you Ditch." she said absentmindedly as the clicks and typing continued. "Sorry ma'am, I didn't really think that I should be celebrating the fact that I won a training exercise just because you restricted me some." I said honestly. Eva stopped her typing and clicking for a moment to look up at me, perplexed. "Well, I'm a little surprised that anypony that ended up in the highest ranked squad wouldn't celebrate even the most minor victory." she said before resuming her work. "But that's not really what I was referring to Ditch."

"What?" I asked, as Eva's confusion was passed to me. Now I really had her attention. Eva looked at me even more quizzically than she had a few seconds ago, and slowly rotated her monitor around so I could see it. "Do you know what this is?" she asked flatly. I took a few moments to look at the electronic form Eva had pulled up on her computer. "Well, yes," I said, still confused as I looked upon the document further. "It's a form of recommendation for advancement. Why? Is Wrecks getting promoted?" I asked with full sincerity, utterly unsure of what Eva was trying to show me.

My instructor face-hoofed and rotated the monitor back around to herself, sighing as she did so. "Yes, Wrecks is getting promoted, he's going to be a corporal when he steps out of here." she told me. "Well that's good news, everpony knows its been a long time-" I started to say excitedly before Eva cut me off. "But that's not why you're here Ditch." Eva said before sighing again. "I'm going to take a shot in the dark here and say that you didn't look at the rankings I posted at the apartment, did you?"

"Well, no, I hadn't-"

"Oh go figure!" Eva interrupted me again. "You know, I'd kill to have more ponies like you, ponies that weren't all over trying to be the best sharpshooter in the academy, but with one slight modification." she told me before pausing again. "I would like them, to take the hint, that they're the best one here, so long as they actually are."

Eva clicked a few more times with her mouse, typed a password or two, and then turned the monitor back to me. I immediately perused the document she had opened. It appeared to be the numerical list of rankings that Eva gave us after each training exercise, along with the insignia that indicated our rank. This time, Wrecks would have a nice corporal's insignia next to his name, showing that his work had finally paid off.

Riff was still in ninth place, not too unexpected since it had been his unsound advice that led to my team's victory. Temple also hadn't changed his place, stuck in eight. Bucker's place also remained unchanged in seventh, though he probably would have been dropped to ninth if we hadn't won, bumping Temple and Riff up one place in the process. In the first surprise on the list, both Simone and Traynor had dropped a rank to fifth and sixth respectively, while Eclair had been bumped up two places to fourth. Lou had managed to salvage his rank of third by providing the correct advice to resolve the match, even if his teammates didn't follow his plan.

Then it hit me.

In second place, was not me, but rather, Wrecks, with the nice new second upright arrow that indicated his new rank of corporal. The promotion was expected, however his placement was not. Right next to the number one on the screen, was my name, and the insignia was a triple stacked arrow, rather than a single, or even double arrow. I had completely skipped the step of corporal according to this list. "There has to be a mistake." I told Eva, growing nervous. "Nope. Everything is exactly as I meant to input it."

"Explain." I told my instructor bluntly. Eva laughed to herself. "Now he gets it." she said to nopony in particular. I simply sat there, giving my all to prevent myself from dropping my jaw to the floor as I leaned forward to hear whatever ridiculous explanation Eva was preparing to give me.

"As you know, my rankings are based off of two variables; accuracy, and strategy. Both are necessary to become a successful sniper." Eva began. "Today, you proved to me that you have exceptional skill in both." she told me, as if I should be convinced that easily. "But... Wrecks is more accurate than I am. He always has been." I protested. "Yes, but considering that accuracy takes longer to be improved than strategy, I weigh your tactical decisions more heavily in my ranking process. Wrecks is marginally better than you at flat out shooting, but he has far weaker strategy than you. As I said, this was proven today during your combat exercise." my instructor explained. I sat in the my suddenly uncomfortable chair, mouth agape as I no longer tried to hide my astonishment.

"I'll be blunt. The entire training exercise was meant as punishment for you. That was why I saddled you with two of the worst ranked ponies in the squad, and then threw extra deterrent your way. You were meant to lose that match." Eva started to explain her logic further. "Admittedly, I scoffed at your choice of weapon, a carbine over the long range rifles that your peers used. I didn't expect for you to apply what I would normally consider the disadvantages of a carbine as advantages for your particular match, even more impressive when one of the teammates you were relying on to supplement your strategy was taken out early on."

"I laughed at you before you took a logical look at how your opponents were acting, and adjusting your tactics accordingly, taking out exactly who you needed to. I was somewhat surprised, but I had absolutely no belief that you could actually finish off your opponents, opponents who outnumbered you, had better supplies, and a defensible position." Eva paused, looking at me seriously. "And then you threw me for a loop with your plan to fight in the tunnel. I listened to to that one over the radio, and I laughed again, until you finished a fight before it even began through careful positioning and superior judgement. Then, I was just impressed." she concluded.

Before I could begin my next protest, it was as if Eva had read my mind. "You already know that when you leave here, your squad needs a leader. A pony who can be depended on to make the right choices, even under duress. That pony is you Ditch. You have all the credentials I needed to put on on the fast track to becoming the leader of Alpha Squadron. Your squad. The best of the best out of the all these other cadets."

I understood now. Why Wrecks was angry at me, that is. In his eyes, I took the position that was rightfully his. Heck, I would have offered it to him if I could, but I realized now that the recommendation for advancement had been for me, and mere minutes ago Eva had sent the form to Central Command. I was in the same room as her, and I did nothing to prevent her from sending the recommendation. But I couldn't have known better, could I? Of course I could have known better, the form probably had my name typed all over it, but all I had looked for was the title.

"Also, take a gander at this..." Eva said smugly as she slid a piece of paper my way. I looked at the official title of the document. "Request for reenlistment... into.. active duty. Oh no." I said, the blood draining from my cheeks. It wasn't so much the prospect of what I read, but the extreme improbability that what I read could possibly be true. "Oh yes..." Eva said with a grin. "Go ahead. Finish it."

I gulped before one last word. "Approved."

"That's right. Say hello to the your future battalion commander, you'll be reporting to me a lot more once your month is up here." Eva gloated, taking extreme pleasure in my denial that fate would intertwine us like this.

"See you on the battlefield... Sergeant."