//------------------------------// // Being a Teacher // Story: Existence // by Spectar37 //------------------------------// Chapter 19 I stood before thirty guards ponies, all of whom were called here for a ‘mysterious’ meeting of a sort in the town hall. Cloe, Sam and Tony stood beside me, waiting for me to address the ponies. “Hello, all,” I announced, “I am Darkside, the new training instructor.” I paced to my left and raised a hoof, pointing at Cloe. “This is Instructor Fyrebook,” I introduced her to the masses before moving my hoof to point at Tony. “Instructor Plume,” I shifted my hoof to Sam, “and Instructor Samus.” “What is this!” one of the guards yelled out. “This is me telling you to shut up!” I shouted back. “I’m here to teach you how to war if it damn well kills me!” I started to pace across the ranks of ponies as I continued to talk. “Now when you shot at me earlier, I was standing still and you all managed to miss it!” I stopped pacing for a moment, standing in front of one of the iron clad guards. “Now quite frankly, that’s absolutely pathetic!” I continued my pacing, scanning the crowd for any objections. “You will learn how to fight properly against an enemy who can and will kill you in less than a second,” I continued my monologue, “You will listen to our instructions and follow them to the letter, and if you don’t like it get over it!” One of the guards stood up. “I refuse to be taught what we already know!” He shouted, receiving approval from his fellow guards ponies. “Well you obviously didn’t know shit a few hours ago,” I retorted, “So if you know so much now, try and take me down.” He backed up, seemingly intimidated by my open challenge. His expression hardened before he leapt forward, His wings spread out and propelled him forward as he raised his hoofs. I jumped to the side as his hoof slammed into the ground where I last stood. I swung my tail around and tripped him before following up by leaping forward and slamming my hoof into his chest. He screamed out in pain as I leaned towards his writhing form. “If I were an imp class demon, you would have been dead the moment you leapt at me,” I whispered into his ear before standing back up. “Anypony else?” I asked, not expecting a response at all. When no one accepted my challenge, I continued with my teachings. I grabbed the rifle sitting against the wall behind me and swung it around. Standing on my hind legs, I leaned against the weapon. “So does anypony know what this is?” I asked, a smug grin on my face. None of them should have any idea. “Oh, I know!” Wait, what? A group of three fillies ran up to us, excitement evident on their face. One is a pegasus an orange coat and a purple mane, another was a bow wearing yellow pony with a red mane and the last is a white unicorn with a pink and purple mane. They sorta remind me of the Cutie Mark Crusaders. Wait, they are! How did they get in here?! The fillies slid to a halt in front of me, their eyes studying every inch of the rifle I’m leaning on. “Tha’s the thing that creature on the hill was using,” Applebloom said in the same accent as her sister. They saw me up there yesterday? “Oh umm,” I blurted out, “could you step away from it please?” “What’s it do?” Scootaloo asked, ignoring me completely. “Yesterday, it was makin real loud noises an’ throwing this bright blue stuff at trees,” Applebloom answered. “Well that doesn’t sound very interesting,” Sweetie belle said, a bored look on her face. “Cept it cut down the trees!” Applebloom said, her voice rose a bit. “Cool!” the other two fillies exclaimed. I fell to the floor at the gun disappeared from under me. The fillies were pulling the gun away from me before I heard a click. “No you fools!” A hoof hit the trigger guard before Applebloom stopped. She turned to look at me as the rifle on the floor continued to point towards the wall. Lucky it isn’t pointed into the crowd. Then she slipped. The resounding bang as the superheated plasma broke the sound barrier, being propelled by the magnetic coils inside the gun. I jumped up and ran for my gun as the plasma detonated against the wall, luckily causing no harm. “No!” I shouted at the fillies as I snatched the rifle away from them. “Stay away from the extremely deadly pulse rifle!” I hugged the gun, flicking the safety back on. Damn ponies and stealing extremely deadly hardware. The faces of the fillies fell after I shouted. “We’re sorry, mister,” they apologised in unison. I responded with a grunt, not caring if they apologised or not. Too many ponies have taken my gun and almost blew something up. I started to walk back to my speech position in front of the guards before being stopped by a hoof to the head. “Ay,” I yelped as I turned to see the assailant. It was Cloe. I sighed in defeat. I knew where this was gonna go. I turn back to the long faced fillies. “Ok, your apology is accepted,” I said with a grin, “But you better not pull a stunt like that again, you almost blew someone’s head off.” “You three head home now, were teaching war here,” Sam said to the fillies, who surprisingly listened and left after saying goodbye to everyone very loudly. “Well, someone’s good with fillies,” I murmured before turning back to the guard to resume my speech. “So does anypony else know what this is?” No reply. “Well this baby is a PPG-32, or pulse rifle.” I swung the weapon around so everyone could get a good look at it. “It fires magnetically accelerated plasma rounds at speeds faster than sound.” “Now this plasma round is capable of melting through light armour and remove the head of a target without armour in one shot.” The murmuring among the guards was enough to tell me that they understood what I just said. “Luckily, I’m not using this weapon to kill ponies, only demons and heretics.” “Uh, excuse me sir, but what are these demon things?” I heard a guard ask. Yes, I got called sir! “Well, let’s just go with ugly two legged creatures that throw fire and turn to ash when dead,” I answered. “There are more types and stuff but I can’t be bothered explaining.” “So what is the point of this meeting?” the guard asked. “To tell you that we’re gonna teach you to war, hard,” I answered. “Now we need to know your current capabilities so we’re gonna run a few tests out at Sweet Apple Acres.”