Gallus never imagined in his life that one of the places he would find solace would be a classroom, sitting behind a desk with a notebook and pencil, staring at a chalkboard. They were welcome breaks between the physically enduring routine, as well as one of the few moments in the day where Razorwing wasn’t breathing down the back of his neck.
Although these classrooms weren’t as large and creatively diverse as they were in the School of Friendship, at least not the time after the E.E.A. left the school alone. Desks were small and evenly spaced; the walls were dreary with military posters peeling off the walls. Gallus could understand that learning about combat and outdoor survival is more important than classroom décor, but would it have hurt to avoid all the classrooms on the same floor being the same.
Granted, even a Wonderbolt like Professor Dash didn’t have as great tenacity of holding a student's attention as these teachers did. “Okay cadets, I’m aware you may have had this lesson before, but in a week’s time you’ll be spending your first time out on the field” Captain Westland opened towards the class, the light red pegasus mare addressed with a controlled volume, but she carefully studied the room, as if waiting for the right moment to catch someone. “and if I or a platoon instructor expect to trust you with weapons, we won’t make excuses if you get things wrong.”
She made steps towards the chalkboard, etched on it in white was a figure of the side a pony donned in armour, and below it a long and skinny box. One end of the box was chalked in thick like a bright white square and attached to the very end was a sharply pointed triangle.
With a long ruler in one of her wings, she pointed towards the sketched object on the board. “The Spear, standard weapon of the E.U.P. Guard,” she said with the utmost sincerity before it was time for her to partake in testing the cadets. “what is the correct position to hold a spear when standing in attention, Wind Breaker?”
Wind Breaker suspected he was her first target, sitting front and centre, but he felt his mind froze over at what was meant to be an easy answer. “Uh… upright, ma’am?” he slowly answered.
“Correct,” Westland confirmed directly, giving Wind Breaker a moment to exhale as she drew a line on the armoured pony figure to give it a spear to hole. “and Nick, what time should you point your spear anywhere else?”
Sitting next to Wind Breaker, Throw Up had his head rested on his hoof. “When there is a hostile act, Captain” his answer carried a drone that wasn’t missed by the captain, whose eyes creased before she turned back towards the bored student.
“Good, but what about hostile intent?” She moved her way towards Throw Up’s desk as the cyan pegasus lifted his head and his face drew a blank. The captain continued, “There will be times where you see something or someone that may intend to harm but have yet to carry it out. Would you point your spear towards it straight away?”
“Uh, yes ma’am?” he guessed.
Captain Westland lifted her front hoof and slammed it on the desk, causing Throw Up and cadets adjacent to jump as the sound of the impact sent a small shockwave through the classroom. The wave was followed by silence, where only the sounds of cadets outside performing their exercises faintly made their way into the room. The Captain smirked as her vermillion eyes locked onto Throw Up’s wide and attentive ones. “You just landed a possible court-martial,” she remarked jovially, an uncomfortable tone as she switched to a glower “excessive escalation of force.”
Leaving the cadet shook, she explained. “As guards, you’re responsible to protect with the least amount of damage, doubly so when your commissioned officers commanding troops. Therefore, it is important that you can memorize the stages of escalation of force and carry them out in order. Starting with what, Rosewood?”
“Shout, Captain…” answered Scythe, although his habit appeared at noticeably the wrong time. The irises of Westland’s eyes rolled along the edge of her eyelids as she sighed.
“Louder, please.”
“Shout… call out to the threat for them to get your attention” he answered, raising his voice to a normal volume.
Throw Up sardonically whispered to Wind Breaker “Is it actually possible for Mumbles to shout?”, but a quick shot glance from the captain prevented either of them from uttering more than a snicker.
“Correct, and once the potential threat has your attention but decides to continue, do you use your weapon, Gallus?”
The griffon was caught staring outside the window, watching over a pegasus platoon working on their levitations. His eyes darted around as he tried to figure out the answer, he knew the first stage was shout but what was the second stage. As Captain Westland pointed out, they already had a lesson on this, so the word he needed to use must have been somewhere. First was to shout, then it was…
“Uh… show…” his eyes lit up as he internally pulled out the answer buried in his mind, “you show but don’t use…” he answered with a nervous grin.
Captain Westland could only return half a smile, “Glad to have you pay attention.” She returned to the board to erase the spear from the armoured figure. “Show your spear in a ready position, somewhere between forward and upright,” she drew a new spear pointed upward and diagonally in the direction of the figure, “but if what you are facing with isn’t a confirmed threat what must you do, Sterling?”
“Shuv, mum. Make ‘em move away” the white pegasus answered, the most upright and sanguine of the class.
The captain blinked, making doubly sure she heard the answer correctly before giving her response. Although her eyes looked upward in thought, she gave a cautious nod. “…Yes, I’d also accept restraining them.” Her surveying eyes then moved back to the initial troublemaker on her radar, Throw Up. “When you’ve done all of those stages, and the threat has not stopped, what do you do with your spear, Nick?”
“Uh, Stab?” he guessed again, not much else you could do with a spear.
Westland smirked. “Correct, you are permitted to point your spear directly at the target. Thrust once, then release. Doing so would be enough to seriously injure or kill the threat but trust me in that you are better off having the threat end in one of the earlier stages.” She went back to the board, and wrote down the four words in a stack, underlining the front S in each of them. “Shout, Show, Shove, Stab, remember the order and you won’t be in any trouble when the time comes.”
As assuring as she intended to be, there remained a sense of discomfort amongst a portion of the class.
"Next on the agenda, setting up base..."
Shout, Show, Shove, Stab. Those four words were engrained in Gallus’ mind as he waited in line to pick up his spear for the upcoming trip, Exercise Self-Reliance. It was already a long and arduous wait considering he also had to carry a rucksack on his back with equipment in, it was as if he were carrying a clone of himself.
Fortunately, it was an orderly line, pony goes up to a square hole in the wall that held an armoury, gets given a spear by two hooves through the square hole, “Thank you corporal”, moves on for the next pony. It was as if common courtesy was an assembly line.
Then in comes Gallus, and he finally gets a look at the corporal, a big earth pony stallion with freckles around his nose and witnessing him doing a double-take on Gallus. The corporal’s head tilted as he slowly moved the spear through the square hole. Gallus could not see a reason for the aura of caution, it was not like he didn’t follow the same lessons for the last four weeks.
Regardless, he got his spear, “Thanks, corporal” doing his part of the routine before waiting with the rest of his platoon. The spears themselves were simple in design but also surprisingly weighted. The staff of it was one long smooth wooden rod, and on top of it was a steel spike that was dull and grey but shaped like a thin diamond, its edges looked so pointed that if one were to touch it…
“Ouch!” a loud yelp emerged from the room, loud enough that the corporal poked his head out of the hole to see what had happened, only for everyone to witness the source. “That’s sharp!” cried Throw Up, his voice muffled by the hoof muzzling his face to ease the stinging sensation it was having.
“Course it is” the corporal groaned, “it’s a standard-issue spear.” The earth pony tutted and shook his head as he crawled back into the armoury, “There’s always one…” he quietly muttered to himself.
As Throw Up handled his hard lesson of being careful with his spear, the other platoon members just waited around, talking with one another, looking through their bags or their spears. Wind Breaker looked intently at the diamond tip of his spear, it appeared to glisten as moved slightly under the light. As he stared into the reflection emitting from the metal, he could recall the soldiers he had seen, the stories of battles that have been fought with this one weapon.
He had that moment of realization that he heard from other ponies who join the guard.
“This is real…”
The Exercise Self-Reliance took place in the woodlands near Foal Mountain, the platoon was separated into groups and ordered into separate areas to set up “bases” with shelter and a place to prepare food. Gallus was assigned to a group with Scythe, Throw Up, Wind Breaker, Sterling and another cadet Sterling called “Dusty”, a turquoise Pegasus with a short trimmed fiery mane that was familiar, maddingly so since Gallus could not out a talon on why.
After a while of unpacking, the group worked together on their base, hammering poles and pegs into the soft ground so they could get tents held up. As time went by, some of the cadets were struggling to keep their tents upright, that was except for the two mares of the group.
“Kamon lads, not that ‘ard to pitch a tent!” boasted Sterling, resting inside her fully pitched tent with her head poking out the entrance. Throw Up’s brows drew together, he was already having a hard time fitting the pegs in place to hammer them in with one of his hooves covered in a bandage. His buddy Wind Breaker was working at a snail’s pace, fumbling over the pieces.
“Well, Steppin' Time, you could help us…” he suggested.
But Sterling smiled and laid back, “Soz colts, self-reliance. Sarge sez ya need ta fettle in pairs on ya tents.” She rested the back of her head on her hooves, taking in the air of the forest. “‘Sides, ain’t ya done campin' before?”
The stallion grumbled with a resented nod. “In the junior cadets,” he answered, “but setting up tents above clouds is a lot different than camping underneath.” As the pegasus hammered fitted the final pole in place, there was a few seconds of relief as the frame held upright... just before crashing down on them.
Meanwhile, Gallus was busy setting up his own tent with Scythe, finally getting the body of their tent upright and applying the covering. Overhearing the other conversation, he pieced together what Throw-Up was saying, upon recognising the junior cadets and being in the clouds. He turned to Scythe, “So were you two in the same junior cadets…?” he whispered.
Scythe nodded to confirm his suspicions, “Mh-hmm…” his tone was downcast. It gave the impression that the two did not have the friendliest of times together, at least the one in front of Gallus didn’t.
“What ‘bout you Bluebird,” Sterling called out, causing Gallus’ feathered ears to flick upwards, “you camp out much, or you an indoor griffon?”
The griffon stared upwards at the mountain through the trees, a setting not too different from his old home. Griffonstone was a giant tree that stood on a rock, surrounded by dark green forests and mountaintops. There would have been plenty of areas for a griffon to go out and around the country for an outing, but Gallus couldn’t remember a time that he would have left Griffonstone, at least not before going to school. “Well… I’m used to sleeping outside,” he casually answered, “but I’ve not been on a camping trip before.”
He turned to see Sterling turn over on her side with a raised eyebrow, curious to what he meant. Gallus hesitated slightly and reverted to looking back up at the mountain top, “The School of Friendship didn’t do any overnight field trips in the woods or jungles, not since Professor Dash and Professor Applejack tried to run one.”
It was probably for the best, those two ponies felt more interested in competing with one another like an old married couple than teach us anything outdoors. He chuckled to himself, recalling the time he worked with his friends to save the teachers from a school of Bite-acudas. It ended up being a good lesson in how to work as a team, in a reverse psychological way.
Sterling returned to grinning, assuming Gallus was missing out. “Ah, you’ll enjoy it! Ah love campin', done it with my folks since a filly.” She looked up at the sky, listing her great experiences of camping, “Get to see the stars, ‘ear all the chirpin', heat up food by the campfire…”
“And carry around sharp army issued spears?” asked Gallus with a cocked eyebrow, reminding her of the weapons they were all given earlier.
The mare just shrugged, “Eh, there’s always something new.” The pair of Scythe and Gallus hammered in the final pegs and attached the arching poles, finishing their loose structure. There was a subtle moment of pride as a hoof and close-fisted talon bumped into each other. Now the tent is done, they could finally get a cooking area built for food.
“How has it been an hour and you lot haven’t finished setting up your base yet?” a sharp suddenly question pierced through the conversation. The Staff Sergeant had arrived to check in on the group and was not too happy. Turns out the other groups have had theirs all finished, and everyone was about to go forward with the exercises. “You should be able to take care of yourselves out in the fields. If you are not done in the next five minutes, you’ll have to finish it at sundown.” His warning brought a groan from the rest of the group. “There better not be any more ponies holding me back…” he muttered to himself, as he was taking his leave.
“Uh… sarge?” a pegasus called out, waving his plastered hoof to get Razorwing’s attention, “My hoof has started bleeding again…”
Razorwing rested his head on the bottom of his hoof, he did not want to turn around at that moment.
The chaos on the field began after lunch, cadets were to rush through the forest from one end to the other. Many were relieved that they could use their wings this time, as it made travel easier for the pegasi and griffon, even if they had to fly low and through the trees.
Scattered along the forest were large bags of sand, each one of them had to be pierced by a cadet. Felt like a straightforward flight, assuming they were alone. As cadets flew towards a sandbag to strike a spear into it, they had a short amount of time to get behind a tree for cover, cover from return fire. Turns out the unicorn cadets were also training from the other side of the woods, their task to run to the other side and fire towards the pegasus ponies, any cadet that got hit by the beams emitting from the unicorn horns were met with a short stinging sensation.
The pressure did not help many of the winged ponies, handling spears while moving was of great difficulty for them. As Gallus flew from tree to tree, he could catch glances of other cadets panicking as the spears slipped from the hooks made from their hooves or pulling them out of the burlaps with their teeth because it was the strongest grip they had.
Not that he had much time to think about why ponies thought spears were a practical weapon for them to use, keeping a firm grip on his own with his talons, pushing it into and out of heavy sacks. It was not as if he was being fired at as well, one moment stuck during the exercise.
His spear was once driven so far into a sandbag that he had to stand on it to pull the spear out. Before he knew it, he felt a sharp sting in his flank, and as he stumbled behind a tree to recover, he overheard in the distance. “Hey! I finally got the birdie!” followed by laughter. They were aiming at him, they were hitting the other cadets for sure, but they were not laughing about hitting them.
Elsewhere, he saw Wind Breaker was having his own struggles with the exercise. He had his own spear caught in a bag, but something was off. Wind Breaker was making no effort to remove the spear, nor awareness of the beams flying past him. He stared down the wooden shaft towards the bag, impaled and bleeding out grains of sand.
His wild eyes were drawn deep into the image, his breathing slowed to a crawl, the sounds distanced further from him as a sense of dread was making its presence. It would take a hoof to pull him back into reality, and yet it had to be the hoof from the loudest pony on the field. “Cadet! This is an active battle scenario!” yelled Razorwing, his voice managing to drown out the sounds of zaps whizzing past them, “You should not be hesitating or dropping your spears!”
All Wind Breaker could do was keep running forward.
The sun was setting, and the sky was changing to its dark navy hue, as the whole platoon made a trek back to the campsites. All they could do was tire over the exhausting day out they just had...
“Ugh… am nakkud, could do with a good night’s sleep right now…”
“I can still feel the burn those unicorns gave me…”
The reassurances of some, however, was met with the eerie premonition of a few. Following the glow of lanterns, Gallus and his group started to be noticed when they stopped, half of their platoon had gone missing. Staff Sergeant Razorwing turned around, holding the lantern that gave an ominous glow as he gave some unexpected news to the remainder of the group.
”The reason why you lot are here is that this exercise is not over yet.” Gallus and some of the other cadets looked at each other, confuzzled at what was being said.
“While the other half will be asleep for three hours, you’ll remain awake and on guard. Captain Westland and I will take turns to monitor each one of you, so if you want to fight for your commissions, you’ll need the self-discipline to stay awake.”
Those in disbelief had little energy to moan, and those who saw it coming could only remain jaded, this was their first-night manoeuvre.