It was the start of the afternoon; Gallus and his friends were all standing in a line outside the main hall with the cool spring breeze and shining sun in their suits of armour, waiting to do their last exercise of the term. The platoon had enough preparation for it earlier that morning when Razorwing decided to skip the drills and go straight into stretches, warm-ups, and short flights.
“Don’t try and cut corners,” warned the Staff Sergeant, “your muscles will appreciate the double duty when you get ‘round to Exercise Loaded Flight later today.”
According to the mission brief earlier that morning, Exercise Loaded Flight consisted of flying low along a set course for eight miles. This didn’t make sense to Gallus, an eight-hour flight sounded too easy, there had to be a catch.
He turned around to Scythe, who stood behind him in the line. “So, what’s the big deal with this exercise?” he queried. “I mean, we flew halfway across Equestria and back last term for Exercise Long Reach.”
“Well, we’re not flying far, but we’ll be carrying more.” As Scythe pointed down the line, the two could see unicorns and earth ponies carrying the supplies. There were stacks upon stacks of backpacks, some big enough to cover a regular pony’s back, and some as big as Gallus himself. All of them appeared to be filled to the point that the straps holding the contents inside were stretched to their limit.
As the line stepped forward, the two could see Lightning Dust step onto the metal surface of a large weighing scale. Which backpack the cadets got appeared to depend on weight, as one of the smaller ones was levitated off the pile and passed to Lightning Dust. “Guess that explains why we needed to wait in line…” he remarked, before turning back to Scythe. “How much more are we carrying?”
Unfortunately, all Scythe couldn’t do was shrug. “Dunno, Tomcat just said it was a lot.” Gallus quietly groaned, unappreciative of the supposed vagueness of Scythe’s older brother, leaving him no choice but to find out himself. Slowly, the line moved, and Gallus saw Nicknames get his backpack, followed by Pound Sterling.
Finally, it was his turn, and he encountered a familiar face. “Okay bird, take off your armour and get on the scales,” Lance Corporal Maximilian said with a heated sigh, the unicorn that gave Gallus his armour, adjusting his round spectacles whilst using his horn to hold up a clipboard.
“Yes, sir,” Gallus replied dryly whilst giving a jaded glance, proceeding to walk onto the metal plate of the weighing scale. In the corner of his eye, he could see the display with numbers going up in tens, as well as the dial quickly turning around in response to the applied mass. It quickly surpassed seventy, eighty, ninety, and even a hundred, before stopping with a jolt just over one hundred and ten.
“One hundred and eleven kilos…” noted Maximillian, readjusting his spectacles while peering at the clock-faced display, before returning to his clipboard. “Factoring the weight of the armour… you’ll be carrying 20 kilos” he stated, as he held the clipboard in one of his forehooves and focused on the huge pile of backpacks behind him.
One of the larger ones began to glow as it slowly levitated, before being dropped on top of Gallus. No reaction to the drop was bigger than Gallus’ squawk, apart from the dial on the scales which jolted violently to the sudden weight increase.
Although Gallus was able to push the backpack off his body, it was still as heavy as a pile of bricks. In contrast, the backpack he carried for Exercise Long Reach had parts of a tent, sleeping bag, food, a small stove, and clothes, and yet Gallus was able to carry that bag with ease.
Meanwhile, when Gallus strapped himself to the backpack and pushed himself to all fours, he could feel the weight across his back pushing him down onto the gravel. As he walked, he could feel his back sway further from side to side, urging the griffon to take caution with his balance. He felt that he had an easier time carrying stacks of Grandpa Gruff’s books and papers around Griffonstone in his younger days.
“Ayup Bluebird!” called out a loud Trottingham mare, Gallus looked ahead and caught sight of Pound Sterling waving towards him. Lightning Dust, Nicknames, and herself were all strapped into their backpacks, the latter two were larger than the former. “See uz in th’ twenny kay club.”
Gallus tilted his head, “The ‘what’ club?” he asked.
“Twenty K club” Nicknames clarified, “you’ve been put with big pegasus ponies, so you carry twenty kilos.” This was followed by the two big pegasus ponies giving each other a hoofbump of approval.
“Does everypony have to carry this much?”
“Nah, apparently the big earth ponies get twenty-five kilos, regular ones get eighteen.” Nicknames then turned to Lightning Dust with a sardonic smirk and patted her helmet “and small pegasus ponies like Dusty here get fifteen kilos.”
“Call me small one more time, I dare you!” Lightning Dust growled, boring her eyes into Nicknames. Having been kicked in the face, and wrestled to the ground by the averaged sized pegasus mare in the past, Nicknames promptly stepped to the side as a precaution.
As that was going on, Gallus discovered it wasn’t just pegasus ponies out front waiting in line, behind them were unicorns, and behind them were earth ponies. As he scanned the entire line from back to front, he jerked his head in the direction of a unicorn that he had seen regularly.
“Cliffhanger?”
On instinct, the unicorn’s ears flicked, and he turned towards Gallus before recognition dawned on his face. “Gallus!” exclaimed Cliffhanger, “You doing Exercise Loaded March too?” The question did leave Gallus to pause for thought, but he smiled as he figured the two exercises must be the same. With the lack of wings, it’d make sense for a unicorn or earth pony to march and a pegasus pony or griffon to fly.
“Yeah, well, Loaded Flight at least,” said Gallus, a glance towards his pegasus companions with their widened eyes, as if a griffon and a unicorn being friendly with one another was baffling to them. “Oh, this is Cliffhanger from the Mountaineering Club” he gave as a brief introduction.
Unaware of the bewilderment as his griffon friend, Cliffhanger just smiled and waved. “Hey, looks like the whole company is out here,” he remarked.
Realization dawned on Gallus, “The whole company?” he figured it’d made sense since the field started with more Pegasus ponies than usual, each company had two Pegasus platoons called Wings, as well as two Earth platoons called Hooves, and two Unicorn platoons called Horns. Although Gallus saw the other ponies in his company in classes, it felt surprising to see the entire company in one activity, let alone the company and platoon commanders.
The last time Gallus recalled seeing the entire company in one place, it was the evening ball earlier in the term. Suddenly, Gallus felt a load of dread once that memory returned to him, because as cool as it was knowing Cliffhanger was in his company, there was one other unicorn that came to mind.
“That wouldn’t mean…”
“Ah, Cliffhanger, you’re here on time.”
And there he was, the tall white unicorn donning his suit of armour that shone with a polished sheen. With his snooty announcement upon arrival, with his friends Pruminant and Cross Rhodes by his side, Coalstone lacked in subtlety.
“Hey Coalstone, what took you so long?” Cliffhanger asked in an upbeat fashion.
“Oh, just the billiard game in the breakroom took a little longer than expected, no big deal.” He waved his hoof in a circular motion to play off his excuse, before turning to Gallus. “Oh, and look at that, the carrier pigeon is prepared for its first flight.” he quipped sardonically.
Pruminant and Cross Rhodes laughed, as Gallus stared daggers into Coalstone. Not too surprising, though aggravating, nonetheless. What was surprising though to Gallus was glancing at Cliffhanger and catching him snicker behind his hoof. When the daggers in the griffon’s eyes turned to the supposed friendlier unicorn, Cliffhanger hurriedly pretended to clear his throat.
He wasn’t the only unicorn to find an excuse to ridicule, “Oh hello there, Miss Sterling” Pruminant called out, “I see you brought the motley crew with you.”
Pound Sterling peered with her large light blue eyes, “Aye, an’ you brought yer snobs wi’ their pink arma,” she simpered.
Coalstone’s expression shifted, the nerve that somepony mocked his armour was enough for him to stomp forward with a riled glare. “I’ll have you know, my father personally bought me my suit of armour upon enrolling in the Academy.” He proceeded to turn sideways to show off his special armour in most of its glory.
It was fancy, unlike the rough metallic look of Academy armour, his shone with a reflective silver colour saved for all the edges covered in a regal purple. Both his helmet and body armour also had symbols in the shape of a shield with a pillar in the middle and leaves around the outside.
“You’d understand if you have proud parents, or if they could afford it…” That last remark fully shifted the mood of the group. While Scythe hid behind Gallus and held his head low, the others had knitted brows, sharp eyes, and gritted teeth pointed at the unicorns like a pack of wolves. Even Nicknames and Lightning Dust felt a nerve hit, although they kept their energy holding Pound Sterling and Gallus back.
“If you’ll excuse us, we need to prepare for the march. You lot probably should as well. How does that saying go, Cross Rhodes?” asked Coalstone to his smug companion.
“Wings are fragile, hooves and horns are not?”
“That sounds about correct.”
The three walked away with smirks across their faces as they moved towards the back of the line, leaving Cliffhanger with the hawk-eyed set of Pegasus ponies. The sudden realisation that laughing with Coalstone, to what sounded like nothing more than a joke, didn’t put him in the best position. Noticing that he left a rather large gap in the queue by standing around, he was desperate to escape.
“Yeah, I-uh… should probably move on ahead…” he said frantically before briskly moving ahead in the line.
Gallus and the others continued to stare as they decided it was best to head to the starting line, it was clear why unicorns getting along with griffons was a hard thing to believe.
The Loaded Flight and March began with the cadets lined up in batches of five, with Gallus and the gang standing at the rear of the Pegasus ponies, with earth ponies directly behind them, followed by the unicorns. This was the one relief for Gallus and his friends. With Coalstone, Pruminant, and Cross Rhodes being so far behind with the hoof platoons as a barrier that they wouldn’t be a bother and given the weight of carrying their backpacks along the eight miles, it was unlikely they’d catch up if every cadet went at a good pace.
“First wings! Go!” called the unicorn, blowing a whistle to signal the first row of Pegasus ponies to take off, and everyone else stepped forward. Another whistle blew, and the next line took off. This happened again and again until Gallus was in front. The whistle blew, and Gallus began to run with his wings spread out, before using them to push as hard as he could against the air to become airborne.
Although, given the weight of the backpacks, neither he nor his friends could go higher than ten feet off the ground, not high enough to reach the leaves of the woodland trees that they were passing for the first leg of the trip.
They were high enough though to see the earth ponies canter beneath them. As they went away from the woodlands and across the field, three miles into the flight, Gallus looked impressed at the endurance of the hooved ponies.
With Pegasus ponies being airborne, all they needed to do was maintain a good breathing rhythm and maintain their height and velocity. There was no resistance or obstacle apart from the occasional gust of wind or the mass pushing down on them. Meanwhile, the flightless ponies had to deal with rough terrain, hills that pressured them to push harder going up and to hold back going down for two miles.
It was a good motivator for them to keep a good pace as they reached the final three miles of the flight, down the side of railroad tracks leading towards Canterlot. The Pegasus ponies could start to feel a slight burning sensation at the joints of their wings, but they had enough air circulating through their lungs that they could make it.
That was until Gallus felt a shock to his leg, short enough to feel a spasm and lose a few feet of altitude, causing a sudden rush to recover. When that one was over, suddenly he felt another and another.
“Ow! Who’s doing that!?” exclaimed Gallus, as he jerked his head behind him to see who it was.
“Hey Birdie, better catch up~” jeered Coalstone, who was somehow cantering in between earth ponies right behind Gallus and the others. Slowly, Scythe, Nicknames, Pound Sterling, and Lightning Dust, all glanced over and saw Coalstone and his two companions manage to speed up. The three ended up going through to overtake them at a brisk pace. “See you at the end, slowpokes.” Coalstone mockingly called out, before continuing to pace onward.
The gang were left bewildered, “How are they outpacing us with all that weight?” questioned Nicknames. Given the weight and the terrain they were dealing with, it looked impossible for them to overtake the earth ponies that remained close by.
Lightning Dust though wasn’t happy about it at all. “Oh no, I’m not letting those posh brats outpace me.” In a sudden rush of determination, Lightning Dust started flapping her wings harder, speeding up and rushing ahead of her friends.
“Dusteh, don’t!” Pound Sterling yelled, reaching out to pull her back. “You’re gunna wear yaself ow’!”
Unfortunately, she failed to grab her. “Too late, she’s gone…” remarked Nicknames, seeing Lightning Dust dash on further ahead before being lost in the front of the other Pegasus ponies.
Although there was a moment to consider catching up to her, they knew by the strain of their wings and backs and their elevated heart rates that it was better to keep at their pace. They hoped that Lightning Dust would do fine, besides, they had one mile left to fly.
Lightning Dust powered through that last mile, speeding past every pegasus pony ahead of her and caught up to Coalstone, Pruminant, and Cross Rhodes. She felt her heart race and fire engulf her eyes as she was within a chance of overtaking, with the Academy buildings growing larger and larger in her field of view.
With her forehooves stretched out, and her wings pushing against the air with all her might, she was confident of victory against the unicorns.
But her body had other plans. Her vision blurred, her lungs burned, and the fifteen kilos on her back felt heavier and heavier. The hazy figures of ponies giving muffled shouts calling out were the only motivation for Lightning Dust to finish, though the only way she was keeping airborne was the occasional push against the ground.
Finally, she heard something, “Lightning Dust, you’re done”. She reached the end, and in an instant, she landed squarely on the ground. Gasping for air, she loosened her straps and let the backpack fall with a hard thud, relieving herself of the weight on her spine.
Even then, she remained motionless as her legs felt weak and shaky as she stood. Other ponies were exhausted and breathing heavily, but at least they managed to stagger past her. It took a while for a concerned friend to approach her, “Lightning Dust… you… okay?”
Lightning Dust slowly turned to see Gallus, but before she could answer, her hooves gave way. She began to fall, only being rescued by Pound Sterling as the pegasus caught her before she could hit the ground. Feeling completely relaxed, wrapped around strong white hooves in a warm embrace, she smiled and wanted to know one thing.
“Did I… beat them…?”
Gallus looked over to Coalstone and his friends, patting themselves for doing a good job. Unlike the other ponies, they could stand upright, even with their slightly deflated-looking backpacks. From his perspective, it looked obvious who won. “Not a race… but…” he was stopped by the sudden force of a hoof nudging him.
“Aye… ya did…” answered Pound Sterling
“Good job… Dusty…” Nicknames followed and gave Lightning Dust a light bump on the arm, impressed she managed to reach the end ahead of the other pegasus ponies.
As the nurse stepped in to check on Lightning Dust, Gallus moved away to give them room and remove his backpack. As glad as Lightning Dust and the others for the exercise to be over, he too felt his tense muscles relax as the weight went from his body. Ultimately, he didn’t care how well he did, that can wait, he just wanted to go back up to his dorm room and rest.
That was, until he heard rattling metal, and found Coalstone had approached him. “Surprise, surprise, birdie made it back in one piece.” He gloated, clapping his hooves together.
“Yeah… I’m stronger than I look…”
“But not enough to keep up with unicorns like me.” Coalstone retorted with a smug grin. “Like Cross Rhodes said: ‘wings tend not to be as strong as hooves and horns’” He then turned, and kicked the gravel behind him with little care, causing dust to travel in Gallus' direction. The griffon stood and glared at the unicorn as he sauntered off with a chuckle, the loose straps on his backpack rattled as he walked.
Having seen the exchange from a distance, Scythe approached his irritated friend. “He’s… always like that…” he said despondently.
“Does something… not feel right?” asked Gallus as his eyes narrowed, still fixed on Coalstone.
“He was running fast.”
“Yeah, but he seemed too fast…” Suddenly, Gallus felt a thud on his right thigh, causing him to let out a frustrated sigh. “I swear to Grover if another unicorn just zapped me…”
Scythe instinctively looked behind, there were no unicorns in sight, just Lightning Dust getting back on her hooves with the aid of Pound Sterling and Nicknames. However, when he glanced towards the ground behind Gallus’s hind paws, he found something else. “I think something else hit you…” he pointed out.
Turning around in the direction of where Scythe was looking, he sees an object on the floor. “What’s this?” He picked up what looked like a small brown brick, it had a rough texture and a slight amount of weight to it, except also felt soft with the sound of light crumbling as he gripped it.
“Looks like a bag of sand… where did it come from?”
That was when Gallus had a thought, he saw how Coalstone and his friends’ backpacks looked deflated while his and Scythe’s appeared full to the brim, along with the sound of the straps and metal buckles rattling against the sides. He then proceeded to lift his backpack and loosened the straps so he could look at what was inside, and realization dawned on him.
“I think I know why he was so fast.”
Scythe furrowed his brow, his eyes wandered as he tried to figure out what Gallus meant, and then it hit him too: they couldn’t have travelled faster with all the weight on their backs unless that weight was taken out. Taking the sandbag with him, Gallus quickly flew towards Coalstone, he needed to have a word.
“Hey, Coalstone. I was wondering…”
“Ugh, what do you want now, bird?” scoffed Coalstone, rolling his eyes.
“That engraving on your helmet, the shield, what’s up with that?” asked Gallus, pointing to the symbols.
“That is the Stone Family Coat of Arms.”
“It looks cool, mind if I have a closer look?”
The question caused Coalstone to raise a curious brow, but he shrugged it off. “Oh, sure.” As much as Gallus' sudden interest came out of the blue, Coalstone couldn’t help but take an opportune moment to show off. His horn glowed as the helmet arose from his head, and moved towards Gallus, with the coat of arms in full view.
The engraving looked incredibly detailed upon seeing it up close, the shield had emblems of the unicorn horn and spears on the inside, and the pillars had multiple thin parallel straight lines on the inside and swirls on the top and bottom pedestals.
However, Gallus wasn’t there to admire the finer details of the helmet. “Thanks!” without much warning, he grabbed the helmet and flew off.
Coalstone blinked, “Wh-HEY!” He tried to pull it back with his magic but struggled to get a good view of his helmet to gain control of it. He then had to run, but as Gallus had taken off his backpack, he became far more agile and harder for the unicorn to reach. “Get back here!”
“I’m just looking at it!” Gallus excused himself, flying around Coalstone to the unicorn’s annoyance.
“Give my helmet back you overgrown blue seagull!”
After a moment of flying, Gallus finally stopped. “Fine, you can have it back, jeez!” he then chucked it towards Coalstone, who was able to use his magic to catch it in mid-air.
“Great, now it has your dirty talons over it,” Coalstone grumbled as he used his forearm to wipe the helmet clean. He prepared to walk back to his friends, but suddenly Lance Corporal Maximilian took an interest in him.
“Hold it there,” the spectacled unicorn ordered, “your name, cadet?”
“It’s Coalstone, sir.”
Maximilian adjusted his spectacles as he looked at the clipboard, before looking off to the side of Coalstone. “How is it that you’re wearing full kit and yet you’re lighter than before the Loaded March?”
Coalstone turned to see where Maximilian was looking, only for his eyes to widen as he recognised the display of the weighing scales that Gallus had lured him to stand on, with the number having risen to ninety-five kilos. “Uh, I guess all that carrying helped me lose a few pounds.” He answered shakily, rubbing the back of his head in a nervous panic.
Nevertheless, Maximilian knitted his brows, “You’re seven kilos lighter than when you were weighed at the start…” he stated bluntly. Coalstone could feel his heart stop, seeing the heavy suspicion laid upon him, desperately finding an excuse to get out.
“Oh yeah, Coalstone!” Gallus abruptly called out, when Coalstone and Maximilian turned to face him, the griffon held the small sandbag in his claws and sported a wide grin. “I found one of these on the ground, it might be one of yours?” He chucked it onto the weighing scale, and the display reacted by shifting up to ninety-six.
Upon seeing the sandbag at Coalstone’s hooves, the other unicorn’s face scrunched up. Upon observing the backpack with its loosened straps dangling to the side, he pulled Coalstone’s backpack towards him to inspect its insides. From there, he made a shocking discovery, the backpack was partially empty. “Did you remove the weights in your backpack, Coalstone?” he asked forcefully, but the pale-faced Coalstone was too nervous to answer at that point.
“Major!” he turned and shouted towards Major Badge, “I want every cadet here to be checked, we have a cheater.”
All the staff members rushed to investigate, ordering all the cadets to line up again to be weighed with their backpacks and armour to find more ponies underweight. Meanwhile, staff ponies travelled along the exercise path, managing to find over twenty kilos of the small sandbags scattered along the route, clearly taken out of their backpacks one by one along the way to becoming lighter and faster.
With that many, it was clear that Coalstone couldn’t have worked alone. It was no surprise to Gallus and his friends that out of all the ponies that were weighed, the only other two that were under their original weight to a degree to be suspicious were his two friends who also managed to race to the front.
There was relief amongst the other ponies, the earth ponies appeared in good spirits knowing they consistently remained on a good pace without cheating. Lightning Dust felt justifiably smug when she was weighed, only restrained by her lack of energy.
That didn’t mean there were no complaints after all the ponies were allowed to return to their dorms.
“Ugh, glad all that’s over,” Nicknames moaned. “Can’t believe after all that, our commanders only found three cheaters.”
Although the one least happy with the ordeal was Coalstone. His two friends had guilt written all over their faces, but Coalstone was peering at Gallus the entire time he was in line, silently cursing the griffon for the nerve of tricking him into getting caught. Not that it bothered Gallus in the slightest.
“Worth it though, to catch Coalstone in the act,” he argued before turning to Scythe “what kind of punishment do you get for cheating on an exercise?”
“Code of honour violation, regimental warning, worst warning you can get.” Scythe answered directly, before following with a disgruntled murmur. “The Commandant will probably downgrade it to a temporary loss of privileges at best, considering how close they are.”
Nicknames sighed, “Whatever, I’ve got to get out of this armour.” He then hurried on past to get into his room in the dorms.
Lightning Dust stopped outside her room, “Yeah, I think I’m just gonna lie down for a bit.” She opened the door and went inside, but when Pound Sterling looked inside, there was a snicker.
“Uh, Dusteh, that ain’t yur bed, that’s th’ floor.”
After Pound Sterling went inside, the only ones left in the corridor were Scythe and Gallus, the latter of whom had one question left unanswered. “Wonder who threw that sandbag at me though…”
“Well, Coalstone, Pruminant, and Cross Rhodes started at the back with the other unicorns, right?”
“Yeah, made sense if they wanted to dispose of the bags without being seen.”
“That would mean it was picked up by another unicorn.” Scythe suggested.
“I guess, though I don’t know a unicorn who’d want to help me, except…” Gallus then had a pause, there was one unicorn he could rely on in the Academy, and he smiled. “Cliffhanger’s not so bad, huh?” he asked rhetorically.
“I think you’re right…” Scythe agreed, before opening the door to their room. Finally, after a long day, Gallus immediately took off his armour piece by piece, not caring about how dirty it looked. He needed to rest his paws and claws for a while, as there was nothing else more important to him than to relax. “I’ve got a letter.”
Gallus glanced over and saw Scythe holding an envelope, but there was one bit of detail that caught the griffon’s focus: the address written on the letter. “That’s Yona’s hoofwriting…” he recognized. The thought of it piqued Scythe’s curiosity as he tore open the envelope and opened the folded paper inside. “What does it say?”
Scythe smiled, recognising the symbols immediately, “It’s in Yakyaki! Let’s see… it says…” he slowly scanned through the page, passing his hoof along word by word before slowly reciting out the letter in Ponish.
Dear Scythe,
Many thanks for the letter. Yona glad to read and write in the best language, only get to talk in Yakyaki to family in Yakyakistan, so language makes Yona feel at home. Yona thinks Scythe write good for pony, and happy to learn about Yaks, maybe Scythe pony can visit Yakyakistan at some point? Yona is best guide to Yakyakistan.
Looking forward to next letter.
Daraa Uulzi,
Yona
Scythe grew giddy at the thought he’d received his first Yak letter, from someone who thinks his understanding of the Yak’s language is good. It was like getting a gold medal to him, although Gallus couldn’t share the same joy.
The most he could muster was a half-smile, the letter had no mention of Gallus whatsoever as if Yona just pretended, he didn’t exist. Either his part of the message was taken out, or Yona just ignored him, not believing that he wasn’t ignoring them.
Maybe it was the sign for him to accept that he screwed up, and his friends aren’t his friends anymore. “Look, there’s another page…” said Scythe, noticing the second sheet of paper folded inside the envelope, smaller and almost stuck to the envelope, as if it was meant to be hidden.
Scythe scanned through the letter, it was shorter than the other letter, so it didn’t take as long for polyglot Pegasus to translate it.
Dear Gallus,
Yona has passed message to others. Yona and Gallus now have one more thing in common, no like for mean Canterlot Ponies.
Keep writing, let friends know when Gallus see them, friends miss you.
Daraa Uulzi,
Yona
The corners of Gallus’ mouth stretched wide, and his eyes started to glisten. Mission accomplished; his message went through.