//------------------------------// // Fear the Monkeys // Story: TCB: Thera // by Joe Toon //------------------------------// “SQUAD FORM UP! ON THE DOUBLE!!” We lined up in front of our bunks as always did, every day for the past two months. It was becoming routine, but it was a tiring one nonetheless.  “Line up for attention! Prepare for inspection!!” Silent groans and irritation were seen across our squad of trainees. I was one of them. For the past two months we’ve done nothing but drills, exercises, obstacle courses, marathons, marches, cleaning, and maintenance; and in all that time, not once were we trained to carry or use weaponry, target practice, or anything that even suggests we are to face off against the monkeys. It’s infuriating. I left home, hoping to train to be the best of the best to finally bring back home some glory and cool war stories to share with the ponies in town. Yet here we are doing nothing. And it looks like everypony else seems to share the same sentiments. Seriously, the war is already in full swing, the army has already pushed to several key targets across the planet, they’ve captured several key cities, military bases and what-not; by the time we’ll be done with this, the war by then would be over. “I am sick of this horseapple. How long are we going to be here until we buck those monkeys in the face?” I muttered under my breath. One could hear a pin drop after my quiet rant. Buck. “What did you just say, recruit?” Sergeant Stormwalker asked calmly.  This was not a good sign. Sergeant Stormwalker is as stereotypical as a Drill instructor could be; always yelling, always screaming, even when there is nothing to scream about you’ll find him yelling. That fact that he isn’t barking on my face for my snarky remark means that I’m pretty much done for. I might as well get this over with as I inwardly sighed. “I said I wanted to buck a monkey on the face, sergeant.” I bluntly replied. A few snorts of mirth were heard across the bunks. “Buck a monkey on the face,” he mused calmly. “So how about it, ponies? I take it you all want to do more than buck a monkey’s face in,” he barked, addressing the rest of the company. “YES SERGEANT!” came the reply. Our blood went cold from his furious glare he gave us.  “So that’s what the enemy is to you all, huh? A bunch of brainless animals that you see in zoos, circuses and jungles that toss their own faeces at the enemy! Unorganised creatures who have no concept of Harmony. Savages who would kill each other over the smallest scrap of food. Pathetic, arrogant weaklings who’ve never endured threats of the likes of Discord, Sombra, Chrysalis, Tirek and the Storm King! "Well, I have news for you, fillies and colts! The monkeys as you call them, the Humans of Thera; they indeed have not faced threats we’ve endured in our glorious nation of Equestria. No, they have endured FAR WORSE than any of you could possibly imagine! The likes of which make all our threats put together look like a bunch of schoolyard bullies! The Humans of Thera have been forged by world ending threats LONG BEFORE YOU WERE ALL STILL SUCKLING YOUR MOTHER’S TEATS!” He began to furiously pace across the bunks as he continued his tirade with increasing intensity, “Allow me to enlighten you maggots of the enemy known as Mankind: He is born from what his own Galaxy classified as a Deathworld; where anything and everything is out to kill him! From their environment, to their animals, to even the very air they breathe, they have been raised to have every threat imaginable come against them, most often all at once. All the while, nature herself moulded them to become the Apex predator of their world. You heard that right, predator! Not scavengers or cultivators as many of you were led to believe.”  Seriously? Those freaks are predators? I mean, sure, I know they eat meat, but predators? “‘How is that possible?’ I hear you ask,” He continued, “‘They have no sharp claws, fangs, wings or fast legs that could even suggest they are predators of the sort!’ Make no mistake, they are the deadliest predator of their world, attributed to two things; their intelligence and sheer bucking determination! They evolved from hunters who can chase their prey across the bucking planet without rest! Doesn’t matter how fast they can run from them, a Human will catch them eventually as they die from exhaustion.” Alright, I admit, that is actually impressive. Still- “What does this mean for all of you? Simple; he can and will outlast you in a battle!! He may not be as fast as a pegasus, or as strong as an earth pony, or as magically adept as a unicorn, but he will not break before you will! A Human can run, RUN for fifty miles and still fight a battle at the end of it. He has binocular vision and could see us for miles away with the naked eye before we could get a chance to see them. He can go three days without sleep and can tread lightly without detection in the dark; perfect for ambushing us in the dead of night. He can live off maggoty bread and muddy water for weeks and endure torment YOU COULD NOT DREAM OF IN YOUR WORST NIGHTMARES!!"  A moment of silence, letting the information sink it. Too bad the Sergeant didn’t give us enough time before he had more to add. “Speaking of which, they are so good at being predators that many of their animals went extinct to which they’ve resorted to killing each other throughout the course of their existence for what little resources they could manage! Long before our days of unification, they have been killing each other for over tens of thousands of years! All of which forged them into the civilization they are today. We may have tamed our world but they have made theirs their bitch! They are masters of their lands, rulers of their seas and oceans, conquerors of their skies! And to top that all off, they have the means to leave their planet, touch their moon, colonise other planets and more. We can barely rule over a patch of forest that acts on its own accord, let alone our planet! We may be the keepers of Harmony, but they are masters of the Art of War. "Their societies, technologies and ideologies are cultivated due to war. They went from nomads to empires due to war. They went from mud huts and caves to concrete bunkers and towering skyscrapers due to war. They went from rocks and twigs to hand cannons that shoot lightning due to war. They went from log rafts to moon-sized metal spaceships due to war. They created rules on how to enact warfare to ensure they don’t wipe each other completely due to war! They even formed their League of Nations and united under one banner when they found out that their galaxy was full of aliens to act as the perfect prey for their thirst for war!”  He turned from one end of the corridor and spat out his next line like it was venom, causing us to wince. “And of all creatures to exist in any reality, our Princesses thought it was a good idea for us to declare war on them?! HORSEAPPLES I say! Absolute Horseapples! If I’m not getting through to any of you bucket heads yet, let me paint you a picture as to why we could not have picked a worse enemy than the Human Race!  "What you have before you is a survivor of the last war of humanity against each other that lasted for a hundred years. A war so terrible they swore never again will they kill another fellow human being in warfare. A war so great, he still has nightmares of the battles he survived thirty years ago. And for those thirty years, he fought against five alien races that thought they could have a piece of them after losing a third of their population since. He demolished an extra-dimensional race of aliens that could harness the power of the stars themselves. He crushed an ancient alien empire that had weapons that could crack planets with ease. He smashed cosmic eldritch horrors that could make something like the Tantabus check underneath its bed before it sleeps. He battered a race of clones that are genetically superior to any other species in his galaxy. He held the line against shambling monstrosities that continue to devour worlds without a care; creatures that would make the Windegos shriek in absolute fear.  "He does not fight for any King, Queen, Emperor, Empress, Prince, Princess, Noble, Warlord, Merchant, General, Politician, or even their League of Nations. He fights for three things; His God, his comrades, and Sacred Holy Thera! The very Deathworld that cradled him and raised him into the living, breathing, killing machine that he is. He will hold on to every inch of ground from us as though our hooves desecrate her. He is willing to die so long as he takes ten of you with him. And he has more than enough hatred of us for breaking into his home to chase us all the way back into ours if we don’t defeat them first!!” He marched towards me, towering above me as I shrank inwards from his gaze.  “Are you afraid of them, Private Snowflake?” “N-no sergeant,” I squeaked nervously. “HORSEAPPLES! ARE YOU AFRAID OF ME?!” “YES SERGEANT!” “Then you are the biggest ignorant moron in this whole platoon!” he snarled, grabbing my collar towards him. “And do you know why, Private Snowflake?” “NO SERGEANT!” “No surprise there, Private! You don’t know what fear truly is!”  He snapped back at the rest of us. “Same goes with the rest of you, maggots!! All of you don't know what fear truly is til you face a human in combat! Because he will make absolutely sure to hunt you across all reality if you give him the chance! He will make sure you know the consequences for barging into his home and turning his comrades into us. He will throw caution and creed out the window just to teach us a lesson why we should never have antagonised him to begin with. For he is a creature of vengeance and unyielding will! He holds grudges that rivals that of Dragons ten times over! And give him enough resolve, he can achieve the impossible. That is the kind of fear these monkeys are capable of that we are up against! DO YOU UNDERSTAND?!” “YES SERGEANT!” Well, that wasn’t as bad as I thought it was. Turns out it's worse. Sounds like the sergeant is scared of these Humans. And if he’s scared of them, what does that make for us?