After the farce with the morning parade, Shining Armour had been hoping the rest of his day would be a little more quiet and uneventful. Alas, it wasn't to be; for not long after lunch, one of his guards came to see him in his command office.
“Yes, what is it?” asked Shining Armour, without taking his eyes off the paperwork on his desk even as the crystal Pegasus stallion saluted him.
“I'd like to leave the army, please, Your Highness.”
“You what?!” Shining Armour stared at the soldier in absolute disbelief. “Why would you want to do that?”
“It's dangerous!” replied the soldier matter-of-factly. “There are ponies with pikes out there, sire! Real ones, sire – not toy ones, sire – not foam ones, sire – proper ones, sire! They've all got 'em, sire, and some of them have got rifles...”
Shining Armour shook his head wearily. “Emery, they are on our side...”
“...and grenades, sire, and field guns, sire! So I'd like to leave, sire, before I get killed,” the soldier reiterated.
“Emery, you only joined the army yesterday morning!”
“I know, sire, but creatures get killed! Properly dead, sire; no fooling on that score, sire,” continued the soldier. “One guy was telling me only this morning that if you're in the army and there's a war, you have to go and fight.”
“Yes, and?” asked Shining Armour.
“Well, I mean, for crying out loud,” protested Emery, “if it was a big war, somepony could be hurt – badly!”
“Well then why did you bother joining the army in the first place, Emery?!” Shining Armour was starting to lose his patience.
“For the water-skiing and the travel, sire – but not for the sake of killing other creatures, sire,” stated Emery. “I asked them to put it on my form at the recruitment office, sire, no killing.”
Shining Armour gave him a pointed stare, trying to resist the urge to bury his face in his front hooves in dismay. “What are you, Emery, a pacifist?” he demanded.
Emery cocked his head. “A pacifist, sire?”
“Yes.”
“What, like that changeling from Ponyville, sire?”
“Hornette, you mean?”
“Yeah, that's the one.”
“I repeat – are you a pacifist?!”
“No, sire,” said Emery, a hint of amusement creeping into his expression, “I'm not a pacifist, sire – I'm a coward.”
Now Shining Armour really did bury his face in his hooves. “That's an extremely silly line, Emery,” he chided, “and I don't think it particularly amusing. You are dismissed – and not from the army!”
“Yes, sire!” Emery saluted blithely as if he had been through routine questioning, and marched out of the office in such a silly way as to make Shining Armour cringe. He couldn't imagine what the Equestrian military was coming to nowadays, and almost felt ready to give up and disband his army.
But the more he thought about it, the more his face took on a crooked and almost disturbing smile. Sure, his soldiers had been messing him around, not to mention that ridiculous Changeling Inquisition, but if they were going to act up like this, then perhaps he would have to show the citizens of the Crystal Empire in general that he too could live up to the standards of World Comedy Day. After all, if you couldn't beat them, what did you have to lose by joining them?
That was how he found himself waiting patiently (he wished!) in the recruitment office once again – or at least he would have been had the “building” not been a stage set in one of the Crystal Empire's finest theatres. Not that it mattered to him, for he was soon met by a purple crystal unicorn mare with a finely brushed silver mane and tail.
“Good afternoon,” said the mare, bowing politely, “I'd like to join the army, please.”
“I see. Short service, or long service commission?”
“As long as possible, please.”
Shining Armour nodded. “Right, well, I'll just take a few particulars, and then...” That was when a thought occurred to him, and he stepped outside to check the signage in front of the “building”. To his dismay, he noticed that somepony had added a hastily scrawled letter B to the first word, resulting in a sign that read “BARMY RECRUITMENT OFFICE”. He sighed and shook his head disapprovingly as he scrubbed the unwanted addendum away with his magic.
To make the situation even more ridiculous, no sooner had he turned to re-enter the office than he noticed a queue of ponies dressed in clown outfits standing nearby. “Do you mind?!” he snapped indignantly, and stepped pointedly inside as the other ponies sheepishly dispersed. Turning his attention back to the applicant, he continued his speech from earlier; “Then there'll be a few forms to sign – we will of course need references, a full medical examination by the end of...”
“Yes, well, would it be possible for me to join the Entertainment Division?”
Shining Armour shot the mare a puzzled look. “The Royal Military Entertainment Corps?”
“That's right,” affirmed the mare. “You see, I'd thought long and hard on the matter before I came here, and I decided that, given the choice, I'd like to be in the Royal Military Entertainment Corps.”
Yeesh, this is a bit out of the blue, thought Shining Armour; but decided to humour the mare anyway. “Well, it's a bit difficult, I'm afraid,” he said. “You see, creatures who recruit here usually go straight to the Crystal Castle Guard.”
“Which lacks any sense of humour, I suppose?”
“I'm afraid so,” replied Shining Armour gravely.
“Well...are there any regiments that are more...” The mare pondered for a moment. “...more focussed on horsing around than fighting?”
“Hmm...not that I know of. Apart from the Home Guard, they're all stiff upper lips.”
The mare nodded thoughtfully. “Yes, well, I was hoping for a regiment where I could really have fun and indulge myself in creating new routines in dressage and show jumping.”
“Dressage and show jumping?!” spluttered Shining Armour.
“Yes.”
Quickly composing himself before he ended up scolding the mare for being silly, Shining Armour responded almost instantly with, “Oh, well, you'll want the Wonderbolts Ground Force.”
“Really?” said the mare.
“Yes,” continued Shining Armour. “It's the only branch of the army that's really doing something new and exciting with show jumping and dressage and all that jazz.”
“I see.”
“Yes, I mean, they're not on the same level as the Wonderbolts themselves, but their technique when it comes to dressage in particular is in a class of its own,” gushed Shining Armour. “I saw one of their shows the other day, and it was absolutely fantastic – beautiful airs, seamless pirouettes...it really makes you want to shout out, 'This is good! This is the work of real professionals!”
“Really?”
“Oh, yes. Sure, the Suffolk Fusiliers and the 8th Whinneapolis Regiment are all well and good if you want something a bit more simple and Baroque, but if you really want a military unit that's really innovative when it comes to dressage, then you've got to go for the Wonderbolts Ground Force!”
By now, the mare was starting to look put out. “Oh, this is rubbish,” she grumbled, “I'm handing in my notice.”
“Huh? What for?!”
“Well, when I applied for this job, I thought I'd get a few decent lines,” answered the mare petulantly, “but you ended up getting the whole thing. All I got for my last few speeches were 'yes', 'really', 'I see' and 'really'! That's not good enough for a diamond dog, let alone a crystal pony.”
“Well, it was supposed to be my time to get the jokes!” retorted Shining Armour crossly.
“Then why did you put in the job description that I was going to get a few funny lines?!”
Shining Armour heaved an exasperated sigh. “Alright, look, I tell you what – let's forget about the Barmy Recruit...Army Recruitment Office sketch,” he stuttered, cringing visibly at his own Freudian slip. “I'll be a train conductor, and you can be a really funny passenger.”
Moments later, the stage was set. The mare who had attempted to “enlist” now sat in something resembling a passenger train compartment, and Shining Armour was dressed in a ticket inspector's uniform with an arrow in one flank. “All aboard!” he called out in a zany, jovial tone. “All aboard the Phoney Express! I've got a chauffeur, and every time I go to the bathroom, he drives me potty! Boom-boom! One in a row! 'Cause I like to see you smile, smile, smile...!”
“Uh...one return to Neigh Haven, please,” interjected the mare.
“That'll be fifty bits, ma'am!” Shining Armour continued to act like a music hall comedian as the mare gave him an obviously fake fifty-bit note. “Fifty beautiful bits, and you are the winner of...one fifty-bit ticket! Be sure to hand it back at the end of your journey – it is a return ticket, after all! Ooh, boy, we're on a roll, tonight,” he announced gleefully, “and so is the train! Get it?!”
If the mare didn't look annoyed earlier, she certainly did now. “Look here...” she began.
“I am looking – it's the only way I can keep my eyelids apart! Bazinga! Didn't see that coming, did you?!”
“But you said I was going to be a funny passenger!!” complained the mare.
“So?!” retorted Shining Armour, losing patience.
“Well, all I said was 'one return to Neigh Haven, please'! You can't call that a funny line!”
“It's the way you say it that's supposed to get the laughs!”
“Oh, don't be ridiculous!” dismissed the mare indignantly. “Nopony can say 'one return to Neigh Haven, please' and make it funny!”
“Can't they? Well, let's ask the audience.” Shining Armour turned towards the crowded auditorium and announced, “One return to Neigh Haven, please,” in a broken sing-song falsetto. The audience promptly collapsed into laughter. “See?! If I can make it funny, anypony can!”
The mare growled with frustration. “Okay, this is getting silly!” she objected. “Here I am, trying to get a few genuine laughs, and all you can think to do is upstage me at every turn!”
“Well, it is my time to shine, you know! What's the good of being called Shining Armour if I can't have my time in the spotlight?!”
“Yes, but I haven't had a single laugh all day! That's why I signed up to this performance in the first place!”
By now, Shining Armour had had enough. “Alright! Alright, fine!” he growled. “If you want laughs, I'll give you a few laughs! Right, get on with it!” He paused for a moment. “Get on with it!!!”
But when the stage had finally been reset, the mare found she was in for a nasty shock. Shining Armour stepped up next to her dressed in a rainbow wig with a red nose and an oversized hat, bowing graciously as the crowd applauded him.
“Thank you! Thank you!” he announced. “And now, for my first act, I give you – the kelp slapping dance!” He pulled out two strands of wet seaweed and began trotting back and forth in front of the mare, slapping her in the face with each strand in turn. “It's your laugh, miss, it's not mine!” he told her pointedly. “It's you who's getting slapped by the kelp – not me getting slapped, it's you getting slapped! And now – the whitewash...over you!” Before the mare could protest, he hefted up a bucket and dumped its load of whitewash all over her. “Not over me, it's over you! You get the laughs! And now – the custard pie in the face!” Splat! The mare suddenly found herself with a face-full of custard. “It's not my face, it's your face – it's your laugh, miss, not mine! You get all the bleeding laughs!”
“And you get the 16-ton weight!” said a voice from somewhere behind him. Shining Armour recognised that voice all too well – but before he could turn around to check, a huge, hollow styrofoam ingot with the legend “16 TONS” fell on top of him, trapping him inside! The crystal mare could only look on in puzzlement, whilst Cadance stepped out from backstage, smirking mischievously. “Gotcha,” she chortled.
Well, that was a good bit of fun. Time enough, I think, for a piece of wood – the larch.