“So, ya want to be a hero?” The captain said, pacing across the floor like a proud, battle scarred, hat wearing peacock. The recruits shifted in place, the bravest even going so far as to nod at their to-be superior.
“Well! There’s a few things ya got to learn before ya go and start kicking dragons in their teeth. Important things, battle secrets passed down from generations that were kicking flank before your great grandparents were chewing cud! So listen up!” A few ponies in the line who had begun to snooze perked up at the booming command. “Someday you’re going to save the world with this information.”
“You there! Colt with that ridiculous helmet and the blueberry cutie mark. What do ya do when you’re outnumbered, outmaneuvered, and outstyled?”
“Outstyled?” the colt asked, quite confused. “What does style have to do with-”
“What doesn’t style have to do with combat is what ya meant to ask!” The captain interrupted. He took off his hat and raised it proudly in the air, the sunlight catching on the tattered thing. “This here hat has saved me from many a defeat by it’s sheer elegance alone! Once I was face to face with a sea serpent, big as Canterlot Castle and purple as the bruise on yer face after a good punch! He was a mighty opponent, and the remains of his foes were strewn about his river. I could tell, even as I stood before his mustachioed maw, that it wouldn’t be easy.
“We eyed each other up, like two soldiers ought to when they meet on the field of honor. His eyes gleamed like his chiseled nails. And then, just as I thought that we’d come to blows, he bowed before the superior style of my hat! Fainted dead over just at the sight of it!”
The captain plopped his serpent-slaying headwear back onto his head, the bright green color clashing loudly with his brown coat. Somepony in the back coughed, and had to stop themselves from becoming sick.
“But none of this answered my question. A true hero will always fight in impossible odds, because otherwise it just ain’t fair for the other side! The manual of Proper Pony Procedures dictates that any hero or vaguely heroic character must only engage at least five times his number, and the larger the foe the better!”
Pulling out a chalkboard from the wall, The captain began diagraming a typical hero scene. A stick figure that sort of resembled a pony was facing down two great lumps with spikes sticking out at random points. He circled the pony, and said with obvious disappointment, “This here is what happened to my last hero. The boy went and found himself a pair of dragons right out of training.”
“What happened to him?” a recruit asked, becoming worried about his future safety.
“He was kicked out!” The captain shouted, punching his hoof through the blackboard. “The horsefeatherin’ fool only fought two dragons. Two! Any self respectin’, Equestrian born, Celestia lovin’ hero would tell ya that five dragons is the absolute minimum; if yer a no guts pansy.” He pulled at his lodged hoof and, finding it stuck in the blackboard, punched the offending object again.
After a brief battle with the insubordinate equipment, the captain turned back to his recruits as an exasperated cleaning pony dealt with the unfortunate remains. “The colt came back, and managed to accept his dismissal before passing out. ‘Severe burns’ the nurses said; I call it weak-livered sloppiness!”
He turned to them, pointing triumphantly at each recruit. “But you lot won’t disappoint me the same way. You lot got the looks of a true hero ‘bout ya. Why, I bet each of ya could take on eight dragons with one hoof tied behind yer back, wearing nothing but what yer mother gave ya!”
His motivational speech no over, the captain retrieved a large metal contraption. It was as wide as the room, and narrow as a pony, and every visible surface was lined with pointy thorns, salt, and small pebbles. One side said ‘entrance’ and looked disquietingly like an Ursa Major’s maw, the other spewed fire for no discernible reason.
“I call this the hero-inator! And that’s trademarked, so don’t ya go and steal it from me.” The captain eyed everypony suspiciously. Even the maintenance pony who was working on the lights. “This here,” he continued, “is your final test.”
“We pass through that and become a hero?”
“No! You pass through this and become a sidekick’s lackey! What did you think this was, the hero academy?”
Everypony looked at the sign over the warehouse door that, quite clearly, read ‘hero academy for aspiring heroes and heroic sorts’.
“Now get in there!” the captain yelled.
Everything was silent. He turned around to face the recruits. Or rather, recruit. Only a single grey pegasus mare was left, staring in two different directions. The captain looked about, and had to conclude that she was the only survivor of a sudden stealth attack.
“Alright then! Get your flank in there!” And she did in the most literal sense possible. The pegasus lifted herself into the air and bodily hurled herself into the hero-inator. The metal bent and ripped like paper beneath her rear. The entire thing shuddered and wheezed before giving a short explosion. The pegasus looked back at the captain and smiled, absolutely oblivious.
“I’m Derpy!” she introduced herself. “What’s your name?”
“Cappy,” the captain murmured, eying the ruins with a growing sense of dread. “Can ya do that all the time?”
“It happens a lot,” Derpy said, looking embarrassed. “I’m sorry, I didn’t mean to-”
“Nevermind that. Derpy, you are hereby promoted to the title of hero! We gotta get you on the field immediately!”
Two weeks later, at a minor pastry skirmish between griffins and ponies, a grey pegasus was launched through the air. The griffins would talk of her as the great destroyer. The ponies would hail her as a hero. Derpy just wondered what went wrong.