Raining Metal

by thecakeisalie

Basics

The next day, the recruits were all woken at three in the morning. The temperature was shockingly low, making Midnight wonder if the weather pegasi had been told to make it as miserable as possible. Celestia hadn't even risen the sun yet, but the rain clouds hanging over the camp would have blocked it out in any case. The recruits got up and stumbled out of the barracks as quickly as they could. It was really an impressive display of grunting, mumbling, and confusion.

Instead of the seargent from yesterday, two officers were standing in front of them. One of the officers seemed to be a lieutenant, the other significantly more important. Maybe a Major, or even a Lt. Colonel? This was beside the point, though, as he seemed to be there merely to observe. The mare Lieutenant steeped forward. "Hello boys. Welcome to the Equestrian Armed Forces, Marines branch, Camp Ponyton training ground. You will be spending the next three months here. You should feel honored." Oh yeah, I should feel honored that I get to spend three months in this colorless hell, Midnight complained, but not out loud. He was smarter than to say that kind of thing out loud. "Only those who had applications that showed great promise got in here," the mare continued, oblivious to the group of stallion's obvious boredom. The boredom and the tiredness had mixed to send three off the group to sleep already, and another four were barely keeping concious, judging by the angles of their heads. "As it is, this is the hardest camp in the entirety of Equestria. By the time we're done with you, your old selves will be gone. You will have become machines of muscle and will. You lucky stallions get to be on the front lines of every battle. Drill Seargent Shine will be your trainer. Have a good three months, stallions." With that, the expresionless mare turned and trotted away. The colonel gave a small smile, more to himself than the recruits, and followed the Lieutenant away.

"Well, that was weird, huh?" Icescape spouted, seemingly the only one of the group who managed to remain alert. A giant lopsided grin grew on his muzzle. "I don't know what makes me special enough to be here. But I got to meet you, so it was worth it!"

"Couldn't have anything to do with surviving on barely any food, could it?" Midnight deadpanned, but with a slight eyeroll. He knew what got him there- under the Unicorns Only section, there'd been a question about magical power. Being a god, he did, of course, have a very large store of magical power, but he figured "Near Infinite" would be hard to believe, so he just put "High." Of course, he'd recently been feeling like something was missing, like his power wasn't quite up to scratch, but he figured it was just stress. Wars always get him down. He hated his job with such a burning-

"Listen up fillies! See that mud track over there?" A yell broke Midnights line of thought. An imposing Earth pony stallion was standing in front of him. Sleet grey, six foot tall at the shoulder, and with seargent's epaulets, Midnight figured the imposing figure had to be Drill Seargent Shine. He certaintly cut an imposing enough figure to be a drill seargent.

Seargent Shine was pointed behind him, and slightly to the left. A long track of churned mud, with quite a few walls and hurdles, barb wire strung on posts that left just enough space to crawl, and what apperead to be a mine field and a firing range completed the grueling course the seargent was indicating. "By the time I'm done with you, you'll be able to clear that course in five minutes or less. As it is today, I'm going to put you in groups of two. Whichever team finishes first gets the rest of the day off. Now, I know it's only four in the morning, but you'll learn to deal with it. They don't call this Camp Hellton for nothing!" At that, the seargent gave out a chilling laugh. As he started to pair up teams, Midnight took a moment to feel bad for the others. Being normal, and untrained, certaintly wouldn't help them any. Without the need to sleep, and having been the deciding factor in every major battle in history, gave Midnight a slight edge. Not needing a morning meal may have helped, too.

"You two!" The seargent barked, pairing Midnight up with the pony next to him. Looking to his left, he got a face full of white as Icescape jumped him.

"This is great! We're already team mates! Let's rock!" Icescape sad in his super fast, nearly intelligible speech pattern.

"Uh, yeah..." Midnight got a slight grimace on his face as he looked away. "Let's 'rock' this."

"Stop talking, fillies!" The seargent had somhow gotten right up into Midnights face in the last half second. "And run the course!"

Picking up a rifle, a pistol, and some extra ammo, Midnight and Icescape set off. The mud grabbed at hooves, but it was all just an issue of brute strength. Figuring he was stronger, Midnight let Icescape go first. He was understandably shocked when Icescape set a near gallop pace, with little effort, or so it seemed. Following quickly, Midnight managed to stay on Icescape's tail all the way to the first wall. Now, here was a combo of strength and technique, thought Midnight. If you toom it right, it'd take so little...

"Come on Midnight! I didn't take you for a slowpoke!" Icescape shouted from the top of the wall. "Get up here, we're in third!"

That jolted Midnight into action, and he pulled himself up by the power of his forelegs, and an iron grip on the rope with his mouth. He quickly joined Icescape, and the pair jumped into the mud, setting off for the next wall even faster than they had for the first. Midnight quickly let his mind relax into the physical activity. But he was feeling something he'd never felt in his life- fautigue, he thought to himself. But that's not possible, is it? he wondered as he jumped off the top of the final wall.

Deciding to ignore the feeling, Midnight set off towards the hurdles with Icescape. The hurdles were a major challenge in the mud. It was nearly impossible to get a high enough jump to clear them, so half the time he and midnight pushed and pulled each other over them. By the end of the hurdles, they were tied for first with two earth ponies. It looked like the physical part of the race would be down to the barb wire crawl. Thank Luna for the skill portion, Midnight thought. If it weren't for that, we might lose. With that reassuring thought, he dived under the barbed wire after Icescape. They were making good time, and were managing to keep pace with the two earth ponies. Icescape and the first earth pony popped out of the crawlspace at the same time, with Midnight coming less than a hair after the second earth pony. All that remained now was the mine field and the firing range. Their magic gave the two unicorns a massive advantage in these two skill- oriented areas.

"You... can *pant* go first," Icescape got out. "I'm a little tired."

"Alright," Midnight said, already concentratin on his finding magic, avoiding all the mines he saw. "Just follow me."

"Alright..." Icescape was barely keeping pace, and Midnight wasn't even moving very fast. They reached the firing range at least a minute ahead of their closest opponents, though, so they still had time. The challenge on the firing range was a two man, assault scenario set up. Multiple targets were set up, moving in and out of Midnights line of sight, and into or out of Icescapes, and so on. They had to identify and eliminate all enemy targets. "No civilian casualties allowed!" Seargent Shine screamed.

After having a quick planning session, Icescape and Midnight got to work, they magically marked targets in red, and non- targets in blue. They would then take out the target when it was in a clear line of sight. Icescape turned out to be a wicked shot, getting even more kills than Midnight. They finished after only six minutes of constant shooting.

They were the clear winners, and as they wearily stumbled off the training field, Seargent Shine recommended they "take a shower, you stink worse than a mare in heat," and sent them to the showers.

After finishing, Midnight and Icescape decided to go get some food. Midnight asked the question that was bugging him worst. "Where'd you learn to do all that, Icescape?"

"Oh, I was part of a survival camp for a few years. Why?"

With a facehoof, Midnight conveyed the utter absurdity of his entire experience so far.

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