Save the Princess
The Night Guard - Night Mares
Save the Princess
Centuries of tradition ran deep in the halls and buildings of the Royal Guard Academy, deep enough that if it were to form pools in the low-lying areas, there would certainly have been at least one competitive high-diving team formed to take advantage of it. Several centuries ago, what had once been a simple end-of-semester ‘Save The Hostage’ scenario had turned deadly serious when Princess Celestia decided on a whim to take the place of the stuffed dummy who normally took that role.
There were no fatalities, but over half of the class had at least one limb in a cast at graduation that year.
The second and subsequent years, the cadets were required to wear their sparring pads over their armor, and every instructor turned out to supervise (and limit) their enthusiastic role-playing. Celestia seemed to enjoy it the most, waving a white kerchief from her ‘imprisoning’ tower for encouragement while sweaty young cadets fought through muddy defensive positions and ambushes organized by other sweaty young cadets, only to switch positions with their counterparts once the ‘hostage’ had been freed in order to do it all over again. Admittedly, the exercise was slanted in the direction of the assaulting forces, as once a defender was ‘killed,’ his part in the exercise was over, but an attacker could merely run back to the assault point to be considered a ‘reinforcement.’
Unfortunately, Princess Celestia had bowed out of her traditional role this morning due to ongoing diplomatic troubles with the Griffon Empire, and nopony wanted to wake Princess Luna⁽*⁾, so the game of ‘Save the Hostage’ continued with a substitute.
(*) Word had gotten around about what had happened to the guard who attempted to wake Princess Luna up during the changeling invasion. Unfortunately, he had forgotten to bring coffee.
Fortunately, the substitute was Academy Commandant Snowy Peaks, who had the creamy white coat of the Princess, but was lacking about half the primary feathers and all of her benevolent tranquility. Part of his current fuming rage could be excused by the relative rapidity which the Silver team had just overwhelmed the defending Gold team, but most of it was directed at the hesitant apologetic pegasus who was hovering over his head.
“I’m so sorry, sir. Sorry. I yelled at you to get down when we stormed the room but you didn’t get down and I know the exercise rules say you don’t need to but police procedure says to protect the hostage during a rescue mission and you didn’t get down when I yelled and I really didn’t mean to hit your nose when I tackled you but there was this big cadet in the way and he reared up all of a sudden—” Anxious pink eyes darted away from the angry captain to look at the cadet still sprawled out on the floor, being attended to by the second least wanted pony on Commander Peaks’ list at the moment.
“Don’t worry, Daelia,” she murmured, one hoof on the pegasi stallion’s face to hold him immobile and the pale green glow of a spell around his head. “The enchantments on the helmet held just fine. He should be good for another go around just as soon as Commander Peaks gives the order. How are you feeling, cadet?”
“Is she single?” The grinning pegasus took being shoved out of the room by Miss Grace in stride, putting his dented helmet back on and giving a quick wink at the flustrated pink pegasus still hovering over the commandant. Commander Peaks stood back up and took the red-stained kerchief off his nose, starting only slightly when Miss Grace’s soft green magical aura surrounded his head.
“Nothing serious, sir. Minor bruising in the septum, a little blood in the sinuses. Your iron level is a little low and stress hormones are too high.” A sharp sting echoed around the inside of his head and his nose quit hurting. “That should hold you for now, but I’ll notify the mess that you should have more spinach in your diet.”
“But I don’t like—” Peaks scowled and glared at the nearby drill instructor who was acting as a referee. “Stop snickering, Sergeant Gusts. Call the second half of the exercise.”
The broad-chested pegasus strode out on the balcony of the ‘Royal Tower’ and bellowed out over the rest of the exercise field, “Part one of the exercise is now over. Cadets on the Silver team will now be on defense while Gold team will be on offense. Cadets, report to your exercise areas and get ready. We will start in fifteen minutes.”
“I suppose you’re going to run Silver’s defense, Miss Grace?” grumbled Commander Peaks, stepping carefully over to the balcony so he could watch the cadets hustle to their rally points, including Miss Thermal, who seemed to be relieved to flee his presence.
“Sir, no sir! Absolutely not. Cadet Windshear still has the team. He has earned his position.”
Commander Peaks tried not to glance back at her while scowling. “Well, he did select you for your team, I’ll give him that. And he chopped his way through Gold like they were wheat. Did you perhaps give Cadet Windshear any pointers for the defense that I should be on the lookout for?”
“Coming through. Look out below.” Three cadets with a cargo net landed on the balcony, spreading the net across the floor and anchoring it with a pair of statues perched on the edge of the balcony. With matching mischievous grins, they saluted and darted away.
“One or two,” admitted Miss Grace once they had gone. “He’s a bright young lad, and I’m not saying that simply because he selected all four of us for his team. He has considerable leadership potential, and the rest of his class thinks the world of him. He’s the one who suggested Daelia for the hostage rescue team, which seems to have worked out well. Silver will be attempting a modified minimum range defense, conceding the outer walls and allowing the defenders to concentrate their efforts on a minimal number of defensive points. Since our pegasi are relatively outnumbered compared to Gold, a series of blocking strategies are being emplaced.”
“You’re digging holes out in the exercise yard,” observed Peaks, peering through a set of binoculars. “Big holes.”
“Covered holes,” she corrected. “In order to free up more of our cadets for the net towers and spell flingers. You see, once the Gold team ground forces fall into the pits, they are effectively out of the exercise unless rescued.”
The tread of hooves on the tower stairs announced the arrival of Miss Rose, who stopped in front of the captain and saluted while breathing heavily. “Commander, communication from Exercise Captain Windshear. Silver team is ready to proceed.”
* * *
Commander Peaks watched the exercise unfold from his balcony vantage point, although without the flutter of a white kerchief in the breeze to cheer on the enthusiastic cadets as Princess Celestia preferred. In general, he had seen exercises where the defense had been planned or executed slightly better, but this fell extremely high on the list. Restricted from digging the pits deep enough by the referees, the pit traps had still been very effective, holding the earth pony reinforcements to a trickle and causing Gold team to dispatch several pegasus spotters and a unicorn to dig out trapped cadets. With additional defending cadets on the anti-air towers, the Gold pegasi were unable to provide close support to their grounded counterparts, forcing a long and very well-fought siege to capture the towers one at a time. It still came as a shock when he received a tap on the shoulder and both Miss Grace and Miss Rose escorted him away from the window and off the cargo netting still spread across the floor.
“Gold team has enough of the towers down now to make a suicide run at the hostage,” explained Rose. “They only have one chance to beat our time, so they’re massing forces in preparation for the air assault. It’s going to be brutal going through the covering fire from the rest of the towers, but enough will get through to eliminate a couple of mares.” She wrinkled up her nose and both mares fell into a defensive crouch with horns lit in front of him. “Here they come.”
The sound of the anti-air towers firing grew to a fever pitch as the distant dots of flapping cadets grew into identifiable individuals, thinned out by the fire, but five fierce cadets still plunged in through the balcony window.
And then when the two statues glowed with magic and plunged off the balcony rail, five fierce cadets and one startled referee wrapped in the cargo net vanished out the balcony and over the rail, landing with a series of solid thuds outside.
“Very nice touch,” admitted Peaks. “Shouldn’t you have warned the referee first?”
After their surprise setback, Gold team settled down and began to reduce the defenses in a systematic fashion, dropping one defensive tower after another while Peaks watched and Grace made observations, the most chilling of which was “and this is the point where any real kidnapping group would quietly kill the hostage and escape in the confusion.” It came as no real surprise when Miss Banehammer thundered up the stairs and took her place at the doorway while Grace and Rose backed him into a corner and prepared to receive the final assault from the balcony, but he did notice a missing element to their foursome.
“Where’s Thermal?”
“Last I saw she was playing tag vit a bunch of colts in de clouds,” huffed Banehammer. “Dey don’t want to leaf her in the back off der forces, und dey can’t catch her, or at least vitout a kick in de teeth.” She grinned back over her shoulder and called down the stairwell, “Hokey, boys. Who vants to come up und play?”
Evidently the answer to the question was ‘anybody but me’ as the rustling downstairs quieted.
“Hokay,” she shouted, “ve sweeten der pot. Anyvun who comes up de stairs gets a half dozen cookies.”
That seemed to be a sufficient encouragement for attempted violence as the balcony filled with attacking pegasi and the stairwell rang to the sound of padded impacts, some solid enough that Peaks had to wonder at how much actual padding was involved in those strikes. Rose and Grace kept the balcony opening under withering fire, knocking cadets back out the windows nearly as fast as they poured in, with the exception of one cadet who fought briefly on Silver’s side after being zapped by Rose’s mind control spell. It was a valiant defensive effort that lasted far longer than he expected, but it was doomed to failure as two unicorns charging up the staircase managed to blast Banehammer back out of the doorway and his remaining defenders suddenly had to deal with attacks from both sides.
Once the three mares were out of the way and the ‘hostage’ had been rescued, the referee bellowed out the signal for the end of the exercise, raising a raucous cheer across the exercise yard. The congratulatory back-slapping and noggin-rubbing that traditionally occupied the ‘kill team’ was distinctly muted, more directed into polite hoof-shakes and nods of the head, although Cadet Windshear and his fellow ‘casualties’ broke into a very distinct chant of ‘Ther-mal, Ther-mal’ outside the window. The thunder of departing hooves was nearly deafening as the cadets all departed for the barracks where the traditional second unofficial exercise would take place, i.e. attempting to clear their living quarters to the exacting specifications of the training staff while still getting ready for the formal graduation tomorrow at high noon. Sleep was theoretically wedged into that schedule somewhere, as well as a certain number of short extra-academy ventures by colorful young stallions determined to get at least one beer, possibly two in the joyous evening hours before their upcoming post-graduation bleaching.
For the staff, the next several days were to be anything but a joy. There were referee evaluations to be filled out, last-minute assignment changes, grades and rankings to be calculated, gear to be cataloged, repaired, replaced, or reconditioned. Incoming cadets needed records updated, corrected, and compared to possible criminal backgrounds and outstanding warrants. Barracks needed cleaned, the grounds needed upkeep, training equipment needed inspected and repaired, and every single one of the operations needed his hoofprint at the bottom of the page.
The phantom pain in his right shoulder was tolerable. The perpetual pain in his flank who had remained after the exercise, less so.
“Pardon me, Commander Peaks. Permission to speak freely, sir?” Somehow the departure of the happy cadets and tired referees had left the two of them alone in the tower, and Peaks tried not to growl as he surrendered to the inevitable.
“What is it, Grace? You’re already going to be crammed into my office for the next who knows how many days.”
“I know, sir. I’m looking forward to it, but I discussed things with the rest of the assignees—”
“Your marefriends,” grumbled Peaks.
“—and we came to the conclusion that it would still be premature to place them within Princess Luna’s protection unit without additional liaison activity with experienced Guards in the same positions. In addition, the optics of my assignment doing office work for you while the three of them would be assigned directly to Her Highness would cause a great deal of specious speculation by the Royals in regards to the project. This would not only impair our efficiency, but cast a shadow on the new female cadets when they take their assignments at the end of training in two years.”
“I… see.” Peaks thought for a moment. “The political aspect of your separate assignment had not occurred to me.”
“Miss Rose actually brought the subject to my attention,” admitted Grace. “I’ve been a little distracted as of late. In any event, I’ve prepared a listing of suggested mentors for the assignees in the event you should wish to assign them to intermediate training tasks prior to transferring us to Commander Buttercup for any personal protection unit assignments. With Princess Luna’s assent, of course.”
Peaks raised one eyebrow. “Would these ‘suggestions’ place Miss Thermal in the Communication section, Miss Rose in the Advance Security section, and Banehammer in general Security during their mentoring?”
“Actually…” Miss Grace removed a clipboard from her armor’s sidesaddle and leafed through it, a motion that Peaks was beginning to recognize as a coping mechanism for having her neat little world disrupted by an unexpected event. “Yes, only I would pair Lily and Rose together in any Advance Security groups. They work extremely well together and complement each other’s strong points.”
“Agreed. Run it down to the office and have Kudzu cut the orders. I’ll sign them this evening and send them to Princess Luna for approval before I go home. And Grace?” She paused, looking back over her shoulder, somehow seeming much older in the shadowed light of the setting sun with shaded bags under her eyes that makeup was not covering. “Go home, Miss Grace. Get some sleep. That’s an order.”
“I’ll try, sir. Tomorrow after graduation, seventeen hundred hours, your office. Correct?”
“Correct. Dismissed.”
Commander Peaks wandered out to the balcony and looked down into the quiet exercise area, abandoned except for a half-dozen unicorn cadets filling pit traps back in under the gimlet eye of the groundskeeper. It took a moment to realize that one of the dust-covered cadets was female, a disturbance to his normally tranquil moment of post-exercise meditation, but after a few more moments of thought, it no longer seemed to be the horrible violation of ancient tradition he had first believed. Just male and female ponies, working together in harmony to protect Equestria from whatever it needed protection from, be it rampaging elder gods of chaos to unsightly holes in the ground that needed to be filled before somepony tripped and fell into them.
He turned on his heel and set his hooves on the long walk home. Maybe a good night’s sleep would help him see clearly again.
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Hey, I liked Sky High.
5322466 Never seen that one.
5322595
5322613 and now I don't need to!
I'm glad that someone said something about Lily “Grandma” Banehammer cookies being so good.
It's hard to feel much empathy for the female recruits when they so clearly and obviously outclass their male classmates. I mean, jesus, why even have a royal guard? Just have Grandma guard Luna. One wonders what the point of this whole fic is.
5319337
I didn't see BH's comment until I'd already posted mine, but he does a much better job of explaining why this fic fails at what is its seeming mission -- knocking down stereotypes and prejudices.
I mean, look at this:
The worst performance of the day comes from a mare with a k/d ration of 15/1, not counting assists.
Then why doesn't the Royal Guard recruit everyone from the police? Apparently the police become ninjas after a few years on the force. Seems like something I'd take advantage of.
The very first combat scene features each of the four mares against an experience guard stallion, and they all wipe the floor with him. He is injured fighting against them.
This would make more sense if the mares were using reasonable skills they learned from the police -- intuition, leadership, problem-solving, negotiation, etc. But that's not how they're outclassing their male counterparts -- they just kicking the shit out of them. You don't learn to be a killing machine from the police; you learn how to uphold the law.
I just don't get what this fic is trying to say. Is it supposed to have some relevance to the real world, where the armed forces are trying to integrate women? If so, choosing four supermares as protagonists probably doesn't aid in the comparison.
Finally, we have the stallions. What are their character traits? Let's list the ones we've seen:
-Stubborn
-Prideful
-Apparently really bad at fighting
-Probably have monocles that pop off every time one of the mares exceeds expectations, which is apparently every time
Poor Commander Peaks. He's been a soldier all his life, but one gets the feeling he would be absolutely destroyed in a fight with any of these mares. Not for any reason we're privy to, but simply author fiat.
I love it when authors work on new projects, which is why I hate to say this: I wish you would spend more time on Flash Sunset.
5322689 So that's why the story rubs me the wrong way...
I like your work, I like what you are writing, though the points raised about the characters being over-powered is fair.
You have some great ideas and I enjoy your writing a lot.
I think you are missing opportunities though.
The way to have your police mares shine in this exercise would not have been to have them perform well, but to handle the hostage situation in a police-like manner. Sweating out defenders, sending in covert teams, lining everything up, and seizing control in a single push, to ensure they do not get a chance to kill the hostage. Have them have the worst time of any team ever, but zero deaths on the attacking side, with minimal endangerment of the hostage. Grace notes that this is when the hostage would be killed, so it would have made sense for their team to ensure that would not happen.
When playing the hostage takers you could have them try to fight their way out at some point, possibly even escape with the hostage, after using a distraction.
I really enjoy this story, (hence the fave, but I have to agree that you are missing opportunities to make your characters stand out, as more than just hyper competent individuals. Grace could be less about kills, and more about taking out key opponents, possibly acting as some sort of sniper. Rose could act as some sort of negotiator, getting under the skin of the "hostage takers", knocking them off their game, and focusing more on the assault team and not the rescue team. Banehammer could lead the diversionary frontal assault, and thermal could use that as the window to fly in, grab hostage and flee.
I do not think you need to rewrite the chapter, but I would think about how to use your ponies special talents, skills and police background more in future. Once again, great story, and I hope this feedback does not get you down.
I think I've identified why Celestia enjoys it so much.
Snowy Peaks, probably less so.
Heh, I think he's just fine.
Cadet Windshear sounds like a bright boy. The combined expertise of the four police mares was a pretty valuable resource to pick up for Silver team.
Cookies in exchange for a probable beating from Grandma. Depending on the cookies, that might just be a pretty fair exchange.
The intermediate training explains how we get to 11 chapters with the graduation so close, I was wondering about that.
I just thought of this, but doesn't the premise go against the show?
This is all copied from Testing, Testing 1 2 3 on the mlp wiki
After Luna's banishment, the E.U.P. (Earth, Unicorn, Pegasus) Guard, was formed to protect Princess Celestia and keep the peace. Also, known as the Protective Pony Platoons. Out of the Pegasus came what would become the Wonderbolts. They were formed by General Firefly, who Twilight confirms was a 'she'.
So can anyone answer how can the EUP go from integrated sexes with high level officers of both genders to the Royal Guard being male only?
We'd have to accept that Celestia let that happen and then changed her mind after Luna came back. Sure 1000 years is a long time, but It doesn't feel like something she would let happen. I doubt the female officers who already existed would have let it happen either. I can't figure out where the male only tradition you have here come from.
If I missed something from earlier, I apologize.
Also, are the girls going to have to overcome any sort of challenge? They seem to be steamrolling everything so far.
5322876 Hang onto that idea until Chapter 9.
5322689 There will be messed up ratios on any exercise like that where the assault force can 'respawn' as many times as they want, particularly when the assaulting force is pressed to beat a particular time (please note that at last once, the *entire* force of attacking pegasi cadets was wiped out to a pony). Give primary credit to Cadet Windsheer, though. He will be moving up the ranks at a good clip, both for tactics *and* for being smart enough to pick Luna's four experiments for his team. Tactical and political accumun. Plus the *second* time the mares step into a sparring ring, the instructor will be ready. I think only Banehammer will be pleased.
Well, this awkward. The comments do have a point; you're overcompensating. Honestly, at this point, it could be argued that Snowy Peaks is right to feel threatened; at this rate, the facade will be torn down and centuries of tradition will be revealed as a pleasant lie for the sake of making stallions feel adequate.
On the other hand, these mares were hoofpicked by Luna as ones who would be absolutely guaranteed to pass. It's just that we're just watching the fait accompli from a perspective that refuses to see it as such.
Yeah, this is why I don't criticize. I aggressively look for things to like. Sorry, this was probably very unhelpful.
No insult meant to Banheammer, but Grandmother made cookies would get me to storm the gates of Tartarus. Evidently these soldiers feel the same. It's one thing to know you'll get beaten up, quite another to know there will be cookies on the bedside table beside you while you recover.
Very interesting exercise... I'm guessing Shining Armor death glared the instructor who suggested Princess Cadence take a turn in the tower.
5322876 I agree, these possible scenarios would have made it much more interesting, the Guard could benefit from Police tactics.
5323045 Grandma cookies are always worth it, if for no other reason than she makes them herself and they have that little personal touch.
5323065
The instructor fought all four of them. This was a trained soldier, and he got his ass kicked all four times. And it's not like he put up a good show, either -- they wiped the floor with him. One doesn't get the impression that if he'd been warned, he'd have done any better. Like, if there had been five mares, would he have finally beat that last one?
Usually the protagonist is an underdog, which raises the question, who is the protagonist in this story? It must not be the four mares, because they certainly aren't the underdogs. They are, apparently, the four most qualified and skilled ponies to pass through the Academy in its history. They've made a mockery not just of the other cadets, but their instructors as well. You say they aren't overpowered, but that's not at all the impression one gets from reading about them -- they've aced tests, won races, handily beaten trained, experienced soldiers, and look ready to graduate as the top four ponies in their class.
At this point, I'm pretty sure the stallions are actually the underdog protagonists. I'm rooting for them.
5323854
I'll play a bit of Devil's advocate here.
1. Everything we've seen so far has been through the eyes of someone prejudiced against them. If they had performed averagely, he would still have seen it as them exceeding expectations. So that's going to make them seem very powerful.
2. In this battle they, trained proffesionals who have been doing this for who knows how long, were matched against basically rookies. This was in their advantage.
3. But what about the expert who they bested so easily in one-on-one combat? My take is: he wasn't ready for them. He's spent so long training recruits that old habits became hard to break. And then he was off guard, and each subsequent fight certainly didn't help him calm down and fall back on training.
4. These are all, to a degree, super mares picked by Luna.
Basically, despite the main character holding them basically in contempt, they have actually had every advantage so far. But I feel that, as soon as everyone starts to get used to them, their flaws will start to show. After all, there have been, well, I was gonna say hints, but some blatant reveals that they have some issues...and not necessarily small ones.
Tl;dr This is all from the commander's perspective, and as long as he doesn't view them as even potential guards, they will continue to blow expectations out of the water. The real growth will probably happen once he views them as actual ponies and treats them as such, thus allowing him to actually do his job. That's my theory anyway.
5323064 Pretty sure Georg is having the military predate the banishment... you know, because a nation with no military or security force that relies completely on its rulers to personal protect the entire nation from any threat is extremely stupid.
Good job Hasbro.
Also, in the previous story this all started with the following letter from Luna;
I've got a feeling that the Princesses have already fingered Grace for a high position in Joint Headquarters. She might be a good soldier, but she's an even better thinker and you need those for something as politically and diplomatically fraught as VIP protection.
"cleaning", "to be"
Too early to think much.
5323064 ...So can anyone answer how can the EUP go from integrated sexes with high level officers of both genders to the Royal Guard being male only?
I can only state my personal headcanon here, so bear with me. Put yourself in the Captain of the Guard's position right after Celestia banished her sister, and see the psychological reaction of the despondant alicorn to any dark-hued armored female guard who reminds her of Nightmare Moon. Celestia would not have ordered it, but there would have been a shift in the way the guard was deployed, with more male officers and fewer female ones around Her Highness, because after all, Celestia is the *only* alicorn on Equestria at this time, and if anything psychological happens to her (like her sister), the sun will not come up. The tradition of bleaching the colorful guards to a uniform snow-white could easily be explained this way, as well as a general reduction in the compliment of mares until they go from a minority to an exception to 'We had female Royal Guards?' Tradition being the repitition of behavior long after the triggering stimuli, this division of the Royal Guard could easily remain in place until Luna's return and subsequent reaction.
complEment (unless you mean that they say compliments to each other
)
5325785 I tried to make the whole lead-up to the sentence to be all past-tense, passive voice. I tried it the other way (active/present) and it looked funny.
5333131 Whoops, fixed.
5325461 Celestia likes to put ponies into positions where they can grow to meet their potential. That's one reason I like the Cadence of Cloudsdale cycle, with Shining Armor suspicious of the actions of his superior officers. (From The First Time You See Her:)
"It feels like there's executive meddling going on," I said, finally putting words to the nagging little pay-attention-to-me voice in the back of my head that'd served me really well in my military career up to that point. "I think I've attracted somepony's attention in the higher echelons, and they're trying to figure out what to do with me."
[Qoute] Anyone that don't like Spinachis my enemy [ Popyeye ] Sorry but I had to add that .
]