First Impressions
Today was a warm spring morning and all the fillies and colts were playing in front of the school house waiting for the bell to ring. Among these foals, a trio of troublemakers were planning their next exploit.
“How about we get our cutie marks in adventuring!?” Scootaloo exclaimed.
“Didn’t we already do that?” Sweetie pondered thoughtfully.
“There’s more than one type of adventure.” Applebloom said.
“Heck yeah there is, we can be royal guards on a mission to slay the forest beast!” Scootaloo said excitedly.
“I don’t know, that seems pretty violent…” Sweetie said.
“Yeah, ah don’t think we’re strong enough to fight a beast of any kind.” Applebloom said.
“Well you’re all just a bunch of sissies.” Scootaloo retorted.
“Hey!”
Any further debate was halted as the entire playground grew silent as a detachment of royal guards pulled an iron jail cart up to the front of the school.
“What’s going on?”
“Are they arresting somepony?”
“There’s somepony inside!”
“Why did they bring them here?”
These questions and more were whispered back and forth as the guards unhitched themselves from the cart and began the long process opening the many locks all over the vehicle. Once they got the doors open there were two more guards already inside. They wheeled out a third pony, a foal no older than themselves, that was bound in chains, gagged, muzzled, blindfolded, and in a strait jacket.
Stunned silence fell upon the schoolyard as they placed the foal in clear view of the others in the playground. One of the female guards began fiddling with the locks and whispered, “Alright kid, you’re all set. Good luck and have fun!” The other foals started to back away in fear, this wasn’t natural.
The bound foal began to shift and twist around, striking fear in the guards with her fierce animalistic growling. This frightened the other foals greatly, the guards weren’t scared of anything! “Run! Run for your lives!” The mare who had whispered to the bound foal yelled out.
The other guards scrambled to hide inside the chariot while others quickly hooked themselves to the front and started running off, leaving the bound foul to be stared at. She began to grunt, and there was a tearing sound as the strait jacket was the first to go, then in a squeal of metal the chains burst apart while the foal roared like a wild beast, tearing apart the muzzle around her jaw with ease.
The new foal slammed her hooved into the earth, cracking it like glass. She reached up and removed the remains of the muzzle and blind fold, revealing her light orange eyes. Her mane was long and straight, deep red in color while her coat was a dark orange.
The rest of the class stared in shocked silence as she casually tore off the remaining restraints and dropped them to the ground, the chain sounding far heavier than it looked. Her cold hard glare pierced through the other students as she surveyed them.
Soon she slowly walked up to them, and introduced herself. “My name Lilly. Dey call me The Blood-Letter. Is good name, no?”
Scootaloo had the misfortune of being nearest and felt she had to be brave like her idol. “Y-Yea, it’s a great name… Right Applebloom?”
“Uh, yea!” Applebloom responded. “Sweetie Belle?”
“I really like your mane!” She said in a panic.
Silence fell between them as Lilly seemed to be judging them each with her glare, and then she burst out in great guffaws of laughter that scared the birds from the trees. “I like! You Lilly friends now, ya? We have good time!”
“Uh, sure…” Applebloom responded.
“Why would she choose to be friends with you blank flanks? Obviously she should hang out with us, even if she is a blank flank herself!” Diamond Tiara said snottily and was echoed by her cohort, Silver Spoon. This caused the other students to look towards Lilly’s bare flanks as well, if this bothered Lilly she gave no sign and instead advanced on the two grey fillies.
“Lilly the Blood-Letter strong. Strong of muscle. Strong of spirit. Friends strong of spirit, I like. Is puny grey pony strong?” Lilly said standing nose to nose with Diamond Tiara, her gaze burning into her eyes. It only lasted a moment before DT broke her gaze away and backed off. The rest of the class gasped in shock, nopony stood up to those bullies before! Without even realizing it, Lilly had earned the respect of the rest of the school in an instant.
The school bell rang suddenly, causing all the foals to look towards the door as Cheerilee stepped out and held the door open.
“Alright everypony! Time for class!” She called out.
Lilly grunted. “I no good at dis learning. You help ya?”
Her new friends looks to each other nervously, “Um, sure?” Sweetie said.
“Ah! Is good! What names again?” Lilly asked with a confused frown.
“Oh! My name is Sweetie Belle, this is Scootaloo,” Scootaloo waved, “And this is Applebloom!”
“Howdy!” She said.
“Ah, yes. Sweet, Apple, and Scoot. Is good names.” Lilly nodded to each in turn and started heading into the school. “Come, is time for learning.”
They were among the last of the students to walk up the stairs to Cheerilee, who held out a hoof to stop them.
“Good morning, you must be our new student Lilly! And I see you’ve made some friends already!” Lilly nodded proudly, “Alright, go ahead and find a seat, I just need a quick word with these three, okay?”
“Da, miss teacher lady.” Lilly said with a nod as she stepped past.
“I think you mean, ‘Yes, miss Cheerilee.’” She tried to correct.
“Is what I said, miss teacher lady.” Lilly responded with a confused frown.
“Alright, I guess we’ll work on it later. Go ahead and make yourself comfortable, we’ll be in in a moment.” Lilly nodded and headed deeper into the school while Cheerilee closed the outside door so they weren’t overheard.
“I really appreciate you three being friends with her, she’s had a hard life and could really use the support of her friends.” She said.
“Really? What’s wrong with her?” Sweetie asked with a hint of worry.
“Oh nothing bad, she just has a hard time understanding things like other ponies, and going from home to home really hasn’t helped her. Her parents died when she was really young, and being that they were both in the royal guard at the time the Princess and the friends of her parents had been trying to find her a suitable place to live. I was rather surprised when she contacted me about her moving to Ponyville to help her out.”
“Well of course we’ll help her out, at first we thought she was gonna be a bully like Diamond Tiara, but she’s actually really nice.” Sweetie said.
“And she’s really strong too!” Scootaloo said excitedly.
“Glad to hear it! Now let’s get the lessons going for today!” She said as she opened the door and headed inside.
“Guess that explains the guards.” Applebloom looked back at the sound of a carriage and saw it was the same one from before, the guards could be heard laughing and joking about their stunt earlier.
“By Celestia! Blaze, did you see her shatter those chains? She’s growing up so fast!”
“Yea, that filly can sure put on a show! Come on, we still need to get her stuff unpacked at her new place.”
“Oh yea, I really hope she likes it here, Ponyville was highly recommended by the Princess herself!”
Their voices faded away as they rounded the corner down the road heading out of town. Applebloom raised an eyebrow but didn’t voice her concerns as she followed the others back inside. They discovered that Lilly had not sat down yet and was standing by Cheerilee’s desk, while Cheerilee was writing ‘Welcome Lilly!’ in big curvy letters. They each made their way to their desks and waved at Lilly and pointed to the empty desk next to them. Lilly smiled and waved back as Cheerilee finished adding a heart over the i in her name on the board.
“Alright, good morning class!” She paused as the students screamed good morning back to her, “Today I would like you all to welcome a new student to the class, as well as to Ponyville! She just moved in this morning so I want you all to be nice and friendly, show her the Ponyville way!”
Diamond Tiara stuck up her nose, “There’s no way I’m going to be friends with a blank flank like her! I thought she was going to be cool and popular, but she’s just a blank flank nopony!”
Lilly laughed darkly at the mean comment, “You meet Lilly after learning, I break you good, ya?”
Diamond grew pale under her fur, recalling how she had snapped steel chains with ease, but tried to save face. “Y-yea? I bet you aren’t that tough, those chains were fake!” She announced out to the class, “She’s just a liar, using fake chains to look tough and mean!”
Lilly took her words as a challenge, “You challenging to strength contest? I like, I crush you to dust like puny pebbles!”
“You’re on!” The moment she said these words, Diamond knew she was done for. There was no way she could fight a normal foal and win, all she had going for her was her snotty attitude and her father. ‘That’s it!’ She thought, ‘I’ll just tell my daddy that she’s trying to beat me up and he’ll put her in her place!’
Lilly smiled and laughed once more as she sat down in the desk next to her friends. Cheerilee was at a loss of what to do, on the one hoof she wanted Lilly to have a positive experience, but she seemed to look forward to showing off her strength. If her file was right, Lilly was stronger than a teenage dragon and twice and fierce, and judging by the horrified look Diamond was trying to hide, she knew she sealed her fate as well.
“Alright class, let’s just go over the rules for Lilly, okay?” She said, hoping that doing this would prevent any fighting during recess. The class moaned at the prospect of doing anything in school but there was one hoof always-wait, is that two hooves? Her eyes lit up at the prospect of somepony other than Twist always ready to participate, but frowned when she saw it was Lilly.
“Yes, Lilly?”
“What is rules?” She responded
Years of teaching trained Cheerilee in the art of hiding her emotions behind a mask of happiness, and that comment alone nearly made her facehoof. It was going to be a long day.
After several hours of repeating herself, and explaining nearly everything in great detail so Lilly would understand, she was relieved when the lunch bell rang. She didn’t bother trying to talk over the sound of scraping chairs and scrambling hooves and let the foals run off to their lunch bags and find a spot to eat outside in the sun. All but four of them anyway. She couldn’t help but smile, Lilly had grown silent with her questions some time ago and she had gotten worried, but she had to catch up on the lesson and trudged on. Turns out that Sweetie had been taking the notes, while Applebloom had been trying to explain things to Lilly.
She stepped up to the desk, “Hello, are you helping Lilly with her studies?”
“Yep! She would ask us questions anyway so we just started doing our best.” Sweetie Belle said as she put away the last of her notes.
“I’m glad to hear it! Lilly, if you need any help feel free to ask me after class, or Princess Twilight, she loves offering tutoring services to foals.”
“Princess live here?” Lilly asked.
“She sure does, and she’s really nice, isn’t she girls?” Cheerilee asked them, earning eager nods. “Alright well I think you should get going and get something to eat so you can play at recess okay?” They all called out their agreement and led Lilly out the door to the tables outside. Cheerilee smiled softly, happy to be making a positive difference on a troubled filly’s life.
The girls gathered around the lunch table they usually sat at, all but one with their own little sack lunch. Lilly looked at the bags with hunger in her eyes, she hadn’t eaten since that morning!
“Hey Lilly, don’t you have a lunch?” Applebloom asked.
“No, Blaze bring lunch today, she helping move here.” Lilly said as she looked out toward the road.
“Is she one of the guards we saw this morning?” Sweetie Belle asked.
“Yes, you meet her?”
“No, we just saw them pick up the chains and stuff and said something about unpacking your things.”
Lilly nodded, “Blaze is strong guard pony, help Lilly get stronger. Is good friend.”
“Darn right I am!” All but Lilly jumped, the voice coming from right behind them. “Here you go kiddo, compliments from the Apple Clan.” Blaze said as she set out a plate overflowing with apple fritters, apple pie, and a few apples of every color.
Lilly looked them over hungrily, “Is good?”
Blaze nodded, “You bet, had a few while I was there, best I’ve had in ages!”
“Hey! My sister made these!” Applebloom exclaimed in excitement, “She’s the best baker on the farm! She makes all kinds of delicious food from our apples!”
“Better believe her kid, She and her brother are pretty strong too.” Blaze added, causing the fillies eyes to light up. “Now hurry up and eat so we can get a match in before you have to head back to class!”
Lilly grinned and started inhaling her food with gusto, pausing only now and then to savor the flavor of the delectable delights. Within a few short minutes she had eaten enough food to feed several grown stallions and let out a belch the rattled the table.
“Ah! Is good! Time for spar, ya?” She declared, giving her opponent a challenging glare.
“You bet kiddo, need to test the armor anyway, so come at me with all you’ve got!” Blaze challenged. She was wearing a new model of the guard armor, thicker and enchanted to be lighter, it was meant to withstand even the strongest of blows, and she was itching to see how it would hold up.
Lilly stood from the table and paced closer to Blitz to stand about twenty feet from her. She locked eyes with Blitz and snorted, steam blasting from her nostrils. “Lilly break you!” she bellowed.
Blitz took a few breaths to steady herself, this would not be her first match but every fight was the ultimate test of her own skills as a guard, and being careless in such a dual would result in severe injury, if she was lucky.
The bell signaling the end of lunch and the start of recess rang out, and the combatants began their battle. Blaze crouched low defensively, while Lilly bounded forward, quick as an arrow and kicking up patches of dirt and grass. She charged headlong into Blitz, a clang of skull meeting steel rang out as Blitz was pushed back, hooves digging into the ground five, ten, then fifteen feet as Lilly kept shoving her.
She managed to push Lilly away and lashed out with a hoof, but was met with Lilly’s own hoof. She had a gash across her forehead where she impacted the armor, causing blood to trail around her eyes and muzzle, giving her a nightmarish appearance.
Blaze struck out with her other hoof, forcing Lilly back as she went on the defensive, dodging and blocking hoof strikes with a decent amount of dexterity. Several blows found their mark, but Lilly simply shrugged them off and changed tactics.
She opened herself up and took a grazing blow to her shoulder and closed inside Blaze’s reach, and struck her as hard as she could square in the chest. With a loud clash Blaze was thrown several feet into the air and landed in a roll, her armor now sporting a large dent and several cracks. Blaze coughed and wheezed, trying to catch her breath and regain her footing on shaky legs.
“Damn, kid…” She looked up in time to see Lilly charge towards her again. She hopped to the side as best she could as Lilly sped past, but Lilly twisted around and lashed out with a roundhouse kick. Blaze’s teeth crashed together as she was kicked in the head hard enough to rip off her helmet and twist her body around. She landed on her back with a grunt, her eyes spinning and ears ringing as Lilly cheered in victory.
The other foals who witnessed the dual stood motionless with their mouth and eyes wide open in both horror and amazement, even Cheerilee stood among them. After a moment she shook herself from her stupor and rushed forward to tend to Blaze, who was still lying on the ground.
“Wow…”
“That was…”
“AMAZING!!” The crusaders all cried out as they ran to their new friend.
“Wow Lilly, where did you learn to do that?”
“That was so cool!”
“I really like your mane!”
They paused in their celebration to look at Sweetie. “What? You guys said everything else I could think of!”
Lilly let out a loud guffaw, “Lilly learn from guards, they teach to use strength good, lots of training, and Lilly clean mane with bathing!” She finished with a bloody smile.
“Uh, let’s get you patched up.” The crusaders lead her back inside to the nurse’s office, leading past the group on onlookers. Lilly grinned and locked eyes with Diamond Tiara, causing her to lose consciousness and fall against Silver Spoon.
Cheerilee finally managed to bring Blaze to her senses and helped her out of the now-restrictive armor.
“Gah… I think she cracked a few ribs.” She said as she tenderly prodded her bruised chest. “Never take a direct hit, apparently even the best armor isn’t enough.” She said with a light, but pained chuckle.
“Are you going to be alright?” Cheerilee asked.
“Yea, I’ve lost and been in much worse condition than this, a bit of medi-gel and I’ll be fine.”
“Might I ask why you helped break the school rules by fighting her during recess? Pretty sure that sends the wrong message.”
“The guard have been looking out for her and training her to fight and control her strength, she’s got a ways to go yet but she’s a good foal, if a bit thick at times. I try and spar with her often and show her a few moves, if there is one thing she loves learning its learning to fight. I don’t think she’ll be able to dual anyone here without causing serious harm, so I figured a farewell dual was in order. Besides, how else could I test our new armor?”
Cheerilee just shook her head as she helped Blaze to her hooves.
“Just keep an eye on her while she’s playing and don’t mention anything strength related or insult her parents or the guard and everything will be fine.”
“Um…” Cheerilee glanced at the recovering bully, “And if something like that should happen?”
“Hmm… how good is the insurance and medical care in Ponyville?”
“And… There! All done!” Scootaloo exclaimed.
All four were in the nurse’s office, and since the nurse, in this case Cheerilee, was outside, they took it upon themselves to try getting their Medical Pony cutie marks. This resulted in the three crusaders wearing various doctor equipment and Lilly being wrapped head to hoof in bandages. Leaving only enough of a gap for just her left eye to peer around in excitement.
“Mm. Mmmf Fmm mmrrr!” Lilly said.
“Yeah, you look like a mummy with all those bandages!” Sweetie translated.
“Hmmm… What’s the diagnosis, Doctor Applebloom?” Scootaloo asked.
“Well let’s see…” Doctor Applebloom held up a clip board with a crude drawing of a pony wrapped in bandages attached to it. “It looks like we need more bandages to help her get better faster.”
“But that was all I could find!” Doctor Sweetie cried out in despair.
“Mmmm mmm mummm!” Lilly the Mummy replied.
“What?”
“I think she said she’ll be fine.” All four jumped and spun around to see Cheerilee and Blaze in the doorway. “I think she’s well on her way to a full recovery, why don’t you go out and enjoy the rest of recess?” Cheerilee said.
“Okay…” they said in resignation and tossed the equipment they were dressed in off to the side then bolted out the door in a fit of giggles, Lilly following behind stiffly.
“You let them play in here?”
“Oh no, those three get into everything, I just make it a habit to have things to distract them in the right places so they don’t break the expensive things.” She slid back a hidden panel on the wall and revealed a backup supply of bandages. “Now, let’s fix you up before we send you away.”
“Like I said, I’ll be fine; you don’t have to do this.”
“A guard was injured while on school property during school hours, it’s my job and reputation to help you. Besides, I have a bit of medi-gel to help that along.”
A few minutes later Blaze left the school, barrel wrapped in bandages and armor slung across her back. She gave one last look at the school and saw Lilly playing on the swings with her new fiends. But as often with things around Lilly, the chains on the swings snapped, rending it useless, much to the dismay of the others.
Blaze couldn’t help but smile, “Good luck kiddo, you’ll need it.” She soon joined with the rest of her squad mates and they departed to Canterlot, knowing their young friend was in good hooves.