> Mares und Panzer
>  by re- Yamsmos
> --------------------------------------------------------------------------

> Start A Bang To Beat The Earth!
> --------------------------------------------------------------------------

"Panzerkeil."

"That's a big one out at the front. Dunno about those hips, though."

"That's a III on that left. Looks like the commander's directing."

"Have a subordinate drive the big one. Smart tactic, ya damn birds–"

"Your tongue, Sightseer. You're on camera."

The scene taking place inside of the massive screen shook and jumbled about, blurring and disfiguring the large grassy valley stretching out for miles beyond the too-high cliffside. Swinging first horrendously left, then violently right, and finally panning calmly upward, the screen revealed a golden coated Unicorn, her horn sticking out of her olive green helmet and displacing the navy blue hairs in a kind of Y-shaped parting. Smudged on her face were vigorously rubbed streaks of oil. They did their best to hide the bruises and scratches that came with the sport she was taking part in, but their collaboration was hard to ignore as she grinned widely and showcased her one missing tooth.

"Sorry, everypony!" She called, looking at the ground for a second before simply shrugging. "Get a little caught up out here..."

The camera bounced around once more before settling on a quartet of jacket-wearing mares facing past the edge of the cliff, their backs turned and pairs of binoculars in their dirty hooves. Tails swished idly. They regarded one another with a head nod or a clearing of their throat, more than likely exchanging friendly recommendations, intelligent tactics, and chipper advice. 

They stood on an outcropping of dry, sand-colored rock stretching out a good few feet or two over a long dirt trail that came in from way on the left side of the camera and zipped all the way past the far right, disappearing behind the curving mountains they all had trudged through the hour before. The tips of pine trees, a sage shroud concealing anything that might have been creeping along underneath them, took residence along the entire side of the road just inches from its borders, a good place for a sneaky ambush or genius reconnaissance. Situated about fifty feet up from the trail, the cliff gave Ponyville's team a wide visual on the massive, bush-ridden plains sitting far down past them. Like an oblong circle, it was as flat as could be with nary the slightest bit of usable cover in sight.

A perfect trap.

"How're we doin', Lead?" Sightseer shouted from safely behind the shutter.

The one closest to the screen, mane braided and draped over a shoulder, turned at the sound and narrowed her golden eyes.

"Keep it down, or they'll hear us."

"Pumpkin Seed. Ponyville's fearsome leader," came a voice close to her.

That wasn't on the screen. Who was– oh.

She swiveled about in her seat and stared at her left side.

Her mother glared straight ahead, as if the scene that was neatly unfolding electronically before her displeased every little, waking cell in her old, rehearsed body. The brown garrison cap atop her tied-back mane was prim, proper, and expertly furnished. Her sturdy spine was as straight as a bow's fletched arrow, her upright posture fixed and unmoving, and her straight frown set on stubbornly fighting for the rest of its eternal life.

She made no real motion nor stirred up any belief that supported her having just spoken, but, her hard eyes shimmering, she suddenly continued. "Strong, brave, and tact." Her gaze drew to the right and downward. "A true Tank Warrior. A true leader." She looked back up at the screen again. "A fine example of Ponyville's hidden genius, and a fine commander. Just like her mother, isn't that right, Duck Bill?"

Duck felt her nose crinkle in the beginnings of a well-deserved yawn, but clenched her mouth shut just long enough to respond in a normal tone, "Of course, Mother." Expecting some kind of smile or head nod, Duck shimmied her mane and faced the screen again.

"They're moving west," Pumpkin spoke crisply, binoculars in one hoof and the other pointing to her left side like she was signaling on a busy road. Perfectly lined up atop her outstretched foreleg in the distance were five small boxes and five gargantuan clouds of dust following very aptly behind, both traversing across the open plain at a noticeably rushed pace. The birds must have flown the coop. "We need to flank them before they get to the hills."

Duck couldn't really remember where Ponyville's team was at the exact moment, as even their opponents of the hour escaped her mind, but, judging by the fact that she herself hadn't heard mention of any valleys such as the one on the screen, she'd have to guess somewhere just inside the mountains of Griffonia, near the train station. The team had had a bit of trouble upon hitting griffon dirt against a rogue 38(t) light tank, but, being light, it hadn't been able to prolong their echelon for long.

A trio of very light knocks—almost causing Duck to jump before she realized they'd came from the screen — sounded out in rapid succession before a voice, eerily muffled, asked, "Honesty Team, how are we looking on your side?"

Another bout of plastic crashes and thumps.

"They're moving toward us. Doing twenty." It was a long, long while before the voice resumed, this time sounding a tiny bit irritated with the accompaniment of hooves against interior metal. "Should we dig in, Blossom?"

BREEEE!

THUNK!

Sounded like the top hatch of a tank. The radio operator must have been poking her head out to be heard more easily.

"Commander."

Pumpkin about-faced, her poise lady-like but firmly assertive. "Yes, Pear?"

"Should Honesty Team pack up?"

Pumpkin let out a small hum and scowled at the rocks at her hooves. Sightseer, her clothed figure having been just barely out of camera view the entire R&R session, rose from her haunches, stretched her limbs out to elicit sickening pops, and trotted forward to join the observation mares still standing vigilantly on the cliff. There, she snatched a pair of binoculars straight from the first pony's hooves and let loose a cheek-to-cheek grin as a glare was shot her way.

"They should stand their ground," came Duck's mother, catching her attention once more. Her jade irises were reduced to mere slits as she narrowed her eyes and more muttered to herself than spoke to Duck. "The Vickers' 6-ton may be able to keep them at bay until the rest of the team arrives on the far left side. And then, the game will be nothing but a fish-barreled siege."

Duck looked away.

"Tell them to stand their ground. Have them use their 6-ton to take potshots."

Her mother's small grin, both a sight to behold and as rare as a blue moon, could be seen out of the corners of Duck's eyes as she softly beamed, "That's my daughter."

A few light-sounding metal thunks made a small tune, and the radio operator's voice, muffled once more, phoned the other parties. "Honesty Team, this is Loyalty Team. Dig in and keep them where they are. Hit just before their tracks. Try to make them stop."

Pumpkin brought up a hoof and rapped on the rocks, capturing the attention of the cliff-watchers, who followed her lead. "We'll head over there from the left trail and broadside them. Aim for the bases of the turrets and blow them sky-high."

"Yes ma'am!"

"Copy."

"Awww yeah!"

Pumpkin stopped, brandished a tiny, almost absent smirk, and made a circle with her hoof. Duck knew what was coming, and rolled her emerald eyes as Pumpkin expectedly, giddily quipped, "Mount up!"

"Moooount up!"

"Mount up!"

"Mount up."

BREEEE!

THUNK!	 

Pumpkin faced the camera midstep, paused for a quick few seconds, mhm'd softly, and trotted just before its now refocusing lenses. Standing motionless, and, apparently, scaring a few foals in the audience if their outcry of sudden bawling was any indication, she, at once, raised up her right foreleg in a brisk L shape and gave a crisp, finely rehearsed salute.

At that, the considerably enormous, cringingly deafening, sickeningly echoey, disgustingly putrid, absolutely overenthusiastic stadium went up in cheers, Pegasi, Unicorns, and Earth Ponies alike jumping to their hindlegs, raising up their fores, and shouting at Celestia's sun like they'd hated its current orientation nearing the peak of the sky above. Duck, at once, flattened her ears against her head and double-secured them with both hooves, shutting her eyes and baring her teeth as well once the masses began stomping in a torrent. 

The nose-bleed section. Rowdier than the others and high, high up in the Ponyville Stadium for nopony to—more than thankfully—never witness her, tucked behind some rude, round father with a tray of admittedly intoxicating nachos and a jumbo Sippy from the Sippy vendor near the entrance, and his small kid of a filly who wouldn't stop asking questions about what kind of tanks Ponyville were fronting, or how fast they could load another shell to rain fire on their enemies, or what Pumpkin Seed's favorite color was. It wasn't the questions themselves that grated on Duck's brain, and, hay, it wasn't even the filly in the first place, even if her guardian so happened to dismiss both her and her mother when they first sat down.

No, it was the mere notion that all questions about tanks be directed to and answered by her mother, who was more than happy to explain the deep, deep, deeper descriptions of each tank's origins and strengths, the gloves that helped each crew's loader grab onto their "lover's" shells for another powerful reply, and why Pumpkin much preferred yellow to orange, despite being named after something so very strongly the latter.

Ugh. The stadium. Shaped like a crescent moon with countless rows of ascending seating and placed smack-dab in the middle of town, it faced the large—much, much too large—movie screen that broadcasted the year's Tank Warudo matches for everypony to come and see. No matter where Ponyville was fighting, be it the flowery plains outside of Ponyville itself, the arid deserts near Las Pegasus, the hard concrete of Manehattan's garbage-lined streets, or over some lucky old mare's precious tea stand in Canterlot, the ponies back home could all gather into one half-circle and stare at a big, buzzing screen for as short a time as Ponyville stood in the rankings. As such, the viewings tended to last about an hour or so before following some other team that nopony in their right mind would feel satisfied with watching.

Duck didn't really understand that. Manehattan's team was one worth its bits thoroughly analyzing. Not to say she was up for it. It was more for Pumpkin than anything else. She just knew a good team when she saw one.

The noise of the crowd only died down once Pumpkin Seed finished boarding the tank—disappearing from view—presumably doing a 360, and hopping into her commander's cupola. A piercingly violating screeeeeeeech boomed from the screen's colossal speakers before gutterly puttering for five whole seconds, stopping for one, and finally being aggressively replaced by a bestial roaaaaaar that caused a round of clapping and hollers to emanate from the battle-hungry crowd.

BOOM!

Said round of clapping and hollering suddenly halted at once.

The stadium was dead silent.

The screen, however, beeped like her grandfather's flatline, wielding the same, hushed, anxiously anticipatory results.

Once again, out of the corners of her eyes, Duck saw her mother with a blue moon face, with the blue to fit it as well.

This time, her mouth was agape, and her eyes were wide as could possibly be.

Duck pondered the screen.

Upon it, appearing casually and hurriedly, were the words...

TANK DISQUALIFIED.

Duck flexed her chin. Oh boy.

Duck's mother let out a gasp, and, hooves shaking, stuttered, "S-son of a–"

The crowd, as if they'd rehearsed it countless times before—which... honestly... wouldn't surprise her, considering—once more rose to their hindlegs and, with waving, waggling, punching hooves, screamed, shouted, yelled, cursed, swore, bellowed, roared, and howled their complete, irrefutable fury at the screen of their prior enjoyment, which was now displaying rapidly reddening nameplates on its rightmost side.

Underlining the Combat Camera, as it was called, were words much too familiar to Duck.

PONYVILLE HAS BEEN DEFEATED.

A field of bright, light blue—save for one red space—buzzed audibly on the left, to which somepony finally, comprehensibly cried out.

"Those damn, cheating griffons!"

"It's the Shadow Sherman!"

"The Shadow Sherman!"

Shadow Sherman. Pfft. As if the griffons would use something so terribly inferior to their own creations. They'd gotten more and more intelligent these past few years, seeking Equestria out as soon as possible and using tactics not one pony had ever witnessed nor thought of before. Equestria may have been an immensely patriotic, proud country, but there weren't too many positivities to smile at and bring up when staring kooky-eyed at the basic, vanilla M4 Sherman lying smugly in the mud. It was easy to build and not too unreliable, but... well, the griffon tanks were a force to be reckoned with for more than that, and a dozen or so, reasons. That being firepower in the form of larger cannons, armor in the form of stronger, thicker, sloped metal, and reliability in the form of positive kill/break-down ratios. Uuuugh why did she know that?! No, she knew why. Less schoolwork, more Tankery! You can always do your homework later, Duck!

UUUUUUGH!

BEEP BEEP BEEP BEEP!

"Aaaah!"

She shot up in pitch blackness, her hard-working heart thumping away deftly at her eardrums and blocking out any sense of awareness she could have been properly employing at the moment. The beep beep beeping suddenly made its position known to her, in the form of the little gray box on her nightstand directly next to her skull. Shaking her head to dispel the rising amount of tiredness threatening to wash over her figure, she turned at the hip, eyed the box, and brought up a hoof.

And promptly shattered it.

Her hoof having gone completely, unnoticeably, through the whole machine, Duck smiled in satisfaction, returned her hoof to her chest, and threw her covers off the rest of her body, where they layered atop one another rather ununiformly, leaned forward a tad, and unraveled to cascade down the foot of her bed in a defeated, fatigue-ridden shoompf.

Duck, blinking the crust from her sights and nipping softly, brought up a hoof and rubbed at her right eye. She swiveled about, letting out a peaceful yawn, and hopped off her bed to head toward the jet black curtains firmly hoof-tacked onto the adjacent popcorn walls. Simply flinging a hoof about and knocking them off their mounts, she smoothly blinked first one eye, then followed it with the other, and parted the dog-patterned sheets.

Her action, immediately regretted and regressing her to a small child capable of only shying away on the verge of tears, brought in an unwelcomed collection of bright, blinding white light that took its sweet time getting adjusted to. Once it finally did, and Duck was able to safely peer into the window, she was presented with a sight to see that everypony in the world was meant to bear witness to, lest they consider themselves having lived in the first place.

Her living space, right at the corner of a three-way intersection of road, greeted her a good morning as a single unit. The gorgeous, countless peaks of the Macintosh Mountains tried their best to save her from her heat-radiating opponent for the too-early day, taking another's place and blocking its rays from view to no real avail. The grassy fields and recently-wooden roofs in her immediate sight stretched for seemingly miles and miles around her, bright red birds with little brown nests atop their oak posts and orange butterflies dancing quietly in the breeze. Ponies traversed the streets, their conversations observingly quiet and calm as they went to and fro in the morning light.

Duck closed the curtains, unimpressed.

Letting her eyelids fall down over her eyes, she felt a few tears coming on and took a second to plop herself onto her rump, bring up her forelegs in a cock-eyed Y shape, and stretch her muscles out to loosen herself up for the morning. Lulling her tongue and blinking away salt, she rolled her shoulders forward, back, and forward again before rising back to a standing position. A whinny escaped her lips as she stood still for a good few seconds, her brain's inner workings getting off their bent-back lawn chairs to start up the old machine again.

Scratching her neck, she collected the mass of her mane in a hoof and threw it over her shoulder, rolling out her tongue in another yawn as she trotted into her bathroom and blew out a long overdue raspberry that created drops on her mirror. She frowned and wiped them off with the nearby towel, then reached for her toothpaste and toothbrush absent-mindedly. Hoof into tap head, brush under water, paste onto brush, brush into mouth.

School, school. That's right. School. School school school.

Ponyville High School, for the first time in her life. The School Of Harmony, as they'd advertised it. A junior, and finally attending public school. The thought gave her a small grin, but switched between that and a slightly smaller frown rapidly. Oh Gods, public school? How different was it all? Was it going to be a big school? Was everything on campus? Were the teachers nice? Were there a lot of them? Would she be made fun of? No, of course not. She was just a regular Pony Joe. Jane. Jane? She was just another cog in the machine... descended from one of the hands of the clock they all collectively powered. Maybe they didn't have to know that. School. School...

The stutter and now pregnant pause in her inner musings directed her to stare up at herself as if she'd had her hoof deep in the cookie jar. Eyes softened, and she droned a low note as they traveled down, down, down her scalp falling all the way on first the left side of her neck and then the right, where her mane sat idly and innocently. She pouted out her lower lip and glared. Gods, if she could just lop the whole thing off. Okay. Maybe not the whole thing. Like, half of it. At least to the point of not getting in her way all the time when she desperately needed all the time. She could nail a short haircut. Oh, definitely. But long hair was traditional in her family, and going without was about as close to treasonous as you could get...

Her frown was booted out of the way in favor of a smirk, which she gave the mare in her mirror all cocky-like.

She was a grown mare now! Well, technically, at least. She could do whatever she wanted! Her graciousness grew wider by the second, bunching up her cheeks. Duck nodded, then promptly slowed her roll as she realized what exactly she was doing. She worked her throat around and cleared it to the best of her ability, which would have had catastrophically foamy results had she not been clamping her mouth shut. Ahem. Right then.

She hummed as she worked, almost choking on her toothpaste. Let's see... first bell at seven-twenty-five, second at seven-thirty. First period EQ History, but they should be signing up for electives in place of class today. What would she take? Duck paused her chore for a second, but shook her head and continued it as quickly as she'd stopped it. No time to waste. First bell at seven-twenty... no, seven-twenty-five. Second at seven-thirty. Yeah. Alarm set for seven, leaving her twenty minutes to get ready.

She minded the small little clock situated in the corner of her bathroom facing the toilet. What did it– oh, all right. Seven-fifteen. Perfect.

Duck scrubbed at one of her troublesome molars that wasn't currently agreeing with her pastime. Over to her... other teeth. She didn't know their names. Dentistry wasn't her strong suit.

...

Duck's eyes became the dinner plates she had been fondly looking at in the store the other day. Very simply, very aptly spewing her toothpaste onto the surface of her mirror, she twirled about to rush out of her bathroom, skidded across the wooden floor, caught herself before she fell face-first onto her last moving-in box, and sprinted toward her closet. All but throwing the whole thing wide open, she let out a little yelp and barely caught herself from falling deep within the dark abyss that was the deep end of the claustrophobic space. Steadying her hooves, she reached up and yanked her school uniform's jacket off its hanger, wrestled it onto her body, and adjusted its white, gold-and-purple-lined collar absent-mindedly.

Her pace in a small gallop, Duck went about her living quarters and accidentally—read, accidentally—crossed the threshold marking her little kitchen.

Breakfast.

Did she have time for breakfast?

Oh Gods she was a bit too close to the edge of nearing tardiness, but she couldn't do her best on her first day without sustenance!

Something quick, then, she thought, her head pounding alongside her heart. 

Something quick. Snappy. Swift. Fast.

Ah!

Cereal!

She went to her cupboard and retrieved a plate, placing it onto the countertop.

Her predicament getting the better of her, she craned her neck around and searched for the nightstand next to her bed.

She scrunched up her eyes and mumbled a few unsavory words, scouring the entire piece of furniture from top to bottom.

Where was her alarm clock?!

What time was it?!

She turned to the plate in front of her and shook her head.

Screw it! She'd buy something from the vending machines!

Criss-crossing her four legs around like a world-class Coil champion, she narrowly halted herself from crumpling onto the floor, hopped off the bleach white tiles, grabbed her bag sitting peacefully near the door, and collided head-first with the door she'd prior thought was unlocked. Biting her lip, she slowly collected herself and rose to her hooves, reached for the knob, twisted it, and finally found the welcome mat situated on her step.

"Welcome!" it, as a welcome mat, routinely mimed to her.

"Shut up," she told it in a general mumble.





As it turned out, the welcome mat was a strong believer and righteous supporter for a one-sided conversation, having successfully kept her completely enthralled as her daze took the best out of her. Once she'd remembered where she was, who she was, how many hooves she was holding up, and what she needed to be doing at the moment, Duck had jumped, planted all four onto firm ground, and sprinted down the staircase to head toward the school.

She found herself huffing and puffing her entire way, zig-zagging a few pony couples here and there with a quick, "Sorry!" and a red-cheek-crested simper that only made her inwardly interrogate herself further than before. Her brisk canter evolved into a very astute gallop as the schoolyard appeared on the horizon, its tall flagpoles bearing Equestria's pride and equally imposing white walls marking its large, expansive boundaries. Oh Gods, she hoped she wasn't late. She hadn't been able to look at the time her entire flight to her destination, mind set on mostly her possibly being tardy and minorly on being an impossibly cool filly and barely squeezing into her class on time. Cue cool filly shades, and everypony cheering for her, "Yeah! Go Duck Bill! You're the coolest mare ever!"

This was a bit of an odd motivator. Nevertheless, she found enough of it instilled into her veins to pick up her pace, lower her head, and do a sweet drift around the corner of the first concrete wall bearing the hung-up sign informing her that she had just laid eyes on Ponyville High School, proud home of the Ponyville Horsepowers!

Proud was a word.

It was not one she'd affiliate with the Horsepowers. Maybe in passing, or while gritting her teeth through a conversation with her parents too, but not in her own head.

She halted both her brain and her pumping legs, skittering and kicking up a few clouds of dust in the yard as she did so. If she hadn't been looking where she was blindly running toward, she'd have more than surely bumped noses with what looked to be the popular jocks of the student body. Which would have ended her school day before it had even started. Hay, it would have ruined the whole first week of school before it had started. Using rapid hoof motions and mane-flipping nods, they puffed out their already jersey-boasting chests and pompously belly-chuckled about being something called a Cue Bee for this year's team.

Duck cleared her throat and retraced her steps, noticing the large amounts of ponies occupying the same general space as she. Groups of two, three, four, and even more, young mares and stallions both, crowded the entire front schoolyard, their conversations mixing in with each other and creating a strange kind of alien child that only caused Duck's ears to peel back in pain. Though she'd give a lot to be a part of even two casually talking ponies, the idea of standing out in the hot sun while stranger ponies probably made fun of her from the opposite side of the grass made her begin questioning exactly what she'd give, which, now considering, wouldn't be all too much.

What were they all doing out here, anyway?! It was almost first bell, if her skewed estimations were correct– 

B-RIIIIING!

It was first bell! Why wasn't everyone gathered inside, sitting in their chairs, and waiting for the teacher to arrive? Why was everyone still casually talking to one another like it was an hour before school started? If she knew a public school—which she, honestly, didn't really—the halls were like mazes that you couldn't hurry through in the span of a bare minute. These ponies must have been the day-and-night tardies of the school. That was the only reason they'd still be out and about.

Quietly walking past, scarcely through, and mostly around the school factions, Duck ascended the first few steps toward the front door, placed her hoof on its fine, hoof-carved mahogany exterior, stared at its every groove and grain, and exhaled deeply...

...just in time for the door directly next to it to fling open, depositing a little company of what appeared to be overly excited Freshmen with binders and pencils and backpacks in their hooves and on their backs. Oh Gods, she'd forgot to buy som of those. First day of public school and already behind. Teeth grinding against each other, Duck barely heard their rushed apologies before she quickly scooted away from the herds and into the supposed safety of the building proper.

Safety in more than just its walls and...

She looked around and felt a smile tint her lips.

...its relative quiet compared to the outside.

Ponyville High School meant distance from the one thing she knew in her life. For once in her life, she could go a single day without putting down her pencils and paper, rising from her chair, putting on her garrison cap and jacket, and heading outdoors to start up the family tank. For once in her life, she didn't even have to be around tanks! No contact whatsoever! Ponyville High may have housed the town's team, but without actually enrolling in Tankery—which, being independent now, was actually achievable—there was not a single way she'd have to see a tank for the rest of her school career! No more neglected homework, or early morning drills, or Combat Startups, or deafening main cannon fire ringing her skull apart!

As far as she was concerned, her family's Crumphill Valentine was a thing of the past! Let it rot, for all she cared!

Her brightness positively glowed, and Duck lifted her chin as she turned a left corner and proceeded down toward her first class. Immediately, she had to shake her head and blink her eyes a few times, the new hallway stretching before her giving her a hardcore feeling of vertigo that about knocked her to the ground. Feeling a shudder run up, down, and up her spine, she noticed her own hectic breathing and picked up her pace to alleviate it as quickly as possible.

She craned her neck around to try a distraction and grabbed hold of her schedule with her teeth. Placing the blue piece of paper onto one of her hooves as she trotted, she mumbled what she read to herself and looked at each and every sign that met her gaze. Room A13 was to be her first class—with Mister Bon, it apparently seemed to be—which meant that it was first floor, reasonably close by. Duck scanned her immediate surroundings and looked back at her schedule. "Reasonably close" may have been a couple leagues higher than she previously thought.

CRKKT!

Duck directed her attention to the speakers situated in the top corners of each door's little home.

A voice came on, clearly a student's.

"Attention students! Class will begin shortly! Make sure to check in with your first-period teacher before retrieving your elective forms! That is all, thank you! Welcome back, everypony! And if you're new, have a great year!"

CRKKT!

A middle-aged mare—if her slight wrinkles were telling—with glasses propped atop her nose approached her from her left side. Duck had noticed the figure earlier, but hadn't made the connection between convenient lamp and living Equestrian. With a big grin on her face and her mane short and frizzy, the mare chipped cheerily, "Duck Bill! Oh, we're so happy to finally have youuuu!"

She knew her name?

"Uhh... thank you, ma'am," Duck replied, trying her hardest to avoid eye contact. She minded her schedule. "Do you know where... Room A13 is?"

The staff member, she assumed, nodded vigorously, "Of course I do! They didn't make me work at the front desk for nothing, hahaha!"

Duck pretended to join along in the supposed joke, working her jaw around to dislodge the expert lock it was trying to create.

A hoof went up and pointed further down the hallway. Duck groaned. 

"Just down the hall!" Repeat, just. "Take a right, and then a left! Mister Bon should already be in there."

"Thank you," Duck murmured, prompting the office worker to turn around and trot back into her room where she belonged. Duck, sniffing in air and blowing it out her mouth, placed her schedule back into her messenger bag, adjusted its position across her shoulder, and headed toward the end of the hallway. As she went, ponies fled open classrooms with laughs in their bellies; teachers stood before their respective doors, fiddling with keys before finally flinging the darned thing open. A few wandering staff members looked her way and, after a friendly hello, waved at her and carried on with what they were doing.

Had they known she was coming, or something? Sure, she may have had a parent and a sister enrolled in the Tankery class before her, but both of them were more well known than she was. Even after her little escapade outside of town, it wasn't like the name "Duck Bill" was something worth discussing on the topic of Tank Warudo. She was just the daughter. She didn't vocally enjoy the sport, nor did she even acknowledge it outside of her private schooling. Why did they welcome her with such cheery embrace? Did they expect something of her?

A gathering of loud noises finally met her ears, and she pressed them against the sides of her head and gently approached them. Her frown, having only a second ago crossed her face, deepened once she realized the sounds were emanating from the right side of the hallway's end ahead of her, lying exactly where she needed to be going. Whinnying, Duck braced herself for audible impact and met the corner of the corridor cautiously. Peering around it, she found a long, long line of ponies standing in front of a half-door kiosk labeled Student Services.

She oh'd.

"Oh."

That was the line where you went and received this year's elective form, to fill out whatever classes you wanted to take for the semester and next, if it applied. She was supposed to be in that line, now that she thought about it, but only after she reached her classroom and got marked as present for first period. Gods... how did they expect everypony to get their forms before second period started? The line looked like it was reaching the end of this hallway, which, might she add, looked to be even longer than the one she'd just been in!

A voice, entirely separate from the others' due to its volume, roused her from her thoughts.

"Music, he said!"

Duck narrowed her eyes and walked on.

"Music?! Are you kidding me?!"

The culprits made themselves out to her as the crowd parted. The other students in the line must have been smart enough to not get close to an argument the first day of school. A dark gray, light yellow-maned Unicorn was standing over a slightly shorter, light blue Earth Pony with an equally short smokey mane, cackling to himself and causing his presumed compatriot, another Unicorn, to chortle next to him. The Earth Pony, though much less well-equipped for such an encounter, narrowed his eyes and glared up at the two easily recognizable bullies.

"Black notes on white paper. Too hard for you to read?"

The first Unicorn opened his mouth and looked surprised. "Haw! You implying I can't read?"

"Was that what you were implying, little guy?" The other joined in.

Duck felt her brow furrow, but she couldn't deal with this at the moment. She took a few more steps forward, having just noticed she'd stopped, and planned how best she'd squeeze through the crowd to reach her first class.

The Earth Pony cleared his throat. "I'm just saying that maybe you'd be able to see yourself right now and have some kind of stunning revelation."

The pair broke into fits. "What in the hell are you saying, Arco? Big words don't make your insults any... insult-i-er."

The apparent Arco, though Duck knew was himself noticing his own tongue, stood his ground.

"You should just take Photography," one said, prodding him with a hoof and pushing his bag's straps into his gut. "At least there you'd fit in with the stupid hipsters."

"Could make a nice headline with your mug plastered on the front page..." Arco muttered enough for Duck, farther, to hear, and not enough for the bullies, much closer, to not. Which caused a pause in her step. She resumed without a word, but kept her ears propped up for further words.

"What would we call it?" Another, more feminine voice, piped up. Duck turned around to look for the source, and found a light pink Unicorn stepping through the crowd to join Arco's side.

Arco, not expecting a stranger to do such a thing, was caught off-guard, but brandished a grin and replied, "'Local Unicorn Confuses Scientists With Almost Unnoticeable Brain Damage.'"

The bullies growled.

Duck raised a brow. Was that a burn?

"Flurry Heart," one of them hissed, like they'd just read the name on a plaque.

Flurry Heart bounced her mane with a hoof and hummed. "Mocha Frappe."

"Go away, teacher's pet. Surprised you even remembered where the school was..."

It was at this point that Duck realized that the only way past the crowd without talking to anypony was through... the bullies, as they and Arco and Flurry's little scene was creating quite the sizable gap in the line. She didn't want to risk someone making fun of her later for her quivering voice, but she obviously didn't want to simply try and walk through a conniption like this. What was she gonna do?

Flurry put a foreleg around Arco's neck. He flinched and stared at her wide-eyed.

"My friend here isn't too all right with your guys' attitudes, and, frankly," she began, pointing a hoof at herself, "neither am I. You mind just moving along for Gods' sake?"

Arco regarded her, "I literally don't know you."

Flurry shot him a glare.

"Don't care what you think, shrimps. You bumped me and almost cost me my elective, loser," Mocha spat, stepping toward Arco. "That sounds a lot like a nice punch across the face to me."

Oh Gods, please. Get over yourself.

Duck steadied her breathing and began to near their location.

"Could you please get over yourself, Mocha?" Flurry asked. Thank you! 

"How about you be quiet, little miss perfect. You're only in this school because your mom's a princess."

Wait, what?

At that, Flurry broke Kayfabe and scowled. "That has hardly anything to do with it."

"That's why you still have good grades despite being lazy all the time."

"I know my stuff."

"Your mom's just paying off the school, aren't they?"

Duck scrunched up her nose.  This was becoming a bit too far of a stand-off.

The other Unicorn, his presence not well utilized—being the sidekick—looked around and spotted Duck in a flash. He lit up in a second and pointed her way.

"Hey, you!"

The entire crowd, as well as Arco, Flurry, and Mocha, looked at her in kind.

Duck's head went through a shockwave, almost spilling her to the ground in a cold heap.

"Well if it isn't Pumpkin Seed's little sister..." Mocha began, turning away from his argument to amble toward her. "What do you think you're gonna be doing this year? You're not gonna screw us up like she did, are you?"

Duck's words barely came to her consciously. "I... I... uh..."

"Or should I say, 'like your mom did', instead? A family of screw-ups! And another here to follow in their hoofsteps."

Duck's gaze drew to the left. Even the staff member managing the kiosk had stopped, apparently much too old to hold any measurable authority that could send the two stallions off.

She looked for something to say back. A general reply, or an insult, or a farewell so she could just be rid of the whole thing forever. What was he talking about? Her sister and mother both? What did he mean? Screw-ups? She knew the team was poor but... no. Were they both at fault? How? That couldn't be true, could it? Her face felt lighter and hotter; her forehead began to cling to her gamboge bangs. Each breath she sent out came to her shaky and underwhelming. Oh Gods what was happening oh Gods no no no.

"Hey, back off, boneheads! Leave her alone!" Flurry yelled, taking a step out from next to Arco.

Duck, head swimming, looked Flurry's way. Arco joined her side, raising up a hoof and placing it against his cheek.

"Leave her alone!"

Mocha guffawed, bending his neck back and letting it out to permeate the air around Duck. "Leave her alone, huh?" He asked, almost touching noses with her. "I'll leave her alone, all right."

He brought up his hooves and lightly shoved her backward.

She caught herself and bent her wobby legs.

"Hey!"

Duck stared up into Mocha's eyes as he took another step forward.

He shoved her again.

Duck's heart sounded like it was ready to pounce from her chest.

The students in the background, the walls and ceiling and light fixtures—even the floor—became an unimaginable blur to her.

She was being trapped. Encircled. Cornered. She had an opponent, and he was successfully keeping her from defending herself and stepping away. She felt a wall bump against her back, only increasing her mind's manic, runaway train of thought.

"You're nothing but an idiot, Pumpkinhead," Mocha told her, staring her down. "Go on back home where you belong. You'll only ruin the school if you stay here."

Duck looked up.

Her eyes were having a hard time pinpointing exactly where Mocha's face lay in its kaleidoscope-like positioning.

But she felt one of her hooves rise up and strike as true as an AP shell.

Mocha's face whipped to her left, and the stallion was sent to the floor.

Duck clapped a hoof over her mouth and gasped behind it, staring down at the stallion's injured figure. 

A flurry of clips and clops met her ears, and she barely managed to duck in time as Mocha's partner tripped over Mocha's body and banged his head on the wall Duck has previously pressed against. She scurried away from the sight, discarding her messenger bag by accident and spilling her graph papers and pens to the floor. They crumpled under the weight of each other and rolled around on the waxed floor. 

Oh Gods what had she just done?! She didn't know how to fight! What in the hay was she doing?!

Mocha and his partner rose to their hooves and growled like feral dogs.

The former charged in an instant, causing Duck to clam up and almost cease moving out of fear. Quickly, she reached for her now empty bag and attempted to make a shield for herself, but instead watched as Mocha misplaced her pens, found them underneath his hooves, and spun onto the ground again. The other, trying to save face for his leader's failure, lowered his head—presumably to scan the floor as he sprinted—and charged her as well. Duck, her basic motor functions churning up, side-stepped her out of harm's way and twisted her about to witness her new opponent screeching to a halt a yard away.

Her brain thought up a quick solution, and she dove to her stomach to grab as much of her bag's original contents as she could. Shoving papers, books, and now open pens past its flap, she closed the accessory and saw another charge taking form. Grabbing hold of her shoulder strap and thunking the bag itself onto the ground with an audible thump, she waited patiently for an opportunity to arise.

It came quickly.

As the Unicorn neared her position, Duck gritted her teeth, clenched the strap, and flung it with all her might.

What she had intended to be a thrown strike instead ended up being the opposite of it. She had to jump out of the way as the stallion, having been bent completely around from the weight against his head, skidded over where she'd prior stood.

As the sounds of groans met her ears, Duck's breathing rushed back to her like a wave, and she looked at both Unicorns with sweat pouring down her face.

She looked at the line of ponies.

Flurry Heart was wide-eyed, mouth set in a nope frown.

Arco looked to be in the middle of a gasp, but his lips were upturned like he was smiling at the same time.

Someone in the line coughed.

Another piped up.

"Sweet dodge."
> I Will Prevent You, Trouble, Becoming A New Friend!
> --------------------------------------------------------------------------

It was like a cage.

One for gray rats, or shrunken mice, or innocent guinea pigs. You could feel the brisk, welcoming air outside just inches from your face, and you knew—you knew—that it was there, you could see it, but the walls around you, on top of you, below you, the ones that kept you in your chair... they kept you in. Locked you in. Dangled the key before your eyes and even faked a limp toss or two, laughing from deep within its gut as you floundered about, begging them to stop and to just let you flee. There were no bars, but there were inches of wooden beams, and insulation, and dried layers of paint because the painters did a bad job... they were what kept her in.

Her seat, as well. Itchy on her back and on her neck, causing her to scratch at both incessantly. The others nearby must have thought her filthy, like she hadn't showered in about two weeks, or two months, or two years. But she couldn't help it, the flooding of sweat down her face and her shoulders rubbing against the soft material to the point of agonizing sensation, and then she just couldn't keep still, and then everypony was probably pointing hooves at her and wondering where she'd possibly misplaced her ADHD pills within their angry, furious, terrifyingly enraged heads.

A square, brown room, with the only light being a straight yellow one peeking in through the half-drawn, slightly-angled curtains blocking any sign of contact she could possibly be keeping with the white clouds and the blue sky and the brown dirt and everything she was wholly yearning for at the second, and then the next second, and now every second because she just couldn't stop thinking about how choked up she was sitting inside this cage-like room with its wooden desk and its inoperable lamp and its itchy chairs and the sweat in her face and her mane against her forehead and her mane being long please cut it off!

No.

No, it wasn't like a cage!

It was a cage! Not for rats, or mice, or guinea pigs! One for a colorful parakeet, or a big ol' pupper, or a polar bear at the zoo! This wasn't a small cage! It was a massive one, just big enough for her to lull herself into believing that it wasn't there, but she knew that it was! It was all around her, waiting for her, with every breath, move, bond, and step of hers... watching her! They showed her the sky, and the ponies going out to lunch with big grins on their faces, and the trees and the grass and the rest of Ponyville's houses dotting the road up and down and left and right like pines on a trail, but not for her! None for her! This room, this... cage would keep her within its walls forever! A bad grade, or a tardy, or chains on her forelegs keeping her cuffed to the chair somepony please let her get out of her chair she couldn't bear sitting in it any longer! Her spine was chafing against it she was bound to develop something if she didn't get out of it!

Oh Gods but then she couldn't just say something! A ruler in his magic, or a marker in his hoof, or his eyes like slits! A response she'd never foresee but always regret witnessing; a horrible, horrible thing that could cost her her entire remaining school career! A send-off to another Academy, or back home, or as part of Ponyville High's Recycling Club! She couldn't do it, neigh, she couldn't bear it! The thought of it all was making her worry more and sweat harder and it was only making her chair worse and now she was fidgeting again she didn't have ADHD she swore! She swore on everything, and she'd give up anything just for them to know that this wasn't normal for her! She'd never been in a principal's office because she'd never had one at her boarding school! She'd never had to sit down and anticipate a single pony's response that could end up ruining her forever!

The principal! He had to know, he just had to know that she wasn't a troublemaker! She was a good pony, a reaaaaally good pony! She was best pony, as a matter of fact! Yeah! Best pony! Duck Bill! Prim, and proper, and polite, and a pony! So, best pony! She was kind, and honest, and loyal, and generous, and funny, and wonderful! Who couldn't love Duck Bill, oh that Duck Bill there she is again, giving sick ponies Get Well Soon cards and showering her friends with love and affection and buying out dog pounds and maybe a cat pound too oh that Duck Bill, she really is best pony!

"Duck Bill?"

She straightened in her chair.

A hoof went to her mouth, and she used it to clear her own, deathly quivering throat.

"Yes, sir?"

"Today is the first day of school."

Yes! The first day of school! The day you were supposed to be getting back into the swing of things, like getting up early, and getting to school early and not hanging out in the schoolyard, and finding new friends, and being kind to everypony, and not getting involved with anypony because being by yourself was the only real way to achieve perfection because otherwise what if somepony you knew got sick and then you couldn't help them or they moved or they thought something you said was crass and then what if you didn't have a way to fix it at least by herself she was safe in insulting whoever she pleased even if it was her!

"Yes, sir," Duck quaked, a wave passing over her forelegs and resurging again in an instant.

"The first day of school..." the Principal repeated, his hooves pressed against one another and framing his old, wrinkled face like a still-shot in an old B-movie what was that one called, "...and you have a fight."

"Sir, if I may..."

The Principal raised a hoof up almost immediately.

Flurry Heart, light blue eyes almost green in the light of the sun, flexed her chin and took a step back.

"I'm to assume that it was Mocha Frappe and Star Burst here who started it. Am I correct?"

Duck almost jumped at the chance to jump at the chance and point hooves—no, one hoof, idiot—at the two Unicorns crossing forelegs and glaring straight ahead, embarrassed and upset for the wrong reasons. She wiped the excite from her face and kept her peace.

It was Arco who spoke next, apparently making contact with one of the two as his response, "Yes it was, sir," was punctuated by a short, "Hey!"

Arco, you brave soul. If only she could be like him, except without the stallion thing and the other things but mostly the stallion thing she just knew that he had a lot of gusto for doing what she couldn't but she was sure somepony else would have done the same.

The Principal simply shook his head.

"Not surprising."

"Principal Cheese, come on!" Mocha suddenly barked, sitting up in his chair and causing Duck to shrink down in hers. He regarded Duck with a pair of narrowed orange eyes, gritted his teeth, and flung a foreleg her way like he was showing a dog what it had just done to the carpet no it's okay puppy we'll clean it up oh Gods please no! "That's... the Duck Bill!" She snapped out of her musings to shortly wish she were back in them, shying away from the accusing hoof. "One of Pumpkin Bread's daughters! You know, the Pumpkin Bread and Pumpkin Seed who've made us lose every year?!"

That wasn't true! It wasn't true! They couldn't have been the only reason Ponyville lost! Her family alone wasn't to blame!

Cheese's first word caused Duck to flinch and almost spasm in her seat. "Tankery aside, Mocha... this young mare is a student at our school, and should be treated as such... in the right way." Cheese flailed a hoof like he had a hangnail. "Not by your... 'alpha dog' ideals."

Mocha balked. Arco let out a little snicker. Flurry spewed a cute giggle.

At that, Cheese turned in his seat to face Duck Bill. "Now, may I be the first to properly welcome you to Ponyville High, Duck Bill. I assure you, your encounters with these two ruffians will only last these next two years, if even in a blue moon." He smiled. "Trust me, they'll still be here when you leave." There was a pregnant pause, one that Duck wished she had actually taken advantage of to say something or thank Principal Cheese or scream, but he cut her off by rising from his seat and elicting thousands of pops and snaps in his old back that he apparently didn't notice or care for. "Now, off you go. I'll deal with these four, but you better hurry and get an elective form before it's too late."

Four? There were only the two. Mocha and Star Burst. Who... no!

"No!"

This sudden outburst seemed to have surprised Principal Cheese, it appeared, as he widened his eyes and craned his neck back like she bore pink eye. Which she didn't. Also she just realized she was standing up on her hindlegs, hooves planted firmly on the Principal's desk. Noticing herself, she willed her forelegs to move off the clunky old table and join their cousins pleasantly on the wooden floorboards, but found that they remained where they were, defiantly.

Even Arco and Flurry Heart both were staring at her oddly.

Oh Gods she'd just screwed up didn't she? Again!

Cheese adjusted his glasses. "Continue, young mare."

Duck looked to her right. Mocha and Star glared sharp, pointy, oh-Gods-was-that-blood, jagged daggers at her. She panned to her left. Arco and Flurry were giving her straight faces, as if they had been both anticipating and taking their proposed punishment in stride. Was this usual for them?

She faced the Principal.

"Arco and Flurry had nothing to do with anything, sir! They were minding their own business until Mocha made a row!"

Cheese raised an eyebrow.

"They were just trying to get their elective forms, and Mocha and Star picked Arco out from the crowd! He and Flurry didn't do a thing!" She minded herself again. "Uh, sir!" Oh Gods she was getting all sweaty again and this time there was no chair what was she saying did she really think Principal Cheese would let all three of them go after that somepony had to stay with the wreckage they were expecting one of them in it would he expel any of them no no that was bad in case of any of the four!

It was quiet again, letting the sounds just outside the closed door behind the five suddenly appear and strengthen in a matter of seconds. Disfigured conversations followed the silhouettes of pony pairs trotting past the Principal's Office, unaware of the grave, dire events that were taking place within it, within the cage that so very much threatened to smother her by simple proximity and–

"Arco Piano?"

"Yes, sir?"

Cheese looked at Flurry.

"Flurry Heart?"

"Yes, sir."

Cheese looked at Duck.

"Duck Bill?"

"...yes sir?"

The Principal's cheeks bunched up, and he waved a hoof toward the door.

"You three may go." 

Oh thank Zacherle.

"Thank you, Principal Cottage Cheese," went Arco as Duck wrestled the door open. Flurry, taking note of Arco's farewell, mimicked him.

"Thank you, sir!"

Duck, almost forgetting to do the same... did the same, and twisted about like an arthritic snake to chime in with her own, only managing to sputter out, "Thank you Princip– wooooaaaah!"

Her incomparable skills at Coil came to her in a flash, completely unwanted and appearing at literally the worst time ever. Her hoof, previously pushing the golden doorknob, slipped on something and sent her tumbling down to the tiled, swept floors of the main hallway. At once, the dull brown and urine yellow light gave way to artificial whites and drab tan walls, mixing in with the pain that was accentuating her jawline at the moment. A day and night comparison, she noted, that she was more than a little bit happy to have at the end of the day. A pair of ponies—what seemed to be a couple, if their awkward movement looked to be any telltale sign—walked past Duck without even batting an eyelash, discussing their "make-out spot" and if they wanted to "go and roll in the hay" later, which sounded like it would itch a lot and not be as fun as it sounded.

Her brain sloshed around the rather murky waters it was riding through, turning her brain upside down, right-side up, and all over the place.

A blue hoof materialized in her blurred vision, grabbing at her right foreleg. A pink hoof enlisted and yanked her up by her left one.

Duck swiftly stumbled onto all four hooves and shook her head to rid the stars dancing in an orbit around her. Blinking away the crude hallway that met her, she found proper clarity and about jumped back at the sight of two ponies staring at her oddly from, pretty much, inches from the end of her snoot. Flailing about like she had found her way onto a lake of cold ice, Duck tripped on a hindleg and almost crumpled once more, only saved by the quick hooves of Arco, Flurry, and their little laughs of apparent enjoyment at Duck's close spills.

"Careful there, mare!" Flurry began, dusting Duck's school jacket off for her and profoundly banishing the clouds of brown that blew away. "Keep doin' that and you'll end up with a broken leg!"

Duck managed a smile, albeit crooked, like a bridge she'd probably build if she enrolled in Construction.

She probably shouldn't enroll in Construction.

"Th- thank you, two," Duck sputtered, clearing her throat and attempting to maintain a bare minimum level of finesse.

Arco threw his head back and bellowed. "Ha! It's you we should be thanking! We would've gotten an earful for sure if you hadn't said anything!"

Duck raised an eyebrow. "Would the Principal really do that?"

Flurry shook her head, and a hoof. "No, he meant Mocha and Star Burst. They definitely wouldn't have shut up as long as we were in that line."

"'We?'" Arco questioned, turning to the whoa was Flurry an Alicorn?! WHAT?! "You literally could've kept to yourself and they wouldn't have said a thing to you!"

"Well," Flurry, the... Alicorn... huffed, "that's just not my style." The frown turned upright. "Plus, it's always nice to make a new friend."

"Speaking of which..." Arco trailed off, turning at the waist along with Flurry to face Duck Bill.

Flurry presented a hoof immediately. Duck flinched, face awash in a tsunami, but realized the actual intentions and shook it with her face burning brightly.

"I'm Flurry Heart," Flurry told her, striking a pose and wrinkling her white collared shirt and black tie underneath her jacket. Was that a required part of the uniform? Duck hadn't read that part.

A blue hoof shot her way. Duck understood it this time more quickly than she had the last, and shook it with a wobble still plaguing her bones.

"And I'm Arco Piano."

Duck's right eye scrunched. "I'm Duck Bill."

His hoof returning to the ground where it belonged, "You wanna go get some lunch?"

It was lunch already? The visit to the Principal's Office had taken up her entire first half of the day?!

Flurry bumped Arco's side, "I guess I'm a bit curious what the school-famous Arco eats. I always pictured washers and napalm."

"School-famous?" Arco asked, turning around and beginning to head toward the commons. Flurry, beckoning Duck with a quiet, insistently shaking hoof, followed right behind him. Duck, scurrying along as quickly as she could, took up temporary residence by Flurry's side. "What kind of stuff do they say about me?"

Flurry gave Duck a telling look and rolled her eyes. "Ponies mostly talk about your dog. Sorry to disappoint."

Arco snorted. "Oh, you didn't. My dog is way cooler than I am."

Duck scrunched up her nose, minding the small quintet of—clearly—Freshmen that stormed past her playing some kind of game, expletives flying from their lips and their little hooves causing a hurricane of clips and clops that echoed through the hallway even after they'd disappeared from sight.

"So, Duck Bill," Flurry addressed her, oddly speaking her name like she was afraid to so much as utter it, "what do you wanna eat?"

"Hear the cafeteria's serving hayburgers for the first day," Arco added, licking his lips.

She hadn't had a hayburger in far too long a time. She beamed. "That... that sounds good!"

Flurry nodded hurriedly as Arco whinnied. "Awesome! All right, to the cafeteria!"

Taking a sudden right and pushing open a set of doors that cachunked at the contact, both Flurry and Arco seemed to be completely undeterred by the eruption of noise that blasted into Duck's eardrums. The massive commons of Ponyville High, reaching high, high up about twenty or thirty feet, showered the impossibly dense crowd of ponies trotting, levitating, and flying around in a shimmering sunlight from the glass dome protecting them from the rays. A staircase, double-sided, led up to the second floor of the school, with what looked to be an elevator shaft separating the two in a symmetrical bisection. The library windows, in intervals along the leftmost wall Duck and the others were now walking away from, showed a different faction of the school that simply wanted to sit down in peace and read a nice book or two.

The three of them passed by little collections of students talking to each other as if they were miles apart.

"...yeah, and I swear she thought she was right–"

"...we gotta head out quick if we wanna go grab a bite at McDuckle's!"

"Just another year, huh?"

"–hey shut up! That's my word!"

"Coming through!"

Flurry sidestepped. Arco jumped away, left legs splayed in the air. Duck fell to her stomach.

A Pegasus hopped over Duck's body, a brown paper bag grasped under her wing. Greeting and parting Duck with a wink and a quick salute, she sped away and turned a corner. Hot on the Pegasus' heels was a Unicorn mare, her navy and light blue mane whipping her face as she opted on teleporting past the obstruction of ponies in her way. Reappearing a bare inch or two behind Duck, she popped her neck with a disgustingly volumetric snap and stomped away after her prey. Duck, shaking her head and ascending, barely caught Flurry and Arco giving each other quiet eye rolls before continuing on with their movement.

"Say, Duck..."

She looked up, like a dog after hearing its name called, with all the confusion to boot.

"What is it, Arco?"

"What electives are you looking to take this year?"

Anything but Tankery. Anything but Tankery.

"I... I don't know, yet," she admitted, tugging on her bag, "I guess I'd have to see the list, first."

"What do you take, Arco?"

He blew a raspberry that apparently landed on a Sophomore, who wiped his face and scowled at the passing Earth Pony. Duck's hoof went up to help her voice a massive amount of apologies, but, after barely catching herself in yet another tumble, she decided against it. "Pfft. Music."

"Whaddyou play?" Flurry asked, screwing up her face. "Trumpet? Double bass?"

Arco's smile wobbled. "Middle ground. I'm a hardcore percussionist. What about you, Princess' daughter? You going to join Economics this year and run the Crystal Empire?"

"Nah," Flurry replied, flailing a hoof and masterfully keeping step, "I'd like to try Pottery this year."

"Really." His response was more an answer than it was a question.

"Already tried everything else," she began, horn lighting up and causing a collection of soda droplets—having been unleashed from a nearby colt's cola—to halt in midair. She let go of them without even batting an eyelash or breaking a step, "I think making a nice bowl would be a relaxing change of pace for my Junior year."

"Look at you, Miss Overachiever."

Flurry bumped him with a hoof.

They'd barely known each other before today, and yet here they were prodding each other and making jokes.

Was this how easy it was to make friends in high school?

"Quack quack!" Went somebody to her right. Duck turned as she continued onward. A trio of Unicorns—what looked like Seniors—pursed their lips and made the noise again.

So much for that.

Walking up along Flurry's side once more—because, honestly, she felt a lot safer doing so—she almost snapped her neck in response to the intercom's deafening white noise.

CRKKT!

"All students, please gather in the cafeteria! The class speakers have an important announcement to make!"

Pause.

"All students, please gather in the cafeteria," the announcer repeated, apparently realizing she'd need to say it twice before the population got the message, "the class speakers have an important announcement to make. Thank you."

CRKKT!

Duck slowly let her raised foreleg clop back onto the floor, and found Arco and Flurry giving each other—and her—curious looks.

"You think they're finally opening up another fast food chain here?" Flurry asked, raising up a hoof and flicking it toward the cafeteria's way. At once, as if on cue, much of the crowd stopped whatever it was they were doing and began the trot across the commons. She looked at Arco, letting him know it was directed at him.

"Probably not. I think WichWay is doing just fine." He swiveled his head about and stared at Duck. "Duck, you're new here. What do you think is happening?"

Oh Gods they're looking at you, dumb-dumb! Think of something! Should she go witty or factual? Which would they prefer? A cheap laugh would be enough to sate her, but giving them new knowledge was good too! Maybe she could impress them, as the new mare in school, by saying something they didn't know!

"Uh..."

A small pony body bumped into Duck, causing her to move a bit to her left. Another grazed her left shoulder, prompting her to move right. Another almost tackled her, but issued an apology and fled. Another darted over her head, hit a nearby vending machine thanks to her juvenile wings, and puttered away. Another stopped, looked Duck right in the eyes, raised her hooves over her head, and did a flaccid cartwheel for no discernible reason whatsoever, about falling on her face but cantering into the flood of ponies before she made contact. Duck narrowed her gaze.

Flurry grabbed Duck's hoof—actually more her jacket's sleeve than anything else—and snatched her forward. "Guess we'll have t' find out! Come on, Duck!"

Like the silver cases of oiled sardines defiling every prior school lunchtime of her life, what seemed to be the entire population of Ponyville High rambunctiously moved at a Churchill pace, like Manehattan traffic during rush hour on a Friday. The voices, screams, yells, and even singing blended together to brandish an incomprehensible blizzard of noise, almost putting Duck into a dizzied spell thwarted only by Flurry's hoof still pulling her by the sleeve.

Seemingly caught with their pants down, scattered pockets of Pegasi streaked in through the mechanically opened front doors, probably having rushed back inside on their way to lunch due to the announcement. Holstering their wings by their sides and hopping into line, they filed in with the rest of the lot and crammed into the school cafeteria, where Duck, Arco, and Flurry finally pushed their way into.

Duck was more than certain that the amount of people occupying the room exceeded the safe, restricted number hanging near the entrance on the little golden plaque. What were they going to do in case of a fire?

A few hooves lightly tapped at her back. Reddening, Duck scooted forward from her standstill and accompanied Arco and Flurry as they tried to find a few seats for them to sit together with. The proposed seats were not, as she'd prior thought, part of the actual lunch tables she'd expected to be here. Instead, rows and rows and rows of fold-out chairs sat neatly in the cafeteria, all facing the high-risen, wood-accentuated stage near the back like a cinema. A white canvas hung way low from the ceiling above it.

Flurry's voice, far more familiar and thus infinitely clearer than the rest, reached her ears. "They've got the screen down," she said, like she didn't understand what she'd just said.

Screen? Like a projector screen?

Were they watching a movie?

"Ooh, a movie!" Arco quipped, rubbing his hooves together and adjusting himself in his seat. Flurry took hers, trying her hardest to get comfortable on the itchy fabric all too familiar to Duck. Duck herself stood in front of her chair like it was a toilet, sank like a submersible, and placed butt to "cushion" with her hindlegs, straight as an arrow, dangling over the front. Arco gave her a weird look; Flurry, turning her head as well, mouthed something to herself. Placing her forelegs in her lap, Duck whipped her mane about and screwed with it idly, the sea of students still pouring in from the right side behind her.

A small, "Shh!" was issued by one of the older stallions Duck recognized as a teacher, escalating rapidly until it sounded like the entire room was engaging in the subtle warning. A lone mare, previously motionless next to a large black box near the stage, leaned over to her mechanic companion and hit something.

The lights went out in an instant, and the result was just the same.

Everybody screamed.

Gods, they had that here, too? Yelling at flicked switches was such a grade school thing to do, wasn't it?

A roundabout of, "Shh!" went... about, again. It was like the panic had never happened.

The screen, having sat patiently in the dark while everypony lost their minds, suddenly lit up with white, crackling and moving around in minor adjustments before finally stopping once it found a good position. Four black circles took up each corner of the screen with numbers lining their insides, and a single, much lighter circle took up residence in the middle. Right in the center of it, the number 5 was displayed, which ticked down to a 4 accompanied by a loud beep, then to a 3, to a 2, and then to a 1 before the entire scene faded away into darkness, shrouding the crowd once more.

Duck's breathing grew shakier.

After what seemed to be an eternity passed—and the crowd began mumbling that something had gone wrong—a terrifyingly boisterous, deafeningly powerful horn section blasted from the speakers with long, short, and then long notes that settled into a steady beat. At once, a grassy landscape with oak trees, sunflowers, blue mountain peaks, and small hills appeared. The music continued for three whole seconds before something rolled through that made Duck shiver.

A Griffonian Panzer IV, its blue-gray exterior shimmering in the sunlight, created a twin pair of dirt trails in its wake, disturbing the peace—and the healthy grass—with a gurgling, growling whirrrrrrrrr as it moved onward. Two more tanks, a Crumphill Matilda and an Equestrian M3 Lee, turned into the frame as well like scissors, stuttering about for a few brief seconds, and then following the Panzer IV on parallel lines next to and behind it.

The camera changed, showing a side view of all three tanks and their top turrets. The M3 and the Matilda pulled up alongside the Panzer IV, making a line from the top of the screen to the bottom composed of light tans, blue-grays, and foliage greens. As if on cue, the cupolas popped up with an admittedly satisfying BREEE THUNK!, pursued alarmingly immediately by three pairs of forelegs that hoisted up a little pony head each. With frowns on their lips and eyes in slits, they moved forward in their own silence as the horns continued blaring what Duck recognized as a Griffonian marching tune about some kind of flower.

The pony in the middle, reaching up to her head, fumbled with her black garrison cap and pulled out a sizable map. She studied it like a book as the M3's Commander grasped at something beneath her and whipped out a pair of binoculars, putting them up to her eyes and leaning a tad forward in her position. The Matilda's Commander, eyeing up her comrades, thumped the area around her cupola to the beat of the song. The tank's turret, previously glaring straight ahead, swiveled about slowly and aimed a tad toward the middle of their trio.

Jarringly, the camera changed once more, depicting the front quarter view of a Yakyakistani T-34/76, its rather short barrel finishing its spin and firing at something out of frame, rocking back onto its rear from the blast that shook the walls around the cafeteria. Duck, realizing she hadn't been breathing the whole time, sucked in a breath like she'd almost drowned. Flurry rose from her seat, alarmed, but sat back down when she realized everything was at least moderately okay with her friend.

A building popped up on screen with another perspective change, one of its corners being the focus. An Equestrian T23, ambling along the dirt road surrounding the establishment, reached the end of the side it was hugging. Slowly, above the newly transitioned music—composed of quick trumpets and beat-keeping hooves—a roaring engine crescendoed, reaching a climax as a light blue Feenuhlay BT-42 emerged from the bushes on the opposite side of the corner, drifted around it like a racecar complete with kicked up dirt, fired into the T23's side, and skidded away, leaving a white flag that popped up next to the unfortunate tank's cupola with a resounding SHHFICK!

About twenty young mares—Pegasi, Unicorns, and Earth Ponies alike—in five by four rows, keeled at a count of three and raised their hooves up in a salute, Equestria's light blue flag waving proudly behind them all. Suddenly, they were hopping into their tanks, taking up positions behind their periscopes, in front of their radios, picking up a shell with their gloves, and grasping the gear shifters. The Commanders faces were zoomed in on as they took their places and put on their headsets.

A light purple Pegasus, her blue eyes glistening.

A gray Pegasus, fastening her longcoat's buttons.

A red Unicorn, her brown mane—wrapping around her neck—tied at the end by a green ribbon.

A yellow Pegasus, a hoof adjusting the olive-colored crusher cap keeping her electric, blue hair in check.

A pale orange Earth Pony, who simply smiled at the camera.

Duck froze.

A few voices croaked from the crowd.

"Pumpkin Seed..."

"Gods, it's Pumpkin."

"Of course she's in this."

The rears of four tanks—ones she couldn't really identify, save for the obvious Crumphill Valentine Mark III's—bellowed and grumbled before leaving what looked to be a red brick garage one at a time. A birds-eye view, clearly taken from a stable Pegasus flying above, showed the four tanks either slowing down or keeping their speed to form a left-side echelon as textbook as they came. The front of Pumpkin Seed's tank, the Valentine, was displayed, the other three team members out of focus until Pumpkin herself popped out of her cupola. Looking behind her, and smiling at the other now wide-opened hatches, she faced forward, stared at the camera, and raised a hoof, ending the video with a triumphant, "Mount up!" that echoed and reappeared thanks to on-screen text that shook violently by the letter against an orange, black-shadowed splash.

The cafeteria found darkness once more, and the lights were flicked on to the overwhelming cheers and ovation emerging from the crowd inhabiting it. Duck, rotating about in her chair frantically, couldn't believe her ears or her eyes.

A hoof came to rest on her left hindleg, and she glanced down at it with her teeth crushing her bottom lip to find Flurry giving her a quiet stare. Duck, letting out a long breath, sat back down and pursed her lips. Flurry removed her leg from its place.

The applause and whooping still stronger than ever, six tall, clearly older mares ascended the stage's side stair, lining up in a row and standing at attention, all four hooves on the ground.

The subordinates, all noticing the six at different but still relatively close times, lowered their voices and gave them their peace.

One in the middle, her dark purple hair in a pair of braided buns, brought a loudspeaker from out of nowhere and raised it in front of her face.

"Who here thought that that was the coolest thing ever?!"

The students rose from their seats and roared their approval.

"Any ponies out there love the sound of that cannon?!"

Again, they came.

"How about that Pumpkin Seed?! Isn't she the best?!"

A few voices stuttered out dumb little noises, but, otherwise, the room was dead quiet.

Duck shrank in her seat.

The mare continued as if she had heard an enormous ruckus. "We're your Senior Class Speakers, and we're here t'day to let you all in on a liiiiiittle secret!"

"This'll be good..." Flurry murmured, causing Duck to look at her, screw up her face, and look back onstage.

"It's not wrong to say that Ponyville is one of the best towns in Equestria!" The speaker began pacing around in short steps. "Manehattan may have their dumb skyscrapers; Las Pegasus may have their casinos; Canterlot may have their elites!" She halted and turned on a dime to face her floor. "But Ponyville? We have the Elements of Harmony! We have the saviors of the country! Weee have the greatest main characters in the world!"

Huh?

"Isn't it only right that we have the best Tankery team, as well?"

Whoops and hollers once again. The speaker hummed to herself, apparently satisfied, and looked back up at the projector screen above her head.

A Griffonian StuG III, wielding a light tan and yellow camouflage, appeared in a flash.

"Those griffons have got some pretty mean tanks!" She shouted, pulling out a telescoping stick and thunking it against the canvas. "But mean tanks are nothing without a meaner crew to operate them!"

She collapsed the stick with a hoof against the stage floor, put it into the waiting hooves of the Unicorn next to her, and shoved the newly freed appendage out across the room.

"We need you, Ponyville High! Sign up for Tankery this year, and let's end those mean birds' streak once and for all!"

"Wewwww!"

"Yeah!"

"Woot woot!"

"Whooooooo!"

"Wort wort wort!"

The speaker, letting out a little, "Wew!" of her own as she tossed back her mane and wiped her forehead, tossed the loudspeaker to the Pegasus at her right, who brought it up to her mouth in one swift motion and flicked the button.

"We understand that there are other classes that appeal to you this year, some more than others! Pottery upstairs! Engineering in the back! Welding by Mr. Bon's room! Economics near the east staircase!"

Another toss. Another catch. This time an Earth Pony a bit on the skinny side crackled, "But we need all the help we can get! That's why we're giving you all a few... incentives, to join Tankery!"

The first one grabbed the loudspeaker when it was flung her way. "One!" She began, raising up a hoof. "Thanks to a good few harvests over at our very own Sweet Apple Acres, we're proud to give you free meals!"

The students stomped their hooves, creating an indoors thunderstorm.

Arco, meanwhile, was less than impressed. He shrugged. "Eh, I don't like carrot cake anyway."

Flurry nodded, droning a note.

"Two!" She continued. One of the ponies next to her raised their hoof in kind. "Extra credits!"

At that, as if he had had water in his mouth—which apparently he did—Arco spat onto the ground and whispered a sharp, "What?!" as the crowd around them bumbled to one another like a hive.

"Three!" Another hoof. "Secret prizes!" Waves of "ooh's" and "ah's" went around like a bad habit. "And, man, doesn't that sound enticing?!"

A toss. A catch. "Make this year the winning one, Ponyville! Make sure to put a check next to Tankery on your elective forms!"

A snatch. A glare. "Thank you! That is all!"

The six seniors stalked off the stage briskly as the rapid conversations of the newly adrenalized students returned once more, accompanying the sounds of squeaking chairs and clip-clopping hooves.

Duck didn't realize she had zoned out until Flurry scoffed next to her, "As if an incentive would be enough to make me do that."

Arco spoke, cracking his back, "Those extra credits are making me jealous, but Tankery's no guy's sport. I'd rather do Music, anyway."

"Yeah, seriously," she swore she heard Flurry reply, whipping her mane around and mindlessly tussling it, "they may get the Freshmen all hyped up, but us Juniors are a lot smarter than that. Most of us are already on track to graduate anyway!"

"Most of us," Arco echoed with a laugh, shaking his head.

B-RIIIIING! 

Flurry leaned her neck back and groaned at the ceiling. "They made us skip lunch!"

"Dammit! I wanted to go grab a burger, too!"

"Ugh..." Flurry whinnied, tracing a circle on the floor. "Guess we might as well get our elective forms before next period. We've got a few minutes anyway." 

"Come on, Duck!" Arco beckoned her, "We've gotta beat the crowd if we wanna get the classes we want!"

Grasping her bag, Duck steadied herself, cleared her throat, and trailed behind Arco and Flurry as they fled the cafeteria.





She was still shaking as she sat down at her next class—AP Calculus—and lay her elective form out in front of her. Students loosely piled into the classroom from the door on the complete opposite side of where she'd hidden herself, talking up a storm about what they'd all just witnessed. Directing her attention away from the rowdy hallway and staring at her new piece of paper, Duck got a pencil out from her bags and placed it alongside the sheet.

She'd come here to get away from Tankery, and yet here it was being shoved back into her face with the force of a HEAT shell.

No. No, that may have been a fluke, but she'd be seeing no more of the class. If there was another assembly, she'd hide in the bathroom and prop her hindlegs up on the seat. If ponies talked about it, she'd drown them out with a whistling version of Crumphill Grenadiers. If she caught sight of them rolling out along the field past the second-floor window, she'd ask to close the curtains, or simply turn away. She'd have none of it all. Today was the last day she'd even look at a tank.

Closing her eyes, sucking in and expelling a breath, and opening them once more, Duck stared down at her elective form and studied what she saw. Quickly, subconsciously, as if automatically, she picked up her pencil in her teeth and crossed out Tankery at the top of the list. Smiling, she was free to peruse the rest of her choices in peace.

Creative Writing? Was that just making up stories as a class? Was that really an option?

She pursed her lips and shook her head. She wasn't all too good at a typewriter anyhow.

How about Pottery? She could pray she'd get into the same class as Flurry Heart and talk with each other as Flurry made a bowl and Duck made a... pile.

Maybe no.

Economics? No.

Music? It was a bit too late to learn an instrument. And Arco seemed content enough to busy himself and only himself with the class.

Art? That could be a contender.

Aviation. She wasn't a stallion. She moved on.

Survival? What could be out there in the horrible, horrible wilds of downtown Ponyville that could hurt her? No thanks.

She skipped over the next one, already feeling a sickening sensation bubbling up in her brain at the sight of the two words.

Engineering? She wasn't sure she could muster dealing with all the wires, and it probably got incredibly difficult down the line.

Construction? She'd make terrible bridges.

Her eyes, blinking away a small twinge of pain, wandered back up to Art. She hadn't even seen the rest of the list, but she couldn't quite stop looking at the three-letter word.

Art. Did that include painting? She'd always... been kind of interested in that. Oil paints, watercolor, phthalo green, cadmium yellow and all that.

She sat back in her seat as the teacher watched the last student stream in. A smile graced her lips.

Art. Peaceful, quiet, supportive. A good environment with, she hoped, good music flowing in from the very hipster-like teacher's gramophone.

Art.

She took her pencil in her teeth, leaned forward, and scratched a checkmark in the box next to Art.

Placing it into her bag, Duck straightened her posture in her seat, ignored the weird stares of the ponies in the same aisle as her, and listened as the teacher rose from her stool and clapped her hooves together jubilantly.
> Probably Can Not Do This! I Will Quit You!
> --------------------------------------------------------------------------

"Warriors, keel on three!"

Here we go.

She stuck out her uniform-clad chest, her mane bouncing up with the motion and getting directly in her eyes. Unable to simply reach up and fix it out of an equally simple interest in not getting viciously berated and verbally obliterated, Duck lifted her chin a bare inch up and stood as straight as possible, the mares both on her left and on her right copying her movements before she could even consider hers finished. Steadying her breathing and trying her hardest not to collapse and spill over from the heat of the sun and its lights in her peripherals, the distinct, crisp sound of her dear mother shouted from the front of the rows.

"One!"

Breathe in.

"Two!"

Breathe out. There we go.

"Three!"

Duck opened her mouth and, blindly scrambling at the deepest, darkest, most well-hidden depths of her desert-dry throat, roared with the rest of the entire student body.

"Keeeeeel!"

Just as raucously and tens times more swiftly than they'd yelled, the whipping of the furious wind and the fluttering of the proudly hoisted Ponyville flag came to them all immediately afterward, drowning out any little thought Duck Bill could have been safely harboring inside her young head to keep herself even remotely sane. Her forelegs and hindlegs suddenly grew icy cold; the brown hairs running up both of them stuck up to face the warm air personally like some kind of long lost friend. Life as she knew it was more than a bit on the preferably dismissive side.

The sun, toting around the usual job it hellishly occupied around the same timeframe, hung overhead as the sole, dreaded school security guard with severity in its lips and spittle shooting from its teeth. Ever the observant seer of every single one of the school's outdoor practices—which pretty much concerned practically everything they actually did throughout the day's prolonged stretch—it astutely studied her first and tormented her afterward once she'd made even just a single wrong move in formation.

Her cap was beginning to itch the side of her head, and if there was anything that lived on—or, hay, barely inhabited—this great green Earth she'd idiotically chosen to inhabit, she'd find it and softly smother it just to scratch her increasingly twitchy scalp. The very thought that she'd legitimately harm somepony—or something—caused her to twitch around on the spot with the unrivaled grace of a Crumphill ballet dancer on ice, an action noted by the mare to Duck's right, who looked at her out of the corner of her eyes and quietly narrowed them before facing forward like they were all supposed to be.

She fidgeted like she bore an ant up her sleeve, which—honestly, considering the routine lengths of their daily standstills—wouldn't surprise her in the slightest of slightests. The sun kept its eighty-degree peace. It must have completely missed her that time.

Duck gritted her teeth.

"Warriorrrrrrs!" screamed her mother, her posture just as refined as theirs.

Duck focused.

"Atteeeeeeeeen... shun!"

A short blur of hooves and dirt clipped and clopped in her ears. Duck slid one of her forelegs around until it was properly positioned. Standing in the grass about three feet in front of the rows, Mrs. Pumpkin Bread—dressed in her earthly-brown, gray-accented long coat and her fittingly schemed garrison cap—stood as still a statue, her eyebrows furrowed beyond all possible comparison. Her ginger mane, tied with a ribbon in the style Duck had grown used to seeing every morning, plopped onto her shoulder as she whipped her swagger stick out of the loop on her chest belt and stuck it in her foreleg's pit.

"Your Driver is one of the most important ponies... in. Your. Tank!"

The wind whistled.

The flag swayed.

"As such," she continued, voice much, much more comfortably softer this time, "they operate as the largest cog in your war machine's massive chambers. The Gunner mans the cannon, and the Loader loads it. Your Radio Operator keeps you informed, and your Machine Gunner, if you have one, is the buffer for any and all mishaps that befall you and the rest of your crew! It is your Driver that gets you moving, and it is your Driver that keeps you alive and safe to return home! Trust them with your lives, because there is almost nothing more important than them and their position!"

Almost, Duck noted. Being the last daughter of the main teacher of the school made her the first set of unfortunate, disinterested ears for any and all speeches, lessons, and talks that would be debuted for the masses, and so she opened her mouth and very smally mouthed along in an attempt to calm the cacophony rising up in volume inside the swirling of her brain matter.

"However!" Pumpkin Bread interrupted the quiet, stamping a hoof on the ground and disturbing the anthill Duck was sure she hadn't taken the slightest notice of. "The Driver may be in command of every lever, gear, shifter, and pedal in your tank, but it is the Tank Commander that holds control over the Driver, and is thusly responsible for each and every bare inch you and your crew make!"

It came to her far too late as she remembered it all. Like the oven you'd left on before heading off to work. The meet-up with your friends after school ended. The chores you'd promised to accomplish. That rising, sickening gut feeling that blasted heat across her face and made every motion she executed seem furiously wrong, mind-numbingly embarrassing, and ridiculously mental.

"Duck Bill!"

Her heart viciously leapt from inside her puffing chest and lodged in her aching throat, choking her out and causing her to blank on the spot. Her eyes felt like they were spinning around in a frosted daze, but they were firmly stuck staring directly ahead even as her own mother turned to face her without moving a muscle on the rest of her body.

"Step forward!"

All eyes were on her. Bearing down on her, joining forces with the rightly Celestial body burning over her long-maned scalp.

She knew what was going to happen and she knew the results and she knew the repercussions and silent glares and neglect and quiet afternoons and dismissive head shakes and abrupt refusal and heavyset frowns and hushed conversations and in-earshot insults and seceding belongings and borderline disowning but she knew she couldn't stop it all because it had all already happened. It had already happening, and yet here it was happening again right in front of her.

With nothing present on the Earth to stop her—not even her shivering self and the body she was both vaguely occupying and forcibly witnessing—Duck cleared her throat, straightened up, and took a step forward, separating from the rest of the rows and aisles of finely uniformed, more able-body young mares. Just outside of her peripherals, where they belonged and where she was more than glad to keep them, the gigantic wave of unblinking eyeballs faced her way, not faltering or even twitching for a second.

"Would you like to demonstrate to the school the definitions of a well-tact Tank Commander?"

The sentence was posed as a question, but was, underneath the horrid, wretched disguise, a statement she'd be able to no less than agree to.

She profoundly thunked the side of her head with a crisp salute and barked, "Yes, ma'am!"

Throwing her hoof back down into the ground, she turned at a perfect ninety-degree angle and marched toward the left side of the field toward the patient machines standing just like she and everypony else were in nice rows. Crumphill vehicles, light, to medium, to heavy, to destroyer, to wheeled, just itching for the barest amount of anything to occur and for their engines to turn over once more.

Proudly glimmering in the sunlight on the nearest right side was the Pumpkin family tank, the medium Valentine Mark III, sporting its olive green, factory-produced finish. Every step she took drew her closer toward it, pounding in her head and making her mind sprint five-mile-wide circles even as she casually continued on. From the left side of the still idly positioned crowd trotted her Driver and her Gunner, who reached the Valentine before she, formed a two-mare line, and gave her a simultaneous, well-trained, absolutely-perfect, refined salute.

She halted in her tracks, lifted her chin, and returned the gesture.

The Driver cantered around to the opposite end of the tank and opened up the left hatch; the Gunner hopped up and yanked the right hatch open, jumping inside shortly afterward.

Letting out a breath that made her tipsy, Duck lifted her legs and approached the Valentine like it were but a close relative. She paused for a brief few seconds and stared at the snow white stenciling plastered on the side skirts that read First In Griffonia!, and almost fell into a deep fixation before shaking her head and clearing her throat. Vaulting upward, narrowly avoiding the crate of repair tools attached atop the skirts, and pulling open the cupola her mother had had fixed on the top of the turret, Duck crawled into her position, propped her forelegs against the Commander's optics, and felt her chest rise and fall at different—noticeably hurried—paces.

She reached for the rotation lever by her breast and lightly pried it upward, her head lifting to stare at the massive blue mountain dwarfing the town.

The sounds of her mother continuing her finely detailed instructions faded away into practical nothingness, given the hard boot in favor of the rhythmic pounding inside, outside, and around her eardrums.

Her face stayed its appearance, calm, and composed, and determined... but she couldn't hide anywhere inside her own head. Because only they knew what was happening behind it all.

Beneath her, her Driver fiddled with the ignition.

A cool breeze washed over. She swallowed a lump easily twice the size of her throat.

DOOOOOOOO CH CH CH CH CH CH CH CH!

BUM- WHIRRRRRRRRRRR!

"Aaaaaaah!"

She snapped up in her bed, forehead as wet as the sloshing in her brain.

The green grass of the school's field became the gray carpet below her bed; the large, daunting mass of sky blue rock was replaced by the window still blocking out the outside world she was, at the moment, refusing to even acknowledge.

She was deathly thirsty, she was breathing at an incredibly unhealthy pace, and she could barely see with her bedraggled mane covering her eyes.

But she was home.

Duck Bill clutched her sheets and drew them closer to her chest, sat there for a little more than a minute, and finally flung them off her body.

Get up. Don't stay in bed, genius.

Turn off alarm clock. You'll freak out if it goes off later.

Trudge into bathroom. You look like a mess.

Brush mane. Why was it so long?

Scrub teeth. Make them shiny.

Face mirror. You can do it.

Cringe. You couldn't do it.

Put on uniform. This jacket's buttons were a pain.

Eat breakfast. Was there time for breakfast? Yes. No excuses.

Grab bag. Didn't even finish breakfast. Do you have your homework done? Slips?

Open door. That knob is slippery.

Find floor. You klutz. Get up.

Again. Stop. Get up.

School. Go.

She descended the steps of her building and plopped down onto ground level, beginning a light trot.

Her morning-induced frown, weighted like she was on the brink of halibut fishing in Saddle Lake, faltered as she remembered the form nestled inside her new—not really new, just in the definition that she'd unearthed it from her moving-in boxes "new"—binder. That was right! Today was the day she'd enroll in something she loved! Well, she couldn't say that she loved it, seeing as how she hadn't actually stepped hoof into its educational border yet, but if it wasn't Tankery, it was a brilliant point of dedication to her! Art! Yes! She may have been able to barely muster a stick figure—and even then turn the paper round and round and stick her tongue out, regretting that she had ever held basic motor functions—but all in due time! She'd be painting photorealistic landscapes and perfect self-portraits eventually! A class focused on Art surely had some kind of reprieve, and there she'd be able to work on other things in a crudely fashioned, terribly calculated study hall! Seeing as how it would take up her sixth-period class, she could finish all that she'd gotten from each of her classes every day and have it ready to turn in as she was ready to depart!

It was a bit of an odd thing, smiling on her way to school—or just smiling in the morning at all—but it was... nice.

Art.

Painting, and drawing, and music, and peace and relaxation.

A possible crossover with Pottery, perhaps? Where she and Flurry could gossip and talk and make dumb jokes like young mares were supposed to?

A hum escaped her lips, and she closed them as she continued, a wonderful rendition of Crumphill Grenadiers buzzing about the rowdy courtyard of Ponyville High as its new composer casually strode about with the carefree contentness that came with a well-thought-out plan.

She didn't even fully realize she'd actually entered school until she'd crossed the threshold past the front doorway, adjusted her bags, and clenched her ears as the intercom blared.

CRRRKT!

"Whipgrass, please come to the front office! Whipgrass to the front office!"

BA-BUMP!

CRRRKT!

Did the office staff place cameras at the door and make sure to announce something just as she walked in everyday? It may have only been the second real occurrence, but the very idea and now steadily self-discussed notion made all too much sense to her. Just a bit more payback for the years of the Pumpkins, wasn't it? It was like the entire school hated her guts just by simple blood relations. No, it wasn't like that. They definitely did.

As she turned a swift left and began her morning trip down the Vertigo Hallway, she spied a pair of Seniors talking about something she'd apparently interrupted. They turned at the heel and stared at her with knitted brows, as if she were imposing on their turf and would be in for a bad time if she didn't scurry off. She didn't scurry by any means, but she tucked her head and faced away from them as she continued onward.

The frown rose up once more after a very novice battle.

Definitely.

"Gooooood morning Duck Bill!"

Duck barely caught the teacher's face before they trotted right past her, stacks of paper hovering next to them and bobbing up and down like a lure with their clearly hurried movements. She craned her neck around for a second to see if she could somehow recognize them—it could've been her math teacher or somepony else who'd barely met her yesterday, which would have helped the greeting make sense—but she turned about, interested in not falling and glumly deciding that today was the day she'd just lay there until the janitor poked her awake.

Well. At the very least, she could count on the various teachers and staff to fill up the neglectful, short-lived gaps that were passing time.

Conversations, hooves, abrupt laughter, and snippets of music registered to her as she kept her pace and minded her gait. Freshmen talking about the cool commercial they'd seen the other night, and oh hey Willow did you hear what Bonnet did the other day it was so funny yes you did Bonnet don't lie! What looked to be a mingling of the cross-country team inappropriately practicing their lunges in the hallway, stretching their light blue shorts and constantly tossing their braided, cropped, or tied-back manes out of their faces as they went. A student and a teacher pointing at a looseleaf paper marked with a single red F at the top, jabbing at the poor ex-tree and covering their blazing red faces with their hooves. A slightly ajar set of doors bringing Duck an unexpected tour of the world, with Prench accordion in one, twangy Equestrian in another, bombastic Griffonian in the next, and upbeat Yakyakistani in the last. Despite their musical origins, a single pony was sat behind the respective desk, typing away at a keyboard and otherwise acting like they weren't listening to a northern Yak pine for her love in a war that never ended up happening.

Her legs sharply took a right, and Duck realized in a snap that she'd just gone through Vertigo Hallway without experiencing the former part.

She pouted out her lower lip and bounced her head around. She'd take it.

As opposed to what she'd accidentally stumbled into the previous day, the area in front of the Student Services kiosk was relatively spacious, with only four or so ponies clutching white forms in their hooves as the line today. As she trotted up and took her place behind the last student in line—a light yellow Unicorn who gave her a sideways glance and a small smirk—her mind suddenly darted to a topic, then to two, and shot her head up and around.

Where were Arco and Flurry?

Surely, they weren't exempt from having to turn their elective forms in as well. Were they late? Was she early? No, it was close to first period. She couldn't have been early. Maybe they'd already done so beforehand? Knowing them—which she very loosely did—they were most likely on top of everything that had to be done in their day's line of work, probably having been the first two in line that morning and securing their position in their classes way ahead of everypony else. Flurry in Pottery, Arco in Music. Flurry had probably gone first, citing the lady rule. Arco had probably abided by it after calling her a name and overdramatizing the whole thing. Would he do that? He seemed the type. 

"Next?"

"Oh!" She gritted her teeth and walked forward, dipping her head into her bag and clutching her elective form in her teeth. She handed it to the old lady before her, who meekly snatched it from Duck's grasp, flattened out its many crinkles, and simply placed it out of sight and to Duck's left. Duck cocked her head.

"So..."

The old mare raised an eyebrow.

Duck felt the beginnings of a beet coloring her face. Was anypony around her? Anypony else watching? They'd probably be snickering and pointing hooves at her right about now if they were.

"...do I have the class, or...?"

"The office will review all forms throughout the day. You should have your electives on your schedule by tomorrow."

Duck oh'd.

"Oh."

She fidgeted on the spot, raising a foreleg to about-face and accidentally dropping it not a second later.

"Okay."

The mare rolled her eyes. Duck tucked tail and, shifting her bag's strap across her shoulder, fast-walked-but-not-quite-trotted toward Room A13 before the first morning bell could scare her a litte more than half to death. 

Could she be any less of a catastrophic trainwreck?





Lunchtime came quicker than she really had the mental capacity to fully register, and the answer to her daunting morning question was given very astutely to her as she reached into her bag and found not a bit to her little wallet's name. Despite staring doubt straight in its ugly, dumb face, she bit down on the zipper and unzipped the accessory, thoroughly peeked inside its bare nothingness, and could now safely flatten her ears against her head and pout out her lip without the most basic, albeit understandably withdrawn, assumption. She gave a small whimper, glaring at the ground stretching past her hooves, and dropped her wallet back into her bag before trotting off with the whole thing toward the commons. She guessed that she might've been able to find a bright side to it all—seeing as how she was apparently sparing herself from what appeared to be clam chowder if the chalkboard sign next to the cafeteria entrance had been proofread before its debut—but still felt the slight twangs and lurches of pain that came with not actually finishing her breakfast before heading to school.

It seemed that the first day swarm of the school remained just that, the crowd she'd seen then now less than half the size as the majority seemed to realize just how much time they'd all borne to head off campus for their afternoon meal. Nopony in their right mind would actually sit and wait in line for the cafeteria food. Cool ponies ate at McDuckle's, or put a bit into the vending machines and munched on some... chips, or something. Right?

Duck stopped and craned her neck around to find said machines, and, sure enough, spotted whole groups of ponies plugging two bits each into their respective slots and staring into the glass frame. Closer to her, larger groups of ponies giggled amongst themselves as they adjusted their bags, lightly punched each other, and coolly kicked the front doors of the school open to join the rest of the land-based current heading toward the boulevard of fast-food chains a hoofful of blocks down.

Her observations helped shift her thoughts around from her stomach to the noticeably small amount of good areas in her head. Where were Arco and Flurry at, by chance? She didn't have any other classes with them, and she'd been hoping that their friendliness toward her hadn't been a first-day fluke and that they'd opted on leaving her by her lonesome in a school she wasn't familiar with with ponies unfamiliar with her but very knowledgeable of her family and properly continuing the seal of social activity that had been stamped on her head the moment she was old enough to be educated in favor of doing something... else. Flurry might already have been making a museum-quality pot with decorations and emblazons and curvy handles, and Arco was probably hard at work scribbling down the third page for a series of movements he'd showcase to the Royal Canterlot Symphony the following day and oh Gods of course it was a fluke why would anypony like them talk to her oh there they were.

She found the strength to flash them a grin—which they didn't notice—and raise a hoof to wave—which she herself slowly dropped back to the floor—but stopped and straightened her lips.. They looked to be in the middle of a particularly disbelieving conversation, one with a focus on two sheets of paper in both their respective grasps that they each stole quick glances and vehemently shook their heads at. They halted in their tracks near the two staircases, creating an unintended delta in the sea of now mildly-annoyed students as they raised their voices and began smacking their papers with the backs of their hooves like it owed them money. Flurry grabbed hold of her head with both of her legs, shaking like it was twenty-below and not sun-temperature inside. Arco placed a hoof on her shoulder, but was visibly quaking as well.

Duck, her gut tying itself into fifteen different knots she hadn't even held knowledge of, sucked in a breath and trotted toward the two, who caught sight of her as she did so and looked her way, clearly out of oxygen. With her snail's pace now fully realized, they looked back toward each other and returned to their regarding of the sheets of white paper crinkling in their grips.

Duck quickened her pace, and reached to within earshot.

"What am I gonna do?! I can't just... what am I gonna do?!"

"Flurry, we can figure this out. We'll head over as soon as we can. Just get a bit to eat first, clear your head."

Flurry's eyes were wide as she swiveled about and faced Duck. Her wings, previously fretting by her sides, folded.

"They didn't get to yours, did they, Duck?"

Duck raised an eyebrow.

"Get to mine? My what?"

Flurry gritted her teeth and, with what sounded like the borderline of tearing it to shreds, thrust her paper in Duck's line of sight.

Duck cocked her head. It was Flurry's schedule, but what...

She went down the list and finally landed on Period 6.

She paused.

And her eyes grew wide.

She had anticipated the word Pottery to be in the blank space next to the period number.

But, instead, what she found caused her spine to twitch with chills.

Tankery.

Without even linking the two together, Duck began shaking her head and sputtering, "No no no no no no no..."

Flurry snatched Arco's sheet of paper from his hooves and showed it to her as well.

The same story.

Sixth-period Tankery. No Music to be seen.

"They can't do this, can they?" Arco asked, directing his attention and his golden eyes toward Duck.

"Electives are the student's choice!" Flurry claimed, raising her forelegs up in a pair of parallel lines. She dropped them limply and suddenly grabbed hold of Arco's shoulders. "Let's go find the principal! It has to all go through him, doesn't it? He wouldn't have given us that class even if he was forced to, Arco."

What was... what was happening? What... why? No. No no no. They couldn't do this. Not to them.

"We need to go to the front office."

She hadn't realized that she'd been the one who'd just spoken until both Arco and Flurry looked her way, eyes as wide as the sun.

"What about the principal?" Arco finally asked, licking his lips.

Duck didn't have a legitimate answer in her mind, or at least one that she could find at the moment. She shook her head.

"They'll have the answers we need."

Clearly startled for some reason or another, Flurry and Arco both grabbed at the straps of their bags and rose from their positions on the floor. Duck, feeling an out-of-the-blue urge to swing up a hoof and jab it office-ways, murmured something at the idea and started up a light canter to follow behind.

What in the hay was that? The commanding voice and the pointing hoof? Where had that come from?

"How did this happen?"

Flurry turned her head, the black tie under her jacket whipping about with the motion. "They just gave me the form with it on it." Looking to her right, "What about you, Arco?"

"Same," he replied.

They took a right and headed toward the single dark purple door sitting beneath a sign that read Front Office.

Duck scoffed. "No matter, we'll set this straight." She continued on with her pace, seamlessly overtaking Flurry and Arco as they stopped and watched her go, hushed words on their lips that Duck couldn't quite make out as she reached up to the door's handle with a foreleg, coiled her hoof around it, and wrestled it wide open.

It was like she was being possessed, and her body was now on an unstoppable autopilot.

What was happening to her?!

The doors hit the interior walls on either side of it, halting the small group of older-looking ponies seated at the round table nearby. They stared at the new guests hovering over the threshold, looking like they'd been three feet down into the cookie jar with their bounties stuffed in their mouths, and held slips of paper in their hooves that looked to belong to the massive stacks lying in the center of their session. Noodle cups—forks sticking out of the top and filling the air around them with a spiral of steam—sat just next to them, accompanied by a bottle of water or two.

Wait.

Duck knew these ponies.

Seniors. They were the Seniors that had shown the school the Tankery video the other day! On the stage!

As if realizing her realization, the purple-maned, braided-bun donning Unicorn shut her eyes and brandished a smile as wide as the Western sky. She waved.

"Hello there!" She blinked. "Duck Bill, right?"

A moment of silence went by as the Unicorn rose from her seat and approached Duck. Arco, attempting to seize the moment, began his speech with a guttural vowel, but was interrupted by Duck herself as she shook hooves with the Senior.

"Y-yes."

"Pumpkin Seed's sister." She confirmed to herself... or something, like she apparently didn't know of the fact prior to all this. "I was in the class her last year here–"

Duck took up Arco's idea and seized as well, just for a second that the Unicorn apparently didn't catch.

"–part of Loyalty Team."

Duck cleared her throat. This wasn't exactly what she'd come here for...

"The Stuart, right?"

She nodded. "That's right. I'm Sherbet, by the way."

From the table Sherbet had just been squatting at came one of the other Senior's voices.

"You guys need something, or...?"

Sherbet pivoted with a glare, "Shut up, Fudge. Be nice to the Juniors."

Fudge, the Pegasus with the "understanding" part of the announcement yesterday, rolled her eyes and returned to whatever she was doing, which seemed to concern small, quiet conversation with the other ponies seated next to her. They continued to mingle as the room became surprisingly warmer to Duck.

Beaming, Sherbet sucked in a long breath through her nose and shot out less than a quarter of it, working her shoulders around as she asked, "So! What brings you guys to the front office?"

Duck raised a hoof.

"I was gonna ask you the same thing!" Flurry shot.

Sherbet fell to her haunches and placed a hoof at her hip, leaning over with its aid and puffing out her cheeks. "Flurry Heart. Get another tardy and hit that last straw? Is that why you're all here?"

Flurry grumbled. Then, "Course not."

Sherbet straightened up. "We double as office aides–"

"Class speakers and office aides?" Arco quipped with a very noticeable tint of sarcasm Duck was hoping he had intended, "Gods, you guys must be stacked!"

"I guess we're just good at what we do," Sherbet replied, fluffing her mane. Well there was some kind of edge, if Duck had ever witnessed it. Had Arco and Flurry encountered these two beforehand at some point?

One of the ponies with their backs facing Duck and her friends piped up, voice in a dispassionate drone, "There are more than three-hundred-and-fifty elective forms stacked in front of us." She picked up one of them with her left hoof and faced it, showing the glasses propped atop her nose and about half of her face to them before turning back. "The office has more pressing matters, so we're giving them a hoof."

Duck nodded, flexing her chin. "That would be why we're actually here..."

Sherbet snapped to attention, a blank expression on her face. She cocked her head creepily. "Oh?"

Duck cleared her throat and, looking back over to Flurry and Arco to grab their elective forms, stood in silence and looked back at Sherbet while they simply moved forward to join her side.

Flurry stomped further along than where Arco and Duck now stood adjacent to one another. Her horn burnt with light and levitated her schedule out from her bag. She pushed it forward with the speed of a train. "You put my sixth period down as Tankery, dammit! And if I'm fairly certain I wasn't hyped up on methamphetamines and bearing the IQ of an arthritic dementia patient, I didn't put my pencil an inch near that class! I filled in Pottery!"

Arco followed Flurry's suit. Duck waved a hoof at him to stop, to no avail.

"Music! I put Music down! I don't need your incentives, I don't need your excuses, and I don't need this class! Why'd you put us both into it?!"

The room was quiet, save for the ceiling fan that kept on spinning, creaking, and humming over the interior lights lining the ceiling next to it. Even the other Seniors turned in their seats, noodles hanging from their mouths and frowns set on their faces. Arco and Flurry, tumbling down from their anger-high, fumbled in their respective places and dared a step behind them. Sherbet, meanwhile, shifted in the blink of an eye.

A single millisecond of time, and the cheery, over-excited, crowd-pumping Unicorn's smile from yesterday—and just seconds prior, as well—was replaced by a terrifying sneer and barely noticeable eyes beneath a hard, permanent glare.

Duck's heart began an impressive drumline.

"You didn't want Tankery, huh?"

Flurry made a noise.

Arco looked her way and shook his head.

Flurry clamped her mouth shut.

Sherbet looked at the former. "You wanted to play a nice tune, huh?" The latter. "Make a nice pot?"

Duck's ears slapped against her head.

At once, Sherbet rose from her haunches and slammed her front hooves onto the ground, creating a thunderous thump that Duck was sure could be heard from outside the closed doors behind her.

"Tough luck!"

She jumped over to Flurry's side and pointed at her as she continued, "You see these wings by her side? The horn on her head?" She stepped back, making a wide V that enveloped Flurry's height. "Them both being there at the same time?! Case you didn't know, Duck, Flurry here is royalty!" She giggled. "Yuh huh! Princess Celestia? Princess Luna? Princess Cadance? Princess Twilight, even?! Relatives! Aunts and mother! The... most powerful beings living on this planet, right now! They raise the sun, they raise the moon, they create love, and they cut mountains in half!"

Sherbet shoved Arco out of the way and pressed her nose against Duck's. Duck quaked like a leaf.

"Now don't you dare tell me we'd pass up an opportunity like that! We. Are. Winning this year."

Sherbet, breathing like she'd just run a triathlon, took notice of Arco's presence and bellowed with laughter. She backpedaled, brought up a foreleg, and threw it around Arco's shoulder like a life buoy.

"Arco here?! Ha! Annoyed me and my friends since middle school! Wouldn't luck have it that I'd be in charge of his electives! Pfft! A stallion in Tankery?! Unheard of! Tankery's a women's sport! Putting a guy in there is the most embarrassing thing you can do, ahahahaha!"

The Seniors in the back chuckled along with their apparent leader. Arco looked at the floor.

Sherbet let go of Arco and hummed. "We may just be office aides by definition, but thanks to the whole 'friendship' policy this school enforces, everything we say..." She pointed at the compatriots.

"...goes," the finished as one with a simultaneous head nod.

Duck swallowed hard. Her throat was desert dry, but she opened her mouth and quaked.

"Ch-change their classes."

Sherbet looked at Duck.

And then she snorted and clenched her gut, struggling for air.

"What did youuuu put down, then, huh?"

Arco and Flurry slowly moved back beside Duck, their features unchanging.

"Hey, Dew, pull out Miss Duck Bill here's elective form." The search was swift, and Sherbet magicked Duck's paper toward her head and in front of her eyes, a childish chortle winding down with a dab at her eyes. "Ahhh, all right, let's see here..." It was but a few seconds until Sherbet narrowed her eyes to an impossibly slim level, lowered the paper, and gave Duck a pair of scimitars in place of short daggers. "Art? ART? What kind of sick joke...?!"

FLIP!

STOMP STOMP!

Duck jumped back, Sherbet's face mere centimeters from her own.

"You listen here you little teabag," she began, her voice tinted with Arctic ice, "this is our last year here. We have seen this team lose and lose and lose by your family's hooves as long as we've lived, and we'll be damned if we let that streak keep up. Ponyville used to be legendary. Home of the Elements of Harmony, and the saviors of Equestria, and now we're nothing but a laughing stock to the rest of the world, and especially to those griffons!"

Duck's stomach lurched.

"You know, the same griffons who hurt your own sister and caused us to pull out of Tankery for three years because of the loss?"

She lifted her chin. Sherbet was still bearing down on her with all of her might.

"You know your way around a Panzer. You have more experience than all of these noponies. Don't think I don't know what school you came from. We alllll looked at your records when we heard you'd be coming over here." She prodded Duck's chest with a hoof and stabbed hard here and there. "We need you this year. If anything, do it for your sister, even if she gave us nothing but trouble."

The hoof went back to the ground where it belonged.

Duck clenched her jaw, adjusted her bag's strap, and hissed, "Then it's a good thing that I couldn't care less about my sister."

Sherbet didn't like the answer. She poofed a pencil into her vicinity, turned it over, erased the checkmark next to Art, and scratched one in next to Tankery. Duck felt like she'd just been shot in the gut.

Flurry arose, "What'll Principal Cheese think about all of this?"

Sherbet simply smiled. "He may be friendly, but he knows the stakes."

Arco coughed. "We'll go right now."

Sherbet only nodded. "You will. Flurry knows what'll happen. And the same with you, Arco Piano."

The three kept their peace, but looked over at one another to see if any one of them would break it. As if a wave had passed over him, Arco suddenly blanched and turned white, his mouth plopping open and rambling silently to himself. His eyes grew and his head began fanning the room. Duck gasped and turned back to look at Sherbet.

"You can't do this."

Duck's elective form lifted from the floor and shook in front of her face. The new checkmark remained where it was, and as did Sherbet's smirk.

Which slowly became nothing but a blur, mixing and mingling with the rest of the front office. Duck repeated herself.

"You can't do this!"

She about-faced and spilled out of the doorway, finding the floor and struggling to see her hooves. The sounds of the door crashing closed followed as she faintly heard two separate voices babble and devolve into gibberish.

"I don't know a thing about tanks what am I gonna do oh Gods no I can't do–"

"This isn't happening this isn't happening they'll rip us apart out there–"

"They can't do this they can't I needed Music I can't do that to my parents–"

"My mom my aunties they need my help but–"

"What will they think–"

"What will everypony think if an Alicorn wants nothing to do with–"

"They wouldn't do that they know how much I need–"

"They'll kick me out they can't no–"

"Oh Gods please no no no–"

"No no no no no no no no–"

"No no no no Gods no–"

"No!"

The world came back to her like a rush. The colors and the figures and the shapes burst back into her eyes. The voices that had torn apart her head ceased at once, even silencing a few others nearby.

Arco and Flurry stared at her, their manes in shambles and their rears to the floor.

Duck noticed that she was more gagging than she was breathing.

"I can't let you do this," she said, her brain fogging up.

"What do you–"

"They'll rip you apart out there. Not just the griffons, or the caribou. Our own team."

Flurry sucked in an ounce of air. "They'll single us out," she stated matter-of-factly, coming to the conclusion.

"Valentine, forward!"

"Commander, it looks steep on that ridge!"

"Take it slow."

"Pumpkinhead."

Duck clenched and drooped her head.

"I'll join Tankery."

"You can't!"

"Don't let them push you around!"

Duck was upon them both in an instant, rearing up on her hindlegs and placing her fores onto their shoulders.

"There's not a Gods-given chance on this world that I would let you two suffer alone. I wouldn't be able to live with myself."

"The cliff!"

"Brace!"

Flurry sniffled.

Arco hiccuped.

"You two are the first ponies in my life who have ever given me a chance," Duck resumed, bringing them closer, "and I've only known you for less than two days."

Breathe in.

Breathe out.

CRASH!

"We're in this together, guys. And we'll show them what we're made of."
> Today Is Our First Day! Let's Go To The Drive Tank!
> --------------------------------------------------------------------------

"So how much experience do you have with tanks?"

The voice came to her without a source for her to see—as her head was currently Stuka nose-diving back into the unbearably hot soup on her plastic tray—but she immediately stopped what she was doing, eyes wide, with a few locks of ramen hanging from her lip.

"And Ponyville's final tank has been defeated!"

"We've got a jack in the box, folks!"

"Um, it seems that..."

"It seems that one of Ponyville's combatants has been flung from the vehicle."

"...oh Gods..."

"Paramedics are on the scene!"

"Change the screen for Gods' sake!"

"We're sorry about that, folks! We'll... we'll keep you updated as news comes in."

Griffonia Is Victorious!

She slurped, the ends of her noodles smacking her upper lip and sending broth across her muzzle. Puffing her horribly empty-feeling chest and sending out a rumbly breath of air, Duck brought up a hoof and wiped the mess with her hoof, careful not to get her jacket's sleeve in the process and further sully it with herself. She should say something, lest she get too caught up not doing so and end up being assuringly begrudgingly saved by a nearby individual like usual.

Flurry shuffled in her seat, wringing her hooves together and staring at the orange peel somepony had left behind before they'd taken their seats not five minutes ago. "I'm just a little..." she deflated, as if this was an abnormality, "...nervous, is all. I don't know what they'll even make us do this first session... I was just kind of wondering if you did."

Oh, easy. Probably learning about tank history and a few basics, probably ending in unearthing Ponyville's tanks from the garage and maybe getting assigned to their respective ones.

Duck shook her head. "I... I don't know," she clearly lied. She peeled her ears back, hoping it would redeem her somehow. "I'm sorry."

Flurry let out a long sigh. Duck swallowed a lump down her throat, found it reemerge twice in scale, choked it down, and shook all over. 

Arco, sitting next to Flurry, held his sandwich in mid-bite with both hooves and dipped his chin. "I heard that it's loud... it's not loud is it?"

Oh Gods yes.

"N-no..."

"Even with all the explosions and engine noises and stuff?" He asked further, rolling one of his hooves around with each occurrence.

Especially with all of those.

Duck shook her head on an autopilot. "No."

"Huh," was all Arco had to say back before returning to his food and softly munching on the lettuce and tomatoes nestled between the two whole grains. He was looking to be accruing a fair amount of assorted bread crumbs on his uniform—and on the pink bowtie collared just below his chin, which Duck noted as being an odd choice of colour for a stallion—but was also looking to be completely ignorant or lacking the care to, well, care.

The cafeteria, despite being literally what it was, was as empty as she was more than sure her head was, with only a sparse few ponies dotting the tables here and there, most of them not even bearing food with them. Even the lunch line, a couple or so meters away from her on her right, kept but about six students waiting for a meal patiently, their conversations and banshee-like wails of laughter both alien to her ears and apparently grating to others'. So most ponies either went off-campus to grab lunch or stuck around the vending machines like they were the last ones on Earth, eyeing up chocolate bars and chip bags containing less than half its actual size, which made no sense to Duck but apparently struck logic with everypony else. Good to know.

They sat in a pregnant silence that Duck achingly wished would just go into labour. Was that an okay thing to say? It was kind of rude to want to force someone to have a child... maybe it wasn't okay. At least she'd said it in her head and not out loud. Still, the relative quiet of her and her friends' round table was beginning to rouse a twitch in her hindleg and a blinking in her eye. Arco ate his sandwich, looking around aimlessly and looking at Duck here and there, waggling his eyebrows like it was a game and turning away just as quickly as he'd arrived. Flurry busied herself with her own meal as well, swapping between it and reading the strewn-out papers laying to her immediate right. Duck, straining herself to read the upside-down, bolded, centered, size 12 text on the top, mouthed what appeared to be a flavorful essay title, silently eeped, and shrank back in her chair when Flurry looked like she was going to straighten up and look her way.

Flurry caught her upward gaze as it went anyway, swirling her salad with her magic-enveloped fork.

"Um, are you... well-known around here?"

Not her. Her sister and mother.

Duck sucked in her lower lip.

"I mean, I know you're Pumpkin Seed's sister," she leaned left, "and Pumpkin Bread's other daughter," she stated matter-of-factly as if reading from a book, leaning over to her right. She rested a cheek on her forehoof there, "but those are literally just names to me. I only knew them from hearing them flung at you. I didn't really care much for... Tank War-ooh-dough growing up, so I didn't really follow it at all..."

"I just kind of hope I'm not the only guy there," Arco chimed in, tapping his hooves together like he was trying to begin a cymbal career, "all of them just... staring at me, and laughing at me... Gods, what have I gotten myself into...?"

Flurry placed a foreleg over his shoulder. He gave a little throaty chuckle, not even looking its way. The owner tossed her mane dramatically.

"I'm sure that there will be many stallions there as well."

There was more than a nigh impossibly tiny chance of that being part of this world's specifically chosen reality.

Duck grinned. "I don't think you'll have to worry about that."

Arco leaned his head back and quietly praised the Gods above.

Duck, shovel in hoof in head, brushed the dirt from her hooves, adjusted her sun hat, and promptly returned to her hard hard work of digging herself an even deeper trench line dwarfing the Yakyakistani Stena in both volume and awe-inspiring complexity. It probably even had its own little barracks where her tiny little Duck Bill brain employees dreamed their sweet, ditch digging dreams and slept their terrible, ditch digging sleeps.

She was glad the topic of her mother and sister had gone by without further prying. Flurry must have realized the sensitivity of the topic, for she opened her mouth to resume it not a moment after Duck's reassured thoughts, shut it as both Duck and Arco looked her way, shook her head, and went back to her salad, composed of nothing but green, and splotches of white, and a red circle, and tan squares that crunched. Was she having a stroke? Why was she thinking like that? Leaves, ranch, tomato, and croutons. What... okay.

"Um, Duck," Arco stuttered.

Duck sat up.

"Thanks for, uh... having our backs yesterday."

Her cheeks involuntarily bunched up and she looked at the orange peel hurriedly.

Flurry let loose a wide grin that could have blinded her if the sun had been in the right place. "Yeah! That was really brave of you!"

Well, that was what friends did, right?

"Y-you too."

Arco and Flurry apparently didn't notice her response—or whatever that absolute atrocity had just been—even as she covered her mouth and positively—no, actually, that was negatively—blanched. They'd probably thought she'd suppressed a sneeze.

"I'll go ahead and be the big pony here and say that I'm a nervous wreck right now," Arco admitted, laughing. He raised up a foreleg and showed Duck that even he had the capability to shake that much as well! "Like, I'm pretty much shivering in this seat and we're not even outside yet." He reached to his stomach, and Flurry's grin grew wilder as she nodded furiously. "And my stomach's all tossing about and..." Breathe in. Breathe out. He had the same method as well. "...yeah, I have nothing else to really say, haha. I'm just, like, super anxious right now."

A sudden burst of an uproar rose up from outside the cafeteria. Arco rose from his seat and leaned over, then sat back down, pointing a hoof. "Coming from lunch."

"Yeah," Flurry replied more aptly, intelligently, and astutely than Duck ever could have possibly mustered.

Arco took a sip from his drink, sighed, then all but slammed it back onto the tabletop.

Flurry crunched on a few leaves.

Was this what high schoolers called hanging out? Oh Gods what if she said something and neither of them liked it because it didn't fit the apparent topic? Or what if she said something and they weren't supposed to be doing that in the first place?

In.

And out.

There we go.

Duck found herself staring at Flurry as she dipped her chin and adjusted her black tie, which Duck was still unsure about whether or not it was a required part of the school's uniform. Sherbet had said that the Princesses themselves were relatives of hers, hadn't she? Three of them were aunts and one of them was her mother. It couldn't have been Celestia, or Luna. Was she Princess Twilight's daughter? 

She might as well ask...

"Have to admit, though..." Arco thankfully stopped her, reaching up with both forelegs and stretching, "I really need those extra credits."

Flurry only looked like she was capable of wholeheartedly agreeing at the moment, subjected to quiet little nods and little quiet hums of obvious approval. She was a Gods blessed ray of sunshine. Flurry flashed her teeth.

"Gotta get that hundred-and-four-percent, huh?"

Arco whinnied. "More like ninety-percent. Though I'd love that one too."

Flurry arched an eyebrow. "B's?"

"Around there."

B's? What were they talking about? Like grades? Was Arco an average student? He didn't seem the type to just barely scrape by like some kind of fast food worker. If anything, he was probably taking all Honors classes and loved by each and every one of those teachers. Probably had recommendations from all of them as well.

Flurry fumbled in her seat.

"You might've missed it yesterday, but I was..." she brought up a hoof and wiggled it cutely, "...this close to being suspended." The hoof went down with a small clop against the tabletop. "I guess it's easy for them to fabricate a tardy aaaand... I can't get another."

Arco screwed up his face.

Duck was very happy to not be talking right now. If this was the norm for her year, this was all right with her.

"Tardies? Really?"

Flurry threw her forelegs up, "I spend all night, uh, studying! I know my stuff! Excuuuuuse a girl for being tired!" As Arco snickered into a hoof at Flurry's admittedly manic gesture, she returned to proper, lady-like posture, matted her tie down her chest, and rolled a hoof idly. "On the subject of that, we all kind of were, back there."

Wait what.

Flurry looked her way. Had she said it out loud?

"Well, since our refusal to join Tankery despite it being on our schedule—which, y'know, is obviously wrong—counts as disobedience of the highest degree, we could actually get expelled for not taking it and attending the class."

Flurry went back to munching on her salad casually. As if she hadn't just said what she had.

Duck was now mindful of her breathing, and she was more than absolutely certain it shouldn't have been ramping up as hard as it was at the moment.

Oh Gods there was no alternative. If she didn't take the class she'd be kicked out of school and if she did take the class she'd only ruin everything for everypony else and if she was kicked out of school she'd have to go back to her mother's academy and if she did that it would be right back to more and more tanks and more and more training and more and more and more long days of nothing but gearshifting and cannon firing and kicking up mud and fording streams and climbing mountains and rolling off and breaking her foreleg and gravely injuring her crew and embarrassing her mother and disappointing her just as much and feeling nothing but emptiness and finding comfort in solitude and finally feeling courageous enough to stray from her family and go to public school and oh Gods–

"Does she need a bag?" somepony asked nearby.

She moved in a vomit-inducing blur back to reality, almost jutting forward in her seat from the imaginary G-forces.

A pony was standing next to Arco, one hoof on his shoulder and the other pointing Duck's way.

Arco threw the hoof off and knitted his brow. "Shut up, Tate," he growled with genuine frustration, "leave her alone."

Tate threw up his forelegs like he was surrendering. "Just asking. Looks like she's seen a ghost."

Flurry reached across the table and placed one of her legs on Duck's. "Duck? Are you doing okay?"

Duck cleared her throat. What else was she gonna say? 'No', and be truthful? Pfft.

"Mmhm," she replied softly, nodding.

As Tate and Arco began to talk about their Chemistry homework, which shifted to Music class—Arco jokingly complaining that he was going to be missing Tate's lovely trumpet blaring—and then to what each of their classes this year were.

Just look at them. Talking like two normal ponies. Shutting their eyes and almost spilling onto the ground in comedic reaction, clutching their guts and making humorous gestures. Bringing up names of ponies and things she didn't know about, and asking each other about ponies and things they didn't know about. Yeah, that's Flurry Heart, I met her the first day of school when Duck Bill over there defended us from Mocha Frappe and– yeah, Duck Bill what about Pumpkin Seed yeah it's her sister, but that's just it sister nothing else yeah, we're all in Tankery the class speakers made us and we literally can't do anything about it yeah I said literally that's how you use it no that's figuratively idiot literally is like you actually doing it.

So natural. Words from head and utterance from throat. It just came to them and it was flawlessly received every single time, with a laugh, or a smile, or a thump from a hoof, or a weird look that made her break out in a little grin. How did they do it? It was like Zebrican magic.

Somepony took the seat next to her. She turned to face its source and found the right side of Flurry's head as she finished placing her stuff down in front of her. The Alicorn noticed her noticing of her.

"Hey," Flurry started sweetly, swirling her salad around again. "Are you going to be okay today?"

Was she going to be okay? Just yesterday it was Flurry and Arco that were rambling about joining! She was totally fine! It was themselves she should've been worrying about! Her? No!

Duck hummed, twiddling her hooves with a lack of intent.

"Just like what Arco said. Seems like your sister has a reputation around here, but don't let anypony bother you about it at sixth. You're better than whoever she is, even if I don't even know her. You're not her. You're you. All right?"

Duck appreciated the kind words and reassuring advice, but that was more than just a tad awkward and poorly phrased. Or was she just imagining it as such? No, she was the awkward one. What was she talking about? Flurry could speak more than just a sentence at a time, look at her. Funnier and more sure of herself. Look at that.

A hoof moved her mane out of her eyes.

"I'm just..."

The very prospect of her nonchalantly speaking seemed to perturb Flurry, who flinched and looked her way. Duck floundered.

"...I'm just upset that we have to lie down and take it."

Flurry patted her on the shoulder.

"Well, sometimes you have to do that," she said, ending it with a giggle. Had she said something funny? "Besides, we'll show them. They could've let us take the classes we wanted, but now they've riled up the baddest trio in school. And we'll bite hard."

Duck sucked in her lips.

B-RIIIIING! 

The response was quick, as both her friends and everypony else in the cafeteria slowly rose from their seats and began gathering their stuff.

"Let's kick some butt today, huh?" Flurry asked her.

Duck found the smallest capacity to smile.

She nodded.

"Hai."





Could you really kick butt on a random grassy field?

Duck looked down and kicked a patch of it. Her hoof got stuck, and so she lifted it back up and stood straight.

You couldn't even kick the grass. Was this the Hoofball field?

Her gaze drew to her left as the cool breeze drifted through her and the rest of the crowd, toward the Y-shaped poles and the massive amount of bleachers past the chain-link fence about half a meter from her position. The grass over there was lined with yellows, whites, and more yellows. That was the Hoofball field. Okay.

She fidgeted.

Then where were they at? The frisbee golf course?

They were off-campus. That was for sure. She, Flurry, and Arco had had to go through a metallic gate just to arrive at where they were all standing now, waiting for nothing with their jackets and the sun cooking them nicely and the breeze swiftly reassuring and cooling them with a nice carpet bomb every so often. The rectangular patch of grass they were occupying dipped down a foot or so and continued onward, extending into the massive, shrouded forest that marked the western border of Ponyville High's... well, border. A few collections of ponies in the PE class, trotting around the track at a normal-looking pace, made circles, staring at the likewise group of ponies just... standing there at the edge of campus ground. They probably thought they were all intruders or something from a rival school, scouting the competition out and laughing at the absurdity presented to them.

As for the group, well... they were... something.

At the sight of her—as the gate had made quite the ruckus—one of the ponies, a Pegasus, already waiting crossed her forelegs and grumbled something obviously distasteful and definitely rude, bunching up her red tie atop her now-firmly placed hooves. A Unicorn next to her, adjusting her blue bowtie, glared at the subject of the first, then at the first herself. An Earth Pony—finishing the trifecta of races noticeably perfectly—fussed with her yellow infinity scarf and cursed Celestia of all ponies.

On the contrary, a quartet of mares dressed like they'd just escaped the local coffee shop and aroma store waved happily at her, sipping from cups of steam-fuming liquids and munching on donuts. One of them unbuttoned the flannel shirt under their blue school jacket and fluffed up their beanie. Another minded the dry paint covering her hooves. A third adjusted her glasses. The last was wearing a light-gray cardigan over their jacket—a... notable choice—and what looked to be a crown made of flowers.

She could tell the next group by their blue jerseys already defiled with dirt and muck. Doubly so by their pointing and snickering as soon as she, Flurry, and Arco had appeared. Five jocks. Perfect.

Four ponies, a bit short and stout, minded their own business and sat on the floor. Two played on their handhelds, one sketched on a notepad, and another was listening to very loud music heard even through their gargantuan headphones.

Duck quivered, and she wasn't sure whether it was because of the cold wind coming at her this time's fault or not.

The four different groups of ponies talked amongst themselves, some more than others, some less, some arguing quietly, and others arguing loudly about what sounded like this year's candidates if that made any sense. 

The thumping of Arco's hoof against the Earth finally reached her ears and saved her from herself.

"It's been five minutes." He turned to Flurry, to Duck's left. "Think the teacher bailed?"

Flurry kept a straight face, but her tone betrayed it. "Gods, I hope so. Maybe then we'd have an excuse."

One of the coffee-sippers—wow that felt vehemently rude—lowered her cup and regarded Duck and her friends. "Think they said she'd be late."

Arco laughed. "Course."

"Hope she takes her time. Need t' finish my mocha."

They turned away.

The five parties remained standing in relative peace, at least one of the individuals participating anxiously anticipating anything that could happen in the meanwhile. The sounds of the track-trotters clip-clopped in rising and lowering volume. From what she assumed to be the airplane hangar on the opposite end of the school started up a muffled-but-still-noticeable propeller that started out sputteringly loud and settled into a moderate, infinitely more appealing hum. Something promptly thunked and raaaang against one of the Y-shaped poles. The Rec Games class was probably sharing the field with the PE class.

She hiccuped at once.

An ear went up, but everypony else kept up whatever they were doing.

Flurry and Arco looked her way, then at each other.

WHIRRRRRRRR!

Like some kind of canine, she turned a few degrees and faced directly into the forest.

Rolls-Royce... six-hundred-and-fifty horsepower... loud, and growing louder.

By now, the entire Tankery class had stopped their doings, facing toward the forest as well.

WHIRRRRRR CHNK WHIRRRRR!

Crumphill. Most certainly.

As if to confirm her assumptions and suspicions, a Mark 3 Crumphill Centurion MBT burst from the massive brush lining the edge of the woods, doing a little hop into the air about a hundred or so yards from her and the others. There, its engine revving up and its Driver shifting gears, it veered to the left and began doing donuts in the dirt, kicking up grass and soil that flung up from behind it and mixed in with the cloud of dust that had followed it since its emergence. Finished with one spin, it traveled two meters before making another half-circle, heading toward the center of the field, doing another full donut, and rolling their way... fast.

Duck stood her ground, but everypony else performed a double-take and motioned to move away. Flurry grabbed at her side, but she remained still. She knew this maneuver. Her mother had playfully done it countless times before. Run at the crowd at full speed, then skid to a stop just before you had the risk of hitting them.

The Centurion did exactly that, even turning about to make a parallel line with the students who were, by now, probably sullying themselves. Duck felt on the verge of that too. She couldn't call herself exempt.

Its engine roaring and bellowing, the Centurion kept completely still like a statue, with nothing occurring from both its side and the students' side. It seemed as if the entire latter faction was collectively holding their breath, waiting for whatever was going to happen next.

The engine rumbled to a halt, and the field was quiet once more...

...until the Commander's cupola opened up with a BREEE THUNK!, and a light blue mare with a flowing chocolate mane emerged, lifted herself from the confines of her roomy position, vaulted over the armored side-skirts, revealed her army-green uniform, and strode forward a few inches. She lifted her head, smiled to herself, scanned the crowd above her from left to right then back from the left again, and gave them all a salute.

"Good afternoon, students! Welcome to Tankery!"

She didn't give them time to applaud—though a few ponies did—and beckoned them with a hoof. 

"Come on down! We've much to do today!"

The—if her mental math was correct—twenty students took pause and looked confusedly at each other for presumed guidance. None of them knew exactly what to do.

Go down and join her. You know what to do.

Duck smooshed an imaginary cigarette into the grass by her hooves.

Finally, one of the jocks, at the insistence of her teammates, stepped forward, and the rest of the class followed suit, trotting down the incline and gathering around the left side of the teacher's Centurion.

"I'm Mrs. Red Wood, but you can call me Mrs. Red!"

She approached the first group on her left—the ones who'd been keeping to themselves—and shook their hooves with noticeable excitement. She went to each and every pony lined up around her, exchanging greetings and giddy nods as she went. Finally, she reached Duck's little sector of the crowd and shook Arco's hoof.

"Pleased to meet you!"

Flurry's.

"Ah, Flurry Heart! Never expected to see you here!"

"Neither did I."

Duck's.

...

Duck's.

Mrs. Red had stopped, her hoof raised to shake Duck's but staying where it was near her body. She looked as if she was about to yell at her for being who she was.

Suddenly, she almost zoomed forward, about wrenching Duck's foreleg out of its socket as she exclaimed, "Duck Bill! I'd heard you were attending Ponyville High this year, but I didn't think it was true!" A few of the other students gave Duck a stink eye. "I'm so proud of you for joining, even after your sister's last match! Oh, this year is gonna be a good one!"

She stepped back.

Mrs. Red lifted a hoof and lightly rapped on the side of her tank. At once, its engine sputtered back to life and shuddered forward. She brandished an ear-to-ear grin. "If you'll all follow me, we'll head where the tank's going and go see the garages we'll be using for this year!"

This all seemed so surreal. She'd come here to avoid the very machine the teacher was commanding, and yet here she was following it. It was as if she'd never left. Her stomach gurgled and grumbled at her the extent of her stupidity. She threatened to empty it. It shut up.

"Now, what's everypony here know about tanks?!"

There was a soft murmur amongst the marching crowd that wasn't all too helped by the Centurion's growling engine and thundering tracks.

"Uh," voiced somepony, "they were designed by Lieutenant Applejack before the Global War."

"The Equestrian tanks were! Good job!" Mrs. Red commended, bunching up her cheek. "Anypony else?"

One of the jocks chortled. "They go boom." She and her posse went bonkers.

Mrs. Red rolled her eyes and had to nod. "Very good. At least you know your basics." She cleared her throat and spoke louder as the Centurion snapped a few loose twigs and tree branches that had been neglected in the field. "Tanks were one of Equestria's main fighting forces before the War began, alongside our planes and our battleships!" She thumped the Centurion again. "This is a Centurion Mark 3, sent over from our allies over in Crumphill here recently! Now, this kind of tank is unable to be used in Tank Warudo! Can anypony tell me why?"

It was built after the armistice. Tank Warudo was designed to be fought as if the war was actually happening, and everything that had been made was to be used as such.

"Y-you said recently," one of the coffee-drinkers fumbled, their coffee having singed their tongue.

"Yes!" Mrs. Red shouted, "Tanks built after the armistice are unable to join Tank Warudo. It is illegal to field one on any occasion." She suddenly became aware of the sand-colored building that Duck and the others had already been noticing before. She clacked her teeth together loudly and, presumably, accidentally. "Ohp! It looks like we've reached the garage, class! Before we open it up, I'd like you all to find a few partners!"

At once, the four groups bunched together like they'd been part of a magnetic field. The Centurion continued onward, stopping at the far left garage as Mrs. Red and the class stayed where they were just at the edge of the business end of the wall.

The—for lack of a better term—nerds talked among themselves.

The coffee-lovers exchanged smiles.

The jocks hoof-bumped and giggled.

The crude trifecta, though incredibly hesitant at first, grumbled curses and bitterly formed a half-hearted crew.

Flurry and Arco hopped next to Duck without even a second thought.

This prompt convergence left a sole pony that Duck hadn't noticed before, a Unicorn with a light gray coat and a navy blue and light blue striped mane who looked about and caught sight of Duck in kind. She blinked. They blinked.

Flurry let out a long, long breath of air.

Arco piped up quietly next to Duck.

"You remember those bullies you fought the other day?"

Duck nodded. What exactly was he meaning?

He pointed at the Unicorn, who was now glaring threateningly.

"That's Bluebell. That's who they follow."

Duck went white.

Bluebell raised her hoof, causing Mrs. Red to ask, "Yes?"

"Can I change classes?" Bluebell inquired, her voice kind of raspy.

Mrs. Red shook her head.

Bluebell, deflating and hissing like a balloon at one of Duck's one-pony birthday parties, stomped over to where Duck and her friends stood, threw her rear onto the ground, crossed her forelegs grumpily, and muttered, "Grouped up with a Pumpkinhead. Great."

Duck shied away.

Flurry gave Bluebell a glare that she couldn't see.

Duck looked up at Mrs. Red as she continued.

"Good to see! It seems like we're all good! Now, if you don't already, remember the names of your group members! They are now your tank crew for the year!"

Duck would have spewed water onto the ground if she'd been drinking any. Stuck inside a tank—first off—with the leader of a pack of bullies?!

The rest of the class wooped and hollered, trying to seem excited.

"Now, onto today's subject!" Mrs. Red proclaimed, lifting her chin and beginning to pace back and forth in front of them all. "Tankery teaches a mare to be prim, proper, and polite. In this class, you will learn kindness, you will learn sportsmanship, you will learn grace, and, above all else, you will learn friendship."

"As if we don't have enough of that," Bluebell murmured.

"In the face of danger, you will not retreat, you will not despair, and you will not falter! You will learn to have nice conversations with your opponents, answering a shell with another, bigger shell of your own!" Mrs. Red stopped and faced them. "I understand if you feel a tad overwhelmed by all of this—because, honestly, there is a lot to learn before your first match—but we will be working hard these next few weeks to ensure that you are as prepared as you could be!" First match?! "Now! If you'd follow me, we'll go and enter the garages where you all will be working! Come on, then!"

They all followed Mrs. Red as she about-faced with perfect finesse, marching at opposite times as her that both she and Duck seemed to notice and cringe at. Turning to her left and making a horizontal circle with her hoof, she directed the Centurion move about fifty meters away so the leftmost door could be opened without any fuss. Duck watched it as it went, and almost collided with Flurry as she and the class halted at once. Mrs. Red, rearing up on her hindlegs, grabbed hold of the two handles marking the rightmost garage's entryway, wrestled them ajar, and threw them open, where they thunked on the adjacent, apparently brick, walls. Being motioned to continue following, the class stepped into the garage and began whispering to each other.

The walls were lined with rectangular windows in four-by-three borders, letting in little blocks of sunlight that created a Rubik's Cube shape in its glistening wake. Crates upon crates upon crates sat on wheeled carts, containing belts of MG ammunition that hung over the edges like froth on a glass of cider. Patches of oil and grease dotted the floor in streaks and drops, mixing in with the assorted handymare tools, spare tracks, shell casings, tarps, and road wheels that lay all around there as well. The interior, a dreary, brick-lain tan, almost made Duck want to vomit, though mostly because of the smell that she so, so hated. Pillars reaching from the floor to the ceiling marked each "bay" for the tanks... that weren't there. In fact, apart from what she'd just said, the entire garage was mostly empty.

Save for one thing that caused Duck to pause and stare at.

Sitting in front of them, its canvas cover torn to shreds, its left track disconnected and laid flat beneath it, the Commander's cupola propped open, its entire body covered in scratches, its armor chipped in countless places, what looked to be explosive damage along its front end, and, to top it off, the cannon barrel itself completely folded upward, was a rusty-looking tank, Crumphill-made if she was to guess.

The class' voices echoed.

"Whoa, it's a tank..."

"It's bigger than I thought it would be..."

"Look at it."

"It's all beat-up..."

"Poor tank..."

Somepony pointed at the far side of the garage. Everypony looked its way.

A brown tarp, massive in size, was bundled up on the floor.

"What's that?"

Mrs. Red answered, "The other tank crew." She clapped her hooves together and beamed. "They must already be out and about training for the season!"

"Who are they?"

"Are they Seniors?"

Mrs. Red shrugged. "Oh, nopony knows. The Commander never pokes her head out of her hatch."

Duck, in the meanwhile, had already turned to face the beat-up old tank sitting before them. And, her hooves on autopilot and Flurry whispering her name, began trotting toward it.

"What's she doing?"

"She okay?"

Her heart was beating out of her chest when she stopped an inch from its side. Her brain instantly switched back onto the frequency it had taken back in the boarding school, and she spoke without even thinking twice about it, "This is a Crumphill A34 Comet, Type A. You can tell by the double Normanedy cowlings on its rear that this is a later version." She hadn't seen this tank before on the Horsepowers team. It must have been one of their snipers. One of her hooves rose up to lightly caress its rounded mudguards. Crumphill. Just like her family had been using for years. It may have been a tank, but it was a familiar, incredibly welcomed sight to her.

She turned toward the class to find them giving her weird looks. All but Mrs. Red, who simply grinned. She would have peeled her ears back and fumbled in her dialogue. She would have sauntered back over to Flurry's side and hid herself beneath her hooves. Her head was telling her so.

But she didn't.

She raised her voice.

"Its armor isn't much to talk about, only being hard in the front..." She looked back at the front plate and smirked. "...but it can punch holes with the best of them." She pointed at the cannon, now. "77mm High-Velocity cannon, one of the best they have in Crumphill, able to penetrate even the toughest of Griffonian tanks."

She rapped on the mudguard...

...and jumped back.

SSSFICK!

SSSFICK!

SSSFICK!

SSS-THUMP!

The three—four, if the thump had been the concrete ground—white flags of the Comet had immediately deployed from its left side just an inch from Duck's face, on the opposite right side, and next to the Commander's cupola. 

Composing herself, and genuinely feeling curious, Duck wheeled around and raised an eyebrow.

"What happened to the other tanks?"

Mrs. Red immediately straightened her posture, eyes shut and her white teeth glistening as she scratched the back of her head.

"That's a... that's a long story..."

The students looked her way as one singular unit.
> Let's Find A Tank! Everyone Is Lucky!
> --------------------------------------------------------------------------

"So... just around here, she said?"

"Well, that's what she said but..." He took a second to dispel a breath of air into the rolling wind and thereafter aptly clucked his tongue. "...I'm not seein' a thing."

"Just keep at it, girls! We'll find something."

Oh, they'd find something. If they were out here looking for a wide expanse of thick, tall, dew-speckled grass, a rather sizable ditch laden with a mess of sharp branches and splintered tree logs more akin to a spider's dastardly web, or the prospect and dare-she-admit pride of trodding through the deep woods slick with mud and puddles, they were surely in luck. As it was, there was nothing else around as far as Duck could make out, so their scouting mission might have been better off in search of fuel for a bonfire. Standing just at the edge of the forest clearing, her jacket still spotted with assorted pine needles, twigs, and the occasional drop of leaf water, Duck sucked in a breath and let it out once she'd realized she was choking herself. Sputtering like she'd just smoked a cigarette, she held a hoof up to her mouth and, apparently, covered for Arco, who had cursed at that exact moment after seemingly stabbing himself with the end of a tree branch.

Flurry turned his way and scowled, the two of them currently picking through the ditch stretching about twenty feet or so to the left and right directly in front of them. Duck hadn't been looking where she was going as they emerged from the brush, and, while simultaneously discovering the trench line, was practically inches from tumbling into it before Flurry's magic yanked her away by the force of her entire body back onto precious dirt. Duck hadn't had much experience with being violently levitated before—having been born into an all Earth Pony family—and was still in the process of gathering up her bodily fluids before they spilled out of her in a sickly projectile onto the grass.

Feeling the slightest bit queasy, she brought a hoof up to her stomach and rubbed at it absent-mindedly, her mind diverting from her sickliness and to the large matter—or, well, she guessed five matters—at hoof.

Mrs. Red had been... noticeably—understandably, looking back on it—hesitant and painfully slow in admitting that, as it turns out, the previous Tank Warudo team from Ponyville High School didn't have a lot of... team spirit, and simply abandoned their assigned tanks in various, random places around town and just outside of it after the results of their final match against Griffonstone. Combined with a general bitterness and the sudden hospitalization of their Commander, they'd left their vehicles empty on fuel and completely uncared for in appearance, which the three or so years of dormancy only took terrible advantage of. The others in the class may have gone blindly along with Mrs. Red's explanation, not really knowing any wiser, but Duck's expansive history with the sport helped her delve a bit deeper than that.

The last loss against Griffonstone had been a major blow to Ponyville, and while the Horsepowers did take their tanks out for ruthless joyrides that were the opposite of joyful only to ditch them, it wasn't just out of diesel-injected anger and general soreness at the loss itself.

They did it to ensure that Ponyville would never have to compete again.

Or want to.

Or even be able to.

Duck would have called it a genius idea—and actually had the first few seconds after realizing it—if she hadn't been sent on a search-and-rescue mission actually searching for and rescuing the abandoned tanks. The A34 Comet was quickly found out to have been the only tank anywhere near the school grounds, and so Duck, Flurry, Arco, and the rest of the class had been sent off to find the other four before Luna's Object arose in the blue sky, which still shone a bright, vibrant blue as Duck looked its way and minded the wispy, long, puffy, and stringy clouds that had just missed its target of Ponyville proper. The sun, about a quarter of the way down from its position straight up in the noon sky, caused her to raise a hoof up and shield her eyes from danger.

It must have been at around two in the afternoon, if her Godsawful math skills were of any use to her at the moment. School would be getting out soon, but, as Mrs. Red had put it, this was to be their "first assigned homework," which was pretty much an obvious workaround to have them keep searching high and low for the tanks even after after hours. Which she guessed would be, like, on hours. Stupid. It was just like studying for a test or scribbling away at an English essay, except this time—besides the fact that Duck was actually doing it—her point of interest and absolute focus was dead set on a nigh ten-ton explosive war machine that could've been anywhere from right in front of their faces at the foot of a ninety-degree cliffside to buried under their hooves in a totally collapsed cave section.

Emphasis on her's, as it seemed that the rest of their search party apart from Arco and Flurry wasn't so keen on the whole "search" part.

She realized she'd misplaced Bluebell, and turned around to find the Earth Pony quartet behind her standing around, idly conversing with one another like they were waiting for class to start. Pursing her lips, Duck swiveled back around and watched to see if Bluebell had somehow snuck past her and vaulted down into the ditch to help the other two investigate the nothing pile of nothing, then, finding nothing, about-faced once more, her mind evidently working hard to get her to collapse in a daze.

The four "hipsters", as Bluebell had called them with a mutter under her breath as they began heading out, stood on respective picnic blankets stitched with four different patterns in a lenient two-by-two pattern resembling a slightly misshapen square, humming to themselves as they presented their rears to the scorching sunlight and stretched forward as far as they could muster, like they were in a quiet gym in the corner of town and not on an itchy, grassy, cold field.

Where... what? When had they...

Duck had sworn she'd heard something about a Down Syndrome dog—which sounded horribly crude—before the four had suddenly snapped into their poses, but she had been on the brink of vomiting then and hadn't had either the ear or the time to listen to them.

Now reassuringly well off and safe in her little stomach, however, she could do nothing but listen to them as they harmonized with a single, relatively high note and hummed it to the point of sounding like a collection of a colony of bees. Duck looked around in a panic just to make sure. She was... somewhat sure that she had an allergy of sorts. Somewhat.

The one bearing the flower crown, her poofy blonde mane almost grazing the grass beneath her blanket, led the quartet in their now obvious yoga session, slowly inching forward on her four hooves and placing her cardigan-crested stomach against admittedly soft-looking cloth with a long, serene sigh. The others, following suit perfectly in time with her, joined her still in returning to their prior positions and remaining fixated on the ground directly below them.

Duck abruptly became aware of a struggle in the masses, as the mare behind Miss Flower Crown began shaking, at first almost unnoticeable and then unmistakably, violently, in her right hindleg. Gritting her teeth and letting out a grunt, she reached a hoof up to stop her glasses from falling off her deeply crinkled nose and practically stomped back into formation, seemingly agitated with her own lack of control.

Miss Flower Crown spoke up finally, her voice gentle and honestly angelic, "Candle Light, dear, you need to..." She trailed off, pushing her stomach forward once more and breathing out, "...cleanse your body of all impurities. Relax, and... hoo... focus."

Candle Light, shutting her eyes at once, sucked in a long breath and let it out after five whole seconds. Duck realized she had been, involuntarily, doing the same, and looked away before any of the four could somehow take notice from behind their two eyelids.

The four settled back into a normal standing position on all-fours, wiping their hooves on their jackets and flinging sweat from their brow quietly.

Miss Flower Crown, leading the others in balancing on their right legs alone and stretching their lefts toward the sky, spoke up once more.

"It appears that we have an audience, girls."

Was she supposed to be doing something else? How could she have avoided watching them? They were practically two feet from each other. Duh, idiot. You could have gone down to help Flurry and Arco. Why didn't you do that?

Duck fidgeted.

"You are Duck Bill, if I'm not mistaken?"

A hoof went up to screw with her mane. If she nodded, would Miss Flower Crown even notice?

She decided to test it.

Sure enough, the mare's smile widened.

"Namaste, Duck Bill," she said with everlasting breath, as if every single one she took was one to cherish and hold onto for as long as was earthly and bodily possible. Duck could hold her breath for about five whole seconds before feeling like she was about to pass out, so the idea wasn't too odd to her. The mare returned to all fours and finally looked Duck's way. "Sweet Tea."

Sweet tea? She wasn't really a tea kind of pony, but she could drink it if they offered. Did they have some nearby? Where were they hiding it? Were they going to pull fine china out of their backpacks as well?

The one with the beanie waved. "I'm Pine Needle."

Oh they were talking about their names.

A hoof almost went up to thunk her head.

Idiot. Idiot.

Her hooves still caked with different splotches of paint, the other one grinned. "Vanilla Pudding."

Pine snickered. Vanilla shot her a glare and, flashing her teeth, raised an arm to approach Pine, who flinched away with a howl of laughter.

The unfocused one touched her chest, reaffirming, "I'm Candle Light, but I suppose that Sweety already spilled the beans on it."

Beans, too? How much stuff did they have in their backpacks?

...

Oh Gods now they were all looking at her. Complete strangers who'd given her a rather peaceful embrace, and yet she hadn't a single word or conversation starter to give them. Should she start by asking them how old they were no that would be weird and intrusive what did ponies her age call it it was like an ice pick or something something with ice she needed one right now to break up whatever awkward wall of stone was being erected in between her and the quartet it probably looked just like her with her name written right underneath for everypony to see Gods say something!

A voice in the distance rose in volume for a brief second before quieting back down again to general mumbles. Sweet Tea, recoiling at its peak, looked toward the source and swept a hoof its way. She regarded Duck with an odd look that—even having barely known her—appeared completely out-of-place on her light-colored face, "I think I heard that that one is... Bluebell?"

Duck looked over at Bluebell, who was currently in the middle of picking up rocks from a massive pile next to her, which she threw at a nearby oak tree idly but with obvious, accurate intent.

Oh Gods she'd have to be inside a tank with her all year...

"Isn't she a Unicorn?" 

Duck flushed her cheeks, train of thought diverted away from the cliff it had been chugging toward. "Y-yeah," she said like she was more than slightly unsure of the answer.

A low humming caught Duck's attention, giving her a way out, and she swiftly glanced about to face it with a sideways frown. Flurry, her magic throwing up a stick about half the length of her body, caught Arco's hoof. Arco, caught off-guard by the apparent weight gain, fell to his stomach, stabilized himself, and pulled Flurry up from the depths, where she stuck out her tongue like she'd smelled something rancid and began brushing the brambles from her sleeves. Arco dusted himself off.

"Well, nothing in there," Flurry began, her horn letting go of the stick and going to pick the sticks out of her mane. She continued to speak, as if the concentration better spent not tearing her hair apart was nothing to her, "Think we can go back and tell Mrs. Red we didn't have any luck?"

On the subject of simply abandoning their search, Duck did have a lot of homework that desperately needed doing, checking, rechecking, and editing—namely from her History class, as her teacher seemed to expect a Senior-level of non-stop dedication for a first-week five-slide presentation on her assigned location—but, well... Arco and Flurry were out here, and she was much too afraid to go and ask them if they wanted to head out because they might think that she didn't want to be around them, something both astronomically untrue but also kind of necessary if she were to actually get it all done by the night's end... oh Gods she was a horrible friend.

Slurrrp.

Duck raised a brow and looked at Pine Needle, who was in the process of chugging from a steaming coffee cup cuffed with a brown, cardboard sleeve bearing what looked to be two 2's intersecting upside-down.

Where were they getting these things?!

"Aaah, ahem, I think she'd probably see through our massive bull, but it might be worth a shot," Pine agreed, smacking her lips to rid herself of the heat assuredly collecting at the roof of her mouth.

"Far as I can tell," Arco chimed in, scratching his nose audibly, "there's not much out here besides trees and grass. Doubt we'd find anything concrete, let alone metal."

In the corner of Duck's eyes—as she'd respectfully turned to look at Arco when he started speaking—she noticed that Pine Needle, Candle Light, Sweet Tea, and Vanilla Pudding had all gone bug-eyed and alligator-lipped. Flurry noticed it too, and made a motion to silently ask the four if she was the focus of attention. Arco noticed Duck's noticing, and then Flurry's noticing, and then Flurry's motion, and then finally the hipsters' expressions.

He blinked.

"Uh... yeah?"

"Wait, you're a guy?" Vanilla asked at once.

At once, Arco's face fell flat, and he looked at Duck with what appeared to be one of absolute, Godsless betrayal.

Or he just really needed to go to the bathroom.

Pine snickered.

Sweet Tea covered her muzzle with a hoof.

Vanilla noticed the tension, and more-than-just-slight rudeness, and scratched her neck incessantly, "We... legitimately didn't know," she dug her hole further.

Arco bore more strength than Duck could ever dream of having, and simply smiled through the misunderstanding, "Arco Piano." He brought up a hoof to shake Pine's, which was closest to him despite being buried in her blanket now tossed up in a heap. Pine graciously accepted it, giving him a wink and ending the gesture with a hoof bump. Arco swept his still-outstretched foreleg across the way, at Flurry.

"That's Flurry Heart."

Flurry bounced her mane with a giggle, "Pleasure to meet you all."

Duck stared at the ground. Gods, where would she be without Arco and Flurry by her side? She knew where she was every other class period she had where they were absent—which was, literally, every other class period she had—hiding in the back and never raising her hoof in fear of actually getting called on because nopony else did the same out of general laziness.

"So... Duck," Pine hesitated as if the name was something to shy away from barely mentioning, which, honestly, wouldn't surprise her as being some kind of rule in a household or two, "that nose of yours out of commission?"

Duck had had a bit of an unwanted advantage when it came to searching for tanks, as the distinct smell of motor oil and machine gun grease was more than perfectly familiar with her, and so she'd led the pack through the muggy woods like some kind of bloodhound on a raccoon's scent until the trail had gone unfortunately-but-also-kind-of-fortunately cold... which had ended up being exactly where they were all still currently standing about. Believing the source of the oil and grease to be lying in the shadowed depths of the branch-stuffed ditch, Arco and Flurry were quick to hop in to look, while the others promised a lookout for anything else of note.

"Well, if she smelled anything, I don't doubt another mile or so trek," Vanilla piped up, bringing up a hoof and rolling it around at the wrist.

Candle Light pointed across the field at a distant, long, leafless black stick protruding from the ground. "There appears to be a tree over there, but apart from that, there's not a telltale sign of anything else..."

"Is this even mapped out territory?" Vanilla asked Flurry, who had been given the map of the country—a very, very safe idea.

Pine snorted, "Yo-o-o-o, did we go off the grid?"

Vanilla looked at Pine with an instant whip of her head and, clenching her eyes as tightly as a sphincter, went into her head voice. "Off the gri-id!"

Pine joined in, mimicking the mare's expression, "In the treeeeeetops!"

Candle screwed up her face and now resembled a bruised pear. "Gods, you two would like that album."

"Album's okay, but that song... wew!"

Vanilla hugged herself. Duck... knew what it looked like. "Put that one on repeat!"

Arco caught her attention, leaning over and eyeing up the hipsters as they continued gushing about something that sounded Prench. "Anything at all?"

Duck gave a sniff of the air to act coyly, then wrinkled her nose as she noticed the strong perfume wafting from Sweet Tea nearby, bearing a mark similar to some kind of coastal, mountainous pine forest very far apart from the other kind of forest smell she and the others—she assumed—were now soaked with, emanating, and wholeheartedly regretting. Turning her head in both a genuine reaction and a tactical maneuver, she caught... something from way down... somewhere...

Oh... oh Gods, now it was getting stronger, why was it getting stronger? 

Exposed oil... and the sticky residue of unmanaged and unmaintained machine gun grease.

Duck sniffed again, this time much heavier than she would've liked doing.

Pine took the opportunity in a flash, spreading her forelegs and lowering herself to the ground with a wild grin.

"What's that, Duck?"

Flurry gave her a hushed, "Shut up," as Duck moved her head around and scanned her surroundings. It wasn't coming from back in the forest, because that's where all of the animal feces and rainwater were being forcefully and aggressively ignored by her at the moment, and it wasn't coming from further down along the skirts of the woods either...

Duck faced directly ahead, toward the expansive field stretching out before them all.

Pine groaned overdramatically.

Flurry actually hid her own dismay by tilting her head and pretending to fix her mane that was still just as perfect as ever.

Bluebell called from her artillery battery, a hoof against the side of her mouth, "Hey! We doing something?!" Nopony answered the Unicorn or even gave her a glance, and so she grumbled a very loud, gravelly grumble, flung one of her rocks onto the grass, and started their way at a jogging pace.

Duck coughed into a hoof and shook all over all of a sudden, then waved said hoof and crisply reported, "I think there's something across the way."

She waited for somepony to move up and take the lead, but not a single person moved from their spots, either patting the ground idly, humming a whole-note brimming song, fixing their mane, or just standing about, waiting for movement just as she. Flurry, sensing the pause, just barely lifted a foreleg to begin moving before quickly putting it back down, placing it into the dirt, shaking her head softly, and turning to smile at Duck. She nudged her head to her right, across the field.

Oh Gods Flurry wanted her to do it?!

Duck sucked in a long breath of air that about caused her to burst from inside or violently implode, then slowly pushed it out, catching the others' attention due to its rather—accidental—high volume.

Oh Gods what if she tripped or what if she kind of half-stumbled forward like she didn't know how to walk they'd probably think the same they'd probably think she didn't know how to walk but then how did she get all the way out here without assistance of any kind well maybe she was just lucky or some kind of one hit wonder only able to make it a certain distance before falling like she had that one rare Pegasus disease where you shook like an earthquake if you stood on your legs but could hover and fly and zip and zoom and scoot and hover again with the simplest of ease did she have the Earth Pony version of that wait but if she did she wouldn't be able to do anything because Earth Ponies were built to use their legs and if her legs didn't work she'd be a vegetable or in her case a slab of thin bone-on meat but if her legs didn't work she probably would have been confined to a wheelchair long ago but what if it was like a brain tumor and it would just pop up one day no stop that!

"Um..."

Duck cleared her throat.

"This way."

She took a step forward, and then another, and then another, and then another, and now she was walking okay she was walking she was doing well oh there goes everypony else she was walking okay good thank the Gods.

"So you guys find much in that ditch?" Vanilla asked somepony.

Duck turned her head to answer, then realized she hadn't been in the ditch, which was more a trench than anything else, if they were going to be accurate...

"More a trench than anything else," Arco replied, "but, no, nothing but spider webs and brambles. Think I found a dead body though. Must've been where my dad went all those years ago."

Pine giggled.

Sweet Tea asked, "What of your... stick, Flurry?"

Flurry hummed a single note, then dropped it immediately. Her horn began to take up her pastime. "I just like sticks."

That tree Vanilla had seen... they were getting closer to it with every step, and it looked like a thin tree with all of its branches and leaves torn from it, which would make sense, seeing as how if there were any kinds of wind patterns rushing through the plain, it would rain a special kind of heck upon the lone log, but it looked almost... too straight? Maybe she was seeing things that weren't there.

"Hey, Duck, can you, like, tell what kind of tank it is just by its smell?"

The stench was more peculiar than most other tanks she'd caught whiffs of her in her years, and immediately brought back memories of her boarding school, but it was just at the edge of a carbon copy, so... if she had to, she would have to guess Equestrian or Crumpish make, as their proximity and love of sharing tools led to mixings of parts, ideas, and, more on the subject matter, oils. Both the griffons and the yaks had found magical ways for their motor oils to bear no foul stench—possibly a method to avoid being pounced upon by a greenhoof with a barely passable sense of smell—so it couldn't have possibly been either of them.

"I would have to say it's definitely one of ours." Good start. "However, Griffonia stole many things from us, one of them being our prized oils during their night raids over here, so, if we're lucky, it could be a Griffonian Panzerkampfwagen V Panther for all I know!" Bad! Bad! Now you've raised their hopes up! Idiot!

"All I got was 'Panther'," Pine admitted, "anypony else?"

"Panzerkampfwagen V. That's the Romane numeral for 'five', if you didn't know, Pine," Candle answered her, "literally meaning 'armoured combat vehicle' with a designation of five."

"Is that the same as a tank?"

Duck opened her mouth, then shut it.

Actually, even she was kind of hoping it turned out to be a Panther. Having a good Griffonian tank as their backbone could prove to be a very effective way to prioritize targets and cause distractions. Adding on, its 75mm cannon would make a great ally for them and a terrifying opponent for others, able to take down practically any kind of tank it could face its barrel toward if it actually managed to do so without getting seen and immediately thereafter lit up like some kind of metallic Hearth's Warming tree. The Panther/not Panther odds were incredibly stacked against her—a daunting one-to-one-million ratio—but she held out for as long as it took her to take notice of the black, leafless "tree" once more.

They approaching it more rapidly now, thanks to her own trotting pace, and it was now very, very obvious...

"That's one hell of a tree," Vanilla cursed from behind her and to her right.

Duck now found that she was moving at a very small incline toward the crest of what she noticed to be rapidly softening and faltering ground. The "tree" stood at an odd angle away from Duck just at the edge of an outstretching of thick grass, and as she grew closer, its identity worked its way from her eyes, to her brain, stayed there awhile, and finally moved to her mouth, where it waited to be stuttered and jumbled out awkwardly and stupidly into the world she occupied.

"What is it, Duck?" Flurry asked.

Duck brought up a hoof and rapped on the side of the "tree". It was hollow, just as she'd expected. She turned about at the waist and addressed the crowd of seven.

"It's no tree." Her hoof went back to it. "It's a cannon. A Vickers Quick Firing 2-Pounder to be exact." She returned to face the cannon, and rubbed her chin, "Which brings to question what it's attached to..." She trailed off as she took a step forward, lifted her hoof, and attempted to test the ground to see if, in the off chance, something was buried underneath that they could bring a few shovels back over to and dig out after an hour or so of work.

What she didn't expect was for the entire hill of earth to, in a snap, fall away from her like an age-old artifact finally in the hooves of a long-lost-tomb explorer, where it crashed in one whole deafening noise and kicked up dust in its wake that completely blinded Duck and the others as to the heavily anticipated contents of the newfound hole in the floor. Realizing that if she looked over the edge at the moment she'd be staring right down the business end of a barrel, Duck trotted over to her right a couple feet and stared down into the abyss... that was actually about twenty feet down. 

First, Flurry rested her head on Duck's left shoulder. Arco followed on the other shoulder. Pine Needle, judging by her grunts of displeasure, was standing on her tippy-hooves to look over Arco's head. Candle Light squeezed in from underneath Flurry. Sweet Tea simply stood next to Duck, completely out of the way. Vanilla Pudding did a little hop onto Pine's back and crawled forward to look from atop her beanie. Bluebell shoved her way next to Sweet Tea and grinned into the hole, the Earth Pony completely calm despite the screwing-up of her blessed flower crown.

Pine Needle was the first to audibly, noticeably, breathe, and actually move.

"Whoa, are those Atari cartridges?"

She slid backward like a retreating cobra, causing Vanilla to collapse onto the ground in a heap and an oof!

Sweet Tea tutted, shaking her head. "Trash, trash, and more trash." She disappeared from view and reappeared right behind Pine Needle as they began to descend down the large pile of rocks on the opposite side of the hole.

Arco raised an eyebrow. "People really throw away their TVs here?" He lifted his head from Duck's shoulder and went toward Tea and Pine, muttering, "Wonder if they've still got HDMI cables..."

Vanilla, having finally risen from her fall of complete and utter annihilation, let out a gargantuan gasp. "Car wheels! I could use those for my project!" She fled the "viewing deck" in a cloud of dust and pushed past Arco to get down as fast as possible. Pine was already sitting on her haunches, picking up little black boxes amidst scatterings of plastic bags and assorted garbages and examining each one of them with clear intent. 

"Heh," went Bluebell next to her, who didn't even acknowledge her even being there as she exclaimed, seemingly to herself, "wonder if there're still some bullets left in those cans..."

Duck looked at Flurry once she'd gotten off her shoulder. Candle Light adjusted her glasses and raised a brow Duck's way, as if she were about to speak. Duck lifted her chin in case she was, but Arco's voice called out to her from inside the collapsed cave.

"Hey, Duck?! Think you might wanna see this."

She minded the tank cannon as she went around the hole's rim, watching as more and more of it and its attached body was uncovered in her turret ring-like rotation. The slightly raised turret itself and its massive cupola were the first things Duck noticed once the figure was in full view, and only once she'd dropped down onto the crumbled earth next to her classmates did she finally, audibly, make her observations, apart from noting the obvious fact that the entire tank itself was facing toward the sky, as if its crew had backed it into the hole and simply hugged the side wall it had made contact with.

"Christie suspension, four spaced-out roadwheels, angled turret..." She narrowed her eyes and took a step toward it. "That would be a Crumpish Cruiser Mark IV A13. No mistaking it. These were to be used in Operation Bear Tram had Crumphill needed to employ it in Zebrica against Rommel."

Flurry lit her horn.

Duck looked at her.

"It may look light, but that's about fifteen-tons on that."

Flurry extinguished it.

Oh great now she'd just made a fool out her own friend, and Flurry for that matter, the intelligent one who always knew what to do in every situation. Good job being snippy, idiot. Now she hates you.

"We're supposed to call Mrs. Red if we find a tank, aren't we?" Vanilla asked, coming out from behind Arco.

Flurry nodded, then motioned for Sweet Tea to approach her. Lighting her horn once more and enveloping Tea's backpack in a majestic glow, Flurry pulled out a folding stool—which she promptly unfolded and nestled in the rock below her—and their telephone, the latter of which she took hold of the hoofset and dialed numbers into before asking, "Hello, Mrs. Red? We found a tank. Mhm. Asking for pick-up, I, uh, guess. Yes, ma'am. Thank you." She placed the hoofset against the switch hook with an audible thunk and, as she began placing everything back into Sweet Tea's backpack, told them, "A trailer's gonna be here soon to pick the tank up. I guess that includes us as well."

"So," Pine called from her spot still sitting in the middle of the cartridge graveyard, "we're just waiting now?"

"Yup," Vanilla responded, fidgeting with the messy bun in her mane.

"At least it's not rainin'," Bluebell piped up.

Both the fact that she'd actually spoken something relatively neutral and that she'd horribly tempted fate caused everypony, including even Duck, to instantly shoot Bluebell a hard glare.





The low rumble of the troop transport truck gurgled and rumbled directly into Duck's gut and greatly upset her stomach, a sentiment she was sure the others were sharing as they keeled over and clutched theirs in kind, though Candle's was more fast-paced, her groping in search of her proclaimed notebook instead of (her apparent lack of) guttural displeasure. Behind the double row of seats lining the bed of the truck—which was, thankfully, currently shielding them from the soft rain pitter-pattering atop its cover—rolled the long six-wheeled trailer bearing the Cruiser Mark IV, its cannon locked to the rear both out of the nervousness of having to stare at it the whole way back, and that the turret ring itself was horribly damaged to the point of being completely free-floating. They'd had to strap the barrel to the undersides of the rear-mounted exhaust pipes, something that could very well end up with two pieces of broken equipment, but... well, they were taking it back to the garage for a reason.

The search and rescue had been fulfilled at a remarkably good pace, and now came the reparations. A turret ring and, just to be safe, new exhaust pipes so far. She'd have to take a look inside to see if there was any internal damage done to it as well. 

Despite their prior... zaniness for lack of a more fitting term back in the field, the others seated next to and in front of her were relatively quiet the whole way back, though mostly owing to the truck's engine drowning out any conversation they could have even attempted to begin. Flurry had been drifting in and out of sweet, blissful sleep the entire way, her head lifting up from and falling back onto Duck's right shoulder on an oddly well-timed interval that Duck most certainly hadn't kept track of, because that would be stupid and weird. Arco, on Duck's left, had been trying to keep himself entertained by making little beats with his hooves against whatever was nearest, from his own tummy to the wooden floorboards hastily installed on the bed lining. Pine seemed to have been a light switch flicked to Off the instant they'd all settled into their seats, her entire body and gaping-mouthed figure currently draped over Vanilla next to her like a coffee-chugging, indie-loving, checker-patterned curtain. Vanilla in the meanwhile was hard at work drawing what looked to be runes across the length of one of Pine's forelegs, her tongue sticking out and switching positions here and there. Candle was scribbling away at the notebook she'd just now recovered, propping her glasses up cutely every few seconds or so as she went. Sweet Tea sat like a proper mare across from her, legs tightly clamped together and her ears laid back as she seemed more intent on just listening than looking around. Not that there was much to look at anyway, unless a canvas cover, metallic beams, rickety wood, and the truck's rear window was of anypony's piqued interests.

...

It kind of was to her.

Was that window bulletproof of any kind...?

THUMP THUMP.

Everypony looked toward the edge of the truck bed, where Bluebell, sitting half inside and half outside, was now pointing to the wide open latter. A light post, then two, then four, then ten, a parking lot lightly populated by wandering ponies and cars, a fence line, and a quarter of a massive building told them all that they'd finally reached school grounds. This assumption was staunchly confirmed as the truck turned a bit to its left, took a hard right, and finally stopped with the force of a train, the ponies sitting in the back just on the brink of being flung forward against the wall like Captain Baloo the Bush Pilot had in the Tropical Capes.

The engine no longer at full force and now idling, Duck was able to hear Mrs. Red's muffled voice as she called, "Hello, everypony! What have we got here?"

Duck scurried out of the truck behind the others—her mind telling her she probably should have gone dead last so as to not hinder anypony—and dropped onto the grass, tossing her mane out of her eyes after she landed. She looked over to her right to find Mrs. Red standing next to her in front of a beautiful sky of yellows, oranges, reds, purples, and blues crested with thin, hole-punched, wispy clouds that stretched across it in a kind of maple leaf pattern. Mrs. Red craned her neck over to grab Duck's side-glancing attention, and smiled brightly even as the dusk heavens burned above her head.

"You found the Cruiser, huh?" She asked, hooves going to her hips as she fell onto her haunches and faced the vehicle in question.

Duck lifted her chin. "Yes, ma'am," she reported, her hoof raising in a salute that she quickly canceled. "Discovered it in a collapsed cave due east of town."

Mrs. Red beamed as if it was the only thing she could do. Well, besides talk, which she did next, "Very good work, Duck! Might make a good scout, don't you think?"

Duck shrugged. "Its 2-Pounder won't get through much, so it's either that or a good diversionary vehicle."

Mrs. Red hummed. "Bait."

"Bait."

"I hadn't thought of that..." Mrs. Red nodded vigorously, as if understanding a genius idea or something. She faced Duck. "Clever idea." She lifted a hoof and shook it toward the garages, which Duck glanced at to find one of its doors wide open and allowing the light fixtures inside a method of escape along the concrete threshold. "You might as well head inside and wait for the others. Do any homework that needs doing, read, take a nap. It's been a long night for you all."

Duck grinned, ears flopping against her skull. "Thank you, ma'am," and away she went. As she walked toward the garages, feeling a yawn coming and allowing it to roll off her lulled tongue, she remembered her messenger bag and decided that she'd pick it up from where she'd left it just inside the door before doing anything else. Her AP Calculus homework was more a top priority to her than some grub—which, if her mind wasn't wandering too far, was a granola bar or two in the side pocket—and so she'd find a quiet table well away from everypony else and get as much done as possible. And judging by the amount of different voices, hoofsteps along the floor, and assorted clatterings and smashings coming from inside, a "quiet table" may have been a little more on the imaginative side of hers. She'd probably have to go to the opposite end of the building and sit on the floor.

Her hoof went up to help her lean in and scour said floor for her bag, and she was met with a dozen or so ponies frolicking about like children... which they were... and she was... she was going to move on now. There was Pine, Tea, Candle, and Vanilla standing around next to one of the rectangular tables and not actually using them in the slightest, sipping from cups and shaking them as they spoke. Arco and Flurry were returning from a trip to a fold-out table bearing what Duck recognized as a plastic party platter of meats, cheeses, vegetables, and fruits, most certainly a treat from Mrs. Red for working so hard during the day that she'd probably just snatched from the deli at the local grocery store while they were away. Flurry caught sight of Duck and waved at her, Arco doing the same before they both placed their paper plates on a table and sat down to feast... in the smallest kind of definition.

Who were these others, then? She'd seen them earlier in the day when she, Arco, and Flurry had hopped over the fence, but they'd kept to themselves and hadn't said much at all.

One of them was an orange-yellow Unicorn, her dark red mane pulled back in a loose ponytail so she could better see with her glasses the hoofheld's bright screen in front of her face. She sounded like she were in the midst of a terrible cold, sniffing constantly and rubbing her nose with enough speed to make a Wonderbolt jealous in her little XP-72 Ultrabolt way high up in the sky where it more than just "excelled".

Another was a Pegasus laying on her back next to the first mare, a massive wall of books almost causing Duck to have missed her as she read quietly to herself, completely undeterred by the loud explosions, yelling, and plane sounds emanating from the video game about a few inches from her ear.

Next to the Pegasus was a fellow Earth Pony, lit up with white by the laptop screen way too close to her face while she sucked away at a carton of chocolate milk with one hoof and scrolled with an adjacent wireless mouse with the other.

Another Unicorn finished the row of unfamiliar names, this one still wearing her massive headphones that deafeningly blared... interesting music, if she could call it that, to the entire garage. It seemed that Duck was the only pony to both notice and actually care about how loud it was, but, not wanting to confront a total stranger—or really, confront somepony just in general—she peeled her ears back, grabbed her bag, slung it over her body, and approached them. They had clearly been here long before she and the others had arrived, so she had to ask.

"Did you all happen to... erm, find anything?"

Their movement was like a Broadway play, the first mare lowering her hoofheld and looking at Duck quizzically, the second lowering her book and staring at Duck with a brow raised between her skyward nose, the third lowering her laptop's screen and observing Duck for a response, and the fourth lowering her volume with a little button before taking her accessory off, putting it around her neck, and adjusting her posture before watching Duck like she were actually watching a duck.

The fourth, the third, and the second looked at the first in a snap. The first smiled.

"Yeah."

Pause.

Was... was that it...?

She continued after looking at her screen for a second, "Looked a bit small an'... kinda boxy..." the others nodded, "...but it didn't look too bad." She raised a hoof up and pointed it, where was that... eastward. "Found it in a lake just outside of town." The hoof went down with a plop. "We came in on another truck as the first one dug it out. Still on its way here."

Flurry suddenly just... appeared next to Duck, almost causing her to jump a hundred feet into the air but definitely making her heart skip a beat as she flicked her head over to the other side of the garage and asked, "What're they doing?"

Duck looked over at "they". "They" were the three ponies who'd scoffed and mumbled when she'd shown up earlier, with the red necktie-wearing Pegasus reclining in her chair on the left, the blue bowtie-wearing Unicorn smiling at her in the middle with her forelegs wringing together on the table, and the yellow infinity scarf-wearing Earth Pony crossing her arms and glaring at the ground, lip pouted, on the right.

"I, uh... wouldn't talk to them," the first mare said almost sheepishly, "They seem kind of... mean."

Flurry instantly turned around to go talk to them, her hooves like chops of thunder. Duck and Arco looked at each other with telling expressions and hurried after her. Duck wanted to stop her and remind her about the lovely plate of food back at the table. She wasn't sure about Arco though.

They reached their destination in the span of about four quick seconds, the three at the table sitting up upon realizing they were the subject of somepony else's attention.

"What the hell are you three doing here? Did you find anything?" Flurry asked, tapping a hoof on the ground impatiently.

The one on the left slicked back her oddly shaped blonde mane and grinned, a snicker in her throat.

"If you actually expected me to lift a hoof to go and find some age-old clunky machine, you've got another thing coming."

The Unicorn added, "I actually have hydrogenated arthritis," which Flurry shook her head at with her mouth on the brink of uttering something flabbergasted. "If I move too much, my spine might explode like a turtle shell." Did... did they do that often? The mare leaned forward, shrugging shut-eyed. "I... hope you understand."

The Earth Pony rolled her eyes. "Asking me to move," she spat, as if saying it would somehow cancel out the actual request, "please. You think Celestia moves that sun herself?"

"Wh-what?" Duck couldn't contain herself from sputtering.

"No ma'am," the Pegasus chimed in again, checking her hooves for something disinterestedly, "we just called in a few friends and had them go look for it."

"The youth of today need to learn how to help those above them, I think," the Unicorn claimed.

Flurry made a very tight O-shape with her lips, recoiling and staring at every part of the ceiling in a silence.

"Did you get Freshmen?" Arco asked incredulously.

"Yup!"

"Sent 'em to the Everfree Forest like Mrs. Red said."

Duck, like she was sure happened to everything in those woods, suddenly became rooted to the spot, her legs quivering and her mouth cold as ice with each breath she took.

Flurry's voice took on a loud tone, "The Everfree?!"

By now, the other mares in the room were looking at them and wandering over, curious about what was happening that necessitated such a high volume.

Arco was already walking away and grabbing his bag as he growled, "Celestia's sake..."

Flurry about-faced with the expertise of a Royal Guard and magicked her own saddlebags onto her back, following Arco as he headed toward the front door.

Duck's response was internally debated and changed thousands of times over the course of three seconds, but the underdog decision reached her brain and caused her to begin walking after them. Oh Gods what was she doing she was going to the Everfree?! At night no less?! That's so dangerous! Stop stop stop!

She went over and threw her satchel around her head, hearing Arco tell someone, "Phone me," as he reached the door. Was now really the time to be getting mares' numbers?! Was anypony thinking straight right now?!

She rounded the corner that the four "nerds" had made with their bodies and paused at the door for just a second before composing herself, puffing out her chest, and marching out into the now much more heavy rain beating down on the grass. Flurry was waving Mrs. Red over, Arco—in front of Flurry—adjusting his bag and zipping it closed. She didn't hear whatever Flurry said, but definitely heard Mrs. Red as she stamped on the ground, yelled, "Godsdammit!" and nodded at Flurry before pointing, presumably, toward the Everfree.

Flurry nodded in kind and began galloping that way. Arco did the same. Duck took chase.

"Be careful, you three!"

Flurry. "Don't worry!"

Arco. "Course!"

Duck. "Yes, ma'am!"

The grass was wet beneath her hooves, making soaking, dirt-colored stains that went up her sleeves and threatened to get on both her bags and mane too. Every fiber of her being was telling her to stop and go back inside, but the sight of both of her friends continuing onward undeterred only made her speed up and lower her head even more. Above them, it seemed as if the gray, gray clouds had gotten wind of the three's dare, and were now prepared to throw everything they could at them.

A thought came to her that she never would have thought she could have.

Well, let them come.





Well, they certainly came, now resembling more a thick sheet of white, snowy fog than individual droplets of rain that absolutely soaked her straight down to her Earth Pony core, giving her school jacket immeasurable weight that wasn't helped at all by the messenger bag and mane now horribly close to dragging along the mud covered ground, catching on the many assorted branches, and twisting in each bush she had the misfortune of just barely grazing. Her, Arco's, and Flurry's hurried paces were still very much hurried, but, thanks to the jumblings of nature right at their legs, they'd decided to revert to a more tactical gait.

"Gods, what I wouldn't give to actually be able to see right about now!"

Despite the stark contrast between Arco's gravel and Flurry's flitting, Duck couldn't tell who had just spoken.

"How the hell do we even know where we're going?!" Okay, that had definitely been Flurry. 

Duck shook her head to move her mane out of her eyes and, observing the path ahead, and the path behind, and frowning at the moonwater, knew the answer before Arco—she was sure it was Arco—gave it.

"Gaps in the bushes! Those hoofprints, too!"

Flurry took a second in front of Duck to cast her glance downward and look for said hoofprints. Satisfied—Duck guessed—she continued onward.

"Didn't think this was how we'd be spending our first day in class!"

"Me neither! You'd think we'd have been tackled to the ground and ripped apart by now!" Flurry shouted.

Duck could have very easily stopped and piddled herself, but, then, that was probably what something would want so they could tackle her to the ground and, thereafter, rip her apart. She kept pace.

"My mom actually told me about that. Let's just say the animals here don't screw with each other in the rain for a good reason!"

Flurry gave Duck a look, then gave it to Arco's back. "Enlighten me, oh great one!"

Arco laughed, vaulting over a downed tree log dotted with fungi that Duck, not wanting to touch them, almost spelled death for her in the form of a slip and tumble and break. Of her neck. Or something. Okay. Keep moving, Duck. You're fine. Eeeeeverything's fine.

The thick, tall grass made way for what felt to Duck to be a clearing of some sorts, possibly for blood rituals and witch trials that ended up with pretty much the same mix of... mmm results. The lack of grass complemented the lack of aerial cover, giving the whole area a bit of a spotlight feeling both because of the sudden reappearance of the moon's light and just... in general. The thick artillery barrage of rainfall was blinding in every way, shape, and form, and proved a fair opponent for Arco, who suddenly slammed face-first into something particularly large and daunting.

His legs lifted up from the impact, and he hit the earth and instantly reached up to rub at the newly-forming bump on his nose.

"Son of a..." He grumbled, scrunching his muzzle.

"That's a big poplar," Flurry observed, staring upward to try and find its top.

It sure had the same color as a poplar tree...

Duck walked forward, Flurry moving out of the way and Arco scooting away on his butt.

...but trees didn't have numbers on them in bright white, did they?

It was at that moment, her hoof reaching up to brush away the slops and slops of mud and moss covering... whatever it was, that Duck heard a voice far off in the distance.

Wait, no, right next to her.

And not one, but two. Three. Four. How many ponies were...?

She looked back at Arco and Flurry, who gave her the same expression she hoped she was giving them. She turned around and placed all fours back onto earth, eyes dancing about to look for something of interest. The figure became more and more apparent to her as she did so, a handle popping up there, a vent here... a roundel on the side below it. She recognized it instantly, and quickly began to sort through her recollections of frames, chassis, exteriors, and... she hummed, reached a hoof up, and found a small handle just barely big enough for her to coil around. It was heavier than she thought—surely some kind of design flaw—and she pulled it and its hatch apart slowly enough for each and every pair of eyes inside to adjust to the sudden influx of light. Or what little amount there was, anyway.

Oh wait those are eyes.

Duck jumped back, issuing a squeak that was multiplied almost overlappingly by five. She fell to earth and threw both forelegs across her face, shutting her eyes and biting her lower lip to the point of drawing blood.

Cover yourself, protect your neck, keep still; it will move on, and you will be okay. If it gets on top of you, roll back onto your stomach. Never face it face-to-face. They know fear and they will capitalize on it. Stay down stay down stay down.

"Hello?"

Sniffle. "Are you from the... sch-school?"

Duck could tell that Flurry was grinning. "As a matter of fact, yes I am! And we've been on the search for some badass Freshmen who wanted to help the Tankery class!"

Arco let out a belly laugh. He and Flurry's hooves made sickly noises as they got close to Duck's position. "Did we find them?" Closer now. Somepony was poking her in the side. "Hey, Duck. Are you okay? It's just the Freshmen."

She darted up like a rocket. She hoped she hadn't startled him. She nodded. "Of course!" Not. She shivered for a second and pulled at her jacket's pockets, joining Flurry and Arco in crowding around and looking into the Prench machine.

A quintet of young mares were huddled in the Driver's seat, the Gunner's seat, and on the floor, hugging each other so tightly the hundreds of points of contact were turning bleach white. The sight broke her heart. They looked more scared than she was, a few of them even bearing red noses and glazed eyes.

"Well, what are all of your names?" Flurry asked, leaning in further and placing her hooves on the lip of the open hatch.

This seemed to cheer them up a tad, as they rubbed at their faces and grinned smally.

They raised a hoof as they went.

"Cream Cheese!"

"Wind Whistler!"

"Bayleaf!"

"Orange Peel!"

"Carrot Stick!"

Flurry hummed. "Well. Cream, Wind, Bayleaf, Orange, Carrot... I think it's time to get you all home." She lit her horn and enveloped one of the mares in her magic, quipping, "Out you come," as Arco regarded her, pulling off his pack.

"I'll phone Mrs. Red."

Flurry nodded at him, then took two steps back as the first Freshmen plopped onto the ground safe and sound.

True to his word, Arco yanked the small fold-out stool out, stuck its legs into the wet ground, and dropped the entire phone body onto the top of it. Duck, looking around for any kind of energy source he could have been using for it, listened as Arco dialed a few numbers, picked up the hoofset, and spoke into it after it squawked an audible crackle, "Hello, Mrs. Red? Yeah, we found them." He turned toward the machine and whinnied. "Looks like they found a tank, ma'am. So, yeah, we need a pickup. And, if you can, bring some blankets, too. It's pretty garbage out here. Thank you." Click.

"Well," Flurry said, bringing the last Freshman out and striking a pose like some kind of camp counselor addressing a first-day crowd, "looks like we'll all be sitting here for awhile until the trucks arrive. We're not too far into the Everfree, so once I light our way they should be able to get to us in no time!"

A few more sniffles, but everypony seemed relatively okay.

In fact, it seemed that the clouds, now thwarted due to the successful mission on both fronts, were beginning to slink away to greener pastures.

Duck's gaze returned to the tank, and Arco walked over to her and stared at it as well.

"So! What kind of tank is it?"

Duck narrowed her eyes. Armored roadwheel cover, very... mallard-like appearance, 47mm gun...

"A Prench SOMUA S35 Medium Tank."

Arco cocked his head. "Huh. Samoa? Like the island?"

Duck shook hers. "No. Societe d'Outillage Mecanique et d'Usinage d'Artillerie." She let out a sigh, having gotten increasingly nervous about screwing up and absolutely slaughtering the proper pronunciation with each and every syllable her lips formed, but positively beamed after totally nailing it. Now Arco had to think she was smart! She looked at him again and giggled at his slack-jawed expression. "Ess Oh Em You Ay. SOMUA."

Arco snorted. "Wow. Are you Prench?"

She had to stop herself from blurting out, "Gods, I hope not," the very idea of it being the point of ridicule countless times in her foalhood thanks to her mother's very adamant patriotism and criticism of everything else. In all honesty, Duck held an incredible amount of respect for Prance, knowing full well how hard they would have fought had Griffonia invaded their country, and how they would have saved the entire Crumpish army at the town of Dunkerque had Griffonia's Blitzkrieg pushed through.

She settled for something infinitely more kind.

"Not a drop."





Of blood, she'd meant. Not a drop of blood.

Despite the stupid detachment of the important part of her response, Arco had apparently understood completely, and the rest of the time spent waiting for the troop transport truck was filled with Freshmen giggles, Arco's terrible puns he constantly thanked his father for giving him, Flurry's magic beam almost blinding Duck at its birth, and the terrifying sound of an approaching engine that almost made Duck jump up and run away from.

The entire trip back after the SOMUA was hoisted onto the overworked trailer was filled with much of the same thing, Arco apparently thinking it funny that Duck had almost needed a walking stick and guide dog the first time Flurry used her "light beam", and that Duck needed a "quick, little splish-splash of water on her face like eh," and then he had made a motion that looked like he was trying to drown himself in a puddle. Duck gave him a heavy frown, but the Freshmen seemed to enjoy it, so she guessed that it was good enough for all of them in the end.

The truck halted with a loud, piercing screech, and it was all the passengers could do to reach up and cup their ears with their two hooves until it passed not two seconds later. Content, but still hearing a very distant ringing, Duck got up to let everypony know that it was time to leave and watched as Flurry hopped off and helped each and every one of the Freshmen land safely on the ground. Arco jumped after they'd finished, and Duck did the same, almost catching on the trailer hitch but doing a neat flip that she was sure nopony had seen. Brushing herself off, she walked around the truck to find Mrs. Red newly assaulted by a pack of young mares led by Flurry, who was now asking her whether or not they could figure out how to get them all home, and if she could just walk them all back or not.

Arco joined her as they walked past them, and even joined her in her surprised expression as she found all six of the garage's doors pulled wide open, their previously empty spaces now fully occupied by large, medium, and small...

"Tanks," Arco said simply.

Duck peered through the still present layer of—thankfully—thin fog to try and identify the new figures, but shook her head and decided to ask Flurry, "Are you all okay?"

Flurry nodded as Mrs. Red parted ways and began walking over to her and Arco.

"I'm going to go and take these five on home! You guys better not have fun without me!"

Arco laughed heartily, waving. "No promises, Flurry!"

Duck bent at the elbow as well. "Goodbye, Flurry!"

Flurry sniggered one last time before heading off, making sure that all five Freshmen were in tow. "All right, see ya!"

One conversation passed, and another started. Mrs. Red walked past her and Arco. "It seems that everypony found them all!"

"Whe..." Duck coughed, "...where were they?"

Mrs. Red tapped at her chin as they continued trotting along, but finally replied, "One was found in a lake just outside of town, and the other was... at the top of a hill overlooking Ponyville, like it was waiting to strike."

This, for once, caused a shiver in Arco's spine and not Duck's. Honestly, it had probably been on the minds of the crew to go out cannon blazing.

As they neared the garages—and the countless voices from inside increased to near shouting volume—Mrs. Red continued, "The only real matter now is who gets what." Their hooves shifted from making squelching noises to clipping and clopping on concrete. She swiveled about, "I would more than gladly give you first pick, but I think I might know what your preference is already. I'll let you decide once you see them all."

Arco gave Duck a look that she didn't quite understand, but she brandished a smile that seemed to put him at ease. The three of them entered the building and were suddenly caught in the middle of an observational swarm that had been in the middle of looking at the leftmost tank.

"Hey, no shoving!"

"Outta the way!"

"Oh, it's Mrs. Red!"

"Oh, whoops!"

"Sorry, ma'am!"

"Yeah, sorry Mrs. Red!"

It was a short while as Mrs. Red dusted her uniform off of juvenile, teenage gunk, and then she struck a pose and returned to her jovial composure.

"It's a pleasure to see you all! Glad you all made it back okay!"

Duck scratched her neck.

Arco sucked his lips into his mouth, looking around idly.

Candle, Vanilla, Tea, and Pine were huddled together, their clothes soaking but their firm smiles telling a completely different story.

The four "nerds" were still admiring the Cruiser's roadwheels for some reason or another—honestly, Christie suspension was a genius idea, but not every tank that had it became a high-tier bringer of destruction—pointing at things and "oohing" and "aahing" here and there.

The five jocks—there was no other word for them—stood far in the back, talking quietly and snickering about the assuredly dumbest things ever known to ponykind.

The lazy, color-coded bullies looked like they had better places to be, tapping their hooves on the floor and crossing their arms with massive frowns on their lips.

Bluebell sat in the corner, seemingly asleep, maybe dead.

Mrs. Red swept a hoof toward the tanks lining the garage, and Duck looked over to them to decipher their designations as Mrs. Red began, "Now! I guess the more obvious next step is to figure out what exactly we're seeing!"

That one is Equestrian for sure. That's Griffonian. Prench.

"Duck Bill?"

Duck snapped to attention.

"Would you like to tell us what we've all recovered today?"

Her hooves shook at their ends, but she looked away from the crowd staring at her in one way or another and somehow, some way, found the courage.

"Next to us is a Cruiser Tank, a Crumpish Cruiser Mark IV A13 Mark II, fitted with a Vickers 2-Pounder cannon that might just be able to put a dent in a barn wall."

Broken turret ring and, from what they'd attempted while still out on the field, a very shot engine.

Moving on...

"To its left is a Heavy Tank, a Griffonian Panzerkampfwagen VI, better known as a Tiger." A shiver tickled her legs, but she continued onward unharmed. "This one is a Type H, and its 88mm cannon might be one of the best in the entire world."

From what she could see being in front of them all, it looked like the rear of the Tiger was completely busted open, which spelled a certain doom for the V12 engine she was fairly certain was nothing more than a mess of parts. Adding onto that, the thing sure must have gotten shot at a lot.

Steady... keep your breathing calm...

"Next, the Crumpish A34 Comet Type A."

Bent-back barrel, new canvas cover, new track, refurbished armor...

You're doing fine. Just keep going.

"Further down, a Light Tank. An Equestrian M5A1 Stuart to be exact. 37mm gun."

The damage looked internal, something she was afraid of, with many cracks around the front of the cannon that stretched further inside.

Last one. You're doing fine.

"And finally, a Medium Tank. Prench SOMUA S35. Its armor is formidable, but it's more expensive than you think a tank might be. A 47mm cannon isn't too bad, either."

A track completely missing and most of its doors either blown off or snapped in half somehow.

Okay. That was going to be a lot.

She sucked in a deep breath and dispelled it, then looked back at the rest of the class and desperately sucked in another one. Oh Gods had she said something funny? When? Which line? What did she say?!

Mrs. Red clapped her hooves and laughed. "Well! I guess the next course of action will be deciding who gets what!"

There was a loud shouting of "dibs!" before the jocks all bum-rushed the Tiger H, touching it with their hooves like they were in the middle of a Hoofball game.

"Okay then," Mrs. Red said, "does anypony have any objections to that?"

A few mares scratched their head.

Sweet Tea whistled a tune, looking away.

Some yawned, tired.

Arco moved his shoulders around in a half-hearted dance.

Duck kicked the concrete.

"All right, then! How about everypony else?"

A hoof went up, belonging to one of the nerds.

"Yes?" Mrs. Red asked, looking over at the source.

The hoof went down. "How about we all take the tanks that we found?"

Mrs. Red gasped and cracked a wild grin. "That's an excellent idea! And, it works for the Tiger's crew as well!" She straightened her posture and puffed out her chest, then raised her voice half a decibel or so because she apparently couldn't be heard from two feet away.

Duck's heart slowed down finally, only to start up again.

"Team A, composed of Duck Bill, Arco Piano, Flurry Heart, and Bluebell!" Bluebell, still sitting at the table, shot her head up and mumbled something, looking about in a dazed panic. "You will have the A34 Comet!"

Arco nodded silently.

Duck... actually didn't mind that, either. Crumpish design was something she was actually familiar with.

"Pine Needle, Sweet Tea, Candle Light, and Vanilla Pudding, you are Team B, and will take the Cruiser Mark IV!"

They hoof pumped the air.

"Team C, Lily Pad, Hail Mary, Field Goal, Peanut Brittle, and Whipgrass, will take the Tiger H!"

The jocks, still standing guard at their Tiger, made very gorilla-sounding noises.

"Team D! Busy Body, Blank Check, and Forest Fire, you have the SOMUA!"

Mumbles and grumbles.

"Team E—that's Bit Rate, Autumn Leaves, Primrose, and Plastic Beach—you will have the Stuart!"

The nerds high-hoofed each other.

"Now that that's figured out, while you may want to dive right in and go to work on your tanks, I feel like we can all agree that it has been an incredibly long day, and that we should head out and go home!"

It sounded like everypony was legitimately confused whether to give Mrs. Red words of agreement or stutters of misgivings.

"We'll begin work on them tomorrow! Head home, everypony! You've done very well today! Dismissed!" Mrs. Red got into a pose and gave them a crisp salute that only Duck, who hadn't already moved to depart, returned. They nodded at one another—Duck's a tad shakier—and began to walk outside to join the rest of the class as they all headed their separate ways, clearly inebriated if their stumbling and muttering was any indication.

One of the nerds turned her head to look at the tanks as she continued walking, barely getting out, "All those tanks look the same," before a yawn overtook her.

"That's racist," went one of the jocks, which Duck felt was a genuine response and not at all a joke.

Duck remembered another mare in their class, and was quick to find Bluebell peeling away from everypony else and heading across the field toward town by herself. She blinked, but was able to acknowledge Arco as he patted her back and told her, "We did good today, Duck!"

She could feel the bags nestled under her eyelids, but she found a smile and let it show. She very strongly didn't wish to admit it, but, "You know what, Arco?"

Arco copied her. "No, what?"

Duck hummed, lifting her chin and adjusting her bag.

"I think so, too."
> Carefully Please Help Me To Repair The New Tank!
> --------------------------------------------------------------------------

"So, with her assistant and fillyhood friend in tow, Twilight Sparkle left her hometown of Canterlot and traveled by chariot to a little town nearby. Does anypony... know the name of the town she went to?"

A simple question with an equally simple answer, one you could decipher if you just craned your neck around, stared past the whispering group of cool kids nestled in the corner of the room, and looked out the window at the early morning sun and the early morning clouds hovering mindlessly over Ponyville. The only town even remotely close to Canterlot was Ponyville and, plus, the answer—if you didn't know basic history and, thus, the answer—was all in their Equestrian Past history book they'd all been given yesterday. Chapter 4, Section 5, to be exact, on Page 78 in the second paragraph.

A simple question with a simple answer that not a single pony was willing to raise their hoof up and thereafter give.

She was sure that everypony knew it, but... nopony wanted to let it be known that they did, which was kind of... weird. Wasn't the whole idea of a teacher asking questions for them to answer them a kind of... reinforcement to make sure of what all they knew? It seemed that everypony knew the whole dilemma—looking around, there were a few heads turning to face each other, as if there was an unspoken dare with no actual reward for the... fool who would risk life and limb raising up one of the latter—but, with no comprehensible dialogues for him to respond to apart from a sparse few yawns and sharp murmurs, Mr. Bon rose from his seat on the front table near the whiteboard, adjusted the collar poking out from underneath his sweater vest, and chose the mercy rule.

"Twilight Sparkle went to Ponyville, children."

His addressing of them as "children" tickled a few ponies, who giggled and laughed as the pressure of the answer began to finally, finally leak and piddle away.

A colt in the front spoke up out of turn.

"Didn't she go to Ponyville to, like, learn about friendship?"

Mr. Bon nodded, smiling, "Yup!" He faced the rest of the class. "She was sent by Princess Celestia herself to learn about friendship, because it turns out—and I might be smited for saying this—that Twilight Sparkle was a bit of a... shut-in."

Duck leaned forward, her spine having bumped awkwardly against the back of her chair. She scooted in an as well, bringing in her elbows and causing her table partner to fuss at nothing in particular and roll her eyes with a heavy, very-well-unneeded sigh as she, in turn, scooted a bit away from the apparently disease-ridden pony next to her. This morning had already been a bit of a doozy, and Duck just wanted to claw her way through first period so she could get her bearings and figure out what all she could try doing.

Thanks to returning to her little complex late into the night the other night, she'd ended up finishing her homework red-eyed early into the morning, taken a few minutes and double-checked it over a half-hearted piece of toast, took a nap that lasted all but an hour or so, and then promptly forgot it on her kitchen table as she left for school, dropping her messenger bag at the threshold and spilling what she had remembered onto her floor, understandably receiving no help from the other Ponyville High student walking past her in her own hurry, stuffing the assorted papers, books, and pencils haphazardly back into her bag, and sprinting all the way to school, only to trip around the corner, mind her new bruise, and limp the rest of the way.

Her brain returned to the purple bruise and she, involuntarily—because she knew how astronomically bad it was to do so—reached a hoof down and scratched at it. She realized herself quickly and flinched back up to her prior position, eliciting a snicker from her table partner, who crossed her forelegs and shook her head mumbling something incoherent.

Duck risked a look her way, then, realizing she was probably being noticed in her doing so, lifted her chin and pretended to look at the movie poster for The Nice, The Unkind, And The Fierce on the oddly-angled wall in the corner of the room, then, finding a few narrow-eyed, clearly annoyed glares directed her weary way, attempted to pass it off as the first step in popping her neck. She suddenly tilted her head both ways, found no sound, and returned to a normal sitting position.

Duck cleared her throat and reached for her pencil again, finally coiling her hoof around it and returning to the paper in front of her. She moved her history book around and adjusted her paper's position, craning her neck to look around for the answer to the ninth question on the chapter questions for the week after next week's homework, the entire subject of the chapter being, mostly, the adventures of the Elements of Harmony after Shining Armor and Princess Cadance's wedding, starting in the Crystal Kingdom. The ninth question... oh Gods, what was it again?

She scanned the bottoms of the pages facing her to look for the gap she'd made with her pencil's detachable eraser, found it, threw the page open, and leaned forward in her seat to look for what she needed. Her eyes immediately soared down the lines of text, definitions, and assorted pictures to the orange box labeled Chapter Questions, and, ignoring the first eight, found the ninth and mumbled it to herself.

"Who threatened the Crystal Empire, and was defeated by the efforts of Spike the Dragon and Princess Cadance?"

That was... King Sombra, wasn't it? He trapped Twilight Sparkle atop the spire, causing Spike to run down and steal the Crystal Heart where he fell, and a gliding Princess Cadance swooped in just in time to save him, and together, they returned the Crystal Empire to its former glory. Both were hailed as heroes, and Spike even got his own statue in the town square to commemorate his immense, incomparable bravery.

Duck thought for a few seconds, nodded to herself, flipped back to the page in case she looked up to read from it to further confirm her answer, and wrote her thoughts down, her penmanship resembling an arthritic five-year-old.

Her table partner fiddled with her jacket's silver buttons.

"Yeah, Twilight Sparkle had a bit of a party that night!" Mr. Bon's voice rose back up to her recognition, the old stallion chuckling heartily as he leaned against the door, still facing them all. He brought up a hoof and shook it. "No alcohol, though!"

A few of her peers chose this time to go and make a small attempt at a joke, a usual, constantly rehearsed thing of theirs to try and get everypony to laugh and like them.

"Aww!"

"Laaaame!"

"That's boring."

Mr. Bon hummed. "I can tell, by the way you all are right now, that you guys might have had some parties yourselves!"

"We're all just tired, sir."

Duck's stomach gurgled at her. And hungry, too. She hadn't had a lot of time to make herself breakfast when she woke back up, and had had to settle for the bare nothings of two more pieces of toast atop her first one she'd disinterestedly munched on while reviewing her homework. She was beginning to regret not simply ignoring the aching for a morning meal. It might have been much better for her stomach to have empty space instead of trying to break down two slices of unflavored white bread she'd scrounged around in the back of her fridge and reached for. She'd have to see if she could get something from the cafeteria, or maybe from one of the vending machines in the rear of the commons. A proper sandwich, or a protein bar would be a much better present for her woefully underused and underutilized body.

A kind of sharp pain suddenly erupted deep in the depths of her gut, and, caught by surprise, Duck hunched over in her seat with a low whimper. Gods, she should have grabbed a granola bar or something on the way here. Maybe she could sneak away during passing and rush over to get something quicker. With the way she was hurting at the moment, she didn't think she could make it two whole periods before eating again.

She sunk in her chair and, now in a sour mood, remembered her uniform. Or rather, with her new knowledge after perusing the school handbook before class started, lack of uniform. As she'd guessed based off of Flurry's daily wardrobe, she'd have to go out at some point here soon and buy a white collared shirt and a black necktie, confirmed to be part of the school dress code according to Section 2 under the bold, italic header entitled Dress Code that she had apparently missed her first time leafing through it. She fastened the topmost button on her navy blue jacket to hide her lack of proper attire... and suddenly bumped her elbow across the top of the table, sending her pencil down onto the floor where it rolled around. In an instant, Duck scooched her chair back and promptly clunked her head against the table's edge to look for where her tool had gone to the wayward, two-second-long gaze of her table partner... who was, conveniently, now sitting directly atop of it.

Duck bit her lip, finding the strength to ignore the pain on her brow. This wasn't going to be fun.

"Um..."

They looked at her, a frown deadset on giving everypony that looked at it a terrible, horrible, no good, very bad day. Her bangs were choppy and parted down the middle to allow her horn free space to elegantly extend from her forehead, and she flicked them away as Duck realized she hadn't continued speaking and was now extending the presumed one-sided conversation's time with a pregnant pause that the Unicorn might find outrageously embarassing and then laugh at her and call her names and make fun of her and draw attention to her and she was still thinking and not talking and thereby digging herself a much larger trench than she had the other day with Arco and Flurry about what kinds of things happened during Tank Battles by lying to them and now she realized that she had forgotten her words that she was going to say and the Unicorn was getting more and more impatient she could tell by her eyes they were still narrowing oh Gods say something or–

"Can you get my pencil for me please?"

The Unicorn tilted her head, sinking her face into a hoof propped on the top of her chair.

"It's... it's underneath your chair and..."

They rolled their eyes with the weight of a Jagdtiger—which was approximately 158,000 pounds—lit their horn, bent over to search around for it on the carpeted floor, and, finding it, quickly sat back up and uncaringly flung it onto the table. It rolled forward, almost falling back onto the floor in front of her, only stopped by Duck's quick, awesome, reflexive maneuver: jumping out of her chair unexpectedly, a single foreleg darting upward and catching it just in time. A few ponies nearby turned around at the ruckus—a few, including her table partner, even snickered—but she sank back into her seat and, ignoring them the best way she could, returned to her homework.



to commemorate his immense, incomparable bravery



She violently stabbed the space after her last 'y'—accidentally making a much darker dot than the rest of the paper would lead a reader to believe she was capable of—and declared question nine finished. In one swift, deft motion, she collapsed the end of her mechanical pencil back into its hub and placed the entire tool next to her binder, a small smile on her face. Grabbing her newly finished papers, which, looking at it now, equaled about four, she stood them up on their feet and neatly lined them up by thumping them on the table to yet another dirty look from her table partner, whose apparent sole purpose in life was to be offended by literally everything she did and every way she went about doing them. A hoof propping up the papers, the other went over to her binder, unzipped it, and opened it for the first to lightly place them inside, where they collaborated in a final effort and zipped the whole thing closed again. For the first time that morning, after forgetting next week's homework and not being able to turn it in already, giving herself practically nothing to eat, dropping her bag in front of her door, seeing a dog on her way that was scolded by his owner, almost getting run over by a half-track toting around a few Preparatory Recruits, finding the plates she'd been earlier eyeing in the window of the antique shop sold, scraping her leg next to the school, and about five minutes ago feeling right on the edge of hunger pains, Duck felt... good. Well. 

Now if she could only just get rid of the constant, mouth gaping yawns and teary-eyed blinking plaguing every minute or so of her early morning time, she'd be much, much happier sitting in her hesitantly admittedly creaky, terrible purple chair.

Mr. Bon had taken a seat at the edge of a student's table, who had moved her stuff so he could get more comfortable. Duck didn't know her too well, but she seemed nice enough. Maybe she could try talking to her.

Mr. Bon's mouth opened, and a trio of hushed voices drowned out whatever he was, importantly, conveying to them.

"...and, like, he comes over to me, and he's wasted, and..."

"And he just falls on the ground!"

"Hahahaha!"

It was coming from the usual spot, at the opposite side of the room next to the secondary whiteboard Mr. Bon claimed he never had a genuine need for and had instead used as a place to hang up his assorted movie posters and literature quotes ranging from the likes of Casablankflank and Citizen Mane to Princess Celestia's planned Infamy Speech and the lyrics to the Ponyville March that Duck was fairly certain everypony in the entire world was much too embarrassed to even think about singing along to. Putting it up on the board was probably a cruel joke to remind his students that, yes, somepony did meld together a terrible tune that our bands have ended up doing an instrumental of for the past fifteen years and that, yes, this was still a thing.

Three colts, their school uniforms altered in some way or another to preserve their apparently perceived high amount of coolness, were facing each other in an L shape directly under a tattered, laminated art piece of paint streaks. The leader, clearly considered the "cooler" of the little group, looked like he'd stepped into a wind tunnel and had let nature take its horrid toll on his blonde mane

A fourth joined in, turning around and having to begin his sentence three times before feeling he had become actively involved in the conversation, even with one of the participants literally inches from his own muzzle.

"Was this... was... was, hey, was this... was this during last Saturday?"

The leader laughed. "Yeah, dude. You should've been there."

"Got grounded, remember? I'm free this weekend, though."

"Oh we have got to do something, then."

"We're totally gonna get smashed on Friday. You guys should come on over. I'll talk to Olive at lunch and see if she wants to come over to with her friends."

Gods, it was hot in here. Why was it always so hot in here? Duck brought up a hoof and grabbed at the collar of her jacket, shaking it like a piece of wobbly sheet metal and directing her attention elsewhere. The rectangular tables of her EQ History class—and the rest of Mr. Bon's classes, she guessed—were in simple lines extending from opposite sides of the room, two tables each, with eight lines in total. The sides of the classroom were divided fairly easily: the far left side in the middle line was where the cool kids sat and talked about "getting smashed" (whatever that meant), the rear tables on the right near the middle of the classroom was where the lesser cool kids—the more... fun ones, for lack of a more fitting term—talked about wanting to die, how garbage they all were, acted like they were absolutely hilarious every second they spoke, and overall displayed just how little they realized that what they were joking about was a real thing... some ponies regularly had to deal with. On the last table on the left side near the back of the room, a young mare and stallion were seated, the former being easy to talk to and the latter being obnoxiously loud and willing to yell across the room to get one of the lesser's attention. Okay, obnoxiously loud was a bit of an over-exaggeration. Way to be rude. Maybe she was just quiet too much, and her lower volume skewed what she believed to be a proper one. Insult somepony you don't even know. Wow.

She shook her head.

Well, the lessers constantly told him that he was loud... but then again, they were kind of friends, so they could say that. She couldn't. She... didn't really know anypony in her class at all, actually. Not even her table partner's name, though that was because the Unicorn had instead talked to the other pony next to her and introduced herself even though the two were already longtime friends, and even though the line between both them marked two different tables and wasn't just a jagged, stray pencil mark like her's and Duck's was. The other table was a lot cleaner, as well. Duck's was riddled with graffiti, a possible result of it being in the corner and thus safe from the eye of, seemingly, every living being in the world. "Gods Save The Queen" over there, "I wish I waz in Trottingham" over here, and, to her dismay, a racial slur that she immediately turned her pencil over and vigorously erased. Next to her success was... a body part. She erased that too.

Next to that was a series of tic-tac-toe games, the player holding the position of 'X' having an unfortunate win-loss ratio of about zero-to-fifteen. 

Speaking of which... she had to admit that last night may have completely muddled her over in terms of sleeping and eating, but it was definitely worth sticking around for. She was relatively glad that the class had managed to find all of Ponyville's tank with no big issues, aside from the trifecta's sidelining and the muddy stomp through the Everfree late at night, and, looking back at it from a much further standing point... they had a pretty good line-up of vehicles at their disposal. If they were really going to do this—and she had to ask Mrs. Red at sixth later who they were first going to be up against, if they had any practice matches at all—they had a very diverse selection that might stand a chance.

The Comet may have been notorious for having the fragility of a Crumpish Rose, but its cannon wasn't one to be messed around with, and it had pretty great mobility to boot thanks to its Christie Suspension that it shared with the Cruiser, which—changing subjects—could make for a great baiting tool like an anglerfish way down in the bathypelagics, an easy prize in the form of a light tank but packing an okay amount of firepower and amazing maneuverability that could easily help it get around any turret it faced. The SOMUA made for a pretty sturdy, but very very expensive tank, and could be a good all-rounder if the trifecta found it in themselves to quit butting heads. The Tiger H could pull an easy twenty-eight miles per hour, with its incredibly tough armor and fearsome 88mm gun only helping it. It could make for an incredible defensive tool, but its handlers might want nothing more than to recklessly charge, feeling invincible with their tank of a tank. She hoped that they'd at least be open to soaking up shots. The Stuart could make for an outstanding scout if Pine and the others didn't want to do such a thing, being the fastest tank at their disposal with an equally speedy reverse speed to boot if they ever got into a bad position. Its crew could take it anywhere and fire from anywhere! The whole thing was pretty much a racecar!

As if hearing her inner thoughts, the world's activity caught her attention once more and directed it to a few of the lessers near the middle of the room, who were talking up a quiet storm about the Never War and getting countless facts completely wrong—Manetgomery wasn't the leader of Crumphill, as a matter of fact, instead leading the Crumpish Eighth Army who would have fought at El Alamein and later gotten beaten to Walnut by her own mother, Pumpkin Bread, who would have powered through the woods in the Pegasus-crafted blizzard to surprise Griffonian forces in the area, and, no, the Type 89 was not a light tank, but a medium tank—to the point that Duck felt the overwhelming need to correct them, only able to stop herself by reminding her body that it wasn't in her place... and that they'd probably make fun of her voice, and she'd end up ruining her explanation and get surrounded and get called names and get fact-checked and thereafter hated because she was a massive nerd and oh wait you're Pumpkin Bread's daughter haha she would have died in Walnut there's no way she could have been able to move all of her troops all the way through the country in such little time Manetgomery was so much better you're stupid she's stupid but you're still stupid quack.

She really hated the quacks.

"...and so, unfolding her wings, Rainbow Dash took to the sky above Spike and Twilight Sparkle's heads and cleared the skies to prove them wrong." Ah, this story. Mr. Bon was grinning now, apparently caught in a little belly laugh and covering his mouth to stop it. "Can... snort, can anypony tell me how quickly she did it?"

Now, Sergeant Rainbow Dash was an expert pilot, having been entrusted with Equestria's first P-51 Mustang and world-famous for pushing the aircraft to pretty much every fighter plane's limits in its first public showcase with ninety-degree dives, aeliron rolls straight toward nearby mountains, tight loops, and upside-down ascension, but... she acted... silly upon first meeting Twilight and Spike, clearing the skies in...

"Ten seconds flat," which the class, although very boredly and tiredly, apparently had the gall to actually admit they knew.

Duck hummed, leaning forward in her seat and cracking a small smile.

She wondered what it would be like to be a Pegasus; she could go anywhere, at any time, and not have to worry about mountains, or roads, or traffic, or mud, or anything, really. She could just go outside during lunch, stop right out the door, unfold her wings, and just fly to McDuckle's instead of, apparently according to Flurry's recounting, dealing with the construction near 4th Avenue and listening to nearby students—also going to the chain—talking about what all they were going to buy and how outraged they'd be if their favorite sauces weren't in stock like children throwing a tantrum. To be a Pegasus meant... no worries. Mind, there was the obvious Equinity of it all still, and the mixtures of self-worth and self-esteem that she seemed to lack anyway, but there was a... an easier access to a stress-reliever, in the form of flying away and hopping up onto a cloud or something. Maybe ponies would think she was cool if she could fly. Oh hey, Duck Bill, right? Heard you could fly pretty well up there! What's it like, huh? Is it nice? Do you feel free when you're up there? I bet so! Oh Duck, that's so awesome! I bet you could give Rainbow Dash a run for her bits! Heck, I bet you could join the Wonderbolts at sixteen, and be the youngest Commander there's been! High, and high, and high into the sky she'd constantly fly, where the troubles and worries that worried and troubled her couldn't very well reach her.

Her gaze drew to the nearby window as Mr. Bon's discussion of weather patterns faded out of recognition. It seemed that both her complex's builders and the school's builders had the same idea for the places she occupied, only showing the beautiful mountains and hills and trees that lay outside Ponyville's borders, and not the ugly oil drilling rigs on the Eastern hills or the weapons factories at the far corner or the training grounds next to it or the food production line situated adjacent to Sweet Apple Acres or any of the things related to Ponyville's more recent past, phasing out the glamour and beauty and hopefulness it presented back in the Elements' days.

The early morning sun smiled at her and glowed brightly. She gave it a likewise gesture, and a wave of warmth passed through her bones.

High up. Way up. Watching the sun sink below the horizon, a breeze on her face and her wings in a lazy hover. A cloud underneath her, soft and fluffy and cozy, perhaps. Way, high up, where the pleasantries of the skies were nothing but centimeters from her face. High up in the sky.





"Lower it! Gently now!"

Duck took a step back and watched as a mare clad in pale green overalls and saddle brown gloves pushed a large, wheeled pallet topped with crates and assorted boxes toward the nearby concrete ramps leading up to the garage. The mare, clearly a mechanic of some sorts, regarded her with a look as she went and, shortly afterward realizing she was part of the class, a smile and a wave and a chipper, "Hi!" that Duck returned only a third of the way.

The mass amount of noise she'd first caught upon walking toward the school's fields had tripled in volume, the sources now very clear to her. Dusting her jacket off, she watched as another mechanic backpedaled, one of her hooves flitting rapidly about as signed directions for the operator of the nearby crane, whose mechanical functions were currently being used to bring down even more pallets of what she now realized to be ammo crates and spare parts from the bed of a truck, the latter of which were poking out of their metallic confinements, much too long to simply stay inside and wait patiently. Loud beeps overlapped each other, accompanying the different vehicles that were taking things over to the five tanks presently sitting out in the sun in front of their respective garage doors. Crowds of ponies—some she recognized, others in overalls—gathered atop, around, behind, in front of, or at the sides of each tank, working and talking amongst themselves as they went along.

Duck narrowed her eyes at the Comet, and suddenly launched forward, ripping up a few bits of grass in her wake as she tore toward her newly assigned tank. Flurry, Arco, Bluebell, and another overall-dressed mare were sat atop the front, a forklift fitted with ropes lowering what Duck realized to be the replacement for their bent-back turret barrel into their waiting, and now definitely straining hooves. Ascending the ramp with her teeth grit, she brushed past Pine Needle—who was in the middle of giving her a nice bit of salutations—clambered up the Comet's side with a trio of loud knocks, and propped herself beneath the barrel just in time to avoid it giving Flurry's head a good old five-star-rated concussion. Straining herself, she pushed her forelegs up and, with Bluebell pushing it from the opposite end, placed the barrel just inside the lip of the mantlet. As the fresh barrel thunked into a more comfortable position, Flurry, Arco, Bluebell, and the mechanic rose from their selected spots and wiped their hooves together, flashing grins and flinging sweat from their brows.

Flurry looked down at Duck, who was lying down with her spine against the Comet's upper glacis in a very uncomfortable, borderline bone-shattering position, and beamed as bright as the sun shimmering from behind her shadowed figure, shutting her eyes. "Good save, Duck! Barrel almost got me there!"

More than you'd think, Flurry.

Arco was busy fiddling with his hooves, most likely attempting to get the grease off his blue fur. "Thing's a lot heavier than I woulda thought!"

About... actually, she didn't know that one. Checkmate, Duck. Checkmate.

They were apparently taking turns, as Bluebell dismounted with a small, "Oh whoops," to allow the mechanics to swarm the right side and pull up a long metal rod that, as the mechanic swung it around, almost clocked Bluebell upside the back of her skull. The mechanics, being the only ones noticing apart from Duck, exchanged looks and sucked on their teeth audibly. Duck swallowed a lump down her throat, then lightly tapped on Arco's flank to allow her access next to their repairmare's side. Flurry and Arco both seeming to notice their needed exit hopped off the Comet. The repairmare nodded at Duck happily, then moved over and held the barrel in place as Duck grabbed hold of the rod and placed it within the two holes of the cannon's muzzle break. She returned to the opposite side of the barrel, and the duo began to slowly turn the business end of the cannon like a vice's handle with eerily—mechanically—similar end goals.

The mechanic grunted and pulled her end downward.

"You're Duck Bill, huh?"

Duck Bill minded her friend's position and, finding them staring up at her with their hooves over their eyes near the front of the left track, pushed her end upward.

"Mmhm."

"Kickass." Down. "I'm Crescent Wrench, and, no, that's not a nickname."

Up. Duck giggled. "Pleased to meet you, Crescent Wrench."

Crescent nodded again. Down. "All the mares in overalls here are members of the Vehicle Repair class, specializing in... well, the obvious." Duck pulled her end up. "Our first... erugh... our first assignment was gonna be fixing up some old cars in the back of the parking lot inside some shipping crates for the Driving class." Duck's up. Crescent's down. "Came in this morning and the teacher told us we'd be helping the Tankery class repair their new tanks." She snorted like a feasting pig. "I much prefer the new task."

Up and a down.

"Hey, you guys mind helping us with these?" Came a voice from down below that Duck, completely focusing on her current job, couldn't see. Not one she recognized, but apparently one Crescent did, who, with her mane matted against her forehead, whipped her neck around and smirked at.

"Oh, yeah, sure," went Flurry.

"What's all this?" asked Bluebell.

Crescent roared with amusement, throwing her head back to show the sun her uvula. "Hahaha! Phillips, are you putting these poor Tankers on scrubbing duty again?!"

Arco's response was instant, and tinted with a stuttered bout of sarcasm. "O-Oh you rat bastard!" Something plunked into a bucket of water.

"Hey!" Phillips replied, prompting Duck to involuntarily look over for a split second, find a head of short, curly brown mane atop a lime-green coat of fur, and speedily return back to the turning rod. It was her turn, and she almost missed Phillips' voice as she continued, "Take a look at the poor thing! Covered in dirt, rust, and Gods know whatever the hell that white stain on the back is!"

Something slapped... something.

"Put some elbow grease on it, Tankers! Get back t' scrubbin'!"

It was Duck's turn to screw in the new gun barrel again, and, finding an excruciating, multi-disc-popping amount of trouble at it, realized that the two of them were done with their task. Stopping herself in a diarrhea of vowels and consonants before she could screw up, she motioned to Crescent and began pulling out the rod. Crescent, finding a bit of a hard time positioning herself properly to assist, lightly pushed it upward with a hindleg until it was about halfway up, where she then sprang to her hooves and brushed up against Duck's side to yank it out the rest of the way. As it came free and landed in Duck's hooves, it made a last-ditch effort in taking someone's life for the day and caused Duck to stumble backward toward the edge of the Comet, but she, albeit panickingly, wobbled the stick around like she was a tight-roper and kept her balance long enough for Crescent to reach over and pull her back toward the center of the glacis. Breathing a sigh of relief so her inner turmoil wouldn't show, Duck rolled the rod onto Crescent's waiting hooves underneath her own, made sure that the mechanic had a proper hold of it, and ducked under it before quickly hopping off the side of the Comet.

Landing on the concrete with a thump and a small jolt of shock in all four of her legs, she looked over at Arco, Flurry, and Bluebell, two of which were in the process of scrubbing away at the front mudguards while the other one sprayed the rest of the tank's head with a garden hose. Walking over and grabbing a sponge from the bright yellow bucket on the ground next to Flurry's hindlegs, Duck took her place next to the Alicorn and asked shakily, "S-So... how's your day been?"

Flurry giggled sweetly, playfully bumping her rump against Duck's and causing her to scooch over as Flurry's sponge invaded her space like Operation Barber-Rosa.

"Well!" Flurry started, giving Duck a flip of her mane and a dipping of her chin in a... vaguely... um, pose. She went back to scrubbing. Duck looked away, her face red. "Arco and I got here a bit early because I was actually a bit excited to see all of the tanks we'd found and Arco said he'd left a few of his things in the garage so it was kind of a win-win, and it turns out that Bluebell and the rest of the class had the same idea!"

Arco poked his head out from Flurry's left, waving his sponge around wildly. "Don't think we all came here for the same thing, though!" He pointed down the line, and Duck followed it. "Case in point, our M5 Stuart, everypony!"

Simultaneously surprised he'd remembered the name and dizzied from the quick movement, Duck's eyes widened as she found the four nerds... taping... paper to their tank's exterior, the current one looking to be an uncomfortably detailed stick figure with curled forelegs, with a grammatically incorrect caption "y u no go fast?" underneath it. Apparently satisfied with their work—much to the more vocal chagrin of the repairmare working on the treads next to them—they took a step back and high-hoofed, showing Duck what all they'd... done to their Stuart! A red-bodied, hyped-up stick figure yelling about shooting "all the things!" near the front of the turret; a heavily-armed Unicorn clad in olive green armour against a fiery background with the words END beneath it on the rear plating; a simple strip of white labeled with the phrase "dance like there's nobody watching" running along its side.

Duck gaped.

Arco laughed. "Yup! The nerds memed up their tank."

Oh... oh Gods... what of all the others?

Duck dropped her sponge into the bucket to Flurry's sarcastic, "What, you're already done?" and trotted away from the Comet to the front of the ramps. Making a fair amount of distance on the concrete, she stood where she'd halted, closed her eyes, sucked in a breath, shot it out calmly, fanned out both her forelegs to further allay herself, braced herself with every bit of strength in her body, and about-faced to look at her team.

Her jaw dropped.

On the far left stood the Cruiser Mark IV, a new pale green coat of paint covering its every nook and cranny, accompanying its equally fresh olive green leaf pattern—betrayingly—nicely. Covering the pattern however were long, white lines of paint spelling out what she realized to be phrases of some kind. "Shed fur like an owner" there, "Your love will be secure in my hooves" under it, "Sky was womb, and she was the moon" upside-down for some reason, and what looked to be the same scissoring 2's Duck had noticed on Pine's coffee cup the other day painted on each of the Light Tank's roadwheels.

The Tiger H was now a navy blue colour, with gold and purple stripes running along its side plates that were bisected by five pairs of black-lined, white-filled jersey numbers. Accompanying the jocks and mechanics were... cheerleaders, Duck noticed, who were in the midst of painting cheerful wishes and hyped-up messages anywhere they could get their pom-pom fixed hooves on. The jocks, meanwhile, were yucking it up and occasionally talking to the poor Vehicle Repair students assigned to work with them.

She closed her eyes and thanked the Gods above as her eyes landed on the Comet, finding no additions to its figure apart from the new barrel and the five ponies washing away its damage.

She opened them and returned to the terrible task of unveiling.

She skipped over the Stuart. She already knew what had become of it.

Finally, the SOMUA, which had been painted a vertical—from her position—three-color scheme of red, gold, and blue completely hiding its former Prench camouflage, with a donkey, a maple leaf, and an elephant standing out proudly on each color respectively. It seemed that only the trifecta had been able to find glossy paint, as the SOMUA almost blinded her and caused her to strain her eyes and look away.

Gods... what had they done?! These paint jobs provided no tactical advantage whatsoever! They'd be spotted from miles away if they ever got onto the battlefield! That would end up leaving only her Comet to fight off their enemies... and she didn't think she could handle that kind of pressure... oh Gods...

A particularly Arctic chill coursed through her legs despite the warm weather now remembering to cook her from the inside, and Duck shook her head and stared at the floor as she returned to her friends, who appeared to be about finished with their task... which puzzled her, because explosive damage and the charring of metal was more than impossible to simply scrub away... was their effort some kind of magic?

She jostled her mane again and hopped up the front of the Comet while Arco spoke up, "It really looks like you're about to kill everypony here, Duck. Are you okay?"

She looked at Arco. "Mmhm," she gave him, and she did a little jump onto the 77mm HV cannon and about teetered off its edge. Thankful that nopony had seen her little mess—or at least finding comfort in the fact that nopony was giggling out of nowhere assuringly about it—she bent over and pulled the half-circle hatch fixed atop the Commander's cupola. Placing both sides against the top of the turret, Duck approached the now open space slowly, sat her rump against the rolled homogenous armor of the roof, and carefully slid into the cupola to finally, finally get a look inside her new machine.

Immediately, she slammed her hindlegs on the scope overhanging the Gunner's seat and let out a small curse she immediately regretted and covered her mouth for.

"Darn it!"

Sucking on her teeth and groaning, she sniffled a bit of snot back into her nose and plopped herself onto her haunches to get into a proper Commander's position. The familiar scent of wires, iron, and grease assaulted her nostrils and mixed in with her sorrow, and she suppressed the urge to clench her muzzle shut with a hoof as she directed her attention directly upward and reached for the down-facing handles hanging from the lip of the cupola. Coiling her hooves around them, she flexed her chin and puffed out her cheeks, then slowly found herself able to rotate the cupola itself. She went about a full sixty-degrees with it before feeling good enough with her efforts and dropping her hooves into her lap. She looked around and noticed, even without additional ponies occupying its few seats, that the interior of the Comet was... cramped. Already, she was close to dangling her hindlegs in her imaginary Gunner's face, and, if she turned about with her elbow even slightly raised up, she'd be giving her Loader a nice shiner she'd likely be mutinied over. Her eyes having drifted over to where the Loader would be sitting—notably awkwardly she might add, with ammo bins keeping them tightly secured in more safely than any seatbelt could—a large box situated on the wall caught her attention near her head to her right. She raised up a hoof and knocked on it, assuming it to be where spare parts would lay.

Instead, a sudden stream of old, gunky water began spewing out from a little tap she'd now gravely discovered lying at the bottom of it. She opened her mouth to scream and was already in the process of jumping away from it, but was saved from a concerned pair of friends and a searing head injury as the water swiftly stopped just as quickly as it had appeared. Scrunching up her nose and wiping the small puddle it had formed with a sleeve, Duck muttered something to herself that even she didn't understand a second later, and returned to her observations.

Truth be told, while she knew a lot about tanks, their origins, and their armour and guns, she... didn't know a lot about their interiors. Case in point, her incredibly lost dancing about inside the prior seemingly-familiar Crumpish-born Cruiser Tank. Though, her family's Valentine was an entirely different story, only able to hold up to a cramped four that was usually, stubbornly, restricted to three in a proclaimed interest of not being too "clammy", according to her mother.

Oh Gods, even the Gunner's seat was a tight fit. Did Crumphill know the ways that ponykind sat? They were in another country much like their own, but you'd think they were on another planet their practices were so incredibly odd! Case in point, again, the Comet she was sitting in, and just how much there was to take in at the moment!

Her mind having returned yet again to the subject of the Loader, mainly asking just how terrible it would be to sit in their seat, she looked over at its overwhelming amount of boxes and tins and moved her sights over just an inch...

...to the light tan rectangular box lining the wall right in front of the Loader's face.

The radio.

She... no. That wouldn't do. Whoever ended up taking the Loader's seat in the end didn't deserve having to pull double-duty by clumsily loading AP rounds into the breech and thereafter responding on allied comms about locations, formations, and movements.

Which brought up the question of who to give it to instead.

Duck narrowed her eyes and brought a hoof up to her chin.

She'd rather not hold responsibility for every little switch and dial and receiver plaguing the whole darn thing, and she'd probably end up just screwing the whole operation up and costing them losses left and right. The Gunner was an obvious out, and as was the Driver...

She hummed.

But there was another seat, at the front. She'd noticed the MG and its rectangular cradle on the left side of the vertical stepped plate as she'd climbed up the glacis. The Machine Gunner's seat, now... there was an idea. But no, that would mean no MG, which would prove useful for adjusting their aim and distractions. But, with the MG still sitting in its place and easily able to screw up their makeshift Radio Operator's moving around, it could spell even further trouble for the Comet.

She shook her head. She'd have to see the situation first.

Looking up toward the cupola again and finding the blue sky and its white clouds, she threw her hooves up and rose from her haunches, emerging from the dimmed interior of the A34 back into the reality of Ponyville High's tank garage space, still buzzing about with activity from beeping, to cranking, to zipping, to whirring, to talking, to spraying, to thumping, to hammering, to tracking, and to... Lovercolt's Working In The Week's End which was blasting from the now more closely parked delivery truck sitting in the grass in front of the class' tanks.

Flurry regarded her as she pulled herself out of the cupola and hopped back onto all fours atop the cannon. "You find anything in there, Duck?"

Duck nodded. "Don't think you're gonna like it, but, yes, I think I did." She had expected Flurry to ask what she'd found so she could display her immense knowledge and detective sleuthing skills, but the Alicorn opted on reverting her attention to elsewhere. Duck took matters into her own hooves as said hooves helped her descend the front of the mantlet and onto the left side of the glacis, where she brought up a foreleg, rapped on the armour to gather Bluebell's, Flurry's, and Arco's attention, and pointed at the MG's cradle. "That right there is a Machine Gun cradle, designed to keep the Machine Gun in place and accurate as can be." Her history lesson over, she looked down to find out where the Machine Gunner and Driver hatches would be... and promptly blanched. Oh Gods, she knew... this was going to be... arthritic. She checked to see if her crew members were, hopefully, looking away, but grew steadily more and more red-faced as she realized their attention was completely fixated on her and her alone. 

It wasn't the two circles at the front of the glacis—those were the optics—it was the side-opening hatch located on the... sides.

She looked at her crew. They looked back at her.

She blinked. They blinked. Arco even tilted his head.

Duck swallowed, and began to crawl into the Machine Gunner's position with the agility of a molasses-covered, panicking, writing-about garden snake, with all the hissing and fussing to boot. Though not as bad as she'd thought—which she owed to her admittedly small stature—she politely clunked her head against the ceiling once she fully made it in and passed it off as her hoof smacking something once Flurry checked in on her from outside. Settling into her seat, and noting how very uncomfortable it was (just like the rest of the tank, now that she thought about it), she stared straight ahead, her back up against the cushion, and, though keeping in mind what she said, took a few of it back.

This was actually fairly decent of a setup.

Her own periscope dangling from the ceiling to her left, and a complex-looking mechanism surrounding what she judged to be a Crumphill-modified Checkslowwalkie BESA Machine Gun on her right with its own Gunner sight for maximum accuracy she didn't see in too many tanks. Though it was decent, it posed a problem... which was, itself, the BESA sticking right up in the Machine Gunner's face, and would restrict their right foreleg to the bare minium of movement, the likes of which was necessary for controlling a radio. So there was no conceivable way to have both the MG and the radio up front... and she was finding the radio being up front to be a very advantageous idea.

Back to the issue of the BESA, however...

"Hey, Flurry?" She asked the still-open Machine Gunner's hatch, hoping her voice carried properly.

"Yeah, Duck? What is it?" came the swift reply.

"Actually," Duck began, raising her forelegs up and starting to pull herself out of the seat, "give me a second, if you would." She found it much easier to crawl back out into open air than to scramble down into claustrophobic choking, and was back on the concrete floor in less than twenty seconds. Brushing herself off, she looked over at Flurry, who was awaiting her continuation, and... continued with a point at the BESA's cradle. "Would you mind taking that out, really quick?" She hoped it wasn't too much to ask of her.

Flurry cocked her head. "The... which part of that?"

Duck walked over the stepped plate and leaned forward to tap a hoof against the BESA's barrel in a position she was only now realizing was incredibly dangerous, especially with a gun that—presumably—hadn't been fired in three whole years. "Just the gun. I'd like to free up some space in there, if we can... I hope it's not a big deal... if it is, I mean, I can try and get it out myself–"

Flurry waggled a hoof. "Say no more. I gotcha."

She lit her horn and, just like that, the BESA disappeared from the cradle Duck was looking at and right into her waiting forelegs. She grunted at the weight, but flashed her teeth and turned about to inform her crew of its information. She looked down at it, noticed the first thing that was wrong with it, and presented it to the three ponies watching her intently. "BESA Machine Gun. Made in Checkslowwalkia, modified by Crumphill for use in their tanks with permission." Tipping its butt down and adjusting her grip on its underbarrel, she moved her right hoof over to the receiver and added, "Chambered in 7.92 mm Mauser rounds," as she pulled the bolt toward her breast, dislodged the prior jammed bullet casing that flew onto the ground and clattered loudly by her hindlegs, and let the receiver fly back into a ready position before grasping the whole thing casually once more, finishing up with a simple, "and, usually, able to fire about twenty-five-hundred rounds before needing a refill at a depot."

She looked back up at Flurry, Arco, and Bluebell... who were now all staring at her wide-eyed with their jaws touching the floor.

Her ears pinned against her head, and she shied away. Had she done something wrong? Funny? Stupid? Like most of the time?

She shook her head. No. Quit it.

Her hooves brought her over to the nearby trolly, and she placed the BESA on it before turning around and heading back to her crew. "Thank you, Flurry." Flurry shut her mouth and nodded quietly. Duck looked back at the BESA and flopped a hoof absent-mindedly. "We don't... really have much reason to have a bow Machine Gun, and the radio is, right now, part of the Loader's duties, whose main job is to load the tank's cannon. I'd rather not put whoever takes that position under that kind of... pressure, so I'd like to maybe move the radio around to the Machine Gunner's seat and have our own designated Radio Operator like most tanks do."

She turned back to face them.

"Which asks us... 'who's our Radio Operator'?"

Arco took a step forward, looking over at the 77mm. "Wait, how many seats are there?"

Duck replied, "Five. You have a Commander, a Loader, and a Gunner in the gun itself, and a Driver and a Machine Gunner in the front section."

Flurry frowned. "And there are four of us."

And with Duck being incapable of even talking to people without one of her constantly busy-for-better-purposes friends, leaving only Bluebell who she'd rather not be stuck together with for more than a span of half a second alone... oh Gods, who could they even ask? Where would they even start? Where would they go to? Would they have to put up Help Wanted signs around the school? Even then, who in the world spent their time fiddling with radios if it wasn't part of their electives? As far as she knew, there were no Radio Communication classes offered at Ponyville High—though she may have missed it on the electives form she barely looked at in the first place—so... they were stuck, weren't they? They needed five, and, as of right now, they only had four. And she didn't want to even think about having the Driver co-op manning the tank's movements and holding comms... which she realized she was doing right now stop it!

Arco looked at everypony, disturbing her train of thought. "You guys know anybody good with a radio?"

"No," Bluebell said immediately, though mostly—probably—so she wouldn't have to have a long conversation with any of them.

Flurry shook her head. "Nopony good with radios, but I know a few mares in the Debate Club who might be up for it."

Arco snickered. "What, you want them to talk about their country's earnings and declarations of peace?"

"That's Model U.N., idiot."

"Ohoho, whoops."

Arco's humorous retort was echoed from nearby, prompting Duck and the rest of her crew to turn head and look over at the Tiger H standing... very blue next to them. Its assigned mechanics were sitting next to its left side, one of them pointing at its torsion bars and, now, its interleaved roadwheels with a combination wrench.

"Inner leaf? The hell's that supposed to mean?" One of the jocks—Duck recognized her (barely) as Hail Mary—asked, elbow against the side of the Tiger.

The lead mechanic rolled her eyes. "Interleaved." She tapped the roadwheels for emphasis. "They overlap one another, as a total of eight to distribute its weight better on the ground." She smirked, pointing at each piece as she went, "You've got an idler wheel in the back, your eight roadwheels, and a drive sprocket in the front. I mean, if you want me to, I can take all those out and just put tires. Make you go faster."

The jocks, seemingly, didn't seem to understand the sarcasm until the rest of the nearby mechanics began laughing, and, only then, bore their teeth and hissed at them. "Don't get funny with us, grease monkeys. We can just do this ourselves if we nee–"

At once, as if they'd rehearsed it, the four mechanics prior "helping" the jocks work on the Tiger dropped what they were doing or holding like they were surrendering, stayed their positions, and began to quickly walk away. The leader called, "Hear that, guys? They said they could do it themselves! Go find another group to help, these guys have got it under control!"

The jocks, understandably, looked as if they had now just lost all semblance of knowledge they had on the Griffonian behemoth standing imposingly next to them, but swiftly changed their expressions and gave their new ones to each other. "Pssh, we don't need them! We've got this!"

"Hee-yuh, totally!"

"Let's get some!"

The jerseyed mare Duck recognized as Lily Pad marched over to the wheeled tool chest a few inches away, bent over, and picked up a flimsy piece of tarnished paper that she brought up to her face closer than one probably should to read. The rest of the Hoofball-born crew gathered around her as she mumbled to herself. After a span of about five minutes—half of which Duck spent scratching her head, yawning, or idly moving a foreleg—Lily lowered the Griffonian manual with a puffy huff, looked kooky-eyed at the Tiger's suspension, and seemingly asked the entire area, "We have to take out three of these wheels to fix up one?!"

"Wait what?!"

"Lemme see that, Lily!"

A hoof tapped at Duck's shoulder, and she turned around to find Arco placing his foreleg back against the ground. "Think Mrs. Red wants you or something."

Duck looked over Arco's head—which he lowered in a courteous response—and, sure enough, saw their teacher waving at her from next to the SOMUA, still dressed in her army green uniform. She raised a hoof herself to begin walking over to see what Mrs. Red needed, but gritted her teeth and covered her ears as a piercing wave of noise erupted from somewhere up high. Duck, and—as she looked around in a panic to discover—the rest of the ponies in the immediate area whirled about and found the culprit near the three flags waving over the garages.

CRRRKT! 

A voice clicked into place.

"Will Gingersnap please head to the office? Gingersnap, please..."

Duck lowered her forelegs from her ears. She didn't know a Gingersnap—not that she'd... really known anyone apart from Flurry, Arco, and Bluebell—but maybe it was one of the mechanics?

The voice returned, "...oh, is this... oh, oh Gods, this isn't Chemistry. Sorry, uh... whoever I'm speaking to instead...! Which... isn't Chemistry...!" Duck and the rest of the class looked at each other quietly, but held looks that definitely had hundreds of things they wanted to say. "...Uh, Gods, this is– oh whoops!" CHHHH! "Ah, darn it! That was my coffee! Uh, sorry, Mr. Cheese! ...No, it wasn't your trophy! Don't worry! It was– it was just my coffee! I'll wipe it up, don't worry! Sorry guys, gonna– am I still on? Godsdamn, hold on a sec, gotta get outta my seat and– aaaah!" THUMP! After a few seconds of quiet crackling, "Ughhhhhh! That hurt...!" CREEEEEAK! "No no no no nononononono!" CLUNK! "No chair why?! I thought we were friends!"

By now, the two temporarily combined classes were in fits of light snickers and belly laughs. Duck stared up at the intercom system, pursing her lips.

After another short while...

"...hey, Mr. Cheese."

Silence.

"Hello, Graham." Clip clop clip clop. "Sorry about that, everypony."

"Sorry, guys!" went the other one.

CRRRKT! 

With the white noise over, the classes roared with laughter.

Duck, instead, turned to Flurry, who was giggling in one of her own hooves.

"Who was that?"

Flurry cleared her throat, whipped her mane around, and gave Duck a goofy smile. "That was, ahem, that was one of the morning announcers. She's pretty much known throughout school for being a bit clumsy, but some of us love her anyways."

Duck turned around to let the Alicorn go back to whatever she was busy doing, and looked back up at the now silenced intercom.

She hummed, and flexed her chin idly.





She had safely planted herself against the open doorway of the front office, and as she watched the clock above its frame tick over to two o' clock, she didn't even have to move out of the way as the rush of escaping students Blitzkrieged through the commons and toward both sets of doors behind her to head home. But she moved anyway, flinching and peeling her ears back in case a stray pony found an alternative route that just so happened to be inside her personal bubble that was about five times her own length. She waited as groups of Freshmen, Sophomores, Juniors, and Seniors flooded the area, anticipating an unwanted bout of contact, but, finding none and seeing the number of students quickly dwindle down as the first wave finished, Duck adjusted her messenger bag's strap over her chest, fiddled with one of the buttons on her sleeve's end, and turned the corner to walk into the front office.

And slammed head-on into another pony who was leaving the same room.

They both—judging by the much louder cry of surprise accompanying her own—fell back and hit the ground in a daze, the sounds of paper and books hitting the floor already causing Duck a large amount of despair she hoped wasn't audibly petering out. Sitting up onto her haunches and rubbing at the back of her head, she grit her teeth and stared across the way with one eye to find another mare her age doing the same, her light gray and black mane a bit curly and a bit shaggy at the seemingly impossible same span of time. Her wings fluttered in little twitches, as if they'd tried to start flapping as a reflex of some kind.

"Oww... geez."

Duck raised her forelegs and bent them against her chest.

"I'm so–"

"–rry!"

Duck tilted her head back.

The Pegasus did the same.

Duck spoke first. "I didn't mean to–"

"–do that I'm so sorry."

They blinked at one another.

The Pegasus opened her mouth.

Duck opened hers.

The Pegasus shut hers.

Duck shut hers.

Duck examined the damage around them, finding her books and her papers.

The Pegasus looked around the floor wobbly-eyed, catching sight of her own things.

Duck intended to get back onto all four hooves. "Um..."

"...yeah."

Duck got up and began to gather her stuff.

The Pegasus did the same, bending down and stuffing papers into her backpack.

"Oh, that's mine–"

"–oh, sorry."

SHK SHK!

CREEEN.

ZZZZZIP!

THUMP!

"Darn it."

Duck looked over at the Pegasus, who, after safely stowing her fallen binder away in her bag, stared up.

Duck's green eyes into the mare's brown.

"Uh... I'm Duck Bill."

She extended a hoof... and promptly dropped her book she'd forgotten she was holding.

The Pegasus pushed her mane up and brought the same hoof over to shake Duck's.

"I'm Graham Cracker." Graham looked away, bit her lip, then dipped down to grab Duck's book before Duck herself could get it. Placing it into Duck's hooves, she added, "I'm sorry about that..."

Duck flailed a hoof, almost dropping it again. "No, it was my fault!"

A staff member exited the front office behind Graham, flashed her a grin, frowned, looked at the ground, sucked on his teeth, mimicked Graham's following neck-craning-back-thing, and laughed as she laughed.

"Have a good one, Graham."

"You too, Mr. Lane!"

Graham turned around after waving Mr. Lane off, and her giggle died down upon meeting Duck's gaze again.

"I really should have been watching where I was going–"

"–no, I should have looked before going inside."

Graham raised an eyebrow. "Did you need something in there? I hope I'm not stopping you or anything."

Duck beamed. "No, actually! Well... not in there anymore."

Graham's eyebrow looked about ready to escape her face.

"I, um... I heard your announcement earlier..."

Graham, immediately, blanched, turning around and displaying a large brown stain on the backside of her school jacket. "Ughhh, you heard that? Who did I call?"

"The Tankery class."

Graham looked at the ceiling, her eyes shut.

"Ugh huh huh, I'm so stupid." Her gaze went to the stain. "Now I've got coffee on my friggin' jacket, I broke my mug on the floor, and my stomach still hurts from the seat adjuster doing a piledriver on me."

Duck snickered. Oh, that's right. "Actually, I wanted to ask you about that."

Another eyebrow. Wait... was she using the opposite one this time? How in the... never her mind.

"About what? Me being dumb?"

Duck shook her head. "No, about... um, do you know radios?"

Graham's facade of below-average self-esteem faded away in an instant, and she struck a pose and bore her teeth. "Do I know radios?!" She flailed a leg. "Pssh, I come from a long line of school office workers known for their accuracy and their poise, with the voices of angels and all the heaven-bringing as well!"

Duck bunched up her cheeks. This was... amazing! "That's great! We were wondering if–"

Graham cut her off. "I'm not so blessed." She pointed at the stain, then at the bits of porcelain sticking jaggedly out of one of her bag's side pockets. "Case in point."

Duck's ears fell back. Oh.

No! She could still ask! It didn't hurt!

She scratched one of her ears to make it rise again. "It's just that, um, the Tankery class is due to start our actual lessons tomorrow... and my team needs another member... and... what?" She had paused, noticing Graham's eyes shrinking to pinpricks as she took a few stumbling steps back from Duck, teeth grit, before letting out a little squeal and sprinting the other way as quickly as an Equestria Games gold medalist. As scraps of paper flew in lazy U's down to the ground in the Pegasus' wake, Duck stared at the spot she'd previously occupied and listened as the dead pieces of wood finally crinkled onto the carpeted floor.

She sighed, adjusted her bag, grabbed the rest of the papers, and trotted toward the front doors, anxiousness bubbling in her gut.

Now what was she going to do?
> You Can Do It! The Tank Goes!
> --------------------------------------------------------------------------

"Ughhh, is this thing done yet?!"

Duck snapped to attention, her eyes practically bouncing into an open position and her posture straightening like a tank cannon. She raised a hoof up in a crisp, much-too-rehearsed salute, but quickly realized where exactly she was at and stopped herself about midway up. Midway, Gods what an incredible battle that would have been. Blinking first one green eye and then the other, she cleared her throat and looked around the room idly.

The silence of their octagonal table—only contained to them, taking into account the rambunctious attitudes of the rest of the class—ended up being the stallion's only answer. He glared daggers at the piece of shaped glass now only mere centimeters from his teeth-flashing muzzle and shot smoke out of his nostrils that caused Duck to suddenly glance about for an alarm system in an admittedly slight panic.

A pony bumped into him, quickly whispered a half-hearted apology that he briskly ignored as well, and continued on their way with their conversation's space reaching across the entire stretch of the classroom's walls—deafeningly—ignorantly. A few scattered students here and there gave the two uproarious participants looks of annoyance, but didn't speak their minds and simply returned to their stations.

The low whine of their hot plate went on its merry way, burning the underside of their graduated measuring cup invisibly.

EEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEE...

"Uh?"

The stallion leaned forward, looking down into the cup and straight into its vibrating contents.

It was quiet again for awhile.

And then a single, small, minuscule, tiny, little bubble formed and subsequently, very quickly, almost instantly, assuredly immediately, quintessentially instantaneously, popped.

Pop!

"Errr!"

A mare, her chin resting in her hooves against the top of the table—and about eye-level with the hot plate, looking at her now—replied boredly, "Guess not."

The stallion, whom Duck vaguely recalled as... she wanted to say Party Favour(?), placed his forelegs atop the table and lifted his chin from its previous position, a snarl squiggling his lips. "Godsdammit, everypony else is almost about done right now!" He, apparently, needed a confirmation, as he looked around wildly at the different groups of other ponies gathered around their own—boiling—cups and—beeping—measuring tablets, and, turning back to face his own group—composed of Duck Bill, the bored mare, himself, another mare who looked about ready to throw herself out of a window, and a slightly plump stallion wearing safety goggles and an apron... for boiling water with a hot plate, which she wasn't judging him for because that was kind of rude and wait crap she was in the middle of something there we go—inflated his cheeks. He scrunched up his snout and shouted, "Boil, damn you!"

The teacher, Mr. Arsdale, suddenly appeared next to Party Favour and, wagging a hoof in his face, tutted with a grin, "Favour, language please."

Favour looked up at the ceiling. He plopped himself onto his haunches and grumbled, "Sorry, Mr. Arsdale."

The over-prepared stallion thumped his goggles to raise his hoof high.

"Yes?" Mr. Arsdale asked.

"We just can't seem to get our water to boil!"

Mr. Arsdale adjusted his glasses and moved around the table to stand next to the hot plate, then placed a hoof under his chin and rubbed at his stubble, humming.

The student continued, pointing lazily at the equipment, "We put it on the highest setting it would go, and..." He trailed off, noticing Mr. Arsdale's sudden glare. "What?"

He leaned over and flicked the dial on the hotplate a few notches back, then snatched Duck's paper from in front of her—causing her to flinch and puff her cheeks—and thwacked it with a hoof, replying, "If you looked at the instructions on your paper, you'd see that you strictly shouldn't put your hot plate on the highest setting! Put it. On. Medium!" He took a step forward, as if to walk away, then turned about on a single remaining hindleg and waved his forelegs like very animated sock puppets against a canvas. "If you don't, you might end up with..." the forelegs faltered, "...uh, what is it you kids call it now, an epic fail?"

Favour snickered. "We called it that about ten years ago, sir. Back when we were in, like, kindergarten."

Mr. Arsdale kept his goofy grin, but nodded, his eyes telling a completely different story of embarrassment and utter heartbreak. "'kay." And he was off again.

Favour couldn't bear it any longer, and threw his two hooves over his mouth, cackling quietly now. 

The over-prepared stallion spoke up, "I still say 'epic fail'."

"Yeah, you would!"

His sudden outburst being accompanied by a nest of activity in their cup, Favour made an incomprehensible, definitely foreign, guttural noise with his foreleg in the air, gazed over to their equipment with particularly darting eyes, and flung himself onto the table in a yellow blur. There, he shut one eye tightly, tilted his head, mouthed a few... things under his hot breath, and stared into the water-filled glass with the utmost amount of absolute concentration that, Duck, seeing not one Favour from her position behind the glass but a myriad of them—with one, big, massive, gargantuan eye shared between them—all but accidentally laughed at instead.

Pop!

"Errrrrrrrr..."

"If I may, Party Favour..." came a voice from behind the hailed stallion, who immediately brandished a scowl and didn't even turn their way, "...you should see if the bottom of your measuring cup is wet at all. It might be the cause to all your grief." The source was revealed as Favour whipped about, bearing his teeth at none other than Mr. Arsdale's second period Oceanography's local know-it-everything (the class of which Duck was actually placed in to her disappointment, as she'd checked off Chemistry before her first day, but they'd apparently had not enough room), Capi Tulo Perra, or better known as Perra, which was apparently a name that everypony laughed at whenever they so much as barely even heard it. Duck never got the memo. Which made sense. People never talked to her. Which was okay with her, honestly.

She shrugged.

The mare next to her shrugged as well.

Duck looked away.

So she didn't see Favour barking at Perra until she was pushing him back with her magic. And even then, he still found the time and the place—in second period, on a Friday no less—to hiss, "Would you just mind your own business, Miss 'Perfect'?!"

She did end up seeing Mr. Arsdale look over at the starting conflict, take a step forward to probably bring up some old internet slang again, slowly put the hoof back down onto the tiled floor, and turn right back around to help the students he was now hushing to gather their attention, though, so at least she wasn't completely missing out on the things that she most certainly was wanting—and now currently trying—to miss out on. She placed her lips in a straight frown, flicked an ear, and tilted her head to stare at the cute poster near the emergency eye flushing station—which merited such a thing fixed adjacent to its scary, bright orange figure—that read "You Otter Wear Your Safety Equipment!" with an adorable little fluffy sea otter holding up a socket wrench (something they didn't have any use for in an Oceanography class) and clutching his hard hat (something she... hoped they didn't have any use for in an Oceanography class) with a big old smile plastered on his plastic face holes.

If there was one thing to appreciate in the terrible drag that was her second-period class, it was Mr. Arsdale's abundance of weird collectables ranging from the aforementioned otter poster—which she guessed was more a precaution, and a little bit of a necessity, and probably a mandatory thing put upon him by the school darn it Duck you're so stupid—to little fish skeletons he'd later corrected her as being from the genus Salvelinus and not Salmo like she'd prior believed. The former encounter was doing wonders for sending her away from the one-sided argument she was now trying much harder to ignore, and the latter was probably what caused Mr. Arsdale to help her out a little more than the other students in terms of answering questions (or rather lack of, in her messy case) and doing work here and there in such little time of knowing each other. One of the diving teams they'd be monitoring over the course of the semester were due to go on a mission on Monday during lunch, and she reminded herself... inside of her own reminding to come over to this room to watch it on Mr. Arsdale's computer screen.

Speaking of computers, she wanted to see if... oh, yep. The one student still sitting alone at their assigned seats near the front of the classroom was still browsing pictures on the search engine with black-lined, white-filled letters underlining their figures. She didn't understand the appeal of "mees", as she'd heard them called.

And on the subject of appeals... Gods, this was turning out to be a pretty awful few days. She fiddled with her jacket, possibly as a way to jumpstart her remembrance, and actually managed to do it as she popped the topmost button off and snapped it back on, eliciting an odd look from the window-craving mare next to her in a—seemingly, if the likewise bewildered look on the over-prepared pony's face meant anything—blue moon occurrence. She'd started off her morning unconditionally, hitting her head on the wall next to her bed when the alarm she'd bought the other day went off like a rocket and sending the stars the object would see directly into her own two eyes. In a dizzy, and a whole-hearted panic more than just a bit eerily similar to the one of Griffonia's leaders had they foolishly gone through and invaded Yakyakistan, Duck had clutched her violently pulsating skull with both hooves and tangled herself in her sheets, tumbling down onto her floor with the alarm still blaring in her head... which dropped onto the floor having been snagged by her blanket and crashed directly onto her face. She'd screamed at it, assuredly freaking out her loathsome (of her) neighbors, but it didn't move an inch, instead opting on continuing its torrent of audible shrieks at her to rival her own emanating from her own dry throat. Eventually finding the strength to rip it away from her body and thereafter—regrettably, thinking back to it now—chucking it across the room and against something notably feline, which scared her because she didn't even like cats nor did she ever own one, she'd shot up onto all four hooves, made a move to head over to her bathroom, and slid onto her gut thanks to the combination of electrical alarm wires and fuzzy blanket fuzziness.

Oh and then she'd forgotten to make herself breakfast again, which was probably a good, if accidental, choice, because she might have tried stuffing it into her ear or something because of the new, irreparable brain damage she'd accrued.

Her stomach reminded herself of the event by gurgling. She eyed the nearby pair of tongs the students had been instructed to use in grabbing their recording equipment and debated stabbing them into her gut to quiet them down, then realized that, holy... crap she'd just thought about committing ritual Sudoku. Sudoku...? That was right, right?

"...and that's not even right, Party Favour–"

"I'll show you right, Perra!"

Yesterday...! Yesterday was... also pretty bad. Why had she sounded excited about it? 

The rest of Tankery team were looking to be taken out by TDs early in any match they ever took part in, there was much work to be done inside her crew's thoroughly cramped Comet, and the fifth member she'd been counting on to join them out of the blue and completely caught off-guard oh-why-did-she-think-it-would-work-why-did-she-do-that ended up scampering away in a kind of fright Duck had... shown herself capable of countless times before. The closest thing to an experienced Radio Operator that they could have advantageously employed, and possibly another kind friend to make, and she'd disappeared at the simple mention of the Tankery class. Who was she kidding, anyway? It was the last day of the first week of school, which meant that changing somepony's electives around was going to become a hassle and a half for the counselors, which in turn meant that they'd simply stop doing it for any students wanting such a thing. Graham Cracker probably liked all of her electives and was in a good place, and yet here Duck had come, asking her to change her sixth period to a terrifying, gut-wrenching, tactical sport the likes of which nopony should have even thought about enrolling in.

"And another thing!"

The defenestration-seeker slammed her head onto the table as Favour and Perra's argument continued on, mumbling, "Oh, good grief..." in a very nonchalant response to her skull possibly splitting wide open at the seams from the bone to wood contact. Elsewhere around the classroom, as if the two's angry conversation was an ordinary happenstance, students bubbled and troubled and toiled away at their labs, jotting down figures and numbers and writing in variably legible responses on the back of their assignments, their hot plates heating away and their measuring cups measuring away at the water that was watering away and boiling even though that wasn't what water did too often and their recording equipment doing what it did best, which was—as judged by her quick scanning, since her group's own tools weren't actually being used at the moment—spitting out long lines of unintelligible numerals and literal jagged lines that went up, flat-lined, went up again, flat-lined again, and then went up past the top of the little white beeping screen.

"Ponyson, you better not be making another M.R.E. with your burner again!" Mr. Arsdale called from the other side of the room of the olive shemagh wearing, beret toting stallion crouched down in the corner of the opposite side of the room with a lighter encased in a blue glow next to him. "I can smell the flame! You're not fooling me! You better not set your face on fire, again!"

"Hey! I wasn't the one who set my face on fire; I was a victim, sir, and you know it!"

Mr. Arsdale chuckled to himself and turned back around to assist the group of the hour with their lab. He pointed at something and said a few words that Duck couldn't make out.

"'ey, Miss Quack, you alive over there?"

The table members—including Favour, who looked to be pretty pleased with himself for some reason or another—giggled, smiling at her and fiddling with their respective gear.

Duck peeled her ears back and bunched up her cheeks, finding a bit of interest in the floor at her hooves.

Nicknames, and yet they were being nice to her with no ulterior motive whatsoever.

She didn't get it.

But she nodded all the same.

"Good, we need a good writer for the paper, and I think you have the best hoofwriting out of all of us here," Over-prepared said.

Window raised her hoof, but scrunched up her nose and decided otherwise.

Bored shrugged.

Favour opened his mouth to defend himself, looked over at the math homework he'd been told not to work on in Oceanography class, picked up the first sheet on top, made sure Mr. Arsdale wasn't looking, buried his nose in it, tilted his head, hummed for a while, lowered the paper, revealed his frown, and took the paper in one hoof and lazily spun it into the air back onto the pile. "Eh."

CRRRKT! 

Duck, for a second, believed that she'd been glanced by an APCBC shell somehow and was even lying on the ground to suit it, but glimpsed about the room to find everypony staring at the intercom near the door. She looked at it too.

Would Graham be on?

Her answer came to her an instant later, as the unmistakable, quickly recognizable voice of Graham came on, "Gooood morning Ponyville High! Today is the Eighteenth of August, and here are your morning announcements!"

A few of the students—followed by... well, the rest of the students around Duck—relaxed, leaning against walls, tables, and chairs to listen up attentively.

"Ahem..."

Graham... sighed.

Duck looked at her table group. They had the same look she hoped she was displaying. Which was one of genuine curiosity and confusion.

"Hooo... okay. Ah-hem! So! Today is the last day to change your... your electives, so m-make sure you do so before it's too late! Sign-up for such changes are in the curriculum office and with your counselors, so make sure you see either of them if you realize that maybe being in Mr. Warmsteel's AP Ancient Civilizations first period doesn't suit your fancy."

"Haw!" went Mr. Arsdale, arms crossed.

"Also, special tanks– guh!"

Duck's eyes widened.

The intercom was quiet for awhile, save for the white noise usually accompanying a microphone, and then, finally, Graham came back on. Duck could just see Graham's red face. She spoke slower this time. "Special. Thanks... to, heh heh, special thanks to Principal Cheese and Vice Principal Lane for helping organize this year's pep rally! We hope it's a great one, and we hope to see everypony there-there-there-there-there...!"

"Is she okay?"

"What's wrong with her?"

"Did the mic skip?"

"What's going on?"

Graham silenced them. In stutters.

"Uh... sorry, folks! I, uh, I-I-I dunno what's... oh Gods... uuuuuuum, let's see here, we... yes, the Homecoming game is... is next week...! We'll be facing the Cloudsdale Storms, er, Kickers I mean...! Yay us! Hopefully we win!"

Favour snickered.

"...hopefully!"

Quiet, again.

Graham clucked her tongue. "Aaaanyway, the Aviation team wants you... to come fly with them! Spitfires, Wildcats, Zeros, and 109s—they've got 'em all! Have you ever wanted to hop into a metal box and roll along the... I mean, uh... have you ever wanted to... oh..."

Duck sucked on her teeth.

Was Graham okay–

"I'M SO SORRY, DUCK BILL! I'LL JOIN YOUR TANK CREW! YOU CAN DEPEND ON ME, MA'AM!"

CRRRKT!

The quiet rushed back to Duck... and so did a beet red face, which she gave to the twenty-or-so ponies now looking at her with varying looks of annoyance, confusion, disgruntlement, anger, and happiness...

...which all changed as the intercom sounded once more.

CRRRKT!

"ALL AFTER-SCHOOL PROGRAMS ARE CANCELED TODAY. THAT IS ALL. G-GOOD NIGHT."

CRRRKT!

Duck blinked.





Flurry blinked.

As did Arco.

Bluebell, in the middle of a yawn, kind of had to blink.

Standing before the group was a bundle of tan clothing topped with an olive green helmet coiled by shiny goggles, which raised a clump of a foreleg up to salute them. Despite the much-too-big sleeve, the figure's hoof still made an audible clack against their Equestrian Tanker helmet. "Reporting for duty, ma'am!"

Bluebell pursed her lips and looked at Flurry. "Who the hell's this?"

Duck was the one to respond, much to Flurry's, Arco's, Bluebell's, and her own surprise. "Graham Cracker, our morning announcer!"

Flurry and Arco beamed. Bluebell, in the meanwhile, rolled her eyes and crossed her forelegs, having already been seated on the ground.

"Great. You got the Stuttermare, huh?"

What a rude nickname.

Graham apparently held more self-security and self-esteem than Duck did, still keeping her salute and her grin amidst the fluffiness and puffiness of her ensemble. Duck grinned and walked over to Graham, who lowered her gesture and faced her peacefully. Most of the outfit was... pretty much unnecessary, looking at it now. The only real usage any of it would see is reducing a head injury thanks to the '38 helmet, and the gloves Duck now noticed Graham was wearing, which just in general would keep her safe from spent shells, new shells, and... shells.

"Did you buy all this this morning?" Duck asked, cautiously grabbing Graham's right sleeve and looking at the single gold delta stitched onto the shoulder. Was this all authentic?

"Yes, ma'am!"

"You can stop with the 'ma'am' stuff, Stuttermare," Bluebell piped up, having walked up next to Duck without her even noticing... which showed, because she jumped at the blue mare's voice and made a small eep she hoped hadn't been heard. Bluebell leaned over and propped a very unwelcome elbow on Duck's side, smirking, "we're not actual Tankers or anything. Don't think anypony here knows what one even is."

Graham opened her mouth.

"What she meant to say, Graham," came Arco, trotting over and shaking her hoof, "was 'welcome to the team'!"

"We're happy to have you, Graham," went Flurry, pulling alongside Duck's right. "We don't know anypony else who could take your spot as–"

"Hahaha! And who might this be, little shrimps?"

Their response was instant, and quite frankly looked to be rehearsed. With snarls mucking up their muzzles, Duck, Flurry, Arco, and even Bluebell turned around to find five, much taller, jersey-wearing mares smiling at them in a tight pack, having apparently left the side of their childishly-painted Tiger H to... do anything than what they were supposed to do.

The other teams—stacked in a line in the same order they'd been assigned—continued their duties, cleaning up their tanks and installing equipment crucial to Tank Warudo legal standards.

"Oh go to hell, Lily, you can just–"

"Is that Graham Cracker in that pile of clothing?" Lily asked, cutting Bluebell off and walking over to Graham, "How you doin' in there, Stuttermare? Little warm?"

"I don't even have a stutter–"

Lily turned to Duck this time. "Merry band of losers you have here, Quackers."

The mare Duck barely recognized as Hail Mary chimed in... and as did Field Goal, Peanut Brittle, and Whipgrass. "Bunch of loooooosers!"

Flurry stuck her tongue out at Lily's shadows. They raised collective eyebrows. Flurry shrank away, a determined look still proudly displayed on her face even as she backpedaled.

"Don't wanna brag, but we'll definitely be the best crew on this team. Just you watch. We'll win all of our matches, just you see."

Did she want to say it a third time, or...

"Get off your high-horse, canheads."

"What was that... dude?"

Duck joined Flurry in facing Arco's way. He stood glaring at the five Hoofball players, and spat, "I doubt that you'd win in a Tank battle if you couldn't even sling a Hoofball a few dozen yards..."

Lily growled at him like some kind of feral beast, but Field Goal stepped up out of the bunch and stopped just an inch from Arco. "Oh, huh? What's it like being a guy in a girl's sport, huh? You know, the sport where we mares become more proper, and kind? You should be happy we're not guys. We'd stuff you in a locker and call you a girly colt for the rest of the year."

Graham, in the newly undisturbed meanwhile, was sat down on the concrete ramp, looking like a child wearing her father's lengthy wartime clothing and flapping her wind-stricken sleeves absent-mindedly. She probably realized it'd be better off to sit this one out.

Duck would have too, but she was dumb.

Very dumb.

She swiveled about on a hoof and yelled, "How about you all just go home and eat a... sock!"

She gasped and clutched her mouth as the jocks simply lost it.

"Oh, we'll get started on that right away!"

"Gonna go find a sock right now!"

"Hahahaha!"

"Fuhuhuhu!"

"Hehehehe!" 

They all walked back to their Tiger... which was right next to her Comet still. They gave her crew dirty looks, pulling down an eyelid each and sticking their tongues out, making "Blehhhh!" sounds.

Duck fumed.

"Is everything all right over here, Duck?" Mrs. Red's voice asked, accompanying their Tankery teacher as her boots clicked and clacked along the floor and suddenly stopped.

Duck pouted out her lower lip and watched the jocks begin loading ammunition into their Tiger's rear hatch, which honestly looked a bit too small for them. "No," she finally lied.

Mrs. Red walked up next to her. She crossed her arms. Her tail flicked idly.

"A formidable opponent, the Tiger H1."

Duck hummed.

"A counter to the Yaks' deadly T-34. Destined to be the bane of the Allied Forces in the Never War inside of Griffonia. Aces like Staudegger could spell trouble for an entire platoon." Mrs. Red looked down at Duck. "Do you think your crew—your Comet—could fight them off?"

"Wait that's hypothetical right?" Arco asked from behind her.

Duck realized the meaning of Arco's question.

And she looked over at Mrs. Red as well... alarmed.

And Mrs. Red shook her head, and as Duck's heart began to beat out of her chest, she walked away toward a good area in front of the different five tanks and waggled a hoof around idly, calling the attention of the class under her jurisdiction. Flurry, tapping Duck on the side, nodded toward Mrs. Red and the rest of the now assembling Tankery class. Duck swallowed a lump down her throat and trotted over, trailing behind Flurry in silence.

"Well, Duck Bill," Mrs. Red began, apparently not minding that Duck was still barely out of earshot and almost thought she'd cursed at first, "I'm glad to see that you were able to find a fifth member for your Comet! I suppose that that means that we can finally begin lessons today!" She clapped her hooves together and all but squeed, "Our first pre-test is simple!" She threw her forelegs out in a spread-eagle and shouted, "We'll start the class off with a practice match!"

Douh... duh... what?!

"All right!"

"Yeah!"

"Can we not?"

"No!"

"Dammit!"

"Woohoo!"

"I'm so excited!" 

"Now, everypony, if you would, please get into your tanks!"

"We're goin' a bit fast here, don't you think Mrs. Red?" Pine Needle asked, swirling her coffee cup around and running her teeth along her burned tongue.

Mrs. Red only beamed. "That's why it's a pre-test, Pine! Now get up there!"

Pine bunched up her cheeks, looked left and right for any means of escape—which numbered exactly zero, because Duck had just finished checking herself—and finally, shakily, trotted over to her Cruiser and disappeared behind the hulking Tiger H1, the future occupants of which were eagerly climbing on to it and thereafter hopping into different hatches. From what Duck could make out in her still feverishly swimming (more like drowning, actually) vision, Lily took up residence in the Commander's cupola, Hail took a seat at the Driver's side, Field Goal sat in the Gunner's chair, Peanut Brittle—presumably, as no other position sat in the gun besides it—became the Loader, and Whipgrass was left to operate the MG 34 nestled in the bow.

Duck gulped, then, for some reason, shot it back up, swished it around, and spat it onto the ground. She brandished a grin and furrowed her brow.

No. She could do this.

She had a full crew under her command, and she actually had experience with tanks... even if just a little bit!

She could do this!

She turned tail in a hurry and clambered up the Comet's side skirts, placing a hoof on the Commander's cupola and reaching for the hinge to crack it open.

Someone cleared their throat next to her.

She looked over.

It was Flurry, standing over the Driver's "door" and disallowing Arco entry. The Alicorn took a step up and blinked at Duck.

"Uh... Duck?"

Duck cocked her head.

"Yes?"

Flurry bit on her lower lip, glanced down at her jacket—which looked fine—and stared back up at Duck.

"Do you mind if... maybe... I sit up there...?"

Arco, his hoof near his chest after pulling open his door, gave Flurry a telling look directly into the back of her head.

BUT YOU KNOW HOW TO DO IT.

"Um..."

YOU KNOW WHAT TO DO.

"Uh, hm..."

YOU KNOW HOW TO COMMAND.

"...o-okay."

No you don't.

Flurry, beaming as brightly as the sun, nodded at Duck and brushed past her to take command of the Comet, but not before both Graham Cracker and Bluebell hopped through the cupola and took their own places. Duck made some kind of noise, trotting atop the Comet's glacis to get into the ex-Machine Gunner's place... which Graham wasn't going to be occupying. Which was one of the reasons she was even here in the first place. That was rude. She wasn't just here for–

"What the hell is this door?" Duck looked over at Arco to find him awkwardly cramming himself into the Driver-side door, one of his hooves pinned against his chest and the other flailing uselessly into the sky. He looked over at Duck after a few seconds of hardcore struggling, flashed her a grin, and laughed. "Help me."

"Um, just..." Duck brought up a hoof for assistance and promptly made a circle with it. "Just turn your body around and slide in butt-up."

Arco raised an eyebrow, and then he did as he was advised. And slid right in. His voice was muffled from the position Duck heard it in. "Oh, thanks Duck."

She quickly jumped into her own seat with a hum of acknowledgment and began admiring the setup for the Radio Operator that they'd haphazardly strewn together yesterday. Though the Machine Gunner's periscope remained where it hung, the rest of the newly-replaced position's equipment had been given a face-lift. A small "shelf" if she could bear the pain of calling it had been lodged against the confinements of the Radio Operator's space, their No. 19 radio sitting right on top of it with all of its complicated wires, knobs, tubes, and fittings still in one piece. It had been a pain in the butt to move everything from the turret into the tight interior of the front, but they'd managed pretty well for what Duck was sure her mother would view as an "uncouth misappropriation".

Letting out a sigh, and hearing the telltale bumps and thumps of a comfort-seeking crew to her immediate right and directly behind her, Duck adjusted her posture in her seat and suddenly found chuckles gracing her ears, echoed by the... well, the tank.

"Now I know why you sit like you do," Arco went, shrinking in his own seat, rising again, and slowly sinking once more. He reached a hoof down, a hoof up, and rose another time. "This is super weird to me right now."

"Hey, you two all right up there?" came Flurry's voice.

Duck leaned over toward the middle of the Comet's front "room". She yelled into the circular hole, facing the rear, what she thought was a good enough answer. "Yeah!"

"Ohp, hold on a second! Mrs. Red is saying something– guys, you might wanna hear this too!"

Duck reached for her still open door, hoping that Arco would follow suit, and poked her head out of the hatch to find Mrs. Red pacing in front of her class' tanks, yelling, "If I could have it, would you all please start your vehicles!"

"You'd think we'd be streetracing with stuff like that–" Bluebell mumbled behind Duck.

"Shh!" shushed Graham.

Duck became aware of her heart again, which had apparently found an admittedly promising but very noisy career as a heavy metal drum soloist. She hummed Crumpish Grenadiers to drown it out, but still minded it as she looked around to see who would be the first to successfully start their tank up.

Mrs. Red, darting about, leaning over, and swiftly looking around at each tank crew at even the slighest noise, suddenly opened her mouth and let loose an uproarious, "Whoop!" as a low putt-putt-putter fell over the front of the garage, became a steady burrrrrr in a second, and made odd whrrr whrrr whrrr sounds as if it were on a bullet-fast rollercoaster going up and down heckishly. She raced past Duck's vision, and knew that it wasn't the Tiger.

The hipsters had managed to start up the Cruiser Mark IV.

Duck craned her neck around as the first roars of the SOMUA's V8 emerged, but the telltale sound of the M5A1 Stuart's Twin Cadillacs behind it smothered it with its unreasonably beefy rooooooooooo buh buh buh buh buh accompanying its successful ignition.

Duck grinned, and swiftly covered her ears as Arco apparently found the switch in the Comet's front controls. Their own engine, the glorious Rolls-Royce Meteor V12, began with a low whine reminiscent of a weed whacker and a chainsaw midway through a tree stump that cut through her defenses and rang mercilessly in her eardrums, finally—finally—caught, and, after a torrent of puhduhduhduhduh, began chugging along routinely, ending in a satisfying, apparently Graham-moan-inciting, vrooooooooom muh muh muh muh and idling, shaking the interior of the Comet with each puff.

It seemed a long while with no additional uprise in noise, and Duck raised an eyebrow.

From somewhere in the noise of the four running engines, Mrs. Red called out, "I've got it in there! All you need to do is crank it now!"

The hoof crank? An odd choice, Duck noted.

She wormed her way a bit out of the Radio Operator's hatch and sat up a bit on the mudguard of the Comet, peering over at the school-colors-wearing Tiger H, its users crowding around the rear end and watching as Lily took a step forward, rubbed her forelegs together, and grabbed hold of what Duck—though she couldn't see—knew to be the inertia starter for the Tiger's flywheels, which, when turned at a high rate, created a substantial amount of kinetic energy that would be transfered over to the crankshaft by the pull of a simple lever located right next to it. Such a thing usually concerned starting the Tiger up in cold conditions like the inside of Yakyakistan, which, taking note of the seventy-or-so degrees it currently was outside, made the whole idea... odd.

A low, seemingly distant whirring stirred within the depths of Heck.

Duck blanched.

WHUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUH

Lily kept her pace, cranking as hard as she was able.

WHUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUH

Arco popped his head a bit more out as well. Flurry moved back as Bluebell and Graham poked out next to her. From a little to the left of the Tiger's upper front, she could make out Pine Needle popping open her own hatch to stare wide-eyed at the now more noticeable noise echoing across the field.

WHUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUH

"Think it's about done there, Lily! Hail, if you would pull that lever, there! Yes, that one!"

Lily took a step back and watched Hail fall to the floor and reach for it.

"Ready!"

CLUNK!

"C'mon, then..."

For a second or two, it sounded as if the engine died away quietly, fading away quickly...

...before a multitude of metallic clanks and thumps banged about, bringing with them a column of smoke from the Tiger's two exhaust pipes, and a powerful, bestial, angry, furious VROOM VROOOOOM BRRRRRRRRR DOO DOO DOO DOO DOOOOOOOOOOO VUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUH!

Duck sucked in a long breath and shivered.

Flurry was at a loss for words.

Arco found them.

"What was that?!"

Duck lifted her chin, set her jaw, and caught the wide-eyed attention of her multi-colored crew.

"That's the sound of Death waking up from a long, long slumber."

They collectively looked at the Tiger once more as the jocks whooped, cheered, and hopped back into their respective places, shook like leaves, and climbed back into their own places within the Comet. Duck, shaking her head at the now more pressing realization of fighting a gen-u-ine Griffonian Tiger H1 in an unfamiliar tank, steadied her manic breathing, shut her eyes, fanned her hooves around, and slid back into her seat. She reached for her headset and placed them around her neck as Mrs. Red's voice, noticeably close by and still, surprisingly, relatively easy to hear, went, "Here's a map," and traded audible places with the sound of her combat boots against the pavement.

Flurry, hunching over inside her Commander's space, unfolded the apparent map with a resolute array of shk shk shhhs and tapped her hoof against it with a not-so-resolute wibbleduh.

"It says here," Duck heard Flurry begin, causing her to turn her neck around and possibly strain it, "we're going to be on the top-left side of what Mrs. Red has labeled the Combat Area, located just South East of Ponyville a safe ways away from the train tracks. Main place looks a bit like a rectangle with an X in the middle, actually, dirt road-wise."

"Who's in the center?" Bluebell piped up.

The paper shuffled.

Please don't be Tiger, please don't be Tiger.

"SOMUA."

Thank the Gods.

Duck licked her lips. "Where's... um, where's the Tiger going to be?"

Flurry hummed and knocked on the floor.

"Opposite side as us, Duck! Bottom right."

Bottom right gave them enough time to deal with whoever came after them, a well-deserved rest they'd need to take complete advantage of to discuss how to take the Tiger down.

"Cruiser, lower left! Stuart, top right! SOMUA, middle! Bet they're mad about that," Flurry giggled, Graham joining in cutely. "Tiger, bottom right, and Comet top left!"

So, Cruiser definitely first. The Comet's cannon versus the Cruiser's was a bit of a no-brainer, but the fight could still be quickly—unexpectedly—over if the Cruiser managed to nail their ammo or their engine, the latter of which was an instant out, the former of which was something they'd have to physically deal with and attempt fixing so they could keep on rolling along.

"Hahaha!" Bluebell chortled, a low whirring sound following shortly afterward. "Let that Cruiser head my way! I'll blow 'em to smithereens!"

So Bluebell was their Gunner. Which meant that Graham was their Loader. At least she was safe to handle shells...

Her Radio Operator's side door still wide open, Duck sat up and watched as first the Stuart rolled forward and disappeared out of sight. The SOMUA, stopping and starting in violent fits—as if, for some random reason, its occupants were fighting over who got control—finally chugged down the ramp and followed the Stuart's movements. Glancing about to her right, she watched the Tiger's massive body claw its way onto the field, leaving the Cruiser to pretty much tear off like a racecar in a way Duck was sure was an unforeseen event to its handlers.

Arco, gritting his teeth and murmuring a few selective words, reached over, pulled his door shut, stretched his legs out, and felt for the accelerator and the brake. 

Duck pointed at something in front of his face. "Arco."

"Hmm?"

"If you need it, there's a small hatch in front of your face you can push open, yeah, just like that."

A stream of light filtered through the compartment.

Arco screwed up his face.

"Is this really the only way I can see?"

Duck shook her head. "You have optics—those little rectangular glass cases with handles up there—that peek over the top. The hatch you just opened is for parades and simple driving around. It's... um..." she bit her lip, "...it's not advised to leave it open if we're in combat."

Arco pantomimed, bringing up a foreleg and stuffing its hoof into his scalp.

"Precisely."

Arco sucked in his lips and returned to his search. "Feel a lot better being over here now."

Duck's ears fell limp.

"C'mon shortie, get us moving!" went Flurry, staving off Duck's upsetness and replacing it with a genuine giggle.

Arco whipped about instantaneously. "Hey, shut up! These things are built for, like, Princesses or something! I can barely reach them!"

"Forward, Driver!" Flurry quipped.

Arco whirled about and adjusted his posture. He pouted his lip out, then pulled it back and snarled. "I'll show you forward, Princess."

Flurry attempted to continue their back-and-forth, "Then let us whoa!" and, judging by the sound of bone against metal, was flung back in kind with Duck by the Comet's sudden jolt and, in pursuit, its rolling ahead.

Arco's smile grew a mile wide. "I'm driving a tank!"

Duck grinned. "Keep it up, Arco!"

Arco looked at her and nodded, then his face fell flat. "Uh, how do I turn?"

"Those two sticks poking out. Right turns right, left turns left."

"Okay," he said, grabbing hold of the sticks.

"You're gonna need to listen to Flurry whenever she speaks. You may have command of the tank, but she's the one commanding you."

Arco guffawed, and leaned his head around. He raised up a hoof and rapped on the metal between him and Duck and the turret. "Hey, Flurry, do you trust me?"

"Kind of have to now, Arco! Otherwise, no!"

"Hahaha! That a yes?"

"Yes!"

Silence. Besides the puttering of the engine and the dirt underneath the steadily moving Comet's treads, obviously.

"Do you trust me?"

Arco snorted. "Oh, definitely, Commander!"

"Well, then! Tank... erm..."

Duck deflated. This was going to be... arthritic.

"Tank, go right!"

"Aye aye!"

The Comet, assisted by Arco's yanking of the right stick, turned about slightly and began to head down what Duck—looking through the BESA's now-empty cradle—noticed to be a long trail through a dense forest only halted by the expansive stretch of dirt bisecting them. She could hear twigs, branches, bushes, and trees snap, and rustle, and thrash about in each tank's wake, only multiplied as the Comet, in the rear, was left to bumble mindlessly over the combined mess of four other variously sized tracked vehicles. Arco, thankfully, was pushing the Comet along at about ten or so miles per hour, and so the ride to their destination wasn't too much of a bumpy one.

Speaking of their destination, she had a job to do, though a begrudgingly followed-through one at that.

She slipped on one earmuff of her headset, held it there with a hoof, and reached up to work the dials and knobs she hadn't actually used in quite a few years. Switching on what all she recognized, she sucked in a breath and listened for any legible noises, found nothing, and tried again, rotating a few knobs here, pushing a few buttons there, and finally hearing something... that she wished she hadn't heard.

"So we're all taking down that Pumpkinhead, right?" Whipgrass asked.

"Right!" went pretty much everypony else.

A chill went down her spine.

The rest of her crew, able to hear it thanks to their insistence on keeping a speaker in the turret, gasped. The Comet stuttered as Arco let go of everything he was holding, then, realizing his position, went back to it. They continued on, and so did the rest of the class.

"Gods, I hate that Pumpkinhead! Race-hating, lazy slob of a Mud Slinger!"

Duck blinked rapidly. What? She wasn't any of that... not as far as she knew!

"Everypony, let's all just calm down and think of a plan!"

Sweet Tea?! Her too?!

She mouthed the name to Arco, who bit down on his lower lip, couldn't find anything to say, and focused on his task.

"Switch to another frequency! They might be listening!"

"Right!"

The radio buzzed with white noise.

Duck furrowed her brow and, finding the Frequency knob, clicked it one notch over.

"All right! We're good!"

"Think they'll be listening?"

"Pfft, no! That's impossible!"

Four against one. Four against one...

Oh Gods... why were they doing this?!





"We're really doing this, aren't we?" Arco asked the front compartment but, clearly, the whole tank. His hindleg continued to tap-tap-tap against the floor incessantly.

The tank rumbled its response. They were sitting idly in their proper position, waiting for Mrs. Red to announce the beginning of their very first practice match via, Duck assumed, the intercom before her.

Duck felt the aching need to projectile vomit somewhere, but she didn't want to smell up the tank, nor did she want to vandalize the natural presence of the trees, and the bushes, and the grass, and the dirt beneath it that surrounded them all peacefully. Well, at least previously peacefully. They'd kicked up a lot of wet Earth getting up the hill that marked their designated zone, which, notably, had a good amount of cover by way of thick tree trunks surrounding its every corner except for in front, and masses and masses of bushes that could conceal them very well if they decided to shoot and scoot.

Flurry let out a long sigh, her head currently inside the tank. "Looks like."

Graham ran her hoof along a shell. "I dunno about you guys, but I'm excited! Can you believe we're actually going to be shooting tanks?!"

"More like get shot at by tanks," Bluebell grumbled. "What do you even know about tanks?"

Graham hummed in a fit of nervous giggles. "I, erm, my family is a long line of professional speakers, which is why they wanted me to try out doing morning announcements at the school. They've done a few 'odd jobs' here and there, like Hoofball games and, well, a few local Tank Warudo matches. It's never really interested me, but I guess it's a lot different when you're actually holding a shell in your hooves!"

Duck couldn't help herself. "That's a 77mm shell you've got, Graham! One of the best Crumphill has to offer!"

Graham gasped. "This is a Crumpish tank?!"

"Apparently, according to Duck, it's an A34 Comet, one of the best in Crumphill's arsenal," Flurry replied.

Duck nodded. "It would have been deployed much too late into the war for it to have much of an impact, but in what little time it would have trodded along Griffonia, it would have shown its strengths more than enough!"

CRKKT!

"Oh, here she is!" Arco exclaimed, leaning over to Duck's side.

Duck listened as Mrs. Red's voice came on loud and clear, "Finally, I found you all! What an odd frequency to tune into... anyway! If you're all set, which, judging by this map looks like you are, you will begin on my mark!" Her heart thumped loudly.

Arco returned to his seat, ready to roll. His whole body was shaking violently.

Graham grunted, apparently knowing how to open the cannon breech, and placed a shell inside, shutting it afterward.

Flurry tapped a hoof against the inside of her cupola, huddled down and ready to pop outside into the cold outdoors.

Bluebell moved the cannon around in small rotations, familiarizing herself with the controls and, seemingly, finding the vertical crank now, which she promptly cranked.

Duck controlled her mane and adjusted her radio's headset on her head, waiting. Listening.

Through the BESA's cradle, she saw the grassy hill that went up and then down toward the Stuart's location. To the right, just barely out of sight, was the turn that would lead them to the Cruiser... or the Cruiser to them. They'd have to act quickly, lest they get surrounded and easily defeated.

And she wasn't going to let that happen.

Duck sucked in a breath.

And expelled it.

"You may begin!"

The Comet lurched forward, and Duck immediately sat up, leaning a bit forward in her seat and listening for anything out of the ordinary. It may have been a rude tactic to listen in on enemy comms—and in fact was strictly prohibited in proper matches—but this was nothing more than a practice match, and if the rest of the class teaming up to take them down was fair game, so was spying.

It seemed that his nerves were getting the better of him, as the Comet sputtered and stumbled about in oddly-spaced increments, a possible result of his also being... relatively short compared to her, Flurry, and Bluebell.

Flurry, meanwhile, had opened her cupola up completely, letting in a bright white light that assisted Duck in adjusting her radio's volume.

At once, she heard them.

"Don't lag behind, guys! You might miss us taking them out already!"

The Cruiser was definitely going to be the first tank they met with, if the Stuart—the faster tank by just a smidgen—didn't go full throttle along their much longer pathway leading to the Comet.

"Arco, turn right!"

He did so.

"All right, keep it up!"

Duck looked through the cradle. They weren't taking any of the roads at all! Duck's internal plan had gone something along the lines of hiding along the Cruiser's road and waiting for them to approach before simply breathing on them, then moving along their trail back toward where the Comet's starting point to try and take out the SOMUA and the Stuart before the Tiger made it over to their location.

Instead, Flurry was taking the Comet right into the middle of the field toward the SOMUA!

"Flurry, wh-what's the plan?" Arco stuttered.

Thump thump. "I'm thinking we hit the Samoa..." Duck cringed. "...or the, what, the SOMUA, first. The Cruiser and the Stuart think we're still hanging around our own area, so we take out the SOMUA and pull back behind the Stuart and hit it in the rear!"

Which left them open to the Tiger, which would be behind them if they continued on with the plan and flanked the Cruiser as well.

You didn't want to show your rear to a Tiger as long as you had the now substantially less amount of time to live.

Arco ignored Duck's pained look. "Sounds good to me! Up we go!"

Up they did go, as the Comet reared up on its tracks and ascended what Duck noted to be a pretty darn slope before settling back down onto a normal orientation. She was already beginning to sweat a bit, and they hadn't even seen a tank yet!

Which was due to change, as Flurry ceased her bodily functions by shrieking, "I see something to our right! Kicking up dust!"

"Already?!" Arco blurted out.

"That was fast!" Graham shouted.

Duck barely even heard Flurry as she yelled, "Arco, stop and turn us right!"

"Can we do that?!"

Duck couldn't believe herself as she shouted, "Yes!"

Arco hiccuped, and released his influnce on the accelerator by lifting his hindleg up completely and propping it against his chest. Thay may have been a little too much. He pulled on the right stick and sent the Comet Eastward.

"I see 'em!" Bluebell reported, bonking her head against her sight excitedly.

Flurry's voice sounded much clearer when she hollered, "Who is it?" Was she... back inside the tank?

Bluebell hummed. "Looks like that Cruiser."

Duck, realizing her assumption had held true, desperately reached up for her periscope and peered around to find it. Sure enough, the Cruiser was in full sight of them on the edge of the dirt road... and was aiming right for them already, with a clear shot right at its side. Her blood froze. The Comet's turret continued to slew around at a steady 8.9 degrees per second.

Duck watched as the Cruiser's body juttered back, a small plume of smoke escaping its barrel...

...and flinched as a massive weight struck the side of the Comet, rattling her instruments and sending her headset off her head. Immediately, Arco, Flurry, Bluebell, and Graham were gritting their teeth and crying out.

"We got hit!"

"Are we done for?!"

Duck lifted her chin and smelled for smoke. No. She smelled for oil. Nada.

She glimpsed through the central hole in the wall behind her and shouted, "Glancing shot!" Thank their lucky stars.

Graham barely had time to ask, "Glancing?!" before Bluebell interrupted her. 

"Let me at 'em!"

"If we're fine, then by all means!" Flurry responded.

The turret stopped.

Duck looked back through her periscope. The 77mm barrel was aiming straight at the Cruiser.

They waited. Duck heard Bluebell mutter, "C'mon, c'mon" under her breath fervently.

Duck didn't even have time to register Flurry's voice.

"Shoot!"

BOOM!

At the sound of their own cannon firing, Arco let out a whoop.

Graham let out a shrill cry, "Ow!"

Flurry immediately came to the rescue. "Graham, are you okay?"

"Yeah, think... ow, was that the shell? It comes back here? I thought that's what we sent them!"

And Duck watched as the Cruiser's side, newly blackened, erupted in smoke.

With no flag popping up.

Her crew was beside themselves all the same, cheering. Arco accidentally threw a hoof up, smacking it into the ceiling barely an inch above his head and instantly—like, there were no words for how quick it was—cursing and clutching the appendage. He smiled at Duck when he noticed her noticing, and shook the hoof before sucking on it like a pacifier, giggling all the while.

"Damn, that hurt."

"We took someone down on our first try!" Flurry cheered.

"Yeah!"

"Good job, Bluebell!"

Bluebell... was seemingly unprepared for a compliment. Just in general. She stuttered something out like a baboon, droned a low note, and cleared her throat nonchalantly. "Thanks, I guess."

"We did it!" Flurry shouted once more. "We– aiieeeee!"

NEEEEEYO POOM!

BEEEEEYO!

Flurry was back outside, though just barely if her now slightly more hushed voice was an indication. Duck was now completely out of her seat, intent on staring through her periscope to see what she could see.

"I've got the SOMUA in our sights, firing at us from the–"

WHEEEEOO!

"–from the front!"

Duck shouted, "Stuart on our left!"

Flurry let out a little whimper. "Aaaaah, I dunno what to do! Arco, take us right!"

Arco pulled the right stick and, letting it go, stamped his hoof down on the accelerator.

"Errr, Arco, left!"

He brought up his hoof, then, realizing he'd made the wrong choice, immediately stamped it back down.

"Left, Arco!"

"Gotcha!"

He pulled the left stick, and left they drove. The Comet rumbled over the craters their enemies' shells had presumably earlier made, and it was at that moment that Flurry shrieked, "Left!"

"We're already going left!" Arco called back.

"More left!"

He pulled further down on the handle.

"Wait, no, right!"

He reached for the right stick, muttering, "Dammit, mom," under his breath.

"Left, wait, yeah, left!"

He reached for the right stick again, teeth grit and his mane matted against his forehead.

"We need to– whoa!" Flurry's voice went around... and around... and around. Duck went wide-eyed. Flurry had just found the cupola's rotational lever... and had accidentally unlocked it. Craning her neck around and bumping into the ceiling, Duck bit on her lower lip to, sure enough, find Flurry's lower torso spinning in a violent circle as the Comet twisted and turned about unreliably. Her hindlegs kicked about frantically for ground, knocking Bluebell upside the head and kicking the shell that Graham had been holding onto the ground beneath her rump.

BOOM!

"Bluebell!"

"I barely touched it! My leg's just kicking!"

"Ow!"

"Graham, put your head away from that thing!" 

"And load those in right next time!" Bluebell added.

"Sorry!"

Duck sucked in a breath of choked, claustrophobic air, bits of her mane sticking to her forehead.

"Flurry!"

Flurry gasped. "Duck?"

Duck expelled it.

"Move over!" she ordered, reaching to her left and throwing her Radio Operator's hatch open.

"Duck, what the hell are you doing?!"

"Is she outside of the tank?!" Graham asked.

"Duck, get back inside!"

She was used to sticking her entire upper body outside of a cupola to assess situations. What more was the other half? Crawling out of her seat and slamming the door back down as a shell WHIZZZZZZed past her two ears, Duck flipped about and hopped up the glacis, landed on the roof of the turret, and looked down at Flurry's worried expression through the cupola's hatch.

"Scoot over, please."

Flurry only nodded, and Duck pulled herself over the top of the hatch, placed her forelegs on the roof, and hopped inside the Commander's position.

And, immediately folding her forelegs in front of her face, she spoke into her headset. "Arco, relax. These guys couldn't hit the broadside of a barn." These guys, in particular, were the M5A1 Stuart and the SOMUA S35, both of which were steadily chugging along and heading their way, firing at the same time as their tracks were moving. Neither of those tanks had stabilizers that would help with such a multi-task. Duck smiled. "Right stick, hard. Turn us completely around!"

"Where we headed?"

"Let's burn past the Cruiser and head for the treeline. We'll make for the field just past there. I have a plan."

Another round zipped past the top of the Comet, blowing apart a tree a few feet in front of them next to the Cruiser.

"Isn't it dangerous to stand in the open like that?!" Flurry suddenly cried, catching Duck's attention from outside the cupola and into the Comet's interior. She looked down to find Flurry gritting her teeth, worry in her eyes. "What if you get hit?!"

"It's the only way to get an all-around view," Duck informed her, then, shutting her eyes, she grinned, "and besides, ponies barely get hit!"

She felt a hoof tug at her hindleg, and she ducked back inside the Comet to find Flurry giving her a big smile between a pair of glistening eyes.

"Then let's do this, Duck."

Duck looked for a reply. She found nothing verbal, but gave the Alicorn, the squished Pegasus to her right, and the Unicorn to her left a simple, quiet, courteous nod that the first two returned. Returning back into the open air, she watched their rear to find the SOMUA and Stuart still firing at them from across the way. Further past them, however, were continuously falling trees, signifying what she knew would be approaching soon and be more than within its recommended striking distance from them.

"All right, that's good! Forward, now!"

The Comet, after a moment's hesitation, moved away from the three tanks and headed back toward their starting zone, which they quickly mounted and disappeared behind. Pushing through the prior untouched brush and emerging from the treeline into an open field besieged by tall oak trees.

NYEEEEEEEE BEEZOOOOO!

A massive rain of dirt fell from the air directly to their left, bouncing on Duck's head and spilling off back to the ground below.

"The hell was that?!" Bluebell cursed.

"Looks like the Tiger found its prey!" Duck answered.

"I don't like this anymore!" Flurry cried, whimpering.

Duck grit her teeth. Now was the time. "Bluebell!"

"What?"

"Lower the turret about ten degrees!"

"How am I supposed to–"

"Ballpark it! Just aim at the ground ahead of us!"

WHIRRRRR!

THUMP!

Her heart jumped at the long-forgotten words.

"Fire!"

BOOM!

The Comet, running at its speed, immediately dropped into the crater its gun had created.

"Stop!"

And it screeched to a halt.

"Arco, turn us around!"

He stammered, but did so. "Uh, um, okay."

Safe from harm's way for the time being, Duck poked her head back into the her cupola and examined her crew. Flurry needed a position. Arco was the Driver. Graham was their Loader. Bluebell was on the cannon.

Flurry seemed to notice this after a short while, brandishing a little grin and looking through the central hole at Arco, who was bent about at the hip to look at them.

"I noticed you were having a bit of a hard time with those pedals."

"Shut up."

Flurry hummed. "Fit for a Princess, you said?"

Arco shrugged.

"You mind if I take a crack at it?"

Arco laughed. "Course not." He pushed his door open. "Be my guest."

Flurry moved past Duck to leave through the cupola.

Graham clapped her hooves together. "Chineighse fire-drill!"

Duck hopped onto the roof as Graham left as well, allowing Arco to enter and take Bluebell's spot, which was vacant as its previous owner jumped around inside and took up residence in her neat little Loader's area. Duck, realizing something, whistled and caught Graham's attention.

"May I have those gloves?"

Graham tossed them her way from the Radio Operator's hatch, and she caught them with a flash of her teeth. Making sure that Arco was in his place, and that Bluebell was comfortable, Duck slid back into her position and admired her handiwork.

Arco, their Gunner. He wiped the lens on his sight and pressed his face against it, hindleg on the foot trigger.

Bluebell, their Loader. She snatched Graham's gloves out of Duck's grasp and wrestled them on, then placed a shell into the breech.

Flurry, their Driver. She settled into her seat nicely, and, as Duck looked through the central hole to find, had the perfect height to pull and push each and every lever before her.

Graham, their Radio Operator. She put on her... own headset and clicked it on, stabbing it into a few receptacles on the radio and automatically adjusting a few of the knobs.

And herself, Duck, their Commander. She adjusted her jacket with both hooves, dusted herself off, and grinned.

That was much, much better.

And so, sticking her head out of the cupola once more and listening as the summer breeze whipped through her long mane, she brought out a hoof, pointed it straight ahead, opened her mouth, and muttered the first thing she remembered from her boarding school.

"Well... Panzerrrrrr vorrrrr!"

Flurry's response, unexpected, came immediately. "You like vore?!"

Bluebell belly-laughed like her stomach was full of mead.

Duck scratched the back of her head.

"'Panzer vor' means..." her ear flicked up, picking up the telltale sound of an engine. "...someone's coming!"

"Good phrase," Flurry giggled.

"No," Duck tutted, "someone's coming." She lifted her chin and faced the lip of the crater. "Flurry, stand by."

"Gotcha, Duck."

"Arco, turret up five degrees. Go level with the crater's incline."

"Uh... okay..."

WHIRRRR...

The idle engine of the Comet blurred away as the new one materialized in recognition.

...that wasn't the SOMUA. And the Tiger wasn't going to get there anytime soon.

She looked up. "Stuart."

Its Twin Cadillac engine revving and rising in volume, Duck waited to hear what she was anticipating. Her crew remained quiet in kind.

WEEEEEEEEEWW THUNK THUNK THUNKTHUNKTHUNKTHUNK!

A couple, stray flecks of dirt began tumbling down the crater in front of the Comet...

...followed very, very shortly by the M5 Stuart, having gone much too fast and been completely unable to stop themselves before limply sliding down into the entrenchment. Duck remained motionless as the Stuart came to a complete stop, gracefully assisted by the Comet's massive barrel of hardened Crumpish steel poking directly into its front glacis. A tank boop.

THUMP.

Duck swallowed.

"Fire."

BOOM!

The Stuart, defying all laws of Equestrian physics, practially flew out of the ditch, doing a flip and crashing somewhere on the top side.

SSSFICK!

Duck grinned.

"Flurry, take us topside!"

"Right!"

BAROOM, CHK, BROOOOOOOOOO!

Going up onto its rear roadwheels, the Comet mounted the lip of the crater and thumped back onto all fours(?) with a loud, uncomfortable thunk that threw Duck into the sides of her cupola.

Next to them, newly spitting smoke from its side, was the M5 Stuart... a white flag sticking out of its right side side skirt toward the sky and waving in the wind.

Duck placed her forelegs on the turret's roof, leaning forward and gathering every inch of her voice to yell, "Are you guys all right?!"

As if waiting for the question, one of the nerds popped her head out of her hatch and nodded in a daze before thwacking her chin on the glacis.

Facing forward once more toward the field they'd dreaded upon starting, Duck and her crew were met with a red blur that grew in size in a mere millisecond and exploded right next to them, rattling the Comet's right side and sending it a noticeable centimeter off the ground. Covering her head from the cascading torrent of dirt, Duck grit her teeth and looked ahead.

Across the field were three tanks advancing upon them.

On the left, its turret shaking its head at them in a probably unintentional negative gesture, was the SOMUA. On the right, still very much alive and currently strafing, was the Cruiser. And, in the middle a little ways back from the two, was the Tiger, putting along as if it was just on a merry Sunday stroll through Equestria, Griffonia, and back. The Cruiser, stopping, fired a shot that landed in front of the Comet and obscured them from view for a good second or two. It started back up and continued trying to go for their right flank.

Duck hummed.

Not on her watch they weren't.

"Comet, move forward!"

The Comet remained where it was, engine idling.

Duck pouted out her lower lip.

"Um," came Flurry, "we're Comet!"

Duck sighed.

"Us, move forward!"

Still, nothing.

She sank to her haunches and, in a much quieter voice, poked her head in, stared into the central hole, and pleaded, "Move forward, please."

The Comet roared back to life, and, smiling, Duck returned to her position half-outside and buried her chin in her forelegs.

"Let's hit that Tiger, huh?!" Bluebell piped up.

Duck shook her head, then realized Bluebell couldn't actually see it.

"No. Arco, aim at the Cruiser and focus on the right side of its front step. That's the flat part just below their turret."

"On it!"

WHIRRRR!

THUNK!

"Fire!"

BOOM!

The right side of the Cruiser erupted in flames, causing the whole light tank to suddenly slow down and sputter. Even with the ejecting shell from inside, the whir of their Rolls Royce Meteor, the approaching SOMUA and Tiger's engines, and her own troubled thoughts, she heard loud and clear the flag popping up on the Cruiser's cupola.

SSSFICK!

"Cruiser down!" She yelled to the glee of Arco, pumped a hoof and shouted.

"Hell yeah!"

"SOMUA's next!"

The SOMUA, noticing their turret's movements, stuttered for a second, made a slight adjustment as if to copy the Cruiser's flanking, realized how much good it had done for them, and decided to continue on forward.

She had expected the SOMUA to fire next, but barely had time to duck her head as an 88mm shell zoomed past her turret.

"What in... they're aiming for my head?!"

Arco shook her from her distraction. "Where am I shooting, Duck?!"

"Uh, ahem..." She narrowed her eyes and looked at the approaching SOMUA. She hummed, and gave him his answer. "Right in the turret, where its barrel's coming out of! They call that the mantlet!"

"All right then! We're on it!"

"Fire!"

BOOM!

The red arch of their shell went skyward upon contact, disappearing into the cloud layer above.

Duck could see Arco going white from her position. "That one bounced?!" He shouted incredulously.

"Get another one in there, Bluebell!" Duck ordered.

"Already done!"

"Arco, fire!"

BOOM!

The SOMUA's turret spun like someone had slapped it, a thick cloud of smoke bursting from its exterior and creating a large spiral of gray that faded into the air.

"SOMUA's down!" Duck reported. Her heart was now about ready to leap from her chest. Was this... was this happening? Was she doing this right now?! She cleared her throat. There was time for thinking afterward. "Just the Tiger left!"

The Tiger, now in full view and pushing past the downed Cruiser and SOMUA, roared back in response.

And, at once, it fired. The round, moving at almost three times faster than the speed of sound, struck the Comet's right fender and sent it in pieces across the glacis. Duck gritted her teeth and would have snapped her hoofheld radio in half had she been clutching it.

"Look at the size of that thing!" Graham called.

"Flurry, pull us forward!"

"Right!"

WHIRRRRRRRR!

Duck rested her chin on the cupola's lip, glaring at the Tiger as it, likewise, began to speed up.

"Shift gear!"

CHK WHIRRRRRRRRRRR!

The Comet, juttering for just a second at the very unhealthy powershift, increased its speed further.

"What're we gonna do?" Arco asked, turning to look at Duck.

Duck sucked on her lip. "There's no way we'll get them from behind at this rate. They'll blow us to bits before we do." She watched as the Tiger's crew, realizing their now much slower speed, shifted gears as well and turned its turret around to face them.

"What then?" Graham asked, raising her normally quiet voice to be heard above the increasingly loudening Tiger's engine.

Duck couldn't contain her grin, and tried to hide it behind her foreleg. "Flurry, veer right and take us outta here! We're gonna take this Tiger for a spin!"

She looked to her left side and scanned the Tiger's blue roadwheels as they passed, smirking at its—pleasantly found to be completely, utterly wrong—configuration.

Her crew took the time to jest.

"Come and get us, Tiger!" Arco dared.

"Here, kitty!" Flurry enticed, turning the Comet a few degrees to the right.

Duck watched the Tiger for any new signs of movement, and subsequently ducked a tad as it, predictably, and just according to plan, turned around to chase after them. Its turret subsequently already facing them, it fired a shot that would have nailed them right in the sprocket had they been going even a bare mile an hour more, which instead zoomed past the front of the fenders and kicked up dirt, making a crater that the Comet rumbled vigorously over. Duck's bones shook in response.

She turned back around to observe the Tiger. "Come on... come on..."

And it shifted again, its occupants clearly furious at being outran...

...and sent a few of its loose, wrongly-fitted, interleaved roadwheels off their axles, where they rolled around to escape the Tiger's sudden list to the left and abrupt halt. Its engine sputtered for a second before roaring like its namesake, beginning to drag itself in the dirt to try their darndest to take them down. A few clouds of separated smoke swirled from the exhaust ports.

She sucked in a breath and barely got her next words out, an opportunity having arisen.

"Turn us back around and head for their rear! We've got them right where we want them!"

The Comet, now at its maximum speed, whipped about, drifting in the dirt, and sped off toward the downed Tiger, whose operators were turning the turret of to try and stop them in a less effective maneuver than actually moving the entire tank was. With its 7.1 degrees per second of rotational speed, the Tiger's cannon attempted to land a shot in front of the Comet, thwarted by the Crumpish tank's impeccable speed and agility.

Her hooves making rapid beats against the cupola, Duck watched as the Comet cleared the side of the Tiger and took a sharp turn to face directly up its rear.

"Aim for anywhere but those big exhaust pipes! Right up its butt!" Duck yelled, thumping a foreleg against the cannon's roof.

A few muffled curses came from the Tiger now but a foot from them.

"Dammit, Hail, turn it around and fire!"

"Get us out of here first!"

"They're right behind us!"

The Comet's barrel stopped, aiming right between the crux of the two exhaust pipes.

Duck frowned.

"Fire!"

BOOM!

Their close proximity ended up a bad choice for Duck's lungs, which immediately—involuntarily—sucked in a large amount of fumes and smoke emanating from the Tiger's newly penetrated rear armor. Coughing into a free hoof and struggling to keep an eye open to watch for the flag, Duck finally lowered her head and sighed. A brown rod finally shot out of the Tiger's rear, sticking out into the gusts of wind. It folded over and spat out a sheet of white.

SSSFICK!

She wiped her dripping brow and, vaulting out of the Comet's cupola and opening the storage box just above the middle of the side skirts, snatched the regulated fire extinguisher from its clasps, took out its hose, and pulled the trigger, quieting down the flames that were just barely beginning to crackle from the struck engine.

A sudden, unexpected weight slammed into her, followed by another, and then another. She blushed instantly, almost dropping the fire extinguisher. And with her friends' arrival came the massive wave of emotions she'd been hiding away the entire match, overwhelming her and squeezing tears out of her eyes totally unhelped by the hooves coiling her body. She'd... she'd done it! They'd done it! They'd taken everyone down, four to one! Oh my Gods they'd done it!

Over the intercom, both in the gaping Tiger and their Comet, Mrs. Red came on excitedly.

"Duck Bill's team is victorious!"

"We did it, Duck!" Flurry squealed, tightening her grip around Duck's waist.

The Tiger's cupola flipped open with a BREEE THUNK, depositing a trio of mares in jerseys who stumbled onto the grass with grumbles and curses, dirty looks at every face that met them, and crossed forelegs as they sat on the grass and mumbled profanities at nothing in particular.

PUTT PUTT PUTT PUTT PUTT PUTT.

Duck cracked open an eyelid along with the rest of her crew, and looked over to find the source of the new, rare noise.

The Cruiser, its flag still waving in the wind, was gracefully rolling along the grass idly, its front completely busted open, before coughing, sputtering, and finally stopping right next to the two tanks in the disturbed dirt. From the frontal hole emerged two bruised ponies: Sweet Tea and Candle Light, who also carried with them an equally bruised pony body over their shoulders. Though they were clearly battered, with their clothes a bit burnt and their manes sticking every which way, they were all smiles.

Duck sucked in a gasp in an instant—and as did everypony else nearby—but she let it back out once she realized they were still breathing. She looked up at Sweet Tea and asked, "What happened?"

Candle Light was the one to answer, adjusting her glasses. "That first shot you guys gave us knocked the lights out of Pine and Vanilla!"

Sweet Tea laughed. "Took us a fair while to take their places, and then we were back on the hunt and coming your way!"

Duck smiled wildly. So they'd... field-repaired after losing two members and came back for more?! That crew wouldn't be one to mess with at that rate.

"Oh, Duck!"

Duck turned around to face Flurry.

"You never told me what 'Panzer vor' means!"

Candle Light gaped, her left optical crackling with a distinct chh. "You like vore?!"

Duck giggled, and, adjusting her jacket, looked at her two attention-paying audiences, shut her eyes, and dutifully explained.

"'Panzer vor' means 'tanks, forward'!"

Candle Light, scratching the back of her neck and then under her chin, hummed. "Griffonian, huh?"

Duck nodded.

"I like it!" Arco claimed, pumping a hoof.

"Me too!" Graham chimed in.

"Panzer vor!" Flurry shouted.

"Panzer vor!"

"Panzer vor!"

Duck's smile felt ready to rival the sky high above her head. Raising a foreleg, she pointed it upward and, reaching down in her vocal chords, exclaimed the phrase with a wave of voices alongside her.

"Panzerrrrr vorrrrrr!"

Elsewhere, somewhere behind her, a sickly Bluebell vomited onto the grass.
> Everyone Please Stop The Fight! I Have To Work Hard Today!
> --------------------------------------------------------------------------

"Ute!"

BOOM!

She scrambled for her binoculars with the finesse and poise of the eggs she'd tried cooking up earlier in the morning as the blast echoed in her stomach and shook her recently-downed lunch around awhile. Yanking them from their position across her chest—and almost choking herself with the nylon strap—she raised the glass over her eyes and peered through, watching as the red beam soared through the clear blue air toward the grassy field in the far distance. She narrowed her gaze and sucked in a breath...

...and saw a large cloud of brown earth fling into the air that was quickly replaced by a puff of dark gray smoke, which fizzled into the air and very gradually began to dissipate.

She grabbed the handle by her breast, rotated around in her cupola, and panned left. Far left. Like, really far left. 

The large blank-white and black-ringed target still stood in its place, undisturbed as it had been for the past thirty minutes or so since they'd all started.

She lowered her binoculars and tried to hide the equally blank look on her face. A single drop of sweat fell down the side of her head. Letting her equipment fall back against her collarbone, she felt around for her radio speaker, coiled her hoof around it, and held the long button situated on the side.

Clearing her throat and looking hard for the courage inside her, she spoke with only a slight shake, "S-Stuart, I think you should try to aim up a tad."

As if on cue from a set of wayward stage directions, she heard the low WHIRRRRRRR of the Stuart's 37mm cannon as it rose higher toward the heavens.

She bit her lip and added, "And... um, hit your own target, please."

A second of silence. And then a cough. And then two more seconds. She swore she heard somepony inside the Equestrian tank typing away at a keyboard.

"Oh."

WHIRRRRR!

She caught the sound of somepony suddenly letting out an overly-dramatic, painfully drawn-out, very-much-annoyed sigh, and for a second looked down to see if Bluebell was shaking her head. Instead, with her nose poking into the interior of her Comet to look at her crew—and Arco, who was sat with his hoof against a cheek, giving her a wave and a, "Hey, Duck,"—a gargantuanly zealous voice piped up.

"You bunch of generation smears. Pick a side!"

She stole a glance next to her and found the SOMUA putting away idly, its prior busied barrel having long stopped smoking after a much-longer-than-five-minute break. There was the culprit.

A familiar voice instantly joined in, prompting her to lower her radio and peel her ears back. She probably would have made things much, much worse anyway.

"Hey, SOMUA, shouldn't you guys figure out who sits where and stop changing?!" Pine asked, a hint of a snicker on her words not too helped by her chuckle afterward.

"It's not my fault Miss Liar over here thinks she can shoot better than me!"

"Liar?! You racist, lower-class-hating tantrum-thrower! Why don't you go back on Squawker and write some more childish messages?!"

Duck straightened her lips and pushed her grimace against her cheeks. All she could do was stare at nothing.

"I don't think you even know what lower-class is, you sugar-daddy's bride!"

Blank Check—if she was remembering the voice right—gasped sharply. Forest Fire sounded like she'd just been socked in the gut, but started whooping and hollering like she'd just witnessed a fire for the first time in her life. Duck screwed up her face, then jumped as Forest Fire seemed to find a sudden kindling in her belly.

"Both of you, shut up! It's people like you that are what's wrong with this country! We'll take away the guns, but we won't stop the crimes, will we?! Just let us be! STOP THE OPPRESSION!"

"Oppression?!"

"I'll show you oppression, you entitled millennial!"

"We're the same age!"

A terrible cacophony of thumps, creaks, and rattles emerged from both her speaker and the tank next to hers. Duck, honestly not really wanting to in the slightest, turned over to find the SOMUA rocking back and forth on its tracks like it was facing an earthquake by its lonesome.

"Get back here!"

"There's nowhere to go!"

As if to double the amount of turmoil currently taking place, somepony began to hum a single, long note on the radio. Three more voices quickly joined in, creating a harmony Duck was sure she would have loved literally any other time than right about now at this very second in time and space.

A quintet of groans.

"Uggghhh, they're doing their thing again!"

"Stop the yogurt, you friggin' hippies!"

In stark contrast to the jocks' much-too-loud, incessant screaming, Sweet Tea simply whispered, "Shiranu ga hotoke," probably assuming that nopony could hear her because, well, how could anypony, really? Duck was... currently wondering whether or not she was lucky her hearing had actually been honed by being around panzers all her life. As if they understood Tea—which they probably did, honestly—the other three crew members of the Cruiser hummed in quiet agreement. She probably would have to, considering. It was a fairly... fitting saying right about now.

Meanwhile, the Prench SOMUA next to her was still rocking to and fro as if on a coffee high, its occupants yelling, what she assumed to be kicking each other, and ferociously fighting by way of assuredly useless skill comparison. The Tiger's crew, which had been particularly quiet before all this apart from a few jabs, insults, and other mean things mostly addressed somepony else's way—usually herself—were reduced to primates sticking their hooves in their ears and literally shouting, "Lalalalalala, we can't hear you!"

Flurry's voice whisked Duck away from her troubled thoughts, inviting her back into the rather cozy interior of her Comet, if just for her friends alone. Graham clicked something on the radio, ceasing the other crews' voices in her ears. She appreciated the gesture and sent a smile toward the front of the admittedly clammy Comet, but could still hear at least two of her classmates' crews wailing like they were in the throes of death. "Are they speaking Japaneighse over there?" Flurry asked, pulling her nose away from the book she was about halfway through and shoving Duck back into reality before she could zip away again. Her horn was currently aglow with a soft white light. Some kind of flashlight so she could better read the text, Duck guessed.

Graham cut Duck off, who didn't really want to speak in the first place anyway. "The Stuart and the Cruiser both..."

Bluebell shook her head, an oddly unexpected motion that prompted Duck to gaze over to her. "Weebs..." she muttered under her breath.

Arco screwed up his face, and, unable to continue doing so and successfully use his optics, picked the former and glared weirdly at Bluebell. "Weebs? Really? Because they know a language apart from our own?"

Bluebell opened her mouth.

"You do realize it's a sign of respect, right? For Princess Celestia, for defying her home country and bravely defending us from Japaneigh even when it was her own people over there?" Graham added on, turning her head and scrunching up her muzzle at the Unicorn.

Preference, as well, Duck noted.

"Load of 'protection'," Bluebell scoffed, "remembering how they would have brought us into it..."

Duck's eye twitched. That was a low blow.

Graham tensed. "Guh...!" She grit her teeth and growled, a glare drawing on her eyebrows.

Duck licked her lips, trying her (barely) hardest to create a more friendly barrier to keep her tank and the other class' tanks in a separate spectrum. Preferably on opposite sides. Well, it was their turn, now that the Stuart had finished, so perhaps that would be a good diversion. Coordination and sighting-in were a lot easier if only one pony went at a time, as she'd been taught, and so they were going in a line, starting with her own Comet to provide an example, then proceeding with the SOMUA, the Cruiser, the Tiger, and finally the Stuart. She dared a glimpse to her right. "Did you, um... load the new shell in, Bluebell?"

Bluebell looked at her. She blinked. She looked over at the still wide-open breech. She blinked and looked at Duck again, clearly caught in the middle of a hectically busy road. Duck didn't dare change her expression, mostly out of... caution, but felt her upper lip pull her straight frown taut all the same. Bluebell seemed to catch on, though her response was lethargic at best. Dipping her head, she popped open the leftmost ammo box, reached for a shell first with just her magic and then with her hooves underneath, gyrated at the waist, and all but flung the 77mm shell into the cannon breech, which she quickly shut with a hoof.

As if the event had taken all the life out of her, Bluebell deflated with a heavy sigh and crossed her forelegs, frowning heavily at Duck. Realizing such an effort was going to go wasted—as Duck had to admit she provided a fairly... easy target, as evidenced by her now sudden looking away from Bluebell's eyes to stare at the nice bits of mechanics behind Arco's head—Bluebell shook her head again, reached down to her jacket's top left pleated pocket, and pulled out a small marker. 

She had half a mind to shut herself up before she could say anything on the matter, but noticed Arco fidgeting to try and get more comfortable in his seat. Turning around—which proved a hard task, seeing as how she was sat on her haunches while completely hunched inside the Commander's position—she watched as Arco spit his tongue out of his closed mouth and let it flop onto his lip with the competence of a spaghetti noodle. Switching between bending his head forward and scooching his butt around on his seat, he let out a low curse that she immediately covered her ears from, and threw his head against his periscope with enough force that, had there been no rubber there to cushion such a thing, he would have taken an eye out.

Duck sucked in a breath, stopped herself, realized she was losing air, and, even as she realized she might run out before finishing her sentence, dared to ask, "Are you ready, Arco?"

Arco hummed to himself. He pulled away from the periscope, looked it up and down, wiped the lens with a hoof, caused Duck to cringe just out of his view, and pressed his head against it once more. "Think so!"

Duck blew out her remaining oxygen and started to steady her breathing. Whispering a series of okay's to herself, she looked up, raised her forelegs toward the blue sky and the white clouds peering in through the hatch above her head, and clambered about halfway out. She placed her hooves in front of her face, cleared her throat, and spoke into her radio, "Ready when you are. Just remember to aim a li-ittle bit higher this time, okay?" She had hoped her question came out sincere, instead of rude like she was now imagining it.

"Isn't he supposed to say something?" Bluebell's voice called out, just barely noticeable from the radio's position in front of Graham's face at the front of the Comet.

Duck stopped. Arco knew what he was going to say, right?

"Arco?" She asked, not noticing she hadn't actually finished her sentence and had just ended it with his name oh Gods could she make things any worse–

"Uh, 'on the way', right?"

Duck sighed. Lifting her head up before it could clunk against the roof of the Comet's turret, she beamed and, with a suddenly renewed vigor, straightened her posture and raised the radio to her mouth again, "You've got it!"

Flurry giggled. "Aww, Duck–"

Bluebell yawned. Loudly. And long...ly.

"What's that even supposed to mean?"

Duck began to fuss with her mane, trying to reach down in her throat and issue a reply. Graham saved her.

"It's to make sure the Loader..." Duck noticed the inflection in the Pegasus' voice as she trailed off, "...doesn't get knocked out by the breech flying backward."

Even if the hopefully furiously-rehearsed phrase was meant to keep her safe, Bluebell scoffed and leaned back in her Loader's seat... which didn't amount to much, unless you could call a couple inches or so a thorough "leaning back".

"Sounds pretty stupid to me."

Duck didn't even have to look at Flurry to know she had rolled her eyes up in the front.

Nevertheless, with Bluebell "leaning back in her seat", Arco was free to sputter, "On the way!"

Duck was on it in an instant.

"Fire!"

BOOM!

The Comet flinched, but Duck remained still, watching as their newly-freed shell soared through the air in a red blur for just a second before sending a shower of what she first thought to be dirt into the sky. Realizing her assumption, she yanked her binoculars up and glared through the lenses. Searching her small space for a short, almost frenzied period of time, she focused on the target Arco had hopefully been aiming at, craned her neck forward and her binoculars with it, and felt a smile cross her lips.

A medium-sized portion of the top right corner of their black and white had been blown completely off, which she knew to be a much weaker part of the wooden posts they'd been using for their practice today. As the smoke cleared, Duck couldn't help but shout, "You nicked it, Arco!"

A thump, and a sucking in of breath.

Arco must have hoof-pumped the wall behind him again.

"Gods... I need to stop doing that..."

She heard the telltale sounds of Bluebell fiddling with the spent casing following Arco's musings and turned her head to look at the SOMUA. As much as she didn't want to do this...

"Graham, patch me in to the other crews, please."

She could picture Graham saluting her, and debated looking inside to confirm her suspicion.

"Right away, ma'am!"

Duck opened her mouth to protest the title, but narrowed her eyes, sank in her seat a tad, and peeled her ears tightly against her head.

She seemed to have stumbled right into the middle of a very heated, very stupid argument.

"I'm the best– I'm the best Gunner I know. There's no Gunner better than me," Busy Body proclaimed dutifully.

At least they seemed to be done trying to physically fight each other...

"Please," Blank Check spat, "you can barely even aim with that thing."

Busy Body harumphed. "Mine's bigger."

What.

"It's your turn, you bunch of polished turds," Pine Needle chimed in all of a sudden. As much as Duck appreciated the attempt to help move their day's training along... couldn't Sweet Tea be a much better fit for a motivator? Her question was further backed up by the sounds of Pine going back to slurping away at her mocha.

"Why in Equestria would you polish a turd?" Forest Fire asked in a slightly hushed voice.

"HAW!" Busy Body shouted, causing Duck to jump with a start. "Me? A turd? I have more charm than every single one of you."

"Oh yeah?" A new voice asked. Was that Bit Rate?

"Part of my charismatic figure is that I'm super duper rich."

Silence. Pure, and utter, silence. A small crinkling of glass crackled through her radio. Candle Light was going to be buying new lenses again...

"Please, you can't get all high and mighty about something you were born into," Blank Check tutted.

"What about married into?"

Blank Check hissed like some kind of Equestrian snake. "We're...!" She jeered. "We're not married yet, you ridiculous stallionfoal."

Forest Fire threw her two bits onto the table. One was probably fake. The other was probably also fake. Like chocolate. "Wait, are your parents marrying you? Are you going to try and rule over Crumphill together, or something? Fancy a bit of specific land?"

"Uh!"

"Just saying."

Busy Body psst'd Forest Fire. Duck was unsure whether or not she actually knew Blank Check was literally sitting in the same tank as them, possibly in between the two.

"Just between you and me, it's her coltfriend buying her everything. She's like a spoiled brat but without the parents."

"My coltfriend will go much further lengths than both of you ever will!"

"Oh, he'll give some lengths. That's for sure."

"Why you–!"

"Hey!" Pine Needle, please! "You guys do know you'll never get elected, right?"

Forest Fire and Blank Check both were reduced to gritting their teeth and barely containing their rage on the radio.

Busy Body growled. "Rrrrrrrr! Hippies! You got given up at birth!"

"Excuse me?! Take that back!"

"Never!"

The SOMUA's turret, still very much screwed up from the shell that had sent it limply spinning about—despite the Vehicle Repair class' best efforts as the Tankery class had arrived that afternoon—juttered about as if in a star-spun daze before finally aiming straight at the Cruiser sitting next to it. The Cruiser's crew, verbally noticing with a quartet of short... noises... quickly cranked their turret around as well. Duck bit on her lip and swore she was drawing blood.

They had left enough space between each crew's tanks before they'd all started, and so Duck was able to watch as Mrs. Red, still wearing her uniform with garrison cap and all, slid into view on her hindlegs with a very angry look on her face. She waved her forelegs in a blur. "If you two end up missing each other in about two seconds, I will not hesitate to make you all fix the roadwheels on the Tiger!"

Duck sucked on her teeth. A fate worse than heck.

The two conflicted teams seemed to acknowledge the gravity of the results.

The Cruiser's turret faced forward.

The SOMUA's turret did the same.

"Yes ma'am, Mrs. Red," went a flurry of voices impressively quickly, even if a few of them sounded a little more than just a tad annoyed at having to say such a thing.

"You guys all seem to fight a lot for having banded together the other day!"

Duck shivered. When she had thought 'flurry of voices' just then, she wasn't subtly asking for Flurry herself to speak up next. Was somepony somehow listening to her conscience and creating some kind of avalanche of badness every day she was awake?

"What was that attempt to you all, then?! You worked together, didn't you?!" Flurry added, making sure to put a lot of emphasis on 'attempt'. A lot more than the word merited, which was a straight, solid zero.

"To take down that Pumpkinhead, yeah," one of the jocks replied honestly. Duck pulled her jacket tighter around her body.

"If we took you guys out first off, maybe you would have reconsidered," came the unfamiliar voice of Bit Rate, partially quiet but very, very calculated.

Flurry gasped. Duck dropped into the interior of the Comet to make sure that she was okay, finding her tensed up in her seat with her teeth borne and her forelegs shaking in front of her. Flurry swiveled about, seemingly to make sure nopony was watching, gazed at Duck's hopefully worried expression, opened her mouth to say something, closed it, looked away, hummed, puffed out her cheeks, and thereafter flushed them.

The radio was—admittedly—pleasantly calm for a while. 

A whistle blew in the distance, slightly muffled by the thick Crumpish armour around the five. The P.E. class was probably starting to get up from stretching to do their laps for the day back over on the track.

Duck frowned at Flurry's clearly troubled expression and licked her lips again, searching for grace words. "E-excuse me, Flurry?"

At once, Flurry's face shifted, and she turned back around with a bounce and a wide smile like nothing had happened. "Yeah, Duck?"

"Remind me to tell Mrs. Red that we should assign designations for each crew."

BOOM!

The SOMUA's crew must have figured out whose turn it was to miss again.

Bluebell raised an eyebrow, a move Duck only noticed because she knew the Unicorn would say something after she'd just spoken.

"What's the point of that?"

Duck flexed her chin. "It's a lot easier to remember an actual name, rather than a single letter." Shaking her hoof at Bluebell, who was in the middle of beginning a retort, she reached for her radio and clicked it on. "Remind me. Who's Team A, again?"

One of the jocks laughed. "Pfft. It's us, idiot."

"Thought it was the Stuart," Pine Needle confessed.

"Isn't that us, actually?" Bit Rate asked.

"Who else would be 'Team A' but us? Really?" Busy Body questioned.

"Oh shut your Gods-"

Click.

Duck looked at Graham. Graham turned about in her seat and flashed Duck a grin, which she returned.

Bluebell nipped loudly.

Flurry smiled, cheeks rosy. "I'll try to remember."

Arco's chair clicked and creaked terribly. "Speaking of remembering, can we get some better seats for this thing?" At the mention of the request, Bluebell, Graham, and Flurry all seemed to move about in their own positions, necks craned about and eyes moving up and down it. "At least a cushion or something? My..." He gazed over at Duck, bit his lower lip, and continued with a cough, "...butt is hurtin' here."

Flurry began fanning herself fervently, lulling her tongue out and giving Duck a... look that caused her to, for the second time this week, widen her eyes at and quickly look away. "And it gets so hot in here... can we at least get a fan?" She almost interrupted Graham by tacking on, "...maybe just in the front...?" at the end.

"Hey!" Graham pointed at herself, making sure that everypony inside the Comet could see. Flurry had to crane her neck backward so as to not disturb the gesture with her little nose. "I'm the one having to sit up here all day. You guys at least get to move around back there!" She noticed Flurry's noticing her, and, shutting her eyes, waved a hoof up and down with a small, crooked grin. "I mean, we have to sit up here all day. No offense to you, Flurry!"

You couldn't exactly just prop a little desk fan inside a running tank, considering the danger the blade could pose if a bump or a glance sent the whole thing apart, and they'd be hard-pressed to find good seat covers at a price she assumed a regular high schooler would be able to afford, but... she couldn't just tell them that. She... didn't really like disappointing people, really.

Duck smiled, keeping it all inside like she always did.

BOOM!

"That's a great idea!"

At once, her four friends began talking excitedly amongst themselves, sometimes over each other, mostly not to her.

"Get some fuzzy dice," Bluebell suggested with a large laugh and a hoof to the ceiling.

"Pillows on the walls for those long days out here!" Arco proposed, fanning a hoof around the interior.

"Maybe some fuzzy blankets!" Flurry giddily advocated, hugging herself and humming.

"Could use a hula mare or something for the radio," Graham finished without even an ounce of emotion.

As if feeling the inviting warmth of such a thick cover over her, Flurry slowly let go of her side and brought up a hoof to suppress a prolonged yawn, failing miserably and letting her tongue roll freely out into the dust permeated air. The entire tank seemed to be fixated on her, and they all watched as Flurry blinked first one eye and then the other, nipping aloud.

"Swear to the Gods you better not make me..." Arco began, only to stop himself and raise a hoof over his own mouth with a glare on his brow. Working his jaw around as his head came back down, he shook all over and muttered, "Oh, I hate you so much..."

Duck tilted her head. It wasn't really her business. Was this business? Yawning? "Are you tired, Flurry?"

Flurry, rubbing at one of her eyes and completely betraying her bubbly attitude from earlier, lightly nodded, then put her gesture into more vocal form. "It's finally been a..." She yawned again. "...finally been a week since school's started, so I know how much sleep I can get away with during the day now. Finally settled into a good routine..."

Without even a bit of warning, Bluebell shot, "You at least realize you have terrible grades, right?"

Graham glared at once. "Bluebell!"

Flurry, on the other hoof, simply shrugged. Duck wasn't sure whether or not it was because she was simply too tired to argue, or genuinely feeling nothing toward the topic of her marks. That wasn't right, was it? Flurry was definitely a straight-A student. Everything about her screamed higher than average!

Was that too much of an assumption? Then again, it was a good assumption, but if it was wrong, she might be bringing up things that Flurry wouldn't want to talk about, and then Flurry would hate her, and Arco would too, and Graham would follow, and she was more than certain Bluebell already did so she'd just be stuck in a Cruiser Tank with four ponies angry at her for the entire year and they'd make everything terrible no she would make everything terrible because she had and oh Gods was that going to happen was she already on the path of terrible-ness could she stop it oh Gods she didn't actually say anything out loud again did she oh Gods–

"You know," Bluebell continued, "you can sleep in any other class, but you're driving here."

Flurry, already facing straight ahead through the little hole in the Comet's front step, rested her chin on her hooves and leaned forward. Not even regarding Bluebell, she asked, "Am I driving now?" in a decidedly hushed tone, as if speaking directly to her viewport.

Bluebell tried to give a clever retort. "I- you... guh." She crossed her forelegs and her eyebrows, frowning and looking away.

Duck watched a smile cross Flurry's face.

BOOM!

"I mean... not like I care about you or anything."

Duck spun about to stare at Bluebell, her eyes wide as saucers.

Bluebell scrunched her nose. Then she leaned over and yelled through the hole between the turret and the cabin, "I just want to make sure we don't end up getting shot because of you!"

"Mhm," came Flurry's mumbled response. The Alicorn was now laying the left side of her head on her L-shaped foreleg.

"Aww," went Graham, not helping in the slightest and doing much worse as she tilted her head and placed her hooves together sweetly, "Bluebell cares."

Bluebell spat, "Sh-shut up, Stuttermare!"

Graham pouted out her lower lip. She turned back to her devices. "I don't have a stutter." A few clicks, dials, and whirs later, and the rest of the class began to shape up in Duck's ears again. Graham must have quietly turned the volume down while they all spoke. Duck hoped she hadn't hit the transmission at any point. The jocks might make fun of them more than usual.

They seemed to be occupied, however, for the time being.

"You bunch of roid-ragers have enough hormones to build fifteen pimply teenagers!" Pine barked.

"Oh go to hell, you stupid green freaks!" Bit Rate shot from the brush, "All you guys are so Godsdamned full of yourselves! Just because you discovered a band doesn't mean everypony needs to hear about it!"

Pine uttered a vowel, presumably to try and defend her claims of some "Time Bomb's" sexiness.

"Oh, you're one to talk," went Busy Body, "you four are a bunch of weak-minded idiots. Nothing but shameful leaders of the next, horrible generation."

"Shut uuuuup," groaned Lily, her violent rubbing of her eyes coming through on her microphone, "stop using such big words."

"What, 'four'? Forgot you can't count higher than that," Busy Body quipped.

"Hate to be on their side for a second," Bit Rate confessed, "but they've got a much bigger gun than you do, Team Whatever."

"Let's see them try and hit us–"

Busy Body barely even finished her sentence before the low, monstrous, guttural whirring of the Tiger's 88mm turret began to rumble the Earth from the core.

Mrs. Red, having seemingly sat this one out for some reason or another, suddenly crackled, "Uh uh uh!" The turret stopped. "The track is that way, Team C!"

The turret went back around to face forward, but not before its entire crew collectively growled to themselves.

"You bunch of absolute–"

A hoof tapped on Duck's left shoulder, shaking her yet again from her brooding. 

She looked wildly around for the source in every direction except the one it had actually come from, then stared down and blinked at Arco's little smile.

"You just don't know when to stop talking, do you?"

He must have noticed her fiddling with her mane again.

"Hey."

"Let's make a bet! Whoever shoots closer won't get shoved in a locker!"

She looked away for a second, but steadied herself with a few short breaths of air and faced him.

"Primrose, you better not miss!"

He blinked his purple eyes.

She her green.

"Don't worry about them." He chuckled, sitting back in his seat and making a loose U-shape with a foreleg. "Just focus on what you're doing, and make sure you yell at them, like, super loud." Did he know who he was giving admittedly sweet advice to? Arco tapped on his Gunner's sight. "Plus, we're the ones who beat all of them the other day. They can't deny that one no matter how hard they try." Was it a good thing to lord over beating a bunch of novices? Mind her, she didn't really have a lot of genuine, actually skilled experience either, but she knew a heck of a lot more than anypony else in the class did. It was like racing a 3-Inch Gun Carrier in a BT-5. There was practically no competition whatsoever.

"You know," Graham hollered, getting the attention of everypony as she turned in her seat, "we should all meet up and go do that tomorrow, after school!"

Duck looked away.

"What?" Bluebell asked.

"We should go shopping!" Bluebell instantly groaned. Graham continued, undeterred. "Buy some things for the Comet! We could head over to Quills And Sofas for most of it!"

Arco smirked, humming a little note. "Definitely won't turn down shopping with a group of girls..."

"Oh-!" She tapped her tongue against her bottom teeth, making a motion to hit Arco with her foreleg. Shaking her head, "Of course not. Bluebell?"

"I have... better things to do, actually!" Bluebell found a smile from way down in the depths of her soul, and, nodding wildly, made it widen. "Yeah! Yeah! I've actually got a bunch of important things to do tomorrow! You... wouldn't understand."

Arco didn't even look at Bluebell as he spoke, adjusting his periscope with a pair of untrained, learning hooves. "What, playing games and procrastinating on homework? Sounds like fun to me."

Bluebell harumphed with the ferocity of a stumped jaguar. She puffed out her cheeks. "You know what? Why don't I just tag along, y'know, make your day miserable?" She beamed, crossing her forelegs, sitting back in her Loader's seat and shutting her eyes, clearly satisfied with herself. "Ha ha! You'll see!"

Arco smirked to himself. Graham looked at him, doing the same.

Her gaze drew to Duck.

"What about you, Duck? Do you have anything planned tomorrow after school?"

Homework, homework, sitting in her apartment, homework, being by herself, doing nothing, eating, sleeping, homework, homework, homework, being alone...

"Uh..." A hoof went up to curl around a few locks of her mane. "I... no."

Graham whooped, throwing her hooves up... and slamming them directly into metal. She fell to a sitting position, rubbing her injured appendages as Arco howled like a hyena. "Gods, that was dumb." Her eyes panned to her left, went back, then went to her left again. "Hey, Flurry, how about... oh."

Duck looked over.

Flurry was fast asleep, her head buried in her makeshift pillow of a foreleg. Her snores were like a chainsaw, if a chainsaw could be quiet, kind of cute-sounding, and not even close to resembling steady. It was as if she was conscious of every single breath she took even as she dozed, and didn't think any one of them was up to some kind of personal standard of hers.

Graham giggled. "I think she's up for it."

Duck sucked in a breath through her nose...





...and shot it out her mouth... which ended up posing a bit of a problem for Mrs. Ballpoint's previously neat stack of papers lying on her desk next to her computer. They moved a bare centimeter.

Duck froze.

Mrs. Ballpoint slurped a string of noodles from her ramen bowl noisily.

She stopped.

Chewed.

Put the bowl down.

Tapped the papers back into place.

Looked back at her computer.

"I hope we don't end up making this a constant, Ms. Duck Bill..."

Duck shook her head, her mane almost slapping the bins containing Mrs. Ballpoint's second period Completed Work pile. She fidgeted in place, but realized that the teacher had either not seen her near bludgeon or was already wholly unimpressed as it already was. Considering Duck, and what she constantly realized about herself on a day-to-day, second-to-second basis, it was probably the latter. Definitely the latter. "No ma'am! I must have just..."

"Spaced out?" Mrs. Ballpoint finished her sentence before she could even realize how terrible a word usage that was. Her chair creaked as she adjusted its height about fifteen times. "As long as you learn, you can do whatever you want. But the second you get a bad mark, you're out. Do you understand me?"

Duck had to force herself not to salute. She nodded instead.

Mrs. Ballpoint's already well-known frown disappeared, coming back as a crooked smile. "Good, good." Her horn burned a bright blue, and Duck's forgotten AP Calculus book flew out from underneath Mrs. Ballpoint's desk in a slow loop before landing in Duck's outstretched hooves. Holding the thick book by its base, she turned her head and dumped it into her bag at her teacher's new words. "Make sure to do tonight's homework, by the way. There are some tough questions in there, and I would like to gauge what all you all happen to know tomorrow in class."

"Yes ma'am."

"You're doing very well, Duck. Keep it up."

"Yes ma'am. Thank you, ma'am."

Mrs. Ballpoint flailed a hoof toward the open door to her left. "Go on home, now. Have a good night."

"You too, ma'am," Duck bid adieu, bowing her head and trotting past the classroom's threshold to a quartet of bright eyes and a trio of big smiles. 

"Geez, took you long enough!" Arco laughed, turning around and beginning to head toward the front commons as their temporary conductor. "Thought for sure you'd jumped out the window or something!"

No, that would be another classmate, in another class.

"I'm super hungry, you guys!" Graham exclaimed, "You wanna go out and get some food?"

Duck actually had a nice bowl of dry cereal waiting at home.

"Sorry, homework."

Flurry yawned, uselessly flitting a hoof about as she walked. "Yeah, ahhhh-uhhh, same."

Graham pouted, but straightened back up, adjusted her backpack, and smirked. "Fine! But you guys owe me a burger now!"

"What?!" Arco gasped.

Flurry narrowed her eyes, frowning. "You're on, missy. But I pick the place."

Graham hummed. "Sounds fair to me."

"She'll pick, like, some kind of vegan place," Arco informed her, rolling his tongue out and staring dead-eyed at the ceiling for a second. Looking over at Flurry, he added, "You damn freak."

Flurry took much larger steps over the metal threshold to the commons than the task seemed to require in Duck's head, who stepped on it and instantly shivered at the cold that met her hoof. Her cheeks newly reddened, she made sure to remember to mimic the Alicorn and follow her moves the next time she had to do the same. They neared the long row of doors that marked the entrance to the school—she guessed now their exit, actually—and, after Arco moved to push Flurry with his elbow and instead found empty air, which was met with a dry laugh and a blown Alicorn raspberry, they pushed their way through, trotted across a short carpet, and found their way outside.

A heavy breeze blew across the front courtyard, taking with it in its natural loop-de-loop a long trail of leaves and assorted sticks to the heavens and the low-hanging roof of the school itself. Duck followed the other four ponies as they descended the front steps and found the first block of concrete leading to the border of the building's grounds. She grabbed at her messenger bag's shoulder quietly, then pulled a bit of her jacket closer to her chest as a shiver shook her four legs terribly. Despite being the tail-end of summer, she was already beginning to feel a small, autumn chill in the air. Maybe she was just imagining it, noting the lack of a reaction in her friends' hooves. Maybe she was just being silly. Maybe just thinking about being cold right now was making her cold. Yeah. That seemed reasonable. Science was weird like that, which was why she needed to make sure she worked on her Oceanography homework extra hard tonight.

Still though... it was... fairly nice out today.

As she walked, taking up the caboose of their admittedly half-attempted train, she looked up to the sky and narrowed her eyes at the bright, blinding sun gracefully greeting her with a now-noticeably much-too-warm embrace. A few stray Pegasi—some carrying bags, obviously students, and some moving the nearby clouds, obviously part of the Weather Patrol—moved about in what Duck pondered to be their own kind of sidewalk, one with no strict speed limit but still bearing notable boundaries all the same. Some students still dotted the courtyard, talking amongst themselves excitedly about their plans for the rest of the day but paying her and her companions no mind. Duck... smiled. She preferred it that way. If no one bothered her, she wouldn't bother them.

The wind danced about here and there, finding different partners in nature to shimmy toward the sky with and, apparently, not feeling satisfied with any one of them. In the distance, she could make out a few cars driving to and fro, probably some of the last teachers heading home to grade papers and plan lessons. Mrs. Red had stayed behind after Tankery class, and was probably going to be the last one remaining at the school besides the late-night janitor tonight. She'd been adamant that everypony focus on a different goal tomorrow, focusing on formations and moving together as a convoy to strengthen their trust and build their awareness, noting that, after what she'd seen today, they definitely needed it. Remembering the arguments and fighting and yelling built up a lump in her gut, but she forced it back down even as she shook and tried to remember her bowl of cereal.

She attempted to return to her friends' conversation, which had faded away as she retreated to her mind, but stopped when she heard something... different. Odd.

A constant beat straying from any form of variation.

Duck looked around, an eyebrow cocked, for somepony playing with a basketball.

No, no. It was much lighter than that.

She looked to her left, swearing she found the culprit idly tapping a hoof against the brick.

No, not that either.

Then, what...?

...

They were about halfway across the courtyard when Duck finally made it out.

CHK. CHK. CHK. CHK.

And her whole body seized up.

She froze on the spot, her breathing taking up prominence in her pounding ears.

Flurry stopped first, turning to face Duck. Arco next, followed by Graham and Bluebell together.

The wind whistled.

CHK. CHK. CHK. CHK.

Duck stared at nothing.

Something came into view.

And she barely looked up to face it.

To face them.

Her whole body was shaking violently, and she couldn't find an ounce of strength within her to halt it.

CHK. CHK. CHK. CHK.

Her friends became aware of the noise, now, and followed her gaze.

Somepony gasped, and she wasn't sure whether it was her, or one of her friends.

CHK. CHK. CHK.

They stopped, knowing they were within earshot.

"Duck Bill, sweetie."

A lump went through her throat with relative ease, barely noticeable at all.

She blinked.

Her mother was still standing before her, her uniform and garrison cap as pressed and proper as always. Her chin was lifted to the sky, as if smelling something she didn't appreciate one bit. She hummed, and the heavy frown across her lips became a small smirk.

"I'd heard that Ponyville's Tankery class had started back up, and also that you were the one leading it..." She shook her head at the last few words and began to make her way closer to Duck. Her hoofsteps clicked and clacked against the concrete blocks. "I believed only one of those things, but I..." she looked up and blinked at the swimming, dazed green that met her, "...had to investigate the other. And the smell of iron and oil isn't something I can't smell, dear."

Duck worked her jaw around, pushing out the beginnings of vowels and consonants that could never, ever, come to fruition.

Her mother stopped a few inches from her.

She looked down with a glare.

"And just what in the hell do you think you are doing, young mare?"

Duck choked.

Her mother shook her head, rolling her eyes and looking up, then back down. "Unbelievable. Sixteen years of age, and still barely able to get a word out. I thought that letting you get your wish of going to public school would help you engage, but it seems that I was gravely mistaken." She sighed. "Duck, sweetie, I'm talking to you."

Duck lifted her chin. Her mother's figure danced around in her eyes, nearing an indecipherable blur.

"Just where in your terrible mind did joining this all seem like a good idea?" Her mother let the words hang for a pregnant pause. She continued. "You are unfit for a task such as a Tank Commander, let alone an entire team!" She lowered her head and pushed it forward, each one of her words ending as hot breaths on her scalp. "Your failure atop the mountain and all the embarrassment and disappointment it wrought is more than enough evidence."

"Hey!"

Duck sucked in a breath and spun to her left in tandem with her mother to her right.

Flurry stood from the rest of her friends, lips in a toothy frown and her head lowered. She glared at Duck's mother from between her brow. "Don't you talk to her like that!"

Duck's mother simply hummed, lips upturned and cheeks bunched. "Ah, young Flurry Heart. I should have known my little Ducky would make friends with Changeling-spawn."

Flurry blanched.

Arco grit his teeth, looking downright terrified.

Graham took a step forward. Arco pulled her back.

Bluebell was saying nothing.

Duck's mother seemed to notice.

"And what about you, little lady?"

Bluebell looked up.

"Care to... sputter some kind of phrase like your friend before you to try and," she clucked her tongue, feigning a collapse, "aw, make me cry?"

Bluebell opened her mouth, closed it, opened it again, closed it once more, twiddled her hooves, adjusted her white collar, and finally, simply, replied, "No."

Her mother hummed, then turned back to Duck with a sinister look about her.

"If you continue to take this class, this... treasonous position..." Duck almost believed her mother to be falling to her haunches to get on the level of herself, but realized she was simply stepping closer, and closer, and closer. "...you will bring nothing but shame to our family name that we've all worked so hard to maintain all these years. Every minute of your life, wasted! Every single thing I ever taught you, useless! Every time your own sister wakes up and realizes what she can't do anymore, forgotten!"

It was at that point that Duck looked back over at the lone mare who had stayed her position beyond her friends.

Her Commander's uniform blew in the breeze, one sleeve in particular.

Her garrison cap remained fixated to the top of her head, despite the wind.

Her single, thick braid wavered as if part of a song.

Pumpkin Seed stood in silence, watching her, head lowered.

The crutch acting as the rest of her right foreleg turned about idly.

The empty air the blowing sleeve occupied seemed to bear a hungry shadow.

Her mother drew her back to her reality.

"Leave Tankery, or none of us will ever speak your name again."

She gasped, the maternal figure in front of her losing focus in an instant.

She looked for words.

She blinked, first only once, then rapidly. Her cheeks began to grow wet, and her eyes darted to the ground in response.

And her mother laughed.

"I suppose I know what your answer is."

She turned on her heel and trotted away, her hoofsteps clicking and clacking against the concrete.

Duck's rattling body gave her a glimpse of Pumpkin Seed.

The older mare lingered for a second, staring at her in silence.

And then she followed their mother's suit.

Duck raised up a foreleg. She sputtered out noises, hoping that the shifting figure in her sights would turn around.

But she fell to her haunches and wept.

She barely even paid attention to the horrendous torrent of hooves that drew her way, and could only ignore the ponies desperately trying to call the name of a mare who didn't deserve such a wonderful thing.

She couldn't even control her screaming.
> Training Is Difficult, And Homes Are Also So.
> --------------------------------------------------------------------------

Gurrrrrrgle.

Gruuuuuuuumble.

She felt right on the verge of keeling over and vomiting on the floor, but she knew that not a single thing would come out at all if she did.

Simply placing her forelegs on her table was a monumental struggle, and now, her ears muffling Mrs. Goodread's morning teachings by clutching tightly against her head, she could barely even feel them at all. They hung limply—uselessly—where they were, and she moved her shoulders around in an admittedly short panic to make sure that she still had some kind of earthly connection with them. She'd been fortunate enough to find a seat well away from the rest of the class at the start of the school year, so such actions she could do without the worry of a mean glare or a conniving snicker from next to her. Nopony looked back here in the first place anyway. Nopony needed to.

She breathed in and out of her nostrils to try and ease herself, but quickly caught a whiff of her un-showered body in the middle of her act and cringed in her brown seat as if doing so would change the fact. Maybe that was why nopony was looking at her today—if you just... imagined that something awful wasn't there, it might actually start feeling that way. Then again, if that were true, her empty stomach and her unkempt jacket wouldn't be bothering her as much as they were. She tried her hardest to ignore the former, and found herself focusing wholly on the latter. The four silver buttons going up her chest were doing their job, and her white collar presented the Princess' colors like they were supposed to, and her pockets' pleats were flattened and her cuffs were fine and her jacket was fine and not screwed up and totally okay and up to regulations but it was still working her up why was it working her up so much why was she getting so stressed about it-

THUMP!

Duck jumped.

A few of the ponies in front of her, hearing her surprised gasp, turned around and giggled at her, covering their muzzles with their sloppily-applied hooves to try and hide their amusement.

Mrs. Goodread had just thoroughly thwacked her stick against the white projector screen, which was currently displaying what a proper MLA-formatted essay looked like as an example for them all. Four lines, left aligned, name, class, teacher, date. Break. Title, center. Break. Indent. Thesis statement and on and on.

"...and now, if you're looking to try and get some points with me," Mrs. Goodread began, adjusting her desert-tan scarf and pointing at a part of the pre-written example essay, "instead of a comma, try using a few em-dashes, which—though they may seem tricky at first—are simply replacements for commas, and end up helping your essay look much more smoothly than using commas would. For your thesis statement, I'd like you all to introduce your topic, and inform me of its importance..."

She hadn't really cared about whatever topic she'd been given. Just the other day, she'd been talking it all up in her little head and felt so mind-numbingly, absolutely ecstatic that she could actually talk about her new friends in her first public high school essay... and now today, at this moment, she was just... dreading the whole thing. What if they had to peer-edit like they did back in the boarding school with their tank history tests? Ponies would just make fun of her for choosing something so stupid; they probably all thought that she was some lonely loser whose only saving grace was a group of other ponies she pretty much only saw for a single hour every weekday. She was never any good at writing coherently, and the words she managed to actually get down mostly came out as very factual and almost robotic in a way, completely devoid of what little personality she could admit to even having inside herself.

What an embarrassment. How stupid. Maybe she should've just scrapped the whole thing and wrote about something else. Her friends deserved better than to be a topic of some terribly-written paper.

Duck shook, accidentally letting out a short breath that vibrated and stuttered like she was sitting at the bottom of the world. A chill flew up and down her wrists and stayed there, and she curled her hooves inward to try and cease the feelings from getting stronger.

She tugged needily at her jacket.

KNOCK KNOCK.

Mrs. Goodread perked up, and, smirking, called, "Who's there?"

It was a few seconds before the reply came, muffled by the door in his face. "Principal Cheese."

"That's a really lame start to a joke, sir," Mrs. Goodread replied without even an ounce of hesitation.

"Oh, you're very..." The door opened toward the hall, revealing Principal Cheese, who restarted, "...you're very funny, Owata." Holding his morning brew in a hoof, he stood in the doorway and looked around at the classroom.

"Hi Principal Cheese!" went somepony near the front.

"Hi sir!"

"Good morning, Principal Cheese!"

"Hello, sir!"

"Morning!"

Principal Cheese, grinning wildly, tilted his drinking hoof—and his mug with it—and followed it quickly with his head. "Hell-oooo everypony. How are you all?" As the class uproariously began to give him their respective, chaotic answers, he looked at Mrs. Goodread and nodded toward the door, prompting her to put her yardstick down next to her podium and walk over to him. Whether or not Principal Cheese wanted their conversation to be the slightest bit private didn't matter, as, despite the class' seizing of the temporary moment to have obnoxiously loud talking matches across the room, Duck was able to hear it all.

"I have a few students transferring in from another class. Ms. Baloney's."

"Ah, yes! I got your email. Is that them behind you?"

"Yes ma'am, it is!" Principal Cheese stepped to the side...

...and Duck, watching out of nothing but curiosity by this point, sucked in a harsh breath.

Dark-gray coat. Light-yellow mane. Orange eyes.

Mocha Frappe.

He trotted into the classroom and began to pick out targets just as his tattoo-like companion Starburst walked up from behind him and took his usual place by his side. The two looked at each other and nodded, then, as a single unit, fanned their eyes around the different, multi-racial faces of Mrs. Goodread's third period English class to look for the weakest links in the uncomplicated, loose, terribly-fitted chain. Duck lowered her head, bit her bottom lip tightly, peeled her ears back, and looked down at the left side of her otherwise unoccupied table to try and make herself invisible, if only she were so astronomically lucky. Out of the corner of her eyes, Mocha and Starburst both stopped at once and broke into big, devilish smirks. She swore she heard Starburst cackle.

Principal Cheese and the rest of the class looked at first Mrs. Goodread and then her subjects as the former called, "All right, class! Today, we have two new students. Mocha Frappe, and Starburst!" The room boomed with greetings and jokes, most of which were answered right back.

"Hey guys."

"Sup."

And it was at that point, looking around as well, that Principal Cheese finally noticed Duck.

His eyes went wide.

And he opened his mouth.

"Uh, I– actually, uh..."

Mrs. Goodread looked at him.

The class looked at him.

Mocha and Starburst both looked at him, very slightly shaking their heads.

Principal Cheese was seemingly stuck in the middle of a gasp of some sort, or simply trying to find enough air to fill up his old lungs back to capacity. He looked at Duck for a long, long while. 

The both of them knew what was about to happen.

He closed his mouth.

His chest inflated.

"Never mind me," he finally spat out, then, clearing his throat, added, "Go on, Mrs. Goodread."

With that, he turned away and began to walk out...

...revealing a head of purple hair, and a flash of white, clenched teeth.

Sherbet was in the hallway, having seemingly joined Principal Cheese in escorting the two new students to their class.

She looked around for a little less than two whole seconds, found exactly who she wanted, and gave Duck a little wink before the door cut her out of sight.

Duck clenched her front hooves into a little ball.

"Well... we don't have many empty seats anywhere but the back..." She heard Mrs. Goodread attempt to finish, only for Mocha to halt her ending and immediately start heading Duck's way.

"That's good!"

Starburst huh-huh'd, "We'll take it!"

They stomped toward the back left side of the room, turned the corner of the table to Duck's right, and, grabbing hold of the backrest, promptly threw their chairs backward before aggressively taking a seating position and scooting forward to close the gap. Duck shut her eyes, and could only hear the two stallions as they dragged their two chairs toward the middle of the table to practically smoosh her between them. Satisfied with their positions, they yanked their backpacks off their backs and threw them onto the ground, unzipping various flaps and pulling out binders and books.

"I'll make sure and try to get you two our textbook by tomorrow," Mrs. Goodread informed them.

"Don't worry, ma'am, haha!" Starburst replied.

She clenched her eyes further and tried to turtle her way back into her body. Her shoulders were beginning to ache.

"Pee-yoo, mare, you ever hear of the word 'shampoo'? You smell like crap!"

Something hard jabbed her in the side, and she looked at the source to find Mocha on her right, an elbow pulling away from her ribcage.

His eyes took on a sinister shine, and he hummed to himself.

"Oh, we are gonna love this..."





"I HATE THIS SO MUCH."

"Gods' sake, Blank Check, shut up and get your tank moving!"

She blinked quietly, her muzzle warmly buried in her crossed forelegs.

"I can't read a thing in here! It's all in Prench, you motherless garbage pail!"

"Is that how a future politician is s'posed to speak to her people?"

THUMP THUMP!

"Close the gap! We're supposed to be in convoy!"

"Grrrr! Make us, you brainless imbeci–"

BRAAAAANG CUHP!

From where she could see, the business end of the Tiger's 88mm cannon had very simply, very noisily, very suddenly, rotated about about sixty-degrees or so and planted itself firmly against the back of the SOMUA's turret like an executioner before a crowd.

Everypony stopped what they were doing. The radio was silent, save for the static white noise coming in from the still depressed transmission buttons. The four tanks' engines still puttered in the distance, much quieter than her own. It seemed as if the entire world had just experienced a lag spike and was in the process of hastily catching back up.

The SOMUA—its turret now shaking as if to try and slap away the Tiger's muzzle—slowly revved back up, fired every piston of its V8 engine, and began to move once more. Stopping once again, it swiveled about to its left, stopped, rolled back onto the dirt-lain, tree-covered country trail, stopped, turned right, and finally became parallel once more with their assigned route. It puttered along for a few heartbeats before the Tiger, right behind it, began to churn as well, and soon everypony was back on track and making their way over to Duck's Comet, having stopped at the first sign of conflict at their rear. The fact that it was more team-based than projectile-based served a heavy reminder to her that she tried her hardest to shudder away from and lose focus on.

"Well, would you look at that," came Busy Body over the radio, "she actually waited for us." Humph. "I'll try and remember you when I'm in office, kid. I won't forget this."

Duck, not even blinking, idly reached around for her cupola's rotational lever and, grasping it, slowly turned herself around to face the front once again. Now that their daily tussle was done and over with, they could get back to their simulated combat scenario and continue on along the trail, waiting for their cue. Settling into place and hearing her cupola click, she readjusted her posture and jolted in her position as the Comet started up its slow crawl again. Arco and Flurry shared a few short words, but Duck was in no proper state of mind to hear them. The quicker they finished, the quicker she could head home and just... sit. She'd barely had the strength in her to climb up the Comet's side skirts at the start of class, and she was beginning to dread the dismount even more by the second.

From above her own engine came four pursuing growls, hisses, roars, and putt-putt-putts, signifying that the rest of the class was following her lead. Though she knew that turning around to make sure was a must, she found herself rooted to her spot staring straight ahead at the narrowing pathway before her. She was starting to get a serious case of vertigo now, too. 

An ear flicked up, and she instantly lifted her chin from her crossed forelegs to look toward their right.

She barely even caught the small light before its hellish scream caught up to her ears.

EEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEE BEEEEYOOOOO!

The red arc kicked up a cloud of dirt on the side of the road next to her, zipping up and away into the heavens.

"Aah!"

"Zacherle!"

"Holy–!"

Duck, stabbing her left hoof against the roof of the Comet's turret, held up her radio and clutched it rigidly. 

She breathed in and out, feeling her throat achingly dry, but cleared it to the best of her ability. Now was not the time to get caught up in emotions. After. She clicked her radio. "E-Enemy tank at our 3 o' clock!" Sweeping her sights over to her right at the convoy, she swiftly yelled, "All tanks, reverse hard left, now!"

She expected the four to follow her lead again and do as she'd informed them.

Two of them did.

But instead...

"Hahahaha! What was that?! Couldn't quite hear you!" Lily chortled.

Duck flexed her chin.

"Speak up, Quacky!" went somepony else.

EEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEE B-ZEEEEEEEEWWW!

Another beam of bright yellow, bringing with it all the horrible strength of a 105mm shell that passed over the top of the Tiger's turret by a bare inch. Duck sucked in a breath. If Lily had been poking her head out...

"Okay okay!"

The Tiger, jittering violently, finally managed to point their lightly-armored rear toward the left side of the road with the other two tanks behind it, allowing the SOMUA to do the same as well. As they stopped in that order, and Duck remembered that they were now waiting on her signal, she peeled her ears back, searched for her voice once more, and stammered, "All tanks, forward!"

At once, with her Comet just barely a second ahead, the class' respective tanks began to advance, first descending the small hill off the road and second churning the new grass below into cakes of dirt that kicked up in their wakes. The Cruiser tried its hardest to match their slower pace—intended to be at a speed all five could muster—and the SOMUA seemed to be straining itself to try and actually reach their sides. The Tiger would have left them in the dust if it could, but it could only handle twenty-four miles per hour before they'd need to have a look at its newly bursting engine. Not that that would have stopped them, to be honest...

"Where the hell's she at?" Lily barked, her teeth clacking, clearly caught in the middle of looking through every one of her optics frantically.

Duck clicked her radio. "Keep your eyes peeled! Scan that treeline!"

"Anyone see anything?!" Pine Needle shouted, her Cruiser's turret apparently copying Lily's fanning-about.

Their increasingly closing distance to wherever their target was waiting served only to shorten the amount of time any one of them could blow apart.

ZZZZZZZIP!

A blizzard of mud, dirt, and grass exploded in front of one of the Tiger's tracks, sending bits of disturbed Earth across the top of the turret that bounced and jumped with the Heavy Tank's movements along the field.

"Where'd the flash come from?!" Bit Rate spoke up, thumping something inside her own cupola.

"Flash?!" Blank Check exclaimed.

"Well yeah, it shoots, and it lights up!" Busy Body replied almost cheerily.

"You're making that up!"

"IT'S BASIC PHYSICS!"

"WHAT?!"

Duck's hooves flew to her chest and grasped the pair of binoculars hanging there. Popping off the protective covers and throwing the rubber cups over her eyes, she leaned forward in her Commander's position and peered through the lenses, sights deadset on the treeline she'd earlier minded. She hadn't been able to note the last shell's location—mostly because she was assuming its owner would recognize a Commander when they saw one and fire directly at her—but if she knew Mrs. Red, even if just by a little bit...

The massive, green-leafed oak trees stood proudly at the far end of the field in an L-shape, with the little part of the letter bearing a forested tumor of some kind that provided safety for what she now was noticing... was an odd bundle of bushes separate from the rest. Its orientation was off, and the berries dotted along its surface were a stark contrast to the emptiness of the brush all around it. And what she at first thought was a parting was now looking very curiously like the smoking end of a tank cannon.

She held her radio's button again and looked at her team to her right.

"Enemy tank spotted at my 11! Right in the far treeline, dead center of those bushes! Light her up!"

Instantly, the Stuart's three M1919s, the SOMUA's two Reibels, the Cruiser's Vickers, and—after a short issuance of sputtered curses—the Tiger's MG 34 began to crackle, snap, and pop from their mounts, flurries of four different calibers flinging their way in vague directions toward the forestry ahead of them all like some kind of sporadic light show. After a short few seconds of sustained, deafening fire, three streams homed in on one, and red and yellow and green tracers began bouncing off what everypony was—hopefully—now noticing to be thick tank armour.

She cleared her throat once more. Reveal its position with the coaxials, prioritize and increment cannon fire, and get two flanks going.

"All right I wa-a-ant..." Duck sucked in a shaky breath and let it back out to steady herself. Bunching up her shoulders, she restarted, "I want–"

"You want what?" Somepony in the Tiger yelled.

"Spit it out!" Lily joined in, chuckling.

Duck flexed her chin. "I–"

"Lily Pad, shut the hell up and let her speak!" Pine chimed in, unknowingly cutting her off as well.

Duck scratched at her foreleg. "I w–"

"You shut up! Why don't you go plug into your vinyl player and and feel sad for awhile?!" Lily shot back, slamming her hoof into an interior wall of her tank. Her voice took on a slightly higher register. "Oh, these ly-rics are so deep, I just wanna die!"

"Go headbutt a field goal–"

"Wait does she mean–" Field Goal perked up from further away in the Tiger.

"–you has-beens!" Pine was, by now, screaming in everypony's ears. "How many games have you guys won, collectively? Go on, gimme a count!"

"It's a team effort!"

"What, to choke?!"

"You son of a–"

"We'll get you later!" Hail Mary hissed.

The radio crackled.

"And I'll get you now!" Mrs. Red shouted, clearly agitated beyond all compare. "Listen to your Overall, and let her command you!"

From within the Comet below her, Duck heard Flurry call into Graham's area, "Thank you Mrs. Re–" only for Lily to interrupt her with the ferocity of a massive chainsaw.

"Excuse me, teach, but our Commander can't speak at all!"

Lily clucked a tongue, "Y'h, how the hell does somepony like her even get to be Commander?! She's scared of a pencil falling next to her! I think I should be the Leader here–"

Her suggestion was sent, received, and put under review for a span of about half a split second of time before another shell came whizzing their way, bouncing off the Tiger's right side with a shrill, descending whistle and a comical BUZZZZ-JUH-JUH-JUH-JUHHHH!

Lily was quick on the mic. "Can I report that?!"

"Duck!" Mrs. Red spouted above the sporty noise, "If you would, please. Continue."

She nodded at the tank in the bushes and began to open her mouth.

"YAAAAAAAAAAAAAAWN!"

Not even a full heartbeat came to Duck before a low whirring and revving began churning in the bushes. She barely even had time to register Mrs. Red's Centurion Mark III until it came bursting out of the brush and advancing toward the Tankery class in a growling charge. It only took her a short of wondering if this was all part of their scenario before realizing: the Centurion and its cannon was headed straight for the troublesome Tiger, even as the other lined-up tanks' coaxials continued unloading into its one-hundred-and-ninety-five mm of armour.

Duck heard Lily swallow a lump down her throat in her headset.

"Guh! Mrs. Red's coming!" Hail shouted.

"Is she gonna–"

KE-POOOOOOOO!

The shell exploded across the front glacis of the Tiger, completely obliterating the bow-mounted MG 34 and, evidently, scaring the absolute Be-sneezus out of Whipgrass, their Radio Operator in the front seat, who let out a sharp cry and screamed like a foal. As the machine gun's remnants clattered on the ground in front of the still rolling Tiger, Lily stopped hyperventilating for a second to yelp, "Fire back!" 

WHIRRRRRR!

"Do it!"

BOOM!

The shell soared through the air and missed by a hair's breadth, bouncing on the ground like a soccer ball and disappearing into the clouds in the sky.

"How do you miss from this close?!" Lily yelled, turning her head away from her mic.

"I'm aiming too far. It's not that eeeeasy!" Field Goal shouted back.

"Loading!" Peanut Brittle reported.

As the sounds of Peanut carrying a new shell toward the breech clicked, clacked, and thumped in her ear, Duck watched as Mrs. Red's Centurion, ascending the slight incline the field presented her on her side, began to angle itself ever so little to try and deflect the next shot, knowing full well how terribly thin its side armour was head-on even with its installed side skirts. The Crumpish tank was about seventy meters away from their position and approaching steadily, its crew making full use of its cannon's stabilization mechanics that would have sent the griffons' heads spinning during the tail-end of the War as it crawled along the bumpy field at about thirty miles an hour.

The Tiger, in the meanwhile, was ready to send another 88mm Mrs. Red's way.

"Fire!"

BOOM!

The Tiger's cannon retreated back into its housing for a second as its delivery screamed across the field and, just as Mrs. Red had planned for, nailed the side of the Centurion and sent much of its right side skirts in a splitting kind of fragmentation. Unfazed, however, it continued onward as if feeling nothing. 

Duck held her tongue, but heard Graham unknowingly speak her words for her. "All tanks, stop!"

Flurry halted immediately.

The Cruiser was next, followed by the Stuart and instantly pursued by the SOMUA. Pony heads began to poke out of various hatches on each respective tank. They, at first, looked Duck's way, then, getting no response but a shying away gaze, looked back at the fight erupting heckishly ahead of them.

The Centurion's cannon began to turn about to face the Tiger's front glacis, but looked to be drifting right past the driver's side and finally hovered over the air directly behind its left fender. It kept moving forward, but turned in to the right so its full profile wouldn't be given to the Tiger.

Its crew suddenly cheered.

"She's showing us her side!"

"Sides are always weak on a tank! Let's show her our front! Hardest part, meet softest part!"

The Tiger, staying its position, began to swivel about on the dirt and face the 'flanking' Centurion directly. Its turret whirrrred into place to fire directly into Mrs. Red's now diminishing tracks. Still trying to maintain its frontal fortitude, the Tiger followed the Centurion's movements and continued to present its glacis as its turret attempted to catch up.

"Crank it, Field, crank it!"

"Get ready to fire!"

"Faster!"

The Centurion was getting eerily close to getting the rest of the class' tanks hit by the Tiger's upcoming shell, but appeared to be... slowing down.

"Come on... come on!" Field Goal grumbled.

The 88mm passed over the rear of the Centurion.

"Right in the turret!"

"Wait!"

WHIRRRRR!

The turret swung.

"Fire!"

The shell flew...

...and completely missed the Centurion as it stopped, reversed, and adjusted its aim right on the Tiger's front step.

A quartet of short grunts fired off in rapid succession.

Lily went, "Guh...!"

KE-POOOOOOOO!

The front of the Tiger burst into flames, the smoke quickly dancing upward to mix in with the gray cloud layer above their heads. On the roof of the turret, a small hatch opened up, and a little brown rod shot toward the heavens and deposited a white flag.

SSSSFICK!

The separate hatches on the Tiger's armour began to swing violently open, clattering loudly at the metal that it met and allowing its coughing, hacking, stumbling crew to crawl, hop, and roll out of the tank's horrifically smoking interior. Lily, clenching her eyes shut, was the first one down, and she rubbed at her skull vigorously as the Centurion casually rolled up along the left side of the defeated Tiger. Mrs. Red swiftly popped open her Commander's cupola, hopped onto the roof of the Centurion's 105mm, and vaulted over the side, landing in the grass in front of Lily with a resounding thump.

Lily, now able to more clearly see the approaching, older mare in front of her, grit her teeth and stammered, "Wh-what the hell, ma'am?!"

Mrs. Red stamped a hoof into the grass, her face on the verge of going completely red. She grit her teeth and leaned in to glare hard at Lily Pad.

"I've had enough of your shhhhit, Lily Pad."

Duck gasped.

Some of the Candidates went wide-eyed.

The rest of the Jocks took an instinctual step back.

The Hipsters were in a mix of stopping themselves from laughing and glaring at the ones who were close to laughing.

The Nerds only blinked. Plastic Beach actually went back into the Stuart.

Lily Pad, meanwhile, frowned deeply, her cheeks sunk with fish hooks and her head craned back.

"I chose Duck Bill for a reason, and that is because she knows when not to say something so mind-bogglingly stupid that she ends up just looking like an ass." Mrs. Red flared her nostrils. "You need to realize that this is just like your Hoofball team. By yourself, out here, you're nothing but a big hunk of metal waiting to burst into flame and cook you alive. Together, you can take down anything that stands in your way. Now that I think about, I can see why it's hard to adjust. Your Hoofball team doesn't even have a chance of winning." Ignoring Pine's giggle from afar, she brought up a foreleg and thrust it Duck's way blindly, then adjusted her aim after looking straight at her. "With Duck as this team's Overall, we might just make it through and win this whole thing." Her lips peeled back, and she snarled, "Now get the hell back in your tank, and hit the garages."

She turned and began to trot back toward her Centurion.

She stopped halfway there, however, and, tossing her mane and looking back, adjusted her garrison cap.

"Class dismissed."

And with that, she climbed the side of her tank, hopped into the cupola, disappeared from sight, and began to drive away.

As the clouds of dust wafted into the air from behind the departing Centurion, Lily turned around to the sound of uproarious laughter directed her way from the Commander of the Cruiser, the entirety of the SOMUA, and Driver and Gunner of the Stuart. A snicker sounded from inside the Comet as well, right next to her, and strikingly feminine.

Lily, fuming beet red, fell to her rear, made an L shape with her right foreleg, and slapped the inside of it with her left. The laughter quickly shut up. The Pegasus paused in her next steps to look over at Duck still standing in her cupola, opened her mouth, flared her cheeks, and turned back to her Tiger. She waved her crew over with a flick of a hoof and a shake of her head. "Let's go home, already. I'm done."

Though she was the first to hop in, the rest of the Jocks quickly followed suit and started the Tiger back up, hitting the Emergency Restart button inside and prompting its attached buzzer to ring loudly for everypony to hear. 

"Duck?"

Duck's eyes began to blur together the different greens and browns of the area around them. She sunk her head in her forelegs and aptly clunked her chin against the roof of the Comet. Her sights glazed over. The radio in her hoof began to display an alien language to her.

"Duck?"

Scared of a pencil. Scared. Scared.

They weren't wrong. She could barely even face the day if she didn't have somepony to lean against.

She was scared. Of things. Of everything. A pencil, for sure. A teacher calling her name. The gaze of another pony. The mention of her family. Her family themselves. Every morning. Her own reflection. Her mane that she still found safety behind, despite. Going outside. Fresh air. Being under the scrutiny of any and every single pair of eyes that ever looked her way.

She was scared.

She was–

"Duck!"

She stayed her position.

Graham called, "Pine wants to know if we're leading the way back to the garages!"

Duck looked over at the Tiger. It was already beginning to move toward the school.

She idly kicked a leg.

"Just go," Arco said in a hush.

"All right," Flurry replied. The Comet stuttered, and, its engine growling, began to follow the Tiger.

"Hey!" Bluebell came, a tint of anger in her voice, "don't let those s͢ţ͜҉̷̀ú̶p͢͡i̡͘d̴̛̛́͢ ̸̧͘͢a̵s̷͝s̶͟͜h҉̸o͏͏̸l̶͘͟ȩ͠҉̴ ͝҉͜j̶̨ó̧̢̀͝c̀͢͠ḱ͞҉͞s̨͘͡ ̛͠҉͘g̡͡e̷̛͘͞t̸͞ ͢͡t̡̕ò̵͡ ̢y̨̨͘͘͢ǫu̕͢..."

Scared. There was no other word to describe it.

She wasn't scared of the deafening engines of the tanks in front of and behind her. She wasn't scared of their machine guns lighting up an ambushing target. She wasn't even scared of her Comet's own cannon sending a 77mm shell to whoever was receiving it.

She was scared of much, much more.

"̴̡͟͢͡D̨҉ǫ̡̀͝͞n̶̡̕͢'͢t̶́ ̸͘҉̷w̡͞͞o͟͟͝r̷̢͜͠͠r̴̷̀͘ý̷̴ ̕͞ą̀b̴̀͟o̸͢͞u͏̷̸̛t̢͠͞ ̵̡͜͟ẁ̷́͢h̴̡à̡̛́t̵̵̨͢͠ ̶̕t͏ḩ͢͞e҉́ỳ̛͜ ̛͜s̶̢͢͠͝a̵̢͢í̸̢͝҉d̛͠͏̡͞,́͟ ̷͜͝D͝ų̴͜҉c͏̨̡ķ̴.̴͏̷"̡́͜͠

"̶́́̕̕T҉h̸҉̷e͏͏y͞͞'̧̡͜r̷̡é̶͞ ̴̵̛͠͠j̵͟ù͘͟͠s̷̡̛͠t̛́́͠ ͜͏a̧҉̢̀ ̴̀͠b̧͏͠ù̸̀͘͜ǹ̷̡͜c̶̕͘͢͞h͏̴͜ ̨̕o̧͠f̨͠҉̕ ̵̧̡͜͜b͞͞҉ļ̡̀̕͟ò̷w̡̛h̴͘҉͜a̡͢͜͟r̸̕͢d́͢͞͝ ̡͟j̷͜͡e͘r̢̕͜k̨̀̕͜͟s̵̢̢͢.͏̨͏̶͞"̶̀

"͏̡T̴͘h̷̀҉͘͝e̶̢͞ỳ̡͘̕͝'̕͢҉r̷̨̨͜͢e̶͝ ̛̀͞҉j̢̛͢u̴̷̧s̴̡t̀̕̕̕͏ ́͢m̵̡͢͜͞a͟͠d̢҉,҉̧͟ ̶̢̢͘͘D̢̧́͝ų̶́c̷̛̕͡k̷͞!̴̧̨ ͠҉҉̕͢Ẃ̶́͝ę̶̶͝'̢͘l̀̕͡͝l̡̢͘͜͝ ̷̷s̸h͏͜͞ò̵̕͠͠w̵̴̧̛ ̸̷̀t̛͞͡h̷̕͢e̴͟͡҉҉m̷͞,͏̡ ̡͠͏r̵̶̡͜i̢͠g̨̢h̛͝t҉̷͠?̸̴̀̀͠"́͝

"̷͢͜D͏̷͟͝u̵̡͞͞c͝͏k̷̡̛̕͜?̴̧͟͠"̶

It was just like her mother said. And it was more than her mother noticed.

Sixteen years of age, and she could barely even get a word out. Even under pressure, when a sponge would finally expel its most embedded secretions, she clammed up and couldn't say a thing. She was unfit for something like this. She couldn't lead an entire team, even if they agreed with her every move and plan. She was an embarrassment and a disappointment... but not just to her family, to her friends. Arco, Flurry, Graham, and even Bluebell, no matter how thin the line. They looked up to her as the glue that held their crew together, and yet she could barely even look at any of them.

"̷̡͡D͢͢u̡͞c̛͢k͜͡͏!́͘͟"̧̀͢͜͠

Her mother was right.

What was she thinking?

Why did she join this class?

Why didn't she just shut her mouth?

She couldn't command a whole team of Tankers.

And she couldn't even command her own daily life without needing support from another source.

She dropped her hoofheld radio and let it swing lazily about, barely noticing their entering the High School's garages until the Comet—and the rest of the team's tanks—came to a complete, white-illuminated stop.

She wriggled her way out of her cupola and descended the Comet's side skirts, trotted over to the main doorway, grabbed her messenger bag, slung it over her shoulder, and walked out into the dead, choking, open air of the outside. Voices piped up and called behind her, but she didn't—couldn't—tell whether or not they were for her. It didn't matter anyway. It was probably for the best that she just disappear without a trace. She kept close to the far side of the school and made her way toward the other side of Ponyville.

Her walk home was quick, uneventful, and focused solely on every square foot of ground in front of her.

She ascended her apartment's staircase.

She unlocked her front door and stepped inside.

She headed toward her living room and looked at her couch.

She dropped her bag.

She remembered her bed.

And forgot it, walked over to her couch, and curled up atop it, clenching her eyes shut and biting terribly hard on her lower lip.

She counted herself lucky that nopony could see her crying.





Duck rubbed at her eyes absent-mindedly, mostly because of the yawn that had just overcome her and a little because she was still kicking away the overwhelming feeling of sleep out of her system. With her nearby lamp shedding a much-needed light on the sheets of paper in front of her, she bunched her shoulders up and pushed them as far forward as she could, grunting all the while. Another yawn, this one a bit less expected, came and went through her body, and she momentarily halted her poorly-executed exercise to raise a hoof up to suppress it. Blowing up her cheeks and shooting the air back out into the space of her living room, she scooted her chair an inch or so closer to her desk and picked up her pencil once again.

She'd remembered her homework much too late in the evening, after first getting up to go to the bathroom, and, with the time now reaching about five-forty in the afternoon, she was sitting in the corner of the largest room in her apartment—if just by a little—and facing the likewise biggest wall of it as well, her attention focused not on the assuredly cinnamon-flavored food she should have been pouring herself but on the next-day-due papers she simply just couldn't afford to skimp out on. As of the moment, she was nose-deep into her AP Calculus worksheet and wondering how such simple equations could count as AP Calculus work.

She was quick to mind her indecency, however, and quietly shook her head, pulling her scratch paper back over to her side with a free hoof. Sticking out her tongue, she placed graphite against tree and prepared to answer the question that was presented to her near the bottom.

She stopped, invasive thoughts beginning to spring up in her head again.

She hummed a low note and pushed them to the back of her mind, not wanting them to spoil her answering-spree. Just a few more questions and she'd be done with math, and then she could move on to her English essay and try figuring out what exactly she was going to do, and how exactly she was going to go about it. What topic should she focus on? The assignment was to explain something important to her life, and, rooting around through her brain, she... was kind of blanking, actually. She pursed her lips and brushed a few locks of her mane out of her eyes, taking a second to adjust her fluffy, Crumpish red pyjamas.

Her eyes flitted about and, joining sides with her newly grumbling stomach, landed on the kitchen nearby.

Could she really write an English essay on cereal?

DING DONG!

The sudden noise—and, honestly, the fact that somepony was possibly at her door—caused her to jump from her seat, quickly flounder atop it, fall over and spill across the floor, and barely dodge the seat before it came thunking down on her skull. Her ears smacking against the sides of her head and her green eyes shrinking to pinpricks, Duck grit her teeth and began to look around her apartment in a panic. No, not the bottom of the couch, that was much too short for even her! Uh, uh, uh, no, not the underneath of the sink, she might get stuck in there and have to live off dish soap. She'd go for the window close to her, but she was on the second story and didn't believe in herself enough just in general to go through with such a thing. Okay, okay, ummmm... the closet!

Splaying herself across the far wall and flicking her chin up to face the ceiling, she slooooowly inched her way toward the open hallway in full view of the door and her potential wrongdoer and, after steeling herself with a mighty breath and a choked exhale, threw her head around the corner to look for any signs of damage to her front entryway. If what she learned in that one book told her anything, they'd begin with the doorbell, then go for knocking, and then, when nothing else worked, they'd use whatever weapon they'd brought with them and force their way in. Then, and only then, they'd barge their way through her home and steal every box of cereal she had on her. She had to act fast.

Duck gave the closet across the way one last look before suddenly sprinting for it, yanking it open, and jumping inside. Through the thin slats of the plantation door, horizontal lines of light assisted her in locating her weapon of choice hidden in the corner of her new hidey-hole. Reaching into the bag and flinging away its protective cover, Duck clutched her frying pan with both hooves and adjusted her posture to look better suited on a baseball field.

Even from behind two doors now, Duck could hear muffled voices coming from beyond her front one. She could make out at least four, with one distinctly male and one other bordering on it. A stallion commanding mares in petty thievery? Definitely not unheard of. She sucked in a breath and steadied her grasp. When they came in, she'd have to prioritize, go for the knees, and make sure she knew her escape route... which was... also the front door they were going to be coming in from.

Puffing her cheeks out now, she waited for the axe to swing through the–

KNOCK KNOCK KNOCK.

"Aaaaaaaaaaahhhhhhhhhhh!"

She sprinted straight out of the closet, galloping toward the doorway in a thunderous charge. Stopping in front of it—and still screaming at the top of her lungs even as her next task proved difficult—she unlocked the door's top latch, stepped back, readied her weapon...

...and immediately dropped her pan in fright as four new voices echoed her, accompanying a booming entrance into her own abode that sounded vaguely of plastic bags and wooden utensils. Clenching her eyes shut and attempting to stare straight at the corner of the door, she brought up her forelegs and placed them over her face in case they went right for her eyes. Her own labored breathing being the only thing that met her ears, Duck slowly opened her opponents' suspected targets and found herself blinking them rapidly.

For in front of her were four ponies.

Graham was furthest from her, presumably staring at Duck from underneath the corked Equestrian M1 helmet tilted far too forward on her scalp, Tanker jacket clutched around her body.

Arco was behind Graham, lifting his chin up as if she'd punched him just a second ago and wearing some kind of olive green field jacket.

Flurry was next, her butt fully facing Duck as she carried two large plastic bags in her magic next to her with her eyes wide. Her wings were covered by a white cardigan and a royal purple shirt.

Bluebell was pretty much less than a foot away from her, frowning heavily and impatiently tapping a hoof against her carpeted floor. She pulled at the gray turtleneck sweater that was visibly warming her up much too quickly.

It was a short while before somepony said anything.

"Duuuuuuck!" Flurry called, dropping her two bags and tackling Duck in a tight embrace.

Duck began to sputter out dumb little noises, but managed a bit of coherence. "Wh-what are you all doing here?"

Flurry pulled away, beaming. Her horn lit up once more, and the bags previously on the floor hovered back by her sides. She tossed her mane. "Well... we all had nothing else to do today, and we were all pretty hungry after Tankery, so we decided we'd... grab some things and head to your house!"

Arco placed a hoof against his chest at once. "My idea, actually."

Graham made a face and tried to show him.

Flurry pouted out her lower lip, then did as Graham and let Arco see. "I helped," she said smally.

"You only woke up because we mentioned books," Arco replied.

Flurry let out a little half-chuckle, tapping the ends of her two front hooves together delicately. "Because I... thought we were gonna go buy books. I got excited."

"So you could sleep through them, right?" Bluebell quipped. Gods, she just really looked like she didn't want to be here.

Flurry turned at once. "Oh shut your..." She puffed up her cheeks. "No."

Duck raised an eyebrow. What were they talking about?

"...books?"

She looked over at her slightly—newly—disheveled desk, and all the papers that were still left sitting on it. Which wasn't a big number at all, really. Most of them were on the floor.

Movement caught her eye, and she turned to it to find Graham whipping her bag around and dipping her nose into its main flap. She noticed that the M1 helmet on her head had a biiiiig hole in the back of it and swallowed a lump down her throat. Graham came back up, holding something in her teeth which she attempted to describe.

"A cuhpleeh goy do chee cookug!"

Duck screwed up her face.

Graham tried to beat Duck at her own game, raising a brow as well. She went slower. "A... cuhpleeh..."

She noticed what she was doing, and how she was doing it.

PTOO!

THUMP!

"Ah!" Graham finally exclaimed, holding the book up with two hooves and presenting it—in all its newly drooled-on glory—to Duck. "A Complete Guide To Cheap Cooking!"

Flurry leaned much too far over to her right, smiling and pointing at the book. "All you need to know when you're low on bits!"

Arco followed suit, leaning to his left and bringing up a foreleg. "The perfect friend for a college scraper!"

Bluebell looked at the others. She was quiet. But she posed too.

"We're gonna cook some food together!" Arco, Flurry, and Graham exclaimed simultaneously to her ceiling behind shut eyes.

"And we're not taking 'no' for an answer!" Flurry said, the first to look back down.

Duck raised a hoof, her frying pan still clutched in a hoof. "Uh, I–"

"Vor, ponies!" Arco shouted, pointing a hoof toward her kitchen and leading the rush into and across its borders. They disappeared behind the corner she'd previously been hugging to avoid the sight of her inanimate front door. Bluebell scratched her head, having stayed where she was and probably realizing she couldn't cooly do anything at the moment besides just kind of... stare.

"Cinni-Toasty Brittles?" Flurry's voice asked.

Well they'd found her dinner.

"Get thaaaaaat crap outta here!"

HOOOOOK!

WHUP.

CHHHHHHHHHHH!

"Arco!" Graham yelled.

"He's paying for that!" Flurry shouted over Arco, who was having a bit of a hard time trying to defend himself.

Duck bit her lip. She was fortunate that her favorite bowl was drying up in the sink.

She looked over at Bluebell and opened her mouth to try talking to her, but found the Unicorn simply walking away from her and heading into her living room. After a few seconds, the sound of her couch sagging came to her, and she put her lips in a neutral frown and bunched up her cheeks.

Why were they doing all this...? There were a lot of restaurants and fast-food chains around Ponyville, some even relatively close by. Plus, she was sure that whatever was in Flurry's bags costed loads more than a simple order of large McDuckle's fries or one of their signature burgers. With these thoughts in her mind, she began to formulate what they could be cooking up in her little kitchen, and she found Bluebell at precisely the same time she realized: microwave ramen, white rice, and canned beans. They'd said the word 'cheap' a few times—even if the first time was garbled up in a mouthful of book—and, from what she recognized, those three were the top choices. While she had to admit that actually any of those were much healthier than what she usually ate... why were they doing this?

At the very least, they'd only be using pots and pans for boiling water, but then why were Flurry's bags... so...

...

She crossed the threshold of her kitchen and poked her head in to find Graham, Arco, and Flurry scurrying and scuttling hurriedly around the small area they had, carrying wooden spoons and measuring cups of all sizes and what looked to be origins. Vegetables, fresh noodles, assorted meats, and other things were set out on her counter, their plastic wraps chucked carelessly into her nearby trash can and poking out the top even as the lid was closed, which Graham suddenly opened up and deposited a little white bag into.

The Pegasus met Duck's faltering gaze, and after remaining there for awhile, suddenly grinned widely and trotted over to her. Duck's TV suddenly chimed on; Bluebell must have found the remote she'd hidden to stop herself from getting distracted.

She had a question on her mind, and, though she began to tug and knead uselessly at her long mane, she sucked up the courage inside to ask it.

"Wh-why are you all here? Doing this?"

Graham pursed her lips, then sucked them in. She broke out into a giggle. "Well... we saw how down you were today during class, and..." she paused, scratching the back of her head and jostling her helmet, "well, what happened yesterday too." She perked up and did a little hop. "We wanted to help you feel better! After all, you're the only reason we all know each other now! Just a big thanks!" She shut her eyes and nodded, then turned back to her work and promptly shoved Arco out of the way.

"Move your fat buuutt, Arco," Graham told him, picking up a spoon and beginning to stir in a container of chicken broth.

"Don't talk about my buuutt, Graham," Arco told her, reaching over and turning on the heat to the space his cooking pot occupied.

"It's really flat anyway," piped Flurry from the opposite side of the kitchen, her magic directing a knife lengthwise across two carrots and two celery sticks all lined up side by side.

Duck smiled.

Arco sneered, scrunching up his muzzle, but shook his head.

He let the boiling water in front of him know his despair.

"I hate you."





"Oh Gods I love this so much."

"Like some more?"

"Please."

Flurry lit her horn, and the bowl of steamed veggies levitated from the corner of the fold-out table and headed lazily over to Graham, who, like a child, waggled her hooves around impatiently as if it was her bottle of milk. Snatching it from the Alicorn's grasp, she quickly took hold of the spoon still sticking inside it and began dumping its contents onto her plate.

"Oi!" Arco yipped, bringing up a hoof and winding up.

Bluebell put her glass down and cleared her throat quickly, "Don't take it all, pig."

Graham frowned. "I barely ate anything today."

Despite her best efforts, the bowl took on a different aura than it had prior, and slowly hovered over Bluebell's plate. Bluebell took the spoon, collected a single serving of veggies, and dropped it on her plate before giving the bowl back to Flurry, who caught it in her own magic and looked at Duck, nodding toward it. Duck shook her head. The bowl CA-THUNKED onto the table, and everypony went back to eating, too preoccupied with what was on TV in front of them.

"And so..." continued the voice over on the screen, "Equestria was faced with a dilemma. If they kept sending weapons and vehicles to both Prance and Crumphill, the Griffon Empire would surely take note and question their state of supposed 'neutrality' that Princess Celestia had first sworn upon when conflicts began rising, even after her closest government official, Vice Admiral Whinniepeg, was assassinated just earlier that spring." The footage changed from the informational globe to what looked to be a company of Crumpish soldiers marching across a road between two massive fields, Brodie helmet-adorned heads turning to face and smile at the camera as they went by. A few Valentines, three Cruisers, and a lone Universal Carrier toting about a trio of Crumpish soldiers—one of whom was loading a stripper clip into her Lee-Enfield—passed by as well before the rest of the company appeared, doing the same as the last ponies.

"Crumpish forces under Lordess Gort were arriving in Prance in droves, spurred on by their determination to defend their allies from the likewise readying Griffonia."

The scene cut to griffon soldiers marching in formation across a busy street in what Duck guessed to be the city of Capital further inland of Griffonia. Dressed in their Stahlhelms and carrying their Kar98ks' butts in one claw, they stared straight ahead and continued onward toward wherever their generals were taking them. Just as the Crumpish, a squadron of tanks took the caboose in the masses, that being four Panzer IIIs, two Panzer IIs, and a single Panzer IV right in the center, its Commander standing up in her cupola and waving calmly at the shouts and applause that met her gaze.

A voice, not from the TV, caught Duck's ear.

"Why'd you pick some boring war documentary?"

Out of the corner of her eye, she saw Graham give Bluebell the stink eye. Flurry began to light her horn, but the aura only shimmered on the handle of the cooking pot prior drying in the sink.

She cleared her throat and tugged at her pyjamas again.

"I... um..."

Flurry lowered the cooking pot.

Graham pursed her lips.

Duck turned around and looked at the four, who were now... all... looking... right... at her.

She looked away for a second and admired the part of her floor to her left, but lifted her chin. "I... really like war history. And I guess... hypothetical war... stuff as well." She coughed, adjusting her position. She was talking freely, and without hesitation... so why wasn't she completely freaking out right now? What was going on?! "I grew up around tanks, and the boarding school I went to before Ponyville High focused mostly on the Never War as a whole, so I... just grew up around it." She sat up, bringing up a hoof. "Something about it is so... interesting to me. Every able country in the world on the brink of war. The Big Alliance of Crumphill, Prance, and Equestria, versus the Top Three of Griffonia, Bitaly, and Yakyakistan, which, after Operation Barber-Rosa, would change to Griffonia, Bitaly, and Zebrica, with Yakyakistan switching sides. All these people and weapons and ideas of war that just..." she took her two hooves and smacked them together, then let them space out, "...never came to fruition. How could it have all gone? Would it have ended up just like the world's leaders claimed at Hearsay? Would the evacuation of Dunnkirque have succeeded? Would Griffonia's hectic blitzkrieg have caught the Prench off guard and force a surrender? Would our own aircraft carriers—thankfully—have been spared from the bombing of Horseshoe Bay just because they were out on maneuvers?" She settled down, smiling and reaching up for a lock of her mane to curl around awhile. "I just... the questions and 'what-ifs' are really... um..." She noticed the four eyes again and began to descend. "...They're just... interesting... to me..."

Flurry hummed instantly, rocking her head back and forth. "I've never seen somepony so passionate about something, Duck!"

She felt her face go red and turned away to try and hide it. "I... uh..."

Arco chuckled. "You mind taking my next EQ History test for me, then?"

Bluebell opened her mouth, a grin on it, before shutting it and frowning again. Looking down at her plate, she magicked her fork over to her broccoli and corn and began tossing them into her mouth.

Graham appeared to be doing the same, a hoof up, but stopped herself as Flurry looked at the ceiling and hummed.

"Hmm. Let me see..."

"See what?" Arco asked.

"Well," Flurry breathed, "Duck told us about something she likes, which was very brave of her, so I think it's fair I do too." She threw her chin back down and, brandishing a hoof from underneath her much-too-long cardigan, began to tap it as she mumbled to herself. "I sometimes stay up really late reading books."

"You're a marvel," Arco stated flatly.

"Aww, thanks," Flurry sang.

Graham leaned forward an inch and exclaimed, "I have a big collection of communication equipment!"

Bluebell snickered.

Duck... actually propped an ear up and turned. "Like what?"

Graham's response was simple: she reached over to the side of her Equestrian Tanker jacket and pulled out a long, L-shaped green stick which she flicked the right side of and pointed at Duck. She didn't even realize it was a flashlight until Graham began pressing a button and signing what Duck immediately noticed as Morse code.

"A flashlight?" Bluebell asked incredulously.

"Yup!" Graham beamed, flicking the switch back off and waving a hoof over it. "An Equestrian TL-122! We were gonna use these while in the jungles of Japaneigh in the Oceanic Theater!" She turned the switch on and pressed the button again. "Doubles as a nice flashlight—complete with a few different optics in the bottom here—and a Morse code messenger when you hit this button!" Placing it back on her jacket, she added, "I've got a bunch of stuff at home!" Graham bobbed her head around with each item. "Your usual quill, ink, and parchment; typewriters; old telephones; computers; ham radios; and even ones like they use in tanks!"

"That makes sense," Flurry noted, nodding, "since you're, you know, the morning announcer and all that."

Graham flailed a hoof. "I get it from my mom and dad. You can blame them for having such a crummy mare at the end of that mic." She straightened herself and reached for her plate again, ignoring Flurry's obvious attempt to sway her from the self-deprecation. "I just like how people have evolved in the ways of, like, talking to each other. You used to only be able to hear someone by literally riding over to their town to talk to them, and nowadays you can just log onto your computer and insta-message them about your day or whatever! And all in the course of less than a hundred years!" Her last few words went quieter as she apparently believed she was going too long, stuffing her face with noodles and slurping them up as Flurry looked at Arco in a snap.

"Your turn."

Arco made a face.

"What kinda instrument do you play?" Flurry prodded, batting her eyelashes.

He scratched his head. "Percussionist," he told Graham, realizing she was the only one who didn't know but still would have cared. "I hit those triangles hard." Flurry, Graham, and Duck giggled, causing him to laugh as well. "My uh," he repeated his earlier motion, this time more prolonged, "my mom and dad both used to play in their music classes when they were in school. Started when they were in sixth grade together. Dad went trumpet, mom went double bass. They uh, heh, they actually had a bit of a row about whether or not I'd join Band or Orchestra when it came my time. I chose percussion as a middle ground, but my dad said that he won, so he slept on the couch that night."

Graham choked on her noodles, dropping her plate onto the table and quivering cutely behind her two hooves.

Duck pointed a hoof. "Is that what your Cutie Mark is for? Music?"

Arco looked at the weird hurdle-looking picture on his flank, then looked back at Duck. "Well, eeeeeeh, kinda. You see that's a, erm, down bow symbol." He straightened his back and brought up his forelegs as if to play a violin. "It's the starting position for playing a violin or a viola, bringing your playing leg down like so." He demonstrated, taking his right foreleg and dragging it downward along his imaginary instrument's strings. "'Arco', my name, means 'with the bow', which you might think is weird because I play percussion... it's because it's the most basic of symbols for Orchestral music. A beginner's symbol, I guess. My mom at least won that round when I came home from school that day. My dad still gives me the stink eye." He leaned over in his seat on the floor and regarded Duck's butt. Which she realized was more her flank than her butt.

"What about yours?"

Everypony else spun about to look at Duck's Cutie Mark. She turned to look at it as well. A yellow, four-point star with a white duck feather in the middle, as if such an object was a grand kind of thing.

Oh Gods, not this story...

"It's a..." She coughed, but didn't feel the sweating that she usually associated with such untampered attention. "I got it when I was in the boarding school. I um, was having a practice match with my class, and I managed to take out all the other team's tanks by sneaking around and hitting them from bushes and treelines. As light as a feather, I guess, it's... not really interesting..."

Graham chimed, "So you were kicking butt before we even knew you?"

"I–"

"We oughta try that!" Arco gasped, pumping his hooves. "Be all ninja and stuff!"

"With your shooting?" Flurry quipped, "Please, we'd barely get more than a shot off before we'd get noticed."

Arco stuck out his tongue. "Oh yeah? What's your Cutie Mark for?"

Flurry looked disinterestedly at hers. What looked to be a crystalline heart brandishing a pair of light blue wings. If there was anything more interesting, Duck wasn't sure she could fathom it.

"Eh. Alicorn thing. It's pretty much just what I'll be doing for the rest of my life, just like your guys'."

"Like what?"

Flurry made an overdramatic pose, "Oh... probably just... spreading love and sprinkling care on kind souls wherever the globe calls for me. Or maybe I'll just be a sweet prostitute."

Duck brought up a foreleg and coughed aside into the hoof, her gut having been tickled at just that very moment.

Arco was howling. Graham was covering her beet red face with her hooves.

"What about you, Miss Graham Cracker?" Flurry politely addressed the mare, who peaked out from behind her cover with a grin spreading from underneath her hooves.

True to her name—at least partially so—Graham's was a stick skewering a marshmallow.

"Oh, my dad told me! It's because I can solve problems with simple solutions!" She pointed at her butt proudly. "Get it? You don't have a proper rod for your marshmallow out on the trail, so you get a little old stick and just poke it through! Instant marshmallow toaster!"

"Gods what I wouldn't do for some s'mores right now," Arco sighed.

"We should go camping–"

"Let's not," Arco stopped Flurry, who seemed to enjoy puffing out her cheeks on an hour to hour basis. She crossed her forelegs as well.

In her silent anger, Flurry leaned over and flicked her chin at Bluebell, who was busy playing with the back of her curvy mane as she stared straight at the ground.

"Hey, Bluebell," she called.

Bluebell lifted her head, then, as if she didn't realize it was Flurry, suddenly frowned. "Don't do it."

Graham flicked her chin as well. "Hey, Bluebell."

Duck bit her lower lip, trying to keep from laughing as Arco did the same.

"Bluebell."

Bluebell glared. Hard.

"I've got a bluebell flower on my ass, if that's what you're asking."

Duck looked away for just a second, but cleared her throat and stared back at Bluebell across the table.

Flurry bent the ends of her forelegs, leaned up onto the tabletop, and buried her chin in the gesture. "Why do you have a bluebell flower on your butt, though, Bluebell?"

Bluebell rolled her eyes. "Not like you care."

"We've literally been talking about Cutie Marks for the past five minutes," Arco nonchalantly droned.

Bluebell harumphed, crossing her forelegs and looking away. "Whatever. Don't feel like sharing."

Flurry raised a hoof. Arco put it down.

"Now Flurry," Arco began, immediately prompting Flurry to shake her head, mouth wide and turned inward, "I think it's only fair that Bluebell here keep her secrets if she wants it like so."

Flurry harumphed as well. "Fine."

"Now, can we all just..." Arco sucked in a long breath and pushed it back out, making a motion as if he were channeling the chakras of the Hipsters within him, "...get along, and continue our lovely dinner, thank you Graham?"

Graham smiled widely.

Duck reached for her plate again.

"Actually, I'd like to do something first," Flurry started.

Duck looked over to her left to see exactly what, but found only a pink blur and a light weight tackle her in a surprisingly bone-crushing hug. Gritting her teeth, Duck shut an eye and looked to Graham for help.

Graham nodded, and threw herself into the hug as well.

That was not what she wanted.

Duck looked over at Arco.

"Help," she mouthed.

"No," Arco looked like he'd mouthed back. Or maybe it was "go". Regardless, getting up from his seat, he made a low, "Huhh!" and practically elbow-dropped Flurry, wrapping his forelegs around them all.

Duck looked at Bluebell, though mostly because she had nowhere else to look.

Flurry did the same.

Arco did too.

Graham as well.

Bluebell blinked. Her left eye twitched.

Duck opened her mouth to tell Flurry that she probably didn't want in on such a shattering experience, and probably might have been able to get it out between the onslaught of tears she was beginning to feel prick at her eyes, but she watched in a stunned silence as Bluebell let out a low curse, got up from her position on the floor, walked around the table, and limply threw her forelegs around Arco and Graham.

Duck grinned at Bluebell.

Bluebell scrunched up her muzzle. "It's... it's not like I came here for you or anything. Free food."

"Shaddup," Flurry ordered, nestling in her position right next to Duck. Her body was... really, really warm. Maybe it was the cardigan and her shirt. Maybe it was her own pyjamas. Maybe it was the three other ponies providing more.

She didn't know.

But she started crying anyway.

Sniffling just on the verge of sputtering out dumb things, Duck shut her eyes and let out a little note as her friends' embrace strengthened. There, with Queen Crumphill's proposed "We shall fight on the beaches" speech buzzing from the still-active TV, a delicious meal of homemade food creating a heavenly aroma around her apartment, and her new friends all by her side, Duck smiled. For real.

Flurry hummed.

It was quiet for awhile.

Duck finally opened her eyes and, looking around, got out, "H-how did you guys know where I lived?"

"I followed–"

"We asked the Principal," Arco piped up.

Duck looked at Graham to find her mouthing "What?" to Arco.

She looked at Arco to find him shaking his head.

The two had separated from their pile to perform their actions.

Duck, pulling out her own forelegs, reached around and hauled them back in.

She had words on her tongue.

Maybe a pleasant, "Thank you."

But she remained quiet.

It was better that way anyhow.
> We All Dinner Together At The Restaurant And May Skip Some Classes! I'm Sorry!
> --------------------------------------------------------------------------

"Lily Pad is a dick!"

Duck made a noise as if she'd choked which, honestly, wasn't too far a stone's throw from the truth. The noodle previously making its way down her throat resumed its task, albeit much more carefully now as Arco, looking her way, flashed his teeth after using them to bite on his lower lip. The sight of him catching sight of her caused her to instinctively turn her head. She stared at the school cafeteria's tile floor and almost didn't even hear Arco's apology.

"Uh, sorry."

SLAM!

Already in the middle of voicing her own apology for causing Arco to make one, Duck flinched in her seat and went wide-eyed as she, the previously soup-slurping Graham, the homework-toiling Flurry, and the collar-fiddling Arco swiftly turned about to face Bluebell, whose right hoof was submerged in her leftover mashed potatoes from the previous night. Not even noticing—or maybe not even caring about—the scalding, microwave-induced heat, and the piece of a sullied spud now sliding down her sleeve, she grit her teeth and growled.

"That brain-damaged, buck-toothed, sloppy-second son of a..."

She seemed to take notice of Flurry's glare, and had the immense strength somewhere inside her to restrain herself.

"...rrrr. Why won't she just listen?!"

Duck, seemingly the only one to regard him, watched as a rather young-looking colt—probably a Freshman, or maybe even a Sophomore—apprehensively approached her and her friends' table from behind Bluebell, his cheeks tinted red, his eyes looking everywhere but the older ponies, and one of his hooves hiding something behind his backpack. Her own eyes, already wide from Bluebell's table beating, tried their hardest to grow even more. What was he about to do?

He stopped just shy of actually touching Bluebell. Scratching his head and letting out a little chuckle, he began, "Um... hi, Bluebell!" Bluebell turned at her own name, and the frown on her face deepened incredulously. The colt noticed this, but, despite what Duck would probably do in a similar situation—such as bolt immediately, find the nearest trash can, and hide for as long as possible before somepony found her, which could probably end up being right around the closing hours of the school, and it would be a janitor, and he wouldn't really be pleased to see her, and then they'd have to tell the school that she'd missed all her classes in there, and she didn't think she was smart enough (actually no she definitely wasn't) to make up a quick, forseeably terrible excuse, and then she'd have to be called the Garbage Mare for the rest of the school year even though she already kind of called herself that already what was she oh yeah—merely coughed into a hoof, albeit reddening ever so slightly more. "H-How, uh, how are you tod–"

Bluebell brought up her steamed potato-covered hoof and swept it out like an MG clearing a room... which threw most of its contents onto the nearby Flurry's book. Flurry, stopping the pencil in her magic's scribbling, simply bunched up her cheeks in a straight frown and stared at the big brown puddle now drenching her fourteenth History question. Duck, realizing that it was a History question just then, leaned over a bit, then sucked on her teeth and sat back in her seat. She didn't know much about ancient history, actually. Never her mind.

"Hey, you little knucklehead! I'm talking to my friends here! Back off!"

The colt craned his neck back, probably just on the edge of snapping it with his 262-like speed. A pair of colts looking about his age further back—most likely his friends awaiting his success or his failure, which, knowing Bluebell, was still kind of up in the air—puffed out their cheeks to try and stop themselves from bursting out into uproarious laughter. Duck frowned. That was really mean. The colt deserved better friends than that.

"I-I-I was just... I just thought you'd..." He began to unveil whatever was behind his back, but his hoof was shaking so much that it refused to comply.

Bluebell crossed her arms and sat up in her seat. Turning away, eyes shut, she harrumphed, "Hmmph. Implying you actually thought about me. Get out of my face." As if sensing the colt's lack of motion, she brought up one of her forelegs and flitted it about like some kind of King scurrying away peasants bowing at his throne. Is this what Haulin felt like? Or maybe the Kaiser Roll? "Shoo, shoo!"

If there had ever been a closer mirror image of the way Duck felt she appeared whenever she was caught in literally any kind of social interaction—up to and including conversations, little waves, and two eyeballs darting her way—the colt was definitely up high on the list at this point. With beads of sweat—almost... way too much, like, in a worrying kind of sense—just pouring down his forehead, a shadow having passed over his eyes as he hunched over, and his whole body looking to be on the verge of collapsing, rolling over onto the spine, and suffering from rigor mortis like the Sixth, he worked his jaw around in a similar manner to a happily feasting cow, began a low whimper, and, instantly, turned heel and skittered away with a noticeably manly cry.

Graham sneered at Bluebell, who simply shook her head, eyes still shut tightly.

Duck watched as he went. The bouquet in his hooves made a three-point landing into the dumpster at the far corner of the cafeteria before its previous owner fled the scene entirely, his manic shouts still echoing as he blurred down the halls. She cringed, not just out of worry for his conscience, but also for the nurse, who would probably have another case on her hooves during an already busy week. It seemed that, ever since Duck had—earlier this week—bruised her knee rushing to school with a piece of burnt toast between her teeth (which she hated, because it meant she hadn't finished her bowl of cereal that morning, which she hadn't) and went to the nurse's office all glum, the room had seen quite a bit of activity that, while completely unrelated, still appeared to be a catalyst of some kind to the poor, poor old mare who now gave Duck the stink eye whenever she was around. Actually, now that she thought about, a lot of teachers seemed to be snippy around her, apart from the ones she saw on a day-to-day basis. Had the nurse seen something when she went through her files looking for Duck's history that she hadn't expected? Did she have Pony Pox? Did she have a disorder of some kind?! Oh Gods, was it a personality disorder?! Actually, no doctor! Wait, then what was it? There has to be something wrong with this young mare! Avast, your bottom: Stupidity!

Duck coughed.

She really hoped that nopony had just witnessed where her thoughts had just gone. That was... really weird.

"Friends?" Arco asked smugly, with an elbow helping him leeeeean over to grin devilishly at Bluebell. Duck sat up straight, then began twiddling with her mane like usual to try and forget about her own head. Was it getting hot in here?

One of Bluebell's eyes suddenly shot open. Her cheeks fumed. "F-friends?! What are you saying?!" She chuckled weakly, "Friends... why... why would..."

"You literally just called your friends just now," Arco politely informed her.

Flurry was still just staring at her foiled History paper.

Graham, her face completely neutral, abruptly crinkled as she bunched up her shoulders, narrowed her eyes, beamed, and snorted loudly.

"Guh! N-no! I was just...!" Bluebell looked to be hugging herself half to death. If this conversation kept up any longer, she'd probably end up doing so. Duck opened her mouth to voice this concern. "Please! N-not like I would even consider you guys as friends! P-please!"

The table was quiet.

Graham hid her amusement by Stuka-diving into her bowl of miso, which, after awhile, she grabbed with both hooves and raised into the air, slurping the last of it out before it went dry.

Flurry was still just staring at her foiled History paper.

Arco, sucking in both his lips as if he'd just ingested an entire lemon, looked around at the other occupants of the table for their own reactions. Duck gave him hers, which was to look away and pretend she wasn't visible to the naked eye. Oh Gods why did she just say naked...?

SLAM!

It was Flurry who jumped the highest this time, finally snapped out of her odd fixation. She glared the Pegasus' way and scrunched up her muzzle. "Dammit Graham!"

Graham, only giggling at the curse, clutched her belly and licked her lips. Her bowl, bearing a noticeable crack along its exterior where it had just been thrown, sat empty in front of her. Her navy blue jacket's sleeves were marked with broth and whatever drink she'd ordered, having been wiped with the two time and time again in an unexplainable ignorance of the napkin perfectly folded right by her utensils, which had... also been neglected.

Sighing, as if coming off a high of some kind, she finally remarked, "Yeah but you're totally right I hate Lily so much."

"Did you hear what she said yesterday?" Arco asked casually, knowing full well who the insult had been intended for. The smirk on his face definitely helped her sleuthing.

Bluebell scowled in an instant. "Calling me fat! That is the lowest of lows! I... I...!" She brought up both her forelegs and clenched the hooves, which now seemed to be shaking. Suddenly, they stopped, and instead shivered with renewed energy, and probably a lot of very angry thoughts. "Grrrr, I hate her so much!"

Duck found her voice. "I do have to admit that her crew is a bit reckless..." All eyes were on her. Even Bluebell, though she shut hers to nod in considerable, almost much-too-energetic agreement. Honestly, if she'd said that Lily was a bathroom ghost just out of the blue, she felt that Bluebell would nod and shake a hoof in the air excitedly. "Their Tiger isn't built for speed, and while its armor is less the myth than its cannon, it's certainly much more dependable than any of our other tanks on the thickness front."

"They think their tank's a friggin' race car!" Graham spouted, throwing up her forelegs and waving them about frantically. She honestly looked like one of those arm-flailing tube mares she'd seen outside some car dealerships. "You'd think they'd learn to dig down and defend after fighting Mrs. Red last week..."

"Honestly, don't feel like they do a whole lot of learning..." Arco chimed in, laughing.

"Trust me, she'd be up against a box of rocks and the box would go home with the prize money," Bluebell affirmed strongly.

Graham wobbled a smile, quaking silently.

"Not that Pine Needle and her crew are doing well either," Flurry said, closing her History book and beginning to shove her soiled paper into the nearby zip-up binder. Her name, twice spelled wrong, stood semi-proudly on the front. "I'm not sure what they're trying to do out there, but it's not working one bit."

That was true. Even Duck had to admit that their tactic of dancing about with their Cruiser and not firing until they found themselves a better position—which was never, might she add—wasn't suitable for anything even remotely competitive. If anything, they'd get sniped from afar before they could even encounter an enemy combatant. Though they weren't too terrible when they did manage a shot off, the amount of time they'd take to fire combined with the caliber of shell they couldn't control anyway acted as a foil to an otherwise good team.

"Think Busy Body and her team'll ever quit fighting?" Arco asked the table, awaiting an answer from any of their mouths.

"Oh no," Graham went.

"Hell no," cursed Bluebell.

No, shook Flurry.

Honestly, their vastly differing views on tank combat—as well as the current population, voting rights, metropolitan society, gun laws, foreign policy, and just shooting nukes at each other—probably wouldn't lead to any ripe fruits anytime soon. They constantly, nonstop, always argued and bickered during class, and especially during routines, to the point of stopping their SOMUA and not even moving an inch at all.

"Just me, or do the nerds think their tank is a plane or something?" Graham piped up, doing the same as Arco and looking around the lunch table.

Duck, her head beginning to hurt, decided to let this one out into public this time. "I've... noticed that too. I think they're using the Stuart like a..." She looked to her left and then to her right, and then to her left again, to make sure that neither Bit Rate, Autumn Leaves, Primrose, nor Plastic Beach were in sight, or even relatively around. She'd feel terrible for the rest of the year if she'd said something they could perceive as mean. "...dive bomber." As the fastest tank on the team, the Stuart was an outstanding Light Tank for reconnaissance and flanking, and yet, Bit's crew seemed to be content in flooring it and rushing targets, firing once they got within range, and then immediately fleeing left or right without even looking back at the damage they caused. While that could be a good tactic for a distraction, the lead-up to their actual shot was more than enough time for their opponent—no matter how skilled—to line up their own shot and take them out in a second of time. The Stuart might have actually been the most fragile tank on their team right now, both in armor and in gun, though strongly tied with the Cruiser on the former.

She... couldn't disregard her own crew as well in the end, though. They may have been the closest things she'd ever had to friends in her life, but, when they were all sat up in the Comet during sixth period, they weren't without their respective faults.

Arco hadn't really seemed to be getting the hang of leading targets, especially when faced with something fast like the Stuart or the Cruiser. His self-admitted lack of upper body strength—which he also claimed would have been broadened had he actually chosen the double bass like his mother before him—worked against him when it came time to rotating and elevating the Comet's 77mm cannon by its two cranks, and his short hindlegs also gave him trouble whenever he needed to hit the foot pedal to actually fire. To be honest, though, she couldn't see any better fit for the role of their Gunner no matter how lacking he was in the height department. In fact, she might have... actually had an advantage on that front. Like the freezing winter's cold in Yakyakistan versus the entirety of Griffonia's Verteidigungskraft.

Flurry, time and time again, seemed to be falling asleep at the sticks, needing a poking from the nearby Graham or the discharge of one of their day's allotted shells to stir back awake and continue working again... only to clunk her head against the dash with enough force to crack her skull open. Duck had decided earlier this week to get a pillow and put it against the front of the Comet's Driver seat in case Flurry fell asleep, but it only served as a welcoming gesture to keep sleeping that Duck didn't have the guts nor the mindset to further explain and detest. However, she was certainly the best candidate for the position no matter how drowsy she was, and she was sure everypony else would agree.

Graham, seemingly much too excited to actually be doing fairly well at speaking, relayed information to Duck and the rest of the crew at, also seemingly, the worst possible times, and much too quick and loud for anypony to actually make any heads or tails out of. Coupled with the accidentally discovered fact that Graham, in one other ear, was blasting show tunes while training, and also that she got distracted by her flashlight every twice in a while, the mouth to ear to mouth to ear of info, to head, to repeating, to listening ended up boggled up and, quite frankly, confused.

Bluebell acted like she constantly had something to prove to the crew, even though they'd all unanimously accepted her behavior the week prior. She put every inch of effort into loading shells, throwing herself against the walls as the cannon fired, then breaking a few discs in her spine and possibly telescoping the whole thing to reload again before starting the whole process over again. And then, when they weren't firing the cannon—usually when they were first heading out for the period, or when their day's routine didn't require her—she was busy scribbling things with a sharpie on their shell casings that, purposely tucking them from her sight, Duck couldn't see. If Bluebell was drawing something, she'd at least like to see it so she could compliment her on it.

As for herself, well... she could do well with raising her voice more... and not being so skittish about ordering ponies around... and not be so hesitant in doing the same to her own crew to the point of receiving expectant, silent stares that furthered her embarrassment and nervousness and probably called up some kind of terrible anxiety that acted like a weigh-in machine with answering on one end and trying to ignore them on the other and they both weighed about the same and she wasn't even sure she wanted to do either of them in the first place but if she didn't do one of them she couldn't very well lead her crew and then she couldn't very well lead her team and then thinking about that reminded her of what her mother had said and how much she'd cried that night in her bed and the look that her sister had given her and how she couldn't salute anymore and how she was terrible and stupid and ugly and shy and stupid and–

CRRRKT!

"Arco Piano, please come to the front office. Arco Piano, to the front office."

BA-BUMP!

CRRRKT!

"Hell's that about?" Bluebell swore, tilting her head and looking away from Duck to stare at the aforementioned stallion. Duck had no doubt been making some odd face while trapped in her evil inner musings, and was probably a spectacle for the ages in a study on just how long a young mare could go without displaying any kind of sign that she actually alive and breathing.

Arco screwed up his face. That's probably what she'd looked like, actually. "Might have an idea," he said, getting up and reaching for his bag.

Flurry had already finished zipping up her own bags before Arco had finished his sentence, and was now waiting for Duck to join them before they all began trotting toward the front the school together. Graham, as well, was already all smiles and bouncing to and fro on her four hooves, her L-shaped flashlight swaying like a limp, sopping lamp cord. Bluebell, the last to get up as Duck adjusted her messenger bag's strap, nodded to them all, prompting Arco to begin the long—at least to Duck—walk to the front office from the cafeteria, which lasted all of about fifteen seconds or so. The amount of time notwithstanding, she still had the guts to despise the journey all the same. Every hoofstep they took felt wrong on her end, like she'd forgotten how to walk, re-learned it when she took her next step, then forgot again as her hoof made contact, and she was more than absolutely certain that every single eyeball in the main commons was ogling her way the entire time she spent stumbling idiotically across the room. By the time they actually reached the front office's doors, and Arco held it open for her as she entered, she felt tired beyond all belief and had to restrain herself from finding a table to hide under or a chair to fall into.

While she hovered near the doors—much too worked up to move at this point—and occupied Flurry, Graham, and Bluebell who remained with her, she closed her eyes for a split second and suddenly bounced back awake. Oh Gods, she was suddenly tired now. She felt grateful to whatever greater power there was that the others hadn't noticed her dozing off, sure that she'd be receiving an admittedly hypocritical earful from Flurry, a teasing from Bluebell, and a stern arm crossing from Graham, and felt even more blessed as Arco, returning from the front desk, returned to them bearing an envelope in his mouth. As they all turned to face him, he spat the paper out and clutched it in a hoof before ripping the top off and pulling out what was inside.

Unfolding the normal-sized, obviously hoof-delivered letter, he tugged at his bottom lip and read it quietly, its contents well away from Flurry's prying eyes and Graham's curiosity. And Bluebell's want of blackmail, too.

He reached near the bottom, and his eyes went wide.

Then he folded it up and put it into his bag without a word.

Graham gave the others a suspicious look before feeling it silently approved. "What was it about?" she asked Arco.

Arco shrugged. "Nothing really."

Flurry took a step forward. Arco actually flinched from it. Duck... had too.

"Is everything okay? Seems kind of urgent to have been sent here..."

Arco coughed into a hoof, then closed the flap on his bag. "My, um, my mother's in the hospital for some–"

"Oh my Gods!" Flurry gasped.

"Is she okay?!" Graham boomed, almost tackling Arco and throwing her two forelegs onto his shoulders.

"What happened?" Bluebell asked without any fuss.

Arco's lips were in a frown.

The others, realizing he was waiting for quiet, gave it to him.

Behind them, from where only Duck could really see at this point, the old mare at the front desk was trying her hardest to not giggle and disturb the moment.

"She's in the hospital for analysis, and I'm supposed to meet her and my father and have dinner afterward."

"Analysis?" went Graham.

Now Duck was actually kind of curious, now that the respecting of his privacy was off the table.

"She had a... pretty bad illness a while ago," Arco replied, shaking his head as if to dispel some terrible thought. "She got better, but... she's just in there to make sure it's not back." With that, he reached a hoof up to push open the office doors, finishing, "I'll see you guys tomorrow," as he went.

"I'll go with you!" Flurry sang, raising a hoof like she was answering a question in class.

Arco turrrrrned on the spot. His face was flat.

"You're serious."

"Yeah!" Flurry replied, throwing both her hooves up now excitedly, "That way I could finally meet the parents of the grouchiest stallion alive!"

Arco blinked.

"I'll go too!" Graham beamed, her teeth a blinding white as she raised her own hoof. Arco, sensing more, buried his face in his hooves quietly. "I'll go and get a bouquet for her!"

"A bouquet sounds nice," Duck barely heard from Bluebell next to her.

Graham was upon it in an instant, not wanting to waste the opportunity. "Then you're with me!"

"I didn't say anything," Bluebell defended, much louder this time.

"Yeah you did," Graham affirmed.

"Well..." Bluebell trailed off, looking away, then back again, "yeah. I said that I was glad I could skip fourth today."

"Might be longer than that," Arco informed them with a tilt of his head and a shrug. "Fact, it'll probably go past two. Maybe even three or four. I'm usually there for some time."

Graham turned to Duck this time. Duck suppressed the urge to bolt. "What about you, Duck? Wanna come with us and get a bouquet for Arco's mom?"

Missing fourth, and then possible fifth and sixth? That would be... very irresponsible of her! 

"You sure we'd even get a pardon for those three classes?" Flurry wisely asked Graham, who immediately went to poking her chin with a hoof.

"I know I am," Arco began, only for Flurry to tell him, "Shut up this doesn't concern you," at a rapid-fire pace that did what it entailed.

"While I may not condone skipping..." began an unfamiliar voice nearby. The five all turned to look for it to find the old mare at the front office, who was leaning forward with an elbow. "...by acting as... moral support, you four can get out of your next classes as well. I understand the need for a shoulder to help you up far too personally. I'd be more than willing to assist you four."

Graham clapped her hooves together in an instant. Duck found it more than a marvel that she hadn't jumped just then.

"Perfect!"

"Don't tell me it was really that easy," Arco droned to nopony.

"It was really that– ah!" Flurry began playfully, only for Arco to immediately pounce and begin stretching her two cheeks far apart. With Flurry's babbling accompanying her, Graham began to think aloud.

"I do have a test in my fifth period today, but I guess I could do better with another day of studying."

Arco, still pulling at Flurry's cheeks, turned about to ask in a gravely, emotionless tone, "What were you doing all last night?"

Graham made a very good mimic of Duck's usual pastime, turning away and making a loop with one of the locks of her mane as she giggled sheepishly, "T-talking to... ice-road truckers on my radio..."

Bluebell's eyes would have slid out of their sockets, she'd rolled them so hard.

Flurry, pushing Arco away, rubbed at her face absent-mindedly, "So it's settled then?"

Duck tapped her front hooves together, eliciting little clip clops that sounded like a foal just learning to walk. She definitely couldn't skip her next three periods. They were starting a project in her fifth period Economics class, and now that she remembered it, they were taking a quiz in Pre-Calculus next period. On top of that, she couldn't afford to miss a day of Tankery, because, even though she hated the realization, they were due to take part in a match in the next couple of weeks against Gods know who, and the newly-birthed Horsepowers needed all the training time they could get. Mrs. Red would be really upset if she didn't attend class one day. Who would take lead in her place? As much as she talked, she kind of hoped that Pine Needle was granted co-leader. Bit Rate was too quiet and she didn't know her too well, Lily was loud and rude, and Busy Body didn't need the practice of leadership as much as she and her crew claimed.

Then again... she was kind of stuck on a few problems of her AP Calculus homework... and she'd probably end up doing the project by herself anyway since both she and the rest of her class found her solo work in everyone's better interests... and, if she stayed behind to attend Tankery while her entire crew didn't, she didn't know who Mrs. Red would have her direct or join. If she was lucky, she'd sit out the training for the day, but then she'd have to watch the unguided team try to go through their hoops, and then they'd all get angry at Duck and her crew and hate her and want to fight her and she'd definitely lose that match-up and then she'd be all beat-up and sad and probably start crying in class and...

...ohGodsshereallyneededtogowiththem!

"I'll go too!" She shouted, much too loud and probably at the top of her lungs.

Graham clenched her teeth, an eye shut.

Bluebell's eyes were wide.

Flurry cocked her head.

"Are you sure?"

Before she could let her mind wander too horribly, Duck nodded.

"I'm sure!"





"Are you... sure you're in the right place?"

The nurse, her cute little hat on her head, tilted her head and gave the three of them a frown from behind the desk. A nameplate atop the counter read Red Pill. The mare didn't look really red.

Graham nodded vigorously, a determined look on her face.

Bluebell, adamant that she'd be the one holding their bouquet, did the same.

Duck struggled to follow.

"What was her name?" Red Pill asked.

Graham looked at her and Bluebell. "Her name is... oh Gods, what's her name?"

"Uh..." Duck droned.

"Last name! Last name!" Bluebell quipped.

"Oh!" 

They all turned back to the nurse as one unit, probably frightening her with the unintended synchronization. She probably thought the three would ask her to play with them forever and ever and ever next.

"Uh, last name Piano."

Bluebell smacked her forehead.

Red Pill flipped through a binder next to her. She reached the end. She went back the other way. She reached the... other end.

"There's nopony named Piano in here."

Graham looked to the ceiling and groaned loudly. The other ponies in the waiting room looked her way, brows raised. A few parents covered their charges' ears. They were effectively stumped.

...

Wait. No, they weren't.

Duck cleared her throat and, befitting the marvel that was the speaking of Duck Bill, both Graham and Bluebell looked at her.

"Um... I remember that they mentioned bringing in a dog before they got here..."

Red Pill's face lit up instantly. "Ah! That would be Arco... Piano, whoops, heh heh, um... bringing in his dog Loki!" Leafing through her binder once more, she stopped at a page near the middle and poked a hoof at its contents. "Should be room 712, down the hall to my right!"

Graham pumped a hoof. "Yes!"

Bluebell began to walk down the corridor. Graham followed.

"Thank you!" Duck said, before trotting after the two before they got out of her sight.

Graham regarded her, "Good job, Duck! I totally forgot about that!"

Bluebell, even, chuckled, "Smart one, there. We would've been there for hours."

Duck felt her cheeks burning, but managed a smile. "I-I... I guess you're right."

It was a short, sort-of quiet time as they proceeded down the hall toward the room, sometimes disturbed by Graham and Bluebell talking to one another in an odd sort of... peace, she noted, without a single hair's breadth of hostility in Bluebell's actions or words. Even the way she'd just looked at her a second ago bore no hint of anger or annoyance. Maybe this was what Bluebell was like without having to despise seeing Lily in the upcoming hours, or without having to worry about other ponies seeing her and the other crowd she sometimes—in lieu of joining her, Graham, Flurry, and Arco for lunch—hung out with. Duck had many a time wanted to talk to Bluebell about Mocha Frappe and Starburst, but the fact that she saw them all the time and had to listen to them next to her diminished every instance she'd wished to bring it up. Surely, they'd catch wind of her prodding and make fun of her for the rest of the week if she was lucky.

Graham and Bluebell suddenly stopped, and Duck turned to her right to find the placard 712 staring her just above her face. She might not have been as short as Arco, but she was... still short.

Bluebell sucked in a long breath as Graham spoke.

"We all ready?"

Bluebell nodded quietly.

Duck cleared her throat. "I-I think so."

Graham pumped a hoof. "Let's do it!" With that, she reached up a hoof and opened the door.

The three of them poked their heads in like a traffic light—with Duck on the bottom, Graham in the middle, and Bluebell on top—and peered around the corner...

...to find a terribly adorable sight awaiting them.

A tall, bearded blue stallion, sitting in the chair next to the hospital bed, was laughing about an article in the newspaper in his hooves, pointing to and showing it to both Arco—who, adjacent to him, was holding a small Pembroke Welsh Corgi that was thrashing about with a big smile on its face—and the gray, purple-eyed, smokey-maned mare lying in the bed itself, closing her eyes and giggling as the dog excitedly licked her cheek. The light of the window behind the bearded stallion resembled that of Principal Cheese's office if he'd pulled up the curtains, with a yellow sheen glistening through the glass and shining a brilliant glow upon the family of four enjoying their time together in a place usually known for absolute terror and horrible news.

The Corgi let loose what Duck realized to be a prolonged fart.

The mare in the bed, now revealing herself to be English-accented and obviously Arco's mother, snorted, "Loki, that was sickening."

"Loki's sickening?" The bearded stallion, obviously Arco's father, asked. "Who's the one in the hospital bed right now? We can get the pan if you want."

"Uh! You wouldn't."

Arco's father got up and appeared to be reaching for something underneath the hospital bed.

Duck, Graham, and Bluebell were, by now, fully inside the room, and it wasn't long until first Loki noticed their presence, and then Arco's mother herself.

Arco's father, however, finally found what he was looking for, and with a big smile, he sang, "Well, found your bedpan you old lady. I guess we can... put it... oh." He suddenly realized the three other young mares now in the room. 

A stand-off occurred. Duck struggled to introduce herself, much too worried that Arco's parents would notice the quake in her voice.

The door behind her opened up, and Flurry's voice called out, "Oh, hi you guys! So glad you made it!" 

Duck turned to find the Alicorn carrying a tray of cups in her magic by her head, which she trotted in with and set on the table next to Arco's father, who gave the mugs' contents a quick looksie.

Flurry pointed at the stallion. "This is Noteworthy, Arco's dad!"

Noteworthy waved a hoof. "Hello."

Flurry jabbed a hoof into Arco's side. "This is Arco Piano. You don't know him," she began, going into a low, pouty voice, "but he's a very grouchy stallion."

Arco frowned.

Perking up, Flurry ruffled the fur of Loki, who barked happily. "This is Loki!"

Graham, feeling at ease, trotted forward and began cooing as she pet Loki as well. "Hi Loki!"

Finally, Flurry waved at the mare. "And this is Octavia Philharmonica, Arco's mom!"

"Guh!"

Duck looked at Bluebell swiftly, though nopony else seemed to notice Bluebell's little noise. The Unicorn's face looked to be in a state of shock.

Clearly tired when Duck looked back at her, Octavia waved at them with a sense of politeness and sophistication about her.

Arco, letting Loki curl up next to Octavia—who began absent-mindedly rubbing his head with her eyes half-lidded—went back to his seat next to Noteworthy and fumbled his way onto it, stopping himself from going rump-first like he did in the Comet and settling into it like a normal pony would. Octavia raised an eyebrow at it, but shook her head and dismissed it quickly. "Hello," she said, sleepily, "it's so lovely to meet all of Arco's little friends!"

Duck realized she was positively beaming, and just had to show it. "Nice to meet you all!" she cheered.

Noteworthy, fidgeting in his chair, suddenly began pointing at the newspaper. "Ahp, ahp! Check this one out!" Scooting his chair closer to Octavia, who looked over at the article as he did so, he read aloud, "'Manehattan Stallion Arrested After Punching An ATM For Giving Him Too Many Bits!'"

Octavia burst out laughing. "Th-that sounds like a right problem to me!"

Noteworthy, wiping his eyes, replied, "Could've used something like that years ago!"

As if turning off an Amusement Switch of some kind, Octavia let out a long sigh and a quiet hum, then smiled Noteworthy's way and said quietly, "I think we got along just fine, honey." Satisfied with Noteworthy's like grin, she sat up in her bed and smooshed her hooves together, eyes shut. "Oh, I'm so happy to see Arco make some friends! I was a tad worried he wouldn't find any this year because his best friend moved this past year, but I can plainly see I shouldn't have worried at all, haha!" Settling, she put her forelegs in her lap like a child listening to story time and asked, "Where are you lot from, then? Part of this year's Orchestra?"

Graham quickly shook her head. "We're part of the Tankery class, ma'am!"

The room fell silent, save for Octavia's almost unnoticeable stutters.

Flurry, in the middle of raising a hoof to stop Graham, faltered. Her wide-open mouth slowwwwly shut, went into a cheek-bunched frown, puffed out, and stayed there.

Arco was sucking on his teeth, shielding the left side of his face from using its peripherals to look at his mother's reaction.

Duck was already looking for a quick exit.

Bluebell still stood with a scared expression on her face.

Loki, his head nestled in Octavia's sheets, even seemed to raise an eyebrow.

Noteworthy surveyed the situation silently. Bobbing his head around nonchalantly, he animatedly looked over at Octavia with an overdramatic neck roll. Octavia was still in the middle of a gasp, her mouth a large O-shape befitting her beginning initial to a sharp T.

Wow her mane was really nice...

"Hey, um... Arco? Bud?"

Arco looked up at his father, who had broken the silence.

"Yeah?"

"Are you... gay...?

This seemed to break the spell on Bluebell, who exploded with laughter like the Tsar Bomba. Graham as well was on the edge of losing it, but was hiding it with a hoof. Flurry was burying her face in her hooves, the goofy smile or beet red underneath not wanting to be shown. Duck was definitely displaying the latter, however, unable to even move or try covering her own face from the new coloration.

Arco frowned. Like, really deeply.

"Dad."

"I mean, it's fine if you are, we really don't mind either way, but joining a girly sport is a... unique choice for breaking the news, I'll admit."

The sound of Octavia shifting in her bed halted Arco from explaining himself, and the entire room turned to face the old mare who, no longer gasping, was instead clutching her sheets... a glare on her brow.

Duck sucked in a breath before she got a word out.

"You... joined... Tankery... and... abandoned your Music classes...?"

Arco blinked.

Octavia turned to face him before he could get a word out.

"I didn't raise you for such a thing! Joining a mare's sport, no less! You'd be much better off playing an instrument than shooting some... loud cannon! All that you've worked towards these past few years, thrown away just because you wanted to see up some mares' skirts?!"

Arco raised a hoof. His face was unexpectedly neutral. "Okay, there is literally no truth in that last part."

"Skirts are... actually no longer mandatory," Graham began.

"Hush," Flurry quieted her.

Octavia pouted out her lower lip, crossed her forelegs and glared at the empty part of the room to her left. "I apologize for being so rude, and for not catching your names... but I would like to be alone right now."

Duck immediately turned to leave, and, holding the door open for Flurry, Arco, Graham, and Bluebell—who propped the bouquet next to the entryway, was the last to flee. However, just as the door was about to shut, she noticed Octavia's position falter; she deflated, staring at first the ceiling and then the window and husband to her right. And then Duck couldn't see them any longer. Stepping back from the closed door, Duck heard the sound of Arco coughing into a hoof.

"Sorry you had to... uh, see that. I uh... hadn't told her until then."

Graham, shaking her head with her eyes wide as dinner plates, apologized, "I'm sorry, I'm sorry, I'm so sorry! I didn't know!"

Arco chuckled. "Don't worry about it. There's... not much I can do to go back to Music anyway. I think she realizes that, even without knowing that we were... forced into it."

Flurry scratched the back of her head, puzzled, but suddenly perked up, toothily grinning and bringing up an excited hoof. "We should go get something to eat then nearby!"

Bluebell raised an eyebrow. "Hospital food? You know that stuff is designed for patients, right?"

Why were you so shocked upon seeing Octavia, Bluebell? Gods, she wished she had the bravery to ask that.

"I like the pretzels and cheese..." went Graham.

"No, a shop just down the street from here. Well, a couple blocks." She looked away, mumbling, "Maybe across town but I haven't gone in like ages."

"Shouldn't we stay in case they want us to go back in?" Duck asked, though she also had a wanting to give Loki little chin scratches forever and ever too.

Arco shook his head. "Trust me, we're definitely not going to dinner with them anymore. Mum'll probably still order the food—probably have my dad go and do it—then eat it here to spite the nurses. I'm hungry anyways." Throwing out a hoof, he grinned, "Where to, Flurry Heart?"

Flurry rolled her eyes, then began taking the lead down the hall. Duck took the caboose, mostly out of choice. "Well, I'm not sure you'll all like it. It's a little corner shop tucked away near 7th not too many people know about."

Creeeeak.

Duck turned around, seemingly the only one to hear room 712's door open up again. Standing in the doorway was Noteworthy, who, noticing Duck, lit up on the spot.

"Hi there," he said.

"Hello, sir," Duck replied.

"What's your name, if I may ask, young mare?"

Duck blanched. "Uh... D-Duck Bill."

Noteworthy clucked his tongue. He seemed to notice her reaction far too well. "Well, Miss Duck Bill, I have to thank you for being kind to my son for the past couple of weeks. You and your other new friends he's so much talked up every day after school." He grinned as Duck gave him the same, then peered down the hall and pointed at the exiting ponies. "I believe there's Flurry Heart in the front next to Arco, Graham Cracker behind her, and Bluebell in the rear. And that leaves his Tank Commander Duck Bill."

Oh Gods he knew about Tankery?

"When he first mentioned you as his friend's Commander, I thought he was making a joke about a game or something. Hearing him tell us he was in Tankery... helped that make more sense, I guess."

Duck bit her lip. "I'm so so so so so so so so so so so so sorry that Arco isn't in Music anymore. It's all my fault and the Senior class representatives hate me and made he and Flurry sign up or else they'd flunk them and I couldn't just leave them to join themselves because I have experience from my old school and..." she sucked in a long breath, realizing she'd just been drowning in her own ramblings again. "I'm... sorry, sir."

"Your old school?" Noteworthy asked, his tone very... kind. It kind of reminded her of her own dad when he used to sit her down and talk to her about all she'd done in grade school that day. "Are you a new student?"

Duck nodded. Honestly, she was glad to have somepony to tell all this to... even if that somepony was one of her friend's dads she'd just met less than thirty minutes ago. "I-I transferred from my mother's boarding school just this year. It's... it's my first year in an actual p-public school."

Noteworthy grinned warmly. "You seem to be doing very well for your first month or so. You've already made five great friends in such a short time." Duck rubbed one of her forelegs idly. "I have to thank you again for being kind to Arco. We've... been going through a lot of things recently as a family, with me getting some pretty garbage jobs and other... complications elsewhere. We've uh... been going through a pretty rough patch of sorts. Arco has been getting the worst of it, I imagine, having to do schoolwork and all that while also dealing with other home things." Noteworthy looked at Duck, now, and she looked right back at him. "He may not look it, or act like it, or even care to admit it... but he feels small inside. And I'm very grateful that you're all helping him feel big again. So thank you." 

He reached to his side, toward a small bag Duck hadn't noticed hanging from his flank. Unclasping the flap, he reached inside and pulled out something white in a hoof, which he presented to Duck at once.

It was an all-white, eight-panel baseball cap, with a black bill, slightly dirtied and obviously well-worn for some time.

Noteworthy scratched his head. "Weird, I know, but... this is for him. His mother thought he should have it. It helped keep her safe long ago, and she thinks it'll help him too."

Duck reached up and grabbed the accessory from Noteworthy's hooves, and found it to be softer than she'd imagined. Just how old was this thing?

Noteworthy cleared his throat.

"Please don't pay too much mind to his mother's reaction. She gets pissy when she doesn't get her hospital food."

Despite the curse, Duck genuinely... giggled.

"I swear, she likes it more than my cooking. I think she does it to screw with me." He rose from his lowered position and paused in front of the door, a hoof grazing it. "Anyway, again, thank you. Take care, young mare."

Duck lit up on the spot. "You too, sir! I hope everything goes okay!"

Noteworthy, having now opened the door wide, snorted, "Oh, she'll be fine. She's gone through much worse."

"Your camote, mainly," came Octavia from within the room.

Noteworthy, entering, replied, his voice newly muffled. "Oh hush, or I'll go and bring you some..."

With that, Duck looked at the baseball cap in her hooves, continued to stare at it a short while, placed it atop her bag, clipped its fastening... thingy onto the strap, and turned around to trot down the hallway and join her friends. By now, she was getting hungry too, and whatever place Flurry had in mind sounded more than all right with her. As if to respond to her inner thoughts and let the entire hall know of it all, her stomach first grumbled obscenities at her, then escalated until it was full-on roaring like some kind of Zebrican beast. Its volume seemed to overpower even her friends' previously heated conversation as she grew closer, and they looked her way with a whipping about of their heads and giggles on their breath. Duck raised a hoof up and coughed into it idly.

"Somepony sure sounds hungry," Flurry astutely noted before—seated on her haunches—she placed a bent foreleg at her hip and leaned away from it. "Was just telling Graham over here..." she began, casting a glare at the Pegasus, "...that where I have in mind is miles better than the old burger joint near the school."

Graham scowled back, but there was a smile on her lips. "Hey! You guys owe me a burger still!"

"She's got a point," Arco admitted.

"Shut up," Flurry said first to Arco then, looking back at Graham, repeated, "Shut up." Duck only realized it was intended for Bluebell—situated behind Graham—this time as the Unicorn lowered her hoof, puffed out her cheeks, and grumbled something under her breath as she crossed her forelegs. 

"We've pretty much missed the last half of the day as it is," Arco spoke above Flurry's teasing tuts. He gave her a frown, and she stopped to let him speak, "and Tankery's long over by now. I honestly don't care what we go to eat..."

Graham pumped a hoof. "Yes!"

"...but...!"

Graham, in the middle of her celebration, deflated like Duck's last bouncy castle. Which was a few years ago. She really liked those. "Aww..."

"I definitely don't feel like taking in a whole burger right now." He faced Flurry, who tossed her mane and looked back at him. "Where to?"

Bluebell rolled her eyes. "What, we don't get a say? Arco's the leader now?"

Arco scrunched up his muzzle. "No, I just–"

Bluebell blew a raspberry, pushing past Arco—who rolled his eyes in kind—and walking toward the exit doors again, not even giving them her eyes as she said, "Pfft, I was kidding. Burgers'll make me fat. 's go." As the double doors let in the afternoon sunlight show its strength on the hospital floor, Flurry followed the Unicorn and inched her way back to the front of the little line.

Graham, mumbling, "What do you care about fat?" sat up and began to trot over to them as well.

Arco proceeded to get up... but stopped when he noticed something on Duck's side. Remembering what it was, her eyes grew wide and she about sprained her neck to whip about and unclasp the baseball cap from her bag's strap. Sitting herself onto her rump—and cringing at how impossibly cold it was—she presented the article to Arco, who, almost cautiously, took it from her two hooves.

"Where'd you..."

Duck couldn't help the stammer, "I-I, um... your father wanted you to have it. From your mother."

Arco nodded quietly, examining the hat and turning it round and round as if peering for an expiration date on a strawberry yogurt cup. Not to say that Duck liked yogurt. Honestly, those little Hi-Play cups at the marketplace weren't too expensive, but she couldn't see herself sitting down with just one in her hoof while she watched a documentary, and if she brought more with her over to the couch beforehand she'd feel like she was eating too much, but just one would make her sad when she finished it and then she'd have to get up to get another one and probably miss the Battle Of Walnut's outcome or not be able to see the bombing of Antzio because she was face deep in a cup of yogurt. That and she didn't like yogurt in the first place. Honestly, her cupboards were just kind of... full of... cereal.

"I remember she used to always be scared of this thing," Arco said, clearly referring to the hat. Duck raised a brow, but didn't feel it too polite to question it. Even though that's probably what he was waiting for, and, when he didn't get it—despite knowing the fact that he was talking to... well, her—he explained it anyway. "Whenever I got close to it sitting on the mantle, she rushed over to me and pulled me away, saying I shouldn't touch it." He laughed. "Guess she changed her mind. Actually..." Arco brought up a hoof and unbuttoned the top fastener on his school jacket. Duck, feeling the heat rising in her face at the drop of a hat—even though Arco didn't end up doing so—and the zip of a Messerschmitt, looked away with a soft yelp and a quiet gasp. Daring a look, however, she found Arco still looking at her, tapping the white collar and pink bowtie she'd earlier seen wrapped around his neck. "...guess she'd already given me something. Must've wanted to complete the collection... I dunno where I'm going with this." He snorted nasally. "That was dumb. Let's go."

Hoisting himself back up onto all fours, he pushed a few locks of his dark gray mane out of his eyes—oh hey, he shared his mother's mane color and eye color, she just noticed—fussed about for a while with a few stray strands, finally felt his hair in a good position, and fit his mother's baseball cap snugly around his head. Flashing his teeth at her, Arco nodded, about-faced, and began to canter over to the front doors, where Bluebell, still holding them open, waited next to a bouncing-around Graham and an admittedly impatient, cheek-puffed Flurry. Following Arco's suit, Duck rose as well, adjusted her messenger bag, cast one final glance down the hallway she'd prior walked down, and finally joined her friends.

Flurry was the first to speak up, though only after poking Arco's new hat, and not directed at her at all.

"Cute, you pitching tonight?" she asked, containing her snicker only so well.

Arco rolled his eyes. "Dunno. You paying tonight?"

Graham burst out laughing. "I was actually thinking about that! Who's gonna pay?"

Duck fidgeted. "I-I... it's not too expensive, is it?" Her mother may have been... who she was, but she had been kind enough to give Duck enough funds to sustain herself in her new apartment, in the interest of her buying fresh veggies and other items every week. Needless to say, Duck had lots of boxed wheats in her cupboards, and a lot of money leftover to spend on whatever she saw fit. Which didn't amount to much, honestly.

Flurry looked away. Then she looked back, pushing the door open and almost grazing Bluebell's hoof who, despite the miss, still flinched like she'd been pressed with a hot curling iron. Seething and clutching at the almost offended appendage, she took a hot, laaaaarge step back, practically squeezing herself against the doorframe. Graham and Arco, both seizing the opportunity as Flurry fled the scene beaming all the while, slid past the Unicorn and escaped back out into the daylight. Duck, not knowing what exactly to do—presented with a mare she was still sure held some kind of inner resentment or annoyance at her very existence, much less her current proximity—grit her teeth and rushed the outside stairwell in kind. Such an astronomical effort over in a matter of seconds, Duck took Arco's side behind Flurry's rear and heard the hospital's front door shut with a metallic thunk.

A few leftover medical Jeeps, parked around the circular road marking the main one for emergency visitors, shone their army green paint brightly in blinding shimmers across the grass and directly into Duck's eyes, though—having been trained to fight against the sun many times before—she didn't flinch as much as Graham to her right flank did, who brought up a foreleg as they continued walking down the sidewalk and rubbed at her face vigorously.

"Sorry Duck, didn't wanna sit in there anymore," Flurry called, tossing her head to look at her, "it's not some five-star place or anything. If anything, I'd be surprised to see our bill go past fifty or so."

That's still quite a lot of money, honestly.

"I brought my wallet, but..."

"Looks like Arco's paying!" Flurry beamed. Duck could see Graham, her nose dipped down to pull out her coin purse, stop what she was doing in an instant and fit a wide grin across her face. 

"I don't even know what I'm buying," he replied with a sneer.

"We're not going to some kind of farmer's market like those green freaks, are we?" Bluebell piped up.

"Green freaks?" went Arco.

"You mean Pine, Candle, Sweet Tea, and Vanilla?" Flurry questioned.

Bluebell nodded.

Flurry tutted. "Do you even know what that means?"

"It means that they only eat healthy food and go nuts over cheese."

"That is very much not what it means, Bluebell."

Bluebell screwed up her face. Duck tried to keep up with Flurry's pace. 

"Well, what would you call them?"

"I dunno, millennials?" Flurry attempted a shrug, but only succeeded in bunching up her shoulders after clearly realizing she'd fall over onto the grass and go belly-up if she'd gone all the way.

Duck much preferred calling them Hipsters, to be completely frank. She may not have been familiar with the term itself to a deep degree, but it served as an umbrella name for its... occupants'(?) admittedly rebellious pastimes. Pine Needle chugged away at coffee like it was nopony's business, and Candle had made a slip-up earlier that week that Pine had tried writing songs before. Candle Light herself spoke very eloquently, almost like Princess Twilight crossed with every intellectual historical figure Duck had read about in her life, and was always nose-deep, eyeglasses-down in her notepad that, despite the issues her—and the rest of the Cruiser's crew—status as an Earth Pony would present her, she could scribble down in at lightning speed. Vanilla Pudding, hooves caked in paint and a pencil always propped atop an ear, their artist, clearly being the one who had painted their tank's camouflage on and possibly helping a few of the other teams out as well. Duck had heard from Pine after practice that Vanilla was able to take Art alongside Tankery, because of her amount of credits that would be more than enough to push her to graduation. And Sweet Tea, dressed like she was a flower queen in a fantasy novel, was almost serene in nature, and probably spent most of her time in it as well. Duck wouldn't be surprised to find out that the mare would go on to lead a religion entirely focused on her and her "zen".

Still, though... her reminder for Mrs. Red hadn't gone through like she'd wanted back when they were practice firing—mostly because Flurry had to go to the bathroom really badly right after the period ended and couldn't relay it, and Duck was... Duck—and the revelation came back to her quickly.

They all needed actual team names.

Her own sister had used the Elements of Harmony as callsigns, with Generosity Team, Honesty Team, Kindness Team, Laughter Team, Loyalty Team, Magic Team, and Harmony Team, though Duck never got to see the holders of the latter title before... the accident. She wouldn't dare re-use the same names... but, at the same time, she didn't know what to use instead. Maybe they could go by A, B, C, D, and E just like they'd had when first being assigned their tanks! But then, that's what they were still officially going by... and nopony seemed to remember exactly what their letter was in the end. 

She shoved her train of thought away, spying Flurry eyeing up a building approaching on their left. The whole time she'd been horribly engrossed in herself, she, Flurry, Arco, Graham, and Bluebell had walked across the bridge leading back into Ponyville proper, and they were now walking alongside Manetgomery Street through the old agricultural sector of the town almost fifteen years abandoned. Flurry finally nodded toward the grain mill.

"You know, I never thought about why we had these things."

"Yeah, we never seem to use them at all," Graham noted as well, tilting her head.

Duck cleared her throat. "Th-these were actually intended to be used for supplies in rations. Grains, vegetables, um... fruits... whatever they could make was made here so the ponies fighting Eastward had enough—and good, to boot—food to eat."

Arco clucked his tongue, gazing up at the large, brown, slightly rusted building's exterior. "So they shut it down when we never went over?"

Duck nodded, then put the gesture into recognizable words. "Mmhm. But the amount of money put into it all had already been spent, so..."

"So that's why they've had to close a lot of stores the past few years?" Graham asked.

"Ponyville just d-doesn't make as much money as it used to, yes."

"I mean, we were all alive before the Never War almost happened," Flurry began, then touched a hoof to her chest, "but I... uh..." she went red, looked down, fidgeted, then made a little noise like she'd just felt a spider crawl up her leg, "I was... um, I mean, like, I still remember how nice Ponyville used to look. I was mostly raised in the Crystal Empire up North when I was a foal, but I still found Ponyville, with all its grass, and sunshine, and... everything to be so much more beautiful."

Duck may have been only one at the time—which, well, everypony else shared in—but the pictures lining her family house's walls showed her a much... nicer Ponyville in comparison to its appearance nowadays. Flowers dotted every roadside, the grass was a healthy shade of green and looked as soft as a pillow, ponies' faces were all smiles all the time, and, even in winter, arriving with fury, the town took on a peaceful, almost celestial, heavenly glow to it that still projected a sense of security and safety and, above all else, magic about it.

The sport of Tank Warudo and its critical success and acclaim, while being a good source of morale and spirit—even when it came down to the year's constant results—also became the Mayor's main focus... and the dump for all of the town's granted wealth that would have been much better (at least in her opinion) spent on bailing out and assisting storeowners, and restoring the old statue in the town square that had been damaged in a freak earthquake most certainly not caused by the oil drills on the outskirts of town bleeding the ground dry. The viewing stadium alone must have cost an entire fortune and a half to build, maintain, and upgrade over the past fifteen or so years.

She loved animals to a fault, even though they were mostly scared of her, which led to her being scared of them being scared, but the now very normal, often unblinked at daily encounters with the surrounding wildlife either at the farmer's market, on the sidewalk, near the school, and once on top of Sugarcube Corner's roof served only to put her at unease. She may not have been too familiar with the way of the bestial animal, but she was more than just a little certain that simply letting the wildlife walk freely around town would only invite... bad times.

And bad times were already being had on the most prominent feature of them all.

If Twilight Sparkle and her friends still frequented the public eye, and if they still even lived in Ponyville at all, Duck was sure they'd weep at the sight of the Friendship Castle, which had begun falling apart about five or so years back from nothing but simple inactivity. Nature had begun to take it from them as well, growing trees, and bushes, and slinging vines over the front that made the whole building look like it belonged more in Japaneigh than Equestria. Only the bravest of ponies ventured down its halls bearing torch and gut, face to face with the animals and possible ghosts that inhabited it behind a large, very large door.

Gosh, what she wouldn't give to live back in the old days before tensions rose. To see the world in the state the legendary Main 6 had... she would've loved nothing more in the world.

She suddenly stopped, aided kindly by Flurry's rump. Flurry, noticing the contact, gave Duck a hard look and a little, cheeky grin. Duck stammered out an explanation, but, looking to her left, found out why they'd stopped.

"Is this the place?" Arco asked.

Flurry nodded.

They were standing in the middle of the oddly busy sidewalk, crowding around the front entrance of a rather... oriental-looking building, with different Japaneighse kanji scrawled vertically along flower-printed decorations. On a simple little chalkboard near her, Duck saw a collection of katakana drawn expertly out, with the translation below it.

"Mother Equestria's Abode," she read quietly.

Flurry squeed, looking like she was about ready to jump out of her own body and sail right into the sun above their heads. "Yup! It's a Japaneighse ramen shop not a lot of ponies know about." Settling, she bunched up her cheeks and adjusted her school jacket's collar. "I go here sometimes to study or eat, but it'd been a long time ago since last time." She kicked a rock on the floor and made a short, seemingly cautious giggle, "I was... really hoping they hadn't closed down. I probably would've had to call it quits and settle for burgers..."

Graham shook her head. "You think I'm all burgers, Flurry? Come on, now! All this talking of soup is making me huuuuungry!" Perking up, she turned her head around as if in a panic, a hoof to her chin. "Uhhhhhhh... ah!"

Duck yelped.

Graham grabbed her by the hoof and, pushing through the others, sang, "Let's go already!"

The other three nodded. Duck cleared her throat to steady herself, and was about to get out of Graham's grip until she flung the door open much too late and caused them all to painfully squeeze themselves past the door's threshold and right onto the store's floor in a big cold heap of a pile. At once, with the little bell over the door finishing its little ringing, the sounds of all their bodies hitting the ground cutting out almost immediately, and only a few low curses coming from Arco and Bluebell... somewhere in the mess, Duck became aware of... a divine smell, and a scented air so pretty that it almost caused her to start bawling on the spot.

From what she could see—albeit on the floor at the moment—there may have only been a few other ponies in the building, but all their eyes were fixated solely on the schoolmares and stallion still lying down dazed and confused, though mostly on Graham's side, who'd taken the full brunt of it all.

The floor was a pleasant, finely polished wood that stretched out like tree branches, halted only by the small tables dotted here and there with tea sets and small plates atop them. A couple, averting their gaze after a kind wave, went back to slurping up noodles and chowing down on sashimi. What looked to be a mother and son turned to their kettle, with the former pouring herself some tea and the latter biting his tongue from the intense heat that had just seconds ago scalded it beyond all earthly repair. The white walls, decorated with flowers, a painting or two, and Japaneighse sayings, all led to a small outcropping marking the serving area of the building's kitchen, its interior lit up a soft, presently buzzing white as compared to the rest of the naturally-illuminated main room.

Duck heard a shuffling of hooves, and looked over to the source to find a rather older-looking stallion staring down at her and her friends with a pair of wide-eyes and a quintet of menus clutched in his magic. 

He blinked.

She blinked.

She gasped, then all but launched herself out from the friend pile's grasp, breathed heavily for a couple seconds, then fell back down to a respecting bow.

Staring at the floor, she introduced herself. "W-Watashi wa Sumisu Duck desu." About to rise once more, she added, "I'm so sorry for causing you a disturbance, sir."

She looked back up.

The stallion was laughing.

Duck sucked in a breath, then turned to her left and stared at the potted plant that looked like it needed water as well.

"Ah!" She looked over. The stallion's eyes were wide again, and he shook his head. "I am sorry... to laugh!" He beamed this time around, and Duck found it in her to mimic the gesture. "You do not need to do that. In fact, I might as well be bowing to you, Duck-sama." As Duck took a second to involuntarily let out a nervous giggle, she heard the sounds of her friends getting up and looked their way. "How many?"

Duck turned back. "Um, five."

Flurry appeared on her left. "If you would, we would like a corner booth, senpai." She gave Duck a telling look. Duck opened her mouth to whisper a thank you, but decided to not be rude.

The stallion lit up instantly. "Ah, of course, Flurry-sama." Straightening up, his teeth still showing, he swept a hoof in front of him and began to lead them to a far corner of the restaurant. "Right this way!"

With Bluebell rolling her eyes for some reason, Arco dusting himself off, and Graham leaning away from Arco, Duck took the space behind Flurry as they went, and before she knew it, they had stopped in front of a red-cushioned corner booth lit by a hanging, slightly dimmed lamp so as to not mix with the sunlight peeking in through the wide-open windows. Now much closer to the kitchen, Duck could hear the sounds of sizzling woks and crackling oil much more clearly. While she wasn't a frequent visitor of Japaneighse cuisine, she still felt a large compassion for it, and was only feeling hungrier and hungrier as she slid into the far side first, followed by Flurry and Arco. Bluebell and Graham took the other side.

Their greeter hoofed them all their menus and, before he left, he was given a short, slightly befuddled, "Arigato," from four of the five ponies. He bowed to them once more, and then he was gone.

Bluebell, at once, threw the four pages of her menu over to scour what Duck already knew to be the more... Equestrian foods. Going to the last page herself confirmed her thoughts. It seemed that they had a lot of options for more regional appetites, like hayburgers, green salads, grilled cheeses, and chilis, though she had to guess that it made sense for an establishment in the smack-dab middle of Equestria, far from home. Her own stomach growled for a nice broth of some kind, so she disregarded every other page and began to scour the soups.

"What was with that eye roll back there?" Graham asked, much braver than Duck thought she could ever be.

Bluebell lowered her menu. "What, when he talked to Duck and Flurry earlier?"

Graham nodded.

Duck was a bit curious too, but she had a bit of a fair hunch on why she'd done it.

Bluebell seemed to realize she knew, and minded her with a little look from atop her menu. "Can't believe you actually use those... words."

Flurry tutted, "It's just proper honorifics. Being polite."

"They call Princess Celestia 'Water Mare' over there," Bluebell replied. Duck didn't think that Bluebell... had actually known that. Huh. "I'm just surprised they even set up shop in this country."

Graham chuckled. "Bluebell, are you being racist?"

Bluebell gasped much too harshly. For a second, it sounded like she'd pass out on the spot. "N-no! Why would you think something like that?!"

"I dunno that sounded pretty racist to me," Arco noted quickly.

"Or maybe you just don't wanna admit that you're secretly loving how nice this is," Flurry teased.

Bluebell seemed to be pondering it for awhile, but ended up crossing her forelegs, puffing up her cheeks, and looking the other way.

Arco looked at his lap. "Tsun tsun."

BANG!

"EXCUSE ME?!"

Bluebell, her teeth grit and her upper body already halfway out of her seat, looked to Duck's right and blinked.

Flurry, previously flinching at Bluebell's outburst, looked as well.

Duck, not wanting to be left out, did the same.

Their server, standing at the open end of their table, was waiting with a very patient expression, as if he hadn't just witnessed the slow embers to a fork and knife fight.

"What would you like today?"

Flurry shooed away the tension. "I'll have a bowl of Shoyu, and a Bepsi, please."

Arco hummed for a second, rubbed his chin, then opened up his menu again. Leafing through it at a hurried pace, and tilting his head to and fro, he finally ordered, "I'll have... uh, Shio, please. And a root beer."

The server nodded and looked Graham's way.

Duck did as well, and only now realized just how much more bouncy the Pegasus was at the moment. It looked like her grin was about to escape from her face. "I'll have your Tonkatsu please! Oh, and a Bepsi!"

Another nod.

And then...

Duck sucked in a quick breath, feeling the heat from the light getting to her face and discoloring it. Pulling up her menu and burying her entire head behind it, she hesitantly asked, "Um... can I have your Miso, p-please? And just some tea would be fine."

"What kind would you like?"

"Um, do you have Darjeeling?"

"Yes, we do!"

"I'll have that, then," Duck smirked.

"Very good, Duck-sama."

Duck felt her face burn. She... really wasn't used to being formally addressed, much less as a higher rank.

Finally, he looked at Bluebell.

"And what about you, young mare?"

Bluebell tapped her tongue against the roof of her mouth. She pursed her lips, then reclined into her cushion. "I'll have a burger and some Peak Fog."

"Of course, miss," the server replied, as if something he'd expected running a Japaneighse restaurant. "I will be right back with your drinks."

He left them for a second time. Graham decided to take the floor.

"Y'know, I think I'll take some pork over that burger you guys owe me."

"Yeah, I was wondering about that," Arco admitted.

"Change of heart?" Flurry, appropriately, asked.

Graham giggled. "You could say that. I don't think Duck would like how noisy my place is, anyway." She barely finished her sentence before her eyes grew wide, and she swiftly threw both her hooves over her mouth and gave Duck a long stare. "Ohmigosh, I'm sorry Duck! I didn't mean..."

So Graham avoided a place she liked because of... her. The inner turmoil currently trying to beat down the gates of her mind tried their darndest, but... she had to admit a point there. "It's okay!" She showed her teeth. "You're probably right, I... wouldn't."

It became awkwardly quiet.

Duck fanned herself with her jacket.

Flurry leaned forward. "Really, Bluebell? A burger?"

"What?! I don't eat Japaneighse food."

Arco smirked. "You see this is her plan, Flurry. She's–"

"Yeah, yeah! That's right!" Bluebell grinned proudly to herself, crossing her forelegs and leaning even further back. Was everything she sat in suddenly a recliner? "I told you guys you'd regret bringing me around!"

"Actually, I kind of like you being with us."

Arco choked.

Graham puffed out her cheeks as if stopping vomit.

Flurry made a face.

Bluebell, even, opened her mouth and scrunched up her eyebrows.

All four turned to Duck, who just now realized that she'd just said what had just been said.

Immediately, she went into defense mode.

She tried her hardest to turtle her way deep within the confines of her jacket.

Bluebell was stunned.

She tried four separate times to re-cross her forelegs, then, grunting, she looked away. "I- you- you- I, uh..." She flinched. "Guh...! You don't mean that," she finally stammered out.

Hadn't they gotten past this by now?

"I mean we're..." Duck felt a defeat coming on and began to slide further and further down into her seat. "...friends."

Bluebell looked to be losing it.

Graham seemed to take a hint of some kind. She brought up a foreleg and slapped Bluebell's shoulder. "We should do this more often! That first time just wasn't enough last week!"

Flurry was hiding her face behind two hooves, snickering uncontrollably. 

Arco added, "Yooooou're right, Graham!" Slowly turning over to face Bluebell, who wasn't looking at anypony right now as her vocal cords seemed to be making a low boiling sound, he made the date, "How about we make this... weekly!"

Bluebell let out a little whimper, bringing up a hoof and lightly biting on it.

Duck had no idea what was going on.

Flurry finally managed to sputter out, "D-do y-you, hey, Bluebell, d-do you wanna go... shopping?!"

Like an angry teacher swiping wretched stacks of paper off his desk, Bluebell tossed Graham out of the way like she was made of thin air, leaping out of the booth like an Olympic athlete and bolting from the scene.

"I'vegottagotothebathroomshutup!"

Graham, her face on the floor, burst into uncontrollable fits all the same.

The entire table erupted like Vesuvius.

Duck minded the angry glares, raised eyebrows, and large frowns showing themselves to them.

But with Flurry leaning against Arco for support, Arco supporting himself with a hoof on the table, Graham rising from her shove to the ground greedily wiping her eyes, and the bathroom door far off in the building slamming open with a resounding BANG, Duck bunched up her shoulders...

...lowered her eyebrows...

...and smiled.
> We Are Playing The Game Right Away! I Will Do Your Best!
> --------------------------------------------------------------------------

"Bit Rate's late again!"

"My last class is on the opposite side of the school!"

"Lazy millennial video game junkie–"

"Busy Body, why don't you just go golfing? Only thing you're good for!"

"MY SLICE IS GOD-TIER YOU COFFEE-CHUGGING FREAK."

"Busy Body! Line up!"

"Grrrr..."

The Pegasus, lower lip pouted out like she'd just been told not to stick her hoof into the cookie jar, flexed her chin upward, reached a hoof up, and tightened her straight tie. Satisfied, and letting out a little hum—as well as something under her breath that sounded vaguely like a prayer for a choking on vegan brownies—she trotted almost regally back to her two crew members' sides and took the position in front of their little triangle.

The Tankery class were all standing on the concrete floor just outside of the tank garages, the building's doors wide open in anticipation of the day's activities that were—assuredly—due to occur after roll call. With Bit Rate here, it seemed that everypony was present and accounted for.

The Jocks whispered loudly to one another, giggling and chuckling here and there at what Duck knew to be inside jokes and foggy-eyed recollections of not-even-close games long lost. The Hipsters, paying credit to Busy Body's tried and true insult, stood on threes and drank with one, quietly conversing about their meet-up after the school day finished to go and relax at the Ponyville Spa a couple blocks down the street, with smiles on their faces and teeth lightly scraping their tongues after each sip. The Nerds, newly completed, swiftly pulled the late Bit Rate into their tight circle, now continuing their heated discussion about something called "Smash" with a new participant to provide insight. The Candidates, as if wary of snipers or something in similar form or fashion, cautiously panned their gazes around the immediate area with glares drawing on their brows and straight frowns pasted on their mouths.

Duck, lifting her own chin up to stop looking down at the absolute nothing on the ground awhile, caught sight of a pink hoof waving in front of her face. Bunching up a cheek in an assuredly ungodsly-looking grin, she spun about to find a very bouncy Flurry giving her a perfect-looking smile and a pair of shut eyes.

"How are you doing today, Duck?"

Uh...

...well, actually, she was going to ponder on the negatives like she usually did whenever somepony cared enough—or was merciful enough—to ask her the same question, but... she hadn't had many today, apart from a few hiccups that were just that: little, and minor, but still frankly annoying bits that stuck out, but not too much, upon recollection. She'd jotted down enough notes in her EQ History notebook to fill up both sides of her new scrap of paper while able to absorb Mr. Bon's long-winded lecture; Oceanography had gone pretty okay, to be honest, with a quiet workday on their week's questions that Duck—having already turned the assignment in on Tuesday, albeit hesitantly, being the only one who'd actually done so—was able to take advantage of to relax and catch up on her chapter of It's A Bit Of A– guh, no, she'd... um, she'd worked on next week's assignment; she'd had time to work on her English essay without a fuss or any real stoppage; in her Economics class, she'd scored a pretty high mark on their online assignment, so she was feeling pretty proud of herself. Maybe she should tell Flurry! She'd be happy to hear it!

Duck's eyes flew to the ground on her left, but—though her head remained facing away—she gazed at Flurry and resisted the urge to rub one of her forelegs idly. "I'm... okay."

"Did you finish studying for that math test last night after you got back?" Arco asked her.

To be honest, she'd gotten fairly far in her AP Calculus book munching on a bowl of Cheerilee-o's, but, feeling that she'd been doing good this week, she'd pushed away her inner desire to stay up studying and decided that she deserved a good night's sleep for once. Though she did eat another bowl after decreeing such. Then another. Then she turned on her television and finished up the last hour and a half of the documentary she and the others had been watching when they'd eaten at her apartment, since she hadn't been able to fully hear the voice-overs over the sounds of her friends talking and didn't want to miss anything if she could help it. And then she'd finished her box and, too distraught to continue—and having the daunting realization that she'd have to brave the grocery store to buy more—fell asleep on her couch and not her comfy, cozy, much-better-for-her-back-and-pretty-much-everything bed literally a few feet away but also miles apart. And then she'd woken up, her mane all bunched up wrong and wrapped around her like a blanket, and then she'd fallen off because her couch was thinner than her bed, and, face-first on the floor, she'd finally found that pencil she dropped on her carpet the week prior, placed it on her desk, got up, and did her chores before heading to school after another bowl of breakfast. This time it was Wheat Thix. She didn't like those as much.

"A little..."

"That's good," Flurry sang, "I felt a little bad when I got home, thinking we'd made you skip out on even more work."

"I got so much sleep when I got home!" Graham declared, raising up her forelegs and bending them outward at the elbow excitedly. "I put down my bag and books and just passed out on my bed until midnight. And then I couldn't sleep anymore, so I just watched TV until school started!"

"Were you up all night, Flurry?" Arco asked, looking the Alicorn's way and nudging her in the side with a pointy elbow.

A single droplet of sweat trickled down her face.

"No."

"Good, I was–"

"I had so much homework to do when I got home it was too much for me but I got it done don't worry!" Flurry erupted, throwing up her hooves in an instant and interrupting Arco's feignly reassured sentence. If she'd been playing a card game, she would have just sent the entire table fifteen miles into the skies above.

Arco chuckled. "Please, would I worry about the Flurry Heart?"

Flurry blinked, opening her mouth to respond, but quickly shut it and faced forward as Mrs. Red's voice suddenly piped up from far to the line's right.

"Aaall right, then! Good morning, class!" Mrs. Red began heartily, beaming almost as bright as the much-brighter sun hanging daintily over all their heads. Sitting on her haunches, she let out a little hum to herself and outright shoved both her forelegs into her hips, observing her class. Scanning the faces—possibly to aid her calling roll by quickening its pace—she reached to her side and pulled a pencil and clipboard out of literally nowhere, pulling it up in front of her face and continuing as if the object was her subject, "Gimme a second or so to take roll really quickly, and I'll tell you all what's on the table today." She looked over her clipboard, then back down. "I have some very exciting news as well that I'd like to share once I'm done!"

At that, the Tankery class stopped what other things they were doing to pay attention and try not to get on the teacher's bad side, the Jocks especially who, miles apart from their usual pastime of hurling a Hoofball to one another while waiting for her, simply stopped talking and stared straight ahead in anticipation of their names being recited.

Plastic Beach, first lowering her headphones' blasting volume, stared down at her phone, then just shut her music off entirely and pulled her accessory down around her neck. Bit Rate lightly dropped her bags and stuffed her hoofheld into her jacket's pocket which, due to the jacket pocket's sizes being relatively... small led to more than half the device poking dangerously out the top. 

The Candidates, apparently in the middle of signing some kind of document, turned their heads at the sudden silence and pencil scribbling with annoyed glares. They stowed away their inkwells and quills. Blank Check rolled up their declaration of possible, hopeful independence.

Somepony nearby unmistakably clapped a book shut so hard that, if Duck were just barely an inch closer, would have rang her ears and temporarily deafened her as if an artillery shell had exploded directly over her head. A head peeked out from around the group of millennial heads and as if she'd heard Duck's inner fright, Candle Light whispered a silent apology and pushed her tome into her backpack.

"All right, then, I suppose I'll start at my end." Mrs. Red cleared her throat. "Lily Pad!"

"Here!"

She made a quick check on her list.

"Hail Mary!"

"Here, ma'am."

"Field Goal."

"Here."

"Peanut Brittle?"

"Sorry, right here."

"Pssst!"

"Whipgrass!"

"Here!"

"Pssssssst!"

"Next team. Busy Body..."

"Of course, ma'am."

"Blank Check."

"How are you today, ma'am?"

A tea green mare with a mocha brown mane slid in front of Duck's face, waving her forelegs about like one of those inflatable tube mares on the business district. "PSSSSSSSSST!"

"Wah!"

Duck shrank back, but, realizing the complete lack of danger apart from eating too many greens, exercising until she was dead tired, listening to shrill falsettos, and bruising her hooves plucking acoustic guitar strings, stood straight and gave Pine Needle a look that told tales of "for everything that the Gods have stood for next time that happens I might very well fall on the floor, roll onto my back, and stick my four legs straight up in a terrible rigor mortis not unlike Austro-Humarians in the Venetians long ago."

Vanilla Pudding, edging close, poked Duck in the shoulder. "Where did you guys all head to yesterday?"

Duck opened her mouth to give them an honest reply.

"Yeah, what the hell dude?" Pine Needle interrupted her, sloshing her styrofoam coffee cup around. "You missed out!" Pine hummed, striking a bit of a pose—or at least the best-looking one she could muster still grasping her cup in a hoof. "Hmph. We learned about all kinds of tank stuff. Shell types, weaknesses, positions– hey, did you know that the Japaneighse Type 89 is a medium tank, not a light tank?"

"I, uh..."

"We went to see Arco's mom in the hospital," Flurry informed them. 

"She okay?" Pine and Vanilla both asked simultaneously. Arco nodded, and they flashed a grin each.

"After that, we went to a restaurant and ate some food together!" Graham chirped giddily.

"The Outcasts go off and eat a nice lunch together, and we're stuck in school learning about HE shells..." Pine griped, crossing her forelegs.

Outcasts? Was that the others' name for her crew?

...

She guessed it was fair, considering she had unofficial names for the other class' crews. And... Outcasts fit fairly well, all things considered. She was shy, pumped full of anxiety, and jumped at the slightest noise next to her even if it was a feather lightly touching down on a bed of other feathers. Arco was a stallion in a mare's sport, and clearly butted heads with many other ponies older than him before. Graham didn't seem to interact with other ponies apart from Duck and the others, possibly scaring ponies away from a nice mare with her admittedly patchy announcements. Flurry was, to Duck, completely out of every living pony's league. And Bluebell was... mean, probably literally pushing ponies out of her life's way unless their names were Mocha Frappe or Starburst.

The Outcasts, the Jocks, the Candidates, the Hipsters, and the Nerds. What a team.

"The marshmallow hooves learned about angling from Mrs. Red," Candle Light added, sipping from her lid rather noisily and derailing Duck's train of thought, knocking its conductor unconscious, throwing its coal ponies out the sides, and flipping the whole locomotive end over end until it fell into a rocky canyon, which gave way to a riverbed, leading them down an unforgiving waterfall, which led to a big old spider web and everypony died. But, um... the Jocks had learned how to angle their Tiger to maximize its survivability. Good, actually. "They're really, really bad at it. Definitely won't emanate any Wittman vibes, am I right?" Bad, actually. That last part Candle asked with a waggled eyebrow, knowing full well what Duck would think about such a statement.

But, as it was, she didn't realize the immeasurable impact the name would cause Duck.

If not for the water still fresh in her system from the little fountain on the way to class by the front door, and the relatively pleasant day she was currently having both weather-wise and academic-wise, Duck was sure she would have involuntarily rolled her eyes back up into the back of her head and fainted on the spot upon the slightest mention of the beginning letters to the Griffonian panzer commander. A blinding, searing, rushing wave blasted through her body like she had just finished a divebomb on the Hear-You and, with a newly-found ringing deafening her ears for a few seconds, she shook her head vigorously and tried to violently waggle it all out. Sucking on her teeth, she prayed that Candle Light hadn't noticed her very public display and cracked open an eye to see if she'd been granted a reprieve. Sure enough, Candle was temporarily involved in a conversation with Sweet Tea next to her, turning her head and giving a quick reply to the mare's question.

Duck had only known Candle for a couple weeks now, but their surprisingly shared interest of Never War history was something Duck was more than happy to actually have in the first place. Candle seemed nice enough, as well, and even appeared to enjoy bringing up the hypotheticals from time to time. Maybe she didn't have many other people interested in Never War dissection either.

Duck smiled, pushing down the memories of the Griffonian name to focus on its more hypothetical facts. "I... guess not. Though we'd have to take them to Kursk to see if they could really sh-shine."

Candle Light giggled. "Ah, that would be a fair test. Though they'd be up against fierce competition."

Duck smirked.

"Would you two stop getting lady boners over Never War junk?!" Pine Needle shouted, scrunching up her muzzle and frowning deeply. "You guys are so boring; talk about music or books or something cooler."

Disturbed, Duck and Candle Light both scratched the backs of their heads, showing a wide grin to the caffeine addict who only bunched up a cheek in response.

"Caffeine stunts your growth," Flurry regarded Pine cheekily.

Pine blanched, almost choking on her coffee.

"Pine Needle!"

"COUGH, mmph, here!"

"Candle Light!"

"Present, Mrs. Red."

Mrs. Red liked the response, lingering on the young mare for just a moment further with a smile before taking a large, overdramatic step to her right. She looked down at her board. "Duck Bill?"

Duck cleared her throat. "H-here!"

Mrs. Red flashed her teeth behind her clipboard, her eyebrows being the only indication she'd done so.

"Arco Piano."

"Here."

"Flurry Heart?"

"Here, ma'am."

"Graham Cracker?"

"Hi, Mrs. Red!"

"Hmm, Bluebell?"

Bluebell had been fairly quiet all afternoon, not butting in with one of her rather blunt remarks or chiming in with something sounding a little like disgruntlement in the form of a clearly in-denial tsundere, a Japaneighse term Duck wasn't familiar with and kept forgetting to look up the definition to. She'd try to remember to look it up online this time. She still trusted Arco's very, very adamant explanation of, "Trust me." So she did, although still very much in wonderment and questioning of the whole thing. Whatever it was, or so happened to be, its very utterance caused genuine upset and anger in Bluebell to the point that Duck thought she'd outright punch Arco—who usually said it—right in his blue face. Which would make it red. What color would that make, combined, then? Purple, right?

Actually...

Come to think of it, it was... wholly uncharacteristic of Bluebell to not have said anything by now.

Duck turned, expecting to find the Unicorn tuning out the rest of the world by disturbing an ant's nest with a magnifying glass, or playing with broken glass or something. She'd look up at her spin and puff out her cheeks like a balloon as she frowned, upset that Duck had distracted her, and go all red-faced as Duck only apologized instead of putting up a complaint or a quarter-hearted fight of some sort, her lips in the shape of a troubled H that really let itself go over summer break and chowed down on nothing but ice cream and chocolate milk every hour it was awake.

Instead, Duck gasped, watching as a Bluebell-shaped dashed outline blinked in and out of existence in front of her for a few seconds before disappearing completely.

Bluebell wasn't here! Gone! Poof! Absent! Missing! Away!

"Bluebell?" Mrs. Red asked again, lowering her clipboard and looking over Duck's shoulder, her brow turning blue. "Is Bluebell absent?"

"I..." Duck cleared her throat, "I saw her, earlier today, unless she left after third period ended..."

"Has anypony else seen Bluebell since lunch?" Mrs. Red called over the rest of the class, lowering her clipboard and placing her other hoof against her hip again. Met with shrugs, shaking heads, and quiet "nopes"—and, from Busy Body, a gesture that Duck had never seen before but one she immediately realized to be astronomically offensive, considering the caster—she rolled her eyes, grasped her pencil in a hoof like a snake, and scribbled something down on her name chart that sounded like a simple X. "I doubt she'd have the transportation nor the know-how to straight up leave the school, so..."

"She's probably in some other class right now," Flurry finished flatly.

Mrs. Red, as if needing Flurry to fully realize the dilemma, slowly lowered herself to a crouched position as if to tie her loose boot laces back up into a neat double-knot that would somehow end up tangled in a bush near the academy grounds and then trip you and make the others in your division laugh at you and then you'd have to not stare your mother in the face that night uuuhhhhh... dropped her clipboard—which clattered on the concrete floor—rose back up, sank to her haunches, settled there seemingly at peace for three whole seconds, lowered her head, dipped her chin, and buried her face in her two hooves quietly.

Much of the class gasped at once.

"Mrs. Red?!"

"Mrs. Red are you okay?!"

One of her hooves twitched on the clipboard. She mumbled something under her breath. And then under that.

"What was that?"

"What'd you say, Mrs. Red?!"

"Mrs. Red!"

"Nopony skips my class on my watch."

Duck didn't flinch. She didn't even widen her eyes. In fact, she narrowed them. Hadn't... they... just done that yesterday?

"What?" Arco asked next to her.

Her hoof twitched ag–

"RAAAAAAAAAHHHH!" Mrs. Red jumped up onto her hindlegs, arching her back like a slinky backward and snapping her clipboard in half like it was a stray dry spaghetti noodle straight out of the packaging that Duck couldn't stop eating. "Nopony skips my class on my watch! You find her, and you bring her here!"

The Candidates all raised hooves to point at Duck and the remnants of her crew.

"But Mrs. Red, didn't Duck and–"

"DUCK!"

"Guh!" Duck jumped back, but stood her ground and puffed out her chest. "Y-yes ma'am?!"

"Go find Bluebell! And take your crew with you!"

Flurry sank fishhooks into the sides of her lips. "Mrs. Red...?! Why are you–"

Mrs. Red karate-chopped the ground, not even wincing even as her hoof met the hard concrete. The Jocks, having been newly one-upped in both tank combat and raw strength by the teacher, went mum. The Candidates all took a step back. The Nerds, clearly conflicted over whether or not to take the distraction as an excuse to pull out their respective devices, began to sweat feverishly. The Hipsters took sips from their mugs.

"FIND HER!"





"I really doubt we're gonna be able to find her."

"Oh hush," Flurry tutted at him, "Bluebell is loud, a jerk, and fairly popular on the other side of the school's Karma spectrum."

"Oh. Mr. Syrup's room."

Flurry tossed her mane, pushing open the one oddly shut door heading into the left hallway of the first floor deeper into the school. "I mean, it's a pretty big chance. Mr. 'Beardo' couldn't care less if you just walk into his room during a class. Think last year a couple of Seniors literally kicked his door down to use his microwave and make Jiffy Snap."

Which you shouldn't–

"Which you shouldn't do," Flurry interrupted Duck's thoughts, as if knowing she had been thinking them. Actually, seeing as how Flurry was an Alicorn, combining all three pony races' strengths, it might not have been a far-fetched assumption. "Blew the whole thing up. Almost made me deaf. And Mr. Syrup just hid the microwave and pretended it was some kid screwing with a water bottle."

Graham suddenly looked over as they walked, eyes wide. "Was that what that was? Near the end of third quarter, right?"

Flurry nodded.

"I've learned enough about bombs traveling around with my parents..." she what?! "...I was this close to ringing up the police department and telling them we had an intruder. Luckily I... kind of... fell out of my chair and disconnected the phone cord."

"Is your home's interior made of plastic?" Arco regarded Graham with a snicker.

"My parents have thought about it a few times, I'll admit."

Arco opened his mouth to further the discussion that was now teetering on a bit of a jokeless border, probably one reinforced with cinder bricks and razor wire, but one look from Flurry—which consisted of a straight frown stretching much wider than Duck had prior thought was physically possible—was enough for him to purse his lips and take the lead back toward this mysterious Mr. Syrup's room. They hadn't... actually had much of a plan upon filing back into Ponyvile High's main commons from the front doors, but the sudden eruption of Mrs. Red, which was still shaking her up a tad, was more than adequate fuel to set them off scurrying to find the Unicorn. From what Mrs. Red had said at the beginning of class, today was set to be fairly important, and knowing the importance of a Tankery team that hadn't even had its first real match yet, the exciting news was probably related to who their first battle would be putting them up against. She really hoped that it turned out not to be such, though.

The inner halls of the school were relatively quiet, even when compared to the low whistles of the wind and the distant activities of Ponyville proper just outside, but seeing as the period had currently been in session for about five or so minutes, it wasn't all too awesome an idea. As they walked down the corridors, with Arco leading bravely, Flurry alongside him and regally making each step as dainty and refined as possible, Graham in front of Duck raising her legs up like she was marching into Pole-Land, and Duck herself looking every which way in case somepony looked at her out of the corner of her eyes, even those classrooms with wide open doors were interrupted with single-line sentences that only just barely escaped the interiors, a few heads turning out of curiosity but quickly losing interest once they disappeared from sight.

Oh Gods, she hoped they weren't causing a disruption of any kind by much-too-casually passing by. She wouldn't be able to live with herself if they all ended up causing some unfortunate young pony to miss out on a bit of crucial information that would have been the one tipping point to help them pass and secure their success of eleven or so years of non-stop school and waking up early and dreading tests and losing friends and avoiding eyes and taming her mane and trying her hardest to win despite feeling like losing all the time. If her very presence alone—just the split-second sight of her—filled a single pony's chance of graduation with a flurry of 88mm Griffonian flak, she might end up sacrificing her own just to make sure her unintended victim didn't suffer, kneeling on her stomach and pleading with a pair of shaking forelegs.

"What's Mr. Syrup teach again?" Graham asked, taking a few quick steps to look Flurry in the eyes as she spoke.

"English. I had him last year." Flurry giggled. "He's actually a pretty cool teacher, always talking about his goats or his family and stuff. Nice music too, whenever we're all quietly working on something."

Arco knitted his eyebrows, attempting a scarf of some kind probably. Duck dropped that hobby pretty quickly. "Aw, lucky. I heard he's really good."

"Who'd you have?" The Alicorn inquired.

"Mrs. Salt."

Graham crinkled her lips like aluminum foil. Flurry sniggered heftily.

"Oh, I'm so sorry."

These were all just names to Duck, as it was. The only teachers she even interacted with, let alone saw at all, were the ones she was being taught under. Mr. Bon, Mr. Arsdale, Mrs. Goodread, Mrs. Ballpoint, Mr. Rich, and Mrs. Red. The few other staff members of the high school who looked at her usually did so with a scowl fixated strongly on their faces and a frown deadset on reaching the floor and making a squeaaaaak as they went by, only to light up and give warm greetings to the pony that so happened to be behind her at the time. Had she done something wrong recently? Or was this another instance of family belonging, which she... 

...

...which she didn't belong to anymore?

Her nose burned a bit, and when she reached up to wipe it, she widened her eyes and about tripped into Graham, who had significantly slowed her speed to a crawl to try and start up a conversation with the group's permanent caboose. Fumbling about like she was blind, in the middle of a Yakyakistan snowstorm—probably also starving and thinning out and fighting rats and freezing and also she was in Haulingrad—upside-down, on a frozen-over lakebed, Duck righted herself in a matter of seconds, but the catastrophic, irreparable damage had been deftly dealt.

"Whoa, you all right Duck?" Graham asked, almost flying over and helping her to all fours. Steadying herself, Duck could only bunch up her shoulders and try to let out a response.

"Have you been having a good day, Duck?" Arco asked her, turning his head and expertly continuing his forward trot without even looking. What a guy.

Flurry snippily snapped, "I already asked her that, dummy."

Arco brought up a hoof to yank one of Flurry's cheeks again, but Duck unexpectedly halted his movements.

"Y-yes."

Arco beamed. "That's good, Duck!" He adjusted the collar on his jacket, the back part of it having curled up a bit since he'd last done so. "I hope Bluebell hasn't screwed it up somehow."

Now why would–

"Why's she even in this class, anyway?"

Arco and Graham looked over at Flurry's uncharacteristically hostile aggression.

She stuttered, "U-uh, I mean, not in an annoyed way, I'm just wondering... why did she join in the first place? You'd think, somepony like her, she'd sign up for early dismissal, or something easy she could just breeze through."

"Same reason for Lily and them, maybe?" Arco debated, "The credits?"

"I forgot that was a thing," Flurry admitted, "it hasn't really been... well, really, anything to me so far."

"Oh yeah, the incentives," Graham chimed in, "I wasn't actually able to make it to that assembly since I was doing paperwork for the front desk, but I could hear Sherbet from all the way in the office." She was pretty loud for such a kind-of short Senior, wasn't she? Must have been a good thing to have when you were a Class Speaker. 

Talking loud and confidently sounded like a very nice thing...

"Not to say I don't need them," Arco began, "but I... kind of like being with you guys anyway. I'd gladly take the class without the credits, honestly."

He... he didn't mean that.

"Yeah!" Graham much-too-excitedly belted much-too-close to Duck's ears, which went limp instantly and slapped the sides of her head. Not noticing even as she watched the defense mechanism, Graham flexed her chin. "I love hanging out with you, Duck!"

Duck's eyes went wide. She felt her face beginning to burn. Gods, did they have to make the hallway lights so... so, uh... bright...?

At her reddening, Arco, Flurry, and Graham snickered.

Duck looked away. "You don't mean that..."

"Aw, come on, Duck!"

"You're awesome, Duck!"

Now she knew they were just saying these things to her. Probably because of who she was. The quiet mare who probably found a library too loud.

Graham bumped Duck's side with her own, laughing, "I hope you know that I..." she withdrew, scratching the back of her head as they went on, taking a right and then a quick left. "...don't really have too many, um, friends. You guys are really the only ponies I talk to at this school." Her slightly ashamed expression lit-up in a flash. "But I'm glad I know you all! It's been cool being under your command, Duck!"

If she could look away any more, she might do an owl-like one-hundred-and-eighty-degree spin with her head.

"Hey!"

Duck jumped into the air, quickly shuffling backward and taking cover behind Graham's rear. She peeked over the Pegasus' spine to find a tall, rather burly stallion standing against the wall bearing the two maps of Ponyville High, brightly-lit phone in his lowered hoof. Oh. One of the security staff members, what were they called? Just security? She was sure they had an actual designation but it was slipping her mind–

"Oh, hello sir," Flurry began, stepping forward. She must've by now realized herself to be the more appropriate choice for a conversationalist in the group, much better suited for it than Arco and his dry wit, Graham and her hyperactive topic bouncing, and Duck with her... not talking. The default speaker of the crew, but still the Driver. What an odd thing.

"What are you three walking around for?" He spoke with a fairly deep voice. Puberty must have hit him like a nuke.

Wait, three? One, two... oh.

She stepped out from behind Graham.

The monitor blinked.

"Four."

"We think one of the ponies in our sixth period is skipping class. The teacher told us to find her," Flurry explained, rolling her eyes. Was she doing so because of the one-pony blockade, or because of the mission itself?

Arco opened his mouth to speak, but the guard played his card first.

"Do you know she's skipping? Not like I've heard that excuse a lot, but..."

"Do you know Bluebell, by chance?"

"Oh."

Pfffffffft.

Okay. That was kind of funny.

He nodded further down the hall to his right.

"She's in Mr. Syrup's room. Slipped me a couple bits to keep quiet in case somepony went looking for her, but I don't officially take bribes." He fished around in his brown coat pocket and pulled out a small plastic bag that jingled and jangled as he shook it. "Gonna keep it for evidence."

"Yeah, 'evidence'," Arco started.

"Thank you, sir," Flurry talked over him, giving him a glare all the while. Flicking a hoof about and starting down the hall, she led the three away from the security guard (aha!) and let out a long sigh. "Phew."

"D-did you not know his name?" Duck asked. It was a little weird how Flurry only addressed him as 'sir', even if it was polite.

"Only the cool kids and underage fillies are friends with the security guards," Flurry replied, blowing a raspberry.

Arco flicked his head at Duck. "Because they think they can get away with stuff easier."

Graham smiled brightly. "What they don't know is that, when their stuff gets taken, the office staff gets first-pick on what they can keep! I have sooooo many flashlights and batteries!"

Wasn't that... super illegal? Like, not even slightly, but, like, a lot?

"Ever think about selling them back to their owners?" Arco sniggered.

Graham looked like she'd about had a heart attack. "Guh...! No! They're mine!"

Flurry shook her head, her perfect mane shimmying to and fro. "You could start an empire with that. Selling kids their snatched-up items."

"I don't think you know how much of an opportunity you have here."

Graham harumphed. "As Busy Body would say, that would be the worst trade deal in the history of trade deals, maybe ever."

"Are we ever gonna find out what's wrong with that crew–"

A door on their upcoming left past another row of lockers slowly cracked open, bringing with it a pair of ponies—one clutching a reddening tissue over her muzzle and the other helping her along—and a colossal amount of rambunctious, uproarious noise that sounded like it belonged over in Bitaly's Coliseum when that whole thing was up and running. And considering the state the country was in after the Never War, it... honestly might still be up and running to decide what government they'd be forming next.

"You got her!"

"Nice shot!"

"Zacherle's sake, Apple Juice, you clocked her upside the head!"

A much more mature voice—clearly the teacher's—spoke up, silencing the class, "And with that, it looks like we'll be watching a movie this period!"

"Yaaaay!"

"Wewwww!"

"Yeah!"

"Awesome!"

CA-THUMP.

Duck had stopped already as soon as the door had opened, but her three friends decided they'd take her usual course of action this time around.

"That's not Mr. Syrup's room is–"

"Yup," Flurry cut Graham off.

"What class is it even right now?"

Flurry looked up and to her left, rubbing her chin with a hoof. "Sixth period last year was his Honors English class... could still be the same. Doubt he'd like change."

They began walking once again, and, standing in front of the door, they lingered for a second.

Duck sucked in a breath, puffing out her cheeks.

Graham popped her shoulders.

Arco cracked his neck ewwww that one was gross!

Flurry sighed.

She brought up a hoof and slightly jiggled the door handle.

And, like a pivot point, the entire door swung open like lightning war, catching Flurry by surprise and flattening her against the wall like a pancake.

At once, it came.

"̪͍̥͙̺̻̭͉̒͛̽̈́ͅH̷͔͔̖̜̙͍̺͆̍̆ͣ͗͗ͨͨ̄e̢̱͈ͭl͈̦̻̖̝̖̇l̥̼̦͛ͣ͒ͩ̊̀̒ͦ͢ ͔̬̠̞̄͋̾̾̈ͨ̇͠y̯͉̘̼̲͕͛̈̒͞e̛̙̹̮̥̥̤̮ͨͮ̆̿̆̀̏ͨ͜͡ä̡̺̼̪̜̺̳̓ͣ̇̀͡h̢̪ͮͮ̑͡ ̺͖̪̑̈͊̾̊̾ͬ͂ͫẁ̵͇̖̰̳̠͛̈͛ͬ̿́e̫̤͖͓̣͊̇͐̃'̵̧̣͎̬̤̦͙̫̀ͥͩ͊ͥ̃̚͟r̨̧͉̹͍̠͈̘ͨ̿e͎͓̘̗̙ͩ̄͛̅̃̇̓͠͠ ͖̼ͩ͋ͨͫ̔̉́̕͠ͅw̸̠͔̓ͮ̐̍ͭ̾̇ͦả̞̬̼̘̓ͧ̿̑̊ͮ̚͜t̶̗͔̫̲̝̤̺̞́͛̎͟͡c̷̢̾͋͗̔̔҉͈̰͇̤͍̯̞ȟ͕̩̯͇̮ͧ̌ỉ̶͓̠̗̬̪͝n̸̯̠͂̄ͬg̵̗͖̳̗͇͔ͦ͗̆̏̽̕ ̰̤̟͛̐ͫ̑̀̉̉̀a̩̣͓ͧͬ̅̓̓ ̲͚̱̟ͬ̿͑͡mͮ̇̎ͤͫ͗͡͏̣̞̞̮̺̙͈̣ő̏͒҉̻͈̖͕͍̳̥̜́̀v̝̯̠͗̐ͦ͂ͦ̕͝í͏̺̥e̫̺̺̤͙̪̗̐̓ͤ̓̑̿̈̈́!͉̼̗̽̃̓͌ͧ̄̄"̂̒͋̇҉̲̻̗̺
̸̐ͣ̽̚҉͔
̛̥̩̯̭̥̗̬͊ͭͥ͐ͣ͒̇̈"̞̻͍̱ͧͭ̓̑ͧ̈̀T̨͎̳̳̜̠͔͆̀̃̈̒͐̌h̵͓̰͇̺ͫ̓ͫ͑͗̑͘ã̸͇̥̪̠͙͖͙̻͖̅̅̓ͪ̃͐̐͡ǹ̴̻͖͔̦̺̖̰̳ͥ͆̃ͭ̉k̩̰̣͇̹̇͑̐ͯ̆͝͞ș̼̣̬͉̥͊̿̀̌̀̍͒̾͜͜͡ ͨͣ͂̃҉̹̼̱̭͜M̢̞̤̹̗͇̎͂̌ͧ̓̊͘r̵̨̬̞̈́.̸̷̮̣̹̱̪͙̄ ̧̘̟̘̼̓ͯ̇͋̏̊̚͘ͅS̢̩̟͖͙̲̠̳͉ͣ̓̉ͯ̂͛́y͈̙͚͕̠̣̠̖̮ͪ̄ṛ̢͔͗̎͌̀̂̚͢u̡͔͖̖͍͓͙̟̫ͭ̓ͥ̑͌̓̄̋͡p̣̤̘̘̖̘̗̗͊͆̋̀́!̙̱̬͕̥̩̫̌͆͂͒̀"̴̞͙͖͕̖̯̀͘
̶̧̹͕̝̿͂̍͊
̂̒͟҉̲͚͕̦̠̻̯"̵̪͙̠͎̖ͩ̓Ö̶̞̣͖̤͙̞̠̭͇́̂̃̾h̍̔ͬ͑͋̐͏͉̻͚̞̳͇̣͚͞ ̧̺̜̙̐ͭͪ̇ͪ̉̇̒̇͘t̵̰̐̿͐͛ͮ́ḩ͓̘̥̱͖ͤ͆͌̓͢a̤͖̬̮̬͎̍̒̋̌͊ͫ͛ͅͅn̸̦̫͈͎̗̲͑͋̀ͨ͗̾̉k̡̨̻̜̜̟̬͇̟̹ͮ̄ͨ̽̎̎ͅ ̷͉͖̞͎͚̺̌̃̽̏̍̑ͬ̈̎̀ţ̢̫͖̔̓̓h̷̘̝̩͖̖ͦ̆ͦ̑͗̓ͨ͜e̛͙̳͕̺̾̽̃͑̕ ̶͉͎̇ͥͦ̅ͯ̋͌̀͡G̸̝̝͇̘̱ͨ͛̄ͩͨ͊ͩ͡o͙͑̋̄ͣͧͪ͗d̲̾̋̽̈̂̃s̶͔̳̝͎̹̥̭͆̉̽ͦ.͎̭̣̳̟̿̎͊ͤͦ̆̾͑.̖͔͍̘͍͔̻̗ͪ"̴̧̯̬̖̊̊̿̉̚
̡̖͍͍͓̞́̉̋̂͛
̽͂̍ͦ҉̰̘̖̮̪͕"̘̝̪͛̓̅̐̏Y̛̞̞̣͗͗̾̊̕͡ę̩̖͎͖͍̣̩̬̋͐͠s͇̥͍̼̜͉͍͉̓͊̈ͯ͌̐!̠̚"̴̨͈̮͎̃͊̀͂̈͑̒̓
̫͋ͫ̌ͬͥͬ̂́
͖̻̺ͤ͊̏ͤ̓ͨ͑ͦ̍́"ͯ̊͑ͩ̑̍͏͏̲͖͖̹͇͔̦̰K̨̜̰͕̣͔̟͎̔̉̚͠ͅi̓ͩ̒́҉̲̟̪͎ͅc̱̣̪͆ͩͭͧ̉͟k͓͙̪̠̐̎ͤ̃͊̅ ͔͕̮̼͔̻̟͍̌ͭͣ̓̈́̀̚͢͞y͙̺̣͔̭̞̗͔̒ͦ͒̊̅ͧ͛ͧ́o̴̓ͥ̃̀͂҉̹̬͓͎ṹ̷̲͈̞͕͔̹̙͉̚͜ͅȑ̫ͥ ̸̖̪̙̬̓ḫ̸̰̗̝̳ͪ͂́̊̆ͣ͘̕ơ̷̯ͩ̿̀ͫͨ̾ó͇̰ͤͭ͗͢v̯͕͚̮̻̉ͪ̓̽ͥ̆́̄͐ę̸̪͍ͥͮ̓ͯ̍̍͐ͬs̸̛͚̙̮̰̮̦̗̯ͨ͊͂͡ ̧̮̐̿̄̀̍͋̀̚͜u̵͔̱ͪ̃p̝̗͈͖͓̆͋̎́̍͂͌,̺̞̐̓͑̃͗̍͟ ̼̩̬͎͙̲̌͆̍̀̍p̣͙̹̳͓̏̓ͮͭͩ̅̆͞ͅo͍͈̱̪̲̟̞̻ͮ̇̿ͨ̕n̩͚̩͖͕̣̣̖̽ͫ͊͘͝ị̶͖̩̣̭̫͐̇ͩ͌̾͊̀è̸̸̢͎̮̥̬̬̲̈ͧ͗ͨ̾̀͌͗s̢̧̛̝̱̥̝̙̾͌́ͫ̏̄̚ͅ!̷̸̘͍̪̣̹̦͑̄̌̃̚"͉̳̜̟̜ͥ́̾ͫ̍
̮͉̞̲̫̬̳̺̉ͨ
̠̣ͯ͌̿͗͌ͤ͐"̢̘̗̝̯ͯ̓ͤ̊̂̕͢R̺̣͇̣̞̰̔̅ͯ͊̈́ͬ͢a̷̠̲͖̝̮̦ͦ̾̔͡c͈͇̱̰̼̤̖̐ͮ͌̋̌̒̊̌ͬ͟ȋ̬̯̳̯͉̥̲̘̱̅ͩͥ͑̆ͧ̂͞s̢͇̩̪̭̦͊̇͌̓͡t̮̻͈̫͖ͬ͢.̠̩͉͕̖̱͚̐̀́̒"̜̙͐͜
̙̦̖̝̜̰̭̘̎̉ͯͪ̌̏ͧ̕
̶͈̝̣̣͉ͧ͐͋͌́͡"̞̲̠̮̻ͣ͆ͩ́ͅĄ̴̭̬̭̳̼̠̲̎̇̓̾̚ͅn̷̨͎̠̥̳͙ͮ̃̇͛̈ͦ͗͡a̢͈͖͔̠͌ͩ̂͆̚r͍̖͙͈͒͌̄ͪc̡̭͓̰̫͙̹̄̿̿̍ͯ̇ͪ̾h̲͍̲͆̓ͨ͐̐̏̔y̸̙̤̙̼͈͋ͤ͝ͅͅ!̖̠͕̬̝ͭ̌̇̈́͊̊͑"͉̦̼̭͕ͯ̿͋͗ͪ̍̎̔̕

From behind the dreaded barricade came a glowing blue light, and Flurry appeared in the blink of an eye, shaking her head and gritting her teeth. She began to say something, but Duck found she couldn't quite hear her at the moment. Or really anything for that matter. Had she missed herself pulling out a long rifle and firing it at some point? One second she'd been able to hear, and the next it was like the very concept of hearing had snatched from her being.

Flurry and the others began taking daring steps forward, and Duck found herself struggling to continue her role of perpetual caboose. Crossing the threshold, they craned their necks around like a four-light stoplight and looked toward the back of the room...

...to find a light-gray pony with her spine to them, screwing around on one of the computers underneath the cabinets hastily labeled Papers, Materials, and Not Porn.

Wait what?!

Flurry's eyes narrowed. Dangerously. Was she able to see right now, or was this the same story as Duck's current deafness?

"There she is."

Oh it was back.

Duck realized she was floating a few inches off the ground, and opened her mouth to scream until she realized Arco and Graham were levitating as well. The effect—which she was trying to get used to—stopped almost as quick as it started, and, through the roaring noise, Flurry simply told them, "Give me a second," as the three of them now stood a few inches back from the door.

"Oh, hi Flurry," came Mr. Syrup's voice.

"Hello, sir."

"Flurry, what oh no."

"Bluebell."

CRASH!

THUMP!

...

STOMP STOMP STOMP!

"Ahh!"

"Get her!"

"Run Bluebell run!"

"Here's my book!"

SKRRIT!

FOOMP!

THUMP CH-CH-CH-CH THUD!

SMASH!

"No!"

"Godsdammit, Bluebell, come on!"

"Ow ow ow, Gods you're, ow!"

"What class?"

"Tankery."

"Ah, thank you, Flurry. I'll be sure to tell Mrs. Red."

"You're welcome, Mr. Syrup."

"Owwwww! Let go of me! Somepony heeeeeelp!"

"Err, dammit, you're stalling the class, Bluebell!"

"Quit fussing!"

"You've lost, Bluebell!"

"See you tomorrow!"

"Tomorrow's Saturday idiot."

Flurry appeared, rear first and then her entire body. She was gritting her teeth, her horn lit, forcefully dragging Bluebell with her magic by the curly, bouncy tail, Bluebell herself gripping each inch of carpet with all her might and screaming at the heavens like she was being taken down to heck itself.

"Somepony help!"

Flurry, realizing she was now in range of the door and in full view of the others, turned to her left and began to exit the classroom, baggage in spiteful tow. "You were fine with us the other day!" She recalled, grunting.

"I wasn't gonna get an F on our first assignment!"

"Your first assignment! Our's was finding the Cruiser!" Flurry turned around, still dragging Bluebell but now walking straight ahead and leading them back toward the front of the school the way they trotted in. "All you did was chuck rocks at bee's nests like an idiot!"

"They were hornets, you idiot!" Bluebell shouted back, her chin bouncing off the threshold of the double doors that were now taking them into the Senior Hall.

Flurry cast an angry glance down Bluebell's way. Duck, Arco, and Graham, following behind the two, looked down as well without a word. "What about at Duck's place?!"

"Free food!"

"And the first match?"

"I had a chance to kick Hail Mary's ass finally!"

"YOU ATE FOOD WITH US YESTERDAY."

"It was free!"

Duck didn't think that anypony realized that Bluebell literally sat next to her in the Comet, and that making the Unicorn angry would probably—no, very definitely—end up terribly.

They passed by the security guard, who simply gave them a nod and a little laugh before disappearing into his office, shutting the door and turning on the light to start avoiding work at a much greater extent.

"Is this because we joked about you?!" Flurry asked, needing to double her effort as Bluebell rotated her body, threw her forelegs upward, and grabbed hold of the garbage oddly chained to the floor. Of course, to no avail, as Bluebell lost her grip and began floundering about like a halibut who didn't like it one bit that she'd been hooked and thrown into a weird boat in the middle of nowhere. "Thought you were built...  rah, tougher than that!"

They passed by the Nurse's office. The Nurse didn't even bat an eyelash.

The squeaks of Bluebell's flailing hooves were like the sounds of that one basketball game Duck had accidentally flipped to the other week trying to find the history channel again after Graham sat on the remote once they were finished eating.

"I swear I'll kill you!"

"Is that just the tsundere talking?"

Bluebell, in stark contrast to her name, except the bell part, went beet red. 

"YOU TAKE THAT BACK!"





"We're baaaack!"

Duck stopped once Graham did. Arco next. Flurry, burdened by her newly-added weight, pulled up next to Arco, grit her teeth, did one last hard tug, and finally dropped her influence on Bluebell's tail. The Unicorn's entire rear end thumped hard on the grassy floor.

Her thunderous yells and bloodcurdling screams of terror, depraved insult, and promises of mass murder were put to an abrupt, final end with a grunted, low, admittedly cute, "Ouchie."

Apart from a few wayward, sideways, kooky-eyed glances from the front office, a random teacher trotting down the hallway with a stack of paper easily a foot higher than him almost bumping into them and surely prolonging them, and the front door becoming a bit of an unnecessary hassle, their trip back outside to class had been pretty straight-forward, odd passersby only needing to look at the source of the incessant screaming to return to work. They must have known Bluebell to be a bit of a troublemaker. At least the teachers were aware of the bullies, unlike the Academy.

Even Principal Cheese, all wrinkled smiles and trotting down the second-floor stairs with a cup of steaming coffee in hoof, only smirked and nodded before returning to his office in peace, bidding them an adieu and disappearing behind the corner they'd just hugged.

Now standing just at the bottom of the concrete ramp leading up to the tank garages, Duck, Flurry, Arco, Graham, and the newly-recovered-but-definitely-still-mad-even-as-she-sat-up-on-her-haunches-and-crossed-her-forelegs Bluebell faced the rest of the class, who were all waiting in a slightly huddled-together circle simply staring at them with a mixture of annoyance, concern, anger, and, in the case of Busy Body... was that condescendence? Duck wasn't good at faces. Or ponies. Or talking. Or anything really. Why was she alive again?

Mrs. Red perked up, smiling once more. Duck much rather preferred this version of her Tankery teacher.

"Oh, good! I suppose we can get started, then!"

Bit Rate, who had apparently snatched a bag of chips out of her backpack—orange-colored triangles that left dust on her hooves and around her mouth in a cosmically disgusting fashion—spouted, "We were just talking about crew names."

"Lily's team thought of Hoofball teams," Sweet Tea piped up, stepping forward with a serene smile on her face, eyes shut.

Peanut Brittle rolled her eyes, then shot a glare Busy Body's way. "Miss 'Podium' over here liked the idea of parties, or something. She made us Bull Moose."

Primrose, clicking and clacking on her laptop behind them, spoke up even as Duck couldn't see her. "Pine Needle wanted song names. As if 'Thesaurus' and 'Little Love' are good at all."

Forest Fire adjusted her infinity scarf with a grumble. "I don't like Bit Rate's team calling us 'Noobs'."

They'd thought about team names as well? 

Duck had... pondered it the other night before falling asleep, watching the documentary sideways on her couch. Her sister's years had been the Elements', well, Elements, and...

...

...she was thinking about something now.

Mrs. Red straightened up, and the class looked at her. "Before we all get hopelessly further into your little argument..."

"Our idea's still the best," Lily unhelpfully chimed in.

Mrs. Red shut her eyes and sighed. "...I do believe I have a bit of news you'd all probably like to hear."

The class was quiet now.

A transfer, maybe? What their task was for today? Training schedules?

Please don't let it be–

"If you all haven't seen it on the front bulletin this morning as you walked in," (they had a bulletin?) "our first real match as part of the Pre-Championships will be held on this coming Friday!"

Guh!

As if not realizing the harrowing revelation of such news, the rest of the class apart from her own crew—who minded her stunned reaction and remained silent—burst into cheers and began shouting excitedly.

"We'll kick their asses!"

"Let us at 'em, Miss Red!"

"We can do it, guys!"

Mrs. Red, presumably content with their gung-ho attitudes as she nodded to—seemingly—herself, back-tracked, "I suppose that that brings us back to our previous discussion of team names. We can't—no, we won't—fare well without the coordination that comes with team names. One of the easiest things you can do in a Tank Match is get confused."

"Teams!"

"Parties!"

"Phrases!"

"Songs!"

Mrs. Red brought up a hoof, quieting them. Gods, was her magic part of becoming a teacher? If Duck became a professor, would people suddenly start listening to her, too?

"Why don't we hear from our team's Overall, everypony? I'm sure she has some semblance of an idea."

Grumbles from a few.

This wasn't going to be pretty.

All eyes, if they weren't doing so already, turned to look right at Duck. Normally, she would have stared at the ground and probably vomited on the spot, but, feeling her friends' presence behind her, she flexed her chin, worked her jaw around, and bunched up her shoulders. She'd been kicking an idea around, and, if she could find it at the moment deep within the cobwebs, she... ah, there we go.

"Um..." she began, then shook her head and increased her volume... which was about one up on her television, for a comparison, "...I was thinking. Our, um, our current names are..." Oh Gods she hoped they wouldn't hate her. "...boring?" They blinked. So far so good. "A, B, C, and D are very easy to confuse between each other. If we all had something like a name to remember, it would be a lot simpler to know who's who and be able to instruct each other on formations and s-such."

Lily cocked her head. "So?"

Duck made a noise, but it was drowned out as Arco, Flurry, Graham, and even Bluebell stepped forward, eyes narrowed. Lily shrank back, but kept her raised eyebrow and crossed forelegs as she sat on the ground with her team.

"Th-the last Tankery team at this school used the Elements of Harmony for their tanks' designations. I was thinking of doing something similar, b-but with the historical figures... th-they portrayed for the Hearth's Warming festival a long while ago. That w-way we pay respect to both the Elements and the founders of the... country."

Mrs. Red raised an eyebrow, rubbing her chin with a hoof interestedly.

Most of the class followed suit.

The Candidates, who must have known what the idea entailed, scoffed as one unit.

Duck cleared her throat. She pressed a hoof against her jacketed chest. "My team will be Cookie Team, after Secretary Smart Cookie of the Earth Pony clan."

She looked over at Bit Rate, Primrose, Autumn Leaves, and Plastic Beach. "Your crew will be Puddinghead Team, after Chancellor Puddinghead, leader of the Earth Pony clan." The Nerds, slightly begrudging the name, shrugged their shoulders and began to murmur to one another.

Oh Gods Duck why did you think this was a good idea get out of her hide go stuff yourself in a locker get home crawl in your bed just go just–

She stopped at once, feeling an unusual warmth clenching down on her.

A hoof was on her shoulder.

Caught in a gasp at the contact, she slowly looked over to the source to find Graham giving her a wide grin that was almost blinding in nature. Her crazy light-gray and black mane positively glowed in the sunshine that was now dead-set on sweating her dry.

"You're doing great, Duck!" She affirmed her in a slightly hushed tone.

Duck blushed, then nodded and looked back, clearing her throat.

"Lily's team–" She began again, pointing at Lily Pad, Hail Mary, Field Goal, Peanut Brittle, and Whipgrass, who perked up and fluffed their jersies, "–will be Hurricane Team, after the leader of the Pegasi, Commander Hurricane." At that, they threw up their hooves and began making gorilla noises. She had made very, absolutely sure to give them a name they'd all find no conflict with. They might have ganged up on her after class and... shoved her in a locker or something, or tie her up in the woods and leave her there until the morning.

Duck pointed at Pine Needle, Sweet Tea, Candle Light, and Vanilla Pudding. Gods why didn't she make them Puddinghead because of– "You will be Pansy Team."

Almost immediately, Pine threw a foreleg like a whip in front of her, crossing her forelegs with Vanilla and Sweet Tea, glaring. "Pansy? Go to hell, please." Duck started. "Like we'd call ourselves something as stupid as that."

"Hold your tongue!" 

Pine flinched, teeth grit, and turned to face the rather furious-looking Candle Light next to her.

"Private Pansy, under the bitter Commander Hurricane, formed the first three-race friendship in Equestria's history, saving the country before it even started!" Growling under her breath as she wound down, she stuck out a hoof and shot it straight up to the three flags waving over the tank garages, namely the old Pegasi banner. "Apologize to the Pegasi!"

Pine, Sweet, and Vanilla all gave each other quick seconds glances before, realizing they were at a disadvantage, turned heel, faced the flag, and bowed courteously. Together, as if they'd rehearsed it, they stammered, "O-oculus tempestasis!"

Duck, giggling to herself and silently thanking the more well-versed Candle, swallowed a lump down her throat and cast her sights Candidate way. "That leaves you three as Platinum Team."

Busy Body grinned to herself, placing a hoof gingerly on her collar. "Of course. Nothing but the top grade."

Blank Check hummed. "Never any doubt."

Forest Fire struck a pose that looked flaccid in every shape, form, and fashion. "The best."

Mrs. Red, nodding vigorously to the point she could've dislodged her whole head from her body, began to trot forward, cheeks bunched up like a bundle of twigs. "That's perfect, Duck! And with that settled and out of the way, as I assume none of you have any objections to it..." she looked across the faces of the class and, apart from a few frowns—mostly from the Nerds—found no discernible issues, "...we still have quite a few things to practice until our first match." Straightening her posture and puffing out her chest, Mrs. Red brought up both her forelegs and clapped her hooves together. "Everypony, hop into your tanks please!"

With a torrent of "yes ma'ams" and "let's gos", the rest of the class turned tail and sprinted toward their respective vehicles, taking their assigned positions and beginning work on whatever needed to be done. Arco, Flurry, Graham, and Bluebell disappeared from her side, but she could feel their long gaze behind her head and knew they were probably waiting for her to join them before getting started themselves. She shook her head. A public match in little less than a week? They weren't ready to play yet at all. There were still so many things—so many little issues and problems and habits—that needed to be ironed out and broken. If they couldn't work together efficiently, they wouldn't last long in a real battle, and the hope for this year's Ponyville Horsepowers could be over by the first week of Tank Warudo's burning embers. 

Duck, mumbling things to herself as she simply remained standing where she had been for the past few minutes, didn't realize—or honestly remember—Mrs. Red's still hovering presence until the older mare tilted her head and asked, "Duck?"

Duck snapped out of her musings. "Uh, yes ma'am?"

"Are you having reservations about our match next week?"

Well, she couldn't really lie to the teacher, now, could she? Trust was the only thing that made or broke a team, no matter the sport or goal. Clearing her throat and ignoring how dry it had become, she replied honestly, "I just don't think we're quite ready for an actual match so soon from now." She waited for Mrs. Red to take her turn, but realized her mouth was still open, so she stuttered, "I-I know we've been at it for weeks, but... there are still so many things we need to look at before then."

Mrs. Red sighed. "If I could, I'd postpone it as well, but this year's Tank Warudo is on a strict schedule. I'm sorry, Duck."

Duck looked at the ground, but found a thought bubbling up in her head. Deciding that it was a good idea to find the answer to it, she perked up once more and asked, "Who are we going to be up against, ma'am?"

Mrs. Red tapped her chin. "The... Baltimare Galleons, if I remember correctly. We'll be heading over there early on Friday to set up and have our Meet And Greet, and the match will start right around noon-ish." She raised an eyebrow. "I do hope none of you have any important classes you need to tend to that day, haha."

Oh Gods she did.

Winding down, Mrs. Red shook her head, "Aaaah, I still find that so... I dunno, clumsy. Miss tests, and quizzes, and schoolwork for an entire day to go blow up tanks. I might enjoy the sport, but forsaking academic pursuits for it from time to time seems a little sabotaging, don't you think?"

Duck rubbed one of her forelegs. "At, um, at the Academy, our focus was mostly on Tankery anyway. I hadn't thought about skipping an entire day of school for it..."

"Where did you five disappear to yesterday anyway? I'd been wanting you to show the class about shell types so they could better understand it, coming from one of their own peers instead of a teacher. You might not think that they listen to you as it is right now, but try having me talk to them in a normal voice. And I don't like getting mad like I did earlier, so they'll probably never fully listen to me."

"Arco's m-mother was in the hospital, so we went to visit her."

Mrs. Red pursed her lips, tilting her head. "Aww, that's sweet of you. I guess there's no real problem with that, then. If you five had... I dunno, gone off to go eat at a restaurant or something in the middle of the day, I might have been a little more upset." She looked down at Duck, not noticing the sweat threatening to pour relentlessly down her face. "It's good that you did that. I didn't know Arco's family was having troubles."

Duck, noticing one of her buttons was lopsided, began to fiddle with it.

"Speaking of family..."

She sucked in a breath so quickly it sounded like a hiccup.

"...how has your sister been, Duck? It's been awhile since she was last enrolled here."

"She's... doing fine. College and all that."

Mrs. Red nodded. "I keep being surprised that you're attending Ponyville High in the first place, seeing as your mother so adamantly owns the Ponyville Tankery Academy on the other side of town. I'd think she'd do everything in her power to keep you there, at least until you graduated."

"It was actually my doing, ma'am."

"Oh?"

She cleared her throat. "For my sixteenth birthday gift, I asked my mother if I could attend public school for once. She thought it would be good to help me t-talk to more ponies, but I mostly wanted it so I could... avoid having to do anything with tanks... which I guess you can see didn't really work out."

"Well, that was very nice of your mother, all things considered. I'm glad she decided to let you do so." In lieu of a birthday cake, it was... well, she had to admit it wasn't a terrible trade. She may have been forced to join Tankery, but she'd still met her friends, and that was a good enough present for her.

Duck noticed that Mrs. Red was looking hard at her, and instinctively eeped and collapsed her ears over her head.

"Duck, I think it's important to remember that, no matter what anypony says about your sister and your mother—all the reminders, and the bringing-up of losses, and the lies, and hatred—they will both always be known for their bravery against Griffontstone in the face of incredible danger. Pumpkin Bread's one-on-one with the dreaded Wittman, and Pumpkin Seed's final stand that changed Tankery forever."

"Hey, Duck!"

Duck about-faced, neck craning around. She spotted Flurry, Arco, Graham, and Bluebell looking her way. Flurry was waving a hoof, with the other next to the left side of her face. She took the first and began to fling it behind her head, as if spilling rainwater away.

"Come on, Duck! We've got stuff t' do!"

Duck looked back. Mrs. Red was humming, a smirk on her face.

"Looks like they're all rearing to start."

At that, on cue, the SOMUA's V8 roared to life.

Nodding, Duck sat up and began to trot toward the Comet.

"You know, there ought to be another one of those."

Duck stopped and turned, brow raised.

Mrs. Red, arms crossed, bobbed her head to and fro. "What will Duck Bill stand tall against?"

Duck knew that Mrs. Red was meaning to be inspiring with her words... but she had pretty much just asked her what she thought she'd be defeated by this year. Not wishing to upset the teacher, she let out a half-hearted giggle, gave one final, curt nod, finished fiddling with her jacket, and met up with her crew to begin training for the day. 

One week.

One. Week.
> This Will Be The Hardest First Fight! Please Pray For Us Good Luck, Everyone!
> --------------------------------------------------------------------------

"They do know there's no 'W' in 'Horsepowers', right?"

"There's also supposed to be an 'S' in there, somewhere."

"I don't think they're trying to spell 'Horse', guys."

"..."

They all tilted their heads as one singular, collective clock hand.

Duck's mane flopped onto the ground in a horrific pile akin to the results of the spaghetti recipe she could never fully follow. The Gods had long ago forsaken her when it came time to boiling water.

There was a pregnant pause. Its husband made a scalding remark about her dress. She continued being so for what seemed like an entire minute.

Finally, they all droned, eyes wide and heads nodding despite their new knowledge, "Ohhhh..."

Their heads went back to normal, then, as if kickstarting the rest of their bodies, began to look about quizzically. On her left, she could see Lily and the rest of Hurricane Team trotting about to poke and prod at the odd table lying here and there on its side on the concrete. To her right, Pansy Team stepped forward, fittingly crushing stray leaves under their hooves and, just as fittingly, immediately springing backward with a collective yelp that caused herself to about jump fifty feet into the air, and a gasp that was followed by their low crouches to the ground and profuse apologies and concern for whatever they'd just accidentally, ruthlessly stepped on.

Arco appeared next to her. He sat on his haunches, shut his eyes tightly, cracked an overly cocky grin, stabbed his forelegs against his hips, and breathed in a Panicking-Duck-Bill amount of oxygen in and out of his lungs. Finally, he proudly exclaimed to nopony, "Gods, it's a great day out today."

The final hisses of their train dissipated with its final puffs of coal-birthed smoke.

Peanut Brittle accidentally pushed a table much further than she'd wanted. It crashed onto the floor with a fitting crash.

Everypony who wasn't Duck—because Duck had ducked behind a foreleg—turned to face Peanut.

Bit Rate coughed.

The wind rolled through, kicking up leaves in lazy spirals that barely lifted them off the ground. They moved about five inches backward.

The train station was absolutely, positively, dead quiet. And practically dead, as well.

Feeling herself safe once more, Duck placed all fours back onto Earth, lifted one up to start moving forward, then paused and faltered. She looked down, having almost stepped right onto a brightly-colored balloon bearing the phrase Welcome! on the front. As another gust of wind flew about, the balloon rolled over completely, revealing another message on its back. Duck, curious, stopped again in the middle of taking a step and looked at it again.

Now go away.

Duck frowned.

She kicked the balloon limply.

"Shut up, Arco," came Flurry, trotting up alongside and then past him to try and comfort Pansy Team, who looked to be in the middle of an existential crisis about their possibly killing an insect. The fact that they probably did so at three-hundred-times a serial rate practically every weekday while driving their Cruiser around—especially at their reckless speed and with their uncaring maneuevers—and didn't bat an eyelash was more than just a tad astonishing to her.

Her attention directed anywhere but the ground below her hooves, Duck began to cast sideways glances upwards, taking note of the tri-colored streamers hanging from the little roofs over their heads, the wacky confetti littering the ground and disgracing every hoofstep, and the helium-full balloons trying desperately to gain their well-deserved freedom and fly high up into the cloudy skies above to disappear into the heavens. Alas, poor rubber friend. In the distance, she could hear the telltale sounds of a city breathing with life—namely ponies yelling at each other with expletives, cars veering on the road to avoid grandmothers in the crosswalk, and the exclamations of newly-soiled ponies realizing it wasn't mayonnaise that was now horribly splattered on their finely-pressed jacket's shoulder pad. 

Food stands, some of them still holding their assorted condiments, were set up in lines and rows all across the station, as if ghosts were manning them and were now impatiently waiting for the schoolponies to peruse their ghost hot dogs and ghost hayburgers, and their... ghost... sodas...? 

Continuing on the ghost path, it... it was like a ghost town that had not five seconds ago been bustling with rampant, manic activity. They'd just missed it.

In fact, if the decorations and carts weren't around, the whole area would look like a normal worker's commute, with all the angry, self-life-despising ponies dressed in suits lining up at the ticket booth like usual to boot. A few of them, finally realizing they weren't alone, regarded them with soft glares and quiet murmurs that, at once, crackled and broke under pressure as, as if every single power that even thought about her Earthly presence had suddenly decided to gang up on her and kick her in her shins, a particularly Antarctic breeze blew through the train station once more—this time with much more fury and much less Fahrenheit—picking up fall leaves and lifting them in rustling spirals up, up, up into the air and toward the sun trying its hardest to break through the clouds.

She grit her teeth tightly, reached up, and pressed her white collar closer to her throat hurriedly.

Who knew that the edge of Baltimare could be so cold?

A sudden movement caught her hopelessly wayward attention, and she turned to the source to find a dirty-yellow crane next to the train behind her clutching the SOMUA with a trio of hard steel chains, lifting it from the newly-empty train car and lowering it onto the grass alongside the rest of the already unloaded Ponyville tanks. Its overly-glossy gold, red, and blue paint job shimmered blindingly in what little sunbeams could poke through the heavens, prompting Duck to instantly turn her head and shield her eyes with a shivering hoof. As she finally lowered the appendage, she was struck oddly—vaguely similarly to having an anti-tank round zip inches from her head—by the fact that she wasn't, by now, hearing the telltale gripes and complaints of Platinum Team, who, being who they were, would more than just jump at the chance to bicker with the crane pony and shout expletives at him to work harder, faster, and overall better. Frowning, and completely unable to see where the Team had gone, Duck fully turned around, and had to move out of the way as both the newly uncovered sound of hoofsteps and Busy's literal Body seemingly unnoticeably bumped into and past her. Stumbling about in her step, she opened her mouth to say something she'd probably regret, but shut it just as quick as she realized that everypony else was watching the three step off the train with her. Even Pansy Team, still probably losing it right now, turned their blubbering mouths around to at least puff their cheeks out at them.

Forest Fire stopped what she was doing, which was walking. She fluffed up her scarf and looked up.

Blank Check and Busy Body kept on going, then stopped as one. Blank looked to the left. Busy right.

Casting her glance downward, and letting her red tie hang loosely over the confetti-ridden floor, Busy shook her head.

"This is a trend, these days, and it's beginning to frighten me."

Bluebell opened her mouth.

Flurry's horn burned brightly, shutting it just as quickly.

Somepony immediately made the most disinterested hum Duck had ever heard in her life. Judging by Candle Light's getting up and moving around right afterward, it was probably her just to save her glasses from cracking again out of sheer misunderstanding.

Busy perked up. Her neck popped in thousands of places, but she didn't seem to mind.

The wind swayed and lifted her tie over her shoulder. She flexed her chin in response. "This." She nodded, first to herself then, looking about and expecting everypony else to join, herself again. She brought up a hoof and pointed it right at the ground below her. "This, right here, is why we need global warming."

"Uh–"

"Global warming?" Blank stepped forward, rolling her eyes and dropping her smile in an instant. For a second, it looked like she had wrinkles. "Please. We need global cooling, for all this heat you've built up these past years."

Busy craned her neck back.

"Little Miss 'Text Messages' is lecturing me on a scandal? I pray to the Gods you suffer plurality."

Blank seemed to enjoy the reply. "Between you and me, it'd be a landslide."

Busy shoved her hoof in her own breast. "Yeah, in my favor."

Blank growled, then turned back to her left and poked at a few branches on the ground. Busy, meanwhile, let out a heavy sigh Duck could only attribute to being really, really tired of something. Busy lifted her chin again and, regarding Blank with a cluck of her tongue that turned the Unicorn right around, albeit all frowny and mopey.

"I'll tell you what, Check. If this is what we have to look forward to," she shrugged, "I might just skip our debates."

"There's no point in appearances if nobody's looking," Blank admitted dismissively.

Busy sat on her haunches and studied the faces of her classmates, then she brought up her forelegs, curled one hoof into a ball, and slammed it down onto the other with her cheeks puffed out. "If the people want to change this country, they have to show up when it calls for them, not sit back and watch TV hoping somepony else did what they, very easily, rightfully, could have done in the first place."

"Voter turnout is one of the largest masses of possibles, and show-ups. If every single pony registered went into a booth, we might be able to finally progress in this horribly Imperial country."

Mrs. Red, having been watching quietly with her attendance sheet out pressed against her chest, craned her neck waaaay back and, crinkling up her eyebrows, made an 'O' shape with her mouth.

"One day, we'll finally see change," Forest Fire suddenly spoke up from behind Busy and Blank.

The two Primary Candidates turned to face Forest, then turned back.

"And one day, we'll give you that change, my friend," Blank replied... surprisingly wholesomely.

"We'll make Equestria great ag–"

"Wait, you guys actually think you'll rival Celestia in some kind of election?" Bit Rate piped up, pushing her glasses up onto her nose again. It seemed that, somewhere, way way deep down, she had enough of an attention span to pull herself away from her game, question the oddities meeting her for at least two seconds, then go right back to her favorite pastime without even hearing the answer.

Busy flailed a hoof, "Pfft."

"You're literally nobodies," Field Goal chimed in, eyes narrowed in scrutiny, attempted understanding of the big words Platinum Team had just been using, and probably the sun being in her eyes. Duck immediately realized: the clouds were pretty dense today. Scratch that last part.

Busy shut her eyes and placed a hoof against her collarbone. "Please. I could stand in the middle of Manetgomery Street and shoot somepony, and people would still give me their vote."

Thankfully, Pine Needle hadn't had her morning brew yet, or she would have spewed a large brown cloud of it all over the back of Sweet Tea's head.

Blank glared. "Nice execution."

"You'd know about executions, wouldn't you?" Busy fired back. Blank received, then threw her hooves over her mouth in a gargantuan gasp.

Busy chuckled to herself, then took a few steps forward to situate herself kind-of in the middle of the class' unintentional viewing circle. Looking down, she matted her tie neatly against her chest—either not caring or not realizing it instantly fell back down again—and stared at the floor, eyes shut. She smirked. "I... heh," she began, looking up and casting her sights around the area. "I'd like to share something with you all."

Graham, next to Duck and in the middle of simply walking out, screwed up her face as if ingesting an entire box of ripe lemons, spitting them back out, then downing a can of sardine juice and pickle residue. 

"Yeah?" She sounded very hesitant to play along.

Busy was quiet for awhile. Then, she puffed out her chest like the balloons attempting to break through the roof over her head and, bringing up a hoof to her side, pumped it vigorously. Excitedly. Triumphantly.

"I have a dream!"

The class was silent.

Duck, fading in and out of tuning the whole thing out—mainly because there, admittedly, might always be something mildly (read: mildly) useful in these rants—suddenly raised her ears to the sky. Wait... she just said what?

What?

"What?"

Busy, having apparently expected an enormous round of deafening applause, bone-crushing hugs, words of colossal approval, and tears and happiness and agreement from everypony watching, eeped as, about to go further into her plagiarized speech, she was interrupted by the hoot and whistle of a pony from across the station. The class all whipped about, a few frantically searching for the source, until all settled on the train ticket booth. Inside, waving goodbye to the previously-quiet-to-the-point-of-unrealized-presence customer—who bit down on her train ticket, grabbed her suitcase, and took a seat as far away from the high school class as she ably could—was a middle-aged stallion wearing a newsboy cap and sipping from a cup of what Duck assumed to be water, then smelled to be something alcoholic. She cringed at the forbidden scent.

"Are you all part of the team? Thought your Lead sent out invitations to their little party a week ago."

Mrs. Red opened her mouth and raised a hoof.

"Agh, no matter," the stallion unknowingly waved her off with his own, "you guys missed it anyway. Pretty damn good welcoming party, if you ask me. Ruby brough t out some of her vintage hot dogs again, coffee shop just down the ways came by with donuts and Joe, and we even cracked open a pinata!" Having ended with an upward inflection, and a lifting of his head almost to the roof of his little kiosk, he settled back down and coughed into a hoof. "Dunno why anypony would want a pinata full of eyepatches and 'doubloons'," he added with a flexing of two forelegs, "but whatever helps them win. Only had it all for about half an hour. Would've liked some more dogs, too."

So... Baltimare held a Welcoming Party kind of intended for Ponyville... but only for half an hour, and only really celebrating themselves before straight up leaving never to be seen again...? Was this a Welcoming Party or one of Duck's Birthday Parties? 

The stallion pointed a hoof back behind him without looking its way. "You guys heading for them? They already left to set up for today's match. Went back down, uh..." He aptly thumped a foreleg on the counter in front of him, scratching his scruffy chin, "...think, back down... back down Lee Street toward Bellmount a ways."

Duck cleared her throat.

"Actually, sir, we're part of the Ponyville Horsepowers."

"HAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA!"

Duck backpedaled hard, raising a foreleg, dropping her ears against her head, and making a little scared Duck noise.

"HAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA!" The stallion continued, reaching up to something above his head.

"HAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA!" The stallion went on still, grabbing hold of some kind of handle.

"HAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA!" The stallion still laughed, pulling down the shutter of his kiosk.

SLAM! went the kiosk.

From behind the metal cover, one could still hear him.

"HAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA!"

If there was anything she could hide under and forever remain forgotten by the world, Duck couldn't quite find it at the moment. One day, though.

She rubbed at one of her forelegs absent-mindedly, deprived of her escape.

Flurry sucked her lips between her teeth.

Arco braved a smile, not letting it set in.

A single sweat drop poured down his forehead, cascaded over his nose, and hung there like an icicle.

Don't let it set in.

Before Duck could awfully explain, showcase, and describe the rest of her crew for no reason so as to keep up equality and not leave anypony out because in doing so she'd be slightly mean and that's not really that nice even if doing so was a bit of a drag and kind of boring and stupid and dumb and lazy and predictable and a bunch of other things, Mrs. Red stuttered in an obvious attempt to detrack their minds from racing off the nearby hill and plunging into a deep dark hole someplace.

"W-Well!" She bounced with the tried word, then, turning her head, faced her class' tanks lying in the grass next to the train car. "Looks like they're done unloading your tanks, everypony!" She swished back around as if in a dance, causing the skirt-like lower half of her military uniform to whip about in the air. "Get down there and start your check-ups! We'll be leaving for the playing field shortly!" Giving them all a rehearsed salute that only a few of them returned, she smiled. "Dissss-missed!"

At that, the Tankery class rose their hooves with assorted mumbles and murmurs and began to walk down the length of the locomotive that had brought them in toward the back end. Thereafter, they hopped down onto the track, crossed it, and, finally crunching grass and dirt under their hooves, started toward their respective vehicles. As the crews began to part temporary ways, Duck heard the hurried sounds of hooves catching up to her, and barely had time to mentally prepare her body for Graham's touching her shoulder and excited quip.

"Man, if only we'd gotten here sooner!"

And then they could have been laughed at in person! Graham was right: that was way better!

"Eh," lazily went Bluebell, proceeding to first trot alongside Duck—which scared her—and then past and in front of Duck—which worried her.

"Somepony's grumpy this morning," Flurry started.

"You're such a hypocritic, by the Gods," Arco noted, shaking his head. "I literally woke you up like three times on the train ride here and all three of those times you hissed at me like a friggin' cat."

"I was studying for a test last night, Arco," she spat, then, realizing she'd actually dirtied Arco's neck, made a small apology and wiped it with a handkerchief she produced from her jacket. As she cleaned him, Arco rolled his eyes.

"You do realize you didn't have to study for a test you weren't taking, right? We were barely at school today."

Flurry pursed her lips, pulling the cloth back toward herself as if Arco's life depended on its saving grace. "I forgot!"

"Are tests a euphemism for something?" Graham asked, giggling like a madmare at Flurry's immediate beet reddening.

Euphe-what? Duck... was a little embarrassed to admit she'd never heard that word before. Although judging by Flurry's deep frown and sneer, it wasn't something kind. Or good. Really, neither. She'd have to avoid asking Graham later.

"Get into the damn tank, Graham, and pray to Celestia, Luna, and my mother I don't suddenly swerve to the right."

Roaring with amusement, Graham rushed past Duck, who turned her head at the sudden pitter-patter in the grass and watched as the Pegasus hopped up onto the Comet's left side skirt, swayed there for awhile on her hindlegs—manically windmilling her fores around to keep her balance—and finally pulled her ex-Machine Gunner hatch open before snaking herself inside rear-first. Flurry, lightly fluttering her wings, let out a yawn, shook her head, and opted on just going around the entire tank to climb inside her Driver's hatch, starting the Comet up just as Bluebell opened her Loader's hatch in the turret's roof and moved to jump inside. Arco, needing a second of quiet to realize the turret order, mouthed a quick, "Whoops," flashed Duck a grin, and jumped up onto the turret with two precise jumps. Throwing open the Commander's cupola, he backed himself up over to the edge, looked down, and dropped inside with a thud that was dulled by an... accessory the five of them had went out and bought earlier in the week, among other things.

As the sounds of him sliding over to get into his Gunner's seat reached Duck—who began crawling up to the top of the Comet herself—Arco's voice came, too.

"Yeah, that pillow was a good idea, Bluebell."

"Hmph."

"Good call!" went Flurry from her muffled position.

Silence.

Either Bluebell had just given Flurry—or Arco, or both—a quiet glare, or she was stuck on her salty retort again.

Duck, falling down into her Commander's position, sat on her haunches and steadied herself by grabbing onto part of her cupola's inner handles. Shaking her head, she suddenly realized she'd just joined her crew's conversation.

"We just gave you a compliment, and nothing?" Arco asked, his face all wrinkly and screwed up.

Bluebell leaned back, causing her Loader's seat to squeal in her wake. She crossed her arms and looked away.

Arco sighed.

"I think Bluebell's from Baltimare," came Flurry from the front, turning at the hip to address them, "probably just doesn't wanna fight her old town..."

Bluebell lit up at once, then looked to her right on the shelf next to her and grabbed her Loader's gloves from next to the smoke grenade launcher. Putting them on, she simply claimed, "Nope. Just don't wanna lose thanks to a Pumpkinhead."

Even inside her well-armored tank, Duck's rainclouds still managed to hover over her head and begin a steady torrent.

Barely half a split-second passed before Flurry's eyebrows crossed dangerously. "Watch it, you heartless whale."

Bluebell gutturally growled, but, realizing there was another pony nearby, turned her head to the left and past the destruction she'd already wrought. 

"Aren't you mad, too?" She asked.

Arco, clearly not paying her any attention, continued adjusting his Gunner's sights. Only after a few quiet seconds—disturbed by the Comet's idling engine—did he finally go, "Hmm?"

Bluebell looked to her left—at Duck—and her right—at Flurry. "Y-You know... a guy fighting in Tankery? That thing that nopony's ever done before? You'll be a laughing stock on that screen." She turned back around, face tinted with heat, and began to fiddle with nothing in particular. "Probably won't get laid anytime soon either..."

Arco snickered, still looking into his optics. He shook his head. "I'm not too worried about that, Bluebell."

"All right! Start 'er up!"

Duck's ears involuntarily stood straight up, much-too-perfectly mirroring her much-too-well-rehearsed movements as she hoisted herself up through her open cupola and back out into the cold noonish air not-too-helped by their current location, if just to catch a fresh breath and get away from the argument below her. A hoof moved forward to the lever at her chest to idly rotate herself around in her position, but joined the other that had thumped on the turret's roof to clutch at the pits of her forelegs and try stopping her little shivers from greeting her so harshly as they did. 

All around her, the sounds of her team's crews toiling away at their respective vehicles began to rise up in volume once more, heckishly filling her ears with clanging metals, swinging hatches, and mechanical turret whirs, each being accompanied by little tidbits of dialogue concerning whatever was on all their minds, be it the weather, their tank, Sweet Tea's butt apparently, and the upcoming match ahead of them all. She instinctively sniffed the air, then recoiled once she realized what was now plaguing her nostrils. Crinkling her muzzle, she suppressed the sneeze that was aching to come out of her and stole a glance at Mrs. Red, who was in the middle of a conversation regarding Puddinghead Team's roof-mounted MG, if her pointing at the weapon and clear mouthing of ".30 caliber" meant anything. The crew stole quick glances at their M5 Stuart here and there, as if worried it would overhear their discussion and feel betrayed at the level of attention it and the rest of the class' tanks had received earlier in the week.

It had only taken a day or two for the class to feel satisfied with their names, and were already—proudly—toting them around like their first gun by Wednesday's time. The Jocks seemed to be infatuated with Hurricane, noting its chaotic nature and just what their tank could do... even if they hadn't had the skill or know-how to unleash it all yet. The Hipsters began to grow attracted to Pansy, calling it an ironic name that they, fittingly, ironically loved, even saying that they'd be "underestimated by any team with a name like it!" The Nerds giggled every time somepony called for Puddinghead. They clearly enjoyed it. The Candidates were all grins and hums whenever they were addressed as Platinum for obvious reasons. And her own crew? Honestly, she was glad that the whole class liked the idea of their names, but the added fact that all four of her crew members loved being called Cookie Team only made her happier she'd spoken up for once. She also enjoyed first Graham's joke about making a rule that they always have a box of cookies inside, then Flurry's unexpected plastic bag full of cookie boxes that they'd been munching on from time to time between maneuvers.

It was also very quick for someone—actually herself—to suggest crew emblems to put on their tanks a la... well, tanks. While Vanilla Pudding immediately went to work sketching things out that went along with each crew's name, the crews themselves also immediately—like there were no words for how fast it was—began bickering about what dumb thing to put on their vehicle. Even Pansy Team, who shared more common interests than the other crews, were on the fence about three different album covers from three different ponies. After about five minutes or so of a heckish noise that Duck wanted only to drown out, Vanilla hopped up from the garage floor and displayed what she had made. A few murmurs, mutters, pouting, and sulking—most of which was actually genuine—everypony relented. The rest of the period that day was spent making the outlines of their new emblems and then filling them with color.

Vanilla was in charge of overseeing the operation, being the only real artist in the class, but Hurricane Team—as stubborn as they came, which was quite a bit—decided they could do it themselves, and ended up with a monstrosity that they constantly, bitterly defended. One of the first ones Vanilla finished was Puddinghead Team's, and, looking at it now, it was a really impressive first impression. Situated right in the middle of both sides of the hull, the familiar pink P bisecting the gray horseshoe of the Ponyville Horsepowers sat ignorantly nobly, clearly not realizing what team the logo was currently—regarding both the past and present—attached to. On top of that, on both the left and right side of its turret near the front, was a painting of Chancellor Puddinghead's famous hat, highlights and shines and shadows and all Gods it's good Duck didn't end up taking Art if this was her competition. The Stuart's crew had been stubborn on Vanilla's placement of the emblems. After all, it couldn't get in the way of their mees still grade-school-like smeared all across the hull. Right now, a bearded pony squating low to the ground in front of a green screen was telling her to, "Just do it!" She grimaced, hating how slightly inspirational that was.

Pansy Team, working like an assembly line, picked shells out of a large crate sitting in the wet grass by way of Sweet Tea, grabbed it with an adjustment of Candle Light's glasses, lifted it up into Vanilla Pudding's waiting—and now straining—hooves, and carefully dropped them into the Cruiser's turret's left hatch, where the presumed Pine Needle received them and placed them snugly into their metallic holders. On the front step of the Cruiser was the Horsepowers logo; on a vigorously insisted single side of the turret, a honeybee yellow, polished gold, and vibrant purple pansy sat elegantly. Whether it was painter's bias or not, their emblem definitely looked the sharpest.

Just as her own crew had finished early, Hurricane Team was entertaining themselves by forming a loose attempt at a circle and tossing a Hoofball to each other, their forelegs like trebuchets and their aim like Griffonia's Stoßtruppen. A chuck from Lily, to Hail, over to Peanut, above Whipgrass' head, and over to Field as they all laughed their deep, chortle-y laughs. Despite, their Tiger's hatches were open—letting in the morning mist—and their engine was dead silent even as everypony else's was now idly chugging away. Guided by the provided stencil, their Horsepowers logo looked fairly decent lying on the sides of their hull. However, the golden lightning bolt crudely, possibly-most-definitely-very-assuredly arthritically painted on the 88mm left a lot more than a little to be desired.

Platinum Team, already arguing about something despite the odd camaraderie she'd seen earlier, stood at the left side of their SOMUA, jabbing their hooves at the platinum, gem-encrusted crown painted on both cheeks of the tank's 47mm cannon and yelling something about it being slightly to the left, according to Busy, and slightly to the right, according to Blank. Forest just didn't want to have anything to do with it whatsoever, claiming that crowns were for rulers, and she didn't like those one bit. The large white 82 on the left of the turret remained from its proposed Prench service (something that actually kind of impressed Duck, considering they had to paint their tri-color scheme around the letters without going over the lines), and as did the newly-stenciled Horsepowers logo printed out on both sides of the front end where Blank, the Driver, sat. On the hull hatch facing Duck, she could see a red donkey crossed out by a blue X and replaced with a blue elephant, which itself was crossed out by a smear of yellow paint and covered with a golden leaf. Honestly, there were a lot more reservations about seeing just how Platinum Team worked in battle than curiosity. No telling what went on inside that tank.

Finally, with the Horsepowers logo easily being placed on either side of the front step next to both Flurry's and Graham's hatches, Vanilla had free reign—and Cookie Team's input—on where to put their emblem. After quite an internal conflict that, by the end, left the poor artist sweating, they'd all stared up at the tank from the grass and smiled at Vanilla's hard work. Duck especially, who was on the verge of exploding with giddy laughter and tackling Vanilla in a hug for doing such a good job. She'd done a good job of restraining herself, and as the class went to leave that day, she and Vanilla both left a puddle of sweat behind. A much-too-well-detailed chocolate chip cookie—more like a chocolate chunk actually—stood out proudly on the sides of the turret where the crew's squadron marking would usually go.

Duck hummed to herself, trying her hardest to ignore Bluebell still talking inside the turret below.

She really liked how the cookie looked.

"Duck?"

"Guh!"

She started in place, clenching her hooves, then stopped, blinked twice in rapid succession, and turned left, then down to find Mrs. Red staring up at her, clipboard over her eyes.

"I've gotta head over to the stands, now. Will you be okay heading over to the zone?"

Duck raised an eyebrow.

"Um... aren't you going to come with us to the center?"

Mrs. Red shook her head, and Duck promptly peeled her ears back.

"You can do it, Duck, don't worry."

Duck brought up a hoof, pointing it at the other crews who were still in the process of preparing. "B-But, what if they..."

Mrs. Red chuckled. "They're much too far into this to back out now. They won't put up a fuss if there's a lot at stake."

Helps. Thanks, ma'am.

Still noticing Duck's very happy expression, Mrs. Red tapped the side skirt of the Comet. "Go show them what we're made of, Duck. You can do this." She took a step back, puffed out her chest, and saluted her. Duck, unable to stop her response, returned the gesture. Turning around and beginning to walk away, Mrs. Red paused, looked back at the young mare, and added, "Good luck," before trotting away toward an Army Jeep waiting by the train station.

She watched Mrs. Red go awhile until, hearing static near her, she reached downward and grabbed her hoofheld radio and headset. Placing the latter over her ears and clutching the former tightly, Duck adjusted her position and placed her left foreleg on the roof as if to place her cheek in it. After a bit of white noise, crackling, and odd noises, Graham finally fixed the transmission channel, and the Ponyville Horsepowers began to speak clear as day.

"Ahhh, allllll right guys! Let's do this! Pansy Team, reporting in. We're dammit Candle put the book away ready to, hah, go when you are!"

Duck nodded, looking over at the Cruiser as Vanilla pulled her Driver's hatch shut and let it crash in the speakers. She shut her eyes a second and shook. The whole thing of hearing it and seeing it was always met with slight difficulty, to be honest.

"Puddinghead Team here. Ready to head out, just... let me... fix this here, there we go. Hey, Plastic, headphones out, we're gonna go soon."

"This iiiiis Platinum Team speaking. As soon as you all are done, we'd like to get going as soon as possible."

Duck frowned.

"Hurricane here! Let's kick some ass!"

"Whoooo!"

"Yeah yeah!"

"Let's go get 'em!"

From inside the Comet, Duck heard Graham call, "You want me to mute them, Duck?"

She'd considered it for longer than she would've openly admitted. "No, Graham, that's okay." 

She cleared her throat, realizing how dry it was. She'd have to dig into the water bag as they headed out. Wiping her mouth with a hoof, she shrugged her shoulders to and fro, popped her neck, and, after sucking in a sharp breath and letting it back out, held the button on the side of her radio.

"Okay, everypony. If we're all ready, we'll be moving toward grid space E5 on your maps." She heard the sounds of rustling as she began, and had to suppress a smile knowing they were all actually listening to her for the first time. She coughed. "We spent a few days on map reading, but I'll take lead this time around to help you all out. Just follow me, and we'll get to our destination."

"Where we headed, Duck?" Pine Needle asked in between swigs of her fresh coffee.

"Be-uh, before every match, the participating teams meet up at a designated Meeting Grounds to shake hooves, introduce themselves, and learn the rules if it's an early match or some kind of exception."

Hurricane Team was being eerily quiet. Surely they would have cackled at her single screw-up by now.

"All right, then," went Busy Body.

"Lead the way," Bit Rate said.

"Let's go already," Lily impatiently, finally, piped up.

"Right behind you, Lead," Pine affirmed.

Duck nodded, even though nopony else could see it. She steadied her breathing, arched her back to look around one final time, then nodded again. She brought up her radio. "All right, everypony." In. Hoooo. Out. "Let's get moving." Keeping her radio-grasping hoof outside, Duck crouched down to look at her crew, expecting worried, angry, or even scared looks. Instead, all four of them—even Bluebell—were brandishing determined expressions on their faces.

"You ready, Duck?" Arco asked.

"Let's show 'em what we're made of," Bluebell exclaimed.

"Ready when you are," Graham sang.

"We can do this, Duck," Flurry beamed.

They believed, so...

...

...so did she.

She nodded aggressively, then poked her head back out and held down the button once more.

"All right, Flurry, move forward."

CA-CHUNK!

VROOM, VROOM!

CHK-BROOOOOO!

The Comet, kicking up big cakes of dirt and grass, began to crawl foward before stopping, neutral-turning ninety-degrees to the right, and pulling ahead again to head toward the Meeting Grounds. Keeping a steady pace they could all get up to, Flurry drove the Comet up over a small hill and down it, driving the whole team southward along the edge of Horseshoe Bay's coast. As the Comet's Christie suspension re-adjusted to the flat plains after straining from the crest, Duck placed both her hooves on the roof of the turret and directed her gaze backward.

As if from stage directions, all four of her team's tanks appeared over the hill, bellies exposed until crumbling down onto the ground and leveling with the dirt. 

Hurricane Team's navy blue Tiger H1, its turret moving about here and there as Field Goal, presumably, finished her procrastination on checking the traverse's status. The words of encouragement hastily painted all over the hull, turret, and even some of the roadwheels did a bit to settle Duck's shaking hooves and quivering stomach, but only a bit.

Pulling up at an angle alongside it, then suddenly turning just as it was about to crash right into them, Platinum Team in their glossy SOMUA S35 moved about like an indecisive snake, as if its crew was constantly getting into arguments about switching positions and bullying each other no matter what they took. Suddenly, its turret began cranking around, finally settling on staring right at Duck. She let out a little noise, startled, then glared as the turret went back down to face forward.

Constantly trying to slow down, then having to speed back up, was Puddinghead Team's M5A1 Stuart, the heavy winds whipping across the fragile, light tank and causing its taped mees to flutter violently with the gusts, with a few of them almost tearing across the middle. Duck had half a mind to let them know, but found herself unable to click the button on her radio. As it pulled forward yet again, Duck could see what looked to be a very... suggestive picture of a farmpony showing his rear for all to see... on the rear of the Stuart's 37mm. Was... was that Gunny Sergeant Big Macintosh?

On the Stuart's right—to Duck's right—was Pansy Team in their Cruiser Mark IV, slightly wavy but still maintaining... whatever formation they all thought they were doing. Duck had wanted a simple line at least before the match began, but they seemed to be more open to something similar to the letter 'D', with her at the top left side of the curve if it were placed on the ground curve-forward. Though the green-leaf pattern stretched across the cruiser tank's entire figure was more artsy than tactical, she certainly would have to double-take if she ever encountered it without knowing it was there, and even then she'd really have to look for it.

The new Ponyville Horsepowers continued moving along, engines roaring, turrets rotating, and, in Duck's case, hearts pounding like a drum.

They still had quite a drive until they reached the Grounds.

She rested her chin on her forelegs, and the wind bled through her mane as the morning sun reflected the water off each individual blade of grass.





"This grass is making my ass itch."

"Literally how is it doing that."

Pine shrugged at Candle Light. "It just is."

Candle rolled her eyes, then followed the gaze and stared to her right. "Ugh..."

Duck scratched her hoof idly.

D-Dang it.

Not to say that Duck was an impatient pony. Far from it, actually. If anything, whatever was bound to happen to her in her life should just not come at all. At least then she'd be stuck with the wonders of it all, rather than stricken with the effects. She'd been taught patience growing up, and had become quite a master of the "art" with further teachings at the Academy. She could stand at attention, chest puffed out, garisson cap on, uniform around her, and stance unmoving for as long as was needed. The only problem she had was her imagination, and expected failures that had become more than just a norm for her on the daily. She could stand for hours, sure, but after awhile, the only thing that would move her is worrying if she should've been standing there in the first place.

She stood even now, all four buttons of her school jacket fastened nicely, and her collared-shirt and tie combo underneath still being just at the brink of being a little too tight. Her mane, messy as ever, was collecting a substantial amount of heat, but blocking her face and keeping her from getting a bad-looking tan. Arco had made a few jokes about making toast with her hair while they stood around. He didn't make those jokes anymore. Mainly because it actually worked. Even as the only source of cold coming to her right now, the wind made Duck shiver and wish she'd brought a scarf or something similar to get warmer.

Flurry, in the meanwhile, was unfortunately feeling the opposite. Bits of her curly mane wer matted against her forehead; a few locks dangled over her eyes, which the Alicorn took notice of just now, glared at, and suddenly blew out of her way, panting quietly. Arco, next to her, shuffled uncomfortably, looking away as red as a desert rock. On the ground next to her were three crinkled, crumpled, empty bottles of water that had done very little to stave off the temperature. Duck opened her mouth to ask her friend if she needed anything as she had done so for the past twenty minutes, but, just as she had done so, shut it and kept quiet. She might be annoying her.

Graham, as well, wasn't faring too well, but was far better off than Flurry was. The only source of her discomfort was her thick Pegasus fluff, which she'd told the rest of them caused her to heat up pretty easily. She also admitted that she... hadn't really thought about the whole being-inside-a-cramped-hot-tank-for-a-long-time thing before joining them, and though she was still adamant that she'd made the right choice, the package of water bottles was mostly kept up near the front of the Comet for her and Flurry to use.

The five of them stood in front of the Comet, with the rest of the class doing the same for their own respective tanks. Hurricane Team's Hoofball manners finally showed themselves as their crew put on straight faces and stayed quiet for the last half hour or so, only really straying from the task by looking around confusedly or curiously at the sudden, distant noise. Platinum Team, too, seemed to be employing their hobby's mindset, patting down their accessories and staring straight ahead as if waiting to swear in to the House. Even without their electronics, Puddinghead Team was being fairly quiet as they all waited, though Duck did happen to catch Bit Rate and Plastic Beach both looking around for their usual toys before, realizing their being out of line, going back to attention. Pansy Team looked to be in a trance-like state, eyes closed and chests moving up and down in time with each other. They were probably meditating. Hopefully, they were praying.

A tail flicked in her peripherals, and Duck dared a glance over to the Evade WC truck that had driven up about fifteen minutes ago, depositing what she quickly realized to be the two refs for the match today, one mare and one stallion. Dressed in Equestrian M14 jackets with black and white striped shoulder boards and donning HBT caps with the words Match Referee stitched on the front, they stood at attention in front of their converted ambulance, glaring like hawks with all the presence to match at the area that she and whoever Baltimare's Overall was would be standing as they greeted each other here shortly. Even while being a few feet away, they seemed to not even notice the Horsepower's presence. Duck shivered. If one of them even glanced her way, she might actually vomit.

Guh!

Oh. He was just checking his watch.

What an odd thing to have a stallion as a referee for a mare's sport...

VROOMMMMM!

An ear perked up. Duck sucked in a breath. Flurry, Arco, Graham, and Bluebell looked her way, then, realizing what she'd just heard, readjusted their posture and stood straight. The other crews, taking notice, did the same.

An engine... Continental R-975... 

Another. And another. One more? Two more!

Sure enough, just over the hill, the silhouettes of unknown tanks began to appear one by one until they totaled seven. At once, the indiscernible blob became a horizontal formation and, as they neared the center of the Meeting Grounds, and as what little sun could peek in through the clouds shone its rays, Duck gasped. Oh Gods she was so nervous oh Gods oh Gods oh Gods...

Kicking up a large cloud of dust, the Baltimare Galleons made their way over to the Ponyville Horsepowers, engines revving, turrets moving, and crews as well-disciplined as back at the Academy.

On the far left—Baltimare's right—was a peculiar tank: a Crumpish 3-Inch Gun Carrier trying its hardest to keep pace with the others, its max speed only being a meager 15 mph. The precursor to the legendary Crumpish Churchill series, it was equipped with a 3-Inch anti-aircraft cannon that could do quite a bit of damage to anypony unlucky enough to face it.

To its right, just as she'd predicted the engine had belonged to, was a Caneighdian Ram, the country's first tank. Based off the chassis of the Equestrian M3 Lee, it wielded a borrowed Crumpish 6-Pounder cannon and would have fared far better than the Lee over in Griffonia, but would have been pushed aside in favor of the M4 Sherman.

...and speaking of the oh-so-famous Sherman, right next to the Ram was one such tank, this one being an M4A2 if Duck was looking at it right. With the ordinary M2 L/32 cannon, but much better armor than the M4A1, it definitely wasn't an opponent worth shaking a head at.

On the far right was a tank that caused Duck to raise an eyebrow, then look at Puddinghead Team to find them narrowing their eyes. It was their M5A1's younger brother, the M3 Stuart, specifically an M3A3 with better protection, and more interior space to allow more rounds. Probably to be used as a scout, or a bug...

On its right side, a Yakyakistani T-26 1933 Model, fielding the 45mm cannon leagues greater than the 7.62mm machine guns of its older cousins. Painted in a hastily-made white camouflage, it must have just missed its chance to get into the Winter War, and looked completely out of place in the middle of the grassy field.

Next to it was a Griffonian Panzer II Ausf L, widely regarded as the country's most renowned recon tank, with major improvements over its past brethren on every front, namely in armor and engine power, while still wielding the same 20mm KwK 38 L55 cannon. Like the T-26, it was out of place in Baltimare's plains: dressed in Hinterhalt camouflage, it would be pretty darn easy to see if the need arose. 

Finally, right in the middle, was a Yakyakistani BT-7M, using a powerful V12 engine that gave it a lot more strength and range than the other BTs before it. Though its 45mm cannon would only give a bit more than a tickle to her Comet, it would devastate the lighter M5 and Cruiser. They'd have to be careful to avoid it.

...

There was something she'd missed upon first seeing the BT-7M, and only when it and the rest of its team stopped in line just as her own team had was she able to get a good look at what had caught her eye. It had been hard to tell if it was part of the tank, what with the trees far down behind them as they came up, but now, standing right in front of her, she could only blink.

What looked to be a large... brown... pole for lack of a better term was stuck into the back end of the tank, just behind the turret and sticking straight up into the air like a lightning rod. She looked at it every which way in an attempt to figure out just what it was, but, finding nothing really indicative, frowned.

"Is that aerodynamic?" asked Candle Light close by.

"Hell of a spoiler," Arco murmured next to her.

It was quiet for awhile as Baltimare's tanks began to first idle their engines, then completely shut them off.

The anticipation of what was to come was beginning to kill her.

Suddenly, each and every hatch on every tank but the BT-7M opened up, and, finally, their crews climbed, hopped, jumped, and leapt out from inside, landing in the dirt and staring at the Ponyville Horsepowers, murmuring all the while and giggling with each other mischievously.

Duck narrowed her eyes, studying their... outfits.

White button-up shirts underneath a brown longcoat. Nothing too out of the ordinary... except for the fact that, on top of that, many of them were wearing over-the-shoulder belts, satchels by their sides, sheathed scimitars at their hips, and, in a few cases, an... eyepatch, or a tricorne with... a... feather.

Duck bunched up her cheeks. "Um..."

Bluebell snickered, almost convulsing on the spot.

Flurry looked down and to her right, bringing up a hoof and quieting herself behind it.

Graham leaned over to Duck. Duck leaned over to Graham.

"Duck are we fighting pirates?" Graham asked quietly.

Duck only shrugged, then began to walk forward to take her place in the center.

BREE-THUNK!

"Hya!"

SWISSSSH!

Out of one of the top hatches of the BT-7M's turret came a large blur, which soared a few feet into the air and landed on the grass with a mighty THUMP! Puffing out its chest and placing a foreleg like an L across its breast, it gave them all a smirk and a growly hum. Finally, it opened its eyes—or, well, eye—and its mouth at the same time.

"Avast, ye dawgs!"

Duck blinked.

Somepony behind her simply went, "What."

The figure, which was now clearly an Earth Pony, reached up with a hoof, grabbed her black tricorne, and placed it over her heart as she bowed for a second. Duck, intending to return the gesture, suddenly let out a quick yelp as she heard something practically jump over to her and grasp her right hoof with a homogenous-armored grip, shaking it excitedly. Looking at what it was, Duck eeped.

"The name's Black Powder, lass, but you c'n call me Keg!"

Duck grinned sheepishly, looking for a way out... or underground. The hooves fell back to Earth. "Um... Duck Bill..."

Black Powder, or Keg, excuse her, bellowed into the air like a bird, "Aha! That be a fine name! I'll make sure ta cook one of ya tonight in your honor!"

"Guh..."

Keg opened her mouth to talk further, but was halted from doing so as the two referees finally remembered their mortality and stepped forward, blowing a devastatingly loud whistle even though nopony was doing anything wrong. Clenching her ears shut but maintaining her composure, Duck cleared her throat and propped up her ears to listen.

"Good afternoon, Team Leaders!" The mare started, her pleasant greeting marred by her still very-angry expression. "Today marks the first match of this year's Tank Warudo competition, pitting the Ponyville Horsepowers—led by Duck Bill—against the Baltimare Galleons—led by Powder Keg. This match's outcome will determine who will move on to face tomorrow's victor to the West, be it the Cloudsdale Storms, or the Appleloosa Tumbleweeds. As per tradition, the first match type has been determined beforehand. Referee Water will explain."

The mare stepped back, allowing the apparent Referee Water to take her place. He wiggled his mustache around as he worked his jaw, then finally barked, "This... will be an Obliteration Match!"

Duck seethed. Hard to lose, but hard to win as well.

"The rules are simple: your team must defeat all tanks of the opposite team to win. Once all tanks have been destroyed, immobilized, or otherwise rendered inoperable, the team is defeated, and the other wins immediately. I repeat, the match does not end until every tank of one team has been defeated. Do you understand?"

Referee Water first looked at Duck, his brown eyes staring deep into the depths of her soul.

"Yes, sir!" she shouted.

Referee Water gave Keg a sideways glance.

"Aye, sir!"

Referee Water closed his eyes and let out a quiet sigh, then opened them once more and looked at both teams with swishes of his head.

"Team Leads, please shake hooves."

Duck stepped forward. Keg did the same.

Hesitantly raising up her hoof, Duck watched as Keg immediately grabbed an entire hold of it and shook it strongly with a grin.

"Best of luck, Commander Duck Bill."

Duck nodded.

"Good luck, Commander Keg."

They put all fours back onto Earth.

"If all is settled, you may head to your designated starting zone and wait for the match to begin. Good luck, everypony. Dismissed."

Duck, turning back around, instantly began to catch words in her team's hushed conversations that, as she grew closer to her own crew, came into light.

"Did you see that?" Lily asked, covering her mouth with a hoof so the Galleons couldn't see.

"Their Leader?" Bit Rate cocked her head, scratching the back of her neck absent-mindedly.

"Duh!" went Primrose, shoving an elbow into her Commander's side.

"Their Team Leader can't see squat with that eyepatch!" Pine Needle giggled, throwing up her hooves into the air.

"Cake," came Busy Body, humming to herself pleasantly.

"One-eyed pirate is going down!" spouted Field Goal, pumping a hoof with the rest of Hurricane Team.

"Oh-ho, we've got this in the bag!" Peanut Brittle exclaimed, already hopping up onto the Tiger and taking her Loader's position. Taking the hint, the rest of the Horsepowers began to clamber up and enter their respective vehicles, starting their varied engines up and waiting for Duck to lead them to their starting point. Duck, in the meanwhile, was already shaking her head at her team's cockiness, praying that they'd wash it away before the match started. Remembering Feenuhlay against Yakyakistan in the Never War, there was never, ever a good time to underestimate somebody, no matter how ridiculous they seemed. The Baltimare Galleons might have very well had a few tricks up their long sleeves, and Duck wasn't looking to see their hand.

Climbing back up onto the roof of the Comet after both Arco and Bluebell took their places, she dropped down into her makeshift seat and realized she was shaking like an autumn leaf in the air outside. Clenching and curling her hooves to stop herself, she steadied her breathing and turned to get a cup of water from next to her. Oh Gods oh Gods oh Gods oh Gods... mmp, aaah... oh Gods oh Gods oh Gods...

"We can do this, Duck!"

Duck widened her eyes, looking wildly around for the voice. As expected, Graham was leaning around in her Radio Operator's position, brandishing a large grin.

Unable to help but crack a small, almost absent smile, and almost believing it, Duck nodded to herself rapidly, grabbed hold of her radio, and crawled back out of her cupola to face the chill winds once more. The Galleons, seemingly a lot faster at all this than her, were already turning around and heading toward their starting point, the BT-7M in the lead. Breathing in and out calmly, Duck depressed her button.

"All right Flurry, let's head out."

VROOMMMM VROOOOM!

"Everypony, on me."

"Roger that!"

"Right behind you!"

"All right."

"Of course."

With that, the Comet pulled forward, juttered her in her place, and began rolling toward their own starting point at grid square B2, up toward the Northwest in the direction of the train tracks back in Baltimare proper. The Galleons, starting at H8, were along the coastline, with free reign to head right into the dense forest covering up a slight margin on the lower left part of the match's playing area. They'd have to be fully aware of a brush ambush, but also take caution with the large amount of hills, plains, and fields creating heckish bumps all along the environment like the inner countryside of Prance just past Normanedy.

They'd have to be ready.

She just hoped that she was.





"Now where was..."

Arco flicked an ear then, realizing he'd fogged up his optics again, reached a hoof up, swung his jacket's sleeve out to cover the end, and wiped the lens, leaning over and asking toward the front, "Where was what?"

"What're you looking for?" Graham asked, turning around in her seat and moving her shoulder around idly.

Flurry hummed to herself, horn lighting up and beginning to lift things off the floor between the front step where she and Graham sat, and the turret housing where Duck, Bluebell, and Arco sat. A screwdriver here—which she disregarded in an instant and put back—a piece of crumpled paper there—which, after holding it up to the light, squinting her eyes at it, and attempting to unfold it, was quickly snatched out of her magic by a red-faced Bluebell, who grumbled nothings to herself and stuffed it into one of her pockets—and, eyes widening and lips smiling, a crinkling plastic bag that caused her to go, "Aha!"

She pulled up the bag, its rather basic looking logo accompanied by a little elf pony

The likewise clear, molded plastic tray previously bearing the entirety of its contents slipped out with a SSSSSS THUNK that wibbled and wobbled as it bounced off the interior floor of the Comet. Flurry, still holding the cover in her magic, bunched up her cheeks and gave Duck a telling look.

"Duck how many cookies have you eaten since we got here?" She asked in one breath.

Duck, who'd been captivated in a certain kind of pausing transfixion, chewed for a second, bits of fudge mint cookies getting on her collar. She wiped them away. Honestly, she was surprised herself, mainly because she hadn't vomited at all.

Arco, looking down as well, reached to the floor and picked up his own bag.

Empty.

"By the Gods..."

"She ate two whole bags," Graham muttered, as if realizing some kind of Earth-shattering fact that would change the face of the universe forever.

Duck clenched her shaking hooves, looking for a free water bottle to calm her nerves. It was as if she was fully shaved and forced to dive right into a Yakyakistani lake in the dead of winter at night as a form of harsh punishment. She was just so cold. A deathly shiver worked its way from her gut and up into her throat as she searched for the words, speaking them smally, "...I was hungry..."

Bluebell, her hindlegs kicking about like usual whenever she was bored, or not doing anything, or needing something to do apart from scribbling quotes on their shell casings, suddenly crinkled a peculiar-sounding object beneath her wake. "Ohp, hold up," she said, reaching down—which, in her location, combined with the general tightness and awful spacing, made the action look a lot more stressful than Duck thought she could ever handle—and fishing for what she'd touched. Grunting, she held up her own plastic tray. "Make that three."

Arco chuckled. "Du-uck, those were supposed to be celebration fudge mints."

Graham's eyes went wide. "Oh Gods no..."

Flurry burst into a big grin. "Guess what that means, guys!"

Bluebell, pupils shrinking to pinpricks, spun around, looked past Duck, and stared at Flurry. She frowned deeply. "No no no no no."

Arco grit his teeth suddenly, yanking his head back—barely an inch from thumping the hard ceiling again—and clutching the back of his skull with both forelegs. "Nooooooooo!"

Flurry, giggling like a schoolfilly (a younger one, mind), pulled out her schoolbag, opened ups it main flap, and, with a magical spotilight surrounding it, brought out her own plastic bag.

"It's wafer time, guys!"

Duck blinked, still quietly hyperventilating.

...

...what kind of wafers?

"I think if we all rush her, we can overpower her," Arco hurriedly, in a half-whisper, spoke with Bluebell and Duck next to him.

Flurry, craning her neck around and placing a hoof next to her ear, acted, "What? What was that? Did you guys say 'overpower me'?"

Arco waved her off. "No no, of course not! We love wafers, Flurry!"

"Because you know I can totally isolate what you just said and take you to court, right?"

"Guh!" Arco gasped. They'd been clearly joking around before, but it seemed that this one actually touched the stallion a bit.

Flurry blinked. "A young stallion, talking about overpowering a young mare? Without her permission? Very, very bad, Arco..."

"Holy shit, shut up," Bluebell spat, about ready to jump out of her seat... even if, as Duck looked at her in the lighting peeking in through the slits of her cupola, the Unicorn was a bit red in the face as well.

"Bluebell!"

"Language!" Flurry growled, tilting her head Duck's way.

Bluebell threw her hooves into her hips. Bringing the right one up and waggling it as she went, she argued, "Ummm, phrasing, Flurry!"

Flurry frowned, craning her neck back as if attempting to escape a webpage she didn't mean to click on.

Arco looked at her. "Are we still doing phrasing?"

Graham cocked an eyebrow. "Did we... start?"

"Like half an hour ago–"

CRRRKT!

Duck, waving her hoof around, silently quieted the others down so she could hear what was about to come next. Graham speedily whipped about to fiddle with the radio and make sure everything was working. If her admittedly poorly-maintained internal clock was still slightly functioning with even the tiniest of effort, the announcement that the match was to begin would be reaching them shortly, and she wanted to take full advantage of every second they had to find a good spot and either dig in, or head someplace else for a surprise attack. They'd been sitting there for about thirty minutes or so, waiting at their starting point of the match, and, hopefully, the other crews had followed her own team's example and went through a check-list of equipment, gear, and mechanics to make sure all was at peak performance. With her help, Graham checked off every time on their list pasted near her radio set: the engine, turret rotation, number of ammunition for both cannon and coaxials—the latter of which Duck realized they didn't need to worry about, with Graham not having one and Bluebell not even aware of the one in front of her face where she sat.

Her heart was pounding as she anticipated the starting call.

Through the white noise came a voice, and Duck sucked in a breath, feeling about ready to pass out from the suspense.

CRRRRRRRRRRKT!

"Hey, um, Duck?"

She blinked, then, letting go of the button on her radio a second, sighed. She depressed it thereafter. "Yes, Bit Rate?"

"What were we supposed to be doing again?"

"You mean ten, fifteen, minutes ago?" She asked without fully noting the venom in her voice.

Bit Rate actually swallowed, "We-Well, uh... yeah. Um... we just, I mean, uh... sorry."

Despite her whipping about of her mane, ignorance of it falling over her shoulder, and discontent hum to herself, Duck replied, "N-No, no, it's okay." Grabbing for the thrice-folded map next to her, she unfurled it and began studying it once more, the Meteor engine of the Comet bumping, jittering, and bouncing the paper as she placed it in her lap and bobbed her head to and fro. "If you wouldn't mind, I'd like you and your crew to go through your checklist I gave you. Make sure everything's in order, and tell me when you're done."

Bit Rate coughed a bit away from her microphone, the sound echoing inside the rather tiny M5's interior. Distinct tapping sounds, which Duck at first assumed to be Morse code, clicked and clacked as the transmission kept coming through. Somepony let out a long sigh, then groaned accompanying an obvious bout of stretching. Something thumped twice in rapid succession. A member of Puddinghead Team muttered in the background, "See?"

Tap.

"Ah, yeah, that's the one."

Tap.

"Pretty expensive though."

"Where'd you find it?"

"Oh, Casio showed me."

Duck cleared her throat.

"Guh!"

She tapped her radio. "Um... are you guys doing your checklist?"

FWOOP!

SHHHH!

FLIP FLIP FLIP FLIP!

Bit Rate coughed. "Uh, y-yeah! Um," again, she hacked, "hey uh, Autumn, engine good?"

"I dunno, feels like it."

"How's the gun, Primrose?"

WHIRRRRRR!

THUNK!

"Moving...?"

Seemingly realizing she'd been holding the transmission button down the whole time, Bit Rate let go of her radio.

CRKKKT!

"Oh Gods we're so screwed," came Bluebell next to her.

"Phrasing!" Arco jumped at the chance, pointing at Bluebell with a flash of his teeth.

Bluebell responded by slamming her hoof right into the wall next to her, not even flinching in the slightest.

"DAMMIT!"

"Hurricane Team, this is Cookie Team speaking, how are you guys doing over there?" Graham took over, thankfully. Duck wasn't sure she'd want to distract the Jocks from whatever unrelated thing they might have been doing. Probably... having a noogie party or... planning a... dorm invasion...?

What did risque kids do nowadays?

"Well, uh..." Whipgrass' voice came in on the speakers up front. Duck had put her headset around her neck, feeling it uncomfortably buzzing in her ear. She'd have to fix it after they were done. The sound of scratching meat came to her, and Duck involuntarily cringed. "...we went through your checklist and all, but..."

"Whipgrass can't read!" went Field Goal nearby.

"I can too! I just couldn't read, like, one word!"

"Yeah, it was traverse!"

"NOBODY USES THAT WORD EVERY DAY."

"Whipgrass is ill-i-terate!" Lily sang.

"Whipgrass is ill-i-terate! Whipgrass is ill-i-terate!" The others, besides, well, Whipgrass, joined in.

"Shut up!"

CRRRKKT!

Actually... remembering it still fresh in her head...

"Excuse me, Graham?"

The Pegasus looked back from her position in the front. She peered through the hole separating the two compartments. "Yeah, Duck?"

Duck tapped her headset. "My headset seems to be... buzzing for some reason. We might need to fix it." As well... "I noticed that the leader of the Galleons was wearing some kind of choker..."

Bluebell shifted in her seat. "Like the ones the insecure emo mares wear?"

Graham shook her head. "Those are throat mics. They pick up the vibrations as you speak, and are a lot clearer when you do so."

Duck blinked. How had she not heard of those? Oh Gods that's so embarrassing...

Bluebell seemed to notice the look on her face, and its telling story. "You were raised by Tankers."

Duck blinked.

Bluebell sighed, turning around and fiddling with her Loader's gloves again. She smacked her lips. "Figures. Go team."

"What's Pansy Team up to?" Flurry asked, as if she didn't already know the chakra-filled answer.

"Gimme a sec... here."

CRRKKKT!

"Hummmmmmmmm..."

"Hummmmmmmmm..."

"Mwaaaaaaaaah...!"

"Ohhhhh-waaaaaaaaa..."

CRKKT!

Flurry was quiet for awhile, contemplating some greater meaning. Why were they here? Were they the product of some cosmic coincidence, or was there really a group of Gods watching everything? With a plan for them, and stuff?

"Cool," she said simply.

Graham moved to switch over to Platinum Team's frequency. Flurry darted up in her seat.

"Don't you even dare."

A blink.

A turn.

"...and how, Busy Body, would you view this great nation?" Forest Fire asked calmly, her voice coming out much more booming at the moment.

It was quiet for awhile, and Duck looked over to see if Graham had already switched their radio back to normal.

Busy Body plucked at her lips. "I... now, people of Equestria, I have to admit, and disclose." Blank Check hummed disinterestedly, probably looking at pictures of money on her phone. "The... problem this country has, the biggest problem, is being politically correct. Being myself, I don't have time for political correctness."

"You made fun of a reporter the other day, Mr. Pee-See," Blank suddenly sneered.

"Show me the texts, Blank."

"What?"

"Show me the texts. Come on."

CRRKT!

Duck didn't even realize she'd buried her head in her hooves until her face began to get too hot to handle. Throwing her head back, and careful not to slam it against the wall behind her, she manically turned to her left, grabbed a little paper cup out of its packaging next to her, and began to pour water into it, which she greedily drank like a shot of whiskey.

That is to say, clumsily, with some spilling out of her mouth, and instant regret plaguing her system.

Bluebell, who would have definitely said something about the event, was interrupted as the rumbling of the Comet's engine finally toppled the plastic soda bottle Flurry had earlier, explicitly warned her would fall. Cursing to herself with a very naughty four-letter word, she leaned over, attempted to grab it off the ground physically, sat back in her seat with a sigh, then finally lit her horn and placed the bottle back onto the same counter bearing the tank's smoke grenade launcher. Oh, they'd forgotten to check that, hadn't they? It was on her checklist, she swore...

CRKKTT!

"Oh Gods, what now?" Arco fumed.

Somepony, clearly male, cleared his throat on the radio. Everypony sat up immediately.

This was it.

"Aaaaaatention match participants! The battle will begin in one minute! I repeat, you have one minute, everypony!"

CRRRKKT!

Like a wave, four other voices—accompanied by many behind them—suddenly burst into her ears, signifying the rest of the Horsepowers tuning in back to the team's main frequency. Graham, newly faced with a whole heap of gravy on her plate with no potatoes to be seen, frantically leaned forward and danced her hooves around knobs and dials to level everything again.

"Oh man, we've got a minute!"

"Our meditation is over. Everypony ready?"

"We're good here."

"Shelve the debate, if you would."

"All right, Candle, get ready to blow!"

"Phrasing!"

"Shut up, Pine!"

"We loaded?"

BREE-DOO-BREE-DOOOOOO!

"Did you seriously bring your melodica, Plastic?"

"Haha!"

"Ah damn, Nerds've got a player!"

"Hey, Plastic, you wanna play with us some time?"

"Whaddyou all play?"

"I'm harmonica. Vanila's guitar. Candle's banjo. Sweet Tea sings."

"Ugh."

"Buncha nerds."

"Yeah, not like you and your concussions and loss rate."

"Hey!"

CRRKKT!

"Thirty seconds until match start!"

CRRKKT!

"Anypony else's hooves shaking?"

Duck looked down at her's.

If somepony were to give her a pencil, and tell her to hold it or else something bad would happen, it would have already fallen by the time their first letter was formed with their mouth. Oh Gods she shouldn't have eaten those cookies... oh Gods she really didn't feel good at the moment... oh no...

"Scaredy-cat."

"Little queasy over here, actually."

Busy sucked in a long breath.

It was quiet on comms.

"What a lovely thing to see. The shakes of a nervous pony."

"Get loose, everypony. We'll be meeting with the Galleons shortly, and we don't need a stutter out there."

"Whaddyou think, Blank? Metropolitan society this time around?"

"Fair topic."

Busy hummed.

"Let's go have ourselves a debate."

CRKKKT!

"Ponyville Horsepowers!"

Duck held her breath.

"Baltimare Galleons!"

Her heart pounded in her head, deafening her.

This was it.

...this was it...

"...this match... has begun!"

As if sentient, the other crews' tanks' engines rumbled violently in response.

Throwing herself out of her cupola, Duck puffed out her cheeks, faced the harsh winds once more, and, winding back, threw out a hoof and jabbed it in the air in front of her.

"Panzerrrrrrr–"

"Get your paddles, girls!"

BROOM BROOM, BROOOOOOOOO!

Without warning, the Tiger lurched forward, immediately taking the lead and pulling up the position Duck's Comet was supposed to be filling. She grit her teeth, unable to speak as the other three tanks—mistakenly jumping the gun—began to follow suit behind the Griffonian monster. Already breathing rapidly, Duck knocked on the roof of the Comet's turret and yelled, "Flurry, take us forward!"

REWWWWWW, REEEEEEEEE!

Juttering forward unexpectedly, the tank about bumped right into the acting-caboose M5, pulling up from behind its right side and rolling alongside it. Duck, watched the Stuart keep a steady pace next to them. She lifted her hoof that was grasping her radio and depressed the button on the side. "Puddinghead Team, where–"

"We'll do recon!" Bit Rate giddily shouted. The Stuart, leaning backward as Autumn downshifted, kicked up more bits of grass and drove past the tanks still keeping a horribly-jagged formation she could barely call a line. As the dust settled, Duck blinked it away and waited for Flurry to pull up beside the SOMUA.

"Everypony, hold back! We need to think of a plan!"

"Plan?" came Busy Body, "I'll have you know planning is for the overly-prepared! What good's a long-winded plan if something suddenly comes up? Like, oh I dunno, a certain mare from Manehattan to ruin your campaign!"

The SOMUA, making a small, short, fat 'S' pattern in the grass, stayed on its left and began to crawl past the Cruiser.

"Pansy Team?!" Duck inquired, her head already growing icy cold. The team began to ascend a short hill; the SOMUA's engine puffed for just a second, stuttered, and began roaring again as the tank accompanied the rest of them. Puddinghead Team, though slowing down a bit, were still well a ways away from the rest of the class, easily thirty meters or so.

Pine smacked her lips, bringing Duck back to her headset. "All right, hear me out!" RUSTLE RUSTLE. "So there's the big-ass woods on the lower left, right? Why don't we just stop where we are and wait for them to come out from there? There's no way they wouldn't use it! We would!"

"That's because you're all a bunch of idiots," Whipgrass muttered. She tapped something thin, probably her own map. "Stay on the playing field an' don't go outta bounds. Let's just head right for them!"

"You don't just charge in," Busy Body attempted to state, very wrongly of course, "if we're gonna have a plan, why don't we just call in bombers and take them out before we get there?"

"That is literally not how Tankery works," Pine replied with a drone.

"What? Why not?!"

"You can't just keep pressing buttons on your dumb chair and bomb people!" Blank huffed, pulling levers here and there as the SOMUA indecisively changed directions.

"Watch me, sister!"

"Let's recon!" went Bit Rate.

Duck could barely even stop herself as she called, "No!"

Puddinghead Team slowed down again.

Oh by every God considered Holy and Undying, they were getting the Shakes!

They crossed a small dirt that seemed to stretch for miles in either direction, stomping over the various bushes and shrubs lining the trail as they passed and bumped up over small indents in the ground. Branches and leaves crunched and shook beneath their tracks, most notably from the leading Tiger, which was still in the lead. Pulling her map out from beneath her, Duck narrowed her eyes and examined its layout. Starting at B2, heading right and down... judging by the road on the map, they were currently somewhere between B3 and C3, favoring the latter as they continued moving Southwest in a scalene triangle of some kind crafted by a blind mare with no hooves. The wind whipped her hair around, and Duck took a second to brush a few locks out of her eyes before holding up her radio again.

Before she could even press her button, she was already stuttering and losing track of the words at the tip of her tongue. Sighing, exhausted, she shook her head and mumbled, "Oh Gods oh no oh Gods oh no oh no no no no..."

BRRRRRR-ROOOOOOOOO!

A pair of shadows shaded her for a second of her life, then passed along the ground and began to lead the Horsepowers toward their destination. Stealing a glance up, Duck watched as two B-24 Liberators buzzed overhead, almost wingtip to wingtip, and began to pitch over to their right and move more Westward so as to not give the Horsepowers' position away. Duck clenched her jaw. That was the Video Squadron, providing live video feeds from camera crews both both participating teams and displaying their footage on the viewing screens all across the country. The two Equestrian bomber planes straightened themselves out, then slowly became indiscernible black blurs amidst the thick gray cloud cover.

The wind stole her breath again, so she attempted to return to her own thoughts and not that of the match's announcers, who were surely saying ruthless, sarcastic comments better stuffed in a local mailbox with no stamp and shipped far, far away to end up in a ditch someplace to get buried by mud and snowfall.

"Oh what's this? Heh heh, looks like the Ponyville Horsepowers are, uh, havin' a bit of trouble here at the start of the match!"

"That you're right, commentator friend of mine who I can't remember the name of! It seems that they're pulling what my math teacher might have called a scalene triangle! Hey, commentator friend of mine who I can't remember the name of, you think they know Soh-Cah-Toa?"

"I don't think they know what a three point triangle even is!"

"Hahaha! And would you look at that, the ugly duckling of the Pumpkin family, not even leading her team into battle! Typical."

"You know her mother was adamant she be on the front lines when they entered Griffonia?"

"Same with Griffonia's Rommel! Gods, the bravery!"

"Certainly not shared with Ponyville's Overall, that's for sure!"

"Right you are, commentator friend of mind who I–"

SPLASH!

Duck recoiled as the Comet hit the small stream hard, spraying the thin line of running water up and into her face. Wiping her cheek with her right sleeve, she shook her head and had to hold on as her tank suddenly rolled up a sharp incline, then just as quickly slammed back into Earth and joined the others as they began to travel across a square of farmland surrounded by hedgerows and tall tree lines. A picket fence to their right told them to be careful with the owner's crops. Duck looked over at the Tiger just in time to see it knock over a scarecrow, send it in splinters behind it, and puncture a row of ripe pumpkins with sickening PSSSSS sounds.

Twin streaks trailed behind each tank, making an ice rink at an Olympic figure skating event look like foal's play.

Their engines roared, hissed, and sputtered like impatient animals—which honestly wasn't too unfitting a comparison—as if sensing unspoken rivalries between each other that needed to be made known at every possible second. Far and away to their left, yellow-green hills curved like bumps in a rice-infused chocolate bar, the sprawling city of Baltimare, its dock, and the open expanse of Horseshoe Bay's shimmering ocean glimmering brilliantly at them in the light gracing its hour as if beckoning them to abandon the match and take a dip for awhile.

The three vehicles in line with each other—that being Duck's Comet, which was nearing the front anyway, Platinum Team's SOMUA, and Pansy's Cruiser—overtook each other by mere centimeters to and fro, daring one of the others to break away at a breakneck speed and send the entire team running like headless chickens. Puddinghead's Stuart, seemingly bored, made S-patterns a ways away from them. Hurricane's Tiger, only able to pull 28 miles per hour out of its hefty V12, moved its turret around, assuredly because Field Goal was screwing with it again and not to actually scan the horizon for enemy activity.

The wind blew again, kicking up dust that joined their's and swept up high into the cloud layer still collecting over their heads.

And everypony was fighting.

"Go around, asshole!" Pine screamed.

"Never, you ungrateful millenial!"

"We're literally older than you!" Candle Light shouted, slamming her hoof around and eliciting a cry from Sweet Tea. Any more and she'd...

CHHH!

There go her glasses again.

"Shut up or I shoot!" Forest Fire threatened, beginning to crank the SOMUA's turret around.

"Don't act dumb!" Candle barked, cranking their own gun.

The Tiger stopped for just a second, then started back up again.

"Hey Lily, you mind not being a dickhead right now?" Pine snapped.

"Don't blame me, Woodstock, blame Hail."

"Hey, Hail, you mind–"

The Cruiser looked to be gaining speed, but it turned out that the Tiger had slowed down again before unhealthily powershifting back up to full capacity.

The sound of a hatch sounded over the radio, and Duck looked over to her left to find Pine Needle poking first her head and then her upper body out of the top of the Cruiser's main hatch. Furrowing her brow, and coughing at the rush of the air slicing into her skin, she shook an angry hoof and yelled, "Hey!" that Duck could hear on both her headset and next to her in the open.

Duck, shaking her own head, tapped the roof of her turret and ordered, "Flurry, increase our speed and get next to the Tiger!"

"On it!"

CHK-BROOOOOO!

The Comet veered to the left, unsteadily rolling alongside the Tiger H1's right side. Flurry must have been nervous about accidentally getting too far forward or trading paint that Hurricane Team would surely want back.

The hill that they'd been traveling along loyally began to become a descent, with both sides of it growing higher and higher until, as they all began to slow their speed down slightly so as to not go too fast, they were now sinking into a hybrid between a grassy mound in the Earth and a small valley of some kind, dense bushes dotted here and there in intervals on top and providing cover on their left and right from both the wind and anypony who could've been watching them. The other bumps in the plains around them stayed the same; they drove downward, heading toward a patch of forestry that Duck narrowed her eyes at but, realizing her current goal, directed her attention away from and back onto the Tiger.

Her voice was getting a taaaad bit higher-pitched now.

"Hurricane Team, listen! I think we need to make a proper plan before we head in!"

"Pfft, please!" She heard Lily reply almost instantly. A chair reclined somehow. "Look at us! We're in a Leopard!"

"Tiger," Duck corrected with a straight face.

"Same thing!" Lily shot back, "We're huge! What could possibly–"

BOOM!

All of a sudden, the left side of the Tiger burst into a cloud of flames and smoke, kicking the Griffonian Tiger a few inches up onto its right track and then back down onto the dirt trail with a deafening CLUNK! The Cruiser, right on its heels, stopped with a screech. The SOMUA, trying its hardest to roll up and overtake the Tiger beforehand, stopped what it was doing and disappeared out of Duck's peripherals. She couldn't even see the Stuart. Flurry yanked the two sticks back hard, causing the rear end of the Comet to raise up for just a second before lowering and helping the tank reverse a few inches.

At once, the flag on the back of the Tiger on the engine deck popped up.

SSSFICK!

"Holy hell!" Pine Needle cursed as the Cruiser began to backpedal in kind.

"They just got ammo racked!" Duck yelled... along with Graham. Though she had a million questions on her mind, she licked her lips and leaned over in her cupola to see if she could peer around the bushes for whatever had just taken down the Tiger, only to pull back and about stumble out of her position as another shell zipped past the front of the Comet and kicked up a thick cloud of loose dirt from the incline to her right.

Through the brush, she saw it.

The Caneighdian Ram sat in an open field just at the peak of a hill, its barrel newly smoking and staring right at them through the berry bushes.

She spoke without thinking, "Hurricane Team, are you guys okay?!"

Five coughs.

"Ugh, what in the hell?!"

"We're out?!"

"Damn it all!"

There were definitely more nearby. Darn it darn it darn it... the only way they could survive was fully turning the Comet around, giving the Ram enough time to plug them in the engine, stalling them with just one hit. 

She shook.

No, not the only way.

Her heart bursting in her eardrums and washing her head cold with ice water, she shouted above the ringing, "Arco, to our left, through the bush! Enemy tank, down a ways!"

The 77mm began to turn electronically, taking Duck's sights around and facing directly toward the lone Ram sitting idly by for their response. Stopping, the sounds of Arco's fine adjustments with the hoof cranks filled the area, mixing in with their engine and those of the rest of the team, bar the Tiger. The cannon barrel lowered, and Duck lowered herself to the roof of the Comet's turret and shut an eye, looking through the birdcage gun sight situated to her right side. Mouthing words to herself, she waited as the barrel descended, then slammed a hoof down and yelled, "All right, good!" when it landed right on the Ram's upper front plate.

"I've got 'em down here, Duck!" Arco called.

"Up here, too! Readyyyy!"

Arco tapped one of his hooves on the ground, waiting to press the pedal beneath him.

Duck sucked in a breath.

"Fi–"

VROOOOOM!

She jumped back with a noise, Arco doing the same as the SOMUA suddenly came streaking past directly in front of the Comet's rotated turret. On her comms came Busy Body; the SOMUA's own cannon began to turn around to face the Ram in the distance.

"Haha! Not today, Pumpkinhead! This one is ours!"

Before they could even fire, the front of Ram was covered by a small cloud of smoke.

BOOM!

EEEEEEEEYUH POONT!

The Ram's 57mm shell sailed through the air, letting the wind carry it right toward the SOMUA... and causing it to deflect off the front of the Prench tank at a shallow angle.

Thank the Gods for Mother Nature.

Almost instantly, Busy Body jumped at the opportunity.

"Good, job, Quacky!" She hissed as the SOMUA rolled forward and left, then back and right, then forward and further away to the left. "Spoil our shot!"

Duck zipped her mouth shut for the time being, but quickly re-opened it, "Flurry, turn us fully around and get us going!"

"Right!"

Mimicking the SOMUA's movements—the tank of which was now steadily booking it back up the hill they'd just come down—Flurry hesitated for just a second before throwing both sticks forward, sending the Comet up to follow the SOMUA and the Cruiser both as they left.

She spotted its tracks before it could even fully make contact with the ground.

Duck watched as the M3 Stuart mounted the hill just as the Cruiser and SOMUA passed it, its turret looking first the latter's way, then rotating to face the former. She grit her teeth tightly.

"Arco, M3 on the hill! Aim anywhere and fire when ready!"

WHIRRRRR!

THUMP!

"On the waaaaay!"

"Fire!"

BOOM!

CLINK!

The M3, having hit the dirt trail the Comet was traveling on at the exact moment of impact, tipped over onto its side, took some air, and lay there in a cloud of black smoke. On its left side facing the sky, its flag popped up.

SSSFICK!

"Flurry, shift gears!"

CHK-BOOOOOOO!

The Comet increased its speed, easily catching up with the Cruiser and SOMUA both and placing them on their left and right side, respectively. Keeping speed together, Duck found herself sweating, and barely caught Busy Body still chewing her out.

"Can't believe our Team Leader would sabotage her own tanks! Should've known how bad and fake you would be! Loser!"

"Would you shut up and watch your side?!" Pine yelled, breathing heavily herself.

Another rev of an engine caught Duck's ear, and she looked to the source just as Puddinghead Team rejoined them, thudding on the ground and taking up place behind Pansy Team.

"You guys do not wanna go out there," Bit Rate told them simply.

"Dammit, this is just like the trench run!" Primrose cursed.

"They're boxing us in!" Blank Check wailed into her hooves, causing the SOMUA to begin shakily moving about until, after realizing her current position, she grabbed hold of the sticks again.

Duck looked up toward the crest of the hill they were ascending. The blue horizon following the fading away of the cloud layer glowed down on her, almost like a guiding light toward salvation...

...a salvation which was bearing a new presence, slowly and steadily.

Duck swallowed a lump down her throat.

"You guys seein' this?!" Pine called through her ears.

"Ah, hell! Right in front!" Bit shouted.

Sure enough, rearing up on the sudden decline were the unmistakable tracks of the 3-Inch Gun Carrier, taking up the entire space of the trail in front of them and beginning to slowly lumber down the hill. It bottomed out with a loud crash, and its cannon began turning here and there to select its first target.

That cannon would easily take down the Cruiser and the M5... and the SOMUA wouldn't fare so well either... and with the flat front step of her Comet...

...oh no...

Duck depressed her button.

"Uhhhhh... turn!"

In a clear panic, all four of the remaining Horsepowers veered to their left or right, with the Stuart and Cruiser the former, and the Comet and SOMUA the latter, just as the barrel of the Crumpish Tank Destroyer burned with hot fire and sent its large shell right down the middle with a heckish sound that might've bled her eardrums if she wasn't already used to the noise of the sport. She hoped it hadn't hit the Tiger back there.

She looked around wildly.

That was surprisingly smart.

In an unintentional V-formation now, Duck held up her radio and exclaimed, "Everypony, aim your cannons right for the big plate on the front while it's reloading!"

She heard the sounds of the Stuart, Cruiser, and SOMUA turning their turrets around to aim for their target. Arco began adjusting his sights on the Carrier.

"Readyyyy!" Duck called.

"On the way!"

"Fire!"

BOOM!

CLINK!

Instead of a synchronized shot—wishful thinking on her part—Arco was the first to fire. The Cruiser went next, but its shot went too high and sailed up over the roof of the Carrier and disappeared from sight. The Stuart, taking a few more seconds, fired its cannon and nailed the tank in about the same spot as her Comet. As they neared it, Duck bit her lip, anxiously waiting for the SOMUA to shoot, which it barely managed to do just as they were about to fully pass it.

BOOM!

As if by some ungodly power, the Candidates sunk it right in the hole. Smoke billowed from the Carrier's engines, and its flag quickly shot up into the air.

SSFICK!

"Two down, five left!" Duck belted into her radio to be heard.

"I can't believe they took out the Tiger already!" Bit Rate quaked.

"I thought that thing was invincible!" Pine yelled.

Duck shook her head, then put her gesture into words and held her button down. "Not in the slightest! There're ammo racks all along the sides! Any gun that pens that takes the tank down in a second!"

It was quiet for awhile, almost to an uncomfortable degree. Duck checked to see if her radio had shorted out.

"What's the plan, Duck?!" Vanilla shouted in the background.

"Oh, so now they wanna listen?" Bluebell fumed beneath her.

"Bluebell, shut up and load that gun!" Arco demanded.

THUMP!

CLANK!

Duck cleared her throat, watching as the hills on either side of their little valley began to shrink smaller and smaller. They'd be fully revealed and back on the dirt trail soon. "Stick together and watch all our sides. Confirmed enemy Ram on our right back down where the Tiger is! It won't get here before we leave it, but be careful for the others!" She hummed. "There's no way this is just a random attack. This was planned."

BROOM BROOOOOM!

If the next stage of the Galleons plan was to have its Panzer II Ausf. L suddenly appear from behind the newly disappeared brush to their left and collide with the Horsepowers' Cruiser, it went off without a hitch. Bouncing off each other with loud thumps and sparks of metal, the two tanks slowly began to look at each other with their cannons, keeping speed as they did so. The Panzer was faster, but, just as it stopped rotating its turret, Pansy Team suddenly pulled to the right, then veered a sharp left, crashing right back into the Panzer and sending its shot at an upward angle. Unable to save itself, it sucked up a shot into the rear from the Stuart, then finally fell dead onto the road with a shell delivered right into its hull by the readjusting Cruiser.

"Woohoo!"

"Hell yeah!"

Duck let out a short breath, a smile playing at her lips. "Good work, Pansy Te– guh!" She flinched on the spot, taking note of a very unmistakable figure glaring down at them from a hill just to the right of the treeline in front of them. "Sherman on the right hill! She's about to fire! Scatter!"

As if sensing her order, her Comet and the other three tanks were already suddenly pulling away from each other, dodging the Sherman's shell that landed right in the middle of where that group had collected and sending a cloud of dust straight up into the air.

"Put some smoke in her face!" Duck boomed.

BOOM!

BOOM BOOM!

Three shells hit just below the Sherman, kicking up smoke and dust that caused the Equestrian tank to back off and slowly slink back behind its hilltop.

"Four to four, guys!" Pine came in on comms.

"Keep an eye out for that Sherman!" Duck reminded them, "That cannon could take any of us down with a good hit!"

"We'll take it!" Busy boasted to her right.

"Sharp left turn! Left!" Duck commanded so Busy wouldn't start up another rant of some kind. "We'll try and head along the right side of the hill and see if we can't get away from here!"

"Gotcha!" went Pine, patting somepony—presumably Vanilla—on the shoulder.

"Yup," went Bit Rate, clearly focused.

"On it," went Busy, adjusting her tie with audibles fidgets.

They did so, the Comet leading, and pulled a hairpin turn before proceeding back down the hill they'd been going down before the Tiger was defeated, this time on the top side where they could see better. The Sherman wouldn't poke its head out immediately, especially seeing as how nopony else on its team seemed to be around, so they'd have enough time to turn right and try to disappear further down the plains and maybe try to lose them at the edge of the forest nearby.

The Ram suddenly made its presence known, rolling out of the bushes and landing with a hard thud on the grass a ways away from them. At the same time, the T-26 burst out of cover from behind one of the ridges she'd intended on taking cover in, heading right toward the Ram as it charged them in kind. Just as it seemed to Duck that the two crews were too focused on shooting them and would end up crashing into each other, their turrets began to turn, and she realized their intention.

"They're broadsiding us!" Bit cried.

"What the hell are they doing that for?!" Pine hollered.

"They're friggin' pirates!"

As if to accentuate Bit's answer, the Ram and T-26 fired, the T-26 passing in front of the Ram and the Ram rolling right past behind its teammate seamlessly. Their shells were true, and a shot nailed the Stuart right in the cheeks of its hulls, sending the angled armor in pieces but otherwise keeping them alive and active. The other shot would have obliterated the Cruiser right in its turret ring had it been an inch closer. Still, its effects were met with fright, and Pansy Team darted to and fro around as if to shake away an imaginary fire.

Duck opened her mouth to tell Arco and the others to take the chance and fire, but ducked down into her turret as the squealing of a shell made itself known to her in the depths of her ears and made itself present by soaring right where her head had just been. Ignoring the sudden cry from Bluebell and the gasp from Arco, she sprang back up and turned around in her cupola, watching as the Sherman began to head down their way from behind.

BOOM!

BOOM!

Without her command, the SOMUA and the Cruiser took shots. Both missed their targets, with one kicking up dirt in front of the Ram and the other blowing apart distant trees far past the T-26.

"Sherman, right behind us! Everypony, go as fast as you can!"

"Right!"

The two Galleons tanks, having completed their pirate ship-like attack, were now beginning to close in around Duck and her team from either side like a beetle's pincer, their cannons turning slightly to get right at their hulls.

She was in the lead, the Stuart and SOMUA were side-by-side behind her, and the Cruiser was behind the SOMUA on the right. 

"Puddinghead Team, Platinum Team, on my mark, cross each other and head right for the tanks!"

"Who the hell's Mark?" Busy thundered.

"Just listen!" Blank tutted.

The Ram and T-26 were closing in now, seemingly trying to snatch up the Cruiser lagging behind in some kind of sharp claw.

The Comet pulled past the two.

"Mark!"

She heard the sounds of screeching and disturbed Earth behind her, and dared a look to see the Stuart and SOMUA awkwardly angling themselves and scissoring like the two "pirate tanks" had just done to them. The Galleons tank crews, not expecting this, stopped what they were doing to keep a steady target on their approaching opponent.

BOOM!

BOOM!

SSFICK!

SSSFICK!

She heard Bit Rate read it out in her ear, "T-26, down!"

Busy Body now, "Ram, taken care of!"

"Two to four, ponies! Let's finish this!" Graham suddenly piped up, squealing as she did so giddily.

"How you doin' down there, Flurry?" Arco asked.

Flurry remained quiet, her different levers and switches moving around erratically.

"Still that Sherman behind us!" Duck pointed out.

"What's the plan?" Pine asked as her Cruiser veered around and turned its turret around to face the approaching tank.

The hill, the crest...

"Keep him busy and try to dodge his shots! Angle yourself if you can! We'll try and get around his side!"

"You're sacrificing us?!" Busy sputtered out with a gasp.

"You cold-water eel!" Blank joined in.

"I doubt any of your cannons could reliably penetrate its front. The best way to take down a Sherman is from the side! Flurry, take us to the left and back onto the hill!"

"Right!"

The Comet shifted over to the left and, after crunching up a nice helping of brush, it jumped down onto the dirt trail and slid around at the bottom, beginning to roll up to the top again.

BOOM!

"All right Arco, when we get up there, that Sherman's gonna be right on our left side firing at the others. Aim for the thick part right in the middle, just below the turret. That's where their Gunner, Commander, and Loader are. They'll be dead in the water."

"Gotcha!" He replied, flicking the switch back to Automatic and turning the Comet's turret around.

VROOM VROOM!

Duck flinched.

VRRROOOOOOO!

WEWWW!

Just over her head, shading her from the clouds, was the bottom of a tank that leapt over the right side of the hill without pause, soared for about two seconds, and disappeared into the brush to her left... back toward the others. Duck swallowed a lump down her throat.

"Flurry, take us up there, quick!"

The Comet shifted into gear, rolling forward at a faster rate and finally reaching the top. Turning hull to the left, the cannon aimed at the still-firing Sherman's side... and allowed Duck a look at what had just arrived on the battlefield.

Its long brown pole sticking straight up out of the engine deck, its roadwheels spinning at an impossible rate, and its entire figure drifting, turning, and sliding about as if it was on ice, the Baltimare Galleons' Lead BT-7M had finally made its combat debut, and was already dealing out a lot of confusion with its stunts.

It charged Pansy Team, then darted to the left and lightly love-tapped the back of the SOMUA, making a half-circle and aiming right at the Stuart's side as it went back around. Platinum Team, having none of that, pulled forward and created a shield for Puddinghead Team, then turned its turret around and fired at the swiftly-dancing-about BT-7M, which dodged the shot with a quick deviation from its course and began to charge Duck's Comet.

Now or never.

"Ready!"

"On the wayyy!"

"Fire!"

BOOM!

SSSFICK!

CLINK!

"Flurry, turn hull left!"

The Comet shifted about, and, realizing its opponent had just angled itself, the BT-7M took a harsh right to get behind the Comet and nail it in the engine.

"Flurry, charge the others! Puddinghead, Pansy, Platinum, watch our backs for that BT!"

"Roger that!"

"Gotcha!"

"We're on it!"

BROOOOOO!

The Comet sped up past the newly-defeated, newly-smoking M4, passing by its turret and rejoining the others, who only stopped moving forward once she fully immersed herself with the group and turned around.

"Anypony see 'er?!"

Duck narrowed her eyes, watching the area the BT had vanished into not ten seconds ago.

"I've got nothing," she said into her hoofheld.

"Same here on left," Pine noted.

The Stuart reversed hard and began facing the right side. "Nothing at our rear."

"Hear anything?"

Sure enough, she didn't need to.

"There!" called Pine.

The BT-7M burst out of the brush in front of the M4, crossing dirt trails with the Comet and swerving left and right to avoid their shots as they sent them.

BOOM!

BOOM!

BOOM!

PFFF!

PFFFF!

PFF!

Arco waited. She could hear him mumbling below.

"Come on... come on..."

She narrowed her eyes.

"Do it!" shouted Bluebell.

"On the wayyyy!"

"Fire!"

BOOM!

She didn't even hear the spent casing hit the floor, her attention fully focused on the shell as it soared through the air for a single second, missed Arco's target of its turret, and found a much better spot right in the engine. At once, the BT began to billow smoke and, puttering loudly, it drove around like a drunken snake and disappeared into the thick forest to their left.

It was quiet for awhile as the sounds of the tank's engine became more and more distant.

And then there was cheering.

"We did it we did it we did it oh my Gods we did it!"

"Holy hell, we did it!"

"Woohoooooo!"

"Yeaaaaaahhh!"

"We diiiid it, we diiid it!"

"We did it, guys!"

"Duck!" came Arco, "we actually did it!"

Duck shook her head, perking an ear up.

Her heart was beating out of her chest.

The coastal winds seemed to be growing stronger and stronger the longer she glared into the depths of the treeline. She was waiting for the flag... but she wasn't able to catch it. The smell of smoke was still there, slightly, but not as much as it had been before...

She steadied her breathing, feeling every breath passing through her. Once. Twice. Three times.

Her heart skipped a beat.

BROOOOOOOOOOOM!

Out of the corner of her eye on their left side was a large figure. It flew from out behind one of the hills past the T-26 and sailed through the air, the rear end of whatever it was still puffing out little clouds of white smoke.

The BT-7M wasn't down yet... and attached to its brown pole was a large, white, rectangular sheet of cloth bearing a black skull and crossbones.

It wasn't a spoiler, or a decoration.

It was a mast!

Somepony on her radio blew out her microphone.

"NANI?!"

The sail rustled violently with Baltimare's coastal winds, sending the BT-7M over to the four of them within seconds' time. Instead of firing at them, however, it zipped past the Cruiser and the Stuart and began to flee in the direction of the downed M4.

"Don't let her escape!" Busy cried out as her SOMUA kicked up dirt and began to give chase.

"Let's go!" Bit Rate exclaimed as she too started her pursuit.

Duck, having lost it miles and miles away, found her voice again. She stuttered, unable to get her words out. "Uh, I-I-I-I, Arco, j-j-j-j-j-!"

She looked up, her breath escaping her, as, in the distance, she watched Puddinghead and Platinum Team follow the BT-7M furiously, kicking up dust and almost ceasing Duck's point of view from being successful.

Suddenly, the BT's sail whipped about to the right, and the entire tank, taking the full brunt force of the movement, spun its rear around like a cracking whip, tip-toed on its two front fenders like someone doing a hoofstand dance, and landed back onto the Earth with a loud crash! The Stuart and the SOMUA, having ended up too close in their greedy hunt, collided with each other, their two ends bouncing off the other tank and sending their crews in a noticeable, unmoving daze that the BT's crew took advantage of to shift gears and reverse behind one of them, that being the Stuart.

Candle Light, clearly intending to fire at the BT before it did so, let loose a shell just as the Yakyakistani tank finished its maneuver. Her shell bounced off the side of the Stuart's hull, ripping apart one of the large pieces of printed-out paper taped there. As if sensing the loss, Autumn Leaves was sent into hysterics.

"Nooooo, our dank memes!"

Pine, growling and snarling like a dog, shot back, "Errrrrr, shut up!"

The BT poked out from behind the SOMUA as Pansy Team reloaded, aimed, and fired.

The Cruiser, having been next to the still completely at-loss Duck, burst into flames and started to shoot out thick clouds of smoke.

Its flag was deafening in Duck's ears.

SSSFICK!

The BT, realizing that the Comet was still aiming in its general direction, kept up its makeshift tank cover and sped away in a blur down to the right.

"Uh..."

"Gods, my head..."

"The hell?"

"Pansy Team is down!" Graham shouted into her radio.

Busy Body was left to hiss at the information, but Bit Rate only let out a long roar that was accompanied by her Stuart almost doing a wheelie and chasing after the BT yet again.

"Pansy Team, are you okay?!" Duck shouted finally, her head swimming in a pool of frozen molasses.

"We're good...!" Vanilla grumbled, groaning all the while.

"Bit knocked up, but we're fine!" Sweet Tea sang, her serene voice betraying their defeat.

"Phrasing..." Pine replied, before the sound of her hitting the floor thunked in Duck's ear.

Duck shook her head. "Flurry, pull us over past the M4! Try and give Arco a good shot at the BT! Arco watch out for the Stuart!"

"On it!"

"Gotcha, Duck!"

VREWWWWW!

The Comet pushed its way steadily forward, Arco rotating the turret around to their right to try and locate the the BT before it could locate them. Crunching shattered armor plating and doors under its tracks, they moved past the dirt trail and the 3-Inch Gun Carrier still lying there, then remained at the top of the hill and looked down at the field stretching out before them. Duck narrowed her eyes, having forgotten her binoculars on the train.

"Spot anything, Arco?"

"Not yet, Duck! I'll keep an eye out!"

CRRKKT!

"̳̼̈́͑ͧ̅ͪO̵̗̬̤͖̼͚̩͛̇ͥͪ͛ͅn̵̗̗̤͓͐͛̆ ̫̰̙̻̟̘̙̻̫ͤ̎͗ͪ̿̾̍̽̆̕͠y̶̢̤̯̤͇̺̻̻̦̤̑̒̎͂ͬ̋̒̅o̯̼͇̲̖͗ͤ̓̎ͅṵ̪͉ͤ̌ͧ̎͂ͫ̚̕r̦̦̮͋̆̏͢͢ ̱͖̠̯̳͌͗ͣͨ̒͑ͪ͘ͅr̿̒ͪ̋͏̟̣̰͎̗̩͍̣ͅi̵̷͍̦͓͈̪̼̻̟ͬ̆ͯ͐̑̀̚ģ̱̩̳̘ͨ̈́̃͋̽̈́h̵͎̯̘̑̿͆̎ͯ̆ͅt̑̇̅̊ͮͭ̏ͨ͐҉̲̪̪͓͞!͙̝̎̈́̋̀́͝ͅ"̷͔ͤ͐ͣ̋͌̈̀

"What'd she say?" Flurry asked, panting softly.

The sound went in and out as Graham adjusted dials here and there, squealing and pitching up and down.

"It's Puddinghead Team!" Graham called out.

"What's wrong with their radio?" Bluebell asked.

Graham let out a short breath. "I-I dunno! Hold on!"

THUNK!

"On your right!"

Duck's heart seized.

Right!

Right!

Right!

NEEEEEEYOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO!

The impact threw Duck against the side of her cupola, sending her stomach first against the rotational ring and almost slamming her nose-first against the roof. From inside, she could already tell what had just happened as Arco and Bluebell began coughing in horrible fits. Arco, in his attempt to wave the wafting smoke around and away from his face, swatted Duck's left hindleg twice. Flurry and Graham began to join in as well and, daring a peek inside, Duck shielded her eyes and looked inside the turret.

A hole about the size of the circumference of her hoof was letting in the daylight through their turret ring, letting in smoke and pushing it out in a blinding fog. Arco, holding his sleeve over his mouth, leaned over to his left and attempted to move the turret around with its winches.

"D-Dammit, it's not working!"

"What's not?" Bluebell shouted much too loudly. Her ears must have been ringing from the blast.

"What kind of shot was that?" Graham coughed out, "It went right through!"

"Our... damn... turret traverse, I-I-I can't move it around!"

No working turret traverse meant no moving turret... and who knew what else had been damaged.

She was mildly hyperventilating now, and sucking down breaths of air as hard as she could.

VRRROOOOOMMM!

She threw herself out of her cupola and watched the BT as it drove right ahead of the Comet, the Stuart right on its heels.

"Dammit, we're out?!" Busy shouted over comms.

"How many shells did we load?!" Forest grunted.

"I thought somepony else would get the rest!" Blank defended herself.

"You idiot!"

"Godsdammit!"

Ripping and roaring across the dirt, the BT led the Stuart to the Comet's left for four whole, undisturbed seconds, until, shifting its sail around once more, it glided around like a pendulum just barely an inch off the ground, landed on the ground facing the complete opposite way, turned its turret, and fired right into the Stuart's side as, too fast to stop, it drove right past them.

SSFICK!

"Errrr!"

CLICK.

SHHHHK!

Duck looked over at the SOMUA next to them, and suddenly flinched as the left side of its turret lit up with small fires.

TAT-TAT-TAT-TAT-TAT-TAT-TAT!

Its turret-mounted Reibel MG began to spit out hot lead, spitting through the air and beginning to punch holes all across the BT's sails when it managed to aim straight.

TAT-TAT-TAT-TAT-TAT CLICK!

The SOMUA was quiet for a second.

"It's still full!" Blank shouted.

"Damn thing jammed!" Busy huffed, slamming her hoof on the MG from inside.

"What now?!" Forest cried.

Duck didn't know! Oh Gods what were they gonna do? Her Comet had effectively become a casemate, and the SOMUA was out of ammo for its cannon and had jammed rounds into its MG!

Busy growled, "Forest, gimme that suitcase."

"Here!"

THUMP!

TICK TICK!

SWISSH!

"What in the hell?!" Forest shouted.

Duck looked over as the SOMUA's Griffonian-made cupola flew open with a BREEE-THUNK!

Busy Body, standing now with her upper body poking out of the cupola, brought out an object that immediately caused a reaction in Forest Fire, Blank Check, and herself.

"You brought a GUN?!" Forest Fire squawked.

"YOU PUT THAT MURDERING THING AWAY!"

An M3 Grease Gun. Where did she get that?

CHK CHK.

"I'll show you my Second Amendment!"

She placed the wire stock against her shoulder, tilted her head, and began firing at the BT-7M as it turned to charge them.

DUTDUTDUTDUTDUTDUTDUTDUTDUTDUTDUT!

Seemingly caught by genuine surprise, the BT-7M whipped around and about-faced, fleeing the scene once more. As the SOMUA started up again and began to chase after the BT, Busy Body still unloading into it, Duck poked her head back into the Comet and called, "Flurry! Turn hull and try to help Arco aim at the BT. Arco, on my mark and get ready!"

"Let's do it!"

"All right!"

The Comet began to rumble as it neutral steered to the left, aiming right for the BT as it attempted to escape the armed pony still firing at its sails with Equestrian .45 ACP rounds. 

DUTDUTDUTDUTDUTDUTDUTDUTDUTDUTDUTDUTDUTDUTDUT!

On her radio came a click!

"YOU ONLY BROUGHT ONE CLIP?!"

"It's a magazine you insufferable troglodyte!"

The BT, noting the sudden lack of bullets flying at it, did a 180-drift, charged its left side, realized that Duck's Comet was aiming at it, and took cover behind the SOMUA just as Arco stomped the firing pedal.

"Damn it! I didn't mean to!"

"Bluebell, load it!" Duck commanded.

THUMP!

CLANK!

"We're loaded!" Bluebell exclaimed, just as the sound of the SOMUA's flag popping up reached Duck's ears.

SSFICK!

Her head was feeling fainter and fainter and fainter. Oh Gods she was about to pass out.

The BT turned a sharp right and began to run right at them.

"Focus!"

She wasn't even sure if she'd said that or not.

"Get readyyyyy!"

She blinked.

The sounds of both the Comet's engine and the BT's sounded so far, and yet, so close.

"Fire!"

BOOM!

Their shell zoomed through the air, straight for the BT-7M...

...and soared right above its turret, zipping into the trees and vanishing in an instant.

The BT-7M lined up a shot, stuck its aim, and fired right at their lower glacis.

The shot hit Duck like a mule, sending her spine-first into the back of her cupola. Gritting her teeth as a noise burned in her ears, she steadied herself on the roof of the turret, shook her head, and let out a breath.

She fell back down into her turret between Arco and Bluebell.

Before she passed out, she could hear it, calling out her failures and reminding her of her.

SSSSSFICK!
> Thank You For Making Me A Company! I Feel Better!
> --------------------------------------------------------------------------

"Duck, wake up."

It was less so the voice attempting to rouse her than the hoof violently—aggressively persistently—grabbing hold of her shoulder and shaking her awake like a dog trying to rid itself of lake water. Her head snapped up without a second's pause, and at once, her nostrils burned her up inside. Bringing up a hoof, she wiped first it and then the sides of her lips, knowing full well that she'd been drooling during her unrequested, insubordinate nap. 

"I-I wasn't sleeping..."

The individual who'd stirred her from her slumber reappeared before her lazily-swimming eyes.

They were a bespectacled Unicorn, her dirty face grinning a grin into a bunched up cheek and raising an eyebrow practically reaching into her olive green M1 helmet. Her earth-tan uniform, dirty, unkempt, and riddled with torn seams, relinquished one of its items as the Unicorn reached down with a shaky foreleg into one of her breast pockets and yanked out a small napkin that looked like it'd been taken off a dining table cover. Seemingly double then triple-checking it for any out-of-place stains, she flailed it free of loose dirt and lint and held it out to Duck just a bare inch from her nose.

"Bullshit you weren't sleeping," she replied with a laugh. She tilted her head, and her dangling chinstraps went with her. "Come on, time to go."

With that, the Unicorn rose from her position on the ground, her canteen, shovel, and other bits of field gear clanging their respective clangs and thumps with her body. Her trousers were newly tucked into her boots, as evidenced by their misshapen folds and—as Duck looked now and then immediately turned away from, burning—unzipped fly. She adjusted her backpack's straps with one foreleg, the other grasping what Duck noticed to be a worn-out M1 Garand by the foregrip. Stomping along bits of rubble, shattered window glass, and halved pieces of wooden structuring, the Unicorn beckoned Duck with a hoof.

"Come on, Duck." Her voice was now a lot more stern. "It's been five minutes already. Nap time's over."

Duck rubbed her eyes, coloring the ends of her grimy sleeve dark with tears. Nipping to nopony but herself—as her companion fled the scene by jumping outside through the large hole in the opposite drywall—she rose all to all fours and noticed much more weight attached to the movement than she was used to. Looking down, she booped her nose against a short, four-pocket bandolier sitting high up her chest from her left shoulder and under her right armpit. Lower still, around her waist, was a round-about of similar pouches, each bulging at the core and jostling something metallic as she shook herself idly. A backpack, heavy at the top of her spine, tried its hardest to fiddle with her posture and possibly break a few discs too; a pair of gaiters laced around her hindleg's boots burned much too tightly around her leg, mixing in with the discomfort of tucked-in pants and sweated-in hoofwear. And hanging off her left side by a sling, pointed straight ahead and bouncing up and down with each step, was her own M1 Garand.

Duck rapped a hoof against her helmet to test its hold, then, satisfied, took a few hurried steps toward the hole her squadmate had fled through, ducked underneath the mess of wooden beams sticking dangerously outward here and there, and hopped back down onto the busy sidewalk. Her footing almost disturbed by the landslide of steel beams and collected rubble, she successfully steadied herself and looked around the street.

Looking up gave her a feeling of betrayal. The sky was as blue as could be, with nary a cloud in sight to try and get in the way of Celestia's bright sun beating hard and heavy down on her now. If she shut her eyes, she could pretend she was back home, sitting down in the grass with a cute dress on and picking daisies out of the dirt with giggles parting from her lips.

Instead, she was standing in the middle of a sidewalk, looking about at the neverending line of look-alike buildings, not a single one standing an inch out from the rest, with only a few brave oddities here and there that ended up smaller and shorter as a response, their battered signs only able to read out "beignets" and "café" in their current states. Some houses lay in crumbling messes, either sagging in one rubble-spewing corner, or flat-out open to the air, their roofs long gone and lying in jagged messes on the street's torn-up floors. The prideful regality of the window panes and trimming now held more sinister beings behind them with every casted glance upward, ready to lay waste at the drop of a hat and tear down devastating lines of unsuspecting people just trying to sort through the whole thing. Brick and concrete and wood and shingles littered the ground, sparsely and in large collected chunks at the same time. The smell of fresh smoke, and burning trees, and pumping gasoline, and lots and lots of gunpowder wafted into her nose and pounded at her chest ceaselessly. The low rumble of the two Shermans now passing by her—the lead an M4A3E8 and the rear an M4A3—tossed and turned what little sat at the bottom of her stomach and began to bubble up her gut like the impending volcano at the edge of a tectonic plate. Small groups of other ponies, numbering about six, seven, or eight, occupied both her side of the street and the other, their quiet voices now mindless puttering in her head that was barely legible with the distance between the two. In the distance, distinctive cracks and snaps answered each other, sometimes quick and separate, and other times slow and connected.

Sweat poured down her brow as both her pregnant pause and her current position reached her brain, and she turned to her left quickly to find the rest of her squad cautiously moving down the side of the street, hugging a red-brick building with some of its windows still intact. Going into a bit of a crouch, she sprinted over to them and took the caboose like usual, licking her lips and finding them dry. She shook her left side more strongly than the right, and realized her canteen was still empty. She'd have to see about asking somepony else for a sip from their's, and quite honestly, she wasn't looking forward to it.

"Place is a Godsdamned mess," somepony up front said, looking over to the Captain.

"Yeah well why don't you go let our birds know? They might stop dropping three and go down to one. And then our feathered friends'll be more in number."

"I'm just sayin', ma'am. Job like this? Probably best left to the Shermans."

"Yeah well, where's the fun in that?"

Their steps, though not in sync, matched pace.

Something caught Duck's eye out of the corner of it, and so, shooting a glance to her left, she looked into the window of the red-brick building and found a Caribou mannequin smiling at her, dressed in an extravagant dress dirtied and torn by the absolutely wretched interior lying quietly behind it. Desks, cabinets, and bookcases were toppled over each other like poorly-managed dominoes; the floor was covered with burnt-up books, magazines, and assorted papers that swirled across the ground with each breeze that filtered in from the outside.

The behinds of the window faded away, and a light brown Earth Pony, dressed in a pouch-infested uniform, lightly tossed her dreadfully long ginger mane flowing out from underneath a corked olive drab helmet. 

Duck blinked, and it seemed that the Earth Pony blinked as well.

She hoped they were doing better than she was.

She sucked in a breath, practically gulping it.

TUDDDDDDDDDDDDDDD-REEEEEEOOOOO!

She practically choked on her attempted words, ducking her head down and diving for cover behind the large, wide tree reaching up into the sky on her right. 

Her ears gave her only a long, drawn-out eeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeee as a flurry of holes made their marks in the red-brick building, going on a straight left line and blowing the mannequin-displaying window into smithereens. Her heart crawled up through her throat and stayed right there, cutting off her oxygen as she tried to suck it in and out greedily. Shutting her eyes tightly for a full two seconds and lifting her chin up, she clenched her teeth and felt half a dozen weights fall onto her, then rise once more. Opening her eyes again, she saw her squadmates sitting at low crouches, weapons raised and a few already barking loudly. The Captain, standing behind a large wall of brick illuminated by a bright green glow, moved her lips in the shape of a popular curse, shook her head, and looked at her subordinates.

A sickening noise roared up from the depths, and the street came back into recognition.

"MG, up in that building!" Somepony yelled, jabbing a hoof at the one in question.

"Light 'em up!"

PING!

PING!

TFF TFF TFF TFF!

CHHHHHHHHHHHHHH!

Duck shot out a hefty bit of air, then threw herself out from her tree's cover, whipped about, brought up her Garand, and flicked the trigger.

POWWWWW POWWWWW POWWWWW!

Her shoulder took the brunt of the recoil, and she set her iron sights back on the target building's window before firing once more. Large clouds of dust kicked up as her entire squad unloaded into the position, tearing into the mass pile of sandbags Duck could barely see in the shadows.

POWWWWW POWWWWW POWWWWW POWWWWW POWWWWW!

PING!

Her en-bloc clip sounded on the ground, and she reached to one of the pockets on her waist, fished for another full one, and held back the operating rod on the right side of the rifle. Shoving the clip into the chamber, she held the rod back, let her other hoof free, and 
released it.

CLANK!

Raising the rifle up, she took a step to begin firing once more, only for the Captain to open her mouth and roar, "Daisy, River, Duck, keep them pinned!" She stopped, clearly swallowing a lump down her throat. The other soldiers on the opposite end of the street, not really knowing what to do, were either bracing their sides against the building they stood against, or looking at them to see if they wanted something specific. The Shermans as well had stopped, with the M4A3 in the rear aiming its turret up to help look. The Captain waved a hoof. "All right, Hail, show your moves! On me!"

Duck moved out of the way as an oddly familiar Earth Pony, her cheeks smathered with black under-eye, brushed past her and joined the Captain's side. Leaning out of cover, she aimed her Garand at the building and sent a few rounds its way.

POWWWWW POWWWWW POWWWWW!

In the corner of her eyes, she watched as the Captain lifted their makeshift brick wall from the ground and began to move it into the middle of the road, she and Hail making sure to stay right behind it so as to not get hit by the MG42, which was still steadily burst-firing them and kicking up dustclouds that swirled lazily into the smokey air.

TUDDDDDD-REEEEOOOOO!

TUDDDDDDDDDDDD-REEEEOOOOO!

Their cover fell back to Earth, and the Captain felt around her chest for something out of Duck's sight, found it, and threw it to Hail. Hail, catching it, sank low to the ground, reeled her foreleg back, stuck out her tongue, and chucked the object clear across the street and right into the window of the offending building. The MG's spraying halted at once.

"Scheiße!"

BOOOOOOOOOOOOO!

The window, and a bit of the wall it was attached to, blew apart in a heavy cloud of dirty smoke that billowed out like a house fire. 

Duck realized she was hyperventilating, and lowered her Garand to try and calm her and her drum-soloing heart down.

The Captain and Hail slowly rose back to all fours, still staring up at the grenaded building for any signs of movement. The former brought up a foreleg and patted the latter on the nearest shoulder.

The M4A3E8, believing all to be all right, began to slowly crawl forward once more, its counter-shaded 3-inch gun facing forward once more.

Duck's ears twitched.

POO-OOF!

Her heart dropped at the same time as the Easy Eight's frontal plate burst into flames and smoke, immediately setting its rear engine block ablaze and stuttering the tank to a halt. The M4A3 in the rear, newly alone, stopped as well, and began to reverse out of whatever had hit the E8's sight. The other ponies situated on the sides of the street ducked down and began to take cover behind whatever they could use: a mailbox here, a street sign there, and even a flipped-over automobile with its wheels bent in impossible angles toward the heavens.

PHOOO-OOOMMMMM!

The flames bursting from the E8 increased in ferocity, and its crew finally began to throw open their hatches and escape. The Driver and Machine Gunner, raising themselves out of the front hatches, were the first out, and slid down the front glacis carrying their emergency rifles over their backs. The Commander, practically jumping out of the turret, stopped once her four legs hit the sideskirts, turned back, and grabbed hold of the violently quivering hoof of the Loader, who collapsed into the Commander's hooves and was swiftly dragged away from the fuming tank.

Questions about what had happened to the Gunner escaped Duck's mind as it was suddenly assaulted with the telltale crackles and snaps of little filly fireworks coming from down the street past the large pile of rubble and cement that made an odd, elevated border wall between the two parties. Loud, punctual jabs sang through the air in between each firework, accompanied by three-round bursts of chattering teeth. 

"Panzerfaust!"

The Captain, having stayed on the street as Hail ran for the others, lit her horn.

The 149mm warhead, its sole objective being the remaining Sherman, hovered in the air as if dangling from an immovable string.

The Captain grit her teeth, sweat pouring down her brow, then hissed like a wild animal. The warhead slowly, shakily, began to turn around. Once it faced the way it came, the Captain let go of it, and it zoomed away in the blink of an eye.

BOOOOOOOOF!

"Consider it yours, you Godsdamned pigeons!" The Captain shook her head, her horn lighting up her M1 Thompson. She looked back at her squad as she approached them once more. "All right EP, get on my ass and follow me!" She brought up a hoof and pointed down an alley way prior blocked off by a black gate that now lay in ruin. "We're hangin' a left, through this backalley!"

Though every bit of instinct in her practically leapt up and screamed at her not to join them, Duck nodded her head, adjusted the front of her helmet, and jogged around the corner with the rest of her squad. The bright, if still ruined, colors of the main street gave way to the dark shade of a tight alleyway, back doors leading into houses, restaurants, and little shops that Duck was absolutely sure she would've loved to peruse during more peaceful times. The clacks of their boots and the shuffling of their gear echoed as they went, mixing in with the soft breathing of six weighed-down mares. 

The alleyway opened up a tad, with the trail they'd been taking leading a curve further down and onto an open road, and another way taking them someplace else closer to their right. From the main street, the battle was still, though a bit more quietly, raging on. The 9-cylinder engine of the M4A3 growled hungrily as it rolled up, the low whine of its turret sounding out as it looked around for enemy armor waiting to send it and its crew to oblivion. 

Duck, feeling a lot safer about the closer exit, began to softly trot over to it, her backpack bouncing up and down brutally on her back.

Two others joined her and lined up behind her back, while the last two readied their weapons and followed behind the Captain, who, moving her hoof as if telling off a dog, raised her Thompson once more and carefully stepped toward the open road, now out of sight of Duck as she pressed her right shoulder against her own wall. Her heart was going double time inside her, almost drowning out the voices she—and seemingly the rest of her squad—could barely hear from the street.

"Bewegen, bewegen, gehen."

"Lass uns gehen."

The Captain went into a leaning crouch. She moved her Thompson's sights up to her face.

The sound of something heavy rolling along the floor began to increase in volume. Short huffs and puffs clearly dragged it along.

Someone made a short noise, and Duck wasn't sure who it was.

CHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHH!

The end of the Captain's submachine gun spat out smoke as she hyperventilated.

SSSSSSSSSSSSSSS!

Duck's eyes burned.

She could hear voices again.

"M-Mutter! Hilf mirrrr!"

"Nein, nein, bitte... oh Gott rette mich!"

Duck moved a hoof to see what it was, but halted mid-step as the Captain's horn lit up the pile of brick and wood behind her, levitated over to the exit, and began to block it off in a makeshift wall. Without a word, but much shaking of her head, she finished up what she was doing, placed her Thompson by her side, and began trotting over to Duck's position.

"Captain...?"

"Captain Hill?"

"Cap'n are you all right?"

The closer Hill got to Duck, the easier it was to see the wideness of her eyes. They closed, only temporarily, then shrank back to normal size. She shook her head, more vigorously this time, and muttered something under her breath.

"S̨ͦ̐̒ͨ͊̚͏̛̜̯̰̺oͬ̈́ͪ̑̒҉̢̬̺n̸͙͍͖̮͇̫̻̺̿̊̀͋ͣͤͪ͝u̎ͦ̾͂͌̉̾҉̶͚̮͝v̫̙ͪ̽ͩ͟͡ả̵̰͎̔ͥ̉̇͐͟b̻̠̐̓̏͜i̧̻̣̣͉͉̠͕̗̓͟͠t̺̥̯̹͉̘͈ͥͬ̋͋̐ͭ͟c̴̣̝͉̦̱̖̬̑̂̿̒̅̚͜ͅh̵̞̩̫̟͇̖͔͒͆͗͘ ͓͈̱̖ͤ̌̒ͣ̚ͅc̡̘̙͛ͨ͊o̡̙̱͈̦̺̘̰̐ͬ̋͑̍́͗̚ͅu̳͎̻̪̻ͬ̌ͧ̽l̯̝ͩͭ̚d̤͉̳̖̝̥̖̗ͣ͋a͇̣͓̤̠͇̯̓̇̅́ͯ̐̊̽ ̢͚͕͙͖̝̼ͩ̍̀̿͢͟ḇ̴̸̛̫͉́̅ͮ̅ͨę͍̯̩̳̟̟̝̃̅̽͟e̥̪̻͇͎͌ṉ̝ͥͦ͊ ̷̨̡͇ͣ̎̊ͬ̎̚m̯̟̮͕̫̣̆̂͒̀͘y̢͈̺͒ͨͯ͛̎́̚ ̙̼̼̳̱̯͆ͤͩ̓͆̒̎͜ṡͥ҉̫̣͉̼̰͚͖o̞̗̻͓ͦ͐͘n̘̯̺̺̯̫͔̫͑͒͂͐̊ͦ̂.̟͓̉͊̈́̊̑͆͞"

On the main street, the M4A3 fired its gun, collapsing a building at the end of the road.

Stopping right next to her, Hill brought up her Thompson, held it barrel-up, and released the empty magazine into her waiting hoof. Cocking the bolt back, she turned to Duck. "W-We're going this way. Duck, how's it looking?"

Duck looked for words, but her throat was desert-dry. Before she could even reach for her canteen, a hoof held one out to her, which she gladly took, tipped back, and took a lengthy swig from. As if the world finally reached clarity, she spoke, "Th-there's a gate at the end."

She passed the canteen back to its owner, mouthing a quick thank you. The owner, placing it back in its holder, piped up, "Looks locked. Don't doubt we'll be seeing feathers when we blow it open."

Captain Hill nodded. She brought out a fresh stick magazine from her chest, deposited the dry one, and stuck its replacement into the waiting mag well. "All right. Daisy, be ready to give Hail some cover. Hail, hurry up and kick it down." Hail, giving a short response, shouldered her BAR and stepped down the alleyway, the aforementioned Daisy pulling up her M1 Carbine and clutching it ready by her breast. "Everyone count your rounds. Sounds like it's not over yet."

Duck trotted over to the alleyway Hail had disappeared into, pulling back the bolt on her Garand slightly to count her remaining rounds. Roused by a noise, her head darted up to watch Hail simply push the gate open. The fellow Earth Pony, clearly not expecting the ease, went right into alert, pulling her BAR back down into her hooves and pressing her back against the wall on her left. Slowly, carefully, she leaned forward and took a glance around the corner, only to pull back an inch. As if stopping herself, she went right back to peeking, and, narrowing her eyes, looked to be finding something she found odd.

It was as if Hail had just soiled herself, judging by the noise she made.

Duck's heart skipped a beat.

Hail's BAR fell to the ground as she turned tail in an instant and sprinted back toward Duck, her wild eyes wide as could be and her teeth grit tightly. She was whimpering the whole way.

Hail hadn't even reached her, and yet Duck felt as if she'd just been tackled hard to the ground by some impossibly able force. Her ears would have caught the sounds of Hail screaming as she flew through the air and collapsed onto the ground in a heap, but the ringing had returned and now seemed to be the only lonely sound she could make out. Bright orange, yellow, and red flowers sprouted manically from the open gate, sending with it a cloud of shattered brick and mortar that flew high into the air and pitter-pattered back to the ground.

Duck hit the ground hard, her helmet flinging off her head and bouncing onto the pavement behind her.

She shut her eyes as a burning hot sensation took her over, pulsing and coursing through her hollow chest to the point where she could barely breathe. Her head was sounding off dully; her nostrils breathed smoke; her whole body felt like a thousand pounds over.

She shot up, forehead wet as rain and her throat aching ravenously.

BEEP. BEEP. BEEP.

Her head was as cold as ice.

Huh...

...huh...

...huh...

...huh...

...

She caught a whiff of something, like she had while looking for the Cruiser a couple weeks back, just barely legible and at the bare end of her thoroughly boggled senses. 

Sniff, sniff.

Was... was that the smell of freshly baked cookies, or was it just her...? Was this what ponies talking about with smelling burnt toast? That usually came with dying, though... or was it having a stroke? Neither of those were very good things to her—really... at all honestly—so she... oh.

She was in a room, now. For a second, she thought it to have been stripped of all its color, and her world as well, but as her eyes became more and more used to the bright light in the middle of the ceiling above her, the assorted potted plants in the corners that desperately needed more than just a bit of her love and care, and the navy blue blanket lain neatly over her body, she realized that whoever had painted the interior walls just decided that white was their favorite color for the long, winding session. 

Her visual recognition of her surroundings had her bodily sensations beat by a landslide, and only after a solid half a minute of softly—laborously—breathing did Duck take full notice of the warm hoof rubbing tenderly against her right shoulder nearest the door. Her hearing finally came to her as well as she turned her head to face the source admittedly cautiously.

"Shh, shh, it's okay Duck, it's okay. Just a dream, Duck, just a dream..."

Flurry was hunched over the right side of the bed Duck now noticed she was helplessly situated in, her heavenly blue eyes half-lidded as she quietly cooed into Duck's ear and ran her hoof gently along her shoulder blade. A chill ran up and down Duck's spine, causing her to shake. Flurry, clearly believing herself to be the culprit, pulled back for a second before realizing the truth, mumbling something to herself, shaking her head, and going back to what she was doing.

Arco, peeking out from behind Flurry, made an O-shape with his mouth, puffed out his cheeks, and blew out a long breath of air. "Bonnie Zacherle, that sounded awful."

Oh... oh Gods, how much of that did they hear?

Better yet, what did they hear?

Duck's green eyes blinked, then found Bluebell positively quivering, despite the immense, practically insufferable heat wafting around the room. Or maybe it was just her. Bluebell muttered something publically incoherent under her breath, but she either hadn't realized how well-tuned Duck's ears were, or was just too frazzled to clearly remember at the present moment.

"I didn't know that's how it would've been..."

A soft hum that came out as more of an affirmative grunt. Candle Light stepped forward, muzzle scrunched up as a hoof reached toward her face and adjusted her glasses. "Must've been inner Prance. Griffons would've loved those hedgerows." The mare took a peaceful step aside as Sweet Tea, flower crown and cardigan still as pristine as ever, hurriedly brushed past with something teetering atop her blonde mane. She dipped her chin and presented it to Flurry, who turned around, took it from its makeshift perch, whispered a quick thanks, whipped back about, and passed it to Duck.

She hardly took a second to acknowledge that it was a little cup of water before practically wrenching it from Flurry's grasp, taking hold of it with both hooves shaking, and tipping it bottom-up to greedily drink from it. Flurry, as if trying to send Duck back into her possible, temporary coma, tackled her in a bone-crushing hug before she finished with her swig, not caring in the slightest as Duck let out a little indescribable noise and almost dropped the half-empty cup onto her unsoiled sheets. There wasn't a hint to be taken, but something inside of her quietly dissolved...

...and she brought up a hoof, lightly—ever so slightly—pushing Flurry back.

She smiled.

"Hey... I'm okay, Flurry. I'm okay."

Flurry giggled half-heartedly, rubbing at her cheek. "I know, Duck, I just..." She sucked air in through her nose, then shot it out her mouth. "...I can tell when dreams get really scary. Call it a family inheritance."

What first appeared to be a floating, ethereal lunch tray aptly revealed itself to be a normal one carried in Graham's hooves, who trotted around the foot of the bed to Duck's left side, saying, "We got you some food, by the way. Lily and them went out to McDuckle's since they didn't want anything in the cafeteria."

Duck sat up as Graham slowly lowered the tray onto her blanketed lap. Rehearsing for a possible waitress position in the future, Graham brought up a hoof and pointed it at the food as she went along her relatively short list. "Mashed potatoes, steamed carrots, and peas." She stood up straight, flashing Duck a toothy grin and scratching the back of her head. "I hope I made a good choice."

Duck bunched up her cheeks. "No, that's... perfect. Th-thank you." She gave Graham a crisp nod before dipping her nose down and looking for her hopefully provided utensils. At first met with some difficulty in the search, she was just on the cusp of looking up and awkwardly asking Graham for help before suddenly finding them on the right side of her mashed potato bowl, underneath its lip. Coiling her hoof around the spoon, she took a serving of carrots and dumped them on her potatoes, ignored the weird look on Arco's face, and began to chow down. Her stomach instantly felt much, much better. She may have been stuck in a dream for little less than an hour or so, but her body felt like it had eaten nothing but K-rations for the past few weeks. Not to say a nice baggie of ham and eggs disgusted her, but... maybe if it was pretty much the only part of her diet. Maybe not.

Between spoonfuls of vegetables—mashed or steamed—she took gulps of her water, which Flurry kindly refilled for her before it was even empty. Besides the scraping of her spoon, the subdued crunching of her food in her mouth, and the little sighs she let out after each successive drink, the room was... comfortably tranquil. It actually reminded her of her little apartment, to be honest, oh, wait, there was another, constant noise, that being the long strip light running parallel to the end of her bed above her and everypony else's heads. Her ear flicked at the new arrival, but soon diminished its role to a faint hum, and so she let loose a squiggly little smile and almost absently giggled to herself. The warmth that had plagued her earlier was gone now with the arrival of the hots of her food and the cold of her drink; the constant ringing in her mind seemed to nestle way, way back into nonexistence as the explosions, fire, and combat met the same anti-climatic fate.

Though wary of her dream still, the others she now realized to be in the room returned to the pleasantries and idling of their choosing. Sweet Tea, having gone back into a chair by the water cooler—which looked to have been dragged into the room if its orientation and slight tilt was any indication—was wrapped in an upright burrito with a fluffy blanket, eyes shut and closed lips humming wistful notes to herself that left a big goofy grin on her face. Candle Light, sticking close by Duck's bed, reached into her uniform's breast pocket and whipped out her notepad, thereafter pulling a pencil out of her mane and beginning to scribble words down onto it as if her life depended upon it. Vanilla Pudding, settling back down in the middle of getting up, dropped her rump to the ground, rotated about at her waist to reach into the backpack at her right, and fished out a large book labeled Canvas Paper, which housed a sketch that she resumed work on. In the far corner at Duck's left, Pine Needle lay draped over a spare chair, mouth wide as she ferociously ripped apart logs with a chainsaw, three empty cups of coffee—actually four—sitting in discarded positions on the floor beneath her.

Bluebell, sitting by the curtain-drawn window in a chair of her own, ignored Graham as she took a seat next to her, and puffed out her cheeks and moved away as the Pegasus brought up a foreleg and attempted to place it on her shoulder. Though she was still shaking, her trademark pout took over the clearly exhausted frown, which seemed to please Graham, but definitely pleased Duck.

So was she so preoccupied with eating and... a lot of other things, that she didn't even notice the door to her hospital room opening up, almost tipping the poor water cooler over and ending its days of being surrounded by office workers, and shutting just as quickly as Mrs. Red's face and then full figure appeared from behind Flurry. Seeing Duck, Mrs. Red shut her eyes, sighing, and gazed at the ceiling.

"Oh thank the Gods, you're awake. Any longer and we'd have to leave you overnight?"

Duck blinked, almost spitting out her peas. What time was it? What day?

Mrs. Red cast a glance at Flurry, then Graham, then, finally, Candle Light, who perked up as if realizing the pair of eyes fixated on her.

"Was she still in Prance?"

Candle nodded, once again adjusting her glasses even though they didn't seem to be in a better position afterward. In fact, they might've been in a worse one. "Inside a town, from what it sounded like. Scattered platoon, two Shermans, one road."

Mrs. Red took a second to actually cringe. "Ugh. Sounds like Cologne." She straightened up. A small, teasing grin took form. "Glad she had some armor to watch over her, though. You can always depend on a Sherman crew." She turned to Duck, now. "Are you doing okay? Never War dreams aren't too uncommon, but that's mostly in ponies of age."

Not to remember how long the Never War was projected to last, according to the Hearsay Conference...

Duck looked away, tugging at her lower lip with her teeth. "My mother was... very descriptive during story time."

It was quiet for awhile, and Duck was equally quick to realize her mistake in such a divulgence.

She cleared her throat and adjusted her posture, then picked up another spoonful of her peas. She looked up at Flurry. "Um... are the others still around?"

Flurry smacked her lips, tossing her head to and fro. "Well, Lily and them went to McDuckle's a few blocks down. Probably making trouble and peeing on fire hydrants or something."

"I passed Puddinghead and Platinum Team in the main room," Mrs. Red informed them, putting a hoof to her chin. "Think Busy Body's having a chess match with Blank Check, and Bit Rate, Autumn, Primrose, and Plastic are doing what they usually do."

"What time is it?" Duck half-croaked, almost choking on her water.

"About six or so."

It was all beginning to come back to her. It was about six or so, clearly something had happened to her for her to be in a really hot and now that she thought of it damp hospital bed, and she'd earlier been...

...

...what was she doing before this? Why was she in a hospital bed? The last time she'd really felt like she'd needed a visit to such a place, she'd been having some kind of panic attack at her house, and since she was by herself—and she usually defaulted to her solution—she'd simply let the awful time pass as she hugged the wall by her kitchen with her shivering spine and moved the back of her head up and down against it.

Duck grumbled a bit to herself, taking a look at the small table near the right side of her bed. A little bouquet of flowers sat atop it, filled with flowers she wasn't too well-versed in, considering she didn't know anything about flowers, really. Like, at all, really. She shut an eye tightly, tilted her head, and scratched an itch near her scalp. "Um... where am I?"

SLAM!

"Still in Baltimare, lass!"

Duck flinched involuntarily—and kind of voluntarily—as a large figure brushed past Flurry with a sweep of their foreleg, threw a hoof against the door's adjacent wall, and, in one swift motion, pulled off their black tricorne and tipped it like a tea kettle.

Graham sat up, practically falling off her chair as she smiled, "Oh, it's...!"

...

Graham's hoof, previously raising with her observation, faltered, then fell. It clipped onto the ground audibly.

The figure laughed, the assorted belts and holsters on her extravagant outfit shimmying and shaking. "Powder Keg, Overall of the Baltimare Galleons!" As the ponies still awake in the room gave drawn-out "Oh's" of their own length and enthusiasm, Keg (oh yeah!) took a nice, polite bow, almost slamming her nose right into the foot of Duck's temporary bed. Returning to a properly standing position, the overly enthusiastic Earth Pony continued with a glance at the young mare in question. "Good t' see ya 'live 'n' kickin', lass. We was all a little worried 'boutcha after the match end. Once I found out we'd injured ya, I personally volunteered to give you and your friend Flurry here a quick ride back into town. Lucky for you, the ol' BT was still in excellent condition." Keg flashed her teeth, cheeks turning a bit red. "Just eh... just don't mind the smoking heap of metal sitting in front of the hospital. We'll take care of it."

So Powder Keg herself drove her back into Baltimare when she got hurt? And Flurry was by her side the whole time? Duck took a second to crawl under her covers more, feeling at fault for taking up Flurry's time like that, but dared a glimpse the Alicorn's way to see her giving Keg an odd look. There were words on her tongue, but... maybe they were best for later. Instead, she gave them to Keg as a bit of a safety net.

"Th-thank you."

Keg giggled, "Aw, it be my pleasure, little one." A quick hum later, and Keg promptly slapped a hoof against an empty part of Duck's bed, seemingly overexaggerating her height. "Now! It's time for you to get some rest! You and your team have got another match to prepare for after this, and I would be damned if I was the one who stopped you!"

Wait, what?

"But, we lost," Flurry told Keg, as if both the pirate pony and everypony else in the room needed the sore reminder.

"Thought that meant we were out," Arco added, scratching his mane.

Keg shut her eyes and was quiet for a while, an odd smile on her lips. She turtled her head into her neck, giving a big, feign shrug. "Well... ya did." Keg licked her lips. "But the thing is, we Galleons aren't just a Tankery team. In fact, we got ourselves a little letter the other day, and we'll be switching over t' Naval Combat by the next week to get ready for the Seeschlacht in a couple months. As such, with, well, most of the team out doing that, the Galleons Tankery team wouldn't be able to fully participate."

Candle Light, sitting in the corner still, tried to pipe up, "So you're saying–"

"Which means," Keg stopped her with a hoof, "the Ponyville Horsepowers have got another chance. It's either that, or the next team gets an instant win and goes onto the Equestrian Tournament, and that's a bit flaccid, don'tcha think?" As everypony else's eyes widened—Duck included—and looked around with the realization, Keg's gaze dove to her two forelegs, which she began idly rubbing together. "Also, we uh... kind of cheated."

Mrs. Red perked up, pulling out her clipboard out of sight to probably try and write down what Powder Keg was about to say.

"Y'see, me and my crew had been screwin' around one day during our practice session. We'd finished up our maneuvers fer the day, and wondered a wonder to ourselves..." As if reenacting the scenario, Keg placed a hoof at her chin, scrunching up the end of her muzzle as she monologued, "'What if we took one 'f our here cannonballs... and put it into one 'f our tank shells?'"

Probably very bad things. Very, very bad things.

Keg straightened herself on the floor, then proceeded to push the air in front of her with both forelegs. "Whole thing went beautifully, might I add. Big ol' hole right in the side of our shipyard, think they're still figuring out how best t' fix it. Anyway, it turns out the crew had forgotten to take the shells we created out before today's match, and before we could realize our mistake, we'd already put two punches int' th' side of yer Comet. Explains how hurt ya got, and how ordinary-lookin' shells punctured the regulated armor and all. I'm very sorry about that, by the way," Keg fessed up, taking another bow and frowning. Going back up, she clutched her tricorne in front of her chest like she was at a funeral, which probably wasn't too far a comparison at this point. "I do hope yer hours here weren't too hard. Only reason I wasn't around was for calming my crew down. Everybody felt terrible fer what we did."

Duck blinked, first looking into Keg's eyes, then to her far left side at the floor. "I-it's okay."

Keg hummed again. "Still, once I found out 'bout the shells, I reported it to the match's Overseers, who disqualified us and overturned the victory." Putting on her tricorne and making sure it was tight around her head, she added, "Crew an' I aren't happy 'bout it, but rules 're rules, and the Galleons always play by them."

Flurry snorted. "Even if it means making a sailboat out of your tank, right?"

Keg belly-laughed. "Hah! Of course, you haven't any idea how much went into ol' Betty outside. Put so much into her, they had to reclassify her as an M-class!" Turning to Duck as Flurry, clearly not understanding what the lingo meant, continued forcefully laughing, Keg returned, "But anyway, the Horsepowers 're set on two fronts t' take part in the next match and continue on in this year's Tank Warudo!" Duck opened her mouth to give Keg a soft, probably stammered word or three-hundred of thanks, but Keg, sensing this somehow, waggled a hoof. "Ah ah, save yer words lass." A hoof flew to the rear of her uniform, which jingled and jangled with the swift movement. "Whole crew pitched in for this, by the way."

Sweeping a hoof across the nearby table and sending Duck's bouquet onto the floor—which caused Flurry to frown into her cheeks and just stare at Keg—she dropped a rather large wicker basket in the newly emptied space. Questions about where Keg had put the certainly much-larger-than-her basket on her were stowed away as Duck strained her eyes to read the piece of paper haphazardly attached to the front with white painter's tape. 

Get Better Soon! it read, but the exclamation mark was much bolder and slanted than the other parts, and she was pretty sure somepony had painted over the S at a much different time. Mainly because it was a dark gray, and everything else was a stark, jet black. Duck narrowed her eyes and pursed her lips.

"Bought ya some of the finest chocolate in town." Wrapped in gold and shaped like coins. "One o' those eye... thingies for when you sleep." What looked to be two eyepatches stapled together, one higher than the other. Keg reached far into the basket for the next one, and pulled out what it was with a little flip and a hearty laugh. "And o' course, a congratulatory flintlock." Duck craned her neck back as Keg spun the grip around on an upturned hoof, went the other way with it, than simply placed it atop the rest of the basket. "Queen Anne: elegant, smooth, and small. Fits ya to a T." Duck didn't know whether to blush at the kind remark, or feel weirded out by the fact that she was smiling. It was a losing battle on both fronts, a Griffonian Empire kind of situation.

Mrs. Red made a noise, probably to get a word in, probably about the actual weapon somepony had just given Duck.

"Anyway," Keg started up again, turning tail and swishing her coat around like a blanket, "I best be goin'. The crew always has a feast after a match, and it doesn't start until the Captain makes landfall. Think we be having duck tonight, in your honor." Duck swallowed a lump down her throat. Keg, reaching the door, stopped herself with a hoof against the frame. "Good luck, Ponyville. Whoever you face in the next match is a cunning one. Best be ready, and willing. Gods' speed, Commander Duck Bill." Finally, she was gone.

The room was quiet with the disappearance of the other Overall.

Candle Light, her mouth wide open, shook her head, parted and smacked her lips a few times, then went back down to her notepad without a word.

Graham's expression hadn't changed since blanking on Powder Keg's name. She smiled at nothing. Or maybe she just really liked the outlets the hospital used for the rooms.

Arco was looking away, a hoof covering his mouth as if in the middle of a cough.

Flurry was sitting, casting a straight-lipped frown at her tarnished bouquet on the floor.

Vanilla Pudding was tapping the ends of her hooves together idly.

Mrs. Red hadn't even scribbled anything on her clipboard; there wasn't a pencil in sight. She simply stood, blinking rapidly.

Sweet Tea still sat in her chair next to Pine Needle, happy as could be and shut off to the rest of the world.

Bluebell, reacquiring her usual mindset, jostled her poofy mane about and broke the silence.

"Wow."

Arco snickered at once. "No kidding."

"Looks like we're back in it, huh guys?" Graham asked the room, looking over at Mrs. Red, who flexed her chin with a grunt.

"Looks like. Good news for us, but it means that we're gonna be needing some reminders about things we learned in this match."

Duck flinched. She didn't like the sound of that.

Judging by a few of her other classmates' like reactions, they didn't like it either.

"Like what?" Vanilla dared a voice.

Mrs. Red turned like a hawk, startling Vanilla, who squealed. "Like the rest of the team disobeying orders, and speaking out of turn! Bickering and arguing is not how matches are won, and especially not when your Overall is trying to focus." Mouth still open, Mrs. Red lingered on her last word for a few seconds before shaking her head, closing her eyes, and clamping her jaw shut. "No matter. It can wait for later." She blinked, then fanned her sights around the room with a frown playing at her lips. "I will go and see how much longer they mean to keep Duck here, and after that, we'll go and hook up our tanks and head back home. If you would, Flurry, Arco, Graham, Bluebell, and Pansy Team, please stay with Duck to keep her company. I'll be right back."

She took a few steps to leave through the doorway, then stopped just as Powder Keg had at the threshold. She gave one last look into the room. "I don't want to do what I have in mind once we return to school on Monday, but it's necessary. We lost because we were too cocky, and you all need to learn your lesson."

Flurry cocked her head. "What do you have in mind?"

Mrs. Red smirked slightly. "You'll see once we return to Ponyville."





"It's miles, and miles back to Po-ny-ville, but we raise our heads and smiiiiiiile!"

"SHUT IT OFF!"

"I CAN'T TAKE IT ANYMORE!"

"For we know that we will see it soon–"

"–we'll just have to fight forrrrr awhiiiiiiile..." Sweet Tea, blissfully, completely, oh-so-unfortunately unaware, sang along.

WOWWWW-WOWWWWWWW... Pine Needle's soft buzzing on her harmonica rang out, piercing everypony's hearts and bringing the whole mood way down into the mud caking, sloshing, and splashing about beneath their hooves. Biting down on her little instrument, she raised the business end of her mop toward the sky, trotted over to the large collection of buckets lining the side of the wall, took a few seconds to tightly wring it out, then turned tail and rejoined Sweet Tea's side, who seemed to be completely ignoring the heavy torrent of rain beating mercilessly down upon the class' heads.

It was especially worse for Duck, with the length of her hair combined with its love of frizziness only causing her to become a wretched mass of ginger hair that shifted and shimmied in absolute discomfort.

"Sugarcube Corner, we'll be vis-it-ing you, sharing ice cream and laughs–"

"Woohoo!" Sweet Tea chirped, raising a hoof and almost slapping Candle Light in the face with her mop. Candle, grumbling under her breath, adjusted her glasses and returned to the duty shared by the rest of the team: mopping up the ramps leading up to the tank garages. Nopony had fully remembered that one of their own races held the ability to change the weather with the kick of a few hindlegs until it was way too late.

The thunder that only served to scare Duck at the moment let loose another heckish roar in the distance. The rain had just become a constant, ambient noise to her now, like the tinnitus she'd been able to shake a couple years ago. She whimpered, making herself small to try and conserve warmth. She bit her lip, then felt her ears pin to the sides of her head as the crowd, watching them a little ways away on a row of benches specifically laid out for today and clutching forbidden umbrellas over their heads, giggled and laughed, pointing now at Blank Check and Busy Body, the latter of which was kicking up little bits of mud onto the places the former had just cleaned up. The former, taking a second to look at the ladder sitting against the garage's walls intended for maintenance, growled at the actual latter and scrunched up her nose.

"...and we know thaaaat, she'll feel it tooooooo...!"

The dreaded March continued to play over the loudspeakers situated high above their heads next to the flagpoles, blasting into their eardrums and making them regret ever being born into the same country the March had been made in. Pine Needle, trying her hardest to drown it out with her harmonica but too beat to actually put forth effort, shut her eyes and moaned against the instrument, drawing out another long buzz of a note that sounded like it was playing two at the same time.

Duck attempted to look for a way out of looking at the grueling event in front of her, and found an opportunity in Graham's sucking in of air. She looked at the Pegasus, who simply said, "Gods, this is just awful..."

Mrs. Red didn't miss a beat. "It's necessary, Graham. They'll see in a second."

"But why aren't we over there?" Bluebell asked, tempting fate for sure.

Mrs. Red raised an eyebrow, only her eyes darting toward the Unicorn. "Tempting fate, Bluebell?"

Bluebell shrank. "Guh! No!"

Mrs. Red looked back at the team, her umbrella sending the rainwater above it onto the area Flurry and Bluebell had earlier stood before they realized why they were getting twice as wet as everyone else. "I don't know what your decisions and ideas were inside your tank, but you did no wrong and followed your Overall's orders. Flurry drove, Graham recited, Arco fired, and Bluebell loaded thereafter. There's no reason to punish you for doing your jobs. But they," she continued, nodding her chin at the others, "went in blindly, and without ears. If they were actually in battle, they would've been dead on the spot."

At that exact moment, the thunder exploded overhead. Both the inclement weather and the terrifying word sent a chill up Duck's spine that came back seconds later with twice as much energy.

Hurricane Team, their collective work appearing much more lazy than the others—possibly bar Platinum Team's—kept giving each other quick glances and little grins here and there. Their mopping and overall cleaning grew more and more sparse as they continued, until, finally, Hail Mary set her mop on the floor and walked off the ramp. Mrs. Red took a step forward, but stopped halfway there, droned a note, then took the step back. All six of them watched as Hail, leaning over and scooping up a hoof full of mud, snickered mischievously to herself.

She wasn't... no... was she?

Winding up, and arching her back, Hail let loose her ball of mud.

It soared through the air, passing over Puddinghead Team's assigned lane and the whole team's head as well, and splatted right across the back of Busy Body's head.

Duck gasped.

Bluebell giggled.

Somepony else made a noise that sounded vaguely like, "Oh no."

The separated teams suddenly piped up, whispering and murmuring as they stopped their work to look over at Platinum Team. Blank Check sat, arms against her hips and a sly expression on her face as if to say, "Told you so." Forest Fire stood, a hoof over her mouth, then a glare on her brow. Busy Body, seemingly in shock, slowly turned around and slid a hoof down the back of her neck, sending the mud projectile onto the ramp beneath her. Quickly, she reached down off the side, scooped up her own ball of mud, and threw it hard down the way...

...and right over Candle Light's head, past Sweet Tea's—who was still singing along—shoulder, and right in the back of Pine's head. Pine, in the middle of buzzing another note, croaked like she'd just choked on a massive piece of food, doubling over and making the most Godsawful harmonica sound Duck had ever heard apart from her own attempts upon finding one at her doctor's office. Pine, stuffing her harmonica into one of her flannel's pockets, slowly turned around as the rest of her crew did the same, a snarl tugging at her lips. Candle adjusted her glasses; Sweet Tea smacked a hoof into another; Vanilla popped her neck to and fro.

"The warm-est coat, the tall-est hats, and a kitchen sink on tooooop of thaaaaaat!"

Blank tried to look for a way out.

Forest took a step back.

Busy stepped forward.

She cleared her throat. 

"Ahem." She bunched up her necktie's knot. "My fellow Equestrians..."

"AAAAAAAAAAAAAUGH!"

Puddinghead Team jumped back, allowing Pine complete, easy access as she practically flew past them with a mighty roar, picked up a yiping Busy Body in a Firemare's Carry, and tackled her right to the ground, where the wet, sloppy mud splashed up and covered the both of them in an instant. Still sitting atop Busy, Pine grabbed a hoof full of mud and slapped Busy across the face with it, grinning to herself until both Forest Fire and Blank Check rushed her and threw her to the ground.

Forest Fire, the first to stumble back onto all fours, breathed heavily at the oh-so-strenous exercise, turned around at the sound of something, then fell to the floor with Candle's hoofleg connecting with her gut. Blank Check, taking notice of the new body next to her, rolled off the top of Pine and onto the muddy ground as Sweet Tea attempted to grab hold of her from behind. Taking a second to groan in disgust, Blank skittered to her hooves sprinted as quick as she could away from the hipsters, who sent Sweet Tea after her in a fit.

Hurricane Team, seizing the moment, grabbed balls of mud in their hooves and began throwing them across the way...

...until their collective volley was encased in a heavenly yellow glow. They only needed to look Duck's direction to find Flurry, her horn glowing as she began trotting over to them. The mud balls exploded onto the ground as the aura fell, and Flurry found herself joined by Arco, Graham, and Bluebell, though Bluebell seemed to be eyeing up Arco more than anypony else, even if Hail was within striking distance now.

Duck's jaw fell slack, and she looked up at Mrs. Red, her throat dry.

Mrs. Red minded her, but suddenly perked up and nonchalantly said, "Ohp. On your nine, approaching in two."

Duck, mind immediately kicking into high gear, turned. In the few seconds that she'd looked away, her crew and Hurricane Team were wrestling and pulling at ears and tails on the mud, their manes and hooves already caked in layers upon layers of mud...

...and charging her, teeth bare, was Field Goal.

Duck spat out a quick breath, then sidestepped Field as she blew past her, clutched the Hoofball player tightly around her stomach, ignored her sudden cries of shock and awe, then promptly bent backward and engaged in a trust fall with Field's head, sending it to the floor with an ear-shattering thump! that mixed in with Field's grunt of pain and body splashing in the trench she'd carved. Stumbling back onto all fours, Duck's ears caught the sound of another quartet of hooves storming her way before she did Flurry's voice calling, "Duck, watch out!"

It was Peanut Brittle this time, who, true to her name, swiped at empty air as Duck dove to the ground onto her stomach, took a two-hoofed hold of the mare's tail, then, hissing like a venomous snake, pulled Peanut over her head and onto the ground in front of her. In a daze, and with birds chirping in circles around her head, Peanut gave Duck a kooky-eyed stare before Lily appeared, intending to tackle Duck out of the corner of her eyes. Duck, realizing the ambush, only held up her hooves as Lily's outstretched legs glowed with yellow, then suddenly smacked her upside her own head. Flurry ran up to the downed Lily, then widened her eyes, turned left, and blinked out of existence as Hail found nothing but air. Flurry, reappearing a few feet away, yelped out in surprise as Bit Rate, fleeing the vengeance-seeking Pansy Team, tripped over her and sent the two of them onto the ground. Arco was, oddly, being pinned by Bluebell at the moment. Autumn Leaves, sending a strong elbow into Forest's ribs, looked to whip about with the aid of a slap of mud, then, rubbing her cheek, was hurled to the ground by Sweet Tea, who simultaneously shoved Forest down as well and pulled at Autumn's cute mane. 

Sitting down by the ramp further up and sharing a large blanket were Graham and Plastic Beach, who observed the fighting quietly and seemed to be listening to Plastic's music.

As Pine seemed to be busying herself with Blank, and Candle Light gripped Busy in a chokehold, Vanilla stood separate from the pack, making squares with her two forelegs, eyes narrowed and tongue sticking out. 

Primrose was nowhere to be–

"Oh, um... hi," Duck said, feeling a glow of warmth behind her body. Primrose stood there, shaking and pulling at Duck's dirtied jacket. Oh Gods was this what it felt like to be with her?

On the floor still lay Field Goal, her face up in the mud as she tried to pull herself free to no avail. Peanut Brittle, holding the side of her head and seething, swatted at Duck as she stretched out a hoof to help her. Ears slapping against the sides of her head, she watched as Peanut, grumbling under her breath and letting out a few out as she looked at her hoof, took a seat by Mrs. Red as if she'd been announced "out" at a dodgeball game.

As the fight raged on, the March relentlessly did the same.

"...and we'll bid adieu with one ooooof, our guuuuuuuns!"

Duck finally found words. She gave them to Mrs. Red as she brushed mud and grass off her uniform and mane. "You're not going to stop them?"

Mrs. Red shook her head. "Not yet. This is how you build a team."

She fanned a hoof around at the battle still waging.

Bluebell now held both Arco and Hail in a headlock.

Pine flew into the air and hugged Lily to the ground.

Flurry pushed Bit Rate off her, then dove to the ground and swiped at the flanking Busy Body's legs.

"Sure, they'll want payback..." Mrs. Red brought Duck back with a shrug, reducing the fight to a mere blur in her peripherals, "...but they'll also want to prove themselves to each other. Work harder to win. Just..." she tilted her head, biting on her lower lip, "...try to turn down comms this week."

Duck nodded. For sure.

Sucking in a breath and dipping her head, Mrs. Red bit down on a trench whistle, flexed her chin, and blew hard into it.

WEEEEEEEEEET!

Field, who'd finally gotten her head out, clutched her ears at the sharp noise. Primrose and Peanut did the same.

"Line up, and stand up straight Horsepowers!"

The three next to Duck slowly trotted over to their limping, stumbling, very obviously drained classmates. Their school uniforms—collared shirt, jacket, and all—were muddy, wet, and dripping. Manes were sticky and sopping with dirt. A few of them rubbed their bruises and bumps absent-mindedly. The Ponyville March, on its last verse, suddenly cut off and sent the grassy field into a genuine hush. The rain raged on; thunder boomed, first here, then all the way over there. It was getting closer. Even the audience on their bleachers was quiet.

Mrs. Red turned her head left and right to look at the class before her. Lined up in respects to their crews, they gave each other dirty glances before shaking their heads and paying attention. The apple in Mrs. Red's throat quivered. She sucked in a long breath.

"I do hope this day's activity isn't meaningless in your minds."

The class was quiet.

"This is a punishment on all fronts, for not listening to each other like you've been told time and time again."

"We thought we could do it ma'am!"

Mrs. Red raised an eyebrow. Hurricane Team's line parted to reveal Peanut Brittle, who appeared to be gritting her teeth hard at her own loud noises.

In turn, Mrs. Red was quiet for a few seconds.

Finally, she frowned. "And there's nothing wrong with feeling sure of yourselves. But there is with being too sure. You underestimated your opponents the first second you saw them, and you paid the price... but this is a good lesson."

A few murmurs went about in the crews.

"Because this is what we'll do to them." She practically spat out that last word. "All of them." She scanned the faces before her for any reaction, but, seeing none, lifted her forelegs and began to lightly pace to and fro. "You know it by now that Ponyville's Tankery team is a laughing stock, one to the entire world at this point. We're the underdogs to them, the ones who will, time and time again, fail, and secure defeat by nothing but our own crews. We're destined to lose."

She stopped on a dime, and faced the class again.

"But I never believed in destiny anyway."

Mrs. Red paused, mouth still open.

A voice suddenly clamored out from way, way down.

"We jumped the gun with Baltimare. We didn't find it possible for them to win. But they did. And we're not out yet. And we'll show the rest of the world just what's the matter with underestimating Ponyville. This is a harsh lesson to learn... but it's an important one. Keep your ears open and listen to each other, but above all else..." 

Duck lifted a hoof to her chest, ignoring the wide-eyed look of Mrs. Red and the rest of her classmates.

"...you listen to me."

The rain tried its hardest to drown out the sound of her heart, beating against the hoofmade mud crates marring the ground like the moon's surface.

"My family may not help my case, but I'm nothing like them. And if you all expect to get a win, I think it's best to know that."

Duck glared, then suddenly sucked in a large gasp. Her face burned, and she looked away before anypony could make eye contact with her.

Mrs. Red stepped forward, saving her with a small smile.

"You all have another match up next a few weeks from now. On Saturday, the Appleloosa Tumbleweeds were beat by the Cloudsdale Storms, who we will be facing. I've prepared you all for the weather expected during the fight, reflecting the ways our Pegasi would have fought in the Never War."

She straightened up and gave them all a crisp salute.

"Stick together; listen to Duck."

She threw her hoof down.

"Dismissed."
> One Day, We All Wish To Be Friends! Let's Get Started Today!
> --------------------------------------------------------------------------

"H-Hello?"

"Duck Bill. Come in."

The words numbered four, and so Duck lifted the same rather stutteringly, letting the door slowly creeeeeeak shut behind her. Her ears alarmingly flicked upward as she realized it hadn't shut all the way—instead remaining slightly ajar with its latch blocking the frame—but, hearing the other pony in the room deafeningly clear her noticeably dry throat, she clenched her teeth as tight as she could, turned around, and proceeded to fully enter the security guard's office. It had been only a few weeks since she'd been brought into Principal Cheese's office, and so the effect wasn't all too wasted on her when the door—automated—finally closed behind her, completely silencing the ambient buzz of the passing period's bright hallways.

The comparisons between the Principal's office and this guard's office were few and... actually, no, just very few. She could probably count them with all of her appendages, as little they felt still somewhat attached to her at the pressing moment. The orange glow from the afternoon was instead a blueish-white, helped a lot by the fact that there weren't any windows looking outside; the only two windows that were here were interiors, and facing different sides of the room—one behind the guard at her desk toward the Freshmen/Sophomore hall, and the other to Duck's right giving her a lovely view of lockers, a few doors, and a poster that said, "Join the Literature Club, today!" except it looked like somepony had written "Litterature" at first, and there was a big black scribble that pretty much dwarfed the 'e' after it.

There was the L-shaped desk in front of her—the long part of which she'd be sitting down at eventually—and a bookcase full of not books, but various pictures, bulging vanilla folders, and stacks and stacks of blank paper tossed to and fro. Along the walls were more pictures, although at least ninety-percent of these looked hoofmade. "I love Mrs. Copper Top!" here on a bright orange piece of construction paper, and "Mrs. Copper Top is my dad!" over there on looseleaf, which didn't really seem right at all.

Despite the overall welcoming, friendly vibe of the office, Duck still felt more than just a relative... unease. She guessed that that was probably the point.

The guard must've noticed her turtling head and her slowly-pacing eyes. And also the fact that she was still standing there.

"Sit, please."

Duck rushed over to the front of the desk, not so much picking the rightmost seat as stumbling onto it with the gracefulness of a paraplegic butterfly. She subconsciously reached into her breast pocket and unfurled the hall pass she'd been given, placing it onto the counter next to the guard's nameplate.

She squirmed in her seat.

The random gibberish coming from the speakers to her left—which the guard apparently considered "music"—slowly quieted as its volume knobs were turned leftward. Instead of blocking any real conversation she and the guard could have had, it would now play a background track to her subsequent, and assured, demise.

"Do you know why I called you down today?"

Duck kept her mouth shut, even though she had no words attempting to escape at the moment anyway. She shook her head and dipped her chin.

"Really?" Mrs. Copper Top tilted her dull red-maned head. "So you're telling me that you don't recognize these, then." 

Duck looked up. The guard leaned over to her left side, grabbed what sounded like a lot of papers, and threw down what she'd collected in front of Duck, who knitted her brow and attempted to make sense of what she was forcefully glaring at. Through the bits of water damage and random tears, she could clearly see that these were tests of some kind.

"EQ Biology 2," she read aloud.

Mrs. Copper Top nodded to herself. "That's right."

"I've... n-never seen these before, ma'am. I don't even have this class..."

Mrs. Copper Top hummed, chewing on her lower lip. She was quiet for awhile, then found her suddenly much stronger voice. "So the story that I heard about you and two other students sneaking into school last week after hours and stealing these from Mrs. Birch Tree's room was just..." she flailed her forelegs mockingly, "...made up then, right?"

Duck raised one of her own. "I... don't know what to say, m-ma'am."

Mrs. Copper Top—since apparently Duck had no other designations to give the much older mare sitting in front of her... behind a computer monitor, behind a desk that really seemed off-kilter now that she had nothing to do presently and could just stare at it idly, behind a pair of eyeglasses, which went up as she—rubbed her nose and thereafter her forehead with a prolonged, very familiar sigh that her mother had given many a time before.

Duck had recognized her quite speedily upon opening the door to the office, having seen her stalking the various halls around school like a military police unit—sometimes even wearing a similar helmet—or against a wall all cool-like during passing periods or lunchtime being talked at by around ten or so... less trustworthy students. Duck knew a bit about how the pony brain worked, if those classes her mother forcefully enrolled and later taught her in told her anything (besides how to blow one apart or crack through the skull to get into one), and she knew just what those students were looking, hoping, praying, begging the Gods every night before tucking themselves into bed, to get out of being friends with a security guard of a high school.

Was it one of them who'd pinned this honest-to-Gods rumoron her? A student who'd caught half a split second's glance at her as she speed-trotted to her next class with her head down and thought, 'Yeah, let's get this girl'? Maybe the infiltration had happened, and the perpetrators were friends of their's, and in the blind anger that came with seeing a friend get caught, they decided to drag a random stranger down as well, just to, for no reason, ruin somepony else's day? Actually, mind, her entire week was probably going to be awful after this... another hour in a staff member's office? Gods, she was surprised she wasn't throwing up now.

"Gods, why do I always get the difficult ones...?"

Duck lifted her chin instinctively, head in a tilt, only for her eyes to stray away from Copper Top—who was rubbing her cheeks around like putty as she stared at the ceiling—and to the source of the little whirring noise her ears had just taken notice of.

On top of the desk, emerging from behind a tissue box, was what looked to be a small, futuristic tractor with a pair of purple, animated eyes, barely the size of the recess in her hoof.

It stopped, realizing the other presence in the room.

Duck blinked.

It blinked.

The—what looked to be some kind of crane?—raised up over its... head?

WEER-OO.

Duck sucked in a breath. She leaned forward in her seat and felt a big stupid grin dirty her face. 

"You are the cutest thing I have ever seen."

The little tractor's eyes became upside-down U's, and it nodded vigorously.

Copper Top's chair creaked as the mare returned to a proper sitting position.

"Ugh Godsdammit, now Beady's awake."

Duck raised an eyebrow.

"One of those..." Copper flicked a hoof, "...dumb robot things for your home. Tells you the weather and everything." She crossed her forelegs on the countertop and stopped herself before burying her chin inside, giving little Beady an odd look while it moved back and forth gleefully in some kind of flaunting trick. "I thought it... looked kinda cool for the office, so I just bought it." She must've believed her words suddenly became silent when she lowered her voice and added, "And of course it would be buddy-buddy with you."

Duck directed the downward movement of her brow to one of her ears. It flicked very angrily. She pouted out her lip and lightly booped Beady on its display.

WHOA.

It rolled back about a centimeter, staring at the desk—or rather its "floor" at the moment—and shaking its head in apparent disbelief.

Duck giggled.

It was kind of like... a dog, actually. 

She'd always wanted one of those things, even if the prospect of caring about something else seemed like a colossal effort since she didn't really take care of herself first, but her Mother was never up for it. She knew her Mother to be a lot more than just a simple dog lover—namely because those five urns above the fireplace didn't carry equine relatives—but, no, letting her youngest daughter have a dog around was just out of the question. The oldest daughter, though, there was a young mare worthy of a canine. Around the time that Pumpkin Seed was a young filly, and Duck was maaaaybe an idea in her parents' heads, they'd had a Bull Terrier named Tank that, while very, very deaf, like, to the point where you could probably bang a pair of cymbals an inch from his head and he'd only flinch because it was just quick movement in the corner of his eyes, somehow knew when her Mother was home, and always greeted her at the door with heavy breathing and lulling tongue.

After that, there were no dogs in the house until... her sister's accident. 

Duck supposed it was intended to be a therapy dog, even though Pumpkin Seed was all right in the head as far as she knew after all that happened. Then again, any excuse to have a dog around seemed more than all right with her. Her sister wasn't one to spit in the face of tradition, and as a tribute to the lovable Tank, she'd gone out with their Mother one afternoon and purchased an all-white—practically albino—Bull Terrier, later naming him "William" after William The Conqueror, or "Willie" for short after witnessing his total fright of a much smaller, much more literal bark-than-bite dog across the street.

Willie was very cute. Very, very cute, even when standing next to the much more imposing, much more intimidating General Pumpkin Bread. His presence alone was enough to let everypony around know that General "Old Blood And Guts" was around.

"You know..."

Duck lifted her chin again. Copper was burying a hoof into her left cheek and leafing through a binder with the other. Her expression just looked bored.

"...your teachers didn't seem to believe it, or even Principal Cheese..."

She looked up at Duck now, eyes narrowed.

"...but it's always the quiet ones, and you've been very quiet these past few minutes. That and your shying away just screams suspicious."

Oh, so it was like every time she was at the nearby airfield with her mother, where she'd get additional screening and a "polite" interrogation for awhile.

She... didn't like the airport anymore.

"I... I didn't do anything, ma'am."

"Hmm."

Copper seemed to make some kind of motion like she wanted Duck as far away as possible from her office, and so, hurriedly, Duck rose from her seat and attempted to leave the room. It was already way into fourth period by this point, and she didn't really want to get on Mrs. Ballpoint's bad side...

"Excuse me? Where do you think you're going?"

Duck froze, feeling her entire body cease each and every single one of its functions.

"Aah..."

"We're not finished here, young mare." Duck turned about, grabbing for the backrest of the chair and pulling it out. "Sit down." She did so, her heart beating out of her chest. Beady seemed to notice the sudden hostility in the room, and rolled up a few inches toward the end of the desk to look up at Duck. She looked at it and gave it a soft smile. If this was supposed to be some kind of therapy... robot, it was doing a pretty good darn job.

Copper picked up the binder, hugging it close to her breast. She started blowing through the pages much quicker this time.

"I also have reports here that you crawled through the vents and planted a firework in the colt's downstairs bathroom... one here about you illegally selling gum in the corner of the library before school..." Copper raised an eyebrow. Instead of pulling a paper across the binder, she seemed to lift one up as if attached to a clipboard. "...and this looks like a first-hoof account of you replacing the ammunition in the Aviation class with crispy rice treats, which doesn't seem... right to me." She put the binder down finally, but with her hooves still on it, gazed at Duck out of the corner of her eyes. "And then I had some colt named Frappe or something say you stole his lunch money, but..." She looked Duck up and down. "...I'm just gonna say he's lying about that."

Duck tilted her head.

"What I'm saying is, you've got quite the track record already, young mare, and I–"

KNOCK KNOCK KNOCK!

"Ugh, hey Beady, go hide." WHIRRRRR! Ms. Copper stared past Duck. "Who is it?"

"Mr. Cane."

Copper pushed herself and her chair away from her desk as the door opened behind Duck. She folded her forelegs behind her head and chuckled, "Oh, hey Candy, what's up?"

Mr. Cane's voice was way too loud in Duck's right ear. "You mind stepping outside for a sec? I see you're busy, but..."

Ms. Copper rolled her eyes. "Please, I've got all the time in the world." Her chair creaked as she rose from it and began to trot out. As she passed Duck, she whispered harshly, "Stay right there, young mare," and finally, deafeningly, slammed the door behind her. The two security guards—or at least, Duck assumed Mr. Cane to be one—began to talk seemingly right in front of the door, their voices muffled by the newly regulated two-inches of wood. 

Duck's ear involuntarily flicked up, and she caught a few seconds of their discussion.

"Come on, it's just right down the street a ways. Everypony's coming."

"Eh, I dunno. I've got a lot to do tonight..."

"What if you see Mr. Arsdale?"

"Oh Godsdammit don't try and... is he coming?"

"I think so."

Oh, great.

Duck shifted in her seat, pressing her hocks together and twiddling her front hooves. She'd been left alone in a room she'd literally never been in before, and, by this point, wanted absolutely nothing to do with. The air felt hot as heck, though maybe it was just her uniform. She reached a hoof up to her neck and pulled at her two collars, airing herself a bit as her mind wandered. Her thoughts began to start their normal routine, and turned to any positive thoughts nestled... somewhere in there.

...oh!

She grinned from ear to ear.

"Um... hey, Beady, come on out."

WHIRRR!

The little robo-tractor... thing reemerged from its hiding place, which seemed to be a frequent, which seemed to be behind the tissue box. She guessed even robots couldn't handle that side of the internet. Beady moved to and fro in front of her, looking into her eyes the whole time with its boxy, light eye... things.

Well, these things were designed for homes, which meant that it was probably designed with kids in mind. Not that she was a kid. No. She was sixteen years old. Not a kid.

She leaned forward, placing her forelegs on her hocks and smiling sweetly.

"Well... let's see." She looked to her left. Aha! "Hey, Beady, do you know any tricks?"

GWEEE!

Beady drove around in a tight circle. Apparently proud of itself, it waggled its little crane and shook its head at Duck enthusiastically. 

"Good job, Beady."

WEEERR.

"Hey Beady, go... drive around a bit."

WHIRRRRRR!

She'd mainly wanted to see the comparisons between the robot and the tracks on a tank, but seeing Beady's excitement for a simple maneuver was more than enough to put a smile on her face. It made a loose S and road toward the far end of the desk, coming back after doing a tight loop and rolling over the binder Ms. Copper Top had left shut in front of her computer. Beady fell down on what looked to be a few pieces of paper, crinkling them up and sending the topmost one askew as it—panicking for a few seconds—revved up and almost flew away with its sudden speed.

Duck giggled, leaning further forward to see where the little robot had went off to, but her eyes caught something in the corner of her peripherals. The pieces of paper Beady had stumbled across weren't something novice, or rather, something from a student's notebook. It wasn't looseleaf paper, or even machine-printed out. It was a hint of gold, possibly due to age and where it had come from, and looked to be hoof-written by quill. In the trash next to her, she only now realized, were the torn, tattered remnants of a brown envelope. The only thing she could still see was the stamp bearing EQ Air Mail, and the redded-out picture of the C-47 atop it.

Thoughts of simply ignoring the letter were quick to dissipate, and with one quick look-around to make sure that nopony—specifically Mr. Cane and Ms. Copper—was looking, she narrowed her eyes and looked at its contents, her brain working hard to decipher the upside-down letters as quickly as possible.

From what she could tell at first, what was written seemed to be... exactly what Ms. Copper had "heard" about her. All the... rumors, and such. Every single thing she'd been accused of for the past... what, half hour or so, was written right there...

...wait...

...she recognized that hoofwriting.

EEEEEEH!

Duck threw herself back into her chair and attempted to revert back to her previous position. Audibly clacking her hocks together again, she suppressed the urge to grimace and watched Ms. Copper return to her desk and pull up her own chair with a hoof and a groan. "All right, we're back," she told Duck, as if the commercial break for some kind of game show was over.

Duck didn't say anything.

Neither did Ms. Copper, who leaned back in her seat with her forelegs crossed, glaring across the way.

Intimidation tactics. Duck knew these fairly well.

Not to say she was immune to them and could handle them, just that she knew about them a lot.

"Well, I think we've taken up enough of each other's time..."

Excuse her?

Ms. Copper creaked her chair as she moved forward, collecting her papers and putting them back in her drawers.

"...I may not have disciplined you today, but I'm watching you, little mare."

Duck kept her mouth shut, realizing she'd probably just stutter something stupid out and end up missing more of fourth, if she hadn't missed it all already. She scooted her chair back and moved out from in front of it, then shoved it back into place and proceeded to walk toward the door. Ms. Copper turned up the volume on her "music" again, drowning out Duck as she pulled open the door and stepped a hoof over the threshold.

"Oh, and next match...!"

Duck turned her head.

Ms. Copper was glaring at her, grinning widely.

"At least... try to win, huh?"

Duck frowned, then walked out without a word.

She wiped her muzzle, adjusted her jacket, and headed to fourth.





"He says it a third time, a fourth,
I doubt he knows his fractions,
he says 'Add it', he says,
I hate his reactions!
He says 'Add it', he says,
is that the language of loooooooooove?!"

Duck didn't really expect to hear Betty Button on the garage radio when she opened the door, but she wasn't really complaining. Definitely wasn't the studio recording. Must've been live.

"He says 'Kill 'em', he says,
I doubt he owns a gun,
he says 'Kill 'em', he says,
think he's havin' too much fun,
he says 'Kill 'em', he says,
is that the language of loooove?"

Pulling her bag over her shoulder and discarding it on the floor next to everypony else's, she turned her head and expected to see the class doing something outrageously... not right, but, instead, had to pout out her lower lip and admit that she was moderately impressed. 

Hurricane Team was busying themselves in and around their Tiger, adjusting nuts and bolts and loading ammo into the turret. Hail Mary was scrambling up the side skirts, belts of 7.92x57mm dangling around her neck and slapping metallically against the exterior of the tank as she reached the top, bent over, and handed the ammunition off to the waiting hoof of what looked to be Peanut Brittle.

Pansy Team were singing to themselves as they fixed the tracks on their Cruiser, and though they were thoroughly drowned out by Miss Betty still belting out her latest song, they were all smiles and cheers and still happily keeping to themselves. Sweet Tea, leading the group's session, reached into a toolbox and handed what she found to Vanilla Pudding, who passed it to Candle Light, who tossed it to Pine Needle, who—once finished with her tool—chucked it dangerously back over the heads of her crew, scoring it right back into the box which it came from with a loud CLUNK!

Both Platinum Team's SOMUA and Puddinghead Team's Stuart seemed to be vacant at the moment, and so she turned to her left at the sound of ambient noises to find both crews sitting at the tables they'd all assembled for the garages. Platinum Team sat at the roundtable Hurricane Team had dragged in from the unused closet by the cafeteria; Puddinghead Team sat on the class' makeshift propeller blade table, which was composed of sandbags—for support—and three leftover cargo plane blades from the Aviation class for the table itself and the two opposing seats. Duck's idea, but she wasn't... bragging or anything.

"This table is awful," Forest Fire half-mumbled loud enough for, well, probably everypony to hear.

Platinum Team hummed in acknowledgment, then rose from their seats and took up—hopefully—temporary residence at the opposite end of the propeller table in an instant.

Bit Rate lowered her hoofheld; Autumn Leaves slammed her book down on the table; Primrose stopped click-clacking at her laptop.

Plastic Beach just kind of... kept doing what she was doing. Which was listening to music. Loudly.

Busy Body snarled. "Oh, don't mind us!"

Puddinghead Team did as they were told.

Except Plastic. Again. Because... because she was already doing exactly that.

Busy crossed her arms, clearly not expecting the other crew to lay down and take it. "Simpletons."

Duck raised a hoof, intending to ask them if they'd seen Arco, Flurry, Graham, and Bluebell at all.

Without looking up from her hoofheld, Bit growled, "Yeah, just keep childishly insulting ponies, Busy. It's all you're good at."

Busy raised her own hoof.

"She isn't wrong," came Blank Check to Busy's left matter-of-factly.

"Oh don't you even start with me."

Blank lifted her chin regally. "It's just so awfully good that someone with the temperament of the esteemed Busy Body is not in charge of the laws in our wonderful country."

Busy shoved a hoof Blank's way. "Yeah, you'd be in jail."

"I think you'd both be in jail, to be honest," Primrose admitted, face lit up blue and white by her screen. "Ever heard of a 'coup', Busy?" 

Busy stuttered. Blank brought up her right foreleg and buried it into her cheek, smirking at her future opponent. Forest Fire, reverting to her usual standing, cleared her throat.

"That one goes to you, Miss Body."

"I mean if she wants to start, she can start."

"No, go ahead, Busy."

Busy shot a hoof into her own tie. "No, I'm practically a gentlecolt, Blank. Go ahead."

"By Gods, it's like listening to a broken record," Autumn grumbled, looking up and grinning at Duck like she'd just said something outrageously humorous.

"Or one of Plastic's tracks," went Bit, who received a thwack upside the head by the young mare. "All right, only Souk Eye."

"I'm very proud of Souk Eye," Plastic replied, "it just needs a bit more and I think it'll be perfect."

"Sure, sure," said Busy across the table, "fill up your time with loud music, and video games and books and the internet, what have you, but just remember that, years from now, I'll be the one regulating it all."

"You'd regulate what we do on our spare time, when we're free to do whatever we want?" Autumn hissed.

"Of course. It's just in the interest of national security..."

"National security my ass." Primrose turned her head, eyeing up the three ponies with a pair of daggers in her eyes. "Is me watching a five-hour stream of a Caneighdian building a Nintwelvedo Labo kit really in the interest of National friggin' Security?"

Busy nodded, unfolding her arms. "Of course it is. Especially because he's Caneighdian." Primrose huffed. "We always need to be aware of our neighboring countries, what– what if he was somehow indoctrinating you?"

Primrose's mouth was an inch open. She blinked.

Her expression didn't even change. "What."

"You're not serious," went Blank.

Busy nodded, this time much more earnestly. "What if, somehow, he was indoctrinating you?"

"Yeah, no, you can repeat it, but it doesn't give it anymore bit of making sense. That which it still has zero," Bit Rate shot.

"What if, somehow, he was indoctrinating me?" Primrose asked. Busy nodded. "With cardboard?" Another nod. "A set of cardboard that was made for... kids." A third nod. "You talk about a wall a lot, but can I build one between you and I so I never have to talk to you or see your stupid mane again?"

At that, Busy rose from her seat.

"Oh, oh, so you're sensitive about your mane now?" Primrose asked, her voice strong despite instinctively scootching an inch away.

Blank pulled at Busy's sleeves, gritting her teeth.

"Okay, Busy, I know you're into big diversions today, anything to avoid talking about your campaign and your life and the way it's exploding and the way ponies are constantly leaving you and the way that you suck, but let's at least focus right now."

Busy shot Blank a death glare, but frowned, nodded her head, and patted her necktie down against her breast.

Forest, finally taking notice of Duck—who was honestly just standing there the entire time and not knowing how best to get away—rolled a hoof idly. "If you're looking for your friends, they're out on an errand for Mrs. Red."

Blank's frown suddenly shifted to a much-too-wide grin. She blinked her eyes at Duck and beckoned her over with a hoof. "Come, come, young mare. There's no need to be afraid."

"She's older than you," told Bit.

"And there are a lot of reasons to not wanna sit by you guys," Autumn spat with a shrug.

Blank scooted over, still grinning, and tap-tap-tapped the empty space next to her, hissing at the confused Busy who tried to take the position back.

Primrose looked up at Duck from atop her laptop's folding screen. "You don't wanna do that."

Duck opened her mouth.

"Just come sit on my right," Primrose continued.

"Uh..." Duck looked at Busy, Blank, and Forest, then turned to face Primrose, Autumn, Bit, and Plastic. Taking a few second to pull her bag up off the floor and hoist it over her shoulder, she stepped past the former—much to their chagrin and, from Busy, quiet threats—and paused before reaching the latter. She hopped up and took a seat between the two teams; Primrose sat to her immediate right, and Blank took up the spot at Duck's left. Sliding her messenger bag over her stomach and pulling out her binder, she decided that working on some homework while she waited for the others was a much better use of her time. She would've gladly taken the other, now empty table, but she was trying to put an end to the two crews' unrest, even if just by a little, or in another way.

Blank nudged Busy. "See, look at that. A bright young mare, doing her homework like she should. Does that sound familiar at all, Busy?"

Busy rolled her eyes. "No, Blank, it does not."

"Well, that's very good, because I certainly didn't mean the bright part. Just the homework part." She took a hoof and patted the table in front of Busy. "Chop chop. I've already done all of mine."

"Must be nice being Teacher's Pet, isn't it?"

Blank's eyes widened, and she sloooowly retracted her head and looked at everypony else at the table.

"I think Busy just criticized me for preparing for this upcoming test. And yes, Busy, I did." She glared at the pony in question. "And you know what else I've prepared for? I've prepared to be a leader of this nation one day. And I think that’s a very, very good thing."

"Leader of this nation? Please. The only thing you'll lead is the line straight to court."

Blank grinned ear to ear. She fanned a hoof out as if to present Busy, almost booping her on the nose. "Do you see this? A mare who can be provoked by a wayward comment should not have her hooves anywhere near a declaration of war."

"What good would you do in a war, Blank?"

"Is this an experience kind of thing, Busy, because we can talk about experience."

Busy turned to the table. "Oh, she has experience, but it’s bad experience—awful experience even—and this country can’t afford to have even a single month of that kind of experience."

Bit slammed her elbows on the table. "Can you take this somewhere else, please? I'm on my last life here."

"By Gods I wish she was on her last life," Busy remarked, pointing boredly at Blank, "that way we'd never have to see her again." She turned to Blank, now, then turned away and added with another jab, "If she can't satisfy her boyfriend, what makes her think she can satisfy Equestria?" A pair of ponies trotted up to the table, but seemed to have something much further past it in mind. Busy rotated about, holding out a wide open foreleg. "Heyyyy, if it isn't Peanut Brittle and Field Goal. My two favorite mares, how are you today?"

"Head hurts," first Peanut, then Field, said simply, marching right past.

Duck realized they were talking about her and fidgeted slightly.

Busy laughed loudly. "Hahaha, yeah, I bet, anyway I hope you guys have a good one okay bye." Busy watched the two Hoofball players leave for a few seconds, then swiveled back around like a turret and placed her chin on a pair of bridge-making forelegs. "It's always good to be on friendly terms with the physically fit members of society."

"What, so they don't beat you?" Primrose asked. Duck, made aware of the other mare's existence, curiously peeked over to see what Primrose was watching. Oh, wow, that five-hour stream was actually a real thing? Huh. Her other tabs seemed to include something called "blueit", a video called "Reneigh Circulation", and... wait was that allowed on the school's wifi? Probably not. And probably not a good idea to ask.

Busy continued talking, though it seemed that her focus was solely on Blank again at the moment, and vice versa. A moment of reprieve, thankfully.

POP!

Duck barely had time to jump at the noise before seeing something red slide across the table toward her. It was a bag of what looked to be chips, something she didn't really eat a whole lot. She stole a glance at Bit Rate, who smirked and pointed at it. "Well? Go on. Have a few."

Duck looked to her left, and then to her right. This was some kind of prank, right?

Bit rolled her eyes, but the smile still tugged at her lips. "I'm sharing with you, Duck. I'm not trying to hurt you."

Duck nodded, albeit without a word, and reached into the bag. Pulling out a chip—which she found to be triangular-shaped, and dusty with red—she studied first it, then the bag it came from. Her head tilted. "D-Doriftos?"

Bit sniggered. "What, you've never had Doriftos before? It's like, the stereotypical gamer fuel, along with Peak Fog."

Duck, holding the chip in both hooves, munched on it hesitantly. "I-I don't p-play many... games."

"How about the internet?" Primrose asked, sliding her laptop around so Duck could see.

"Are you still on HornHub?" Bit asked.

"No," Primrose reassured her.

Yes, she was.

"I don't really do much browsing..."

"Whoa!"

A hoof slid across Primrose's stomach, swiping her off the chair and sending her to the ground in an awkward mess. As the birds began flying around the fallen mare's head, Plastic Beach scooted over with a smirk. "How about music, then?"

Duck shifted. "I don't really..."

In those few seconds, Plastic took off her headphones and put them over Duck's ears.

Immediately, her head was filled with a soft beat and an admittedly pleasant vibe.

"IIII will, allllways
dream about... youuuu..."

"It sounds okay..." Duck told her, only for Plastic to quickly pull the accessory off Duck's head and slide back into place. Primrose took her position yet again, elbowing Plastic in the side and returning to her video.

"What about books?" came Autumn from the other end, holding up one of her own with both hooves proudly.

Well now that she had a bit of knowledge on.

Duck raised a hoof. "I... do read a bit."

Bit, Plastic, and Primrose groaned. Autumn pumped a hoof. "Sweet! Who's your favorite author?"

"I... I like Jünger."

At that, Autumn tilted her head. "Who?"

Duck tapped her hooves together. "H-He wrote Storm of Steel? A memoir on his... time fighting the Hippogriffs?"

Autumn frowned. "Oh. You read those kinds of books? I meant like, horror authors. Shel Goldstein, or something."

"Shel Goldstein doesn't write horror books," Bit tutted.

"Yeah but he looks scary as hell," Autumn shot back. "Plus he used to write for Playcolt."

Duck turned away, rubbing at her left sleeve. Of course, she had nothing in common with any of these mares.

"How about math?"

Duck's ears flicked up, and she turned to the source of the voice to find Forest Fire bundling up her infinity scarf.

"M-Math?"

Forest snickered, pointing a hoof at Busy, who was in the middle of scribbling something down on a piece of snow white paper. "Busy's doing her homework, and she's stuck on a problem."

"Am not!"

"Busy, you've been staring at that problem for the past few minutes and pretending to write something down—only to quote-unqoute 'erase it'—every time we've asked about it," Blank noted.

"Shut up," was Busy's only response.

Duck cleared her throat... prompting the three to stop what they were doing with a screeching halt—literally in Busy's corner, as she ground her pencil tip against her paper audibly—and look her way.

"I, um, I can do math."

Busy's face cracked, and she brandished a grin which she pushed against a cheek. "You? Math? Maybe two plus two, but that's about it."

Duck felt a growl crawl up her throat, then forced it back down.

"Aw, look, she's upset," Busy told the others, then faced Duck again. "Fine, why don't you take a look, then? Just don't get mad when you see I told ya so." Busy pulled her binder close to her breast, then slid it Duck's way before leaning back in her seat and crossing her forelegs behind her head.

Duck was on it an instant.

Chapter 2.6 "Limits of Infinity".

Oh, so it was just Calculus. Her eyes went up and down the page, looking for the problem that Busy was stuck on. Finally, she found it, and hummed to herself, pulling the paper closer.



𝓁im (5-ex) / ex 
as
x->∞ (5+8ex) / ex



Hmm. She tilted her head about, tapping her tongue against the inside of her cheek. She pulled out her own pencil and began to go slowly, and lightly.



𝓁im 5/ex-1
as
x->∞ 5/ex+8



which all equals



-1/8



The bare second that she finished, the paper was snatched out of her grasp by a pair of yellow-orange hooves and a grunt of dismay. "What?!" Busy growled, holding the paper in front of her and looking about ready to rip it in half.

Blank chuckled. "Well, looks like it wasn't as hard as you'd thought."

Forest pointed at it. "Look, she even wrote lightly so you could erase it and put your own hoofwriting."

Duck raised a hoof hesitantly. "Y-You a-also skipped a step. Th-the limit of five minus e raised to the x power over e plus eight e raised to the x power as x approaches infinity. You just divided by e raised to the x power immediately, instead."

Busy crinkled her nose like last Sunday's lazy day shirt. 

"J-Just a... I... sorry."

Busy hummed a bit huffily to herself, then bent over and began writing her own version of Duck's answer down. A noise came out that sounded vaguely like "thanks", but Duck, hearing her name called, flicked an ear upward and turned to look for the voice. 

It was Mrs. Red, who held her office door open—the room of which sat at the farthest corner of the garage, and had a large window on the side for everypony to see into but not listen through—and waved Duck over to her. Duck, looking at both crews next to her and not seeing any reaction, quickly gathered her things, rose from her seat, and hurriedly trotted over to Mrs. Red, who greeted her with a pair of shut eyes and a loving smile.

Mrs. Red's office was much more barebones, but in its lack of complexity, it felt a lot... safer. What little there was was her desk, a few chairs—one of which was her own reclining office chair—her laptop, and a stack of papers Duck couldn't make out at the moment. The soft hums of Louis Hoofstrong's trumpet in "A Boop To Build A Dream On" quieted as Mrs. Red closed the door behind Duck, who put her bag on the floor by the threshold and took a seat in front of Mrs. Red's desk.

Mrs. Red's expertly laced-up boots clicked and clacked from behind Duck, to her left, and then in front of and behind the opposite end of the desk, where she fell into her chair with a grin and a giddy, "So! Let's talk shop, Duck. How have you been today?"

Duck adjusted her position in her seat. "I, uh... I've been okay."

Mrs. Red tilted her head, reaching for her water bottle and popping the cap off. Before tilting her head back, she asked, "Okay? That doesn't sound good to me," which echoed from the interior of her thermos.

Duck's hocks knocked like rocks. "Well, I..."

Mrs. Red waggled a hoof. "Hey, I didn't bring you in here to feel sad. I brought you in here to get ready!"

Duck tongued her cheek. She was... actually kind of hoping to talk about the office visit. Gods forbid, she had an actual parental figure to talk to anymore. Or in the first place. Still, business was business, and she straightened herself in her chair patiently. "Is this about our next match?"

Mrs. Red nodded. "Yup. The Cloudsdale Storms. You seen much of them before?"

Duck shook her head. "No ma'am. I've heard that they're pretty good, though."

Mrs. Red popped her neck. "Yeah, they're a pretty tough bunch, but they don't have almighty tanks as far as I've heard. Their Overall this year, Escargot, commands a light Prench tank, if I remember right. Don't have too many details; I'm surprised they even managed to beat Appleloosa at all. Most of their tanks are loans from Sergeant Applejack herself, and she made most of our tanks in the Never War, from the M4 to the T28."

Duck nodded, not really feeling too nicely about telling Mrs. Red that she knew all that already. To add, Sergeant Applejack was to command her own M36 Jackson Tank Destroyer, the name of which started out as a joke about Applejack not having any kids, and instead having a tank as her offspring. 

"They use camo, as well, but I'm not sure what kind. And considering that it's expected to rain during our match, I don't doubt they'll play like the Bits and take cover in a line of trees. Keep your eyes and ears peeled out there."

"Of course, ma'am."

It was quiet for a time. Duck gazed at the floor and rubbed her arm.

"I-I, um... I got called in to Ms. Copper Top's office during lunch's passing period."

Mrs. Red sucked in a breath. "Oh, geez, are you okay? What'd she call you in for?"

"There were... r-rumors about me, apparently. Stealing tests after school, sneaking into the colt's bathroom, replacing ammunition in the Aviation class..."

Mrs. Red's brow furrowed. "Rrrr, why I oughta... that damn Copper Top. She's just being an a– er, she's just being difficult. I never really liked her."

Duck shivered a bit, still rubbing her foreleg up and down quietly.

Mrs. Red sniffled in tandem with Duck, then perked up and asked out of the blue, "Hey, how's your sister doing?" The segue was appreciated, but the new subject was not that much of a better one, to be completely honest.

Duck cleared her throat. "She's... okay."

Mrs. Red smiled. "Well, that's good." She creaked her chair as she reclined in it. "Ahhh, I remember working with your sister. So full of tactics, and ideas, and know-how. Every conversation we had about matches was just so... full of energy." She leaned forward, grinning into a cheek. "We always had our own maps out, scribbling things down and crossing out paths that wouldn't work for us. We were kind of one in the same, to be honest. She really was a carbon copy of your mother."

Duck squirmed.

"Things were pretty okay, until the..."

Duck scratched her arm and looked upward.

"Th-The accident."

"I'm sorry, Duck, I didn't–"

"No, it's okay," Duck replied quickly. She stared straight ahead, then dipped her chin and looked at the floor. She hummed. "She got a dog out of it."

Mrs. Red chuckled, "Oh, did she?"

Duck placed her forelegs in her lap. "Mmhm. A white Bull Terrier named Willie."

"Well, you'll have to show me sometime. He sounds cute."

"He is! I h-have some pictures from a few years ago lying around. Maybe I could find them."

Mrs. Red hummed. "That sounds great, Duck." Her gaze drew to her left, back toward the tanks still sitting in the garage. "Arco and the others should be back sometime soon. I sent them off to go get parts from the Vehicle Repair class a bit before you came in. Why don't you go get things started in the Comet? We'll be heading out for a short lesson today once they get back."

Duck nodded. "Yes, ma'am," she said with a quick salute, which Mrs. Red returned. Grabbing her bag and pulling it over her right shoulder—noting that she'd drop it off by the door before reaching her tank anyway—she took one last look at her teacher and gave a wave, then opened the door and had to shake her head. It seemed that somepony had decided that playing Crumpish Grenadiers alongside their usual radio set was a funny idea. Not that Duck was complaining, mind, it was just that everypony else seemed heckbent on drowning out the nice flute and drums with groans of annoyance and anger.

Humming along, Duck did as she'd planned out, dropping her bag at the entrance before heading past Hurricane Team—who glared her way and called her out (which she ignored)—and Pansy Team—who waved hi to her and, in Pine's case, patted her on the back—and marching over to her Comet. The soft instruments of Crumpish Grenadiers playing fittingly over the speakers, Duck scrambled up the sideskirts, hopped onto the roof of her turret, and fell inside...

...not in the way that she'd planned. Her left foreleg being the last thing in, it caught on the rotation lever on the inside rim of her cupola, and in her fumbling about to clutch at her bruise, she felt like she'd ripped her spine apart with the speed of her rotating around, and after feeling for that injury, she hit her head on the ceiling, sucked on her teeth, and clutched at her skull. Rubbing it, she felt her anger finally push through her reasonably thick walls, and threw a punch into the wall to the left of Arco's seat. Growling at nothing, she stopped at the drop of a hat... at the sound of something sort of heavy dropping in kind.

She tilted her head about a few angles, an eyebrow raised. Pulling her right foreleg back, she punched the wall again.

The same rattle from before, clearly a metal box of some kind. She let out a soft hum to herself which sounded vaguely like the beginning note of Crumpish Grenadiers, then leaned far over to her left and tried to peer behind the workings of the Gunner position. Past the few gauges, assorted pipes, and bits of metal, something fairly small and brown caught Duck's eye. It shimmered gold in the light from above the Comet as she lightly tapped it, and, deathly curious, Duck bent fully over, reached far down into the back of the turret, and pulled the box out with a grunt.

It was... yeah, it was a box, beat up as heck with chips and chunks missing from its exterior. It was a nice oak casing, with an intricate looking latch system holding it shut. The prospect that neither she nor anypony else had taken notice of it seemed incredibly off to her, but to be fair, with a loud engine literally behind them, the Comet moving, the turret rotating and firing, and the sounds of shells loading, unloading, and their own conversations, it might've been pretty easy to miss the sound of a box shifting about. Her questions on what it could contain—spurred on by the fact that she didn't think she could possibly get into it—were answered as Duck simply pulled it open to test its validity.

She swallowed a lump down her throat.

Sitting on a soft green cover, and encased in thin slats of wood, was a Crumpish Webley Mk VI, still somewhat shiny despite the bits of rust and aging on it. There were slots for thirty rounds next to it, but it seemed that only thirteen remained. The others must have spilled out at some point, or... used. Duck suddenly held the box to her chest, looking to her left and right despite being hunched over inside the turret of a cramped tank. Whose was this? Busy Body's? Mrs. Red's? The Comet had been sitting in the garage for years! This could be anypony's!

She looked to her left. The empty Gunner position.

To her right. The empty Loader position.

Nopony was around to see her.

She reached up and closed the hatch on her cupola, and, turning on the light that Graham and she had co-oped on fixing, opened the box again. 

...it was a beautiful sidearm, she had to admit. 

Maybe if she held it for just... a few seconds, it would be okay.

She darted a hoof over to it, then pulled it back.

She blinked twice.

And finally pulled it out of its case.

It... wow, it felt... pretty good to hold in her hoof. Like, really fantastic, actually. She didn't have as much experience with Crumpish firearms than she did Crumpish tanks, as most of her training back at her Mother's academy had been with M1911s and Springfields, but she could definitely see why Crumpish officers carried these things around. An M1911 was one thing, but the stopping power and reliability of the Webley was certainly a difference to Browning's firearm.

She turned the revolver round and round in her hoof, trying her hardest to study it even as her heart seemed to be beating out of her chest. This was an officer's sidearm, somepony who led ponies with a loud voice and a brave mind. They dressed studiously, and acted as such, chomping down on a pipe, carrying a riding crop, and blowing a whistle when it was time to head right into the gates of Heck.

Did this thing... oh Gods, did this thing kill something at some point...?

...some... pony...?

"Hey guys, we're back!"

"Is Duck around here?"

"Went into your tank already."

"Great! Arco, go tell Mrs. Red they didn't have them. I'll go talk to Duck."

"I hate you."

"You too, Arco!"

Duck's eyes widened. Oh Gods, they couldn't see this! This was hers!

Wait no, no no it wasn't hers! This was somepony else's! She had to hide it away so she could... find out whose it was and give it back! She couldn't... no, it wasn't hers! This was... not hers!

She swiveled about in a panic, slamming the box shut as the sounds of Flurry ascending the front of the Comet came to her. Gritting her teeth, she remembered its first hiding spot, leaned far over to her left, and promptly chucked the box back into the area behind the Gunner's seat just as the hatch above her head opened up, bringing in the light from the outside peeking in through the garage's windows.

Flurry's pink head appeared, a massive smile on her face.

"Hi Duck!"

Duck waved. "H-Hi!"

"How are you today?"

"I'm... g-good!"

Flurry chuckled. "Good!"

"Hey, outta the way, Princess," came Arco, who took Flurry's place once she finished frowning and moved over for him.

"Well that was quick," Flurry noted, pulling open her Driver's door and beginning to climb inside.

Duck moved over to Bluebell's position to allow Arco to take his own. "Yeah, well, it was literally just talking to Mrs. Red for a few seconds. Not that hard." He looked at Duck and nodded. "I'm good now, Duck." She shifted back over to her spot as Bluebell opened her own hatch—which Bluebell was finally able to get open recently, and could now fully use—and found her way inside.

"Gods, that was awful," the Unicorn noted, grabbing her gloves and wrestling them on.

"Who knew a group of ponies could talk on and on about a friggin' driveshaft?" Graham asked, taking up her own position at the front and left.

"Anyway, how'd things go on your end, Duck?" Arco asked, wiping his Gunner's sight free from dust and—after a second—the condensation from his breath.

"Okay," she replied.

"We have any water left in there?" Bluebell asked, pointing to the hydration box by Duck's head.

"Think you drank it all," Graham pointed out, tutting.

Bluebell threw her forelegs against her hips swiftly.

"You know, we should think about putting something else in there," Arco began, shifting in his seat, "like energy drinks or something."

"I think water's just fine," Flurry droned, eyes narrowed.

"I dunno, I think putting soda wouldn't be too bad," chimed Graham.

"Yeah? We could try putting Bepsi in it."

Bluebell shot Arco a death glare.

"Peak Fog."

Arco pursed his lips.

"Bepsi, without question."

Duck wanted to raise a hoof and tell them that it was built for water.

"Peak Fog, or we fight."

Arco rolled up his sleeves.

Bluebell caught his drift and popped her back.

"We fight."

"Bring it on."