Cigar Smoke

The unit I was assigned to would eventually be known as one of the most elite units in the battalion, but at the time it was a very young and new unit. The battalion's name for it was unit 42, and I somehow ended up with my good friends. This surprised me, seeing as the unit selection was generally at random, so my guess was we got really lucky. In fact, we were very lucky, because we would be lead by one of the greatest sergeants the battalion and myself would ever know. His name was Sgt. Marker.

Sgt. Marker already had an interesting reputation. It was rumored he had once tortured a private for taking too much rations. this, of course, wasn't true, but it scared the hell out of us the first time. What he had actually done to the private was take out back and show him his place, simply by beating him. This action nearly got his ass discharged, but his superiors decided to spare him. Nopony knows why, but one thing is for sure - no private ever messed with him again.

That was the problem too, cause we were all privates since we had been shipped in from a boot camp. we had heard coming in that higher ranks ate privates for breakfast, lunch, and dinner. This didn't phase me, but when I saw Sgt. Marker for the first time, I began to believe the stories. He was a rather fit, muscular earth pony with an unusual gray color. His eyes were a rather piercing green - literally, he could stare into your soul. His cutie mark happened to be an infantry helmet, signifying that his talents were currently at their best use. His mane, a very simple black. His appearance did intimidate us, but then he spoke to us for the first time.

"Looks like they really scraped the bottom of the barrel this time, eh?" He looked at us with his sharp eyes with a grin. he pulled out a cigar from his from breast pocket and placed it in his mouth.

As he lit it, we all stood there with sly little smiles on our faces looking rather stupid.

"Cut that out," he said, " no place for that shit here." He puffed at his cigar to make sure it was in proper condition, then continued. "You're in my company now, and I'll make sure your broken and battered by the end of the week."

This frightened us all. It's bad enough that this big, ripped sergeant was our leader, but his low, demanding voice sold everything he said. We knew then that the next week was going to be full of pain and suffering of the worst kind. However, it wouldn't compare to the suffering poor Weezy would suffer within the next few months.

After we had met our superiors, we retired to our new barracks. We expected new, refreshing accommodations...were we ever wrong. The barracks were the same, if not worse than the ones at boot camp. The carpet inside looked even worse actually, which got my heart racing. No breaking orders around here! The beds...oh, the beds! Hard as rocks and cold as the deepest parts of the ocean. In fact, the first pony who laid down on a bed shot up in the air at the shock of the cold mattresses. Funniest damn thing I've ever seen, I swear!

Still, this would be home for the next couple months, so we tried our best to get comfortable...which never happened. The night was full of empty dreams and lost sleep. That would be only the second worst night of sleep we would ever have. The next would come soon enough.

The surprise of a rather blaring alarm woke us at six in the morning. And so day one begins, I remember thinking quite groggily. Sadly, that grogginess would not leave me that entire day, Sgt. Marker had devised hell on earth for our first day of training. Let me clarify - warm-up was 250 push ups, followed by a mile sprinting in which if you slowed down Marker would make you start over, not just the mile, but the entire warm-up! This colt was out to kill us, then kill our souls as they tried to escape. At least, that's what it felt like.

The rest of the rest of the work out consisted of running, more running, and guess what? Bucking a sand bag 50 times then more running. By the end of the day, we were all seriously thinking we needed to be carried back to our barracks. Weezy fell to the ground at least six times on the way back to the barracks, Frankie had puked twice, and Scales was incredibly light headed. As for me, I suffered from pain - terrible pain which we all suffered from that day. When we entered the our barrack, the cold rocks they called "beds" seemed like a gift from Celestia herself. This wouldn't be the only time that would happen either. In fact, it would happen the next day, and the next...and the next.

Truthfully, that same pain visited us for about three straight weeks every night. Just as we would all seem to get used to a certain exercise, Sgt. Marker would throw a new, insane work out in front of us. Every time it was something we knew was guaranteed to bring our bones to near breaking points, and our tendons and muscles to new levels of burning sensations.

"Keep moving your asses," he would scream at us, "this will benefit you in the end! Curse me all you want, you will worship me in the end for this!"

He was right, we just refused to agree at the time. Our flaming legs would give us enough evidence for that standpoint.

The work out pattern continued for the next two months, and by the end of those two months we were all ripped. It was fantastic! Never had I been in such great shape! Of course, I wasn't the only one happy, my friends were as well. We reveled in the fact we looked at good as we did, and as Marker had predicted with his sly tongue, we did begin to worship him somewhat. Well, we had at least developed a great respect for the guy. However, our happiness would soon turn into dread.

To the northern edge of the country, trouble was brewing. The problem was on the other side of the border, in the Griffon Kingdom. A new, radical king had risen from the lower ranks of the Griffons and gained a huge following. He had gained power after he slaughtered the present king in a battle of honor. The stories that we heard at the fort was that he hung the old king's corpse by its bowels from the grand tree in the castle courtyard. To defile that tree in the Griffon law meant death, for it signified the unity between all Griffons. However, the new king had gained so many followers that they simply ignored the fact that he had desecrated it. The king's name was Salazaar.

Salazaar was quickly known to have a great hatred of all pony kind. He claimed that Equestria was rightfully Griffon land, and with his silver tongue, slowly all the Griffons believed him. Pretty soon he had the entire Griffon army on his side, not a single soldier was influenced by anything else except Salazaar. This became a serious problem very quickly.

The Griffon army attacked a town near the northern border of the Equestria, decimating the population and sacking the town. The even sent a letter to the Princess herself, declaring war on all pony kind, as well as claiming rights to the lands under Equestrian rule. The battalion was notified very quickly and it was time to deploy to northern Equestria.

We didn't have the foresight to know what would happen next. If we did, we would have never left the fort in the first place.