It had been days and it seemed like the same old routine: Wake up, 7 minutes to shit and shower, breakfast, train, lunch, train, dinner, sleep, and all the while answering 'What is pride?'. Rebel Flame seemed ruthless, he had no use for a recon group who can't even do his "simple" tasks, but they soldiered on, hoping that once this would end that his whole mean act would end.

It was the dinner-time or the last day in their hell, after this it's off to the mission, Rebel was dressed in a simple denim vest, he stepped up to a stack of books he liked to call the podium and began to speak. "Congratulations, you all have made it through my simple tasks. now granted there were plenty of trails and tribulations, but it was to make you stronger."

"As if we couldn't handle it." Maple yelled in the relatively small room. the others began chuckleing.

"If i had more time with you this would be the part where i woulda told you this was just the beginning of things. It would've been much worse, torture resiliency and explosives. Basic Medicine." Rebel chuckled, something he rarely does "one of you woulda eaten a poison berry and the others would've had to heal him before he died. I remember me and Dim night were both poisoned when our leader did it, licorice stick was so busy." He trailed off it was the first time he could mention Dim Night to anyone without seeing the gory scene, and even though he hated to notice, he grew fond of his new group of recruits over the days they pent training. They reminded him of his old squad. the boisterousness and comraderry was almost identical. granted it brought back many horrendous memories kept tightly sealed away, but the amount of good memories of the times when his friends were with him had greatly out numbered the bad. Even the recruits noticed that over the days he had been seemingly different.

"uh, Reb?" Wall Breaker said as he finished his third plate. "we out of food?" he got no responce, rebel seemed to be in a trance "helloooooooo? wake up sleepy head."

"huh? What?" Rebel was thrown back to reality "oh, anywaaaaaaays, I feel that even though i didn't give you all the skill i wanted you will at least be able to save you skin from the changelings if anything arises. You are no longer maggots also, yeah. you're actually Stallions. Now 'What is pride?!'"

"Personal Responsibility in Daily Effort!" They all said in unison.

"Good. Dismissed! we meet here in 12 hours time." Rebel said sternly holding back some happiness.

"But I'm still hungry." Wall Breaker whined.

"Damnit, here buddy." Anarchy handed Wall Breaker some of his dessert.

"aw, Anarchy has a heart" Super Fly boasted

"Okay okat we get it, Anarchy likes stallions, so I don't discriminate" Rebel joined in, the other ponies laughed until they realized who had said it and was astonished. Rebel. Their Rebel. Making jokes. How is this possible? "Now get some sleep and make sure i don't catch any of you spooning with Anarchy, Bubba would be mad".

"Whos bubba?" Maple chimed in.

"Just leave it." Rebel said as he began towards the door.

"you're just gonna leave without explaining yourself?" Maple began "i mean, you are acting alittle chummy."

"fuck off." Rebel began as he cleared his throat "I'm just giving y'all a break."

"Suuuuuuuuuuuure" maple chuckled "Ol' Rebs a softie."

"Fuck. Off." Reb walked out of the mess hall and towards his room, it would be a long journey ahead of them, and hopefully, not like his last mission.

Author's Note

Hey y'all, if you got any questions about the direction of the story don't be afraid to hit me up, i'd love to answer some questions.

also sorry i was gone for 2 days, 4th of july, and then a bad hangover the next day.