Three Nights in the Crystal Empire

Cloudsdale, the proud industrial city of the Central Equestrian pegasi, boasted a robust and successful collection of athletes and warriors. The best of the best went there, to compete against the natives or to be trained by the same. The notoriety was a fine feather in the city's collective cap and they welcomed all, whether for peaceful reasons or otherwise.

The latest arrivals were a long way from home and a longer way from their natural environment. A small and highly select detachment of crystal pony guards. According to reports they had been hand-selected by Prince Shining Armor himself. Enchanted gear like horseshoes and attire had been provided to allow them to move about unhindered in the cloudy expanse.

The crystal ponies, very like earth ponies, so far as the Cloudsdalians could see aside from their iridescent coats, had been enrolled in the prestigious Cloudsdale Martial Arts Academy, which taught the art of war from many different traditions. Pony and non-pony, and all the cultures of pony, combined in the great academy. The crystal ponies had been enrolled in the very shadowy and secretive course on ninjutsu, through the special dispensation of the Master, Lenes Tenzai.

Lenes, called Len by friends and most of the world at large, was a pegasus pony, a mature mare in her very late twenties or very early thirties. Being a mix of Neighponese and Central Equestrian stock we was petite but not plainly short in stature, with a velveteen light gray coat, and a long, straight white mane that flowed down her neck and over her shoulders in an alabaster cascade. A little puff topped her bangs and the hair tended to obscure one eye or the other, though she never had trouble seeing through it. Her wings were a slight anomaly, being a golden color rather than the gray of the rest of her coat, but it served as a lovely contrast. Her Cutie Mark, seldom exposed thanks to her clothing, was the black image of a five-pointed throwing star.

That day at the academy she was with her squad of crystal ponies, inside one of the more generic training halls. The cloud walls were bare, and the cloud floor had been expressly fluffed and napped to pad the blow when the squad fell. Len stood, on a raised dais, her arms crossed over her modest chest. She was dressed in a loose, dark gray outfit, consisting of a tied-off long-sleeved coat, pants, black socks on her hooves, and gloves.

Her soft gray eyes watched as the two lines of crystal ponies, all wearing white gis, thrust the heels of their hands repeatedly into the throats of wooden target dummies. Each time they struck the released a sharp and enthusiastic cry.

“Make the motion natural. Easy. Like water gliding naturally along an incline,” Len said, sedately but with volume enough to be heard over the shouts. “Only strike where, told, repeatedly and without hesitation.”

“Ma'am, a question!” one of the stallions called out.

“You may ask,” Len said with a dip of her head.

“No disrespect to your reaching, or to Prince Shining armor for sending us, but I had a slightly different idea about ninja stuff than this,” the stallion noted, several others around him nodding and giving quiet agreement.

“The great master teaches us, 'To foresee a victory which the ordinary man can foresee is not the acme of skill; to triumph in battle and be universally acclaimed 'Expert' is not the acme of skill,' Len said, with greater force and more volume. “You are being trained to never bloody a blade.”

“Yeah but... we're guards,” the stallion said. “It's what we do. We're here to learn all this stuff. Aren't we supposed to be near enough to assassins that we could be called that?”

Len sighed and slowly rubbed her temples. She looked somewhat resigned, as though waiting for the statement. “You will know the ways of an assassin, yes. But the true purpose of the ninja is to be invisible. You pass without leaving a trace. You are spies before killers, infiltrators before assassins. To never see a soul is your quiet mission. You are to be unnoticed, but not unrewarded. The great master says, 'Of all those in the army close to the commander none is more intimate than the secret agent; of all rewards none more liberal than those given to secret agents; of all matters none is more confidential than those relating to secret operations.' Do you take my point?”

The stallion turned to look at a few other the others who nodded slowly. “I guess I do. But still, are we going to learn any really good stuff?”

Len answered by suddenly leaping into a spinning forward flip with her wings tucked. She flared them open suddenly and halted herself, falling to the cloudy floor by the guard that had been questioning her. She threw a flurry of sudden strikes against the wooden body of the wooden target with her gloved hands, striking at particular, separate points along the form, never hitting the same place twice. She finished with a double-palmed precision strike that split the neck with a loud 'crack'. The head didn't come off but the neck was badly damaged.

The crystal ponies stared in awe, jaws dropped, eyes wide. Len smirked a bit and slowly walked back to her dais. “The great master says, 'If not in the interests of the state, do not act. If you cannot succeed, do not use troops. If you are not in danger, do not fight.'” She mounted the dais once more and crossed her arms over her chest again. “Don't be so eager to fight, you will be the first to lose if all you do is run in. You will learn these powerful and subtle techniques, but you will focus on incapacitation and invisibility.”

“Yes, ma'am!” They all shouted suddenly. They began striking the necks of the dummies again, the one whose dummy was damaged acting a little less enthusiastic as he struck the splintered area.

Len slowly nodded her head as she observed the precise strikes and the regular, steady thumps of the heels of hands hitting the rigid wooden necks all in unison. Putting the understanding in their minds put purpose and focus in their hearts. It was what she expected. They had been chosen personally by Prince Shining Armor after all, and she had come to trust the former royal guard captain.

A smile spread across her face, but one very small and very subtle, such that the drilling guards couldn't see. She really, really trusted him, and his wife. They were such sweet, welcoming, trustworthy and... friendly ponies.

Len's mind started to wander as she oversaw the crystal guards, remembering how the whole matter had come to be. From a simple accident of place something amazing had happened.