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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 last 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 snot. 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.
"Pump kin 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 Pump kin 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 thunk ing 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 any way!"
"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.
Author's Note
Ah, I love nervous trains of thought!
These chapter names are killing me.
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 po nies... 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 Twi light, 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."
View Online
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 some thing. 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 aban doning 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 any thing, 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 any thing 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 Pan ther 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 rain in'," 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 mean while 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."
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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 bas tard!" 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 pile driver 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 mem ber... 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?
Author's Note
Don't get too reliant on these super long chapters. I keep accidentally wanting to put too much in them, and now I'm realizing that they'll probably keep being as such the further down we go DAMMIT.
You Can Do It! The Tank Goes!
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Everyone Please Stop The Fight! I Have To Work Hard Today!
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Training Is Difficult, And Homes Are Also So.
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We All Dinner Together At The Restaurant And May Skip Some Classes! I'm Sorry!
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We Are Playing The Game Right Away! I Will Do Your Best!
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This Will Be The Hardest First Fight! Please Pray For Us Good Luck, Everyone!
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Thank You For Making Me A Company! I Feel Better!
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One Day, We All Wish To Be Friends! Let's Get Started Today!
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"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 sis ter..." 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."
Author's Note
I figured out a way to make the chapter titles easy and funny as hell.
I put a pompous English phrase into Google Translate, put it into Japanese, copy-paste that, and then put it back into English.
It's perfect!
On a side note, this is gonna be fun.
