Fallout Equestria: Soldier, Seeker, Eagle

The dull gray train chugged along its track, dragging two dozen passenger cars and six box cars past hundred of miles of seemingly empty wilderness. Few recruits bothered to look up from their comics or conversations to look out the window at the sparse desert plant life. It was the same as anything they’d passed yesterday for some. Others had grown up in such conditions.

An hour ago things had been quite different. Nearly every recruit had looked out while the Recruit Express had been passing the City of Neon Lights. At night the city’s soaring glass towers lit up like a mountain range made of deep neon glow from the strip of casinos at its heart. Every color of the rainbow reflected in the glass, forming spectral arcs all across Los Pegasus each and every night.

Certainly a sight worth seeing. One sight many of the recruits wished they would get to see each night. After all, “Fort Firefly is in Los Pegasus.” is what everypony said. Unfortunately for them, everypony lies. Not always maliciously, not always about big things, and certainly not always intentionally, but they all lie.

If Fort Firefly lay within Los Pegasus, as ponies said, there would be quite the dark spot within the endlessly reflected rainbow light. Somewhere amid the gleaming glass spires and gilded casino halls, there would be a large sprawling open place filled with barbed wire, rifle ranges, vehicle maneuvering grounds, and barren barracks. There was no such blemish on this city.

Fort Firefly was near Los Pegasus, not within it. Just one of the common lies told to simplify reality into the neat convenient easy to understand package most ponies needed it to be.

Even the word Fort was an abstraction to make things easier to understand, or rather, a lie. What the recruits did not know was they were looking at Fort Firefly, and had been for the last half hour. The seemingly barren wilderness to their left was in fact filled with thousands of recruits experiencing rough nights in the countryside amid brutal wargames. Wargames on pause just long enough to permit the train to pass beyond the audible range of the simulated artillery shells.

It wouldn’t do to shake them up too early. Equestrian military training began with a precise and delicate process sometimes referred to as “Psychological surgery”. It only worked on the young, and only if it began with them calm and content.

Fort Firefly was a military training complex. The “fort” covered over four hundred and fifty square kilometers once all of its facilities and grounds were taken into account. While most of the fort’s bulk was the Wargames arena, even just the Fort’s more traditional complex of ranges, barracks, hangers, and garages dwarfed Los Pegasus. All told it made the entire Los Pegan suburban area seem a little small.

That was why everypony said, “Fort Firefly is in Los Pegasus”. Nopony wanted to think about how much space, resources, and ponies the Great War took from Equestria. That was why the lie existed.

The new recruits aboard the Express continued to talk to each other, bragging about how badflank they were going to be, worrying about possibly being injured, and quoting propaganda unironically until the train rounded a bend and passed through an imposing concrete wall rimmed with wooden guard towers.

Everypony hushed and for a moment took in the sudden appearance of squat hardened concrete buildings, sprawling parade grounds, and the squadrons of military vehicles parked in a defensive formation. Then the entire train erupted into an excited buzz only to be drowned out by the squeal of iron clamping on iron as the brakes dragged the train to a stop at Fort Firefly’s sole station.

The recruits aboard the Express turned to one another, pointing at various things through the window and discussing their ideas about what was what and pointing to other recruits visibly training off in the distance. Some laughed at the training ponies, insisting they would do better at whatever exercise it was they saw.

The recruits had no idea what they were in for.

A platoon’s worth of Sargents jumped aboard the moment the train stopped. They were in full combat uniform, including battle saddles equipped with standard-issue rifles. Orders were barked at thunderous volumes. Fifteen seconds to get off the train, two minutes to be in the Great Hall, or you get to take a trip down Washout Lane.

A sea of recruits rushed off the train. Many forgot their bags and panicked over lost belongings. Their property would be returned after training (minus any snacks). The chaos and “forget it, son” attitudes designed to break the recruits down for the Army to rebuild them. Standard practice, and compassionate in its own way. Nopony was born with the mentality needed to thrive in the military.

As the Sergeants herded their new recruits into the Great Hall to receive their welcoming lecture on military history, basic discipline, and the meaning of the common orders and phrases they would be hearing nonstop for the next twenty-eight weeks, a squad of soldiers began to unload the train’s non-living cargo.

Rifles. Ammo. New uniforms. Several tons of food in fresh, preserved, MRE, and K-Ration forms. All basic supplies. They also unloaded one not so standard item, a robot stasis pod.

The soldiers who had loaded Ashen onto the train hadn’t gone the entire way to camp with him. They’d gotten off at the last stop to return to their unit. Their leave expired the morning they loaded Ashen aboard. By now they were halfway to the Western Front, leaving the specialist and corporal unloading Ashen’s pod quite confused about the presence of a robot on the train.

Fort Firefly did use robots. Particularly for training recruits on how to fight Zebrican constructs, robots, and golems. The thing was, nopony had ordered any robots. Especially not the “Model ASX J-117 Combat Robot” the paperwork described.

The specialist looked through the thin stack of paperwork attached to a clipboard which had in turn been attached to Ashen’s pod and shook his head. “Yeah… I don’t know what this is. I’d say it’s a new Ultra-Sentinel model but there’s no way you’d fit one in this coffin.”

“What the hell do we do with this thing?” The corporal grumbled. “It weighs a ton—”

“Two tons,” the specialist corrected. “Says right here, pod and robot weigh two tons.”

“What the buck ever! I think my back’s tweaked from getting this thing off the train,” the corporal complained.

“Because you lifted with your bucking neck, you clod-brained lout!” a Drill Sargent yelled at him reflexively before offering an apologetic nod.

The corporal understood. The Sargent was still in welcoming committee mode.

The corporal returned his attention to his duties and shook his head. “One of us has to go make sure this is supposed to be here before you just load it back on the train and stamp it as a misorder.”

His subordinate smirked. “Sir, remember how we got yelled at for being too unprofessional in front of the recruits last week?”

“Yeah, yeah... Look, just help Buttercream cart those rifles to the depot while I check with the Quartermaster. Oh! And make sure to pack the K-Rations into the recruit dining hall this time. I got yelled at when we gave them proper MREs that one time,” the specialist said before marching off towards the somewhat distant warehouse.

☢★★◯★★☢

Unfortunately for Ashen, the Quartermaster had no idea about his presence aboard the Express either. As with all things the lower enlisted do not know anything about, the problem was simply sent up the chain of command. As the issue ascended the ranks on its journey to find out what exactly a robot was doing on the Recruit Express, the recruits finished their welcoming lecture. The next step in their admission into the E.U.P. began.

The huge class was split up into smaller groups and taken to what their Sergeants referred to as Amnesty Rooms. If any of them had any contraband of any kind on them, it was to be disposed of here and now. There would be no punishment of any kind. The penalties for being caught with it later were then explained…

One recruit wisely asked what was considered contraband, prompting a very simple and complete list from their Sargent. “I’m glad you asked, Recruit! Anything other than the following is contraband and must be disposed of: paperwork or literature we gave you, any forms of ID you may have, college diplomas or transcripts, high school diplomas or transcripts, a single piece of paper containing nothing but addresses of your family members, any prescription medication you require, stamps, no more than twenty bits in cash, a single pocket-sized religious text, and a single set of civilian clothing.”

That was the moment most of the recruits suddenly realized the golden apples dangled in front of them by the Army Recruiters were harder to earn than they had been led to believe.

☢★★◯★★☢

As the recruits filed out of the main hall to an enormous line of busses which would take them to their training barrack, the inquiry chain reached its end. Commander Creed was not in his office, but his secretary was.

Miss Joule Ringer, a retired electrician with six grand foals to care for. The elderly Earth Pony mare’s hooves trembled from age and alarm as she leaned her head against her telephone’s earpiece. They shook her pen and pad terribly, making it quite difficult for her to write down what the screaming Lieutenant Commander was trying to convey.

“I’m sorry, can you repeat that?” she asked as politely as a swamped mare flank deep in post-it notes and memos could.

“I said you need to get me Commander Creed immediately! We have an item which is either a Zebrican spy’s plot, or a personal order of his which somepony lost the paperwork for! Hundreds of troops are aware of this thing, and it’s not just a massive security risk, it’s causing a slow-burn-panic amongst the enlisted and some of the Junior officers! We need an answer to what this robot is doing aboard the Recruit Express right this instant!”

Miss Joule closed her eyes and scribbled down the note. “I’m sorry, dear. You can’t have an answer immediately. The Commander is out of his office.”

“You are his secretary! You know his schedule! You know where he is at any given moment!” the stallion screamed through the phone, making Miss Joule hold the receiver away from her ear. “Either have him call me immediately, or tell me where he is so I can ask in person🙺”

Miss Joule took one hoof and rubbed her aching head gently. The poor mare understood the importance of an item no one below the Base Commander was aware of. Unfortunately, this week was a hell week in terms of the Commander’s schedule. The Minocians, Yacks, and Griffons had all sent one or more representatives to train Equestrian recruits in the ways of their allies’ militaries, in addition to the many recruits of those same races sent to train in the Equestrian's own ways as part of the alliance’s Allied Forces Unification Program.

The depressing part was Hell Week was scheduled for three months from now.

Needless to say, Commander Creed was extremely busy. He had to perform his normal duties, as well as perform those of a diplomat, all with Princess Luna relentlessly breathing down his neck. Several new alliances were at stake. The AFUP had to go off without a hitch.

Miss Joule groaned inwardly and put on her best fake smile once again to sound cheerful over the phone. “I will do my best to track the Commander down and get him on the phone to explain what to do with the pod. In the meantime, I believe the Commander would want it to be covered with a tarp and wheeled into the corner of warehouse Gamma. Just in case it is classified.” She said into the phone wearily.

The Lieutenant Commander’s response was naturally instantaneous. “You damn well had better! If I don’t hear anything by 2145 hours, I will have the pod detonated and any surviving scrap of robot tossed into a compactor! If it’s meant for the Commander, I will blame you for its destruction!”

The phone clicked loudly as it was slammed down on the other side. Miss Joule took exactly three seconds to quietly cry with the receiver still pressed against her cheek. Then she took a deep breath, put her professional voice back on, picked up the Commander’s day planner and what she hoped was the note pile with all of the amendments and rearrangements to the day’s schedule, and began to dial each and every last number for where the Commander might possibly be in reverse order.

All 213 of them.

☢★★◯★★☢

Equestria’s newest recruits arrived at their barracks. A formation was called before they could even disembark from their buses. They did their best to follow the instructions they had been given once audibly… and naturally failed. Most everypony made some small mistakes. Some of them looked off towards a friend. Many were not standing straight. Others hummed a tune or waited like normal ponies and chatted with their neighbors. Very few did what a soldier should do: Stand at attention, and exactly nothing else.

A flock of Drill Sergeants descended on each and every recruit who made any minor mistake and blasted them with a firehose of verbal abuse. The effect was instantaneous. A thousand young ponies all thinking something along the lines of “Holy buck what did they do? I don’t want to do that. I’d better listen up when the sergeant says anything. I’d better know what that guy didn’t know. I’d better listen up so I can do what they asked me to.”

Even the edgiest of the recruits was nothing for a seasoned Drill Sergeant to pick apart and humiliate. Plenty of recruits broke down and cried. The sergeants always hated the criers. Not in the way a bully hates their victims, but in the way a parent hates to hurt their child. Many of these recruits came from cushy upper-class families. Most of them had no spine of their own. The Sergeant's job was to make them all better as ponies while they forged them into warriors.

The process began with this cruelty by necessity. The war had taught Equestria exactly what to do with its ponies to make warriors of them. It was as much science as art.

One day these ponies would need to stand knee-deep in mud and blood, while bullets whizzed past their head, shells exploded around them, and their best friend was screaming and trying to hold their entrails inside their now open chest cavity. They had to be able to handle stress. If a pony couldn’t handle being screamed at, they had to be weeded out and sent home. Or instead of firing back at the enemy from the muddy trench, they just might curl up in a ball to cry before joining their friend in death.

With the Shark Attack over, recruits were issued their uniforms. Simple, plain, green jumpsuits and a single cloth-covered helmet. Each item was marked with a number rather than a name, and the numbers were completely random. No recruit would be called by name until they graduated.

They would, however, get their regulation mane and tail cuts this very instant.

☢★★◯★★☢

A crackling, bit-crushed, voice spoke over one of Fort Firefly’s encrypted phone lines.

“Boardroom Four, Commander Creed Speaking.”

Miss Joule sighed in relief. He was in location 13. She didn’t need to start calling random locations to work through the entire base one room at a time.

“Thank Goodness! Commander, we have a small emergency with a piece of cargo aboard the Express.”

“Explain,” the Commander asked calmly.

The old secretary picked up her last note and referenced it as she spoke. “A robot stasis pod containing an unknown model of robot arrived on the Recruit Express. There is no paperwork relating to what to do with it. Lieutenant Commander Autumn is worried it may be part of an inept or incomplete Zebrican plot to—”

“It’s not. It’s a special Ministry of Wartime Technologies Project,” Creed answered immediately. “Inform the Lieutenant Commander the cargo is a learning machine meant to be trained like any other recruit. Understood?”

“Yes sir, I understand. I’ll tell him at once,” Miss Joule glanced at her clock. There were four minutes to spare before the deadline. “He is about to destroy it. I have to—”

“No need. I’ll call him. Where is he?” The Commander asked just as calmly as before.

“I told him to store the robot in warehouse Gamma, sir. I imagine he’s there, ready to destroy it if he doesn't get an answer in the next three minutes.”

The phone clicked as the Commander hung up. Miss Joule sighed and hung up then rubbed her temples. A hellish day for the Commander was a hellish day for her too. Old as she was, Miss Joules longed for a tall glass of bourbon and a cigarette.

Sadly she could not afford such things. Her grandkids needed to eat.

☢★★◯★★☢

Commander Creed hung up the boardroom’s phone for a second time and straightened his uniform’s collar. The yelling had shifted it into an uncomfortable position. Fortunately, he had been on time. Ashen was safe, and being moved to a barrack to be reactivated as he should have been an hour ago.

Unfortunately, Commander Creed was not alone in the room. A tall white earth pony mare dressed in the simple beige business jacket and skirt worn by all Ministry of Wartime Technology agents stood across the table from Creed’s position at the room’s phone.

She was fuming.

“I heard all of that!” she stomped her hoof hard enough for the sound to echo. “You mean to tell me you had our experimental robot just sitting in a warehouse under a tarp where anypony could tamper with it, while it’s supposed to be getting the same experience as every other recruit to test its learning systems?!”

Creed nodded once. “Yes exactly, ma’am. The funny thing is the paperwork vanished twice during this project… Both times seemingly in this very base.”

“What do you mean🙺” The agent demanded with an angry growl. “Don’t try to deflect the blame for this onto somepony else. It’s your responsibility to ensure Fort Firefly runs like a well-oiled clock!”

Creed grunted and turned around, placing his forehooves on the large round conference table as he sat back down. “I accept that blame, because you are right. That being said, as Base Commander, my job is to figure out what went wrong and fix it. The interesting thing is that I wrote general orders which should have been on the train with the robot, and there should have been a copy in the Quartermaster’s office. I’ll have somepony look into this. It reeks of striped spies… If you think we should abandon this project, I’ll understand.”

The agent blinked, the sensible argument coming from Creed of all ponies had pushed her more than a little off-balance. “Um, well, no. Not yet. We’ve invested too much into this to not try to get things done... I’ll get a few Steel Rangers assigned to the camp. We’ll make it look like a propaganda thing, a way to push the recruits to choose Special Forces over any other thing they may qualify for. In actuality, they will be there to destroy the robot if it does anything out of line.”

Creed thought for a moment, then nodded. “Alright… I would also recommend getting some MoA spooks out here to start an investigation other than my own. That might catch our problem off guard. Unfortunately, we’re not done here. There’s more you’re going to be upset over.”

The mare sighed and ran her hoof down her face. “What else is off-kelter?”

“The recruits have been assigned a barrack and Drill Instructor by now. We’ll have to slot our robot in with one of the non-Equestrian trainers here for the AFUP.” Creed admitted with a stony demeanor that hid his inner rage well.

“You’re bucking kidding me!” the mare roared as her eye aggressively twitched. “You can’t squeeze it into a proper barrack?!”

“No. Not without giving a Sergeant more than they can handle and potentially ruining an entire company’s worth of recruits,” Creed took a deep breath to begin to explain to the overly-emotional civilian the nuances of the delicate psychological surgery his ponies were even now performing on the recruits.

The boardroom door thundered open as a large hoof kicked it in. The agent yelped in terror and dove behind the table. Creed’s sidearm was drawn within milliseconds and aimed at the doorway, then promptly lowered.

The door was not spewing hordes of Zebra Legionnaires into the boardroom. Instead, it was completely filled by the hulking frame of a female minotaur. A hulking female minotaur dressed in the resplendent bronze-plated Mythril armor of a Minosian noble. Her breastplate, tower shield, and greaves gleamed beneath the boardroom’s lights. Her blood-red cloak billowed, telling the story of her mad sprint down the hall to completely destroy the door latch with her iron-shod hoof.

The Minotaur’s right hand clenched around her drawn blade, a xiphos. It burned with a green light as powerful magic raced down the blade from the runes set into its hilt. Commander Creed knew full well what the emerald flames would do to anything that blade struck. It was not an experience he wanted to repeat.

He raised his weapon again, just to be safe.

The Minotaur snarled. “This insult to my House will not stand, Commander! Rectify it, or battle will decide the matter of my honor here and now!”

The agent leaped at the chance to avoid being potentially cut in half. “What insult? Nopony intended to insult you, ma’am. I’m sure it’s an honest mistake!”

The minotaur wheeled her blade to face the Ministry Agent and glared at her with deadly intent.

“Mistake?! HA! You do not assign three crippled recruits to a visiting officer as a part of a pre-arranged training program by mistake. I was promised a full company to train in my people’s arts,” she took a step forward, which pushed the end of Creed’s gun into her waist, just above her uniform loincloth but below her breastplate. “You intended an insult. You have one chance to apologize, or you will have to kill me and our seemingly ill-advised alliance will fall before a year has passed!”

Creed lowered his pistol as an idea took shape in his mind.

“I apologize, Enōmotarches Lion Maze,” he said while offering a polite nod and hoping to hell he pronounced the Minocian title correctly. “This indeed was a mistake. I do not know who failed to deliver the information to you, but they will be punished. I’m also not certain why you were given a multiple of recruits at all to train. See, we recently completed a project which has resulted in a robot capable of learning just like you or I.”

Creed paused for a moment to fish a fresh cigar out of his jacket and light it… as well as to assess Lion’s face. She was intrigued, probably just wanting to know where he was going with this. That would have to do.

Creed took a puff of his cigar and grinned. “Since the chassis we put it in is comparable to a Zebrican Assault Pony, it’s stronger, faster, and tougher than most ponies. It’s also got everything we need to teach a soldier pre-installed… Save for actual techniques and strategic thinking. Obedient, loyal, fearless. Half of the basics are done. Just needs to be trained to fight. Princess Luna thought the superior physical capabilities, at least over most ponies, would be wasted in normal training. After all, we can simply copy it into another chassis once it’s finished. You were supposed to be informed we were giving you the unit to train as you would one of your own warriors.”

Lion cocked her head to one side, her blade lowered only slightly. In so doing it grazed the boardroom’s table, cutting a notch out of the tabletop with ease. “Say I believe you, Commander. What makes you think I could train a robot of all things into meeting the least of our requirements in just a few weeks? Do you not know how long our spartans train for?”

Creed grunted and shrugged his wings. “I’m afraid I do not… But I do know you’re damn effective in battle.”

Lion returned his grunt with a smirk. “My first day as a warrior was my seventh’s birthday. I have trained with every tool of war, mental, physical, ancient, and modern, for forty-two years. I am considered by my people competent enough to lead a single platoon into battle, yet am still growing into the true scope of what it is to be a warrior. You expect me to turn a novice into a master in but a few weeks. It cannot be done.”

“Sounds like you’re not up to the challenge,” Creed said, making the poor ministry agent squeak in terror.

Lion snorted, stood up straight, extinguished her weapons’ enchantment then sheathed her blade.

“We shall see,” she said before turning on one hoof to make her cloak billow before stomping out of the room towards the Fort’s training grounds.

Creed stood silently and watched her march down the hall until she turned a corner and vanished from sight. He cleared his throat. “Are we done here? I need to get that bot unpacked and to her barracks as soon as possible. Or would you like her to come back? She might actually be mad the second time.”

The Agent’s face flushed enough to look pale through her facial fur.

“Yeah... you go do that. I’ll get those Rangers…” the agent stammered through a strained smile. “One thing… Why did she come in here in that traditional get up?”

“Warrior pride,” Creed answered simply as he began to leave the room. “If she’d killed us, it would have shown their old magic beats our new technology.”

The agent blinked as her frown deepened. “What would that mean?”

Creed stopped and looked over his shoulder. “To us, nothing. To them, everything.”

☢★★◯★★☢

Commander Creed, Lion Maze, and three young ponies stood in front of one of Fort Firefly's more dilapidated barracks. Barracks 3 had been one of the originals constructed with the fort at the beginning of the Great War. It was little more than a corrugated metal Quonset hut with a dirt floor. Most Other recruits enjoyed nice wood longhouses, and some of the officers in training even got climate control talisman equipped loges.

Not these ponies. Lion had specifically requested the worst accommodations available for her trainees. She’d also changed out of her ancestral armor into modern Minocian fatigues. The olive green of her loose trousers and overcoat went well with her gray fur. The oil-stained brown of her leather belt, baldric, bracers, and greaves did not. They did however match the uniform’s drab woodland aesthetic much better than the gold embroidery of her house’s heraldry on each sleeve.

The three recruits stood in front of the barrack's warped doors, doing their best to stand at attention while panicking over the presence of their Commander, the huge minotaur, and the mysterious coffin-like pod mere meters from their position.

The recruits manage a fairly good job for ponies fresh off the bus. Especially the pale lime-green earth pony mare in the line’s center who had three legs. She was the only mare with a non-standard uniform. She wore the same simple one-piece olive jumpsuit, tan shirt, and M1 helmet as everypony else who had just arrived at Fort Firefly, with the sole addition of a single safety pin to keep her jumpsuit’s rear-left leg rolled up and secured to her hip.

Her helmet’s ID number proclaimed her as 290. To 290’s left was a short red-furred unicorn stallion wearing an Earthpony helmet as his horn had been broken off long ago. His helmet labeled him as 89. The final recruit was a tan furred pegasus who had very clearly lost a wing to acid of some kind. Likely a horrible mishap in a weather factory or cloud-structure recycling plant. His helmet labeled him 56.

Lion paced back and forth inspecting her trainees with disdain. Not for them, but for the military who had accepted them as warriors to be. She stopped pacing after several moments and nodded to Creed. “I wish to begin. Turn the fourth on, or whatever it is which needs to be done.”

Creed nodded once, exhaled smoke from his nostrils, turned the stasis pod’s safety key, then hit the release button. The pod hissed immediately as air filled the pod for the first time in nearly five days. The lid shuddered, hummed, and slid open slowly.

The three recruits couldn’t help but look out of the corner of their eye. Nothing had been like other recruits had said it would be so far, so why should this be something safe or normal?

Ashen opened his eyes as the magic keeping him in stasis let go. He instinctively moved his forelegs, bracing them on the sides of the pod, servos humming as he levered himself out of confinement. He stopped moving as both his eyes met Commander Creed’s one.

“Commander,” he greeted politely.

“Recruit 117,” Creed said as he took a pull on his cigar then pointed with one wing to Lion. “You have been selected for special training in Minocian combat techniques. Enōmotarches Lion Maze will be your Drill Instructor. There was a misunderstanding and you were not activated in time for the welcome lecture. Refresh yourself on everything in chapters 3, 8, and 12 of my book and you’ll be fine.”

Creed turned to leave, giving one last nod to Lion before walking off towards the auto-wagon he had arrived with Ashen and his pod upon.

Ashen finished climbing out of his pod and looked at his fellow recruits for the first time. He frowned, trying to understand why anypony would admit a three-legged pony into the military. The recruits stared at him with wide eyes.

His voice was synthetic, but real enough to be believed. The way he moved was too fluid. Certainly, this had to be some poor pony who had been blown to bits, rebuilt with a full-body prosthesis, and put back into training to make sure they could still fight properly.

Ashen walked over to the recruits and stood at attention with his right side next to 56’s destroyed wing. The other recruits looked at their commanding officer. Ashen stared straight ahead, exactly as his database described the attention pose.

The very moment Ashen assumed formation, Lion cracked her neck. The loud pop made the three flesh and blood ponies jump. Never in their life had they ever heard such an aggressively loud crack from a simple joint pop.

Lion took a knee and stared into 89’s blue eyes. “What do you seek to gain from a life as a warrior?” she asked in a calm yet serious tone of voice while her eyes remained locked into his.

“I— I just… I think it’s the best thing to do with my life, s— sir. Uh, I mean, ma’am!” 89 stammered, gulping after his mistake.

“Why?” Lion pressed. “Do you believe the loss of your magic precludes you from a civilian life? You believe yourself capable of being a warrior, else you would not be here. If you are capable of that, you are capable of most any profession beneath the sun. Why are you here?”

89 shook his head quickly. “No, ma’am! I just want to help stop the war, ma’am.”

Lion nodded once and stood up. “Then you may yet be worth my time.” She took a single step to her side and fluidly dropped to one knee to stare into 290’s eyes. “You are not fit to serve, yet here you are. Why?”

290 stood her ground as firmly as she could and returned the minotaur’s analytical glare with a determined fire. “By enlisting in the EUP, I have earned the right to cybernetic replacement of my missing limb, ma’am. I am scheduled for surgery after the E.-M.O.E. tomorrow, ma’am. I will be fighting fit by sundown tomorrow and ready to kick the Zebra menace out of Saltlick City and into Tartarus, ma’am!”

“Saltlick…” Lion mused without breaking eye contact. “I heard of its capture. Was it your home?”

“Yes, ma’am.” 290 nodded.

“You are worth my time,” Lion decided as she stood up only to drop to her knee yet again for 56. “Are you to be repaired with rod and bolt as well? Is that why you are here?”

“A pegasus isn’t anything if he can’t fly, ma’am,” 56 answered quietly.

“Indeed he is not,” Lion agreed. “Your state performs a service for you, in exchange for a service to them. Your reason for being here is simple business, is it not?”

56 bit his lip then nodded. “I suppose it is, ma’am.”

Lion stood up. “You are not worth my time. Be grateful I swore an oath to train you regardless of my misgivings.”

She paused for a moment, considering forgoing the traditional beginnings of Minocian warrior training for Ashen. He was, after all, a robot. A being without a soul.

Lion looked him over for a moment, doing her best to ignore the theological questions combat robots gave rise to within her mind. How would a simple machine make the journey to Elysium post-mortem? What would they do there?

Feasting and boasting of one’s deeds couldn’t be done by a thing without emotion. Lion supposed robots could fight and train for the end of days when all great heroes would be led to battle against the forces of darkness. Of course, they couldn’t enjoy it, nor partake in the honorable brotherhood such training forged between all who ascended to the hero’s afterlife.

On the other hoof, she had been asked to train him as she would train any warrior.

Lion stepped in front of Ashen and knelt down to look into his golden eyes. The steely resolve didn't surprise her at all, though the life within the inanimate orbs did take her somewhat aback.

“Do you think and feel?” she asked after a moment’s hesitation.

“I think so,” Ashen reapplied after a moment. “I am familiar with the phrase, I think therefore I am. If I understand it correctly, the fact that I think I am a thinking being makes me one… But I don’t like that circular logic, ma’am. It makes me want to inflict grievous bodily harm on philosophers who insist it proves things.”

Lion did her best to hide a smile and succeeded. Whoever had programmed this robot certainly did a good job of making it seem like a pony… Or perhaps they did the something impossible and created a pony? Lion dismissed that thought and turned her attention back to finding a way to fairly judge Ashen as she had the others.

“You were created to wage war,” Lion said matter of factly. “If I were to ask you why you are here, that would be the answer. I suppose it’s impossible for you to understand what I am doing…”

Ashen shook his head. “Not at all, ma’am. You are determining why each of us is here to judge character.”

Everypony spent a few long moments quietly staring at Ashen before Lion smiled slightly and began to reevaluate the possibility of a machine having life.

“I imagine your makers made you as the perfect soldier,” Lion continued. “Why are you here?”

“To kill as is needed and to die as She demands,” Ashen replied instantly.

“And who is she?” Lion pressed.

Ashen’s changeling programming latched down on his will, preventing him from answering truthfully.

“Princess Luna, ma’am,” he said without a single indication of deceit at all.

“I suppose that’s all you want to do,” Lion mused to herself.

Ashen blinked and tilted his head. “I— I’m not sure… I’m two weeks and five days old. I would like to try a variety of things before deciding if there’s anything worth doing aside from serving my creators. Mind you, I did like working out but that’s a pointless activity for a robot.”

56 blinked, turned, and reflexively spoke out of turn. “Wait, you’re a full-on robot? Why the hell would you ever have been told to work out?”

“To quickly assess the limitations of my chassis,” Ashen reapplied politely. “I was rushed through product testing.”

“Oh no,” all three recruits said in unison in exactly the same panicked tone of voice.

Seeing how Lion did not yell at her fellow recruit for speaking, 290 cleared her throat. “So uh, how much can you bench? I can do five hundred kilos.”

“I don’t know. We didn’t have sufficient weight to push me to my limits. Theoretically, I can lift one point four oh eight one megagrams,” Ashen commented. “I have lifted eight hundred kilograms.”

“The hell is a megagram?” Lion asked, her stone-faced expression breaking completely.

Ashen blinked and tilted his head, visibly confused. “You know… base, deca, hecto, kilo, mega. Ones, tens, hundreds, thousands, millions.”

“Uh, nopony uses those like that. You just say a thousand kilograms,” 290 corrected with a shy cough.

Ashen raised an eyebrow. “Why? You have a wonderful system for keeping numbers small while preserving their true value.”

“You just don’t,” 89 said with a one-legged shrug.

Ashen pursed his lips as he tried to conceive of creating an elegant and orderly system only to refuse to use it properly.

“Well, that’s stupid!” Ashen said, rolling his eyes. “I’m going to use the system as it’s designed. One thousand thousand… Might as well call dogs canis-lupus-lupus-canises. Sounds as dumb!”

Lion laughed and stood up. “So there is a soul in that shell! You may or may not be worth my time, I don’t care which it is. I want to see where this goes.”

She took a step back from her recruits, crossed her arm behind her back, and hit the four of them with a glare so intense they immediately shot back into formation.

“I have vowed to train you in the ways of my people, and so I shall,” Lion said, her voice booming with command presence. “You will be subject to the same requirements for passing training as your classmates. You will participate in every normal course and drill. When you are not attending them, you will be learning directly from me. What I teach you is extra. Pass, and you will be given the appropriate equipment, permission to carry it in the field, and special certification to show all you have been given spartan training… to the extent of one of our children.”

Lion snorted at the joke. “As if you could ever internalize a lifetime of training in a few weeks…” She shook her head. “You will not live up to my standards. There is not the time, and you are beginning your training too old. But, if you can each learn but a single skill from what I will teach you, it could mean the difference between life and death. You will do your best despite the impossibility of the task you have been assigned, for that is the duty of all warriors. To obey no matter the odds.”

“We will begin training… now.” Lion said as her uncrossing arms revealed she’d drawn a pair of short swords from her back which had been concealed under her uniform’s overcoat. “Your comrades are being given rest to understand they are now under oath and to get used to following the rules your military has set. But not you.”

“These are called kopis,” she said as she presented the two short slightly forward-curved blades to Ashen and 290. “They are part knife, part axe. You will become intimately familiar with them. Even though you will wield them by mouth or via a gauntlet attached to a leg, one day, it will save your life.”

56 snorted and rolled his eyes. “Really? We’re going to learn melee combat? It’s not the Classical Period! We’ve got megaspells and guns. All the Stripes have to do is hold up a talisman and chant or push a button.”

Cloth fluttered. Metal glimmered and sang. A ruby splash sprayed across 290’s left side. 56 fell to his knees and screamed in pain, holding a fresh gash along his right foreleg closed with his left hoof.

Nopony had seen Lion draw the bronze-bladed sword which was now in her left hand, nor swing it.

“The enemy cannot push a button if you disable their hoof,” Lion said as she shook the blood from her blade and returned it to its scabbard. “Sew your wound up.”

Ashen nodded and filed the tip away for later use. The three ponies began to freak the ever-loving buck out.

“Are you insane?!” 56 snapped, clenching his teeth through the pain radiating through his entire body from the deep cut. “I’ll report you, and you’ll—”

Lion took one step forward, kicked 56 onto his side, then pinned him with a hoof on his chest. “When my people were asked to participate in this collaboration, we explained our methods of instruction. Your Princess has approved of everything I may have to do to you. You have three options: You may quit, take a trip down what you ponies so aptly call “washout lane” and never get your wing. You may continue to behave without honor, in which case I will do everything short of killing you in cold blood to get my lessons into your ungrateful skull. Or, you can respect me as your master and take to heart everything I teach you.”

Lion reached into a pocket of her overcoat and withdrew a crude needle and a spool of fishing line then tossed them down where 56 could reach them. “Now sew up your leg and listen,” she said before returning to the front of the line of horrified ponies. “Hand to hand combat is the cornerstone of all combat. It is brutal, bloody, and deadly. You will become adept in it before we move to ranged combat so you understand why you must never enter into it if you can avoid it.”

Ashen raised a foreleg, and to everypony’s surprise, Lion nodded and called on him as any teacher would. “Yes, 117?”

“Does that include me, ma’am?” he asked with a small frown. “I am designed for melee combat. My chassis is armored with Luna Titanium and I am equipped with a shield talisman.”

Lion raised an eyebrow. “Shield talisman?”

Rather than answer verbally, Ashen activated his shield. For a moment his body was surrounded by thick bands of golden light as the shield spell activated and assessed the shape it would need to take to cover his body in a form-fitting way. Then the light dissipated. “The light goes away, but the shield is still th—”

Metal sang again, this time accompanied by the crackle of fire as Lion drew and swung her blade, this time with the disruptor field enchantment blazing. The sword arced through the air and hit Ashen’s left ear tip, or rather the shield above it. A shower of golden sparks blasted out from the impact as Lion’s blade slipped off the shield.

Lion nodded in satisfaction and to show her recruits what a Minotaur Power Sword could do, flicked her blade once more to cut a small stone cleanly in two, just as easily as she might cut a wheel of cheese.

Lion nodded to the two halves of stone the recruits were busily staring at then deactivated her blade’s enchantment. “That is one of the many reasons to steer clear of melee combat. Firearms are effective, yes. However, our peoples have been fighting hoof to hoof, talon to hand, and horn to antler since time immemorial. There are magics you would not begin to believe even if you saw them, all of which are designed to kill in close quarters on contact.”

Then she pointed to Ashen. “The first rule of combat is to know your place upon the field of battle. Each warrior has their place and their specialization. Ashen will be fighting in close quarters. Not only because he is built for it, but because you will not survive it and yet someone must take the fight to the enemy if they refuse to exit their fortress.”

Lion cleared her throat and presented her blade for her recruits to see. “We will begin by showing you how to swing a blade. You must grip it so the edge of the blade is perpendicular to the limb you will hold it in. Or, um... orifice in your case, ponies. You must know where the edge is pointing at all times, for the blade must be swung with the edge perfectly parallel to the line of travel or your blade will not cut. It will bounce off, or merely scrape and scratch the enemy.”

Lion turned her hand to show the shape of her sword’s hilt. “See how the handle swells in the middle? See how it is shaped like a squashed oval? Familiarize yourself with the handle of those blades, then pass them to your partner. Once you know exactly how a blade feels when you hold it correctly, we can begin cutting drills.”

☢★★◯★★☢

The next morning Equestria’s newest recruits began a long arduous march on the hard-packed desert earth to Fort Firefly’s HQ from their various barracks. They began to arrive at the cold and imposing main hall’s clay-brick plaza three hours before sunrise at oh-dark-thirty. Each group of recruits remained segregated into their Drill Squads. No talking was allowed and everypony had to stand at attention.

Rain poured down on the recruits as they waited for the most important part of their training to get underway. The Equestrian Military Occupation Exam (E.-M.O.E.). An excruciatingly lengthy test with no wrong answers designed to determine what jobs within the military they were qualified for. Science, Thaumaturgy, history, mathematics, engineering, mechanical aptitude, politics, and more in an endless series of random questions ranging from kindergarten to doctoral dissertation in difficulty.

Everypony would have just three hours to provide the information which would be used to sort them into the various specialty training programs so some ponies would leave infantry, others would leave engineers, special forces, Steel Rangers, Armored Cavalry Crewponies, and every other one of the hundreds of job titles available for Equestrian Soldiers.

The rain beat down on Ashen and his three fellow trainees. The three ponies were exhausted. None of them had slept more than a few minutes. Unlike their fellow recruits, their late-night morphing into an early morning of no sleep had not been due to stress. Instead, they had been busy learning hand to hand maneuvers. Minotaur ones. By demonstration.

Enōmotarches Lion had gone beyond the call of duty and acquired a set of odd robotic gauntlets for her recruits. Engineering samples of a new Lyra Machine and Tool product designed to help adapt pony hooves to Minotaur weapons. They were far refined from Lyra’s toy of a prototype. These ones folded up and replaced the front set of boots or shoes for a pony when not in use.

56, 290, and 89 hated the gauntlets. More specifically they hated how they had forced them to be awake all night learning to balance on their hind hooves to replicate specific strikes. Even 290 had been required to show she’d learned the cuts. Ashen had held her up so she could make the strikes, even as he held her up now.

The three-legged mare’s legs were in the process of giving out. Icy rain poured down on her and the rest of the recruits as a pegasi weather team created a near-sleet storm for them to endure. Her knees trembled, her muscles ached… But Ashen’s radiators kept her warmer than other recruits.

“I’m glad the Sargents understood your medical need for support,” Ashen commented idly, but quietly, so as not to break formation.

As well as to help distract the poor mare from her torment.

She snorted. “Yeah… Know what’s crap? Other ponies like me get a wheelchair. They just ran out.”

“Don’t make them yell again,” a terrified recruit whispered nervously from behind them in formation.

290 rolled her eyes. “There are way too many ponies to yell at for them to be in earshot right now.”

What’s more after being suplexed through a hay bale last night she was no longer afraid of yelling.

Ashen took a quick look around and nodded in agreement. “We might as well pass some time. We’re going to be here for at least an hour.”

89 raised his tail in alarm. “An hour?! How do you know that?”

“Fort Firefly is commanded by Commander Creed. I have his book on file,” Ashen summarized. “The idea is to force us to take the E.-M.O.E. while stressed.”

“But… why?” 290 groaned as she shook her shoulders to try and get some of the ice water out of the back of her collar.

Ashen frowned and tilted his head as he turned to look at her. “Was it not required reading for you?”

She shook her head. “Nope.”

“In that case, the idea is to assess our skills when stressed. They want to know how good we are on our worst day so when we’re being shelled in a trench whatever we’re meant to do we’re able to handle it.” Ashen said with a casual tone that got a flinch from his squadmates.

“Well… I guess that makes sense,” 56 muttered. “I’m hoping to get a clerical job though.”

“Oh, we get to pick from a list,” Ashen corrected. “The test will shorten the full list to what they believe we can handle. I hope you can get your clerical position on your list. I’m fairly certain they will cheat me out of what I want, however. I’m certain I’ll be relegated to infantry.”

290 frowned and nuzzled Ashen’s shoulder since she was too exhausted to balance long enough to give him a side-hug as she would a friend. “What? Why? Aren't you like the perfect soldier?”

Ashen shook his head. “No. I am close to perfect by my creators’ design, but I was not allowed to take the train as you did. They do not trust me, this means I am not perfect even if I were by every other metric. Besides, I am untested technology. All of my capability is theoretical.”

“Well your theoretically perfect ass learned everything Lion showed us the first time she showed each individual thing,” 56 grumbled a bit too loudly.

“It wasn’t that difficult… I tried to help you,” Ashen said, his ears drooping back as he frowned. “I apologize for failing.”

290 grinned. “I hope my robot leg is as mobile as yours, 117. It sure looked easy for you to stand upright.”

“Oh, my grandmother taught me how to do that. She’s way better than I am. I think she just does it for fun… Like, whenever nopony else is looking. Little else would explain the level of skill displayed,” Ashen mused as he looked up to try and see if he could spot the pegasi through the storm they created.

He could not. It was just a little distressing.

“Grandmother? But you’re a robot,” 56 said with the steepest frown he could manage before slowly looking suspicious. “Unless… Your makers found a way to put a pony into a machine? Like, download them or something… That would make sense.”

Ashen snorted and shook his head. “No. Stable-Tech has, but not L.M.T.” he said without realizing that was a classified bombshell to drop. “I was primarily designed by Lyra Heartstrings' son, Brass Rivet. He asked me to think of him as a father, so I do. This means I think of Miss Lyra as a grandmother.”

“Kind of stupid, but whatever,” 56 grunted as he rolled his eyes.

“I think it’s sweet,” 290 said quickly before her eyes lit up. “Wait, if it’s something you learned, could you teach me? I like the idea of being able to carry one of those big pony-sized shields, being able to shoot a gun, and walk around at the same time… What was it Lion said that technique was called?”

“ATTEN-SHUN!” The oddly attention grabbingly pronounced and booming order cut through the rain like an axe.

The order was magically amplified with a slightly modified version of the far-speaker spell used in sporting events. It added a little extra bass and clarity to the speaker’s voice than there would otherwise be.

Half the recruits managed to pull their attention forwards to respond to the order. The rest were too tired, too apathetic, or too fed up to care, creating pockets of turbulence in the otherwise calm lake of recruits filling the HQ’s plaza.

A taller earth pony dressed in a Sergeant Major’s uniform waited precisely two seconds before following up the order he had just issued with his statement. “I am Sergeant Major Buckwheat, your penultimate commanding officer. You are about to take the Equestrian Military Occupation Exam. You will do so here and now. First rank, take one pencil and one test booklet, and pass the others back. The pencil and booklet are waterproof, meaning we won’t believe any excuses about water making the marks run and invalidating your exam.”

The Sergeant Major paced back and forth slightly as if walking the front of a stage. He gave the recruits just enough time to process that they wouldn’t be taking their exam while warm, and for his officers to begin passing the booklets to the first line of recruits before continuing.

“As soon as everypony has a booklet and pencil, our weather crew will create an ice fog to prevent you from having more than a meter of visibility. This is to prevent cheating. If you do not think you can handle being a bit chilly for three hours, Washout Lane is to your left. Get going.”

A few ponies began to move out of formation, some cursing under their breath, others refusing to believe any sane ponies would subject anyone to those kinds of conditions. Sergeant Major Buckwheat nodded to himself as he watched them leave.

Ashen took a booklet and a pencil as they were passed to him, passing the rest of the stack back over his shoulders, grateful for his telekinesis talisman for the first time in his life.

“There are always a few quitters at the beginning. There will be more before the exam is over,” the Sergeant Major said with more disdain than most ponies present had heard before in their lives. “If at any time you feel the need to join your fellow failures, toss your booklet down and head to your left. For the rest of you who think you’ll tough this out and see how the military is after your done with training, or who think you might want to go home midway through your training, remember that as soon as you accept a job offered to you by the E.-M.O.E. you owe us a minimum of three, five, or ten years of service depending on the job you choose.”

The papers reached the rearmost line of recruits. The Sergeant Major looked up to the weather team invisible in the storm and nodded once. An icy fog began to creep along the ground as it formed around the recruits.

“Begin,” Sergeant Major Buckwheat ordered.

Thousands of pencils hit paper immediately. A few dozen booklets hit the ground as their owners walked out, mumbling about having thought the fog was a bluff to weed out the weak.

☢★★◯★★☢

Ashen did his best at the exam. There were large parts of it he simply could not answer, his programming and database held only so much information. Technically speaking he didn’t have a high schoolers understanding of some areas even if in other areas he had college-level information available.

None of those helped him with the personality assessment questions. After every dozen or so short answers and multiple-choice questions came a short paragraph question which he knew was intended to help them ascertain what kind of pony he was. All Ashen could do was write the same answer over and over.

I have not experienced enough to have a true personality. I have decided I am kind to those who deserve it. I am programmed to be loyal, and so I am. All I know is I am kind, curious, loyal, and a warrior.

He knew the exam was a joke for him. He was to be tested as a soldier, which means infantry. Everything about his creator's intentions meant nothing here. Not since Commander Creed controlled his life now. Not that Ashen minded. Especially not since he had the Commander’s book on file and therefore knew what to expect.

Still, he was here to be like anypony else, so he finished the booklet. Only a hooffull of others finished the booklet. When the three hours were over, most ponies were in the last quarter of the exam. Ashen took note of them panicking as the fog lifted and they were instructed to pass their booklets forward for processing.

The plaza looked much emptier without the fog. Nearly half of the recruits had walked out once they realized nopony could see them to judge them. The EUP knew that would happen. It always did. That’s why recruitment drives always collected twice as many recruits as the generals believed they would need soldiers for the upcoming months.

As soon as each book had been collected the Recruits were called to mess by their Sargents. A hot fresh meal rather than field rations. The sole treat offered for making it through the exam.

Ashen watched as his fellow recruits ate and laughed, so happy to have a cup of hot unsalted cider after being out in the storm they couldn’t help but pull a complete 180 in mood. Ashen didn't need to eat, but he did want to do his job well so he sat with his squad while they dined, listening more than talking.

89 shook his head and smirked at 290’s joke. “Yeah, yeah… Well as long as we're teasing each other with war movie cliches,” he cleared his throat and looked the mare dead in her eyes. “So how’s your girl back home?”

“She’s pissed I signed up for a leg instead of letting her family pay for it,” 290 answered honestly, then facehooved. “They’re rich enough to just buy one without the insurance, but I like to feel like I earned things I rely on you know?”

89 and 56 started at 290 until she realized that her fellow recruit had been extending the joke, not asking about her personal life.

“Oh, right. We’re just bucking around…” She said while sliding down in her seat somewhat.

56 snorted and smirked over his mug. “I guess it’s true. Every soldier has a girl back home. Even the mares.”

“Shut up,” 290 muttered with a light blush.

Ashen blinked, frowned, then accessed his internal databases. Indeed, every journal he had on file mentioned soldiers writing their girl back home.

Ashen pushed himself away from the table and stood up. “Oh, dear… In that case, I’d better go see if the quartermaster can issue me one.”

His squadmates feel completely silent, then erupted into a laughing fit. By the time they recovered, Ashen was being escorted back to the table by a sergeant who was saying something quietly, yet firmly to the robotic soldier.

The three recruits trained their ears to hear through the noise of the crowded dining hall.

“... doesn't matter what it is. You don’t get to request equipment until after training.” The Sergeant said, his face stern, but his ears cocked in a way which betrayed his poker face was holding back laughter.

290’s ears perked. “Guys, we need to buck with the robot.”

“Agreed!” 89 said with a firm nod. “Everypony make sure he thinks it is a part of the job.”

“Totally,” 56 snorted and turned back to his food.

A moment later Ashen returned to the table and sat down, looking more than a little sad.

“No luck?” 56 asked.

Ashen shook his head. “No. We’re not allowed to request equipment until after training. I assume that includes support staff.” Ashen mused as he wondered what the girl back home did.

Presumably she served as a logistics supply contact.

“Yeah, we had to fill out forms like a month ago,” 56 lied expertly. “They’re probably out right now anyway. It’s a big train.”

“I hadn’t thought of that,” Ashen said thoughtfully.

290 opened her mouth to add her own layer to the prank but was cut off as Lion Maze approached their table.

“That was fifteen minutes, recruits,” She said with her usual iron sternity. “Time to march back to the barracks. We have a long day of training ahead of us.”

56’s brow furrowed. “But they said we had an hour to—”

“That’s them,” Lion grunted as her eyes narrowed. “You’re not them. Gather your kit and move out. We’re going to be out that door in the next forty seconds.”

“Yes, ma’am,” Ashen said as he snapped a salute and stood up to leave.

☢★★◯★★☢

A small fleet of auto-wagons began to swarm across Fort Firefly as the sun began to set. They each carried a ranking officer, two assistants, and a small mountain of paperwork. Each was destined for one of the recruits' barracks. The fort’s small army of civilian clerks had graded the E.-M.O.E.s. It was time for each recruit to choose a job so by the time they finished the next two weeks of general training they could attend their specialist classes.

Lion Maze knew when the exams were to arrive, and she elected to allow her recruits to have a ten-minute break before they accepted their exams and made their choice. The three ponies sat down, still panting after an entire day spent learning new hoof-to-hoof techniques and then sparring until Lion was satisfied they had absorbed the new move.

Ashen on the other hoof was sparring with Lion herself. The Minotaur delighted in just how easy Ashen was to teach. He’d only failed to learn a move the first time once, and his mechanical body could handle moving as a minotaur would far more easily than a pony’s. Even better, his shield talisman meant she didn't need to hold back. Much.

The two traded blows in a way that resembled someone boxing with a mirror. Ashen was able to assimilate new data instantly, but learning how to do a thing and how to apply a thing are two quite different tasks to manage. Regardless, the bright showers of gold sparks and rapid borderline-superquine speed punches and kicks made for a hell of a show for the three exhausted recruits to watch.

A show which didn't stop as a simple green boxy auto-wagon pulled up in front of the barracks and stopped with the faintest squeak of brakes. Nor as two clerks, Commander Creed, and a blue pegasus mare exited the auto wagon and began to approach the barracks.

The mare was dressed in an exquisitely tailored black suit. While it looked like a simple business suit its legs had special hidden gussets to permit extra movements, and behind the black silk was a layer of kevlar magically enhanced to be bulletproof. The white silk shirt and thin black tie she wore were similarly reinforced, and in the tie’s case, it was strong enough to serve as a garrote if needed.

In addition to the suit, the mare also wore a pair of aviators, a simple black military cap with a silver pin bearing a crest in the shape of a winged lightning bolt attached to the front. Her prismatic mane was tucked into her cap, more as a means of keeping herself looking neat than as a form of disguise.

The mare and Commander Creed argued as they exited the wagon. “I know he qualified, but—”

“But nothing. Protocol is protocol. It qualified. It gets the offer.” The mare said coldly.

Creed took a deep breath. “Yes, but this is an MWT prototype and test. The entire thing will be invalidated if—”

“If it can hack it in my Spec Ops, I’ll tell Applejack to make as many as you want. I would advise you to stop arguing,” the mare said with icy finality.

“What if he says no?” Creed pressed uncertainly.

“Then it's all yours.” The mare sighed, looking over her sunglasses into Creed’s eye for just a moment. “You wanted it treated like any recruit. That’s what we’re doing. It scored a 3829. It made the cut off by six points. It gets the offer.”

“Recruit 117 identifies as male,” Creed said in defeat, unable to argue against anything else the mare had said.

She blinked once. “It— He does? The buck didn’t you correct me earlier for?”

“I was busy trying to make sure you didn’t ruin a project I funded myself,” Creed said with a sidelong glance at the mare, hoping to remind her of his stake in this. “Which is why I would rather you didn’t do this. We’ve already had a few security breaches on this project.”

The mare nodded. “I know. I also know you know there’s nopony else better equipped to investigate the matter than me, and I want that robot where I can see it for the duration,” she said quietly as they drew near enough to the recruits to be overheard.

Lion threw a punch that glanced off Ashen’s shields over his abdomen. The impact pushed him back just enough for her to get a knee strike in on his chin and flip him over, ending the match.

Ashen rolled over the moment he hit the ground and sprang back up, landing on all fours with a smile.

“That was new!” He said as he played back the last few seconds of his memory to analyze the knee strike. “Did you hop up with your other leg to add more force or is that to guide the strike to a solid hit?”

“Both,” Lion answered then frowned as she noticed the approaching Commander and his entourage. “Recruits, Commander in camp.”

Commander in camp was not an order the recruits had been taught in their welcome briefing, nor had Lion issued it before. Yet they all knew that meant “Immediately stand at attention and be on your best behavior, or so help me…”

Two and three-quarter sets of hooves jumped up and snapped a salute before standing at attention. Ashen turned and saluted, then frowned as he noticed Commander Creed’s weary and beaten expression. The important looking mare probably had something to do with that.

Creed nodded to the recruits. “At ease,” he said reflexively before nodding to the clerks behind him. “Take those three inside and go over their options with them. Enōmotarches, you should go with them. 117’s exam results are a matter of national security and above the classification level granted to you by the Princess.”

Lion Maze nodded once. “I understand. Recruits, let’s give the Commander and our Brother some privacy.”

The three followed their Minosian trainer as she marched into the old barracks, followed shortly by the clerks with the paperwork. As they entered, Creed cleared his throat and walked up to Ashen. He looked the robot over once then sighed. “Son, I’m here because you scored very well. You can have your pick of occupations. Including a special one. Everything the mare with me says is true, and highly classified. You are not authorized to talk about anything she says to you if you choose to decline her offer, and if you accept, you are not allowed to tell anypony anything other than “I accepted a special forces assignment”. Understood?”

Ashen shook his head. “No sir. I was under the assumption I would be required to go infantry for testing purposes.”

The mare snorted. “It would be a pretty big waste of this chance to stick you into the infantry if you qualify for a specialist position. If we can build an army of combat engineers, rangers, and artillery crew as well as shock troops we’re in a much better position.”

She turned her head to Creed with a snide smile. “You didn’t tell me he could make assumptions.”

“We had other more important matters,” Creed said while physically restraining himself from reaching for a cigar.

The mare nodded in agreement. Messing with Ministry Mare Applejack was definitely an important matter. For her at least.

He’d been ordered to not smoke around the mare. It was the hardest order to follow he had ever been given.

Ashen watched the mare as she walked up to him. Something about her made him feel uneasy, but also welcome and safe. Much like how a foal would feel about their mother after she beat the ever-loving snot out of a mugger while the foal watched.

“Recruit 117,” she said quietly in an expertly practiced tone of voice which wouldn’t carry far. “I represent the Ministry of Awesome Extra-Territorial Operations Department.”

Ashen titled his head. “I’m sorry… My database lists that ministry as disbanded.”

Commander Creed cleared his throat for Ashen’s attention. “Let’s just say it’s not gone. It’s hiding.”

“Ah,” Ashen said with a nod. “Classified.”

The mare smiled ever so slightly. “Our continued existence is double-top-secret… In spite of having uniforms and duties… It’s mostly a public relations thing. Mention one word otherwise outside of official business, and you won’t see another day. Your score on the E.-M.O.E. permits you the rare opportunity of serving your kingdom in a capacity above and beyond all other soldiers. Extra-Territorial Operations is an elite special forces unit comprised of Steel Rangers. Their duty is to perform small-unit operations against the enemy far behind enemy lines. Assassinations, exfiltration, sabotage, anything we need to be done that our spies cannot do thanks to a lack of firepower.”

She paused for a moment to make sure she had Ashen’s attention. Ashen remained alert and attentive. The mare noted an interested gleam in his eyes, and for just one moment, saw him as a pony rather than a machine.

“The job is effectively a string of suicide missions from which you are expected to return… and which you are legally prohibited from ever discussing,” she continued. “It’s some of the most dangerous work available, but it has perks like nothing else. You’ll be issued power armor. Unlike the Steel Ranger corps, yours will be customized to your needs, as will all of your equipment. You’ll also have a better dental plan than the MWT. If you survive the war, you will be given a land grant and entry into Equestrian nobility as a Lord. If you do not, these benefits will be passed to your next of kin… Though in your case you can defer all benefits to anyone of your choosing.”

The mare looked Ashen up and down once then cocked her head slightly. “You only get this offer once, and you have three minutes to decide… Any questions?”

Ashen nodded immediately. “Yes, ma’am,” he rocked from side to side to simulate a blush. “Do… Don’t you think it would be a little silly for a robot like me to get into power armor?”

“Buck no!” the mare said, grinning despite herself. “Twice the battlebot in one place? That sounds awesome! Besides, if you think about it it’s simply modular ablative armor for you.”

Ashen found her grin infectious. “I see. One last question… If I agree, I would be trained as a Steel Ranger, then moved to some black ops site. Would this impact my training with Instructor Lion? I am looking forward to learning how to use Minocian swords. She cut a rock in half with hers and that was just awesome! I need to do that at least once.”

“Normally, yes,” the mare confirmed while wondering how exactly Ashen’s eyes could glimmer with desire like that. “But I never stand in the way of awesome. I take it you’re interested?”

Ashen began to shake his head no. The job was simply out of the purview of what he had been created for. A special classified assignment could never truly be used as a test for robotic soldiers meant to supplement the infantry. That must be why Commander Creed looked so upset.

The mare frowned and began to sigh, more than a little disappointed in his choice.

Then, a voice whispered in Ashen’s ear. One only he could hear. “Soldier of Iron, you must accept her offer.”

Ashen stopped shaking his head. The voice was powerful, motherly, even noble. It had to be that of the Changeling Queen who had welcomed him to this world. If she wished for him to do what this mare wanted, so be it.

“Actually… Yes, ma’am. I accept your offer.” He said with finality.

“Good! Glad you reconsidered.” The mare turned and nodded to Commander Creed. “Make the arrangements. You have my personal authority for anything you need to get it done… And make sure 117 gets the melee training he wants no matter what. I don’t have a CQC specialist yet.” The mare said before turning and walking

Creed nodded and offered her a salute. “Yes, Ministry Mare,” he said before nodding to Ashen. “Get inside and finish your basic training, son. These are going to be some of the least stressful days of your life. Enjoy them.”

Ashen saluted. “Yes, sir!”

Ashen turned and walked into the barrack and towards a future filled with grand adventures and glorious battles that would never have their stories told. Little did he know that even the direst of all the campaigns and operations ahead of him paled in comparison to what was to come after the Great War.