DATE- N/A
TIME- IRRELIVANT

Name- Night Wind

Race- unicorn

Blood type- O-

Division assigned to- Bco second guard training battalion 3rd brigade

Special training required- N/A

You are hereby assigned to a training command of the Royal Canterlot guard, your choice in joining the Royal guard is greatly admired. From this day fourth you will be held to a very high standard; that standard is what every guard strives for. your next 12 weeks are going to involve extencive training in both proper conduct when dealing with royalty, the way to deal with dificult and complex situations, and how to put a rest to any and all situations that would call for imideate controll. after this next 12 weeks you will be able to call yourself the elite of the the elite. This training is both long and taxing on an individual thus if you wish to back out at any time the only time avalible to do so is during in processing; there will be no reprocussions and we will not look at you any differently. If you decide to continue training it will be up to us as your instructors to train you to the best of our abilitys, and we hold ourselves to a certain standard; that standard is this. We strive to train every one of our recruits as we are trained; we will never ask any pony to do anything we will not do ourselves, that being said we will make sure you are going to be the best you can be as soon as you graduate and are sent to your duty station; weather or not you are assigned to Canterlot castle, or some place different you will always be a Royal Canterlot guard and shal always conduct yourself as such.

"When I give the order to disembark this bus you will do so in an orderly fashion no questions asked do you all understand!" YES SIR! came the response from every pony on the bus. "Now I would like to welcome you to the hardest 12 weeks you will ever endure in your lives, it will be taxing, it will be hard, but at the end of it all you will all leave here knowing that you are a Royal Canterlot Guard; a feeling many consider a unique honor. Many have come before you and still many more will follow, who knows it could be one of you on this bus giving this same speech to another class in the future; but for now you are just recruits. It is up to the cadre here to mold and shape you into guards, and may I say we do a damn fine job of it thus far we have had a 90% success rate, the other 10% is not due to drop outs either; as I have said it is going to be a very tough 12 weeks and injuries do occur, not once however have we had a failed class" We all looked at each other and gave a combined gulp, what had we all gotten ourselves in to? Sure it had seemed like a good idea at the start but the more this pony in fatigues talked the more we all wanted to run for our lives. Oh yea he was still talking by the way, "Now as soon as this bus stops you are all going to grab your crap and stand in formation on those yellow hoof prints, if I hear so much as a peep from any of you other than yes sir I will pt you all until you drop, do you understand!" YES SIR! we all shouted in unison; and with that we grabbed our stuff and began our introduction to basic, well not quite basic yet, rather a week at reception which we would all come to realize had no affect on the upcoming 12 weeks of hell.

We all stood on our yellow hoof prints as the cadre took stock of their new class of bedraggled, and frightened ponies; many of which hadn't seen sleep in almost a full day. "Allow me to introduce myself, I am Shining Armor, captain of the Royal Canterlot Guard; I along with my fellow officers and cadre would like to welcome you all to the 1st brigade 3rd recruit battalion, during the next week you will be taking your first steps in becoming a royal guard, you will be issued your uniforms, be given your inoculations, be introduced to the proper etiquette in dealing with royalty, and take the first of many pt tests. It is the responsibility of both my cadre and me to see to it that you are treated both fair and evenly during both in processing and basic training, if for any reason you feel as though you are being treated unfairly by an officer, or nco please let the moral officers know immediately and it will be dealt with, other than that my cadre will never ask any pony to do or say anything they would not do or say themselves, we all conduct ourselves as professionals, and we expect you all to do the same; is that clear!" YES SIR! We said in unison as he once again welcomed us and then let his hounds loose. Before any of us could think we had drill sergeants in our faces and the once quiet atmosphere was filled with the yelling of orders, and the occasional whimper from those who had been a bit too slow to do something as they did pushups. We were led to the mane cutting building where our manes were.. cut, even mine which had been already cut by my father, something the barber pony wasn't too pleased with obviously; though I was able to tell him about who my dad was, and got a nod of approval from not just him, but the drill sergeant who was making sure we all got our mane cut.

From the mane manecut building we were then led to the administration building where we filled out more paper work than we all thought was even possible to exist. After that we were led to a room decked to the brim with ribbons, flags, and photos of not just guards, but different places throughout our world; including one of Princess Luna shaking the talon of a griffon over what looked like a chess board of all things; under the photo was the caption, (The mighty Princess Luna is no match for Gold wing and his witty chess abilities, thus ends the most epic game of chess in history.) There were pictures of many different places and events that somehow gave us all a since of ease at our choice in career, especially the picture of Canterlot Royal Cemetery with the caption (GONE BUT NEVER FORGOTTEN.) The room seemed to exude pride and patriotism, pride for being a Royal Canterlot Guard, and patriotism for all Equestria. So of course this would be the room where we were to recite our oath of enlistment.

"I Night Wind do solemnly swear to both uphold, and live by the code of the Royal Canterlot Guard; that being this, I will always be loyal to both Princess Luna, and Celestia respectively. I will always conduct myself as a royal guard both on and off duty, and I will make it my duty to give my life for those I am sworn to protect from both foreign and domestic threats if the need shal ever arise. From the day I graduate til the day I am either killed, or retire I will always be a Royal Canterlot Guard."

From the administration building we were then led to the chow hall, "finally, food thank Celestia" I thought to myself with a slight rumble in my stomach realizing just how long it had been since I had last eaten. "Ok recruits you have 10 minuets to get your food, and eat it. "What! 10 minuets, that's hardly enough time to enjoy a meal" I thought to myself shoveling food down my throat as fast as I could getting the vast majority of it down before being told to form up and march who knew where. It was just about 0100 by the time our night finally ended upon reaching our barracks, and assigned bunks; but not before being told we would be waking up at 0500.

"You have got to be bucking kidding me! Please tell me he is jokeing; seriously please someone, anyone tell me that was a joke" I thought as i laid my head on the pillow and thought back on everything that had taken place that day. "What have I done, and how can I get ou of it" Yeh in the end asking stupid questions got me no where, and I eventualy fell asleep; AT 0230! Yeh this was going to suck.

"Please peach, I promise it will be fun; trust... WAKE UP RECRUITS! Wait I don't remember this happening; FUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUCK!!" "Well this assclown had better have a good reason to be waking me up at this goddess forsaken time or I swear to Luna I'l kill her" I rolled over in my bunk trying to filter the light out of my eyes and tried to get back to my...er dream, yeh dream. Looking down at the blankets I could see that it was certainly more than just a regular dream and noticed that the entire platoon was looking at my..uhm unfortunate situation.

"Well then recruit Night Wind, shal we all wait for you to uhhm; relieve yourself of that" "Gulp.... Why does she have to be a she; of all the worst things that could ever happen this is the.. worst.. possible thing!" "Damn she's cute.. er uhm fucking hell" I just dropped into the front lean and rest position and waited gaining a slight chuckle from her and.. "Wait did she just grin at me"

...

"And that is the proper way to interact with both Princess Luna and Princess Celestia respectivly; any questions on what we have gone over?" No pony raised a hoof and the light grey mare continued the lesson on proper etiquette of dealing not only with royalty but also castle staff as well. "Dear sweet fucking Celestia this is boring" I thought to myself looking over to the blue coated corpral at the back of the classroom; she was the very same mare that had woken us up a few days ago. I know what you all are going to say right now so don't say it. "Yes I know it's wrong and I'm not even in the royal guard yet; why am I even entertaining these thoughts. Damn it Night Wind snap out of it you fool." Mentaly kicking myself I saw the whole class eyeing me. "1.2.3.-1 1.2.3.-2" As it turned out I in my stupid thought bubble had been holding up the short break between the current class and the next class in the same room. Ok I'm going to admit this right now; let's just say by graduation I could just about lift 2 times my own weight; slight exaduration but you know what I mean.

...

The week in reception was finaly over and I wanted to piss myself. "I'L ASK AGAIN RECRUIT.. WHAT IS YOUR NAME; AND THIS TIME SAY IT LIKE YOU HAVE A PAIR... UNLESS YOUR A MARE. IN WHICH CASE YOU ARE IN THE WRONG BATTALION!!" PRIVATE NIGHT WIND DRILL SERGANT!" "GOOD NOW GRAB YOUR CRAP AND FORM UP!"

"What have I done" That was all I could think as he went down the rows of ponies along with the rest of his pack of dogs. Every pony seemed to have the same thought raceing through their heads as most did pushups or simply stood dumbfounded; this was going to be a long 12 weeks.

...

"If you can't trot faster than that recruit than I'm sure there is still space with the kitchen staff! Now I want to see cantering damn it" I had always been a crappy runner and it didn't help that I had recently stopped smokeing and my lungs felt as though they were on fire. "Private Night Wind are you going to die on me? That would break my fucking heart" The drill sergant asked as I caughed and wheezed; I could hear the smirk on his face and with renewed vigor I raced past him to his satisfied yell of "NOW THAT'S WHAT I WAS LOOKING FOR: keep it up and in no time you will be able to out run even me, not today though" He said with a hint of pride and suppriseingly a smile.

...

"Welcome to the gas chamber; or as we like to call it, the tear factory" It had already been 2 weeks and the drill sergants had begun to take on an almost friendly demenor and had become more like actual teachers rather than heartless yelling beasts. We would have long discussions after chow about life and the royal guard; they would tell us more indepth things we were learning such as how to deal with the task of keeping notonly the 2 princesses safe but equestria as well. A few even talked about the day Nightmare Moon made her appearance since they had been there.

"Let me tell you; you do not want to get hit by lightning, trust me I still have the scar to prove it" We sat there in awe as he told us what happened afterword and how even to this day a few guards still were weary of Princess Luna, almost senceing something a bit.. off about her but never saying so or showing so either. They also shared some information on Luna's night guard as well telling us that they were hoof picked by her and her advisers. They hardly were ever seen during the day and infact had their very own brigade heavily fortified compound and only trained at night. We were also told that the princess herself would often chose a few of the outstanding class members from the graduateing classes and they would receve special comendations as well; I thought about that for a bit, and made a mental note of it as well. I had always been a night pony and infact had a night job in Baltimare where I was from working at a small caffe; before joining the royal guard that is.

....

"Come on Night Wind kick his flank, we know you can!" Sweet fucking Luna in heat this was fun; it was ofcourse hoof to hoof combat training and I had the biggest grin on my face as my second opponent went down in a cloud of dirt and a quite satisfying "umpf" "Ok who's the next contendor to take on Private Night Wind who currently is 2 and 0" A large earth pony named Cinder Block raised a hoof. "Looks like we have a good match ahead of us then; you both know the rules and the time limit so I want a clean match got it" "YES DRILL SERGANT!" we both said shakeing hooves. "READY.. FIGHT!" "Finaly, a worthy opponent" I thought as he rushed me; I quickly stepped aside and he harmlessly ran past me; turning to face him Iowered my head pushing my centre of mass into my chest and bulldozed right into him sending a loud yet satisfying "umpf" from him as he hit the ground. "Now to end this" I thought outloud as I attempted to pin him. I quickly realized that it was going to be a long match however as he used his mass to throw me off; stumbling to my hooves I was met with a sweeping kick to my right front leg sending a loud "SNAP" through the air as well as a loud cry of pain from me. Now a normal pony would have laid down and given up after breaking a leg; but.. I'm not a normal pony; standing on my 3 good legs I prepared to end this. He had a look of confusion on his face as I got up and said "LET'S END THIS!" through gritted teeth. Even the drill sergants had a look of shock on their faces as he ran full tilt at me again; this time I was ready though and had already turned my back to him; narrowing my eyesI reared up as he inched closer; 3..2..1 I bucked as hard as I could connecting with his nose. It was over in a blink of an eye; he landed hard and was out before he even hit the ground. A loud collective gasp was all anypony could hear as the medical staff rushed to us; getting up again I grogely asked "did I win drill sergant" before limping over to my friend to see if he was alright.

...

"Night Wind.. Night Wind... WAKE UP!" It had been almost a full month since my leg was broken, and though still sore I was determined to keep training; even if it meant haveing to join a new fresh class. My leg would never be the same afterwords and I was put on perminent light pt. So here I was, in a new class as well as CinderBlock who's nose and jaw had been broken; laying in my rack being woken up by my new best friend; after the whole incedent we were roomies in the hospital and aside from the whole you broke my leg; well you broke my nose and jaw thing, we shook hooves and started chatting about life before training and from there became best friends.

Author's Note

Yeh I know; "Why do you keep on doing this for certain charectures? and where is all of this going? Relax people it'l all make since in the end ok, bear with me lol