The day I got to spend with Twilight before going off to the Canterlot Barracks was a great one. I made a massive breakfast, went to Canterlot for lunch, and we cuddled in between pretty much every little thing we did that day. I didn’t bother to do any writing until Twilight said that she wanted to read A Star-Crossed Love like no other, so I picked that up for a little while and did a few chapters while Twilight continued writing in her journal. I didn’t even bother writing that day down because I remember it so well. You know those times where you’re just so certain that you’ll never forget a single moment? Well, in my case and in Twilight’s, we probably won’t, all things told. Things might fade in a hundred or so years, but I’m sure we’ll have many more happy memories to reminisce on besides a day where we barely did a damned thing. Actually, there are multiple days like that. Huh. Go figure. In any case, time spent with Twilight is time well spent, though when our friends came to her house to show their faces before I left for training, that was nice too.

That aside, my day of rest was wonderful and I enjoyed every moment of it, and the morning of my day of departure, Twilight and I spent a good fifteen minutes on kissing each other goodbye. I was almost late getting to my train, but then again, I could have just Shadow Dived to Canterlot anyway or have Twilight teleport me to the training grounds since she knows where they are. Either way, I made my train right on time and found that there were a few other young men and women with bulging sacks next to them, most likely heading to the same destination as me. I figured it would be pertinent to start making friends, so I started talking to a few of them. A woman named Iron Hoof was a little uptight about me cracking jokes, but once I landed a few good ones, she lightened up and I started drawing other recruits into the conversation. There was a Unicorn named Shaggy Scoob who looked like he smoked copious amounts of dope, and when I made jokes about him intaking more weed than a gardener, he laughed and said that his uncle, Mountain Mix, had introduced him to marijuana when he became an adult and now he loved to study its medicinal effects. I mentioned that I knew Mountain Mix and that we’d smoked together at a Canterlot party and the group I’d built up were fucking stunned that I’d been invited to go to one.

I had to tell them (because they were asking, not because I really wanted to) that I’d been a Baron when I was invited to that party and I’d beaten up the former prince Blueballs while I was there. An Earth Pony named Stalwart asked me why I’d punched his face in and I told him that I’d had some bad blood with the prick in the first place and had fought him in the past, but that particular time had been caused by him having his silly slaws pour drinks on my piece of perfection. They asked who that was for me and told them that her name was Twilight and left it at that until a mare named Brilliant Day asked if I meant the Twilight Sparkle. I had to answer with an affirmative because I wasn't trying to lie or anything and they all scoffed, calling me a spinner of tall tales. Well, Shaggy Scoob believed me because I’d mentioned his uncle and had described him perfectly, but the other three in the conversation were skeptical at best. They said that if I was Twilight Sparkle’s special some’pony’, then I had to be the latest Prince of Equestria, so I just pursed my lips and held up the hand with the ring on it. Before they could all get down and kneel, I told them to knock it off and not make a scene or some shit so I could enjoy the last hour before we went through training Hell.

Stalwart asked why I was even going to Guard Training (a.k.a Boot Camp as most people call it) and I told them that I needed to be in better condition if I was going to represent Equestria and be an Ambassador of any kind. From there, they just asked questions about my life and what it was like, so I told them a few stories about my adventures and explained to them that I’d come from rock bottom, being a thief to feed myself and survive, and climbed my way to the top by being a pretty decent guy that was willing to do some pretty indecent things. I was, of course, asked what some of those indecent things were and I just told them that it was Operative business and they asked how the Hell I’d managed to become an Operative, which required even tougher training than becoming a guard. I explained that I’d basically just done a favor for Luna in the way of ‘stealing’ something for her and that I’d just gone from there. I was a sneaki-breeki and that was the way I described myself. I was proud of the chuckles I earned from saying nonsense.

Our merry little band of four hopefuls and one tentative sucker went along, travelling through the streets of Canterlot until we came to the Castle Gates. The Guards let Stalwart, Iron Hoof, Brilliant Day, and Shaggy Scoob in without any fuss, but when I went to enter, they dropped their fucking spears and I asked them why they were holding me up before I laid the fuck into them. Apparently they didn’t believe that I was here to become a guard, so I cursed them down like a pair of dogs before I realized that I could just flash them my ring, so I did and they raised their spears.

Have I ever mentioned that Day Guards are fucking pricks? Racist pricks at that.

That little kerfuffle aside, I joined my new friends and we went to the Barracks before being directed to the Training Grounds. We’d gotten out shit put up, and I was surprised to find that Stalwart and I were slated to be bunkmates. I was pretty sure that it was because we arrived at the same time because Shaggy was the next one over. They divided the bunks between sexes, so Day and Iron were in a different building. It wasn’t exactly a surprise, but we did all agree to meet up in the Mess Hall so we could eat together once we were done with the first day of training.

When we got out onto the dusty field, we joined about twenty or so more recruits in standing around until we could be addressed, and when our three superiors arrived, I told my group to separate ourselves from those who were talking and shut the fuck up. After being lead around the premises and brought back, Night Light, a tough looking woman, and a grizzled older fellow with plenty of greys who I remembered as Dirge stood in front of the main group while my group stood up straight with our hands to our side and stared straight ahead.

“Hey maggots!” Night Light bellowed.

“Line up five by five!” The woman who I assumed was Shoulder Boulder followed up.

My group were in the front and I could hear people shuffling behind us. We were about two arm lengths apart, and as Night Light and Boulder travelled through the ranks, they stared down people as they passed. Boulder came up to me and I didn’t look at her, so when she jammed a finger into my chest, I was expecting her to start shit with me right off the bat.

“You! What’s your name?” She asked rather loudly.

“Sir! My name is Maximus, Sir!” I responded.

I could see the top of her head nod slightly. “So you’re our little princeling? Do you expect us to go easy on you because you’re a prince now, shit licker?”

“Sir no sir!”

“Well then what do you expect!?” She bellowed in my face.

“Sir! I expect to be trained as a guard, Sir!”

“Are you getting smart with me, colt?” She seethed.

“Sir no sir!”

Night Light trod over and started in. “Drop and give me thirty!”

I didn’t waste any time since I knew giving him a reason to torture me further would only make my life suck more, so I dropped and gave him thirty, calling out each push-up as I came back up until I hit thirty. I didn’t get up because I wasn't told to, which turned out to be the wrong move because Night Light’s hoof came down on my back none too gently and started pushing me down until I was on the dirt.

“Did I tell you to stop!?” He shouted.

“Sir no sir!”

“Then keep going!”

I immediately pushed myself up under the weight of his hoof, but this was nothing compared to Twilight sitting on me while I did them. I did thirty more and my arms were shaking a little, but I’d pumped out eighty before and had been fine. Seriously, my morning routine was a little intense. Once I’d gotten the next thirty out, Night Light forced me back down into the dirt and I stayed there for a little bit.

“The rest of you! Since our little Prince here thinks he can just lay down and rest, you’re all going to drop and give me twenty!” Night Light shouted. I didn’t think that was very fair since he’d literally forced me back down onto the ground, but then again, when I tried pushing myself back up to make his word false, he straight up hopped onto my shoulders and balanced there.

Now, it’s not like Night Light was particularly heavy, but he was a lot heavier than his daughter and he was doing a pretty shit job with his hard shoes. My shoulders were aching by the time I heard the rest of the recruits rise. The prick stood on top of me and started giving out more orders.

“Alright! Everypony take a lap around the grounds, and if our little Prince hasn’t given up by the time every last one of you comes back, then you’ll only have to do twenty more push-ups! If he fails, then it’s forty!”

Everyone stood around for a moment, but my group took off right after hearing that, so I was grateful that they got the fucking point. I couldn’t hold Night Light’s weight that long, even with my arms locked into position and after a minute of being under his weight, he barked at me and told me to hold the position with my elbows bent. He turned around and I’m sure he stared at the back of my head while he spoke.

“Do you really think you can just disappear for two years and think nopony is going to miss you?” He hissed.

“Sir no sir.” I gasped.

“Exactly. You didn’t write, you didn’t let a single soul know you were alive and you kept my daughter waiting for you. These two weeks are going to be Tartarus for you, colt, and I have free reign to make it even worse for you.”

I heard Shoulder Boulder come over and she started whispering to Night Light, but he stopped her short and told her that I could hear everything she was going to say, so it had to be saved for a later date. I was struggling to stay firm, but as I heard the first couple of people start coming back, I couldn’t help but feel a bit relieved. That feeling of relief didn’t last long because when I looked up, there was someone fucking walking back. My arms gave out long before they arrived, and when they got back, I could hear hearts hammering in anger because of them. I’d gone full mind over matter and held out as long as I could, but holding a push-up for damn near ten minutes under a grown man’s weight was fucking impossible for me as I was now and I vowed to make that guy’s life suck as much as I could, because fucking seriously! What kind of Pony can’t run?

Night Light barked at me to get on my feet and take two laps around the Training Grounds while everyone else was doing their forty push-ups, and if I didn’t have them done by the time the last person was done with theirs, then I was going to have to run two more. The Training grounds were fucking huge. I swear, two laps could easily make a mile, and if he made me do four, then that was going to be fucking ludicrous. Still, I got up and beat feet, trying to set a good pace and keep my breathing as well as I possibly could so I wouldn’t end up like the prick that had made me suffer. I did my best and completed my two laps, but by the time I got back, the other trainees were all gone off to go see how the obstacle course was supposed to work. Shoulder Boulder told me that they were waiting on me and ordered me to take my extra laps, double time, so I did just that.

By the time I was finished with those, I had a stitch in my side so bad I could barely breathe and shit just wasn't looking up for me. Shoulder Boulder met me back at the place we’d done push-ups and started up a quick little conversation.

“Alright princeling, what the hay did you do to make Night Light hate you?” She asked as we jogged over to the obstacle course.

I could barely speak over my own breathing. “Sir...Went away… Two years… Operative mission… Deep cover… couldn’t… contact his... daughter…Sir” I heaved.

She nodded and stopped me. “Alright. I’ll talk to him about letting me dictate what goes on with you. I’m not going to go easy on you, but Night Light’s going harder on you than I’ve ever seen him do with a recruit, and if I’m right, then you can’t be running like a Pony all day. Catch your breath, maggot.”

I nodded and threw my arms over my head, closing my eyes and leveling out my breathing. I practically meditated for a few seconds which was enough to get my healing factor to kick in passively, so I was ready to go. “Alright sir. I can breathe, I can fight. Sir.”

Boulder nodded. “Let’s go.”

We picked up and jogged a bit more quickly toward the obstacle course to make up for the time we’d lost and Boulder gave me a quick rundown of what we’d be doing. The first part would be some good old fashioned monkey bars over a pit of mud, then we would have to get down on our bellies and crawl through some mud anyways. After that, we would rise and climb a wall that seemed easy enough, drop down the other side, high step through some hoops, vault over a high bar, crawl on a rope while upside down, and then climb up a cargo net. That would be the end of the rough stuff, but I was sure that coming down the other side via rope would be harder for the Ponies than it would be for me.

Night Light tried to single me out, but while he was in the middle of belittling me, Boulder told Stalwart to go first since he’d been the first one to complete his lap. Iron Hoof would follow since she’d had the second fastest lap time overall, and so on and so forth. I would be seventh due to my time, though I was surprised that I was in the top ten in the first place. I guess all the anaerobic exercise I’d done and my willingness to go past my limits had done me a few favours after all.

My father-in-law was glaring daggers at Shoulder Boulder while the trainees got started, and when my turn came up, I got to stepping before anything else could happen. I’d never been good with monkey bars, but Noir had made me do some and get the trick of keeping my momentum going down pat, so they didn’t pose too much of a challenge. My hands still hurt a little bit after them, however, but crawling through the mud was easy as shit since I didn’t mind getting dirty at all. Climbing the wall was easy as fuck and I didn’t even need to use the rope because the gaps between the boards were large enough for me to fit my my feet into, let alone my hands, so I scaled that rather quickly and caught up to the guy in front of me because I’d been so fast in doing it.

I jogged in place to keep up my blood flow when he cleared the hoops, I went through, but they were easy enough since they were made for Ponies anyway, meaning that my extra height and ability to stand on my toes allowed me to get through those more quickly than the fellow preceding me. The guy before me fell on the bar thing, but I cleared it easily since I liked to vault things in my everyday life anyways. Hell, in recent enough memory, I’m pretty sure I leapt over the counter at Sugarcube Corner and Blue’s counter when I came back home. The rope bit was a little tricky, but I took it hand over hand like a pro, just as Noir had shown me, though my arms were feeling a bit like jelly at this point. Still, I persevered through my body telling me to take a breather and told my muscles to shut the fuck up if they weren’t going to say anything productive.

The next part was the cargo net, which was again easier for me than it was for the Ponies. I had more surface area to work with since I had feet, though the cargo net was a bit thicker than I would have suspected in the first place. I thought that it was probably a direct result of Ponies not having much to work with on the foot front, so I had to take my time and be careful not to pass my fellow trainee, just in case I got us both in trouble. The guy saw me behind him and tried to rush, but when he fumbled and nearly fell, I grabbed ahold of him and kept us both on track until he could get his bearings, though that sapped the rest of the strength in my arms. Once he got all the way up, I came up right behind him and watched as he climbed down the rope instead of rapelling like I’d planned to do. Noir had forced me to try a cliff without any safety harness or gloves while in my mind, so I knew what the fuck I was doing. Shit, she’d make me do it multiple times, and every time I’d failed, I just got a little bit better at it, so this six meter wall wasn’t looking too daunting.

I made my way down easily enough, bouncing off of the wall like a tree frog or some shit before grabbing the rope and hitting the wall. The trick is to keep your feet in front of you and have your knees relaxed, which is a lot fucking harder than it sounds like, but once you have it down, it’s like riding a bike. I made it to the end and the grizzled old man from earlier came up to me, so I stood at attention, though I didn’t salute because no one had ever told me to.

“You, soldier. Who taught you how to rappel?” He asked gruffly.

“Sir! My mentor, a woman named Noir taught me how, sir!” I replied.

“Hmm. For future reference, salute when you speak to me.” He said. Well that answered that.

“Yes, Captain!” I saluted.

“At ease.” I dropped the salute and stood with my feet shoulder width apart. “Expect to be worked harder than anypony else here, Maximus. As a Prince of Equestria, you are expected to be one of the, if not the, best of the best.”

“Sir yes sir!” I nodded sharply.

“When your time in the Mess Hall is over, you are to report to my office. We’ll talk more in depth there.”

“Sir yes sir!”

Dirge nodded and walked back to the obstacle course, so I found Stalwart and talked to him for a moment. “Oi, mate, what’d you think of it?”

Stalwart shrugged. “We’re doing it again. I guarantee you that.”

“Of fucking course we are. Night Light is going to try and pin it on me, watch.”

He shook his head. “Man, I didn’t know people hated Princes that badly. Did you do something to him or what?”

“I’m engaged to his daughter.” I sighed, scraping rapidly drying mud off of my face.

“Oh. You’re screwed, dude.”

“No shit. Boulder already had a word with me about getting him to treat me fairly, but I don’t think she’s going to be able to pull through.”

“You never know. I’ve heard Boulder’s one of the toughest mares in the country.” Stalwart shrugged. “So far, it seems like she’s got the steel in her spine to say no to Night Light.”

We ended our conversation there since we weren’t really supposed to be talking in the first place and watched as more than half of the people coming down the rope wall fell flat on their arses. No one chuckled or laughed, and I noticed that there were quite a few people with mud on their backs anyway. Mine was clean since I hadn't fallen at any point during the course, but I was sure that after a few more goes around the course, I’d be just as dirty as anyone else. When the last fellow fell down the rope wall, Night Light, Shoulder Boulder, and a few other Day Guards that had been monitoring what was going on. A representative from the guards talked to Night Light and Boulder for a moment before moving on to stand around the group of trainees with the rest of them.

“Alright maggots!” Night Light started. “Some of you seemed to think the course was too easy, didn’t you? Some of you thought you could get away with doing things the wrong way, didn’t you!? Maximus, Stalwart, and Moon Walk, get your flanks to the front of the group!”

Stalwart and I jogged around the group since we were near the back and the woman I assumed was Moon Walk came to the front as well. “Our little princeling thinks that you can can just climb the vertical wall however you want! That’s two laps around the grounds for all of you!” Night Light looked around for a moment. “Stalwart! You skipped multiple hoops during the high step section, and Moon Walk did the exact same bucking thing! That’s another lap for each of you! Once you finish with those, report back to the Gathering Ground for further instruction!”

There were a few groans from the unwise people in the group that were immediately picked up by Night Light who ordered another lap for those who wanted to whine and complain. This time, I’d had a little time to rest, so I wasn’t terribly upset about all of the news, so when my group of people that had been on the train with me came up, we jogged together and Iron Hoof set the pace since she seemed a bit like a natural leader. I followed behind because I wasn’t here to learn how to lead, but when we got to the starting line of the track, I was sure that Night Light picked out my four compatriots as being friends of mine. After the first of three laps (four for Stalwart), he singled my little group out and said that we l had an extra lap for no real reason, though he said it was because we were being ‘slow’. I thought that was some bullshit, but I held my tongue and we continued on, and when the main group finished with our laps, I was fucking dying because I’d been sweating so fucking hard. Things were starting to get hazy, but I told the group that we’d finish Stalwart’s last lap with him since I wanted to breed that team cohesion. I ended up puking halfway through the lap, but I kept things moving because fuck being some pussy ass bitch.

When my group and I finished with Moon Walk, Night Light wasn’t very happy with me. He and Boulder marched up to us and he started shouting immediately. “Did I tell you four to run with Stalwart and Moon Walk!? Did I say that this was a team exercise, maggots!?”

“Sir no sir!” We answered in unison. Wearily, but in unison.

“Then who’s bright idea was it!?”

I raised my hand. “Sir! It was my idea!”

“Then you’ve got three more laps! The rest of you have two more, and don’t let me see you slacking or you’ll be running until morning!”

“Sir yes sir!” We answered, heading off to complete the laps. As we were running, I heard Boulder ask Night Light why she was punishing us for showing teamwork and unity and he told her to shut her trap, which sparked some heated words, but I was soon too far away to hear what they were saying.

The running was taking its toll on me, and I threw up again after the first lap, but I kept going, despite my body telling me that I rather needed another break. My group didn’t break ranks, however, and as we were running, Stalwart told me that he would run with me, no matter what. Iron Hoof agreed, and so did Shaggy, but Day asked why they were practically begging for more laps. I told her through a series of laboured breaths that we needed to stick together and show some solidarity, even if Night Light was being a massive prick. I mentioned to them that Boulder had liked the unity we’d shown and that Equestria was held together through the unity of the Ponies, so it made sense for us to stick together. Stalwart and Iron Hoof agreed wholeheartedly and we tried to keep each other talking through our laps so they would pass faster, and when I got my second wind, things got a lot better as far as the conversation.

When we got to my third lap, Shaggy and Moon Walk were feeling just as ragged as I had been and Day didn’t look like she could bear too much more herself. I was barely slogging along at that point, and our two front runners, Iron Hoof and Stalwart were tired themselves. When we got back to the starting line, Boulder was waiting for us along with Dirge.

“You six. Only one of you was told to run three laps.” Dirge stated gruffly.

We all stood at attention to the best of our abilities, though Iron Hoof was the only one who could get more than half a sentence out at a time. “Sir! Maximus said that we should run Stalwart’s extra lap with him and we all agreed that we would stay as a team, sir!”

Dirge lifted a brow. “And what made you run Maximus’ extra lap after you were reprimanded for running Stalwart’s?”

Stalwart saluted and took over. “Sir! Equestria is built on unity! Working together and not leaving a stallion behind is the way of The Guard, sir!”

The Guard Captain nodded. “True. I think you six deserve a break. The rest of the recruits are in the Mess Hall, so go and join them. Be sure to drink enough to replace what you’ve lost.” We waited for his word to go. “Dismissed.”

We saluted one more time and started lightly jogging off toward the Mess Hall though we were keeping it barely above a walk. Shaggy, Moon Walk, and I were worn out, so Iron, Stalwart, Day were keeping pace easily, letting me lead since I was the worst off out of all of us. I dug a little deeper and made myself pick it up a bit so we could get a proper break in, though Stalwart told me that I needed to take it easy for a little bit. I ignored him for the most part, but we didn’t have terribly far to go anyway so I was free to do whatever the fuck I wanted.

When we got to the Mess Hall, I let everyone in my group go before me and stated that I wanted to catch my breath and get some feeling back into my arms. Once we were served our hearty stew and bread, our little band grabbed a table and I started voicing some of my opinions.

“So you guys get the whole unity thing, right?” I asked.

There were nods, so I continued after swallowing some bread. “The thing is, Night Light is going to keep coming after me, one way or another. I appreciate you guys sticking with me, but our heads are going to roll if he has anything to say about it, so-”

“Your Highness-” Iron Hoof started.

I cut her off. “Oi! It’s Max while we still in training, and preferably after training too. I don’t want to be a fucking Prince any more than I want to be Night Light’s number one target.”

She gave me a look. “I’m not just calling you ‘Max’, but anyways, if our heads are going to roll, then they’ll roll together. You said it yourself: we get the unity thing. If we don’t stick together and look out for each other, then we’re not going to be decent guards anyway, so what’s the point of doing any of this if we don’t do it together?”

Moon Walk nodded her assent. “That’s right! You might be getting singled out, but I think it takes heart to put up with the crap you’ve been putting up with. Keep in mind that I was eighth in rotation for the training course, Princey: I saw you help that stallion when he was about to fall. You could’ve just let him go, and I know I saw you struggling to hold on. You’re a guy worth listening to.”

Shaggy chuckled. “It doesn't hurt that you’re just a good guy all ‘round. I mean, you built a group of ponies by telling jokes and stories when I think we were all nervous about training for the guard. You’re one heck of a guy.”

I lightly punched his shoulder. “Gee guys, next thing you know I’ll be the star of the Guard Gangbang going on later.”

Shaggy, Stalwart and Moon snorted while Iron Hoof and Brilliant Day just gave me womanly looks. “Really? I thought royalty was supposed to be proper or something!” Day complained.

“Oi! I’ve only been a Prince for like, two days, and I’m totally not counting today.” I chuckled, dipping my bread into my stew.

I felt someone tap my shoulder and Iron, Moon, and Stalwart looked at whoever was behind me, so I turned around. It was some random dude with a whippy-dip looking haircut that reminded me an awful lot of Blueballs, but with brown hair and a less handsome face.

I jerked my chin upward. “Wotcher. Can I help you, mate?”

He extended a hand. “My name’s Bronze Stud, and you’re the new Prince.”

I shook his hand out of courtesy, already sensing a sycophant within him. “That I am, but I’m just another recruit while I’m here. Please keep that in mind.”

He chuckled which pissed me off a bit. “Apparently you’re not a Prince to Night Light. The guy really has it out for you and everypony else is suffering for it.”

I shrugged. “I’m sorry, but there’s nothing I can do about it. You realize what he’s doing, right? He’s trying to make everyone hate me.”

Bronze rolled his eyes. “I’ve been spreading those exact words around. I don’t like ponies who abuse their power.” Someone’s less shit than I thought.

I raised my brows. “Thanks, Bronze. That’s a pretty nice thing to do.”

He nodded. “No problem, I just want to ask one little thing of you in return.”

No bad feeling. Huh. “Depends on what you want.”

“I just want to know why Night Light hates you so much.”

“Oh. It’s because I’m dating his daughter and I dropped off of the face of Equus for two years for a mission. I couldn’t contact her and she remained faithful to me while I was gone, and that involved a lot of heartache for her. He’s trying to pay back that emotional pain with physical pain.” I said casually.

Bronze looked awfully surprised. “Wait, you’re dating the Twilight Sparkle?”

I bobbed my head back and forth. “Sorta kinda. I proposed, so we’re engaged now. No, I didn’t become a Prince just because I did that.” I added.

Bronze shut up for a little bit before speaking again. “...Wow. No offense, Your Highness-”

“It’s Max, mate.”

“Max then. No offense, Max, but your life sounds kinda weird.” Bronze gave me a crooked grin.

I returned it. “That’s because it is. You’re welcome to have a seat if you want. There’s two more spots and neither of them are about to be filled.”

“Thanks, but I’ve got a few friends of my own I’d like to get back to. Maybe we’ll get our groups together and run tomorrow?” He was obviously waiting for my say so.

“Solidarity never hurts when it comes to the Guard. Let’s say we meet up early and have a little catch up session, yeah?” I offered.

He beamed. “Sounds like a plan to me. It was nice to talk to you. Your Highness.” He added smugly.

I gave him a mock glare. “Now what did I just tell you?”

He raised his hands. “Don’t have me arrested or anything, okay?”

I rolled my eyes. “Whatever. You’ll have to tell me what kind of food they serve in the dungeons when you get out.” I gave him a lopsided smile.

Bronze shook his head and wandered off back to his own group, so I turned back to my comrades and crammed my meal into my mouth, shocking the fuck out of them with how quickly I could do so. Once I was finished with that, I asked, “So what do you all make of Bronze?”

Stalwart answered first. “I thought he was just here to suck up for a little bit, but he seems like a really genuine guy.”

Iron shook her head. “Bronze and I used to go to the same school. He was one of the more popular kids, but that was because he was well known for being a good guy. If you need something and he has it, he’ll give it to you, though he’ll ask for something small in return.”

I nodded and looked to Shaggy who shrugged. “I thought he was cool.”

Moon Walk spoke up next. “I think he was third or fourth in the obstacle lineup. He’s got the makings of a good guard.”

Brilliant Day shook her head. “I think he really was just sucking up. If Iron’s vouching for him, then I guess he’s cool, but I’d watch your back around him.”

I nodded. “Trust me, if he wasn’t being honest during that conversation or had some hidden motives, I would know. People like him make good allies.”

“No offense, Max, but some ponies are really good at hiding their true intentions.” Day said skeptically.

I raised a brow at her. “While I like that caution, I feel like I need to tell you that it’s damn near impossible to lie to me. The only people that have better track records in dealing with liars than me are four Princesses that have lie detecting spells, and even then I subvert them on a regular basis.”

Stalwart laughed. “So you know liars because you’re a good one?”

“I used to be. I tend to tell the truth these days since it’s just easier, but I’m still a better liar than any Pony.”

“Don’t you mean ‘anypony’? You emphasized the wrong part.” Brilliance pointed out.

I gave her a look. “Love, do I look like a Pony to you?”

Shaggy and Stalwart chuckled. “He’s got you there, B-Day.” Stalwart smiled at her.

She hit him and blushed. “Shut up, meathead!”

Iron sighed. “I swear, if you two sneak out in the middle of the night, don’t expect me to cover for you.”

I raised a hand quickly. “I will. I’m all for some dirty fun under the moonlight.”

Shaggy burst out laughing and Moon Walk smiled, shaking her head. Stalwart shot me a grin and Day flipped me off, though Iron just gave me another womanly look. “Are you sure you’re a Prince?”

I looked at my ring and tried to take it off, but that shit didn’t budge, just like it hadn't the day before. “Well, unless this enchanted ring is here to stop me from touching myself, I suppose I might be.”

Shaggy fucking died and after that, we all grabbed our shit so we could take it to the place where you drop off your plates. I don’t know what the fuck it’s called, so don’t bother me about it, though I’m naming it the Plate Return for now. My group and I hung out in the Mess Hall for a few more minutes so we could talk and trade more stories, though I kept my mouth shut and encouraged Shaggy and Moon to speak up more since they were awfully quiet. From what I could tell, I had their characters figured out pretty well, but I’ll get to that in a bit.

I cut my time in the Mess Hall a little short so I could go see what Dirge wanted from me, though I had to ask a Night Guard for directions since I got lost when I was trying to find his office. The dude I asked was pretty cool and even showed me the way, but he had to ask why the newest member of the Royal Family was doing guard training when neither of the last two princesses had to do anything other than take some classes. I told him that it was because Celestia was kinda sexist and thought that every man needed to know how to kill shit more gooder and we both admitted that it would have been a borderline if not fully treasonous statement if I’d been anything other than a Prince. In any case, we got to Dirge’s office and he wished me luck in dealing with the old fellow, though I wasn’t sure why I needed it.

I knocked twice on the door and was told to enter. Dirge was filling out a stack of paperwork behind his desk and I winced at his workload because I was pretty sure that, if I ever got my own kingdom or slice of an empire, I was going to have much more to deal with on a daily basis. The Guard Captain finished up a piece of paperwork and had me sit in front of his desk before we got started, so I took a moment to look around his office. It wasn’t what I expected. There were plenty of decorations on the walls: pictures of a younger him and a few different mares who I assumed were members of his herd, though I didn’t know what to make of that. I figured most guards just wouldn’t have the time to entertain multiple partners, but then again, I’d been an Operative myself and had managed pretty well. There was a tasteful mandala-esque carpet beneath my feet that reminded me that I’d wanted one for my living room, though when I looked at his spacious, dark, wooden desk, I noticed that he only had a Newton’s Cradle and a picture on it. Still, it was more than I’d been expecting with his spartan demeanor.

He got the paper he was working on stacked onto another pile and looked at me. “Your Highness.”

“Sir.” I replied.

“No need for formalities on your end, Your Highness.”

I nodded. “Then I’m going to have to ask that you either call me Maximus or Max. I’m not a big fan of titles.”

He looked at me coolly. “So you’re a humble Prince? I don’t think we’ve ever had one.”

I shrugged. “Shining isn’t too bad, but he hates me, so I can’t really say much about him. What did you want to talk about, Captain?”

“If I’m to call you Max, I’ll need you to call me Dirge.”

I nodded. “Dirge it is.”

He returned my nod. “Princess Luna has informed me that you’ll only be taking part in the basic training of becoming a guard. That’s correct?”

“It is. I’ll be doing all the running, push-ups, and to my knowledge, weapons training you have to offer.” I remarked.

He furrowed his brow. “I heard your Royal Address. Princess Celestia said that you were an Operative.”

“I was. I technically still am, but then again, I’ve never been on the books anyway.”

He pulled something out from underneath his desk and held it up, showing me a palm-sized disk that held Luna and Celestia’s Cutie Marks. “This is a Royal Seal from the Princesses. I want to ask about your Operative missions.”

I made a face. “I’ve only had two, and only one of them was all that important.”

Dirge titled his head, gazing at me calmly. “There are mutterings around the darker circles that you carried out and assassination.”

“They’re true. I killed King Adolf.”

His eyes widened for a split second. “Well, well, well. I understand why you’re such a figure, if that’s the case”

I shrugged. “I’d like to say that it was simple, but all I did was sneak into the castle, kill bunch of people, and lie my way out of getting killed myself when I got caught.”

He narrowed his eyes. “You were caught?”

“By Queen Elfriede herself. She caught me immediately after I killed her husband, but I lied and told her that I was a rebel against his regime that had come to put her in power.”

“Smart.”

I scoffed. “I got lucky. If Adolf hadn't been an abusive prick, she would’ve ended me.”

“Luck plays a part in everything, but it takes wisdom to know when and what to lie about.”

I nodded. “That’s true. Is there anything else you’d like to know about the mission?”

He nodded. “How did you kill enough guards to get to their chambers?”

“A psychic tentacle gifted to me by a being more powerful than your wildest dreams and a Dire Wolf that can rip faces off like children open Hearth’s Warming Day presents. That, and where I grew up, I learned how to handle a knife.”

“You didn’t get to this point by being able to handle a knife. Do you have any other training?”

“I have other training, but my knife skills and that psychic tentacle have carried me pretty far.”

The old Captain shook his head. “What other kind of training do you have?”

“I’ve trained with hand-to-hand combat, daggers, and a shortsword and buckler combo. I’m here to learn more about the shortsword and shield than anything else, however. I already know from Luna and my mentor that my hand-to-hand style is better suited to me than the style Equestrian Guards learn.” That, and I beat Shining without too much trouble, after all.

“Then I’ll pass it along to Shoulder Boulder and Night Light that you need to train with the sword and shield. Speaking of Night Light, I can’t tell him not to pick on you. If you can make it through his nonsense, then you can make it through most forms of training.”

“I’ve been through worse already. My mentor is six thousand years old, give or take a few hundred years, and she’s well versed in the ways of making people suffer until they get good.”

Dirge gave me an odd look. “Your mentor can’t be a Pony.”

“She is, but there isn’t much I can tell you about her. She’s older than Celestia and Luna, I can tell you that much.”

“Fair enough. Is there anything you want to ask me? I’m sure you have things you want to do before lights out.”

“Not really. It’s been a rough day already.”

He gave me a dark chuckle. “It gets rougher. I’ll see you later then, young Prince.”

“Until then, old Captain.”

And with that, I was allowed to leave his office and go back to the Barracks. Stalwart and Shaggy were already laying down, doing fuck all and when I got back, so I started writing because I want to get all of this shit written down while I’m not too exhausted to do it. Yeah, I’m tired and all, but I know that tomorrow’s going to suck worse and that it’s not going to get any better, so I guess I’d like to end the day with my observations about my new friends. It might seem a little out of place, but they really do interest in me in all the tastiest ways.

Stalwart was a lot like Rainbow in that he was sporty and a bit braggadocious, but he was a little less of a ‘play-by-the-rules’ kinda guy. He wouldn’t really cheat per se, but if he saw a loophole, he wouldn’t hesitate to use it to his advantage. I noticed that he had a certain charisma about him that made him a pretty likable guy, and his morality seemed to be in check, so I was certain that he was just as stalwart as his name suggested. He definitely seemed like a guy I’d want on my team for any sort of sporting event, and a decent friend to go along with it.

Iron Hoof… Well, she seems rather diligent and pretty by-the-book to me, which isn’t necessarily a bad thing. Yeah, she was a little critical at times, but she struck me as a good judge of character and when I’d been about to fall over on the track, she and Shaggy had been the first ones by my side to offer me. She’s not exactly nice, but I feel like she’s a person you have to spend more time with to really appreciate.

Speaking of people who could be unpleasant, Brilliant Day could be one Hell of a skeptic, but she’s pretty smart. The sass, however, get’s to be damn near unbearable, though it’s tempered by her willingness to poke fun at any and everyone. It’s true that she’s kind of a bitch, but some of the straight up savage things she says about people make you want to curl up and cover your ears so you’ll stop laughing. For example, she said that Night Light must be jealous of every dick in Canterlot since his is obviously so small. Otherwise, he wouldn’t be such a massive one to compensate. She’s a card, I’ll give her that, but that sharp tongue of hers will get her in trouble if she’s not careful.

Shaggy strikes me as a really compassionate guy. Like I mentioned a paragraph ago, he was one of the first people to circle back and come help me out, but I have a feeling that, if it’s not something important, he’s a total flake. The guy’s really supportive and it’s obvious that he likes to make people laugh, but my God, his jokes are terrible. I mean, at least Pinkie’s make you chuckle from the sheer nonsense, but his jokes are just cringeworthy. I really don’t feel like writing any of them down. Other than that, he’s a laid back, quiet guy, but he was being honest when he said that he liked to go out of his way to help people if it meant he was doing some good.

Moon Walk was a bit of an oddity. She doesn’t really talk much, but I think it’s because she spends so much time thinking about what other people say. She strikes me as really contemplative and intelligent, but in a different way than Day. Hell, she actually got lost in thought a few times in the middle of a sentence, but when we got her back down to Earth, or rather, Equus, she usually had something interesting to share, like that she thought Day and Stalwart would make a good couple since Day could laugh about herself and Stalwart didn’t take much to heart. I asked her if she had any observations about me and she said that I was a good-natured kind of guy with a good attitude about most things, though she felt like I had a dark side. She didn’t go to deep into her thoughts and I didn’t ask, just in case she started pulling some Pinkie shit on me.

While I’m laying in the shitty, stiff bunk in the Barracks, I can’t help but feel like today was productive. I’ve already gotten all my letters for the night written out, but I know I’ll have to wait until breakfast tomorrow to read the replies unless Noir teaches me some way to make Dark Magic give me night vision, which would’ve been helpful at some point I’m sure. Still, I only have ten minutes until lights out and I just got a reply from Twilight. She said that she already misses me and hopes that the letter she sent to her Dad will be enough to make him go easier on me.

I fucking doubt it, but here’s hoping, yeah?
___________________________________________________________________________________________________________________

Alright, so it’s been four days since I’ve really had a chance to write in my journal. First things first, Night Light got worse. He just became a straight up fucking prick. The first day was all well and good, but the last four have been an absolute hell of laps, obstacle course runs, and various exercises like push-ups, sit-ups, more fucking running, and he even tried to cut my rations until Dirge came around and told him that that shit wasn’t happening on his watch. Still, I was making it just fine until today since Twilight wrote me every night, but I nearly snapped and fucking laid him out earlier.

Today started like the two before it had: wake up, get dressed and ready in five minutes or get left behind and do another lap on top of the two we’re already expected to do. I still haven’t been late, but Night Light called me late the first two days and everyone behind me had to suffer for it, so now I make sure I’m the last out of the barracks. Hell, I even keep the time for everyone so they know to hurry the fuck up before they actually do make me late. In fact, Stalwart, Bronze, and myself have really gotten the guys in our Barracks into a pretty good shape over the past few days, and now everyone’s usually ready to go in about three and a half minutes, and that includes Shaggy’s slow arse.

Anyway, I got out of the barracks last and Night Light said that I was late, as usual, so he made me take an extra lap, but by now, most of our group just ran the extra lap with me since Bronze had gotten the word out that Night Light was trying to make everyone hate me. The group as a whole was pretty unified, even if Bronze’s group and my own were the most closely knit out of the rest of the others. We were like pods of dolphins that formed a herd, and that’s honestly the best way I can describe it, but the main thing that surprised me was the amount of camaraderie that was built so fucking quickly. Yeah, there was a group of six arseholes that liked to tell Night Light that I’d been skipping out on certain things, but they’d been called out on their lies enough times by Bronze’s group and my own that they were shunned for trying to fuck with the guy who’d been nothing if not pleasant and diligent throughout Night Light’s bullshit.

Once we got through with our run, Boulder took over and had us do a hundred push-ups in sets of fifty with a fifteen second break in between before breakfast. Stalwart, Bronze, Iron, and myself usually finished first along with Cocoa Powder from the group of arseholes, so our break was a little longer than most, but Boulder only gave so many points for being first and had us each getting back down to business once she’d counted our breaks. Seriously, the woman was one hell of a Drill Sergeant because she could keep track of multiple people’s breaks and bust balls like no other when someone was taking a longer break than they were allowed. In fact, Cocoa only got to try that shit once before Boulder was screaming in his face, swearing at him and adding another full hundred push-ups while calling him every sort of Pony slur I’d ever heard. She’d even gone so far as to call him a ‘shit-brained, cock-munching, lazy nag of a stallion’ and that started something fun.

The ‘nag’ part set poor Cocoa off and he thought he was going to get up in Boulder’s face so he could tell her just what he though of her. I thought I’d heard screaming before, but Boulder had a whole ‘nother level that she hadn't shared yet, and when she let loose, Night Light put himself between Boulder and Cocoa before something could happen. The two had a shouting match that she won by a fucking mile, and when Cocoa flipped her off, that was it. Night Light stepped out of the way and Boulder told Mr. Powder that he was dishonorably discharged and that he could go back to his family as a ‘bucking disgrace to your family and a failure of a stallion’ Cocoa cocked back to throw a punch at her, but I picked him up off of the ground before he could get himself brutalized. That earned me five laps from Boulder when she asked who did it, but I accepted them since they were worth it to me. I didn’t want Boulder to lose her job over some petty prick who wanted to cheat his way through Boot Camp, so I took my laps with pride, and when I came back, she made me cut in line and run the obstacle course four times without a break in between. Shit was fucking brutal to say the least and by the time I was done, I was covered in mud.

While the others were going off to get weapons and armour with Night Light so we could start training in full gear, Boulder took me aside. “At ease, soldier. Was it really worth Maximus? Was it really?”

We’d just finished with my last run-through of the course, so I was winded like no other. “Didn’t… Want you… Job…” I gasped right before being ill. There wasn’t much left in my stomach at this point, so I was just dry heaving.

“Really now. You think I would’ve lost my job over self defense?” She asked.

“You… Overboard.” I struggled to get my breathing right, and nothing seemed to be helping.

“Are you telling me I went overboard?”

“Going to...”

“I was not.” Boulder said firmly.

I shook my head and took a few moments to finally even out. “You were looking for… A real reason.”

“Can you see into in my mind, princeling?” She seethed.

“Almost. Not quite, but almost.” I stood up straighter.

“Tch. Cocoa deserved what he had coming to him.”

“You’re too strong for him.”

“Foalish colts pick fights with the wrong ponies all the time. The only way they learn is by having it beaten out of them.” Boulder said, rather assured.

“Yes, but you were going to push his teeth down his throat and out the other side.” I maintained.

She shrugged. “Some lessons are harder to learn than others.”

“Just saying, sir. I would’ve defended you, but I don’t know how much my word-” I realized I was a fucking Prince. “Aww shit! I could’ve just gotten you off scot-free!”

Boulder gave me an odd look. “Would you really do that for me?”

“Yeah, if you’re in the right. I’m used to being the one that needs to be dug out of the shit hole, not the other way around. This Prince thing is going to take some time to get used to.”

Boulder cracked a smile. “You know what? You’re a pretty good guy. Don’t think I haven’t noticed the work you and Bronze have been putting in with getting everypony to work as a team rather than as individuals.”

I scratched my head. “It’s just better this way, honestly.”

“True. Go catch up to the others and get your gear. We’ve blown enough time talking.” Boulder dismissed me and I jogged off a little slowly.

When I got to the Armoury, there were still people getting armour, so I joined them in finding practice breastplates and the like that would fit me. There weren’t really any sets that were suited toward me since I was relatively tall and thin compared to the rest of the ponies, but I just went with something that would actually cover me. It wasn’t fucking light by any stretch of the imagination and it was awfully loose since it was made for someone bulkier than me, but I noticed that a few of the shorter people and a few of the people around my size had the same problem. Finding a helmet that fit was a lot easier since they were built for Ponies and accommodated their ears , meaning that I just grabbed a smallish one that fit snugly. Things sounded a bit tinny, but my hearing was still just fine otherwise, so I wasn’t worried about missing orders or anything.

I joined Stalwart in line to get armed and we got the basic sword and shield combo, though some of the stockier people got spears. Everyone in my group save for Iron got a sword, so when we headed out onto the Training Ground and were ordered to start running all over again, she had a little bit of trouble, as did the rest of those with spears. She got it eventually, but the group was still maintaining a good pace since the armour was that fucking heavy. In fairness, I’m not an armour guy at all. Like, I never wore armour when I trained with Noir because, for one, I’m a light weapons kind guy. Light weapons means light armour, and since light armour isn’t really a thing here in Equestria as far as I know, there isn’t really much I can do about that, though I’ll probably look into a tightly woven silk cuirass of some kind. It’d be good against slashes and stabs as far as allowing me to live through them. Huh. I’ll have to do that.

Little asides aside, running fucking sucked, and after we were done running in hot, heavy armour, we were allowed a break for food and water. We’d been rather late in getting our break since a lot of people just couldn’t deal with the armour, and I was one of those that lagged behind since my armour was so comparatively heavy. Still, we made it through and the break was much needed. When we came back, we practiced on training dummies with Night Light and Shoulder Boulder barking orders and general abuse at those who weren’t swinging hard enough. They stopped next to me at the same time and Boulder gave me a nod that I saw from the corner of my eye while Night Light called out different strokes. Forehand. Forehand. Backhand. Forehand. Straight down. Switch hands. Forehand. Backhand. Straight down. Forehand. So on and so forth.

Night light called out orders faster and faster until most people were just whacking at a dummy until they dropped their sword, but I was used to Noir’s ridiculous expectations and performed to the best of my ability, mixing in the odd extra stroke every now and again as Night Light barked out orders as fast as he could while remaining coherent. There were only a few of us with blunted practice swords in our hands after seven or so minutes of Night Light’s rapid onslaught of strokes. My hand started going numb from the sheer volume of the whacks, but I still managed to be one of the last three people with a sword in their hands. Hell, when we took a break and picked our shields up, I was in the last three to keep up with the shield strikes too, so I was feeling pretty proud about that as well. Night Light still found a way to berate me for doing something or other wrong and made me take a lap in full EQ, but I didn’t mind much.

We continued on with exercises throughout the day, and after we got another break and were told to grab some water, we returned for Combat Drills. Night Light had a smile on his face the entire time and when we came back from our break, he had four guards, two Night, two Day, standing in a largish rope circle. Drill Sergeant Ass Fucker told us to leave our armour behind so we could do our primary hand-to-hand drills until sun down, and the moment I got mine off, he called me forward.

“Maximus! At attention!” Night Light bellowed.

I came forth and assumed attention. “Sir yes sir!”

“It’s been brought to my attention that you think you’ve been trained before! Is that correct?”

“Sir yes sir!” I replied, already knowing where this was going.

I could hear the smile in his voice. “Well then, why don’t we see how well you’ve been trained? Swift Strike! Come forward!”

The most dangerous looking of the four guards came forward. He was a little taller than me and he had great musculature on him, and his hands were quite large. The other three guards went to the edge of the circle and Night Light stood between us, so I actually looked at Swift Strike instead of just looking at his head and shoulders. The guy was fucking built. Like, through his fur, I could see the tone in his arms, and his pants hugged his thighs in a way that let me know it was fucking over if I ate a kick from him. Sure, I’m good at what I do, but this guy put Shining Armour to shame, and I was pretty sure that he was one of the best fighters in The Guard, a fact that Night Light confirmed smugly before he stepped away from us.

“Alright! This is a sparring match, but I don’t want either of you holding back or pulling punches! The fight is over when I say it’s over, so unless your opponent isn’t getting back up, don’t stop! Any questions?” Night Light asked.

Swift raised a hand. “I won’t get in trouble for beating up a Prince, right?”

Night Light looked at me with a smirk, but I answered before he could. “I’m not some petty arse licking shit stain who abuses their power. If you win fair and square, it’s your win. I’m not about to come after you for it.”

Swift raised his brows. “Wow. Almost makes me want to go easy on you.”

I gave him a lopsided grin. “Almost.”

“If you two ninnies are done flirting, you can bucking start already.” Night Light snarled. Looks like someone didn’t miss my jab. I’m gonna pay for that later.

I backed up quickly and took a defensive stance with my Muay Thai guard. I didn’t know how good this guy was going to be with using his legs since he took up a typical boxing guard, but I was certain that his punches were going to be fucking fast and lethal. I needed to keep a guard up if I didn’t want to get my shit wrecked, so as we circled each other, I stayed loose and calm to make sure I wouldn’t lose power in my strikes if he decided to spring, but I had a feeling that he was waiting for me to make the first move.

Honestly, my Muay Thai stance was decent for attacking, but I had something better for it and I was a lot more comfortable with using kicks anyway since it meant I could use the extra reach I had with them instead of getting too up close and personal. I shifted my stance so that my left side was facing swift and lowered my guard like Noir had taught me. I’d been surprised to find that she’d had something that allowed rapid kicks since all of the Ponies she’d had me fight had relied on singular strong kicks instead of rapid-fire ones, but the style suited me and kind of reminded me a bit of a cross between Martial Law and Hworang’s styles in Tekken. It was an odd combo, but when I launched my first salvo of kicks, Swift had been taken by surprise and I’d even managed to land two of the five I’d thrown. I faked a high kick and switched balancing legs to go for a stance change, hooking my foot behind his leg during a hard low kick and using the rest of the momentum to both push with my grounded foot and pull with the hooked foot so I could drive my shoulder into him. I’d been planning on toppling Swift to gain some extra points or something but he got to his hooves sooner than I’d expected and started his counter attack.

I like being right, but in this case, I fucking hate that I was. Swift’s punches were no joke and he threw four that connected through my guard, each of them hurting plenty. I tried swatting away some of his punches, but the guy was just too fast and his hands were hard to keep up with. When he threw an uppercut that got far too close to connecting, I jumped back and returned with a powerful side kick that connected with his stomach, winding him and making him falter a bit but he persevered, ignoring the pain, and came back. There was no hope of coming out on top of a trade, and I was going to wear down before he wore out, so after a good three or so minutes of trying to turtle up and throwing the odd knee at him, I tried for the grappling techniques Noir had taught me and ducked under his punches and grabbed his leg.

Swift rained down punch after bone jarring punch, and I knew if I didn’t act fast, my body was going to go into full Fight or Flight mode and I was either going to snap or lose my will to continue, so I planted my feet and lifted with all of my strength, but Swift caught me in a headlock before I could take him down. He held fast as I pushed and he bounced along on one hoof until he drove the tip into the ground and slid until he was kneeling. I had to use both of my hands to break his grasp on me, and once I did, I received two jabs to the face as punishment for being foolish enough to go for a takedown.

Things just weren’t looking good for me, but I had one Hell of an opportunity while he was down on one knee and I took it. I used his leg as a platform and brought my other knee straight up into his face, rising with as much power as I could muster, rocking Swift pretty well. I backed up and waited for him to start getting up before launching another kick at him, but Swift dodged it easily with a manic smile and drove his fist into my stomach, knocking the wind from my lungs and shutting me down pretty hard before he hit me with an uppercut that shook my world and made me see spots. I felt him connect with a few more punches and fell onto my back, completely fucking stuck until I sat up slowly. Loud words rang through my ears and I looked around, lost to the world and its goings on. I felt like I had to get back up and the sheer volume of the unintelligible noises being thrown at my head made my ears ring, but still I rose to my feet shakily and put my hands up. The world was spinning and I never even saw the next punch coming, but it didn’t feel like it had been as hard as it was before.

There were a few more of the lighter punches and I got my bearings soon enough, but I got my guard up and started protecting my face, I actually felt like I could get back into the fight. Through my guard, I could see that Swift looked upset and that he had blood on his fists staining his orange fur. It took a moment to realize that it was mine, but I didn't know whether it was from my mouth or my nose, both of which smelled and tasted like blood. Well, one smelled, the other tasted. Semantics. In any case, I took a moment to drop my guard and look around since I was finally figuring out where the fuck I was again. Swift and I were supposed to be ‘sparring’, and I was pretty sure that he’d just laid me out like no other, so I decided to stop being a little bitch and strut my stuff like I’d wanted to do in the first place. No more holding back, though it’s not like I’d been doing much of it before this point anyway.

I spat out a mouthful of blood and ran my tongue across my teeth. I could tell that I’d bitten through my cheek and a bit of my tongue from my check, but neither of them hurt that much, and after blowing the blood from my nose all at once instead of letting it gush out like it had been, I looked to Swift.

“Oi! Mate, what’s the hold up?” I asked, stretching and limbering back up.

Swift shook his head and dropped his fists. “You were out cold for a little while. I won.”

Night Light stepped into the ring. “I said the fight’s over when I say it’s over! Buck up or shut up!”

Swift and I looked at him before looking back at each other. “I’m done holding back, Swift. Next down solves the problem, yeah?”

“You realize you sound ridiculous because I just broke your nose, right? I’m pretty sure I felt something crack when I hit you with that uppercut.”

I worked my jaw. “It was a tooth and my jaw. I’ll ask Celestia to fix it if it’s a real problem, but it’s not like I can’t eat. Come on, let’s get this show on the road.” I turned my left side to him, lowering myself into an offensive stance.

Swift glared at me. “Seriously, I just put you on your back-”

“Swift Strike! I will have you demoted!” Night Light threatened.

Swift grumbled to himself, setting his jaw, but neither of us moved. I stood up straight and started circling him like we’d done before , but he just turned in place as I spiralled in closer and closer. Once I was within range, I dropped into the all-out attack stance once more, but right as I was about to launch my first kick, Boulder and Dirge arrived.

“Stop! I swear, if either of you moves, you’ll be doing laps until dawn!” Boulder threatened. I swear, she could have been spewing molten steel with her tone.

Dirge walked into the center of the ring and stood between Swift and myself while Boulder stood next to me. She wrinkled her nose and said, “You got your flank handed to you.”

“Night Light. Why did I get called over here by one of the trainees?” Dirge demanded.

Night Light came over and saluted. “Sir! This is a combat training drill, sir!”

“I see that. Why are you having our hand-to-hand instructor fighting a trainee without gloves, headwear, or pads in general? You know what happened to the last pony who fought Swift Strike without protection, right?” Dirge asked coolly.

“Sir! I’m aware of what happened-”

“And yet here Maximus is, face covered in blood, and I’ve been told that he was downed for a full twenty seconds and yet you let them continue. Colt, are you incompetent, or are you trying to get this stallion killed?” Dirge snarled, showing the first bit of emotion I’d seen from him.

“Sir! I was testing the limits of Maximus’ training and it would seem that his limits have yet to be reached, sir!” Night Light said.

Dirge turned to me and our eyes met. “Recruit. Can you continue?”

“Sir yes sir.” I answered, conjuring every ounce of mettle I could.

He nodded. “Then the next down will solve it. I’m curious to see where your limits lie myself.” The Captain turned to Night Light. “If you have another oversight like this, you will lose another rank.” Did he already lose one?

Night Light nodded like he’d expected it. “Sir yes sir!”

Boulder looked outraged that we were allowed to continue, but as Night Light and Dirge left the circle, she stayed behind until Dirge told her to get out of the circle. She stayed long enough to say, “You don’t have to do this.”

“Luna’s going to kick my arse up and down every road in Canterlot if she finds out that I lost outright. I need to even the score.” I replied solemnly.

“Shoulder Boulder!” Dirge called, his voice sharp.

She walked out, keeping her eyes on me for a few more steps until she turned and get the fuck out. When she left, I walked up to Swift with a hand extended. “May the craziest fucker succeed.”

He shook my hand and looked at me funny as I backed away slowly. From there, I knew that I was going to have to let loose completely, so I closed my eyes and held my Dark Magic in check like Noir taught me as a failsafe against it causing me to turn into a Revenant. Once I was sure that it was locked down for the next five or so minutes, I turned my focus onto my heart and induced some palpitations, making it beat faster and irregularly in order to get it to the point I needed it to be for the technique to work. It took a bit of prep time, but once I felt that feral energy surge through me like it had the three times I’d done it before, I knew that I was good to go and that I needed to end this quickly before I just straight up collapsed. Sure, I was going to be out of commission for a good hour or so after using the unnamed technique, but if there was a worthier opponent to try it out on in the real world, then it would have to be Luna or Celestia themselves.

I opened my eyes to find that Swift was now coming toward me with his guard down, so I choked back the innate desire to end him then and there and back up a few steps. I kicked up a lot of dust while doing it since Noir’s physical boost technique made your muscles react at full capacity to just about ay gesture, but it was controllable enough for me to use it in the first place. My version was imperfect as of right now since I only had a minute or two to use it, however, and I really shouldn't have been using it since I still had more left to do in the day, but I’d been challenged to show my limits by two of my temporary superiors and it really didn’t hurt that Swift had taken everything I’d thrown at him and returned it tenfold. I owed it to him as a man and as a competitor to show him what I could really do.

I lowered myself back into my assault stance and leapt at him, gaining more air than I thought I would, closing the three or so meters between us in the blink of an eye like it was a Kung-Fu flick or something. When my knee met his guard and I began to fall, I grabbed his hands and held them firmly before pushing myself away. Once my feet hit the ground, I charged again and lead with a fist this time since he was probably expecting another kick, so I sent it straight into his gut, or rather, I would’ve if he hadn't blocked it. Even with the added speed and strength, Swift Strike was one Hell of an opponent, and when I threw two more punches that didn’t connect, I told myself that I could go full kicks instead and started in with a three thrust kicks that eventually bowled him over, making him roll tail over head once until he caught himself.

Swift got back to his hooves swiftly, but I had a high kick waiting for him while his guard was still over his stomach, and when it connected, it made him bow in respect of my strength! Well, it was actually just a fucking heavy-ass kick, but still, it gave me a chance for a brutal axe kick that I brought down on the top of his head. Luckily, he was an Earth Pony, otherwise I would have gotten my heel impaled on a horn , and once I cleared his head, I came in for two heavy knees that be barely managed to get his guard up for. If I’d been trying to break shit, shit would have been broken but as it was, I sent a side kick into his stomach while his guard was high and I noticed that he wasn’t getting up quickly: The time between his falls just seemed short to me. When he got back up to his knees, it was like he was moving in slow motion, so I steeled myself and prepared to go in for the kill, but my legs wouldn’t fucking move.

I fell to my knees as deep aches started to spread from my toes upward, the backlash already sucking something fierce. The pain spread quickly and I let out a low moan before coughing up some blood. While I was staring at the ground, hacking up some of the stuff that makes your life do the living thing, I heard something fall, so I looked over to where Swift had been. There were people surrounding him and there were more coming to my side, but I willed my body to move so I could at least sit back on my legs. Everything hurt like I’d just done the most extreme workout and my heart ached because I’d literally just given myself something like a fucking heart attack. Still, I was worn the fuck out and a little delirious, but when Dirge came over and cleared the people asking me if I was okay away, I saluted from where I was.

“Did I win? Sir.” I croaked, adding in the last bit.

“It’s your win, soldier. Swift was barely conscious when you sent that last kick his way.” Dirge said.

I put my hand down and fell over. “Fucking radical.”

“Get up, soldier.” The Captain ordered. “As good as those two minutes were, we’ve still got more recruits to train in combat.”

My hands twitched a bit, but I was coughing on the dust because I couldn’t fucking move. “Not… Happenin’... Cap’n.” I said in between coughs.

He nudged me with his foot. “Somepony! Get this stallion to the Infirmary!”

“Captain! We’ll take him, sir!” Stalwart said from nearby.

“Then be quick about it so you can carry on with training.” Dirge said.

Someone grabbed my left arm and another someone grabbed the right, so I craned my neck and saw that it was Stalwart and Iron Hoof. I thanked them for getting me off my face and they told me not to worry about it, though Iron was curious why I’d waited so long to get so good at fighting. I told her that doing something like that burned a lot of energy, which is why I couldn’t move at all. Things were sucking pretty hard since all of my muscles hurt, but when Stalwart mentioned how cool it was that I’d gotten back up after being knocked out by an instructor and came back for a win, things sucked a little less.

My trip to the infirmary say someone setting my nose and healing the break there as well as them repairing the damage in my mouth. An oral specialist was going to have to be called in the next day to fix my mouth, which fucking sucked since the adrenaline that’d been keeping me going ran out awhile ago and now my face hurt something fierce. Swift really had cracked my jaw and a tooth or two and now I was suffering for it, which was fucked in all the wrong ways. My tongue and cheek could be healed with magic, and they were the first things to be healed since they were bleeding the worse out of the cuts and scrapes on my person, but my teeth still fucking hurt.

I ended up meditating to help the magic heal my mouth hole and facial wounds, and when I went to see Noir, she told me that she was proud that I’d overcome a stronger opponent, though she maintained that I should have won without using her technique in the first place. I asked how I was supposed to win against someone stronger, faster, and more experienced than me without cheating and she told me that I was supposed to find some way. Still, I got a hug and a cookie as a reward for winning the second round, though Noir was adamant that I get my mouth healed before I go train with Luna. I was quick to agree since that shit hurt a good deal and would likely impede the process of me eating, so I made a mental note to ask Dirge if I was allowed to have Celestia heal me since she was a good resource for things of the sort.

Noir didn’t want me to lose the general vibe I’d been building in the Boot Camp, so she sent me off after a quick kiss and I was back to reality in the blink of an eye, the ache in my jaw returning with a vengeance. In any case, I sat up on the shitty, yet better than my bunk, hospital bed and found that my shit didn’t ache as much as it did when I’d been dragged in. I was still a little sore, but I was fine enough to go do a lap or something, so I walked over to the nurse and asked what time it was. She pointed out a clock and asked me if I’d really been all that tired and I told her that I just healed incredibly quickly, thus I rested incredibly quickly most of the time. She gave me a ‘Yeah right’ kinda look and I asked her if she was really doubting that an extra-terrestrial was different from a normal guard and she gave me my due respect on that one.

I fucked off soon after she told me that I could go after a quick diagnostic spell, and once that was done, I stopped by to give Swift a few words. Nothing important between us was said, other than a few bits of praise for being good fighters. He told me that he was surprised that I was as brutal as I was for someone so young and I told him that he was ridiculous with the sharpness of his jabs and his uppercut was fierce like no other punch I’d seen a Pony throw, and I’d fought dozens within the mindscape. In fact, I had to sit down talk about some past fights with him since we were both out of commission for a little while anyway. Well, we were supposed to be. Swift assured me that he’d stick up for me since the rest of the day was supposed to have been dedicated to combat training, so it’s not like I was missing out on anything.

We took up about thirty minutes of each other’s time and I asked him if he had any ambitions within the guard, just as a hypothetical question and nothing else. He was a little wary of answering until I told him that I was asking because it seemed to me like he should be shooting past the instructor position and he chuckled. He said that he wanted to run Drills with the new trainees and that his method of teaching would be a lot like Boulders: fair, but brutal. Swift had lost a lot of respect for Night Light today and it was going to be hard to earn back. Sure, he would still follow orders since Night Light outranked him, but Swift offered to get back at him for me since it was starting to become common knowledge that Night Light was doing his best to make me quit The Guard. I shrugged his offer off and told him that I could have Night Light binned if I really wanted him to since I outranked everyone save for the other members of the Royal Family. I just wasn’t about to abuse the power I had like Night Light was doing with his because I’m not a shitty shit head.

I bid Swift a speedy recovery before heading out to go back to the Training Grounds to go do some more fucking training; what else was I going to go out there for? However, when I got out to the combat circle thing, someone told Boulder that I’d come back and she had a few choice words for me up until I explained what I could do to her. Then she had more choice words and told me to go get my mouth properly healed since I never should’ve gotten hurt so badly in the first place. Since she basically told me to go get my face fixed and then go wait until we finished up for the day, I went to go see the Diarchs since the Sun was already about three-quarters of the way out of the sky. I’d be surprised if Celestia was the one presiding over Court, but just in case it really was her, I went into the castle and asked a guard for some directions to there first. He’d been reluctant to give them to me since I’m sure I still smelled like blood, but I flashed him my ring and told him that I needed Celestia to fix something Swift Strike had done to my face. He was rather sympathetic after that and gave me some pretty straightforward directions to the Court Hall, so I thanked him and was on my way.

Celestia wasn’t in Court when I got there, so I went to the Dining Hall to see if I could catch the Diarchs as they prepared to trade off for the day. When I arrived there, Celestia and Luna were staring at the door since the butler guy had announced my presence before me entering.

“Hullo, ladies. Wouldn’t happen to want to do me a small favor, would you?” I asked.

“Max, why do you sound like you can barely move your jaw?” Celestia asked.

“That exact reason.” I replied.

Luna chuckled. “Don’t tell us that you have come to us because you were clumsy while training.”

“No, got my jaw and a couple teeth cracked and I was hoping one of you could fix that for me. A lesser man might be in tears right now.” I said proudly. Well, before wincing, but still.

Celestia gave me an odd look. “I’ll heal you if you tell me how you managed to crack your jaw while training.”

I nodded. “You know Swift Strike? The hand-to-hand instructor?”

They nodded but Luna answered before Celestia could. “We obviously know of him, but what does he have to do with anything? Surely he wouldn’t have hit you unless you were asking for it.”

I shook my head. “Night Light told Swift and I to go for full contact during a sparring session. Bare knuckle, no equipment. Swift put me on my arse the first round, but I got him in the second.”

Celestia frowned hard. “Are you telling me that Sergeant Night Light, Twilight Sparkles own father, put you up against a stallion that has proven to be lethal when he wants to be?”

I nodded. “It’s fine, Sunbutt. He lost rank because of it and I was able to handle it afterward. Can you heal my face now?”

She beckoned me over and had me leaned down a little so she could touch both sides of my face. A few moments later, warm relief coursed through her hands and into me, making my shit feel like it was no longer about to fall out or off.

“Thanks, hun. I appreciate that.” I rubbed my jaw to check and see if it was really gone.

The Solar Diarch wasn’t smiling. “What else has Night Light been doing that should be getting him demoted?”

“Just the usual power trip kinda stuff. Making me run extra laps, punishing those who try and be around me, singling me out and making others suffer even when I didn’t actually do anything wrong. And no, Celestia, you’re not allowed to retaliate.” I said firmly.

“Hear me, Maximus, when I say that your time under Night Light’s eye will make you stronger for the time to come under my own eye. Suffer through the extra work he makes you do and the work I make you do won’t seem that much worse.” Luna said.

“Bullshit. You’re going to put me through Hell, and everyone in this room knows it.” I scoffed.

Celestia glared at us. “That aside, a member of The Guard should not be treating someone they have sworn their life to protect like trash you might find under your hoof. I don’t see how you expect me to sit idly by-”

I leaned in and licked her face, earning me another glare. “Tasty vanilla face cake. Anyway, I expect you to go on with business as usual unless I get hurt enough to warrant you taking his head off, i.e killing me or getting me hurt enough so that I’m practically dead anyways. Twilight told me not to fuck him up and she agreed to what I asked for in return so I’m not going to weasel my way around my promise to her. She asked for no retaliation and I’ll give him none, no matter how much of a prick he decides to be.”

Celestia wiped my slobber off while I was talking. “...I suppose I won’t intervene if that is the case, but I do wish that you’d told me that you were being treated unfairly, Maximus.”

“It’s not a problem, hun. If I couldn’t handle it, we’d be screwed anyway. Frankly, Boot Camp’s been rough, but Noir still pushed me a lot harder than anyone else ever has in my entire life, and nothing is going to change that.”

“You say that now.” Luna said ominously.

“...Fuck. Yeah, feel free to stop Luna from going too far, however. Everyone in this room knows she’s extreme at times.”

My former lover chuckled. “I’ll be sure to point and laugh in your truest moments of pain.”

“Psychotic twats.” I muttered.

“What was that, dearest Prince?” Celestia jibed.

“Shove it, old hag. I’ll tie you up by your hooves and tickle you until you piss all over yourself.” I shot back.

Celestia raised a brow at me. “I’ll be sure to do the same to you, but with your thumbs and an anti-gravity spell.”

I wrung my hands. “I’ll tie a string around your clitoris and lead you around on a leash.”

She blushed and cracked up, so I won that round. “Alright, fair is fair. Shouldn’t you be getting back to the Barracks?”

“I sure should. Do I get hugs before I go, or am I to leave without fulfilling my affectionate tendencies?” I asked.

Celestia rolled her eyes and stretched an arm out for me, so I leaned down and gave her one before heading over to do the same with Luna. Once I’d gotten what I wanted because I always do, I left and came back to the Training Grounds. They were still running Combat Drills, so I helped myself to a lap or two around the track to pass the time since I didn’t want to waste the energy I’d gotten back from meditating. I passed Dirge on my second lap and he motioned for me to stop and stand at attention, so I did and he asked how I was moving already since I’d just been dead on my feet about two hours ago. I explained Noir’s technique and my meditation, so he asked why I hadn't rejoined the combat drills and I told him that Shoulder Boulder had told me to go get my face fixed up and wait until we were slated to go to the Mess Hall, so that made him inquire as to why I was running for no reason. Basically, I just didn’t want to waste a chance to build up a little more endurance and I could tell from his micro-expressions that he approved, so he told me to stop wasting time and get back to it.

Boulder sent Shaggy over to wave me down while I was on my fourth lap so we could go to the Mess Hall and get some grub, so I joined him and the rest of my group in doing what we do best: Eat. By today, Bronze's group and my own had claimed tables right next to each other so we could all keep the jokes flowing, though as was always the case, once the food was served and everyone started eating, the groups stuck to their own. I don't know why it was like that since the separate pods sometime switched out members for different meals, but it was just the way things worked, I guess.

Today while we were eating, Iron Hoof started things off. “Max, how did you learn to fight like that!? Even before you got that crazy second wind, you were giving Swift Strike some real trouble!”

I shrugged and dipped my bread into my stew. “I had a great teacher. She taught me my techniques, I just need to get my body to the point where I can use them better. That’s why I’m training as a guard in the first place: for the body development.”

“Dude, what kind of teacher tells you to use your knees instead of your hooves? I’ve been in scraps with pony after pony, but the big thing everypony always goes for is a buck.” Stalwart asked.

“Hey cotton-head, it’s obvious His Royal Dingus doesn’t exactly have hooves.” Day sniped.

I raised a brow and pursed my lips. “I’d tell you off for being a twat, but you’re totally right, Day. Shit’s kinda obvious.”

Stalwart blushed and Iron took over. “So who’s the mentor that taught you how to fight like a mad pony? Was it one of The Princesses?”

“No, my mentor’s older than Celestia and Luna. I can’t tell you who she is since it’s kind of a secret. In fact, the only people who know about her are members of the Royal Family anyway.” I explained.

“Dude.” Shaggy said eloquently.

Day scoffed. “‘Dude’ is right. So what about that insane stunt you pulled? You went from having the striking distance of a normal pony to flying across the ring like you were a Pegasus or something!”

I gestured with some bread. “It’s one of the techniques my mentor taught me. I’d offer to teach it to you, but the only reason I’m able to use it more than once or twice a month is because of how ridiculously fast I heal. Otherwise, I’d be as dead as a doornail. As far as I know, Luna has a similar technique, but hers isn’t as hard on the body.”

Moon nodded. “I could tell when you closed your eyes and stopped moving that you were doing something strange. When you came after Swift and ate up ten feet in the blink of an eye, it was obvious that you weren’t holding back anymore. Normal ponies shouldn’t be able to do things like that.”

I held up two fingers. “One, I’m not a Pony.” I flicked one down. “Two, I shouldn’t be able to do things like that, but I’m immortal or something like that, so it’s not like I’ll die to death or anything.”

“Dude. Are you like, a male Alicorn or something?” Shaggy asked.

Day made a noise of disdain. “He just said he wasn’t a Pony, you stupid stallion. Besides, everypony knows there aren’t any male Alicorns.”

I focused on my stew and the process of doing the eating of that stew. Have I ever mentioned how decent the stew in the Mess Hall was? It wasn’t really good, per se, but it was definitely not a load of suck. I’ve heard people complain about it from time to time, but I found it to be pretty decent, even on its off days and the amount of nutrients they packed into the thick broth were enough to keep you going. After all, every good soldier needs a good meal in them to keep the fight going, and as I was pondering these thoughts while trying to avoid Day’s statement, someone threw a spoon at my forehead.

“Oi!” I said indignantly.

“We were talking to you, Oh Mighty Doofus.” Day sneered.

“Bitch, I will fucking eat you.” I snapped.

She shut the fuck up.

“Now. What was the question? And keep in mind that the next person to throw a goddamn spoon at me is going to have that hand broken.” I tossed Day’s spoon behind me.

Stalwart pursed his lips. “We were just wandering if there were any male Alicorns that you knew of.”

“Well, not really. To be honest with you, I’m the closest thing you’ve got, and that would make me the weakest Alicorn.” I actually am the weakest Alicorn, but I’m not exactly a Pony anyway.

Moon gave me an odd look. “You’re an Alicorn, aren’t you?”

“Do I look like a Pony to you? No wings, no horn, no hooves. I just have Alicorn Magic, and I can’t even use it.”

Jaws dropped. Iron recovered first. “You have Alicorn Magic?”

“It’s not really mine, but I have it. No, I can’t show it to you.” I said quickly.

Moon Walk nodded. “Of course not. I’m sure that it goes without saying that we should keep this a secret.”

I snapped my fingers at her. “Exactly. No one needs to know besides us. Hell, I’m not really all that sure if I was allowed to tell you in the first place.”

Stalwart shrugged. “No problems here. I think I speak for everypony when I say that exposing a Prince’s secrets is against the best interest of Equestria as a whole.”

There were nods around the table and I went back to scooping stew with bread. “So if we can leave me alone, what happened with the rest of combat training?”

Stalwart, Day, Shaggy, and Moon looked at their bowls. Iron Hoof snorted. “Everypony except me got their flanks handed to them. I kept telling them that it’s because both of my parents were guards and they already taught me how to fight, but nopony wants to listen.”

“So the two people with actual training managed to take a round apiece?” I grinned.

Iron blushed and looked at her bowl while Stalwart smirked. “I think what our dear Hoofsy meant to say was that she just lost more slowly than everypony else. Boulder had her cousin, Standing Stone, handle her.”

I cocked my head. “Wait, is Stone Boulder’s cousin or Iron’s?”

A smile broke out on Stalwart’s face. “Both. Boulder is Iron’s second cousin.” He snickered.

I raised a brow at him. “Don’t the rest of you have family in The Guard?”

Stalwart stopped his nonsense and thought about it. “Well, I have a Night guard cousin, but he’s not an instructor.”

Day raised a hand. “My Mom was an instructor for a long time until she retired. She never actually taught me much more than the basics though.”

I gave her a wry look. “That’s probably because you start a lot of bullcrap with what you say. I’m sure we’d agree that you deserve to have your arse kicked with as much shit as you pull and get away with.”

Day blushed. “Do I really need to apologize for throwing a spoon at you?”

“Tch. Woman, you’re difficult. That’s all there is to it. You don’t need to apologize, but being less acerbic would make you a lot more likeable.”

She went back to eating her stew and Moon glared at me. “That wasn’t very nice.”

“Do I really need to apologize for speaking the truth?” I asked.

Moon nodded. “The mark of a good leader is knowing when to say something and when to hold their peace.”

I rolled my eyes. “Yeah, I’ve said multiple times that I’m just a guard here-”

She shook her head. “You might just be a guard while training, but you’d still be a leader, even if you weren’t a Prince. You’ve just got a way with ponies that makes them look up to you, and being scolded by you carries more weight than being scolded by Boulder or Night Light.”

I raised a brow and looked around the table. Day was still staring at her soup while Stalwart and Shaggy were nodding. Iron was looking at me coolly, so I addressed the topic. “I’ll try to be nicer about it, but I’ll be damned if I don’t call any one of you out for your mistakes. I expect the same from all of you, so don’t feel like I’m picking on you or trying to throw my weight around.”

Stalwart waved a hand. “Nah dude, we all know that you’re not the kind of pony to say something without trying to get some kind of point across. Moon’s just being over-sensitive.”

Moon tossed a glare at him, but Iron spoke before she could. “You really are being soft, Moon. There shouldn’t be a pony at this table who can’t take honest criticism. Seriously, we’re all trying to become guards, save for Max, so we need to be able to take critique and use it to better ourselves. Even in Max’s case, it’ll be something useful to have.”

Day stirred her stew with a piece of bread. “It’s just different coming from Max, you know? He’s generally the guy who keeps his head up and drags you along with him when you start slowing down, so it feels to me like I really do need to stop being such a nag. I really don’t try to be, it’s just how ponies in Manehattan talk to each other.”

I nodded. “I understand that. My home country was notorious for being crass and blunt. Hell, when I first got to Equestria, I had to completely change the way I talk to people because you Ponies can be a lot more sensitive than my countrymen. It’s all well and good to trade barbed jokes, but throwing shit at each other is annoying and childish.”

Moon huffed. “Didn’t you threaten to eat her?”

I glared at her. “I’ll eat you too if you keep it up, and not in the fun way.”

Shaggy scratched his head. “Is there really a fun way to cannibalize somepony?”

Stalwart chuckled. “There is if you don’t actually take a bite.”

Iron hit him. “You’re such a pervert, you know that? Both of you, actually.”

I finished with my food. “I know you are but what am I?”

Moon huffed again. “Foalish.”

No one really had anything to say to that since she was rather correct, so the rest of my group finished with their food and we started socializing with Bronze’s group shortly after getting out dishes taken back to the Plate Return. I ended up answering a lot of the same questions that I’d answered for my group, but I wasn’t terribly upset about it or anything, so all was well and good, though I did cut my time in the Mess Hall by a little bit so I could read and reply to a few letters.

Since I had time to get this written out, I’m sure something else is going to happen that will make life suck until I can get a few more hours to myself and write this kinda stuff down, though in fairness, I really haven’t let my journals slip out of laziness. It’s just that trying to get them done while exhausted is a bitch and a half. I’d rather just keep it to my loved ones and whatnot. Either way, today was a little rougher than most, but still, I’m close to the end of the first week. A few days from now, Twilight’s allowed to come and visit me, so I’m looking forward to that, though I don’t know what kind of Hell Night Light is going to try and put me through or if he’s going to try and take the privilege away from me. I wouldn’t be surprised if he was that much of a fucking dick.

Negativity aside, I’m looking forward to seeing Twilight, though I wish Blue could have made it. I can’t blame her for having a busy schedule, but I can say that having someone come for me would be better than having no one come for me.
___________________________________________________________________________________________________________________

Like, five days later, the same bullshit I was expecting to happen did happen. We woke up an hour earlier than we usually did since Night Light was feeling like a bigger prick than usual, so after getting everyone up and moving, I only got out of the Barracks with fifteen seconds to spare before being late. It was no surprise to find that Night Light called me late anyway, but instead of just adding one extra lap, he added three , which wouldn’t have been a problem if it wasn’t still fucking dark out, or if we weren’t supposed to do it in full armor. He had a torch that he pointed at me and blinded me with every few minutes while I was running, ruining my night vision and making it hard to see where I was going. I started running into people when he did that shit, and by the time I’d completed my second extra lap, half of the recruits just didn’t want to be bothered with the extra work anymore, so it was practically just down to my group and Bronze’s. Once we were finished with all five of our laps, Night Light made everyone do two hundred push-ups because fuck that guy, though most of us could handle it. There were a few people who struggled with the last set and when a couple of the weaker people burnt themselves out on the last set, Night Light made me specifically do a hundred extra push-ups for the simple fact that I should ‘lead by example’. It was fucking bullshit and everyone knew it, but by this point, it was fully expected.

When we got to the Mess Hall, it wasn’t even fucking open since Night Light had gotten us up earlier than they ran, so guess what he had us do? Run the fucking track some more, of course. The sun finally came up and the lack of sleep was starting to take its toll, but Night Light only gave us a break in the form of jogging over to the training dummies. When we got there and got sorted out, he mixed in new strokes that he hadn't explained at all, and when someone messed it up in front of him, he acted like they’d just insulted his wife or something and even screamed at Shaggy for being ‘slow’ until the guy made a clumsy mistake and hit Night Light in the Ol’ Chap with the hilt of his sword. In fairness, Night Light was the fool who’d gotten too close to a guy he’d been berating for being sloppy as well as slow, but when Night Light got off of the ground, the only person he was blaming was Shaggy. And me, of course, since Shaggy was one of my group.

While we were going for our five laps, Shaggy apologized for getting me dragged into his punishment and I told him that it was completely worth it to know that someone had hit Night Light in the dick, even if it had obviously been an accident. Actually, other than just seeing his body language and hearing the honesty in his apologies, I would’ve known Shaggy didn’t mean to do it just by his nature alone. He was a healer, not a fighter, and that was quite obvious to me, though how Night Light had mistaken his carelessness for contempt, I’ll never know. Either way, Shaggy and I kept our pace up until the third lap, but even then we didn’t slow down too much and neither of us ever actually walked.

Upon returning to the place with all the dummies, Shaggy and I found Night Light and Boulder arguing, but no one else was in sight, so we alighted to the Mess Hall to avoid being called eavesdroppers or some shit. Granted, I’d heard a lot of the argument and knew that Boulder was calling Night Light out for wrangling everyone in the group together when he was only trying to punish me, but Night Light had been standing firm that early drills were a natural part of the process.

I explained what I’d heard to Shaggy and we agreed to keep it to ourselves since the Drill Sergeants were supposed to be a cohesive unit, working together better than they actually were. In any case, we got to the Mess Hall, had breakfast with our usual group and Shaggy got applauded for hitting Night Light in the pork sword with a real one. The guy really hadn't meant to do it and had said as much, but he still got plenty of praise from a lot of people.

Unlike dinner, breakfast was a quick affair that didn’t allow much time for talking, so after scarfing down some boiled eggs and a piece of toast, everyone was on their way back out onto the field to carry on with training. Boulder took over from there and had us run Combat Drills with instructors for a little while, though she herself taught me some stuff about grappling since I wasn’t really all that good at it. She didn’t break my face again and told me that she would let me carry out my visitation if I kept up the good work, so I tried not to palm her shoulder boulders while suplexing her.

Boulder was a capable combatant, and while we were sparring for fun rather than for punishment, we garnered a bit of an audience, even though neither of us were throwing any serious punches. Hell, I wasn’t even throwing high kicks, despite having protection on, so we were both just taking it easy up until Boulder tried to throw me. I wasn’t as heavy as her since I’m just generally less dense than Ponies, but I knew how to hold the fuck on and twisted my hips as she threw so I could land with a foot on the ground. I don’t like being thrown because frankly, I find it terrifying to be tossed through the air. That being said, I followed up with a powerful knee to the stomach to dissuade her from pulling that shit twice, but the padding diminished the blow and Boulder barely stumbled back. Still, we stopped before either of us could get terribly serious, though I felt like she’d be a good opponent for me.

Combat Drills always took a while, so it was a lot of people’s favourite form of punishment since there was a lot of off time. I, on the other hand, asked Boulder if I was going to get another shot at doing more drills and she told me that I wasn’t since I didn’t need it, so I asked if I could go make some whacks at one of the dummies and I was allowed to go do so. I just wanted to go make sure that my swinging arms were equally strong and that I wasn’t slacking off in any sense of the word, so I hammered away at one of the dummies until I could barely feel my hands and moved on to shield strikes with both arms until I felt comfortable enough with both to go full Steve Rogers on someone arse.

Dirge, as always, happened to be lurking around and started calling out sword strikes for me, so I drew the blunted blade and started whacking at the dummy according to his orders. He sped up a little bit at a time and I mixed in the odd extra stroke without really meaning to until he stopped giving orders, but just because he stopped didn’t mean that I was ready to. I threw a shield strike, two chaining swings and a final thrust into the dummy before sheathing my weapon and standing at attention. Dirge just complimented me on the lack of wasted energy in my movements and continued on with doing something else, so I followed him back to the main group. They were finishing up with combat drills, so there wasn’t much for me to do, though it seemed as though Night Light had come back as well. That was ‘nice’ and all, but my main focus was the fact that we’d yet to go through the obstacle course in full armour yet and I was certain that it was going to be our next task.

I was fucking right. Enough said on that particular subject. The monkey bars sucked because of the extra weight and quite a few people fell. Crawling through mud was more shitty because the mud got all up in your armour and slowed you down, so I was one of the slower people to that because of my over sized armour. The wall was just as easy as it had been before because I had feet instead of hooves, though having to use the rope still rankled me to no end. The drop on the other side was a little rougher than it had been, but it was still doable, but high-stepping through the hoops was probably the easiest thing for me. It wasn’t like my armour added an incredible amount of weight or anything, so I was able to tackle each hoop with relative ease, though vaulting over the high bar took a little more effort. I still managed to clear it, but I saw and heard that the people in front of and behind me didn’t manage too well with it.

Crawling on the rope upside down was a little sucky at best, and I nearly fell from it since I was a little on the clumsy side, I still managed to not be a complete fuck up, but I was hanging by my legs for a few seconds over the void. The cargo net was up next and that was nearly as easy as it had been before, though I was feeling a little tired from having rushed the last few obstacles. However, my footing was sure and my hands held their holds firmly, so I managed to clear it with no issues. Rappelling down the other side, however, had to wait until the person before me could finally get down, and once they did, it was a simple enough task, though the extra equipment made me land a little harder than I’d have liked. Still, I was fine after all of it and had finished earlier than expected, so I got to watch and wait for awhile as the rest of the cadets finished up with their runs of the course.

We had two more goes at the obstacle course and once those were through, Boulder and Night Light let us know (with evil grins on their faces) that we had an hour to clean our armour before they were going to inspect each and every piece, so I got my group together and we marched off toward the Barracks to start wiping the mud off before it could crust up on us. We all grabbed a bucket of water each and I cut apart a shirt I didn’t mind using as rags so we could get started, and once any one of us thought we were done, we all checked over each other’s work and often found something else to point out. Day was the one who cleaned the best since her shit didn’t have a single speck of mud left over, and I was next since my perception allowed me to spot the smallest bit of mud or discoloration. Iron’s naturally critical nature helped get Stalwart, Shaggy, and Moon on the right track, so once all of our sets of armour were cleared by the group, we took them to Boulder and Night Light for inspection.

When it came to everyone else’s armor, we’d only missed a single bit or so on the wearer’s side, but we’d only cleaned that side because we’d assumed that it was a part of cleaning the armor anyway. A few other people that had thought they were done before us had missed it completely and had to go do a lap for every square inch that was dirty. Some people ended up with more than ten laps, which was fucking brutal to say the least, but that’s what they get for trying to cut corners. My group, on the other hand, rarely even got a lap, though when Night Light tried to inspect my armour, Boulder stood shoulder with him and prevented him from inventing splotches that weren’t there. I got a lap since I’d missed a little spot near the arm pit, but when I told them that it was actually an imperfection in the armor that I’d tried to clean, they told me that I was going to have a lap anyway for being a smartass. That’s what I get for being right, yeah?

My group took Shaggy’s, Moon’s, and my own lap together, though we ended up sticking around with the people who had twelve laps so we could keep them company and keep their spirits up. It was fucking grueling at its best, and by the eighth lap, I was ready to fucking drop, but my team kept me going and we somehow managed to get all the way to the eleventh before people started passing out on the track. I wasn’t one of them, but there were a few of them, and once we circled back and saw that they weren’t getting up, I had my group stop and get them to the infirmary since heat-stroke is a serious bitch to be fucking with.

Night Light stormed over as I was helping lug someone off the track, and once he was in front of me, he stopped me and my group. “Maggots! What the buck do you think you’re doing!?”

I stood up as straight as I could with a guy on my shoulder. Panting heavily, I said, “Sir!... Getting these fellas… off the… track.”

“Who the buck said that you could do that!? Put. Them. Back!” He bellowed.

I set the fellow I was carrying down as gently as I could. I took a few moments to catch my breath and I heard my friends do the same. Night Light got in my face while I was taking a quick rest and practically hissed, “Pick them up. Put them on the track.”

I stared him down. “These people need to go to the infirmary.”

“These Ponies have another lap and they’re not getting off the track until they do it! Unless you want me to have you running laps until the Sun sets on Equestria, you’ll do as I say!” Night Light seethed.

We glared at each other for a moment. “Sir, I don’t think you’re taking heat-stroke or exhaustion into account. These people might not get back up if we leave them, sir.”

Night Light bore his teeth at me. “Do you think I don’t know that!? You and your foalish little group! Drop and give me fifty! Now!”

I backed up a little bit and maintained eye contact as I counted out my push-ups. My group chorused the count right along with me as I rose and fell up until Night Light came and straight up stomped the back of my head. I was fucking livid, but I wasn’t going to do anything at the moment. Someone evidently didn’t feel the same way because I heard Night Light get tackled, and when I got to one knee to see what was going on, I saw that it was actually two people on top of Night Light. Stalwart mounted his chest and Day kicked the ever-loving fuck out of his soft bits twice before I pulled her off of him. My sensitive nose picked up the scent of someone’s sick, so I told Day to chill the fuck out and ripped Stalwart off of Night Light with magic. I found out that it was Night Light’s sick I was smelling soon enough, and as he rolled over and started coughing like he was trying to clear it from his lungs, he was ill again while his hands went to his crotch and held his dangly bits.

I tsked and told Day and Stalwart to get our comrades to the infirmary while I stayed with Night Light since I figured Boulder would be by soon enough. There were still four downed trainees to take care of, so I had Moon, Shaggy, Stalwart, and Day take them to the infirmary and asked Iron if she could go find Boulder or Dirge and tell either of them to meet us there. She agreed because it was a reasonable request, so I picked up Night Light with my telekinesis by making a spiral shaped bed for him and lifted him off of the ground. The guy’s face was already swelling from Stalwart’s blows, and I figured that he was going to be regretting his actions for a while longer if the speed I had to walk at was anything to go by.

I had Shaggy and Moon put their wards on my psychic tentacle thing and though it taxed my mind, it was easier and a good deal faster than having them carry two people that were as heavy as they were. Sure, I was reaching the upper limits of what I could carry with my telekinesis in its tentacle form, but I didn’t know for sure that I could levitate them and walk at the same time. I decided not to try while making the rest of the trip to the infirmary, and in the ten minutes it took to get us there, I had developed a splitting headache to end all others, so I was feeling a little shit.

When we got there, I had Shaggy and Moon move their people so I could get Night Light onto a bed, though the nurse lady needed to have a word with me. “Woah, woah, woah! Why are there like, five new ponies in my infirmary!?”

I pinched the bridge of my nose and said, “Night Light had the four of them running laps until they were ill and collapsed. Night Light himself just pushed a few people a little too far.”

The nurse puckered her lips and narrowed her eyes. “Alright, you’re going to explain the last one, but for now, I want you to help me get these ponies some water, okay?”

I nodded and touched the back of my head which was still aching. I felt something wet and thought nothing of it until the nurse grabbed my hand and turned me around. “What in Tartarus- It’s Max, isn’t it?”

“Yeah. What’s wrong?”

“How did you get a gash on the back of your head the shape of somepony’s hoof?” She asked.

“I’ll explain when I tell you what happened to Night Light. Let’s get the others taken care of first, yeah?” I suggested.

“You have four friends in here that can help me with that. Have a seat and I’ll be right back after dealing with them.” She rushed off and came back with a pad of gauze. “Hold that to the wound for now, okay?”

I nodded and did as she intructed. “Will do.”

And so I had myself a seat on one of the beds and listened to Night Light’s strangled breathing for a little while, sort of wishing that I could heal his privates since I figured getting curbstomped in the berries was a lot worse that having someone lovingly place their hoof on your head. I say lovingly, but I’m told love hurts, so that’s why I said it. I thought it was witty… Fuck you. Anyway, my brilliance aside, Shaggy soaked up all the knowledge the nurse could give him in the current circumstance and copied her movements perfectly and eventually took over for half of the Ponies that had fallen out while running. Stalwart, Moon, and Day stuck next to me while the nurse and Shaggy finished giving water to those in desperate need, and once they were done, Shaggy mentioned that we’d all been running laps, though we hadn't fallen out like they had. Meanwhile, my headache was only growing and none of the usual tricks like rubbing my temples or pinching my nose were working, and I was starting to wear out rather quickly. I got close to dozing off before Day shook me hard, giving me a worried look and starting up a conversation that I lost track of from time to time.

The nurse came and inspected Night Light, asking him questions like where his pain was coming from and why his face was so swollen. He only answered one of those questions and asked for some painkilling magic which was swiftly applied, though it apparently wasn’t strong enough. Evidently Day had bruised one of his baby gravy producers quite severely and he was going to need a real doctor, so the nurse sent off a note with a bottle of Dragon Fire and told Night Light to hold tight for a few minutes until they could get a small team of Unicorns over to teleport him to the nearest hospital. The team came while Day was trying to keep the conversation going and she started asking me about Twilight. Little did she know, she stumbled onto my favourite topic.

While I was telling them about the time I got Twilight so frustrated with me that she threatened to stop giving me kisses for a full day and caved halfway through the next hour, the nurse came over and asked how I was feeling. I told her that I was feeling fine and asked why she was interested in my well being, which made her rather worried since pieces of my memory were just slipping away entirely. She inquired about what I’d been talking to my friends about and I told her that we’d been talking about my fiance, and up until she asked me to tell her some of the things I’d been talking about, I’d thought I was fine, if not a little sleepy. Apparently Night Light had gotten me good enough to concuss me, which started the conversation on how he and I had gotten hurt.

Day and Stalwart told her the story in turns, starting with the fainting people and ending with me pulling them off of Night Light. The nurse shook her head and told us that someone was either getting demoted or canned and that Stalwart and Day might be in some serious trouble for attacking a superior officer. I said that I would bid for them since they’d been acting in defense of me, and that was when Iron came in with the Dirge and Boulder. They asked what had happened and Stalwart told them since Day had taken a hard edge to her tone while talking to the nurse, and when he finished Dirge just nodded while Boulder fucking exploded about Night Light striking me while I was following orders. Dirge told her to cool it and asked me why I had my hand behind my head and I’d forgotten why I did at that point, so I held up the gauze and the thing was pretty nasty since head wounds bleed a lot anyway. There was veracity to my group’s story, and Dirge assured me that Night Light would be losing his job over this, but I waved that aside and told him that I just wanted Night Light to stop being an Instructor while I was training since he obviously couldn’t restrain his hatred for me.

Boulder disagreed with me strongly. “Max, I understand that Night Light is your father-in-law, but this has to end somewhere. If he’d hit you any harder, we might not even be having this conversation.”

I shooed her words away like they were pesky gnats. “I’d heal if it was any worse just as well as I will from this little scratch. Really, Night Light only hates me because I’ve been giving his daughter kisses and… Some other reason, I think…” My head throbbed until I got an idea. “Oh! I flirt with his wife! I don’t mean it, but I don’t think he likes it.”

Day raised a hand. “Pretty sure you said it was because you disappeared for two years.”

I gave her an odd look. “I did?” It clicked. “Oh. Oh yeah, that’s why he hates me now! We used to be cool, but I went away on a mission for a long time and couldn’t keep in touch with Twilight!”

Dirge shook his head. “You’re not in the right mind to be having this conversation.”

I flapped my hand back and forth. “Nah, I’m good mate. Just run what we were talking about by me one more time and we’ll pick up where we left off, yeah?”

Boulder snorted. “Night Light stomped your head and now your short term memory is shot. Night Light really has gone too far. You were following orders and looking out for your fellow guards-ponies. He had no reason to strike you.”

Dirge nodded. “I agree. Day and Stalwart were justified in making sure that he didn’t cause you further harm. Besides, somepony has to take the fall for this.”

Stalwart raised a hand. “Captain, who else would? Night Light was in the wrong.”

The older man raised a brow. “You would, of course. You assaulted a superior officer. You should be happy I haven’t kicked you out of the guard already and banned you from coming back.” He looked at me. “You’re the party who was injured, here. What do you say? Does Night Light lose his job, or do Stalwart and Day lose their chance at a fulfilling career?”

I cocked my head at him. “Mate, I’m not hurt. I’ve got a headache , but I’m fine otherwise. Why would Night Light lose his job anyway?”

Dirge rolled his eyes and pulled my hand away from the back of my head, showing me why Night Light was getting fired. “That. Nurse! Get this stallion some more gauze or stop the bleeding!”

The nurse scurried over and I kept talking while she worked. “So it’s either my family who hates me or my friends that like me?”

Dirge shrugged. “That’s what it boils down to.”

I looked to Stalwart and Day. “So what will you two do if you can’t become guards?”

Stalwart sighed. “I go back to Hooverton and live with my parents until I find private security work. I’ve always wanted to be a Guard of Equestria, Max. It’s been my dream ever since I was a foal, and I can’t say I have a backup plan at all.”

I looked to Day and she said, “I’d have to go into the family business. We help mass produce mid fashion and whatever. It’s not the most glamorous thing, but it’s good enough money to live on comfortably until my brother kicks me out of the business.”

I sighed. “Wow, things got depressing real quick. Why would you guys wanna quit the guard?”

I noticed that I was getting stares from everyone around my bed. “...Did I say something?”

The nurse finished wrapping my head up. “You’re concussed, sweetheart. Try and stay still for a little while. Honestly, you ponies need to either let him get his bearings or do that freaky fast-healing thing he does until he can pull himself together enough to actually follow along with what you’re saying. “

“Who says I can’t do that now? It’s not like I’m not paying attention.” I said petulantly.

“Night Light stomped your head.” Boulder said.

“Fuck would he do that for?” I asked.

“Nopony knows, and when he gets back, I’ll ask.” Dirge said gruffly. “Until then, I’ll send your visitor here. Stalwart? Day? Your visitation will be cut in half for today until a real verdict is reached.”

My group saluted as Dirge left, and once he was gone, Boulder had a seat on my bed. “It’s a damn shame you keep getting hurt because of Night Light.”

I shrugged. “I knew he was going to put me through Hell before I came here. I’ve dealt with it so far. The guy can only do so much before he gets himself fired.”

Boulder sighed. “He just got himself fired. Seriously, Max. Once you’ve got your head on straight and you’re alone, Dirge and I are coming back to talk to you about what’s happening with Night Light.”

I cocked my head. “What? Didn’t we already talk about him?”

She shook her head, got up, and left without another word. My head was still throbbing, so I looked around at my friends and started asking about why I was in the infirmary and they told me that I just needed to rest for a little bit, so I told them that I’d be meditating right where I was sitting for a little bit if anyone needed me. They all got up and went to visit some of the other people in the room who were finally starting to come to while I was positioning myself to go into the mindscape. After closing my eyes and taking three breaths, I was back in the mindscape and I came in to see Noir working a punching bag like it owed her money and was a year late on payments.

Besides the mild amount of scarousal that came from seeing such a powerful woman work out, I was feeling pretty normal, so I conjured up a stool and just watched her for a little bit. I’d done enough of my own training and would likely do some more when I got back, so I was pretty content to just wait until she felt like taking a break. Really, it was a pleasure to see Noir in action, and until you see it for yourself, you’ll never know what I’m talking about. The way she chains combos together like an endless flow and adds in kicks, knees and elbows all without using a full finisher while maintaining finishing-blow lethality… It’s violent poetry in motion, like one of Homer’s epics, or a Skald’s stories. Either one fit the bill quite well.

As I was watching and thinking about some of Noir’s techniques, I decided to try and emulate it for myself, but before I could start, she held her punching bag still and gestured for me to come over. Once I was next to her, she gave me a sweaty hug that smelled strongly of tasty cobbler, but when I licked her, she didn’t taste like it much. Granted, I licked her sports bra, but still. When Noir let me go, I saw that she’d had a picture taped to the punching bag. Well, multiple, actually, but whatever it was had been worn away by her fists over some time.

“Hullo, Blackberry. How long have you been at it?” I asked.

“A few hours now. How is your head?” Noir asked politely.

“Achy, but I’ll be good when I got back. It shouldn’t bleed for that much longer anyway. Who were the pictures of?”

“Night Light. Kicking you while you were literally down because of something he told you to do was dirty and underhanded. If it were me and I were not bound to your oath of non-retaliation, he would have a leg broken beyond what even Celestia could repair.”

I sighed. “Really now. I’d like a piece of him myself, but it wasn’t that serious-”

Noir held up a hand. “You say it was not that serious because you keep telling yourself that it was not. Night Light deserves prison time for the treason he has wittingly committed.”

I gave her an odd look until I realized that I was a Prince. “Oh yeah, I’m royalty now. I keep forgetting about that since no one tries to treat me like it. Still, I’m not going to charge him with treason and I doubt Twilight is either, so we’ll have at least two royals on our side if Celestia or Luna want to indict him.”

My mentor scoffed. “You should indict him anyway. The fool needs to learn that attacking you is a terrible idea.”

I shook my head. “A lesson he’s already learned. I’m sure that not being able to breathe correctly for about thirty minutes humbled him quite well.”

“You never know. He could have a particularly hard head since he persisted in coming after you, despite having lost rank for doing so already. Honestly, Maximus, you’ve given the man chance after chance to show that he is better than the grudge he bears against you, yet he persists in spitting on your patience with scorn and spite.” Noir huffed.

“I know, Blackberry. Trust me, I know. I’m not saying that I’m okay with the bullshit he’s pulled, but he’s supposed to be my father-in-law. Maybe if I stay Twilight’s path, he’ll see that I really am a good guy for her.” I sighed.

"If you stay Twilight’s path, he is going to kill you.” Noir said bluntly.

I gave her a look. “When you say shit like that in a normal voice, it makes me think you’re being serious so knock it off.”

“If this was not Celestia’s Equestria, Night Light would have killed you already.”

“I know that, you grim bitch.”

“That is all I was saying.” Noir sniffed.

“Again, don’t be unnecessarily grim. While we’re on the topic of changing topics, do you wanna cuddle or something? I can’t imagine I’ll get much time to do it for a few more days unless you want to deal with me after a full day of bullshit-”

“Actually, one way or another, you will no longer be dealing with Night Light in any capacity.as far as your training goes. Did you forget that Dirge has promised to relieve him of his job?”

“Tch. Wasn’t really the intention here to be honest with you. I just want the fucker to leave me alone, not lose his job. He’s spent years building his career-”

Noir scoffed. “Only to throw it away with his own hands by assaulting a Prince of his nation and a trainee under his guidance. Night Light should have been fired for making you fight Swift Strike by the Equestrian laws, but he was not. Night Light was given his second chance and he used it to attack you. Hold no pity for the man, Maximus.”

“I don’t, it’s just that he’s Twilight’s dad. I mean, how am I supposed to tell her I got Night Light fired?” I asked.

She scoffed again. “By no action of your own did you make Night Light strike you, nor did you influence his decisions. He made his bed. Allow him to lie in it on his own rather than assume fault for someone else’s choices.”

I sighed, nodding. “I know I should, but still. I don’t look forward to the visit as much as I did yesterday.”

“Under Night Light’s watch, you would not have gotten it anyway. This worked out for the best since Twilight will be allowed to see you. Speaking of that wonderful little lover of yours, it would not surprise me to find that she will come by shortly. I have not been altering time while you have been here, so it is a real possibility that she will come while you are meditating.”

“Right. Until she does come, is there something you want to do? I can’t imagine that I’ll be too productive on that front, but I’ll be happy to find something to do if there’s nothing you want to practice.”

Noir raised a finger and we appeared in a familiar clearing. A large-ish rope circle was laid out in the middle and standing in that circle was Swift Strike himself. “Fight him until you win. Cheat if you must, but win nonetheless.”

I sighed and started heading toward the circle. “This is why I don’t visit as often as I should. You always want me to fight something, or to beat and abuse me, or to-”

“Shut up and fight, yes?” Noir interrupted.

I huffed and stepped into the circle before limbering up to make sure that I wouldn’t pull anything while fucking around with the construct. I severely hoped that it wouldn’t be as strong as Swift himself, though that was proven wrong pretty quickly, and when I started losing, I kicked the construct in the dick rather hard a couple times and broke its arm at the elbow since it had offered no resistance in the time it took me to grab its appendage. I looked back at Noir before wrapping my arms around its neck and choking it out to finish things for good and she gave me a look.

“That was cheap.” She said, walking toward me.

“You said I could cheat. I cheated.” I said simply.

“...I am glad I am not a male. Or tangible in the real world.”

“You could be if you put your mind to it. Just take my body over one of these days, my precious brain leech, and experience the world anew, thousands of years later.” I said in a grandiloquent manner.

“We have discussed the matter of me taking over your body.” Noir pointed out.

I rolled my eyes. “You know I wasn’t being serious. What else do you want to do? Have you tried taking Swift on for yourself?”

Noir shook her head. “I knew better people that use the same style. It would be fun for a few moments, dodging his punches, but I could best him easily by either beating him down or sending a counter that would end his face.”

“Savage. Can we do some archery or something? I know it’s not really a guard kinda skill, but I’d like to have it, just in case.”

She rolled her eyes at me. I got offended “Don’t look at me in that tone of voice, woman!”

“I’ll look at you however I please, and speaking of people looking at you, the nurse is trying to get your attention. Your mind still hasn’t healed yet, so return once you are finished with her business.”

I nodded and headed back to reality for a little bit since reasons and talked with the nurse for a little bit. It was disconcerting since I was forgetting things after a few minutes again, but everything seemed normal enough to me until she let me know that she could probably fix my concussion with a little help from whoever had fixed my jaw. She said that she would let me use her Dragon Fire if I could get them over here for a moment, so I agreed and wrote out a letter to Celestia explaining what had happened to the best of my abilities and asked her to come and fix me if she had the time. One of my top four princesses came by and healed me as I’d asked, though she swore up and down that Night Light would get his just desserts up until I asked her not to do anything. Instead of having Celestia resolve the issue, I wanted to wait until Twilight came by so we could ask her how she wanted things to be handled, but Celestia said that that we could decide ourselves since it was well within my right to have Night Light arrested, even if I hadn't been a prince.

The thing was, I just didn’t like the guy. I guess I got used to his bullshit over the course of a week or so, but I couldn’t find it within myself to return his hatred or anger. Night Light just didn’t strike me as someone who was all that important in the grand scheme of my life, and I know that it’s kinda fucked up for someone to think that about one of their in-laws, but Night Light fucking sucked. I didn’t have to deal with him any longer than I wanted to and I could end the guy at any moment because I’m just that much stronger than him, but I restrained myself. There was a different kind of dignity in letting someone treat you like trash when you know full well that you could hack them to death in less than two seconds and hide the fact that they existed from everyone with a few words.

Oh, I’d thought about ‘nullifying’ NIght Light before, but I liked the fact that he pushed me harder than anyone else was willing to up to a certain point. It was difficult, yeah, but a week and a half ago, I never would have been able to run eleven laps without dropping like one of the others. Call it my insane growth rate or my newfound temperance, but I just think I’m a little better off since I had to deal with someone I couldn’t absolutely humiliate or destroy for once. It’s weird to think that I actually had the patience to hold my tongue and stay my hand for as long as I did.

I shared these thoughts with Celestia and she listened as I meandered from topic to topic. When I finished, she weighed in and asked if she could trust me to handle diplomatic relations like I was handling the non-aggression part with Night Light. I shrugged and tod her that it really just depended on who did what and she sighed, telling me that I’d missed the biggest part of the question. I let her know that I understood it fully and that there wasn’t anything I’d missed, but unless Twilight asked me specifically to handle something a certain way, I was probably just going to snark my way through it. Celestia didn’t like that at all and I told her that if she wanted me to handle something how she wanted it to be handled, that I would try and give it a shot since I can be less than a prick when I feel like it.

While we were talking, I felt my necklace throb next to my heart and I couldn’t help the smile the formed on my face. I hopped off of the Infirmary bed and grinned brilliantly, waiting for Twilight to come through the doors. Celestia smiled and put a hand on my shoulder, asking me to have a talk with Dirge later regarding Night Light and I told her that I would since I was already slated to do so. Twilight came in and rushed over to me, ignoring Celestia completely.

“Max! Oh amour, are you okay? Somepony told me that you were hurt and directed me here, but-” Twilight said rapidly.

I hugged her and she trailed off. “I’m okay, Twilight. I really am. I just had a disagreement with someone who’s not too shy about putting things where they don’t belong.”

Celestia coughed. “I’m sure you two could use some time alone. If you want, I can carry a message to Dirge and tell him that you’ll be spending your two hours elsewhere.”

I let Twilight go, but held onto her hands. “If you wouldn’t mind, that would be lovely. I think I’d like to spend my time with my fiance somewhere less clinical.”

Twilight hugged me again, but didn’t say anything, so Celestia said, “Perhaps you could save the news for after your visitation with Twilight? She should remain here for it, but I suggest waiting.”

I nodded. “Of course.” I looked down at Twilight. “Have you already seen all the guard training stuff?”

“A few times.” She said cautiously. “What’s the news you’re talking about?”

I sighed and gave her a smile I wasn’t really feeling. “I’ll tell you in about two hours. Is there somewhere you want to go while we have the time together? I wouldn’t mind going on a date or something.”

“Ahem.” Celestia coughed. “You might want to unwrap your head before leaving the Training Grounds.”

I reached up and just pulled the gauze off and Twilight gasped when she saw the blood. “Max! Are you sure you’re okay? I don’t mind staying here so you can rest a little while longer.”

“I’m fine, cherry. Celestia just patched me up the rest of the way so now I just need to run it by the nurse so we can get going.” I assured her.

Celestia nodded, so Twilight cast a spell and I felt my hair start doing something. “There. Back to your normal wavy nonsense.” She beamed.

I reached up and felt it. “Was it messed up or something?”

“It looked awfully silly.” Twilight said solemnly. “A Princess can’t be seen with a silly maned Prince after all.”

I rolled my eyes and kissed her. I’d only meant it to be a peck, but Twilight didn’t quite want to let me go, and I felt the same way about her, so we kissed for a few more seconds before breaking away, wordlessly promising that we would catch up on lost time in a few more minutes. Celestia told us that she was going to go back to Day Court and we wished her well, and with Celestia gone, all we had to do was talk to the nurse and she discharged me after a quick enough test to make sure I was actually reasonably conscious. I gave goofy answers to her questions on purpose and she almost made me stay out of spite, but Twilight teleported us to her old room in the castle anyway and thus we started making out. It wasn’t restrained at all and we both wrestled for dominance, but as usual, I won out and Twilight submitted to my will, so I got a little handsy since I’d been missing her something fierce. She stopped me while I was palming one of her breasts and took the opportunity to tell me that she wanted to keep things above the waist, so I asked her if I could fondle her wings for a little bit and her face lit up like I’d correctly guessed what she’d wanted all along.

I had Twilight pull up a chair and I sat on her old bed so we could get started and I had her sighing like she actually needed the massage. I was pretty sure that my grip was a bit firmer than it had been before I started the training, so when I actually tried to work out her larger joints, she squirmed and wiggled in her seat. It didn’t hurt at all when I tried locating the largest clusters of nerves and found a couple of little bumps that were in a place I probably never would have thought to look. I massaged them gently at first and Twilight let loose her first real moan, so I increased the pressure and she started twitching in the most adorable way before turning back to face me, biting her lip. I thought it would be a nice time to apply a bit more force and she closed her eyes, panting as I worked the little nodes harder than I had before, and when she was getting close to the climax, I stopped and started inspecting my nails because I was sure that I had some kind of dirt or whatever under them. Twilight whipped her head around and stared me down, so I smiled and waved after a moment and when back to doing what I was doing.

“Amo~ur!” Twilight crooned.

“Che~rry.” I replied with a grin.

“Can you go back to doing what you were doing? Please?” She asked.

I reached forward and took her wings in my hands, running my fingers through her feathers. “Since you asked so nicely, I suppose I could finish what I started.”

I continued where I left off, but I had Twilight moaning again in mere minutes. When I saw that she was teetering on the brink, I started toying with her because it was amusing, and I did so by gently rubbing the two little nodes I’d found earlier rather softly.

“Max! Please!” My fiance whimpered.

I smiled widely. “Please what, cherry?”

“Please just do it already!” She urged.

“Hmm. Are you sure?” I teased.

She let out a frustrated groan, and as she went to speak, I gripped her wing joints like I was roleplaying as a vice and Twilight cried out loudly, spasming hard. I didn’t want to hurt her, so I followed her wings wherever they twisted and jerked, and when they started drooping off to her sides, I let go of them and hugged her for a little while. She still smelled like the shortbread wine, so I sat on the bed with my legs spread and picked Twilight up from her chair with telekinesis so she could join me. Once she was in front of me, I folded her wings for her and wiggled my face through them so I could rest my lips against the base of her neck like I’d been doing when Cadance and Shining teleported into my house so rudely. I really just liked the position, to be honest.

My finace reached up and ran her hand through my hair for a few moments before holding my hands around her waist. “I really miss you, Max. I don’t know how I’m supposed to make it through a full month without seeing you again.”

I hummed, letting the vibrations resonate through my nose. “We’ll find a way, cherry. Things will be okay, and when I come back, we’ll cuddle all day and nothing is going to stop that from happening.”

Twilight leaned away from my head and kissed my cheek. “I’ll hold you to that, you know.”

“I know. I expect you to.” I started kissing her neck.

“Mmm, as much as I like that, I don’t think we’ll have time.”

“So you just wanted me to get you off and you were planning leaving me hanging?” I jibed.

“...When you say it like that, I sound really selfish…” Twilight said, pulling away.

I held her still. “I would’ve said something earlier if I really minded. I wouldn’t ask you to do anything right now anyway. I’ve been sweating all day and I’m super gross.”

She shuddered. “I know I can smell it on you and it’s…”

“Gross?” I guessed.

“Enticing.”

“That’s better than gross. A lot better.”

“I don’t know why, but you always smell really good for some reason. Even when you smell like a Pony, you still have this different scent to you that I know a lot of mares like.” Twilight said.

Seriously? “Really? Do you know what I smell like?”

“It’s kind of like a cologne, but it’s really unique and it gets a lot stronger after you sweat. I know I wouldn’t mind seeing if you taste like it, but again, time constraints.” Twilight sighed.

“Huh. I thought you always smelled pretty good in general myself.”

“As a mare maybe, but as a stallion, I just hate the smell of my… stuff.” She shuddered.

“And my stuff actually tastes good?”

Twilight blushed hard. “Well, it’s a lot thicker than mine and it does taste… Well…” She trailed off.

“You don’t have to be embarrassed about liking the taste of your lover. I know that ever since you started tasting like wine more often, I’ve been enjoying that. Don’t get me wrong; I like it when you taste like grapes, but when you taste like wine, I just want more.”

My fiance rested against my chest. “It’s nice to know that you like me for the way I taste and not just because of my body.”

“I also like you because of the way that you smell. Sure, I thought you were an alcoholic for awhile, but you know. Small things don’t matter much and all that.”

Twilight twisted around to look at me. “Wait, are you saying that I smell like wine too?”

I blinked at her. “Yeah. You smell like a really sweet wine, but you taste like dry wine. I like the way you smell.”

Twilight looked at me and sniffed herself. “I think I just smell like any other pony. I mean, it’s a little warm out, but other than that…”

I raised a brow. “All of the Ponies I’ve met have a signature scent or something like that, just like you all taste different.”

“...Really? And I smell like wine?”

“When you’re not wearing that God-awful perfume.”

“The girls and I spent hours trying to find that perfume!” Twilight grumbled.

I rolled my eyes. “It’s not that it smells bad,” Though it’s fucking terrible anyway, “it’s just too damn strong. You’re forgetting that my sense of smell is a lot stronger than yours. I can usually track you down based on your smell. Not that I ever have to because of our necklaces, but still.”

“...So you like the way I smell naturally?” Twilight inquired evenly.

“Yes, I do. I even like the smell of your sweat, kind of like how you like mine. It’s a little different than your usual thing, but it’s just as enjoyable.”

“Huh. I guess I should’ve asked why you didn’t want me to wear it instead of assuming that you just didn’t like it.”

I licked her cheek and earned myself a womanly look. “That’s why you don’t make assumptions, my love.”

Twilight hit my chest before resting against me again. “Something something asses, right?”

“Woman, did you just ‘something something’ me? I’ll spank you for such treachery!” I said playfully.

Twilight huffed. “You’d spank me for stepping on your ‘foot’, if anything then just for a chance to touch my flank.”

“Yeah, and?”

She wrapped my arms around her waist and twisted to look at me. “I love you. Quirks, perks, and all.”

“I love you too, cherry. You’ve got more perks than quirks, but I guess I’ll have to dock points for you not being blue.” I sighed comically.

“You’re not even a real colour most of the time! You’re like, off white!” Twilight protested.

“Am I your favourite colour?” I asked.

“I don’t think you’re anypony’s favourite colour.”

“Then you can’t be offended that you’re not mine.”

“I never said I was, I’m just saying that docking points for something I can’t control makes you sound an awful lot like my Dad and brother.”

“Ew. I don’t wanna be either of those guys. No offense.” I added.

“Some taken to be honest with you, but I understand why you wouldn’t want to be. Speaking of, how has training under my Dad been going? I know you don’t really like to talk about it, but I’m sure it’s not all that bad, right?” Twilight said hopefully.

“Again, we’ll talk about that in a little bit. For now, let’s just keep the cuddles going and let me kiss you a few more times. It feels like it’s already been a month since I’ve seen you.” I kissed her cheek, but she scooted off of the bed shortly after and crawled back on to face me.

“Max, why are you being so evasive when it comes to talking about my Dad?” Twilight asked suspiciously.

“I don’t want to ruin the time we’re spending together is all. I just want to spend a little time with my fiance and not worry about stupid bullshit for a chance, so-”

“Amour.” She said firmly.

I sighed. “Yes, Cherry?”

“Did my Dad put you in the infirmary?”

I groaned and fell back. “Why do you have to ask questions? Why is it so hard to just let me be happy for two hours?”

“Max… I…” Twilight said, distraught.

“Look, Twilight. It’s really not your fault, so don’t feel bad over it, okay? Me beating up Night Light for pulling bullshit would’ve just ended worse for me-”

“How long has he been hurting you, Max?” Twilight asked softly.

I sighed and sat up, looking at her sadly. “Today is the only day he ever actually put hands on me. There was another time where he had me fight an instructor that ended up with me having a fractured jaw, a broken nose and a couple cracked teeth, but Celestia fixed all of that like she fixed the stuff today.”

“And what about training? He’s been harder on you than on anypony else, hasn’t he?”

“It’s really better for me than it is bad. Being pushed to my limits every day has made me grow that much faster.” I gave her a crooked smile.

Twilight shook her head. “You’re putting a positive spin on it so I won’t feel bad about telling you to effectively pipe down while my Dad’s been doing his best to torture you…”

I took her chin and kissed her gently. “Cherry, it’s okay. I’ve only got three more days of Boot Camp left and Night Light isn’t going to be in any of them anymore, so don’t worry about that too hard.”

Twilight put a hand on my chest. “How did he hurt you this time?”

“I was lugging some recruits that had passed out on the track to the infirmary with some of my new friends and Night Light told us to put them back. I refused-”

“Wait, my dad told you to put unconscious ponies out in this heat?”

“Yeah. They passed out while running, which is why I was taking them to the infirmary in the first place.”

“What.”

I nodded. “Yeah. May I continue?”

Twilight shook her head to clear it. “Please do. You were saying that my father is a terrible pony.”

“Only when it comes to me. So I was refusing to put the people back on the field and he ordered me and my pod to do some push-ups. We got down and did a few before he stomped the back of my head.”

“...Did he really?” She asked quietly.

I nodded again. “Yeah. Two of my friends ended up attacking him because of it and he got sent to the hospital with a severely bruised berry.”

My fiance looked at me funny. “A bruised berry?”

“He got kicked between the legs hard enough to make him immobile for a good while.” I explained.

Twilight sat down next to me and squeezed her hands between her thighs. “Ow…”

“Oi, he shouldn’t have stomped me.” I shrugged. “In my defense, I pulled my crew off of him before they could hurt him any worse.”

“...That was nice of you, but I’m kind of surprised that you did. I would think that you would let him take his punishment.”

“I was tempted, but you told me not to retaliate against him. Letting other people do it for me would’ve been violating the spirit of our agreement, even if it wasn’t violating the cold-hard terms.”

Twilight looped her arm through mine and laid her head on my shoulder. “Thank you, amour. There’s the honest, trustworthy stallion I know and love.”

This honest, trustworthy ‘stallion’ almost broke his face anyway. “You know you’re going to have to learn to say ‘man’ and generally come over to my mode of speech when you start handling diplomatic affairs, yeah?”

Twilight sighed dejectedly. “You say that, but I don’t think I’ll ever get to handle anything like that. Going back to the subject we were talking about, thank you for keeping your word. It really does mean a lot to me that you stayed true, even while my dad was putting you through Tartarus.”

I squeezed her hand. “You asked. That’s all you ever need to do. Maybe you need to do it two or three times, but I’ll do my best when I have something specific to do.”

“Max, if I asked you not to hurt anypony else-

“I wouldn’t agree.” I interrupted.

She was silent for a long moment. “Even if I offered you something I’d normally never let you have?”

“It’s just not in my nature to be a peaceful person, Twilight. I might be more of a lover than a fighter, but I’ll never stop protecting myself and my loved ones.”

“That’s not what I’m asking, Max. I’m asking you to stop picking fights.”

“Cherry, I rarely ever do. I think the last fight I actually started was like, back when I got drunk and started throwing punches at Applejack or the time I had to fight that Dragon, but even then I had to fight him for the right to bring Spike home.” And he started that anyway.

“...Maybe I just see things differently. It just doesn’t make sense for a pony who fights as much as you do to not be picking them himself.”

I shrugged and her head bobbed along with the movement. “Ponies are racist, Dragons are pricks, Dogs are foolish, and Changelings are sadistic cunts. Oh yeah, Chrysalis was the last fight I picked, but then again, she egged me on to the extreme… I guess you could say I picked fights with Gryphons, but those weren’t really fights…” I stopped talking.

“...Let’s not talk about that and go back to the Guard Barracks. I’m sure you wouldn’t mind introducing me to some of your friends, right?”

I cracked a small smile. “Yeah, I’d like that. Are we-”

Teleporting was supposed to be the next word out of my mouth, but we teleported and I finished that sentence in the infirmary. I gave Twilight a look for teleporting in the middle of a sentence since I’d asked her not to do that multiple times and she gave me a sheepish smile. We just left that where it lie and I took her to the Mess Hall since that was supposed to be where we were holding Visitor’s Day anyway and when we got there, I was mobbed by the rest of my group and a good bit of Bronze’s, including Bronze Stud himself. Up until people realized who Twilight was, she was treated like a normal person, but when I introduced Twilight as my fiance, the people who knew me immediately dropped and kneeled before my woman. I told them to get up before they caused a scene, but the damage was already done.

Soon enough, the entire room was kneeling before Twilight and she let me know that this happened more often in the past than it had in the last few months. She told everyone to rise and to continue doing what they’d been doing while I just sat there being salty that no one respected me enough to listen to my royal commands. Twilight held my hand and I reintroduced her as my fiance while forgoing the Princess bit entirely, though my groups visitors were still reverent and respectful of myself and Twilight. They were only respectful to me when Twilight pointed out that I was a Prince just as much as she was a Princess, but Princes just don’t garner the same level of respect in Equestria and that irks me a bit.

Twilight and I joined Iron, Shaggy, Moon, and their respective visitors for the rest of the time we had together. Iron brought her parents, Shaggy brought his aunt and uncle, and Moon brought her brother. I met each of them for a moment and they all seemed like pleasant people, though Mountain Mix was just happy to see me again. It had been a long time since I put Blueballs on his arse and the guy had missed the ballsy upstart with no respect for station or status. I couldn’t blame him since I am the fucking greatest after all, though I had to tell him that I’d finally gotten my arse kicked while in The Guard and he asked if I’d gotten my revenge. Shaggy being Shaggy told him that I won in the next round and that I’d done pretty well for someone who’d been knocked out for nearly half a minute and I just had to smile and take the backhanded compliment.

All too soon, visitation ended and so began our day of rest. Sure, we’d done exercises beforehand, but it’s not like Dirge was going to allow us to have a full day to ourselves. I spent my time writing to Blue, Trixie, Fluttershy, and Pinkie since they’d been keeping up a decent correspondence with me. I think Pinkie and Fluttershy had gotten their own bottles of Dragon Fire since Spike was old enough to make lasting flames now, so it was nice that Blue and Trixie could go to either of them to send their letters instead of waiting to see Spike himself again. Actually, I think Trixie had been meaning to ask about getting Spike to make her a jar of her own, but I don’t remember if she’d gotten around to it.

After I got my letters written and responded to a few of them, I took my time in getting over to Dirge’s office and found that the fellow was doing more goddamn paperwork, so I sat and waited for him to finish what he was doing. He looked at me and said that Celestia had ordered Night Light to be fired and I just shrugged and told him that I’d come to the same conclusion since my friend’s careers hung in the balance. Night Light had made his own mistakes and deserved what he got for them, though when Dirge said that he was being dishonorably discharged, that twinged a little bit. I didn’t like the fact that I’d practically branded the fellow with shame for the rest of his life, but he’d done it to himself and I didn’t really feel all that bad to be completely honest. I mean, the guy had been trying to torture me and make me give up for the past week to no avail and I just felt like he was a massive prick for it. I understood his motive, but now Shining Armour just had one more reason to hate me and I was sure that having all of the males in Twilight’s family despise me wasn’t a good thing. It sure didn’t sound like it.

Dirge switched tack and asked how my visit with Twilight had gone and I told him that it had gone rather well. I’d gotten the affection I’d wanted and I got to see her before I started the next leg of my training, so I felt rather good about the day and how it had gone so far and he told me that I was either a happy-go-lucky idiot or that I was extremely patient. There was a need to explain why I wasn’t fucking pissed, so I did and Dirge nodded like he understood, though I could tell that he thought my reasoning was a little off. Still, it’d gotten me through Night Light’s bullshit, so no one was going to dissuade me from saying that I’d taken the high road for once.

Once I was done with Dirge, he sent off a letter and told me to meet with Boulder in the Mess Hall, so I gave him the proper farewell and fucked off to go do the thing he’d told me to do. When I got there, I arrived at the same time as Boulder, so we had a chat outside and she told me that she wanted me to finish up with Guard training already. I asked her why and she told me that I was already a good candidate for an officer with my physicality and leadership abilities and she just felt like there wasn’t much else she could do for me. I politely told her that I really was here to get more fit and she said that I’d proven that I was in good shape by running eleven laps straight, even though I wasn’t a pony. I hadn't known that there were a couple of Gryphons, a Dog or two, and even a Naga in the Night Guard and that they hadn't been able to keep up with the ponies like I was. Boulder had been basing my performance off of the Gryphon she’d trained and one of the Dogs she herself had trained with and she was impressed with my perseverance since I ran out of petrol but still kept going.

It was weird to think that I’d already come so far in such a short amount of time, but then again, my growth rate was fucking astounding anyway ever since I came back from Earth. I was going to have to write Twilight and ask if I’d seemed more muscular to her, but that could wait until after I finished up with Boulder. The older woman finished up by saying that she thought that the only way that she was going to make me any tougher way by making a new regimen for me and I groaned, asking if I could train some more before I just cut my time with The Guard short. Boulder asked me why I didn’t want to just go and train with Luna, the most combat efficient of all the Princesses of Equestria and I explained that Luna was a sadistic trainer and that she’d teamed up with my even more sadistic mentor to come up with a routine that would undoubtedly make me suffer more than Night Light could ever hope since both of them knew how much punishment I could take before breaking physically. My mentor knew how much I could take before breaking mentally, but I just had to hope that she didn’t share that information with Luna, just in case she decided to test my limits.

Boulder asked why I was so afraid of training with Luna, citing my status as a Prince as some sort of buffer for Luna’s wrath. I let her know that Luna was probably one of the harshest teachers on the planet due to her draconian methods, if not because of her old fashioned ways. Boulder asked what I meant and I told her that while my mentor was millennia older than Luna, she’d collaborated with the younger woman to make me a regimen of Hell that would forge me into the perfect light weapons expert, at least, it would make me good with a sword and shield. I still didn’t see how my skills were supposed to carry over to into my twin daggers, but it wouldn’t surprise me if it was just some Mr. Miyagi type shit.

We talked some more about training and different ways to work out until Boulder told me to go do something I actually felt like doing since I had some time, so I asked her if she ever had time to see her family. She gave me an odd look and asked why I was curious, so I expounded upon my reasons, stating that training fuckers to do shit had to take up a lot of time and that it had to be stressful in itself just being away from your loved ones for six weeks at a time. Boulder shrugged and said that she got to go home every night at sunset when we went to the Mess Hall, so she wasn’t all that upset, though a bad day of training usually put a damper on dinner with her family. I suggested that she move on from being a Drill Sergeant after training someone to take her place and she said that no one wanted the job. I let her know that Swift had been interested in it and she was rather surprised, but she said that she would ask him if he wanted to start training sometime soon.

With that said and done, Boulder told me to fuck off, so I did and started writing more letters since I’d gotten more replies. Celestia had sent me a letter regarding the Night Light situation and told me that it would be resolved by the time I started training with Luna, so I sent her back a letter stating that I was going to have to move my training up to tomorrow night since Boulder effectively kicked me out of The Guard for being a good soldier. Celestia asked if I was ready to move on and I told her that I was close enough anyway, so she told me to send a note to Luna since the woman likes to hear from me directly from time to time. I got Luna’s note out of the way first and replied to Celestia, asking if she wanted to make a little time for me after setting the Sun and she agreed to see me for a little bit over a spot of tea with Luna since Night Court still never gets visitors. I asked why I didn’t just meet them for dinner/breakfast and she agreed since I get that privilege like that.

Since I had nothing else to do, I went around and talked to my buddies since I wouldn’t be sticking around too much longer. Iron Hoof was sad to see me go, though she was awfully stoic about it. I knew that she would have preferred that I remain with them for the duration of the training, but it was already set in stone that I wouldn’t be sticking around forever I told her to keep in touch and gave her my address in Ponyville so she could, though I warned her that I wouldn’t be there for a few more weeks. At least, up until I finished my training with Celestia and Luna. Iron was with Day at the time, so I got to share the news that she was going to get to stay in the guard and that earned me a wry smile and a hug for making the obvious choice. Day told me that she thought I was going to be stupid for life for a little while until she heard that Twilight came by. I let her know that Celestia had been the one to heal me and she was rather shocked, but the conversation after that was pretty much barbed compliments about each other’s appearances. Iron just shook her head and called us 'foals', but she can suck my knob.

I found Stalwart hanging out with Bronze and his group playing ‘hoofball’ that was a lot more like soccer than actual football, but I digress. I told the boys that I was going to be training with Luna instead of Boulder for a little while and they all complimented me on making it to easy street until I asked them if they’d ever seen Luna fight. They replied with a ‘No’ as I’d been expecting and I told them that she was easily twice as fast and four times as strong as Swift. If she wasn’t careful she actually would kill me and there would be nothing I could do about it other than snitch on her when I stopped being dead. Celestia wouldn't be able to do much, but I would feel better knowing that at the very least I would be able to tell someone that I'd been killed again for a shitty reason. Seriously, being killed until I die to death really hurts my feelings in ways that are hard to explain if you’ve never been killed. I mean, it’s cool that I’ve totally disproved the Inception thing, but still. Dying kinda sucks.

When the fellas started asking questions about the way I’d been taught, I couldn’t answer a lot of them, but I did tell them that being wasteful with my energy was severely punished and that I had to remain vigilant unless I wanted to have my arse handed to me on a silver platter. I mentioned that my mentor had actually beaten me with a wooden sword when I failed a task and they were fucking horrified, but I didn’t have a caveat or anything that made the situation less appalling. It really was a fucked up way to teach someone, but I did say that it was effective in getting me to do shit right the first or second time. Stalwart asked if I was willing to go full force, no holds barred with him for a round or two and I said that I stood a good chance of sending him to the infirmary if I was serious, but that only made him grin and ask Bronze and a few more friends to help him gather everyone together to watch us go at it in the combat circle thing.

Long story short, Stalwart and a few other challengers got their arses handed to them.

After that, I found Shaggy standing next to Moon Walk in the crowd, so I asked them if they wanted to take a walk and told them the news. Moon was disappointed that I was leaving and Shaggy asked me if I really had to go. I gave him a man-hug and told him that I planned on keeping in touch with everyone in our group, even if it wasn’t a daily thing and he said that he’d at least write me weekly to keep up with the guy who’d hooked him up with more friends than he’d ever had. I thought it was a little sad and rather touching that he thought so highly of me and told him as much, though I reassured him that he could find all the companionship he’d ever want if he was willing to speak up. Moon agreed, though she said that she and Shaggy had been making plans to work on that so both of them could grow as people together. They asked me why I was smiling and I just shook my head, telling them that everything was copacetic, just as I’d want before making my departure.

I got a lot of the trainees together just before sunset and told them that I’d probably be departing shortly after breakfast tomorrow, which earned me many well wishes from the cadets I’d figuratively touched in my time training and I told them that if I ever got my own empire or something of the sort, I would be proud to fill my Guard with their ranks. I must have looked regal or some shit because they all bowed to me and gave murmurs of thanks until I told them to quit being fuckwits and just come and shake my hand or something. Seriously, when you sweat and occasionally bleed with people, that should make you closer than the bonds of servant and master or whatever the fuck royalty gets.

With that out of the way, I had to go meet Molestia and Lunaughty for some food since I’d skipped lunch to hang out and be stomped on. I was fucking hungry, which is something I consider to be an important detail, so fuck you if you think it isn’t. Piece of shit. Your general shittiness aside, getting into the Castle wasn’t a problem since I just flashed my ring to the Day Guard pricks who waylaid me. The Night Guards that were changing in just stopped me and asked for my name like usual and once I told them, they generally apologized for not recognizing me instead of just keeping things moving like the Day Guards did. Fuck Day Guards.

When I got to the Dining Hall, the guy who was pretty much permanently on call let me know that the Princesses hadn't arrived yet and I told him that I would happily wait inside, but he stopped me from entering. I gave him a look and explained that I was ‘Prince Maximus’ and he just shook his head, saying that the Princesses themselves were always the first ones to enter, even before the servants. I understood his point and talked to him for a little bit, asking how long he’d been in service to the Crown and stuff like that. He was a little terse with his answers so I called him a cheeky cunt, though he didn’t know what I was talking about, so I just referred to him as 'Cuntler' for the rest of our conversation, despite his answers being clipped and generally rude if you considered the fact that I was just waiting for Celestia or Luna to show up.

Apparently they took a side door or something because Celestia poked her head out as I was calling the Cuntler by his new title and scolded me for insulting the staff. The Cuntler curled his lip and I told him goodbye, but before I followed Celestia into the Dining Hall, I asked her if she minded that I occasionally enter the Dining Hall before she did. She said that as long as I didn’t pull any pranks while I was in there alone, I would be fine. I shrugged and asked if it was neutral territory and she said that it was, though she seemed to suddenly remember something and pulled me into the Dining Hall by my wrist.

Celestia glared at me in the most motherly way and said “Maximus, I need a yes or no answer-”

“Or.” I cut in with a grin.

Luna scoffed from her end of the table. “I saw that coming.”

Celestia rolled her eyes and continued glaring at me. “Did you or did you not pull that prank on Luna?”

“Alright, you got me. I probably didn’t considering your track record with each other.” I said blandly.

Luna growled playfully. “I will smite you if you truly did levitate my bed.”

“Oh, that one? I thought it was already clear that I was out cold when that happened.”

Celestia poked my chest. “I know it was neither myself nor Twilight, and Cadance denied any involvement which only leaves you. You mentioned track records and your is full of silliness, is it not?”

I shrugged and found a seat at the table. “You’re right; I’m known for doing stupid shit, but would I actually go overboard and potentially get someone hurt?”

Celestia took her spot. “Yes, you would. Especially if you didn’t know that you were.”

Luna picked up an apple from a fruit basket. “We’re only waiting for you to admit that you did it at this point, Maximus.”

I sighed. “It’s a shame that you would think so little of me, but I guess I understand where you’re coming from. It’s pointless to be offended since I see your point-”

Luna threw the apple at me and I caught it. “Your lip service is a valiant effort indeed, but it is not going to get you anywhere. Truly, how you managed to pull the wool over our eyes was a feat in itself, but the ‘jig is up’ as the young ones might say.”

“No one says that.” Celestia said, sipping a glass of wine.

I grabbed a scone. “Really. You should try reaching out to the youth. I mean, you look a bit younger than Celestia anyway, so you could probably pass for someone closer to my age.”

Celestia levitated a bottle of wine and some of the liquid from it. I followed the wine with my eyes while she said, “You can try to change the subject, but you will talk and you will confess, Max.”

“If you already think I did it, then why do I need to confess? I’m not going to lie for your sake.” I said stubbornly.

The wine came closer to my face and I leaned away from it. “Did you know that drinking wine has many health benefits?”

I leaned around the blob of red liquid to look at her. “Of course I do. What’s your point?”

The wine floated down to about waist level and Celestia gave me an evil grin. “I’ve heard that taking it as an enema is even better than drinking it.”

“I swear to God I will kill both of you if you touch my arsehole.” I deadpanned.

“Did you commit the deed, Maximus?” Celestia asked, still grinning.

“Sure, yeah, whatever you need to hear to avoid me chopping your fucking head off.” I said quickly.

“I need a yes or a no, honey.” The wine touched my thigh.

“Yes. What-the-fuck-ever!”

The wine didn’t stop, so I formed my tentacle and prepped the spike, setting it against Celestia’s forehead. The wine stopped. “...Max, were you being serious?”

“Keep fucking with me and we’ll see how immortal you are.” I replied.

She put the wine back in the bottle and I removed the spike. “I suppose I shouldn’t be testing you when it comes to sexual things.”

I nodded. “Please don’t. It makes me nervous and I don’t like being nervous.”

“It’s not like you would have actually died anyway.” Luna huffed.

“Still, being impaled through the head sounds about as pleasant as it would actually be.” Celestia maintained. “That said, I believe Dirge has told me that he wishes to terminate your time in the guard a bit early.”

I sighed. “Yeah. Looks like I’ll have even more time to spend with you two instead of being tortured in a less Hellish way.”

Celestia chuckled. “I’m sure you won’t mind my training as much as Luna’s. If you do, that would make you a rather strange man.”

“...She’s told you what she’s going to do, hasn’t she?” I asked.

Luna knocked on the table twice. “You will suffer now more than ever since Noir has told me all that you can handle. I look forward to your suffer- Er, your efforts. Yes, I hope that I will see you put forth much effort.”

Celestia just shook her head and I put my head on the table. “Fuck my life.”

“Don’t worry about it, Max.The more you worry, the less happy you’ll be.” Celestia said.

I looked at her. “What would you do if you had two devils plotting your stay in Tartarus?”

“Keep my mind off of it. Have a biscuit or something. Enjoy yourself while you can, honey.”

I had myself a scone with some peach preserves and started devouring whatever I could get my hands on because I hadn't had a chance to eat like I wanted to in a good while. It was nice to have all the food I could stomach, though I still kept things nice and polite for the sake of courtesy. Luna put off heading into Night Court so we could talk a little bit and say some ominous things about my training and Celestia dropped a few facts about what I’d be learning during my time with her. It was nice to know that I’d get a break, in a manner of speaking, with Celestia’s lessons on royalty and how to act and whatnot, though my main plan was to fake it until I could make it.

Once I’d eaten just about everything I could, Luna asked if I wanted to start training tonight and I asked if I could wait until tomorrow, though Celestia said that we would definitely be doing my training all day. I wasn’t really looking forward to it since she immediately followed up with the fact that I was only going to get breaks long enough to write a letter to my family and Twilight, and that would be all. Basically, I would be on lockdown with no access to my journals or anything of the sort for two whole weeks and a few days, and I hated nearly as much as not being able to have any friends nearby. Luna said that training alone would help speed up the process, but I felt like that would just make me miserable soon enough.

We finished up with dinner and the Diarchs were each in a good mood. I was feeling a little ill myself, so I asked Celestia if I was going to get my own room in the Castle. She said that I could stay in hers for the night and I shot that down, so she offered me Twilight’s old room that was still in her tower and I took it since the bed was perfectly fine and I was pretty sure I could sneak Twilight in for a quick night of passion before I started my two weeks of solitary training. Well, relatively solitary. Still, it was going to suck.

I’m really not looking forward to tomorrow and I’m making sure that everyone in Ponyville knows that I’ll be going dark for a little while but that I’ll be safe in Canterlot with Celestia and Luna. Twilight, Blue, and Trixie wished me the best of luck and Fluttershy and Pinkie told me that they were sure that I would make it just fine, though they used different words. Pinkie said that I would do my duty as it needed to be done until I could get my True Magic ready and Fluttershy just said that I would pull through, no matter what. It was comforting, but I still wasn’t looking forward to the whole thing.

I’m just trying to find reasons to keep writing at this point, but I’m running out of words to say. I’m sure that I’m prepared for the next couple of weeks and that I’ll be able to deal with it, but… I just don’t want to fucking deal with it at this point. I’d like to have some time to do something else, but I guess today was that day. I should’ve appreciated it more while I had the chance, but hindsight and all that, I guess. Now seems like a good place to end this entry, so I suppose I’ll get back to business in two weeks.
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I don’t have long to write since Celestia’s only giving me a ten minute break, but my fucking God. I’ve never been more mentally and physically exhausted in my life. The days run together and I don’t even know how long I’ve been in Canterlot in this point, but I do know that I’ve spent more time cramming five hundred years of history and being beaten into a day than I ever did in school or at home in entire years. Luna has me running for hours on end and meditating to get my breath back and Celestia has me doing the same thing mentally, making me confer with Noir whenever she finishes up on a certain time period or procedure. To a point, I’ve gotten used to the constant headaches and the feeling of general hopelessness, but I’m at my wits end . It’s awful, being so worn out all the fucking time. Celestia teaches all day and quizzes me every four hours, and if I get something wrong, she has me repeat what I missed fifty times so it sticks in my mind, and if I come back the next day after training with Luna and forget anything, she makes me sit with my hands out and raps my knuckles with a ‘yard’stick like she’s a fucking old fashioned schoolmarm or something. Luna… I don’t want to talk about my training with Luna for the same reason I don’t really want to talk about what I did with Noir. There are no pleasant memories there. I just hope this time passes and I can go home.
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God, someone help me. Or shoot me. I welcome either

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They say I’m free tomorrow morning. Master has given Dobby a sock. DOBBY IS FREE.

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THOSE ANCIENT WHORES LIED

Author's Notes:

And so the training is compplete. I hope you've enjoyed a little bit of suffering, experienced some schadenfreude (a new word in my vocabulary that I'm becoming fond of). Let's see where the journey takes us from here, yeah?

So Max will never go into any detail about what went on with Luna or Noir since he feels that dwelling on those memories is just going to make him hate each of them. Luna is a sadist and Noir is a savage, just to be clear, but as is the case with both of them, they've used incredibly harsh, rather draconian methods to teach and tutor Max into becoming something beyond your average human. Shit's brutal.

As Always, DROP AND GIVE ME FIFTY, MAGGOT

Stay Cool, Kids.