The mare spoke first.

"Alright boys my name's Orchid and my partner here is Iron Shield, and we'll be your trainers starting today. Iron here specializes in hoof-to-hoof and heavy blade combat, and I specialize in nature and healing magic. Essentially I act as a support for colts and fillies like Shield that can go into the fray directly, magically boosting their abilities beyond their normal limits. For the first days of your time here in training, we'll determine your strengths and place you into separate groups for further training. So..."

She paused for a moment before looking at us in an almost predatory fashion.

"Let's begin, shall we? GET 'EM SHIELD!!"

Orchid leaped away and sent a stream of magic into Shield as he charged straight toward Razor and I, both of us dodging to either side. Razor darted off into the air, and I watched as Shield took out a large bronze broadsword. He spoke to both of us, slowly inching towards me however.

"This is one of the guard's practice weapons, which can be grabbed over in the corner. It'll behave with most materials like a regular blade, but it's enchanted so if it hits you in a way that would harm you then it's gonna feel like an actual sword, when in reality it's gonna phase right through you like a ghost. For example,"

He whirled around mid-sentence and slashed my leg, causing me to buckle slightly. I grunted in pain, refusing to sink over as he seemed to expect.

"So we're allowed to go all out then? You guys can take the punishment and all?"

I looked at Orchid as I said this. She giggled slightly before responding to me as one would to a child.

"Sure. You can go 'all out' on us."

Iron Shield stood over me, looking pleased with himself over his little cheap-shot on me. I looked at him with a savage grin, before morphing into my body to be like that of a brute necromorph, before slugging him with a heavily muscled and armored arm. The guys landed on the ground a few feet away. I walked over, my entire body other than my right arm returning to its normal state. I stood over him, offering my normal arm to help him up.

"That was for the cheap shot. So, now that you got one on me and vice versa, we all good Mr. Test of Strength?"

He looked at me with a pissed of expression for a moment, before bursting out into laughter as he took my outstretched hand and got up from the ground.

"Yeah, guess we are kid."

---

The rest of the day passed pretty smoothly, and now that they had a better idea of my ability they cut it out with some of the kid talk. By the end of the first day I felt sore all over, but in a good way. As I went back to my room Luna met up with me in the hallway.

"So how was the first day of your training Jack?"

I gave her a tired smile.

"Pretty good Luna, pretty good. I think I made some friends too."

She smiled back at me.

"Well that is important. I am glad to hear that you are enjoying your time with the guard. For now you seem rather worn from the  night's training. Have a good day's sleep, dear Jack."

I lay down on my bed and smiled at her.

"You too Luna, you... too..."

I  barely finished talking before slipping into a dreamless sleep.

-----

"Jaaaack.. Hey Jaaaaaaaaaack.... JACK WAKE THE TARTARUS UP! WE'RE ON DUTY!"

I shot awake and collapsed out of bed at the sound Orchid yelling at me. It had been almost two months since I had joined the Night Guard, and Razor and I had long since graduated. The two of us already had a lot of the educational requirements to go into actual duty, and since we were older than most recruits we had been able to make it with only combat training and evaluations. The two of us had luckily been placed in the same team with Iron Shield and Orchid. Of course, this had meant that all of us were subject to Orchid's little "wake up" calls, which usually was her giving us two chances to wake up in a gentle voice before screaming at us full force. I looked up to see Orchid laughing at me where I was on the ground.

"Yeah, laugh it up..."

I stood up and started changing out of my pajamas into the set of armor that had been crafted for me. The blacksmith for the castle and the Night Guard had a field day when he found out he got to craft not only a suit for a new species, but also the fact that he would need to make it for a transformation magic user. By the time he was done, I had a suit of Night Guard armor crafted out of what Luna informed me was Lunar Bronze (a metal crafted out of ten parts Lunar Steel and one part Mythril), with the capability of shifting and reshaping along with me as I turned into different forms (although this enchantment only could stretch to forms that remained within a certain size of form, as well as any transformations that made me smaller). Along with all of this, the armor had the standard green dragon's eye amulet embedded in the chestpiece, though something about my black necromorph-human meld body disrupted the part of the enchantment for recoloration, so the amulets effect was restricted to simply giving me the increased senses that it gave the other guards as well as the illusion of me having slitted pupils rather than my eyes being entirely yellow. I finished putting my armor on, thankful for the fact that Luna was able to get the info I knew about old medieval human armor from my mind and give it to the blacksmith.

"Seriously though Jack, we gotta go. There's something happening today and Princess Luna says she wants our team and a couple of others to grab breakfast and then head to the great hall."

I nodded, rubbing the back of my head as I popped my back and grabbed my plasma cutter. By this point along with my belt I both had it and a Lunar Steel short sword, for just in case my transformations failed or I ran out of magic. It only took a few minutes for us to meet up with the others and finish breakfast.

"So what does the Princess need from us? Something up in one of the provinces?"

Razor asked as he fiddled with the set of armored Celestial Gold wingblades he had been assigned. Iron Shield shrugged.

"Dunno. But she says head to the great hall, so that's where we're gonna go."

The four of us entered the hall, and lined up with the other teams that lay there. We all looked around and saw several groups of Day Guard teams as well, all of them giving us those little hate filled glances they gave whenever Celestia wasn't around. It was no surprise that many of the ponies in the Day Guard, whether Celestia would ever notice or not, had old grudges against thestrals tracing back to the nobles that once hunted them. As it was, Celectia seemed to reject the idea of any animosity between the two Guards much in the way she seemed to be disagreeing with Luna more and more. The glares of the Day Guard were almost equally matched by the stares of the Night Guard, including me. Everyone in the room finally broke the staring match as Celestia and Luna entered, the former flanked by Captain Star and the latter by my commanding officer, a middle aged thestral pegasus mare with the sort of color that Night Guard armor normally had to apply with enchantments by the name of Captain North Wind. Celestia addressed us first.

"I know you are all wondering why we have gathered you here today, so we will get straight to the matter at hoof. Our ally, the Crystal Empire, is in severe need of our aid. Control over the entire Empire has been seized by a mad stallion by the name of King Sombra, and so it has been determined between Luna and I that we will embark to the Crystal Empire with all of you, the best of our guards, to face Sombra and cast him down from power and liberate those ponies that he has enslaved in his madness."

Luna stepped forward.

"We hope to strike him hard and fast, and take him from his throne without casualties on any side, except for Sombra himself if there is no other choice. All of you are to be ready to depart by day's end, at which point you will be debriefed the details of our collective attack plan."

Murmurs echoed throughout the room between the guards on each side as we were dismissed to prepare ourselves. I stumbled back to my room before sinking down to sit on the end of my bed.

This was it. My first real mission with the Night Guard. I just hoped I was ready.