Shining Armor regarded the stack of papers on the desk before him with distaste. "Recruitment day," he sighed. "Oh how I hate this part of the job."

Spike was seated next to him on a low stool, behind a small, official looking desk of his own (borrowed from a nearby kindergarten, but what he didn't know wouldn't hurt him.) He looked up at Shining Armor. "Why?" he asked. "What's so bad about it?"

"Well, Spikester, we got three divisions of the Guard here in the Crystal Empire. The Imperial Guard, that protects the Empire from outside invaders, the City Guard, that enforces the law on the street, and the Royal Guard, that defends the royal family and the palace-- and the Crystal Heart, coincidentally. Each will have its own recruitment drives and officers to handle inductees, so on and so forth. " He began sorting and stacking the papers. "Or at least that's the final plan. But right now I'm the interim Captain of the Guard-- All the Guard--- so all the recruiters who talk ponies into joining, have to send them to me for final approval. Which means in practical terms that I have to sit here in this office and give the final official hoofshake to all our new Cadets." He rolled his eyes. "At least till we get the policy changed to something more sane..."

"Ouch, and there are a ton of 'em, right?"

Shining shook his head. "Actually, enrollment is low. The whole Guard is only a couple hundred strong. I think ponies are skittish about joining an army that would've been King Sombra's not too long ago. Well, not too long ago from their perspective." The corner of his mouth quirked. "As to what the problem is-- well, just wait and see."

Shining Armor, once again babysitting Nyx and now babysitting Spike and Peewee as well, had brought them across town to the Guard's office building so that he could handle some of the more mundane tasks that awaited him. Spike, at odd ends without his usual tasks as Number One Assistant, had volunteered to help Shining Armor. Nyx on the other hand had been given a stack of books and paper and crayons and been asked to sit patiently out in the waiting area (Shining could see her quite easily through the office window, thank you very much.) She was sitting out there now with her Smarty Pants doll, dressed in her vest, sunglasses, and that ridiculous hat(1), listening to Ponyville Radio on a headset(2) and alternating between reading, coloring, and answering questions on the Radio Quiz Show.

Shining let the venetian blinds fall back. She was quiet now; hopefully that, and the promise of an outing later if she behaved, would hold her for the next couple of hours. Come to think of it, he kind of wished someone else had made him a promise to help him hold out...

"Okay, you know the drill, Spike. Accepted ones are "File A." You fire-mail those to the head office. Rejects are "File B." you just burn those. Got it?"

Spike gave him a thumbs up. "got it!"

Shining looked out the office window. "And here comes our first customer..."

"Okay, everything seems to be in order, Mister..." Shining cocked an eyebrow.

"Northern Breeze, sir." The sparkling yellow and white stallion seated in front of Shining Armor said.

"Well, Northern Breeze, let's begin with the obvious: Do you have any questions?"

"Uh, yeah. I understand that the Guard will provide a scholarship to finish out my education?"

"Yes, if you apply and qualify."

"Oh. Well, is there any way I can make sure I get the scholarship without being sent into battle or anyplace dangerous?"(3)

Shining Armor stared. "I think you are seriously misunderstanding the purpose of the Guard, Mr. Northern Breeze," he said dryly.

"What, so there isn't a way to do that?"

"....Spike? File B." Shining magically rolled up the application and handed it to the dragon. There was a whoosh of flame and the scroll was now a tiny pile of ash at the bottom of Spike's trashcan. Shining Armor stood up and shook the pony's hoof. "We wish you the best of luck in your future endeavors, sir. If you don't hear from us in three months, assume that your application has been rejected. Good day---" he pushed the pony out the door, perhaps a little more firmly than strictly necessary.

Spike stared after the pony in disbelief. "Was he for real?"

"Spike, Spike, Spike," Shining Armor said. "The day is but young !"

""Have you ever been ticketed, cited, or arrested by any law enforcement agency?" Shining said. "Your answer here is kind of... unclear." Actually, 'scribbled out repeatedly' would have been more accurate.

"Yes, but I don't like to talk about it," The scar-cheeked, heavily tattooed stallion in the interviewee's chair said gruffly.

"Well, you really have to tell us what you did."

A distressed look crossed the pony's face. "Bein' arrested for armed bank robbery won't count against me, will it?"

"Spike, send this nice young stallion's recruit to file B."

This recruit was a pale yellow pony with a brown mane and possibly the worst case of shakes either Shining Armor or Spike had ever seen. He sat there clutching an enormous thermos, trying, and failing, to pour himself a steaming cup of java. "Mr. Vanilla Bean, we do require you to reveal any prior medical conditions. Um, including any, ah, chemical dependencies," Shining said, warily eyeing the wildly bobbing container of boiling hot coffee.

Miracle of miracles, he actually managed to fill the cup, which he then began to splash about. "Oh no, oh no, no prior conditions or chemical addictions, oh no," Bean said, bringing the shaking cup to his lips. "Well the doctor does say I might be a little twitchy but that's mostly from the coffee, I need it to soothe my nerves, nerves you know--" he took a hasty gulp. "And the ringing in my ears is mostly gone now that I switched to Fancy roast--"

"Do you drink... a LOT of coffee, Mr. Bean?"

"Oh no no, I spill most of it." noticing that the last of his coffee had splashed out, Vanilla Bean began the laborious process of filling his cup again.

"Spike, um, send this to File B..."

"I WANNA BE A MARINE! YEAH!" the tan and khaki pony screamed as he stood on Shining Armor's desk. Shining Armor and Spike had both scooted their chairs to the back wall to give him the space he apparently needed.

"Well that's good son, but--"

"A MARINE!"

"And that's great! But--"

"DEATH BEFORE DISHONOR!!"

"Fantastic! But this is the Guard, we don't recruit Marines here--"

"HOOOAAAAAHHH!"

"Okay! Great! Terrific! Just let me send your application right in! Spike-- File B please!"

"You got it," the terrified dragon said.

The mint-green mare had a wide smile, a cutie mark of a razor blade, and a very unnerving stare. "....And so I thought, 'hey, I'm really really good with knives and sharp things. And don't the Guards get swords and knives and stuff?' So here I am." her smile was all teeth.

Shining Armor nodded and smiled pleasantly and "mm hmm"ed at all the appropriate points while carefully sliding the letter opener on his desk away from her. "Fascinating. Spike?"

"File B, right."

The day continued much in this vein. There were one or two marginally acceptable candidates, but as for the rest even the ones that weren't outright insane were too old, too young, too unhealthy, hadn't finished grade school or had a rap sheet as long as their leg. Twice he had to refuse "recruits" sent to him by the courts, three times he turned down ones that were dragged in by their parents.

The highlight of the day was when a family brought in their teenage son. It was mother, father, and grandfather, all pushing for him to take in their no-account son and "straighten him out." The lanky, scruffy haired colt sat there in his chair, shoulders tense, head drooping, and looking like he'd forgotten where he'd put his sneer, while his family bent Shining Armor's ear and tried to talk him into turning their son into one of the Guard. Tellingly, the boy's 'sparkle' was completely out.

"We've tried everything else," the mother lamented, wiping her eyes. "He doesn't get any job that lasts. He won't mind us, he spends all his time in the basement, making excuses about how he's 'waiting for an opportunity to open up.' But nothing ever does--"

The father was busy berating the boy. "I told you this was what it was coming to, boy," the short, stocky stallion said. "This slacking about is finally coming to an end! These ponies will smarten you up, all right. You'll shape up, walk the line and like it! They'll make a stallion out of you! If I had my way every jack pony one of your generation would be drafted into the army right out of school..."

The grandfather was an awe-inspiring horror in his own right. He didn't seem to be talking to anypony in particular; he simply rambled on about his own experiences in the Imperial army back before King Sombra's time, chatting fondly about various hells his Sergeant put him and the other soldiers through, and complaining about how weak and wussified and a bunch of 'prancies' the current crop of of stallions were, they could never go through what he did in his day--

Shining Armor simply sat there, not saying anything. It was starting to make Spike nervous. That vein in Shiney's temple just kept throbbing, more and more and--

Shining Armor slammed his hoof on his desk. The sound was like a cannon shot in the small office. Everypony jumped in place and fell silent. "I've about had enough," he said calmly. he got to his feet and came around his desk.

"You ponies," he said, pacing back and forth while glaring at them, "have pushed my last button.

"YOU--" he pointed at the mother, "need to get it through your head that the Guard is not a dumping ground for your parental failures. This is the Guard, we are not a substitute parent for when you get tired of screwing up the job. " The mare gasped in shock; he ignored her.

"You," he pointed to the father, who was gaping at him, "need to get it through your head that we're not a whipping post for you to tie your son to when he disappoints you. And no, we would not 'make a stallion' out of him. We don't 'make stallions out of colts,' we make soldiers. We take them, teach them to take orders, break things, and kill ponies. They may become stallions along the way, but that's only if there was something there to become one in the first place. But that probably goes right over your head, as you apparently think all it takes to be a stallion is to have a big mouth." The stocky stallion sputtered. "Shut it!" Shining Armor barked. He shut it.

"And by the way," Shining Armor added. "We don't have a draft. There's a word in Equestrian for coercing people to serve you against their will: slavery. We don't want an army of ponies that we had to bully or strong-hoof into wearing the uniform.

"And you, sir," Shining Armor, standing in front of the grandfather, his muzzle an inch from the grandfather's wizened face. "I've been listening to you flap your gab about the good old days in the Imperial Army since you arrived, and you're right-- no pony from the Equestrian armed forces would ever make it through that kind of treatment." His next words would have sent windmills spinning a mile away. "Because we outlawed that kind of head-up-the-plot stupidity nearly a thousand years ago!"

"We run our cadets through the toughest training regiment on the planet. Up to fifteen percent don't make it through for one reason or other. But only a complete stone-age craps-while-he-walks roadapples-for-brains tinpot backwater King Nothing wannabe IDIOT thinks that psychologically and physically torturing your troops makes them fit for service! Your leaders thought that way; your leaders got overrun by King Sombra. King Sombra thought like that; King Sombra got his plot kicked all over the tundra by two princesses in tiaras while his big bad army of psychotically disturbed sadomasochists ran for the hills!

"And one other thing. Tell me, old timer; had any problems lately with frost wolves in your neighborhood?" The old pony, still dazed by the drill-sergeant level blasting he'd got, blinked in confusion. "Well?" The grandfather finally shook his head. "Any windigoes, yetis, or ice moles? Had any run ins with hydras, manticores, dragons, rogue sea serpents, roaming bandits, pirates, diamond dogs?" Grandpa mumbled a negative. "Well, then, on behalf of my weak, wussy, 'prancy' generation to yours, you're welcome."

He looked over and saw the colt, head still hanging  low, trying to hide a smirk. He reached over and cuffed the boy upside the head with his hoof. The colt yelped and covered his head. "hey, what--"

"Don't think I'm on your side here, kid," Shining Armor said sternly. "Something tells me that you've done nothing to keep from living down to their expectations. You're not out of the woods just yet." He sat down behind his desk and looked at the other three. "The rest of you get out. I'm going to have a word with this little screwup in private." The mother began to whimper and the father began to bluster-- "OUT!" Shining Armor said, pointing at the door. They outted.

"Now lets start out with the obvious," Shining Armor said. "You're fifty pounds underweight, you have a mild but chronic breathing problem-- 'diamond lung', the papers here call it, from the months you spent down in the mines before Sombra's defeat-- and your grades from school are shot. Even if you wanted to sign up, we couldn't take you. So you can relax a little; even your Dad can't force you in. File B, Spike." Shining Armor rolled up the papers and handed them to Spike, who silently torched them. "That's above and beyond the attitude problem you've been radiating since you came in. I imagine you've spent every day just like your parents described it; lurking in your parent's basement, hiding from work, mooching off of them--" the boy flinched hard at this-- "and generally being a pain in the plot.

"Stand up, boy. What's your name, Roller? Let me see your mark." The colt obediently stood up and turned sideways, lifting up his oversized t-shirt so Shining Armor could see his cutie mark-- a film reel. Shining Armor cocked an eyebrow. "I didn't think the Crystal Empire had movies a thousand years ago," he noted.

"They didn't," Roller said. "They arrived after we, y'know, returned. Free movies, out in the courtyard. Y'know, sort of a morale booster thing?"

         "Do tell," Shining Armor said.

          "I spent a lot of time out there that first year, watching movies while I was recovering from diamond lung. Heh. Anything they had-- old instruction films, documentaries, educationals, historical films. I even volunteered to run the projector a couple of times. That's when I got this baby."

"Bit of a late bloomer, eh?" Shining Armor said.

Roller snorted and rolled his eyes. "Who isn't? Most ponies my age got theirs way late. Kinda hard to find out what kind of rare precious snowflake you are when you're working down in a crystal mine or hiding from the press gangs in your basement." Roller huffed and glared at the floor. " Didja know that the later a cutie mark comes in, the more likely it is to just be a spur of the moment thing? Like the magic finally gives up on you and just grabs a logo for whatever you're doing at the time to slap on your butt. Least that's what the eggheads say." His voice was sour. "So naturally I get stuck with a cutie mark in watching movies. Try getting work with that on your butt. I might as well have the word 'failure' stamped on my flank. The only way it coulda been worse is if I got one with a liquor bottle and a reefer." His face slid into a sulk and he looked away.

"Mister, I know I'm a screwup. I've done nothing since we escaped King Sombra but make my parents miserable. I get in fights with my folks all the time. I got it marked right on my butt that I'm not good enough to be a real stallion like my Dad or Granddad.  Do I gotta come here and get it rubbed in my face, too?"

Shining Armor said nothing. He took a scrap of paper and wrote something out. "Here's my advice, kid: get a job, it doesn't matter what, and move out of your parents' place, it doesn't matter where. There's tons of places around here hiring warm bodies now that trade with other countries has opened up. I've written down the address of a place across town that's looking for cheap help, and the work isn't too heavy, even for someone in your shape. I suggest you take it. But even if you don't, whatever you do, get out on your own and start paying your own way. As long as you're hanging on the apron strings, you're never going to be anything but their spoiled little colt."

He floated the paper over to the colt, who took it, looked at it and looked at Shining Armor with a confused frown. "The Crystal Empire Library?"

"They just quadrupled their job openings. I hear they're going to open a whole new film department," Shining said casually. "Do a good job, work hard, and they might give you a permanent position. At the very least they'll need someone to run the projector." Roller's grin spread.

"Good luck, kid." Shining paused. "Oh, and by the way, the head librarian in charge of the refit is my baby sister. You give her any horseapples and I'll be there to kick a new religion into whatever she's left of you."

Roller's grin faded a little and he grimaced. "Yes sir," he said. He started to salute and thought the better of it. He opened the door and started to leave.

"Oh, and kid?" Roller looked back. "Don't let anypony tell you that you're less of a stallion because you don't wear a uniform or do a bunch of heavy lifting. I've known donut makers who were better ponies than a lot of soldiers. And don't give up on that cutie mark just yet. You may surprise yourself."

Roller looked back, his face half-concealed by his scruffy mane. "....Thanks."

The door closed. "Heh. That was pretty cool," Spike said.

Shining Armor stretched and groaned. "Too bad I don't get to do it more often," he said. "I've got I don't know how many cadets right now who are there because Daddy wanted to make a 'real stallion' out of them or wanted to punish them for some family blunder. Half as many again who I would have marked as physically or mentally unfit, except we're short hooved and had to lower the induction standards to bring the Guard up to sufficient numbers."

"Can't you get more from Equestria?" Spike asked. "At least they'd already be trained. And you could use a few more unicorns and pegasi anyways..."

Shining shook his head no. "Not very many," he said. "We're thinner spread than the Princesses like as it is. Besides, Cadence wants the Guard here to be staffed with native Crystal ponies. I have to agree with that." There was a knock at the door. "Must be our next candidate," Shining said, casting a spell to open it. Hello, and who may I holy mackerel."

"Big Macintosh?" Spike exclaimed in surprise. At first glance it did look like the stallion from Sweet Apple Acres(4); it was an enormous colt with a red coat, a yellow mane and broad shoulders that filled the doorway.  It took a second glance to confirm it wasn't him. This fellow was a bit younger, and had a different mane cut. He also had a few faint scars that Mac didn't, and was lacking Macintosh's ubiquitous collar. His cutie mark was of an anvil.

He blinked. "I don't know who Big Macintosh is," he said. "My name's Rock Steady."

"Ahh, um, yes, Rock Steady, here we are," Shining Armor said, glancing down at the papers on his desk. "Come in and have a seat." The young stallion moved into the room and sat down, seeming to fill the room with his muscle. Shining Armor looked over the recruit's papers for a silent minute, frowned, and set them down. "I'm afraid I have bad news for you, Rock," he said finally. "You have a clean record, you're in excellent physical shape--"

"And how," Spike muttered, eyeing the enormous colt warily.

"---and you got passing scores on your psych eval. But... your school records--"

"I don't have none," Rock Steady nodded, sighing. "I know."

"Yes. None at all." Shining Armor paused, waiting for an explanation.

Rock looked at him. "You know what things were like before Sombra was defeated, don't you?" he asked. "Mister, I don't have an education 'cause I spent the last ten years of King Sombra's rule working in the mines."

"Ten years?" Shining armor gaped. "But you would have been a foal--"

Rock Steady nodded. "I was a big bruiser even as a little colt," he said.  "And Sombra's press gangs caught me and my family early on. They threw us all down in the mines. I got lucky, I suppose; they put me to work hauling the mine carts in and out, so I got a little more fresh air and a little more food. That's how King Sombra's soldiers thought," he explained. "Keep the weaker ones down in the mine, and the stronger ones wouldn't run away." He flexed a leg. "It's how I got so big."

"My mama was a schoolteacher before that--" he paused and clenched his teeth, muscles in his thick neck flexing-- "before he enslaved us all. She taught me what she could, lessons and readin' and writin' and 'rithmatic and recitin', whenever we were given a minute's rest. But that don't go down none on no government paper." He shrugged. "By the time we were freed, I was too old to go back to school anyway."

"I know I don't got no school diploma, and that you say I need one to get in the Guard," he finished. "But I had to at least try. Ain't there some way you can wrangle me an option? Anything, I'll take it."

Shining Armor looked the colt over. "Tell me one thing," he said. "Why do you want to be in the Guard so bad?"

Rock Steady was quiet for a moment, brooding. Finally he looked Shining Armor in the eye. "I was just a baby when that d- that dang unicorn took over our country," he said. "None of us could defend ourselves against his magic. All any of us could do was stand there and watch while they did all the fighting with their fancy magic. We couldn't defend ourselves. Then the curse came and we couldn't do nothing about that, either; unicorn magic threw us over a thousand years into the future. We had to let foreigners--- an alicorn princess and her unicorn husband--- come in and run our country for us, just to keep from starving and freezing.

"Then that... that summabitch comes back, and nearly gets us all again. And all we could do was stand there and watch, again.

"Now my pa is old and weak, and my ma is bedridden from the diamond lung. All that trouble... and they're still helpless.

"At least if I'm a Guard, if I let you teach me how to carry a sword or a spear and fight, I can at least try to protect them. To protect us." The half-grown stallion's eyes burned for a moment. "I'm sick of Crystal Ponies not being able to defend themselves."

Shining Armor listened. Silently he took a rubber seal and stamped Rock Steady's papers. He wrote out and attached an extra slip of paper before rolling it up and handing it to Spike. "Spike, File A."

"File A?" Spike repeated.

"File A," Shining Armor said. "This is the deal, Mr. Steady. You may be too old to go to school again, but you can get an equivalency test at any school in the Empire."

"Equiv--?" Rock Steady asked, puzzled.

"Basically an oversized test, to see if you know what a graduating student should," Shining Armor said. "Go to any school and ask to take it. Bring a passing grade to us within three months, and you're on board."

Rock Steady's grin split his face. "Thank you, Sir," he said, holding out his hoof. "You won't regret giving me this chance."

"See that I don't," Shining said. "I recommend you study up before taking the test, by the way."

The muscular pony left, beaming. "Holy moley," Spike muttered as the door closed. "Too bad more of your recruits aren't more like that."

Shining Armor said nothing. The last two candidates had left him with a lot to chew over.

Shining Armor and Spike stepped out of the office. Spike hung the "closed" sign over the doorknob. The recruiting office was open only twice a week, and only for about four hours.... but it had certainly felt like a long day. They turned around to leave. "Okay, Nyx," Shining Armor said, it's time to go--"

It was at this point that Shining Armor realized that Nyx was not alone. She was seated in the waiting area around the coffee table with one City Guard and one Royal Guard, and a nondescript pony who might or might not have been a potential recruit. All of them, Nyx included, were holding playing cards. A few other ponies, desk workers from the look of them, were gathered around watching in amusement. "Nyx, what are you doing?" Shining Armor asked in surprise.

"Learning Five Card Stud," Nyx said cheerfully. She slapped her cards down. "Read 'em and weep, Full house, aces high!" The gathered ponies groaned; the pot, consisting of a few bits, some pieces of candy and chewing gum, a largish loose crystal and one horseshoe, was pushed in the direction of the filly. She giggled gleefully and scooped the winnings into her hat, then mashed it down on her head.

"You shoulda warned us your niece was a card shark, Captain," one of the Guards groaned.

"Oh, don't you try and blame the filly, Odd Luck; you could lose your paycheck playing Solitaire," an onlooker taunted. The group laughed.

Shining Armor shook his head. "Okay, you, it's time to go," he said to Nyx. "Let's get out of here before you corrupt my poor innocent Guards any worse." The group laughed again.

Nyx put on her saddlebags, tucked her books and her Smarty Pants doll in them, and hopped down out of her chair, wobbling slightly under her top-heavy winnings. Peewee hopped onto Spike's head, and the four of them made their way out the door to the farewells of the ponies there.