Celestia's Academy for Protectors

"For your initiation, you are to rescue a dummy from the other end of the arena." Vice Principal Cinch announced, her amplified voice echoing through the vast, outdoor, Colosseum-like structure. The only ponies in it were the student, the Principal, and the Vice Principal. "In your way, is a Grimm."

"The Grimm has been chosen at random." Principal Inkwell continued. She was holding a Grimm in place- in the middle of the Colosseum -with her magic. "You need to be adaptable, as in all likelihood you will fight many types of Grimm and you need to be able to hold your own against all of them. However, I or Vice Principal Cinch will step in if the situation gets out of hand."

Cinch finished. “Your initiation begins… now.”

Inkwell released the Grimm.

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A Wyvern the size of a house thrashed and writhed and bellowed in rage as it fought Inkwell’s magical grip. When Inkwell released it, the Wyvern, unprepared for the sudden surrender and quite busy thrashing, gracelessly fell on the ground, smacking itself in the face with its own tail, and struggled to get its wings back underneath it so it could push itself upright again.

When it had finally recovered itself, it glared at Anja and let out another thunderous roar, which admittedly would make up for its early blunder for most ponies. But Anja was not most ponies.

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The Nevermore soared high above Sunny’s head upon release, screeching as it chipped its beak on the bubble shield over the Colosseum. It hovered there for a moment, then screeched again and dove for Sunny.

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The Death Stalker was eerily calm, even after released. It slowly backed up until it was standing directly over the dummy. Its claws were held in front of itself defensively and its stinger was recoiled, ready to strike as soon as Viridian was close enough.

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The Titantula charged straight at Razor, surprisingly fast and nimble for such a big-butted creature on such pinpoint needle feet.

---

Similarly, the Beobeast barreled straight for Wild, slobber flying from its mouth and a roar erupting from its throat.

Anja was quiet as she watched the wyvern squirm in its cage, taking the moment of peace to adjust the deep scarlet dress she wore. Clearly designed in a victorian-era style, it flowed down to the ground, and was coupled with a pair of bicep length gloves. Each ear was pierced by a simple silver star, and in her left hand, a gentle pink parasol shielded her from the sun.

Fanning herself, she trotted towards the wyvern as it was unleashed, the roar not even disturbing her neat mane. Chosen at random? What a bald-faced lie... little matter though, she mused to herself, before approaching the wyvern. Suddenly, a dozen Anjas were standing before it, then a dozen more, each one leaping at the beast, whilst the original vanished completely.

With the beast suitably distracted, Anja stepped past it, before sizing up the dummy. Now how exactly am I meant to move this? she pondered, before trying to lift it up, and failing.

The Wyvern roared, and Anja sighed, wayching as the beast struggled against her illusions, eachtike it struck one of her clones down, ir mearly burst into a flock of ravens before reforming a shorr distance away.

This Is going to be so unladylike, She sighed, before crouching down, and starting to haul the dummy towards the exit. The wyvern continued to writhe against her falseselves, before snarling and shaking them off, eyes locking on the dummy seemingly moving on its own.

Anja froze, not in fear, but in curiosity, before starting to haul the dummy again, eyes locked on the enormous grimm that started to stomp towards her. She smiled as she reached the tunnel, pushing tbe dummy inside before fanning herself, eyes glinting behind the thin material.

The thunderous steps of the wyvern got louder as it charged towards her, and Anja smiled sickly sweet, before spinning her parasol, shooting the legs out from under the beast, and disappearing into the tunnel with the dummy.

Wild Card was standing perfectly straight as Cinch and Inkwell explained what he had to do, looking calm and peaceful even when faced with a Beobeast that was only being held back by the magic of the Principal. However, underneath the focused gaze and rather classy exterior, Wild was panicking and mentally running around hastily trying to make a plan for how he'd get the dummy. 'Okay, first option, just kill the Grimm.' 'Second option, how about we just incapacitate it, you know, cut off legs and such, and grab the dummy. They didn't say we needed to kill it...' 'Or maybe just bypass it altogether. We can fly. It can't.' He thought to himselves.

It was then that one of him heard Cinch call out that the initiation was beginning, getting Wild to crouch down slightly in preparation, unsheathing his longsword from his bladed tonfa. "Okay... Try the plans in order..." The pegasus muttered to himself, just as the Beobeast was released and started to barrel towards him. The sight of it nearly petrified Wild where he stood, but with the help of a few more minds, he persevered through the fear and ran towards the Grimm. There he made quite the mistake. The pegasus leapt into the air, raising his tonfa over his right shoulder, hoping to swing it to the left to initiate a spinning attack with both weapons. What he didn't realise however, was that the Beobeast was already mid-swing as he got to it, meaning Wild got smacked directly in the chest and got flung into the wall of the Colosseum with a resounding crash.

Falling to the ground, Wild shook his head and glared at the Grimm, the pegasus looking a little bruised but otherwise fine. "Okay... Maybe don't attack it at claw height this time..." He said quietly, watching as the Beobeast was charging after him. Wild Card grasped the longsword tightly, closing his eyes and then reopening them, but his dark orange eyes had changed colour, into a piercing silver, which only accompanied the flowing rainbows of colour along the sword slowing down and eventually turning white.

Once more the pegasus ran towards the Beobeast, but instead of leaping into action he slid in between the Grimm's legs, narrowly missing the claws that tried to grab him, and spun around as he stood up with the sword extended. Not only did this cut into the Grimm's ankles, it left behind a trail of dust that quickly froze into a chain of hardened ice, connecting the Beobeast's legs together and causing it to fall forwards. With the creature temporarily down, Wild stopped his momentum with a flap of his wings, launched himself above the Beobeast with another wing beat, and then, after firing the forward facing shotgun of his tonfa into the air for extra speed, brought the blade of the tonfa across the back of the Grimm's neck with a slash to the left, decapitating it and flinging the head a few feet away with the force of the slash.

With the Beobeast now well and truly dead, Wild punched the air in celebration and hopped happily about a bit, before remembering the actual instructions and sheathing his blade. "Okay, good to learn the no-go zone of a Beobeast." The pegasus commented, giving a brisk jog over to the dummy and picking it up before running to the exit of the arena, happy in what he accomplished. 'No shit, you don't jump towards the hurty sharp claws.'

Razor Back walked into the arena without any obvious signs of fear; the hood of the white woodie she wore under her leather bikers jacket was still pulled over her head but her face was set, focused and the amber eyes that locked onto the arachnid she had to face could've bored a hole in ponies with their unblinking, disdainful glare.

Two amber eyes met five red ones and shared a glare as the two opponents sized each other up; Grimm and Ponies were as opposite as night and day, the Grimm were a force for destruction alone and yet in the brief moment the stare lasted between them it was impossible to see any difference in how they looked at each other. Whether out of respect, fear or a shared instinct for bringing death to their enemy, in one micro-instant the two beings were indistinguishable in nature.

Then the Titantula charged, breaking the moment of peace. Razor Back fanned her wings outward but instead of flying upwards the thestral threw herself forwards and propelled herself with an almighty swipe of her wings, dropping and sliding on her stomach under the spider and dragging her sword along it's underbelly.

The spider made an awful noise, an inhuman roar mixed with a horrible clicking of pincers and legs as Razor straightened up on the other side of the creature, replacing her sword in it's sheath and actually waiting for the spider to turn around to face her, still with that same cold, steely gaze of amber upon her foe.

The titantula reared in anger and splayed it's horrible maw, shooting out a thick strand of web at the thestral; unlike the white silk of a normal spider the Grimm's mouth produced trap was thick like sludge and an unhealthy grey like decomposing skin. Razor Back avoided the strand of web which stuck to the floor and immediately began emitting foul smelling fumes.

The titantula was unconcerned and spat more of it's web at the thestral from it's talons, producing a larger strand from it's large backside when the thestral tried to attack from behind. What had begun as a desperate measure was now taking form into a cleverly laid trap as the thestral rapidly began to run out of room to move on foot, the sickly grey web now covering most of the floor space. With little else in the way of options, Razor thrust herself into the air.

Immediately it was clear why the thestral had not wanted to gain air so quickly; the Titantula had more blades than Razor Back to work with and had enough size to cut off any attempts Razor made to charge from the air, following her up the walls, it's own webbing and sometimes simply making incredible leaps to smack the thestral away or close the gap. One of these leaps hit Razor hard in the back, one of it's long talon legs slicing into the hood the thestral wore and reducing it to weapons while her foot sunk into part of the web, engulfed as if it had been made of slime; by the time Razor pulled herself away with a howl of pain the huge leather boot she wore had been reduced to a pile of acrid black sludge clinging to and burning her foot.


With a further roar of pain, the thestral kicked away the remnants of her boot as the spider approached; seizing upon an opportunity, the thestral grabbed the acidic, melting remains of her boot and, ignoring the pain in her hand, slammed the sludge into the spider's eyes.

With three of it's five eyes now melting within their very sockets the spider made an awful shrieking noise of chattering talons and twitching legs, scuttling away sideways and shaking itself so violently it made a huge crack in the stone wall and didn't seem to care in the least. Carrying herself on her wings and fighting to ignore the agony that was her foot and hand, Razor Back landed on one foot on the small platform that held the dummy she had to rescue.

"Burn no eyes..." She growled to herself, charging toward the titantula again with one sword drawn, the damaged hand clutching to her hilt as if it was her lifeline.

It was very elegant; Razor Back threw the dummy high into the air and spun in mid-air towards the titantula, her sword slice eliminating the two eyes it had left and blinding the monster. Sheathing her sword in the same moment as the spin, the thestral turned in mid-air and sped back to the falling dummy, catching it just as it was about to land in the corrupted webbing.

The thestral left her foe to it's misery and seemed content when she reached the exit. The thestral however, did not leave; instead, she turned at the exitway to glare at the spider with those hateful eyes of hers and produced a small, silvery flip lighter from her inside pocket.

"I said... burn." She growled again to herself, clicking the lighter on and throwing it into the grey webbing, which caught fire as easily as if it had been doused in gasoline. Shouldering the dummy once more, Razor Back limped back into the safe area, never once looking back at the flames engulfing the blinded Grimm or acknowledging it's screams of twisted agony.

Viridian watches the immense scorpion with the cool, detached air that an entomologist might have towards a dangerous species of insect that they were studying in the wild. She stayed outside of the range of its gigantic stinger and claws and looked at it was it looked at her, waiting for her to approach. "You know, there's a theory in the biological sciences regarding how various species came to be," she remarks to the creature in a low, toneless voice, devoid of any apparent motion, a low drone of sound as her hand carefully finds and releases the catch near the handle of the naginata she's carrying in her hands, causing the blade to swing down as the vaguely v-shaped snout of the AT rifle emerges. "The originator was a person called Beagle, I believe, though I can't remember the rest of his name offhand; biology wasn't my main area of study, you see. His theory was that various creatures were altered by their environment in that the examples that failed to show a particular adaptation appropriate to their environment died off from predators, starvation, or some other factor."
She took a step back from the Death Stalker, seeing if it would follow; it simply clacked its claws threateningly and followed her with suspicious eyes but otherwise didn't react. She smiles very slightly at that and moved her hand up to the swung-down blade, twisting it. The blade split into two and its upper pieces sunk slightly into the body of the weapon. At the same time, the butt of the naginata stretches down into an oval plate as a piece of it swings down in tandem, creating the long skeletonized butt of a rifle. "Now, you my friend are extraordinarily adapted to your environs. You are larger than what you hunt, but achieve economy of weight by having an external skeleton rather than an internal one. You have large grasping appendages that have the pounds per inch of force to cleanly sever pieces of your prey from the main body. I highly suspect that your stinger is loaded with a highly virulent necrotizing neurotoxin, making even the lightest penetration fatal. Your exoskeleton is very strong and is full of curve and angles that create numerous zones of armor that are effectively doubled or tripled in thickness and thus capacity to create ricochet. I'll even wager that certain pieces of you armor create gaps between plates due to flaws in your growth, and this will serve to dissipate the kinetic and heat energy of certain kinds of anti-armor projectiles."
She steps a few steps to one side, and then reverses her direction to go the other, the Death Stalker rotating fluidly to keep all of its weapons pointed at her. She then steps to the left and forward; the Death Stalker mirrors her. She steps to the right and back, and the Death Stalker mirrors her again, keeping its weapons and self between her and the dummy. As she engages in this dance, a movement down and a press causes a trigger assembly to drop and the long rectangular magazine to fold down from where it was somehow concealed in the shaft of her former melee weapon. She pulls the magazine out and raises it up to check the indicators before putting it back and pulling on the loading handle to chamber a round. The loud 'clank' causes the Death Stalker to dart forward a couple steps, its claws clacking and its stinger quivering. Viridian retreats before it with several hopping steps, moving back at an angle to make if seem as if she's trying to flank it. The scorpion reacts by backing up and once again facing her with all its weapons and its best armor.
"And you are clever enough to perceive a feint," Viridian tells it as she flips up the rear ball sight and then the front v-sight. "You really are an optimal example of Beagle's theorem on the evolution of species. There is, unfortunately for you and your predecessors and those like you, a small loophole in this theory: it doesn't account for the capacity of a properly evolved species to build adaptions to suit their environment, creating them from sapient consideration of obstacles. For example, this is a heavily modified Laika-type anti-armor system with a bore size of thirty millimeters. It has a magazine capacity of fifteen rounds and a sixteenth round in the chamber, and these rounds are necked-down one hundred thirty by thirty with a steel cartridge instead of the ordinary brass because of its higher tensile strength. The rounds are a mix of high-explosive armor-penetrating or HEAP if you prefer, and fused partial-sabot fragmentation set on a depth of seventy-six point two millimeters, which I have affectionately dubbed Flip-Stiff but my sister has suggested should be called 'fucking penetrate some fucker'. She's... somewhat crude, and I apologize for her unconventional attitudes. Incidentally, I also apologize for my forthcoming leveraging of my advantage of sapience over the numerous admirable adaptions you've developed to optimize you for this situation and environment. It's been a pleasant conversation."
With this, Viridian lowers herself to her knee and then to a prone position on the ground, dropping her cheek to rest on the stock and sighting down the rifle at a spot directly in the middle of the Death Stalker's head, and then inched her sight picture to the left to pic the only place on its 'face' where its armor was perfectly flat in relation to her, where its fangs emerged, and pulled the trigger. A FPSF round rockets from her muzzle at roughly two thousand meters per second and punches straight through the armor, and then comes out the other side, fragments of the scorpion's "cheek" armor going with it. The creature keens with pain and in the time it takes for it to react, she's shifted to the right and puts a HEAP round through the soft shell around the other fang, removing that half of the creature's head in a fountain of burning gore and another screech. With both weaknesses penetrated, the creature lowers its head to charge, flattening the otherwise perfectly-angled armor in relation to her rifle. This time, Viridian centers the rifle on that armor and starts pulling the trigger as fast as she can, pumping rounds into the temporarily-revealed weakness. Even after the fused explosives have removed its head, she continues to empty the magazine until the rifle clicks empty. Viridian clears her throat and rises onto a knee, watching dispassionately as the dead Grimm dissolves away into ashen fragments and blows away on the wind.
"Good talk," she remarks in a dryly wry tone, rising to her feet. "I hope to continue this conversation with one of your fellows sometime. I'm sure there will be mutual benefit." She walks over to the dummy and primly dusts it off. "A shame its androgynous... I'd have enjoyed rescuing a damsel in distress."

Sunny looked up calmly at the Nevermore diving on her. Oh sure, they gave her the emo cousin of that bird from… bah, the name slipped from her memory. Whatever, not important right now. The bird was getting closer. It seemed to be diving right for her. “Oh, this simply will not do.” She spread her wings and out maneuvered the larger Grimm as it missed and went back up for another go.

Sunny watched it climb back up, then dive on her again. “Seriously? You expect to hit me with that poor form?” She held her weapon, a seemingly simple metal rod with a few yellow highlights. With but a mere though and a transfer of energy, a blade of yellow light extended from one end. As the Nevermore got within striking distance, she once again dodged it, this time slashing at its wing with her sword. The blade severed the wing at the radius, leaving it only half a wing. “As punishment for that poor performance, you’re grounded.” She said with a chuckle.

To her annoyance, the Nevermore didn’t appreciate her joke and instead turned and tried to strike Sunny with its beak. She dodged and took to the air, hovering above it. “You aren’t going to beat a pegasus with half a wing missing.” The Nevermore stood up and, instead of trying to fly up after her, it raised its good wing and swiped at her. The swipe itself missed, but the feathers it shot out at her did not. Two of them struck her, one on her shoulder, the other hit her right wing. They hit at a surprising force, enough to knock her out of the sky.

Sunny stood up, her shoulder aching slightly. She checked her wing, it was alright. “Right, I got careless again. I need to pay more attention.” She scolded herself. The Nevermore squawked at her. “Hey, don’t you laugh at me!” She raised her rod again, flicking open a trigger. Se focused her light into it again, this time creating a construct of a sniper rifle. She pulled the trigger three times, three bolts of light shooting out of the gun and towards the Nevermore. One hit its wing, the other two hit it in the chest.

The overgrown raven screeched in rage and launched more feathers at her. Sunny quickly dispersed the sniper and refocused the light around her into a dome shield, which the feathers bounced off of. “You think I would fall for that attack twice? Think again.” She looked behind her. The dummy was right there. She could just grab it and leave. No need to kill the Grimm. “Well this has been a nice date, but I’m afraid it just wouldn’t work between us. You’re far too emo for my liking.” She teased, and walked away towards the dummy.

As the Nevermore screeched behind her, Sunny stopped and sighed. “Fine. I can’t stand to see a dumb animal suffer. Especially since I crippled it. I might as well finish the job.” She condensed the light around her into three orbs. She’d have to be careful when using this attack, otherwise she risked blowing herself up. So naturally, she used her rod as a baseball bat. “Batter up!” She hit one of the orbs which sailed into the Nevermore’s good wing. The orb exploded as it released its pent up energy, blowing apart the wing. “Whoops, that’s a foul. Let’s try again.” The second orb she hit was a fastball right into its face, blowing half of it off. The Grimm slumped to the ground, dead.

Sunny cheered for her victory against the Nevermore and smacked the last orb straight up, where it exploded like a firework. “Well that was fun. We should do this again sometime.” She walked over to the dummy and picked it up, then left the arena. She looked down at her rod as she left. “I really have to find a better way to describe this thing…”

"Tell me," Inkwell said. She and the student sat across from each other at a stone table in the middle of the school gardens. "why did you handle the situation as you did? I'm not criticizing, I simply want to know what went through your mind."

Wild Card shrugged and smiled, "Well... normally I'd be completely fine with grabbing the dummy and flying away, but given the fact it was initiation, I felt I had to kill the Grimm put before me. After all, I do want to become a Protector, and Protectors kill Grimm." He replied happily, sitting up straight afterwards. "So with the knowledge that I was being assessed, I wanted to give it my all... or rather, a good enough amount so that the Beobeast would end up dead and the dummy would be 'saved'." Wild continued on.

"So the main thought was that I needed to stop the Beobeast from moving. I like to be mobile, it kind of helps me if the thing I'm fighting is restricted in its movements, so that's where the ice dust came in. I myself really thought the ice-shackles were a nice touch." The pegasus said, sounding rather happy with himself when talking about the ice dust. "After that, it was just a matter of using gravity and a sharp weapon. Gravity to make the Beobeast fall over and to help with the death blow." Wild commented with a grin, before frowning and raising his hand a little, "Uh... that swipe I took to the chest... that's not going to lower my grade too much, is it?"

Anja was quiet for some time after the question was asked, content to sip her tea thoughtfully. Eventually, she let out a delicate sigh and placed her teacup on its saucer. Thankfully, it seemed that Inkwell had provided her a notepad and quill, and she pulled them over before her hand flew across the page, and she placed a rather lengthy note, written in a flowery handwriting in front of the mare.

I am not some simple citizen, I am Queen, and a lady before that. Why would I sully my hands with the metaphorical blood of a halpless beast? So instead, I left it alone, and retrieved the dummy, albiet rather in elegantly.

Besides that, if you expected me to slay the beast, you were mistaken. If I slew every mindless, heartless beast that I encountered, your countrynwould have lost a number of its citizens, and your school, a number of students.

There was clearly no malice in the youthful mare, and indeed, there seemed to be little emotion of any kind as she returned to her tea.

"What went through my mind is that I had a rare, exceptionally rare in fact, opportunity," Viridian says. "I had a Grimm in an enclosed environment, isolated, and committed to a defensive strategy in the entirely reasonable expectation that I would be forced to close within range of its weapons and against its toughest defenses to claim the doll. I was able to pick my moment to strike, having ample time to pick out the weaknesses in its armor and the instinctive thinking behind how it attacks its prey, and will not have such an opportunity often if ever again. I now know the way to attack its strongest defenses with the optimal weapon for the task--a high-power rifle based off a small arms anti-armor system--and that closing within range of its weapons is something that would be best avoided. I already knew the second part, but there's a difference between intellectual understanding and an understanding derived from direct experience. The overkill was precautionary; with the way its very strong chitinous armor was set up, all angles and curves, it could have deflected many of my shots. It was pure fortune that it ducked its head and flattened part of its armor in relation to me before attempting to kill me. If it had not, I'd have had to engage a wounded and angry animal in melee and I shouldn't want to do that if not compelled by circumstance."

Sunny nibbled on a cookie idly as she pondered. “Why did I handle the situation…? I mean, I could have handled that fight much differently. But I didn’t. I decided to have fun with the fight. Make a few jokes. As for why I dealt with the bird, I know from personal experience that one cannot fly with only one wing. So I decided to cripple its flight. After that, I got cocky and didn’t realize it could shoot its own feathers at me.” She chuckled. “Kinda asked for it, I guess. So I figured I could have just left. It wasn’t gonna beat me and it sure wasn’t going to catch up to me. But I don’t like leaving a job only half done. So I finished it off in explosive fashion and made my exit stage right.”

Razor Back sat across from Inkwell staring down at her own injured hand, wrapped in gauze lined with potions to heal her burns. The purple maned thestral hadn't said anything since she had emerged from the arena and left the dummy where she was told before going off to get treatment for her wounds.

"You told me to save the dummy. I did." Razor said simply with a shrug; she had a tone of dismissal and indifference which even to her sounded like a bad attempt at avoiding talking rather than an actual answer. "Any fight you can walk away from is a win. Someone told me that a while ago and I've never doubted it." She said with a further shrug, taking a drink from the bottle of bright orange energy drink she had made a point of procuring before actual painkillers.

The auditorium was a unique architectural combination of a colosseum and an opera theatre. The main colors were purple and silver with the exception of polished mahogany benches and light blue walls painted with minimalistic murals of Protectors battling each other and Grimm. The area was well-lit by a single light in the center of a blue, stained-glass dome ceiling that emitted a bright  light that mimicked real daylight.

The auditorium was packed with the entire student body, but aside from some distracted and bored murmuring the only noise was coming from Inkwell (and some triumphant music) as she announced the new teams.

“Grimm Fate, Midnight Strike, Shadowstep, and Sunshine Shy. You will form Team Fright, led by Grimm Fate.”

The four ponies each stepped up from the crowd of new students to the center of the platform, and left the auditorium as soon as Inkwell was done with them to find a dorm to occupy. The group drew a noticeable uproar in murmurs as students regarded them with curiosity, apprehension, and suspicion while they clapped and cheered with insincere enthusiasm for them.

“Cinnamon Ball, Dark Chocolate, Sour Sweet, and Sweet Tooth. You will form Team Cavity-”

This name was met with mixed responses by the new team, especially as some faint snickering could be heard from somewhere in the audience through the cheering and clapping.

“-led by Dark Chocolate.” The new group left, one unicorn in particular clearly unhappy with who’d been chosen to lead.

“Adagio Dazzle, Aria Blaze, Sonata Dusk, and Wild Card.”

While Wild likely would’ve walked up, three… seaponies(?)... flew up to the center of the platform, as if they were simply swimming. One was a golden color with vibrant orange spines, the one to her left was lavender with dark purple spines, and the one to her right was light blue with darker blue spines. They each wore four rings: one golden one with a blue gem on each wrist and the end of their tails just below their fins, and a black one around each of their necks. The yellow one grinned with smug satisfaction and basked under the attention of the entire student body. The purple one was… apathetic? Bored?... ready to stab someone? And the blue one was smiling at every student, wide enough to show off every sharp tooth in her omnivorous mouth, and she rather seemed to be amused by the reactions she got.

“You will form Team Janus, led by Wild Card.”

The yellow seapony’s grin fell right off her face. The blue one whispered something to her, and got smacked in the head and apparently scolded for whatever she’d said. A hint of a grin flickered on the purple one’s face for a moment, watching this. The three of them left ahead of Wild Card and didn’t look to see if he was keeping up.

“New Moon, Shining Light, Sunshine, and Trompe L'oeil.”

Two of the mares, one white with a wavy, sky-blue mane and the other dark grey with a black, curly mane, stared straight ahead and stood very noticeably further from each other than the other students had. One looked furious while the other merely looked mildly annoyed.

“You will form Team Taijitu, led by New Moon.”

The white mare’s jaw dropped. The dark grey mare, New Moon, looked at Inkwell with mild surprise, but apparently was ready to roll with it. She looked at the rest of her team, gestured to the exit, and started walking.

“Fine Fantasy, Razorback, Sunset Shimmer, and Viridian Rain.”

An orange mare in a fake-leather jacket stood proudly with her arms crossed comfortably beneath her breasts, a confident, satisfied smile on her face. A pale mare next to her, by a strong contrast, had posture that hinted at a desire to sink back into the crowd behind her.

“You will form Team Compass, led by Fine Fantasy.”

“What?” both mares said at once. The pale one, now obviously Fantasy, was very suddenly even paler.

Viridian stands to the right of Fantasy with her naginata off her back and planted in a casual fashion, wearing her entire suit of heavy clothes and even the pack that she uses to carry extra ammunition and components strapped to her back. She raises the spear-like weapon and gives it a light twirl when Inkwell goes over her name, raising the other hand to give the crowd a quick wave of acknowledgement, her expression stoic. When Fine Fantasy's name is called as team leader, and both Sunset and Fine react with shock, Viridian turns to Fine with a grin and claps her firmly on the shoulder. "Welcome to Tartarus, Miss Fantasy. I'll be your host on this adventure, a twitchy mare with an anti-armor rifle and a fetish for sharp shiny objects. It'll be great times, like a sleepover with all kinds of games and fun." She looks over at Sunset. "Including your very own jealous rival."

Wild, while up on the platform, just looked around the auditorium and waved to the other students with a genuine smile, seeming to be just happy to be there. He then looked at his new team mates and wondered if they were all originally friends beforehand, leading him to worry slightly about fitting in with an already established friendship group. Still, after a moment's thought, the pegasus concluded that it would merely be a little more challenging, but not impossible.

However, as his name was called out to be the team leader Wild Card kept his genuine smile, giving yet another wave to all the students and even doing a little cheering motion before turning to face his team mates... who seemed to have rather varying reactions to this information. 'Oh dear. I think one of them isn't happy with me being team leader. Maybe there's something I can do to help.' He thought as he hurried after them. "Hey, I can see you're not too overjoyed by the result, but it came as a surprise to me too. But don't worry, I'll not abuse the team leader position, if that's what you're worried about. Come on, let's find our dorm room." Wild said, at first talking to the golden seapony and then to the team as a whole.

Sunny looked at her new team with excitement. Of course, she didn’t expect to lead the team. She didn’t really want to, either. One had to learn how to be a team before one could learn how to lead one. Of course, she could only hope the others understood that. Based on Shining’s reaction, Sunny doubted it. She hoped it wouldn’t lead to too many problems. She knew nothing about the other mares, though there would be plenty of time for introductions later. She caught up to New Moon and walked alongside her. “Hey, congrats on being picked to be team leader. I’m looking forward to working with you.” She looked back at the other members of the team. “I hope the others will be too.”

Anja adjusted her skirt as she waited, brushing her hair back out of her eyes, before looking up as her name was called. She tugged at the large hood she had put on since the interview, the only view of her face now of her piercing grey eyes. She stopped next to the other three members of her group, looking at the out of the corner of her eye at the trio, her expression filled with a distinct lack of care for the three other ponies, though it was lost in the shadows of her hood.

As the leader was announced, she merely nodded quietly, before extending a gloved hand in greeting. She nodded as New Moon started to lead her away, following silently at the back of the group. Sunny's maid outfit drew her attention however, and she blinked, scattered memories of maid's gentle, kind, helping her as a child. She sped up a little, before tapping Sunny on the shoulder, and handing her a note that read, Greetings.

Razor Back observed the seaponies with interest, returning a grin to the yellow one and giving her a wink before they took their places back in the seats. She'd have to see about asking that stallion in a suit if he wouldn't mind losing the key to his room at some point...

When her own name was called Razor simply stomped up to the stage without even facing the crowd; she was wearing her leather jacket now, covered in studs and spikes all along the arms and shoulders and decorated with innumerable shiny pins, several of them seeming to be a pair of pegasus wings in differing colors, though one or two seemed to have been recently removed. She took her place alongside her team mates without much comment over than a nod of acknowledgement.

When the leader's name was read out Razor gave a noise which may very well have been a snort of derision but she seemed to mask it with a cough. "Scraping the barrel for team names much?" She grumbled with a shrug before she turned to Sunset and Fine Fantasy.

"Just so you know fearless leader, the moment I decide you're not up to snuff I do my own thing. Feel like you should know." She didn't say it as a threat or a boast, simply a matter of fact, open admission that she would disobey when she felt like it. "You know what they say about walking into Tartarus?" She asked after Viridian's comment. "If you find yourself marching through Tartarus, keep on marching." She said, obviously quoting someone else before she turned back to the teachers. "This mean we get a bed now?" She asked, pointing to her team with her still bandaged hand.

"Well, thank you." said Nox, somewhat surprised by Sunny's acceptance of the arrangement. "Not all of us are going to be happy about it, though." she continued, glaring back at Shining Light. Why'd I have to get stuck with her? she wondered, shaking Anja's hand in returned greeting.

As they reached the dorms, they found that all the unoccupied dorms' doors were open.

"Does it matter which room we choose?" Nox asked, looking into all of the empty room surrounding the group. She went into one at random. It was identical to all the others: white walls, wood floor, two bunk beds, four chests, a small box-tv on a small coffee table, and one small bathroom. The only difference between this room and the ones across from it was that one could see the school garden from this room's window. "This one seems good enough."

---

Adagio was not impressed. Of course, the more she thought about it, the more she realized that of course they wouldn't put her, or the other two for that matter, into a position of leadership after what happened a thousand years ago, regardless of their apologies for their past actions. Sometimes Equestrians were smarter than she gave them credit for. Oh well, at least they weren't stone anymore, so they could continue toward their goals for revenge and the Equestrian throne, and regardless of who was made leader, it was she who was in charge, and she who would be making the decisions around here, even if she couldn't sing yet...

"I like this room." Adagio said, going into the room next to Team Taijitu's. She saw who'd gone in there: the daughter of the head of the Ponies of Light, Shining Light, a pony who'd prove to be invaluable to her if she played her cards right. Plus, there was some special magic coming from that dorm, and she was eager to find out what it was.

She slid onto a top bunk bed right away, her arms behind her head and tail fin hanging over the end. Aria and Sonata both rushed for the remaining top bunk but Aria slapped Sonata out of the way with her tail, leaving the whining siren to pout in the bunk underneath.

---

Suddenly, with each pony around her giving their rather critical two cents on this matter, and... well, being rather more all-around impressive than herself, Fantasy suddenly felt very small. "Alright, let's go! We can't hold up the line!" she said quickly, speedwalking off the platform and trying to escape Sunset's disbelieving glare. We gotta find a room. That's weird, that the new students get to choose rooms before anypony else. How are we gonna decide on a room? What if the others just ignore everything I say to spite me?

In the hall, Fantasy stopped a little ahead of the group and looked around. "So, which room do you think we sh-"

"This one." Sunset said curtly, taking the room across from Team Taijitu and beginning to unpack.

Fantasy blinked, and looked at Viridian and Razor. "Verdict?" she asked them.

Razor quickly stepped across the room and claimed the top bunk on the left side of the room, throwing her rucksack onto the bed and hanging her jacket from the ring post; the faded black tank top she wore had a logo which might once have been for a band but had long since faded to illegibility, while her arms each showed signs of scars that had nothing to do with the Titantula she had defeated at her induction.

"Please tell me one of you brought beer?" Razor asked as she flopped onto her bunk and turned on the TV where a news report was playing on the television. "Third one this month..." Razor shook her head as the reporter talked about a Dust store robbery in the city. "You'd think after the second one the police would cotton on and put security there."

On the screen the shop had all of it's windows smashed in. A huge pitch black pony without a mane was hoisting a huge metal crate presumably containing the store's stock onto his shoulders while behind a zebra with many elaborate tattoos and body art lingered behind him, grinning manically at the camera and wielding a spear whenever any of the guard tried to advance on the two of them.

"Black trees will take root in your kingdom soon!" The zebra cried out as she and the hulking earth pony advanced, grabbing the camera and forcing it to give her a close up. "Soon you shall sing the songs of your way of life's demise-"

Razor flicked the channel over to a Buckball game. "Why do all the hot ones have to be insane?"

"Was that Ipecac?" Fantasy asked with concern, quickly climbing up to a top bunk just before Viridian or Sunset could claim it. "What'd she do this time?"

"Because intellect is paired naturally and often with insanity," Viridian says as she takes the bunk under Razor. "I'm exceptionally intelligent, for example, and I have a somewhat psychotic fixation on collecting and using a variety of sharp objects in combat. And that's before I take out a weapon that can destroy a tank and blast a Grimm into chunky salsa because no kill is quite like overkill." She looks oddly at the screen and then across the way at Fantasy. "How do you know the crazy on the television screen, boss? You don't strike me as the type who'd be volunteering in the coo-coo house."

Wild Card followed in after the seaponies and nodded, "Yes. It's pretty nice. Not much different from the others but that can be fixed easily with little bits of personal stuff. Posters, books, knick-knacks, sentimental stuff like that." The pegasus said happily, watching as the orange seapony instantly took to the top bunk of one bunkbed while the other two fought over the top bunk of the second bunkbed. This elicited a small chuckle from Wild to begin with, but he walked up to the blue seapony's side and tilted his head.

"Are you alright? That looked pretty bad." He said in a concerned tone of voice before looking up at the purple seapony. "And you could have at least done something other than that to claim top bunk. Rock paper scissors, a discussion. Honestly, I do hope this sort of behaviour among peers isn't going to last that long. To be a successful team, we must work together and talk with one another." Wild Card said, at first sounding disappointed in the purple seapony, but as he continued on his tone of voice became more triumphant. "So, first thing's first. Whose names are whose? I heard Adagio, Aria and Sonata in the hall."

Anja was quiet as they approached the room, stepping inside and looking around quietly. She approached the window, pushing it open and pulling down her hood to reveal her pointed ears, and short, light green mane. She smiled, though it was lost to the other three, as the wind drifted into the room, blowing her hair back pleasantly. It's been too long... since I was able to be this free... she thought quietly, before looking back at the other three ponies in the room.

The magic welled up inside her, the familiar smell of roses filling her nose before she released it, and grass spread across the carpet, trees appearing from nowhere. Vines wrapped there way up the bunkbeds, and she nodded to herself. There was a howl, and a tiny wolf pup bounded into the room, jumping up and licking Anja's cheek. She hugged the pup as she sat on one of the beds. This one is mine, she messaged them on their scrolls, still petting the wolf gently.

Sunny wasn’t sure how to react about the small forest that suddenly sprouted in their new room. So she just shrugged and took the bunk above Anja. “Dibs. Hope no one minds.” She said. Of course, if they did mind, she didn’t really care. According to the International Dibs Protocol, the bed was now hers. “So I’m excited. What’s first on the agenda?”