Celestia's Academy for Protectors

"Well, better than or not, we were the ones who rose up to the occasion when called for it. Maybe Professor Docile liked us for the fact we didn't completely botch up the mission, and we took initiative to help even though it was our first day." Wild replied casually and with a shrug.

He chuckled at Viridian's response and looked to the rest of his team, two of which were putting on a rather obvious display of their, as Viridian across him said, assets. "I suppose, and I guess using everything to your advantage is a good way to win... as long as it isn't cheating. Then again, being genetically fortunate to have an attractive body can't reasonably be seen as cheating, so we might as well use it." Wild said, looking at Aria. "Not going to join the team in the display?" he asked the seapony kindly.

"Perhaps." Nox conceded.

"The judges certainly won't complain." Sonata said.

"And neither will our competitors." Adagio purred.

Aria growled at Wild.

"Oh, she's just self-conscious. Not quite so well-endowed." Sonata snickered.

"You don't have much room to talk, teacup." Adagio quipped, and Aria grinned at Sonata's pout. However, that grin vanished when Adagio added, "Aria just prefers to compare apples to oranges, since it's hard to compare to mine." She held her chest higher to strengthen her emphasis. "She makes up for it in attitude and creativity. Or, as I understand it's called now, kink?"

A very well-timed glance at Fantasy just as the mare's eyes darted up for a fraction of a second, resulting in an instant of eye contact which was immediately broken and selectively forgotten by one party and burned into the memory of the other.

Sunshine nodded at Razor. “I’m sure someone will get some enjoyment out of it, especially if I get to wear the short skirt. And yes, I do enjoy bashing in heads. Pathetic Aura or not, that’s something I’ve proven before to be good at.”

Sunny snickered at Viridian’s comment. “Well I have to disagree. My posterior happens to be my greatest asset. And the maid outfit is actually my sister’s. I forgot to pack clothes when I came here so my sister gave me some stuff from her wardrobe, which just happens to be composed entirely of maid uniforms.”

Viridian eyes Sunny, looking her up and down. "The uniform fits you far too perfectly for it to be your sister's," she comments in a deadpan. "I think you're fibbing to me, Miss Sunshine, although I'm forced to agree that your plot is ideally round, firm, and admirably emphasized by the maid outfit. Exhibit two, incidentally, that the maid outfit was intended for you." She smirks slightly, and then looks curious. "So you have a pathetic aura and an excellent plot, but what can you actually do in battle?"

Sunny could only shrug. “I mean, I do like to dress up with her sometimes when I help out with her work. So she might have had a few made more for me than her.” She paused, looked at her hands, then back at Viridian. “Well, previous training has given me proficiency with a variety of weapons and fighting styles. My favorite is the simple sword and shield, as my unique talents allow me to use them very effectively. Of course, my weak Aura means I can’t take a hit, though it hasn’t bothered me yet.”

Anja could, invariably, feel the gaze of many of her classmates as Razor's shout went up. She was talking now certainly, but that did not dissuade her inherent lack of trust, or nervousness. Sipping her tea, she placed the empty cup on her saucer, before standing up and smoothing her dress. "My dear Razor, if you did intend to try such a garrish action, I can assure you it would not end well. And Miss Viridian, it seems hardly appropriate to discuss such vulgar things so early. Even so, you should not leave yourself out of the group of ponies with substantial assets."

She raised an eyebrow, her expression not changing, before she turned to Nox. "I have had a change of hearts in some respect. Having slept on the matter, it would be pointless for me to continue to rage against you for some personal grievance. You will have my fangs, from this point on, without complaint. I had forgotten the cost of dissent, but I shall not again."

"You have an advantage in that respect, Sunshine," Viridian tells her with utmost sincerity. "With very little aura, you are highly motivated to master the ultimate defense: slipping aside from attacks instead of resisting them. It is a risk, of course, but what a foe cannot strike, they cannot harm and will waste their attention attempting to do so while a far greater danger crouches to catch them unawares. You are a good distraction; if the competition has some mechanism whereby hunters and huntresses are placed with randomly-selected members of their schools, to demonstrate that they can work effectively and lethally with any counterpart they might encounter, I shall have to remember the advantage that you offer."

Viridian turns at Anja's comment and quirks a patrician eyebrow at the regal mare before smiling very, very slightly and inclining her head respectfully. Her comment implying that she was not lacking in the breast department causes a light but noticeable blush and slight canting of the ears from Viridian but she otherwise keeps her expression locked into one of polite pleasantness and respect. "Of course, milady, apologies for being crass. Would it be more appropriate to speak obliquely of the social and evolutionary elements associating mammary girth with an evidence of greater maternal capacity and breeding potential, thus causing diversion of attention from more immediate matters to the desirability of those females evidencing said traits, to lesser and greater extents? Or to comment on the turgitity of the superficial aspect of the gluteus maximus and the general association of the exposure and display of said aspect with virility, health, and sexual availability? If that would be preferable to Your Highness, I could make an effort to speak in more technical, scientific, and oblique terminology when discussing such matters."

Anja caught the blush, but said nothing, her expression unchanging as she returned her attention to Viridian following her announcement. Her eyebrow still raised, she shook her head once. "That is not what I was saying, dear, and you know it. When I said that I did want you to discuss such vulgar things, I meant in general, not just the language you were using. A lesser mare than I would punish you for such pedanticness."

"It's just sex." Fantasy interjected. "Everything does it. Everything knows about it." A pause, looking for her next words. "And there are no foals around. So what's the big deal in talking about it?" asked possibly the third most prudish mare at the table.

"Not that the prospect of punishment is... not interesting..." Viridian flushes a bit more. "...but I apologize again, this time for being pedantic. So if I may, is there a setting in which it would be appropriate to speak frankly on such matters as attractiveness, sex appeal, and its possible applications in battle for a tactical purpose?"

"Hey, shouting makes sure they heard you." Razor pointed out to Wild when he called her too loud. "And if that doesn't do it we got plenty of food to chuck at them, sure as hell notice that. You wouldn't mind, would ya?" Razor asked as Anja made her way over to them, chuckling as she heard what Viridian was suggesting. "True, if I saw a set of tits like those coming at me in the middle of a scrap I'd be looking for the quickest way to surrender so long as I got to choose who interrogates me." Razor remarked with a glance at Adagio that was rather comparable in subtlety to a bomb going off.

Razor Back promptly fell silent for possibly the first time in recorded Equestrian history. Not that she had run out of things to say of course, but rather she had suddenly found herself rather too busy with choking on food after she had taken a savage bite from a sandwich the length of her arm at the same moment as Adagio had... displayed her superiority to Aria in a way that the thestral would've found impossible to ignore even if she had any social grace.

"Ahem." A throat cleared at the head of the table; Professor Inkwell, headmistress of the school, stood at the head of the table. The grey unicorn, looking somewhere in her early 40s, wore her black and purple mane in a tight bun and wore a normal looking suit that one would expect from a school teacher... as well as an expression caught somewhere between mortified and bursting to laugh at the conversations she had interrupted.

"Well, my students... I am glad to see you're all getting along and learning to come together as a team." She said, beaming at them all. "No student ever achieves their highest potential alone and it is always wonderful to see students with such a good attitude coming in to our academy." She paused for a moment as Razor Back finally managed to cough up the piece of sandwich which had lodged in her throat.

"I just thought you should know." she continued, ignoring Razor. "Professor Storm has requested you outside for today's lessons; today is the first day that some of our friends from other academies across the kingdom will be arriving to participate in our interschool festival and tournament, and we feel it would be best to put on a little show for our arriving guests, let them see this year's excellent crop."

She smiled and nodded her head to them all. "When you are done with your meals please report to the outdoor training area, Professor Storm will be waiting for you. You will need your equipment for today." She smiled and walked off, gently admonishing a student as she passed for throwing food.

"Hey Adagio, feel like helping me demonstrate hand to hand?" Razor asked immediately, unable to help herself.

Anja did not spare Razor a glance as she approached her team, ignoring the obvious verbal jab, as she did her choking on her food at Adagio's provocation. "If one wishes to use one's sexuality on that battlefield, I have no wish to stop them. Exposure, is exposure. And flesh yields easier than steel." Still, her interest peaked as the headmistress herself approached, eyes drifting to Night for a moment. She would have had misgiving about a leader with secrets, but that described her as well.

"Headmistress, if I may... is the equipment I sequestered with you when I arrived... may I have it please?" She asked, stepping forward. "I have decided... I shall commit to it. To the training."

"What you were doing before wasn't commitment?" Viridian asks her, raising an eyebrow high at the regal pony. "I gather, therefore, that you must be truly zealous upon commitment if putting yourself to the hazard before even committing yourself to the cause is how you are without having decided to throw your metaphorical hat in the ring." She considers this for a moment, nibbling in apple in a perfectly even ring, descending along it by the height of her bites until she's gotten to the bottom, and then she starts doing the same on the way up. "I, for one, am enthusiastic about this development. With a maid, a card sharp, a thug, a couple of Celestia's own, a pony who thinks she should be, a literal dark horse, a trio of femme fatales, and a queen, I think victory is very nearly assured."

Wild merely nodded in acknowledgement to whatever was being said to him as he continued on with his meal. The stallion was also surprisingly stone-faced while the conversations around him went into the typical physical signs of a good female mate, though having himself focus more on the food in front of him and not the... sights around him, intentionally on display or not, was definitely helping him keep the poker face steady. The particularly "subtle" thestral choking on her food however, was not aiding in this endeavour.

Then he heard someone clear their throat and given the far more deliberate sounding nature of the act, his attention immediately went from breakfast to Professor Inkwell. After the professor left, Wild turned to the other students and looked confused. "Why does it feel like we're doing really weird things for being first-years? First day, out on a dangerous mission immediately. Now we're being used as a show for guests from other academies? Part of me wonders what the older students think of this given it seems pretty weird having new blood doing these things and not them... unless they also did this in their first year and it's the norm... do any of you know if the older ones also did things like this, or is this just an "us" thing?" Wild Card questioned, finishing up his breakfast.

Razor finally cleared her throat while Anja was speaking. "Hey, armor gets in the way of a lot of fun things." Razor pointed out before listening to Anja's request to Inkwell; the older headmistress didn't give any outward reaction but nodded to Anja and walked off.

"Huh, so you're actually committing eh?" Razor asked Anja with a raised eyebrow. "Famous last words that, or was telling us all you're two days from retirement not ominous enough?" Razor smirked, obviously not having any concerns at all as she gave Anja a friendly thump on the back, friendly was an assumption seeing as the thump was hard enough to nearly knock her off her seat with how it was unexpected.

"Welp, I won't say no to another looker in our merry band of misfits." Razor said, before looking up as Inkwell returned, handing a card with a locker number on it and a key to the regal mare.

"I am glad you decided to reaffirm your commitment to the academy. Feel free to retrieve your belongings, whenever you are ready." Inkwell said with a pleasant smile before walking off again to deal with a small scale food fight breaking out in one corner.

"It also keeps you alive," she replied. "So it would seem, yes." The elven mare continued, before grunting as she was nearly slammed off of her chair by the other mare. "And I am not in your band, I am in Miss Moon's."

The usually stoic mare almost choked at Viridian's words, blinking rather rapidly. "Did you just call me a queen?" She asked, composure returning almost instantly. "I am no such thing."

With key and locker number in hand, Anja vanished. It was more than a few moments before she returned, and multiple eyes were drawn when she did. Gone was the almost regal dress, as was the cloak that hid her from view. Instead, she was what could only be described as incredibly baroque golden plate, over maroon clothing. A high collar encompassed her neck, as well as a golden bevor.

Even her legs were covered, with her wearing white breeches, and over top, golden plate greaves. Her vambraces clicked gently as she walked in, clearly adjusting them to get the correct fit.

It was her face that drew the most attention however, as she wore nothing to cover it. Her eyes, piercing as ever, seemed locked on her vambrace, and only once she had properly connected it did she look up. "I apologise for the lack of a helm. It was not part of the entire outfit, and I would so hate to appear disheveled."

"True, if I saw a set of tits like those coming at me in the middle of a scrap I'd be looking for the quickest way to surrender so long as I got to choose who interrogates me." Razor remarked with a glance at Adagio that was rather comparable in subtlety to a bomb going off.

Sunset rolled her eyes. Fantasy facepalmed.

Nox looked like she didn’t know how to react. Shining was boldly grimacing in disgust at this point.

Nox at least managed to magically heimlich Razor while Inkwell was speaking. It caused her bite to fly right by Fantasy just as she took her face out of her hand, and she looked in the general direction of its velocity with clearly no clue of just what that had been.

"I just thought you should know." she continued, ignoring Razor. "Professor Storm has requested you outside for today's lessons; today is the first day that some of our friends from other academies across the kingdom will be arriving to participate in our interschool festival and tournament, and we feel it would be best to put on a little show for our arriving guests, let them see this year's excellent crop."

Fantasy facetabled.

"Hey Adagio, feel like helping me demonstrate hand to hand?" Razor asked immediately, unable to help herself.

“Razor, for Celestia’s sake!” Sunset snapped.

"Headmistress, if I may... is the equipment I sequestered with you when I arrived... may I have it please?" She asked, stepping forward. "I have decided... I shall commit to it. To the training."

Nox raised an eyebrow.

"I, for one, am enthusiastic about this development. With a maid, a card sharp, a thug, a couple of Celestia's own, a pony who thinks she should be, a literal dark horse, a trio of femme fatales, and a queen, I think victory is very nearly assured."

“A couple of Celestia’s own?” Sunset repeated, her eyebrow now up. “I have to assume you’re lumping Fantasy in with me when you say that, and I’ll have to correct you: she’s not her student. She’s…” Sunset looked at the mare with her head on the table, rather too still to be unintentionally ignoring her surroundings. “...something else.”

“Does ‘dark horse’ mean something?” Nox asked.

“Ensemble Dark Horse.” Fantasy supplied, still not lifting her head from the table. “Scry it.”

"Why does it feel like we're doing really weird things for being first-years? First day, out on a dangerous mission immediately. Now we're being used as a show for guests from other academies? Part of me wonders what the older students think of this given it seems pretty weird having new blood doing these things and not them... unless they also did this in their first year and it's the norm... do any of you know if the older ones also did things like this, or is this just an "us" thing?"

“No idea.” Sunset said.

“I do find it odd, but I have no frame of reference.” Fantasy said.

“We could have easily died on that mission, and we are among the youngest- newest and most inexperienced students at this Academy, so it makes little sense for us to represent the school.” Nox gave a somewhat more substantial answer. “Perhaps it’s not unusual for the school, but that doesn’t mean it’s not unusual.”

"Hey, armor gets in the way of a lot of fun things."

“Like living?” Fantasy asked dryly. Her head was still on the table.

“Okay seriously, pull your head up, this is getting annoying.” And, knowing the nature of Fantasy’s upcoming response Sunset yanked her up before she could argue. A little too hard, as it turned out, as Fantasy made a surprised noise and fell backward onto the floor. Sunset looked at her with all the interest and concern of an inconvenienced cat.

“...can I stay down here?”

“Suit yourself.” Sunset shrugged and faced forward, resting her elbows on the table. “Just remember the kind of nature walks the ponies at this school take.” And Fantasy was back in her seat.

The usually stoic mare almost choked at Viridian's words, blinking rather rapidly. "Did you just call me a queen?" She asked, composure returning almost instantly. "I am no such thing."

So she’s royalty. Nox thought as she watched Sunset and Fantasy’s intriguingly comical interactions. Deposed, or exiled. Or possibly rejecting her title and the responsibilities that come with it. Her fear implies there is some amount of danger in being discovered, so it’s more likely that her leaving is not of her own preference.

"Hey, my band's open to anyone who can pull off an outfit like that." Razor Back retorted to Anja's pointing out that she was not in Razor's 'band' specifically. "Besides, way I look at it is our teams did each other a favor by taking on that mission together; we all got dropped in the deep end together, no offense you three, and we all helped each other to kick ass and show the teachers here who the ones they should be focusing on are." Razor said, slapping a hand on the table eagerly as she stood up, throwing her tray carelessly at the washing up section for used food trays.

"Now I dunno about all of you, but I reckon we got some exchange students to show how it's done." Razor grinned, practically bouncing on the balls of her feet before she walked off to her locker and retrieved her combat gear; within five minutes the thestral was fully dressed and striding out to the main training ground where Docile Storm awaited, the dark green coated pegasus dressed in a rather dull grey suit and holding both a stopwatch and a clipboard.

"Ah, first years, thank you for making yourselves available." Docile greeted the group as they arrived with a friendly smile and nod; the training ground was a large sunken crater measuring roughly sixty feet in diameter. Dotted around the crater were training dummies and targets rigged to tracks and pulleys to provide moving targets, simulating cover firing targets as well as innocent civillians to avoid hitting, along with a serious of obstacle course trials such as a set of monkey bars over a deep pit of mud and sludge, a heavy weighted net to be crawled under and a length of track with hurdles to leap.

"Free exercise for now recruits; give yourselves a little workout, show us your stuff." Docile glanced up. "In fact, emphasis on the show." He added; above them a large, gleaming silver airship was circling around the school, clearly waiting for landing permission. The way the school paths were arranged meant that any entering the school grounds from the docks would have to walk past the training pits, no doubt by design for just such an occasion as the upcoming tournament.

Shining was the first to jump into action, literally, slashing and slicing and stabbing the first dummies unfortunate enough to be within range and carving out a path of straw destruction.

"But I get stage fright..." Fantasy near-whispered.

"You are never going to survive this Academy." Sunset rolled her eyes. Her horn ignited, and a distant dummy was reduced to flurry of cinders. And then so was another one. And another. This seemed to be the tactic she was content to practice.

A final glance at the approaching airships, and Fantasy hesitantly cantered into action, drew her rapier and started her workout by swiftly cutting the face off of one of the dummies.

Nox took a minute to look around, deciding where to start. Then her horn lit, and her purple aura washed over her body and she lifted herself well above the pit. The tip of her horn lit bright white, and a bright beam met the ground, carefully weaving between civilian dummies and incinerating enemy dummies and leaving a trail of blasted, scorched earth in its wake.

Adagio flew above the scene. She left deep gashes in the dummies with her whip, and pulled a few pieces off.

Aria flew considerably lower, just a foot or so above the cloth sack heads of the dummies, and respectively smacked and shot them with her tonfa-pistols.

Sonata zoomed about, running her spear through the dummies so quickly that she stripped them off their rigs and, after her straw-kabob was full, flinging them at the other dummies.

Sunny frowned as she stepped into the training… crater. She had changed into her own combat outfit, a slightly more armored maid outfit. Points for consistency. Looking out at the training equipment set up, she felt a little… underwhelmed. Then again, she should get used to that feeling by now, as she was going to feel it a lot more once her actual job got rolling.

The weapon she had previously was gone, replaced by a simple looking estoc which she carried on her shoulder. Apparently her next test weapon was running late, so she pulled out an old sword of hers. Wasn’t fancy or anything, but it was good enough for training. She wasn’t gonna pull out her best tricks on a bunch of straw dummies, not even for a crowd.

She found a dummy that had yet to be molested by a blade and gave the dummy a couple taps in preparation. Then came the penetration as she gave the sword a hearty thrust right into its center. She was unsatisfied by this though, and gave the dummy a few more quick jabs, smacking it around a bit for good measure. “I gotta admit, it’s a bit refreshing to just punish a training dummy like this. Like playing with one of those stress toys.” She was a bit rusty with the estoc though, and her movements were clumsier than they should be. Maybe next time she’d have a toy that she could use better.

Wild Card stood by and watched for a few moments as some of the others got stuck in to the training. His attention was eventually captured, however, by the rather flashy airship circling about, and as he watched it fly he chuckled, "Well. Hopefully they can see from up there, lest all these explosions and displays of power go unnoticed and are wasted." Wild said, mostly to himself. He then looked over the training area, trying to find a decent spot that hadn't been blown up or scorched.

The area with the civilian dummies was being handled by New Moon, the obstacle course wouldn't be fun given his ability to fly, but luckily he found a spot that seemed to imitate being surrounded by having dummies encircle you. "Ah, perfect." Wild said happily as he took off into the air, landing in the middle of the circle of dummies and drawing his blades. "Alright. Let's see... fire? No... Ice... Hm, not showy enough. Ah, lightning. Wonderful, that'll make for a good finish."

Wild Card then went from a complete standstill, looking over his blade and focusing on it, to immediately dashing towards one of the dummies in one beat of his wings, leaving a lone feather suspended in the air before it started to fall to the ground. The pegasus darted towards the dummy, before bringing his left arm forward and stabbing the dummy in the torso with the tonfa. One trigger pull later, the dummy's body was blown apart by a shotgun blast that also threw Wild backwards and - with another beat of his wings - into the air. As he flew backwards, he began firing on the dummies in front of and underneath him until he landed back on the ground outside the circle of dummies. With another shotgun blast aimed behind him, Wild propelled himself through a few lines of dummies, spinning as he sliced into every one with his sword, and ended up in the center of the circle again, creating a spiraling trail of lightning which left the dummies he made contact with - and those surrounding them - as singed scatterings of cloth and straw. "Huh. Could've sworn I got all the loose ones out beforehand." The stallion remarked afterwards upon seeing one of his feathers on the floor.

One of the practise dummies vanished. One second it was there, the next it was gone, only for it to reappear, moments later. However, now it was shredded, whatever having done this having neatly carved off both arms and the head. This started to happen over and over again, even dummies some of the other students were targeting vanishing before they could land a blow, only to appear again, neatly decapitated, and armless.

Then, out of nowhere, came a chilling howl. It echoed around the crater, even into the school and, for those with particularly sensitive ears aboard the airship. From seemingly nowhere, a dire wolf, all fangs and dark fur, burst through a dummy, the remains of its insides scattered.

The wolf danced, for that was the only word that could describe what was happening, as it bounded through the crater. Dummies vanished before the mysterious wolf, torn almost entiee asunder.

"A show?" Viridian eyes Docile for a moment before she shrugs. "Well, I guess I can waste some of the fused shells to put on a show for whomever we're putting on a show for." She walks to the edge of the crater and calmly goes through the steps of converting her naginata into the intimidating shape of a light anti-armor cannon. She then pulls the tube magazine out of the weapon and empties the shells onto the ground, and then reloads them in a different order although the only visible difference to anyone watching is that half of the shells she holds and runs a thumb over a small portion of the neck before inserting them. Having done whatever she intended to do, she extends the legs of the bipod and assumes a prone shooting position, picking dummies that are far away from students presently practicing. A shift, an adjustment of her scope, and a partial intake of breath and she sends a bullet downrange. The bullet punches through one of the dummies but barely having emerged from the other side, it explodes and shredded, scorched dummy remains fly forwards.
"OK, super-quick then." She says aloud, opening the chamber and using the nail of a finger to do something to the shell before locking the chamber closed and taking aim at another. The next one in line explodes into burning fragments, flying in all directions. She smirks and shifts her fire to another, exploding away the left side of its body, and then explodes the right side of the next one. The next one takes a fatal gut-shot and the next decapitation (taking shoulders as well). She shifts fire to watch for one of the dummies on rails "ducking" behind cover and fires just then. An exposition blooms on both sides of the cover and when the dummy comes back out, its body is shredded by shrapnel. Finally, Viridian opens the chamber and unseats one of the bullets with a deft twist of her hands, pulls a small vial from her equipment case, and pours a little inside the casing. She then twists the tip and tilts it off, pouring more of the substance in the tip. She closes up the tip and reseats the bullets, grinning. "Wanted a show, did you... heh..." And then she picks the rifle up, aims it upwards at an angle, and pulls the trigger. Blinding sparkles erupt from the muzzle and trail the flying shell, which can actually be seen because it's trailing more of the same motes of burning dust as it flies upwards on a gentle trajectory before it comes down in a group of mixed civilian and enemy dummies and a shockwave of white-hot fire explodes from the point of impact, reducing the dummies around it to smoldering husks.
Finished with what she intends to do, Viridian pulls the tube magazine out again, empties it, and opens up her armament case to start restoring it to a 50/50 alternating mix.

Slash! The dummy was reduced to ash.

Jab! Another a mere streak of soot on the ground.

Ice! Shredded beyond recognition.

Attack after attack after attack, and none of them landed. As fast as Fantasy moved, it seemed that everyone else moved faster, and in the wake of their collective destruction she was left among the debris.

Not wanting to lose face, she looked around for something else to do. She considered the monkey bars, but decided that, with the presence of hooves in place of feet, the challenge was highly impractical, especially for the purpose of performance. She came to a similar conclusion regarding the net. The track, however, was both suited to equine physiology and unoccupied. Not the best choice for her personally, but beggars couldn’t be choosers.

She cantered across the pit, breaking into a gallop as one of Aria’s shots landed just a little too close for comfort, and started right onto the track.

Sunset, from the near-center of the pit, couldn’t help at least smirking every time Fantasy fell from knocking a hoof too hard on a hurdle.

---

A shadow fell over the entire pit as the silver airship (made in the very stylized image of a bottlenose dolphin, in typical Equestrian fashion) finally landed. The doors opened and ramps extended, and out walked students of various nationalities with various degrees of flare.

The first students out were a team of zebras, who held their heads high and noses higher, clearly more concerned with making a dignified entrance than paying the ponies in the pit any mind. Next came a mixture of canines, felines, and what looked like… parrots, with an extra pair of talons in place of wings; for some of that group, the pit became the new conversation topic, with a few even stopping by the edge for a few minutes to observe. A team of dragons, or at least enough dragons to make up a team, flew out overhead: shouting, roaring, spewing jets of flame, and generally making a ruckus. And behind them, bringing up the rear of the whole group…

...were the giants.

They towered over the rest of the students easily, and from the pit looked as if they might tower over Celestia herself. They were tall creatures off very familiar but strange, uncanny proportions: their heads seemed just noticeably too small for their bodies, their legs and arms just too long and thin, and their hands and hooves proportionate to creatures of finer build, such as a particularly heavy-hoofed deer. They had powerful, toned muscles that rippled with their every step, making them appear as simultaneously impossibly strong and just strong enough to support their own mass. And none of them had the colorful, pastel palettes of a pony, nor did any visible flank bear a mark.

For many in the pit, this would be their first time seeing a horse, whether in-person or at all. The first sighting of these giants would be… interesting, surely.

---

The horses approached the pit, looking over the scene with collectively unreadable faces. They shared a look, and then, with a commanding gesture from a chestnut mare with white markings and some rather… scanty armor, they walked around the edge until they reached Docile Storm. The chestnut leaned down- far down -and whispered into his ear. It took him a moment and a bit of clarification from the mare, but he nodded and gestured toward the pit, into which the horses carefully climbed down.

They looked around, pointing and chattering to each other in a foreign tongue, and split up.

---

One mare galloped through the various hordes of dummies, dodging explosive magic blasts, incinerating lasers, and a feral blur of wolf, weaving through the chaos of uncaring gunshots, vicious impalements, and the clawed dance of a whip, leaping over a little yellow pony in need of an adrenaline jolt…

And landing with a thunderous BOOM a mere yard behind a green unicorn mare.

“Pony!” the mare barked. “Want to fight?”

Turning around, Viridian would face a wet dream of gargantuan proportions. The mare was a bright redhead with a lighter reddish-brown coat, muscular and toned but definitely not without shape. She wore a black, studded, leather long coat that hugged her like a corset in the middle (while practically bragging how her tits were each larger than Viridian’s head) and split off into a tailcoat just above the navel, revealing a leather skirt that was just long enough to conceal the top inch of the thigh-high spiked leather boots. And her weapon, which she held up for Viridian to see, was a black whip with barbs that glowed with Dust.

---

In stark contrast to her red-headed teammate, another mare touched down gracefully behind Wild Card, the wind from her wings and thud of her hooves implausibly minimal for a creature of her size.

“Pegasus.” The mare’s voice was soft, but firm and commanding. “I am impressed by your display. You seem to be combat proficient, but I wonder if you are as proficient with living opponents as you are with practice ones.”

The mare was a stark visual contrast to the redhead as well: pure white from head to hoof, slender and “aerodynamically” endowed, and donned in full-body, form-hugging, pure white armor that glittered like coins in the sunlight (and if Wild looked closer, he’d see that was because the armor was dragon scale). Most of her face was concealed from him by a helm shaped, with unsettling realism, like a dragon’s head, with mirrored lenses over the eyes and golden horns atop the head. She held a matching golden dragon scale shield, and a spear that at a mere first glance was obviously too large and mechanical to be just a spear.

“Are you interested in dueling me?” she asked him.

---

A shadow fell over Razor.

A dark-robed stranger loomed over her, concealed almost entirely except for a light grey muzzle and a horn stuck out of a hole in the hood. A silvery, rectangular device hung from a long, dark sleeve, and from the shoulders hung a long, dark, billowy cape.

“Duel?” a soft, surprisingly light voice asked her.

---

Sunset felt a large finger tap her shoulder. She turned, and her eyes widened as she found her neck craning up, up, up, to meet the eyes of the stranger.

It was a light brown mare, with white markings over her muzzle- a muzzle which wore a smug grin and immediately irritated Sunset -and up her snout, and brown eyes as dark as Fantasy’s. Her mane was white, and fell in a long sheet down her right side. Her hands, which were rested on her hips in an equally smug fashion, were white, and so was everything else up to an inch below the elbows; a glance down revealed a similar story about the legs. What the mare seemed to consider armor was a corset that had been sewn too short and exposed the midriff, and a short, froofy skirt with way more layers than she would have any real use for (except perhaps to tickle herself on the gallop).

“Silly pony.” she scolded in a tone that grated Sunset’s nerves, “You pay no attention to your area. You are dead.”

Sunset scowled.

The mare’s hand reached behind her and pulled out something that looked like a round metal paddle, except for the silver teeth around the edges. She lifted the macuahuitl- noting Sunset’s stance and her lit horn -and rested it over her shoulder.

“You are prepared.” she commented, “But you should have attacked, or I could have pulled out bomb. You are dead.”

Sunset narrowed her eyes.

“Fight?” she asked, “You will fight?” A poor attempt to correct her grammar.

Sunset blinked. She looked to Docile, who confirmed with a nod. She turned back to the mare, and grinned.

Wild Card looked up from inspecting the fallen feather to see the airship land and open its doors to let out the visitors from far off lands, and he couldn't help but be amused at how almost each group made some sort of show of leaving the ship itself. The zebras acting in what he considered typical Canterlot noble fashion which he found rather funny. The dragons were... difficult to ignore. The giants were a show purely for their stature, as their presence seemed quite commanding. They looked like ponies as seen through a fairground mirror, in Wild's opinion. However the group of canines, felines and parrot looking students didn't seem to attempt to stand out, and Wild even waved in a friendly manner to the ones who looked into the pit.

Afterwards, Wild Card turned around when the winged horse landed near him, and gave a small bow. "Oh, thank you. I mean as you say they are just stuck in the ground, which isn't as rare a scenario as most would think, honestly, but that's explanations for another time." he said cheerfully, sheathing his sword and offering a hand to the mare to shake. "Also Wild Card's the name, pleasure to meet you. Never met someone so tall before in my life and I'm glad my hat stays on when looking up. Oh, and I do accept this offer of a duel, just want to get the greetings done before we begin fighting is all." the Pegasus smiled a genuine smile up to the mare before backing away to a reasonable distance and drawing his blade again. "Nice armour by the way. Very fancy. Not sure how the dragons would react... or did react. Hopefully not too poorly, right?"