The troops began to reassemble, and Navi looked them over one more time. With an exasperated sigh, he shook his head. " for the 345 time, try it again." he bellowed, annoyance coloring his strong voice. The trainees littered the ground like jetsam, legs strewn in every direction, sides heaving with the effort to take in enough air to satisfy starving lungs. Their sweat drew flies like racoons to garbage, even the lightest recruits had turned a rather dark hue. Navi sighed again in their direction, wondering if any of them would make it through this with their sanity. He, unfortunately, was the closest to the edge and would be the first jumper. The troops began to re assemble and Navi evaluated them one more time.
The first one up was Jinks, code name hijinx. The tween’s talent was foot work, he could do a mile run in under 27 seconds. He was still trying to work on the breaks though, and until they were perfected, he’d take out as many allies as enemies. ‘Still,’ navi thought ‘ He’s a nice color, not as stunningly beautifully gold as mine, but still gold-ish and he’d make a good decoy.’ hijinx tripped over his fast feet again, and navi reconsidered. ‘Maybe we’ll have him as some fast moving ammunition.’
Thor was a massive Belgian with the power to control rocks, but rocks were about all his brain was made up of as well. Code named Viking, Thor was a heavy hitter with very little grace and a couple ego issues .He was also young, so young in fact that he just made it out of the misfit’s group, and half of that was his size. ‘Ahhh, the misfits.’ Navi thought with fake sugary happiness. ‘How I love them. NOT!’ The misfits were four foal-lings not even filly out of their first year who were too young to do any damage, but too old to put into a corner or a box and be trusted to stay there.
‘I hate young bloods, they wanna cut their baby teeth on a big monster, but don’t have enough patience or endurance to survive the basic training!’ he continued to grumble, but secretly was proud of them. Rose , better known as Pink Princess, was not even a yearling, who could not control her powers to do enough damage to the enemy. A red roan Belgian still in foal fur, she could shoot pink magic from her hoofs and eyes, yet the magic amounted (for now) to nothing more than a light show. Apatchi ,a.k.a. adobe, would be a master of controlling mud, especially clay...when he got older and improved. Casper ,a.k.a. ghost, would be able to turn invisible at will and shrill ghost screams...but for now he was just able to become semi-transparent. Eli (Ee-lie) a.k.a bramble, was a Belgian who had come into his powers due to aggression of his past homes. He controlled brambles and vines, but it was activated by his emotions, emotions he cannot control. He wasn’t even in training yet, he was too much of a danger to everyone, himself include. Even though they were poor at it, they tried to help and be part of the team.
Banner ,Bell and Nakoma were average fighters and hadn’t been gifted a code name yet, but TC was a real gunslinger, code named West. A beautiful paint, he was hot with the ladies and a dead shot with a gun. He played the loner to get the attention of the girls and had to have a little sense knocked into him to get him to realize it was cooperation or hit the road. No flirting with recruits if you aren’t gonna be one. That left the princes. Medium height, though a bit on the muscular side, they were black percherons that ,although they had yet to pick a name, were the absolute best of the new fighters. Prince the Elder was slighter of stature and a bit more aloof, but he had amazing graceful and knightly techniques. If he’d been human he would have had two swords and have been able to wield them with deadly accuracy. Prince the Younger, however, was muscular and loyal to Navi beyond the shadow of a doubt. He was a heavy hitter with some experience with hustling and roughing people up. Honorable, he was the kind that is more likely to be captain of the guard than prince, but still princely enough to make some wonder if chivalry was indeed still alive... within a few, diverse individuals. He would have wielded a heavy blade and have been one of the last ones off the battle field, had he been human.
This only left a few others. The wild cards. The wild cards were not truly aligned with anyone, although Diablo and Oreo were honorary members of Navi’s team. The other three were led by a bald faced, chocolate palomino waste of horse flesh named Ely. Ely was sometimes cruel to the weaker wild cards, and never gave a thought to running them down. He was in it for him, but he had two poor underlings who followed him like he was their only hope. Cody was wild, but there was still hope left for Dunkin, if reason could be talked into him and Ely away from him. They were not allied with Navi’s group, but didn’t mess with them either. It would be hard to say if they’d go one way or another when it got ugly and the enemies poured in.
The only other members were a dog named Jake and a gunslinger chicken named Yosemite sam. Sam could usually be found making his rounds, watching for anything suspicious. ‘That’s everyone’ Navi concluded, what with Jester and Indy back home and Faith on maternity leave ... where she’d been for so long she hadn’t even bothered to see the new headquarters. Jester had not either, but he would become involved in a bloody feud with the princes over their common love. But that is another story. ‘The only thing missing is the enemies. I feel them, but I can’t get a lock on their positions... They probably haven’t come through the gate yet.’ Navi continued. He was pushing fate without knowing it. At that very moment the gate cracked open, spilling dark smoke and a foul stench into the world. A cold laugh sounded and dark creatures spilled into our realm, threatening the place that the Navi forces called home. The creatures were, at the moment, weak. Yet so was the Navi forces. The only question that remained was if the recruits could muster up enough strength in time. And if they would survive.
