private The Mute And the Outcasted (1x1 With The Ceberus)

[Maple Bat 3,568]

"They're used for royalty to get around equestria without attracting attention. Nowadays they're mostly used by me and Luna during the day." Maple said as she looked around the passages. "As for who made them. Well... We aren't sure." Maple answered skeptically . "Since Luna Discovered them, she nor Celestia had anything to do with it. If you wanted my guess I'd agree it was probably Starswirl." As she finished her statement Maple started to head up the stairs to the exit.

[Catpone Cerberus 23,430]

Speechless replied with a curious sound, it was interesting that the origins of the passages wasn't known, he wondered if anypony had ever explored everything in the passages, or if there was things that nopony knew existed. He followed Maple up the stairs, imaging things that could be hiding inside the passage-network.

[Maple Bat 3,568]

Maple opened another hidden hatch that leads right into the training yard as she had predicted. "Alright just a bit further now. Let's keep moving." She said smiling as she left the tunnel once she left the hatch started to slowly close. "Just hurry you'll be fine."

[Catpone Cerberus 23,430]

Speechless followed Maple's instruction and sped up his pace to get past the hatch before it closed. As Speechless followed Maple,  he wrote a question to his notebook and with a noise tried to get Maple's attention "Just curious, Have those passages been explored all the way through by anypony?" "Or is there passageways that even Princesses don't know where they lead to?"

[Maple Bat 3,568]

Maple finished reading the question "Well the thing is those passages were, in fact, built a long time ago. I've been to a lot of centralized locations in Equestria through those tunnels but as you saw some of those inscriptions were really easy to miss so I have explored all of it personally, I don't think the princesses have either. Though perhaps we don't really need to know what's down there, it could be bad." She said after which, she headed towards the Barracks.

[Catpone Cerberus 23,430]

Speechless let out a sound to imply that he was satisfied with Maple's answer as he followed her towards the Barracks. He looked around, he had never been at the training yard, or any other parts of the castle in that matter, he had seen things like barracks and the training yard from the sky, but that really had been it, he had never gotten any closer. 

[Maple Bat 3,568]

Maple walked into the barracks. When she did she saw none of the guards were there and sighed "Guess that goes to show how much gets done when I'm not here. Well, whatever it's empty so you can learn to fight in here." She picked up a wooden practice spear and tossed it lightly to Speechless after which she grabbed another "Ever done this before?"

[Catpone Cerberus 23,430]

Speechless also noticed the lack of guards but didn't think too much about it until Maple commented on it. When Maple tossed the spear, Speechless caught it with his wing and put his notebook to the bag with the another. 
Speechless shook his head to Maple's question, he had never wielded any weapons, and it showed, as he tried to figure out the best way to hold the spear.

[Maple Bat 3,568]

"Right so normally this is how I wield a spear." Maple took off hovering a bit over the ground holding the spear with her front hooves. "Doing it this way allows you to attack with a lot of moving force behind your attacks, It allows you to most use strong hit and run style, like so.." Maple flew towards a practice dummy hit it with an overhead swing and then spun around flying away from it. "Go ahead and show me your stance first." She instructed.

[Catpone Cerberus 23,430]

Speechless took off from the ground hovering as he kept changing the position of the spear, figuring out what was the best way to hold on to it. After some time of figuring out, he finally managed to do the stance like it was supposed to be done. 

[Maple Bat 3,568]

After Speechless had gotten it correct Maple smiled, "There you go, Just like that." Maple moved next to him "Alright so there are 3 different kinds of basic strikes. Stab, Swing and bash." She demonstrated each as she introduced them Stab was a simple trust with the spears head, Swing was an overhanded slash, and Bash was running into the enemy with the pole of the weapon. "Each of these have strengths and weaknesses example the slash has the largest range and can hit more than one pony but is easy to block. Try a few of them out."

[Catpone Cerberus 23,430]

Speechless first tried each of the strikes without using any meaningful amount of strength to them, intend being to find out how the spear acted in the each move. After testing all of the strikes, he moved closer to the dummies and repeated the strikes, this time with lot more power. His strikes were clumsy, but at least he hit the intended targets and managed to keep his grip on the spear, even though, especially with the swing, it caused little trouble, him not being used to handle weapons.  

Edited August 29, 2017 by The Cerberus

[Maple Bat 3,568]

"Hey! Not too bad." She said, "Most recruits either just choose to stab or drop the weapon on the swing." She grabbed her Naginata from her locker. "A better way to slash is by doing it underhanded switching hooves as the blade crosses your body, Observe." She demonstrated her meaning and the weapon's bald cut the dummy she was facing clean in half. "See?"

[Catpone Cerberus 23,430]

Speechless observed Maple's demonstration and nodded in end of it to confirm that he understood it. He then like before first tried the movement carefully in the air before moving closer to the dummy and replicating it with more power.

Again the movement was very clumsy, and Speechless almost dropped the spear because unlike actual weapon, the practice spear didn't cut through the dummy, and even though he knew that,  the sudden stop surprised him. But regardless of that, he managed to hold on the spear, even if it was just barely.  

[Maple Bat 3,568]

Maple laughed "Forgot it was only a practice weapon? Anyways the next thing we'll go over is blocking strikes from other weapons." Maple flew over to her locker putting her real weapon away in exchange for a practice one. "Alright, so the basics of deflecting enemy hits is when you see a blade heading at you, block it with the shaft of the spear normally at about a 45-degree angle, give or take. Go a head and try to hit me do your best."

[Catpone Cerberus 23,430]

Speechless again moved the spear around a little bit before he gave the mark that he attacks, and then proceeded to slash the spear towards Maple. He thought to himself that in the real situation he probably would ditch the spear, it feeling very unpractical, and use his claws and animal-like fighting style instead, if fleeing wasn't an option of course. 

[Maple Bat 3,568]

Maple waited until a few seconds before Speechless hit her, she knocked the spear our his hooves pointing hers at his throat. "Oops!" She said lowering it "Guess I got a bit carried away" She laughed noticing Speechless's claws "Oh yeah those! How good are you with your claws? They seem pretty sharp." She asked, knowing he'd need his notebook

Edited August 30, 2017 by Maple Bat

[Catpone Cerberus 23,430]

Speechless backed away few steps when Maple disarmed him, he gave a smile to signal that it was aright. After the question he took out his notebook and wrote  "As good as any animal would be with theirs." "But I don't know how I would fare in a fight against another pony, I prefer fleeing."

[Maple Bat 3,568]

"Well show me then," Maple said reading the practice weapon "I'll only block I won't retaliate. Just want to see what you are capable of in terms of combat so I can see where you need work and I can help more effectively!" She took a defensive stance holding the 'blade' of the wooden weapon near the ground.

[Catpone Cerberus 23,430]

Speechless hesitated a little, he didn't want to accidentally hurt Maple, but then he figured out how he could attack without actually using his claws.

After putting the notebook back to the bag, Speechless took little more distance from Maple and after giving the mark that he attacks, he started moving. He closed in towards Maple, doing quick and sharp movements to seemingly random directions making it harder to predict where he was going to strike from, and then from surprisingly long distance, he launched himself towards her, turning his wings forward in a way that if he was to hit, it would only be a harmless poke.

[Maple Bat 3,568]

Maple knew the attack was coming due to the years of battle experience, she stepped out of the way of his attack "While such an attack might hurt if it hits, you should probably try to go for something a bit faster hitting first otherwise I'll just keep dodging meaning I could counter attack easily." She suggested 

[Catpone Cerberus 23,430]

Speechless nodded and took some distance again. He started closing in with similar animal-like style combining the use of his hooves and wings. But instead of launching at Maple, he moved past her several times every time trying to poke her with his wing, after which, he suddenly launched towards her as a final attack, but from closer distance this time. 

[Maple Bat 3,568]

Maple managed to block most of the pokes getting touched by a few of them, She didn't expect the last hit so quickly she managed to block it, but only barely, "Alright that was a lot better." She pushed Speechless away a bit "With a bit of practice you could be a good fighter and that's coming from me!"

[Catpone Cerberus 23,430]

Speechless panted a little when he nodded to imply that he heard what Mable said, he wasn't used to move so much so fast, so he was slightly out of breath.

He thought about Maple's words, good fighter, him? It sounded tempting, but he wasn't sure why, because he really didn't need to be a good fighter, he had ever only had problems with animals since even vampire-hunters didn't come so deep to the forest, and animals didn't have weapons to block with.

[Maple Bat 3,568]

Maple put her weapon down and sat on the floor. "Pretty fast. I'll admit, you hit me a few times which a good number of ponies are working really hard to do. I was wondering myself something earlier though, I was thinking about those passages you brought up a good question I started wondering... What if there's more to those passage ways than just a way around Equestria? We could go explore those if you'd want."