The taxi carriage ride back across the river was more than just eventful. To start it off, every cab we tried to hail ended up either running past us, or somepony else jumped in before we could move a muscle, leaving us pissed off beyond belief. Solar Wave and I finally caught one three blocks from where we were, but of course, there was that Manehattan trouble: first an incident involving a unicorn who, apparently, had a string of bad luck that day and somehow managed to blow up the lobby of an office tower which, had it collapsed, could very well have taken out a sizable portion of the city in whichever direction it might have fallen.
After we got past that, a carriage had struck another on the bridge and blocked the entire street. We eventually were fed up and decided to walk the rest of the way, but not before handing over some extra bits to the carriage puller for all of the inconveniences.
When we arrived at the joint base, we were asked for identification of course. As careful as I was with things, I somehow didn't have either of our lanyards given to us that would grant us immediate entry. Luckily, one of our trainers, Sergeant Hardstaff, was passing by the gate and spotted us in a steadily-heating discussion with the officers stationed at the gate. He consulted the guard and brought us inside, but not before lecturing us over our badges. I ended up taking the blame for Solar. I knew he was more mentally unstable when it came to getting yelled at for a reason, let alone without one.
Dinner came and went in the blink of an eye, and very soon we would be heading to our barracks for bed. But, we were kept in the Chow Hall. Just then, the doors opened and in came our drill sergeant, alongside Sergeant Hardstaff.
"Listen up! Y'all better get some good rest tonight, tomorrow is yer physical exam! Y'all have had these since ya first came here, but this one is different. Each and every one of your sorry asses will be tested to your limit in terms of physical capabilities! You will be working yourselves non stop, without break."
A collective groan gathered in the room, then was silenced when the drill sergeant slammed a hoof into the floor that echoed loud enough to startle us all.
"Y'all are a bunch of pussies," the drill sergeant grumbled and miraculously left without another word.
Just after dinner, we immediately went to our barracks and did our best to go to sleep early, but the same lights out schedule made it difficult.
***
We were all shaken awake by the loud banging of a baton on the door jam far before the trumpets were supposed to play. The lights remained off, and the thumps of two others probably falling out of their beds from being startled could be heard clearly. Just then, a blinding beam of light shined on all of us one at a time.
"Get up, ya pussies, and get yer asses out the door!" the drill sergeant ordered at the top of his lungs. "We've got a power outage, no lights until sunrise!"
Perfect, a power outage. To add to it, the sky was overcast which meant no moonlight. It would be hard to navigate the place without flashlights, and for once I hoped the drill sergeant would be shouting the whole way. If one couldn't see something, they could very easily use their hearing to get around. At least I could.
Shortly after, we arrived at what I initially believed was the dirt track. I couldn't have been more wrong. The giant towers built for climbing? Yeah, we were here. Except they were part of a massive obstacle course that sat between more barracks, an armory, one of the many spots where ships were normally parked, and some smaller office buildings.
"Y'all think ya have been pissin' and moanin' for the last five weeks? Then ah don't wanna hear any of it when y'all are navigatin' this course!" The drill sergeant shouted across the line. Moments after, the bright beacon lights turned on, likely the help of a generator, or the whole time the power was on and it was just for exercise. The lights lit up the whole of the course and the area surrounding it. What we all saw horrified us.
Four massive towers, each taller than the other sitting in the middle of a massive course that started with an untouched mud pit, followed by coil wire fences built for climbing under, each one lower to the ground by an inch. Then after that, a mud pit topped with coil wire fences. Then poles that got skinnier that were used for hopping over. I didn't really know why we any of that would be necessary in a real world situation, but that wasn't my main thought.
"Listen up," Sergeant Hardstaff called from the front of the line. "You all are expected to give this your all. This is your final physical test before you move on to hooves-on weapons training. Whoever does not make the time limit or perform as well to meet our expectations, those will not be passed on in the Lunar Marine Core."
I gulped. This meant if I messed up in the slightest bit, I would be screwed, and I would rather not have to go through everything I have been through in the last month all over again.
"You all have fifteen minutes. Either make it, or don't," Sergeant Hardstaff put on the hardest glare I have seen yet on his face, and it was directed at all of us. "GO!"
We weren't taking turns either. We all dove straight in.
The mud pit was significantly deeper than the track was after that storm washed it out. It was very deep. Deep and sticky. Almost instantly after sinking my hooves in, I became stuck and it took me a few moments to get free. The others were fairing the same as I, which came to be a bit of a relief. Though, at the same time, it wasn't. A minute after, we were out of the muck, and each of our coats were painted brown halfway up our torsos.
Next up were the coil fences. The first one was already a tight squeeze, but we were doing much better than the last obstacle. The second one grazed my ear tufts. The third one compelled my ears to pin back when one of the wires lightly cut the skin on my left ear and made me yelp. It bled a bit, though not terribly. The fourth one grazed the top of my mane, and I dipped as low as I could possibly get. Unfortunately, there were three left.
The fifth wire fence caught my mane and pulled on it. With a yelp, I threw a hoof up and yanked my mane free with the cost of losing a tiny patch of it in the fence. I rubbed my head and quickly continued. By then, I was towards the back of the others.
I felt bad for the larger ponies of our group. Glancing back briefly, I noticed a pegasus wearing square glasses, as well as an earth pony trapped under the fences and were both whimpering in pain. I cringed to the painful-looking sight of blood dripping from where the prickly wires cut into their backs and stained the dirt beneath them with red. I couldn't go back to help and, with much reluctance, kept going.
The sixth fence caught on to my mane again, but thankfully, I didn't have to yank it free. Then, finally, the seventh was right at my forehead. It was more than a tight squeeze, and I had no real clue of how the others managed to pull it off when they were the same size as me, if not a bit bigger. I settled on doing it another way.
Rolling onto my back and pulled myself underneath the final fence, my wings were laying flat against the dampened ground, and I slipped beneath with the coil just barely touching my stomach. With a sigh of relief, I stood up and ran to the next part of the course.
I leaped directly into the mud of the next obstacle. It wasn't as deep, but still deep enough to make it hard to move. That being said, it was easier to move under the coil fences. The mud was, however, more hardened, thick, and extremely tough to move around in which didn't help the situation, and it meant I would have to crawl instead of make a path through the sludge. This time, the fences were all at the same height and it was a quick crawl to the end.
Thus, all good things must come to an end. As I moved to get out of the mud, a wet spot caused it to form around my legs and quickly harden like fast-drying cement. I grunted as I struggled to move, but it was to no avail. "Bloody... hell...!" I grunted in anger.
I then looked up to the same earth pony I saw stuck under the wires before who hopped out and was just about to climb the net to the top of the first tower. "Hey, could you uh, help me out here?" I asked with an awkward chuckle.
"Sorry, bub. Remember what they said, it's everypony for themselves!" the earth pony laughed and continued climbing.
My blood boiled. "Screw you!" I struggled to move some more. Just moments later, I watched the last pony hop out of the pit and jump onto the net. I was left behind. At this rate, I wouldn't make the third tower.
I was about ready to give up and accept that I wouldn't make it.
With a sigh, I glanced over to the drill sergeant and Sergeant Hardstaff, who were both observing me from the side. The drill sergeant glared and raised his hoof to look at his watch. My eyes then went to Sergeant Hardstaff. He said something under his own breath. He didn't seem to be angered, but instead... concerned? The way his lips moved, I made it out that he was saying 'you can do it, buddy'.
I looked down at my chest where the muck had come up to. Then, with more grunts of struggling, I yanked one hoof free, and soon the other. I grabbed onto the edge and gradually pulled myself out of the pit, leaving a large body-shaped hole where I was stuck. The sergeant smiled out of the corner of my eye, and I didn't hesitate to start climbing the net.
It was a long way up, and gravity wasn't on my side. My morning hunger was beginning to get to me already and I was still exhausted from my horrible night's sleep. If the mud didn't get me, this would. Then, I got the idea of looking down. I sadly did, and my heart was racing. My fear of heights was quickly kicking in.
I wasn't ready to let this stop me. Not now. I couldn't. There was no going back at this point.
Looking back up and resumed climbing with my remaining strength. After an unknown amount of time, I reached the top. No one was up there with me, I was just that far behind. I ran to the edge and went to grab for a net to climb back down, then stumbled a bit and almost fell. I pulled away from the edge with a racing heart and quickly realized I had to jump to the next net on the second tower. Looking down, it became evident that the net didn't go that far down. If I missed, I was dead. What the hell was I getting myself into?
I backed up against the other edge where I climbed up, and after some quick moments of thinking my life decisions over, I galloped towards the other edge and leaped across, tightly grabbing the net. I opened my eyes and looked down and found myself to be where I wanted to be. I was becoming confident, especially when I saw the others still climbing above me.
I reached the top of the second tower and jumped to the third with the same results, but cutting a little close to falling. Each tower was further and further apart and the nets were higher. Each time didn't give us much of a window of catching on and it had me shaking as much as the height.
Then came the last tower. I had to nail this one perfectly or it was lights out for me. I stepped to the edge opposite of the one I was jumping from, and with a deep breath, I ran and jumped. I couldn't say what happened, but I blacked out, and when I woke up, I was hanging on for dear life. Down below, other Marines had gathered and were watching with horror, while the drill sergeant looked like he didn't care if I fell.
I was already weakened from the climbing and had the wits scared out of me knowing I was in a life or death situation at this point. I think it was with whatever will to live I had left that pulled me up completely onto the net. I kept climbing and was eventually at the top. The timer was running out, and the last thing we had to do was zip line down into a pool. I watched as the others splashed down, then turning to me. My heart thumped hard in my ears and my breath was becoming shallow, but I had to do it. Either that, or I could have just cannon balled right into the ground to take the easy way out. Even then, I would probably show up in Tartarus for giving up too easy.
I took the final zip line at the top and took one final deep breath. My hooves were sweaty, and it meant I could slip at any moment on the way down.
With thirty seconds left, I ran and jumped. I shut my eyes, feeling the wind rushing through my mane and feathers as I slid down towards the water. Then came the relieving splash of cold water that woke me back up. I jumped up to the surface of the pool with a large gasp for air. I frantically swam to the edge and climbed out, then fell on my back. My chest heaved hard and was expanding and contracting exactly the speed my heart was.
I didn't know what to think. Was a light shining down on me, or was sunlight shining down on me? Did I make it into the pool or did I fall to my death, and my wake up call was in a pool of healing tears so I wouldn't feel pain?
"Conscript!"
Nope, not dead still.
My eyes shot open, the drill sergeant and the others were all standing around me.
"W-what happened?" I panted hard and looked at each and every one of them with widened eyes.
"You made it," sergeant Hardstaff smiled. He was actually smiling. "With two seconds to spare."
"Two...seconds?" I was more than surprised.
"And with that, y'all passed. Unfortunately," the drill sergeant grumbled.