Prodigy

“I hope you’re all ready, because I can promise you this. This is not going to be fun,” Sergeant Breezy told us.

We stood in the archway to the arena’s doors, practically glaring at the setup in front of us. The course almost took up the entire arena floor, save for the start line, and a section that was used for running, presumably.

“This... is the qualifiers. It is an obstacle course designed to test and strain you in a multitude of ways. There are many different aspects to it. Strength, agility, speed, and of course, endurance. I can also tell you right now that absolutely none of you will be getting through this course without proper teamwork. No unit can operate with only one individual, nor can an operation be complete by yourself. Try all you want, but I can tell you that by yourself, you will not be getting through this course today!” the sergeant yelled to us. We all stood straight and tall when he was yelling at us, and this time was no exception.

“Take a moment to soak it all up. Because we’re going to be starting very, very soon. As in... right now. Line up!” Breezy yelled to us. We all quickly formed a neat line, shoulder to shoulder, none of us bothering to waste any time. I took the brief time we were standing still to gaze at the entirety of the course.

The start of it was a long, straight corridor. I presume this was meant to be a dead sprint, based on how it went all the way to the other side of the arena. The path then did a one hundred and eighty degree turn. The next section was a tall wooden frame, with a rope mesh in the middle. A pole ran up the middle of the frame, likely to give the structure extra support, and to divide the frame into halves. After that was another tall frame, but this one wasn’t as tall as the other. At about ten feet tall, there was a single rope hanging down the middle of it. Based on how hard it was to climb a rope, it was definitely one of the more daunting tasks here.

Next was a set of walls, that, from the looks of it, you had to climb over, but how you were supposed to do that was beyond me. After that was a long piece of rope that ran perpendicular to the ground, about four feet off of the ground. It went for about ten meters, before ending at another pole. Then came a long balance beam, then another twist in the course.

The next section started with a large set of ladders on a wooden frame, that were honestly quite tall. The next obstacle... was actually quite odd. After the ladders came a double set of long, narrow pipes. I assumed we had to crawl through them. After that was a crowd of poles, all about a foot high, that were sticking out of the ground. Maybe... jump across them?

Another twist on the course brought us to a set of hanging bars, which were relatively straight forward. Then came a large open pit, that we would likely have to jump across. Last on that section was, from the looks of it, a grouping of wooden... hand rails? They were set up in a way that you had to run through them... like a maze! It was like a small maze that was shaped like a square “S.”

The course then ended with another open section for running, and if I counted right, there were thirteen obstacles to overcome. Apparently in my quick gaze I overestimated the amount of obstacles. Nonetheless, the course was still an intimidating sight, and even with my slight advantage, I tried my best not to underestimate it.

“You’ll all be going in groups of two, at the same time. The way this works is quite simple. You’ll run through the course, and when you come to the end and cross the finish line, you’ll be told your time. After you’re done, you’re free to leave. If your time meets the guards standards, or I deem your performance to be exceptional, you will be contacted within the week about continuing your career in the guard. Is that clear!?” Breezy explained to us.

“Yes sir!”

“Good. You’ll all be running in groups of two. Pair up!”

We all briefly looked at each other before splitting up into pairs. There was one person left out, as there were fifteen of us, an odd number. The lone... recruit looked around for a moment, before tacking himself onto a group of two, making three. He looked to the sergeant, who nodded a silent response. I was paired with the man I had been talking to earlier. His blonde hair went down to his shoulders, and it had a unique sheen to it that I wish I could replicate in my own hair.

“We will be starting momentarily. Everyone line up in your groups, whoever is at the start is going first!” Breezy told us. Everyone started falling into order, with us in second place. I was happy about this, as it gave us a chance to see how to attempt some of the obstacles that I didn’t know how to go about.

“Now if you fall, or otherwise fuck up on one of the obstacles, that will not count as a failure. Pick yourself up, and keep going. We’re looking for performance, but you have to remember than your time is a part of that. If you get a certain time that we deem to be exemplary, you’ll be passed on that alone. And of course, you can always attempt this again in the future, so even if you don’t pass this time, there’s always the re-try. Understood!?” the sergeant told us.

“Yes sir!” we all yelled. We were getting pretty good at yelling that in unison.

“You’ll all be numbered, one, two, three, and so on, got it?” Breezy told us, pointing to us in line. I committed the number two to my memory.

“Yes sir!”

“Good. Team one! Are you ready!?”

“Yes sir,” the two people ahead of us yelled.

“Ready... go!”

The pair of recruits, both male, took off as fast as they could, running to the far side of the track in about eight seconds. They rounded the corner as fast as they could without wiping out, and started on the first set of challenges.

There weren’t just males here, there were also two females among us as well. Team three, the one behind us had one of them. From the way they looked, they were just as competent as us when it came to athleticism.

As we took a step forward to be at the front of the line, I took the time to study how the group ahead of us handled the obstacles.

The first one was simple, it was like a ladder that was looser than a regular one. The second one, however, was much, much more intimidating. At this time, the group ahead of us was roughly half way up the ropes, one of them only ahead by a little bit. I was questioning my ability to make it up the rope, but then turned my attention back to the first team.

They made it to the top if the rope, before sliding down, careful not to burn their hands. Once they reached the bottom, they came to the walls, and I lost sight of them. Before I could question how to get over the walls, they both came up and over by flinging their bodies to maximize the amount of height they got out of their jumps. They landed, and repeated the same thing on the next wall.

Upon seeing this, I knew that there were some serious contenders here, much more experienced than me. I was willing to bet that some of the people here had trained for a lot longer than I had before attempting this course.

“Are you ready?” my partner said to me. I glanced over to him.

“Truth be told, I’m not really prepared for this. I don’t know how to go about some of the challenges here,” I told him. He nodded.

“How about you stay a little behind me. That way, I can probably show you how to do some of the obstacles. Sound good?” he asked me, to which I nodded.

“Team two, ready!?” I heard the sergeant yell out to us.

“Yes sir!” we called in sync.

“Ready... go!” he yelled.

We took off, running as fast as we could. I immediately pulled ahead of my partner... who I neglected to get the name of, regardless of how I felt about him earlier. I rounded the corner, and came up to the first of many challenges.

The rope mesh was quite flexible, like I had thought, and when I stepped onto a... “rung,” the whole rope mesh went with it. I kept on pressing onto the rope until I had a good enough footing to begin climbing. My partner caught up to me, and did the same.

“Damn, you’re fast! You took that sprint like it was nothing!” he told me. All I could do was nod, though I wasn’t sure it he noticed or not.

We both started climbing, but this was nothing like a regular rope. It swayed, moved, and flexed under our weight. It made climbing difficult, at least compared to a regular ladder. Though different, it was not all that taxing to my body, and I made it to the top without incident. I straddled the top bar, and flipped over to the other side, my partner practically mirroring my movements.

“Hey, I never managed to get your name!” I called out to him.

“It’s Sawyer, you?” he called as we made our way down the ropes.

“Daniel!” I yelled over my own train of thought. He did not respond, so I imagine he nodded like me previously.

We came to the bottom of the rope mesh, and ran a few feet to get the next obstacle.

The single rope.

Sawyer ran up to it and immediately grabbed on to it. Heeding his advice, I stepped back and observed his methods.

“Make sure you have your feet wrapped tight when you aren’t climbing, in case you fall,” he told me while starting his ascent. I grabbed onto the rope and matched his grip, movements, and rhythms. I pulled myself up, before putting my right hand over my left one. Pulling again, I quickly found a pattern I was comfortable with. I soon felt a slight pressure in my abdomen and chest, which only heightened into a light burning as I pulled myself higher.

“Don’t look down, don’t think about it, just keep going. We’re almost there,” Sawyer called out to me. Listening to his advice, I kept myself from looking around, and instead focused on getting to the top of the rope. Soon enough my core burned, and my arms started to ache as I continued pulling myself up.

I pulled myself up again, and-

“Ow!” I yelled out, having bumped my head on the top bar of the frame. I glanced over to see Sawyer smiling at me.

“Now we just have to get down. Try not to burn yourself, ya hear?” he told me. Upon the last line, I noticed a slight country accent in his voice.

“Yes!” I called out, before slowly combining the actions of sliding and climbing down. Our descent was much faster than our ascent, and we made it to the bottom relatively quickly.

The next challenge was less intimidating, and I recalled how the previous group overcame it to help me. We ran towards the wall as fast as we could.

“Make sure you get all the way up, else you won’t make it!” he yelled just before we jumped. We simultaneously leapt into the air, and I turned my body as horizontal as it would go. I landed on the top of the wall, and slid over to the other side, landing and preparing to repeat the process. Sawyer landed next to me, and we took off for the next wall.

...........jump!

I sprung off of my dominant leg, repeating the same jump as before. This time, however, I didn’t get as high as I needed, and I missed the top by about a foot.

“No!” I yelled out throwing my arms out. Just before I fell, I felt a hand grab onto my arm, pulling me up and onto the wall.

“Don’tcha worry, I got ya! Come on!” Sawyer yelled as he pulled me up. I nodded, panting from my outburst. A fall here wouldn’t have been to painful, but it would have certainly impacted my time, and that was something that I could not afford to mess up.

Sawyer and I slid off of the top of the wall, and ran towards the next set of challenges.

“You have to hang from the rope and drag yourself across this one!” my partner yelled to me.

“You seem to know a lot about this course,” I said to him.

“Well, I should. I took this course once before, but I didn’t pass it that time,” he told me as we both climbed onto the rope. Sawyer took to it, but this position was completely alien to me.

“What do I do?!” I called out.

“You hafta climb the rope like I am! Just wrap your legs around it and pull yourself along! You can carry most of your weight with your legs!” he yelled to me as he started to inch his way across of the rope. My eyes shot back and forth between Sawyer and the start of the rope.

“Come on! You can’t fall behind!” Sawyer yelled to me. Swallowing my fears as best as I could, I grabbed onto the other rope, and swung my legs up while jumping as hard as I could. I wrapped my legs around the rope, using them to support the majority of my weight. Grunting, I pulled myself forward as hard as I could, moving forward about half a foot. Sawyer looked back to me.

“That’s it, you got it!”

Gritting my teeth, I continued the slow process of pulling myself across the rope. It was agonizingly slow, and soon enough I felt my core starting to burn again. My legs started to ache, and before I knew it, I was sweating profusely.

Sawyer flipped onto the ground, before turning around to face me.

“Come on, you got it! Just a little more!”

...come on... one... last... pull...

That last pull took me to the edge of the pole, and I reached out and tapped it with my hand. Letting my legs fall, I flipped over, landing on my feet, catching myself before I fell.

“Come on! Let’s go!” Sawyer told me as he took off towards the balance beams. I groaned, but picked myself up, taking off after Sawyer.

I hopped onto the balance beam after catching up to my new friend, concentrating on not falling off. The beam was not straight. It was arranged in a “zig-zag” pattern, meant to throw off people by forcing you to change directions. We were able to make small hops across the change in direction, slightly reducing the distance we had to travel. We crossed the beams with no difficulties, and sped off to the next obstacle.

Coming around the next turn in the course, I ran ahead of Sawyer, and practically jumped onto the ladders that were next. We had ladders bolted to the wall in our gym at school, so this was nothing to me.

I climbed the ladders quite fast, and straddled the top, carefully coming down the other side. I jumped off the ladder when I was about three quarters of the way down, bending my knees to soften my landing. Sawyer landed next to me just as I ran to the pipes that lay ahead of us. I almost faltered when I started running, but I caught myself before I could fall.

“Just get down and crawl through’em! There’s enough room, trust me!” I heard Sawyer advise from behind me. I practically threw myself onto my belly as I approached the opening of my pipe. It was wide enough to crawl through, but not wide enough to crouch in, like Sawyer had said. I slowly crawled forward, trying to find a rhythm that worked for me. Crawling was not that difficult, but doing efficiently was much more challenging.

Eventually I made it to the end of my pipe, crawling out and standing up. Sawyer had already made it out of his pipe, and was starting to cross the next obstacle.

There were a multitude of wooden poles sticking out of the ground, all about a foot tall. Sawyer was jumping across them, one foot after another, almost like he was running.

I mirrored Sawyer’s movements, attempting to retain the necessary velocity and momentum to keep myself going. As soon as I jumped off of the first pole, I realized why this would be a challenge. It was extremely difficult to keep jumping, and I fell before I realized this. I landed safely, but I cursed aloud before running back to the start. Fortunately I had fallen on the first one and not the last.

“Fuck!” I yelled.

I started again, this time making sure I put everything I had into my jumps I slowly made it across, jumping from one pole to the next, back and forth. I pushed off the last one as hard as I could, landing and falling to my knees, breathing in heavily. When Sawyer had seen me making progress, he had started towards the next challenge. I let out a loud scream in an attempt to energize myself, before standing up and running towards the next obstacle.

My legs burned, my core ached, and my arms practically hung limp in pain.

This.

This what I had expected from the guard. They knew how to push you to your limits, and they were not afraid to do so.

I rounded the next twist in the course, and came up a set of hanging bars. My arms screamed in protest when I grabbed onto the first bar.

“Ah! ...fuck!” I seethed through my teeth when I climbed to the next bar.

“Keep going, we’re almost done,” Sawyer told me from ahead of me. He was coming up to the end of the bars, and I quickened my pace to try and catch up with him. Sawyer hopped off of the last bar as I came to the end, jumping off and running after him. We ran towards the next challenge, which were two long pits in the ground.

“You have to jump over them! Run fast!” Sawyer screamed to me as I caught up to him. Just before we got up to the pit, I managed to see that it was full of water. It was a light brown, something that I definitely did not want to fall into. I sprung off of my right leg, pushing myself as hard as I could.

“Woah!” Sawyer yelled out.

Sawyer had jumped around a second before I did, but he didn’t get enough momentum to carry him safely over the water. When he landed, his foot slipped on the slippery edge of the pit. At the same time I came flying past him. I had a split second to realize that he was falling, and I shot out my arm towards him as I did. I, somehow, grabbed onto his arm, and with the extra momentum that my enhanced speed gave me, I managed to pull him forward with me as I fell to my knees. Sawyer came crashing down next to me, sore, but dry. He let out a huge sigh as he picked himself up off of the ground.

“Man! Thanks a lot. This is what I failed last time. It ruined my time,” he told me as I stood up.

“No problem. Let’s go!” I said as we ran towards the final obstacle. The last challenge wasn’t meant to tire you out, I decided. Rather, it was meant to slow you down as much as possible. A small maze, in the shape of a square “S.”

“Grab onto the railing as you come around and use your weight to swing around the turn!” Sawyer told me. We each ran into our own side, and I used his advice to swing around the first turn, then the second. We came out at the same time, sprinting around the final turn.

Like the beginning, it was a straight corridor with no obstacles, intended to make you run as fast as you could. I didn’t hesitate, breaking into a sprint as soon as I came into the final stretch of track. I raced ahead of my partner, no longer needing to worry about whether or not he needed my help.

I crossed a line marker that had been left on the ground. There was a pony on the right side of the finish line, and a human on the left. I crossed on the right side of the track, and the mare clicked a button on a stop-watch.

“Time! Name?” she called as I passed the line.

“...Daniel...” I seethed through my teeth. She nodded, scribbling something down on a note pad she had taken out.

Sawyer came in a few seconds behind me.

“Time! Name?” the man yelled out, stopping his timing device.

“Sawyer,” he told him. He did the same as the mare did.

I came to a stop, and doubled over, holding onto my abdomen. It wasn’t the running that got me, but the constant strain on my legs and core. It hurt, I can’t lie. Sawyer walked up next to me and gave me a slap on the back.

“Nice run... that was... pretty cool,” he said in between breaths. I nodded my response.

“Hey you two, take a walk and get some water,” the mare told us. Sawyer gave her a thumbs up, and we started walking around the perimeter of the course, which wasn’t very large.

“How do you think we did?” Sawyer asked me. I shook my head.

“I don’t know. All I know is that I’m going to be very, very sore for a while. What about you? You said you’ve run this course before, how do you think we did?” I asked him.

“Well, ah actually passed this time, so definitely better,” he told me. I noticed that Sawyer’s accent tended to change quite a bit. Sometimes his accent was quite pronounced, other times it was practically non-existent. I was trying to discern a pattern as to when he spoke in accent, and when he didn’t, but there was no sign of one yet.

We walked around the edge of the course until we came back to the start. The line had moved forward by about seven places. Sergeant Breezy noticed us walking up and called out to us.

“Hey! There’s a water cart outside, just got here. Feel free to help yourself,” he told us. We nodded to him, and went to the doors to the arena.

Stepping outside, we were immediately met with the warmth and humidity of the day. It wasn’t quite summer yet, but it was still June, and it was hot out. I looked to my right, and saw a cart with a guard standing front of it. Sawyer and I walked over to him, hoping to find something to quench our thirst.

“You guys come from the qualifiers?” he asked.

“Yep!” Sawyer simply responded.

The guard nodded and gave us each a small cup that he had filled with cold water from a tank on the side of the cart. We thanked him, and went back inside. Sergeant Breezy was standing next to the line of teams. There were only four teams that still had to go, and everything seemed to be going relatively smoothly. We walked over to him, and he glanced to us.

“You two can see your time over with the mare who actually took down your times,” Breezy told us. We thanked him, and went back to the end of the course. Sawyer went over to the man who took his time, and I approached the mare who took mine.

“Daniel, right?” she said as she turned to face me.

“Yes,” I told her as I took the final sip of my water. The mare looked over her sheet for a brief moment. She had a dark lavender coat, with a mane a few shades darker.

“The regulation time for an instant pass is five minutes, you took four minutes and fifty five seconds,” she told me, smiling as she looked up to me.

“Close,” I said to myself more than to the mare.

“Very, but I think your friend might have cut it even closer,” she told me, gesturing to Sawyer behind her. I thanked the mare, and walked over to Sawyer.

“Four fifty nine,” he told me with a laugh. I chuckled at this.

“Hey, we did it! High five!” he yelled, sticking out his hand. I gave him the most vigorous high five that I have ever given anyone in my life.

We went and talked to the sergeant again, who told us that we were free to go. We would be contacted shortly, within a few days, about progressing with our training.

Sawyer and I left the arena, a skip in our step and an ache in our legs, a little bit better than we were that morning.