The New Recruit

The next few weeks were a blur. Ace wasn't sure what day was which half the time, because every day, he'd go with Peregrine to train and practise until they ran out of time, and then they'd go to the gym to work out. It didn't much matter what the other students were doing, though Bubble Up and Buccaneer, the white pegasus that had accused him of blackmail on his first night, had offered to help train them, and had smoothed out their form a bit, as well as talked them through a few of the more complicated parts of the feats.

The day before the term was to end, though, the fields were too full, and the gym was crowded. It had been ramping up slowly, and with tests tomorrow, everypony was working hard to cram in that last session. So instead, they opted to have massages during practise hours and relax in the whirlpool after class. Spitfire even joined them in the tub, noting that, were they not comfortable with it, they could leave. Peregrine did, but Ace stuck around. He was already aware of the rumours.

The next day, everypony was outside. Classes were cancelled, because the entire first-year class would be performing in front of each other for the first time, rather than the individual groups.

Teams were sent through each section in alphabetical order, organised by the lead pony's name. First, the obstacle course. Spitfire would note the time differences between the current run and an average of the originals. If they were better together, she would announce the time difference. If they were worse, she'd snap at them for not working together. And if they were really bad, she would humiliate them in front of the whole class. It had been seven weeks since they arrived, after all. If they were the same as when they arrived, that would be understandable, but disappointing. If they were worse by a wide margin, they were called "a disgrace to the uniform." They would still be able to stick around and attend classes, but if they didn't improve by the end of the next term, they would be sent home.

Ace was nervous when Peregrine was called up, but that was to be expected. He was going to perform in front of all of his classmates, just shy of a hundred, and Spitfire was going to judge him. This was a small scale version of what the Wonderbolts did all the time. Thousands of fans in the stands, every single one watching your every move, judging you silently and comparing you to your peers.

He pushed the thoughts out of his mind the second he jumped off the cloud. He jumped high, Peregrine went low, and they slalomed up and down through the horizontal beams with ease. Their motions were counter to each other, so when Ace was up, Peregrine was down, and then they switched.

As Ace flung himself straight up for the last beam, Peregrine grabbed him by the back hooves and carried him through the moving vertical beams. To show that Peregrine wasn't doing all of the work, his wings went flat, and Ace was in charge of steering through gravity. There was a moment where they almost clipped a pillar, but Peregrine gave a single flap to pull them out of the way.

Ace's technique on the rotating beams was the same, and Peregrine just flew opposite him. Then came the moving beams, both vertical and horizontal. These were pretty easy by now, as much as they'd practised with the more advanced students.

Last up were the rings. These were the rookie killers of this particular test. There were more than twenty this time, and they were arranged in such a way as to force the contestants to either go through them at different rates or be able to anticipate where their partner was going to be, because their paths were set to collide.

Peregrine had made the suggestion that Ace go first, and he would match him two rings back. This meant that, if one were to stand at the end of the rings, there would seem to be no Peregrine, because he was always right behind Ace, who was slightly larger, and slightly closer.

As they made it through, Ace took one last leap, spreading his front hooves so that Peregrine could catch him. This was where they almost fumbled, as Peregrine nearly dropped him, but managed to grab him before he fell too far. They landed safely on the finish platform with Ace landing first, and Peregrine coming up right in front of him.

"Well, well," nodded Spitfire. "One minute and six seconds. Peregrine, your last score was just over a minute thirty, and your partner was just shy of three and a half. From an average time of two minutes and twenty-nine seconds to less than half of that is quite the leap."

"Thank you, ma'am," nodded Peregrine. "It was his idea, though."

"Couldn't have done it without him," breathed Ace. "Ma'am."

Spitfire turned to the whole class. "I want you all to know that teamwork and dedication can drastically increase your odds. Their time is less than half of what it was before. If the rest of you can do that, we may yet make Wonderbolts out of you!"

There was some mild cheering, and some amount of scattered booing, but most of the students were just murmuring to themselves. It didn't sound positive to Ace, but he felt good, regardless. Not only was his new time better than his old, by a wide margin, he was better than a lot of the pegasi that had done this on their first day, and better than some of them even now. He was far from a loser, and he was going to stay that way for as long as he could.

Nevertheless, the whispers did hit his ears, and they were quite troublesome. Words like "cheater" and "rigged" were being thrown around. "He didn't practice yesterday; he went for a massage, instead." "I saw him in the hot tub alone with Spitfire last night." "He did bad on purpose the first time so he could look good now." "He's profiting while his partner does all of the work."

While he was proud of himself and glad to have been recognised for his efforts, their words still stung. He could handle it, for sure, but he wouldn't last forever...