Sundown Stryker flexed each muscle in his legs, pushing as hard as he could. He didn't know which hurt more; his knees, his thighs, or his neck, all being slowly crushed underneath the weight of the cumbersome burden over his shoulder, and when the pain came shooting to the back of his head, unsure of its source, he screamed. He wasn't the only one doing so.

All around him, just under one-hundred ponies, all wearing bulky, cumbersome, armor to add to the misery of the training they now suffered through, pushed themselves back up to a standing position, most of them staggering a bit as they did so. They came to a stop, the sand of the training pit unstable and yielding at their hooves, stealing away solid ground to push against as they repeatedly squatted at the command of the instructors.

They'd started with one-hundred and twelve; thirteen had quit within the first hour, while they were still on their first run, made complicated by insults and jeers from their instructors, creatively called 'motivation'. Since then, nine more had given up on training; five on the ten mile mountain climb, and four more on the water course, and a tenth had been removed due to nearly drowning. And to make it worse, it was only one o'clock.

"Again! Down!" yelled one of the instructors, a red coated pegasus stallion, while their head instructor, Major Persephone Skyfarer, kept circling the lot of them like a vulture, looking down disapprovingly through her one functioning eye.

"Come On! Move!" yelled the third instructor, the smallest and lightest colored, yet scariest, of the trio that kept making their group go through the closest thing to hell that existed in the world of the living.

"Hooah! came the response, weak from each individual, but strong as a group, and once again, each of the five teams of soldiers bent their knees, let the weight of the immense logs, more like tree trunks, that each team shared push them down to the earth, and froze once their thighs paralleled the level ground of the training pit.

Again, the pain came shooting up from his knees and neck at the same time, and again, in synchronization with nearly every other soldier present, Sundown screamed in pain.

"Up!" barked the instructor, and again, each pony present, ranging greatly in stature, color, gender and species, pushed up with the entirety of their waning strength, standing up fully with the overbearing weight of the logs balanced on their shoulders.

"Fifty-three!" yelled the head instructor, counting off their reps, her voice like ice in the otherwise blistering sun.

"Alright Mules," shouted the small instructor, who insisted on being called just 'Sir,' referring to them by his favorite, and most demeaning nickname, "Give me two more good reps, and you get lunch!"

Suddenly, the pain in his legs seemed to increase, and Sundown tried his hardest to breathe, in the process, trying his hardest not to pass out.

He felt his knees give again, and the weight of the log pushed down on his spine, and his legs barely stayed in their sockets as they reached 90 degrees to the ground.

He screamed again, this time, one of the only ones to do so; the rest of the class, whom the instructors kept referring to Class 2-4, was apparently refreshed by the promise of food.

"Suffer in Silence!" yelled Sir, taking a menacing step in his direction, and Sundown promptly snapped his mouth shut, cutting off his verbal anguish.

Again, he and his group pushed upwards once the instructors gave them the go, and he reached the peak of his ascent just as the pain in his spine reached a maximum.

"One more!" yelled one of the instructors from behind the pit, and, surprisingly, one of the candidates responded without pain in his voice.

"Hooah 2-4!" yelled the voice, and Sundown looked out of the corner of his eye to see, to his own disbelief, a pegasus stallion, smiling under the weight of the log.

He was tall and thick, a fine specimen of fitness, and very dark, his hide and black armor both bearing a resemblance to a starless night sky. His wings were flared up around the tree trunk on his shoulder, balancing it, and though sweat beaded down his face, his eyes remained focused and determined, and despite all the pain in his body, Sundown felt a feeling of admiration forming within him.

The teams, all five of them, again lowered themselves towards the ground at Sir's command, and, again at the loud bark of the instructor, raised themselves back up again for the final time.

"Drop 'em!" yelled Sir, and five cedar logs rolled from bone, and landed in the sands of the pit.

Most of the ponies, especially Sundown, followed their logs to the ground, and collapsed into the burning grains of sand at their hooves. Only two didn't; one was the dark pegasus from before, that smile still on his face, and the other was an immense mahogany earth pony stallion, but, to contrast his partner in standing, he looked exhausted.

Sundown took a moment to breathe deeply, forgetting about looking up at those around him with the strength and the will to move within the minute, definitely made possible by the anticipation of food, and closed his eyes, relishing in another small victory for the day. But, his respite was cut short by an icy, cold voice above him, and a literal kick in his rump.

"Get up and get to the mess hall."

Sundown squinted up through sweat and sunlight to see Persephone looking down on him uncaringly; he was the only one left in the pit after what had only seemed like a few seconds.

"Lunch is over at 1400. If you want food, get up and get it while you can."

With that, she turned, and walked off across the training fields, heading for the same structure the rest of the class was lining up outside of. Reluctantly, and with no shortage of pain, Sundown suffered to his hooves, and did the same.

Sundown turned from the lunch line with a tray in his hooves; he'd have used magic, but among the only two rules imposed by the instructors, was one prohibiting the use of magic while in the training program. The other applied to pegasi, outlawing them from using their wings. Nopony was special in the eyes of the instructors, and none of them had the opportunity of gaining an advantage over their comrades; they were all equally worthless.

He looked around the mess hall interior; it was vaguely reminiscent of a school lunch room, with different groups of ponies talking away and eating hungrily at their tables. And also like a school lunch room, there were very few available seats.

Were the class at the same size it had been when they'd started, there may have been none, but, luckily, there was precisely one seat open, right among a group of relatively familiar faces. On the corner of a table occupied by the dark pegasus from the pit, there was a gap on the bench where he could fit. He made for it while it was still available, balancing his gilded helmet on his back, and his tray in one hoof as his metal gauntlets clinked against the floor.

He placed his tray and helmet on the table, and plopped down heavily, his metallic shell jangling around his body, upon reaching the bench, sighing contentedly as he felt the relief in his legs' muscles, extending them to their full length underneath the table. He closed his eyes as he rejoiced in simply not doing anything for a few seconds, before a voice called him back to the present.

"You're going to want to eat," said the voice, gruff and masculine.

Sundown looked up and to his right to the pegasus, an amount of food stuffed in his cheek, and his lavender eyes inquisitively looking down at him.

"Keep your strength up and all," he said as he swallowed, promptly refilling his mouth with a spoonful of potatoes, "Believe me, you'll need it."

Sundown did as he was advised, and painfully sat up, and began quickly eating. The others at the table were eagerly chatting away, complaining about their recent endeavors mostly, but still, he and the stallion on his right were the only ones that remained silently eating.

Sundown swallowed, and hesitantly, looked back to his right, trying to start at least a resemblance of a conversation, never mind to try and clear up a few pressing curiosities.

"So," he said as he downed a glass of water, prompting the stallion, his mouth still full, to look down his way, "Why do ya think we're out here? They sure didn't tell me nothin'."

"Oh, that's obvious," he said, his scratchy voice grinding in Sundown's ears, ''this is a selection process."

"How d'ya figure?"

"It's just like the one we had to go through to join Spec Ops," he explained, "they're beating us down to try and determine which of us are the strongest; they'll keep the ones that prove they belong."

"You obviously know more 'bout this than I do," admitted Sundown, turning back to his overcooked meal, "So, a selection? What are we bein' selected for?"

"No clue," he responded quickly, "but that doesn't change much of anything. We're still stuck here, and if we make it," he paused slightly as he shoveled more food into his mouth, "we'll be a part of something pretty damn elite, and I'm just fine with that."

"How d'ya figure?"

"They haven't told us what we're trying out for yet, which means it some secretive stuff, and by definition, cool."

Sundown was silent for a moment.

"Do you know of anythin' a tier up from Spec Ops?"

"Nope," admitted the stallion, shaking his head, "I had a friend once that said he'd been selected for something like this, but we never heard from him again. I guess he ended up getting killed in the invasion; I found his grave when I went to visit my brother's."

Sundown turned away slightly; stories like these had become common in Equestria as of late, and nopony was without one, as nopony hadn't been effected by the changelings' attack; nopony.

"Maybe that's what's bein' kept so secret."

"Maybe that's what we're here for," added the stallion.

Sundown looked away a bit as he put more food in his mouth.

"I'm Nightingale by the way," the stallion said, extending a hoof his way.

"Su..." he started to respond, only to be interrupted.

"Sundown Stryker," Nightingale juxtaposed, smiling slyly, "The whole class knows your name after this morning."

Sundown's memory begrudgingly returned to the ass chewing he'd received prior to the training's commencement. Still, he gave a smile back to the pegasus, only to have it cut short by a bell's sounding off, and the doors being thrown in by a trio of uniformed ponies, the one in front announcing her presence in a frosty voice.

"Outside, now! Get to your barracks and change into PT gear! Be in formation in five minutes!"

Sundown and Nightingale rose side by side from the table, sighing, and after replacing their helmets on their heads, they shuffled to the front of the mess hall, pushed through the clogged atrium, and sprinted back to their barracks as fast as their exhausted legs could carry them.

Author's Notes:

Hey! I was feeling a little bored, so I decided to post a little early. So, I hope you guys are liking this story so far. If so, please say why, and likewise if not. I feed off of instructive criticism.