Wind rushes past Pinkie Pie's grinning face. It feels like her cheeks are about to be ripped off and her eyes dried to dust, and she cannot hear a darn thing, except for her own excited scream and laughter. She looks to each side and sees students making their landings, using the weapons or maneuvering their bodies, and when she looks ahead she sees the lush canopy has gotten a whole lot closer than she last remembers.

Pinkie Pie cannot help but laugh at what is to come, and she aims her hammer towards the trees, and with a quick motions she activates the cannon inside her hammer. She holds the grip tight and squeezes the trigger, and a blue ball shoots forward, slowing her fall just a bit and blowing a tree apart. Pinkie Pie flies through the ball of flame and burning splinters, and narrowly avoids the severed portion of the tree. It falls behind her, smoking and crashing through the canopy, breaking more trees and shaking the ground when it lands, shooting up smoke, mulch and dust.

As this happens, Pinkie Pie holds her hammer straight ahead and hits the ground before she can finish the blink. Her body is shrouded in the cloud of debris that is shot up, and she loses her grip on her hammer and has a very nasty trip across the ground. Grunts and yelps of pain leave her as everything becomes a blur from her bouncing, rolling and skidding, and when she comes to a stop it is only because of a tree that she hit with her side.

Pinkie Pie curls on the ground, coughing and wheezing for air as she holds her ribs. Her ears ring and the camera on her face flashes red with a message blinking white at the bottom.

Aura Low! Recharge Needed!

Pinkie Pie groans and sees her hammer laying not too far from her, still in its cannon mode with no sighs of damage, save for a lot of dirt and some shaved paint and scratches. Seeing this, Pinkie Pie chuckles, grips the dirt and pulls herself forward.

“Yes, my hammer lives,” says Pinkie Pie proudly, albeit with a lot of pain in her voice.

She crawls on her stomach, wincing and coughing with her hair hanging over her eyes and wet mulch clinging to her body. Sweat mattes her hair to her forehead and neck and the red blinking on the camera snaps to yellow, but her body still hurts, especially her ribs. That does not stop her from smiling, though.

Once Pinkie Pie reaches her hammer, she uses it prop herself up, and then uses it as a walking stick to take her to a large, gnarled root, where she sits. She takes a moment to catch her breath, and when that moment passes, she looks around for any sign of prying eyes. With no one around she flicks a switch on her hammer and the barrel dims. Then she removes the gem from its slot, pulls off her shirt, silently congratulates herself for wearing her favorite red bra today, and starts cleaning the filth from her weapon.

Rarity keeps her eyes on the prize during her descent through the air. The trees are thick at both their trunks and leafs, and after watching a few more students go down with flashy trails or overly complex landings, she decides now will be a good time to land. Her acceleration of descent has something to do with it, too.

Rarity curls herself into a ball, and in a flash she is encased in a translucent cocoon of light blue and her body becomes a blur as she spins like a wheel. She then rockets towards the forest, leaving a trail behind her. Her cocoon bounces off of the trees, sending chunks of bark and broken branches flying and falling, and when she hits the ground dirt, mulch and shrubbery is ejected towards the sky with a BOOM shaking the nearby leaves and echoing in the forest.

Rarity bounces along the ground and off of a few more trees before skidding to a complete stop inside a puddle of mud, which has its contents sprayed everywhere. When Rarity gets up from her ball form, her eyes are rolling, her heading is spinning and the ground and sky are turning like a carousel. Rarity hiccups, wobbles in circles, and holds up her finger and points in a random direction.

“World, stop moving, please.”

And then she flops backwards in the mud becomes still.

Shotgun blasts ring over the forest as Applejack shoots balls of flame from her gloves to propel her across the sky. Like the others before her, she hollers from the thrill, and she has a giggle fit when she skims the top of the trees.

With the leaves brushing against her, Applejack curls her body and shoots out a jet stream of fire that turns her into a blur. Applejack is able to twist her body and kick herself off of a tree at a downward angle, leaving burnt foot prints and broken bark in her wake. And she continues this method, kicking herself off of one tree to the next, getting lower to the ground with every leap, and when she hits the ground, she hits its hard in a kneeling position with her fist in it.

Applejack stands up, takes a deep breath, and smiles and removes her Stetson to rake her fingers through her hair. Her glove is still hot and she regrets doing it, but when she realizes that she is standing in the middle of a crater all the self-inflicted pain goes to the back of her mind and she looks around at the damage before looking at her gloves. Then she shrugs and runs off.

Trixie narrows her eyes on the rapidly approaching trees, and she extends her wand and pushes a button on the handle. The blue gem glows and shoots a sparkling orb at the tree top, and when it hits the leafs it expands to a blue ring ring void of any color and Trixie quickly turns her the chamber in her wand so an orange gem replaces the blue one. She then turns and coils her body and shoots an orange orb that hits the trunk of a tree that is much closer to the ground. The orb expands to an orange ring and reflects the sky, and once Trixie falls through the blue ring she pops out of the orange ring and flips to her feet.

The wet mulch flies around her and she slides backwards, digging her feet and one hand in the ground while the other hand clutches her wand. When Trixie stops moving, she stands up, shakes the wet leafs from her cold hands and then switches out her orange gem with a purple one. An energy blade extends from Trixie's wand soon after, and at the base of the energy blade two smaller blades ones poke out from the sides, and she scans the area for any signs of trouble, keeping her blade out and eyes sharp.

With no signs of trouble anywhere, Trixie retracts her weapon, paces in circles a few times, and then blows raspberries and decides to just go in a random direction.

Twilight keeps her shield in front of her, and turns her head slightly to avoid the splinters of the trees her shield breaks through with ease. After breaking through the third tree Twilight lands on a particularly thick branch and rolls to a stop, which she is quick to hop to her feet while simultaneously slinging the shield on her back and twirling her spear to hold it like a gun. Gears and pistons click and whir, and the spear transforms into a slender rifle with the blade sliding back to turn into a bayonet and an iron sight popping up.

Twilight sweeps her rifle over the area, watching the remaining students making their landings throughout the forest. Then she sees Flash screaming and flailing and spinning in the air, completely helpless.

Twilight pushes a button on her grip and her rifle morphs back into a spear as she twists its position so she is holding it in one hand while using her thumb to gauge its direction. After a quick mental calculation she throws the spears, and a burst of energy rockets it across the sky. It arcs over the trees with Flash, and seconds later she hears a distant thud and cringes, hoping she did not just impale a fellow student.

However, her worries of becoming a prison plaything are put to rest when she hears Flash's faint voice echo: “Thank you!”

Twilight sighs with relief and begins her climb down.

The rainbow haired student known appropriately as Rainbow Dash makes her way through the forest, weapons drawn and eyes halfheartedly searching for foes. She knows the teachers will not do anything too crazy since she is a first year student. She still would like a challenge, but there is no point in getting too worked up about the test.

So far she has not encountered any students, but she has heard their attacks, and she has slayed a few monsters, such as large spiders, evil chickadees, and couple of little goblins. Nothing too hard. So far the event has been boring, except for the beginning when she made her amazing landing that no one saw. But she will have plenty of time to display her awesomeness once she forms a team.

Some minutes and bug killings later and Rainbow Dash steps into a clearing. The grass is a good height and the sun shines down on her. The trees around her show no signs of trouble, and so she continues on without much of a care. The she hears a growl and heavy thumps.

Rainbow Dash turns to the source and curses and jumps back when she sees a massive creature stepping through the tree line. Its blood red eyes stare at her, and its fangs gleam in the light from its slobber. Its lion body is bulging with muscles under its fur, its bat wings are expanded and its scorpion tail is raised and dripping venom.

Rainbow Dash's knees and hands shake, but she still puts on a confident smile and braces herself as she aims her weapons at the beast.

“A manticore, huh? Finally a challenge I can actually enjoy!” says Rainbow Dash.

A series of fast, flickering lights suddenly appear from the tree line, and an ominous bzzzzzzz overtakes the manticore's scream of pain. Dirt, grass and blood fly and Rainbow Dash swears and jumps back as the manticore thrashes on the ground. Each round penetrating it jerks its body and by the time it is still and silent, the ground and its body are soaked in blood, and Rainbow Dash can only stare. Eyes wide and jaws slack.

Rainbow Dash hears a couple of clicks along with snapping twigs, and she turns and sees a slender girl stepping out from her cover with a large case on her back. She is slipping a couple of gems into a drum of a Thompson machine gun that appears to have been born from a musical instrument. The smoke from its glowing barrel rise to her face, and she meet Dash's cerise eyes with her tired purple eyes. Her black trench coat is open, exposing her gray blouse and pink ties, she has black pants and shoes -which are covered in mud, a black hat with a pink band, and her black hair is straight with large bangs and goes past her shoulders.

“Hey, I could've handled that!” says Rainbow Dash.

“I'm sure you could've,” says the new girl. “But I wanted to kill something.”

A cold feeling runs up Dash's spine and she takes a step back. “Okay, that's creepy.”

The student steps forward and. “Being as the rules dictate that we're a team, now, I think we need to introduce ourselves. I am Octavia Melody.” She holds out her hand. “What's your name?”

Rainbow Dash hesitantly shakes Octavia's hand. “The name's Rainbow Dash.”

“That's nice.”

Octavia then walks away in the opposite direction of Rainbow Dash without looking back, leaving the vibrant haired girl to stare flabbergasted. When Octavia is almost back into the trees, Rainbow Dash marches forward.

“Hey, where are you going?” says Rainbow Dash.

“To the ruins. They are in this direction,” says Octavia, still not looking at Dash.

Rainbow Dash points over her shoulder. “No, the ruins are that way!”

Octavia faces Rainbow Dash, her weapon cradled in her arms and a brow raised skeptically. “You wanna bet?”

“Yeah, I wanna bet!”

Octavia rests her weapon against a tree, pulls out a gray wallet with a black clef on it, which is attached to her belt loop via gold chain, and pulls out a small wad of cash.

“How much?” says Octavia.

“Oh.” Rainbow Dash chuckles, and then seethes and rubs the back of her neck as she averts her eyes. “Listen, I'm kinda broke, so... dish duty for a month?”

Rainbow Dash then looks at Octavia and forces a smile, and Octavia sighs in disappointment and puts her money away.

Flash struggles to free himself from the spear that has him stuck in a tree, using his guitar case. He grunts and swears under his breath as he awkwardly pulls on the weapon, but he stops momentarily when he hears a distant bzzzzzzz and an animal making a very painful scream. When the noise stops, leaving only bugs and birds, he goes right back at it, although with more ardor since he really does not want to die in a tree. That, and he is sure that the people watching him are laughing at his misfortune. Though, several minutes of failed trying later he drops his hands with a defeated sigh and hangs limp, not being sure if he should thank or hate the person that saved him with a spear.

He is grateful that someone stopped his fall, but the method itself was reckless. What if he got speared through the gut? What if his weapon is now destroyed? What kind of lunatic would throw a spear at someone to stop them from falling, anyway?

“It looks like I'll be on Team Flash, after all,” says someone down below.

Flash looks to the source and sees Twilight staring up at him, arms folded across her chest and an odd smile on her face.

“Very funny,” says Flash.

“Do you need help getting down?” asks Twilight.

“Nope. I got this.” Flash starts pulling on the spear again, grunting and cursing and pressing his feet against the trunk for support as his face turns red and veins throb. He then says with a strained voice: “I totally got this!”

“Are you sure?”

“Oh, yeah. This isn't the first time this has happened to me.”

Twilight nods. “Okay. I'll just wait here until you're down.”

Pinkie Pie's legs feel like jelly and her ribs still ache as she makes her way through the forest with a clean hammer and a shirt completely covered in mud and leafs. She climbs over fallen logs and twisted roots, hops over mud puddles and streams, and in one cases has to do a balancing act so she does not fall into a rocky river and get carried away into the mysterious beyond. Though, most of her trek has been aimlessly walking through the forest instead of climbing and balancing acts. She has found the test to be pretty easy, so far, and has admittedly done some overkills with her cannon against some evil bugs and a goblin. That said, she has yet to meet a single student. The creatures of Tartarus are a-plenty, but students? Nope.

Pinkie Pie knows there are students around. She can hear their attacks and she knows that they are not scattered too far apart, and it is while Pinkie Pie thinks about the lack of students that she spots an interesting sight. High off the ground, pieces of trees are broken apart, and not too far from her is a small crater that is connected to a trail, which leads to more damaged trees, and finally a mud hole that has a whole lot of mud splattered on the scenery surrounding it.

Pinkie Pie raises a brow and carefully approaches the site with her cannon at the ready, and right as she is at the edge a creature of mud and twigs emerges, roaring viciously with its mutated hands stretching out to suck away her soul!

Pinkie Pie shrieks and leaps back, firing her cannon, striking the creature in the chest. The blast of the shot pushes Pinkie Pie backwards and she lands on her back with a grunt, and the creature also flies backwards, leaving cloud of flash-dried mud behind. The creature hits a tree and slumps to the ground, mostly free of mud, twitching and smoking with a massive crack of splinters behind it, and when Pinkie Pie sits up, she blinks, then cringes.

“Oh, crap.”