At around 5:30 Ray woke up. A lot of other ponies were already up and getting ready for the day. Ray figured he probably woke up because of the noise they made. He pushed away his bedsheets and sat up. Looking around the room, he saw that some of the other trainees were already wearing their armor, and looked about ready to go out. A movement to his left caught his attention. It was Lightning Speed struggling with his own armor. After a while of watching the slightly comedic display his new friend put up, Ray decided to help him. He made his presence known by clearing his throat.

"Need any help with that?"

Lightning Speed stopped dead and slowly turned around. He seemed quite surprised by the fact that Ray was awake, also, there was a blush on his cheeks.

"That would be nice, thank you." he said with a forced grin.

After Lightning Speed explained to Ray how exactly he could help him, adjusting the armor was a matter of seconds. As soon as they finished Ray took a step back and they just stared at each other in awkward silence.

"Well.. good morning." It was Lightning Speed who broke the silence between them. "Thanks for helping me out... need any help with your armor?" he asked the question in hope of making the whole situation a little less embarassing for himself. Ray just shook his head.

"I haven't received my armor yet, i suppose i'll get it today." Ray noticed that he in fact didn't receive a lot of information from his talk with Blazing Sword the day before. "Or not..." he added.

Ray started thinking about what he'd do today and spaced out, looking to the ground. Lightning Speed scratched himself on the back of his head and had an idea.

"So how about breakfast? I can show you the way! You don't wanna miss breakfast, or you're not going to survive the morning training!" He said all that a little too fast, so Ray had to do a double take, trying to understand what his new friend had just said.

"Yeah. Breakfast sounds about right. Not much we can do in here anyway. Lead the way." He pointed his hoof towards the exit while he said the last sentence, in order to give Lightning Speed a cue to start walking.

Lightning could of course take a hint, and started walking, Ray beside him. They passed several others, still getting ready and talking with each other. A lot of beds were already empty and neatly made. They stepped outside into the cool morning air. It was already light outside as the sun was almost completely risen. They started making their way to the mess hall, joining a steady stream of guards walking in the same direction. Soon they arrived at a big green barrack that didn't have a number on it and entered. The line was already pretty big, and growing by the second. After ten minutes of standing in line, they both got their breakfast.

Breakfast turned out to be two slices of bread, some jam and a glass of milk. They ate in silence. Still a bit sleepy, neither wanted to talk much. As 6:30 approached, Lightning Speed finally spoke up.

"Well, it's time to go back to our barrack, if you're late for morning assembly they'll have you run around 'til you break apart." He said with a serious look on his face. "Not really my idea of a good morning if you ask me." he added with a smirk.

Ray found he had to agree. They both got up, dropped their plates on a cart for dirty dishes near the exit, and started walking back. As they reached barrack 7 again, most of the others already stood in line in front of it, talking. That was when ray noticed a red line on the dirt in front of them.

"Ok, you just have to stand in line here. Be sure to put both your front hooves on the red line and stand to attention when the instructor appears."

Ray nodded, getting slightly nervous, as his first day as a royal guard trainee approached. They stood in line, Lightning first and Ray to his right. Ray made sure to put both front hooves on the red line, just as he was told before. They were soon joined by more ponies who got in line next of them. Some of them were looking at Ray when they came, wondering why he didn't wear armor, like the rest of them. To his left Lightning Speed tried to get Ray's attention. He apparently had tried to do so for a good five minutes.

"Sorry, I just kinda spaced out. That's a lot of new info to process..." Ray apologised.

Lighnting Speed waved it off. "Nervous?" he asked Ray. Ray nodded slowly. Lightning gave a laugh. “You remind me of myself when it was my first day. Don't worry, it's not so bad as you might think. Especially if you're a unicorn. In the afternoon we get divided by race, to do specialized combat training. Earth ponies do Hoof to Hoof combat, pegasi learn how to fight while flying, and unicorns learn some attack spells." he explained to Ray. "Wait, that reminds me of something! Didn't you say yesterday that you weren't able to..."

A loud gong rang through the morning stillnes, and every pony on the grounds immediately stopped talking and stood to attention. Ray was caught by surprise and wondered what happened, until he saw the instructors walking towards the Barracks. Finally unterstanding, Ray stood to attention.

After a short while an instructor stopped in front of them. He was a brown Earthpony with a grey mane. His mane was neatly trimmed, as was standart for guards. The instructor looked at them for a while, his eyes wandering up and down the line of trainees. His eyes lingered a while longer on Ray than on anypony else. When he decided that everything was in order he spoke up.

"Alright cadets. It's going to be a busy day. You maggots got the obstacle course all to yourselves today, and I expect each and every one of you to finish the whole damn thing in 2 minutes or less by noon. Is that clear?" He half-spoke half-shouted at them. His tone made Ray clear that "no" wasn't an acceptable answer. So he did what everypony else did.

"SIR! YES, SIR!" Everypony in the line gave the instructor the same answer.

"I CAN'T HEAR YOU!" The intructor shouted back.

"SIR! YES, SIR!" The answer came again, a little bit louder than before.

"I DIDN'T KNOW THEY LET GIRLS INTO THE GUARD! LOUDER!" still not satisfied, the instructor looked at them angrily.

"SIR! YES, SIR!"

By now, Ray was shouting at the top of his lungs. The instructor finally gave an approving nod and returned to his half shouting voice.

"Better! Now follow me, trot in line and in sync. We go!"

With those words he took off, as soon as he reached the end of the line the first ponies started trotting after him in perfect synchronisation, always two ponys next to each other. Ray fell in line with Lightning Speed and followed the instructor to the obstacle course.

The obstacle course was made up of several elements where they had to go under, over, climb and jump to get past them. The instructor stood at the start of the course and blew his whistle once. The first pony took off. As he was about a quarter through the course the instructor let the whistle sound once again. Another one started running. Ray noticed another instructor at the end of the course taking their times.

Ray tried to memorize the course before it was his turn, and watched the other trainees to get an idea on how to overcome some of the more difficult obstacles. Finally it was his turn, he stood next to the instructor who was eyeing him curiosly. In this moment Ray started wondering why he wasn't called out by him at the start, to go get his armor, or something of the sort. The Whistle sounded and Ray took off.

The first obstacle was a simple block of wood which he needed to jump over. Directly after there was a mudpit which he, once again, had to jump over. the problem here was that he wasn't allowed to build up enough speed because of the previous obstacle. So he had to rely on the raw strengh of his legs to get over. After successfully clearing the obstacle, he had to crawl under some low hanging wooden beams. A net was laid underneath, so he couldn't just slide through. At first he had some difficulty with the net. He almost got his legs stuck once but managed to clear the net in a decent time.

Next up was a series of rings some distance away from each other. he ran up and jumped from one ring to the next without touching the ground in between. In front of him now stood a very steep wall. He had to be fast, or he wouldn't have enough momentum to run all the way to the top. After barely making it, he grabbed onto a rope that was hanging there to swing across a pit to another platform. He actually wasn't very fond of the next one, as he needed to drop down from the platform, which was about two meters above the ground.

After a moment of hesitation he jumped, landed on his front hooves, and immediately tucked himself into a roll, so he wouldn't lose all of his momentum and soften the fall. He felt pain shoot up his left forehoof, but managed to mostly ignore it. He half-ran, half-limped to the finish line. The instructor stopped his time.

"Two minutes and twenty-five seconds. Back to the line with you!"

Ray was angry at himself for not making the set time, and limped back to the line. In the 3 minutes he had to wait, he took the opportunity to look at his left foreleg. He couldn't spot anything out of the ordinary, so he just proceeded to stretch and massage it. By the time he stood next to the instructor again, he only felt a slight tingle, the pain was almost gone. The whistle sounded and he started to run.

"One minute and fifty-four seconds. Go rest up over there."

After his fifth run through the course he finally succeeded. His left foreleg was hurting again by now, and he was glad to finally get a break. He trudged over to the designated resting zone, where Lightning Speed was already waiting for him. He cleared the course in one minute and twenty-eight seconds on his first run.

"Hey there. I already thought you would never show up here." he said, a huge grin on his face.

Ray shot him an annoyed glare, and sat down next to him, so he could watch the other trainees that were still running.

"I was starting to believe the same thing. I hurt my leg, so I needed longer than I thought." Ray shook his left leg in the air to get his point across. Lightning Speed looked at it, and had a knowing look on his face.

"Yeah, stuff like that happens a lot. You should get it checked after lunch. You'll have to do it in your free time. So you most likely won't have a lot of time to eat. I'll show you where the medical tent is."

Ray let out a deep sigh. He managed to hurt himself on his first day. Not a very good first impression to make, he told himself.

He talked to Lightning Speed until all of the trainees were gathered at the resting point. The Instructor walked up to them and they formed a line again. He barked out his next orders.

"Good work you maggots! Looks like you're not useless after all. But enough resting for now. We finished earlier than I expected, so you're going to run. Hug the walls around the palace. When you hear the lunch gong you'll finish your lap."

As soon as he spoke the last word he put his whistle into his mouth and blew into it. Everypony instantly started running, hoping they wouldn't be at the start of a lap when lunchtime came.

Ray managed to run three laps around the castle before the gong sounded. He thanked the gods he was almost finished with his round when it did. Lightning Speed, who was running next to him the whole time, started to slow down. Ray did the same and they walked in the direction of the mess hall to get some well earned lunch.

Ray, now positively exhausted, practically inhaled his lunch, not even noticing what it was that he was eating. He started staring into space, not wanting to even think. He remained that way untill Lightning Speed started dragging him off somewhere. It took him a while to realize they were headed to the medical tent. His mind slowly began to shift into focus again, now that he had eaten and rested a bit. He noticed that Lightning Speed was talking to him.

"...And that's why bowling balls are forbidden on the grounds. Hilarious right?" Lightning Speed finished with a lough.

" Yeah... sure..." Ray said, laughing weakly. He had no idea what Lightning was talking about, as he hadn't listened to him.

"But anyway, were here."

They stood in front of a huge white tent, two red crosses painted on the front. Lightning Speed pushed away one of the entrance flaps to let Ray in. There were 32 beds inside the tent, 16 on each side. Curtains hang around them, so you could give the patients some privacy. Except for three beds, they were all empty.

A white mare with a pink mane trotted up to them. She had a cutie mark of the same red cross that was on the tent. Over the cross there was a green snake, climbimg up a silver pole. Ray didn't get it.

"Hey there, how can I help you." The mare addressed them with a voice that was almost childlike. Surprised by her voice, Ray said nothing and just stared at her. Lightning Speed took the word.

"Our new friend here managed to hurt his leg on the first day." He said while pointing at Ray.

"Well that's not good at all!" The mare responded with a slight frown on her face. "Follow me, I'll patch you right up." She led Ray over to one of the beds while Lightning Speed decided to wait outside of the tent.

"Please sit down. Which leg is it?" She asked as soon as they arrived. Ray said nothing and just raised his left foreleg a bit. The Nurse immediately grabbed it and started to look at it from all angles, occasionally touching it softly. After a short while she let go of his leg and took a step back. "Don't worry, it's nothing serious, a bit of ointment and some bandages to patch it up, and you should be alright by tomorrow."

While telling him she took a small pot from one of the shelves next to her and opened it. She took some green ooze out of the pot and started to apply it on his leg. "The name's Redheart by the way, but everyone just calls me "nurse", you can too if you want." As she finished, she took some bandages and started wrapping them around Ray's leg.

"My name is Light. Ray Light. Pleased to meet you Nurse Redheart. But I sure hope we won't see each other too often." Ray replied with a smile. The Nurse looked up at him and shot him a smile herself. "Yes, that's what I always hope too, when a new recruit comes here." They shared a short laugh, while she made sure the bandages would hold up. "Okay, that should be enough. Come by again tomorrow morning and I'll take it off for you, be sure to not use it too much today."

Ray gave her a nod and thanked her. He stepped out of the tent and found Lightning Speed to his right, sitting on his haunches. He looked up as Ray came out and took a look at his leg. "Fixed up up nice and fast, I like it! Do you want my autograph on that?" Lightning Speed looked at him while grinning like an idiot. Ray just rolled with his eyes and started walking toward their barrack.

A short while after they found themself all lined up in front of aforementioned building once again. Waiting for their Instructor to come and divide them into groups for their afternoon training. As soon as the Instructor stood in front of them he started calling out names and telling them where to go, At the end everyone except for Ray had been assigned a group and a place. That's when the instructor looked at him.

"Ray Light! You are to go into the castle! Enter through the front gate and there will be somebody to guide you to your classroom." "Sir! Yes, Sir!" Ray answered immediately.

The instructor dismissed them, and they started walking off to wherever they had to. Ray made his way to the castle gate as fast as he could with his leg. He was excited to find out what exactly they had planned for him, since he couldn't use magic. As soon as he entered, a grey pony walked up to him and told Ray to follow him. The pony led Ray through hallways, up and down some stairs and through some dark and narrow corridors until he didn't know where he was anymore. Finally they stopped in front of an old looking door, and the pony knocked three times.

A voice called from inside "You may enter!" Ray took one last look at his guide and opened the door. A pony with a red coat and a orange mane was inside waiting for him, and next to him sat none other than Terra himself. Ray heard the door close behind him and took a few steps toward the pony and the alicorn, until he stood in front of them.

"Welcome, Ray Light" Terra spoke, "This is Blazing Fire, and he will be your teacher."