Forever Fall Forest, Location Unknown
As he had done so many times before, J.C Letters woke up inside of a forest. "Sarge? Did you pull another SERE training session? You know you can't drop us off in random environments anymore." As his radio called back only static, J.C heard the unmistakable sound of a distant train. Here goes nothing... he tapped into an AI network on a limited connection, hoping he could at least get an idea of why he was here. There were no orders, no notices, and only a glaring error sign talking about some mundane topics related to the immediate scan of the area. Increasingly frustrated by this, J.C asked the one command that always resulted in a satisfactory answer. "This is Sierra-9-1, anybody near me?"
A series of tags showed up on his helmet HUD, all glowing blue. "Bailey, Eddard, and Dim are here." Too far away for a direct communications set-up, but too close to afford the risks of a satellite call, J.C sent out a burst-long-range signal, aware of the potential risk. "Y'all hear me okay?" he deadpanned.
"Copy." Dim's short, blunt response was a sigh of relief, while Bailey's equally short but humorous response confirmed his safety and Eddard's. This was only half the team, but it was an acceptable party to fight alongside. Within minutes, the fireteam regrouped in a forest zone near a cliffside.
Once again in command, J.C took charge of the team once more. "Everybody heard that train, right?" The team nodded in unison. "Are we gonna check it out?" They nodded again.
Assuming this exercise was actually a sudden SERE training, this would mean that it had three basic components. An initial drop-off at the site while the subject was unconscious, meant to simulate finding yourself lost in an uncharted area, was to be followed by the deployment of a mock hostile force. When these were successfully evaded, a means of escape, which was usually orthodox, but sometimes not, would present itself. It seemed that the train, should it be Sierra-9's escape route, had shown up a bit early. "Get ready to jump!" J.C eyed the train approaching, but something seemed off.
"No markings visible. No flag, no label, no established communications." Dimitri eyed the front of the train with his scope when some flashes caught his attention. "There seems to be activity on that train. I suggest we observe."
With nothing else to do but wait, the team pulled out binoculars and switched on their sound detection system, adjusting it to catch frequencies and sounds corresponding with human voices and weaponry. From the distance, S9 could make out two individuals fighting something that looked like a combat robot. Neither of the two was armored, but they were well armed, and seemingly trained in some degree of fighting. "It seems we've got a few party crashers." Bailey gleefully pumped his shotgun as if he expected his leader to command an attack.
"Put it down Tom," J.C stated. "We're not gonna jump into this. That train has no markings identifying itself as BAF property. In fact, there's a snowflake logo, it's not BAF at all." Still, he had the team keep eyes on the vehicle. "Who are you people, and why are you there…?"
Unaware of the fact that he was being watched, Adam Taurus fired back at the spider-bot, using his semblance for a heavily amplified attack. Shredded by the hit, the robot almost disintegrated, the forest blowing aside with its remains as though nature itself was bowing to the victor. Adam turned back to his partner, who stood at the front of the train. "Blake, wait." The look in her eyes didn't change, and that could only mean one thing. With one goodbye, she severed the train and left him stranded.
"So, was that a break-up or a divorce?" J.C chuckled. "I'm sounding like Rob, I should probably cut back on the bars."
Dim aimed his rifle at the now-alone front car. "What should we do?" His leader chuckled before he responded. "We play it like that show from primy. We're gonna walk up to them and say: 'Allow us to introduce ourselves.'" Bailey groaned, and Eddard silently facepalmed at the infamous quote.
"We aren't actually going to do that, right chief?" Bailey said, completely exasperated. J.C shrugged and responded back with a simple "Watch me." From atop of a single train car traveling through the woods, Blake saw grey figures jump down from the clifftops onto the little remaining space behind her.
Before she could react, J.C spoke first. " We want to help, so don't shoot the help." Somehow, having seen authority and brutality with her own eyes, Blake knew it was probably in her best interests not to pick a fight with these four.
Streets of Atlas, Location Unknown
Survive, evade, resist, escape. Lessons from a near decade ago still rang through Jim's mind. Find cover, find a hiding spot, fuck it, find someone to hostage. From above, an aircraft fired a burst that Jim almost struggled to dodge. Warehouse up ahead, that's a good spot. A worn down window gave way easily as Jim lept through it into the empty container space below. Taking stock of what he had, Jim Letters prepared for an assault.
Within minutes of his entrance, the warehouse door burst open as several individuals emerged. They looked humanoid, but everything about them gave away their real identity as robots. Whoever owns this place has got some really good tech… The first group made their way towards the containers. Jim set his communications systems to try and intercept their network. There was one, single system connecting all coms between these robots. And the entire… world!? In shock at the ridiculousness of it all, Jim placed a single bug to keep track of all the military channels. NAI's gonna love me for this. Quickly scrolling through and disabling several parts of the network, Jim began an assault on his pursuers. One robot was dragged from behind and destroyed. Others, looking for their lost comrade but unable to issue basic orders to one another, were easy pickings. "What'd they make you fight? Babies?" Jim mocked as he tore the head off of the last one.
Had he not been a Commando, with the world's finest weapons of war and training given to him, Jim may not have spotted the white blur that charged towards his back. Turning around at a speed that would make attack dogs blush, he raised a shortsword to counter the blow. He saw himself face to face with an unarmored opponent, who was using a rapier and had a ridiculous outfit to match. "What the hell are you wearing?" No response came from his clearly annoyed assailant. "Well, I'll be happy to oblige you of honorable combat." Graceful but deadly rapier lunges and thrusts were thrown aside by the brute shortsword strikes. Technically, shortsword was a misnomer. Almost a meter long in length, the weapon had only been named so because of the freakishly long blade wielded by the Czarsgard for ceremonies. One could only imagine fighting with that weapon. It would be comical. As the duel dragged on, Jim, understandably wishing to end this fight, pulled a move that would have made any other male at least partially ashamed of themselves. With a window of opportunity, Jim used a blunt metal bar near him to slam his opponent in the chest. "Fucking quit it!" he shouted.
Briefly shocked at the sheer barbarism of her enemy, Winter Schnee threw aside her restraints and attacked with all her might. Jim saw the glyphs appear and rapidly adjusted tactics when a blurry stream of supersonic blows began to emerge around him. Shit! As he went from blocking to dodging, to barely dodging, to having blows sting against his armor for the first time, Jim felt something glowing inside. An aura of Prussian blue light engulfed him as saw blows hit what seemed to be a forcefield surrounding him. With new found confidence, Jim focused and allowed himself to take a few strikes, waiting as a wolf does for the moment to strike. He got his wish when he spotted an exposed throat following a glancing blow on his chest. Gotcha.
A few hours later, Winter Schnee found herself waking up in a hospital. The nurse, sympathetic, handed her a laminated sheet of paper. "They left behind this note for you." Winter stared at the paper, which was written in a legible, if not pleasing font. "My sincerest apologies for that boorish assault. I hope we can meet again someday as allies, not enemies. P.S I'm only writing this way because I have no intention of starting a war." Winter thanked her caretaker, crumpled the note, and called for General Ironwood. "I'm going to kill that son of a bitch if I ever see him again."
Meanwhile, Jim Letters stood atop of a hill, struggling to contact home. "This is Sparta-4-3, does anyone read me?" From the longest distance tracker he could improvise, Jim found a few weak signals corresponding to Deep Strike Force operators. "Well, that's useless. Those guys are sent to every fucking corner on the planet where we can find a threat. But something was partially off about their signal. "Class 1 DSF team. DSF-S Reserve." Sacrificing some of his internal systems' battery power, he strengthened the tracker momentarily. "Fireteam ID: Sierra… 9." Jim raised his eyebrows. "My little brother… He won't mind if I hitch a ride." And so, Jim started a long walk to his brother. "Just don't get on a bird to Aszie before I get there…"