Chapter 5: The Test
The Military Logistics Center was a big facility. To the left were the conference rooms and a small armory. To the right there was the simulation control room and an observation room. And in the center was the simulator. It had hyper realistic virtual reality that allowed trainees to literally feel their surroundings; a product of Shadow Weaver's magic and First One's technology. They had special bots that emulated what intel the Horde had on known princesses. That is to say, the robots would mimic a princess as far as Horde intel understood.
After checking their gear in to the administrator, The Twins entered a rather large conference room. There were tables on the left and right of the room. All the soldiers going on the mission were standing at attention in the center. At the far end there was a podium on a stage. Behind the podium, there stood Octavia speaking into the microphone. Octavia was a hybrid human-octopus. Octavia had green skin, two arms and two legs like a human. Unlike a human, however, she had four tentacles protruding from her backside. She wore an orange and brown uniform and brown boots. As the Twins walked into the room, Octavia stopped whatever lecture she was giving to the soldiers and glared at the Twins as they walked in.
"You're late." Octavia said, indignantly. Brittni was quickly apologetic,
"I'm sorry! Sorry, Octavia, we were just-" Octavia stifled her,
"Silence! That's Captain Octavia to you. Now, get into formation!" Brittni saluted her and quickly fell in to the nearest opening for formation and stood at attention. Brett rolled his eyes and slowly walked next to Brittni He then stood, not at attention, but kept his hands in his pockets. Octavia began to speak again.
"As I was saying, before being rudely interrupted. We will be running a simulation as to what kind of resistance you will face as we attack Elberon. It is a walled city, and is home to many Rebellion soldiers and harbors a lot of Bright Moon's supply lines. In addition to that, it can serve as a port in the storm within the Whispering Woods." The moment the Whispering Woods were spoken of the crowd let out a vociferous gasp. The Whispering Woods were an enigmatic taboo in the Horde. Many were afraid of the advantage that the Rebellion had, as well as the wild animals that lurked within the woods. Octavia took annoyance to this. She jumped from the stage in which the podium rested. Her feet landing sounded like a tank that had been air dropped onto a concrete floor. She got up and walked around the troops.
"Am I to understand that you; among whom are some of the most elite troops that were handpicked by Lord Hordak, himself, are showing-" She got up in one soldier's face before finishing, "FEAR?!" The soldier she shouted at started sweating profusely and stammered,
"Uh, uh, n-n-no, sir- I mean, ma'am!" Octavia growled. The soldier quietly whimpered. Octavia glared at him straight in the eye then started walking down the row. "Pathetic… Whatever cowards there are in this room will be weeded out by the end of this day. But those of you that do stay will be ready for these… Princesses. You will not give any quarter to the enemy. And most importantly, you will know no fear."
"Already there, Octy." Brett said, rather cordially. Everyone in the room gasped and looked back to see Brett standing there, nonchalantly. Brittni stared at him, mouth agape. Octavia growled, and made a beeline towards him, pushing everyone out of the way. Brett looked over at Brittni and she mouthed the words,
"What are you doing?!" Brett just shrugged.
Just then, Octavia got right up in Brett's face, and demanded,
"What did you say, RECRUIT?" Brett smiled, this made Octavia even angrier. He then spoke,
"I said, I've already got this. I'm not afraid of anything; much less a princess." Octavia growled continually then stopped. Her face twisted into an evil grin. She then started chuckling; a rather nefarious sounding chuckle. Brett's normally carefree face began fading into a concerned looking one. Octavia then turned her back to Brett and started walking towards the podium. As she got to the podium, everyone, especially Brett, looked at her uncomfortably. Octavia then spoke,
"Looks like we've got our first volunteer for the simulation, ladies and gentleman." Brittni gasped upon hearing that. Octavia continued to grin, devilishly, and continued, saying, "Everyone to the observation room." She looked at Brett then said more coldly, "And you, recruit, what's your name?"
"Brett, ma'am. The Observation Twin." That wiped the smile right off of Octavia's face. All the troops started muttering amongst themselves.
"Silence! All of you get to the observation room, except Brett!" Octavia yelled. The troops saluted Octavia, then marched to the observation room. Octavia turned to Brett and Brittni.
"So that explains that fancy armor ya' got there." She looked at Brittni and said, "You in the white armor." This caused Brittni to stumble a bit trying to salute Octavia. "When I said everyone except Brett, that means you, too!"
"Y-yes, ma'am!" Brittni ran but looked back at Brett. For some reason, she felt as if they were being separated, permanently. Brett felt the same. Octavia then turned to Brett.
"Alright, tough guy. Let's see how your combat skills compare to your engineering skills. Get to the simulation." Brett smiled casually, saluted her, then headed into the simulation room. Brett was confident, but his attitude was mostly bravado. He had no idea what the simulations would be like, and frankly he was a bit nervous. Still, he soldiered on to the simulation room.
The simulation room was a dark room that had neon lights scattered all around it. Brett observed his surroundings to see if he could have some kind of advantage. He could see holographic projectors. Most likely to project faux enemies and other distractions. He could see little creases in the ground, on the walls, and the ceiling, indicating opening spots for robots. A distorted voice then came onto the intercom,
"Your task is simple, you just need to activate the emergency shutdown switch. Let's see your observation skills come to life, recruit!" Octavia's distorted voice sounded even more evil than her normal one. With that, she pressed a button, which activated the simulator. The sounds that followed sounded like a mix between a distorted mechanical noise and a warped digital synth noise. Simultaneously, the holograms shot up and Brett found himself in a forest. The trees were a dark purple, and the sky was covered by the tree tops. Brett put his helmet on and looked around. All he saw was vegetation. A feeling of uneasiness started settling on Brett. No sooner than he felt this uneasiness, did he hear a branch snap. He immediately turned towards it, but saw nothing. Several feet behind him, he heard a giggle. He turned towards it, but again, saw nothing. A drop of sweat crept down his face. He quickly gave himself a quick pep talk in his mind,
"Alright Brett, come on, these are just simulation-" He was unable to finish that thought as he got kicked by an unknown assailant from behind. He fell frontwards to the ground and coughed out an, "Oof!" Brett groaned. A malicious giggle followed. Brett turned towards it, but again, saw nothing.
"Where are they coming from?!" Brett thought to himself. He started getting up when he got hit with what felt like a laser penetrate his front chest plate. A couple of evil cackles followed Brett's cries of pain. Brett felt his chest plate. The laser didn't actual pierce him. It must have been a non-lethal shot. Either that or his armor managed to stop the laser. Meanwhile, Brittni shuddered at his pain. One of the soldiers near her started laughing and pointing at Brett. Brittni glared at him, and punched him on the side of the head, which caused him to collapse. Other troops took notice, and scooted away from her. Brittni sat at the edge of her seat and thought to herself.
"There's gotta be something I can do to help him." She walked towards the big glass that separated the observation room from the simulation. The observation room was on a second story, so the people observing had a higher view to see what was going on. Brittni looked around. She had already noticed what Brett did, but she also saw things that he would not be able to see from his position. She looked at one of the corner walls and noticed a long tube. It was a laser turret. Brittni gasped. She thought for a moment, then remembered. There was a communicator in the armor!
Back to Brett, he took up a combat position. He brandished his flamethrower, waiting for whatever was attacking him. He noticed that whatever it was that was attacking him was only attacking from three locations and had a certain algorithm of how it would strike. He pointed his flamethrower in one direction. When he aimed his flamethrower, the unknown assailant came flying from behind with its left leg pointing forward with the intention of kicking his back again. Anticipating this, Brett immediately turned towards it and evaded its attack by jumping to the left. He then turned towards it while it was in motion, and ignited the flamethrower, setting the dark figure ablaze. The dark figure shrieked an echoed scream as the flames engulfed it. It writhed around on the ground, flailing back and forth. Its shriek started stuttering kind of like a robot attempting to finish a vocal script with a damaged module. Right then, Brett was able to get a good look at it, and indeed, it was a robot that was shaped like a human. It was endowed with a cloak so that only its face was bare. The face looked like it was lifted with botox. The lifted face stretched the mouth into a permanent evil looking grin. The grin revealed razor sharp teeth. To finish the eerie looking robot, it featured a pair of glowing red eyes. He walked closer to make sure it was destroyed. However, it started twitching. Brett started backing away, until it started trying to get back up. Brett let out a gasp, then a growl and then quickly jumped on, and stomped its face in. The robot tried cackling again, only to meet the bottom of Brett's boot over and over again. The robot gave a final evil cackle until its face was finally crushed and its red eyes faded into lifelessness. Brett paued for a moment to give a relieved chuckle. His relief was short lived, however, as he was once again struck in the back by that laser. He exclaimed a groan and fell forward onto his knees.
"Agh!..Ergh…" Brett muttered. Brittni's voice then came onto his built-in radio in the helmet.
"Brett! It's Brittni."
"No kidding." Brett said, facetiously.
"Save it! I can see where the laser is coming from. It's at the northwest quadrant. And it's got the shut down near it!" Brett looked towards the north. He saw some of the trees that he could climb up.
"Thanks, sis." Brett said, gratefully.
"Hurry!" Brittni replied. Brett then started climbing up a tree. As he started climbing, he heard a door open from behind. He then heard a high pitched squeal coming from the same location.
"Laser." Brett anticipated to himself. Quickly, he jumped off the tree.
ZRAAAM. The laser came from a four legged robot with a round dome and dual laser cannons. The laser hit the tree and blasted it, causing splinters to fly in all directions. Quite a few of the splinters hit Brett.
"Ergh, what kind of simulation is this?!" Brett stipulated. But he didn't have time to wonder about that. Another laser was coming his way. He rolled to the right, away from the laser. It was only inches away from hitting him. He dove behind a tree in the more forested area, attempting to hide from the robot. With his back to the tree, he gasped for breath, wondering what his next move would be. He looked over from his cover to see the robot coming towards him from the north. As he was focused on that robot, he heard another door opening coming from the west.
"You gotta be kidding!" Brett said aloud. The one from the west started charging up the cannon and fired. Brett dove forward, barely dodging the laser. Brett struggled to get to his feet and looked in front of him. The first robot was getting closer. He looked back to the one to the west and saw that it was also getting closer. Then he got an idea. Brett did a quick calculation of how fast the cannons moved on the robots, and took the risk. He ran towards the first robot, and rolled forward to dodge a laser coming from it. The second robot started powering up its cannon.
"There we go…" Brett thought to himself. He then pulled out the chainsaw from his right bracer, ran as fast as he could to the first robot and swung his chainsaw, slicing the cannon clean off. He then looked behind to see the second robot prepared to fire. Anticipating the second robots targeting board to shoot him, Brett rolled out of the way just in time to for the laser to miss him and hit the first robot. The laser went right to where the first robots cannons were a moment ago, hit the inside of the first robot, and caused it to explode from the inside.
A round of cheers and applause came from the observation room; Brittni being the loudest. She went on the helmet intercom and said,
"Way to go, bro!" Brett smiled, but didn't have time to waste. He saw the second robot trudging towards him, preparing its cannon. Brett looked at his surroundings and noticed the tree above him. He climbed the tree facing away from the robot and activated the saw from his bracer. He started cutting a large branch until it fell on top of the second robot. He had built these kinds of robots, and knew that an impact to the head would cause the programming to reboot, buying him a few seconds. He jumped towards another tree, climbed it, and started jumping from tree to tree. Meanwhile, the robot rebooted its programming and started skittering vehemently towards Brett, smacking trees out of the way as if they were little twigs. Brett looked back, the robot was closing in, firing its lasers. One of the lasers hit Brett's pauldron. The laser shocked him, but the armor managed to stop the penetration. On the opposite side, the turret; finally able to get a clear shot, was also firing at him. Between jumping from tree to tree, and attempting to dodge lasers, even with his observation skills, he couldn't avoid every single laser. Finally, when he thought he was getting close to the turret, his rear chest plate was hit from the robot's laser. He fell midair, striking the ground like a skif that had just lost its engine. Brett began coughing excessively. He put his palms down trying to push himself. No sooner did he attempt this did the robot use one of its claws to push him down.
"Oof!" Brett choked out. The robot then closed its claw around Brett's waist, binding his arms, and lifted him up towards itself. Its red "eye" shining brightly to his face. It let out an angry sounding digitized roar. Brett was truly afraid at this moment. He closed his eyes, waiting for the pummeling. Soon after, a familiar, unsolicited voice was coming from the robot.
"Not so smug now, are you, kid?" It was Octavia's. Brett struggled and groaned at his plight. At the moment of him about to give up, he heard a screeching crash right above the robot. He looked up and found Brittni with a shock staff plunged into the top of the robot. The robot started shaking and made fried electrical noises. It then loosened its grip on Brett. He wriggled away from the claw and fell backwards onto his back. He looked up at Brittni who smiled and winked at him. She backflipped off of the robot and not soon after, it exploded. Brett lifted himself onto his butt, holding his chest where he had been grabbed. Brittni walked around the robot towards Brett. She closed her eyes and grinned widely. She then held out her hand. Brett took his helmet off, showing his grin. He grabbed her hand and she pulled him up. An irritated voice came on the intercom,
"Brittni! What do you think you're doing?!" Octavia demanded.
"Helping my brother. You never said I couldn't!" Brittni snapped back. Octavia's growl sounded like a bear that had just witnessed its cubs get killed. She slammed her fist onto a button. No sooner did she do that, did all the doors the Twins could see open up. About a dozen more four legged robots crawled out from the doors, their sensors on the Twins. Brittni and Brett looked at each other, then started running towards the turret.
"Got a plan?!" Brittni gasped out as they were running.
"Working on it!" Brett replied. Brett looked back at the robots charging towards them, knocking trees out of their way. An idea popped into Brett's mind.
"I got it. Okay, Brittni, get out your defibrillator, and shock the right side of the robots. It'll mess up their targeting parameters." Brittni nodded. They climbed up trees near them and waited for the robots to get closer. As soon as they got close, they both jumped down on top of two respective robots. Brittni with her defibrillator, and Brett with his voltage discharger, shocked the robots' targeting chips. They both then hopped off and climbed back up to their trees to watch the carnage ensue. The robots started making fried electrical and confused computing noises and began firing their lasers at random, shooting many of the other robots. One by one the robots succumbed to the to the other robots' lasers. The entire room glowed a bright green and orange with the lasers and explosions. This continued until there was only one robot left that hadn't had its targeting parameters messed up. In their respective trees, the Twins peeked out from behind the trunk, looking at the robot. The robot scanned the area looking for the twins. Brittni then spoke up,
"You just inspired me. I know how we can get to the turret, safely." Brett smiled.
"Do tell." Said Brett. Brittni quickly went over the plan and they started jumping towards the turret. The remaining robot took notice of them and began giving chase firing green beams of death at them. As soon as they got to the tree closest to the turret, Brittni said,
"Okay, if you duck at a 45 degree angle, and I throw you just right, it should miss and hit the turret." Brett nodded. Using the powered part of her exoskeleton, Brittni had grabbed Brett's torso and tossed him. The robot and the turret targeted him and fired their lasers. Just as Brittni observed, Brett bent his body in a 45 degree angle and the two lasers shot past him. Octavia's face was in complete shock as the two lasers slammed right into their undesignated targets, destroying each other. The simultaneous explosions caused a converging shock wave that almost caused Brittni to fall from the tree. Meanwhile, bracing for impact, Brett turtled himself and let his armor take the collision as he fell to the ground. Octavia was furious at the destruction of the robots. However, at the same time when she regained some exuberance when she noticed that they still hadn't touched the emergency shutdown.
"HA! You still haven't activated the shutdown. Looks like you'll both fail togeth-" She didn't finish the sentence when she noticed Brittni aiming her wrist at the button.
"What do you think you're doing, recruit?!" Octavia demanded of Brittni. Brittni looked at the simulation control room, smiled, and said,
"Passing the test." She fired an adrenaline shot from her wrist that plunged right into the button causing the emergency shutdown. The crowd from the observation room went absolutely wild with cheering. Brittni jumped from the tree down near Brett.
"Are you hurt, Brett? Do you need medical assistance?" Brett coughed and chuckled simultaneously,
"Probably, but for right now, I gotta thank you. Thanks Britt, I couldn't have done this without you." Brittni smiled, and wrapped her arms around him. He laughed a little and likewise wrapped his arms around her. He then said,
"Alright, alright. C'mon, let's go rub this in Octavia's face.
The Twins then marched into Octavia's office, sat down in front of her desk, and received a, half-expected, verbally abusive lecture from her. Octavia was standing behind her desk, her fists being driven into it.
"The amount of insubordination! I should have you both not only dishonorably discharged, but arrested. Of all the insulting-" She was cut off by what sounded like a metal wall being torn open. All three looked back to see Octavia's door being flung open by what seemed like, living darkness. After the darkness dissipated, Shadow Weaver walked in. Octavia gasped, saluted Shadow Weaver, and started stammering,
"Oh! Uh, Sh-Shadow Weaver. What, uh, what-"
"Save your questions, Octavia. I am here to inquire of you." Octavia blinked her eyes a couple of times and said,
"Uh.. alright."
"I watched the video of the simulation. It seems that the Twins truly do have talent." Shadow Weaver said, calmly, putting one hand on each Twins' shoulder.
"Well… Alright, they did manage to hit the shutdown switch, but they disobeyed me! They were insubordinate! They-mmmph!" Shadow Weaver interrupted Octavia. She wriggled her fingers rhythmically causing her living darkness to gag Octavia.
"It's better for you to listen than to question." Octavia tried to speak, but only muffled noises came from her mouth. Shadow Weaver continued, "as I was saying, I am completely aware that you put the difficulty level on a far more advanced level than what they were prepared for. And despite this, they both accomplished the task. In fact, they accomplished it in record time, I might add." Shadow Weaver's voice became more sinister with the following statement, "These are among Lord Hordak's most elite troops, and you will address them as such. Do I make myself clear?" Octavia nodded her head erratically. Shadow Weaver snapped her finger and the darkness left Octavia's mouth.
"Very good, Octavia. I expect you'll have the rest of the strike team ready in time to conquer Elberon?" Octavia quickly replied with much humility,
"Yes! Yes, of course Shadow Weaver, it will be done."
"Excellent." Shadow Weaver said. She started walking out of the room but stopped, looked back and added, "Congratulations, you two. I look forward to your victory." She then left the room. It was silent in the room for a few moments. Octavia looked petrified at the Twins. Finally she spoke and said,
"C... Congratulations, Brett and Brittni. You will make a fine addition to the strike team. Go ahead and meet with your the rest of your squad. You're dismissed." Brett and Brittni stood up and walked out. Once they made it away from eyes and ears of Octavia, they revealed their excitement.
"That… was… amazing!" Brittni said, trying to stifle her excitement as they walked to the strike teams quarters. Brett laughed and said,
"It really was. Man, I guess we are cut out for this. If we can do that, there's no limit to what we can do in the field!" Brittni smiled. Brett thought for a moment and then asked,
"Hey Brittni, how did you get into the simulation and on top of the robot?" Brittni giggled and said simply,
"The vents." Brett choked on a laugh, put his arm around her shoulder and said,
"Seriously? Ha, you're probably the only person that would ever consider that." They both laughed.
The Twins excelled at the next bits of training, and even helped their squad pass the tests. Soon enough, it would be time for the siege of Elberon.
Hope y'all enjoyed the chapter. The following chapter is going to an incredibly epic battle. And just to tease ya, it's going to have Glimmer. ;) Thanks to all of you for reading :))
