"All teams, move out!" the drill instructor's voice boomed out, signaling the start of the training exercises.
"Sigh, they're really pushing us hard aren't they huh?", muttered Wringe from the comm.
"No kidding, wake up, run, eat, tactics, sparring, run again, eat, sleep. Rinse and repeat..." sighed Alex.
"Gahhh! I can't take much more of this!" He added.
"Shut up Alex." replied the former. "This isn't much different from our boot camp! It's the school like atmosphere that's just getting to you. Heh, I think you might even be hitting on some of them!" she added
"Don't worry 'bout that Wringe" he retorted. All of 'em are already taken."
"Aha! so you have been hitting on them" came an exasperated reply
"Quit it you two" cried out a voice on the comm. "If you wanna squabble, do it on a private channel not on E-Band"
"Geh!" came the reply from Wringe, realizing their spam on everyone's radios. "Alex this is your fault!" she grunted
"What did I do?!"
'Sigh...' While listening to his two friends' banter, Thomas looked back on his reverie back 2 weeks ago. Since then, his detachment had trained side by side with Squad 13 and shared tactics from Malvione's strategy handbook. Now, they were in a training situation using 8 type S replicas courtesy of Seiga Heavy Industries alongside Squads 1-4 and 13.
"Come on guys, get your shit together, we can't get outdone by our hosts." He called out. " After all, we've..."
"HIT THE DECK!" someone cried out just as an earth shattering blast rocked the area, turning a mongoose into molten slag and sending bits of vehicles up into the air. Thomas only had time to cross his arms before being introduced face-first with a chunk of a ghost, knocking him out.
'...'
'...nghhhh...'
"..der..."
"LEADER!" Wringe's voice hazily drifted into his mind. Letting his combat instincts take over him. Thomas rose shakily.
"Gah... what the hell?!..." he muttered as he tried to orient himself. Looking to the side, he spotted someone kneeling over one of their teammates. Another pulling someone out of the flaming wreckage of a warthhog
"Deltas 3 and 10 are down! Request MEDIVAC!" he shouted on the radio.
Thomas called out "Foxtrot, status!" and was thankful all 18 teammates blinked green. Looking above, he saw a type S just above the treeline. As it aimed it's particle cannon at the group, an explosive blast hit it squarely at the side of it's head, thereby letting the beam fly towards the sky. Thomas looked at the shooter and found Alex at the turret of a relatively unscathed gauss hog.
"Can't get anything done without me huh?" he said condescendingly.
"Thanks Alex." Replied Thomas "Now get your ass back to camp and get that scarab online. I think we'll need it."
As if to answer his final sentence, the Type-S re-positioned itself and swiped its arms at the group sending an unfortunate soldier in the air. Thankfully once the poor soul landed, he managed to get up and pull himself out of immediate danger-albeit a call for a medic was heard from him afterwards.
"Got it. Deltas 5 through 9 with me on the double!" replied Alex before boarding the troop hog and speeding off with his crew.
Thomas now turned his attention towards the type-S. "Alright guys, let's bring it down. Dispersion pattern Bravo, hit and run, Go!" he barked and the Malvione detachment spread out, firing at random seemingly random intervals to draw their enemy's attention for brief moments. While initially effective, the Nova spread itself and the entire team slowed considerably.
"SHIT! Freezing field!" someone cried as the group sluggishly tried to keep themselves mobile.
"Bubble shields now!" Shouted Thomas as majority of the fighting force fell to the ground. The group responded in time as a particle beam smashed the ground leaving destruction in it's wake.
/Elsewhere/
"You're dead!" Cried out a certain pandora as she delivered a strike to the Type-S only to be averted by the nova's tendrils.
"Fuck! this bugger just won't quit will it?" She cursed out. Already she and her team had been fighting for 15 minutes against the dummy enemy and still no results to show for it.
"Katelyn calm down. Let's regroup" said Aileen, her leader.
"Fine" she spat out bitterly and began to retreat. However moments after she did so, she felt a presence behind her. Turning to confront it, she never anticipated what she would see.
"...bro...ther?!..."
/between the lines/
"Hah...hah..." Ouka, leader of the valkyries, breathed heavily as she disengaged from a destroyed Nova due to her final attack. However as she and her group planned to move on to the next one. A mysterious aura washed over them. While the technicians earlier had warned them that the field test of the Faylan Generators were also underway and they should expect a few side effects, one such effect they failed to anticipate was the regeneration of their enemy...
*Wroom!
The warthog jumped over a small bump and blared down at full speed. On it, Alex and 4 men under his command raced to activate the Scarab.
"There it is!" shouted Delta 6 a.k.a. Miller. At the direction he was pointing, the towering bulk of the scarab. In no time the hog reached it's destination. Immediately the group disembarked save for Delta 8 who looked at a nodding Alex and sped back off to support their teammates back with Thomas.
Looking around, Alex found the compound deserted. Delta's 2 and 4 as well as Foxtrot 9 and 10 were manning the pelicans and no doubt had already left to assist as MEDIVAC and air support.
"Alright then. 5, 9 take the banshees, Vinn (Delta 5) cover us. Simon (Delta 9) head on ahead and give Thomas and the others more air support till we get there." Said Alex
"Miller, Angelo (Delta 7) take the turrets." He added.
"Got it."
"Roger"
"Copy that"
"Already on it cap"
the four gave their respective replies and rushed to their positions. Alex too lept onto the troop platform of the scarab and made his way to the control room. Slotting his own dumb AI 'Burner' into the system, the type 47 Ultra heavy assault platform shuddered to life and began marching to join it's allies.
/Control room/
"Shut down the generators and dummiers!"
"The controls aren't responding! Also multiple pandora vitals dropping!" replied a panicked controller.
"Obviously" said Gengo Aoi. "After all, when Stigmatic tissue begins to resonate, no external signal can get through."
"Y-you... You Knew this was going to happen.." Said Atsuko Seiga
"Who knows... After all with such a complex phenomenon, no one knows everything about it." Replied Gengo Aoi. "Rather, as frail human beings, we know too little..."
"Uwaah!" Came a shocked voice from one of the monitors. "What the hell is that!?"
*BAM!
*SMASH!
The Malvione soldiers weaved around the dummy that had caused a serious amount of damage to them. Despite their best efforts under effects from Freezing, they were losing ground. In addition to that, whatever air support that was sent to aid them was doing all they can just to avoid being blown to bits or otherwise from the type-S's bombardment, preventing them from getting close.
"Dammit Alex where the hell are you!" Shouted Thomas, firing from the turret of the last remaining Gauss Hog. In the time his friend had left, 5 more of their men had been put out of commission. Left with only 13 other people on the ground with him, Thomas couldn't afford to lose any more of their fighting strength.
*Smash!
A tendril hit the side of Thomas' vehicle sending him and two others flying through the air.
'SHIT!' he thought as he crashed face first into the ground. Swiveling around. he found the towering hulk of the type-S looming over him ominously. Reaching out for a bubble shield, he found his belt had been sheared off by the impact. At the corner of his eye, he saw it tethered to the overturned hog.
"Dammit, move Thomas!" He shouted to himself but alas, his body was not responding fast enough.
"Oh no! Leader!" someone whose speech pattern could only be Wringe's cried out.
"Aw Shit..." Sighed Thomas, trying to make peace as fast as his mind could as the Nova poised to end him. Like so many other encounters in this world. So many that were perilous and wrought by death and suffering...
*Peeeeeeeeeeeew!
Suddenly, a blast of green plasma seared the air and smashed into the Nova, burning away a good chunk of where a shoulder should be.
"...bzzzzt...Hahaha! miss me? " A familiar voice came out
"Alex ...hah...you took your goddamn time didn't you?" Came Thomas' reply. As if being lifted from the grasp of certain death once more, not only did the towering bulk of the scarab begin to emerge from a distance, a pair of arms grabbed Thomas and dragged him to relative safety.
"Leader, are you okay?!" Said one of them. Thomas looked up and saw Wringe and Travis.
'Yeah.. I'll live." He replied
"Alright ladies, 'nuff of the fancy talk. Let Honey Badger take care of this." Came Alex's reply in the comms "Alright then Burner, give me a targeting solution."
"OI You SOB! Pick on someone your own size!" cried out the Delta commander as he moved the scarab into position. The nova, now interested in facing a more dangerous threat, aimed it's particle beam at the Scarab and fired...
To which the mobile platform responded by ducking to avoid fatal damage.. At the cost of it's aerial turret, now seared away by the force of the attack. The scarab responded by firing its beam once more. This time it hit the dummy dead center, melting the core away to nothingness. The nova, now disconnected from it's power supply, stopped moving and powered down completely.
"Immediately cheers from the Malvione soldiers erupted. Thomas, now regaining his senses, smiled too before receiving a call from the control room.
/Control room/
"Mr. Shubaltz, what the god's name is that?!" shouted one of the defense personnel trough the communicator
"Our insurance of course" came the reply. "It's our last resort if something like this happens. Besides, I could say the same to you. I doubt simulations are meant to take your own people out." he added with a slight note of irritance. "What the hell happenned?"
"Mr Shubaltz, this is Sister Margaret. An unfortunate accident has happened. The dummies have gone berserk. We cannot shut them down from here and therefore request help from you. So far only your platoon is out of relative danger. The others are not faring so well."
"Alright then." Came the reply. "Send us the locations of the platoons and novas. I'll see what I can do."
"Thank you." came her reply. Facing one of the controllers, she ordered "Do as he says." to which the personnel obeyed.
Thomas closed the channel after receiving the information and opened another channel to his detachment.
"Listen up people. We got a situation. I'm sending map data to you guys."
As his group viewed the data, Thomas continued.
"The dummies are malfunctioning and the pandoras are getting their asses handed to them. Saddle up boys. We're gonna do what we do best head out there and blow shit up. This is no longer a training simulation. This is survival!"
Thomas then opened a list containing the malvione members. Excluding wounded and people on vehicles, Thomas highlighted names and called out. "Alex. You and your guys are Blue team. Take honey badger and take out the Novas. Head to waypoint Delta. Take a banshee with you for cover."
"Got it." Came his friend's reply. "You heard him." Up top now! Simoun with me." Barked the delta commander and one banshee rose as two other delta members- the only ones left on the ground fit to fight, joined their comrades in the scarab and marched off.
Next he highlighted Wringe and half of the Foxtrot members. "alright guys. Your Red Team. Take Foxtrot 9-10's pelican and head to waypoint Gamma. Assist the pandoras there ."
"Yes leader." Came Wringe's reply and she hauled off her group to the pelican. On her way up. Thomas signaled to Vinn to cover them. The delta member nodded and took her banshee to join Red Team.
Next, he called to delta 2-4's pelican. Take the wounded and head back to base. Afterwards, home in on my location.
"Copy that."
Finally he turned to everyone else remaining. "Alright guys with me. We're now Green team. Take any remaining ground vehicles and we'll head to waypoint Echo."
The group acknowledged and marched off to collect the equipment. As soon as they were ready, green team moved out.
AN/
Hello Everyone. Phew, 6 months being silent. Well, been a while. This is the next and definitely not the last chapter of this fic. Sorry this lazy bum took so long to upload it. Anyway. As usual. Have a field day commenting, reviewing or giving suggestions. I appreciate it. anyway, im back and hope to stay that way. Hope you enjoyed and I'll see you next time.
