Alternative Title: Boonies Competition
Why does Ada prefer to work alone?
Capcom owns Carlos Oliviera, Leon Kennedy, Ada Wong, Claire Redfield and Chris Redfield.
Naughty Dog owns Ellie and Joel
Preface: Umbrella's BOW brought back survivors in a bid to leave Umbrella Corp and become an Army Special Forces Lieutenant. Now the military unit is holding a competition amongst its own military members (from the DOOKIE platoon) to try and get them into the open job instead of the BOW.
Acronyms: PT (Physical Training), BOW(Bio Organic Weapon), Boonies (BiOhazard Operatives of the Nation), USO (United Service Organizations-space for military personnel at most airports), SSG(Staff Sergeant), SPC(Specialist), SGT(Sergeant),SFC(Sergeant First Class).
Enlisted Rank Structure: PVT, SPC, CPL, SGT, SSG, SFC, SGM
Ada whispered for Ellie not to join her at the formation in pavilion outside the airport, because Ada didn't want Ellie's face imprinted on anyone's minds. Ada rushed inside a moment later saying, "I need change into the long sleeve training uniform. Ugh, I look so ugly in these." The bruises along her hands and arms were now purplish swirls, and she was glad that no one had seen them outside.
"No! you don't look bad!" Ellie said encouragingly. "What are you?" She trailed off and Ada glanced at her as they both went back through the airport.
Ellie mouthed, "Planning". Ada's lightly panicked face looked around quickly before opening the USO door, checking for any other people in the dark early hour.
"Nothing." Ada then signed, 'Contractors help us. Watch me, stay hidden.' Ellie's own two fingers almost poked Ada's eyes out, as Ellie made the sign for 'watching you'. Ada stuck her tongue out at Ellie and pushed through the glass door.
Ellie sat behind the glass door and watched the military members standing around in the cold. The tall blonde trans-woman, Staff Sergeant Hildurg, had her blonde hair in a tight neat bun. She had an abundantly large bosom. Her features were masculine otherwise-with broad shoulders and a very toned square body. She pulled a bunch of colored styrofoam hexagonal tiles out of the airport building, but she was also looking around, watching for someone in particular to show up.
Ada stood alone for a few minutes, until a pale man with a completely shaved head bumbled over from the sleeping quarters on the far side of the airfield-he was holding a large flag. He put the big flag at the middle, in front of the platoon and shuffled over to her.
"I'm Specialist Stevens with the Dookie platoon, sister platoon to the Boonies-I watch the flag. Who are you?" Ada noticed his bulbous forehead immediately. His head was shaped like a peanut, with blue eyes sunk into his skull, and large lips. His bottom lip seemed to pout a bit.
"Apparently, I'm the new maintenance Sergeant? But I'm still just a Specialist." Ada felt her lungs were still tight and painful, but she could speak without having to pause now. The cold was stabbing down her throat every time she breathed.
"Oh! Suarez! Uh…well he-I think uh, he should, should be here at formation today cuz he only pulled early guard duty." Stevens had a bit of a nervous energy about him, and his words sounded a bit like he had a lisp of a sort.
"Suarez and I, we was supposed to do extra PT cuz we failed our height and weight test. That's why, that what I mean what I'm saying."
"Oh." Ada said flatly, eyeing the extra weight on the man's middle section.
"But I mean I work out on my own too, so I work out 3 times a day accually."
"You do?" Ada raised her eyebrows at him in disbelief.
"Yea yea." He said seriously. He seemed eager to show off to her. He stopped talking for a moment and looked to the side of the pavilion.
The large BOW had appeared wearing black workout pants, and behind it there was a yellow robot dog with a wide saucer on top of its back. The BOW started stretching behind the pavilion and the soldiers.
Hildurg waved at the BOW flirtatiously, and began stretching by bending over and touching her toes. It paid no attention to anyone, standing nonchalantly and staring off into the distance.
SSG Kennedy and the rest of the Boonies platoon finally showed, except for Claire. She had pulled the morning shift of guard duty so she was absent. SSG Kennedy waved to Ada as she made eye contact with him. She nodded at him with a quick obligatory smile.
Stevens said insistently to her, grabbing her hand with his own oddly sweaty one,
"Yea I work out harder than most the soldiers here. You heard of P90X? That will kick your butt. I'm just showing you right, I'm just showing you how the P90X move works. Ok so right you feel that-if you do it right-like I'm showing you-"
His muffin-top midsection jiggled when he let go of her hand and punched at her demonstrably. He scrunched his lips and then puckered them, the way a grandpa does.
"Go ahead punch me like that, you'll see."
Ada mimicked his motion, just stopping before his gut. He showed her some more moves, hitting her stomach lightly.
"So I've been doing that and I've lost a bunch of weight. Really good for your stomach muscles!" He smiled at Ada, and that's when she noticed he had absolutely no teeth.
"Where'd all your teeth go?"
"Oh I had a bit of a crack issue-b-b-but I'm totally clean now! Been clean for years!"
"Oh. How old are you?"
"25."
Ada's eyebrows raised as she blinked rapidly, digesting this information.
Hildurg cleared her throat and went to the front of the group. She spoke in a forced feminine voice, calling everyone to get into formation.
"The BOW has an allotted 6 hours of integration today, everyone. At all times, remember; 8 feet of distance at least, roger that?" Sleepy "hooahs" rang out.
The special forces Boonies formation and their sister Dookie platoon- stood 'at ease' wearing their black shorts and grey long sleeve shirts for their physical training session. Ada sighed and stood slumped between Suarez and Stevens. Having a BOW this close to people was not, in her opinion, a good idea. She kept her eyes on Ellie's face behind the darkened windowed airport door. Ellie waved at her, sitting cross-legged on the floor inside.
Three men in dark green camo showed up, then left as soon as accountability was taken. Hildurg made all the soldiers hold up their hands to show off their BOW prohibitors.
"This morning we have a PT competition between the platoons, followed by a special event for our Dookie platoon!" Hildurg smiled at the Dookie soldiers, although her eyes kept getting caught on the BOW behind them all.
Hildurg spoke with a straight proud back, addressing everyone.
"I will be overseeing each event to make sure we all count fair. Situps, pushups, and then lastly a run."
Ada looked over at her competitors, in the Boonie platoon. SSG Kennedy, SFC Oliviera, and SSG Redfield-male type. And on her own side, Suarez and Stevens.
Suarez asked loudly, "What's the special event for us Sergeant?"
"We are evaluating each Dookie soldier for a potential promotion to become our lieutenant. And alsoooo the BOW, Sade." Hildurg's face was painted with fake enthusiasm. "Being an officer within the Special Forces is a great honor, and as an officer with our platoon you will have up to 5 hot meals a day, along with better housing, more autonomy for your workout sessions, and more spending credits. That being said, you will be responsible for putting out policies, and planning our missions with the CO."
"Wait are you putting us against a BOW-da fuck?" Suarez and Stevens both swung their heads around to look at the giant 8-foot muscular statue behind them.
"No." Hildurg shook her head impatiently.
The formation warmed up their bodies according to the PRT standards, responding loudly to SSG Hildurg for each position they took. Ada yelled along with the rest, "Bend and Reach. One!" It was soothing; to be moving in rhythm with a combined purpose alongside others.
Hildurg got up from their last drill position, wiping her hands of the dirt.
"Partner up for the situp event."
"Hey Specialist?" Suarez said down at Ada pleadingly. "Can you please count for me-" Ada saw a huge scar along the side of his shaved head, where he had very apparently gotten some kind of surgery. His skin was a dark tanned brown and he had bushy eyebrows with a five-o clock shadow on his chin.
"And me!" Stevens begged, his hands in a prayer. Ada sighed again, plopping herself down and nodding at them both.
Hildurg got out a small timer and made sure everyone was prepared.
Suarez got onto his back with his knees up, while Stevens watched them patiently, stretching in preparation.
Ada wrapped her arms around Suarez's calves and placed her knees on his feet gingerly, to hold him down. With each situp, he lifted her up, because she was so light. He was saying each number loudly and Ada was as well, which confused her. Hadn't he just asked her to count for him? Then he started messing up the count at 9, and she began correcting him from that point onward. He started passing gas and apologizing to her. Her rage grew with each small rip as the stench began to overwhelm her faculties.
"MRE's" He said apologetically up to her frowning face.
SSG Hildurg went over and asked Ada for the count. "42 Sergeant." Ada said as she prepared with Stevens.
She was clenching her teeth as Stevens admitted to her sheepishly, "I took whey protein, creatine and some pre-workout before formation, so-so I'm worse than Suarez-oh and that omelette MRE last night."
"I'll just hold my breath." She said placidly. He sat down and gassed, as Ada put her knees on his feet.
"Can you hold my calves too please, shpecialist?" His open mouth showed only gums again. Ada spoke quietly under her breath, "I fucking, can not."
"What was that sorry I didn't hear?"
"Nothing." She leaned in and wrapped her arms around his calves.
SSG Kennedy and SFC Redfield were pumping out their sit-ups much faster than the Dookies. "102!" Redfield yelled out at them triumphantly, as Hildurg's timer beeped.
"Fucking double digits again! Whoo! Fuck yea!" SFC Redfield said, enervated. He gave SSG Hildurg a strong high-five that echoed out.
Meanwhile, Ada moved her head away-inadvertently moving her body as well- and took a very large loud gasping breath. His knees were wobbling horribly so she redoubled her efforts to hold his calves together. She was sweating trying to hold his feet down. It almost felt to her like he was trying to bring his feet up instead of, well…any of his upper body. Feetups, not situps. He continued valiantly. He gassed so loudly that it made the other platoon pause and start laughing. Ada dramatically lay down, then. She saw Ellie laughing too at her as her face was on the cement.
"You killed our only female Specialist, Stevens!" Kennedy shouted with his fist shaking high in the air. He went over to Ada and held his hand out to her, which she took with a small wry smile. She let out a small yelp as she straightened up, because of her open wounds on her bruised back. "I'm fine." She murmured. He was, she noticed, not sweating at all. Behind him, the BOW was doing situps.
"I drank whey protein for my workout ok guys!?" Stevens defended himself.
Oliviera shook his head, "No you're not supposed to take it before, you're supposed to take it after, dumbass!"
"I work out 3 times a day assholes, I know what the fuck I'm doing-mind your fucking business, fucking BONERS platoon!" Stevens raged.
Ada didn't need her feet held down at all. Stevens and Suarez knelt on both sides of her and counted while she leisurely moved, doing 46 total in 2 minutes. Their counts were off by 5 and 8. Just for the hell of it, she also changed the count to 42- at which point Hildurg corrected it to 47.
For pushups, the Dookies requested to do the alternative version, with their knees on the ground. This request was vehemently rejected by the other platoon and Hildurg. For Ada, they could not deny her request, because, as Hildurg pointed out, she was a biological female.
She did 15 total pushups, Stevens did 45 and Suarez did 47.
"Specialist, how old are you?" Hildurg asked her, standing over her.
"23" Ada lied. Her own math was way off but she doubted anyone would be spending much time figuring it out later on.
"If this was the PT test today you would fail it-and then you'd have to do PT twice a day with these dookie members." Hildurg warned her. Ada felt that Hildurg took some vindictive pleasure in saying this, in the way Hildurg's eyes judged her.
SSG Kennedy did 80 pushups, SFC Oliviera did 77, and SFC Redfield did 99.
"Wow that went much faster than I expected, so we are going to do buddy carries on the landing strip-but I have to grab some pen and papers real quick so I'll meet you all there."
Ada groaned, and SSG Kennedy went over to her. They walked together along with the group out from the pavilion. Ada registered his genuine concern on his handsome face, and felt a small sense of relief. She also noticed that his high and tight haircut was a bit out of regulations, because the top hair was a bit too long in the front. But she certainly wasn't complaining about someone daring to have a hint of style in this godforsaken place.
The BOW followed behind casually, cracking its neck loudly.
"What's wrong Specialist?" Kennedy asked Ada.
"Sergeant, these guys are too tall for me to carry!" She complained to him. She also felt that carrying someone while having open gashes along her back-even while bandaged-was not something she should be doing at all. But Claire had checked it out last night and deemed all her injuries as minor.
He smiled down at her, "Tell them to pick their feet up! You'll be fine. Special Forces needs more women, and hey! Haven't you been a specialist long enough? You get transferred into our platoon and boom! Automatic officer rank-that's like 3 promotions ahead of where you are now, instantly."
"No. We don't need more women." Redfield cut in. He had blondish brown hair in a burr cut high and tight. His bulging arms made the long sleeve gray uniform very taut on him. His thick neck was colored by some rashes from his early morning shave. He had a dark bushy moustache.
"We need more qualified soldiers, Kennedy. If they happen to be women, then more power to them."
"Well, uh, the qualifications may be a littttttle bit…slanted is all I'm gonna say." Kennedy said back to him.
"That's all youre gonna say…cuz you know I can kick your ass Kennedy." Redfield and Kennedy started playfighting each other on the strip. The BoW sat down about 16 feet away and watched them all with dead red eyes.
Hildurg announced, "Now we do the buddy carry for 50 meters on the airfield." Since each team had three people, one on each team would go twice. Hildurg explained that this would be an opportunity to double on points. Suarez volunteered himself and Ada agreed silently, nodding at him. But she wanted to go first, so she ushered Stevens to hop up.
"Go!"
"Lift your fucking feet Stevens!" Ada struggled mightily, trying to hurry.
"I am!"
Ada hoisted Stevens further up her back. His legs dragged on the concrete as she moved him. Everyone heard the BoW whine loudly, like a dog straining on a leash.
It was tossing its head about, staring at Ada as she carried Stevens.
"You think you can handle carrying someone?" Hildurg said up to the BOW curiously.
The BoW shook its head no and stepped back a few steps.
"You wanna be an SF LT, you gotta be able to carry an injured soldier." Hildurg said stoically. "I volunteer, you can carry me."
Oliviera stepped in, grabbing Hildurg. "No. Listen to the BoW here Hildurg; it said no, then the answer is a big fucking no."
Oliviera and Hildurg started talking quietly together, as she told him the scores and he looked at the Dookies disapprovingly. Kennedy went over to them to interrupt,
"The female should still be recovering with the civilians, she's in no shape to compete for this-and those two are also doing double PT so…just want to put that out there."
"Noted." Oliviera said bruskly. "But we also need to fill this officer slot. We can't wait for West Point cadets to show up-cuz they just fucking wont.
They all went back over to the pavilion, to start on the special event.
SSG Hildurg and SFC Oliviera placed the hexagonal tiles all just outside the pavilion. Hildurg then instructed the dookies,
"These tiles represent a map of resources; green for food, grey for supplies, red for gasoline. Got that? You must plan out the route through these tiles so that you are navigating through at least 2 of each tile, but no more than 4. Then you must direct all of your peers to travel that route. Every person has a different tile layout on their page, so while we are resetting you will be running around the airfield. Here are the papers and the pens for you to write out your route so we can score later; get to work you have 15 minutes.
"Can we jump tiles Sergeant?" Suarez asked.
"Yes you can jump one away at most-this is timed as well; but you can't show anyone else your paper-you will have to direct them-BOW do you have your scratchpad?"
The BOW slipped back into the airport, reappearing shortly with a large magnetic drawing pad. Hildurg placed the paper and pen down beside the pavilion, and then the BOW moved in to grab it after she backed off.
Ada studied the paper. A big picture of the tiles along with instructions on the bottom.
Ada spoke fervently to Hildurg, "Sergeant I need glasses its too blurry on the page."
"Well then you'll just have to wait for us to put out the tiles and go from there Specialist." Hildurg scribbled on the page, Dookies SPC-female aged 23
Suarez directed Stevens through the tiles first, then Stevens directed Ada through. He kept telling her to backtrack because he messed up. She had to go through it again because he failed to get enough of the red gasoline tile within the allotted time. The BOW directed Suarez through, and then Ada was supposed to direct the BOW through. She gawked up at the giant as he stood at the start of the tiles, her mouth widely agape.
"You're not trying to suck bigfoot's dick. Just tell the BOW what to do." Oliviera said to her from the other side of the tiles. All the resource tiles were on the edges of the map. She kicked back to life, finally showing an authentic emotion of rage on her face as she shouted at SFC Oliviera.
"Are you fucking serious? Am I a joke to you?" She immediately regretted speaking so loud, as her throat was on fire and being stabbed with pain.
"Yes. Yes you are." Redfield said.
"No." Oliviera corrected him. "We value all of our soldiers…equally."
"Equal right. Yes but, mathematically speaking, that would be the sum of everything being equal to 0." Chris said.
She directed the BOW through, trying to stay far away from the tiles while also coming back to reiterate his path to those following behind. If she hadn't injured her throat, she could've safely yelled. She saw the BOW's hand reach out to her and then punch her in the gut surreptitiously with his tentacle. She fell onto her knees as she failed to regain her breath, then just lay down flat on the pavement.
"8 feet of distance, Specialist. You alright there?" Oliviera asked.
Ada gave a thumbs up as she lay still, trying to regain her breath. Redfield burst out laughing.
"Alright well that wraps everything up for the competition today.
Suarez spoke out, "I need to go to medical Sergeant." Hildurg nodded at him. She called everyone to formation. She ignored Ada still on the ground, and SSG Kennedy who had his hand on Ada's back.
Dookies 0900 formation here for motorpool maintenance; 20 minutes prior everyone. That includes you, Sade." Hildurg announced. Ellie noticed some of them coming towards her and ran back to Joel.
SSG Kennedy stuck by Ada's side as she got onto all fours.
"Its just your rank." He assured her. "You did good considering…"
She looked at him tiredly. "No." She got up and walked into the airport, ignoring him.