A group of cadets advanced forward in the thick Indonesian jungle, in search formation. They are still in light gear, as ordered.
"Armed reconnaissance? Really?" muttered Eddie, raising his Ultimax 100 light machine gun. "This is something even elite infantry can do, why did they include it in the Tier 1 course?"
Their new task is to advance forward to randomly allocated areas in groups of 9, needing to recon the area and return back with the results in a limited time. What's worse is that the instructors will be trying to stall them.
"You think the King of Bast*rds is going to give us an easy course?" retorted Albert, aiming down the 8.5-25x50mm scope on his UNSSD standard issue SR-25 DMR, which he had took in place of his usual AXMC sniper rifle plus MP5A5 submachinegun loadout to ease his load, since precision shooting is not a must for this section.
Observing the environment ahead, he scanned the area for any "hostiles"
"Well, Colonel Soong seems like a better chap," replied Eddie, referring to Bryan.
Clara laughed, "the ones who look harmless are often the most harmful."
Karl then snapped at them, telling them to stay focused.
Ariel who is acting as the point man stopped suddenly, signalling them to halt their advance. They immediately formed a perimeter, scanning the surroundings alertly.
"What's wrong?" asked Sean.
Ariel pointed ahead. "Look at the road ahead of us, it's noticeably on an elevated plane compared to the thick vegetation on the 2 sides, which move downwards in a shallow slope."
"If we were to get ambushed, we have nowhere to run!" she exclaimed.
Sean agreed with her assessment. He looked at his map on his smartwatch, which projected out in a holographic image, analysing it.
"But if we were to take a detour, we can't make it in time," he said.
Karl analysed his map, then looking forward with a monocular.
"Agreed, there are rows of wrecked cars in the middle section of the road, in the event of an ambush, we can use them as cover."
"Besides, judging from the terrain the instructors can only ambush us from the left as the right has little vegetation to cover them. I will take the risk."
"See how hard things are now?" jeered Erika at Eddie. "If only we had Exo-suits! Then we can use drones and thermal imaging to scout ahead first!"
"It will be useless, it will be shot down the moment it approaches," said Louis. "Our Exo-suit drones can only fly at heights of 400m, it will be obvious in the sky, as a small black dot that stands out. The only reason why the use of drones was a successful tactic back at the VBSS is because there were a lot of seagulls in the area to blend in with."
He then looked at the sky, not seeing a single bird flying.
"Let's go then," said Vera, readying her AK-12M1.
Sean tapped Ariel on the shoulder, and they continued their advance. Ariel taking the lead, Sean and Clara behind her covering her sides, Karl is behind them, scanning the left side of the road carefully with Eddie and Louis, Albert scanned ahead with his sniper scope, with Vera covering his close distance blind spots, and Erika guarding the rear of the search column.
They speed up their pace, hurrying through the road.
Little did they know that a drone is hovering 700m above them, broadcasting their movements live while they cannot hear or see it.
Just as they approached the cars, sudden bursts of automatic gun fire came from the left side, immediately peppering Ariel's legs with blue dots, the marks of simunation rounds, flooring her instantly, groaning in pain. Sean and Clara immediately took cover behind a huge rock on the road.
"AMBUSH!" yelled Karl, taking cover behind the engine cover of a wrecked car, returning fire. Eddie took a prone position beside him, laying down suppressive fire with his machine gun while covering the rest. They did not reach the car line yet, immediately getting down, then rolled and ran rightwards to take cover at the lower ground at the right side of the road, using the body of the road itself as cover in a textbook display of reverse slope tactics, bullets whizzing past them.
With Clara covering him, Sean immediately dashed out, and grabbed the chord on the back of Ariel's body armour, pulling her downed body with him to behind a wrecked car, placing her behind the engine compartment. He then quickly aimed at the left side, gunning down an instructor with burst fire he saw in his LPVO, seeing yellow smoke rising out of the jungle.
"Sh*t, they have Exo-suits!" he cursed.
All of the cadets fired at their 1 o'clock and 2 o'clock positions behind their covers.
Ariel grunted, firing while lying down behind the engine, the pain in her legs yet to subside, unable to stand, hence she raised her torso slightly, using her core to support herself as she peeked her rifle barrel out of the car slightly, aiming down the integrated 1.5x optic in her rifle.
Clara quickly emptied a magazine, hiding back under the rock to reload. She then swapped hands and fired from the left side, now firing at her 11o'clock position.
"Albert, Vera, take out their machine gunners!" yelled Karl.
Albert scanned the targets, quickly finding a machine gunner and fired, a strand of yellow smoke soon rising. Vera did the same.
Erika noticed something amiss at her front right, immediately pointing her SIG 552 rifle in the direction, aiming down her 4x ACOG scope.
Just as she suspected, a group of her instructors are flanking onto the road, trying to encircle the group behind the cars. She opened the grenade launcher on her rifle, loading a rifle grenade in and firing it at them, taking out some, she then fired in bursts at the area, attempting to stall them and pin them down.
"They are trying to encircle us! Watch out the front of the road!" she warned, relaying her discovery.
"Everyone, fall back into the right side of the road and we retreat!" ordered Sean.
"Alright, I will cover you!" yelled Eddie, firing his 100-round drum magazine fervently. Sean then nudged Clara and she dashed out from hiding, running with all of her energy towards Eddie's hiding spot, bullets landing around her and missing by inches.
She then slid behind the cover, reloading.
Eddie emptied his light machine gun. Karl ordered him to fall back, while he and Clara covered him.
Louis then advanced to the most rightward side with Erika, helping Sean and Ariel in suppressing the group trying to flank them.
Suddenly, a "swoosh" which Sean absolutely dreaded to hear in this situation is made, he turned to his right in horror, seeing a simulation mortar shell landing by his side.
"MORTAR!" yelled Sean, as it landed and detonated beside him. While he is not in the blast radius, the impact was still enough to send him falling head first into a rock, smashing into his forehead and knocked him out, the last thing he remembers are the sound of mortars being fired in salvos and blowing up around him…
A splash of cold water awakened Sean, he looked around, seeing himself locked in a small cell, hanged on tightly to the ceiling in chains, his gear gone.
He gave it a tug, trying to break it, only to find it as tough as diamonds.
He tried to melt it with fire magic, only to discover he is too weak to use magic, all thanks to a fresh needle hole on his arm, which suggests that he was injected with dampeners which temporarily suppressed his body's ability to channel Cosmic Energy, rendering him unable to tap on magic—a tool developed by humans in their conflict against the Sellardraxians.
The door then opened. Several masked men entered, looking at Sean coldly.
The lead man handed Sean a map, talking in a computerized voice to hide his or her identity, though Sean can roughly guess from the body shape that it's a man.
"Tell me, the location of your camp."
Sean sneered, understanding what's happening now. The armed reconnaissance mission was merely a ploy. The real subject tested is the most feared training of all: SERE (Survival, Evasion, Resistance and Escape) training Right now, they have to survive interrogation.
"F*** off," he said.
The lead man then laughed, suddenly grabbing a wooden stick and smashed it at Sean's torso with all of his strength.
The stick split into 2 upon impacting Sean's titanium alloyed skeleton body.
An awkward silence followed.
Sean put on a smirk, trying to hide his pain.
"HA!" he laughed. "Are you losers too poor to afford good quality sticks now?"
The masked men then grabbed stainless steel bars and rained blows mercilessly on Sean, sending excruciating jolts of pain into his body.
Sean screamed in pain, feeling his skin and flesh being split open as the beating continued.
After a long time, the masked men dropped their steel bars, now coated with a fresh layer of crimson red blood.
Sean coughed in pain, spitting out some blood.
"Now?" asked the lead man.
"Your…treatment of POWs…violates the…Geneva…con…convention…" muttered Sean in pain.
He laughed. "What's that? Is it edible?" he sneered.
He then leaned close to Sean, only for Sean to headbutt him in the face, his titanium alloy skull causing a nose bleed on the masked man's face.
Angered, the masked man the pulled a lever. Sean is then pulled backwards, and out of the room, now suspended over a lake.
At the push of a button, the contraption Sean is chained on flipped him over and lowered him into the water rapidly, not giving Sean any time to hold his breath, which would have been useless anyway considering that he was suspended upside down and lowered in head first, and water soon flooded into his nostrils, drowning him. The sensation is extremely uncomfortable. He tried to force air out to block the water, but it was of little use.
After a long while, he is pulled back out, choking and coughing, gasping for air, his life had almost flashed in front of his eyes.
Just then, the other doors opened, Sean weakly opened his eyes to see his comrades being dragged out or pulled out on the contraptions, going to be water boarded like him.
The lead masked man looked at them, and Sean could feel and sense his sadistic pleasure at the prospects of breaking their will leaking out under the mask.
The lead man looked at Sean, then at the other cadets, who all have black bags thrown over their heads.
"Now this muppet here is an interesting fellow, let's see how the rest of you are like!" he exclaimed, and the other cadets had their bags pulled off, revealing their faces.
Sean is horrified to see his comrades all bloody and beaten.
"Anyone talking now?" asked the leader.
All of the cadets remained silent.
He sneered, ordering all of them to be dropped into the water.
Louis, Eddie and the other Litas laughed.
"What are you all trying to do? Drowning a fish?" jeered Louis, referring to their identity as amphibians.
Though the Litas did not laugh for long when the masked men slapped a specialised waterproof and watertight collar around their necks which blocked off their gills, then dropping all of them into the water upside down, head first.
"MMPH!" Louis struggled, trying to stop the water from entering his nostrils. He tried futilely to free himself, both to turn himself upright and to try to expose his gills to water to breathe.
After some time, the Litas are pulled back out, gasping for air weakly.
"DO THE REST OF YOU WANT TO END UP LIKE THEM?" roared a masked man.
"I WILL ASK ONE MORE TIME, ANY OF YOU GOING TO SPEAK UP?!"
"NEVER!" yelled Clara defiantly. What awaited her was the index finger of a masked woman being pressed violently into her chest, and her yells of pain soon resonated.
"STOP, YOU BAST*RD!" roared Ariel, only for her to get the same treatment.
The rest of the cadets all protested and tried to retaliate, though all of their attempts are useless, and very soon all of them are lowered into the water head first, struggling.
After being pulled out, the cadets are then ushered into a water pit, getting locked into a cage submerged into water, leaving only their heads above the water.
The masked men used high-pressured hoses to spray them, the cadets fell back, trying to shield themselves.
A while later it started raining, and the masked men left them be. The cadets are left shivering in the icy cold river water.
"Way…to…go…" muttered Karl, mist coming out of his mouth as he spoke.
"Conserve…energy…to stay…warm…" muttered Sean.
"You…know…" shivered Eddie. "I…have…always…wanted…to…bathe together…with…the opposite…gender…I…guess…I…got…my…wish huh."
Everyone laughed, even the girls. Comedy in any form is a valuable asset to them in such a hopeless situation.
The rain dragged on into the night.