Chapter 4: The First Battles

The day had come where we were going to fight our first battle, yesterday we had basic training with the suits and weapons, but everyone was still very inexperienced and not very good with our equipment, the one person who excelled in training, but mainly in the form of shooting was that one girl in my room who saved me ass back at school, she must have been a shooter back home was my guess, but I still didn’t even know her name let alone anything about her, but we had to keep going on. I met my team commander with the other 20 boys in our team, his last name was all we knew as he went by Captain Ryan, he was a quiet firm guy who was quite strict on formations and overall rules, he didn’t like his soldiers opposing him, but he was understanding of our errors which is the one thing I can say is important in a leader. He introduced us to the junior Armory, and made the statement “everyone is to have the same loadout for the first few weeks until were comfortable with the basics then you can experiment with different loadouts, grab a standard issue rifle and sidearm as well as 3 magazines of spare ammo for each, choose your shots wisely because once you’re out of ammo that’s it.” Everyone rushed to a locker and excitedly grabbed all the guns barging into each other and cluttering the door to get them, I spoke up “Why doesn’t just a few people spread out and grab a bunch of weapons and once and toss them to each other, would be quicker just saying.” The captain grinned ”Yeah do that, don’t crowd, just makes things slower.” Everyone embarrassingly stepped back and 4 people went to a locker of their own and spread out the weapons and ammo, after everyone was ready the Captain did a head count, “Why is there only 19 of you, who is missing?” one of the only people I knew walked through the door, it was that one girl from my room, I sighed and exclaimed “Of course you’re here.” Everyone chuckled as if I was picking on her for being a girl, I realised what I did and mouthed “I’m Sorry” to her, she was given the loadout and the suit, then we all got the helmets, they were pretty thick for what they were, maybe 5cm of extra thickness on our head, with a single visor on the front to see out of it, it booted up and showed the heads up display, is connected to the suit and showed, ammo amount, health, amount of teammates remaining, and a scoreboard if you toggled it, and a small map of the area we would be fighting in.

The Captain set foot at the front of the room and played out the plan “Todays battle will be a team skirmish, that’s a 10 v 10, Doddman, you head up team one, and Emily, you head up team two, pick your Soldiers and move two the two respawn zones on the map, the objective is demolition. There are two bomb sites on each side of the map, you have to defend yours and destroy the others, you have 20 minutes to do so, if you do not it’s a tie, this is a respawn game mode, if you die, go back to the respawn gate and hit the button, that will reset you.” We then picked teams and things were about as even as can get, everyone was just as inexperienced as each other so it would be a close and fun fight. My team was on the opposite side of the map and protecting bomb A the other team was protecting Bomb B, I spoke to my team “Okay here is the strategy, we are going to rush the enemy, making them panic before they can do anything against our offence, 3 of you will stay by our spawn and guard our site, the rest of us will charge forward in a thick group and swamp the enemy. We ready?”

Emily

I Walked into the Armory late, John made a comment I’m sure had an alternate meaning other than just being offensive I ignored him and gathered all my equipment before I was split and made leader of a team, I didn’t want this, I wanted to learn first, not be thrown in the deep end, I followed orders however as upsetting my superior was not something I wanted to play with. I picked my fighters and waited at the respawn gate for John to get into position. I addressed my team “I think we should split clean in half, 5 defence and 5 offence and play conservative, you five stay here, you four come with me.” It didn’t matter who did what, we were all useless, but I was the best shot, so I went on the offensive.

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Captain Ryan

I stood on the observing post which overlooked the whole room, I watched as the two teams sorted strategy, John split his forces 7,3 he looked hell bent on a swift attack, as Emily looked like she wanted to take it easy and win via attrition. My bet was on John, he looked more like he read the skills of everyone and he knew how they would take it, Emily although playing it safe would be slowly crushed by her opposition. They both started moving towards each other, the map had 3 natural lanes, buildings separating each street, the map was basically one city block and both teams looked to hit the centre lane and bump into each other with Johns team looking to be closer to Emily’s spawn Johns team opened fire and forced Emily’s team to take cover behind the various debris nearby with Johns team knocking out 3 of her teams attackers she was forced to quickly retreat and wait for her attackers to respawn, John didn’t relent he kept moving further and further up, Emily did something brash, she pulled all of her troops forward to the attack line, John was caught off guard with his Troops taking minimal cover he lost 4 of them and was forced to stop in his tracks and take cover. John responded with his own backup plan, he order his 3 defence men to move forward with them traveling in the right lane of the map rather than through the middle, John knew her objective was undefended, he got his 4 lost men to respawn and move back up to the attack line, he then played defensive as he waited for the bomb to be planted, his attack force was now smaller so he had to play less aggressive, the bomb was planted by Johns defensive team and as Emily figured this out she split her team in half to deal with his force that planted the bomb, she had 30 seconds to defuse it, what she didn’t realise is that now Johns force was bigger, as soon as he saw her force scramble, he charged at them, no one was ballsy enough to use their movement yet, but there was one boy who did, his name was Daniel, he was part of Johns team and he used a building nearby and wallrunned it, spraying his weapon killing two of Emily’s five left over attackers before dying himself. With that John himself stepped up and killed another leaving two troops left, Johns teams bomb went off, winning him the round. The simulation room beeped, and their helmets deactivated. Johns team rejoiced in victory whilst Emily’s team sobbed, I had underestimated these guys talent, back when I was part of the new crew no student ever used their movement in their first fight, I was proud of this guy, he would be my next leader.

Daniel

John and our team walked back into the Armory, everyone was praising me for using the suits movement when nobody else even knew how too, it made me question just how smart these boys were, all the wall stuff is almost automatic u just have to hit the wall. And run and a slight angle, in saying that I wasn’t too great at it I just knew how to do it, I was pulled aside by our Captain. “What you did today was incredibly rare, no-one I battle with in my time used their movement during their first battle, all of us never new how to do It let alone being brave enough to do it, u have shown great promise, and if you agree I will make you are leader in battles.” This kind of baffled me as all I had done was show more confidence than the others, I just followed orders and did what I could during the fight, I agreed however It didn’t matter if I didn’t do that well as a leader as I would just go back to be a regular trooper anyway. We were rounded back up and were given a debrief and were given advice on the battle that just took place, giving everyone tips about strategy and weapon handling. As a learning experience it helped a lot, even though it was only our first battle, we were all progressing quite fast and being much better fighters due to it. Today was a productive day.