Scott and paddy sat hunkered down behind a stack of metal packaging crates as the ping of bullets echoed around them.
“Well it could be worse” commented Scott over the sound of bullets defecting off their cover.
“Yeah” Paddy agreed “we could be that guy”
Paddy pointed about 10 meters behind them where some noob ran straight at the enemy assault rifle blazing; only to have his head vaporized by a blast from the plasma turret the other team had deployed ,mere seconds before, to guard their flag zone.
“Five minutes until sudden death” Boomed the announcer in a deafening monotone .
‘Shit’ Scott thought ‘we need to cap that flag or we’re in elimination’.
Paddy was obviously thinking the same thing as he yelled something about cover fire before propping his sniper up and getting three consecutive head shot kills on the enemy soldiers around the flag.
Scott took the queue and sprinted for the flag, quick scoping the final two enemy soldiers with his .50 Cal assault rifle before rolling down to grab the flag.
“Yes we have it,” he yelled before being vaporized by a fiery blast of plasma.
Scott materialised back in the chat forum, were almost his whole team his team sat moaning about their unlucky, not to mention untimely, deaths.
“Man these teams ain’t fair” some Australian in his 20’s moaned.
“I had that guy so good, he didn’t even realise I was there, then BLAM plasma to the face.”
“Yeah” an American agreed “these bots are far too high level for us.”
“Get your shit together marines, you’re meant to be playing a TEAM GAME. so far your TEAM has failed every exercise; even though each of you has higher than average combat grades”. “We wouldn't give you a simulation we knew you couldn't handle, so get out there for the next round and get your shit together this time”.
With that omega squad’s commanding officer cut the communication and went back to watching all of the reruns of the trainee’s failures.
Paddy was now the last of omega squad in the simulation and had wisely left his last position near the flag after Scott got his ass fried.
At the present he was sitting atop a tower overlooking the whole map. Back towards to enemy flag was an area meant to simulate an industrial centre’s streets, packed full of crates that would never be shipped.
Back towards their base was a forest of carnivorous trees, that had claimed more than a few lives at the start of the game.
Paddy finished surveying the area and had just enough time to turn around, as a figure materialised in front of him and plunged a knife into his stomach.
Meanwhile at the edge of the Everfree forest, Shining Armour and a multitude of royal guards gathered around the small glowing portal that Princess Luna had said would take them to a training area were they could be killed but not die.
It seemed like the perfect answer to the accidental stabbings that happened regularly during the guards sparing sessions in Canterlot (some grudges never died it seemed).
Luna had also said it would be perfect for team building as there were already enemies to fight inside the portal.
The ponies stood silent for a few minutes before Shining Armour gave the word and they descended into the unknown training ground.
As Scott, Paddy, Tony and Daniel materialised in a steaming hot jungle the immediately realised something was wrong.
“Where is the rest of our team?” Daniel commented, concern in his voice.
“Don’t know where they are now,” said paddy crouching to inspect the ground “but they were here recently.”
“And how do you now that,” Scott inquired “if you have noticed our tracer visors don’t appear to be around at the present.”
Paddy simply pointed to the heavy boot prints on the ground before wandering of in the direction they appeared to lead.
“I saw that,” Scott quickly mumbled before following the rest of the group along the trail.
After about five minutes the four man team ditched their armour. It was simply to hot keep wearing and all four were soaked with sweat. As they were removing their plate mail the announcer began to speak, its robotic mono tone growing more excited with each sentence.
“Enemy double kill.”
“Enemy triple kill.”
"Enemy is dominating.”
Shining armour lay down his spear as his troop recovered from the skirmish.
It had not taken long to bring down the opposition once they had located them.
Why the creatures had practically stumbled into them for Celestia's sake.
The enemy appear to be strange bipedal creature that looked much like diamond dogs but slightly taller and with no fur.
Luna had been right, this exercise had really improved the team’s cooperation and they had managed to kill three of the creatures with only one escaping into the undergrowth.
The only thing that concerned Shining was the weird voice announcing their kills to the world.
After giving this a moment of thought he shrugged it off as a minor inconvenience; then ordered his troops to carry the one injured unicorn in their combat stretcher before continuing towards their way out.
“GAME OVER” thundered the announcers voices into the chat forum were omega squad sat waiting for the game to finally come to an end.
“Simulation failure; transitioning to new map in one minute.”
“Alright marines this time there will be no choice of load out Scott; that means no 50.Cal rifle.”
“Dam it,” Scott muttered under his breath.
“And no sniper for you paddy,” their commander continued.
“But my role is that of a sniper,” paddy argued “my whole purpose it to snipe.”
“Not anymore, you have to work as a team so the loadout will be as follows.” “If you role is normally defensive you will be given a spear; if your role is normally offensive you will be given a sword.”
“Tell me he’s joking,” the American (Daniel) whispered to Tony (the Australian)
“I don’t think he is mate,” whispered tony back in his funky Australian accent. “And if he isn’t it’s not like it could be any worse right.”
“Also your normal, carbon Nano fibre armour, will be replaced with medieval plate mail.”
“AW COME ON,” yelled the whole group.
“Simulation starting in ten seconds.”
“Ok, hit it marines, prepare to deploy.”
“nine, eight, seven, six, five, four, three, two, one, combat simulation error, transporting to new zone”
It had been ten minutes and Shining and his patrol hadn’t come across a single hostile unit.
At the present they were marching through a dense hot jungle and so far no one was enjoying it.
In fact the only reason any were still wearing their golden armour was because Shining threatened to slap them if they didn't.
And so, the ten strong group of ponies lead by Shining Armour continued to pushed on towards the other side of the jungle were the portal back to equestrian was located; and, were logically, the enemy must be.
