(Narrator POV)

After three months of working together, it’s time for the cadets to graduate and become real anti-fiend soldiers. Today, all Savior Cadets will be taking their “final exam”. This “exam” is done with one’s squad and grades the cadets on several things, the greatest of which are teamwork and on-the-fly decision making. The cadets are told that it is a tournament and that the last ten teams will be held back, of course, this is a lie. The only squads that are held back, are the ones who fail to understand what the word teamwork means, or the ones who clearly have no idea what they are doing. These squads are given more intense training and fewer privileges, regardless of how good an individual in the group is.

(Taiyo’s POV)

“Next up: Squad 108-F,” says the announcer, calling for the next team to step up and show their skill in the Simulations. Looks like it’s our turn to show our skills. The simulated missions seem to be truly random; so far we’ve seen missions ranging from escort types to city-defence-and-evac types, with difficulties ranging from a handful of fiends to rogue paramilitary ops, to hordes of fiends. Not to mention weather conditions ranging from clear skies to blizzards. So far there has been nothing too ridiculous, yet. These simulations are of course done in a Virtual Reality environment and are highly realistic, as expected of a military grade simulation program.

The team currently in first place is Squad 86-F, who successfully evacuated an entire city from a horde of fiends with no friendly casualties. Unfortunately, they lost the city, since they had no way to kill the behemoth. This event is a tournament in a way, each team gets a simulated mission and are scored on how well they did. The scoring is done on a percentile basis, and ranked on a difficulty system, as well, the completion of an objective will give a certain percent based on how well it was completed. For example, Squad 86-F scored a 75% on a very hard mission, broken down their score looks like this: All Squad Members Alive: +20/20, Perfect Completion of Primary objectives: +55/55, Failure to Complete Secondary Objectives: +0/25.

Well, it’s time to begin, Tsuki and I step into the VR Pods, that we prefer, while Vera, Fane, and Vaughn put on the VR Headsets. The headsets are the more popular VR device due to their portable nature, they have internal batteries and can receive power either wirelessly through energy transmitters or with a hardwire connection to a power outlet. VR Pods, on the other hand, are stationary and hard to move around and install, they are however far more comfortable than a bed, assuming you don’t get claustrophobic.

As the simulation begins and we connect, our squad appears in a large yet plain white room. This is the “Ready Room” where we gear up, learn our mission objectives, and the approximate difficulty level of our mission. The spectators can’t see us in this room, so we have some privacy to change into our gear, and prep for the mission. After we all change into our gear, I look around. The first person I see is, of course, my other half, Tsuki, who is equipped the same way I am. We are wearing form-fitting arachne silk body armor underneath our casual clothes, while we are each holding a magic ammo version of the AAC Honey Badger PDW with its integral sound suppressor. Our gear is designed to be lightweight and allow the full range of motions while offering a pretty solid defense.

The second person that comes into my line of sight is Vaughn, who stands at 180 centimeters tall. He is wearing a stealth suit designed to looks like a motorcycle rider’s outfit and is carrying his 2-meter-long, magic ammo Anzio 20mm anti-tank cannon. On his side is a small pack filled with Claymore Anti-Personnel Mines, in a holster on his left hip is his Remington XD(M) .45 and sheathed on his chest and the small of his back are his pair of KA-BAR combat knives. Next is Vera, who looks… well… normal and unarmed. I suppose that is to be expected when she can assimilate her gear into her serpentine body.

And lastly is our drake, Fane, surprisingly enough she looks the most well armored of us. Standing at 175 centimeters tall with a wingspan of 2.5 meters, she is wearing a full suit of weightless, self-repairing, light power armor. On each hip she has a holster with a magic ammo 14mm hand cannon, which she insists are just pistols, in her hand is a spear, and on her thighs are her “fangs” in their sheaths. Off to the side of the room is our helicopter, a modified attack chopper with a cabin and a 30mm autocannon, which will be piloted by our personal AI, Magmus.

Let’s see here, what is our mission? A nigh-impossible city evacuation. WHAT THE FUCK! Mission objectives: Evacuate the Civilians and Eliminate all Fiends attacking the city. Well, at least we should have some backup from the city’s garrison, and hopefully some air support. Shall we check? Hm… So we’ve got a squadron of fighters at our disposal, callsign Viper, a few hundred troops split between special ops and ordinary riflemen, a few tanks, and a decent number of transport copters, going to assume those are for the evacuation of the civilians. With all this at our disposal, it’s still labeled nigh-impossible? What the hell are we up against? Seeing as all of us are ready, we climb into our helicopter to start the mission, all of us dead serious. Which, as far as the rest of Central is concerned, has never happened before.

(Narrator POV)

It should be noted that the audience can see and hear everything that occurs around the members of the squad, exactly as if they were watching a movie. And the entire audience, instructors included, is shocked. Why? Well because “the Misfit Squad” is dead serious and have been since their mission started, even the “twins” notorious for joking, pulling pranks, and generally taking nothing seriously. Vaughn can be heard, barking clear and concise orders over the coms to allied forces, directing them to efficiently evacuate the city’s civilian population as quickly as possible. He’s been doing this for a couple minutes and he hasn’t seen the entire battlefield, merely listened to the comms channels. He’s given a weapons-free order to their close air support with a standing order to prioritize air targets and outright ignore any behemoths that may show up.

He tells the team’s drake, Fane, to run wild with the sole limitation that she can’t harm “friendly” forces. Moments later, Vaughn fast ropes down to the roof of a large skyscraper and heads inside to set up, while Fane jumps out and flies off to find the nearest group of prey. The helo flies off with the rest of squad, heading towards a stranded group of civilians and the soldiers escorting them.

(Tsuki’s POV)

Our heli is rapidly approaching our drop point, the heavy rain reducing visibility. We can hear and feel the sheer power of the heli’s 30mm autocannon firing, as the copter slows and comes to a stop in a hover. Magmus is thinning the Fiends around our rescue targets. “Drop point clear. Deploy!” Magmus states over comms. Our hands reach towards the fast ropes and we drop. Taiyo’s and my guns making no audible noise in this downpour, as we open fire into the horde, as we drop. Vera drops after us, after safely reaching the ground, we signal Magmus with a single click of our throat mic and he flies off to help protect the evac point.

Vera moves off cloaking herself, and generally being her sneaky snek self. Heh. Ok, back to being serious. We move inside to meet our rescue targets, climbing over the corpses of fiends and humans alike. Coming from outside, we hear several thunderous roars. Great! Just Great! Dragons! From the sound of it, quite a few too. Vaughn is gonna be busy.

“Friendlies coming in!” Taiyo calls out, into the building.

“Over here.” A man’s voice calls out to us. He steps out into the open and gestures for us to follow him. Following the soldier, we are led to a large room with only one entrance. Inside are about 7 soldiers and 13 civilians, most of which appear to be children. This could be a problem.

“We’ve cleared the entrance of brutes, we should get moving before more show up,” I say to the corporal who led us here. “Think you can get everyone ready in a couple minutes?”

“Yes, ma’am!” He comes back about a minute later, everyone ready to go.

“Alright, we are going to be moving quickly and quietly. Everyone ready?”

I get nods in return, so I gesture forward and move towards the entrance, with Taiyo a half step behind. The soldiers take up a formation around the civs, and we all move as quietly as possible. Taiyo and I have to slow down for them to keep up with us, but at least they are moving decently fast.

(Vera POV)

I sneak through the rubble of the ruined city, scouting for enemy flankers, what I can see is terrifying. Brutes, maybe seven or eight of them going around the city block next to me. Behind them are five raiders, a plasma cutter and two vile surgeons They’re out of Vaughn’s line of sight and are headed toward Taiyo and Tsuki’s position. I can take them, right? I think to myself. I just need to get close and get them with my blades or point blank them with my gun. I was able to kill them that way in the simulations beforehand, but, can I get away with that now? Clearly, there are more of them here than in those simulations, they’re also higher leveled. Hell, they’re flanking of their own accord, that’s not even normal behavior! If I attacked them now, would I get caught? I could die in this glitched, fucking simulation and fail the test.

As these thoughts raced through my mind, I remembered what my father once told me. We were bear hunting in the forests of Russia, my legs were sore from the hours of walking. We finally found a bear, however, this was a huge bear. I froze. What if I couldn’t kill the bear? What if it attacked us? I was trembling. My father put his hand on my shoulder to calm me.

“Vera,” he said

“Do not let fear take hold of you, you are the hunter right now. Be brave and think only of the kill.”

At that moment, the bear spotted us. It rose onto its hind legs, it must have been four or five meters tall and roared. I freaked out. It’s over I thought, we’re going to die here. The bear sprinted in our direction, my father, however, was not scared. He just calmly said

“Think of the kill.”

*SNAP*

Suddenly, I stopped shaking, my eyes focused on the target, I thought only of killing the bear. The pain in my legs was completely numbed and I was even unable to feel the bitter cold of the snow. In a matter of fact, I couldn’t even feel fear. As the bear closed in, a single word echoed in my head “KILL“. The bear was two meters from us, now. I took the shot. The memory fades along with my fear. My eyes widen, my pupils sharpen and a quiet echo in my head grows louder.

KILL KILL KILL KILL KILL KILL KILL KILL KILL KILL!

(Taiyo POV)

As we near the entrance, Tsuki and I hear a distinctive cracking sound, our ears twitch as we snap our guns up toward the sound and open fire into the source, a pouncing Crawling Chaos. Even though it is dead, its momentum carries it into Tsuki, knocking her to the ground. Our combined strength is enough to get it off of her, and I noticed her uniform is slightly torn from the fiend’s sharp claws, but otherwise she is unharmed. Damaged clothes are the least of our worries, and we set off again. A few moments later, we reach the corpses at the entrance and climb back over, followed closely by the group of soldiers and civs. Heading down towards the predetermined escape route, we come face-to-face with a group of fiends of various types. We raise our weapons to open fire and before we can pull the trigger, the fiends collapse to the ground, melting alive. A wavy form in the rain stands off to the side, it’s almost like the figure is watching the fiends die in agony. A shiver runs down my spine. Holy shit is that creepy! Now that I look closer, is that a lamia? Vera? The figure slithers off, presumably to find more prey. Carefully stepping around the obviously toxic goo, we continue forward.

(Narrator POV)

As the kitsunes and the group of survivors make their way toward the extraction point, they run into ambush after ambush, losing a couple of survivors and suffering some light wounds themselves. The previously ridiculous horde thinning out as they make their way across the city. Meanwhile, Viper squadron and Vaughn have been constantly fighting a flight of dragons. Over the course of around two hours, the near endless horde has been reduced to a trickling stream, the 20 some odd dragons reduced to corpses, two of the fighters destroyed, and their pilots dead. Bullet casings and corpses line the streets and tanks lie dented and ripped apart, as a behemoth slowly approaches the city. The civilians, wounded soldiers, and remaining members of Viper have long since evacuated. Surprisingly enough, only about 20% of the population was lost.

As the behemoth nears the outskirts of the city, it collapses and stops moving. Moments later, the stream of fiends stops. The soldiers cheer, before moving in squads to mop up the remainder of the fiends’ forces. Minutes later, Fane can be seen trudging towards her squadmates rather badly wounded. Her power armor is covered in scorch marks. Scratches and dents can be seen slowly repairing while in some places the armor is sheared completely off, permanently damaged. Her right arm missing from just above the elbow down. From the wound one can see a tangled mess of sparking wires and hanging flesh, blood oozing to the ground. Her left wing completely mangled, mostly just twisted around with the bones poking out. She must have taken this damage just as she was calming down, since rage should have healed her. No weapons can be seen on her person, they must have been destroyed and discarded during her battles. After a long pause and stare down.

“I fucked them up!” She says smiling, her left hand giving a thumbs up.

“What happened to you?!” Vera screams surprised after appearing from around a corner, covered in blood marks. Fane, without saying a word points at the colossal, mountain-sized body of the behemoth.

“Oh…” Vera says wide-eyed. Fane, still smiling, then flips Vera the bird for no real reason, her eyes close and she falls unconscious, her power suit keeping her standing and holding her finger straight up. Vera looks at the scene confused with nothing to say. Eventually, however, Fane tilts over and falls flat on her back, still asleep and now flipping off the sky. A savage to the very end. The simulation is over, after just over two hours. Squad 108-F has obtained the spot of number one team, on the leaderboards, with a score of 89% completion of a nigh-impossible tier mission! A mission tier never before seen.

(Vaughn’s POV)

Well holy shit, I can’t believe it. We beat the god damn simulation, that I wasn’t even sure we’d make it five minutes in. In all my time in the simulation, the thousands of hours I’ve put in, I’ve never seen anything like that. By the time it was done, I think the brass casings from the rounds I fired alone could have filled up a dump truck bottom to top, that is of course if a magic ammo gun had any to eject. At this point I’m still in shock, even with the congratulations and cheers of those who were watching, I just stand there, motionless, trying to process what even just happened. Every person on the team was working like a well-oiled machine, in all the time of practice that we’ve had, I’ve never seen them work nearly that hard, especially not Vera. The kitsunes lead a successful evacuation of civilians through a horde of fiends so vast, I was sure nothing could escape. Vera actually followed the orders I gave her to take out some key targets, and executed those orders with perfection totally uncommon for her, though I don’t think I ever want to see the aftermath of her fights again, when I took a peek at her handiwork, what I saw was… a bit extreme to say the least. Last we have Fane, who did what I thought was going to be nigh if not impossible to do, take out a behemoth, and she did it single-handedly.

The sounds of celebration are filling the air around me, but I pay little attention, I simply look at each of my team members, speechless. Fane appears to be being Fane, disrespecting people's comfort zones, though happier and less violent than usual. Guile is still keeping an eye on her with his dart gun just in case. The kitsunes are excited, practically bouncing off the wall at this point, and Vera is just generally celebrating, happy to finally be done with all that work, I assume. My brain is too fried from trying to organize strategies and trying to calculate things like the wind in regards to bullet ballistics. So, I do something that I haven’t done since before the fiends appeared, I sit down at the bar, and get drunk on Heinweiser. At that point, I kind of lost track of what happened. I made it to my bed, I think, somehow. I found myself there at least the next day. Well, we won, we beat every other team. Now, it’s onto the real thing, fighting actual fiends, no more training. I just hope we are ready.