"Hold on Straf! This is about to get bumpy! Let's go Valpine!" Andros resettled Straf on his shoulder and made a mad dash for the finish line. At this point it was all or nothing!

The sound of their splashing immediately turned every head and gun towards them. Like in the great simulators from the Clone Wars of the Empires great legions assaulting Geonosis, the approach was lit up with tracers and detonations. A killing field twenty meters deep stood in front of them but the reduced visibility, in addition to the steam caused by the blaster shots and spray sent into the air by the grenade detonations helped masked their true locations.

Ten meters away. A sapphire blue beam grazes Valpines shoulder causing it to go numb as the armour locks. Eight meters away. Two nearby grenade detonations send Straf flying through the air to land on the shore in an undignified heap. Five meters....Straf falls under the water as a lucky shot hits him right in the chest leaving Valpine to drag his sorry ass to the finish line. One meter, now in visual line of sight, the nearest trainee screams out in alarm as the two open fire hitting the recruit several times more than is needed.

Falling over unto the soggy ground, lightning and rain still cascading all around. They alone had reached the finish line even though their body's were scarred from the stresses they had pushed themselves through and the exertion of forcing frozen armour to yield.

Fighting against the booming percussion of the lightning, a siren flared three times signifying the end of the training round as an officer in full hostile environment gear and a data slate came up to grab their names.

"Congratulation recruits. You alone have succeeded where everyone else has failed. Since you are the only ones left from your Battalion at this time, you will have the honor of taking back your Banner. While you were 'struggling' here, the Third Battalion stole your banner and is holding it in their barracks. You will be given fresh training gear and weapons prior to insertion. Your objective: neutralize all threats and bring back the banner to your barracks. Dismissed!"​

With that, the officer clipped his heels and ushered the trio towards an awaiting gunship where they would be transported the two kilometers across the Academy towards the insertion point. Inside, weapon racks lined either side with stun batons, training blaster rifles, grenades, and regular training body armour.


GM Note: All character Tou increased by 5 for completing the challenge! You have no idea how large the barracks is but expect to be facing upwards of 300 other recruits armed with a variety of training weaponry ie. blasters/grenades/batons. This will be a roof insertion through the ventilation duck and you may/not have opposition. You can take upwards of two grenades each, two ranged/melee weapons, or one ranged weapon and one melee weapon.

Changing into dry gear he quickly grabbed two grenades, a stun baton, and a training blaster before sitting in one of the seats. "Go figure we make it across and OUR flag gets stolen! That's just our luck!" He looked for some water to drink, finding a canteen he downed half of it in one go. Before continuing, "Ya'll ready to unleash some righteous fury on these fools!?"

He thought back to the Inquisitor and her offer. Did they make the right choice? Only time would tell! The only thing he knew for certain was that they MUST succeed, otherwise the last challenge win was for nothing!

Straf grabbed a canteen and sipped from it, before moving to the armor/weapons rack. He pulled a stun baton, a training blaster rifle with plenty of ammo, and two grenades. He looked over at Andros who just carried him across a hellscape. "Thanks," Straf said, "to both of you. You guys literary carried my ass last challenge. Look on the bright side, one challenge down." He then sat down on the side of the gunship.

"Listen, there's bound to be at least a hundred recruits guarding our flag, so as much as I like to straight up fighting, this isn't a holovid movie, so doing that will get us all a failing grade and a really long timed run. We'll need to go in silent. If they aren't already shooting at us when we get in there we'll need the element of surprise as long as possible. Well by Murphy's Law we'll be detected at some point of this clusterfuck, so while ideally we get in and out without anyone noticing, I think we'll be fighting for survival at some point. Let's focus on having that point happen after we get the flag. That way we can at least haul ass out of there instead of the alternative."

Andros nodded to Straf, "You would have done the same for us brother. I agree the only way for us to win this will be through how sneaky we can be. Kinda hard when a gunship is dropping you off on the roof! We may also have to cause a distraction to get the majority of their forces away from our flag. The problem will be locating it first!" He sat back resting after that 100 meter dash that felt like 100 miles! They would need all the strength they could muster for this next challenge.

"Worse comes worse, I'll provide the distraction for the two of you to get the flag out of there. They never said the entire team needed to make it back with it. Don't worry about locating it, knowing the others it's probably just in the inner most part of the bunker, unless some idiot accidentally carried it out... hmm." Straf thought about something.

After a minute, he looked up, "I've got an idea, but it pretty crazy and I'm not quite sure we can luck out twice in the same day."

"Whatever it is, it's worth a shot." He sat eager to hear what Straf's plan was. He looked over at Valpines ( @Vulpas ) who was being extremely quiet since the mad dash.

"Instead of going to get the flag, why don't we make them bring it to us?" Straf swallowed, unsure of the plan even himself. "Right now the best we've got is to get in, grab the flag, get out. Under the best of situations that would be a hell sprint to go in, not know where the flag is, then go out, while fighting most likely. So there's two versions of this plan. First version is one of us, and I'll do it since I didn't do anything last trial, as deep as I could into their bunker as possible, then I make as much noise as I can. The opposition will think we have a task force that infiltrated their base, and rush the prize out into less defended area. The two of you will then ambush the transporters, while the bulk of their guys swarm the 'task force,' i.e. me. You guys take out the transporters outside, take the flag, and high tail it out of there. The second version is the opposite. Two of us will sneak into the bunker and lay in wait just under their defenses. One guy, probably me again, starts a simulated strike outside to make it seem like a major attack is happening. While they rush the interior defenders out, the infiltration team will secure the flag, hit the defenders' rear at their weakest point of defense, and haul ass out. Of course this is all a moot point if they know we're coming."

Straf smiled, "I'm personally in favor of the first version, since it's much easier to simulate a large number of enemy indoors rather than outdoors, where there aren't really any bottlenecks or tight spaces to level the playing field."

"Hmm that could work. It would be nice if we at least had a floor plan to go off of. Either way with us starting on the roof we will have to move through the building and try to find the route they are gonna use to escape. Unless we can get some rappelling ropes."

He turned to the instructor that escorted them to the gunship and stood at attention. "Sir, are all barracks the same design? And would it be possible to receive rappelling gear Sir?" Hopefully he wouldn't get his head ripped off for the request, but he had to at least know.

Valpine-
As they finally made it to the end of the challenge Valpine was somewhat exhausted and thinking already on the next challenge they were given. "Hey Straff Is there anyone in the other battalion that looks like you? or possibly a way to sneak in posing as a instructor?" Valpine ask as she grabbed down the rest of one cantine. She wen't to the next racket and put on the training armor and picked up a training blaster rifle and a stun Baton and two grenades.