As he walked along the seemingly never-ending corridor leading to the Advanced Tactical Combat Simulator, Private Stephen Oda wished that he had never joined the Marine Corps in the first place. A new recruit of seven days, nothing had gone well for Oda. On the first day of training, he had accidently tripped a wire that caused the whole training facility to lose power for three days. On the second day, he almost took off the head of one of his peers with a hacksaw. On the third day, while chasing an expensive bullet cartridge rolling on the floor, he had whacked his Sergeant in the stomach with the butt of his rifle.
Why was I even carrying a rifle anyways, thought Oda.
Nevermind that. Best to just focus on the intensity of the next training program.
The Advanced Tactical Combat Simulator, or ATCS, was not famously known around the universe as a friendly playground for goody two-shoes Marines. It was known as the most intense, most physically challenging, and most mind-blowing training program ever designed for mankind. The survivors—usually just a few—were so mentally destroyed that they could not function properly for about a few weeks. But the result was definitely worth it. The survivors of the ATCS became two times stronger, two times faster, two times smarter than the others. The change was so definite that it lasted their whole lifetime. ATCS survivors have been known to be able to lift trucks at the age of 70*.
Thinking about that particular aspect of surviving the ATCS, Private Oda's hopes were raised.
The girls'll love me even more, he said to himself with a smirk. But that smirk instantly disappeared with the automatic opening of the two double doors that led to the terrifying combat simulator.
The bright light of the sun blasted Private Oda in the face. He raised a hand to shield his eyes, and looked around. He saw orange dirt, a big bunker building, and an electrical fence. Didn't look all that hard. He lowered his hand, and as his eyes adjusted to the light, he noticed something: there was no one here. Surely he would be tested against other soldiers, wouldn't he? That's what the survivors had said! Two teams fighting against each other, the goal being to destroy the other's base. Whatever the “base” was supposed to be.
A laser came out of nowhere and locked itself on to Oda's armour. Thinking that it was the light of a sniper rifle scope, he quickly jumped out of the way. To his surprise, the laser followed him and kept amazingly still.
That sniper must be a god at sniping, he thought to himself. He braced himself for the bullet that would take his life—
And nothing happened. Oda opened his closed eyes, and saw that instead of killing him, the laser had painted a bright blue symbol on his armour over his heart. It looked like an eagle, with wings spread out, talons clutching a quiver of arrows. Now where had he seen that before. . . . . .
of course, he realized.
It's our country's quarter. So now he was on the blue team. How ironic; blue was his least favourite colour.
All of a sudden, the ground beside him exploded. Private Oda was shaken out of his daydreaming and also shaken out of his wits. He heard an automatic rifle to his right, and almost immediately the ground blew up again, but this time closer to him.
Oh God, he thought,
someone's trying to kill me! He instantly took off and ran for his life in whatever direction seemed logical. Unfortunately nothing seemed logical at this point. Terrified, Oda seemed to be running around in circles. Good thing the rifle had stopped shooting.
Stopping, Oda crouched down to catch his breath. It was then he noticed a shadow looming over him. All spirits dashed, he looked up, frightened, into the face of a soldier wearing an armour piece, pointing a M16 at him. This would have been fine, except for one small detail. This particular soldier was wearing a red eagle emblem.
END OF CHAPTER 1
Chapter 2http://tremulous.net/forum/index.php?topic=10993.0NOTES:
I know that this chapter is kinda. . . well. . . . "not exciting," but I promise, there's more to come. The reason why I didn't add on this chapter was because I know, from experience, that people (especially around the video game forums) don't like to read walls of text. And a written story, IS a huge wall of text. So I try to keep it short, while putting as much action in it as I can.
Peace,
Kael'Thas
*It was [also] said [that] the survivors of ATCS emerged almost 9000 times better at camping than they had been previously.
