On an island south of Turkey.
"You got it over there?" A masked white wolf asks as she faces her partner.
"Almost... Got it." The other responded as she finished inputting a command into a computer. The nearby computer servers began to blink violently before several caught fire. Dead anthros littered the floor around them as they finished up their work.
"Let's go." The gray wolf instructed as she grabbed her assault rifle from against a nearby wall.
The duo walked out of the server room into a shot up hallway with more anthros lying about, both walking carefully so as to not step on a body or pool of blood.
"Should've had tighter security, three guards with handguns did jack-shit for them."
"You say it as if you were a security expert, Cassandra. Not to mention the fact you brute-forced nearly everyone else here with your dinky rifle." The gray wolf spoke, rolling her eyes as they passed a few bodies lined up against the wall.
Cassandra giggled slightly before releasing a sigh. "Okay, I got too trigger happy. Big deal."
"It is a big deal, Cass. John wanted some for questioning." The gray wolf retorted.
"Oh Lyra, you know Dad. He won't care that much. More importantly, why do you still call him by his first name?" Cassandra questioned.
The wolf called Lyra didn't respond, she had her reasons. Cassandra noticed her silence and realized she overstepped enough to put Lyra in an uncomfortable position.
"I'm sorry Lyra, I shouldn't have said anything." Cassandra spoke, trying to amend her mistake.
"It's okay, Cass. Let's just get out of here and go home." The gray wolf responded in a low voice.
The two exited the building into a shot up courtyard with more bodies out and about the area. Cassandra chuckled again at her previous work while Lyra scoffed, shaking her head.
After a few more minutes of walking Cassandra whipped out the keys to a car that was littered with bullets along the doors and rear but luckily the engine seemed intact.
"Mind if I drive?"
"Take the wheel." Lyra answered, jumping into the passenger side seat.
Cassandra opened the door into the driver seat, climbing inside. After a few failed attempts to start the car, the engine suddenly burst to life and ran smoothly.
"Here we go." Cassandra spoke as she put the car in gear.
She drove out of the shot-up courtyard passing by the recently destroyed radio mast. The tower was reduced to a pile of rubble, electric wiring sparking ever so often.
As they left Cassandra lifted a hand to her earpiece radio. "Servers are down and wiped clean, send in the clean up crew."
"Copy that Alpha. Omega three-one you're cleared hot." A voice responded on the other end.
A brief minute goes by allowing the two to drive off, shortly after a whistling sound followed by a series of explosions go off in the distance.
"And just like that, we were never here." Lyra said watching the smoke rise from afar.
The ride to the extraction point was in complete silence, Lyra had tried to turn the cars radio on but it was to no avail. Even when they got onboard a chopper the sisters didn't say a word to each other. It wasn't that they didn't like each other's company. But rather there wasn't much to be said.
It wasn't until the plane landed back in Greece that one of them spoke.
"What's next for you, Cass?" Lyra asked, grabbing ahold of both her own and Cassandra's bag.
"Gonna go to see Dad about Cyprus, then I'm going to go to watch the Shoot House with some friends later. Wanna tag along?" Cassandra offered, taking her bag from Lyra's extended arm.
"You sure? I don't want to ruin your fun by bumming out the shit out of you and your buddies."
"Like you've got anything else better to do. Come on Lyra, live a little and have some fun!" Cassandra lightly tapped a knuckle on Lyra's shoulder.
Lyra smiled. She usually kept to herself after a mission but the offer given to her seemed enticing enough to take a night out to enjoy herself.
"Okay, you've managed to talk me into this but first I'm going to head back and get cleaned up for tonight."
"Yeah you might want to rinse out the paint job I gave you." Cassandra said, pointing out the blood splattered across the lower section of her uniform and along her arms.
Lyra rolled her eyes before wiping the dried blood against her sister's upper shoulder. Cassandra swatted Lyra's hand away only to realize that the blood hadn't gotten all over her.
"Thank god that shit dried already. Anywho, I'll see you later tonight."
"'Kay, see you then." Lyra responded, backing away from Cassandra walking towards their personal quarters located in the special teams barracks.
The three story building was no ordinary Barracks where you either slept above or below your fellow comrades. The building was set up similar to a bachelor's office quarters, specifically for spec-ops to share rooms or for high ranking officers to have their own personal chambers.
Lyra and Cassandra's room was located on the top floor. They might have been the general's daughters but it gave them no special authority or privileges compared to other special units or mercenaries their father would hire.
Lyra opens the door into a basic living quarters. A small couch was positioned in front of a coffee table followed by a TV mounted to the wall, in the back corner was a small kitchen with basic appliances and a window overlooking the base.
The wolf dropped her bag on the couch walking to the opposite side of the room where another door led to a bedroom with a walk-in bathroom. The room was plain with little to no decorative objects other than a digital alarm clock positioned on a nightstand.
Wondering the time she whipped out her phone to check only to discover it was just a little after three. Which was perfect as it gave her time to relax for around two hours before heading back out to join her sister.
She set her phone down on the nightstand before sitting down on the bed. "Love the debrief, so fun..." She muttered as she dug out a file and began jotting down her recounting of the prior events.
Lyra racked her brain, starting from the beginning she set her pen to the paper.
They had landed on the island and camped out the outpost for a day and a half, doing a final visual examination before Cassandra finally lost her patience. Lyra wasn't much on the patient side either. Cass had gone head first through the front gate blowing down the tower and mowing down anything that moved like a one-wolf army. It didn't matter to her if they were armed or not. Armor be damned.
Lyra on the other hand had no choice but to follow her lead as standing around waiting for orders would have likely resulted in Cassandra's death.
After neutralizing combatants outside of the main building they continued with all personnel on site. One had managed to get into a struggle with Lyra for her weapon. Before she could subdue her attacker Cassandra unloaded a small burst, dropping Lyra's assailant.
Lyra looked down at her still bloodied arms and realized she was getting flecks of dried blood all over, small bits falling onto the cover of her bed.
"Shit." She said, dropping the notebook onto her bed as she took a moment to really understand how much blood was covering her arms.
She put down the pen and walked over to the bathroom sink to wash off the red substance. After getting water almost everywhere, she returned to her bed to finish up.
As she finished her report she looked over to the digital clock to see that it was a quarter to five. Hopping off the bed once more she finally changed into more suitable clothing. After putting on a black t-shirt with winter digital camo pants she grabbed a light leather jacket and swung it over her shoulder.
"Might need this later." She muttered to herself as she left her room.
Lyra walked outside into the low hanging sun. The sky was a beautiful deep blue orange mix. Her phone buzzed in her pocket as she assumed it would.
It was a text from Cassandra telling her where they were going to be for the trails. Lyra inhaled deeply before she began to walk to the bases' training grounds.
The training grounds themself had been designed in a way to appear like a colosseum with the arena being capable of swapping out specific structures or courses allowing a variety of challenges soldiers would partake in. Based on Lyra's knowledge the reason as to why it was built this way was to allow civilian spectators to actually come and see the way new soldiers were trained, and because John wanted to show off his new mercenaries to the public.
When the war ended the area had been flooded with spectators, some military, but most were civilians with the occasional politician every now and then.
Lyra met up with her sister along with two of her friends who exchanged greetings quickly before running off to get drinks.
"They seem excited."
"Heh, both of them have younger brothers who are part of the new Hermes team." Cassandra said, wrapping one arm around Lyra's shoulders. "Come on, let's get some good seats."
Lyra followed Cassandra as they walked down the steps towards the arena finding a row of seats unoccupied. Taking a seat they grabbed small tablets from underneath the seats. With a click of a button the screen came to life showing the faces of the next team about to enter the training ground. There were five faces with the Greek symbol caduceus designating them as special team Hermes.
Cassandra's friends arrived passing around cans and bottles of beer for the three of them to drink. Cassandra grabbed two bottles offering one to Lyra
"No thanks, I don't want to have to deal with the hangover." Lyra stated, waving her hand refusing the drink.
"Your loss." Cassandra said, popping the cap off one of the beers downing its contents.
Not even a second later after Cassandra put the bottle to her lips a loud alarm buzzed grabbing everyone's attention.
"Operator deployment in two minutes, releasing combatants..." an automated female voice boomed over the training grounds.
Everyone's attention was drawn to the arena as five humans walked into the large concrete structure that resembled a small court-like building.
The people around Lyra laughed and hollered at them, calling them all sorts of slurs and insults.
No-furs, flesh sacks, body bags, the list went on. Even Cassandra and her friends eventually chimed in the occasional slur themselves.
After the five entered the structure, a Jumbotron lit up above the stadium, five pictures were shown as the human's faces were revealed to the crowd.
There were three male figures and two females, all five looked nothing alike and were more than likely from different parts of the world.
The five humans barricaded themselves inside the building as the overhead clock slowly ticked down, agitation slowly built up from the crowd as the minutes slowly vanished.
"Operator deployment in three. Two. One." The automated voice echoed as an alarm sounded.
Five new faces appeared on the Jumbotron as the Hermes team entered the arena. Three soldiers rappelled down from a platform above the building while two approached the front door.
The team got into positions laying small objects on the barricades while the three on the roof hooked themselves to the building's roof and began to walk down the side of the structure.
With a loud bang the main barricade was blown open as the two soldiers on the ground moved in. Two cannon shots went off as they disappeared from view.
The Jumbotron kept the faces on the screen as five different windows appeared playing to the crowd what the soldiers were seeing.
"Three defenders remain." The automated voice echoed over the crowd as they cheered.
Lyra caught a glimpse of the bodies from the footage presented as a human male and female laid dead with lead pipes close to their bodies.
The sight didn't bring any joy to her but it didn't bring any discomfort either, humans were lower to her as all they had done was kill and fight for their entire existence.
The dead humans had their image covered in black with a vibrant red X covering their face. The multiple windows closed as one enlarged itself covering the rest.
Another soldier was in a hand to hand fight with another human as they both struggled to gain the upper hand against one another.
The human had gotten ahold of the soldier's gun but could not wrangle it for himself. With a quick move from the shark, she bashed the gun butt into the human's throat causing him to back down covering the impact point.
The shark readied her weapon, shooting a single round into the human's head. After the human fell to the ground a third cannon sounded signaling its death.
"Two defenders remain." The automated voice sounded again.
After the voice spoke a timer appeared above the Jumbotron set for two minutes. The crowd cheered again as something apparently happened.
"Bomb disarm sequence initiated." The computer voice spoke.
Lyra tapped Cassandra on the shoulder holding a confused look. Cassandra turned to face Lyra as she soon realized she wanted an explanation.
"One of the No-furs opened the bomb crate located somewhere in the building." Cassandra spoke.
"What does that mean?"
"It means the attackers have to hurry their ass up to stop them from disarming the bombs inside otherwise the attackers lose."
"Wouldn't they be arming them?" Lyra continued to question.
"No, the game is set in a situation where the bombs need to go off for the attackers to win, It's probably set up to give the attackers a reason to hustle through the round."
'Game...'The word stuck with Lyra for a moment before coming to the realization that this was no training simulation or test. It was all just a game to everyone.
"Bomb disarmament interrupted." The automated voice boomed overhead.
A window burst open as a figure went flying out of the building screaming, with a quiet thud from afar it was revealed that the second female human was thrown out of the second floor. As the human laid still on the ground a new voice presented itself through the intercoms.
"Well I'll be damned if I get on Hermes' bad side. Welp, guess that means there's only one defender left!"
The clock had only forty five seconds left before coming to a sudden halt. The fifth cannon echoed as the crowd roared yet again.
The Jumbotron flashed bringing everyone's eyes to attention as the fifth X appeared over the last human's face. The massive screen then showed the picture of one of the squad mates with some footage playing behind them.
The anthro dragon swung his shotgun over his shoulder and barred his claws and fangs to the human. The human had a wrench in hand and raised it to strike the soldier before getting a claw right to the chest.
The human spun around from the impact facing the complete opposite way from the dragon as the soldier grabbed him biting into the human's neck. Blood flowed out of the body all over the soldier as it collapsed lifelessly to the ground.
"And with that I welcome your newest soldiers, give it up for fireteam Hermes!" The announcer spoke as the crowd roared with excitement as they congratulated the team.
Lyra just shook her head. That was no test. It was an execution