Your POV:
For the first time in a really long time, I woke up without any screams outside or something unexpectedly blowing up. As I made it to the main room along with everyone else, we saw SCPs preparing a lot of equipment, which looked extremely similar to the one used in a simulation competition. SCP-682 was sitting on his place, smiling maliciously, with an enormous bucket of popcorn next to him. A few minutes after we entered the room, Siggurós finished preparing all the equipment, and it looked like there was enough of those machines for every single one of us.
- Please tell me it will be virtual reality games, please tell me it is going to be something fun... - Amanda spoke silently, while C'thulu approached her with a smile:
- Ah, Ama! - He said before gently patting her back with a few of his tentacles. - Good to see you!
- C'thulu, do you have any information you'd like to share with us before the competition begins? - She asked him, while he just shrugged.
- Siggurós will explain everything in a few seconds, but what I can tell you... Expect to be forced to work as a team. - He responded before leaving, while 239 started describing the next challenge.
All of us would be put inside those machines and sent to a simulated virtual environment, with enough weapons and ammunition to last us for the entire competition. Our goal was capturing strategical points, and if anyone got killed, they would get re-spawned in the simulation after ten minutes.
There was a total of 100 strategic points, and in order to win all of them had to be captured. Furthermore, at the beginning they wouldn't even be in our hands, so we had to conquer them ourselves, remembering they were filled with simulated enemies which were heavily based on science-fiction zombies.
However, for some unknown to us reason, this entire competition was worth only a single point, even though it was probably the longest one. It didn't matter though, because we didn't plan to lose this one, especially with MTFs having military training which was far more difficult than what regular military does.
As we entered the machine, it slowly closed, and we felt a quick impulse going through our bodies which sent us to the virtual environment. Both teams were separated from each other, but team members appeared in the same spot. While I was slowly adapting to this new environment, MTFs already started distributing the weapons and arguing between one another about who is going to take tanks and air planes. Luckily, their commander quickly took control over the situation and began explaining the plan:
- Alright you loud ass buffoons! - She yelled and quickly got all of our staff and other MTFs in order. - There is around 200 of us, so we are going to split into five groups, which will be known as Alpha, Beta, Gamma, Delta and Epsilon. I will take care of team Alpha, Lieutenants John, Peter, Alice and Gabriel will respectively take care of teams Beta, Gamma, Delta and Epsilon. I am giving you all two minutes to split yourselves into five groups and join your leaders, who are going to lead you to the victory, by initiating plan Foxtrot Uniform Charlie Kilo Yankee Oscar Uniform on our enemies!
At this moment most of the MTFs and guards started giggling, while the rest of us took a bit longer to understand the true meaning of this plan. Along with my friends I have decided to join the team Epsilon, who was being commanded by Lieutenant Gabriel, who gathered all of us and began explaining the plan.
- Like Commander Elise already said, we will initiate plan Foxtrot Uniform Charlie Kilo Yankee Oscar Uniform on those D-boys. To those unaware how this plan works, it means a swift, complete annihilation of the entire enemy force using all legal ways to do it. - He said while Amanda responded with a smile:
- Und wenn die Journalisten uns nicht sehen, nehmen wir den Flammenwerfer, ja? - Amanda spoke in a German accent which made all of us laugh, while the lieutenant had to try extremely hard not to burst out laughing.
- Only if they break the Geneva Convention first. - He responded, before adding: - We are going to fight fair and square, but if they decide to start breaking the laws of civilized warfare, then we are also allowed to do it.
- How are we going to proceed to win this competition? - One of the guards asked, while Gabriel just smiled.
- We are located in the southern-western corner of this map. Our enemies are in the northern-eastern corner, but before we get there, we have to conquer as many points of interest as possible, as quickly as possible. We are going to start moving east, and we will continue until we reach the southern-eastern corner of the map. That should get us around 8 points of interest before we reach our enemies. Even though we could try to conquer safe areas first, we will have the upper hand against them, and eliminating the entire enemy squad for 10 minutes is definitely going to help.
- Aren't they all going to rush us after we destroy one of their squads?
- Of course they are going to do this, and that's the best part. We will buy other squads enough time to conquer other locations, and even if we get defeated, by that time their team will be in a worse position than ours.
At that point everyone was given either a weapon or a vehicle, and I was glad to be given an F-35A air craft, along with a mission to scout the entire map area and if possible, mess with our enemies before they can do anything. As I got off the ground, I started flying in the direction given to me by our lieutenant, and it didn't take long for me to cross the speed of sound barrier.
Having avoided detection, I quickly flew to our enemy's base and saw two air crafts about to take off the ground. Without hesitation I used my missiles to destroy them before they could become a threat to our team, and after that dropped a few bombs in their base, destroying a decent amount of equipment and killing around 15 of their members.
As the remaining ones tried to quickly set up an air defence system, I quickly used the remaining missiles and blew them up, effectively eliminating them for ten minutes. After that I started flying to our base, where I saw one of their F-35A plane getting shot down by our air defence system, which we have already prepared beforehand. Having landed on the ground, I quickly switched to another, fully loaded plane and took off in the direction of my squad, where I provided them with close air support.
Points of interests weren't particularly difficult to capture, and the main reason for that was zombie's behaviour and overall strength, which made them an easy target for basically any person, and even though there was multiple of them, their speed made it almost impossible to die in this campaign.
I said "almost", because after securing two points of interest, four MTFs decided to play the famous Russian Roulette, which quickly ended in one of them getting unalived via lead poisoning. It didn't stop the other three from grabbing another bullet and putting in a revolver, which forced our lieutenant to interfere and remind them about our mission.
As my squad continued to move forward and I flew in the air without a reason, my radars detected two planes flying in our direction. They weren't as fast as mine, but nevertheless they were a danger for our team, so without hesitation I tried to get some altitude, and when they came closer I swiftly attacked one of them and turned it into a pile of burning metallic scrap.
The other D-class tried to shoot me down, but thankfully I managed to dodge the bullets and started going up once again. She immediately followed me, while also sending me death threats through the radio, and half a second before she was about to shoot me down, I quickly changed the direction and started flying down.
Without hesitation she did the same, while I continued flying in an unusual pattern in order to avoid her bullets. As both of us approached the ground, I immediately pulled myself up, barely avoiding smashing into the ground. The same couldn't be said about my opponent, who realized it way too late and got absolutely obliterated as a result from smashing her plane into the ground at almost the speed of sound.
After around two hours of fighting, we have managed to conquer 60% of all points of interest, while D-class team had barely 15 important locations under their control. However, at this point we were already bordering with them, and two of our squads were forced to fight against them. At first it didn't sound too bad, until we have found out the entire team Alpha got eliminated. We waited for them to re-spawn, and when they did, they told us about D-class team using white phosphorus against them, which forced their commander to shoot each squad member in order to spare them from the pain.
It resulted in them recapturing the location, but at the same time enraged us to a point, where we started considering Amanda's proposition. While we were discussing, team Beta reported three enemy plains dropping another portion of white phosphorus against them, which forced them to hide, while the D-class team used artillery fire against them. Without hesitation I immediately flew in their direction, along with a member from team Delta, and together we shot down enemy planes in order to stop them from dropping the forbidden substance on our teammates.
During this operation my plane received pretty devastating damage from their nearby anti-aircraft, which forced me to perform a suicide mission. I used everything I had in my plane against them, and then rushed them at my full speed in order to destroy as many of them as I could. For the first time in this game I experienced death and found myself inside a dark room with other team members, while a ten minute timer started ticking above my head.
As I walked around, I saw Diana sitting on a chair with forty seconds remaining until re-spawn. I quickly approached her and asked about how she died, to which she responded:
- Well... I may or may not have decided to play the hot potato game with our squad...
- How is that supposed to be deadly though?
- We used a grenade for this... - She spoke which made me facepalm, but at the same time burst out laughing.
Shortly after, she disappeared from the room, and after around nine more minutes, I also re-spawned. It took us an additional 90 minutes in order to fully crush our enemies and conquer their last remaining base, which resulted in the simulation ending and all of us woke up in the original world.
- With the final base falling down, I declare the victory of the scientist's team with the final score of 2391 kills and 419 deaths! - Siggurós screamed as all of us left the machines.
- That's not fair! - One of the D-class yelled furiously. - They blew up a ton of our equipment and personnel at the beginning, that's cheating!
- You used burning white phosphorus against them, you don't have any rights to complain after literally breaking the Geneva Convention! - Cain spoke to him, visibly holding himself from giving this guy a slap to the face.
- If it was real war, that would have been Geneva To-Do List... - The D-class responded which made Sun Jung turn around with a malicious smile.
- Oh really...? - She spoke sadistically, which made the D-class tremble in fear.
- The rules are that you cannot hurt us, remember...?
- I do... You can leave... - She responded and the D-class instantly ran away as fast as he could. - For now...
- Sun Jung, we have talked about this... - Siggurós said which only made 953 shrug.
- I know, I know... Tomorrow is the final competition, and after that we will see who survives and who doesn't... Only after that, if their team loses, I can go and harvest his liver, you don't need to remind me...
As all of us started to go back to our rooms, I looked at the scoreboard one last time. We had three points of advantage, and tomorrow's competition was worth exactly three points. So either we were going to get anything, or there was going to be a tiebreaker.