Hey there, before this chapter begins, I just wanted to outline a few things here to make it a little clearer (as risen by a reviewer):

The rank structure for the Vale Army, and by extension the entire military, follows the structure of the Australian Army (write what you know, after all...). This story will also take slight inspiration from Generation Kill, as far as movements and attitudes of some characters will go.

Mistralian and Atlesian forces will be based off a mix of the US and UK, both in rank and actions. Vacuo I haven't decided yet (Canada perhaps?)

Hopefully that makes a few things clearer.

ALSO, there will be time skips, similar to Top Gun in the manner that it will jump from Mission One to Mission Three and the like. I also aim to write chapter with a 50/50 split between a mission and downtime/other activities.

Anyway, enough with the notes. On with the chapter!

Ex Vytal – Day Six, Mission Three

Task – Area Defence (OPFOR)

Objective(s) – Defend against coalition force by any and every means possible until either either force has reached maximum attrition.

Fuel storage area (abandoned) three hours east of Camp Castle

"One-Alpha, this is One Bravo. I have visual contact of two victors approaching on the southern MSR, no confirmation on markings, over."

"Break, One-One-Actual, this is One-Two-Actual. My bravo section reports sightings of victors on the northern MSR. No confirmed ID, over."

"One-Two, One-One, copy last. Watch our backs. Break, One-Bravo, copy that; engage at your discretion, we've got you covered on this side, out." Ruby was nervous, for obvious reasons. Part of Vytal's charm was that units were rotated around to play as the 'enemy', and sometimes those units would be assigned a mission or task that wouldn't normally be undertaken by said unit. For example, a single airborne infantry platoon being tasked with defending against an assault by an entire mechanised infantry regiment. Lightly armed soldiers going up against troops with heavy weapons and lightly armoured trucks.

To say that Ruby and Coco's squads were outmatched would be the beginning of an understatement.

Luckily, as the enemy, both team leaders didn't have to abide by set military procedure and protocol. As stated in the objectives, the opposing force was to defend using anything and everything they could get. Command saw fit to arm the defenders with more than enough ammunition and light armour rockets, simulated of course. Ruby was surprised at how many types of weapon were able to be simulated using lasers and ballistic computers. After their second mission, Ruby had learned that a dummy fragmentation grenade she had thrown into a window that an enemy gunner was using for cover had 'blown' both of his legs off below the knee, the resulting blood loss killing him in mere seconds.

"One-Alpha, One Bravo. Positive ID on the victors and papas, I can make out Mistralian and Atlesian flags on their uniforms, as well as Atlesian markings on the vics. They're well within our range, but they haven't yet seen us. Engage, over?" Ruby pondered over Jaune's request. She had split her squad into two groups of four, each group watching a quarter of the outer perimeter of the facility. Ruby had kept Pyrrha, Weiss and Blake with her, while Jaune took Yang, Nora and Ren. Coco had mirrored her deployment with her own squad.

Ruby knew everyone on Coco's team to some degree: Sergeant Fox Alistair, a man with extraordinary eyesight, served as her team's sharpshooter; Corporals Velvet Scarlatina and Yatsuhashi Daichi were her medic and gunner respectively. Ruby admired them all; they were all combat veterans to a degree, and were there whenever the young sergeant had a question or issue her own team couldn't answer or help with.

It was the second half of Coco's team that she wished she didn't know, having met all of them during basic training. Corporal Cardin Winchester served as Coco's assistant team leader, out of necessity more than anything else, and was an absolute tool when it came to his attitude. The rest of his section, Lance Corporals Russel Thrush, Dove Bronzewing and Sky Lark weren't much better, the radioman, grenadier and rifleman all showing varying degrees of contempt and dislike towards Ruby. It didn't help that Cardin's father was a sergeant in her mother's platoon, also killed in the same attack. Cardin seemed to have taken this fact to heart and was cold and unforgiving towards her.

Ruby shook her head to clear her of the thoughts running through her head and focused back onto the task at hand. She looked through her rifle's optics and could see in the distance the newly arrived Mistralian and Atlesian troopers, by the looks of them they were standard Army as well. Taking a look at the vehicles, she could see that they were nothing more than up-armoured four-wheel drives with a pintle-mounted medium-machine gun in the roof, a soldier sitting behind it with binoculars in his hands.

"Bravo, hold fire until I give the word. Break, One-Two, this is One-One, what's your contact status, over?" Ruby asked as she lowered her rifle.

"Two, this is One. We've ID'ed the units as Mistralian and Atlesian, about two platoon's worth on our side, over."

"Copy, we've got exactly the same over here. I'm going to get my sharpshooters to pick off the heavy threats, then open up on the rest, over."

"That's a solid plan Rose, I'll do the same. Good luck over there, Two out." Ruby stifled a chuckle as she moved deeper into the structure she was using for cover; a simple shack with rusted sheet metal walls. If this were a real fight, she'd have taken cover behind solid brick or steel, but lasers can't account for penetration.

"Blake, I need you to sight up on the vehicle gunners and prepare to take them out. Once they're down, try and go for any responders. We aren't going to play by convention rules here."

"I got it Ruby. I'm ready to fire when you give the word." Blake replied through the radio, having taken a vantage point on the top of an empty fuel storage tank that stood as tall as a two-storey house. Ruby up towards the windows of the administration building in the south eastern corner, a flash hider of a barrel just visible in one of the upper level windows. Weiss and Pyrrha had taken refuge in that building and were planning on using the height to their advantage.

"Bravo, you ready to go?" Ruby asked through the radio as she ran over the last checks of her rifle, a G36 fitted with an ACOG, low-light and night-vision laser, and a fore grip.

"Ready and waiting. Yang says her trigger finger is itching really bad." Ruby laughed a little, then raised her rifle over her cover and sighted on the closest enemy soldier she could find, about three hundred meters away. With a slow breath, Ruby applied pressure on the trigger.

It's amazing how much chaos a single gunshot can unleash. In the following seconds, Ruby watched as the soldier she had targeted stop his movement and exclaim something as he lowered his weapon and sat down. The subsequent eruption of gunfire from the rest of the defenders sent the attacking forces into disarray, Ruby spotting the men in the fixed gun positions climbing down to sit inside the vehicle. Nicely done Blake.

"One-One, this is One-Two. Advising that the victor gunners on our side are down. Attacking force on this side is down to approximately seventy-five perc-" Ruby winced as she heard a loud series of beeps through the radio. "Just took a hit to the right upper arm, I'm out of the fight. Yatsu, sweeping fire on those troops on our right side, they've got marksman! One, keep your eyes out for enemy marksman, over."

"Got it Two, thanks for the tip, out." Ruby said, bringing her rifle up to fire a burst at a small cluster of men two hundred meters away. "Blake, if you see any enemy marksman, take them out at your discretion." Ruby waited for her markswoman to reply, but after twenty seconds of silence, Ruby tried again. "Blake, did you get my last?" No response. "Blake, radio check!" Still no response. Ruby ran a little closer to the tower while in cover. She couldn't see any movement from up there, and listened to see if Blake was actually firing her weapon. After a minute of silence, Ruby jumped back onto the radio.

"One-Two, this is One-One. I'm not hearing anything from my sharpshooter. Can you get yours to take a look and see what's up, over?"

"One-One, copy, wait five, out." Ruby waited as she fired a few more bursts toward the enemy, before Coco came back onto the net. "One-One, hate to say it but your shooter is down, over."

"Damn... thanks for the assist Two, One out." Ruby ran back to her building and up to where Weiss and Pyrrha were situated. "Hey, Blake's down meaning we've lost precision fire. Make all of your shots count."

"Got it Ruby." Pyrrha replied, taking aim through the window.

"One-Bravo to One-Alpha. Yang's hit and out of the fight, but still alive. We're moving her back deeper to the compound. Nora's taking her gun for the rest of the fight. Orders?" Jaune sounded a little panicked, but Ruby knew better to worry; Jaune had this unexplainable ability to do well under extreme pressure.

"Try and utilise the light gun to sweep across their lines and cut them down. Send some forty's out there to thin them out as well, make them scatter from cover."

"Copy that!" Jaune's reply was punctuated by a long burst of machinegun fire, and Ruby watched as three men were caught mid-sprint.

"One-Two's taken a casualty, Corporal Winchester is down!" Coco called through her radio, her team's rifle fire audible in the background. Ruby did the math, and between the sixteen defenders of this facility, four of them had already been made combat ineffective. "Lance Corporals Bronzewing and Lark are also out!" Six of them were combat ineffective. Ten troops defending against two platoons worth of attackers.

"One-One-Actual to all Beacons; keep up the pressure and do not hold back." Ruby listened as the platoon answered with increased fire. She watched and counted the number of soldiers that went down on the field, declared wounded or dead. After a solid ten minutes of exchanging fire, Ruby stood up and watched as the remaining attackers pulled back and gathered their 'dead', piling into their vehicles and retreating into the distance.

"One-One, this is One-Two. Are you seeing this? They're running!" Coco spoke over the radio, her voice showing evidence of her bewilderment.

"I can say I am seeing that, Two. Looks like we gave them one hell of a fight, they must have reached the point where they were no longer effective." Ruby replied as she stretched her arms out and started walking to the southern entrance to the facility. "I'm calling the mission; it looks like they aren't coming back."

"This is Beacon One Actual to all Beacons. Mission complete, pack up and be prepared to move out in fifteen mikes."

Two hours away from Camp Castle, inbound from exercise area...

Luck.

That was all Ruby had to say about the mission. She had expected to lose from the beginning, but it was evident early on from the sheer ferocity of the opening salvos of fire that the attackers were going to have a very hard time taking the facility. She hadn't expected that after an half an hour of exchanging fire, the assaulters would pull back and retreat. In a real fight, they would have returned with fresh troops and overwhelming force, but Ruby also had to factor in the kind of orders the attacking force had been issued. They may have been told to keep collateral down to a minimum, they may not have been provided with on-call close air support, they might have been a recon-in-force element, probing Ruby's and Coco's teams to get a feel for what they had in the way of defensive five.

Still, to know that they had caused massive casualties while only losing two troops from both teams combined; that was one hell of a victory. Blake was the first casualty, her 'casualty monitoring system' flagging that she had received two penetrating rounds to her helmet that 'killed' her instantly. Cardin was the second, having broken from cover to assist his wounded team member Dove. He had received the brunt force of a simulated forty-millimetre grenade round that landed directly beside him during his run. Yang, Jaune, Coco, Dove and Sky all had received flesh wounds through their arms or legs, the result of fairly accurate fire from Atlesian marksman.

Both teams had packed up their equipment and were now travelling back to Castle for the night, with Coco's vehicles taking the lead. They had been given the use of some unarmoured four-wheel drives with the roof and doors removed, leaving only the windscreen and roll cage behind. Not that Ruby minded much at all; she much preferred the wind in her hair than the stuffy bay of an armoured personnel carrier when it came to land vehicles. To her, nothing beat the feeling of standing at the jump door of a C-130 Hercules for a static line jump.

"Beacon One Actual to Beacon One-One, message, over." The radio in Ruby's vehicle chirped to life, and Ruby reached for the handset on the dashboard to reply.

"One-One, send it, over."

"One-One, we've received an emergency tasking order from a Mistralian special operations unit in our AO. Some of their members have received injuries and are in need of CASEVAC. We're the closest unit with a trained medic and One-Two is unable to divert, so we're giving you the mission. Be advised, this is not an exercise mission. I repeat, this is not an exercise mission. How copy, over?" Ruby was a little confused, but saw fit to take on the new task.

"One-Actual, copy all. Ready to receive directions to our new objective, over."

"One-One, the unit's call sign is 'Haven'; their last reported location was about ten minutes to our north. They were rehearsing a HALO drop when one of their parachutes failed about twenty meters off the ground, Pararescue was alerted but had no available birds. Haven is operating on Tac Two-Five, make sure you hail them when you get close. How copy, over?"

"One-One copies all, breaking formation and heading to the new objective." Ruby signalled for Yang to make the turn and lead their two vehicles to Haven Team. She switched from the vehicle net to the team net and started her impromptu briefing.

"Alright One-One. Change of plan; we've been tasked with a non-exercise CASEVAC mission. SOF Team Haven was performing a HALO drop just north of here, but one of the operator's chutes failed just before he landed. Weiss, I want you to get your first aid kit ready to go as soon as we get there. Blake, grab the collapsible stretcher from our cargo bay and assist Weiss with treatment. The rest of you take up a perimeter around the site, and help out Haven if asked. Understood?" Ruby waited for everyone to respond before she switched to Haven's radio channel.

"This is Beacon One-One to Haven, broadcasting on Tac Two-Five. How copy, over?"

"Beacon One-One, this is Haven. You have no idea how happy I am to hear your voice." The man on the other end of the radio sounded relieved to hear from Ruby, and she couldn't help but smile at that.

"Haven, can you give us an updated status on your injured man?"

"Copy, I hope your medic is listening in. Our guy is suffering from a clean compound fracture to his left fibula, as well as a suspected fracture in his right ankle and kneecap. He also might be suffering from concussion as he hit his head fairly hard when he landed; his helmet appears to have absorbed most of the impact."

"This is One-One's medic, is the patient conscious?" Weiss asked as she used one hand to retrieve a small neck brace from her pack.

"He is but he's lapsing in and out of coherency. He had his bell rung pretty hard after all."

"Copy that Haven, we're almost there. I think we see you now, One-One out." It only took a few short minutes for Ruby's team to finally arrive on scene; Weiss leaping out before the jeep had stopped moving. Blake ran around to the back and pulled the stretcher out, following after Weiss to assist. Ruby dismounted with her rifle hanging by its sling and walked over to the three other members of Haven.

"Hey there, you guys must be Haven. Sergeant Ruby Rose, Team One leader, Second of the Eleventh Airborne." She extended her hand and shook it with the blonde-haired team leader of Haven.

"Chief Petty Officer Sun Wukong, Haven Team, Special Warfare Command of the Mistralian Marines. But you can call me Monkey. I'm glad you guys could help out." CPO Wukong and the rest of his team were easy to pick as members of a Special Forces unit; the mismatching camouflage patterns and highly customised weapons were fairly dead giveaways. That and the out-of-regulation hair styles that each man wore as well. "I don't know what happened to cause his pack to fail, it drifted away with the wind after it detached. Sage is lucky that it snapped this close to the ground and not when he popped at five hundred, otherwise you'd be helping with a body recovery instead."

"Yeah, what's that saying again, 'Shit happens?'" Ruby asked, earning a slight laugh from Sun.

"Ain't that right. Hey, Doc, how's my boy doing?" Sun called over to Weiss, who was just finishing up with a splint to the injured man's leg.

"Well, we've got him stable for now, but we need to get him to a hospital as soon as humanly possible otherwise we risk irreversible damage to the leg. Ruby, you do think you can get onto Wizard and ask what options we have? I want to avoid taking him with us because it'll take way too long."

"Got it... hey Pyrrha, I need comms with the platoon commander!" Ruby called over to the radiowoman, who quickly ran over and set the pack onto the ground. She tuned the pack in and gave a thumbs up to the team leader. "Beacon One Actual, this is One-One-Actual. Interrogative; what is the possibility of scrambling PJ's to our current location? Patient is Cat Bravo at this time, over."

"One-One, this is One-Actual. Wait five while we contact Castle Keep for verification, out." Ruby shook her head, at which Sun let out a small laugh.

"You gotta hate that. All that 'hurry up and wait' bullshit, it really wears thin sometimes."

"I hear that." Ruby continued waiting, and only a few minutes had passed when the reply came back.

"One-One, PJ's have been scrambled to your position, ETA to your pos is fifteen to twenty mikes, how copy, over?" A collective sigh of relief was let out at the message, and Ruby sent back an equally relieved reply.

"Copy that One-Actual, thanks for putting the call in. One-One out." Ruby turned to look at Sun. "So, I take it you boys will need a ride home when your friend gets picked up?"

Once again, thanks for reading guys. If you have any feedback or suggestions, please let me know either through a review or a PM.

Stay frosty!