RP: 4th Fleet (NSN) [Mission 2.1] Hiking

"Avel: is the Admiral going to be okay?"

"He'll probably need to take a break soon, given his medical history sir." Avel replied and then placed a hand on the tender spot where she had been shot in the leg.

"I'm more worried about certain members of this squad reopening their wounds. We weren't exactly given much time to recover from the last mission."

“So weird,” Harm said, listening to the marine do trying to both sing and run at the same time. She would then have to come to a stop as everyone came up to the first big obstacle on the course.

Ahead of everyone was a near vertical rock face (about 82 Degrees) with various bumping and jagged rocks sticking out. At the top were some wooden poles that had been firmly sunk into the rock and at the bottom were various pieces of discarded equipment like cigarette packs, a pair of MREs, and a few magazines of ammo for a .45 pistol. The course was fairly new, but it seemed that some marines had already lost some gear while trying to climb this roughly 30 meter high rock wall.

Harm would immediately set down the cooler and get into a crouching position, jumping up into the air only to hear, “NO ROCKETS! YOU GOTTA CLIMB LIKE EVERYONE ELSE!” coming from Wazu as he brought up the rear of the pack, stopping to catch his breath at the bottom of the rock face.

“No fair,” Harm said, falling back down onto her feet. “I can jump up there. Why should I have to do it the slow way?”

“Unit cohesion,” Wazu said.

“Bullshit! That isn’t a thing!” Harm replied…

"Sure it is, it just means we do this together and it shows that we can work together" Sawyer replied to Harm's statement. "I mean if you want me to I can help you climb and make it a little easier on you with all that weight or for that matter I have some rope so we can use that to lift the cooler of drinks to the top of the cliff after we get to the top. I mean there's no reason for a lady as lovely as you to have to carry this giant ass box to the top of a 30 meter damn cliff by yourself." He'll pick up the two .45 cal magazines and put them into his bag. "You can never have too much ammo you know. Sir, are you okay, you seem to be having issues" Sawyer asked watching the admiral stop to catch his breath. "Plus if we do it together we can talk on the way up without everyone else being nosy and listening in and get to know each other a bit more." Sawyer said in a quiet tone to Harm.

Avel was about to climb the vertical rock face but turned her attention to Wazu who was breathing heavily. Once again she wondered why he didn't just stay on the ship and give out orders by radio or something.

"You look a little tired." She said while walking over to him. "Here, climb onto my back and I'll carry you to the top."

Harm put one hand on her hips and pointed the other at Sawyer, “First off, no WAY I’m letting some dinky nepleslian be all ‘woe is you poor girl’ to the bioweapon that can rip his head off.

Second, I don’t need ropes to carry a cooler. It is only a hundred pounds or so.”

“Use the ropes Harm, It will be good team building for everyone.” Wazu said, “Someone needs to stay down here and tie the ropes to the cooler once they are thrown down.” He sat his backpack down and then opened it up, pulling out a length of rope to toss to Harm.

“Fine,” She said, putting the rope around her shoulder before turning to the rock face. She flexed her hands and bare feet then jumped towards the rock, clawing at it until she got a good grip then continuing to try and scurry upwards. The amount of rock she seemed to be tearing away showed she was no expert at this kind of rock climbing.

Wazu would then turn to Avel, “Give me a moment to rest. I might take you up on that offer later.” He was still breathing hard, and would reach into his backpack to pull out a small set of pills, downing them along with some water from his canteen.

Cedric came to a slow jogging stop at the sight of the rock face. He let out a low whistle: looking to the top of the relatively imposing obstacle that now lay ahead of them. Cedric, who was one of the few people in fully phyisically fit shape (by Marine standards thanks to the glory of moden medicine and Bernhard making sure his cybernetic eye was working), grimaced at the thought of the challenge ahead. With the condition that the squad was in: this was most likely not going to end very well. However, it wasn't like they could do anything about it, and since Wazu wouldn't let them use any cheap ways to get past it. So that meant they would have to deal with the problem in a traditional Marine fashion: head-on and possibly violently. However, the team seemed to be coming together nicely for a plan.

As Wazu mentioned the cooler, Cedric piped up.

"I'm no expert mountain climber, but I bet I could do it." Cedric volunteered, watching as Harm climbed up, "The rest of the team can head up and I'll keep an eye on the cooler once it's started it's way up."

Avel briefly turned her attention to Harm as she clawed at the rock wall as if expecting her hands to automatically adhere to it's surface. She didn't know whether to burst into laughter or stare on in disbelief.

Since this exercise was all about teamwork, she decided to do something about it before the group spent a much longer time here than necessary.

"Maybe I should help Harm instead." She said, pointing a thumb at the neko. "Otherwise we might be here a while."

"You sure you don't want a little help? You seem to be having a bit of trouble." Sawyer said as he took hold of a few hand holds on the cliff and slowly climbed a little ways up the wall.

Phaedra smirked to herself as she heard Sawyer begin to sing cadences to help the squad keep the rhythm. After travelling for some time, they arrived at the first obstacle; a near vertical cliff face. As the rest of the squad grouped around the, Harm crouched and then suddenly jumped into the air.

"NO ROCKETS! YOU GOTTA CLIMB LIKE EVERYONE ELSE!” shouted Wazu, looking rather winded.

Harm then proceeded to argue with nearly everyone about having to climb the wall "the old fashioned way." She started up the wall and to Phaedra's surprise had some difficulty finding her way up. Phaedra also noticed the rest of the Marines began to take notice of this as well, much to their amusement. While Phaedra mistrusted Harm to some extent, she wasn't going let the Neko become even more removed the group. The purpose of this exercise was teamwork. Phaedra sighed and slipped the sling of her rifle case over her head and one shoulder. She stepped towards the cliff and grabbed one of the ropes.

"Move it, Private! We don't have all day!" she shouted at Sawyer. Phaedra began her ascent and methodically climbed up the cliff face, making sure that she had at least three limbs in place while she moved a fourth. As she neared Harm's position, she decided to encourage the Neko and made sure to keep her tone positive and genuine.

"Come on Harm, you can do this! Don't claw at the rock, use the handholds and footholds that are already in place," she said.

"Don't force the cliff to do what you want it to, change yourself. Adapt to the cliff, overcome the cliff."

Once Phaedra finally reached the top of the cliff, she immediately turned around to encourage the squad and help them up onto the summit.

"Come on Marines! GO GO GO!"

Phaedra made sure to catch the hand and look into the eyes of every squad member as they reached top.

"Roger that Sergeant" Sawyer replied while continuing up the cliff but making sure he kept an eye on Harm and spoke to her again saying "c'mon there's no shame in asking for help with something you've never done before. I mean I've got a feeling that you're used to using your rockets to do something like this and never had to manually climb a cliff or if you have you don't do it often, I personally love heights, running, and climbing so feel free to ask for help or even for a hand up." When he reached the top while helping Harm climb, (Just little help more to encourage her than anything else) he said "nice climb sergeant you're really fast."

Cedric waited patiently at the bottom.

"Come on Marines!" He called, "You wouldn't have made it through basic if you didn't have the stuff to handle this!"

He was still standing there with arms crossed as he watched each Marine begin their assent. As he had volunteered to do, he would be the last man up. After all: the alcohol raided from Admiral Wazu's cabinet was still resting at the bottom. He assumed that the team would be more than happy to toss down the ropes for the cooler. Once they had, he would make sure that the ropes were secured, and as they started to pull that up then he would start up himself. He kept a close eye on the Marines: watchful to see if anybody might slip. If somebody did, then . . . Cedric would just have to do his best "battle-buddy aid" for whoever it was until they could get medical attention to them. Cedric brushed that uncomfortable thought to the back of his mind and went back to simply watching his fellow Marines.

“Fuck this rock climbing shit,” Harm said, taking Phaedra’s advice and slowing down. She started to look a little more like a person climbing a wall rather than a housecat trying to climb up a curtain.

Of course this didn’t stop her from really digging her hands and feet into the rock wall when she needed a handhold. Each bump or crevice that she took ahold of seemed to get widened out or torn into further than it had been.

When she reached the top off the cliff and pulled herself up she looked more satisfied than angry. Perhaps more than any of the other marines so far she had left her mark on that mountainside even if it required that she claw it out with her bare hands.

“ROPES COMMIN’ DOWN!” She shouted, turning to Sawyer and tossing it over to him, “Tie this off on that post and throw the rest down.”


---

“I will stay here for a moment too.” Wazu said, still breathing hard as the marines tackled the obstacle. “Maybe I can take Avel up on that offer to help? Cedric is going to need someone on the other side of the cooler to make sure it does not take too much damage as it gets pulled up. That is going to be close to 100 pounds scraping against the rocks if we just let Harm hold onto the rope and yank it up here.”

Sawyer grabbed the rope as it was tossed to him "Ok" he replied to harm as he tied a self tightening hitch knot onto the post so that there was as little chance as possible for the cooler to slip loose.

Cedric watched with a small smile of satisfaction as many of the Marines who had started mere minutes ago finished scaling the cliff. Moments after the last of them had finally climbed over, a rope came sailing down from above, and landed in a messy coil on the ground near the cooler. Heading over, Cedric used a great length of the rope to make sure that it was secured both length-wise, and width-wise. Once that was fully secured, he looked back to Admiral Wazu.

"Admiral: do you need help getting up?" He asked.

Unlike the rest of everyone's clothing, the majority of which was suitable for only 'casual' excursions out into deserts, Matteo had made absolutely sure what he had was the best. The looser, lower thread count uniform allowed air to circulate over most of his body, allowing sweat to effectively evaporate and keep him cool. At the same time, the desert camouflage cloak created an insulating layer of air, keeping the slightly cooler temperature created by evaporation in and the hot outside out. Not only that, but it helped to deflect the scorching hot rays of sun away from the marine, and the hood made sure his ears didn't burn up either.

And yet, Matteo was sweating profusely, panting heavily as he climbed up the rope. It was an absolute miracle that nothing happened on the way up. But upon reaching the top, the no-longer-FNG simply lay there on his back, unusually silent, breathing hard.

Since Cedric was already taking care of the cooler and Wazu didn't seem to want any help, Avel turned her attention to the rock wall. Placing her hands on a surface that could be held onto easily, she began climbing and quickly made her way up the rocky surface.

If Harm was a terrible rock climber than Avel was the exact opposite. She knew exactly which area her hands could get a good grip, used all her limbs when moving up to avoid slipping and could reach ledges that most (If not all) of the shorter marines couldn't. If it were a race she probably would have come in first place.

Avel reached the cliff edge, threw one leg over it and rolled herself onto the higher level. She then jumped up and dusted herself off. She also noticed Matteo on the ground off to her left.

"I get the feeling you don't exercise much." She said plainly.

Seeing the new lady coming over the top of the cliff Sawyer was forced to take another look at her and thought to himself 'huh impressed she could climb like that with tits like those.' Noticing the other guy who had kinda just flopped onto the ground Sawyer walked over to him and asked "hey there, are you ok?" To the lady he said "hmm, nice work climbing the cliff there." Turning back to harm he said "well looks like the cooler is ready to be lifted back up I think."

“I will make it just fine,” Wazu said, finally heading over to the rock wall to begin his trip upwards, being sure to keep close to the rocks and have his bodyweight as low as possible while moving upward.

“Chairborne Commando for life.” He said jokingly, “Though climbing and zero G training have a lot in common. I like to think I am good at keeping my balance. How about you give me a hand with the cooler instead?”

Meanwhile harm took hold of the rope that was attached to the cooler and began pulling it upward, despite her small size she had an easy time lifting the heavy weight even if it was scraping along the edge of the cliff as it was lifted upwards. “Maybe we should tie a rope to you too Mr ‘don’t use rockets’.” Harm shouted as Wazu did his best to keep the cooler from smashing into things as he climbed up beside it.

Cedric watched as Wazu began to climb and quickly took to the wall himself. He was careful, making sure to use the hand and foot-holds that were the steadiest. While pulling himself up the cliff, he had to make sure he kept an even pace with Wazu, and he had to help the Admiral to prevent the cooler from banging (too much) against all the out-croppings of the cliff. It was hard, admittedly, to try climbing one-handed at times, but he managed to do so well enough that he didn't fall to his death or lose the team's supply of liqour. Slowly but surely, the Sapper and Admiral made their upward progress, and it didn't seem like too long a time before Cedric was watching the cooler go up over the edge of the cliff. Cedric waited long enough to make sure his fellow Marines had gotten it over the edge (no doubt they, or at least Harm, would protect the alcohol from undue harm), and then pulled himself up.

With a grunt, he managed to haul all 196 pounds of himself (not counting any of the equipment he was carrying), and moved from resting on his knees to stand up. With a heavy sigh of relief, Cedric crossed his arms, and looked over the group. Seeing Matteo laid out on the ground brought a chuckle as Cedric made his way over. He nudged his fellow Marine with the tip of one boot as he checked for Matteo to respond.

"Hey, Matteo." He had a grin spreading from ear to ear, "Are you okay there, Private?"

Arieg had taken a seat on a conveniently placed rock off to the side, his rifle was leaning against his new found seat. As he downed the contents of his first canteen he watched the groups interactions with some interest, camaraderie for him didn't extend beyond the battlefield. As long as each man did what was expected of him nothing more was needed and Arieg had no further interests in the various individuals he'd served with beyond their combat capability. As a result this 'team building' exercise was nothing more then a nuisance to him, so he chose to remain quiet and detached.