It was a lovely pre-morning. The stars were still out in force but the eastern sky was starting to show the first purple tints. True dawn wouldn't come for another hour but there were a few early birds twittering pleasantly across the base. The various trainees, instructors, and paper pushers of RED were yet to rise to their daily tasks. The occupants of the Experimental shack and adjoining camper were no different, curled up in their bunks and still lost to their dreams. It was quiet, peaceful, and serene.

All shattered by the sudden, sharp, wordless yell of surprised rage that echoed across the base.

Engineer sprang from her bed with a shout, coming to stand in the middle of the room with her wrench pulled back and ready to strike. Spy was just as quick though significantly quieter, bolting upright with her revolver drawn and knife flicking open in her other hand. Demo followed only a second behind, leaping down from the top bunk and grabbing a lamp as she had no weaponry that would fit under her pillow.

Pyro fell out of the bed with a startled mmph and then peered over the mattress with a wary curiosity. Scout vaguely batted at the air and mumbled about her absent brothers needing to leave her alone. Medic poked her head out from under the covers to make a scan of the dim room, decided that it was far too early to exist, and then pulled the sheets back over her head.

It took only seconds for the women to act—or not act, as the case may be—and then the silence was once again broken. This time it was identifiable as vehement Australian tinged swearing filtering in through the closed windows. The reason for Sniper's intense ire became apparent as the front door was kicked open.

"TENNNNNNN-HUT!"

Those who were marginally aware blinked at the woman standing in the doorway.

It was at that point that Scout realized that she wasn't being bothered by siblings and belatedly sprang up with a clock in hand. Pyro looked somewhere between put out and passed out. Medic pulled together enough brainpower to figure out what was going on and then resolutely held her pillow over her head while she forced up all the logic stating that killing a teammate on the first day was a bad idea.

Soldier stomped across the room to her equipment locker and grabbed her helmet, slamming it onto her head with a cheerful flourish. There must have been some error at supply for the thing was big enough to come down over her eyes. Soldier didn't seem to notice as she addressed the room.

"ALL RIGHT, MAGGOTS! Today is the first step towards VICTORY! We move out in only..." she checked the wall clock, "THREE HOURS. As Sun Tzu said, BE READY FOR SLAUGHTER!"

With that Soldier was gone without even shutting the door, leaving her teammates twitching in her wake. A couple seconds later Sniper slammed against the doorframe with a sword in her hand and murder in her eyes. There was a moment of silence in which everyone remained frozen in a surreal scene.

Scout was the first to move. She dropped the clock unceremoniously on the floor, violently kicked away her bedclothes, and stomped off to her locker, swearing the whole way. Demo set the lamp back on the table and then followed suit. Spy set aside her irritation for a moment to wonder, in a sleep deprived sort of way, which accented tirade was the more colorful, before stashing her weapons and lying back down to sleep. Sniper confirmed that Soldier wasn't there for her to kill, so she returned to her camper in less than a good mood. The dull thunk of Sniper's sword hitting the outside of the wooden building broke Engineer out of her trance, leading her to follow the others to the showers in a sleepy daze.

Pyro considered her own nest of blankets from her place on the floor for a while, then got up with a wheezy sigh. She sat on the edge of the bed meant for their absent Heavy and stared. Medic, in the next bunk, flopped onto her side so she could look at the gasmasked woman with weary eyes. After a long internal debate over time and tiredness, she came to the conclusion that Soldier really was right to wake them at this ungodly hour. As women they'd have to work at least twice as hard as any man, and that would include getting to the field early.

With a groan Medic pulled herself up and shuffled over to Spy's bunk. She took a deep breath and made sure she was speaking their shared language.

"Spy. Spy, it is time to vake."

The German was treated to a sharp blue glare and a sharper blade. She was unfazed.

"If ve are to succeed zhen we must be zhere very early. Soldier is annoying, but also right."

Spy remained motionless while she processed the statement. After a minute she got up with deliberate, precise, irritated movements and made her way to her locker.

Satisfied that everyone else was up, Medic was left to struggle with her own sleepiness. She leaned down and sharply pinched the back of both her knees (a sensitive area for her). The sting brought her around enough to last her until they got to morning mess, at which point she planned on downing an entire pot of coffee. The necessary early rise would take some getting used to.

~~*~~

The eight women were among the first dozen in line for breakfast and were only beat to the training field by one man who seemed to have as much drill sergeant in him as their own Soldier. He spared them a glance that made it clear that he thought they were a joke and then ignored them, which was just fine by the Experimental. They spent the waiting time constructively, some doing warm up exercises and some checking equipment. After a quarter hour those who were examining their weaponry were persuaded to do some stretches in preparation for the upcoming action. Medic found herself being corrected in her stance by Scout, who was a surprisingly good coach, while Demo surprised them all by being an avid fan of yoga. No woman should be that flexible while bogged down by heavy armor and gear.

Five minutes before the exercise was due to start their instructor arrived. By his build and calculating stare Medic guessed that he was either an engineer or soldier. While his gaze lingered on the women a tad longer than the rest of the sixty-odd trainees, there was not yet any obvious dismissal in his eyes. The German well remembered her specialty instructors and how they did everything in their power to see her fail. While such a challenge only made her a more effective Medic, it would be a better first step for the team as a whole if they only had marginal prejudice to worry about.

Either way, she thought, surveying both her team and the men surrounding them, we will succeed.

The PA system echoed across the base, calling for the beginning of exercises. Without a word Instructor walked over to a jeep parked on the edge of the field and hoisted a couple toolboxes out of the bed. He barked off the numbers labeling each and as their ID was called each engineer stepped forward to receive their equipment. It was clear that most of them were desperate to open it and see what treasures awaited them inside, but the look on the instructor's face when one reached for the latch made it clear that they were to remained closed. When all the engineers were once again standing on the edge of the practice field Instructor reached into the bed of the jeep once more, this time withdrawing a stopwatch.

"Level one," he said with a vague wave towards the field. "Go."

The Experimental's Engineer was among the first to leap into action, rushing forth and flinging open their toolboxes once they reached a decent spot. Those left on the sidelines knew little about the actual building of sentries, but it was clear by the intensity of their comrades' swearing that they were given the wrong tools for the job. A couple even made the incredible mistake of trying to call the instructor's attention to this fact, wasting several seconds before they realized what the others had already figured out: the error was intentional.

When the dust cleared about two dozen sentries stood on the field quietly tracking the air. The female Engineer was toward the center of the cluster with a determinedly blank look on her face; she was the last to finish by almost 20 seconds. Several of the men around her looked smugly superior at the apparent failure of the girl who obviously didn't belong there in the first place.

Medic sighed; she knew this was bound to happen. Though the Texan had incredible muscle mass, the fact remained that she was a woman. She didn't have the broad shoulders of her male counterparts and no matter how much she worked out her body would hold on to a greater reserve of fat than a man her same weight. The only class that required more brute strength was the Heavy, but even then they only had to hold their massive guns at hip height. Engineers had to heft, lift, twist. The redhead would probably always be at a disadvantage.

The Texan was on the edge of dropping her defiant stance when Instructor grabbed something from the jeep and tossed it. A light blue blur sailed through the air and about half of the sentries tracked it and made clicking noises as they tried to fire ammo they didn't have. The others didn't.

By the time the wad of Blu-blue wrapped brick landed there were a dozen frantic engineers banging away at their malfunctioning machines. The Texan wasn't among them. Medic was nearly deafened by Scout's cheer.

Instructor said nothing as he noted whose sentry was a failure. Then he turned, jumped up in the bed of the jeep, and lifted a rocket launcher onto his shoulder. The engineers scrambled off the field; the stragglers caught some of the resulting explosion's force. He fired a couple rounds so that no sentry was directly hit and four fell. Then he started firing with more deliberate aim. A few of the engineers' creations took three head on blasts before exploding and they puffed up proud; others kicked the ground as their machines went down with one.

At last a single sentry remained. The first rocket didn't even rattle its bolts. The second dented the tripod legs but it still stood. On the third hit everyone expected it to go down as no other sentry lasted past that, but when the smoke cleared the barrel was still valiantly tracking its arc.

They all looked on in shock when the forth strike didn't quite take it all the way down. On the fifth it was finally reduced to scrap.

The instructor laid down his weapon and jumped down from his vantage point. He paced the length of the field with while everyone tried to figure out whose sentry lasted so long. The murmurs of surprise and disbelief had only just started when the instructor stopped in front of the eight women, turned, and raised an eyebrow at Engineer. The corner of Instructor's mouth tugged upwards just the slightest as he dryly noted, "Well, woman, it looks like you're the best man here."

She blinked as if she couldn't believe it herself, checked the field again, and then slowly started to grin as her louder teammates made their happiness known and fifty men stared at her in openmouthed shock.