(David Pov)
"I think I'm going to need a chiropractor after that hand's on lesson on boating safety," Sheila quipped as she stretched across from me on the sand. "What do you think, Ben? You took that like a champ," she said, smacking the back of Benjamin.
Benjamin was crouched on all fours, making a mixture of spitting and choking sounds, getting a couple of strange looks.
"What's the matter, Benjamin?" Daisy asked seriously, crouching in front of him.
He spat to the side one more time before looking up, "I-I think I swallowed a fish," he said nervously.
Sheila began to cackle before doubling over, hearing his serious response. I couldn't help but chuckle, "Haha," I brought my hand to my face, 'Only you, Benjamin,' Only Ben could find himself in these situations. He was a magnet for bad luck, a walking example of Murphy's law.
As both Sheila and I were laughing Cal cracked a wide smile, and Daisy was obviously trying her best not to break. Ben smiled at the reaction of his joke before standing up on his own.
…
..
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(3rd Pov)
Once Alpha team finished with their fun, it was time to get back on track. David took out the magazines from his weapons and cleared the respective chambers. Shaking them, a mixture of gritty sand and slatwater fell out in glops and drizzles from his weapon. He waited for a few moments, being thorough so as to make sure it was clean enough for use.
He finished and loaded the magazine back into the chamber. An audible click sounded as he gave it a smack on the bottom, making sure it was loaded and secured.
"Alright," David sounded off, getting his teammates' attention, "It's time to get to work. We'll proceed together," he emphasized, looking at Daisy specifically, "And slowly, there's no telling what kinda traps we might walk into. We'll move in formation beta," he finished, getting nods from the others.
Standing up, they marched toward the treeline of the forest. Benjamin, being the best when it came to spotting traps, took point, followed by Daisy and Sheila to his left and right, respectively, and set back a couple of paces. Then Cal stood in the center while David pulled the rear guard.
Crunch
With each step palm leaves were crushed beneath their boots creating a cascade of crunches spread throughout the intermittent squawking of birds.
David kept his eyes steady, trying to find certain shapes or shades out of place. 'With good enough camo, no human can spot you,' those were the same words that came out of Mendez's mouth, he remembered. Only experience and training can give you anything close to a leg up on spotting someone fully camouflaged.
While he was facing the trail they had just walked through, he immediately noticed a sudden stop in the crunching of leaves. Dropping into a crouch and keeping his rifle raised, he paused before glancing over his shoulder at Benjamin at the front of the group.
Benjamin had extended his arm behind, stretching his fingers, signalling for everyone to stop. There was another pause, and David glanced back and forth, to the forest, then to Benjamin, and back again. Until finally Benjamin turned slightly and pointed to the team leader and motioned for him to come to his position.
David moved low watching his every step making as little sound as possible until he sat beside his subordinate.
Benjamin lightly brushed dirt and leaves off of a small black line that was barely suspended above the ground.
'Tripwires,' David immediately recognized, but was confused, 'Something so old-fashioned?' he had a bad feeling about his surroundings.
"There is a ton of these ahead of us," Benjamin whispered pointing out a few specific shrubs and bushes, and only then did David spot the traps.
'He really has a gift for this,' David couldn't help but compliment Ben internally. He'd always had a borderline supernatural ability to spot physical traps, similar to how Kurt was able to sense he was walking into a trap.
"I can disarm them. It'd be a piece of cake," Benjamin offered helpfully, but his leader shook his head.
Turning to the side, David motioned for Daisy to come up. She acquiesced to the order and made her way over before stopping in front of him, "Did you acquire that other thing I mentioned this morning?" he asked somewhat vaguely.
With a light of understanding in her eyes, she took her pack off and opened it up, pulling out a roughly folded piece of paper. Unfolding it showed a rough outline of the island and the surrounding ocean, a map.
'This is perfect,' David thought with an impressed expression. "I'm not even going to ask you how you got this, but good job," David said quietly, patting Daisy on the shoulder. Daisy didn't appear to react, but if one looked closely, they would notice that her eyes had softened a bit and a faint blush on her face.
Reaching into his pocket, David pulled out a small circular compass. Spotting the black spire on the map that they saw when they came in, he quickly figured out where they were. He studied it, scanning it slowly as his eyes focused on every major detail.
'Is the island filled with traps like these?' he thought before dismissing the idea, 'No way, that would take too much time and I doubt they'd spend so much on just traps,' then a new theory appeared, 'Was it a coincidence that we landed here?' he paused pushing the thought down, 'I am being paranoid and overthinking this, but what if I'm not,'
"Tsk," he clicked his tongue, 'It's annoying, but we don't have much of a choice,' he pulled his other two teammates.
Everyone having gathered, he began to speak, "Change of plans." he took a deep breath as he began to explain
"Based on our instructor's actions earlier, odds are that more than likely he's part of OPFOR. So, we'll have to ditch the original plan. Looking at how big this island is, it's not feasible for us to secure it enough to assault that outpost in just four days," he got a couple of nods in agreement.
"Because of that, we'll circle the island before driving up in a straight line, disabling every trap we can in order for an attack early tomorrow morning. We'll find somewhere to camp for the night on that path as well," he looked up for opinions.
"You're being too cautious. We should just push on through this setup. Catch them off guard," Daisy suggested fiercely.
"Push on ahead through God knows how many traps? With whatever other defenses on the other side, and if we're lucky, we get ambushed by a patrol. Honestly, Daisy, you might be a strategic genius!" Sheila mocked, getting a growl from Daisy.
"I don't see you offering any helpful advice," she shot back, glaring at Sheila.
Before Sheila could continue David stepped in, "Can it. Both of you," he gave bounced his eyes between the two before settling them on Daisy, "Whether I am being too cautious or not doesn't matter right now. We have four days to complete our objective so we might as well use it," he got a stiff nod from Daisy accepting his reasoning.
"Now, if no one else has any questions or suggestions, then let's move,"
…
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(David Pov)
CRUNCH
CRUNCH
CRUNCH
'Not much further,' I glanced down at the folded map square that I was using as a guide. It had to have been around 1900 hours based on the setting sun.
I'd taken up the lead with Benjamin, the trap bloodhound following behind closely, always paying attention to where we moved. Thankfully, we hadn't run into any other traps while moving horizontally around the island.
'Maybe they only set up traps within a certain proximity of the base?' It was a guess, but it would make sense.
Glancing ahead, I mentally checked off that we were on the right track, easily spotting a stream that ran through the radius of the island, "This stream should be clean; refill your canteens if you need to," I ordered just loud enough for my team to hear.
SPLISH
SPLASH
Stepping into the stream, I paused, catching a flicker of something out of the corner of my eye. Stopping, I turned my head slightly, noticing a small red light that glowed in the shadow of a bush.
In an instant, I recognized what I was looking at: "Get down!" I stopped myself from screaming but made sure I was heard.
Grabbing Benjamin beside me, oblivious. I shoved him toward some large stone on the side of the stream, giving him some cover, before I dove into it beside him.
BANG BANG BANG
SNAP SNAP SNAP
I could immediately smell the paint that impacted the rocks covering us, "What is it?" Benjamin asked, trying to slightly peek over the rock to catch a glimpse. His head quickly snapped down again behind cover as another shot landed on the tree in front of us.
"Dunno," I said while looking over to check on the rest of the team. I breathed a sigh of relief as they were safely behind cover looking at me for orders.
I began to move my hand to throw a sign, but heard the faint sound of rustling behind me.
I pivoted in my sitting position with my gun raised high and began rapidly squeezing the trigger.
POP POP POP POP
Benjamin joined firing in the same direction.
HISS - - - HISS - - - SMACK
As paint rounds splashed around us amidst the sounds of shots, I heard the sound of a paint round striking flesh and an accompanying groan. I knew in that moment Benjamin had been hit, but it didn't seem to be that bad, seeing as he remained firing.
Eventually, rounds stopped coming, and we held our fire, believing the threat to be eliminated.
A dull silence filled the air for about a minute until the loud sounds of more guns being fired came across the opening and over the stream. I couldn't tell how many guns were firing from upstream, but Daisy, Cal, and Sheila were shooting back.
I took a moment to glance at Benjamin, spotting a red blotch on his left forearm, and he had a pained expression. He gave me a shaky thumbs up with that hand, and I nodded. In syn,c we propped ourselves onto the stones before laying down some flanking fire.
I got through three rounds before a click came from my chamber. I dropped behind our cover, releasing the empty magazine with the press of a button while simultaneously plucking a fresh one from one of the many pockets on my fatigues. With a slap, I was back into the fight, peaking back over only to find that the firefight had ended.
'They're probably grabbing their wounded and retreating,' I said deciding not to engage. 'Their goal was to wear us down, not take us out,' though I couldn't see any of our enemies, there couldn't have been more than 5-10. They definitely didn't have enough to wipe us out.
Besides, it was turning to night, the perfect cover for a quick retreat, and we couldn't follow. Not with the threat of whatever traps they had hidden.
'But that was a bit quick,' I thought suspiciously. It seemed they weren't worried about any type of pursuit at all. I mentally noted it to look back on later.
"On me!" I called over, hearing the splashes and stomps of boots as I began to look over Benjamin's wound.
"Looks like you'll have a bruise like usual, but nothing else," I said before jabbing a thumb at the stream behind the rocks were sitting behind, "Go wash it off otherwise that aminestetic will put you to sleep, and we need to cover some ground before it completely turns to night," he nodded getting and walking to the stream.
"Where did those guys come from?!" Sheila asked some what exasperratedly
Cal quietly spoke, "They could have been sitting and waiting… but that is unlikely."
"A group of instructors sat in trees and in bushes for hours, hoping for us to come across them on one section of the island? I don't buy it," Daisy said, shaking her head.
I chimed in, "Had to have been a patrol. Seems we just got unlucky." It was strange, but that was the best and simplest explanation.
They didn't press further, but I could still see doubt in their eyes.
"What did I miss?" Benjamin asked peaking his torso around the rocks.
"Nothing," I said, waving it off, "Sun is going down, we need to find somewhere for the night." I got a couple of sighs, but we were moving nonetheless.
As we moved out, I took one last look at the forest. I couldn't help but feel like we were being watched. Not like there were cameras recording us, which there probably were, but I felt more like there were people hiding just out of sight, observing us.
I decided to keep my eyes peeled, 'We'll pass this test,' I told myself, 'I'll make sure of it,'
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I have been meaning to say this but I went back and added some pictures in comments. I haven't put all of them that I need to, but it's a start for now.
So we're 15 chapters in thoughts on the fic so far? I know a lot are waiting for the war to kick off, but I want to actually have characters that you guys somewhat care about ya know?
Anyway my final fulltime undergrad semester started might be cooked might not be. We'll see.
I think that's all I got I'll see you ladies and gentlemen around.