“Move move move!” The recruits, dressed in khaki and coyote brown fatigues burst out from the back of a transport truck with canvas netting onto a lush green field. One of the recruit trips while she attempts to disembark from the truck but her squadmate comes to her aid by picking her back onto her feet and ushers her to keep up. All 15 of the recruits stack up behind the entrance of a concrete building which has seen better days.
“Squad! Prepare to breach!” One of the leading recruits calls out. “Send it!”
A recruit behind him opens his grenade pouch and pulls out a potato. He visually makes a motion as if he were pulling a pin before throwing through the entrance and immediately taking cover. “Grenade out!” Someone counts to five followed by a girl calling out “boom.”
“Sweep! Check those corners!” One by one the recruits enter the building and spread out. The little “plaps” and “cracks” of gunfire echo through the building but considering the recruits are wielding AR-15 rifles, they certainly don’t sound like they are firing intermediate cartridges. Occasionally, one may call out a “Boom” or “I’m down! Medic” to which they are then dragged out by their fellow squamate back to the front of the entrance. Within a minute and a half, the recruit squad leader announces “All clear!”
Chiara and Mai observe the mock breaching from a watch tower not far from the kill house. The funds from the last match gave the team a much needed training ground for the new recruits whom were formerly from Vampire Squad.
“Good job, Armadillos. What are your loses?” Chiara communicates to the squad leader over her ham radio on the tower.
“Uh...five of us fell trapped to the cardboard claymores.”
“That’s no good.” Chiara sighs, her voice hints of disappoint. “You can’t have your squamates be reckless like that. You should had assigned sappers in your team to disarm them before you clear a room.”
“Yeah...the faults on me. I didn’t realize we can form classes other than riflemen. We’ll keep that in mind next time.”
“Please do. You aren’t in Vampire Squad anymore. You’re not supposed to treat your operations as meat grinders. As the attackers, you’re going to always be at a disadvantage no matter what equipment or numbers you have. You can’t have a band if your musicians aren’t preforming together.” Chiara looks over to Mai and smiles. “Even I had to learn that the hard way.” Mai nods quietly.
“Understood. I’ll debrief with the squad right now. Oh...one of the recruits has a question.”
Another voice, a female voice with a snobbish tone that wouldn’t be out of place for someone like Hikari but with a different accent cuts through. “Hey...is this our trainer? Can I speak?”
“You have to say as Permission to Speak.” Chiara scolds the girl over the comms quietly. “You have to be professional in any squad you’re in.” Chiara shakes her head in disbelief. “Permission granted.”
“Okay so like...why the hell are we using potatoes? What’s the deal? Why can’t we use grenades?”
At that moment, Mai who has been observing quietly picks her radio on her chest rig and answers for Chiara. “We’re using potatoes because they are the cheapest item in Mil-Sim Story. Do you know how many credits we would waste if we gave all of you real grenades? You can’t reuse real grenades but you can pick up potatoes after you thrown them.”
“Uh…” Chiara chimes in, after letting Mai rant at the recruit in her usual manner. It’s always amusing to see Mai go off over little things like budgeting. It’s rather cute for Chiara. “Basically, we’re doing everything we can to give you the right training while trying to budget for expenses like vehicle maintenance, ammo supply, and wages for all of you. Once you start going on missions for our team, we can guarantee better equipment once the credits start coming in. I promise you.” Her voice is a lot more sincere and less agitated than Mai’s.
”Ugh…” The recruit over the comms says nothing more. Chiara slopes on her chair and rubs her temples. Mai, sitting right beside her on a crate crosses her arms and shrugs.
“Being the teacher isn’t as easy as you thought?”
“I’m teaching them tactics, Mai. It’s not the same as teaching them about music theory.”
“Is it?” Mai raises her eyebrow as she smirks. “I gotta say, you’ve been getting better at dealing with your anxiety. I’ll be honest, I could had never seen you doing something like this when I first met you at the beginning of the semester.”
“You really think so, Mai.” Chiara’s voice warms up from her comment. “I still have a lot to overcome.”
“We all do, Chiara.” Mai looks back at the big hanger behind them. “I can’t say the same for Hikari though.”
“Fio. Can you pretty please just sell me your Laugo pistol.” Hikari begs behind Fio who is occupied with a light gun cabinet labeled “Ghost Squad”
“Not now. I’m trying to get the high score on this base!” Fio blasts away the foes on her screen with the light gun rifle. "I don't want Ramirez to have the high score, you know." Ironic considering she’s playing a game within a game. “What’s wrong with your competition SIG P320?”
“I don’t trust it, Fio.” Hikari whines as she picks up the second player light gun, seeing as if she might as well join Fio to try to persuade her. “My pistol had an accidental discharge in the last match. Could you imagine the embarrassment I’ll feel if it went off again in a future match?”
“Well just don’t carry one in the chamber then.” Fio says nonchalantly as she steps aside to give Hikari some room to aim her light gun. “That solves the problem, right?”
“No. That’s ridiculous.” Hikari scoffs as she takes out some enemies on the screen. “I shouldn’t have to do anything like that with my side arm, which is why I’m asking if I could buy your pistol.” Hikari is trying to play the game but it’s been years since she played a light gun game. They were all but an extinct genre of arcade games even while she was growing up in Japan and it shows. Her accuracy is abysmal and she’s at the point where losing one more life point will have her giving another credit to play again.
”But can’t you just...buy another handgun?” Fio asks in good faith. “There’s plenty of other really good pistols. Even some more expensive ones the one I have.”
“Well the thing is…” Hikari pauses while she dumps another single credit into the machine to go another round after being taken out. “Your pistol is really unique and cool. I’ve wanted to get one ever since you showed it to me. I only got my P320 from Flint’s because I didn’t know any better when I started.”
“Ooooooh I see.” Fio seems to be enthusiastic hearing Hikari’s reason. “So you want to have a hipster loadout?”
“If that’s what you call it…” Hikari grumbles as she admits it. “I mean, my AN-94 is pretty unique. I haven’t seen any other players carrying one around.”
“That’s entirely respectable, Miss Nakamura.” Fio clears the first stage and smiles proudly at her achievement. “I’ll consider it, under one condition.”
“I know….you want me to teach you Japanese. I have no problem with that, Fio.”
“Hm...well there’s something else I wanted you to do for me.” Fio looks over to Hikari with her cheerful bright blue eyes.
“What do you mean?”
“Well there’s this anime convention coming up tomorrow on Saturday. I usually go by myself but since you’re Japanese, I think it would cool if you come join me.
“Excuse me.” Hikari recoils from the suggestion. “What makes you think I’d want to go to an anime convention? Just because I’m Japanese?!”
“Do you want to buy my Laugo Alien pistol?”
“Well...yeah I do...ughhh.” Hikari lowers head head in defeat. “Fine. I’ll join you tomorrow I suppose…”
“Yay!!!!” Fio hugs Hikari tightly, forgetting the fact that she’s about to start the next level in the light gun game. “It’s going to be so much fun. I’m going wear my Zero Suit Samus cosplay from Halloween again! I think you should totally get a costume for cosplay too!”
“C...cosplay?” Hikari blinks with some concern in her face as she struggles to escape Fio’s hug. “Wh...what…what do you mean? It’s tomorrow? What am I’m going to cosplay as?”
“Don’t worry, I got plenty of costumes back home. My dad will drive us over to the convention center and I’ll help you get dressed up in no time.” The deal was settled and there’s no going back for Hikari.
“What the hell were you thinking, Emi?” Ashley hands Tomio the wet headband which has been sitting in Emi’s mini freezer for a while.
“It’s brutal out there, you still can’t take it lightly around this time of year.” Tomio gently wraps the cool headband on Emi’s forehead. Her face is red and her skin feels dry to the touch despite sweating from her morning run. She’s still in her tank top and running shorts, too exhausted to change out of them from when Ashley hauled her back to her dorm. “You can’t make yourself overheat like that Emi.”
“But...I can handle the heat” Emi groans from her agonizing headache and nausea.
“Not after being out of the track team for a few weeks. Your body has to adapt slowly.” Ashley retorts, bringing a bottle of water from the fridge. “You’re going to kill yourself after recovering from your foot. You’re still in the track team. You have no reason to rush yourself.”
Tomio adjusts the bedside fan and directs it towards Emi. She slowly tilts her head towards it and stares back. “But what about our Mil-Sim Team?”
”Chiara and Joshua got that under control.” Tomio sits down by the floor next to Emi’s bed. His hands caress Emi’s cheek which feels hot to the touch. “Things are slowing down until next year, so we have nothing to worry about for now. Everyone is winding down, the recruits are getting their training and we’ll be in good standing for the next match.”
“Crazy to think the team made it to the third bracket.” Ashley noted while doing some homework on her laptop at Emi’s desk. She alt-tabs to the Mil-Sim Story social media posts, inquisitively checking if her team is getting any mentions now that they are getting closer to the finals.
“Vampire Squad was no joke. We almost lost Chiara to them but Emi pulled her through.” Tomio smiles at Emi who looks like she doesn’t want to think about it right now.
“Chiara’s back, that’s all that matters.” Emi murmurs in agony. “I could care less about our matches from here...or anything for that matter.”
“Now that’s just your dehydration talking, Emi.” Ashley jokes with a little bit of scorn. “Just look at all of these losers...I mean posts about our team.”
“Yeah, I know. They’re pissed that we broke a lot of bets that night.” Emi tilts her head into her pillow as if to hide away.
“Hm...well...” Ashley scrolls down more on her laptop. “We’re becoming one of the underdog teams from the looks of it. But we’re not the only ones, obviously.”
Tomio leans back on Emi’s bed and thinks for a moment. “True...we’re going up against Crimewave Team next year. From what I heard, they’re not as brutal as Vampire Squad.”
“Crimewave Team?” Ashley scoffs at Tomio. “What kind of team name is that?”
“It’s the team with Charleston and Bass Squad. Markus briefed me about them after the match with Vampire Squad. Charleston Squad is like some kind of Mafia team that’s more classy and formal compared to some of the squads we went up against while Bass Squad is mostly gang bangers with lower end equipment.”
“Pfft. Then we got it easy this time. They don’t sound like much.”
“Ugh...we shouldn’t underestimate them, Ashley.” Emi whined lowly into her pillow. “They took on a better team than us in their last round. We can’t just...”
“Shh...” Tomio attempts to ease the stress for Emi. “We all need to cool down for a moment. Especially you, Emi.”
“Ugh come on, Tomio.” Emi groans.
“I’m not playing, Emi. You’re going to burn yourself out like Chiara almost did.” Tomio opens Emi’s water bottle and presses it toward her lips. “Here. You need to sip.”
Emi takes a couple of small sips before turning over to lay on her pillow. She sighs into her pillow. “Thanks...for being here. Both of you.”
“Hey...I’m here for you, Emi. I hate seeing you suffer like this.”
“It’s just like I said, Emi.” Ashley closes her laptop and gets up from Emi’s desk. “You’ve got nothing to worry about right now. You need a break. We all do. Even Hikari is taking this Saturday off.”
“Hikari? What’s she doing with Mai now?” Emi asks.
“Not with Mai. Hikari said she was going with Fio downtown.” Ashley shrugs. “Something about a deal she made with her?”