Blackburn, Mandy and Kelsey made their way down the ravine pretty far before they heard voices. She quickly signalled to get on their stomachs before they could be seen. They had gotten down low enough that she knew that hadn't been spotted But they could see Sonny and Trent. They must have split into groups of two. That would make it a little harder.

Kelsey motioned with her fingers that Blackburn and Mandy would take out Sonny, she would hit Trent with paint. She then counted down three, two, one and they took their shots.

"What the fuck!" Sonny exclaimed as he had paint running down the front of his vest.

Trent was looking all around but couldn't see anything. "Where the fuck did that shot come from?"

Davis had given everyone radios and got on the walkie-talkie. "Sonny and Trent are out."

The three of them carried down the ravine a little ways before Kelsey motioned them to stop. She switched to a different frequency, one that she knew the boys weren't on but that Davis was. That was thanks to Mandy's knowledge. They never laid out the ground rules that said that they couldn't use Davis to their advantage in the pow-wow this morning and Kelsey was going to take full use of that. And Mandy's skills as well.

"Davis, how far does this ravine run?" Kelsey asked.

"Pretty much down the whole side of the valley."

She took out her map, where the target location was and drew her finger along the ravine and then to the target location. "New plan. Mandy, you go down this ravine the whole way. And then cross over here. You might have to bushwhack it a little on getting out of the ravine and back to the road, though. Blackburn and I are going to draw their fire and hope to God we last awhile."

Mandy looked at her skeptically. "It would be 4 against 2, taking me out of the equation."

"Oh I know. We will get hit, but hopefully it will keep them distracted long enough for you to get back to the truck. Only one of us has to get back."

Blackburn nodded. "I know them. They aren't thinking about a runner, much less Mandy doing the running."

Kelsey handed her the map and the compass. She hoped Mandy knew how to do navigation the old school way. Otherwise, she'd have to wing it.

Mandy shrugged. "I like being the underdog once in awhile," she replied as she took off at a jog down the ravine.

"Let's go draw some fire," Blackburn said.

"You go center, I'll go right," Kelsey nodded towards him.

He nodded that he understood but said one thing in response. "If you have a chance, go up a tree."

Ray and Brock had taken the center, after they told Sonny and Trent to take the left. Jason and Clay would take the right. They thought it was a fool proof plan. Three teams to take out three targets. How hard could it be? They were a group of Tier 1 operators, who specialized in high target missions. They realized they had under-estimated the Officers 15 minutes into the game when Davis came on the walkie-talkies and said Sonny and Trent were out. They definitely vastly miscalculated what the officers were capable of planning in a short amount of time. A butter-bar was out-maneuvering them on their own playing field. Embarrassing.

"Who sniped them is my question?" Ray asked.

"Would have loved for it to have been Kelsey," Brock replied. "With Sonny seeing her face as she hit him."

Ray rolled his eyes. "Would have been a good taste for his own medicine."

"Still is, being taken out this early by a bunch of cake eaters," Brock said. "Is that what he calls officers?"

"I think so."

Brock sighed. "What the hell does she have up her sleeve though? What does she have that we don't have?"

Ray tried to think. "Well she hiked in here before we did, so she would have been thinking about it along the way. Although we've played in here before, so technically we should have the upper hand on this."

"I know. She has the actual maps."

Ray looked at Brock. "Damn it, you're right."

Just then a paintball whizzed by them and hit the tree, right beside Ray. He looked to see who the player was and could barely make out that it was Blackburn. Ray was really confused because Blackburn would never miss that type of open shot normally. So what had gotten his angle and shot off?

Ray and Brock didn't have time to think because Blackburn was running in the opposite direction. Brock took a shot at him and was about to take another but Ray shook his head and called him off. Better to save ammo. Blackburn was running fast, faster than Ray and Brock expected him to. They kept up to him for awhile, waiting for him to tire and turn around and shoot.

Except Ray knew something wasn't right. After about five minutes of chasing Blackburn farther into the woods, Ray put up his hand for him and Brock to stop. He caught his breath for a minute before speaking. "He's leading us on a wild goose chase, on purpose."

Brock raised his eyebrows. "He's purposely making us run around in circles."

"I don't know about that, but he's leading us farther into the woods. He's not dumb, he's doing this for a reason. I just don't know what that reason is."

"Blackburn just doesn't miss a shot," Brock replied.

"Exactly," Ray said. "Which is why we aren't going to keep running. We circle back and wait for him. We do not play into their hand."

15 minutes later, they were patrolling the right side, just waiting for Kelsey, Blackburn or Mandy. They hadn't seen anything or heard anything since chasing Blackburn farther into the woods and then deciding to stop the chase and double back into the middle of the woods. Suddenly a noise caught their attention.

Brock had his paintball gun pointed at the noise and Ray nodded to take the shot. When he saw it was Blackburn he looked at Ray for affirmation on whether to take the shot or not. Ray hesitated as Blackburn was standing right in the open and boy Ray was confused. Blackburn had to have known somebody was about to snipe him. Finally Ray gave a quick nod to Brock, who had the better angle on Blackburn. One shot, mid torso, Blackburn was out of the game.

But as Ray and Brock were distracted with Blackburn, Kelsey was waiting in the tree, right above them. Blackburn was sacrificing himself so she could get two shots off. He had signaled for her to go up while he distracted them and with how agile she was, she did exactly that, with very little noise. The second Ray nodded to Brock, she shot Ray in the back. Two seconds later, she also shot Brock in the back.

Ray turned around to see her in the tree, waving down at him. "Mother fucker."

She began to slowly climb down. "Hi boys," was all she said as she climbed down and took off in the opposite direction.

Brock got on the radio to up date everyone. Lisa would find them and make sure the hits were good. "Blackburn, Ray and myself are out."

Meanwhile, Jason and Clay were on the right hand side of the playing field as they heard Brock's voice come over the radio.

"Kelsey sniped both Ray and Brock?" Clay asked.

Jason shrugged as he thought he heard a noise and swung his rifle to face it. It was a squirrel. They both sighed. "Before or after they got Blackburn, is the question?"

"Well, it's only 2 on 2. We just gotta find Mandy and Kels."

Jason sighed. "My spidey senses are telling me that it's not going to be so easy to find Mandy."

"We're going by your spidey senses now?" Clay asked.

"We're down to 2 on 2 in a gimme game that we should have won in the first fifteen minutes, so yes, I am going off my spidey senses. You know your sister best, what does she think like?"

Clay shrugged. "Haven't been around her enough but I know she likes to think outside the box."

"Start thinking outside the box, Spencer. You have another Spencer that is about to kick your ass."

Clay groaned. "Don't I know it."

The team leader looked at Clay. "Old man has to have some opinions about her doing so well."

"If he does, he hasn't shared them with me."

Jason raised an eyebrow. "Ash doesn't know about her and IOC?"

"Nope and we intend on keeping it that way."

"Huh."

Clay turned to Jason. "You've gotta have some feelings about a female in combat. Surprised you haven't said them already."

Jason sighed. "I think you made the right call asking Ray to help you."

Clay was a little surprised at the Master Chief's response. "Are you saying that you don't agree with women in combat?"

"All I'm saying is, I haven't made up my mind. Let's go find Mandy and Kelsey before I really have to make an opinion on that subject."

After about another ten minutes of them basically walking in wide circles, not far from where the location was to get to the truck to the win the game, Jason stopped and rubbed his face. "This is all wrong. All wrong."

"What are you thinking?"

"Mandy's the real player we have to watch out for," Jason said. "Your sister is fucking smart, and knew we would grossly under-estimate Mandy's abilities and skills and not even think about her."

"But what is Mandy exactly up to? What did Kelsey tell her to do?"

Kelsey was, however, waiting for them. Behind some old brushes, and they hadn't even seen her quietly come up from behind them. "I heard that you think I'm fucking smart."

She stood up and Clay and her fired their weapons at the exact same time. Splat. Paint was both running down their chests. Exactly like how she had planned it. All down to a T. They both fell right into her trap and man, did that ever feel good to know that she had just out-smarted two Tier 1 operators. However, she wasn't dumb and she knew this would be her one and only chance at gloating to them and her one shot at besting them on their own turf. She was going to take the ball and run with it.

Jason rubbed his face as Kelsey came closer, with a big smile on her face. "I think we can call that a draw."

Clay just shook his head. "How?"

She shrugged. "You were distracted," she said. She picked up the radio and spoke into it. "Clay and I are out."

Jason took off in the other direction to look for Mandy, leaving brother and sister staring at each other, daring the other one to speak first. Clay had taken her out of the game but he didn't feel great about it, knowing that it probably played exactly into her hand. And that really pissed him off. It wasn't that it was a girl who was beating him, it was the fact that it was his little sister was kicking his ass at his own game.

Finally he spoke first. "How'd you get so good at this?"

She shrugged and spoke nonchalantly. "Something they probably said the same thing about you. Natural born talent."

"I guess we have one thing to thank Ash Spencer for," Clay muttered. He did see a lot of himself in his little sister and he knew his teammates did as well and that scared him a little. She was cocky, loud mouthed and had an opinion but she had the results to back up the brashness. Something he was like when he first joined Bravo. It rubbed people the wrong way and he knew Kelsey would inevitably piss a few people off along the way, just as he did. She would find her place as well and tone down the cockiness but he wouldn't get in her way of finding her position.

Sonny came on the radio, and his voice held disbelief. "Awe, son of a bitch. They just won the game."

Jason's voice was on there two seconds later. "What?"

Trent's voice carried over right after. "Mandy just showed up at the truck. She's a little wet, looks like she crossed a creek or two, but she's here."

"Fuck!" Jason exclaimed.

Clay turned to his sister as they walked back to the meeting point, where Mandy had won the game. They weren't far, according to Clay's Garmin. Kelsey, gave up her navigational devises to Mandy to get back so she really had no clue where they were. "You and Blackburn were the sacrificial lambs while you sent Mandy somewhere else, to get us off her trail."

"It worked, didn't it?" Kelsey asked.

"How did you think of it?" Clay really wanted to know that question and she knew she wouldn't spill her answer in front of everyone else.

She shrugged. "All of you men, save for you and maybe Ray, are so misogynistic against women that you can't see in front of your very own eyes that Mandy and I were more than capable of playing this game with you bastards. I knew the guys viewed me as more of an equal than Mandy and I knew they threw Mandy straight out of the equation from the minute Davis said game on. Of course I am going to use her as the biggest piece on the chess board with that kind of fucking attitude they had towards her."

Clay just stared at her. "You're fucking serious, with those words?"

"Oh I have a lot more of them for you. And the whole goddamn American military but I won't get into them now. I'll save the monologue because you and Ray actually view women in combat as an okay thing but for the rest of ya'll, well maybe it's about damn time you got your asses kicked by officers and women. I'm not going to begin to get into your guys' head's, and why Sonny thinks it's okay to objectify women the way he does, especially when he says, and I'm paraphrasing here, what a hot piece of ass I am, without realizing who I am. And I am not exactly sure what it is with some of you and not seeing women as equals in these types of environments. I'd really like to know. This wasn't a game of physical strength, this was all tactical skills and using the brain."

He just kept walking, thinking about his sister's comments. She definitely had some harsh words to say. He was going to have to ponder them for a little while, even though in the heat of the moment, he had to admit she had a point. And she was right on most of what she had to say. "So why go into the MOS you are going into if you know that is how you are going to get treated? You know it's going to be a bunch of misogynistic men who don't think women belong there, especially the old boys club."

She shrugged as she saw the truck come partially into the view with everyone at it, except them two. She stopped so Clay could hear her fully. "To change the world? To prove Ash Spencer wrong? I don't know. Honestly, Clay, I think it's so other women who come after me and the little girls who might look up to me for passing IOC don't have to go through the same shit I'm about to go through. Somebody has to be the trailblazer."

"So you're just going to be the hero in this story?"

"Don't be putting words into my mouth," she shot back. "I definitely don't see myself as that. If I pass IOC, it's because I damn well deserve it and I've worked hard and pushed my body to the extreme to get even to this point."

Clay nodded. "Just making sure you're head isn't getting too big."

"I think they'll take care of that at IOC if it does become an issue," she said, smiling. "Let's go have some beer."

Blackburn, Davis, Trent, Brock, Sonny, Ray and a very wet Mandy were waiting at the truck when Clay and Kelsey appeared from the bushes. They assumed Jason was probably not far from behind.

Mandy held out her fist and Kelsey returned the fist bump. "I guess when I told you to bush whack it, you took that literally."

Mandy shrugged as she sipped her beer. Brock passed Kelsey an open one and she nodded her thanks. "Well, there was a better route that I could have taken to avoid the water but I knew after you and Clay were out that Jason was probably onto me and I should probably get my ass in gear. I spotted the creek as short cut. Looks like I was right."

Jason came up behind them, hearing that conversation. "You crossed a creek to avoid getting spotted?"

"It worked, didn't it?" Mandy fired back.

The team leader shook his head as he accepted a beer from Davis. "I definitely didn't see that move coming, at all."

"None of us did," Trent said, sagely.

"So, who's idea was it?" Brock asked.

Blackburn pointed towards Kelsey. "Her idea to go low and snipe Sonny and Trent right away, as well."

"Why did you go low anyways?" Jason asked. "Bad tactical skills."

Kelsey nodded. "I know. But I also knew that you guys wouldn't think two steps ahead in the fact that I know that but would use that to my advantage. That ravine ran the whole side of the valley and it was deep. No way you guys would be looking in there that hard, especially not that early in the game."

"As long as you know to always go high," Ray said. "But good work, staying two steps ahead."

Kelsey laughed. "I think the best one was me going up the tree and sniping both you and Brock while Blackburn gave himself up."

Sonny, Trent, Jason and Clay all turned towards Brock and Ray. "She sniped you from a tree?"

She shrugged. "That wonderful piece of advice came from your Lieutenant Commander."

"Well I'll be damned," Ray said.

"So what did we all learn from this today?" Blackburn looked at Bravo, pointedly.

Ray took one for the team and answered. "Not to underestimate green Lieutenants and CIA Officers. And having another Spencer in the military, albeit the Marines, is going to make everyone's lives a lot more interesting,"

Clay and Kelsey smiled. "I think I can drink to that," Clay answered.

Clay watched as Kelsey loaded her ruck into the backseat of her F-150 that afternoon. She had a three hour drive back to Quantico and he wanted her to get a good night sleep before another brutal week at TBS so he told her to get lost in the afternoon. She was pretty exhausted though so he supplied her with a couple energy drinks from his fridge, about the only thing left in there. He made it abundantly clear to her that if she wanted food the next time she came down next time, she would probably have to stop in at the grocery store on her way to his place. She didn't mind doing that; it just made her worry about what he was eating when she wasn't there.

"You going to give them your answer on IOC tonight?"

She nodded. "I have three lovely hours in a truck to myself to think on it."

"And what's it going to be?"

Kelsey sighed. "I'm leaning towards yes."

"I'm proud of you, whatever decision you choose."

She smiled. "Thanks."

He engulfed her in a hug after she closed the back door. "Drive safe, don't do anything stupid in the next week, and text me lots when you're not in the field so I know you're at least alive."

She let her head stay on his chest for a minute and then pulled back. "Thank you for this weekend."

"Anytime baby girl, anytime. Maybe loop Patrick in on your decision process as well."

"You're an ass," she said, mainly about the dig he got in about her love life, as she got in her truck and closed the driver door but rolled down the window. "But go get some groceries!"

AN: I know ya'll love some Clay whump so I promise that will be coming next chapter... Kelsey ain't going to be so happy being kept in the dark about his injuries.