APRIL 30, 1992
UNDISCLOSED LOCATION
Cricket felt lightheaded, groggy. His head was pounding. It reminded him of that day in Kuwait when Capt. Willard told him he'd be going back to the states. His joints and muscles were sore. His wrists were bound. He realized too late that he couldn't see—blindfolded, judging by the tight pressure wrapped around his head.
He was in a sitting position—a chair? No wonder he felt sore if he'd been left in this state unconscious. Where was he? How long had he been here? How did he get here, wherever 'here' was? The only other sensations he could make out were the whirring of air conditioning, the faint buzz of fluorescent lighting, and the heady scent of burning tobacco mixed with too much aftershave.
So, he wasn't alone. He lifted his head slightly and groaned. He heard a tapping sound and shifting feet.
"Look. He's awake." A man's voice. Youthful, lilting. Like a choir boy.
"I see that." Another man. Older, and raspy like sandpaper. "Finally with us, I see?"
He was addressing Cricket. Cricket said nothing. Best not to talk until he had more information to go on.
"I bet you're wondering where you are. Why you're here. As any man would, I'm sure," said Sandpaper. "Well, all I can say is that this is a sort of test. A game, if you will. The rules are simple: I will ask you a series of questions, and you will answer them honestly. If you refuse to answer them or give me an answer that I do not find satisfactory, I will inflict pain upon you. On the other hand, if you tell me what I want to know promptly, I will inform you of the reason why you were taken and then I will set you free. Seems like a fair trade to me, don't you think?"
Silence. The room—if it even was a proper room—was thick with tension.
"He asked you a question, maggot," spat the Choir Boy.
More silence.
"I see a demonstration is in order," said Sandpaper. Cricket could hear his voice shift direction. "Show him."
A chair squeaks. Heavy footsteps—boots. Cricket's hair tightened and pulled painfully; his scalp felt like it was on fire as he was lifted from his seat. An impact hit him in his diaphragm hard enough to make him retch while pain exploded in his midsection. Cricket felt a momentary loss of equilibrium as he was thrown down, coughing and gasping for breath. The floor felt cold and smooth against his cheek. Not wood. Too smooth and cold for concrete. Linoleum tile?
Cricket is picked up and shoved bodily back onto the chair. He could feel from the air that Choir Boy had bent down to look him in the face. The smell of aftershave got much stronger. "The more you fight, the worse it gets," Cricket could hear Choir Boy saying. "Indicate to me whether you understand."
Normally, a POW would only be obliged to give his captors his name, rank, serial number, and date of birth per the Geneva Conventions. But Cricket didn't exist—even if he was willing, he couldn't give them anything about his identity, lest it led them to FOXHOUND. But he understood how interrogation worked, knew that it was just a mind game; and if he played his cards right, he might be able to learn more from them than they would from him. That's it, he thought to himself, hearing Master Miller's words in his head. Don't give away anything more than necessary. Listen and feel around—absorb everything your senses can gather.
Knowing it wouldn't gain him anything else but unnecessary pain to be too uncooperative at this time, Cricket nodded his head.
"Good."
The footsteps moved away, and the chair squeaked again. Choir Boy had sat back down.
"What's the last thing you remember?" Sandpaper asked.
"Is this the test?" Cricket asked, coughing up blood and phlegm and spitting it onto the floor in a wad.
"Don't be a smartass," Choir Boy said.
Cricket chuckled. Choir Boy had no patience. If Cricket were a betting man, he'd say that he'd probably be easier to get information from, though he couldn't say for sure. Sandpaper, by contrast, was patient. That made him dangerous. Sandpaper wouldn't let Cricket be killed, no matter what his motives were. But that also meant he had an end goal in mind. Cricket would need to be careful not to speak too much. But he didn't have enough to go off of, not yet. So, he chose to answer the question honestly—it was harmless enough, anyway.
"Was celebrating a new milestone with my training at work. Went to a bar with some coworkers and a new roommate of mine for some drinks. My drink must have been drugged, because I remember feeling woozy; that's the last thing I remember before waking up here." It was the base lounge, not a civilian bar, but Cricket figured that was close enough to the truth.
"What was this milestone?"
"Job training. I had just gotten promoted."
"Promoted, you say? To what position?"
"A position with more responsibility than my old one."
"And who is your employer?"
Prolonged silence, then footsteps. Another hit in the solar plexus, then a knee to the gut, followed shortly afterward by the burning razor sensation of metal cutting into his flesh all over his chest and arms. Nothing that would kill him or risk too serious an injury—the cuts were too shallow. But they were enough to hurt. Cricket gritted his teeth and dug his nails into his palms.
Sandpaper chuckled with some amusement. "My associate isn't a very patient man, as you can see. But he is adept at delivering pain, and he very much relishes his job. I think it's important to enjoy what you do, wouldn't you say?"
Cricket hissed a breath through his teeth before giving his best sardonic smile. "Hey, everyone needs a hobby, right?"
Sandpaper lightly chuckled. "Quite. We'll come back to this question later. You mentioned a new roommate. Tell me about him."
Cricket sighed. "What exactly do you want to know?"
"How long have you known each other?"
"We just met a few weeks ago." A small lie to test the waters. His roommate was Vole, one of the members of Sigma Squad who'd made it to the second year of the program along with him. No threats or assaults followed this statement. If Cricket's interrogators knew or suspected that he was lying, they didn't give any indication of it.
"And what did you think of him?"
This was a strange line of questioning. Was this information that his interrogator actually desired, or was it just a means of throwing him off-balance? Were these people tracking his movements? If so, then for how long? Was FOXHOUND compromised?
Cricket gave a non-committal shrug, wincing at the pain the motion brought. "He seemed alright. Haven't known him long enough to have much of an opinion."
"Describe your first impressions of him."
"If you wanted to know about him, why don't you ask him?"
"I'm asking you," Sandpaper said, keeping his voice even.
"Don't make him ask a second time," Choir Boy growled the warning into Cricket's ear.
Cricket laughed. "I like your voice, sounds like a choir boy from a church. Why don't you sing me a song, Choir Boy?"
"The fuck you just call me?"
Cricket gritted his teeth before feeling a sharp impact against his jaw. He tasted blood on his lips. Cricket smirked: Choir Boy was getting sloppy, striking him in the head like that. If he had hit hard enough, it could've knocked Cricket unconscious, or go numb, or even killed him. They'd have lost whatever intel they could have gotten. That's right, Choir Boy, he thought to himself. Get mad.
"Since you asked so nicely," Cricket grunted, sucking the blood off his lips. "He seemed like a decent enough guy. A little quiet, clearly been around the block a few times. A little older than me, clearly pretty smart. There. You happy?"
"Did he have any abilities?"
Cricket furrowed his brow. "Abilities?"
"Yes. Did you observe anything about him that made him seem…different to you, somehow? Things that might have set him apart from his peers? Like, maybe a skill that no one else can do?"
So, they believed that his roommate was an Irregular, then. That explains the interest. But Irregulars were supposed to be uncommon outside of FOXHOUND, to the point of being downright rare. How would these interrogators know about them and their presence within FOXHOUND?
Maybe Vole really was an Irregular, and these people knew his roommate somehow. Maybe he was a clandestine German asset that got lost and made it into FOXHOUND's training program, and these people wanted him back, or they were enemy players who wanted to recruit or kill him. If that was the case, then he probably had good reason not to be found. Either that, or Cricket's reading of Sandpaper's questions was way off.
Deciding to play it safe, Cricket played dumb. "Well, I mean, everybody has their talents, right? Everybody's good at something. Some people can play guitar really well, some people are good at sports. Some people are good at singing, like Choir Boy here." He nodded in the direction of the aftershave smell.
"Indeed," Sandpaper replied, not sounding too irritated by Cricket's evasiveness. "And what would you say your talents are, Mr. Cricket?"
Cricket smirked outwardly, but inside he began to panic. They called him by his codename. Which means they knew of FOXHOUND's existence. His worries that FOXHOUND may be compromised were looking more accurate. The only good thing he learned was that if they were referring to his codename then that meant that they didn't know his real name, which meant that the information they already had on the unit most likely didn't extend to the identities of its trainees. That was more than he had before, but unfortunately it still didn't tell him much.
He turned in the direction that he last heard Choir Boy's voice. Time to try provoking him a bit more. "Why don't you ask Choir Boy's mother? I'm sure she'd be able to tell you all about my 'talents.'"
Choir Boy kept his composure better than Cricket predicted. No harm followed this, just the sound of cracking knuckles. Instead, it was Sandpaper who ordered him to move, saying, "Apply more pressure."
Cricket heard more footsteps. A mechanical whining noise as something revved up, followed by an accompanying buzz. Two metal prongs pressed into his chest and all his muscles spasmed and seized at once; he narrowly avoided biting his own tongue off. A few minutes passed as he jerked and writhed in agony. When the prongs were removed from his chest, Cricket was shaking, his breathing erratic.
"Why do you insist on being so obstinate?" Sandpaper responded.
"Fuck…. you…" Cricket breathed. It was useless bravado, but it made him feel a little better.
Sandpaper chuckled. "I'm going to let you in on a little secret, Cricket."
There was the use of his code name again. Slow, deliberate—like Sandpaper was specifically trying to draw his attention to it. There was a clue there. If Cricket could just get his head in order, he'd be able to find out what it was.
"When it comes to…let's call them 'enhanced interrogation techniques,' it's not a matter of if a person breaks, only a matter of when. Everyone has a breaking point, a line that they cannot cross with themselves, and when they do, they will tell whatever it is their interrogator wants to know. Make no mistake, you will eventually answer whatever I ask you. How much pain you must endure before you do, is entirely up to you."
Cricket chuckled weakly. "Maybe you're right," he said in between ragged breaths, "but then, if a person is telling you whatever will convince you to make the pain stop, how can you tell if what they're saying is the truth?"
"I think Orwell had it right: everyone has the thing that is most important to them, whether it be an ideal or a person they love more than anything. If you can get them to betray that, you will break them utterly, and whatever they tell you from that point forward will be the truth. And all you must do to make it happen is to show them the worst thing in the world."
A squeak from a second chair, with more footsteps. The tobacco smell approaches closer, and Sandpaper says, "I think we can dispense with the foreplay, don't you? Tell me about FOXHOUND. Tell me about the Irregulars. Talk about Big Boss and Gray Fox. Tell me everything you know."
That confirmed it. The interrogator knew of the existence of FOXHOUND and the Irregulars, and they even knew Big Boss by name. The mention of Gray Fox was particularly interesting. He had heard Salamander mention that name before when they were running PT drills.
It was about a week before Salamander had given Cricket notice that he had passed the first year when it had happened. While running past the concourse, Cricket had spotted Big Boss, Master Miller, and a third man talking amongst each other near the administrative building. Big Boss had put a hand on the third man's shoulder, smiling slightly—he clearly respected the stranger.
The stranger was gaunt in the face with narrow shoulders, well-built if the muscles of his exposed arms were anything to go by, and he had shaggy bleach blond hair that came close to covering his eyes. His eyes seemed dull and lifeless, but his smile at Big Boss held a slight warmth to it. When he caught Cricket looking, his eyes widened and stared at him with a burning and uncomfortable intensity, like a predator that had caught sight of its prey. Big Boss and Master Miller followed the man's stare towards his direction and Cricket had quickly averted his gaze, knowing that somehow, he had fucked up. Lo and behold, Sigma Squad got assigned latrine cleaning duty later that day.
When he asked Salamander who the stranger was while cleaning, Sal replied, "That's who you were staring at? Shit, rookie, no wonder we're getting punished—you should've just minded your own damn business."
Sal sullenly pushed with his mop into a nearby stall. "That was Gray Fox," he answered. "He's a FOXHOUNDer—the very best, next to Big Boss himself. He's the only operative in the whole unit who ever earned the codename 'Fox'—it's a reference to his specialty in completing sneaking missions without ever getting caught. He's been conducting black ops for FOXHOUND since the Boss first founded the unit, and in all that time he's never failed a single mission. My advice, rookie? Steer well clear of him if you can help it. The guy's a legend around here—and legends are usually bad news."
Cricket disagreed with Salamander's assessment. If Gray Fox is the best there is, then he's precisely the type of person Cricket should be learning from. Ever since that day, Cricket made it his mission to try to reach the same heights, to be the second person to be awarded the 'Fox' moniker. His first year of training had been mixed, so he would need to throw himself into his endeavor with twice as much effort.
But these interrogators knew who Gray Fox was. If Fox's reputation was accurate, and he was a stealth operative who never failed a mission, then he'd never been compromised. No one outside of FOXHOUND should know who he is. He also remembered what his interrogator said about this being a test. They already knew his codename. Everything clicked into place.
"Tell me everything," Sandpaper repeated.
Cricket raised his head up to the source of the voice. "I think you probably know as much as I do, if not more," he said, his rough voice forming a growling whisper from the strain. "Isn't that right, Drill Instructor?"
The silence was deafening, stretching before him like a yawning chasm. No response was uttered to bridge the gap. The pause was almost too long. Cricket became worried. Was he mistaken in his assessment? He was beginning to regret being so flippant—if he was wrong, then he just outed himself as a FOXHOUND trainee, which would have confirmed the enemy's suspicions. Then:
"End the simulation."
The ropes around his hands were untied. Cricket rubbed his aching wrists before pulling the blindfold off. He was in a small interview room. There was what looked like a mini wind-up car battery on the table in front of him, along with a bloody scalpel and a knuckle duster. Sitting beside these tools unused was a small glass vial labeled "sodium pentathol," a syringe, and a saltshaker. He guessed that the salt would have been used for rubbing into his cuts. He shivered involuntarily at the thought of it.
The two men in the room with him was a pale man about his age with the rough physique of a bodybuilder wearing camo pants and a form fitting undershirt, and an older man in the Army dress uniform, whose nametape read "Jacobs." His chest was decorated with ribbons, and his rank patch pegged him as a Major. Cricket stood up slowly, his legs wobbly, and clumsily gave the best salute he could physically muster. "Sir," he said.
"At ease, cadet," Maj. Jacobs intoned. "Please, sit down. You should rest a bit. Take a moment to recover your strength."
Cricket nodded and sat back down. The younger man helped steady him. "So," Cricket said, "how did I do? Did I pass?"
Jacobs looked up to the right and Cricket followed his gaze to an observation window, where Master Miller was watching, along with some other Army officers. Miller nodded down to Jacobs, and he said to Cricket, "You passed. Congratulations, son."
"If you don't mind my asking, sir, what exactly was I being tested on?"
Jacobs took a seat on the other side of the table with the other soldier. "We wanted to see how you would conduct yourself in the event of being captured by the enemy and interrogated. The objective of the exercise was for you to collect as much information from your captives as possible while revealing little to nothing in return, with no other information to go on except your present circumstances. To facilitate this, you were drugged and brought to this room so that you wouldn't know how you got here or why you were being held, much less who was holding you."
"You did well," the soldier next to Jacobs said, "though we should warn you that in a real field mission, you'll probably be subjected to much worse than what you encountered here today, so you should still make sure you don't get caught in the first place."
"I wasn't planning to," Cricket groaned, rubbing his cheek. "So, that was you going easy on me, huh?"
Jacobs nodded. "The battery is from a go kart—"
"Golf cart," the younger soldier corrected.
"—and is weaker than what other interrogators have been known to use." Jacobs glared at the soldier for correcting him. Cricket cringed internally—that soldier was definitely going to get disciplined later. "And the scalpel was used to inflict only superficial wounds."
"I did notice that they weren't as painful as they could've been," Cricket admitted, "but I had just figured that was because you were more interested in getting information out of me than in having me be killed. After all, dead men don't talk."
Jacobs nodded approvingly. "And as you pointed out earlier, men broken by torture rarely have anything useful to say, either. That was another thing we were testing for—how high your resistance would last until you broke. You have a very high pain tolerance. That will be useful for you in the future."
Cricket nodded. "Yes, sir."
Jacobs' face hardened. "It's only going to get harder from here, son. You made it past your first year, but the rest of your training will be a whole different ball game. There'll be no more team training outside of PT, no more formal classes. From now on, your training will consist mainly of practical field exercises. You will not be told, will not be warned of their contents. They will be dangerous, and they will test your mind, body, and spirit. From now on, death will be a very real threat for as long as you remain here. Do you still want to continue forward?"
Cricket thought back to his brief introduction to Gray Fox, how he had resolved to be the best at what he did, to rival Fox himself. Cricket steeled himself. He would not waver from his goal. "Sir. Yes, sir!"
JUNE 14, 1992
FOXHOUND GARRISON DORMITORIES
"Why do you fight?"
Cricket leaned up in his crowded single bed to look over and stare his companion in the eyes as he scrutinized her question. Vole was out on patrol duty for the night, which gave them both some privacy. It was just the two of them, huddled together in the cramped single bed of the small dorm room whose sturdy aluminum frame and springs only gave the smallest of squeaking protests to the presence of the visitor.
Cricket and Honey Badger had worked well together over the past year, both in Sigma Squad and outside of it. Together with Vole, Salamander, and Tortoise, who had all passed the first year with flying colors, the group had become a close-knit group of friends and comrades who confided in each other even as they each faced their own tests and classes alone with the various FOXHOUND instructors. To relieve stress, Cricket and Honey would occasionally meet up for private dalliances in their off-time, breaking several rules regarding trainee fraternization in the process.
There was no real romantic attachment to it; just two friends with compatible orientations able to help each other when times called for it. Their friends knew about it, but since it didn't interfere with any of their training and there was no likelihood of drama due to their willingness to drop it at a moment's notice, everyone just turned a blind eye. All the same, Cricket was grateful for her company on the nights in between grueling training sessions; having someone he could be physically close to who also understood the trials that came with being a soldier in wartime was something of a comfort.
On this particular night, Cricket impulsively asked Honey why she had chosen to leave Chechnya for France. He'd always been curious, but Sal's warning from the first day they had met had been in the back of his mind and he figured it would be a bad idea. But with their relative closeness these past few weeks and with the trust they'd built up as teammates, now seemed as good a time as any to satisfy that curiosity.
Honey looked taken aback and was uncomfortable with the sudden question. She stayed silent for a while, and Cricket began to regret opening his mouth and ruining the post-coitus mood. He was about to tell her to just forget he asked when she responded with her own question. Then it was his own turn to be confused and uncomfortable. When he didn't answer immediately, Honey Badger repeated: "Why do you fight, Cricket?"
Cricket responded, "What do you mean?"
Honey Badger looked at her fidgeting hands. In stilted Russian, she slowly began, "When I left Chechnya, we were on rocky terms with the Soviet Union. You know how last year, when the USSR fell, my country declared its independence? War with Russia became inevitable after that. It might be today, or tomorrow, but I know it is coming, just as I knew it then. I sought escape. I knew France offers citizenship to foreigners in exchange for service to the state, so I took my chance. But I left a family behind: my parents, my sister, two brothers…and a daughter. I wished to have them come to France with me, but I didn't have the means. So, I sent them portions of my pay, in the hopes of getting them out before war came. I still have hope for that.
"When I proved myself useful, America came and gave me an offer: safe harbor, citizenship, and more importantly, more money than France was willing to give me—enough to move my whole family to the country of my choice sooner rather than later. But to get this, I must pass the test—I must make it into FOXHOUND. In the Foreign Legion, I have killed and hurt many to get here. In FOXHOUND I will kill, maim, and hurt many more."
Honey's voice was chill and even as her words escaped her lips in a thin, razor-sharp whisper. However, even as she spoke, her hands shook as she contemplated her fingernails, unable to meet Cricket's gaze. "I am no stranger to war and death, nor is my family. My father was a child of the diaspora, when Stalin falsely accused my people of collusion with the Nazis, rounding them up and deporting them thousands of miles away from home. I've overheard stories he and his friends shared over vodka, of men, women, and children dying of starvation and disease on the train cars. The mass graves he saw as a child…when I announced my intention of joining the Legion, there was so much pain in my father's eyes. I know he hoped to spare his children of the horror. Now that I have served on the battlefields myself, I know how he must have felt. I wish to spare my siblings and my daughter of the same."
Suddenly, Honey's breath hitched slightly, but her eyes maintained the same frozen stare with not a tear in sight. Her speech became hurried, and Cricket had to focus to make sure he got every word of her Russian as she continued, "Ever since my payments home stopped after leaving the FFL, they probably believe that I am dead. With the secrecy of this place and its missions, I will never be able to see or talk to my family again. But if I do this, then they will be safe and secure. To me, that is worth my blood and the blood of my comrades—I would die a thousand times and endure a thousand tortures to ensure it."
Cricket turned her words over in his brain. Her conviction was not in question—she meant and believed every word she said. He didn't really know what to say, so he said nothing. Part of him considered putting a steadying hand on hers. To comfort her, maybe? But he couldn't make himself do it. Something was stopping him, but he couldn't put his finger on what. There was something about the strength of her will that told him that she'd probably see it as an unwelcome pitying gesture. Or maybe he just felt unworthy of trying to connect with her, given the relative lack of purpose to his own motivations. He regretted asking her about her past, and wished he'd never said anything.
Honey took a moment to breathe before turning to Cricket and pointing the interrogation back to him. "Now you know, Cricket: I fight for my family. That is why I'm here, and not back in Chechnya. So, tell me: why are you here? What do you fight for?"
It was Cricket's turn to avoid her gaze as he took a drag from his cigarette. The truth was, was that he didn't really know. He had no family to support like she did. He was indoctrinated into the patriotic mindset of the US military in Basic Training like his fellow soldiers, but while he was able, ready, and willing to fight and die for America like the rest of them, he'd never really thought to question his own reasons for doing so. There was no conviction to his actions like Honey had, no overarching goal—and he knew it. And knowing that fact made him disgusted with himself. He did everything he could not to let it show on his face, however.
Knowing it wasn't fair to let Honey bare her soul to him without an answer of his own, Cricket said the first thing he thought of, which was to tell of his own past. "I never knew my parents," he said. "I grew up as an orphan. Bounced around a lot in the foster care system as a kid, never staying with a single family or in a single school for long enough to form more than surface-level attachments. I've had a lot of different home environments—some of them showed me kindness, others…not so much."
Cricket didn't feel like expounding on the subject of the continually underfunded foster care and education systems in America or talking about any of the foster families that sometimes showed a more abusive side to them, so instead he quickly moved on to something approaching the present day. "The Army was my way out. There, I was given skills and taught how to use them. I was given a purpose, and direction. What's more, is I was good at it—I must be, if they saw fit to move me here. There was satisfaction and pride. The men I served with were the closest thing I had to a family for the first time in my life. Lima Company, they were my comrades, my brothers. The United States government gave me everything I have: a purpose, a family, skills, and knowledge. I owe everything I have, everything I am, to America. I am—can only be—nothing but grateful for that.
"Since then, they've told me that the best way I can repay that kindness is to come here for a chance to serve in what is supposed to be the most elite fighting force in the world. How could I say no?"
Honey's brow knitted together as she processed Cricket's words. She looked about as satisfied with Cricket's answer as he felt. "So, you fight to repay the masters that showed you kindness? You fight for country? For your comrades?"
Cricket shook his head. "Not exactly. It's more like, I fight because I don't really know how to do anything else. It's the one thing I'm good at, the one thing I have that's useful, and it's something I enjoy." Cricket went quiet for a moment as he considered that last part—did he really enjoy the violence? He shrugged and continued, "It's the only thing I have. I fight and I survive because it's the only thing I know." Cricket kept his eyes on the foot of the bed they shared, face flushing with embarrassment. "My reason's not noble like yours. I don't have anyone to protect."
Cricket felt like there was something more he could have said, but the words simply weren't coming to him. All he could feel was disappointment, embarrassment, and a twinge of shame. Whatever Honey thought of what Cricket had told her, she didn't say; and her face was equally impassive. They continued laying together in silence, Honey's hand resting on Cricket's chest as they stared at the ceiling waiting for sleep to take them.
AUGUST 10, 1992
THE MIDDLE OF THE WILDERNESS
Cricket was kidnapped in the middle of the night, stolen from his bed. He had attempted to fight back but was quickly subdued and bound with a bag over his head. His captors put him in the back of what he assumed was some kind of vehicle, as he felt rumbling beneath his feet and the sensation of movement. He wasn't alone. He felt someone sitting beside him, possibly bound like he was. A familiar voice sounded over a set of tinny speakers; it was Master Miller.
"Good, you're finally awake. In five minutes, you will be removed from this vehicle and set loose. You two have been charged with a simple training mission. The objective is simple: get to the rally point without being captured. You will have to work together to achieve this objective. One of you has a fragment of a map, the other has another fragment and a knife. I expect you will make good use of these tools and of the skills given to you from my survival classes in the previous year to get to your objective.
"There will be others looking for you as you make the journey. This opposing force is staffed not just by FOXHOUND instructors, but also by your fellow trainees. Make use of your wits and whatever is at hand as you make your way to your objective. If you have any questions, ask them now; you won't get another chance."
The two cadets said nothing as the vehicle they were in came to a rolling stop and the bench they sat on stopped vibrating underneath them. Doors were heard opening, and the two cadets were forcibly pulled from their seats and thrown onto a hard ground of dirt and gravel. The masks were pulled from their faces, and Cricket had just enough time to process the presence of Tortoise standing above him with Fruit Bat, their grim faces illuminated by the red taillights as they walked back into the back of the armored van and closed the doors behind them. After watching them drive away and out of sight, Cricket looked to his companion who was already hard at work cutting her bonds.
"Black Mamba?" he said aloud, with surprise.
"Nice to see you too," Mamba grunted as she sawed away at the strands tying her wrists together. "Hang on, let me get this cut, then I'll do you."
After several minutes of awkward sawing, Mamba was able to get herself and Cricket free of their bonds, and they ran off the road into a wooded area just off the path. They needed to get out of the open. Once they were a good ways into the wood, they stopped to catch their breath. As his eyes adjusted better to the natural darkness, Cricket looked up at the sky, still dark gray and dim above the trees. "Sun hasn't risen yet," he pointed out. "It'd be a bad idea to try navigating at night without at least a compass, even if we have a map."
Mamba nodded. "Agreed. And a fire would give away our position."
Cricket leaned against a tree. "So, nothing we can do for now but wait."
Mamba looked around, expecting human figures to come darting out of the woods. She said, "I don't think I'll be able to get back to sleep anytime soon. I'll take first shift if you want to rest."
Cricket rubbed the back of his neck, realizing that he did feel exhausted and gratefully took her up on this offer. He sighed and slid down the bark of the tree to sit. "Wake me in an hour or when the sun rises, whichever comes first."
Black Mamba agreed and posted first watch as Cricket's eyelids grew heavy.
When Cricket woke up, the sky had brightened into a much lighter shade of gray, the woods now perfectly visible. Mamba was crouched nearby, staring out in the direction of where they had entered the forest. "How long was I out?" Cricket grunted.
"Hard to tell. Skies are cloudy. Sun just rose a little while ago. Was going to wake you about an hour ago, but I knew I wasn't going to be able to sleep, so I let you sleep in."
Cricket was annoyed. "Should've woken me up anyway. We both need our strength."
Mamba didn't respond. Whatever. What's done was done. No point in getting angry about it. Black Mamba pulled a piece of paper from her pocket. "Check your pockets," she said. "Master Miller said he'd left us map fragments. We might not have a compass, but if there's a landmark we can find as a reference point, that would help us."
Cricket patted the pockets of his cargo pants, realizing only now that his captors must have dressed him, since he was dragged out of bed in his skivvies. Something about that irritated him, but he didn't comment on it. In short order he had retrieved a folded piece of paper. When they both unfolded their papers and placed them next to each other, what they had was a topographical map of what looked to be a small valley, a mountain range on the north side (he was thankful that his map fragment had a compass rose for reference), and a series of large hills to the south and west. At the eastern edge of their incomplete map was a river. The whole area was wooded, and there were arterial dirt roads crisscrossing the woods in every direction, dividing them into sections. A big red arrow was drawn on the map pointing eastward in the general direction of the river.
"Is that where we're meant to go?" Cricket asked, pointing at the arrow.
"It's all we have to go on," Black Mamba said. "Whole area is nothing but woods. Only way to get a good look around is to either climb a tree and risk getting spotted or go onto the roadways out into the open…and risk getting spotted."
"This map is incomplete," said Cricket. "We don't even know if we're in the area that this map covers."
"You really think that they would give us a map that doesn't cover ground that we can see?" Mamba asked.
"Well, they didn't give us a destination," Cricket replied, "and at this point, I don't think we should assume anything."
"Point taken. One of the objectives is to not be captured, so we should assume that there are other cadets acting as OPFOR, maybe even FOXHOUND instructors and staff. If we have actual FOXHOUNDers waiting for us, we'll need to be extra careful," said Black Mamba.
Cricket nodded. He looked around: bushes, trees, moss, brown earth, gray rocks. He knelt and dug his fingers into the ground, which was surprisingly springy and soft, he noted to his satisfaction. With a tug, he pulled up handfuls of dirt and began rubbing it onto his arms and face and smearing it onto his olive drab shirt. His fingernails were caked in dirt and grime. "No face paint," he said in answer to Black Mamba's questioning look, "so this'll have to do." He then grabbed a fistful of pine needles from a branch and leaves from a bush and crumpled them in his hands and pushed them into his thick, shaggy brown hair that he'd let grow out over the past few months. Realizing what Cricket was doing, Mamba followed his example.
He looked over to Mamba. "You still have those cords they tied us up with?"
Mamba fished into her pockets and dug out the cords, handing Cricket a couple of long strips of rope, keeping the other two strips for herself. "Can I borrow your knife?" Cricket asked. She handed it off to him, and he cut the rope strips into more pieces before handing it back to her. He then picked up bush leaves and twigs and set about tying them to his arms and ankles, with Mamba following suit. When they were finished, they looked each other over, they agreed they were about as well camouflaged as they could manage.
"So, what's the plan?" Cricket asked Mamba.
"Why are you asking me?"
"We need to work together to finish this exercise. Figured you'd have some ideas."
Black Mamba brushed a dirty blonde strand of hair caked with mud out of her face as she looked up a thick, sturdy tree. "I'd rather not chance the open road. One of us should climb to the treetops and see if they can't spot the mountain from where we are. That'll be our reference point."
"Are we assuming that we're south of the mountain?" Cricket asked.
"Seems as reasonable an assumption as we can make, with the portions of the map we have. Even if we're not, we can always try going around it." Mamba shrugged. "Unless you have any better idea?"
Cricket shook his head. "No, that works. You want to climb up, or should I?"
"You do it. I'll keep watch and let you know if I see anyone coming our way."
"Got it."
With a grunt, Cricket grabbed one of the thicker lower branches and hefted himself up, planting his foot in the crook of the branch. Step by step he made his way up the tree even as the branches got thinner and thinner. A couple of times he would feel a branch creak under his weight, and he would have to quickly pull himself along before it broke. When he got as high up as he could before there were no more usable branches to climb with, he wrapped his legs around the thinner trunk and looked around.
They were indeed inside a valley. The trees spread out in an ocean of verdant green, still going strong in the late summer as they gently crested upward far ahead of him and into the horizon where he could see the far-off hills, which aside from being pockmarked by trees was mostly bare grass. On his right, he saw the mountain range, which while small as mountains go, had their peaks triumphantly thrusting skyward and imposing over the valley in their shadow. Cricket nodded in satisfaction as he started making his way back down the tree. When he got back to the bottom, he pointed in the direction that he'd seen the mountain range. "Unless there's another set of hills on the other side of the mountain range, that way is north."
"Great," Mamba smiled. "Then the road we came from runs east to west. If we stay just behind the tree line and follow it eastward, we should have no problems getting to the river and figuring out what to do next."
Cricket nodded. "We can't let our guard down, though. OPFOR could be anywhere."
Having voiced their agreement, the duo started making their way east. The ground was uneven, with plenty of hidden footfalls and snake holes to trip the unwary traveler. The sky stayed stubbornly gray, as if the weather itself was determined to deny them even the most basic of navigational advantages. During the hours they trekked, the two cadets said very little to each other, neither having much to say to the other.
At around noon, the sky started to clear up, and the sun could be seen at its highest point. It was then that the two soldiers saw fit to start looking for food. With only the one knife between them, tracking down prey for protein was going to be a difficult job. They set up snares in their area, but they only caught one rabbit, which wasn't much meat for one person, let alone two.
Every so often, they would stop so Cricket could climb another tree to get a lay of the land so they could compare their current location against the map they had. By about two in the afternoon, they heard the far-off sound of rushing water.
"The river must be close," said Black Mamba.
They moved more towards the sound, when they heard the sound of footsteps in the distance, which prompted them to immediately go prone. Cricket crawled slowly away from Mamba to put some distance between them in case they got ambushed. Slowly strolling into view were two men in fatigues carrying rifles. Cricket didn't recognize either of them—they must have been members of one of the other cadet squads. One was pale, short, and stout with a stocky, muscular frame and burning orange hair and goatee. The other man was black, thin, and wiry. Both men were sweating fiercely in the humid summer air.
"Hey, Armadillo," said the skinny man, "got any smokes?"
"Yep," said the stout ginger man, apparently named Armadillo. He pulled out a pack of Lucky Strikes and grabbed one in his mouth before pulling out a lighter for it.
Silence passed for a moment, and Armadillo's companion stopped walking. "Well?" he said, impatiently.
"Well, what?" asked Armadillo.
"You going to give me one?"
Armadillo puffed a few times and blew out a smoke ring to really emphasize the pause he took before answering with a blunt, "No."
"Man, fuck you," the thinner man growled.
"Hey, it's not my fault you forgot to grab yours before we came out," Armadillo said with an amused shrug.
"Whatever. So, what's the deal with our targets, these new trainees?"
"What, didn't you listen to the briefings?"
"Will you quit being a tight-ass and just answer?"
Armadillo sighed with exasperation. "Jesus, Mongoose…" He took a long drag from his cigarette and rubbed his temple in a 'it's too early in the week for this shit' kind of way.
"Hey, it's not like they don't drag us out of bed for this shit with no warning, too. I didn't have time to grab coffee before we were out of the briefing room," Mongoose complained.
"Alright, alright," Armadillo waved his hand in a 'calm down' gesture. "Today we're just supposed to be hunting down a couple of strays: a pair of trainees they dug up from Boot that they dumped a few clicks west of here. We're supposed to keep them from getting across the river. There, happy?"
"No, I get that. But who'd they grab. Any Irregulars?"
"One of 'em, yeah. Some chick who's good with knives. Apparently, she even has skills with swordplay. Trained with samurai and kung fu masters; some real David Carradine, Jet Li stuff."
"No shit? Where'd they pick her up from?"
"Used to work as an assassin, but word is she retired after she got knocked up. FOXHOUND reached out to her some years later when her kid had grown up a bit, offered her some work."
"How big we talking?"
"Big enough to get the attention of some mean people. The Yakuza hate her, and there are some cartels that know her on a first-name basis."
"Damn…think they might come this way?"
"For my sake, Mongoose, I sure hope so. Give me a break from your constant nagging in my ear."
"Go to hell, Arma."
"Already there, Mongoose. This headache is killing me."
Mongoose chuckled. "You been hitting the bar at the lounge?"
Armadillo gave Mongoose a wry smirk. "Yeah, something like that."
"Keep saying you should lay off."
"Yeah, I know you do," Armadillo replied.
The two men continued moving slowly into the woods as they continued to banter back and forth, oblivious to the two cadets lying in wait on either side of them. Black Mamba caught Cricket's eye and motioned with her hand for Cricket to take Armadillo while she takes Mongoose. Cricket nodded and slowly crept forward to take a position behind the shorter man, hoping that Armadillo's girth would help to conceal him from the thinner counterpart.
When he got up close, Cricket drove a kick into the back of Armadillo's right knee to stagger him, after which he grabbed his left arm with one arm and put him in a headlock with the other. Mongoose turned to point his rifle at Cricket's head and Cricket swung Armadillo around to put his body in the line of Mongoose's shot. Mamba jabbed into the nerve cluster in Mongoose's neck and kicked him the groin, after which she quickly grabbed the rifle and its slide to prevent an accidental discharge while she got in front of him and used her hips and lower leverage to hoist him up and over her shoulder and onto the ground, taking the rifle out of his hands in the process and pointing it at Mongoose.
"I suggest you don't move," she told him.
Before Cricket could instruct Armadillo to cooperate, the short barrel-chested man dropped his rifle from his free hand and grabbed the arm around his neck, lifting his legs up into the air as he curled himself into a ball. Cricket was unable to cope with the shift in their center of gravity and began to fall forward with Armadillo pulling them both down and using the momentum to pull Cricket over his head and slamming him onto his back into the dirt.
Cricket raised his foot up in a kick, but it was easily knocked away by Armadillo's meaty hands, which started raining down blows on Cricket's head. Only having just enough time to cover his face with his arms, Cricket was getting pummeled by Armadillo's fists, which felt like getting smashed by solid granite. Hearing a cry from Armadillo's throat, Cricket lowered his arms to see the pocketknife Mamba was carrying was now lodged in his bicep. Getting a better look at Armadillo's fists, Cricket realized that the feeling of being pummeled by stone wasn't metaphor—his hands had hardened and taken on the texture of rock.
Yanking the knife from his arm with a grunt and tossing it aside, Armadillo's face was frozen with pure fury as the skin of his whole body changed texture to match his fists. He closed the distance between himself and Black Mamba surprisingly quickly, and she only had just enough room to dodge his swings and use his knee as a springboard to vault over him, leaving Mongoose prone on the ground. "Run!" she yelled to Cricket as she started sprinting eastward. Cricket quickly grabbed the fallen knife and followed suit, running as fast as his legs could carry him. Soon after he heard the crack of gunfire behind him and rounds whizzing past.
As the distant sound of rushing water got louder and louder, Mamba and Cricket both found hiding places while they watched for their pursuers, Mamba hidden in a ditch under an outcropping of tree root, and Cricket wrapping himself around a particularly thick tree branch up above. It wasn't long before Armadillo and Mongoose appeared from the underbrush, with Mongoose carrying a pistol and Bowie knife and Armadillo shouldering his rifle, still fielding his natural armor.
"They disappeared!" said Mongoose.
"They can't have gotten far," Armadillo growled.
"Think they made it as far as the river?"
"It's a possibility."
Mongoose fished a large protein bar from his bag and tossed it to Armadillo. "Here. You'll need the calories for that armor of yours."
Armadillo nodded in thanks, shoving half of the bar into his mouth. When he finally swallowed, he said, "Let's hurry and get to the river. Maybe we'll catch them. Even if we don't, we might be able to cut them off."
The duo rushing away, Cricket and Mamba waited until the sound of their heavy footsteps disappeared before they both simultaneously let out a breath that neither realized they were holding. Once certain of their safety, Cricket slid down the tree and met up with Mamba.
"You good?" Cricket asked.
"Yeah," Mamba whispered. "You?"
"I'll be alright." Cricket looked to where the two soldiers ran off to. "Another Irregular, I'm guessing?"
Black Mamba nodded. "Heavy Armadillo. He's not a cadet, he's a FOXHOUNDer. The other guy with him is Explosive Mongoose. Armadillo has a strange genetic condition that lets him harden the outer layer of his skin. I've heard he can even no-sell armor-piercing sniper rounds. Mongoose, as his name implies, is an explosives expert. A genius chemist, but kind of useless in this training scenario. I wonder why they got paired together…"
"Doesn't matter," Cricket said. "What matters is they know where we're going, and they're going to be waiting for us. Do you remember what that Mongoose guy was saying, about Armadillo 'needing the calories?' What was that about?"
Black Mamba shrugged. "I don't know. Maybe maintaining that armor skin takes a lot of energy? Wonder how long he can keep it up…"
"That was some fancy acrobatics. The knife throwing was helpful, too. Thanks."
"Had a lot of practice."
"You think you might be able to dodge his hits, tire him out maybe?"
Mamba thought for a moment. "Probably. Why? What are you thinking?"
Cricket looked eastward again. "Nothing, yet. We should follow in their wake. I have an idea that might be worth trying, but I need to see what the river looks like first."
The two cadets carefully moved through the forest toward the sound of rushing water. As they neared the edge of the woods, they crawled along the ground so they could peer from the tree line without exposing themselves. In front of them was a clearing with a large river bisecting the field in a line perpendicular to them. The water didn't look too deep from what they could see, but the river itself was very wide and looks could be deceiving. There were piles of rocks, boulders, and loose stones in various parts that looked like they would make for convenient footpaths for crossing. Looking further to the south, a bridge could be seen in the distance further downstream, with a couple of small buildings and a guard tower on the far eastern side.
Standing by the near shore of the river right in front of them were the waiting figures of Armadillo and Mongoose, staring blankly in their direction, but making no indication that they could see them. Cricket slowly turned his head to Mamba and whispered, "That natural armor of Arma's, do you think it makes him any heavier?"
Mamba shook her head slightly. "I don't think so; it's literally just his skin. I think it just seems like he's denser and hits harder because he was already muscle-bound and top-heavy to begin with. He's just that strong."
"Hmm, that shore is just dirt and rock, and the grass gets thinner the further out from the tree line you go. I don't think our camouflage is going to help us sneak around them, even if we went further up or down stream. There's also that guard post south of us. That's probably where we should go next, come to think of it."
"So, how do you want to tackle it?" Mamba asked.
"See if you can't get Armadillo into the water closer to where the current is more rapid. Between the energy he exerts with his armor and wading in the water, that should give you an advantage."
"What about me? I'm going to have to tread water too. And the drag on our clothing will make it hard to move for both of us."
"Maybe you can lure him on to the rocks where it's relatively safe to fight and then force him into the water when you get an opportunity?"
Mamba considered the idea. "That might work. What about Mongoose?"
"I can take Mongoose. His only specialty is explosives, right? So, he'll be no stronger, faster, or agile than any other combatant. I can deal with that."
"Don't underestimate him," Mamba warned. "Remember, he's still a FOXHOUNDer."
"Got it. On your mark."
Mamba counted to three, and on three they both rushed forward from the tree, Mamba firing her rifle at the FOXHOUNDers in their way. Mongoose quickly ducked behind the stout frame of Armadillo, who armored up to take the fire. As Armadillo raised his rifle to return fire, Cricket and Mamba split up from each other in a wide arc so that he couldn't shoot both of them at once. He aimed at Mamba, and Cricket quickly grabbed a rock and threw it at Armadillo's head to distract him as Mamba lunged in close and repeated her earlier movement to jump from Arma's thigh and flip over him, giving him a solid whack to the forehead with the butt of her rifle to get his attention.
Cricket, meanwhile, slid underneath between both Armadillo's and Mongoose's legs, grabbing Mongoose's ankle on the way, and yanking him off his feet. Before Mongoose could react, Cricket scrambled up, dragged Mongoose by the leg by about a foot as Mongoose started to fight back, and then pulled him up by his vest to throw him further away. Having successfully separated the two, Mamba was now free to focus solely on Armadillo while he and Mongoose fought.
Landing behind Armadillo, Mamba continued taking potshots at his armored head. While Armadillo's armor protected against bullet penetration, he could still feel the impact of blunt force trauma, and he began to feel mildly concussed. Not wanting to kill him, Mamba laid off and started retreating over the rocks into the river, hoping that Armadillo would be angry enough to follow her instead of continuing to shoot.
Her gambit worked: when Armadillo finished shaking off his dizziness, he looked up at her with wrath in his eyes and lumbered after her, his rifle dropping from his shaking hands as he pulled out a knife. Mamba was in her element, ducking, dodging, and weaving under his knife strikes with the grace of a ballet dancer. As she dodged, she kept backing up further and further into the river. She was quickly running out of stones with which to place her feet, and the water was getting deeper, now up to Armadillo's thighs. With a feint, she smirked as Armadillo took the bait and stabbed at a blonde head that was no longer there, overextending his arm, which Mamba was able to grab and pull to send him flying into the water, which swept him away as he kept losing his footing.
Between the concussion from the gunshots, the stress of fighting, and now having to fight against the swift current as he kept gaining and losing his footing, Armadillo could no longer maintain his armor and his skin resumed its normal peach color. Letting the current carry him, he focused on staying upright with his head above the water as he was swept down the light rapids onto a boulder that he barely clawed himself onto, gasping and weak.
As Mamba was fighting with Armadillo, Cricket was locked in a struggle with Mongoose. First Mongoose tried to point his pistol at Cricket's center-mass, but Cricket grabbed the barrel and pushed the slide back, wedging his hand in the chamber to prevent Mongoose from being able to fire. As he gripped as hard as he could, Cricket hooked his other hand and put the knife in its reverse grip around Mongoose's neck to try and push him down.
But Mongoose had firm footing, and he pushed back against Cricket with his free hand while struggling to maneuver the pistol into pointing at Cricket again. Cricket doubled his effort to push Mongoose, and Mongoose was forced to let go of the pistol to successfully push Cricket off of him. Cricket lost his grip on the pistol in surprise, and the firearm went flying away from both of them.
Mongoose didn't give Cricket a chance to recover, quickly moving in to strike at Cricket's midsection, then grabbing Cricket's arm and spinning him so that Mongoose was positioned behind him. With Cricket's head positioned forward, his body could do nothing but follow. He wasn't at a good enough angle to strike back with his free hand and his locked arm twisted behind him.
Not sure what else to do, Cricket did the first thing he could think of, turning in the direction of his arm, jumping up to curl his legs inward, and letting gravity pull them both downward, similar to how Armadillo had escaped from his grip earlier. Though Mongoose did stumble slightly, he didn't fall like his partner did, and Cricket ended up swinging in a pendulum motion toward the ground, though as he did, he spun just enough in Mongoose's loosening grip that he was now facing his enemy, giving him a free shot to knee the taller man in the groin hard.
That got him free, and Cricket used the opportunity to keep wailing on Mongoose, striking him in the face until he fell over. Cricket looked around, spotted the discarded pistol, and rolled to it as he picked it up, aimed at Mongoose as he got up and fired in one fluid motion.
Mongoose fell over and didn't get up. Cricket expected to see paint splotches on Mongoose's torso where his rounds had hit them. When Cricket didn't see any blue paint, he began to panic. He thought back to what Capt. Jacobs had said to him back in April. From now on, death will be a very real threat for as long as you remain here…
Was Cricket's first kill since coming to the FOXHOUND training camp a FOXHOUNDer? Had he just murdered a fellow comrade? Shaking, he stepped over to Mongoose, frantically patting him down to search for the injury. Maybe it wasn't too late to treat it. If he could just stop the bleeding he could get Mongoose to the guard post and report it so they could get Mongoose to a hospital.
"Cricket, what are you doing?" Black Mamba had walked up behind him.
"Gotta stop—stop the bleeding. I have to, I have to," Cricket was mumbling, not making sense.
"Cricket, stop. Stop! Look." Mamba pointed. Cricket followed her gesture. There was no blood, no sign of any injury. Stuck inside Mongoose's shirt were what appeared to be several darts. Mongoose himself was unconscious, softly snoring.
"He's okay?" Cricket asked in mild confusion. It took a moment to hit him. Of course—tranquilizer rounds. It was still a training exercise, and OPFOR was given orders to capture, not kill them. He looked at the pistol. A converted Mk22 "Hush Puppy." He'd seen it before in the previous year's classes.
"What about the rifle?"
Mamba shouldered her rifle and handed Armadillo's to Cricket. "Rubber bullets. They'll hurt like hell, but as long as you don't take a wrong hit in the head, you should be okay. I only shot Armadillo in the head because I knew he could take it." She looked out at Armadillo, who had passed out from exhaustion, before turning back to Cricket. "Come on. We need to get a move on before these guys wake up and before that guard post sends people this way."
Cricket nodded numbly, pulled back the slide on his pistol to chamber another tranquilizer round, and checked Mongoose's pockets, where he found a compass, another protein bar, and another map fragment. He then tucked the pistol in his waistband while shouldering the spare rifle Mamba gave him, nodding. "I'm ready. Let's go."
Together, they made their way across the river and across the field sloping downhill into another wooded glade.
Later that evening as the sky turned to orange dusk, Mamba and Cricket took some time during their last bit of daylight to examine the third map fragment they found. The lower left corner was a little northeast of their position, given its view relative to the mountain range. According to the topographic lines, the general path they were on through the woods led to a series of cliffs, at the top of which was a clearing. This clearing was circled in red. The rally point? With nothing else to go on, it was unclear what the circle was meant to signify.
Based on the distances shown on the map and their current progress, it would take another couple of days to reach it, and that was assuming there would be no further delay from OPFOR, which was unlikely. Cricket stretched and popped his neck, feeling exhausted from the thought.
One other feature of note on the way there was a small gathering of buildings to the southwest of the red circle. Another guard post? A staging area? It was impossible to be sure. The two cadets agreed that it would be a good idea to recon the place before moving further northward in case there were any resources or clues that might help them.
As the sky got darker, clouds began to form and there came a rumbling to warn the coming of rain. Quickly, the two cadets wordlessly set about the work to gathering heavy wood and leaves to make two makeshift lean-tos positioned at the bottom of two trees to try and keep themselves dry as much as they possibly could.
Once their labor was finished, they both hunkered down and let the rain lull them to sleep, both lacking the energy for further conversation after the excitement of the day's climactic events. After all, they both knew, it was going to be important to conserve as much energy as possible for the rest of the exercise to come…
A/N: I originally wanted to fit the whole training exercise in one chapter, but this was getting pretty long, so I decided to split it up into two parts. The next chapter will show the events of the remainder of this exercise with Snake and Black Mamba, a shorter exercise on tailing targets/general espionage as well as a time skip summarizing the general events leading up to the final exam, which I hope I'll be able to use as the capstone for the end of next chapter. I'm getting kind of impatient to get to the actual Metal Gear story, and while this training arc is a lot of fun to write, I'm really excited to get to the meat of the story.
I hope you enjoyed this chapter, and I look forward to writing many more as we move forward into this origin story for Snake's first adventure. Please don't hesitate to review and let me know what you think!