Chapter 4- The Bomb

"WOLF! WATCH OUT!"

The warning came just in time through the earpiece, giving me just enough time to ten around and slam my fist into the chest of a simulated enemy that had popped up behind me. "Thanks for the warning, Hawk. Appreciate it."

"No problem, but you got more trouble heading up the third-floor stairwell. I count six. Three of them have knives and the rest have bats. I'd say get something ready for them."

Man, this was an intense training session. We started this whole shebang off with a mission to stay undetected and here we were paying the price for not being able to tell the guy at the bar the passcode. Who even knows the capital of South Carolina?! So much bullcrap that you have to remember at the beginning and then screw it up once and the whole mission goes to shit.

"Wolf! This isn't the time for reminiscing on our mistakes. Get going!" That snapped me out of my thoughtful trance. My feet stomped across the tile floor as I raced my way to the emergency stair door and grabbed the fireaxe that was stationed next to it. I pulled a little sliver of steel out of my tactical pocket, a pocket always full of small slivers of steel for me to morph at any moment, and it slowly began melting from its grey color into an olive green. Its shape slowly turned into that of a grenade and after a few seconds, I had a roughly made frag grenade in my right hand. Taking my position next to the door, a bead of sweat rolled down my forehead as I cracked it open, popped the grenade, and threw it down the stairwell.

Shouts echoed from below, panicking before a dull 'boom' was heard. My foot eased the door open as I peered inside. Soft coughing could be heard from down the stairwell, causing me to ready the fire axe as I stepped through the door and walked down the steps.

Dust particles hung in the air and stung my lungs as I took a breath. The coughing was still soft and seemed to be dying as a crackle of static came over my earpiece. "Wolf. I don't see any more targets in the vicinity. It's best we clean up the last few in that stairway and get out. The missions a bust anyways. We need to evac."

"I know that Hawk. I'm cleaning up the last people in here now. Get the evac route ready and I'll meet you there in two mikes." My heartbeat picked up. We needed to get out of here or it would automatically be a simulation failure due to reinforcements arriving to overpower us.

Normally in these Simulations, you could fail the mission and still have a Simulation Success by following through on mission failure procedures. However, a Simulation Failure was when you didn't meet the procedure protocols and managed to get captured. This made your team rating drop far lower than just a Simulation Success with a mission failure. Our entire fate was dependent on whether we could get in and get out regardless of what happened.

I rounded the corner and there he was. The simulated opponent was wearing a tablecloth tuxedo that was stained with a dark red hue, the copper smell of blood rising from his body. "Please... help..." the poor man said. The realism still to this day made me feel odd. It was like killing a real person. That triggered a sort of feeling deep inside my chest. I didn't know whether it was good or not but it was there. A deep pit that rooted itself in my gut that spread a feeling of pressure outward, squeezing my lungs making it difficult to breathe.

CHOP!

The man's head rolled off his head as the fireaxe stuck out of the wall where his neck used to be. The feeling in my gut was gone and I took a deep breath to fill my lungs of the oxygen they were unable to get a few seconds ago. "Wolf! I'm at the evac spot! Where are you?!"

Shit! I took longer standing here than I thought I did. I turned and transformed into a wolf for extra speed running down the stairs as I spoke into the earpiece.

"I'm almost there! Don't leave without me! I got caught up with the last guy. He's been neutralized." I knew it was a lie. I had hesitated on killing him. I had done it again. I don't know why but whenever it's the very last guy in the simulation before leaving I always hesitate. I wonder whether it would feel the same to kill a real person, instead of the super-realistic simulations that the system was able to come up with.

I exited the building through the emergency exit at the bottom of the stairs and began running towards the forest. Our evac point was at the southernmost edge of the forest and I was luckily pointed in the correct direction. After only a minute of wolf sprinting there, I finally caught up win Hawk and came to a stop.

"Evac successful. Both team members. Simulation Success, mission failure. Team rank: rank A. Next simulation: Rank S combat stealth scenario. Please exit the simulator and meet your new teammate, Operatives Hawk and Wolf."

We looked at each other curiously as the scenery around us disappeared and turned back into their black color of the simulator walls. We weren't expecting a new teammate today, not were we expecting a Rank S simulation as our next simulator run. "Time to meet our new teammate then, " Hawk said as he walked towards the prep room door.

"Always something new, " I said jokingly as I stepped through the door, only to stop right in my tracks immediately. The scent hit my nose and my senses went crazy as my eyes landed on the blue indigo streak in the middle of a blonde sea of hair. "You?"

The girl turned around and laid her blue eyes on me as the sweet scent of her filled my nose, completely overriding every other scent. The same presence I felt earlier washed over my body as my eyes locked with hers. She had the same sweatpants and sweatshirt from earlier on except this time her singular tail was hanging out from her sweatpants.

"Oh look. It's horn-boy. Looks like I've been reassigned to your team." The sweet honey voice of hers came over me once again. It was definitely a surprise to see her here, considering she said she was taking medical courses and not the combat medic courses.

"What are you doing here? I thought you were a med student, not a combat medic." My voice was full of surprise as my shocked face returned back into its usual mask of confidence. Hawk walked past me, sensing we knew each other already and deciding to ask later so that we could talk.

"They transferred me over to the combat med program. Said my abilities would be wasted in a hospital or clinic. Apparently, they have other people to do that with slower acting healing abilities." The bell rang right as she finished her sentence and she stood up to leave for her next class. "Anyways. We will be working next combat training together so don't be a stranger alright?" She gave off a wink before she exited the room and left me standing there speechless.

"So who was that?" Hawk said as he was already changed back into civilian clothes.

"Just someone I ran into in the hallway earlier, " I said softly as I morphed my clothes back onto my body. Anxiety filled my chest as I thought about seeing Her again. Why did she make me feel this way? Fuck! It was so confusing not having any of these answers.

I decided to just shake the thoughts from my mind. She was getting under my skin too much. I needed to just forget about her and move on. My next period was my free period anyways so I could do anything I wanted to distract myself.

With a smile on my face, I walked out of the ready room and made sure the door was locked from any unwanted visitors before stopping in my tracks again. This... smell? It was familiar. Matter of fact I had just smelled this during the simulation.

I turned my head around to look down the empty hallway towards the double doors leading outside just to find a man squatting outside. Wearing all black and obviously looking like he was up to no good made me look closer. That's when I realized it. The reason why I smelt gunpowder was because it was coming from the man's hands, which just so happened to hold a makeshift pipe bomb tied to a detonator.

"Fuck me."