Reloaded

Gray, Geoff, Caleb, Stacia, and Yurika were strutting down towards the exit of the camp in their full soldier gear feeling like a couple of bad asses. Geoff produced a cigar from somewhere and was showing it off, Stacia was strutting around with the carbine on a sling next to her hip keeping one hand on it at all times and glaring menacingly at any other people walking near them. Gray found a pair of aviator sunglasses feeling very cocky in them and Caleb slung the assault rifle over his shoulders with his arms resting on it. Yurika was the only one that was not strutting, but that was because she was… dancing with the flamethrower with large ballroom style steps. Overall, it made all of the staff and soldier NPCs look at them like they were crazy.

"You know, this would be way cooler if other players could actually see this…" said Geoff

Everyone nodded their heads in agreement and started walking like normal after Gray returned the glasses and Geoff hid the cigar from whichever place he pulled it out from.

After leaving the gate from the base, a Humvee was waiting for them that was sent by the clerk upon accepting the mission for them to use. Stacia offered to drive since she had the smallest amount of equipment to carry. Caleb originally had the least amount of gear as the medic, but Yurika needed help carrying the extra fuel cells since they ended up being a lot heavier than she thought.

All of them opted for light armor over the medium or heavy armor as they didn't expect to come under gun fire from wild animals. A marker was uploaded to their maps on their armlets to show the expected location of the nest as well as shaded blocks that were the farmlands that they needed to protect if needed.

"I recommend we form a semi-circle and approach the nest directly from the nearest farm. Yurika will take Center, Caleb and Stacia will take her flanks, and Geoff and I will take the extended flanks. Our objective should be to try and bunch the rats up then light them on fire and let the napalm do the rest. These assault rifles seem a little big for rats, but the noise should scare them some." Said Gray.

"Sounds good to me" said Geoff

Everyone else nodded in agreement then loaded up in to the Humvee and headed towards the marker about 7 miles west of the base. After a few minutes, they reached the remains of the same road that Gray and Geoff used to take to the town north of them, New Venice, but their direction was west so they drove over it and continued west. The grasslands started to get denser and dotted with large plants that appeared to be like large weeds that were left free to grow for a hundred years or so. Eventually they reached a thick forest of these weed tree things and were fortunate enough to find the remains of another road also heading west. A knocked over sign said "SP34" next to the road that was barely readable due to the fading of the sign.

"This place bites… what is with these weird looking trees?" said Yurika

"They do not appear to be native foliage but rather a species that was introduced as a means to destroy the existing plant life." Said Caleb.

"Uh, what makes you say that?" asked Geoff

"No animals around, no moss, no weeds, and the soil is fairly dry considering the proximity to water and frequency of rainfall. I hypothesize this species of fauna was created to destroy all other plant life, thus forcing most herbivores out and in turn forcing the carnivores out. As for why this was done, my best guess would be to eradicate the long-term food supply of the area." Said Caleb

"Or maybe some genetically modified crops got mutated and went out of control, at least to me that looks like an ear of corn the size of a bus." Commented Gray.

"Interesting, that would be the simpler explanation. Plus it seems to fit with your observations as the cob of these plants makes it appear to be a much larger variant of Zea mays, probably the indentata variation, or 'dent corn' judging from the color and dents in the kernels. Normally this type of crop is grown in a row so one could infer that this was not done intentionally due to the disarray of the plants." said Caleb.

"What are you, a walking encyclopedia?" asked Geoff in amazement.

"Yes" said Caleb without hesitation.

Everyone stared expressionlessly at him as nobody ever admits that openly unless they're either very confident about themselves or an idiot.

"What did you expect me to say? That I had some weird plant fetish? No, I excel at knowledge of all kinds, I've said this before. It is up to you to make use of it not me to spoon feed you with every piece of knowledge I've gathered over time."

"Fair enough, so what do we do if we find something you don't know about?" asked Gray

"Unless you bring up something stupid like celebrity gossip or which singer loves vanilla cake, I will challenge you to find something knowledge based that I am not aware of!" said Caleb confidently

Everyone's eyes lit up as they silently came to an agreement to try and find something Caleb didn't know about.

Getting back on task, the group found they were still about 1 mile south from the nest and the corn plants were blocking their way to it directly.

"According to the map, we should hit the farmhouse closest to the nest if we continue west then take a right on the next old road." Gray said while looking over Stacia's shoulder and pointing in the direction the road was going.

Stacia continued driving down the road and made a right at the next intersection and continued for about 2 more minutes until they finally reached a farmhouse.

Caleb started to say "Modern farms in the domes were nothing like these farms found in the open. Modern farms used extremely advanced technology to not so much increase the amount of growth, but the growth speed. If you can get 1 piece of fruit that weighs 2 kilograms, or 4 pieces that weigh 1 kilogram each you'd choose the 4 naturally. 20th Century Earth focused to much on size instead of quantity and quality thus_"

Yurika interrupted "I prefer si_"

Gray interrupted Yurika "I PREFER you not to finish that sentence, let's keep our heads in the game!"

Geoff and Yurika looked at each other trying not to burst out from laughter since Gray seemed to unknowingly keep the joke going, or maybe it was intentional... Regardless, Gray wouldn't admit it if it was and found it better to just let everyone come to their own conclusions.

Everyone got out of the Humvee and checked all of their equipment one more time. Stacia looked fidgety for a second and suddenly raised her hand.

"Yes?" asked Gray

"Ummm, where is the reload button? Usually in these games you just push a reload button and the gun reloads after a slight delay..." asked Stacia

Gray thought about it for a second, looked at his HUD and noticed that a reload button did not exist next to the ammunition counter like in most shooters. "I guess we do it the normal way?"

Before anyone else pondered it Yurika grabbed Stacia's M4 carbine, released the bullet from the chamber, caught it, ejected the clip, reinserted it, then chambered another bullet in roughly the same time it took the others to figure out which way to turn the safety.

Everyone stared in amazement at Yurika and she smiled and said "I really love guns, so I've been to the only shooting range in the dome multiple times. Praise me more and I can show you all too."

Gray and Geoff blinked, looked at each other and then fell to their knees while bowing on their knees with their arms extended forward saying in unison "We're not worthy! We're not worthy!". Caleb shook his head and muttered idiots then took his own gun examined it for a few seconds, then was able to repeat the same thing Yurika did just a lot slower and dropping the bullet when he tried to catch it. Stacia asked Yurika honestly "Could you please show me how to reload my weapon for me?"

"Of course! Just call me big sister from now on!" said Yurika

Stacia started to reply "Ok, so that means you're my older sister and_"

"Just sister is fine..." said Yurika at the thought of being called an older sister.

Yurika showed Stacia how to reload her weapon and watched her practice it a few times while Geoff and Gray had produced palm fronds from somewhere and were fanning Yurika and Stacia with them.

"Fine, I guess I can show you two how to do it as well." Yurika said as she took the gun from Geoff and instructed both of them how to reload it manually and then letting them practice as well.

What they didn't realize is that they were being watched from the farm house by several people.

"Those are the soldiers they sent us?" said one farmer.

"We're in trouble if they literally just learned how to reload their guns." said another farmer.

"More food for Matilda then." said a third farmer

Hearing that last statement, all of the farmers nodded in unison while watching Gray's party.