My arm sounds in my ear, and I groan aloud. Why did I agree to this? I check my phone, and see that I have about an hour before I need to meet Caleb. And I don’t even get to wear anything cute today. Sad face. I blink as the thought comes out. Did I really just think ‘sad face’?

  I briefly consider a shower, but change my mind. I’m just going to get disgusting out there anyway. I grab the orange pill bottle off my nightstand and pull a small white pill out of it, before closing it. I toss the spironoctone in my mouth, and wash it down with a big gulp of water. Disgusting, but wonderful.

  I start getting dressed by pulling on a bra and boy shorts, before sliding on a pair of socks and heading to my closet. In the bottom on the far left is a duffel bag full of airsoft supplies I bought at the suggestion of my brother.

  I move the pink SMG covered in anime girl stickers off to the side, and start pulling out the clothes. I really should have known I was a girl. I guess this is what Caleb meant when he said it wasn’t a surprise.

  I throw on a skinny pair of CADPAT cargos, and a surprisingly comfortable dark green t-shirt. My tan hiking boots come on next, and I tuck the legs of my pants into them before cing them up. I’ll put on the rest ter.

  With that done, I head to the bathroom to shave and put on minimal makeup, just some eyeliner, before pulling what I can of my hair into a ponytail. My face is still framed with hair that isn’t long enough, and it looks great. Before leaving, I twist the tail and clip it up against the back of my head in a style I saw in a girls with guns anime once.

  “Even dressed like that you still look adorable.” My mom says as I walk into the living room.

  “Thanks,” I say with a smile. “I was scared I wouldn’t pass, but it looks like I was worried over nothing.”

  “I would have to agree with you, Em.” My mom says. “Still very girly.”

  I shake my head when she says this. “Just Emmy, please. No ‘Em’.”

  “Got it.” My mom says.

  I head to the kitchen and open a new box of those tomato curry sandwiches, and toss one in the microwave. Caleb said he’s got food covered, so I don’t have to worry about packing a lunch or anything.

  After finishing my food, I head back to my bedroom to finish getting ready. I pull out the pte carrier I bought, which has never contained any ptes, my assault pack, and the holster for my pistol.

  Let’s see… Four mags for my primary, and four for my pistol, all with fresh cartridges. Box of spare canisters, bottle of bbs, eye protection, gloves, knee pads, fully charged spare batteries for our primaries, as well ‘123’ lithiums for our optics. Is there anything I’m missing…?

  Water and my MFAK. I unclip the water pack off my bag, and head to the kitchen to fill it. Once it’s full, I head back and start searching for my medical kit. After searching the duffel bag and the entirety of my closet, I dig through my assault pack and find the MFAK nestled in the bottom. Of course.

  I load up my pack with my equipment, and grab what is too big to fit, before heading back to the living room.

  “Ready to go?” My mom asks.

  “Yeah.” I say with a sigh, and smile to myself. Start with good energy, fake it till you make it. “This is going to be fun!”

  “Good.” She says as she stands up. “Let’s go.”

  I load my stuff into the back of the car, and hop up front with my mom. She passes me her phone, and I throw on some hyperpop while we drive. It doesn’t take long to arrive at the base of the mountain, and I freeze as I see Caleb standing there with four people, all in military style outfits.

  “Is that that guy from the other day?” My mom asks. “Tyler, I think.”

  I stare at the cute guy in bck cargos and a gray tactical hoodie. His long brown hair is pulled into a messy bun. “Yeah, that is…”

  “Guess that settles the age debate.” My mom says with a grin. “Go have fun, and call me when you are ready to be picked up.”

  “I will.” I say with a smile, and head to grab my stuff.

  I pull on my pte carrier and pistol holster, before pulling my bag onto my back, and approaching the group. Caleb makes a joke and causes the group to ugh. Tyler gives me a friendly wave, and causes Caleb and the other guy not facing me to turn around.

  “Hi, Caleb. Hi, Tyler.” I say brightly with a soft smile.

  “Hey, Emmy.” Tyler says, while looking me over. “You look cute today.”

  “Hey, Sis.” Caleb says, and pulls me into a hug. “You know Tyler?”

  “We’ve met.” I say vaguely, and tug on my brother’s arm. “Can I talk to you in private for a moment?”

  “Sure.” He says. “Be right back, guys.”

  We walk a good ten feet away from the group before I start talking in a hushed tone. “Why didn’t you tell me you were inviting other people?” I ask.

  “Didn’t think about it.” He says. “Is that a problem?”

  “Depends,” I say with a sigh. “What did you tell them about me?”

  “Just that you’re my sister.” He says.

  “So they don’t know I’m trans?” I ask.

  “No.” He says simply, causing me to let out the breath I didn’t know I was holding. “Would it be a problem if they did?”

  “Yes!” I whisper shout. “We’re about to be alone in the woods, miles away from other people.”

  He gives me a small shrug. “So?”

  “Soooo,” I say, slightly annoyed, “Trans people have been killed in much safer pces for literally just existing!”

  “Right…” He says softly. “Didn’t think about that. You have my word that I will never tell anyone that you are trans, without your approval.”

  “Thank you.” I say with a soft sigh.

  “These guys are good though.” He says with a smile. “You’ll like ‘em.”

  “I already know I like Tyler.” I say, and feel my face heat. “I mean, like… he seems cool. I don’t really know him though.”

  A rge grin appears on my brother’s face. “Well I do know him, and I think you two would make a cute couple.” He says conspiratorially. “Tell ya what, I’ll even py wingman for you, if you do for me.”

  I tilt my head to the side. “Okay, one, I just broke up with Holly, so I’m not even sure I want that yet. Two, who am I pying wingwoman to?”

  Caleb points at a guy I vaguely recognize from school two years ago. He’s a bit shorter than my brother, and also a bit slimmer. His sandy hair is done in a messy undercut, and looks incredibly soft.

  “His name is Max.” Caleb says. “He’ll be a junior next year.”

  “He’s cute.” I say honestly. “I’ll help how I can.” We start to walk back, when I grab his arm to stop him. “Speaking of age, how old is Tyler?”

  “Seventeen.” Caleb says with a shit-eating grin. “Does that really matter if you’re not sure you want him yet?”

  I blush furiously but can’t respond as we get too close to the group. The red head next to Max speaks up. “So, Caleb,” He says. “What’s in the bag?”

  “Lunch!” Caleb says with a smile, and pulls out a tan pouch beled ‘MRE - Meal Ready to Eat’. “Everyone come grab one, because I’m not carrying all of them.”

  I’m the st to pull one out of the bag, and get one that says ‘chili-mac’. “Hey, does anyone have one that doesn’t have meat in it?” I ask.

  “Here.” Tyler says, and holds his out. “Spinach Alfredo. Trade?”

  “Please.” I say, and hand him mine.

  After shoving mine in my bag, we all set off down a path into the woods. After about thirty minutes of walking, Caleb pulls out a compass, and guides us off the path. After another fifteen minutes, he stops.

  “This is the pce!” He shouts.

  The area in front of us looks like it was built for airsoft. Knowing Caleb, it probably was. He sets his bag down on a fallen log, and starts getting ready. I follow his lead, and start pulling my knee pads on.

  I slide on my eye pro, then give my pte carrier a sharp tug, then pull on the mag holders, to make sure they’re all in pce. Once I’m sure they are, I point my weapon in a safe direction, switch it to semi auto, and fire one round, before switching it back to safe.

  I watch as the others do their function checks, and a guy with curly red hair and a too thin face groans. “Shit, I think my battery is dead.”

  “Dude, really?” Caleb asks. “Didn’t you charge it st night?”

  “Forgot,” He responds, obviously upset, “Sorry.”

  “Let me see your battery.” I say with a smile. He passes it over, and after checking the voltage, I hand it and one of my spares over. “Get it back to me before you leave, ‘kay?”

  “I will.” He promises. “Thank you.”

  “No problem.” I say, and stick my tongue out for a moment. “I’ve got extra co2 as well as bbs in case anyone needs it.”

  “That’s really sweet.” a tall African American guy says.

  “I just like to be useful.” I respond, while peaking a peace sign and pushing my fingertips to my cheeks.

  “Everyone ready?!” Caleb calls out.

  “Yup!” I call back, and listen to it fade into the boys’ loud shouts.

  “Cool.” My brother says, and starts walking forwards, to a small circle dug into the dirt in front of a rge rock. “This here is spawn.” He points at the rock. “The other spawn is about one-hundred yards that way.” He pulls a pair of small bck boxes out of his bag. “Who wants to be a team captain?”

  No one responds at first, until Tyler raises his hand. “I can be.”

  “Cool.” Caleb says, and hands him a box. “Alright, I’ll choose first. Max.”

  “Josh.” Tyler says.

  “Braedon.” Caleb replies, and gives me a quick flick of his eyes. “You get Emmy.”

  “Cool.” I say with a smile, and walk to stand by Tyler.

  “We’re gonna kick your asses.” Josh says with a smile.

  “We’ll see about that.” Max says, a pyful fire in his eyes. Cute.

  “We’ll take far spawn.” My brother says. “I’ll radio you when we get there.”

  After they are out of sight, I turn to Tyler with a soft smile. “So, how does this work?”

  “You’ve never pyed before?” He asks incredulously as he looks me up and down.

  “Nope.” I respond. “I have only pyed with Caleb, never an actual game.”

  “Okay, so,” Tyler says, his eyes gentle. “For now it’s all about kills. One life only. After lunch we’ll do objective based games.”

  “Sounds like fun.” I respond.

  “It is.” Josh says. “We normally have more people, but this is enough to still have fun.”

  Before I can respond, the radio crackles. “We’re in position, you ready?”

  “Yeah, we’re ready.” Tyler responds.

  “Okay, go.”

  Tyler and Josh take off around the boulder. I flick the switch on my SMG to auto, and dash around to the left. The borders of the field are retively obvious, as every rock, log, or bush seems to have migrated to this one hundred by fifty yard rectangle. Clearly this was meant for more people.

  I catch sight of Tyler skulking between two bushes, and try to pull some attention. I flit from tree to tree, pushing up quickly. Something in my brain tells me to duck, and I do, just in time for a hail of bbs to hit the tree behind me.

  I quickly scramble for the cover of a rock to my left, and take a breath. Another volley of BBs fly past on the left, and I decide on a pn. I stick my hand out to the right, and then quickly pull it back. The tree behind me patters with the spray of biodegradable pstic.

  “Hit!” Tyler calls from off to my right.

  I stick my leg out to my left, and then spin back to the right, raise my SMG, and let out a short controlled burst.

  “Hit!” Braedon calls out, and I watch him stand up from his crouched position, hand in the air.

  Something sps against my chest, and I raise my left hand. “Hit!”

  I walk back to spawn, and find Josh and Tyler already sitting there. “Damn.” Josh says.

  “I got one of them.” I say with a smile. “Not sure who got me though.”

  “It was Max,” Tyler says. “He got me too.”

  “I couldn’t even see him.” I say with a grin. This is fun.

  “He uses a sniper.” Josh expins. “He’s good too.”

  “Shit,” Tyler excims, and then pulls out the radio. “We’re all dead.”

  “Thought so.” Caleb says. “Ready to go again?”

  “You know it.” Tyler responds.

  The next few hours go by quickly. We py many games, changing teams frequently. I don’t do great, but certainly don’t do badly. In most games I get at least one kill, during a few really good games I get two, I rarely get zero, and in one amazing game I got all three enemies.

  I sit down, back against a boulder, and smile as the rest of the group takes seats around me, some against the rock, others against a fallen tree. I see the others start to pull out their MRE’s and pull mine out as well.

  “Anyone wanna trade for pizza?” Josh says, holding his MRE up.

  His sleeve rides up his arm, and I see a small gash across his bicep. “Josh!” I shout, and immediately rush towards him.

  “What?!” He reacts, seeming very confused.

  I grab his arm and push the sleeve all the way up to his shoulder. “When did this happen?” I ask, and study the jagged tear intently.

  “I scraped it on a branch.” He says nonchantly. “No big deal.”

  “Yes big deal!” I say scoldingly. “Don’t move.”

  I quickly pull out my MFAK and prop it open on the log next to him. There are a set of disposable gloves inside, and I quickly repce my combat gloves with a pair of the bck nitriles. Josh sits still while I spray some water from my pack on the ground to clear it, then gently rinse his wound.

  Once it’s clean, I pat it dry with some gauze, before rubbing some antiseptic cream on the cut, and putting a rge rectangur bandage over it. We’re still gonna be pying for a bit. For good measure I reinforce the bandage with medical tape.

  “Alright, you’re all patched up.” I say with a smile.

  Josh looks up at me, a friendly smile on his face. “Thank you, Emmy.”

  “Of course!” I say brightly, and give him a peace sign. “I wanna make sure you don’t get infected, that way you can be here next time!”

  “Are you going to be here next time?” Braedon asks.

  “I hope so.” I say, and give a wink to Caleb. “I’m having a lot of fun so far. Thanks for inviting me.”

  “Fun’s not over yet, Sis.” He says happily. “After lunch we’re gonna get to objective games.”

  “Sounds fun.” I say, and start digging into my MRE.

  Inside are a bunch of small packages that I quickly read through. There’s the main entree as well as a heating pack, some crackers and pretzels, a package of peanut butter, something called a Zero Strike bar which is apple cinnamon fvor, and a chocote protein shake.

  This is really interesting… I read the instructions on the heating pack, pour some water from my pack into it, and leave it leaning on a rock with the spinach alfredo pack in it. I decide to start with some peanut butter and crackers.

  The peanut butter is hard and tastes weird, and the crackers are dry and tasteless. I’m not sure what I expected from military food. I put them aside and crack open the spinach alfredo. It is only then that I realize I have nothing to eat it with.

  I look up and see that Tyler is digging into his chili mac with a green pstic spoon. “Hey uh, was I supposed to get a spoon with this?”

  “Yeah.” Caleb says. “Did you not get one?”

  “Apparently not.” I say, and tear off a piece of the cracker packaging and try to fold it into a spoon of sorts.

  I start to eat, and my spoon immediately folds. Great. I feel a tap on my shoulder and look up to see Caleb holding out a spoon. “Take mine.”

  “Thanks.” I say, and take it from his hand. “We can share.”

  “No need.” He responds, and pulls out a pair of pens from his pack, and holds them like chopsticks.

  I smile at his creativity, and start eating my main course. It’s not bad, but not great. Better than nothing. After eating for a while, Caleb speaks up.

  “Did I ever tell you all the story of how I nearly got arrested building this pce?” He says.

  “No.” Tyler says, and smiles at him. “Please, share.”

  “So,” He says, a smile creeping onto his face. “I was on my third day of building, and I had to take a piss. So I’m standing there with my pants down, halfway into a bush, and I start hearing footsteps behind me.”

  “Oh no.” I say, and hide a smile behind my hand.

  “Oh yes.” He says, with a big grin. “So I try to halt the stream, and pull my pants up, but apparently my sudden movement scared the guy, so he shouts, ‘Put up your hands and step away from the bush!’” A couple of the people around the circle let out a chuckle. “So I do as he asked, I step out, and put up my hands.”

  “Oh god…” Josh says, a ugh erupting from his lips. “I think I know where this is going.”

  “And of course I have my rifle on my back,” Caleb says. “Because I was testing the spots I was making, you know?” We nod, and wait with anticipation for him to continue. “So, he yells at me to toss the rifle to the ground, and I do. This entire time I’m just barely containing the stream. The moment the rifle is down, he yells at me to put up my hands again. So there I am, dick out, really really needing to piss, with a game warden standing not even five feet away from me, and the dam breaks.”

  “Oh, shit.” Braedon says with a smile. “That couldn’t have ended well.”

  “No it did not.” My brother says. “He leaps back, but by then he was already covered, dude nearly arrested me right there.”

  “Why didn’t he?” I ask.

  “Because I wasn’t doing anything illegal.” He says. “Once I expined the situation to him, he realized there was nothing he could do but hike back to the station, covered in piss, in the afternoon sun.”

  “Ohh, god…” Max says. “His coworkers must’ve hated him!”

  “I’m sure they did!” He says with a smile.

  We sit in silence before Tyler speaks up. “I’ve got a good funny story for ya.”

  “As long as it doesn’t involve bodily fluids,” I say. “I wanna hear it.”

  “Okay, so,” He starts. “I was taking my dad’s Leopard for a joyride when I was fifteen.” His face turns pained as he seems to remember something. “I was dumb, and could barely drive normally, let alone driving through the canyon going fifteen over.”

  “Oh no!” Max says. “Well, clearly you didn’t get hurt…”

  “No, I didn’t.” He says. “It’s way worse than that. I went off the road into a ditch.”

  “Oof.” Braedon comments.

  “Yeah, so obviously, I call my dad and tell him what happened. He’s pissed, of course, but gd I’m okay. So he tells me to check the damage, and I go look, and there is none. The car is perfectly fine.”

  “Oh…” I say softly, realizing the implications of that.

  “Yeah,” Tyler says, and fshes me a grin. “I could’ve gotten away with it if I hadn’t called him. So I get back in the car, and try to back out of the ditch. Unfortunately, my dumbass didn’t close the door. So as I’m backing out, I hear a loud crunch and tearing sound, and see the door bent completely the wrong way, and pinned between the side of the car and a tree.”

  “I’m so sorry…” I say, while trying to hide a ugh.

  “Yeah, it was bad.” Tyler says, hanging his head. “He was so angry…” I let out a soft giggle, and meet his eyes. “So, Emmy,” He says. “Got any fun stories for us?”