The Tiger's Eye

They find out

Lynn's POV
I woke up to Erik yelling "Wake up sleepy head!" I blinked away the sleepiness until Meghan propped herself up with her arm "what the fuck dude?" Followed by Erik running to Craig covering his mouth yelling "oh my god!" I sighed as I rolled over and buried my face in my pillow as Craig asked "so what's going on here?" I lifted my middle finger to him as he chuckled and asked "so you guys finally got together?" Meghan nodded as I groaned making my displeasure at the rude awakening clear as Erik spoke "bout fuckin time, I was so over the overt flirting you guys loved to do" Meghan groggily asked "what can we do for you?" Craig replied simply "we wanted to know if you wanted to go to the range but it seems you guys are busy" I sighed as Meghan sat up and replied "sure I'll go, come on Lynn get up" I stayed in my spot, glued to it as Meghan pointed out "you don't want to become sloppy with your shots do you? How are you going to avenge them if you can't hit your target?" I sat up and looked at her "do I have to?"
      She patted my knee and spoke sternly "yes, grab your gun and your magazines. We're going to the range" I sat up and stood "fucking bullshit, I just wanted to sleep" Erik laughed "you always want to sleep, if you don't you want to kill masks" I looked over bored "and I'm going to, I'll tear them all apart" Meghan patted my shoulder as she walked past me "I'm sure you will" and Craig laughed before the three walked to the door and I grab my M16 and a couple magazines before walking forward. Once I got into the hallway I jogged to catch up with the group before Meghan gave me a small smile while Erik spoke "i'm glad you're together, you two need each other" I looked over and spoke "I'm on your team now" he looked back surprised "I thought you were tier 2? Why are you on Mike's team?" I shrugged but spoke "I got my marching orders 2 hours ago, I'm officially the newest member to Mike's team. I think Mike wants to keep an eye on me after my revelations with him and Harry" Craig asked "so you're one of us now?" I shrugged "i can't balance a ball on my nose so I'm not a seal, I work with indigenous people too much to be delta so I'm just gonna be SF"
       He shot back "you're just jealous our training comes with beach balls" I shrugged and replied "feel free to play with balls if you want but that's not my style." Erik chuckled while Craig poured before Meghan spoke in a motherly tone "play nice" I shrugged and pointed out "he started it" to which she spoke "and I'm ending it" I stared forward as Craig opened the door to the courtyard and the Range building came into view. We started walking faster as our childish excitement grew with each step, it was clear everyone in our group was excited when it came to shooting our guns. We walked in and headed to the shooting booths while I sat down and looked at my M16, my hand guard was stained with blood, so was the upper receiver and buttstock. I sighed and slowly started scrub off the dried mud, blood and dust, The Legion would never allow a rifle to be in this sub par condition, I wouldn't allow my unit's traditions fade away just because I'm at Team Rainbow now.
      I heard Meghan next to me "your guns pretty dirty" I glanced over as I continued to slave away cleaning my gun "Indeed, it will not stand. Some traditions are taken to the grave" she nodded before asking "what other traditions did the Legion have?" I chuckled and replied "My platoon specifically was an explosives and Direct action unit, we were known for our love of explosives and our expertise with them. When you joined the platoon in order to prove you deserved to be there you had to stand 6 feet away from a stick of C4 as we detonate it" she asked "isn't that dangerous?" I shrugged and spoke "your hearings fucked for a couple days, you're dazed and knocked on your ass" she asked "what about shrapnel?" I replied as I finished scrubbing my buttstock "it's just a straight stick of C4, there's no shrapnel just overpressure." She asked "think we could do it?" I looked over at her and asked "are you serious? You want to blow yourself up? For fun?" She replied simply "yes, I wanna know what it feels like"
     I shook my head as I pulled out pins that locked the upper and lower receivers together before scrubbing them I spoke "if you get your hands on the stick of C4, I'll get it set up" she smiled as she stood "I'm gonna go shoot, hurry up and join us" I shook my head and continued slowly scrubbing away the stains. A couple minutes later I reassembled my rifle and loaded a magazine walking to the booth next to Meghan, I aimed at the target and it slowly morphed into the silhouette of a mask, my hunger to kill them resurfaced as I aimed and held the trigger sending all 30 rounds into the targets center mass before I slammed in a second magazine and continued firing until a huge hole maybe 4 inches wide had appeared, Erik asked from my left "you okay?" I looked over at him with narrowed eyes as I nodded quickly reloading before replacing the target and sending it out, I want to get better at firing quickly in semi so I flipped my rifles fire selector to semi and started unloading as I carefully picked where my shots would go, it didn't take long for my trigger finger to get to speed.
     I heard Meghan suggest "hey why don't we switch weapons?" I looked at my m16 and shrugged "okay, who's switching with who?" She spoke, well more like ordered, "Erik switch with me, Lynn you switch with Craig" I asked "what if I wanted to switch with Erik?" She replied with a cheeky smile "well tough shit" I heard Craig say to Erik "they're so in love" as I took Craig's Mk17 and thought out loud "it's heavier than I thought" Craig laughed "7.62 baby" I started firing it getting used to the recoil before it jammed, I pulled the priming handle watching the shell fall before I fired again, I got 7 rounds this time before it double fed. I looked at Craig and asked "why the fuck do you use this shit? I can't get 8 rounds before it fucking jams" he replied "I like the reach plus that's my old rifle, my new one is more reliable. It rarely ever jams" I rolled my eyes and muttered as I fired "yeah well my gun hasn't had this issue since the fucking 60s" as I sent another burst down ranhge, pleasantly surprised it didn't jam as I finished off the magazine.
      We kept shooting for a while until Erik spoke "Alright Lynn, switch with me. Craig switch with Meghan" Meghan smiled as she hefted my M16, the m203 gave it a bit more weight on the barrel keeping it more stable as I fired in full auto. I held meghan's dinky little MPX and looked it over, it was a beautiful gun but way too small for me. I decided to give the gun a shot and aimed down the sights squeezing the trigger finding it had no recoil, I looked at Meghan and asked "why the fuck do you have a laser? This thing doesn't fucking move" she laughed and replied "that's why I use it, your M16 is pretty stable too" I nodded pleased with the report as Craig spoke "Erik your M4 is less fun to shoot than Lynn's M16" I teased "SF-1, Unit-0" Erik gave me the bird as I laughed and fired meghan's mpx again before I wanted to test something. I used one hand gripping the pistol grip of the MPX while my left hand hung loosely at my side.
     Meghan asked nervously "what are you doing?" As I squeezed the trigger fighting the now apparent recoil, I nodded pleased as I saw the grouping even with only one hand on the gun it was easy to control. I started fucking around since I was growing bored as I leaned back so my head was pointing at the ground and the mpx's magazine faced the ceiling while I shot. Once I stopped being bored I straightened and looked at Meghan "I gotta get me one of these" she chuckled as Craig whined "I miss my mk17, someone give me my mk17" Erik took back his M4 before looking at me "wanna shoot it?" I motioned to my m16 in Meghan's hands "it's literally just a smaller version of my gun, you shoot an M16 and it's like shooting any other M4 platform" he nodded before speaking "well I'm shooting your M16 so" as Meghan handed him the rifle and he started shooting it. I sat down and handed Meghan her smg before watching Erik shoot my rifle, "10 bucks days he likes my rifle more than his m4" she looked at me and smiled challengingly "you're so on" we watched interested in who would win 10 dollars.
     A couple minutes later he turned and walked over "Alright, i relent. Your rifle's better, why is it so easy to control?" I heard Meghan sigh as I tapped the m203 "The extra weight helps keep the barrel under control, so does the compensator. Not to mention the gun as a whole is heavier than yours" he nodded before taking his M4 from me "so I suppose we should get back to our dorms" I stood and spoke "I would but Meghan and I have to blow ourselves up" Craig and Erik froze and I explained "it's a tradition in my platoon in the Legion. We were the demo guys so if you were there you had to take the overpressure of a stick of C4. You guys wanna watch?"" They nodded excitedly at the idea of watching two of their friends fuck themselves up with overpressure. Meghan led the way to the ammo depot and got a stick of C4 and a detonator while I built the contraption that would hold the stick of C4 in the air, once she gave me the C4 my expertise shone through as I quickly got everything set up and walked Meghan to the minimum safe distance.
       I mirrored the distance on the other side and got the detonator ready before I pointed to Erik "Give me a count down Delta" he replied with "3, 2, 1" as I squeezed the trigger and the C4 detonated. I was knocked on my ass by the now familiar force of a C4 detonation as I saw Meghan doing the same, I stood and stumbled over sitting next to her as she rolled over and leaned on me almost yelling  "you should've stopped me before I agreed to this, christ my head hurts!" I couldn't hear because of the detonation and I yelled back "What?!" To which she just looked at me while Erik and Craig cackled like hyenas. I blinked a couple of times hoping the headache went away but it never did. My orientation was all fucked up and my vision kept shifting as my head bobbed, my hearing started to come back on my right side, Meghan groaned "remind me never to do this again" I replied with a fake laugh "now you know what a concussion feels like, isn't it great?" She whacked my shoulder as Erik walked forward and helped pull us to our feet "That was great, we got it on camera. You two got fucked up" I blinked a couple of times trying to make my vision one single image instead of the several swirling ones as I stumbled back which Craig caught me before I fell.
       I saw Mike walking forward quickly looking unsure as he asked "was that you guys?" To which Craig asked "the explosion?" Mike nodded as Erik replied "Meghan and Lynn blew themselves up" Mike looked at us confused as he replied "they're still in one piece, don't tell me they fucked up blowing themselves up" as Craig showed him the video. Mike looked at us and spoke "you two have shit for brains, I swear" I agreed as he asked "why the fuck would you do that?" I replied groggily "it's a tradition in my unit, Meghan wanted to experience the concussion machine. I obliged" his eyes squeezed shut as he spoke "I swear to Christ, how the fuck? Why the? You know what I don't care, just stop blowing yourselves up. Erik, Lynn remember training is at 07:30, clear?" We saluted "yes sir" as he turned and started walking off while I gripped my head "christ I need an Advil, fuck me"