(Male Dormitories, 11pm)
Louis, Albert and Eddie are tidying up their bunks, preparing to sleep. Just then, the door opened, and Sean walked in. He reeked of gunpowder.
"Where were you?" asked Louis. "Were you at the gun range?"
Sean nodded.
"Bro, why did you stay up so late?" asked Eddie. As if on cue, the lights were cut as he said that.
Sean replied that he went to train, which prompted his friends to tell him to not push things too hard.
The 4 of them soon fell asleep, though not for long as the emergency gathering whistle was blown, waking them up.
"WAH LAO!" cursed Eddie in Singlish, looking at the clock. Its 12am in the morning, meaning that they had only slept for 1 hour.
"What are these a**holes? OWLS?" scolded Albert as he changed.
The 4 hurriedly changed into uniform, wore their equipment and dashed out, falling in with the rest of the cadets.
"Head count!" ordered Nanami.
The cadets in the first row snapped into attention.
"1!" yelled Sean.
"2!" yelled Ariel
"3!" yelled Albert.
"4!" yelled Clara.
Nanami observed the columns behind the 4 of them at the front.
"Sir, all 36 cadets present!" she reported to Bryan and Herbert.
Bryan nodded. "At ease!"
"First segment, night shooting!" ordered Bryan.
Soon Sean took a prone position, aiming the UNSSD standard issue HK-416 rifle with default iron sights ahead at the rows of targets.
However, he cannot see the targets, as they have yet to be activated.
At Herbert's orders, the lightbulbs on top of the targets light up, illuminating for a brief moment before quickly dimming out within seconds, simulating possible sources of light at night, such as cigarettes, and the cadets immediately opened fire on the targets based on memory.
Sean fired in control bursts, recounting their positions from his memory, swiftly taking them out.
"Impressive…" muttered Nanami, seeing Sean's results on her tablet, surprised at his sudden improvement.
Equally surprised at this are Erika, Karl and Ariel, stunned and speechless as the 4 of them fell back into the cadet formation after emptying their magazines.
The cadets soon proceeded on to night vision shooting, using their personal gears now.
Louis flipped down the NODs on his high-cut tactical helmet, his vision through the lenses is limited, which is why he chose to aim using the IR laser module on his Noveske N4 instead of the optics, essentially pointing and shooting instead of aiming. This is to ensure that his vision is not obstructed further.
He turned to Sean, Ariel, Albert and Vera beside him, their helmets having a blinking IR light mount on top, which works as an IFF system to allow them to distinguish friend and foe.
"Shooters, standby!" ordered Herbert.
Ariel raised her AUG A3 SF rifle, looking at the direction which her IR laser falls on, releasing loading the rifle
Herbert blew the whistle, and the 5 advanced forward, opening fire on the moving targets randomly generated in front of them.
Sean steadied his breathing, remembering the techniques he had been drilled in and re-taught.
He pulled the trigger when his foot lands on the ground when moving, since that is when he is the steadiest, maximising his stability and reducing the chances he butchers his shots.
The rest of the cadets also followed these procedures. Albert ensured that the front of his feet is pointed forward at where he is moving, walking in small steps. Being the cadet with the highest accuracy when shooting, his actions are near flawless as he steadily hit the targets with his MP5A5 submachine gun.
The 5 soon cleared the targets and moved to the pistol range, which moved about and generated in extremely fast speeds. The 5 raised their pistols, swiftly shooting the targets as they appeared, hitting all of them, as if they are owls at night, swooping in accurately at the rodents they see.
Despite their close proximity to each other at the pistol range, the 5 cadets ensured that others are out of their line of fire, following the most important rule of firearm safety: never point a gun at a target you don't want to destroy.
Louis raised his SIG P225 MK25, rapidly pointing and shooting.
Sean emptied the magazine of his FN 5-7, quickly grabbing a magazine from his ammunition pouch on his body armour, reloading, then resuming his shooting.
Vera in her haste to shoot fast accidentally dropped her spent Glock 19 magazine onto the ground instead of putting it into her recycle pouch on her belt, which housed the used magazines.
Soon the cadets have blown through the 2 15-rounds pistol magazines they have, and the course ended.
Ariel stared at her targets in satisfaction, impressed at her performance, she then checked the chamber of her CZ P-07 pistol and AUG A3 SF rifle, ensuring that the chambers are indeed empty and engaging the safety to prevent an accidental discharge.
Albert ejected off the spent casing of the final 9mm pistol round he had fired from his Glock 17, which had failed to eject.
Once they are done, they walked back with the other 4 cadets with them to the formation, maintaining their trigger disciplines.
Herbert and Nanami then ordered the next group to advance.
"This group is impressive," commended Herbert.
"Indeed," replied Ariel.
"While Number 42 has the best accuracy in terms of raw shooting skills, his talents are unfortunately not as fleshed out when he moves and shoot…" observed Herbert, referring to Albert.
"Same can be said for Number 17," added Nanami, commenting on Vera, "though she performs way better than Number 42, as expected of an observer who has to watch out for more things than a sniper."
"Indeed," said Herbert. "An observer requires more work than a sniper, after all."
"And speaking of observers, well, former to be exact," smiled Nanami, "Number 9 has really surprised us with his improvements!" she commended, sincerely happy for Sean's growth.
Herbert sneered, "the only reason why he had a major improvement was because he had sucked big time, and had simply moved from a bare pass to average from what we see."
Both laughed. "Number 92 is in the top tiers when it comes to tactical shooting, as expected of a Spades contractor, if only his physical was better," said Nanami, both affirming and bashing Louis.
"Number 31 still reigns supreme in close quarters nonetheless, not even numbers 23 and 100 can match her in this niche area," added Herbert, satisfied with Ariel's performance while comparing her to Karl and Clara.
A smirk then crept to his lips.
"Though let's see whether they can handle what comes next…"