I woke up with Mini fast asleep on my bed, right in his spot between my right leg and tail. I guess he liked it. This time when he saw that I was awake, he just yawned and rolled around the bed as I climbed out.

“Bed’s all yours Mini.” I told him as I walked out the bedroom door to the bathroom.

After I got done with the bathroom, changed out of my night clothes and into my regular clothes, got breakfast, hauled trash and cleaned out my messages, I was ready to do what I wanted to do. The problem was I had no idea of what I wanted to do.

“What to do?” I asked myself while standing in the game room, “Don’t feel like a walk, not in the mood to write, I’ve beaten all my games, seen all our movies. Man, what do I want to do?”

I was stuck and I have to do something. I settled on working over my M16. I felt like playing and Sunday was supposed to be a nice sunny day. I hadn’t cleaned and tuned up the Buzzsaw since Storming the Farm and if I wanted her to be in the best shape, she needed to be nice and clean. I grabbed my big red tool box and cleaned off a table. All I did was put the keyboard of one the computers on the CPU, the table is big enough so that gives me just enough space to work. My big gold recliner was the perfect thing to have for this job; it takes a while to work a gun over.

As I took her completely apart, down to basic parts. It is a little easier to get a hold of small springs with claws, I didn’t need to get my needle nose pliers as much as I used to. I ripped her down all the way, gearbox in pieces. Re-grease and re-shim the gears, clean and re-seal the cylinder assembly, check the gearbox wiring, check for any signs of wear out or damage and the put the whole gearbox back together. A really serious airsofter will have his or her weapon apart like this about once a month, just routine maintenance. Cleaning the inner barrel is a must and it’s a snap when the gun is apart like this. Just pull it out of the upper receiver and pop off the hop up unit and presto, nothing but a barrel. I have a cleaning rod for it. Just get a cloth soaked in silicon oil and twirl it down the barrel to get all the dust and dirt that likes to find its way in there and ruin your shots. Once that’s done, the hop up bucking is next. The hop up unit puts a backspin on the BB so that travels farther, the bucking rubber is the thing that makes the contact so it under a lot of stress. You have to take it out; it usually comes out still stuck to the barrel, and lube it up with silicon oil. Putting it back in is the trick. You can’t, under any circumstance, allow the thin rubber to tear or it will ruin the bucking. After you’ve done it as much as me, this seems like child’s play. With the barrel clean, the hop up bucking lubed, the gearbox tuned up, it was time to reassemble her. Pins went back where they should go. The gearbox checked out, a test firing with just the lower receiver assembled made sure of that. The stock went on, wires and all and the two pins that hold the entire gun together were popped in place. I can’t help myself, but every time I put her back together completely, I pull the charging handle. It doesn’t do a thing, but it sounds cool. I dry fired her a few times to make sure she worked and then I loaded up six mags. Those MAG mags are great; they really keep up with my rate of fire. You can’t really beat eight 100 round mags for about sixty bucks.

The test fire was awesome in the backyard. She could empty a 100 round mag in about five seconds and with a tight bore barrel, she could put those rounds right where I needed then to go. It was beautiful to hear a fully tuned up airsoft rifle going off right next to my head. She really loud too, just the way I like her. The Buzzsaw was ready for tomorrow; the question was if I was.

“Time to practice my reloading.” I said myself.

The game room is where I practice the most. I just hit a cool song on the computer, that time it was Wach Auf! by Oomph!, really awesome song to play with a rifle too. How I practice reloading is just drop the mag out and put it back in over and over again till I’m happy with the speed that I can do in. I switch up the angles I hold the weapon at to condition my eyes, arms and hands to track the receiver and not get into a habit of reloading at a certain angle. You never know what position you might have to reload in. The steady sounds of clicking metal is music to my ears. I love the sounds my M16 makes.

Once I was happy with my speed of reloading with my rifle, I had run out of things to do. Thankfully Sam had come to get me.

“Hey Lizard, when you’re done playing with your rifle, come downstairs.” she said.

“I’m done now,” I told her, “What’s up?”

“Just follow me.” said Sam as she walked away.

I just did as she asked and followed her down stairs. I knew Dad was doing work down there, but I just thought he was fixing it up for him and Mom. They did live down there after all. I just never paid much attention to what he was doing and he never asked me for help, he asked Sam. I just thought he was teaching her how to do carpentry and repair work just like he did with Katie and me. When I got to the bottom of the stairs, the door to the right was closed. It was almost never closed.

“Get ready for a surprise.” Sam said and she grabbed the knob.

Before I could say anything, she opened the door. The whole place was worked over. Mom and Dad were just standing in the downstairs living room, just smiling as I looked over the work they had done. The walls were repainted, still off-white, but new off-white instead of the yellowed off-white that used to be there. The ceiling was redone in Dad’s wood grid drop ceiling. It looked beautiful. The downstairs kitchen was reworked and the cabinets were painted red. The floor was not cement, but a shaggy brown carpet. The kitchen had a new linoleum black and white checkered floor. The wicker couch was still there, but the hide-a-bed was gone. In its place was a new red couch. I wondered about the rooms in amazement. The bedroom was still the same, but Dad had already reworked that when they first moved downstairs. He did the same for the office that was downstairs. They both still looked amazing, but what was drawing me in the most was the bathroom, it looked bigger. I walked in the room to find that it was bigger. It had a massive shower stall in it, a huge tiled room, big enough for me to stand in it with no problems at all with an over head mounted showerhead. It was glorious; I could have a shower with no problems. I was so happy, the muscles at the corners of my mouth were sore from smiling so hard. The sink and toilet were all placed with the same idea; they had to be farther apart then what was considered normal. The whole room was in a red and yellow color scheme. The tiles were red, the counter top was red, the sink was red, the toilet was red, the towels and hand clothes were yellow and the mirror frame was encased in a gold oval rim. This was a bathroom built for a dragon, built for me.

“I don’t know what to say.” I said, still in amazement.

“Thanks is a good start.” Sam replied.

“Thank you guys so much.” I said, turning to face them, “How did you guys do all this?”

“Wasn’t hard really, you spend a lot of time away from home at class and work.” Dad said, “We just put it together then.”

“For a dragon with better senses then us humans, it’s very easy to slip stuff by you.” Sam said, a sly smile appeared on her face.

“I never thought this is what you guys were doing down here.” I told her, I was a little upset with myself that I missed something this big literally right under my nose.

“Good thing too, we were worried that you would get curious and find out about our little surprise.” said Mom.

“I really do appreciate this.” I replied, the feelings of joy just filling me up.

“Well, let’s move some furniture around and we more back upstairs and you move downstairs.” Mom said.

“Awesome.” I said with a draconic smile, “This is going to be fun.”

It took almost all afternoon to move all the stuff around. We dragged out the big brass bed from the basement and stuck it in the basement bedroom. The trick was getting Mom and Dad’s big wood bed upstairs. It does come apart, but the head board was huge. I lost my grip and dropped it on my right foot, right on the left toe, when we were trying to get it through the upstairs living room.

“Son of a!” I said through clenched teeth, I rubbed my boot, trying to ease the pain.

“Careful, this thing is heavy.” Dad told me as he still held up the other end.

“It’s not that heavy to me,” I said, still trying to make the pain go away by using my other foot to rub the sore one, “I just lost my grip.”

“Well hold on tighter then.” He replied, just instructing me as always.

“I’ll remember that.” I told him as the pain finally dropped to a tolerable level.

“You ready?” Dad asked.

“Yea, I’m good.” I said picked up the head board again.

After that, we moved all the office stuff to my old room and all my stuff to the basement. My desk, table, chairs and nightstand all went down stairs to get organized while the office stuff came up. We were loaded on both ends of the trip.

“Why do you keep this old thing?” Mom asked as she looked over the Tandy.

“I am not getting rid of that.” I steadfast told her, “I love that old computer.”

“It’s old and useless and you have three better computers. Why keep this one?” She asked.

“This computer is a classic; I wouldn’t trade it for anything.” I said, putting my foot down on the issue.

“Fine, keep it.” She said as she walked away, leaving me to dismantle the Tandy and haul it to its new home downstairs.

The game room is actually the upstairs master bedroom and so that is where Mom and Dad went, it was their new bedroom as it was supposed to be in the first place. My old room became the office, decked out with his drafting table, computer, printers, massive desk and all the other stuff he has. That includes the finger removing fan. This old green fan has no real guard, just a wire cage two inch gaps between the wires. You could just stick your finder right in there and the solid sheet metal fan blades would cut it right off. It blew a ton of air, but it was hazardous. Growing up, we knew better then to do stupid stuff like that. It was always fun to show that fan to people. They are amazed that something like that was built and sold. It was a different time when that thing was made. If you got your finger cut off in a fan blade, it was your dumb fault for sticking it in there in the first place.

We put Mom and Dad’s bedroom together first, seemed only fair. Everything fit, the bed, the chest of drawers, the armoire, the nightstands and the huge dresser. We got all this stuff from Roland because he bought a ton of new furniture and he didn’t want it anymore. He told us he was sick of looking at it.

Once that was done, I wired up the office. Kinda my thing since I’m Dad’s “tech guy.” Fishing lines up to the new office was tricky, drilling holes it tough when the battery drill likes to die at weird times. But I got it done and the new office was hot with both phone lines. We still had only dial up at the time, but we managed. One line for the phone and the other for the internet and fax, it worked.

I left dad to sort out the details of his new office while I went to the basement to get my new apartment in order. That really is the only word for it since I have a kitchen, living room, bathroom, bedroom and mystery room that I didn’t know what to do with at the time. We had set up the brass bed already so all I did was make it up with my new blue sheets (what? I like blue as well as red) and John Deere quilt. It was much bigger then my old bed, it actually seemed to fit me. I could stretch out on it too. I put my desk in the left far corner of the room and the nightstand on the right side of the bed. The green chair went on the right far corner and the black and red chair sat next to the door. I put the Tandy in the very center of the far wall so that it was the first thing you’d see coming in. I really like that old thing.

The Living Room just needed the game room’s TV, the Xbox 360 and all of my games and it was set up. I have a twenty seven inch TV. Not huge, but big enough. The old office was reworked into the new game room. I set up all of the computers and wired them up on a closed network for LAN games with the main computer rigged with the only internet connection. It nice to have a ready and waiting LAN setup when you want to have friends over. I quickly checked my messages on DA and posted up a new journal entry, just thought it would be a good idea to test if the internet connection was any good.

After all that crawling around on the floor and heavy lifting, it was time to test out that shower. I have to tell you that after all that squeezing in and out of a very small shower space, with me anyway, having a shower without having to consistently mind all my extremities and just relax was great. The soap and hot water just felt great on my scales; it really finished the job of clearing my head. Not to mention that my hair needed to be washed out, it was hard to get the shampoo out with the old showerhead where it was. I had a setup that worked for me and it was all thanks to my family. I was a very lucky dragon at that point.
Katie showed up a little while after I got out of the shower. I decided that I was going to wear my black jeans and T-shirt with the wide brimmed red hat.

“You do change your outfit then.” She said as she caught sight of me down the stairs.

“Every once in a while, I will.” I replied with a smirk.

“Good, I was beginning to worry that you where stuck in a rut.” Katie replied.

“Oh, I’m in a rut all right and I’m happy in my little rut.” I said, enjoying my little speech, “It’s just nice to break out every so often.”

“That’s good.” she said back to me.

That night, we just had a nice quite family dinner at the dining room table. Mom made her calzones. Those are just awesome. I ate three of them and they are not small.

“I didn’t think you, as a dragon, could eat stuff like these,” Kate said as she watched number two make its way to my jaws. “They have bread and vegetables in them. I thought you’d eat nothing but meat.”

“I can eat anything I want to.” I told her with a full mouth, I swallowed before I said, “I would have hated to just be a carnivore. I love my options, pizza and these are not really good for a carnivore. Besides, you’ve seen me eat spaghetti.”

“But those teeth, they look like they are made for eating meat?” she asked.

“The ones in the front are.” I said, trying to make my point clear, I opened my mouth wide to show her, “See these in the back, molars. I can eat anything.”

“Oh, now I see them.” She said as she peered at my teeth, “They are really hidden back there.”

“I guess it preserves my looks as something fierce, but allows me choices in what I eat.” I said, just thinking about it for a bit.

“Well, that’s a good thing. Options are important.” Katie replied.

“I think so.” I responded, “Besides, Mom would never let me get away with not eating my vegetables.”

“That’s right,” Mom said, “You need them, you’re still growing and they are good for you. Here, have some more.”

She put even more vegetables on my plate.

“See.” I said as the pot of corn, green beans and carrots was emptied onto my plate.

“That’s funny.” said Sam, holding back the snickering, “Forcing a red dragon to eat his vegetables, priceless.”

“I just eat what’s put in front of me.” I told them then I quickly shoveled the things into my jaws. “I call dibs on the last calzone.”

“Awe, you suck.” Sam grumbled.

“Not fast enough.” I laughed as I pulled the delicious calzone onto my plate.    

As we ate, Katie talked. She went on about her plans for her life. She was planning to have her own store in a while. That’s Katie for you, always aiming higher. We all were gathered in the kitchen, just talking about old times.

“Well Ryan is here, I guess it’s time to head back to Chicago.” Katie said as she saw Ryan’s car pull up.

“We’ll miss you Katie.” Mom said, she had a soft smile on her face.

“You take care of yourself up there.” Dad told her.

“I will.” Kate replied, giving him a hug.

She turned and gave Mom one as well.

“See you soon.” Mom said, “I’ll be up there to visit in a few weeks.”

“I’ll have the place all nice when you get there.” Katie said as the two separated.

“See ya Kat.” Sam said as Katie hugged her.

“You too Sam.” She replied.

“Take it easy Kate.” I said as I held out my hand.

She didn’t shake it; instead she just bypassed it and wrapped her arms around my chest as best she could. She actually hugged me. I hugged my older sister right back.

“You’re my baby brother and you always will be.” Katie said as she looked up right at my face.

“And you’re my older sister Kate,” I said, my muzzle had the biggest grin on it I could manage; “Nothing can change that.”

Ryan walked in the door and saw this. His face went all sour. It was plain to see that he didn’t like this even in the slightest. The expression vanished as fast as it appeared. I have to give him credit; he knows how to hide his feelings.

“You guys better hit the road,” Dad said, “You got a long drive ahead of you.”

“It was nice seeing you again Mr. Compas.” Ryan said as he shook Dad’s hand.

“You too son.” Dad told him as he returned the shake.

“Bye all.” Katie said as they walked out the kitchen door.

We all said bye and she hopped in the car and they drove off.

“Well, that was fun.” I said.

“Hey, she hugged you.” Mom said, “That’s progress.”

“It is, but its Ryan that concerns me.” I replied.

“Now I don’t want to hear about it. You keep that snout shut.” Mom told me, waving a finger at me.

“Okay Ma.” I replied, I didn’t want to start a fight. Mom taught us how to argue, she knows all the tricks.

“Now it’s late, go to bed.” She told Sam and me.

“Okay then.” I said, it was about nine. I let out big yawn, “Good night.”

“Night.” Sam said as she walked back to her room and shut the door.

I walked down stairs to my new room to test out my new bed. I hoped to would at least be a nice firm bed; soft ones never feel right to me.     

Now I’m used to sun light hitting my face in the morning, it sort of my final alarm clock. The tiny little window at the top of the basement walk isn’t big enough to let enough light in to bother me. Besides that, the bed wasn’t lined up with the sun to work anyway. The weight fell to my trusty alarm clock. I cranked up the radio volume to make sure I heard it and set it on the desk so I would have to get out of bed to turn it off. I cover my bases. When it went off that Sunday morning at exactly 7 AM, I was ready. I was up and out the door in ten minutes with my Multicam uniform on, gray T-shirt, Multicam ball cap and my boots. After a big breakfast of pancakes and sausage with a glass of milk, we loaded up to head to the Bing field.

The Bing field is a place in Edwardsville where we play a lot. We trained for Storming the Farm there. Chris is a cool guy; he knows how to run a business. There have been a lot of hobby shops that have gone under in the past, but the Bing Shop still stands and that is saying something. He used to run the Colosseum, the largest indoor airsoft and paintball park in the country. It was an old K-Mart that he turned into an awesome place to play. Airsoft was in the back where the loading docks and offices used to be, great place. That’s way our team is called the Coloseeum Gladiators, because we all met and fought at that place. It was leased out from underneath Chris and so it closed down. Now it’s a car lot. Talk about a bummer.

The Bing Field is an outdoor, Illinois bottom ground field. It has been fixed up and there are some really good fields now. Two of the best ones are in the wooded area on the other side of a creek that cuts the field in half and the only way across is foot bridge. One half is open field, the other is thick woods. The two that are in the woods are Frontier and Vietnam. To an extent, so is the Trench field, but that is in a clearing. Frontier is full of log cabin looking buildings; Vietnam is loaded with bunkers and a sniper tower. The Trench field is attached to it and is full of, you guess it, trenches. In the open field part of the park, we have one speed ball field that is massive, half big concrete drainage tubes the other half fifty-five gallon drums and huge cable spools. We are not allowed on the inflatable fields for the fear of popping them. It’s a cool place to spend a day shooting people.

“You ready for this Sam?” I asked as I slid in my rifle case in the bed of the Ford.

“You know I am.” Sam replied with a twisted smile.

“Then let’s get to it.” I said, close the tail gate and shut the camper shell door.

We climbed in the Ford, waved goodbye to Dad as he tended to his garden and we were off. The trip there was full of kicking songs from the radio to get revved up. Getting away with Murder by Papa Roach, Indestructible by Disturbed and the all important Animal I have Become by Three Days Grace. That may sound weird from me, but I really like that song, it’s cool.

We pulled into the parking road at about ten in the morning. It doesn’t have a parking lot, just a long road to park along. We were one of the first ones there. I could see a white Pontiac G6 and a gold Chevy Caviler. Only could be Jason and Pat. When they saw the two tone red Ford with the aluminum camper shell, they came out to greet us.

“It’s good you came Farm, I have a feeling today is going to be an awesome day.” Jason said as we shook hands.

“What makes you say that?” I asked.

“Just a feeling.” He replied.

“Good enough for me. Pat glad you could make it.” I said.

“Yea, Demon Slayer just got a new Guarder Revolution motor. This thing can put zippers on people.” He said, holding up his Echo 1 416.

Pat had been working on Demon Slayer for a long time. It didn’t make it to Storming the Farm, but now that it was here, we had a serious increase in fire power to deal with.

“What have you got in there Pat?” I asked, now curious for what he had done to it.

“Well, the magnum motor, high speed gear set, aluminum piston head, aluminum piston and metal cylinder head. I think that’s it.” He replied.

I let out a low whistle, that's the best I can manage. I'm not a whistler. Still, that is some serious power upgrades.

“Nice.” was all I could say.

“Thanks, this is her first time out and she’s gonna kick a**.” He said as he walked back to his car to load up.

“I’m sure she will, but remember that the Buzzsaw is no slouch.” I said, a smirk crossed my face.

“I know, but I’m gonna take make you work for every inch you get.” He taunted back.

“Wouldn’t have it any other way.” I said with a draconic smile.
As we loaded up, more cars began to show up.

“I’d better go in to pay before there’s a line.” I said.

“Here, take this and pay for me while you’re in there.” said Jason, handing me a ten dollar bill.

“Good idea, here you go Farm.” Pat said as he did the same.
Sam handed me her ten and I walked into the trailer that Chris used as a shop and snack stand. It’s a mobile home looking thing painted bright blue. He has two of them for the field. The first one has had the most done to it, outfitted with a porch, air conditioning and electricity. The second one is in the process of getting these things.

“Hey Chris, how’s it going.” I asked as I poked my scaly head through that doorway.

“What the?!” He said as he saw me. His eyes went wide at the sight of a red dragon less than ten feet away from him.

“Remember me?” I asked, trying to get a spark of recognition. Kinda hard when I look this different.

“Not really.” He said cautiously

“It’s me, Ethan.” I told him.

“Oh that’s right. Some people told me at the shop you’re that dragon on the news. I guess its true then. You sure look different.” He said, finally remembering me.

“That’s a bit of an understatement.” I said with a bit of a laugh, “but yea, I’m here to pay for myself, Sam, Jason and Pat.”

“Sure.” He said as he took the money from me, “Here are your bands for the day, wear them in view please.”

“Sure thing, I’ll give these to them, thanks Chris.” I said as I walked out the door.

“No problem.” said Chris as I just cleared the doorway.

I handed out the bands to the owners. The bands were red, black and yellow checkered with skull and crossbones on them, kinda cool looking really. I strapped mine to my wrist, right above my watch so that it would stay out of the way.
After all the entry things were taken care of, I loaded up my mags and readied myself for the first game. More and more people were showing up. They came in at first one car at a time, then in groups of three cars. In about a half an hour, cars were lined up about half way down the parking road. Not a one of them were paintballers, all were airsoft players. This was an epic turn out and I was right there for it. Many of them were guys I hadn’t seen since the Colosseum closed. There was Grazel and Fridgebox from the arctic camo guys. Grazel is a short guy, about 5’8’ with dark black hair in spikes and pretty thin framed guy. Fridgebox is a fridge, huge guy, light brown hair and big muscles and kinda tall, about 5’10”.

  Others showed up, but the kicker rolled out of a red minivan. Weighing in at least 350 pounds was Rubin. This Hispanic guy with an almost shaved head and about 5’9” is solely responsible for making more games miserable than anyone else. He is notorious for not calling his hits, spouting his signature line “I’m not hit” at any available moment. The fact that he was here only made things worse when his closest rival for biggest airsoft douche bag, Austin, showed up with his group of peons. Austin has a nasty tendency to shoot his mouth off before he thinks and he thinks he’s in charge all the time. It infuriates him that people come to me instead of him for anything. Austin is a short kid, only about 5’5” with black hair and is kinda on the pudgy side. He carries a really broken looking MP5SD5 that looks like it was thrown down a flight of stairs. His “team” is Matt, a tall lanky kid with some muscle mass and dark brown hair armed with an M16SPC like mine only in bad shape. It looks like crap with all the cracks in the metal body and it doesn’t help that he’s duck taped the thing together. Then there is Mark who is about 5’11’ with a shout build and brown hair. He has a M16SPR that is rigged for sniping and is in really good shape. Then there was Bill. Bill was a good guy he just ran with Austin and that presented a problem. Bill is about 6’1 with very light brown hair and very lanky. He has a Thompson sub machine gun that is just barely functional.

“Check it out. The scaly SOB decided to come on to our field to play.” said Austin.

“Yea, I’d recognize that piece of sh*t truck anywhere, this has got to be the famous Farm Fresh. The airsofting dragon. I’m honored to meet you in person you over hill, washed up freak.” taunted Bill.    

“What the hell does that mean?” I asked, I felt my face pull into a sneer.

“It means with all those ‘changes’ you can’t hope to beat us.” Austin said, his smile was just so sickening. He honestly thought he had finally come out on top.

“You really believe that?” I laughed, “You sad little man, I can’t wait to prove you wrong.”

“I have a team now. T.A.C.T. Tactical Airsoft Combat Team.” He shot back, all of his cronies all lined up behind him, trying to pull off cool and failing.

As if on cue, Will’s Firebird pulled up and him, James and Lucas climbed out. Will had his woodland camo BDUs and that’s it, he doesn’t need a place for ammo since he has a 3000 round drum mag. James was wearing his Punisher black uniform with big white Punisher skull on the front his T-shirt was a black chest rig to show it off. Lucas was decked out in desert camo and always shoves his clips in his pockets.

“Well, we have our own team and the Colosseum Gladiators will grind you into the ground.” I told him, a big draconic smile just staring back at the little man.

“You can’t beat us, you just can’t.” he said, anger just ran through his voice with every word.

Will, James and Lucas all came up behind Sam and me. Pat and Jason came over to join in; they didn’t want to miss an opportunity to put Austin down. There was more than enough talent in place right now to kick Austin’s pathetic little team back and forth so hard he wouldn’t know which way to puke. But just when things were just starting to look better, a jacked up green Jeep pulled up followed by an older model white GMC crew cab pickup. Mahoney and Lurch just arrived. We all just threw a fist in the air and shouted,

“Mahoney! Lurch!”

That was a guarantee that this was going to be awesome. Mahoney was an awesome guy, but he rarely gets to play because of his job. He’s a 6’3” guy and pretty well built. His black hair MARPAT camo just make him look even cooler. Lurch, the guy is 6’8”, Lurch fits, is just a fun loving guy. At Storming the Farm, he always made things better.

At the sight of those two guys walking up to us, Austin and his goons just knew they were screwed. Mahoney and Lurch both were well known to have a sever dislike of Austin and anyone that associates with him. They made a personal point to crush their hopes and dreams of being in a respectable airsoft Op buy telling people straight up that his group cheats. No ifs ands or buts about it, that group is full of loud mouthed idiots that just like to get their way. It made me so happy to see them walk over to us and have Lurch, while carrying Tactical Tupperware and said,

“This pip squeak starting something Farm?”

“Nah, I think he was just about to leave.” I said with smile.

“We’ll take this to the field,” Austin growled back, “I’ll enjoy kicking your scaly butt clear across the field.”

“Then you better bring you’re A game then.” Mahoney said, “I just upgraded the AUG, it shoots at five hundred fps and as a 6.01 tight bore barrel. It’s now a sniper AUG.”

Austin grumbled as he and his “team” walked off. He had the best talent in the area on the opposite team and they all hated his living guts.

“This is going to be a fun day, I can tell.” Mahoney said as he started to load up his magazines.

“But of course.” I replied as I followed suit.

“Lurch told me about what happened to you at Storming the Farm there Fresh,” he said, he seems a bit concerned, “I hope things are at least treating you well enough.”

“I can’t complain too much,” I said, “It’s not like I can expect any different.”

“Yep, a big red dragon kinda has an effect on people.” Mahoney said with smirk.

“It just takes some getting used to is all.” I told him while using my speed loader to fill up my mid cap mags.

It wasn’t long before we were all loaded up and the ref was hollering for people to play the first game of the day. I turned my hat backwards, put my goggles on, holstered my Colt on my leg and rammed a fresh 100 round mag in the receiver of the M16 Special Purpose Carbine. It was go time. The first game was on the Frontier field. It’s a good sized field, three or four acres and loaded with 7 foot high buildings. They not big buildings, about twelve to fourteen feet wide or long with some larger ones. They’re just really cover buildings with no roofs. There are some small log walls as well. There are two forts as start zones, The Castle and the Chapel. One looks kinda like a big castle and the other looks like a chapel, we’re very technical.

“Okay, team captains are you and you.” the ref said while pointing to Pat and Grazel.

Grazel had his wicked AK-74 that had all kinds of upgrades in it, that alone made me nervous. No surprise, Fridgebox was the first guy he picked. Fridgebox had his Echo 1 M14 EBR with some toys and upgrades for it. It was a new gun and so it was a guessing game of what it could do. Pat picked Lurch, knowing full well he needed to be snatched and in response, Grazel snatched up Mahoney.

“Damn.” I said quietly to myself.

Pat picked Sam next, but the surprise was Grazel didn’t pick me to counter. That is what people usually did; break the two of us up. We do extremely well together. Instead he picked Rubin. Pat saw that opening and called me over.

“You in the scales, get over here.”

“Okay.” I said in a goofy voice as I toddled over.

“Big surprise, Pat picks the freak.” Austin said with a bit of a laugh.

“Keep laughing dip sh*t, we’re gonna shoot that smile right off that fat little face of yours.” Sam growled back.

“Keep your insults to yourselves please.” the ref told us.

We all just gave a grunt of displeasure as the selection process continued. It was a ten on ten game, which was pretty good for the space we had. It was Pat, Sam, Lurch, Jason, James, Will, Lucas, myself and two new kids that had to be about fourteen armed with rental MP5s vs. Grazel, Fridgebox, Rubin, Austin, Bill, Mark, Matt, Mahoney and two other guys from Rubin’s group. We were the underdogs because of the two new guys. We had to start at the Chapel so we started walking. We all waited till we were out of earshot before we started talking strategy.  

“Fresh, you take the newbies and you keep them alive.” Lurch said.

When Lurch is around in situations like this, I like to follow his lead. Its open play, I can mess around. The kids started to look around at the group to see who Lurch was talking about.

“Sure thing Lurch, I’ll take’em under my wing.” I replied with a smirk, extending my right wing over the top on the teenagers.

“Whoa, you’re teaming us up with the dragon?” the little blonde haired one with a black hoodie asked.

“You guys need to be shown the ropes and Farm Fresh here is really good at dealing with new people.” Pat replied, “Don’t let the scales, claws and teeth bother you, he’s just a big softy.”

“I’ll do what I can to make sure you guys have a good time and do the maximum damage to the enemy.” I said, looking over the two teenagers.

“We follow your lead dragon.” said the black haired one with a blue T-shirt.

“Please, just call me Farm.” I said with a draconic smile on my muzzle.

“Sure thing.” They both said.

We went over the plan, if you can call open play tactics plans. They basically boil down to taking a side of the field and shooting out any enemy you find. Since it was their first time and I wanted to break the rust off myself, I picked the left side. It had the tightest collection of buildings and the enemy would have to fight us out at close to medium range, perfect match for the Buzzsaw’s rate of fire and effective range. Lurch and Pat grabbed the middle. Will, James and Lucas decided to head for the two story building on the right with Sam giving cover fire from the ridge that formed a half a bowl around that side of the field. Jason ran backup for me and the newbies, just to make sure that we weren’t left high and dry.

“Okay, here goes nothing.” I said to myself, lowering my goggles over my eyes.

“Let’s hit it guys!” Jason boasted, giving that much needed jolt.

“Remember, when you see Rubin, unload everything you have on him. He won’t call it till he can’t stand the pain anymore.” said Lurch.

“Roger that, consider him Swiss cheese.” I said with a smirk, pulling the charging handle on the Buzzsaw.

“Game starts in three…two…one! GO!” yelled the ref and we took off.

“Stay on my tail!” I yelled to the newbies as I ran hunched over to keep my head down, flatting my wings along my sides to keep them from sticking up too much.

I ran past the first building straight to the second. Rubin, Grazel and Fridgebox were coming down the same side as me and the newbies. They took cover in the farthest building, just out of effective range.

“Three coming up left!” I yelled.

“Four on the right!” Sam yelled from the ridge.

“Got three in the middle.” Pat shouted as he let Demon Slayer loose on them. The thing sounded like a weed whacker. “Got one!”

“Hit!” yelled Matt

“You’ll pay for that you mother f*****!” screamed Austin.

“Bad move dumb a**.” I said quietly to myself as I let a long burst go.

When Austin yelled, he told me right where he was and I saw a leg in a low window of a building. If he had said nothing, I might not have spotted it. I got him right in the calf of his left leg with at least five shots. It takes that much to get him to call it.

“Oh sh*t, Hit!” he yelled.

“You damn right you’re hit, I had to hit you five times!” I shouted.

“I’ll get you for that you scaly freak!” he yelled angrily back.

I said nothing as I went back to dealing with that next threat. Rubin and Grazel were covering each other while they moved up building by building towards our position inside a small building. I used the biggest wall I could find as cover as I fired out a window opening to see if I could get one of them out. The rounds bounced off Rubin’s tactical vest as he jiggled his way into a building and out of sight. Two seconds later, he was firing out a window of the same build at me.

“I hit you!” I roared at him from behind my wall while slamming in a fresh mag.

“No you didn’t!” he yelled back, “I didn’t feel a thing!”

“Ah come on!” I said as I let out a growl.

That seemed to scare the newbies a bit, they moved a little farther away from me.

“This is lame!” Jason yelled, “I saw you hit him Farm!”

“Who’s not calling their hits?” asked the ref as he walked up.

“That guy, Rubin!” I yelled.

“I’m not hit!” Rubin yelled back.

“Yes you are!” both Jason and I yelled.

“Okay, I’m watching now. If you won’t call your hits, I’ll call them for you.” said the ref as he stood a little ways from the fight.

I let a burst go and one round hit him in the upper arm because it was just big enough to stick out.

“I saw that, you’re out!” yelled the ref as he walked over.

“No I’m not!” he yelled as he fired again at me.

“You will be asked to leave if you don’t play by the rules. Now I say again, you are out.” The ref told him.

“Fine, I still think this is bullsh*t.” he grumbled as he walked off, “I didn’t feel a thing.”

“Maybe you should go on a diet, lard a**!” yelled Will, “Then you can feel things that hit less than an eighteen wheeler.”

It wasn’t long before the black hoodie newbie scored a hit on Grazel while he tried to hide behind a small wall. More like ten hits, but Grazel finally was hit enough to call out. Without Austin and Matt to lead them, T.A.C.T. fell over like a house of cards. Jason got Mack, Lurch got Bill. Rubin’s buddies feel to Sam’s sniping and she even scored Mahoney as he tried to counter snipe her in the little dense wooded area in the back right part. We lost nobody in that run. It was very close multiple times, but nobody was hit on our team. We all walked out over the bridge with big grins on our faces. Mahoney wasn’t mad, he knew he was screwed the second Grazel picked him. He was just happy that Sam was the one he got to play with.

“That was f***ing bullsh*t!” Austin yelled as he matched up to us, particularly to Pat. “We had the best players here, not you f*****s.”

“I guess you guys aren’t very good then because we stomped you into the ground without really trying.” Lurch told him.

“The next game, you’re all going down.” He growled as he stormed off.

“Grow a pair you big sissy!” Sam yelled, the biggest smile on her face was just the perfect thing to offset the furious look on Austin’s.

We all just started laughing at that. A girl telling a guy to get some balls, that was just gold right there. We just started to load up for the next round when the two newbies walked up to me.

“You’re a cool guy, thanks for leading us through that game.” said the blonde haired one in black, “I’m Zack and this is my friend Fred.”

“Hi.” said his buddy in blue.

“Ethan.” I said with a smile and an offered claw.

They each shook it hard.

“Sorry about backing away back there, you looked like you were gonna go nuclear.” Zack said.

“No worries, it was just frustrating.” I told them.

“I can see that.” Fred said, “I saw you hit him too.”

“Rubin is famous for not calling his hits.” I said, just with a shrug, “Sad really.”

“Can’t he play the game fairly?” Fred asked.

“I don’t think he remembers how anymore.” I said frankly, “Just when you see him, don’t let up. Shoot him with everything you have.”

“Sure thing Farm Fresh.” said Fred.

“Will do.” replied Zack.

I was walking to my truck to reload when I noticed that a group of new people were looking at something in the sky.

“What are you guys looking at?” I asked as I walked over to them.

“You expected friends?” one guy asked me.

“No.” I replied.

“Well then who are they?” he asked back.