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Carmen wasn’t far into the dark, musty vents when she heard something alarming from her comms. [color=SeaGreen]“Oh, fuck,”[/color] It was Ben? Had something happened so soon? [color=b62b41]“Kingfisher?[/color] she whispered into her earpiece, a concerned tone in her voice.. [color=b62b41]“Kingfisher, come through. Status update?”[/color] There was only silence on the other end. [color=b62b41][i]No no no...[/i][/color] If Ben wasn’t responding, that meant something had happened. She really didn’t want to be cleaning up paint after thi-

[color=b62b41][i]Fuck.[/i][/color] Carmen only had a single moment to widen her eyes in shock as she took notice of the beeping red dot right in front of her. Oh. OH. That was bad. [color=b62b41]“Guys, I think they put a bomb in the v-”[/color] 

The bomb went off with a deafening, paint-filled explosion. Carmen absolutely wouldn’t admit this later, but she screamed like a ten-year-old girl. The vent shook violently, and the force of the claymore and the exploding paint slammed her body against the metal walls of the vent. It also dislodged her earpiece. [color=b62b41]“Ow…[/color] she groaned. Her head spun, her body ached something fierce, and she could feel that she was [i]covered[/i] in wet paint. She laid there for a moment, eyes closed, breathing in paint fumes and trying to regain her bearings. 

Carmen considered laying there for the rest of the exercise- that was how much that had hurt- but she remembered from an article she had read that breathing in paint fumes caused headaches, dizziness, and nausea. Not good. She didn’t even bother to find her earpiece again. So she crawled back to her elbows and scooted along, looking miserable until she found a vent going up. With shaking hands, she yanked the vent down and crawled up.

Bug, who was in the room above, would see a miserable-looking, paint-drenched Carmen haul herself out of the air vent, only to lay down on the ground and moan loudly. [color=b62b41]“Hey, Bug. Please don't shoot me. I think I have a concussion,”[/color] she groused, face fully in the ground. She didn’t particularly care about being found out anymore- she was in no shape to fight, anyway. In a normal mission, that would have killed her. 

Honestly, she would've rather taken dying over the humiliation of being immediately blown up.
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