Chapter Eleven - Shootout
"Silence!"
The students immediately quieted down.
Sergeant Wolff was standing in Orion Hall with the six students of the Ascension Project around him in a tight circle.
As always, there was a sour look on his face, his arms were crossed, and he was angrily tapping his foot on the floor.
Half of the floor space in Orion Hall had been cleared, all tables and chairs moved to the other end of the hall.
Charles concealed a yawn. It was getting late in the evening, but they hadn't been able to book the entire hall before they were sure that all other activities there were concluded.
Some large wooden panels had been placed, seemingly at random, around the otherwise empty part of the hall.
"Listen up! The engineers will get here in a minute, and I have some information for you before they get here," Wolff boomed and held up an M-3 predator pistol painted in bright yellow.
"This is a standard Alliance practice pistol. It functions exactly like a normal weapon, realistic recoil and all."
He drew out a thermal clip from back pocket and shoved it into the pistol.
"Like the real thing, you need to change the thermal clip for every twelve shots."
He passed out a bright yellow pistol and a bunch of thermal clips for each of them.
"The pistols act exactly like real guns, except for one obvious difference. They don't fire pieces of metal, but a red laser beam."
The sergeant grabbed Reiley's arm and dragged him to the center of the circle.
"As you can see, your uniforms have been fitted with a number of receivers. That means, if you are shot by one of these guns, you will be electrically shocked in the part of the body where you took the hit."
"Does it hurt?" Vera asked, nervously wringing her hands.
Wolff just stared at her with disgust for moment, before rapidly raising his gun wielding arm and firing two quick shots into Reiley's back.
"Fucking hell!"the young man screamed and fell to his knees.
Sgt. Wolff looked down at him, an evil smirk painted on his face. "Does it hurt, Ensign Bellarmine?"
"Not much, Sergeant Wolff," the now red faced boy answered, obviously determined to not show weakness in front of the hardened soldier.
Reiley got back to his feet and took his place in the circle next to his twin sister, who worriedly rubbed the place between his shoulder plates that had been hit by the laser beams.
"Still," Wolff continued calmly, "it's probably preferable to avoid being hit."
Moments later, they were joined in Orion Hall by six senior students from the combat engineering department. As always, they wore their green uniforms, and like the Ascension Project students', theirs were also outfitted with a number of receivers.
Charles immediately recognized Prangley's girlfriend, or whatever she was, Sophia amongst the students. She was truly beautiful, and from the few times they had met, Charles had gathered that she was very kind and friendly, which begged the question 'why choose Prangley as a boyfriend?'
Not that Charles hated Prangley. It was just that sometimes he could be such a pain in the ass. Charles thought to himself that he could have misjudged Sophia, or maybe she was just a nice girl who liked douche bags. There was also the possibility that Prangley was behaving differently when he was with Sophia.
Either way, Prangley had always claimed that she wasn't his girlfriend. He didn't want to get tied down, but Kurt and Charles were both certain that their obnoxious class mate was mad for the beautiful engineer. He was just unwilling to admit it, or maybe he didn't realize it.
"Good. They're here," Wollf murmured, "I have to go and tell them about the guns as well. Jack will be here in a second. She will be 'leading you into battle'."
"What a dick!" Reiley hissed as soon as the sergeant was out of earshot. "It really fucking hurts! Try not get hit."
"Aww, what a cry-baby!" Prangley taunted.
"Fuck you, Prangley!" Reiley retorted.
There was a flash of red, and a split second later Prangley was sitting on the floor grabbing his chest.
"Y-you shot me!" he complained to the girl pointing her gun at him.
"I did," Seanne stated coldly. "Looks like it hurts you too, huh?"
At that moment, Jack entered the hall and joined her students.
Prangley quickly got back on his feet while muttering something about cheap shots and not being prepared.
Jack took position in the center of their little circle without as much as a 'hello'.
"Listen up, people! Tonight you're fighting those geeky engineers, and I can promise you that I will not take it lightly if I see any of you goofing around out there!"
The students nodded in unison. "Yes, Ma'am!"
Jack scanned their faces, seemingly searching for any signs of doubt or hesitation.
"I am going to divide you into two teams. Who shoots best?"
They all pointed to Seanne, though Prangley only hesitantly.
Jack turned to face Seanne.
"Bellarmine, you'll be the leader of team one. Your brother and Rodriguez will be under your command."
Reiley and Vera smiled, happy to be placed in the top ranking shooter's team.
Jack ran her fingers thoughtfully through her dark hair, as she pondered who should be leading the second team.
Finally, she jabbed her index finger hard into Prangley's chest.
"You're it, big guy."
"Aye, Ma'am," prangley smiled, as he shook hands with Kurt and Charles who evidently had been placed under his command.
Satisfied with her teams, Jack started pacing back and forth in front of the six anxious students.
"You better do your best! I'm not doing this just for shits and giggles, and I will not tolerate anything but your top performance!"
"Yes, Ma'am!" the students acknowledged.
"Also, I really want to show that asshole Wolff, that biotics can be good soldiers without using their powers," she added grimly, causing laughter to break out among the students.
Soon after they were joined by the six combat engineers, their instructor and a very bitter looking Sergeant Wolff. Nothing new there, Charles thought.
"The rules," Wolff boomed, "are very simple. If you're hit, you're out!"
Charles nodded. Judging from the reactions from Prangley and Reiley, it wouldn't be a problem to determine if he was hit or not.
"You guys," Wolff continued, pointing to the engineers, "are not allowed to put up shields or send out drones."
The engineers agreed.
"And you lot," Wolff said, turning to face the biotics, "are not allowed to use any of that freaky hocus pocus stuff. No barriers either!"
Prangley looked like a guy who was just about to tell the old man what he could do to him with his biotics, but Jack silently shut him up with a surprisingly mature stare. It was obvious that Kahlee Sanders had ordered her to make nice with the sergeant.
When the engineers and biotics had taken their positions in opposite ends of the 'battlefield', Wolff blew his whistle and started the fight.
Immediately, Prangley and Seanne led their respective teams to the sides of the battlefield. Seanne's team started to push forward along the right perimeter, while Prangley's team two rushed from cover to cover in a mad dash for the left side of the room.
"Take cover here!" Prangley ordered, and Charles and Kurt joined him behind one of the wooden panels that had been put up as visual and physical obstructions.
Prangley looked at his team, both of them were panting lightly from the sprint.
"We'll use the cover to rush them before they know what hid them. End this fight quickly!" he panted.
Kurt raised an eyebrow. "Are you sure?"
"Of course I'm sure!" Prangley hissed, "Don't question me, Nielsen. I'm in charge here!"
"Yes, Sir," Kurt answered mockingly.
Evidently, Prangley chose to ignore his snide comment. "Follow me!"
Sprinting from cover to cover, they quickly approached the place where the engineers had started. They still hadn't caught sight of their opponents, and Charles was beginning to get a bad feeling about their tactics. Or lack thereof. All of a sudden, he felt a sharp pain in his right thigh and tumbled to the ground. He was running at full speed, and when he lost control of his right leg, his forward momentum caused him to crash painfully face first into one of the wooden covers.
His sight was swimming for a moment, but he could see Kurt and Prangley beeing hit several times before falling to the ground. All six combat engineers stepped out from their covers, where they had been waiting for them. Sophia blew Prangley a kiss and winked at him before leading her team out to find the three remaining biotics. The first round was finished shortly after that. Seanne's team had been overwhelmed by the six engineers, and had only managed to hit one of them.
As they returned to Jack for a quick debriefing before round two, they could tell that she was infuriated.
"What the fuck was that, Prangley?" she screamed.
Prangley opened his mouth to defend his actions, but she didn't let him.
"You were being stupid, and you cost your entire team their lives!"
There was an uncomfortable silence for a moment.
"Magnus," Jack turned to face Charles, "you are the new leader."
Charles was torn between two emotions. On one hand, he was happy to be considered for the task, but he also knew that it meant a lot more to Prangley to be in charge than it did to him.
"With all due respect Ma'am," Charles muttered, "but I think Prangley should get another chance."
Jack looked at him, one eyebrow raised.
"And why is that?"
"I think he has learned his lesson," Charles explained.
"Alright! Last chance, Prangley!" Jack said, poking her finger into his chest.
"Thank you, Ma'am. I will be better!" Prangley said happily, the usual smile back on his face.
Just as they were heading back out to start round two, Jack dragged Charles away from the rest of the group.
"You're bleeding," she stated in a soft voice, that Charles had never heard her use before.
He rubbed his eyebrow with his fingers, and saw that there was quite a bit of blood on it.
"Stand still," Jack ordered and drew something from her pocket, "I have some medi-gel here."
She softly applied the gel, which immediately dulled the stinging sensation that he had been feeling.
"Remember what I said to you a few weeks ago? You should not be afraid to speak up. You don't have to let Prangley be the team leader," she whispered while gently distributing the medi-gel to his cut brow.
Charles was feeling very strangely about the closeness with his instructor, but he managed to answer without trembling.
"I know, Ma'am. I just wanted him to have a second chance."
He looked down at the woman in front of him, and their eyes locked for an instant. Charles quickly looked back up, keeping an eye on his classmates over her head.
She smiled and patted his cheek. "Good. If he screws it up again, I will put you in command, and I will not allow you to decline."
He smiled back at her. "I promise you, I won't."
With his eyebrow fixed, Charles returned to his team, and at Wolff's whistle, round two had begun.
This time, Prangley was being a lot more patient and willing to accept suggestions from Charles and Kurt. After about five minutes of searching, they suddenly heard muffled voices from close by. They quickly took cover, and waited for the engineers to pass by.
"That was all six of them," Charles stated.
Kurt nodded. "I say we follow them, and wait for a chance to shoot them from behind."
Prangley smiled. "Good idea. Let's move out!"
Creeping from cover to cover, Prangley's team quickly got a visual on the six green-clad engineers moving slowly and vigilantly through the battlefield.
Suddenly, the engineer walking in front was hit by a red laser beam and fell to his knees with a loud moan.
Seanne's team had started an assault on the engineers, but was now being pushed back by the five remaining engineers.
"Engage!" Prangley roared, after quickly having assessed the situation.
Charles and Kurt spun out from the sides of the cover they had been crouching behind, while Prangley jumped over it, and they all moved up to get into better shooting positions.
Two combat engineers were quickly taken out of the fight by Prangley and Charles, before they even realized that they were being attacked from behind.
"On our six!" Sophia screamed, and the remaining three engineers quickly took cover.
Seanne's team started to move closer to the engineers, now that the biotics outnumbered their opponents.
Caught in the crossfire between Prangley's and Seanne's team, there was nowhere for Sophia and her two classmates to go, and she was soon after hit by Seanne.
One of the two remaining engineers tried to make a run for it, but was brutally cut down by four laser beams to the back.
The last remaining combat engineer had managed to find himself some cover, where he was impossible to hit by both fire teams.
"Give me some covering fire!" Charles shouted, and ejected his empty thermal clip. "And give me a clip! I'm out."
Kurt tossed him a thermal clip from behind his cover, which Charles caught and slammed into his pistol.
"Covering fire! Now!" He repeated.
Simultaneously, Prangley and Kurt rose from their covers and concentrated fire on the engineer, who quickly dove back down behind his wood panel.
In that same moment, Charles jumped his own cover and sprinted towards the place, where he knew the engineer was now crouching. Reaching his top speed, he threw himself forward and slid right past the cover. He just managed to perceive the surprised look on the engineers face when he came to a halt behind him, before placing three shots in his opponent's back.
Charles quickly got to his feet and offered the wincing young man before him a hand to get back up from where he had fallen after Charles' surprise attack.
"Nice moves!" he praised, still rubbing his back.
"Thanks," Charles grinned, before he was charged by his cheering classmates.
"And they say, I'm reckless!" Prangley laughed and slapped Charles' back.
-X-X-X-
Two hours later, Wolff called it a night and ordered the maintenance mechs in to remove the wood panels and put all the tables and chairs back to their original positions.
They had gone through twenty rounds, and in the end the Ascension Project had conceded an overall defeat. They had lost eleven rounds, but Jack still seemed relatively satisfied by their performance.
"We'll get them next time, guys! At least you showed Wolff that you've got game!"
"Good game," Sophia said smilingly, as she walked up to Charles and offered him a handshake, which he gladly accepted.
"Congratulations," he said, "you won't tease him too much about this, will you?" He nodded in Prangley's direction.
She smirked. "I think Jason could do just fine with a reminder that he's not the king of the universe, don't you?"
Charles looked at Prangley, who was in the middle of reenacting a specifically nice move he had made during the last round.
Sophia and Charles looked at each other again and laughed.
"Yeah, you're probably right, Sophia," he said, shook his head and moved on to congratulate the rest of the combat engineers.
After a quick kiss, Sophia and her class mates left Prangley and the rest of the Ascension Project advanced class to themselves.
"You see the girl next to Sophia?" Prangley whispered to Charles, as the engineers were heading out of the hall.
Charles noticed the dark skinned, long legged girl who was talking and laughing with Sophia and nodded.
"That's Lichelle," Prangley continued, "she was the girl that Sophia and I wanted you to meet."
"Was?" Charles asked.
Prangley put an arm around his shoulders. "She has a boyfriend now. Sorry."
Charles took another look at Lichelle's disappearing figure.
"Seems like I should have down-prioritized my homework, huh?"
Prangley patted his back.
"Well, I did fucking tell you she was hot!"
"Who's hot?" Vera asked from behind them, causing both of them to spin around.
Charles could feel his face becoming red, but Prangley just looked at her with a pristine expression.
"You are," he said, breaking into a huge smile.
Vera froze. Then she noticed the stupid look on Prangley's face and started hitting him playfully.
"Oh, shut up, Prangley! You're such a dick!"
"You asked," Prangley laughed, trying to protect his face from Vera's hands.
"I'm going to bed now!" Vera stated bluntly, and started to walk towards the doors.
Prangley smiled and winked at Charles.
"Sweet dreams, Rodriguez!"
Thank you for the nice reviews. It makes me happy that people like 'Biotic Beginnings', and that makes me try harder to make it as good as I can.
There will soon be a new student at Grissom Academy. The student will be someone who is known to Mass Effect fans. See if you can guess who! :)
Please, keep the reviews coming and feel free to write me a PM if you have any good ideas.
- Simon
