Ultraviolet: Codename S.P.E.C.I.A.L

Author's notes: I'm not sure if anyone remembers Anna's powers… Her power is activated by touch, and hijacks the logic centre in her victim's brain, leaving their imagination wild where their fears take over their senses. They'll usually have hallucinations of their fears, which are just exaggerations of reality.

If I just made that more complicating, you can congratulate me.

Disclaimer: The chapter has references to Colt (a manufacturer of firearms). Don't own the company or any of their firearms… There's no mention of the actual make of the gun in the chapter, but there's a clue somewhere…

Chapter 24

Peacemaker

Lessons take on a whole new meaning for Anna. Not that she attended a lot of them before this; she was always changing schools for putting another teacher in the straightjacket. Her parents didn't really believe the Supers stuff… in fact they didn't care at all. Always on their 'business trips', they returned once a month to settle the bills, collect letters and to check on their daughter, until…

Until they came to kiss her good night…

She was barely seven then. Relatives shunned her, friends abandoned her, but only her destiny embraced her. 'As one door closes, another opens.' She believed in it, and it did… Her life wasn't perfect now, but at least it was better than the hellhole she used to live in.

'School' as she knew was basically self-study topics, just for general knowledge. The real stuff was in combat training and the development of powers. Half a year of being a Specialist in training, and she can already claim a seventy-percent mastery over her powers. She was also rarely without her switchblade, her weapon of choice.

The next part of training was a must for all Specialists: firearms. Lance was the instructor, which wasn't a surprise for the team. His training extended way beyond theirs', and he had a head start… In fact, Father announced that Lance had passed his official Specialist's test, and was the first official member of the team. What that meant for the rest of them was still unclear.

"Eyes out front, fingers outside trigger guard and always on alert!" Lance yelled over the loudspeaker, shaking Anna out of her trance. The shooting range came into focus, and so did the revolver in her hand. The label on the shelf had read 'Colt'; fifteen blank rounds lay by the side. Lined up beside her were Ken and Serena, with similar weapons in their hands.

"Take aim at the targets in your lane." Anna held out the revolver in her right hand, index finger on the trigger. "Ready, fire!"

Anna's fingers tightened on the trigger, not sure what to expect, when a resounding 'crack' was heard. She didn't feel anything from her gun; glancing around in panic, she almost dropped her gun. Another shot rang out, this time from her right. Ken and Serena were already opening fire, and she should too.

Anna's aim was thrown off when she panicked earlier, and now she struggled to regain a proper aim. Her left hand gripped the table as she squeezed the trigger…

Her hand jerked upwards as the recoil overcame her. There was a flash from the muzzle, and a dent appeared on the target board. That wasn't so bad, she thought. Soon, she had emptied five rounds at the board, and unsure of her results, lowered her gun.

"Examine your target boards." With a push of a button, the boards were brought forward, and Anna stared at hers.

There was a dark human silhouette on the cardboard, devoid of bullet marks. They were scattered across the board, though one was close to its shoulder… Anna thought, trying to comfort herself. Ken and Serena were busy discussing their results in hushed whispers.

"I got close to its heart… more like at its liver… what about you?"

"Perfect… straight at its head…"

Anna glanced over at Serena's scoreboard. Sure enough, there was a mark right where its head would be. The others weren't wasted; there were shots on its neck, torso and midsection as well. Ken had said that he was close… at least he hit something… unlike her…

"You may want to support your right hand with your left when you fire. It'll help reduce recoil. Of course, it helps to actually aim at something…"

Anna's head snapped up at her brother. "Lance…"

"All right, the two of you, reload your weapons. We're going for another round." Anna felt him pause behind her. "Just try herder this time…" He returned to his station. Anna picked up a couple of bullets with her fingers and loaded five more rounds into the cylinder.

A month after the shooting fiasco came their practical examination. Anna paced inside the isolation room where each candidate waited. She read the instructions provided on paper one more time: The examination was held in the multi-purpose room, in a simulated environment.

She then tried to recall the firearms they had used in the past month. The revolver was the least of her worries now, as she found herself fumbling with both assault rifles and the sniper rifle they had been taught to use.

A computer-generated voice came through the headphones, part of the communicative device they had to communicate with each other. "Your practical examination starts now. Pass through four checkpoints and complete the tasks at each station. Use the map on your wristwatch to help you navigate the terrain. You have forty minutes… starting now."

The door leading into the multi-purpose room slid open, revealing a jungle environment. It was designed down to the minor details like foliage. Anna took off towards it at a trot, glancing at the mini-map on her modified wristwatch. The first checkpoint was just a few feet away.

As expected, there was a Colt revolver resting on a rack. Beside it was a small pouch of bullets, which Anna attached to her belt.

"Load the weapon." Anna complied, finishing the task in half a minute. As soon as the last bullet clicked in place, three red targets rose up from the bushes around her. There wasn't any need for words, as Anna made short work of the clay targets. "Checkpoint cleared."

She took another glance at her wristwatch. Next checkpoint: one mile to the Northeast. About thirty-five minutes remained.

The run to the next checkpoint took slightly over three minutes, where she repaired a jammed rifle and successfully fired one burst of rounds from it. She deliberated for a moment, deciding to leave the rifle behind. The cumbersome weapon would only slow her down, she argued, hoping that it would not be a mistaken judgement.

A different rifle awaited her at the next checkpoint. No sooner had she picked it up, a volley of rounds fired from the other side, whizzing past her petite frame. Too shocked to react, Anna jerked her head around, looking for the source of gunfire, when another burst erupted at her. Realising her exposed position, Anna threw herself at the floor, ducking behind the cover that the lead-plated checkpoint provided. On the other side, tiny rounds pounded against her cover.

She gripped the rifle in her hand, crawling into position, before rolling out from behind cover. In the split-second she took to raise the rifle, she had spotted the aggressor: a machine gun mounted on a turret. It continued to fire at Anna's previous position, giving her time to take three precise shots at the turret base. Gas spewed from the holes; the gun ceased fire.

She glanced at her stopwatch. Twelve minutes left. She'd better start her two-mile run towards the last checkpoint.

It came into sight, at the edge of a clearing fifty feet away. Anna approached it, blinded with her eagerness to complete her task that she failed to notice when three robotic guards jumped out from ambush, brandishing sub-machine guns of their own.

'That's as far as you'll go," one of them said.

Anna hadn't counted on robots appearing, even in combat lessons she was trying not to touch her opponent, possibly due to her aversion to contact. There's always an option of using the gun in her hands…

But that'll be wrong.

They were built to be like humans, every aspect of them. With the exception of breathing oxygen, down to the last detail like strength, eyesight and intelligence… All of that was based on the average human's. They were even varied to simulate the randomness amongst humans. Their electrical wiring follows the human's nervous system. An impact to a human's vital organs had the same effect on them. Their skin was a thin as a human's…

Wouldn't that make them humans too?

She couldn't kill them then… knowing that they were like humans. She had hesitated, similarly, in combat training, and had refused to cast the finishing blow. Father had let her go then. Will he do the same now?

You don't have time to think about that, Anna, a voice told her.

She tightened the grip on her revolver, aiming straight at one of the robot's hearts. They closed in on her, ignoring the threat. They knew about her hesitations.

"I can't… I just can't…" The robots were coming… She had to do something.

Her fingers relaxed their grip on the revolver, as it spun towards the ground. At the same time, her left hand slipped towards her belt pouch, detaching the plastic casing attached to it. The robots around her pounced – she rolled out of their way. In a tangled heap, they were unable to respond as she stood over them.

Lance had designed the robots to respond to her powers, too. If she touched each of them now, they would probably run away in fear…

She lowered her hand, bending down as she dealt the lethal touch…

Her finger pressed down on the button on her switchblade, as the blade ejected to its full length. The three robots were recovering now… at any moment they'll surrender…

"Pause the simulation."

Anna glanced up at the source of the voice. Father had to be watching, with Lance by his side. The robots froze in their places, halfway up to their feet.

"What's the problem now, Anna?" Lance called out from wherever he was at.

Anna flung herself at the ground, covering her face. "I just can't…" She felt a hand on her shoulder. She looked up at her brother, as he pulled her up to her feet.

"You're lucky that this is just a simulation. In an actual combat situation, you don't have a choice. You just have to deal with it."

"But I… They're just like humans…"

"That just adds to the realism. You've fought them in lessons; haven't you got used to it by now?" Anna looked up at Lance, scepticism twinkling in her eyes. "Trust me. You won't have to face such a situation, but just in case you do…"

"I can handle them with my powers just fine…"

"Sometimes you just don't have a choice," Lance repeated, asserting that fact to Anna. "We don't use humans in our lessons. That's good enough, isn't it? Taking out a robot wouldn't make you as guilty as taking out a real human."

Yeah, right. He didn't mention that it was exactly their purpose. To make them less guilty so that they won't regret when a real human was in front of them.

Of course, she didn't know it them. Blindly picking up her revolver, she turned away as Lance disappeared behind some bushes. A minute later, his voice was broadcast over the loudspeaker again. "Do what you have to do."

"Simulator resuming in five seconds," the computer generated voice told her.

There was a click as she pulled back the hammer…

Six shots rang out in quick succession, two to each opponent. She tossed the spent weapon aside, striding towards the next checkpoint.

"Use the sniper rifle to take out the guards around the base in front of you," Anna read out loud, unable to compose herself to comprehend the words. She read it a few times over, before she glanced up at the makeshift base in front of her. A camouflage net held up by thin metal pipes, with four robot soldiers sitting around it. They seemed just like casual soldiers. All that they lacked was a couple of cigarettes.

Truly, a simulated battle…

The sniper rifle fit snugly in the hollow of her shoulder. The scope lined up with the first target's head. Anna closed her eyes for a moment, taking a deep breath along with it. As she opened her eyes, a muffled crack followed and a single bullet shot forth, striking the target. The next three targets suffered similar fates.

"Examination completed. Simulation over."

End notes: Again, I'd like to say that this is read-at-your-leisure stories that may give you a better understanding of the villains. As a matter of fact, I feel that I'm not updating often enough.

I'm really busy lately, and writing is more like a free time thing. I don't expect myself to be able to update in a week.