So as the winter break rolled on the Wards had our Christmas gift exchange. For my gift to Sophia I gave her a 500 piece puzzle set. I was so generous I even added some extra pieces for when she got bored with the first puzzle. Hopefully she doesn't have any trouble separating them out. Missy had gotten me a nice Swiss Army Knife because she knows me so well.
At my house Christmas was a quiet affair. I got Taylor some books, she got me some movies, and dad got a new wallet and tie. Even though Taylor was still miffed at me we could keep up a happy charade for dad. He got so few days off anymore so we didn't want to spoil Christmas of all days.
On other days it was a fairly regular routine. Me and Taylor kept to fairly limited requests and statements ("Hey Taylor I'll make dinner again tonight." or "Sam I swear if you drink from the milk carton again I will [REDACTED]!"). You know the usual pleasantries and threats.
When the training day rolled around me and the rest of the wards were all suited up and ready to rumble. It was a relatively warm December day so we only needed some gloves and thick socks to stay warm. We even went out to a training building they have for infiltration operations. It used to be a large resort hotel on the outskirts of town but when most of the local tourism focused on the boardwalk it closed down.
It was on the edge of a large park so most of the surrounding area was forested with the exception of the road at the far end of the parking lot opposite the building. So we assembled there in the parking lot by several vans and some benches. We mostly arrived in a van that had picked us up from our houses.
I spent some time comparing notes on the briefings we had gotten with my fellow wards Vista, Aegis, Gallant, Kid Win, and Clockblocker. It seems they had been clued in about the broad strokes but left out the specific time and place. They only had a range of times and general area. So they didn't know that the party we were hitting was a New Years Party. Shadow Stalker was the last to arrive since she had to get a ride from her probation officer.
"I should have known you'd screw with me with that gift of yours. That stupid puzzle is impossible to solve."
"Oh I'm sure if you give it a little more time you'll piece things together." Some of the other wards started snickering, probably more because I had clued them into the joke than my pun. Though I do like to think I can make a good pun. After that Triumph and the older looking agent in charge of the exercise stepped forward.
"Hello wards, I am Agent Potter, I will be overseeing the exercises along with Triumph here. You have all been training for heavy combat and patrols so far, but today is different. The aim today is to ensure that you are all up to date on the doctrine and tactics of an infiltration operation. You have been all briefed about the upcoming operation so I will not repeat that information here, it will be discussed later. Triumph will explain the first exercise."
He stepped back to let Triumph become the center of our attention.
"Hello everyone. Your first exercise will be to test Manes's infiltration capabilities. This will be a hard target exercise. Even though the upcoming operation is closer to a soft target we wish to cover our bases. You will be guarding Agent Potter at a location of your choosing in this building."
Triumph then walked over to a board holding up a copy of the hotel building blueprints.
"There are many rooms and hiding places you can put him, so as long as he's in the building it is allowed. Manes will have the task of removing Agent Burns from the building to outside the property boundary we have marked out. She will be evaluated on time, how many of her opponents are incapacitated, and whether the objective was achieved."
Stalker decided to be the first one to ask a question.
"Is she allowed to master us?"
"Of course, it wouldn't be an accurate assessment if we handicapped her like that. You can refer to your ward's contracts to see that you accept the risk of being subject to other ward's powers during practice so long as it isn't clearly malicious."
Aegis raised another question.
"What are the defending teams' win conditions?"
"You will have 30 minutes of prep time and she will have one hour to infiltrate and extract the target. If you incapacitate her you win. This includes taking her body into your custody. This can be accomplished by putting zip-ties around both her hands and feet. Agent Potter will assess your skills as you perform your defense alongside the agents who will be watching the exercise on the CCTVS."
Then Kid Win raised his hand to ask a question.
"Isn't this exercise a bit one sided? She's not going to have any support."
Awww, he's concerned. It would be sweet if it wasn't a bit misguided. Then Gallant joined in.
"I was thinking the same thing. This exercise is a bit much for what the actual operation is. We could just skip to the actual simulations so she doesn't injure herself before we can do those."
Okay, excuse you Gallant. I'm not that fragile. Aegis put in his two cents.
"Are you sure one of us can't be allowed to team up with Manes? She's usually not deployed alone for a reason."
What is this? Pick on Manes day? And then Shadow Stalker chimed in.
"I don't know why we're even bothering with testing her. I could tell you she probably wouldn't be that useful anyways. All I've seen her do is pushups and read some books."
Okay I need to put a stop to this because if it keeps up I am going to punch someone. So I spoke in the calmest tone I could manage.
"I can handle myself, everybody. This is supposed to be a hard test. Worry about what you're going to do."
It came out a little hostile but it got everyone to stop piling on. They looked at me with a little concern but I ignored them. Then Triumph decided to wrap things up.
"Okay I think we covered all the relevant issues. Are there any final questions?"
None were forthcoming so we went to our assigned starting points. I would wait outside the building. The hotel was built in a large block L shape with the lobby entrance at the inside corner. It was 4 stories high with a roof pool. The building was a bit run down but still pretty structurally sound. The city wouldn't care if we managed to demolish or ruin it since it was slated for demolition otherwise.
I tried to collect my thoughts. I was going to do this the standard way with lots of sneaking and evasion but those comments really got under my skin. Is that Taylor meant when she said that I thought she was weak? Because if it was then I'm starting to see why she was so angry. But that was a thought for another day.
Maybe I should go more aggressive tact. I'm starting to think they've been talking behind my back about how I don't measure up. Being sidelined hasn't given me a lot of chances to show off. It doesn't help that I'm one of the younger members of the team. I had 10 minutes to go while I was psyching myself up when Triumph walked up to me.
"Are you feeling ready for this? You've never done a full out exercise like this before. It's going to be 6 vs 1 in that building."
"Oh ye of little faith. I've been watching these guys the entire time they've been wards. I have a few tricks up my sleeve."
"Manes I've known you the entire time you've been a ward and I'll eat my shirt if you do anything in there without a trick involved."
"True, though I was hearing a lot of doubts from the other wards as well. They seem to have a rather low opinion of me."
"They have been getting a bit full of themselves lately. They've been making a lot of arrests and they think that means they're pretty tough."
"Sounds like they need to get humbled a bit. How would you feel if I took the opportunity to really take the gloves off."
"...I'm not sure exactly what you have planned. But we are trying to get a sense of how capable you are. So if that happens to mean they get spanked a bit I'll allow it. Just remember if we have to interrupt Panacea's schedule today she'll be very annoyed."
"No big deal, she's always cranky. I'll make it up to her with a nice DVD set of her favorite show as a late Christmas present."
"Okay then I'll leave it up to you. Keep in mind you got to work with them after this as well."
"No problemo. Now shoo. I need to get my head in the game. Time to remind these guys that just because I've been benched for so long that they shouldn't underestimate me."
The timer went down to 2 minutes, and I knew that whatever plan they had decided on was set now. If they were smart they would make sure none of them was ever alone. But I have some potential ways around that problem that I wanted to try out today.
The timer buzzed and I got moving. I needed to watch out for my own body here. So the first priority was to find a place to keep it safe while I got to work. It had to be in what I called the danger zone because otherwise my range wouldn't be sufficient.
So the first step was to gather intel. This would be where the first ace up my sleeve came in. You see I usually don't go that fast as a ghost because I need to navigate. But during power testing I found that as long as I was in my range my ghost could go very fast. For example from one end to another my range is a diameter of 200 yards. I could cover that in about 4 seconds, which put my speed at over 100 miles an hour.
So what that means is that I can basically do a shuttle run from my body to the edge of my range and back in 4 seconds. That means that if I can pay attention well enough while I speed through the building I can scout which rooms are empty and occupied.
So I started by running close to the top part of the L and hid my body behind the overgrown bushes planted near the side of the building. I laid on the ground and deployed my ghost. I started by going straight up first so I could check the roof, and what do you know there's Vista, Shadow Stalker, and Agent Potter by the pool. Now that I knew where my objective was I positioned myself back by my body. I then raced forward into the building and sped through the left hand side.
I didn't quite go my full speed since I was going for accuracy so I cleared the first 20 rooms and hallway as empty. I popped out the end after speeding through the central lobby. I then returned back through the right hand side rooms and cleared those 20 rooms as empty too. In the space of 15 seconds I had verified that 40 rooms and the hallway on the 1st floor of the long part of the L were empty. So that meant I could use the side door at the top of the L.
I hopped up and raced to the door. If they had someone watching from the roof, which they really should, I could count on about a minute before they responded to intercept. So I raced down the hallway as far as I could before I got 10 doors down and decided to duck into a room. Thankfully I timed it well cause I heard heavy footsteps run to the hallway and stop. Then I heard the voices of Aegis and Clockblocker talk with Aegis speaking first.
"Damn it. We missed her. I thought her ghost wasn't supposed to be that fast."
"I thought so too. This might throw a wrench in the plan."
"We can still find her, we just have to be methodical. Her ghost can pass through walls but her body can't. Once we find the body it's game over."
While they were correct, they were operating under the assumption I was just going to let them do that. Which was wrong. It was time to make them realize they wouldn't be hunting me, but I would be hunting them. I hid in the empty closet, went ghost, and phased through a few rooms. I had to make sure that wherever my ghost came into view wasn't too close to my body.
I then emerged into the hallway. They were in the middle of talking when they paused and saw me. I began moving towards them and then they began backing up. Suddenly whatever courage they had evaporated because they switched to running. It was cute that they thought running would help. I sped up enough that once they had returned to the lobby I was able to overtake them in a second.
I chose to possess Clockblocker first because he was leading and his power was exactly what I needed. When I possessed him the body shuddered and I was in control. I immediately heard Aegis startle as he realized his partner was compromised. I then rounded about and tackled him.
It took a few seconds to work out how to activate the time stop but I was able to freeze Aegis quickly enough as I wrestled him to the ground. Satisfied he was stopped, I extracted Clockblocker's body from where Aegis was on the ground. I then walked Clockblocker into the closest room and had him stand facing a wall. I decided to use one of his tricks and froze his costume. Now that they were both frozen I could move my body to the next floor.
Before I returned to my body I did a quick shuttle run of the bottom of the L for the 1st floor. I verified nothing was there in 12 seconds and returned to my body. I quickly got up once I had returned and began sprinting.
I quickly passed the frozen form of Aegis, sticking out my tongue at him even though the insult was lost on him. I ran up the staircase, since I was willing to bet they wouldn't put anyone in the basement where they would be cornered.
Once I was on the 2nd floor I shuttle ran both legs of the L in 30 seconds. It was clear. I then did the same for the 3rd floor in 25 seconds since I was getting worried the time stop would wear off soon.
I then reached the 4th floor and when I did my sweep from the staircase I found that Kid Win and Gallant were patrolling this floor. The staircase I was in didn't go straight to the roof, so there was another set that served as emergency stairs on the outside of the building on the end of the low leg of the L. The other way to the pool was the elevator, which I knew was busted. Looks like Aegis hadn't been able to clue them in that I had gotten past them. So I backtracked to a 3rd floor room where I could stash my body.
From there I decided to deploy my next trick. I drifted to the 4th floor and found a room I could wait in. I used a peephole to watch the outside. When Gallant and Kid Win passed me I made my move. I came out behind them as they walked. Since their headgear restricted their peripheral vision I wasn't seen. That meant when I shot forward and possessed Kid Win neither of them were expecting me.
"Don't mind if I borrow this." I quipped as the body shuddered and it became mine. I then ran forward leaving Gallant behind and went for the main stairs. I'll give Gallant credit he recovered quickly because he sent several blasts, probably depressive, at me as I ran. Thankfully my hope that Chris was the more maneuverable of the two worked out as I was able to dodge them. Then I ducked into the stairwell and stopped Chris at the top of the stairs.
Gallant then appeared at the stairwell entrance and shot another round. I ditched the body just in time for the blast to hit Chris and knock him down the flight of stairs. As his body tumbled down the flight I looked at Gallant and shook my head in disappointment, confident his blasts couldn't affect my ghost. I don't know what expression he had but it was likely not a proud one.
He tried to run away but my cool-down period ended just in time. I shot forward and possessed him easily since he had only moved a few feet away. I got used to the body quickly and rushed down to the stair platform where Kid Win was picking himself up slowly.
"What's the password?"
"Really man? You shot me down the stairs and now you want to play it safe?"
"What is the password? Tell me now so I know you're not Manes."
"It's swordfish, now help me up you dumbass."
It was then that Aegis and Clockblocker appeared and they were rushing up the staircase. Aegis spoke first.
"Guys, Manes got past us. We need to regroup at the pool."
"Yeah we noticed she's here, and she's definitely nearby." Chris said.
"Closer than you think." I said as I grabbed Chris and threw both of us down the stairs at where Aegis and Clockblocker were standing. I ditched Gallant's body as they tumbled down the stairs even further. Eventually Clockblocker had had enough and froze the whole tumble of bodies to stop them. Unfortunately his timing of the freeze meant the three other bodies kept him immobile too. They all were in a frozen tableau at the end of the 3rd floor platform in the stairwell.
Satisfied that they were neutralized for a few more minutes I returned to my body. I ran past the frozen heap, sticking my tongue out again just so a stuck Clockblocker could see it. I then went to the 4th floor and headed to where the emergency stairs were located. It was then that I heard footsteps coming down those stairs. I ducked into a room.
"Hey what's going on down here, you guys missed the check in."
Well it looks like Shadow Stalker has decided to volunteer herself for the next part of my plan. I projected and jumped into the hallway where Stalker was. I surprised her as she apparently shot an arrow at my form, which was probably more an instinct thing since it was useless against my ghost. I rushed forward and before she could even start running I had her body.
I took stock of what she had on her and found she had zip ties, which would serve nicely in my next step. I went to the emergency stairs and started climbing. I had to play this carefully because Vista's space manipulation is the one power that can hard counter my ghost. Once I was on the roof I saw that Vista was standing watch by Agent Potter.
"What happened down there?"
"Apparently they just got excited and forgot to check in, she's really moving down on the first floor.."
I began to approach but Vista was apparently on her game. She put up her hand.
"Wait! What's the password?"
"It's swordfish."
"Alright. Gotta be paranoid whenever you're going against a master like Manes. I can't believe you just went off on your own like that."
"Hey, I can do what I want." I said hoping Vista would buy it. Apparently she did cause she had let her guard down a bit now. I hoped Vista wouldn't take the next part personally. Because just when I walked within arms reach I tackled her.
"Not paranoid enough I'm afraid."
While she was good at close quarters combat so was I, and I had Stalkers bigger body on my side. After a minute of pushing and grabbing I had maneuvered her into position so that I could use the zip ties. I started with her hands and then when I was sure she couldn't move them I tied her feet together. She then spoke.
"I told them it was dumb to try and get your body. We should have just fortified the roof. But apparently they were convinced a squishy master wasn't a threat if they stayed paired up so I was outvoted."
"Hopefully they learned their lesson. I'll tell you all about it later."
"Can you give me the cliff notes?"
"They fell down some stairs."
"Why am I not surprised?"
Once I was satisfied that Missy was restrained I approached Agent Potter.
"So how would you say they're doing?"
"I'm thinking they just skimmed the whole anti-master part of their training manuals. Honestly, just using one password is amateur hour right there."
"I know right?"
Since they only wanted to test the wards, Agent Potter came along with me peacefully as we went down the emergency stairs. I stopped us on the 4th floor.
"Wait right here a minute, I need to take care of one more thing."
"If you insist."
With that I ran down the hallway to the main stairwell. It was perfect timing as I saw the four stooges making their way up looking a bit bedraggled. They saw me in Shadow Stalkers body and stopped a few steps below me.
"You know you guys are really gluttons for punishment."
I then jumped right down the stairs and bowled the four of them right back down the flight. I ditched Stalkers body just in time before Clockblocker froze the tumble yet again. Satisfied I moved quickly back to my body, and jogged from my hiding place to the emergency stairs. Once I was there I spoke.
"Well I think all that's left now is to walk to the finish line."
"Are you sure you don't want to rush?"
"Nah, I think the others will need a bit before they're ready to start chasing anything again. By the way, is there any way I can get the highlights of this on video? I would love the memento."
"Of course, I can already tell this is going to be a popular case study once they edit together the footage. I'll be sure to let you know when it's ready."
"Perfect."
So it was that we leisurely walked down the emergency stairs to the ground and made our way to the designated property line. Agent Potter took out a stopwatch he had been running and stopped it.
"22 minutes and 48 seconds. I think that's a record."
"Wonderful. Oh look, I think that's Triumph coming up to congratulate me."
He was walking up to us a bit quickly and then he faced me with a grin on his face.
"Well Manes, I think that's the most laughter I've ever heard from the surveillance folks while doing these exercises. They send their regards by the way."
"I'm glad I could impress them. By the way, could you send someone to free Vista from the roof? Would hate for her to miss the lessons learned session."
"Of course. There should be someone getting her already in fact."
It was about then that the wards started filtering out of the hotel. The ones who were in the staircase looked pretty sore and beaten up. Vista walked out alongside one of the assistants and I could tell she looked steamed about how badly that had gone for her team. When they got closer I decided to do just a bit of gloating.
"You know Win, you were right. The exercise was a bit one sided. Maybe we can invite some wards from the other branches next time to help you guys out and give it another go eh?"
Their expressions got a bit more strained as they heard my boast, Kid Win especially as I repeated his words back to him. Triumph decided to step in.
"Alright everybody take your seats at the benches. It's almost time to hear your feedback on your performance."
The other wards stayed silent and simply shuffled to the benches on the side of the parking lot. A short wait occurred as Agent Potter, Triumph, and another woman talked and conferred a few yards away. While we waited I decided to sit by Vista, since the other wards were giving me a couple death glares when they looked in my direction. Hopefully once their bruises were gone we could all laugh about this in the future. I spoke to Vista.
"You don't think I went too hard did I?"
She listened and stayed silent for a few seconds. Then she responded.
"You did go pretty hard but you were also outnumbered. If anything they really didn't take this seriously enough. I kept telling them we needed to take more precautions but they didn't listen."
"Triumph did say you guys were getting cocky."
"Of course he did. It's just hard to find out how unprepared you are. It's better to learn that in practice than in real life I guess but it still hurts."
"The thing I'm worried about is that the lesson they're going to learn from this isn't that "Masters are tough" but "Manes is a bitch" honestly."
"Well I learned not to let your teammates do dumb stuff even when they don't listen to you."
"Also an important lesson."
It was then that Potter and Triumph finished conferring and came over to start the talk. Potter began.
"Alright so we'll be doing an initial overview of the strengths and weaknesses that each side showed out there. First off will be Manes."
He pulled out a piece of paper that he must have gotten from the other observers,
"Overall you did excellent, showcasing speed and a good understanding of the principles of infiltration. Your utilization of your power and… *ahem* the surrounding terrain was very well executed."
I preened a bit. It was nice to know all that training and prep weren't for nothing. Potter went on.
"Now your main weaknesses were that you made a point of confronting every single person you encountered. While this can be viable on some missions it is often better to avoid fights since they can attract unwanted attention. In addition you were observed making a few unsportsmanlike comments. While it can be overlooked please remember your opponents are trying their best. It also suggests arrogance so please be mindful there's always a cape that can counter you out there so don't let your head swell."
Well I guess those points were true, even if the first part was because I was trying to show off. I guess I need to check my ego more if I actually want to get better. Potter now moved on.
"Now for the defenders. Your main strength was that you did come up with a plausible plan of defense and made use of the terrain to ensure she had to go through all of you to get to me. However….."
He turned his gaze over the whole audience from left to right, letting the pause drag as he made them wait for the unpleasant verdict.
"I am not sure where to begin with the mistakes you made but I decided the best way is to go relatively chronologically. When planning you ignored several very useful suggestions from one of your teammates, the one who knew the opponent the best. Then when she implemented her power in a way you weren't prepared for you then failed to adapt. Then you let her pick you off. Going in pairs is old doctrine, you should have used threes because if one is compromised two can subdue them. You are too used to patrols where two capes are sufficient. Furthermore you failed to leverage your powers, to the point that you would have been more effective without them since she wouldn't have been able to use them against you."
He paused for a minute to shuffle a few papers.
"Overall you should not consider your performance acceptable. This exercise should be a cause of some very serious reflection. When you receive a full write-up about your individual performance you need to make correcting these issues a high priority. You never know when you'll be in a situation where lives are on the line so keep that in mind. Thank you for your time and effort out there. You are dismissed for your break."
Wow, when laid out like that they did make a lot of mistakes. I did surprise them with the super speed ghost trick but if they were in threes my ambushes wouldn't have been nearly as effective. But still, I can't expect them to just take a beat down and expect them to think of it as a favor. I should make a peace offering. Before everyone started to drift away I turned to Missy.
"Hey, do you mind if I invite some of the other guys to our movie night tomorrow? I think I need to do a peace offering."
"I'm cool with that. Just promise you won't pick whatever Dennis suggests."
"Agreed."
I immediately raised my voice to get everyone's attention.
"Hey guys, I just wanted to show there's no hard feelings about that exercise earlier. Do you want to come over to my house for a movie night tomorrow?"
Shadow Stalker spoke up first.
"How about no, I got so many other things I'd rather do."
Oh right I forgot the offer would technically extend to her as well. Holy shit that would have been a disaster if Taylor was home. I can't believe I just dodged that bullet. Aegis spoke next.
"I can go, been bored around the house since Christmas ended."
After my ten second freakout I was calmed when Clockblocker and Kid Win both gave similar sounds of agreement, bringing the total to three. Then Gallant spoke up.
"That sounds nice but me and Vicky are meeting up for a date tomorrow so I'll have to pass."
Oh Gallant, you poor love-struck fool. Vicky is a nice person from my past meetings with her but damn if their love life makes me want to swear off dating preemptively. I wonder if all parahuman-parahuman romantic relationships are like that? If so, my dad is going to get gray hairs early. I decided to conclude.
"Alright so when we head back to HQ after the rest of the exercises I'll give you guys my address with a time we can meet up. Sounds good?"
Kid Win, Aegis, and Clockblocker all agreed and we went our separate ways to get some lunch before the next exercise started. Missy checked in briefly before she left.
"Are you sure your family's cool with the extra guests?"
"I'm pretty sure dad said it was cool to bring home friends from the wards so no problem from him. Taylor might be snippy since we haven't settled our argument. But I'm betting she's lonely enough she'll be willing to let some extra company over."
"Is she really still struggling to make new friends?"
"Honestly yeah, but I bet with the help of her trusty little sister her social life can finally get off life support."
"I can only hope so. Any ideas for movies to watch?"
"Well since we have a big infiltration coming up, I was thinking Mission Impossible from Aleph."
"I swear if you jinx this thing because of your movie choices I will write on your tombstone "Died from being a movie buff"."
"I wouldn't have it any other way."
A/N
-Decided to have this chapter to help show off Sam's skills before the big mission. If the rest of the wards seem a bit incompetent I tried to make it clear that fighting masters like Sam take a decent amount paranoia and training, especially when they go all out. I imagine they usually get sheltered from the big threats so Triumph decided this would be their wakeup call.
-I swear we will get to canon eventually. I just want to make sure Sam's character has some good solid foundations before Taylor starts to monopolize Sam's free time with her parahuman antics. Plus it gives me a chance to write some other under-covered characters as well. A little movie night chilling before they embark on the big mission should be coming up
-I had considered having Sophia join movie night but I decided against it. I might make an omake of if there's any interest when I have the time. Having Sam constantly having to keep Sophia out of Taylor's line of sight would be funny.