"where's the training grounds for bomb detection?"
"why do you want to know cadet?"
the captain speaks up
"just tell her Lt."
"follow me"
and so all but two instructors run to the training ground and are then told to go back because the fire had just about reached some explosives
"not if I can help it"
suddenly her hands go up and says just one thing
"arranyan shields!"
and just as the shields go up the explosion happens but the explosion was contained within the shield, the downside was that Marissa was extremely exhausted because not only had she encased a major explosion but had done so with a multi-layered shield, so she went down to one knee
"I haven't had to do something like that in a while"
the instructors come towards her as does some of the K-9 officers training in bomb sniffing
"OK cadet how did you do that?"
"classified beyond belief"
"great another thing classified involving you"
the captain speaks up
"actually if you weren't stuck in the academy depending on your rank you'd be cleared on most of the stuff that's classified, however even I shouldn't know why she could make the shield, but because of
temporarily working with the EDC I have that clearance...just in case"
"figured they were still around"
"yep, though I wasn't expecting it to exhaust you like it did"
"hey, I haven't done something like this in years cut me some slack will ya"
"you're right I'm sorry, and sorry for not mentioning earlier just how much I know about you"
"it's OK, I'll be done with the academy soon anyways and besides I needed this to know what's going on these days in the criminal world"
"still can't believe you rigged the coffee maker"
"not my fault the instructors did sleep deprivation training early, otherwise I'm pretty sure the rest of the cadets would've been better prepared"
"well can you un-rig it now?, it still beeps every time a pot of coffee is finished and it's getting annoying"
"give me about five minutes and I'll have it done"
she looks to the instructors for permission
"sure, it's not like the others will be up for at least another fifteen minutes"
"with a weak sedative?"
the captain shakes his head
"only you would call a sedative strong enough to take down a Navy SEAL for two hours weak"
"but the other cadets haven't been out that long"
"true, but they should have been given the counter agent right about now and it takes about fifteen minutes for it to work"
"understood"
and so Marissa quickly fixes the coffee maker so it no longer beeped when the coffee was finished and by the time she got back to class everyone was waking up, though still pretty groggy, as could be told by the response of one student
"John, is the coffee ready, I need some for the academy today"
"Mary there's no coffee being made, you're at the academy already" (turns to the instructors) "is it supposed to be like this with the reversal?"
"yes this is completely natural, she's actually the last one to get the reversal"
well Mary quickly snaps out of it after the full effects of the reversal kick in and basically the instructors had a room full of people glaring at them
"what did you
guys do to us?"
"we drugged you, so that you know what it feels like should it happen to you out in the field"
"Marissa doesn't look like she's been drugged"
and it was true because while the full effects had kicked in there were still some tell tale signs of them having been drugged
"um well that's because..."
"because of the fact that I've had that type of sedative before, when I was younger and refused to go to bed, it was over-the-counter medicine"
and actually though the cadets didn't know it what Marissa had said was actually the truth, and while the DEA and FDA kept you limited on how much one could buy at one location, due to the fact that the local pharmacies knew that the academy did that kind of training, with the federal governments permission they split up the amount given, however they were allowed to give more to the police academy then normal people
"trouble going to bed Kerenai?"
"sort of, the main reason why I had to take it was because I was prone to nightmares when I was younger"
"so your body's built up a natural resistance to the drug hasn't it?"
"exactly, I was slightly effected but not as badly as you guys"
and the instructors knew it was the truth because she had only found out about the captain at the same time they did and he hadn't arrived until a minute after they had drank the stuff, and her reaction time had been a bit slowed too when it came to following the officer to keep everyone safe
"you don't seem to be effected"
"oh she's effected alright, she just wasn't knocked out like you guys and needed a reversal, however her thinking has become slowed and if I'm correct so has her reaction time so she has been effected if only
minimally"
and so finally the lessons are over for the day and the instructors feel like they now owe Marissa for covering their hesitation not knowing that they had already payed her back ten fold just by being understanding of her dyslexia and also understanding of the fact that they couldn't know a whole lot about her and still willing to teach her everything she needed to know to be an officer, so she felt like
she was paying back a small portion of a debt, because her lessons had unofficially including adjusting properly to the new time period as well. Three weeks later they finally had the captain as a teacher
as the cadets were in the last legs of the training. A month after that Marissa was finally assigned to work under Sara. At the station
"well Lt. it appears everything is in order welcome to the station"
"thank you captain"
"you will of course be assigned a partner until you adjust right?"
"but of course, let's just hope my partner understands why I want to be the one driving the group"
"agreed"
turns out her partner was glad for a break from being behind the wheel
"my last partner always wanted to take over and do things he shouldn't have, plus whenever he had the chance he was always bugging me about things I had missed and how he could do better"
"basically you had a strained relationship with your last partner and are glad to give up the wheel for a bit if you can relax?"
"exactly"
"OK but you're in charge of the radio I have to concentrate solely on my driving and if I had the radio well...let's just say I could get our backup lost"
"don't know why that would happen but ok works for me"
and so they work well together and form a natural partnership. Over the years things changed for Marissa, for one Sara was killed helping the bomb squad three years after Marissa returned to the force and her longterm partner died not long after. She eventually retired from active duty and took on a teaching role instead so that the younger generation could learn from her mistakes, unfortunately she would be killed five years into being an academy instructors because a criminal managed to get to academy grounds and go wild but she died protecting her students so it wasn't that big a surprise