Chapter 4: The Test

The hold was quiet, or as quiet as it could be as the heavy troop transport plane flew through a snow storm, all the while it's engines were whirring as they struggled to keep the plane in the air.

Standing by the closed hatch, was Violet. She was outfitted in the Agencies standard gear for agents in training, when not on the Agencies grounds, which were all over the place. In a form fitting black jumpsuit. On her waist was a utility belt, and on her chest and back was another utility harness, this one with a few grenades and ammo clips.

She had been against the use of weapons during the first few weeks of training, but she had come to see them as a necessary back up. She wasn't going up against other supers, and her powers alone were made for stealth and defense, she would need something to help her if she were going up against large amounts of enemies. However she only ever took a small .30 cal pistol with her, and about half a dozen extra clips, a few grenades and two knives. A lot for a civilian to own, but in her future line of work, it was the bare minimum. Shade had been a bit upset when he had learned about her dislike of weapons.

That was something else she had to grow use to, was his interest in her. He would often visit her during her training. Tell her that she was coming along nicely, and even observe her training sessions with the other trainees.

Yes, she had come a long way. The shy, worried Violet was gone. All that was left was the confident, slightly afraid, secret agent that lived her own life. She had turned eighteen a few months ago, but honestly she had lost track of time. All she knew was that seven months ago, Violet Parr had left her home and became simply Violet, the newest in a long line of agents produced by the American government to keep it's people safe. To keep them protected.

Still, despite being new, she wasn't green. She had been on a few practice missions, such as assisting a field agent team capture a evil super, stopping a terrorist bombing on the french capital, which had been her favorite trip, and more recently, stopping a group of pirates from smuggling in a nuclear warhead. Now, she was getting her chance to become a field agent. Below her, two thousand feet and four meters, was a secret intelligence base. Her objective was to break inside, open a computer on sub level four and then copy the programs on it's hard drive. Piece of cake. Or at least that's what she kept telling herself.

Suddenly the red light in the troop hold turned to a bright rose red, and she knew it was time. Hitting her fist into the red and yellow striped button next to her, the ramp detached from the tail of the plane and Violet immediately ran and jumped out, diving straight down as the plane shot on ahead. She closed her eyes and slowly crushed her fear as she thought of all the things she was saving by doing this. Her parents, despite their moments, she still loved them. There was Jack-Jack. There was Dash, still in lock up inside the NSA correction facility. There were all those innocent civilians that would die if any of the terrorists, pirates or criminals that the Agency arrested ever did what they had stopped them from doing. There was reason enough. To be a super, like her parents had been during their Golden Age. That was then though, and this was now. This was the Golden Age for the new breed of Supers, and if those Supers had to use a gun on occasion to keep corruption and evil away, then was it really all that bad?

Violet was brought out of her inner thoughts when she sighted her target. Set on a frozen mountaintop, the enemy base was guarded by roughly forty to sixty men, all armed and dangerous. The base consisted of four above ground levels and four sub-levels that were below ground. The one on the very bottom contained the computer room she need to get into. Reaching up, Violet braced herself as she pulled her emergancy shoot and sent her body up like a rag doll as the shoot deployed. Building a small shield, she directed it at her feet, and just in time, her decent led her right into the top of the fort, the shield barely taking the damage. She quickly took off her shoot and it's storage pack and then tossed it off the edge, into the snowy abyss below.

Just as she turned around, a guard ran forward, attempting to grab her. She easily slid her hand around his wrist and twisted, breaking the bone, before kicking him hard in the leg, breaking his knee before following up with a side swipe to the temple with her free hand, knocking him out as well as disabling him. She then slid off his belt and tied his hands behind his back with it and then stuffed his mouth with his wallet. Master Mawr's lessons sure had paid off.

Moving silent, Violet turned herself invisible, feeling tiny bits of her strength begin to drain away as she stayed that way. She moved over to a air vent, sticking up from the roof and pulled out a laser cutter, she then made quick work of the vent's bolts, before opening the hatch and then crawling inside, pulling the vent over the hatch with her, shutting out most of the frosty snow from the outside.

Glancing down at the shaft, Violet carefully shot her line into the roof of the vent, seeing that there was a straight down drop, kind of like a L, where it would angle out at the bottom. Grabbing her line, Violet descended slowly to the bottom of the vent, hearing conversations roughly as she dropped down three floors, then two more. Only three to go, she thought as she hit the bottom of the vent.

Honestly, you'd think they would have seen the fact that one of their vents led nearly all the way down to the bottom of their 'Highly Classified Base'.

Violet moved quietly down the vent and made her way towards the spot she knew to be the elevator. She slowly, making sure there was no one around, cut open the vent, making sure she could shut it again, then climbed out and closed it. That done, she proceeded towards the elevator and got in. closing it and typing in the code for the bottom floor, which had been provided by the Agency before she left.

Just because Sergeant Baneson had drilled it into her, Violet checked her pistol's clip, then quickly slid it back into her leg holster. She also allowed herself to return to being visible, after making sure there were no cameras. However once the elevator dinged, she became once more nothing more then a wraith.

The door opened and she exited the elevator to find a pair of men walking towards it, staring at it oddly, and another pair of men standing by the door she had to enter. Moving quickly she shouted, confusing them as they all drew their weapons and began looking around. She dived, bringing her legs together then shooting htem forward, sending the two men to the ground as she rolled under them, the two guards immediately began searching for her, their guns raised high. She tossed a flash grenade and covered her eyes, once the grenade went off, she ran over and knocked one of the guards out and grabbed his AK-47 and used it as a club to knock one of the other guards out who was struggling to his feet. Now there was only two.

As the grenade's effects began to wear off, Violet swung the gun and hit the other man who had just got to his feet, knocking him out cold. The last guard however got an idea of where she was and tackled her, causing her concentration to break and her invisibility to go away, and her, and her specialized gear became clear to the naked eye once again. The soldier gaped at her for a moment in shock, then drew his pistol. He never got to use it.

Violet snapped her leg up, crushing his pelvis just as her left hand broke free and smashed his jaw in partially, followed by a strong headbutt, which sent him sprawling onto the floor with his buddies, all in the fairytale land of unconsciousness. Paying the now threatless guards no mind, the agent in training used her laser cutter to break the lock on the door and entered. Before her was the computer.

Closing the door, Violet moved and sat in the chair, turning the computer on and typing in the access code she searched the commands and hit download all files. Immediately the screen froze and her eyes widened. The wall behind the screen changed and the two way wall now showed Shade, his normal coat and hat on as he grinned at her from the other side of the wall. "Well done" he said over a mic.

"Welcome to the Agency"