Most would have already hated Ash as a CO already. He was quite harsh, but often incited a cold personality compared to a more vocal drill instructor.
Before he had them stand out in the heat, he interviewed all nine candidates one by one, determining if their skills were necessary for the type of operator he was looking for.
Of course, Lieutenant Brendan Decker was a lock for getting a spot on his task force; the man was personally cited for bravery twice while in action, he was an excellent shot and someone that people could look to as a leader.
Brendan wore a white knit cap and was out of his normal fatigue top in favor of a black athlete shirt. His pearly gray eyes seemed to have a laser focus embedded into them and from what Ash had obtained from his file; Brendan's parents had died when he was young. The man was independent from an early age.
Many candidates stood out to him; a man named Seth Johnston was already starting to be his problem child. An army specialist, he was cocky, arrogant and often wanted to stand up to Ash, although he had to batten him down a few notches on multiple occasions. The positive was that he was a pretty good shot and definitely proficient in endurance and unarmed combat. It was to be expected, as he had requested the best men and women in the armed forces for talent and combat prowess. He didn't say anything about discipline.
Zack Arron was a bomb specialist and also had quite an attitude, although it wasn't as bad as Johnston. Currently, Ash still held him in a high regard since he was often cool intense situations. Most of the time, his rather explosive temper was kept under wraps.
Jackson Grey, another young prodigy had everything, putting himself in danger to protect others and good leadership, although he was less proficient on trigger discipline and had a similarly cocky attitude.
Damien Hammond was another standout, being very adept in close quarters and was formerly on a Marine unit that specialized in close quarters on rough terrain. A skill like that was quite useful. He was curt, respectful and had the air of loyalty to his comrades.
Finally the last one that Ash had high hopes for was a young blonde named Jewell, one of the two women he had selected for tryouts. Unfortunately, when he tried to inquire more about such an interesting name, he got nothing. It was even on her dossier, as her birth certificate was never official. Unlike the others, she was very quiet and he guessed that she had the preference to listen and observe before speaking herself. Her accuracy as a Naval Sniper had one of the most exceptional records he had ever seen.
The main highlights of his proposal in the report was to create a group of specialized tacticians to quickly and effectively capture and or neutralize threats on Hoenn soil or foreign areas where an asset or citizen of the nation was endangered.
Much of his inspiration was drawn from the Federation's own domestic CTHSG, or the Army's Counter Terror and Hostage Rescue Group. They were nicknamed the Weaviles due to their effective nature of teamwork and ability to anticipate enemy movements while keeping assets and hostages from being harmed.
However, Hoenn had no special type of force to perform such a task. The military was too high profile and the police were not properly equipped.
Brought to critique their mess, he had already concluded that there was no need in revamping the military structure or how they ran things, they just needed a group of people specialized for the task.
Another issue that he immediately saw was the arms that they carried. Old G3 rifles. For comparison, the Federation had adopted the G3 rifle family as standard service weapon more than three decades ago and had phased them out completely for the more favorable M416 for the last seven years. It wasn't necessarily considered obsolete, but even Hoenn's special forces were in need of better weapons.
"Totally agree." Brendan concluded as he laid his own service rifle in front of a table. They had spent the last couple of hours examining them, "This rifle's probably older than me and I have no doubt that it had a previous user."
Remarkably, the G3 had remained quite reliable within its long life, almost as good as the AKs. Yet if they were going to run this task force with enough effectiveness, they needed better weaponry.
The firing range was a staccato of gunshots as the nine candidates practiced hitting distant targets mounted on a hill to practice their marksmanship. While the drill was important, Ash was not just looking for accuracy.
When he would be frustrated while on duty, he found it quite calming to take a few magazines of ammunition into the firing range with a marksman rifle and drill a bullseye into a target.
He studied them through a pair of binoculars, splitting the time observing their hits to their reactions and how they made corrections. Everyone was different and some got more irritated with their inaccuracy than others.
He stood up and walked over to Zack, using his toe he nudged his thigh.
"Prop your leg out a little more and rest the stock a little further underneath your shoulder."
He did it without any word. Firing again, Ash brought the optics to his eyes, glad to see that the shot had been the closest to the center yet.
"Good job."
"Thank you sir." Zack turned his attention back to the range; smiling slightly over the praise he had just been given.
Moving down the range, Ash's attention was brought to Seth. He fired off a multitude of shots, but they were all off center. He saw him give off a pleased look at what he had done.
"Seth, shift your left arm slightly back."
"Sir, this was how I was taught. I was the best in my class." He protested.
"Then your instructors must be very proud." Ash sarcastically complimented, "When you're out on the field and there's an enemy pointing a gun at an innocent civilian, you only get one chance and it could mean that the opportunity only lasts for a couple of seconds with the space to hit the enemy being smaller than a cell phone at that distance." He pointed out to the targets, "I would not trust you to take that shot if that's your best."
Seth fired three more shots, which Ash allowed since he knew they would miss their mark. He was only doing that to further prove him wrong.
"If you're going to be a free standing shooter, move your aiming hand a little closer. Otherwise, prop out the kickstand and use that for stability."
He looked back up at Ash and was about to protest when he said, "You going to find another excuse or are you going to do as I say?"
"Fine," Grumbling, Seth moved his hand to stabilize his aim and flicking out the bipod mounted on the rifle. He steadied his aim and fired again, this time hitting much closer to the target than his previous shots.
"Do it again," Ash instructed without emotion, "Adjust your scope out by point two."
He fired again and the bullet struck a mere centimeter from dead center. By the look on the recruit's face, Seth had seemingly surprised himself.
"Now that is how a top marksman of their class shoots." Ash moved on, with the recruit's shock evident. It was almost as if it was something everyone should know.
His star pupil in this field, Jewell had all the boys beat when it came to accuracy. Although he would never admit it, her marksmanship rivaled Brock's and his own.
"Hit the top left of the target. Inside the yellow."
Without saying anything, Jewell shifted her aim and fired a single shot. A new bullet hole suddenly appeared in the ten o'clock right inside the yellow zone.
"Good job Jewell. Now how about a real challenge?"
Finding a remote in his pocket, Ash aimed it downrange and hit a couple of buttons. The target Jewell was hitting began to move to the left.
"Hit it dead center."
Sliding into a crouching position, she brought the scope to her eye and quickly aimed, firing three shots in a steady succession. All three hit very close to the center. Increasing the speed, Ash suddenly made it change direction, but she was unfazed, having expected the turnaround. Switching positions, she rolled back into lying and shot the final two rounds downrange. Both had hit very close to their mark.
Looking behind, both of them saw the remainder of the recruits staring in complete awe. It was impressive enough.
Ash was the first to react, "Until you lowlifes can do that, you're all shit at aiming. Cease fire."
"Lieutenant Ketchum reporting as ordered." Ash was dressed neatly in Hoenn military fatigues, but still kept the gold Houndoom emblem of a Commando firmly on his chest, along with the row of medals and ribbons he had earned while in service.
"At ease." The Army General gestured to across the table, "I'm afraid I'm going to have keep this short so I'll get to the point." He paused, "I'm very glad to see you putting a whole lot of effort into making it the best task force possible. We've concluded reviewing your proposals and I personally agree with a lot of your statements, although it sounds like you want to make more of a special police officer group than a military one."
"The goal was to keep them as a bit of a hybrid. Sort of militarily armed, but the actions are to assist either them or the law enforcement wherever necessary. Whatever can be done to neutralize the threat and learn from them to prevent future ones."
"Most of us agree with that statement and you're getting your blank check but let me tell you that it wasn't all smiles."
"I never expected it to be sir, but you do have faith in what I am doing right?"
"Personally," The general nodded, "I do, but everyone else including the premier of Hoenn thinks otherwise. So we've been forced to step up your group's active duty deadline to next week."
"That's not enough time for me to get everyone completely ready. It may be able to only get three, maybe four besides Lieutenant Decker and myself."
"They will have to do. The Cacturne Syndicate's activity in the north has increased and chatter suggests they're about to do something and go public. We need to be ready soon."
Ash looked at him, "We're currently undergoing the new simulator for hostage rescue scenarios and hopefully I can get my hands on some new toys in time. We'll be ready, although I wish I had more time to train more operators."
"A small group of tight knit warriors isn't necessarily a bad thing. You Commandos can go out in groups of four or five and take down an entire enemy force."
"Those are the Commandos; we're trained so that if we don't watch one another's back one or all of us would wind up dead. Sometimes, we'd be weeks out without contact for reinforcements or extraction and had to rely on one another for survival. This is an urban warfare special police group, where such backup should be readily available on hand."
"Your concern is noted Lieutenant," The general stated calmly, "By next week, we will need to get this new unit of yours to active duty."
So the group is slowly coming together with nine candidates in line to become Ash and Brendan's coworkers with this new special unit! Who will make the cut down to three additional members?
Thanks for reading and reviewing, you give my writing purpose.