The following day
Saturday
9:00 A.M.
Josh was going to suffer another full day of training!
He also needed to make reparations for his wrongdoings.
"You have got to be kidding!" Josh groaned.
"You will clean every single weapon!" I confirmed.
"But there's dozens!" Josh whined.
"Six Heckler & Koch G36C assault rifles, two FN P90 personal defence weapons, six Glock 17 pistols, two Glock 18 pistols, four Glock 19 pistols, two Glock 26 pistols, one MP5K sub-machine gun, two SIG Sauer P232 pistols and two Heckler & Koch MP7 personal defence weapons!" I said, with a smile.
"Who the hell fired all these? Did I miss a damn war?" Josh continued to whine.
"Dave and I enjoyed a little target shooting yesterday, I was bored!" I admitted, with an evil laugh.
"This will take hours!"
"Got somewhere else to be? It is now nine o'clock in the morning. Your first shift will last two hours," I said and left a very unhappy Josh in the armoury.
"That was just evil, Mindy!" Chloe said.
"Well, he needs to learn that I don't accept failure. I went soft on Dave, but nobody else and that includes you, Shadow!" I growled. "Come to think of it Dave never goes soft with me!"
"Eww, that's just gross!" Chloe groaned, pretending to vomit.
"Okay, before I wipe the floor with Jackal, I'll practice with you!"
"Bring it on, Soft Girl!" Chloe challenged, diving at me and kicking my legs out from under me.
"Hey, I wasn't ready!" I complained.
"Playtimes over, Hit Girl!" Chloe growled. "You snooze you lose!"
"I never, play!" I growled back and threw myself back to my feet and towards that grinning bitch.
Chloe put up a very good defence, but she has a habit of telegraphing what she is about to do; it only happens rarely and the signals are easily missed, but I have learnt to recognise them. Well she can learn the hard way!
"Damn, they're fast!" I heard a voice say and was momentarily distracted, as I saw Dave and Kim standing beside the mat.
"They are that!" Agreed Dave.
I just caught Chloe's back kick, on my thigh, as I tried to twist out of her way, but ended up on the mat again! I was getting mad.
"How you doing, Mister GTA?" I asked.
"That wasn't funny the first, nor the hundredth time!" Josh moaned, elbow deep in a Heckler & Koch G36C assault rifle.
"Well, if you can't handle the time..." I started, grinning.
"...Don't do the crime!" Kim finished, with a laugh.
"Bloody funny, the pair of you!" Josh groused.
"I'll leave you in peace, only twenty-six left to do!" I said. "You're lucky we only fired a small selection of the armoury!"
Kim and I left the armoury, ignoring the obscenities Josh was muttering under his breath, some of which I hadn't heard before, even from Mindy, who was very proficient on the subject!
"Okay Hawk, let's see what you can do now!" I said and received a brief glare from Mindy, as she whirled around the map, sparring with Chloe.
11:00 A.M.
"Right, first shift is over, Jackal!"
"Thank God!" Josh breathed.
"You have fifteen minutes to take a break, then I want you on the mat," I said.
"Oh yes! That sounds like fun!" Josh commented, with a smile.
"Get your mind out of the damn gutter!" I growled in response.
..._...
Fifteen minutes later I was facing off with Josh.
"Hit me!" I ordered.
Josh came at me with a roundhouse kick, which I easily deflected, then Josh switched to a jumping roundhouse kick, which caught me by surprise as well as in the shoulder, sending me flying into Chloe and we both landed in a heap.
"Two for the price of one!" Josh said with a smug grin.
"I'll give you points for creativity, but..." I replied and flew at Josh with my own jumping side kick, which sent Josh across the mat.
"That all you got!" Josh said, between gasps of pain.
I took a deep breath and started circling Josh, while he got up and started turning with me, never letting me out of his sight. We both gauged each other and tried to work out the other's game plan.
"Get her Josh!" Chloe shouted.
"Oh, I will!"
"Thanks for the support, bitch!" I yelled at a smirking Chloe.
Josh was slowly edging towards me, but unlike Chloe, Josh did not telegraph his actions. This kid knew some advanced kicks, so could use any one of over a dozen potential kicks, not to mention variations and combinations of the kicks! I also knew that Josh had mastered feints, too, which were very difficult to detect and counter correctly, before the real kick occurred.
Finally he moved, but I was able to catch his foot and twist him around and dump him hard on the mat. I think I hurt him this time, as he yelled out in pain when he hit the mat. I approached him, to check that he was okay, but then found myself flying backwards, as Josh grasped my left ankle and pulled. But I was able to kick out with my right foot and continue into a back flip, landing reasonably cleanly on my feet.
"She's like a damn cat!" Josh groaned, picking himself up.
"Okay bitchy, let's see you fight us both!" Chloe challenged, standing next to Josh, on the mat.
Chloe looked at Josh and nodded encouragingly. Josh nodded back, with a forced smile; he was in pain.
"Bring it on, little kiddies!" I growled.
"This is gonna be good!" I said to Kim.
"I've never seen Mindy take on more than one at a time!" Kim said.
"Oh, I have; she can handle half a dozen, easily!" I replied.
I saw Mindy flexing her muscles and she started to circle Josh and Chloe, who were preparing themselves for the fight. I noticed some whispering between them both, as they both agreed on a plan of attack.
Who would strike first? I thought that Mindy would wait to see what the pair come up with; I was sure that she'd want to see how creative they could be.
Okay, I saw that; Chloe was getting ready to move. Mindy has focused on Chloe. Oh crap! Josh just launched at Mindy, blind-siding her, while her attention was on Chloe. That was clever, Chloe knows that she tends to telegraph her actions and she also knows that Mindy knows, so she used that weakness as a distraction! Josh attacked with a reverse spinning hook kick. The kick caught Mindy on the back of the head, as it should and Mindy went down, but only for half a second, as she instantly recovered and flipped off to one side and then back towards Chloe, delivering a jumping side kick, before running at the side of the armoury and executing a perfect reflex kick!
A reflex kick is a stunning acrobatic kick, used only by the most highly skilled.
In this case, Mindy ran up to the wall of the armoury and leapt, planted one foot, high, on the wall, extended her leg and boosted away from the wall towards Josh, now with accelerated height and power and lashed out with the other leg. Josh was caught completely unprepared and found himself flying through the air and landing on Chloe, who was just picking herself up, from Mindy's last attack!
"Fuck! That was awesome!" Kim exclaimed.
Mindy had landed on the mat, like a cat, as she usually did. She was breathing heavily and looked really pleased with herself.
"Not bad, Hit Girl; seen better!" I quipped.
"You complete ass!" Mindy growled, as I gave her a hug.
Mindy then went to help Josh and Chloe up off of the mat. Josh was groaning with pain and so was Chloe. This was the second time somebody had been dumped on top of her!
"Not quite how I envisioned Josh lying on top of me!" Chloe commented, before realising what she had just said aloud and blushed bright red.
"A few less clothes, might have been nice!" Josh teased, before Chloe punched him, hard, on the shoulder.
"Well done Mindy!" Chloe conceded. "Hit Girl is still the greatest!"
"It was never in doubt!" Mindy said, giving Chloe a hug.
"Mindy's never one to let her fame go to her head!" I quipped, receiving a glare from Mindy.
"Dave, tell Josh that I am not completely cold and heartless," Mindy said.
"I would never lie to Josh!" I replied, smirking.
"I am warm and loving, ass!" Mindy insisted.
"Could have fooled me!" Josh added.
"Okay, actions speak louder than words! I think Josh has learnt his lesson and we should all help Josh finish off those weapons! If Josh would like some help, of course?" I asked.
"Please!" Josh begged.
Later that day
The Farm
We all met Marty, up at The Farm.
Marty and Abby had spent the morning putting the finishing touches to our new van. This van was to be our Mobile Command Centre, for if we needed to go out of town, or if a safehouse got compromised. It would be stored at The Farm.
The vehicle itself was a brand new, black, long wheelbase, mid roofed, Ford Transit van, with tinted glazing. Marty and Abby had equipped the rear of the vehicle with computers, screens, communications, a generator and various other equipment relevant to our operations. Between this van and Beast, we should be able to operate anywhere. While the new van was not protected to the same standards as Beast, it still boasted Type II and Type III-A armour, in essential areas. The vehicle was also air conditioned. From the outside the vehicle looked like any other van, so shouldn't attract attention.
Now, considering that two geeks had built this van, it had a geeky name: 'Lucille'! This was a reference to one of Abby's heroes, Alec Hardison, from the Leverage television show! Not my choice of name, but then the van is geek central, so I left it all to them! However, while the van was mainly for support, I did insist that a gun safe was covertly installed in the vehicle, just in case! I liked Marty's idea for a Command Van, although initially I did suggest a Command Truck, with full armoury, but Dave said a big purple, forty foot trailer, would not be very subtle, despite being fun to drive!
Even Jack thought that the van was good. He remarked that it was better than what Chicago PD used, which Marty and Abby took as one hell of a compliment!
..._...
While we were at The Farm, Dave received a delivery.
It was his own 'civilian use' BMW R1200-GS Adventure in Racing Blue. We considered the same colour as mine, but decided on something different and not green! For now, Marty would get the motorcycle equipped with the necessary communications and video equipment, similar to mine.
Sometime next week, I would take Dave out, so he could test his new ride!