Post by kardonwire on Sept 30, 2011 19:26:38 GMT -5
Ultimate: Shield #1 – Time to be a hero: part 1
“Steady that aim Shield! Only use what you need Silver or you’ll be caught out when you’re up against live targets!” Shouted Colonel Jay Abrams, also known as the Blue Jay.
He stood watching with obvious pride as Shield and Silver Sorceress blasted their way through waves of targets at the outdoor shooting range.
“Hey Colonel Abr….”
“Blue Jay when we’re in uniform Shield.”
“When are we finishing up here?” Asked Shield, as he continued to hit the targets steadily.
“When we’re done Shield, you got someplace better to be?”
“Guess not.”
While Jay and Shield had been talking Silver had found herself on a roll, with each thrust of her hands her magic blasts found their mark. As the course had been designed to increase in difficulty the faster the targets went down Shield quickly found himself falling behind.
“C’mon suit, keep up!”
“What the hell are you doing Shield, keep up!” Screamed Blue Jay.
Shield was firing erratically at the targets missing every shot, while Silver using the versatility her magic blasts allowed, continued to hit most of the targets. Giving in, Shield headed towards Blue Jay,
“I don’t know why we’re even on the same shooting range Jay, in a situation like that I’m probably gonna be more of a hindrance to her than anything else.” Announced a frustrated Shield.
Blue Jay ignored Shield as he continued to complain and instead focused on watching Silver, she was still hitting most of her targets, regardless of the increase in speed.
“She’s something else, isn’t she Shield?” Asked Jay, interrupting Shield from his rant.
Looking over to Silver he couldn’t help but agree with Jay, as she blasted away at the targets her long white ponytail flung itself from side to side as she adjusted herself for each shot. Her bronze coloured full body armour looked as good as new Shield noted he’d have to ask later if she had got an upgraded model. He also realized that if she was to have her matching helmet on it’d be hard to tell she was a woman at all, the armour didn’t really flatter her shape, Shield thought to himself. As Shields thoughts drifted further, Jay asked him a question, snapping Shield to back to reality.
“You two are a team right Shield?”
“Yeah, me and Silver have been working as a team for about a year now. Think we’ve done around five missions together.” Replied Shield, slightly taken aback by the question.
“Uh huh and how well would you say you two work together?”
“Ummm…..fairly well I’d say. Never really had a problem with any mission we’ve done together, then again we’ve mainly been up against fairly low level terrorists to be fair.”
“Exactly, the world is getting more and more dangerous. The army is thinking of making project Heracles public knowledge to an extent. To give the civilians superheroes they know are there to protect them and to bring in superheroes who’re perhaps a bit too reckless in their ways.”
Shield was surprised by this, he knew it would happen eventually but when those in charge of project Heracles still weren’t sure half the time on what they were doing exactly would it be wise to let the public know he thought.
“I can see what you’re thinking boy and I agree but shit falls downhill so we ain’t got a choice if it comes to it. These gifts we have were given to us by the average hardworking citizen; the taxes they paid gave Silver her magic and you that suit. So the least we can do is be their heroes.”
“I see. When you put it like that Jay it kinda makes sense, I guess.”
“Damn right.” Replied Jay placing his hand on Shields shoulder.
As their conversation drew to a close Silver came walking over having finally been beaten by the course.
“That has to be a new record surely!” She said excitedly.
“I’m sure it is. You’ll have the lab boys all over you again!” Joked Shield.
“Shut up. You’re just jealous that they don’t pay you any attention.”
“Well, when you’re dealing with a perfect specimen like myself there isn’t much you can improve upon. Ain’t that right Jay?”
Jay began laughing as he told the two of them that training was over for today and that they should get changed.
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Joseph headed over to the underwater training area of the base. Walking down the hallways he always thought it strange how he got different looks in and out of his uniform, he’d been the Shield for four years now and had definitely been instrumental in numerous anti-terrorist operations over those years, but it still seemed that when he was in the old red, white and blue the looks normal staff gave him made him feel like he was some sort of alien. In his civilian clothes most people didn’t recognize him as the helmet and visor that he would sometimes wear covered the top half of his face.
Opening the door to the underwater area the first thing Joseph sees is a giant pool in the middle of the room with a giant glass cover. He’d heard that the cover was strong enough to absorb at least two or three of the blasts that his suit could do and that a project was underway to make the glass more flexible for use in combat.
Looking around the room, the door at his back, Joseph walks over to a nearby worker.
“Hey buddy. You seen Sam?” Asked Joseph.
“Sam? You mean King Shark?” Replied the worker as he continued his job.
“Yeah. You seen him?”
“He’s just about to start a training exercise. You can watch it on the screens.”
“Thanks.”
Turning away from the worker Joseph walked over to the other side of the room. The wall was covered in numerous screens, each giving a different view of inside the pool.
Sam Makoa was different from Shield, Silver and Blue Jay. Unlike them he was always in uniform. Sam had been the first and last volunteer for Heracles project: Splice eight years ago. From what Joseph had heard there had been new interest in re-opening the Splice project recently due to new theories but Sam was a constant reminder of the failure of the project.
The idea behind it was to add animal abilities to humans without giving them any severe characteristics of those animals, what had happened had been just short of the worst case scenario. Using a Shortfin Mako shark as the animal due to it being the fastest of all the sharks the idea was to create a human who could breathe underwater with a potential speed of sixty miles an hour, which the higher-ups had hoped would give America the edge in underwater espionage.
While the experiment had been a success, Sam could indeed swim at sixty (now eighty) miles an hour, breathe underwater and bring dominance in underwater combat it had also failed on a huge scale. Sam’s appearance was forever changed. His skin now had a light blue tinge his face was a horrible mix of shark and man, giant black soulless eyes, numerous sharp teeth that where on constant display when he spoke with his swollen looking mouth and gills that showed on the sides of his neck. His personality however had remained much the same. Sam had always been a jokey kinda of guy and was generally well liked around the base, although his new appearance had diminished his reputation somewhat over the years but regardless of this Sam was still a good guy and more importantly to Joseph a good friend and the only one he could turn to for help with his on-going investigation into his father’s disappearance.
Facing the screens Joseph watched, it was hard to tell what was exactly down there as the pool seemed somewhat blurry. However as his eyes scanned all the monitors he noticed something moving. It was a tentacle.
“An octopus?”
It took quite a few of the monitors to see the whole thing but Joseph could easily see it was bigger than your average truck. His eyes darted to another screen on the upper right as he saw a large steel door slowly opening. It was King Shark. He stood in the doorway for a few seconds, looking around for a moment when he raised his head slightly and begin to sniff and like lightning was off, Joseph tried to keep up on the monitors but King Shark was always just leaving a screen as he fixed his eyes on it.
Suddenly tentacles began to move in various directions, each at incredible speeds, but it seemed that not one of them could capture King Shark as he nimbly passed by them as he made his way towards the body of the beast. Closing in Joseph saw King Shark open his mouth to reveal his teeth. He always hated this part Joseph thought to himself, he’d seen Sam tear through flesh before during missions the two had both worked on it was definitely an effective tongue loosener during interrogations he had learned.
Chomp! Sam took a clean chunk right from the octopus. It moved wildly all of its tentacles jumping towards Sam as blood poured out of the creature mixing in with the water. Desperate to see what happened next Joseph took a step closer but the screens, one by one, slowly began to show only a red colour completely blocking any view of inside the pool.
Looking behind him to see if the worker was still there Joseph noticed he had disappeared at some point leaving him alone. When suddenly a series of banging could be heard from the pool, walking over cautiously he could see three tentacles banging frantically against the glass cover. After a few seconds however all the tentacles fell back into the bloodied pool, Joseph continued to watch the pool when suddenly an alarm went off as the glass cover slowly began to open, splitting apart from the middle. Instinctively Joseph found himself backing away a few steps. The alarm stopped as the cover hide away into the floor as he stood watching the pool, ripples began to form near the middle as the top half of King Shark’s body popped out of the water, his usual light blue tone a dark red instead.
“Hey Sam! Nice work!” Shouted Joseph giving his friend a thumbs up.
Sam didn’t return the greeting. Instead he stayed floating upon the water, his teeth dripping with blood, his dark eyes fixed upon Joseph as an awkward silence filled the room.
“Steady that aim Shield! Only use what you need Silver or you’ll be caught out when you’re up against live targets!” Shouted Colonel Jay Abrams, also known as the Blue Jay.
He stood watching with obvious pride as Shield and Silver Sorceress blasted their way through waves of targets at the outdoor shooting range.
“Hey Colonel Abr….”
“Blue Jay when we’re in uniform Shield.”
“When are we finishing up here?” Asked Shield, as he continued to hit the targets steadily.
“When we’re done Shield, you got someplace better to be?”
“Guess not.”
While Jay and Shield had been talking Silver had found herself on a roll, with each thrust of her hands her magic blasts found their mark. As the course had been designed to increase in difficulty the faster the targets went down Shield quickly found himself falling behind.
“C’mon suit, keep up!”
“What the hell are you doing Shield, keep up!” Screamed Blue Jay.
Shield was firing erratically at the targets missing every shot, while Silver using the versatility her magic blasts allowed, continued to hit most of the targets. Giving in, Shield headed towards Blue Jay,
“I don’t know why we’re even on the same shooting range Jay, in a situation like that I’m probably gonna be more of a hindrance to her than anything else.” Announced a frustrated Shield.
Blue Jay ignored Shield as he continued to complain and instead focused on watching Silver, she was still hitting most of her targets, regardless of the increase in speed.
“She’s something else, isn’t she Shield?” Asked Jay, interrupting Shield from his rant.
Looking over to Silver he couldn’t help but agree with Jay, as she blasted away at the targets her long white ponytail flung itself from side to side as she adjusted herself for each shot. Her bronze coloured full body armour looked as good as new Shield noted he’d have to ask later if she had got an upgraded model. He also realized that if she was to have her matching helmet on it’d be hard to tell she was a woman at all, the armour didn’t really flatter her shape, Shield thought to himself. As Shields thoughts drifted further, Jay asked him a question, snapping Shield to back to reality.
“You two are a team right Shield?”
“Yeah, me and Silver have been working as a team for about a year now. Think we’ve done around five missions together.” Replied Shield, slightly taken aback by the question.
“Uh huh and how well would you say you two work together?”
“Ummm…..fairly well I’d say. Never really had a problem with any mission we’ve done together, then again we’ve mainly been up against fairly low level terrorists to be fair.”
“Exactly, the world is getting more and more dangerous. The army is thinking of making project Heracles public knowledge to an extent. To give the civilians superheroes they know are there to protect them and to bring in superheroes who’re perhaps a bit too reckless in their ways.”
Shield was surprised by this, he knew it would happen eventually but when those in charge of project Heracles still weren’t sure half the time on what they were doing exactly would it be wise to let the public know he thought.
“I can see what you’re thinking boy and I agree but shit falls downhill so we ain’t got a choice if it comes to it. These gifts we have were given to us by the average hardworking citizen; the taxes they paid gave Silver her magic and you that suit. So the least we can do is be their heroes.”
“I see. When you put it like that Jay it kinda makes sense, I guess.”
“Damn right.” Replied Jay placing his hand on Shields shoulder.
As their conversation drew to a close Silver came walking over having finally been beaten by the course.
“That has to be a new record surely!” She said excitedly.
“I’m sure it is. You’ll have the lab boys all over you again!” Joked Shield.
“Shut up. You’re just jealous that they don’t pay you any attention.”
“Well, when you’re dealing with a perfect specimen like myself there isn’t much you can improve upon. Ain’t that right Jay?”
Jay began laughing as he told the two of them that training was over for today and that they should get changed.
---------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Joseph headed over to the underwater training area of the base. Walking down the hallways he always thought it strange how he got different looks in and out of his uniform, he’d been the Shield for four years now and had definitely been instrumental in numerous anti-terrorist operations over those years, but it still seemed that when he was in the old red, white and blue the looks normal staff gave him made him feel like he was some sort of alien. In his civilian clothes most people didn’t recognize him as the helmet and visor that he would sometimes wear covered the top half of his face.
Opening the door to the underwater area the first thing Joseph sees is a giant pool in the middle of the room with a giant glass cover. He’d heard that the cover was strong enough to absorb at least two or three of the blasts that his suit could do and that a project was underway to make the glass more flexible for use in combat.
Looking around the room, the door at his back, Joseph walks over to a nearby worker.
“Hey buddy. You seen Sam?” Asked Joseph.
“Sam? You mean King Shark?” Replied the worker as he continued his job.
“Yeah. You seen him?”
“He’s just about to start a training exercise. You can watch it on the screens.”
“Thanks.”
Turning away from the worker Joseph walked over to the other side of the room. The wall was covered in numerous screens, each giving a different view of inside the pool.
Sam Makoa was different from Shield, Silver and Blue Jay. Unlike them he was always in uniform. Sam had been the first and last volunteer for Heracles project: Splice eight years ago. From what Joseph had heard there had been new interest in re-opening the Splice project recently due to new theories but Sam was a constant reminder of the failure of the project.
The idea behind it was to add animal abilities to humans without giving them any severe characteristics of those animals, what had happened had been just short of the worst case scenario. Using a Shortfin Mako shark as the animal due to it being the fastest of all the sharks the idea was to create a human who could breathe underwater with a potential speed of sixty miles an hour, which the higher-ups had hoped would give America the edge in underwater espionage.
While the experiment had been a success, Sam could indeed swim at sixty (now eighty) miles an hour, breathe underwater and bring dominance in underwater combat it had also failed on a huge scale. Sam’s appearance was forever changed. His skin now had a light blue tinge his face was a horrible mix of shark and man, giant black soulless eyes, numerous sharp teeth that where on constant display when he spoke with his swollen looking mouth and gills that showed on the sides of his neck. His personality however had remained much the same. Sam had always been a jokey kinda of guy and was generally well liked around the base, although his new appearance had diminished his reputation somewhat over the years but regardless of this Sam was still a good guy and more importantly to Joseph a good friend and the only one he could turn to for help with his on-going investigation into his father’s disappearance.
Facing the screens Joseph watched, it was hard to tell what was exactly down there as the pool seemed somewhat blurry. However as his eyes scanned all the monitors he noticed something moving. It was a tentacle.
“An octopus?”
It took quite a few of the monitors to see the whole thing but Joseph could easily see it was bigger than your average truck. His eyes darted to another screen on the upper right as he saw a large steel door slowly opening. It was King Shark. He stood in the doorway for a few seconds, looking around for a moment when he raised his head slightly and begin to sniff and like lightning was off, Joseph tried to keep up on the monitors but King Shark was always just leaving a screen as he fixed his eyes on it.
Suddenly tentacles began to move in various directions, each at incredible speeds, but it seemed that not one of them could capture King Shark as he nimbly passed by them as he made his way towards the body of the beast. Closing in Joseph saw King Shark open his mouth to reveal his teeth. He always hated this part Joseph thought to himself, he’d seen Sam tear through flesh before during missions the two had both worked on it was definitely an effective tongue loosener during interrogations he had learned.
Chomp! Sam took a clean chunk right from the octopus. It moved wildly all of its tentacles jumping towards Sam as blood poured out of the creature mixing in with the water. Desperate to see what happened next Joseph took a step closer but the screens, one by one, slowly began to show only a red colour completely blocking any view of inside the pool.
Looking behind him to see if the worker was still there Joseph noticed he had disappeared at some point leaving him alone. When suddenly a series of banging could be heard from the pool, walking over cautiously he could see three tentacles banging frantically against the glass cover. After a few seconds however all the tentacles fell back into the bloodied pool, Joseph continued to watch the pool when suddenly an alarm went off as the glass cover slowly began to open, splitting apart from the middle. Instinctively Joseph found himself backing away a few steps. The alarm stopped as the cover hide away into the floor as he stood watching the pool, ripples began to form near the middle as the top half of King Shark’s body popped out of the water, his usual light blue tone a dark red instead.
“Hey Sam! Nice work!” Shouted Joseph giving his friend a thumbs up.
Sam didn’t return the greeting. Instead he stayed floating upon the water, his teeth dripping with blood, his dark eyes fixed upon Joseph as an awkward silence filled the room.