Squad

[rin-666.livejournal.com]

Hi guys, I'm new here and it's great to find somewhere like this. I've recently found the urge to write once more and found one story I was working on before I really lost the urge. However reading through it actually caused me pain...the characters were so Mary Sue ish!!!!! The ideas were vague! However I still believe the story itself at basic level is a good one. I'd like to go over what I've written and re hash it however I'd like other people's opinion about whether the story is worth that work so I hereby present "Squad".

The basic premise: T, Kat and Jay are part of an organisation. Put together as a team due to their abilities unique to them they discover that the organisation is not everything they thought and "escape". The story starts as it should start, at the beginning when their team is formed.

Please I would like only constructive criticism, I'm aware the writing's a bit hacky but I wrote it when I was 16...I'm now 24.

The beginning

"Operatives Kat, Jay and Team leader T report to Head Office."

The announcement blared down the corridors echoing off the dully painted walls and into the depths of the building. Ensuring that all present heard, understood and, most importantly, obeyed.

Kat landed lightly on the floor and stood up in one fluid motion. Padding over to the door she sheathed her sword and then exited the room, terminating the specialised training programme that had been running.

Jay sighed with regret and removed the connective wire from her forehead. "Another time", she said to the computer, "I have work to do." Standing up she exited her quarters to see what the leader wanted this time.

T closed the filed report that he had borrowed from the archives and was reading. Glancing down the corridor, first left then right, he marched decisively towards Head Office, a faint aura of excitement surrounding him.

As Jay arrived at the door she noticed another girl standing there. Exaiming her peer closely Jay felt a slight sense of unease. The girl, judging from the training clothes she was wearing, was a trainee assassin....no, scratch that Jay thought to herself, this was an assassin. There on her shoulder were the discreet stripes that marked the assassins apart. She also had the calm, but deadly, aura that all of the assassins seemed to carry around with them, of course that could just be the way she was holding herself. The assassin was tall and slim and stood ina relaxed manner, but with every muscle ready to spring into action. Her wealth of hair was jet black and seemed to absorb the light from all around, this only served to make her face even paler than it really was and emphasised her features. It was a fairly common face, not too pretty, not too ugly, but something about it seemed to grab the attention and turn it into a work of art. Jay gave a start as she saw that the assassin had noticed the scrutiny she was receiving and was returning it in full measure.

Kat examined the girl by her side and wasn't impressed by what she saw. The girl was tall and slim, but made herself appear small by hunching her shoulders in an almost defensive posture. She wore leggins and a large baggy jumper, both black, which weren't the usual uniform. She must have been called from quarters Kat thought to herself. Examing the girl's face Kat noticed a small node at the top left of the girl's forehead, only one group of people had that kind of transplant at the base and that was the techies. Moving her scrutiny onwards Kat saw that the girl, like herself, had a hidden quality inside that transformed her face from usual to beautiful. Brown eyes peered at her from under the girl's coppery brown hair and widened. Damn! Kat swore to herself, hastily lowering her own eyes, damndamndamn! She'd forgotten what she'd been born with and often had these harsh reminders.

Jay's heart was beating fast. The assassin wasn't human! No other explanation for those eyes. When Jay's eyes had met the assassin's she saw that instead of usual pupils the girl had cat's pupils narrowed into barely visible slashes in the harsh electric light from the ceiling. A faint blush on the other girl's cheeks told Jay that she'd seen her reaction and was, of all things, embarressed! Slowing her breathing Jay screwed up her courage and said, "Shouldn't we be going in now?" The other girl nodded and silently pressed the button at the side of the door.

The door hummed open and T turned from his scrutiny of a muddy landscape painting to see the operatives who were to be in his team. An assassin and a techie he thought with approval. One moving with assurance and awareness of their environment, ready for the slightest threat. The other creeping in silently behind making themselves as invisible as possible and the least threatening that they could.

"Ahhhh ladies, do come in", the leader smiled, "I take it you're wondering why I've brought you here."

"Field mission", Kat stated bluntly while sliding into a chair, "No other reason for me, a techie and a team leader to be asked to Head Office."

Kat and Jay curiously examined T for they had seen the team leaders roaming about the base but had never had an opportunity to get up close. He was wearing a standard black uniform and held himself rigidly as if he was a robot awaiting his next command. They could both see that he was fiercely dedicated to the organisation from the fervour in his face and the aura of excitement surrounding him betrayed the calm face he was trying to master. Kat and Jay could both tell that this would be his first field mission to. His hair was cut woth the standard cut the organisation forced on their soldiers and his uniform was pristine with shining black boots. Great, Kat thought to herself, a regular soldier boy.

T turned his attention from the two, obviously inexperienced, operatives and focussed on the leader. "With all due repect, sir", he started, "what's this all about?"

Kat and Jay smirked at each other, united in their mockery of this perfect soldier.

"An excellent question T and one that I was just about to answer. You have all been waiting for your chance to take some action in the field and I ama glad to tell you that you are now finally a member of a team."

Kat frowned slightly as Jay gasped and T showed a small smile, the only betrayal of his true emotions. This was crazy! She could tell that they were all inexperienced, not one of them had been out in the field before. This was doubly unusual for the team leader, they never reached that rank until they'd had at least some experience of missions. The most this one had were old field reports and the holographic training programmes the organisation gave them.

Jay's heart rate picked up for a second time that day. A field mission! Were they crazy?! She had been looking towards this day with dread. She wasn't a fighter, pressure of any kind almost killed her. There was no way she'd make a suitable team member.

"What's this about?" Kat asked, "Sir", she added sarcastically, prompted by a small frown from the leader. "None of us has been in action before", she added leaning forwards in her chair, "Me and the techie are the only team members and we've got an unexperienced Team Leader who's closest brush with the field is old field reports from the archives. This doesn't make any sense."

T hissed in his breath angrily. How dare she undermine my authority? He thought furiously to himself. Who did she think she was? Glancing at the leader he decided that he should take some disciplinary action before the leader decided that she had a point and disbanded the team. He walked behind her and slammed her back into the chair. Grabbing her arm in a vice like grip he twisted it up and behind her before leaning down to reprimand her...he never got that far. Kat twisted in her chair and swung her legs up, bringing them into connection with T's head. He instantly let go of her arm and she sprang up and into action before he could realise what was happening. Landing a few swift kicks on his body Kat pushed him ino that wall. She then brought a knife into her hand as if from no where and flung it at T. The knife thudded into the wall a hair's breadth from his head and quivered viciously as if it was a wasp that had been trapped and longed for the freedom to fly and sting once more.

Before T could move Kat was by his side pinning his head to the wall by his hair and holding a knife to his throat, her fist clenched tightly around the hilt. "I wouldn't do that again if I were you", she hissed at him "I don't take lightly to being punished for the truth."

Releasing T she backed away from him into the centre of the room, her eyes afire with anger. It was then that T noticed her knife. He had thought it was just an ordinary knife and she had just been holding the hilt tightly because of anger. But now that she had moved away from him he saw that her fist was the hilt. The blade protruding from her passionately clenched fist was jagged and seemed to flicker in the air and somewhere beyond the normal realms of hearing T could detect what seemed like a faint humming. Kat unclenched her fist and the blade immediately disintergrated. Glaring at T she slunk back to her seat and sat down again.

"That's why I've summoned you here", the leader spoke into the silence, "You each have your own individual powers that set you apart from the average team member in the organisation. Kat you have your ability too see in the dark and your psychic knife. Jay you can 'communicate' with computers, get them to do what you want by hardwiring yourself to them, and T you have telepathic and telekinetic abilities. I brought you together as a team, operative Kat, because you will be one of our most valuable and effective teams once you are trained."

All of them remained in silence as what the leader said gradully sank in. Before any of them could voice their opinions the leader spoke once more. "You will report to the training facilities at 0800 hours where you will commence training as a team in field tactics. Good day."

They all turned towards the door and exited. Hearing it hum shut behind him T knew that he was now safe to talk to both of the girls, the leader's door was sound proof to prevent him from being disturbed by the every day goings on in the building.

"What the hell was that knife you held at my throat in there?" he demanded of Kat. She turned towards him, slowly looked him over and sarcastically raised an eyebrow. "I suppose it won't hurt to show you", she almost grudgingly concluded. Kat held her hand up in front of her chest and spread the fingers wide, she slowly closed them into a tightly packed fist and flicked a look at T and Jay to make sure they were paying attention. A slight tensing of the muscles was all that betrayed her intense concentration and the blade T had seen earlier flared into being, surrounding Kat's fist in it's flickering light.

Jay and T stared at it, taking in the way that Kat and the knife seemed to exist as one entity, the knife was merely an extension of Kat herself. Kat regarded their wild eyed astonsishment with amusement, this was how everybody had reacted when they first saw her knife. Her teachers had had to create a different training programme for her just so she could learn to take advantage of her unique gifts.

"But what does it do?", Jay breathed softly, almost as if she feared any loud noises would make the knife flame into action.

"I'm not really sure about the technical and scientific side of it you know?" Kat replied, "But basically I push it through someone's head and it kind of switches them off for a while. Their brain just shuts down or something...I wasn't really listening when my trainer explained it to me." Suddenly feeling incomfortable Kat opened her hand exposing the palm to the ceiling and the knife blinked out of existence. Shifting her feet she took in a deep breath and then looked at her new companions one at a time.

"Seeing as we're going to be working together don't you think it would make sense if we knew a little about each other?" she asked. Jay blushed a littleand quickly nodded her head, as if hesitation would mean refusal and lonliness. T looked a little resentful, still smarting from the events in the head office, but he also nodded assent and moved with them towards the canteen.

Jay didn't really know why she'd been made a member of this team. She didn't do action and adventure, merely trying the canteen food was adventure enough. Satisfying, nutritious food but mashed down to unrecognisable elements and foul tasting concoctions. They all claimed a table in the corner of the room and sat in awkward silence common to those newly introduced and unsure of each other. T broke the silence.

"Well as the leader said I have slight telepathic and telekinetic abilities, I can set mind bombs inside people's heads and move stuff. I'm also your team leader so that means you have to do what I say." This last statement he added with a hint of smugness. Kat retorted, "Only as far as we see fit soldier boy." while staring at him with a hint of menace.

"I'm a tecchie", Jay interposed shyly. "I'm a bit of a freak really because I can talk to computers, not just start them up and make them work really well, actually talk with them." She flatered and blushed under the combined attention of the other two, but regained courage when Kat smiled at her encouragingly and T nodded his head as if urging her to continue. "See this transplant?", she pointed to the node in her head, "This is only a basic one because they didn't have time to do a fancy one up properly for me when I came in..."

"Wait, wait, wait", T interupted, "that's what all the tecchies have, there aren't any others."

"Oh there are!", Jay replied eagerly, warming to the subject and forgetting her shyness, "You just don't know aout them and you can't see them because they're positioned just to one side of the joint between your head and your neck. Apparently they're only given to the most advanced and oldest members of the organisation which means they're more able to do undercover stuff, but because of what I can do they're going to give me one and everything. Well not everything but most of the stuff the advanced ones get because I'm so good." She was babbling now, off and away talking about her main passion since she'd been taken away from her family. Drawing to a close she looked curiously at Kat who had yet to speak about herself. Taking her cue from Jay, Kat seated herself more comfortably and simply asked, "What do you want to know?"

"Well what can you do?"

"Lots of things...okay, okay don't look at me like that. All right, you've both seen my knife, that's one of my 'gifts'. What the leader failed to mention is that I have slight telepathic abilities to, they're not very powerful, but they're enough to make me appear invisible and that's a big asset for an assassin. There's also these", at this she pointed at her eyes and widened them so that T could see the oval pupils, "these aren't a result of tampering by the organisation, I was born with these. It means that I have increased visibility in dark places, I always have. Another thing that makes me a valuable person to have around." Having finished her obligatory recital of her abilities Kat leaned back in her chair and put her feet on the table.

Suddenly the lights went off and then flashed back on again, the signal for all operatives to return to their quarters. They all stood up to leave, and as they were exiting the canteen Kat said lightly "See you all tomorrow then" before gliding down a corridor towards her quarters. Jay silently turned down another one and T stood there looking after first one and then the other. So this is my team he thought to himself, I hope I'm up to it, and then he made his own way back to his quarters.

Well if you've made your way through that well done it's a bit of a slog! That's only part of it but hopefully enough to get you thinking yeah there's something there or good god it should never be done ever again! Gogin through it there are plot bunnies galore and awful, awful writing but please just look at the story itself. Thank you :D