A bit of an upgrade

The team, after a month of joining the organisation are given a promotion, thus leaving them with complete access to Salvation's resources.

A couple weeks later, the team are called into a briefing for changes being made in the organisation, they sit in a rectangular room with a projector and a long wooden table with seats around it. Kimberley taps her red nails on the table, she has her feet up on the top of it.

“Ugh, what’s taking so long? I’ve been sat waiting for twenty minutes.” Kimberley says. “Aghh I’m bored!” She shouts.

“Calm down princess, they will be here soon.” John says.

“You can only call me that on mission John!” Kimberley points to John. John raises his hands in the air and leans back into his chair. Octavia and a bearded man in a lab coat walk into the room, the man with his hands in his coat’s pockets with a smile on his face.

“Ladies and Gentlemen, I would like to introduce you to Bill, our tech guy, or scientist, he invents all the cool stuff we use around here, seriously just him. This guy could split an atom at the age of twelve and didn’t destroy the entire planet.” Octavia says.

“Hey guys, I make military equipment for all the soldiers here, well the higher soldiers, like yourselv-” Bill is cut off by Octavia.

“That was a surprise, god damn it Bill. Yes, you all are promoted, congrats, carry on Bill.” Octavia says moving to the far corner of the room.

“Yes, our organisation is twenty-five years ahead of any scientific, or military group, pretty much, we are ahead of the entire world. If you need anything, an upgrade, weapon, or something similar, come by the lab and give me the basic concept and I will do my best.” Bill says.

“Wait wait wait. Hold up. So you’re saying if I wanted a power suit, like Iron man, I could have one!?!?” John sits straight up and smashes his hands on the table.

“I actually have a power suit in a prototype stage, I actually need a volunteer to field test it. Come by the lab after.” Bill says. Everyone is staring at John.

“What I’m a fan of the films. Don’t judge.” John sits back into his chair with a smile on his face and his arms crossed.

“If anyone has any questions don’t hesitate to ask, or come down to the lab.” Bill says.

“Alright, Bill, get them whatever they need. The operations are only going to get harder from here on out, the type of stuff Titus has been doing, he has since resigned from his position on operations and has become a full time pilot here, so erm, yeah no pressure.” Octavia says before leaving the room.

“Alright, if you guys want to follow me down to my lab, I can give you a taste of what I have been working on.” Bill walks out the door with the others following him down to the lab.

They all walk in.

“This is my man cave.” Bill says holding his arms out to the lab. “Over there is where I am working on the suit John, you can go take a look, still working on some of the kicks, the details of what it can do are next to it on that pad.” Bill points over to a metal suit with a light blue visor. “The rest is on show being as you guys didn’t have any requests, this might help jump start some ideas, remember there is almost nothing I can’t do, think of anything that may assist you in anyway, I don’t care how crazy it sounds as long as it ain't too messed up.” Bill says slowly walking backwards to his desk in the far corner. John walks over to the suit Bill pointed out, he runs his fingers down the chestplate and taps it with the back of his index finger, he picks up the diagnostics pad and swipes up reading all the properties. He lifts the helmet off and holds it to the front of his face seeing his eyes reflecting off of the visor, he puts it back on the suit. Bill peers over to John.

“I have some other ideas for it too, but those aren’t really ideal as of the prototype stage!” Bill shouts over.

“Its fine man! Thi- This is amazing.” John replies.

“It isn’t really an Iron man suit per say, it doesn’t shoot laser beams, fly, or anything like that. It's more like a power suit to make your life easier, this will get you out of a tough situation no problem.” Bill walks over and says. “We will conduct some field tests later- Oh god, your friend is touching a chemical weapon! I’ll be right back! Hey! Hey you! Don’t touch that!” Bill shouts running over to the other side of the lab.

“Preeeeeeety” Merik says while slowly placing his hand on a prototype plasma weapon “Do you have this in more of an axe shape? or like a halberd, or a cutlass? or a bow and arrow?”

“Ermm. In a way yes.” Bill replies “In the field you are Death correct?”

“Yes...” Merik replies.

“I have been working on a device that would allow for multiple weapons to be ‘forged’ from predefined weapons held here, I need your toys to scan them and add them to the database.”

“I will take it for a run when it has been prepared. I’ll fetch my toys.” Merik says as he runs out of the room to fetch the case with his weapons inside.

Bill walks over to Nate.

“Ah! Nate. Salvations Angel. Anything you would like? Any requests?” Bill says to Nate

“Erm...What like weapons? Well erm, I was given these three point stars I’ve called them stars. Because that’s easy to remember, but if you could make it so that they come back to me when I throw them, and can you modify my sword to be a scythe? and can everything have a silver and light blue finish please? ” Nate says confidently as if he had given someone of lower position a command.

“Would you like some tea with that too sire?” Bill asks in a frustrated tone “Yes, you can have all those things...I’ll see what I can do...” Merik walks over to bill and hands him his case, Bill looks inside and moves over to his desk and places a post-it note on the case saying “Meriks weapons for scanning.” Bill walks over to Kimberley who is browsing the weapons on the walls.

“See something you like?” Bill asks Kimberley.

“Not really. Any modifications you can do to these?” Kimberley holds her Glocks out towards Bill.

“Of course, I can work on the clip size, maybe give it an element effect.” Bill says observing the firearms.

“What’s this about an element effect?” Kimberley asks.

“Well, there are the four elements right? Earth, Fire, Water, Air. But I am talking the sub categories like fire I can do, electric shock effect, or I can always lase the rounds with poison so it's a guaranteed kill if you hit them.” Bill informs Kimberley.

“That sounds pretty cool actually, just give me the increased clip size, make it so it can pack one hell of a punch.” Kimberley says.

“Alright I can do that in a couple hours check back with me then.” Bill walks over and places the glocks on his desk and puts a sticky note on the guns.

“Hey Bill!” Emily shouts.

“Ya, what!?” Bill shouts back while writing something down on a pad.

“I am awfully fond of this rifle, M40A3, thinking I could do with a custom scope, bipod, a red dot site on the side, and a foregrip incase I have to act fast.” Emily says, cocking the rifle and sliding it back, she lifts it, places the stock on her shoulder and aims down the site. “Yeah, I can get use to this.” She says.

“Sure I can get all that for you, same with Kimberley, check back with me in a few.” Bill walks over and places another note on the rifle Emily was looking at.

“Bill! My good man!” Jason shouts “Would you be able to get me a set of the armour that John is testing, but bigger and able to withstand a nuclear blast?”

“Like Raynor’s armour from StarCraft?” Bill asks, with his hand shaped like a gun towards Jason.

“Exactly! Also can you also make me an augmented axe, and some augmented boxing gloves? what they can do is down to you, I just really want an axe and I want to get back into boxing again...” Jason says happily after finding someone that knows Blizzard games as much as he does.

“Once the tests have been done with John I’ll set it up to withstand a nuke by testing it against some radioactive substance...You’ll have it in, meh, ‘bout a week?” Bill tells Jason before picking up a pad with the testing routine for the armour he is testing with John.

Soon after everyone had left, John and Bill began to test the equipment, Bill is swiping up on a pad with the armour diagnostics.

“Okay, give it a shot.” Bill says looking at the pad.

“Alright.” John touches the armour it starts to shake and emit a blue glow but dims again.

“It's not doing anything.” John says looking at Bill. Bill begins to type in some coding into the armours systems.

“Okay, try now.” Bill says.

“Take two.” John says while nearing his hand closer to the armour anxiously.

“What are you waiting for, it doesn’t bite. I don’t think?” Bill asks.

“Hey! We’re doing this in my time! First time has to be perfect.”  John shouts back, and flicks his head and raises his brow and down again. He touches the chestplate and it begins to emit a blue glow but does not shake.

“Keep doing that!” Bill shouts. John keeps his hand on the chest plate. The armour blinks blue and the glow dimmers.

“Erm, it turned off again.” John says.

“Nope, it accepted you.” Bill says with astonishment. Bill clenches his fist and pulls it back to him. “Yes!”

“Sweet, it works then?” John asks.

“Should do, try it on.” Bill says with a smile. John puts on the armour and takes the helmet, looks at it again and locks it on his head.

“Surprisingly light.” John says lifting his arms and looking at the armour. The visor of the helmet blinks a light blue and stays blue, the systems begin to run on the hud of the helmet, it begins to run tests on John.

‘A.L.I.C.E Running start up.’

‘User: Healthy, no wounds or damage inflicted.’

‘Systems online.’

‘Hello user.’

“Holy shi- this is cool!” John says.

“That is nowhere near what I have in store, for it, picture this, a pad on your back which forms around your body on command! I am working on an A.I to!” Bill says with excitement.

“An A.I? What's that?” John asks.

“Artificial intelligence. It will run the suit in the full version. This again, is only the prototype, alright, let's head to the gym and we will try the movements to make sure it's all fully functioning.” Bill says walking out the lab with his pad in hand, John following. They head up to the gym and begin to run some first set up diagnostics.

“Alright go for a basic run.” Bill says observing John. John begins to run at incredible speed around the gym, he stops and throws his arms to the center and away again.

“No way, this is incredible! Bill you’re by far the most awesome guy I have ever met.” John says smiling and laughing to himself trying to come to grips with what he just did.

“This is a whole new level for me too John, I am surprised we even got this far to be honest. Alright, all diagnostics are good, the suit should be fully operational, congratulations John Farsight! You’re the first owner of a armour suit of this caliber!” Bill says shaking John's hand.

“Seriously, this is awesome!” John says.

“This suit should make your reaction time faster, not to mention it can absorb the damage of a rocket launcher. Do not go up against a tank shell, the armour might not be able to withstand a projectile like that. Anyways I gotta run some tests on other things so, I had a container installed in your room where the armour can stay when not in use, alright, see you soon John.” Bill walks out of the gym and back to his lab to work on the other requests made from the group. John heads up to his room and places the suit in the container similar to the one in the lab. Bill gets back to the lab to find Merik stood looking at a few of Bills inventions.

“Ahh hello Merik, I have programmed your weapons into the database. Take this...” Bill says throwing Merik the staff, ”As you can see, there are four buttons on the staff I gave you, let's head up to the gym to see if they all work.”

They arrive up at the gym Merik throwing up the staff and catching it on the way there.“First try out the bow, should be the top centre button.”

Merik presses the button and a forest green bow forms from the staff.

“Where are the arrows?” Merik asks

“Just pull back on the string” Bill says with a smug grin on his face. As Merik pulls back on the draw string an arrow forms in place and he fires it at the target, shortly after hitting it, the arrow fades into multiple hexagons.

“Next, halberd, button on the left...” Bill shouts over to Merik as Merik moves over to a couple of punching bags. Merik presses the button and holds the staff with both hands, a large blood red staff with a slightly brighter red forms the blade of the halberd out of hexagons much like the bow did. Merik begins to swing it round chopping three of the five punching bags in half.

“For my third trick, let's go with the next weapon round, the cutlass, the bottom button.” Bill says moving slightly closer to Merik this time.

Merik presses the button and before the orange-brown cutlass appears he start slashes  the fourth punching bag creating several cuts into the punching bag.

“My word! you really are fast!” Bill shouts as he laughs “Finally let’s move onto the last button, the one on the right, which is the axes. These were hard to make to say the least...”

The dark blue a dark blue axe forms in Meriks hand as a second one begins to manifest a second blade. he swung the axes creating small cuts before walking back to Bill and throwing the axes into the punching bags, the axe heads fling off the staff and hit the punching bag before deforming into hexagons and materializing on the staff before Merik pressed the button again to place the staff in its normal form.

“This is amazing Bill!”  Merik says reaching the staff out as if he were to give it back to Bill

“Thanks Merik, and you’ve to keep that, show off to the rest of your group, yeah?” Bill says as he walks back down to the lab. Merik starts throwing the staff into the air and catching it again as he makes his way to the common room where John is relaxing.

“Hey man, Nate here won’t have a drink for some reason! Bill get you what you wanted?” John asks Merik while holding a shot of whiskey, on the table is a bottle of it.

Merik throws the staff in the air one more time while laughing, he takes the shot and sits down.

“Suppose you could say he did.” Merik says while still laughing. Bill knocks on Emily’s door.

“Come in!” Emily shouts while fixing a shelving unit above her bed.

“Here is your rifle. M40A3, with all the attachments needed, I added a little extra kick to it too, every shot landed will surely kill the target.” Bill says laying the rifle down on her desk.

“Sweet, thanks man, it’s much appreciated.” Emily says while screwing in the shelves.

“No problem, I gotta deliver these to Kim so, have a good one.” Bill says walking out of Emily’s room and into Kimberley’s.

“Hey there, gotcha these.” Bill says throwing the pistols onto her bed.

“Hey, thanks. They look wicked cool.” Kimberley says with a smile.

“It’s no problem at all. Hey erm, I don’t mean to intrude but is that a dating site?” Bill asks curiously. Kimberley spins around on her chair clicking the cross on the web page over and over again.

“What? No! Of course not! Oh f**k, it froze… Okay yes, it is! What! Don’t judge me!” Kimberley shouts at Bill.

“Not at all, but ‘Single redhead looking for a capable man, and a long and dangerous relationship.’? You are gonna need to be more specific by what you mean dangerous. Just saying. Wait a minute... I thought you were a lesbian.” Bill says, laughing to himself.

“That is just something I say so I don’t get hit on, don’t tell anyone. You’re probably right about the dating thing. Hey! Don’t do that!” Kimberley says.

“Do what? You told me!” Bill asks.

“Lull me into a false sense of security to get more information!” She screams back quickly and pointing a finger.

“Alright, alright, I am gonna go before you try out your new weapons on me, or some other poor guy, I hope they know what they’re getting into.” Bill says walking out the door.

Bill knocks on Jason’s door. The door slowly opens revealing Jason hanging upside-down from a pole he mounted to the ceiling dressed in a full batman suit.

“I’m batman!” Jason shouts as he swings his body round and drops from the pole.

“Just popping in to tell you the armour John tested is functioning so now I can begin making the A.I and making your...More resistant version” Bill says poking his head through the door ”as for your weapons they have been built, the axe is large, and you can fling the head at your foes for a ranged attack, and you can also send a shockwave through the earth causing opponents to lose balance. The gloves are normal but will be built into the suit, you will be able to activate them by thinking about it and they will greatly enhance your physical strength.”

“Cheers Bill.” Jason says standing up and walking to the rec room to grab a beer. Bill heads into Nate’s room. Bill sees Nate is engulfed by his laptop playing World of Warcraft.

“Your stars and scythe are ready… they are in my lab, come get them when you have a chance. By the way, there's a secret room to your left with some pretty good armor for your paladin.”

“Oh erm thanks Bill” Nate says turning and smiling at Bill before going back to his game. Bill heads down to the lab “Six sets of armour, the recipients of four don’t even know they are getting them, two gun modifications, and an array of digital weaponry...this teams gonna be fun”. All power is cut off and emergency generators start up revealing several red lights around the complex. All television screens and radio start showing/hearing a man.

“Attention members of- what is it? Project Salvation? Is- Is that it? Eh, I don’t care either way.” The man begins. John is sat in his room and notices the television.

“The hell?” John says under his breath leaning up from his bed and kicking his feet over the edge of his bed. Kimberley and Emily are sat in the recreation room watching the man too. Jason, Nate and Merik rush into the recreation room.

“Would someone mind explaining this s**t?” Merik says with a rather angry tone in his voice.

“We have no idea, he looks like an a*****e though.” Kimberley says while watching the television.  

“Now, I believe you have been causing trouble for me and my organisation, this is going to have to end. And we’re going to end it, we are going to crush your little band of wannabe soldiers. Why? Because we don’t like competition, well at least when it comes to the future of my organisation, now here’s what's going to hap-” The footage is cut off and power is brought back online throughout the facility.

“Can we hurt him? I think that might be fun. Anyone else think that would be fun?” Merik says as he looks at the rest of the group. John walks into the room.

“I think I know where we can get some answers, let's go see Octavia, see who this a*****e really is.” John says. They all make their way up to her office where she is clenching her fist on the desk and slides half her documents off her desk.

“Ma’am, what in the hell was that?” Emily asks walking into the room.

“That? That! That was Tristan, that b*****d. I feared this would happen. Listen, I hope you all know what this means.” Octavia says with anger.

“We go on as normal and kick this guy into the dirt if he tries anything?” Nate says

enthusiastically.

“Hoorah to that, ma’am, this guy is not going to bring us down that easy, not without a fight.” John says leaning both hands on the end of her desk. Nate stands to the right of John, Merik places his left hand on John’s shoulder and raises the staff Bill gave him in the other.

“He won’t get past the front gate.” Merik says with the same determination in his eyes that Octavia left him with when training. Jason stands tall behind the group, winks at Octavia and says “Stay here, I'll be back.” Jason walks out of Octavia's office and finds Bill sat outside, Bill gives Jason a set of gloves. Bill explains that Jason must click the button on the gloves, Jason walks back into Octavia's office, and presses the button. a metallic armour begins to unfold around him “Come with me if you want to live.” Jason says before Bill enters explaining that he has made armour for the entire squad. He leads them down to the lab explaining that Jason is now a tank, and a bloody good one at that, being able to withstand shock waves, nuclear blasts, plus one thousand degree temperatures, and much more.

“John, meet the complete armour, Allison is eager to meet you.” Bill says.

“Allison?” John asks curiously, Bill just leans his hand out to the armour. John places the pad on his back and it forms around him, the visor blinks blue.

“Hello John, I am very pleased to meet you.” Allison says. The visor shows a woman with short blonde hair and a smile.

“Holy s**t. Erm, hi. It's a pleasure.” John says, astonished by the improvements.

“I will give you the rundown on my systems and diagnostics later if you wish.” Allison says.

“Thank you Allison, so you’re an AI?” John asks.

“That is correct, well, I am your AI, I have been specifically programmed to your needs, I cannot be taken or used against you in any situation.” Allison explained.

“Alright cool.” John says, Allison becomes smaller and into the bottom right corner of his hud.

“You all have your own specific armours. I know I said it would take a while to run the upgrades but, I had to work faster due to this situation. All of your armours are color coded with your assigned names printed onto the left side of the chestplate. Like John’s for example, dark blue standard colour with white striped and prints down places of the armour. You can all find yours via the printed names.” Bill explains. Merik was given an armband that says ‘Apocalypse’ on it. Merik slid the armband up his arm and hit the salvation symbol on the side. The jet black armour formed around him, it had a white visor that pulsed red every ten seconds, and pale green markings covering the chestplate, the markings were in multiple languages and all read ‘The Apocalypse Is Here’.

“As you can see Death, isn’t printed onto the side of Meriks armour. During production I felt ‘Horseman’ suited Meriks theme more.” Bill explained. “The Apocalypse armour has its own custom, yet less advanced version of Allison named ‘Armageddon’ it will allow you to access the different features, such as releasing noxious gas, a massive boost to physical strength and speed, an infrared scanner and a couple more modules that are still to be bug fixed” Bill implied. Emily walks up to her suit, it has similarities to Johns, except it is mainly white but with blue stripes around the armour. The armour forms around her, she raises her rifle and hud assesses bullet drop rate and wind compensation and corrects all on the rifle. Kimberley approaches hers which is pure crimson red with lighter shades around other areas.

“Now Kim, your armor is built for your CQC skills, you are lighter, more agile, and have much, much faster reaction time making you almost impossible to beat in hand to hand combat. However your armor has weak spots which can be penetrated by high power rounds, steer clear of them.” Bill informs. Kimberleys armour forms around her body and runs startup parameters.

“Thanks Bill, this will come in handy.” She says raising her arms and looking herself over.

“Nate has the most annoying to test system I have ever built. It will allow him to blink short distances to enhance his speed in combat” Bill explains on the way back up to Octavia’s office.

Nate puts the ring on his middle fingers and hits them together, the white armor formed around Nate, the visor was light blue and displays a refresh on the blink in his armor and the status of his stars. They all approach Octavia's desk in their armour.

“Wow, they grow up so fast. Seriously you guys only been here a month and you are willing to die for the organisation, I knew you guys were rare.” Octavia says with a smile on her face like a proud mother.

“Ma’am, what do you need us to do.” Kimberley asks flicking her head back towards her.