The Fastest Gun in the World

Zero picked himself off the ground after being thrown back by the explosion.

"I almost had it! I felt it!"

*tmp* *tmp* *tmp*

Haji walked down from the stairs and over to where Zero and Three were. "Alright, that's enough for today. Three, good job on your control. It's improved."

"Thank you, Sgt." Three said giving a thumbs up.

"You can go ahead and head back. I want to work with Zero 1 on 1 for a bit."

Oh, no. Zero thought. Haji has never wanted to work with me personally before. Last time it was just us…was when he was pounding my face in for what I did in the city.

Up on the balcony, Two and One decided to head out as well. As Two went to walk away, One stopped him.

"Two, can I speak to you for a moment?"

"What is it, Captain?"

"Would you mind coming back with me to my room? I want you to check something out for me."

"Yeah, not a problem."

Down below, Haji pulled out his pistol once more in front of Zero.

"Whoa, is there a problem, Sgt. Sadiki?" Zero asked a bit nervously.

"Here." He tossed the gun over to him. Zero caught it with one hand and looked it over. It felt weird in his hand as it was the first time he's ever held a gun.

Haji reached into his pocket and pulled out a small remote that went to the training room. He pressed one of the buttons and several sections on the wall across from them turned around, revealing bullseye targets.

"I want you to try shooting at each of these targets."

"But sir, I've never even shot a gun before. Why do you-"

"Don't worry about WHY, just worry about hitting the targets. I'm not expecting a perfect score here."

"Ok.." Zero held up the gun to one of the higher targets. His finger felt alien against the trigger as he made sure to line up the target with the sights on the gun.

*BANG* *BANG*

The bullets sunk into the soft material of the target and became lodged in.

One hit was on the outer ring and the other one not too far off from the most inner one.

"Not bad. Especially for your first time." Haji noted.

"It actually didn't feel as weird as I thought it would."

"Good. Now, I want you to try something different. Activate Chronos Trigger around you and speed up the bullet after it leaves the barrel of the gun."

"Hmm, I don't think I would be able to stop the bullet in time though."

"That's a good point. Hmm. Okay, try this. Create a time field around your hand like when you do your bustershot. But, I want you to try increasing the output of the energy so that it encompasses the gun. That way you can distort the bullet before it even leaves the gun.

"Okay, I see. I'll give it a try then."

Zero held the gun up again and activated Chronos Trigger around just his hand. He tried to force as much as he could around his hand so that the energy aura expanded. It was like his hand was going to vibrate right off of his arm.

"This…is almost too much." He said.

"Push through it for now. Now, fire the gun."

Slow everything down after I pull the trigger, but not too slow, he thought to himself. He pulled the trigger and immediately activated the slow down.

They both watched as the bullet slowly fired out of the chamber as the muzzle flash went off just as slow.

"Now!"

Zero then changed the distortion to greatly speed it up - the bullet flew out of sight and sunk into the target before they even realized it.

*THUD*

A weird metallic sound could be heard as the bullet continued past the depth of the target and pierced straight through the rest of the wall.

Haji's mouth was agape. "Holy shit."

Zero was just as surprised by the result. You could see a clear path from where the bullet hit the target all the way into the room that lay beyond behind several feet of thick metal.

"Wow. That was…incredible." The bullet had hit just to the right of the bullseye.

Haji looked at Zero with a confident smile. "Well it looks like we stumbled upon something here. From now on I want you to add shooting practice to your daily schedule. Just normal shooting to work on your aim. I'll have to work with Research and Development on a gun that is specifically designed to work with this.."

Zero couldn't help but feel a little excited. Learning bustershot had opened the door to even more possibilities than he could've thought. Once he gets the distortion cloak down, he knew that he could be a threat all on his own.

"Yes, sir!"

*******

Higher up in the base, the Major General was having an online meeting with a representative from Command in his office.

Central Command was located far off to the West so it was rare for them to have an in person meeting. Thankfully, a more base form of the internet had been established not too long ago so that they could still hold meetings such as this. Just like quite a few other privileges the internet was only available for military use. There were no websites to visit or social media, it was just used for purposes such as meetings or to interact with certain remote devices.

Marcus was not the only high ranking officer on the call however - aside from those in Command, there were also other Generals and the like from across the country on the call. It was scheduled last minute as there was a pressing issue that needed to be sought to.

"So, we detained as much of The Hand as we could thanks to the intel from Alpha's Four. However, we found nothing in the hideouts we raided that indicated a connection to this underground network we keep hearing whispers about." said one of the Generals on the call. He was in charge of Romeo base - the base that Four stayed at during his last mission while infiltrating The Hand.

"I see. Has anyone else had any luck in uncovering any more information?" The person from Command asked.

There was silence on the call.

"Actually…I may have something." the General from Delta base chimed in.

"Well, speak."

"Sir. So, we've had more disappearances recently as I know you're all aware. While one of my men was investigating a lead the other day, we happened to find a piece of ripped clothing caught in the manhole covering an entrance to the sewer."

"Are you saying that they're LITERALLY underground?"

"Not necessarily. We sent in a small detail to comb the sewers though. They didn't find anyone lurking down there, but they did find a random little pin lying near the stairs of a different exit from the sewer." He held up the pin so it was visible to everyone else watching the call. The pin was a little cross and a rose in the center of, with a thorny stem wrapping around the cross.

"I don't think I've seen that insignia before.." The Command rep spoke.

"Wait a second!" Spoke up the General from Bravo base. "I've seen that before!"

"Where?"

"It's the insignia of an old family that used to live in this area. No clue if any of them are still alive, but there's an old mansion not far from our base that has that insignia adorned on the front of it."

"Has anyone ever been inside it?"

"No, no reason to. The whole property is a mess. If someone is actually living there, it's probably a Reaper."

"Well this sounds like our first real lead about this underground network in quite some time. Alpha - can you put together a small team for this one? Presumably your Four and one other who could work an operation like this. We need to get in there and see what we can find out. If we can detain just one person we'll be that much closer to solving this riddle."

"Understood." Marcus replied. "Alpha will handle this, sir."

"Good, glad to hear it Marcus. Like I said - this is not a mission to gun in guns blazing. This will be completely covert."

"I got just the person in mind for the job, sir."

"Then I'll leave you to it. We'll meet again once Alpha has their findings. Until next time."

The call ended and Marcus was once again alone. He leaned back in his chair and let out a hefty sigh. He grabbed the phone sitting on his desk and dialed the extension of Haji.

It rang a few times and then went straight to voicemail. They don't have cell phones anymore, so they can only use their office ones.

"Haji, I need you to come up to my office when you get this. I have a new job for Four and Zero."