The Birth of the Black Rose

Chapter 5

I looked him over calmly, but inside I was freaking out. Michael? The ACTUAL Michael? I mean, I've never really been the religious type, but I knew who he was. This couldn't be him. He didn't look a day over 19. But then I remembered: oh, yea. He's technically dead already. I figured that'd be kind of rude to say, so I clamped my mouth shut. "What," he started, waking me from my daze, "no 'no way'? No 'you're bullshitting me'? None of that?" I looked into his eyes which, I now saw, shined a brilliant gold whenever I looked into them for a while. "Nah." I shook my head. "Not much really catches me by surprise these days." He let out a laugh. "Yeaaa, me either, bro." He patted my shoulder then went serious. "Do you know how to use a weapon?" He asked suddenly after examing me for a minute. "Uh... depends on what kind of weapon." I replied, puzzled.

He then dismissed Savi and led me to a rather large sized building, to which he produced a key. Now, when I say "produced", I mean one minute, nothing. The next, key. Didn't reach into his pocket. Didn't slide it from his sleeve. Just poof. That wasn't the biggest surpirse though. The biggest (and, admittedly, most awesome) surprise was probably when he opened the door, revealing the most well-stocked arsenal I had EVER seen. Whoever these guys were, they had everything from militia rifles (AK's, G3KA's, Fal's, etc.) to Military-Grade firearms (M4 carbines, M249 Squad Automatic Weapons, FN five-sevens). That's not even 1/100th of it all. They had weapons from every war in that one building. From the caveman's first knife made of stone, all the way to XM8 Assault Rifles (which really didn't exist. It was cancelled back in 2009. How they got them working is beyond me.)

"... Damn." I said, dumbfounded and amazed. Michael smiled and led me in, handing me a trench knife, a M9 9mm pistol, and and a MP5 Submachine gun. He led me over to a shooting range and gave me some ammo. He pointed to the pistol and then to the targets. I picked it up and loaded it, aiming at the target for no longer than a few seconds before firing. I hit every target, right in the head. "Okay," Michael said with raised eyebrows, "pretty good. Now, take the SMG." I picked it up and it felt.... natural. It felt great, firing those rounds into the targets. Like something inside me just... woke up. Michael smiled as the last target went down with a bullet in its head. He clapped his hands slowly. "Damn. Not bad at all. I think you may have what it takes to be our first." I looked at him, curious. "First what?"

"Our first Special Forces team leader."