Waiting in the lobby, I was looking for a car to pick me up. I didn’t feel powerful dressing officially for my first mission. I was feeling stupid, it felt like I was in a costume rather than a battle gear. To make things worse, the car was already there waiting for me, but I didn't realize it. It was a standard police car, but because they only told me the plate of the vehicle, it never crossed my mind that I would tag along with the police. Long story short, everybody inside and outside the car saw me walking out of the lobby, putting on my bandana-mask and entering.

“Hello,” I said meekly as I closed the door.

There was a single cop driving in uniform with one of my teammates in the front seat. The red haired girl was with me in the back, her alias was Venom. Edgy enough I guess.

“Rich grandpa. Go figure,” she scoffed, thin lips in a pout.

“And fighting criminals just like the rest of us. Welcome aboard.” The muscular guy in the front intervened and we shook hands. “I am Terrence.” He had a luchador mask covering his face. Only his soft brown eyes and perfect smile could be seen through, but I remembered his real features from bootcamp. He was poster boy material if I can remember him correctly.

“Thanks, I appreciate it. I am Billy.” Such a strange feeling to be seated in the backseat of a police car in costumes. Venom was dressed in black leather using a carnival mask, Terrence had a wrestling singlet resembling the ones used in WWE events, which was not surprising since the venue held their share of superpowereds, even pacifying cities sometimes.

“Billy the Grandpa,” Venom complemented, the tone not flattering at all.

“First time?” the blonde cop driving the car asked. His blue eyes looked cold.

“Yes, but we’re ready, you can bet on that,” Terrence said, tapping the cop’s shoulder to put the man at ease.

The cop responded with a frown. “No you’re not. The reason they put you inside the car with me is so I can babysit your asses. This way at least we have a chance of you not stepping on your meat.”

Terrence reacted with silence, his muscular body sinking into the drive seat. However, Venom was livid. “Excuse me? Who the hell are you to tell us what to do?”

“Me? Nobody. I’m just an old cop and I know that my twenty years on the force mean shit to you.”

She crossed her arms, the black leather from her costume squeaking as it was stretched. “It really doesn’t. You do your thing and we do ours, okay?”

“Sorry, doll. But that’s not how this works.”

The temperature in the car rose dangerously. Fury emanated from Venom’s eyes, a red color shining through them. There were wisps of smoke coming from the leather of her costume. The red from her head turned into almost crimson.

“Come on, shortie. No need to get violent, we can’t do that,” Terrence pleaded, his worry clear.

The temperature stopped rising, but it didn’t go back to normal either.

The blonde cop calmly turned the wheel, parking the car with no hurry. “You have two choices.” The man said evenly “You can follow my lead, since you don’t know your ass from your elbow, and maybe I can protect you rookies from yourselves. The other option is you keep acting tough and I can mark this as a failed routine procedure. Mind you, this will be on your records permanently. What do you guys say?”

He took a pen from his pocket and pressed it with a click, making his intention clear. Either we accepted or he would make his report right then and there.

Terrence and I nodded, but Venom remained firm.

“You have five seconds to stop that stunt you're pulling right now or we're gonna go back to the station and you will fail your very first mission. My rules apply here, not yours.” He started scribbling on his brochure, looking into Venom’s eyes through the rear view mirror.

The police officer's unwavering gaze was clear in his cold blue eyes. If he was afraid of driving a car with three superpowereds, he didn’t show it at all.The stare contest between Venom and the cop lasted for exactly twelve point three seconds, but the temperature came back to normal.

“Good. Now let’s start this back from the top. My name is Frederic Stanton and I will be your field training officer for this evening. We are on our way to subpoena a scumbag named Daniel Salinger. Sal is a powered human being and therefore precious to us all.” His face told you just how precious he thought Salinger was.

“His ability is super strength and above average resistance against trauma. According to his file, his resistance is only connected to his enhanced muscles, keep that in mind. Even though he can become five times stronger than a normal human when shit hits the fan, it takes time for him to use his full strength. He is still a low ball villain, but nothing to scoff at.” He said that last line looking Venom in her eyes. Venom avoided his gaze, lifting her chin and crossing her arms.

It took twenty minutes for us to reach our destination. Before we exited the vehicle, Stanton asked for Terrence to pick up an envelope in the glove compartment. We parked the car two blocks away from our target and proceeded to walk towards the location, doing our best to remain inconspicuous as we approached the building. Here I could already see the folly in our uniforms. Way too loud for such a quiet environment. Something to think about for next time.

The place was one of those fleabag hotels, barely any light in the entire compound, which made sneaking in easier, but also more dangerous. The person we were supposed to deliver the subpoena to lived on the second floor.

Stanton put his hands on his lips and mimicked the way Terrence was supposed to go about it. He pretended to knock on the door while his body was beside the door instead of in front of it. It made sense, in case somebody on the inside decided to blast the door first and ask questions later.

Terrence acted as instructed. His gigantic frame was surprisingly nimble. I had my hand on the butt of my weapon, my three hundred and sixty view working at all times.

We heard shuffling inside, Stanton reached for his gun. Against the advice from my deemed instructor, I closed my eyes. A flash of what was behind the door appeared in my vision. I signaled using our officials hand codes. Single suspect, armed, handgun, left side from the door.

Venom and Terrence looked at me as if I just started popping gang signs out of nowhere. Frederic Stanton was furious. Without any other resource he asked me if I could shoot the man through the door, which I signaled back affirmatively.

He motioned me to go forward, but to wait for his signal. I walked carefully to the other side of the door where the suspect stood. I drew my pistol and aimed at where the suspects' stomach would be. Looking at Stanton, I cocked the gun. The distinct noise ringing clear for everybody to hear. The second flash came to me. Showing panic in the suspect’s eyes while the strain made him gulp under pressure.

“Mister Daniel Salinger, this is the NYPD. Here with me I have two friends from the American Legionaires, so it will be better for all of us if you would step out nicely.

Closing my eyes tightly I saw him uncocking his weapon. Stanton's eyes went wide before I signaled that everything was fine. Thirty seven seconds later we hear the click. He opens the door slowly, his arms raised. He is a white man, probably in his fifties. He is bald, unshaven and unclean, wearing a wife beater that did nothing to hide his hairy chest and his prominent belly.

“What the hell is going on here guys?” he asked, laughing nervously. He had some type of accent. Not like he was italian, but he was from italian descent.

“You are under arrest, fatso,” Frederic stated as I approached him from the back.

“For what?” he said, outraged.

“For having a firearm while under probation, pal.”

He looked between Venom and Terrence while I remained unnoticed behind the door he just opened. His veins started bulging as he became angry.

“What the fuck you’re talking about? I’m trying to make a living here, and you come out of nowhere with this bullshit!” He made one step towards Stanton, but Venom and Terrence walked in front of him. He lifted his hands up, not quite surrendering himself, it was just the stupid way he choose to argue. Terrence thought otherwise and approached him carefully but not carefully enough.

The moment he looked to the side to get the cuffs, Salinger front kicked him over the balcony, breaking the wood, and almost hitting Stanton who got out of the way just in time. Venom didn’t stay idly. Her hand already in flames, but she was also too slow. It was not that Sal was that fast, he was just not burdened at all by his weight. With a single slap, he knocked Venom unconscious. A couple of “Ahs” and “Uhs” were his only sign of protest for touching her hot skin for a brief second. Before this dance could evolve to a tumble, I put my pistol in his temple.

“Not many muscles to protect you here, right?” I said.

The fat man looked at Frederic, his voice showing his confusion. “I thought you said two powereds.”

“I lied,” Frederic responded, his thin smile slowly turning into a full grin. He looked thoroughly pleased.

Sal’s veins came back to normal, as he shook his head looking downwards. “Fuck the police, man.”

“Amen to that brother,” Stanton responded. “Billy, where is the gun?”

“Second tile from your left.”

Stanton retrieved the weapon and showed how to cuff a powered suspect according to the ability they had. The contraption used to apprehend us was something I only saw on TV. Thick silver cuffs with rotating discs resembling small half-saws. It looked like it would cut the suspect as soon as we put it on. Half of the blade could be seen above the alloy while the bottom half touched the skin directly.

The technology used here wasn’t ours. The restraining device something that was granted from one of many partnerships that we made with extraterrestrial companies. There wasn’t a powered in the world that didn’t fear it. Once they were on, not even the mightiest of heroes could fight it.

The contraption seemed like a nightmare to put on at first, but after some practice it became really straight forward. The whole process didn’t last longer than three minutes. Our field officer let each one of us practice cuffing and uncuffing Salinger three times. Not sure if he did it because he thought it was important for us to learn or if seeing Salinger pissed off made him happy.

I asked Molly if I could just cuff the suspect the same way she put my gear on, but she said that her manipulation abilities didn’t extend to any organism outside The Company. However, she also said that it might be possible for me to do it with the right upgrades.

After we cuffed Daniel Salinger one last time we headed back to the car.

The aftermath of our little scuffle was strange. Venom looked bumped out by getting knocked out cold. Terrence, on the other hand, was ecstatic about the whole thing. Some jabbing back and forth between the duo was needed and a peep talk later Venom turned back to her smug self. We were close to the police station, Venom and Terrence were already laughing. They had a certain chemistry going on. Stanton and I were silent the entire time.

The conversation continued.

“I was in his face, Venom! All like, you come motherfucker and grandpa over there was like ‘I wouldn’t do that if I were you,’ ” Terrence said.

“Yeah, that was cool. But I think we should-”

“Shut up!” Stanton barked at us behind the steering wheel. “What the hell are you raving about? You know what you two did? Fucked up because you two didn’t bother to learn mandatory hand signals.”

Salinger was stuck in between the two heroes, a hint of a smirk on his face.

“But everything went fine,” Terrence argued.

“Because we were lucky, not because you were prepared. What the hell do these numbnuts at the academy teach you rookies? Not knowing hand signals?”

“They said we should learn it in our spare time,” Venom mumbled.

“Yeah, no shit, Sherlock! You should. What if Billy over here had to say that Salinger was aiming at you through the door? What the hell would you do then?”

Venom and Terrence looked at each other but there was nothing any of them could say. Nothing that would help, at least.

“Here is the thing. Grandpa over here did his homework, so he will get no trouble from me. You two useless turds will be forced to do mandated hand signal training at the NYPD facilities.”

Venom opened her mouth, but funny enough was Salinger who shook his head, trying to make her see reason. Even more unexpectedly the red-haired teen took the advice.

Officer Stanton proceeded to talk. “Until you two come back and show me that you know your signals perfectly, you two will have failed today’s routine procedure.”

Both of them looked sad about the whole thing, looking more like the children that they were. To be honest, I didn’t think it was reasonable to demand them to know their hand signals at this stage. It was just one item of an extensive list of mandatory assignments that we should learn on our own. It was simply impossible to get around it with so little time.

The only reason I knew it was because Julia talked about how important and unappreciated hand signals were and the time-capsule gave me time I needed to actually learn it. Nobody in their right mind would think about memorizing them otherwise, but Stanton didn’t seem to care.

The way back was a silent one. Salinger’s good mood vanished after a perfectly timed elbow from Terrence hit his ribs. A short time later, we said our goodbye’s once we left Daniel at the station.

Despite the way Stanton treated us all, I think we landed with a good officer. Much more important than that, I know I left a good impression with both heroes. Word travels fast in our world and I heard about some gruesome tales about how some of the Vanps are treated.

I closed the door from the police car. The two girls in the reception seemed curious about the whole thing. “Is there anything I can help with, Mr. Montgomery?” They didn’t look concerned so I guessed they knew I was powered and not a suspect. I politely declined and pressed the elevator button. The door slowly closed. Not bad for a first mission.