Chapter 7: Assessment

The recruits scrambled to get their bags stacked in the back left corner of the lobby, not wanting to find out the meaning of corrective training. It was utter chaos in the lobby of the Los Diablos Nephilim Enforcement headquarters as the raw recruits raced to the clock to stack their bags and other belongings in the indicated location. Zeph's instructions on how to accomplish the task seemed to fall on deaf ears, as only a dozen paid heed to those instructions.

When the last recruit fell back into formation Senior instructor Westnight yelled, "Time."

"Two minutes and fifteen seconds, Sir."

"Recruit Demonbane, how many of the recruits are not in the correct position?"

"To the best of my memory, I can see that four are in the wrong spot Senior Instructor. Should I confirm the number by accessing the security footage of the lobby, and apply a facial recognition algorithm?"

"No, I too believe the number to be four. Recruit number seven five six nine, in your opinion are the bags stacked neatly?"

Everyone began to look around not knowing if that was their recruit identification number or not. After several seconds Senior Instructor Westnight ended the awkward confusion.

"That would be you miss long ears. This will by your opportunity to prove yourself capable of doing more than warming Recruit Demonbane's bed for the entirety of your stay in the academy."

Giving a salute to Senior Instructor Westnight the pink eared female Lepus shouted; "Senior Instructor, the bags are stacked worse than a pile of misshapen carrots. I believe we failed the task in every way possible. We went past the allotted time, four of us are not in the correct position, and the bags were not properly stacked in a neat fashion. I request that proper corrective training is given so that we can avoid making mistakes on a more vital task."

"Recruit seven five six nine, for your truthful answer, you will be exempt from the corrective training. Fall out of formation to the right and join Recruit Demonbane at the front of the formation, standing to his left. Recruit Demonbane, open the message I just sent to you. It contains the standards for conducting corrective training. It could be seen as your CT to conduct theirs. If you fail to do so correctly, you will receive a heavy punishment."

"Sir."

After reading the contents of the message, Zeph pointed out the correct position that the four out of place recruits should move to. Once they got to the correct place in formation, he gave a short block of instruction on how to do a proper push-up. As he had them go through a by the book CT session, Zeph pointed out how they could accomplish the task without fail in a very short amount of time. Once their set of push-ups and running in place was over, the order was given to retrieve their bags and try the task again.

This time they made sure to do what Zeph had suggested. The back row fell out to the far back corner of the lobby to stack the bags as the second to last row formed a chain passing them the bags then the other rows handed theirs to them. This made it to where the bags could be neatly stacked by a dedicated few, with little unnecessary movement. It also made it to where the last two rows only had to remember who they needed to stand behind in the formation, eliminating the mad cluster dash at the end.

"Time"

"One minute and forty seconds, Sir."

"Recruit Demonbane, have the five rows line up in front of the six doors on the left, so that we can begin the assessment. To even up the numbers, you and the two females already assigned to your squad will go with the XO to be given the assessment. The three of you will start on the third section of the assessment that we have not given any information to you on. Normally this section of the assessment is given after the other two, only to those that have a passing score on the other two sections. But as there is only so much space available in the six rooms we use for the written section of the test, you three will be tested in that location first. You will find out the details of that test once you arrive in that location."

"Recruits fall out and form up in lines of eight on the six doors."

"You three come with me."

After going through a series of doorways and halls under the guidance of the XO, Zeph and the two females found themselves in a long narrow room that was divided by walls along its width, and a waist high counter prevented you from walking into the long-divided sections of the room. If it were not for the lack of paper targets hanging down from the ceiling, Zeph would have sworn it reminded him of the indoor gun range he had visited on earth. Although he thought it looked more like the one in a video game, than the one he went to in the real world. "Um, Sir where are we, and what kind of test are we going to do in a room like this?"

"They say that curiosity killed the Kat, but we are in the practice range. Even the officers of the Los Diablos Division that are on duty come here to practice, and have their skills accessed once a year. You are going to be tested on how well you can handle a Mark five SLP, or sonic and laser pistol. Of course the one you will be using today is a training model that lacks the settings or power of the real thing, but the over all function is the same. As most recruits have never handled or even seen a real weapon before, you will be given a few minuets, and practice shots before the test begins."

A large display appeared on the wall next to the door they came in through, that began going over basic firearm safety and how to operate the Mk. 5 SLP. When the video ended Commissioner Vaughn directed the three of them to stand in front of the counter of the first three firing lanes. Each one of the sections of counter had a training Mk. 5 SLP sitting in a charging dock with its safety on.

"Go ahead and familiarize yourself with the weight and feel of the weapon before taking your first practice shot at the target that will appear as soon as you remove the pistol from its charging dock. You have five practice shots, and your ability to hit the target will not be recorded for them, and they will not affect the results of your score on this part of the assessment."

Picking the Mk. 5 SLP up for the first time, Zeph felt like it had the same feel as an airsoft pistol, much lighter than he was expecting, as the Mk. 5 LSP was close to the same size as a Desert Eagle .50 cal that he rented from the firing range once after a coworker goateed him into doing so, by saying that he was too much of a city boy to handle a real hand cannon.

Even though the short training video said it had no recoil, Zeph was not going to risk a broken wrist in the middle of his officer recruit assessment. He used a double hand grip and dominate leg back firing stance to take his first shot.

*Waamp*

The target that was in the shape of an upper torso silhouette slammed backwards indicating it had been hit, before it returned to its original position. A finger sized hole on what would be the left shoulder of the target marked the location of where Zeph hit the target. Commissioner Vaughn was shocked to see that Zeph hit the target on his first try. I was not unheard of, but most recruits did not even come close to landing a hit on the first three practice shots.

For Zeph he was stunned by the fact the Mk. 5 LSP did not make a sound when he fired. It was only the sound of a high-density pocket of air created by ultra-high frequency sonic pulses hitting the target that he was able to hear. Zeph switched the Mk. 5 LSP to its laser mode and took his second shot. It landed dead center of the target, causing a small red light above his head to flash.

The light was an indicator that helped whoever was conducting an assessment or training session know that the recruit, or officer in a particular lane had scored a bullseye.

During the actual assessment they had to fire ten shots in each mode at the target, and a passing score was fifteen shots landing within the marked-out area of the target. Zeph managed to get a prefect twenty out of twenty, with nine of the shots being a bullseye in the laser portion of the assessment. Zeph was slightly disappointed in himself for not getting ten bullseyes with the laser, and only managing one of them in the sonic portion of the test. The two females did extremally well as well, with both getting a score of eighteen. This caused Commissioner Vaughn to stand in awe of all three of them as his best score was a nineteen, and he had years of practice.

"All three of you passed this portion of the assessment. As the other recruits should be done with the written section of the assessment, and moving on to the physical portion of it, I will have you go to the first training room to take your written assessment. After that if it is okay with Recruit Demonbane, I would like to conduct the physical assessment in the exercise room of his executive suite, as the other recruits may not finish taking their assessments in the main gym."

"You are the XO, Commissioner Vaughn. All you have to do is give the order, and it is up to us to make it happen."

"True, but you are a special case, and even I can not enter ES001 without your prior authorization."

Sitting in the first training room Zeph had a stack of paper placed face down in front of him in the desk he was seated at. The OX had already explained that the assessment was given on actual paper because the room blocked the Vlaras Global Positioning and Intergraded Information Neuro Network from being able to send signals to their chips in most cases. He had no idea if Zeph could bypass the restriction somehow. But the all too familiar Ding was followed by a message that told Zeph that an outside source unsuccessfully blocked his access to the network. The test was two hundred questions long, and they need to get one hundred and fifty right in the time span of hour.

"You may begin."

Flipping the paper over Zeph was glad that Siael shoved that massive download into his skull despite how much it hurt. He was certain that he would have scored the lowest results in the history of the L.D. division. Most of the questions had to do with the physical traits of the various races of Vlaras, and how they interacted with other races. Others where in history, science, math, and Nephilim and their parentage on the side of fallen angels. With five minutes to spare Zeph placed his pencil down on the desk, before clasping his hand in prayer for a passing grade.

"Time is up, pencils down. I will come collect your test and feed the answer sheet into the scanner for the building's AI to score. Your results, and over all ranking will appear on the screen on the wall behind me in a few minutes."

"Congratulations Recruit Demonbane, you received a perfect score on this section of the assessment, setting a new division record. With this score you could completely fail the physical assessment with a score as low as a two in both stamina and strength, but we are still required to test you. But in truth it is the little miss behind you that truly surprised me. She has proven that she is no dumb bunny, if more lepus similis had scores like hers we would have many of them amongst our ranks as upper brass or instructors. I see a bright future ahead for you recruit seven five six nine. Do not fret, you passed as well if only by your whiskers. Recruit Demonbane please lead the way to the telapod pad in the lobby, we will need to to stand on it while you inform the AI to allow us access, until the building's main AI officially adds them as permanent guest of yours."