Jason looked at the trio for a moment as he collected a single paintball gun, and one of the padded swords, off of the bench. "So, whats the objective here? From my understanding, Silver can't be killed by a bullet, just inconvenienced, and while he's wearing armor, no handgun or rifle is gonna hurt Excalibur."

The meta laughed. "For the former, true. Silver is remarkably hard to kill. For the latter..... unfortunately not so much. Thanks to the need to make weapons for fighting Jotun, the military has an assortment of anti-material rifles and specialty ammunitions that can actually pierce the armor at the joints, especially around the neck, thighs, and shoulder. Still. We just want to feel out how you fight. Impy, if you care to go first?"

Jason inhaled deeply; holding the paintball gun pointed at the wall, the padded sword aimed at the floor, and stepped out onto an mat; there was no ring for fights in here, but a good-sized section of padded floor in the middle of the room. He studied the woman facing him... and blinked as the wings shifted, becoming arms; the woman now appearing just a bit taller, thinner, with four identical, four-fingered hands.

She smiled, holding the pugil stick between two right hands. "Why don't we put the gun down for now and just see if you can hit me?"

He laughed; trading the paintball gun for a second sword; and then stepped back out onto the mat. "Well now. This is... interesting. Four arms... not sure I've seen that before in person."

"My species naturally has four arms. I usually keep two, and swap the others for... wings... tentacles... whatever fits. The hardest part is copying feathers. It's crazy hard for most of us to do it, but it gets easier with time. For me, I can keep them even when I'm asleep. Now. Enough small talk. Show me.."

She ducked, narrowly avoiding a swinging sword, deflecting it easily with the pugil stick; only to stop as she felt the other striking her arm. She blinked, backing away a step, glancing at the offending limb.... and then abruptly lunged forward.. only to find him already stepping aside, both sticks smacking against a different arm.

For the next minute, they rapidly traded swings. At first, Jason kept smacking her arms, her legs, her torso, over and over, neatly avoiding her responses, but after about thirty seconds she started managing to get hits off of him in return; and slammed him back off of his feet with a blow to the chest that hit like a sledgehammer. She stopped, looking down at him. "....If this were a real fight, with real weapons, I'd have been dead."

He rubbed his chest. Even with the padding on the sticks, he would likely have bruises from that. "True enough. Though it seems if you keep attacking fast enough, I can't keep predicting you forever, and it reaches a point where there are no possible moves I can make where I don't get hit. Especially not against someone with more speed and, honestly, quite a bit more skill, than me."

She tapped her arms with her other hands, one by one. "You realize I've got better than human reflexes.... and that up until now, the only people who have been able to handle me in a fight like that were speedsters, able to move faster than the eye can see?"

Jason shrugged. "And if you give me the right weapon, I'll be able to take one of those people out before they even get into the fight." He glanced at the doors, half-expecting Terminal, the team's Speedster, to come running into the room in response; but then turned back to the others. "Let me get more training in, and I'll do better; but I really think a gun is the better option for me."

Excalibur nodded at Imperious, who stepped off of the mat; as he stepped on, holding a bean-bag in his gloved hand. "Honestly, you probably will. I'd bet you'll either end up carrying a rifle into fights, or gauntlets with built-in guns. But there's a time and a place for everything; and there will be moments you need something up-close and personal. Imperious and I deal with most threats from a distance, without ever getting close enough to touch, but when we do need to, we have to be able to handle ourselves."

As he stepped onto the mat with Excalibur, Jason nodded slowly. "Usually when they show you guys on the news, its the melee takedowns. When Imperious killed the first Modron Man with her flail. Or when you tore a giant hole in that weird clay guy."

Excalibur stretched... and suddenly the beanbag hurtled at Jason at ridiculous speed, followed moments later by Excalibur himself; while Jason deftly stepped aside, smacking him on the back of the head with the sword.

Over the next few minutes, Excalibur kept pursuing; striking, lunging... sometimes Jason was forced to roll out of the way or even leap off of the mat entirely; but just as often he was able to just barely avoid the oncoming metahuman, delivering another blow on the way. After about five minutes of the constant dancing, Excalibur, in a fit of frustration, finally simply tore the entire mat apart, sending a giant mass of it at him; and however much he tried, Jason was still slammed into the wall of the room by a few pieces of the mat.

Excalibur was sweating, hands on his knees, shaking his head, as Jason brushed the loose bits of stuffing off of himself; tiny white pellets that had once been inside the mat filled the air. "Well. That was... oof. Informative."

When Jason stepped back up, Excalibur chuckled. "Well. What have we learned?"

Imperious chuckled. "That in a one-on-one fight he'd have killed either of us, and you should send old Jimmy an apology?"

Excalibur glowered at her for a moment... before he shook his head with a laugh. "True enough on the latter count, but he'd need a good can opener for field-work." He turned to Jason, and extended a hand; which Jason shrugged, and accepted. "We've learned that you're worth bringing onto the team. Right now we're on R&R. Unless its an emergency, they won't be calling us in. Take a couple days, get some gear sorted. We'll get a room cleared out for you. We start training next week. I think the best use of you would be on overwatch, with a rifle to take out threats, and a good clear view of us all so you can warn us if we're gonna get into something; but we'll work that out in the field."

The narrative has been taken without permission. Report any sightings.

"Welcome to the team, Arakiel."

***

As Jason stepped into the room, where long racks of tools, dozens of partially completed armor suits, guns, various unknown gadgets, filled the room on tables, racks; a truly insane display; a group of engineers glanced up from what looked almost like an Iron Man suit; none of them looked familiar, except... was that one from Ground? He could've sworn he saw that guy setting out tables when Dr. Martinez was questioning him. "G'day, gentlemen. I was told to come here to look at the first draft for an armor suit?"

One of the men nodded. "This is the Armory division. Its what we do. We take some of the best tech Darpa and anyone else can make, and use it to make guns, armor suits, rocket boots, disruptors, all sorts of craziness. I'm the lead Armorer; I've been told to make you something that can take a hit or two... but the primary job is to let you move around fast, and hit hard. That accurate?"

Jason chuckled. "Pretty much, yes. I've got excellent reflexes and can pretty much dodge bullets, so as long as the suit doesn't slow me down, and keeps something like a frag grenade from taking me down, its good. I'm Jason, by the way. Code-name's gonna be Arakiel."

"Ahh. I'm Bob. That one is also Bob. Kevin, and Wally." He nods at each of the other engineers absently; Wally apparently the one he'd seen underground, at project Ground, while the other Bob looked oddly familiar as well; but he couldn't place him.

"Well, Bob. What do you have for me?"

He chuckled. "Well. What I've got ready to go is the Kamikaze mark 1." He gestured at the table. Sleek, charcoal grey-black armor with some sort of bulky attachments at the shoulders and feet, as well as a helmet that seemed to be completely solid, studded with what looked like chrome spikes. "Bullet resistant, fire resistant, includes a few limited-use rockets that can briefly give you extreme bursts of acceleration, even let you hop onto a rooftop from ground level a few times. Three-sixty camera views that work even when you've been hit by an EMP, and built-in grappling hooks for both arms; three-shot compressed gas that will work if the electric is taken out. Optimal blend of mobility and survivability, and weighs only 68 pounds."

He gestured at another table. "But that was what we started with. Boss authorized us to use one of the Jotun suit chargers for an upgraded model and pull out all the stops."

Jason followed him to the other table, where there was no intact suit; but rather a giant mass of arms, legs, and various random parts scattered across it. "So.... work in progress?"

"Not exactly. We've got four different 'Arakiel mark 1' models in mind, but these Jotun batteries and charging systems are extremely expensive to copy, so we're only going to do final assembly of one." He tapped a button; a display appeared above the table.

"First off is the Flight model. Basically turns you into a miniature aircraft. A bit heavy and clumsy on the ground, but can fly for six hours on a full charge at up to Mach 1. Heavier than the Kamikaze suit, and we'll need to build any guns and blades you want into the arms and legs." It looked... like a transformer. All sorts of blades and wings sticking out of it to create flight surfaces. Probably the closest to an 'Iron Man' suit he would ever see, though of course it wasn't going to be able to survive a hit from a tank, or even a heavy machinegun.

"Probably not. Whats next?"

"Next up is the Agility model. Honestly very similar to the Kamikaze, only it uses plasma thrusters based on Jotun tech instead of rockets and some more durable... and expensive... composites. Weighs a few pounds less, and can go for days between charges so long as you don't abuse it. You can sort-of fly with it, but it'd be clumsy as hell, especially if you were carrying a rifle or anything bulky; but definitely good for a safe landing from an aircraft, or moving in an urban setting."

Jason stared. This one looked almost exactly like the Kamikaze suit, only in white instead of black, and with different shapes of thrusters. "... I don't even know if I need to see the others. That one sounds awesome."

"Well, hold up. Option three is the Disrupter. You know how our helos have started carrying those emitters that can screw up telepaths and telekinetics?"

Jason frowned. "Don't they also catch things on fire at random, give people cancer, and make people with metal fillings or lighters explode?"

Bob blinked. "Uhm. I didn't know about the fillings part. But I made a suit that has that built-in."

"Giving me and anybody working with me cancer, making Imperious's armor catch on fire, and god knows what it would do to Silver..."

Bob raised his hands "I get it, I get it. No disrupter suit, fine, fine. Alright, final option. The Keyhole suit." He tapped the button again. A suit similar to the first model appeared, only thicker, bulkier. If we issue this one, you're gonna have to pretend that what it does is from your powers. Project Keyhole is classified, heavy, and bulky, but basically, you put some nodes on a surface, and then poof.... you can go right through it. This model will let you either apply it to someone's armor with your hand, and put a bullet inside them... or make a hole in the wall just big enough for the armor, for a few seconds."

Jason stared at the new, bulkier schematic. "That... actually sounds incredibly useful. Just how heavy is it?"

"Uhm... about one hundred and twenty pounds."

Jason was practically drooling at the though. "Oh, wow. I figured it'd be more than that. Hell. I've had to carry that much into a fight before. Including guns and ammo, sure, but..."

"Well, just the keyhole device is 120, for three uses for the whole suit, and maybe a dozen for each gauntlet. The whole armor suit is two hundred and five."

".... Yeah, no. Mobility for the win. I don't suppose there's any way we could get a few modular pieces to add on, in case I ever actually need to give everyone cancer, or maybe get a little bit better at flying without going Mach 1, or maybe even hovering for a few? If we're going with the whole 'Angel' thing, could mount something to the upper back, shoulder blades. Give a cool effect. Like the ones from the Flight suit, but without all the other stuff.""

Bob chuckled. "Sure, sure. I can make you a couple of defaults, similar to this base 'Mobility' suit, and then a few modular parts to strap on. I think Todd wanted it all done in silver, to match the team's colors?"

"I mean, I don't mind. Not like I'm gonna be too covert. Just no center-of-mass target locks or anything like that. Anything about weapons loadouts?"

Bob nodded. "Sure. That parts up to you. I've got a standard anti-Jotun rail rifle... only with tons of the equipment stripped out and a few extra magnets attached. Weighs less, but it doesn't do the shooting for you. Or we can go with a Plasma rifle. Popular among heroes and villains both for the more lethal work. Or we can go with just a modded 40mm and 20mm rifle; swap between different ammo types, different grenades..."

"Hell. I'm used to using army standard-issue. Can we setup a meet at a firing range to try out a few once the armor's ready?"

The engineer shrugged, gesturing at the rifles, and then the suit. "Sure, though if its Plasma it can run off of the suit battery, and I can let the rail rifle or the 20mm feed off of an ammo feed in the suit. Why not try them out now?"

Jason looked a bit irate. "Ehhn. I've got an appointment with a psych guy. I told em I was fine with trying some... medication... and they want me to sit with him while I go through it, just in case."

"Good luck! Try not to get lost in shroomland, we're all expecting kick-ass things from you."