Chapter 10: The military path
"My great-grandmother taught me an easy spell and then returned to Europe, but before she left, she told me to practice until I could feel the magic and invoke it instinctively. I did that and I've never lost a Halloween costume contest since then." Logan said with a confident smile.
"So, you can take on the appearance of a demon?" Coulson asked.
"Yes, I practiced a lot and now I can do some pretty cool stuff. This ability doesn't give me any offensive or defensive help, but I found some creative and cool ways to use it. Wanna see?" Logan said.
Some still didn't believe the story about magic and curses, but everyone was curious about what a demon would look like.
Logan then did something simple, he just blinked. No one understood until he shook his head and looked around. His face remained human with light marks, but his eyes had changed. They were no longer blue but bright yellow with vertical pupils like a cat's.
"Cool, right? I look like a witcher." Logan said excitedly.
Everyone remained serious because they had seen stranger things, but Daisy had a joyful smile on her face seeing Logan so excited about something so silly.
"Witcher?" Coulson asked.
Logan was shocked and spoke with clear indignation in his voice. "Seriously? It won the Game of the Year award, and you don't even have that? The entertainment industry in this universe is absurdly weak." Logan said.
Logan then reversed the transformation of his eyes.
"As you can see, I've mastered different aspects of my ability like partial transformation and instant transformation. I said it doesn't help in combat, but when used in the right way and at the right time, it can yield good results, especially in moments of intimidation, breaking guard, and psychologically affecting a person. I've been successful in all the interrogations I've done because of the lightning transformation ability." Logan said.
Coulson was intrigued by Logan's creative application of his powers. Most people with abilities Coulson knew could only think of combat uses; it was rare to find someone who could think outside the box.
"Lightning transformation?" Coulson asked.
"That's what I call it. Imagine you're in a balanced fight, but your opponent, in this case me, never takes the smile off his face. And just when you think you've landed a good blow, for just a moment, your enemy isn't human anymore, but a demon." Logan said and then demonstrated.
His appearance took on a demonic form, but only for a moment. If they weren't paying attention, they probably wouldn't even see it.
Everyone then understood how useful this use of the ability could be.
"It looked like a creature from Muspelheim." Sif said.
"I wouldn't know, I've never seen creatures from Muspelheim. In fact, I've never even seen the appearance of another demon besides mine. Demons are very rare outside of hell, so most people have never seen one. The reports of people encountering a demon are from mages or from someone who was really desperate." Logan said disappointedly.
Everyone in the room except Sif had never seen a demon. They had seen aliens, monstrosities, and strange things, but never demons.
"But back to my story, I grew up moving from city to city usually every three months. During the trips, I practiced my ability, so when I finished high school, I already had complete mastery of my ability. Then the next step would be college. I could get into any college since I had the grades and enough money, but I didn't know what course to take. In fact, I never knew. Whenever someone asked me as a child what I wanted to do, I would say five things, and when someone else asked, I would say other five different things. So I consulted Shuvani, and she told me to wait a little longer, that a path would show itself to me soon." Logan said.
Daisy identified with the experience of growing up moving, although under different circumstances. Logan moved with family and a group while she moved alone because of the protocol created by S.H.I.E.L.D. Before her mind went to the dark place that was her childhood, Daisy refocused on the story.
"The Shuvani was right. Later that same day, I was approached by an army recruiter. I had never thought about a military career, but I thought it would be a good idea since it basically involved following orders, giving me time to think about my future, and I would earn some money. So I accepted and enlisted." Logan said.
Coulson noticed that Logan's enlistment came in an unusual way, but not much different from the rest of the story he had told so far. Many young people enlist out of lack of options, while Logan enlisted to think about his options.
"In the first month, there is an examination for the corporal course. I did it because I didn't want to stand all the time while on guard duty. I didn't expect much; I just read the material they gave me once. They were just rules that soldiers had to follow. So I took the test. When the results came out, I started receiving congratulations. At first, I didn't understand why until I saw the test result. Not only did I pass, but I also came in first place when I answered a hundred percent of the questions correctly." Logan said.
Coulson was surprised because he had also taken that test, but he did it after six months as a soldier and had only scored eighty percent of the questions correctly. Since he also started his career with the military, he knew how difficult the test was, especially since it was administered in the first month of training when the physical exercise routine was more intense, and the psychological pressure exerted by superiors on soldiers to change their mindset was extremely exhausting.
"The first corporal course a recruit receives is accelerated; the course itself lasts only a month and is done simultaneously with the soldier's course. But the rank itself is only nominal; you receive all the duties of a corporal, and your subordinates are the recruits. You still have to take the soldier's course; the difference is that when you graduate, they give you the certificate of completion for both soldier and corporal. So when I completed the course, I received an automatic promotion." Logan said.
Coulson then realized that his military career could have advanced more quickly if he had taken the first corporal formation exam.
"My scores on the physical fitness test were good, but nothing remarkable. The results on the shooting exams gave me a perfect score, but in the final ranking in the soldier's course, I came in fifth place. In the corporal course, since they take into account the scores of theoretical exams, I came in first place." Logan said.
No one understood why Logan was being so detailed about his military past.
"What I didn't know at the time, because recruits or anyone outside the army's intelligence are never informed, is that being ranked among the top ten is one of the requirements to join the intelligence sector. And since I ranked fifth among soldiers and first among corporals, I received a double recommendation. So a few days after I graduated, a sergeant of the intelligence sector offered me an invitation to join the intelligence sector." Logan said.
Coulson then understood why his invitation to join the intelligence sector only came when he became a lieutenant.
"In intelligence, things worked differently from the rest of the army. While every soldier was taught to follow orders from superiors and abide by military laws, in intelligence, they first teach you about information—how to obtain it, how to prevent others from obtaining it from you, from whom to obtain it, how to extract it, how to resist extraction, what to do with it, what not to do with it, how to encrypt it, how to decrypt it, how to work with it, how to present it, how not to present it, how to hide it, how not to hide it, how to manipulate it, how not to manipulate it, how to use it, how not to use it, how to disclose it, what not to disclose, and so on. Information is treated as an object of study, and they make sure to show you everything about it." Logan said.
Everyone in the room who had undergone tactical training at S.H.I.E.L.D. remembered the lessons on resisting torture.
"Next comes the teachings on disguises—simple things like maintaining them, how to perceive if you've been discovered, and what to do if you are discovered. That was the easy part. The hard part comes after you've learned the basics. They conduct regular psychological tests when you're in intelligence, and in the practical part of disguise training, they use this information to give you the most psychologically taxing disguise and make you maintain it until you surpass your limits and keep your sanity or give up. I was afraid of lightning and thunder. The Shuvani said it was because I had inherited part of Prometheus' spirit and in many of my past lives, I was killed by Zeus' lightning. This part doesn't add much to the story, but I thought it was interesting to share since I want you to know that everything indicates my past lives were pretty cool." Logan said with a playful smile.
Daisy smiled again, appreciating Logan's silly humor.
"What's the worst place for someone who's afraid of lightning and thunder?" Coulson asked.
Everyone began to think about where it might be until Sif spoke up.
"In the center of a storm." Sif said.
"Exactly. They sent me to infiltrate a group of storm-chasing meteorologists to gather information about the entire team and acquire all the data they had and what they would gather over the next six months. It was late May, on the eve of the storm season in the United States. It was hell until I managed not to be paralyzed by lightning and thunder, but I overcame my fears and completed the mission." Logan said.
Everyone then understood that the military in Logan's universe really only used the best. Making a person overcome their own fear, something that few people can do, and using only those who succeeded to perform a function in intelligence, makes it an agency to be feared.
"So after training, I received my first real mission. I had to infiltrate a hate group called Friends of Humanity." Logan said
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