Path to Becoming the Greatest Space Mercenary

Avery now that he had a pretty good understanding of his mother’s past. Still, there were a couple of questions he had on his mind that he wanted the answers for before they continued.
"Mom, I was wondering what sort of power you have. It seems a lot different than mine. Does it let you manipulate magnetism, or something similar?"
Having picked up on the relation to Serena’s power and metal already from how she had awakened her ability, Avery hypothesized the manner in which it worked.
"No, that’s not exactly right. "Serena said, shaking her head. "While I’m certainly best at manipulating metals, my power has nothing to do with magnetism. Even nonmetallic metals are easy enough for me to control, and as you’ve already seen, the energy that I emit has other applications."
His mother’s words reminded Avery that she had somehow used her power to read the conditions of his body and brain.
That had nothing to do with controlling any sort of matter, and it made it obvious that whatever her ability was, it was likely incredibly versatile.
Avery was about to compliment her and say that her power was a lot more interesting than his, since he could only see the flow of energy, but he caught himself.
While he had awakened his ability through a series of extraordinary circumstances, his mother had essentially been tortured until her power was forced to manifest.
Judging by how she had sealed it and her memories away until they had been forcefully reawakened when Robert was on the verge of death, there was no doubt that Serena thought of her ability as more a curse than a boon.
Had she wanted to use it for her advantage, then she never would have rejected her extraordinary powers in the first place.
’Being a mercenary, I’ve only really found my power to be useful. Though I did overexert myself and nearly die recently. Still, I doubt my feelings on the matter are as strong as my mother’s. But I can understand wanting to be a normal person again. Especially in her case since she was forced to become this way against her will.’ Avery thought.
Seeing as how his mother truthfully did not know all that much about the details of her own abilities and used them more on instinct, Avery moved on to his next question.
"You’ve been mentioning other children that were with you at the facility. About how many of them were there, and what relationship did you have with them?"
Hearing this sparked both a nostalgic and pained look from Serena.
With so many kids packed in together and put in such a harsh environment, it would be surprising if they did not form close bonds.
"I don’t know the exact number, but there were over eight hundred of us at the start. By the end though, only a little over a hundred of us were left. But that wasn’t the number that developed special abelites like I did. Out of all the children that started with me, only fourteen every awakened." Serena said, a few tears falling down her face as she let out a heavy sigh. No doubt among the more than seven hundred that did not make it were some she had been close with.
She went on to explain that the ones that failed to gain any powers but survived through the testing to fifteen, which was the cutoff the researchers had decided on, were still capable in their own rights.
Though they were considered failures as far as the experiment was concerned, they had been taught all manner of skills that made them capable soldiers or spies.
To recoup the costs of the lengthy research project, the survivors that did not possess an ability were sold off to serve as agents for all manner of wealthy individuals, militant groups, and even some smaller governments.
As for the people like Avery’s mother who were considered to be successes, they were eventually all brought together to train with each other.
"They wanted to develop a hierarchy amongst us, so for six months, they would have us fight each other every week to determine our rankings. It was incredibly brutal. No one died thankfully, but a few people lost eyes or limbs, and those that could not be healed were given prosthetic replacement."
Serena told Avery that she had been fortunate to have a powerful ability that possessed a great deal of offensive and defensive capabilities.
In the end, she had placed third overall out of the fourteen awakened and earned herself a leadership position within the group.
"I don’t really want to get into the details after this. Needless to say, we were sent on several dangerous missions that involved doing things that will haunt me for the rest of my life. There was a lot that we could accomplish that would normally have taken an entire elite army, and the researchers that had made us into weapons were very pleased."
However, the more that Serena and the other children that had survived hell with her went out into the world to plunder and kill for the people that had "raised" them, the more they were exposed to what a normal life was.
Eventually, they began to crave what seemed like paradise to them, and secretly the fourteen of them began laying groundwork their liberation. Using the special powers they possessed and the skills that they had been taught to avoid detection, the fourteen of them planned together until they had a solid strategy prepared to execute.
"First, we eliminated all of the higher ups in the organization that was controlling us. They had safeguards in place to protect themselves and stop us, but our powers developed beyond their expectations, and we were able to circumvent the implants they had put in us and the defenses they had set up. After that it took some time, but we hunted down and crushed everyone involved in the project. Not just those directly conducting the research, but even investors funneling in money. It took us nearly two years, but we finally eliminated almost every trace of the project."