Avenging

Book 2: Act II

Have a Hydra New Year

Chapter 5

As always you can contact me

My works are stored , A03, and mediaminer for older stuff.

As always, I do not own the rights to the numerous characters or series within.

Last Chapter: Hydra's plan to drive Wasp over the edge is moving along nicely, thanks to Mentallo's abilities and forming 'The Revengers' to embarrass her. Now we continue with more of Hydra's machinations.

Xxxxxxxxxxxxx

All but one seat at the table in the meeting room of Avengers mansion was filled as the entire roster was present. It was round so that there was no 'head' of the table. They were a collection of equals and all voices carried the same authority. While they tended to be informal, at times there were things like votes on courses of action and similar situations where serious discussions followed. When it came to that, majority ruled in all things, though if one objected strongly enough they were free to leave the team if they pleased. They hadn't been drafted into their roles, and as with everyone else, they already had the government ordering them around. They had no interest in allowing a second body the power to rule over them.

All attention was focused on a single Avenger, who knew she was the cause of this meeting. She stood defiant before them, something many couldn't manage given the prestige and power the other seven possessed. Many a would-be villain had given up upon seeing even half of the team bearing down on them to restore the peace. A few even soiled themselves, but usually that only occurred if Thor and Hulk were present, and the latter was in a foul mood. But not her. She would never back down from anyone.

A human sized Wasp stood ready for anything.

Iron Rose took the lead. "You know why we organized this meeting, correct?"

Wasp answered in a voice filled with anger, "You're putting me on trial."

Captain Japan was the first to respond. "What? No. We're concerned about you."

At first she was shocked, then the words sank in and her defiance disappeared. She relaxed, not totally, but much more than when she felt her comrades had turned on her. "Oh."

While she wasn't on trial, given Daredevil's civilian background, his airs did have that of someone in court. "We do have to talk about what happened last time. You've always been enthuseastic about the more physical aspects of the job, and tensions run high in life and death situations, but you've never been so ruthless as to threaten to beat some civilian up."

"He was disrespectful to me!" Wasp snapped, her mood changing in near lightning flashes.

Hawkeye backed up Daredevil. Not because he was her boyfriend, though she was more eager to do it since he was. "Lots of people have disrespected us. Remember Councilwoman Ariyoshi? It was a neverending wave of near slander, but we didn't threaten to smash her face in."

The reasoning failed, and Wasp's anger escalated. "Those Revengers did the same thing! They didn't even bother to find a foe for me. Do you have any idea how humiliating that is? They even dug up a juggler for Daredevil, but couldn't bother to assign someone for me!"

"I'd rather have been forgotten than forced to sing with my foe," Thor grumbled.

Tigra entered the conversation. "Wouldn't take much stock in foes opinions on our prowess. You save Tigra from brains being squished into goo."

"And disabled their most physically powerful member.," Iron Rose reminded her. "You also freed Thor from the control she was subjected to before we were forced to puncture our eardrums."

"As thou can tell, there are times when we disrespect one another," Thor said pointedly at Iron Rose. "But note, we do not threaten to pummel each other. Hulk excluded."

"I don't have the best emotional control in that state," Ryouga reminded her.

Captain Japan spoke again. "The point being we know how important you are, and our opinions should count for something."

Wasp relaxed again. "Of course they do. But to be looked down upon by witless imbaciles and stinking reporters… it makes my blood boil. I want to teach them a lesson."

"You didn't used to care," Hawkeye said.

"Maybe I've changed. Maybe I woke up one day and reliazed I deserve better." She threw up her hands in disgust. "I have to get out of here." She shrank to Wasp size and flew away.

Once she was out of the Mansion, Iron Rose spoke. "This might be a problem. Her behavior remains notably erratic."

"Too many blows to the head?" Captain Japan suggested.

"Drugs?" Tigra added as a possibility.

Iron Rose wrung her gauntleted hands, producing a metal on metal sound. "I do hope the cause is from an outside source."

"Thou wants it to be drugs?" Thor said in open disbelief, almost to the point of insult.

Iron Rose's voice became grimmer. "The alternative is this is who she is now, and we end up having a Giant Man situation on our hands."

Ryouga reentered the conversation. "Giant Man was never enthusiastic about being a superhero from the start. He was in it for Wasp. And it took him a while to get to where he was at the end. This change in her is way more sudden and drastic."

"For a while now she hath become more… assertive than in our early days."

"But that occurred over a longer period of time," Daredevil said, agreeing with Ryouga's point. "She's definitely become more gung-ho and looking for action, but it was within limits. But this violent irrational streak has just come out in the last week or so."

Tigra gave him a pointed look. "Personality shift sometimes natural, sometimes from physical change, sometimes personal. Perhaps something tragic happen in life. Loved one diagnosed with terminal illness and not have much time to live could do it. Maybe told by doctor can no have children. Anything could be the cause."

"And we're limited in our ability to probe her issue, whatever it is, due to personal boundaries." Iron Rose lamented. "Maybe she'll voluntarily open up. In any event, I hope it doesn't get worse, or we might have to remove her from the team."

Everyone became somber at that.

xxxxxxxxxxx

Hydra Commander sat in his office, waiting for the members of Hydra's Assassination Branch to show up for the meeting.

In all of his plans for eliminating the Avengers, and thanks to Eliot Franklin that was nearing what he thought would be reality, it hadn't occurred to him that while wiping them all out at once was ideal, there was a way to wittle down their numbers by one, and by a big gun at that. He was a touch annoyed it hadn't occurred to him earlier, but even he couldn't think of everything. And so much of that brainpower had to be focused upon gaining control of the world. But the plan he had come up with had the potential of being very easy, or next to impossible, depending on conditions. But when went about killing Avengers, those were the best odds you could muster.

The target was Hulk, or, more accurately, Ryouga Hibiki: the emerald giant's more vulnerable alter ego. Where bullets, and even cannons, would bounce off Hulk's hide, the same could not be said for the teen. He was much easier to perforate. When you were a terrorist organization, bullets were in abundant supply since they were a frequent option for solving problems, as well as being needed when other people decided you were a problem that needed solving.

However, in laying the groundwork for the plan, it didn't take long for Hydra Commander to discover an issue: thanks to Ryouga's wanderlust/lost state, he hadn't had a permenant address for years. Not since he lived at his family's home that had long since burned down. His only known relatives were just as missing as him, which seemed to imply that direction sense thing might be heredatary. The only location he semi-reliably showed up at was Avengers Mansion, and no way were Hydra agents being placed anywhere near there. It wouldn't do to tip their hand to the heroes and let the team know Hydra had orchestrated many of their issues of late. That would put his organization on the fast track to defeat and everything coming undone. No, killing him well away from the residence was the only way to go about this.

At least they had a means of locating him… if he was close enough. Eliot Franklin had come through on that as well. Upon informing the scientist that individuals could not only survive intense gamma ray bombardment, but could be altered by the radiation and given fantastic powers, it didn't take Eliot long to create a device that could detect gamma radiation in a human being. The only issue was a limited range of fifty meters. That meant Hydra Commander was forced to assign personnel to go about in plain clothes and walk around Tokyo with the detectors, hoping to get a hit. It was sort of like looking for a needle in a haystack since Tokyo had millions of people. But if they did successfully locate him, that was where Team 9 came in.

Team 9 was the best Hydra's Assasination Branch had to offer. Expert killers with a body count that reached into the triple digits and a track record whose only blemishes were the likes of Nick Fury or his Russian counterpart, Alexei Vazhin. And if folks like that were easy to kill, given the number of foes they had, they'd already be dead. Some people were simply survivors.

The door chimed, indicating his people had arrived. He sat at his desk, weapons primed in their concealed locations as they always were when company called (there was no sense in taking chances someone might think themselves capable of leading Hydra if they could kill the leader of Hydra. Best to kill them first). He hit the button causing the door to slide open with a whoosh. It could have been made to open silently, but he wanted to be aware any time it made way for someone's entry.

The six members of the group were decked out in classic Hydra gear. Most would assume assassins to be physically prime specimens of manhood, or in Agent F's case, womanhood. However they were all of average size and build. Good assassins blended in, not stood out. When no one noticed you, it was that much easier to slide the knife in the ribs.

They gave the salute and chant. Hydra Commander recpricated.

In a jovial tone, he informed them, "I have an important mission, and you're the best of the best. As you might have suspected, I need you to find someone near and dear to my heart, and kill them."

"It wouldn't happen to be my ex-wife?" Sonosuke, the leader of the team, quipped.

Hydra Commander laughed the appropriate amount, which made the others feel comfortable enough to laugh along with it. He noted a bit of levity was always good for morale. Grimdark edgelord stuff made everyone miserable… unless they were a teenager who lived off being an edgelord. Happy assassins were effective assassins, as the saying went. Their victims… not so much.

"No such luck," Hydra Commander said. "This is the target." He indicted they should pick up the folders with all the information that had been gathered on the Ryouga Hibiki in front of them. As each member opened the folder, they saw the junior high school photo of him, the only visual evidence of Hibiki they had on any official record. "His name and information are in the file. Keep in mind that picture is several years out of date, and he's changed a bit. He still has the same vacuous look to those eyes, though. His death cannot look like an assassination. He has powerful friends that will want to… avenge him if it looks like a hit instead of bad luck. Make it look like a standard mugging or an accident. I want no loose ends that can track back to us. And for god's sake, make it quick and clean. Don't give him a chance to spot you and get angry.

"You wouldn't like him if he gets angry."

Xxxxxxxxxxxx

Police Lieutenant Kaori Makimura arrived in time to survey the scene of carnage that was in the process of being cleaned up. She was late to the party, but that happened when you were tied up in a meeting with a superior halfway across town. Subordinates did the gruntwork; leaders got stuck in meetings.

Given the choice, she preferred the gruntwork to departmental bureaucracy.

There had been calls by residents of a giant brawl taking place in the 'Vietnam Town' location of Tokyo. While it used to be a fairly decent neighborhood with a relatively low amount of crime, that had changed in the last year with the advent of the 'Poison Memories' gang, who had moved into the area and made it their home. That lack of crime was quickly made up with a wide array of illegal ventures the gang engaged in. From protection rackets, to drug dealing, to gun running. If there was a way to break a law, these guys did it. They qualified as the worst of the worst in her, and many others, eyes.

They were one of the few foreign gangs not under Mantis' control. As much as the police wanted to bring the crimelord down, she did business the old-fashioned way: keep your activities quiet and deal with things behind the scenes. Don't cause public spectacles, avoid messing with the authorities as much as you can. It was more peaceful dealing with her style of crime, though it was more difficult to undermine since she moved carefully and when no one resisted, charges were more limited.

The Poison Memories had no issue with using violence to achieve their goals and keep people in line. So much so the neighborhood had been afraid to speak out against them. While a few of their members had been arrested, they were loyal to a fault and none turned on the gang. While the police could use high pressure tactics on criminals, these were the kind that considered anything not involving torture as a joke. Her branch had been forming plans of late on how to curb the gang's activities, but the few they'd implemented failed to net results.

Now someone else had solved that problem by beating up the entire gang and rendering them incapable of violence. A number of them were being shipped off to hospitals with a variety of injuries. None appeared life threatening, but they made up for that in numbers. A part of Kaori wondered if every injury that existed could be counted if they combined all the victims into one person.

She located the lead detective on the scene: an older, solid, no-nonsense type. The opposite of the bane of her career, no, make that life, the Saebas'. "Figure out what happened yet?"

"I'll say." The officer pulled out a small spiral notebook. Talk about old school. "There are plenty of witnesses who said they'll testify to everything, and their stories are mostly consistent. Meaning they don't seem to have been gathered up and fed lines to tell us. The gist of the story is the same, even if everyone doesn't agree on every detail.

"So the Mems were running around since today was 'collection day' for their protection racket. I guess they do it all at once since they had such an iron grip on the neighborhood. Well, who should happen to come by in the middle of it but the one and only Avenger, Wasp. I know you don't think of her when you say the name 'Avengers', but after today I know I will.

"So she shouts out at the top of her lungs, challenging them to a fight. Who knows, maybe if she hadn't called them out in front of the entire neighborhood they were shaking down, they would have backed off."

"The Mems?" Kaori scoffed. "They would love killing a hero to make a name for themselves."

"Yeah, you're probably right. Anyhow, there's no way they could refuse in front of everyone, so they go for their weapons and try to kill her. Yeah, an Avenger. Sure, she might have been 'just the Wasp', but that was their first and last mistake. She blasted and beat the hell out of them. All of them. No one got away." He looked meaningfully at yet another injured gang member with their neck in a brace being carefully put onto an ambulance.

"Usually heroes don't leave them hospitalized. Not so many. Especially not Avengers," she said.

The detective shrugged. "Don't expect sympathy from me. The Mems are the lowest of scum. Could have carted the whole lot of them off to the morgue, and I'd have been fine with that. Off the record.

"Better news, everyone in the neighborhood they ever victimized is now ready to step forward and press charges, along with testifying every member of that gang was trying to use lethal force against Wasp, so it was all self-defense. I mean technically we probably ought to try and bring her in and question her, but unless the Mems try pressing charges, I'm not bothering." The detective gave every indication the matter was closed as far as he was concerned.

And Kaori was inclined to agree. She just hoped this, 'send them to the hospital' trend didn't keep up with Wasp, to say nothing of her more powerful teammates. She could get away with it when it came to the likes of the Poison Memories. When you were a pariah to all the other gangs, you had no friends and everyone wanted you gone. But if future perps were less violent, she could see major issues on the horizon.

A lot of people were leery toward anyone with super powers. The more threatening they behaved, the more leery most felt. Ariyoshi might have been gone, but the fires she helped stoke remained hot among many. Excessively violent capes leaving bloody pulps in their wake would only make it worse. And she had enough interactions with villainous super powered beings to know she didn't want to add heroes to the list. There had always been this fear in the back of her mind if all these types teamed up, they might be able to overthrow everything and run the show.

There were times when, as much as she feared government run shock troops like Kerberos running around, that there might be something even worse than that.

Xxxxxxxxxxxxxxx

Hydra Commander regarded the mission he had sent his assassins on. Telling them the truth about Hibiki would have been pointless. Either they would kill him before he changed, in which case it didn't matter if they knew, or he transformed and they would fail, since nothing about knowing it beforehand would change that particular outcome. Informing them might have caused them to worry about it, causing the team to lose focus and make a mistake. Best not to take the chance. He had informed them of what was required to succeed. It was up to the assassins to execute the instructions correctly.

He put such thoughts behind him to concentrate on more timely matters. Eliot's gamma bomb was on schedule and Hydra Commander needed that plan to succeed in order to kill the Avengers, Hulk or no Hulk. All that was left was to choose the target. While hitting a major metropolitan area was tempting, something a little more isolated and remote would probably be a better idea. It would be easier to contain things, and it would take the authorities much longer to respond. Also there would be less urgency to investigate the matter if it took place somewhere unimportant and with a lower death toll. Yes, that was the better choice.

But all of Hydra's plans for global domination didn't involve the elimination of the heroes. If anything, it was the opposite. There were so many fronts to fight upon to win this war. He hadn't made many inroads to the megacorportations, who in many ways resembled Hydra to a degree. Some more than others. They couldn't be bought: they did the buying. They owned more politicans than Hydra. In many ways CEOs were harder to bring down than politicians. They didn't try to be popular. As long as it didn't look like the company was going under, they were almost always left in place. Sometimes even that wouldn't sway the board to vote someone out. And it took too long to insert personnel in their ranks. Worse, they tended to be more paranoid than an African warlord when looking out for people trying to take them down from within. Maybe once Hydra had better control over nearly everything they would be told what was really going on and sign up….

That matter was tricky and wasn't going to be solved with his ruminations. It was time to turn to a scheme that was less complicated, and since he was nearby, personally look in on it to see how it was coming along. Sure, it was a bit of a crapshoot if it would be successful or not, but if it worked it would grease the wheels of many other plans when additional muscle was needed.

Arriving at the desired laboratory wing, Hydra Commander was about to open the door when it was opened for him. Or more accurately was flung open so powerfully one of the hinges snapped off. The cause of this enthusiastic door opening was a giant of a woman: six and a half feet tall and nearly three hundred pounds of solid muscle. But not all of that muscle was as it should be. Some of it was so disproportionately huge it could more properly be referred to as deformed. Especially the right shoulder, left forearm, and the upper right leg. That last was so bad she couldn't walk straight, and instead had a loping gait to her movement.

Her face revealed not deference to opening a door for the leader of Hydra, but rather a mask of animalistic rage, a primal fury nothing human could match since intellect restrained emotion, and this creature had clearly abandoned thought in favor of brutish muscle.

The reason for her anger might have been the two women clinging to her. Around her waist was one of the founding members of the 'Super Villain Squad', Titania. She was being dragged around as though weightless, a remarkable feat considering the Grappler's own impressive strength.

Letha had a more secure hold on the giant's back, legs locked around the deformed woman's upper torso, while the arms were locked in a hold around her throat,

The behemoth appeared prepared to dislodge the unwanted burden on her back by slamming Letha into a wall. Given the mass and muscle involved, it would almost certainly result in the sound of multiple bones breaking reaching Hydra Commander's ears, but Titania allowed herself to slide down from her ineffectual hold around the waist and to the legs, which succeeded in tripping the deformed woman up, causing her to fall onto her stomach. Further attempts to regain a vertical base were futile as Titania kept shifting around just enough to prevent her from rising up. Likewise her struggles became weaker as Letha's hold around the neck had cut off the flow of blood to the giant's brain a while ago, and oxygen deprivation began to set in. The struggles became continually weaker until they ceased altogether.

Hydra Commander decided it was safe enough to speak. "Working hard, Ladies?"

Letha kept the grip in place despite the cessation of movement. "One of the test subjects from the Super Soldier Serum."

Titania continued the explanation. "Sometimes they get a little rowdy when their minds and bodies warp into this."

Hydra Commander looked more closely at the giant. "But at least they are surviving and look mostly human. We've made remarkable progress and have only gone through a little over a hundred subjects. I'm confident we'll have the bugs worked out before we have to abduct another town. By the way, I believe she's been unconscious for a while."

Letha continued locking her arms around the neck. "The scientists want us to put down the out of control ones like this. They can learn what they need from the autopsy."

"Corpses aren't as frisky," he agreed. "I just wanted to see how the work has been going. I'm satisfied it's progressing. Carry on."

He left the labs with a bit of jauntiness to his gait. He could envision a cadre of super soldiers under his command, chemically created muscle as needed. And it would be needed to rule the world with their shadow conspiracy. He had sent official memos around to insist that was what they be called, rather than 'revolutionaries', as many of the rank and file used to call themselves. He hated the term because revolutionaries were hypocrites. They always insisted revolutions were necessary and good until they were in charge. Then revolutions became unacceptable, terrible things and people engaging in the behavior had to be stopped. Shadow Conspiracies weren't like that because they never ended: only the conspirators changed. They kept doing what they did for eternity.

At some point you had to stop lying about what you were, and the first one you had to stop lying to was yourself.

Xxxxxxxxx

The Harpooned Man was the poster child for 'seedy bar'. It was in the worst section of the worst section of town, and was making an honest bid for 'worst part of the worst part of the worst part.'. It was also the only honest thing about it.

The bar was called that due to a human skeleton that was impaled to the wall via harpoon. It was a very unique conversation piece. And when one had a skeleton harpooned to the wall, one renamed the bar after it rather than, 'Otto's Cheery Saloon' which was its original name. No one named Otto had ever owned it, and it hadn't been cheery at all, so everyone agreed the name change was a vast improvement. Sam's Shitty Beer was the only other alternative when it came to truth in advertising.

The bar had a reputation among the underworld for any business transactions going unnoticed by patrons and owner alike. So it was on a regular Thursday night that three plainclothes supervillains were hanging out in the bar, unknown to all since they were incognito and dressed like everyone else.

Asuka Saginomiya, better known as Steel Lilly, was unrecognizable since people identified her by her trademark power armor, rather than that of a fallen industrialist with anger management issues.

Pink, going by the alias Dragon Pink, wore a hat hiding her cat ears. Her pupils were vertical slits which let everyone know her inhuman nature, but considering her excessive feminine proportions which she had no issue putting on display, few noticed them. She could have had a second pair of eyes above the first and few would have noticed those either.

The third and final member of the group was a Chinese youth, in his early 20's, and what would pass for average save he was in top physical shape. It was good he was in human form, as that of his more famous look, the A-Bra-Mination, would have had the patrons even of this bar heading for the hills. Because a half ton of gamma irradiated Yeti-Riding-A-Bull-Carrying-A-Crane-And-Eel mix could level just about anything, and frequently had.

All were members of the Lethal Legion, and were intent on a quiet night on the town.

While Pink and Asuka sat at a table, drinking, Tarou was at the bar hitting on a semi-attractive woman who was either playing hard to get, or was hard to get. Alternatively, her constantly looking everywhere but Tarou, who was chatting her up, might mean she was tracking the progress of an invisible fly.

But he was being persistent, so she finally looked him in the eye and declared, "I have a really bad yeast infection. Thanks anyway." And left.

Tarou turned away, irritated since she had been the third best-looking woman at the bar. The previous number one and two he had hit on earlier had already departed. He reluctantly went back to the table his teammates were drinking at

As he sat down, Asuka said, "Three strikes means you're out and should retire for the evening, right?"

He noted she had a malicious smile as she delivered the barb. He frequently sported one himself when he was feeling happily violent. He didn't like women with personalities like him. Men either, but they were tolerable. Women like that, well his primary use for them didn't include knifing you for fun, or because they were pissed since it was that time of the month and they took out their rage at their biological shortcoming on you with said knife.

God help him, now over half the team was women, and it seemed at least one of them was on the rag at any given moment. Except Hornet who was a robot. He'd ditch the group if he hadn't been promised a part of the world when Mandarin was running it.

He mentally tallied Asuka's latest efforts on the 'Bitch List' he had created for her. While no one on the team was his kind of person, she was the one that irked him the most.

Being angry hadn't been on his dance card tonight. What he really wanted was some action since he'd been celibate for far too long for his taste. It was the main reason he had wanted to go out. Since there was no one left at the bar he was desperate enough to hook up with, that left one candidate for the horizontal shuffle.

As he thought of how to start things off, Pink stared at the impaled skeleton and said, "I met Harpoon once in Madripoor. He was a lot heavier back then."

"Like he wasn't dead for years because he'd been impaled by a harpoon?" Asuka asked, in as pleasant a mood as Tarou's was bad. Partially because his mood was so bad.

He stared at Pink, now thoroughly convinced she was the most stupid being on the planet. "You do understand that's a prop, right?"

Pink looked at it more closely and said in an almost analytical voice, "The weapon is consistent with the ones he'd energize and stick people with. The height and structure of the skeleton is consistent for a man of his size, and Sabretooth was definetly the kind of guy to kill someone with his own weapon and tell others to leave the body on display." She then reverted to her normal, more casual voice. "But it could be a coincidence."

For a moment, Tarou thought she was trying to piss him off, but the sincerity of her analysis, combined with her being a vacuous moron, meant she was being earnest and believed what she said. Besides, he wasn't interested in her for her low IQ (a plus in his book when it came to women), but for what she could do for him. He decided to get to the point.

"I know a nearby love hotel where we can have some fun. Give me a chance and I'll rock your world." He put on his most seductive smile.

Her jaw dropped in shock. "What kind of girl do you think I am?"

He looked at her in an equal amount of disbelief. "You're a hooker."

"I *was* a hooker," she emphasized. "Now I'm a respectable supervillain who's going to help rule the world." She gave a fist pump showing off her fighting spirit.

"You banged Lime and Mint."

Pink became sympathetic. "They were both virgins. I couldn't let them go through life like that. I had to do something to cure them of their condition. And boy were they grateful."

"You're still having sex with them," Asuka pointed out.

"That's because we're all friends now," Pink explained. "They respect me for who I am. They're really nice, better than any of the guys back in Hotel Moscow. I love hanging out with them. That's why we're friends with benefits. I mean, I get urges, too, a lot more than a normal human as near as I can tell. So I come out ahead in the sexual part of our relationship since I have two energetic guys to help me out in my times of need."

"I can help satisfy those urges even better than those guys since I know what I'm doing," Tarou insisted. "So why not?"

"Because you're an asshole."

Asuka roared in laughter "Guess you're not getting any action tonight, T-Bag."

"Don't call me that," he warned, glaring.

"Okay, Pantyhose."

That turned the glare murderous.

Asuka remained cavalier. "Knock it off. We both know you aren't going to do anything since that would upset the boss, who still finds us very useful and specified he doesn't want us killing each other no matter how poorly our personalities mesh."

While Tarou was still enraged, he outwardly reigned it in. Mandarin made it clear what his plans were, and what happened to those that messed them up when they should have known better. Tarou knew better. Herb was his ticket to owning a section of the world and running it the way he wanted… as long as it met with Herb's approval. There shouldn't be much conflict over their vision. Tarou wasn't inclined to engage in mass murder or grinding the populous under a jack-booted heel. And if he was motivated to do that, he wouldn't wear jack boots, which were uncomfortable. He'd go for a stylish tennis shoe, or sandals when he ground down the people. No, his greatest desire would be tons of women at his beck and call, and killing individuals who disrespected him, like Saginomiya was doing.

As to the latter leadership issue, once he disposed of several dozen offenders in the most painful way possible, only the really stupid would bother him, and they would be few and far between. Humanity as a whole wised up when being stupid was the same thing as being dead.

He still remembered when that idiotic political radical? Demagogue? Shoe salesman? Well, whatever he was, had realized Tarou was Chinese and began yelling at him for the atrocities Tarou's ancestors had inflicted upon his. Yelling at a complete stranger you never met before, because of his ethnicity, was well above baseline stupid, but the fellow felt it okay since he envisioned no negative consequences from the act. However, it turned out there were since Tarou broke both the guy's kneecaps. Now he was as likely to shout at random strangers as he would of sticking his hand in an open flame.

Heck, if the guy did shout at him again, Tarou would be fine with it… as long as it was about never being able to walk correctly again. He didn't mind being yelled at for the terrible things he did: it was being blamed for things he had nothing to do with that rubbed him wrong.

And that bitch Saginomiya accused him of not having principles.

Nope. When he was leading his country, what he was really looking forward to was a name change and a harem. A really big harem. Maybe he'd have a cat girl in it, dress her up like Pink, and treat her like crap since he couldn't do anything to the real one for turning him down in favor of those two braindead morons.

As much as he wanted to fantasize about his vision of world domination, there was something else he had to take care of first. He excused himself from the others and headed for the rear exit.

Xxxxxxxxxxx

Sonosuke Shimizu, leader of Team 9, went up to the bar in the manner of someone who had just entered the establishment looking for a drink. He found a place next to a patron who had the look of a sad man who had been there long enough they should probably carve his name in the bar stool. Sonosuke ordered the swill that was on tap, paid for it, and began sipping the simultaneously watered down yet bitter tasting brew.

"Target?" he whispered to the sad man.

"Three o clock. Guy at the table with the two women."

Sonosuke scanned the enter room with what looked like idle curiosity, his eyes neither rushing past nor lingering on the individual the sad man pointed out. He looked back at the counter. "He doesn't look much like the picture we were shown. He looks older and I think he's Chinese."

"It was a junior high photo, of course he doesn't look the same. And the Gamma Spectrometer only gave stable readings when I determined he was the one setting it off. He fits the basic, inexact description we've been given. Just kill him, take a picture of the corpse, then run it past HC. If he says it's not the target, we'll keep looking."

The contact raised a good point. Even if they were wrong, it didn't matter. The only loss would be the killing of some random guy. It was no big deal, except to the victim, but he'd be too dead to care.

Sonosuke murmured just loud enough into the transmitter in his lapel to be heard. "Target present." He gave the description so they'd recognize the target on sight.

For this operation around the bar, the team had divided into three pairs. One covering the back, one in the front, and Sonosuke and his partner on the inside. While the others were acting like friends to explain their close proximity to one another and not make anyone question why they were hanging around, Sonosuke and his partner were in different parts of the room. As per instructions, the teams would wait until Hibiki was isolated and then make a quick hit. Since he was with two women, if he remained in their presence, they might have to be eliminated, too. There were to be no witnesses, after all. If worse came to worse, this was the Harpooned Man. They could just open up on the crowd, making sure Hibiki was the first to die, then yell out at someone and kill him like he'd been the actual target. That way the survivors would insist Hibiki had just been in the wrong place at the wrong time.

However, the matter was taken out of his hands as Hibiki left the girls and headed toward the back. Sonosuke alerted the pair covering the rear exit in case he tried to slip away, but odds were he was simply going to the restroom.

Less than a minute later the rear team gave a brief, "Contact." So Hibiki had tried to leave the place. Maybe the team had been made. Sonosuke gave a signal for his partner to leave out the rear exit for backup, while the other unit was ordered to stay in place in case the target managed to get away from the rear team.

There were a few complaints by service personell since they were in what was supposed to be an off limits area, but the pair ignored it as they emerged out the back, ready for anything. Hibiki's body was nowhere to be seen. Neither was the other team. Sonosuke said, "Check 2," in the hopes the second team would respond.

"Over there." His partner, who had his gun out, indicated a large pile of refuse toward the back of the alley. Sonosuke could just barely make out a pair of shoe covered feet sticking out from some of the garbage. The were identical to what one of his teammates had worn.

The duo moved slightly apart as they walked toward the refuse. With the change of the angle, he could make out both members of the team lying there, unmoving.

Just as he did that Panythose Tarou jumped down from the roof of the bar, where he had been lurking, waiting for anyone else to show up. He had noticed the guy initially watching him inside the bar make contact with someone else while trying to make it appear nothing was going on. Something was about to go down, and he didn't want to wait for them to set the trap off, so he headed out the back, while assuming there would be others covering the exits. He'd been ready for trouble the moment he opened the rear door. He spotted a couple nearby making out, but his cautious eye felt the kissing was off. Yeah, spotters or backup.

He charged the pair who had been quick, the woman got a knife out just as he eliminated the man's threat potential with a punch to the throat. He dodged a stab toward his gut and struck the woman with a series of four punches, relieviing her of consiousness. He then used the knife on both of them, tossed their bodies into the refuse and out of easy visual range, then used his martial arts ability to boost himself to the top of the roof where he waited for additional troops. And now they appeared.

While they were focused on the bodies, he leapt, tucking and rolling as he hit the pavement and came out of his roll within striking distance of the pair. He simultaneously kicked one in the gut while aiming a backfist between the eyes of the other. Neither dropped their guns, so he grabbed the punching victim and hurled him bodily into his friend. One body crashing into another caused both to release their weapons. With his foes helpless, he knocked out, then killed both of them. A quick search revealed in ear piece on one of them so he placed it in his own ear. He heard someone say, "Check 1. Check 2." So there was a third team, and odds were they'd be looking for their missing comrades. He tossed the new bodies with the old and returned to the roof and waited for them to appear. He made a mental note to keep one of them alive so he could find out who wanted him dead.

This time.

Xxxxxxxxxxxxxx

"T-Bag's been gone for a while." Asuka ordered another round. "Maybe he found some streetwalker to rape."

Pink shook her head. "I doubt it. While he's a homicidal, narcisstic, creepy asshole, rape's not his thing. He always wants consent. I think deep down inside he wants women to accept him for who he is, and rape would be an admission to himself he really is unacceptable. He might beat them up for saying no since he is violent and sadistic, but he'd leave sexual assault off the table."

"Ten thousand yen says Mr. Standards and Practices is r-a-p-i-n-g some woman."

"You're on. And isn't there an 'e' in that?"

"I'm getting you a Speak and Spell."

"If you're getting me a present, could it be lube instead? I'm always running out."

"Rather than a snappy retort, I'm going to sympathsize. I kept running out of it in prison, and it sucked. I never thought we'd be on common ground, what, with me being a genius and you being game show quiz competition for Lime and Mint."

"We all love 'Jeopardy'!" she said happily.

Before Asuka could make another snide comment, Tarou appeared from the front entryway of the bar. He sat down with the girls as though he hadn't been gone for the last fifteen minutes.

Asuka said, "She put up a fight, huh?"

Tarou looked at her curiously. She made a wiping motion of her forehead, implying there was something on his. He wiped it with his hand and came up with some blood.

"Someone sent a hit team to whack me. Not sure why. I killed all but one, but he took a cyanide pill before I could find out who sent him. Fanatics. I searched the area, but that looks like everyone. The original guy spotting for them must have left when the teams moved into position."

Asuka handed Pink her money, which she tucked into her 38D cleavage. "We'd better head out in case reenforcements show up. I didn't come here for a fight, and it's not like I have my armor with me."

As the trio headed out, Tarou grumbled how nothing ever went right for him. He wanted laid, and instead had to kill six strangers.

Sometimes life sucked.

Xxxxxxxxxxxxxxx

Kodachi Kunou was not amused. She kept it hidden as she spoke to the head of the robotics department, Masayuki Igawa. Recently, accounting discovered a large sum of money had been factiously reallocated to a number of projects, spreading it out so it had been difficult to notice, then track down. Whoever had done it had known the system inside and out, which meant it was almost certainly an inside job. She'd had to personally visit department heads and looked over things with them until they could figure out where the money had originally come from. It took time, and her anger grew with each discovery, but eventually all trails led back to the Robotics Division. Since Igawa was the most likely suspect, she visited him first.

After exchanging pleasentries, she prodded him to gauge a reaction. "So, what did your department need one point five billion additional yen for?"

He cocked his head curiously at her, but showed no alarm. "That was spent on the robot you wanted us to make."

That was not the reaction she had expected. "What robot?"

Now confusion reigned on his features. "The robot you had us make a while back. You sent us the specs and we fabricated everything needed to manufacture it. It cost a lot since we had to build a lot of stuff from scratch, and the cybernetic brain was tricky, but we matched it to the diagrams you sent us. Did it meet your expectations?"

This was becoming more complicated by the second. She was transitioning from mad to concerned. "Show me those diagrams I sent you. I want to see everything."

He went to his computer and accessed the files. Or so he thought. He went from casually typing keys and moving his mouse, to doing both more frantically. After five minutes, he said, "They aren't here."

That relaxed her. He was making things up to cover up his embezzlement. He was a fairly impressive actor. She thought he had been serious at first.

Knowing that his employer was openly suspicious, make that near hostile, toward him, he said, "But Tada will have the files. Actually everyone will have them since it took so many of us to build the robot." He contacted Tada and told him to forward the files. What should have been a simple matter stretched into nearly fifteen minutes before Tada got back to him.

"We have a problem. Everything on that robot has been erased from everyone's computer. We're all searching files, but nobody can find anything. We worked on that thing for nearly a month, but we can't find a single line of code about it."

Igawa looked at Kodachi in open fear. She would investigate him thoroughly, but the only way she could see this being embezzlement was if the entire robotics staff was somehow involved in it, then waited around to get caught, since that many yen would eventually be found missing.

Her guess was that someone had infiltrated her company in order to build something dangerous. And they were a genius with computers if they could work her systems to cover up something this massive so effectively and for so long.

She was getting to the bottom of this if it was the last thing she did.

Xxxxxxxxxx

[End chapter]

A No Prize if you picked up on the 'You wouldn't like him if he gets angry' was from the Hulk tv series from the 70's.

Yes, I'm old.

This is a bit shorter that most of the ones of late, but I wanted to slowly move things up. And the idea of the hit team picking up Tarou instead of Ryouga made sense, as well as giving us a look at the Lethel Legion that is still out there. Also no real fighting like in the last few chapters. We're moving the plot along a bit. Also got to see an old timer in Kaori once again. City Hunter forever. A return to the Harpooned Man, where Kasumi dressed as a hooker and she and Ranma took out the Split Second Squad. Good times.

No, I didn't forget the first foes the Avengers fought. Their time will come, rest assured.

Excelsior.