Bobby hadn't done field work since he'd come to Famiglia; mostly he'd been learning on the job, as well as taking actual courses, with Nicky making sure to fill in some of the gaps that his street lifestyle had put into his life. Still; skulking quietly came almost naturally to him. As he followed the duo... a young man in black and green DMA body-armor, and a woman beside him outfitted similarly, both keeping an eye on their surroundings as they followed a man in a green military uniform.. he was almost instinctively sizing them up, where they might be carrying valuables.. and doing the same for the people around them.

The man was unarmed. This fit; according to the file, 'Razor' could fire pinpoint beams of coherent light; basically lasers. Either focus on one spot for a while to cook a hard target, or sweep a whole crowd to light them all on fire. He had a bulge in his right pocket for a wallet, and one in his chest pocket that was... an inhaler maybe?

The woman, Jasmine, code-named Snapshot, on the other hand... dark skin, red hair... clearly dyed, no way it was natural. A vague but definite resemblance to Penelope; he'd thought Penelope must take after her mom, but maybe some of it came from the Russo side of the family. Her armor was lighter; mostly solid around the chest, pelvis, and throat, leaving the rest as likely black carbon tights. And of course she had... one hand-gun. Two good solid machete-like blades. And... dozens of tiny pockets around her body that likely carried throwing projectiles of one sort or another.

He followed her as quietly as possible; slipping into the shadows where he could, keeping the crowd between them where possible, and even completely losing them for a minute, letting one of the Enforcer drones overhead give him a birds-eye view of their path as they entered the building.

Global Defense Foundries. A fairly well-known corporation that primarily dealt with energy weapons for the DoD; things meant to take down heavy-hitters. After the Ascension event hit Mexico and people got a first-hand glimpse at how well a high-end AI could handle speedsters, supposedly they were working on combining AI and laser weaponry to make anti-speedster drones to deploy over a battlefield.

He watched them enter the building with a nod. Fine. They'd watch some product demos. Come out for lunch. He'd slip a card into her pocket with a number for her to call him, and they'd take it from there. If she called? Well, maybe they could hash it all out over the phone.

He ordered some food at a nearby food truck; the ones here on Research Row were just ridiculous, and had some amazing options, often called to cater some meeting or delivery a bit of food for someone working late. So the slice of pizza he received in its paper container was both enormous and delicious; exceptionally greasy but with a taste like something straight from new york.

And... settled in to wait. Slowly eating his way through a slice, reading a book, and keeping an eye around himself in the event he himself were being watched.

***

The two horrors both scuttled forward on their numerous insectile legs, their wails causing the first few rows of the audience and even some of the watching villains to back away. Viper looked on with interest; he'd seen some of Disaster's work up-close, and knew what it took to kill these creatures; they had eight brains, one at the root of each tentacle, and each of them controlled one tentacle as well as fighting over control of the core body; the abomination would thus keep fighting until either it died of blood loss or the last one was destroyed, and the core insectoid body would actually grow more dangerous as each brain was destroyed.

Granted, the tentacles had their own dangers; as the beasts moved forward, they started to spray long jets of acid toward the Black Knight; who stomped on the ground hard enough to leave an impact crater, hurting up into the air... and landed behind the beast on the left, leaving four of its tentacles severed, blood and acid spraying in every direction as it shrieked even louder.. before lunging forward with the remaining four as it turned to face him.

The Knight charged forward, ducking under the spikes, letting them slam into the sand of the arena floor, and rammed the massive blade directly into the creature's neck; tearing to the right, yanking the beast's head off... and as the spikes moved again, slamming into his armored back with enough force to knock him forward... started slashing forward; shredding the creature's internal organs with his sword.

After a few moments, with a massive pool of blood, acid, and debris beneath the corpse, the creature collapsed, and the Black Knight turned to face the remaining horror; only to meet eight streams of acid splattering over his armor, his weapon, as well as the corpse; though the hard shell was extremely resistant to the acid, the sword was far less so.

The armor, however... seemed designed to survive this sort of assault. While steam seemed to rise from the shiny black form, it appeared perfectly intact; though the sword, for its part, seemed on the verge of falling apart; the blade itself intact, while the hilt and handguards seemed to be actively dissolving.

Griping the weapon by the blade itself as its handle fell apart, he charged forward; ramming directly into the second creature's face, first slicing a new hole with his blade, before ripping and tearing at the creature's internal organs with his armored gauntlets. As the creature sprayed acid on itself in a desperate attempt to end the Knight's life alongside its own, the tentacles finally collapsed, going limp; as the Knight, covered in blood, dents visible on the backplate of his armor from the horror's spikes, stood atop the corpse, raising one of the eight brains into the air like a trophy.

Stolen content warning: this tale belongs on Royal Road. Report any occurrences elsewhere.

The crowd was cheering; the announcer laughing as he described the events. "And clearly, folks, the Black Knight is a contender worth watching! I strongly suspect after seeing this battle, Doctor Disaster is going to be making some even worse horrors for next time. We'll be taking a quick break before our next show as the cleaning crews dispose of the corpses, and dig out the sand contaminated by acid. Be sure to come back in twenty minutes for our next show!"

***

Viper nodded thoughtfully as he watched the battle. The Black Knight was clearly a major threat. Low-grade super-reflexes, substantial durability and strength... and he must have excellent control to be able to land so precisely after a jump, and even avoid lunging tentacles in midair.

If he fought him... he'd need to find a gap in that armor and wedge some neurotoxin darts in there. Maybe even make said gap with his swords first. That... would be challenging. Maybe he should request a team-up? After all, the green Viper and the black Knight armor would probably work well; he could even make a more medieval theme rather than the scaly, reptilian one to match.

..Nah. Half the point was to do this for fun. Besides... from what he could see, the Black Knight was already talking to two others; the Executioner and a young woman whose hair seemed to be made out of blue-green fire.

He looked at his own 'Team-mates'; Kidney and the Human Shield. "Alright, gentlemen. Honestly, I think we should grab one more guy, someone who did okay in the pool."

Kidney tilted his head. "Ehh.. I dunno, Viper. Three and a half mil sounds alot better than two and a half, and between me, you, and our friend there, I think we can handle most people between us, especially with Shield distracting em. I bet if I find a gap I can yank that Black Knight fellow's organs out and feed them to him in a quarter second!"

Shield glared down at him. "Kidney. Seriously. I'm a masochist, not suicidal. I'd rather be able to feel pain than to feel nothing at all because they turned my corpse into a Pale One for the next batch of contestants to beat up after I died in the arena."

Viper nodded. "I can handle most speedsters without a problem. Your powers will be great against pretty much anybody who isn't wearing armor. I think we should try to get someone good at a distance, or someone who can get through armor more easily. As hilarious as it sounds, if that T-Rex guy had met the Black Knight fellow, while the knight seems like a badass... I think he'd have come out, if he were lucky, missing an arm."

"...Yeah, I guess. As ridiculous as it is, being able to chew through armored steel like it was butter is ridiculous. But he's just so... silly. And the tail might as well not exist. He should just go with like... Devourer or something and wear normal body-armor."

Viper looked over at the proud-looking lunatic in his overalls and animatronic tail. "Tell you what. I'll have a word with him. See if we can get him to work on something a bit better. Maybe even a tail-gun instead of just a whip."

Kidney frowned. "Man, I dunno. If he's just wearing that stupid getup, I doubt he could afford it. Not everybody has the cash to spend on high-end armor like that. Most of us wear generic off-the-shelf stuff we customize a bit on the cheap, or whatever we can steal."

"My buddy has a fabricator he can use at work when its between cycles. So long as I'm not -too- demanding, I can get most gear cheap as hell. So if you or Shield needs something that isn't too bad..."

"Cool, cool. If you can get this T-Rex guy to be half-decent, sure, bring him along. I would definitely be interested in some better armor."

Shield looked thoughtful. "Honestly, I got mixed feelings. I still wanna get hurt. I don't dislike the idea of armor in general keeping me alive, but how do you get a good balance between keeping me alive and still letting me feel stuff?"

"..I have no idea. Maybe skeletal reinforcement or something?"

"Isn't that expensive as hell?"

"Sure. But mostly because they gotta be careful to keep you alive, and sedated. If you literally enjoy pain, and heal back whatever the hell they do to you..."

***

Bobby glanced up when the targets left the building. The general and the scientist... they had files on them, but nobody cared. They'd paid their protection money, as far as Enforcement was concerned they could freely conduct business on the island. The two metas guarding them, of course, stepped out behind them; the man taking the lead, Jasmine behind.

He waited for a minute; letting them get into a limo and head down the street. He tapped a button on his cell. Ahh. A note from Enforcement; the general and the scientist had a table at some 5-star dining establishment serving Japanese food about a mile away. Perfect.

He casually started walking that way; sliding out an Enforcement division business card, and writing his cell number on it with a pen. Lets see. ~Give me a call next time you're free!~ and ~About Zhou, among other things!~ underneath it... the name of one of the Chinese human traffickers she would likely have been dealing with before... or even while.. working this bodyguard assignment. The Family certainly had intel about Zhou it could share, and since these traffickers were actually Chinese government agents for the most part, no good reason not to.

By the time he reached the Japanese place, the general and scientist were already seated, looking over menus. Razor was seated beside them, though he wasn't looking over one himself, rather, studying their surroundings. Where was.. Ahh, there!

Jasmine was calmly walking around the place, likely scoping out possible threats. Or coming back from the bathroom, who knew. Bobby grinned, and calmly walked in; waving an Enforcement card at the host as he walked by, and aimed to just quietly walk beside the woman, slip a card in her pocket with superhuman speed, and just keep walking by.

As he reached into his pocket; so fast that most eyes couldn't trace the hand movements; suddenly she was staring at him. As his hand left its pocket, she was already moving; a blade lashing out, going directly from her palm to jam into his belly, millimeters below his armored vest.. clearly aimed.

He could see the look on her face. Starting with startled. Then determined, as a blade popped from her sleeve, into her hand, and into his belly. And then, as she saw what he'd been pulling out, confusion. And, finally, as he collapsed onto the table between a pair of confused diners, leaving the now-blood-splattered business card on her foot... horror.

It had happened so quickly that none of the nearby diners, nor even the camera in the ceiling above them, saw anything but her simply randomly stabbing a man as she walked by; and the dining room rapidly fell into chaos as people screamed; and calls for the Enforcers immediately went out from dozens of patrons, as well as one of the waiters.