"Look, man. Honestly... I just really like dinosaurs. And the Rex seems like the one with the most dangerous bite."

Viper nodded slowly, looking down at the man in the.. overalls? This close they looked like some brown chest waders. Was that a CarHartt logo? "I get it. I kinda liked them myself as a kid, and the zoos that have a few of those recreations are awesome. Are you actually a villain, a hero, or just... a fan?"

"..." T-Rex glanced down at the floor for a moment, and shrugged. "Mostly just a fan. I know I could, say, chew through a bank vault, but I never did anything serious. I kinda wanted to kick ass here, show off, impress people."

"Alright. So aside from the mouth, anything else?"

"Just a geek, man. I built the tail myself and am decent with machines, and my skin and muscles are pretty tough. None of it is even close to as strong as my jaws, though. The only thing I've found I can't just crush is diamond. I can bite a gun-barrel right in half and spit shards of metal at you hard enough to kill somebody. Its.. really weird, honestly."

"Okay. How about this. Your power is weird... but could come in damn useful against somebody with armor. It'd be cheap, but I could get you some actual armor, and a new tail to work with, if you join me. Just take em out of our winnings."

"If its cheap enough, sure. Putting together a team?"

"Me, Human Shield, and Kidney."

"...Human Shield. Thats the one that they cut the fight short because the Pale Ones just kept pounding on him, and he was like... slowly pulling the controllers out, one by one?"

"Yeah, that..." He blinked, and tapped his helmet. "Oh. Sorry, Rex, Enforcer business. Just go to Dmitri's Tactical Arms and Pawn, let him know Viper sent you. I'll let him know you're on the way. If you don't want in, just don't go."

***

Jasmine was in an obvious state of panic and horror as she sat on the bench inside the cell; her weapons of every sort taken away and settled into a storage rack; one of her co-workers; not Razor, who was still guarding the general, but another of her co-workers named Kin, some regenerator with a sword on his back, was keeping an eye on her... as were two Enforcers.

Both of them were armed with heavy, sophisticated rifles better than anything the DMA had. Armored in solid black and silver. Each of them actually had a shoulder-Zapper; one of the new weapons the Family had built, shoulder-mounted energy weapons that could intercept and hopefully knock-out low-grade speedsters; one of them tracking Jasmine through the bars, the other tracking Kin where he leaned against the wall.

She stared at the card in her hand; after checking it, the Enforcers let her keep it.

She'd thought he was a threat. There to attack her. She'd seen a blur of superhuman speed, a hand reaching into a pocket, lashing out... But no. Either he was some idiotic love-struck boy trying to impress a girl, or he was someone trying to get her some intel about the human trafficking operation her team was investigating.

And he was an Enforcer. What she'd just done was, essentially, attempted murder of a police officer. A crime that warranted either execution or worse. While La Famiglia didn't work with people trading in little girls or slaves, she had it on good authority that they could and did do whatever they wanted to people convicted of crimes that merited a life or death sentence. She'd seen plenty of them die in the arena on global television.

So what was it going to be? Execution? Torture? Lifetime of slavery? Was she going to have to fight in the Arena for the crowd?

The two Enforcers suddenly stood at attention. Kin backed away from the door a step, hands out at his side... and a familiar chrome helmet entered the room.

She shivered. This was bad. Eyeball. Everyone had seen the videos. While there was a fair amount of positive press about him, and he polled better than your typical politician, she'd watched him cold-bloodedly execute people who were just doing their jobs. Ordinary security jobs that posed no threat to him at all.

For all the sort of 'robin hood' vibe he might try to give off, the Titan-Slayer was a mass-murdering psychopath. And one that had a known disdain for US law enforcement of every stripe.

"So... are you here to do it? The Family's head enforcer, here to finish off a problem?"

She forced herself to stare into the glowing red LEDs. They'd recovered one of the previous helmets the man wore; most of that chrome surface was a two-way mirror, transparent from the inside unless his HUD was up.

A soft, digitized chuckle. The man turned to Kin, ignoring Jasmine for now. "Keeping busy?"

The regenerating mutant nodded. "Of course. Could you take it easy on her? She seriously thought the kid was gonna stab her, and as fast as he can move..."

"Honestly, I was going to anyway, but if you want you can claim I did it because you asked. Gonna need you to get something, though."

"Oh? Sure. Is this a ransom situation like the whole Green Knight fiasco?"

Eyeball blinked. Thought back to earlier that day, at the arena. Stared at the wall for a moment. "Mute. Note to self. Make sure this Black Knight character isn't the Green Knight. If he is....have Nicky set us up as an early fight. Un-mute."

He turned back to Kin. "Nah. She didn't deliberately do anything wrong, but you people have an official policy that nobody can go it alone while on duty to make sure they don't get nabbed by a rogue telepath. She's gonna need to apologize to Nicky and the boy in person up top, and do it alone, so you need to get one of those faraday helmet things for her. And we're gonna zap it to make sure it doesn't have any listening devices, so you might as well leave those out."

"Alright. An apology and...?"

If you stumble upon this narrative on Amazon, it's taken without the author's consent. Report it.

"The rest is up to Nicky. Way I understand it, it'll be a slap on the wrist, probably something that benefits us both. So long as the kid isn't too upset, it'll probably have something to do with this.. Zhou guy whose been selling kids in the states."

Kin nodded. "Good enough. I'll get the helmet delivered. I'm supposed to stick with her. If you'd ordered her executed I was supposed to try to stall while they negotiated. Otherwise, stick as close as possible."

Eyeball glanced into the cell at Jasmine, who seemed somewhere between frightened and confused. "Good. Just so long as we don't stab anyone else, eh? You can follow us to the Arena."

She looked between Kin and Eyeball in confusion. The easy familiarity between one of the world's most infamous villains and some mid-grade hero was ridiculous. Didn't Kin know who he was talking to?

***

Dmitri's Tactical Arms and Pawn was one of dozens of shops on La Famiglia, catering to villains and arena contestants both; Dmitri himself was a Clone, as were his seven employees; and when 'T-Rex' entered, Dmitri glanced up from where he was examining a set of jewelry; very clearly stolen jewelry, which he'd just paid a fraction of its value for.

He looked over the lanky dark-haired idiot in the brown overalls, shaking his head for a moment... as two floors below, one of his 'brothers' read his text messages, pushing a crate onto a cart, as yet another ran the debit transaction. This Eyeball was great for business, but such a strange one. One day pretending he was trying to go legit, the next robbing yet another lab or business. One day making some poor sap's life a living hell for an honest mistake in choices of employment, the next grabbing some random idiot and helping him out in a big way.

And today would be the latter. He sighed. "Alright. T-Rex, right?"

The man nodded as he approached the counter. "Yeah. Real name's Ty, but I wanna go by Tyrannosaur, or T-rex. Viper sent me?"

"I could tell. He said you were wearing some hideous brown overalls over an armored vest."

Dmitri glanced back at the door behind him. The wall was covered with racks of weapons, armors, things made for villains who never lived to pick them up, or who had better ideas later; all sorts of insane gadgets. Dmitri handled trades between villains and techs, isolated, special events; most of the big-name Arena hotshots had sponsorships now and someone from some major company made them custom-issue armor complete with corporate brand logos.

Like Nike. A literal angel of death, complete with feathered wings, wearing a custom Nike armor suit. Her name used to be Seraph. Dmitri opened the door, letting the cart-pushing brother casually push a cart through without stopping.

Ty did a double-take, noticing the identical appearance of Dimitri and his brother... subtle differences like the amount of facial hair and perhaps a few more pounds of fat not hiding the identical faces. "...You two brothers?"

"Of course! I'm Dimitri, and me and my brothers run this place. And you... are a lucky man." He shoved the crate onto the counter. "Genuine Mark-19 Squid tentacle, seventh of eight. One guy bought the first four and is using them in some sort of spider-themed armor. Only one left after this. Viper sent a special request along, and..." He pried the lid off the crate.

Inside the crate was... a thick, coiled tentacle about two meters long, a padded steel box, and a leather sack. "Body armor, nice stuff. A tentacle and a shoulder frame, and even the controls for it. And... a sack full of armor scales. The same sort he's got on the armor he has now, just... smaller. The old Viper, now dead, had a whole barrel full of loose armor scales he'd stick on things, and these are an older version."

Ty leaned in, examining the contents for a moment. "Huh. So... what do I do with them?"

"Well. If you're really trying to go for some sort of Dinosaur theme, I guess you cover the armor with scales, cover the outer rings of the tentacle with scales, and then go out there looking like an idiot. Oh. And practice, first. The tentacle has a couple of spikes on the sides, and the tip is a 10-gauge shotgun."

He reached down, pressing down on the end of the tentacle; a small box-like protrusion emerged beneath the spikes. "Each of these holds two ten-gauge shells. The whole thing only holds sixteen. Gotta be hand-loaded, no reloading mid-fight. The whole thing is ridiculously strong and tough. Without the scales, pretty much bulletproof. Strong enough to pick up a small car... Squid could pick up and throw a truck when he had all eight going. An expensive, ridiculously dangerous weapon that cost Squid millions of dollars in research to make better versions every few months until he died, and this last set sold for sixty grand each tentacle. When you leave with this, I got one left."

Ty blinked. "Oh. Wow. Thats... a helluva lot better than the animatronic one I built. Whats the difference between this one and the last one? Or is it the same?"

"That one has a built-in chemical sprayer. Mostly used for flamethrowing purposes. And it already has a buyer."

"Cool, cool. Uhh... How do I attach the scales?"

"The scales have an adhesive that you basically have to weld into place with fire, and are made to pop off and crumple to absorb and dissipate impact. Surprisingly effective. You got a torch?"

"Whole kit, back in my room. I was using it for my animatronic tail bit. I... guess I'll repurpose it for something else now."

***

Jasmine wasn't feeling too much better about her predicament as Eyeball and Swiftblade; two of the most dangerous metas on earth; followed her on her left and right out of the elevator, into the massive 'Box Seat' of The Don; Governor Nicolo Russo, ruler of La Famiglia.

Even though Kin wouldn't have lasted three seconds against the duo, she felt even worse when he stayed behind on the elevator, watching her go... as she absently adjusted the absurd silver and copper colored faraday helmet; a simple cage made to isolate its wearer from outside mental influence. Not 100% effective unless you wore a full bodysuit and facemask, but it would at the very least make it take longer.

The room was well laid-out, and surprisingly empty. There were rows of nice leather chairs with cupholders and trays for meals, couches, tables, all with seating facing the arena; and smaller holographic screens for displaying key details at each seat. A bar, a table, at which Nicolo himself; looking like the elder statesman he pretended to be; mildly overweight but clearly well-muscled, grey-haired, tall, and relaxing in his seat.

And beside him... Bobby. The young man she'd stabbed. She blushed in embarassment as she recalled the moment the young man tried to hand her a business card... and looked at the floor. "I... would like to apologize, Bobby. I thought you were attacking me, and I was wrong. So wrong. If you would still be willing to help our investigation, I would welcome it." She looked up, at Nicolo. "And I would apologize to you as well, for breaking the laws of your island, sir."

Nicolo gave a slow, thoughtful nod... and then gestured at the table. "Have a seat, young Jasmine. You resemble your grandmother. Especially the cheeks, the chin..." He glanced at the two villains behind her. "Definitely a strong resemblance to your half-sister. Including a fondness for stabbing."

Jasmine stepped forward, having a seat where she was directed; blinking in confusion. "I... don't have any sisters. I've got two brothers, though."

"Then I suppose it's time to make some introductions. Your birth name, before you went up for adoption, long before I knew you existed, was Jasmine Russo. Your father, may the lord damn his errant soul, was my brother, Jimmy Russo. This is your sister, Penelope Russo." He nodded at Swiftblade. "And your brother, Bobby Russo." He gestured at the boy she'd stabbed.

She frowned. This was crazy. Yes, she'd been adopted; she knew that. But her parents... the man and woman who'd raised her to be a good, god-fearing woman... had told her her parents had died. That she had no family. Wait. He'd said god rest his soul. Her father really -had- died. It was just... well.

"...I'm not sure if I believe you." This... was alot. Too much, really. Were they trying to turn her? Get a mole in the DMA?

Swiftblade sat down beside Jasmine, the blue-black tights sliding smoothly onto the leather seat as she leaned back in her chair... and carefully removed her mask; more of a helmet, really, as it retained its rigid shape when she laid it down. The resemblance was unmistakable. The two could be sisters. Were sisters.

"...Okay, fine. Maybe I believe you. That doesn't mean I want anything to do with this family."