-A few hours later-
There’s only so many times you can visit an amusement park before you become not amused. At least I have something interesting to keep me busy.
I had Core keeping tabs on the Shield agents. They spread out along the park. There’s only thirty of them, and Coulson is waiting on a park bench. It’s almost time.
“Remember,” Oliver tells me, “don’t give away anything important and you’ll do fine.”
“Yes, yes, I know.”
“We need them off our tails, but it’s not a necessity.”
“I got it, man, really.”
He sighs. “Alright.”
Oliver breaks off from our walking pattern, and I make my way to Coulson.
Before I’m even twenty feet away, I see him tense and look towards me.
I walk calm, composed, and focused.
“Hello, agent, may I have a seat?”
-Phil Coulson POV-
“Of course, please,” I say, gesturing to the seat.
My earpiece buzzes, “The camera’s are picking up static over his face, we can’t ID him, sir,” someone says.
The man sits, positioned towards me, and smiles. His face looks young. I’d say early twenties.
“It is a pleasure to meet you agent…?” he subtly asks for my name.
“Coulson. And the pleasure is mine,” I reply.
“Sir,” an agent reports, “There are others in the park that are being obscured like he is.”
“Will your friends be joining us?” I ask.
His smile widens. “No, they are having fun. Galavanting.”
I nod. “It’s a nice place to do so.”
He loses his smile. “So I’ve seen. Repeatedly.”
“You don’t like it?” I ask.
“It’s not that.” He waves a hand. “I simply believe that you can only experience something so many times within so little a time before it becomes stale.”
He’s been here before.
“I’m on it,” an agent tells me.
“That’s true enough,” I say. “But I’d also say that it’s best to spend as much time as possible before you lose those moments.”
He nods. “That is why I’ve chosen to come here today.”
We are silent for a few moments.
“Sir,” the agent comes back, “I have multiple instances of the same static face people showing up here in the past few weeks. Each time it looks like there are more people than the last. This time there are five more individuals.”
They’re gaining more members. For what?
“We’d like you to come in,” I say outright.
“I’ll have to decline,” he says immediately.
“Why?” I ask.
“For one: I value my freedom.”
“And?”
“And secondly: I don’t trust big organizations.”
“Why is that?”
“Too much possibility for corruption.”
“I can assure you-”
“Don’t worry,” he interrupts, “I’ll soon fix that.” He stares me down.
I blink and he’s gone.
“Report,” I say.
“Sir, we can’t find him, but the others are still out there.”
“Team A, keep an eye on the ones we know. Team B, find the one that’s missing.”
I’ll have to update Hill. While that wasn’t confirmation, I’d bet my car I’m right about them being behind the 1% heist. Especially now that I have some sort of motive. Corruption… Maybe he’s had bad dealings with us before? Something to think about.
-Brian POV-
Well, that was fun. Got to meet Coulson. Be all super secretive. And threaten their organization. All in a good day of work. Now how are we all gonna get out of here without being seen?
-30 minutes later-
Invisible jet, duh.
Now, to business.
“Alright,” I say to the group once we’re all in the living room, “Let’s talk missions.”
“I know this is abrupt for those of you I just summoned, but I also believe you’re capable enough to adapt as you’ve had previous experience.”
The group is intently focused on me.
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“My current thoughts are having Oliver as team lead, Hekate as operations support, Emma as communication and guarding Hakate, Zannah and Ling together, Betsy with Oliver, Mizuki and Iaian, and Alex maintaining perimeter. Thoughts?”
Everyone looks to their partner, then towards others, and finally Oliver and me.
“I think that can work well for now and if there are any issues we can switch things up,” Oliver says.
“What about me?” Tanya asks.
“You and I will be practicing chakra control, while they’re gone.”
“Yosh, I’m gonna be the hokage, dattebayo.”
The room is silent.
“Don’t mind her,” I say, “she’s less than a month old.”
“Oi!”
They all seem to accept this.
“Anyway, I was able to buy the danger room with the last of my funds. So, you all can practice for the next few days before going on the mission. Just be warned, it’s all mechanical, so don’t break anything.” I sigh, then whisper, “I should’ve kept Torbjorn.”
We go to the room.
-One week later-
[Reporting…
1033 deeds completed, 930 D-rank, 93 C-rank, 10 B-rank.
960 D-ranks converted to 120 C-ranks, 210 C-ranks converted to 21 B-ranks, 20 B-ranks converted to 2 A-ranks.
Balance: 2 D-rank, 11 C-rank, 19 B-rank, 2 A-rank
Templates Fully Assimilated:
Pietro Maximoff, aka Quicksilver (Marvel: extended mcu)
Thomas Wayne, aka Batman (DC: flashpoint)
Peter Parker, aka Spiderman (Marvel: noir)
Jefferson Pierce, aka Black Lightning(DC)
Lucas Bishop, aka Bishop(Marvel: Earth-1191)
Hashirama Senju, aka the First Hokage(Naruto)]
[Your team has completed their first A-rank mission. 3 A-rank summons awarded. Note: these can only be used now and not be upgraded. Future missions will only be awarded credits.]
Mission? I know I sent them on one but I didn’t know I’d get awarded for them.
…
You’re not gonna tell me, are you? Fine.
[Rolling…
3x A-rank: Darth Vader(Star Wars), Susan Storm(Marvel), Fiddlesticks(League of Legends)]
Ooh, nice. I’ll probably template the first two and sell the last.
The others walk into the living room and sit down.
“So,” I ask the team. “How was everything?”
-Oliver POV-
-A day ago-
We are in Russia. To keep our involvement with Myriad separate we decided it would be best if we started away from home base. This meant Russia.
“Approaching target.” Alex was steering. He had experience flying the X-Jet.
“Scrambling sensors,” Hekate says. She can work her way around ‘primitive’ technology like a child playing with bricks.
We land, as soft as possible, on the helipad available.
“Let’s move out,” I say. “Emma, link us up and replay the mission report.”
She could just instantly send the knowledge to us, but it’s better to have something going on before it all goes to hell.
“Everyone is linked,” Emma telepathically ‘speaks.’ “The mission is to remove this base from the map. It acts as a training camp for ‘new recruits’ and by getting rid of it, we slow down their deployment time while making it known someone knows about them.”
“Which will make them wary,” Alex says.
“Which is both good and bad,” Emma agrees.
These two…
“We’ve been over this,” I say.
“You wanted a recap,” Emma says.
“Yes, but… Listen, Cortana was able to hijack everything on this planet, and probably beyond, before she separated herself.”
“And now she is split.”
“She checks in at midnight.”
“For one second.”
“A lot happens in that one second.”
“Peace friends,” Lei Ling says before we can continue arguing.
The comms are silent.
“Let us focus and discuss changes afterwards,” Lei Ling says.
“Agreed,” I say.
“...There will be a discussion,” Emma says.
I sigh. “Are we all in position?”
I hear multiple affirmations at once.
“Side building goes first. Mizuki, Iaian, go in on 3. 1…, 2…, 3!”
The two open the front door and clear through the building.
“Clear,” they both say.
“I told you so,” Emma whispers.
“We need to be sure,” I remind her. “Mizuki, Iaian, link up with Zannah and Lei Ling. Betsy and I will clear the dorms.”
Betsy looks to me. I nod. We open the dorm doors and move through the building. I watch her back as goes up to each sleeping occupant and shuts down their brain.
Telepaths are scary.
“Yes, we are,” Emma 'says’ to me.
I shrug her off.
Betsy soon finishes and we clear the rest of the building.
“Now, the main building,” I say. I saved this for last because it is the biggest of the lot, and the night shift is ongoing.
“Here goes.”
-Brian POV-
“It went well,” Oliver says.
Emma scoffs.
“What’s wrong?” I ask her.
She gives me a look. “It went exactly as well as you thought it would.”
I frown. “I don’t appreciate you looking in my head without asking.”
She waves her hand. “I didn’t need to. Your self-assuredness was obvious to me.”
“I’m not sure what is wrong then.”
“What is wrong is that we’re not soldiers.”
My frown deepens. “I never expected you to be.”
“You expected us to complete missions.” Her glare is cold and judgemental.
I don’t reply to that. Instead I ask, “Does anyone else agree with her?”
I look at everyone’s face. There is some conviction, some worry, some doubt. But then I see Tanya’s raised hand.
“Tanya?”
“I think I see where she is coming from.”
“You do?”
“Yea, she’s worried.”
“I can see she is worried.”
“But I don’t think you understand why.”
I don’t understand? “Why then?”
“We’re just people. And you shouldn’t push so hard for us or yourself to not be.”
“How am I pushing you hard?”
“You want us to act like a well oiled team,” Emma says.
“You want us to fight your enemies,” Alex says.
“You want us to fit into specific roles,” Hekate says.
“You want us to do dirty work,” Iaian says.
“You want us to save the world,” Tanya says.
“And what’s wrong with that?” I ask.
“That’s a lot of pressure to put on us,” she says.
“Well you don’t have to,” I say. “If you want to do something else, you can. But don’t try to stop me.” I storm off, hearing them call for me.