Joe was standing in front of a bounty board somewhere in the Middle East. He had just got done with a contract earlier that day and he was ready to go again. He looked over to his side and he saw a guy wearing a mask with a bright red visor. He was looking right at a posting for someone called Ghost.

Joe didn't notice until it happened, but some local thug pulled a knife on the guy. Even though he was pretty old, the guy beat the thug's ass and left him on the ground bleeding out from his own knife. As the guy was walking away, Joe saw the 76 on the back of his jacket and he knew that the thug screwed up bad. Joe looked around the board a little more and finally saw the listing for Soldier 76, and then he understood. 25 million dollars was a pretty hefty price just for one guy. But Joe turned his attention to the one for Ghost.

'300 million, he must've pissed someone off bad.' Joe thought to himself. He looked around the board a little bit more and he didn't see anything else that interesting. So, he went back to the motel room he was staying at.

He connected his phone to a Bluetooth speaker he had and he started playing Separate Ways by Journey and he started packing his bags.

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He was arriving home in Kings Row and he called a taxi and he was at his apartment in about an hour due to traffic. He wasn't actually British, he was born in a small town in the US, but he decided to move to King's Row due to it being a hard place to track someone down in.

His family were all mercenaries and bounty hunters. He was just one of many before him and he was quite good at his job. He used to work with a partner, he was pretty much a brother to Joe, but he died in an accident a long time ago.

As Joe was getting his bags unpacked, the neighbors above him were making a lot of noise from their music. He grabbed a broom and hit the roof and with the tip of the shaft.

Lena and Emily didn't know what was wrong with the neighbor below them, but it seemed that every time they turned something up even a little loud in Emily's apartment, they would hear the banging noise from below. The odd thing was though, they never seemed to see they guy. Whenever they went to confront him, he was either not answering or was not home. Lena found it a bit suspicious, but she really didn't care, neither did Emily.

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Joe was on an airplane heading to Prague to meet with a contractor when he saw something a little odd about one of the passengers. He was a white guy who seemed to have a prosthetic leg when he walked. But, the problem with that was that Joe had seen him in the airport walking perfectly fine.

For majority of the flight, Joe wasn't too worried, but as they were nearing Prague, he heard muffled screams in the back of the plane. So did some of the other passengers. There was a silent panic going on as passengers started to grab their belongings and barricade the doors to their section. Joe had checked the fight details before takeoff and remarkably, there was only one air marshal on board. In first class.

He made his way up there and he went to one of the stewardesses. He told her what was going on and she remained calm, much to Joe's convenience. The two went to the seat of an older looking guy and the stewardess bent down and told him the situation. He nodded, he got up and went to where the passengers from before were barricading, and the stewardess went to the cockpit and told the pilots about the situation. Joe followed the stewardess, but as she was telling the pilots the situation through the comm system, Joe noticed the guy from before. The guy who supposedly had a prosthetic. He was walking up the aisle and was fast approaching them.

Joe told the stewardess and he told her to wait there. Seeing no other option, she complied. Joe took out his phone and pretended to be sending a text and he fake bumped into the guy.

Joe said sorry and he kneed the guy in the stomach and punched him across the face. The guy was knocked out and the other passengers started to scream. Joe pulled an AK-47 from the guy's pants and he also found some mags in the guy's pockets as well. As Joe grabbed the last mag from the terrorist, he heard shots from the section he originally came from.

He loaded a mag into his weapon and he sprinted towards the gunfire. When he got there, he saw shooters in a gunfight with the air marshal. Joe killed a guy who peaked out from his cover in a service area and took cover behind some seats, the air marshal looked back and nodded at Joe.

Eventually, all of the assailants were dead and the marshal declared Joe as a temporary deputy for his help. Joe and the marshal basically enacted marshal law until the plane landed in Prague.

As soon as he could, Joe grabbed his carry on bags, which was the only luggage he had and he slipped away from the cops who were probably searching for him.

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Joe didn't know how he managed to do it, but he gave the cops the slip and he was safe to meet his potential contractor.

He went to an up class hotel downtown and he went up to the penthouse floor and once he was off the elevator he was stopped by a security guard.

"Joseph Rhody?" the guard asked. "Yep, here's my concealed carry." Joe said as he took out his gun and handed it over. It wasn't like it would be very useful, it was just a Whalther PPK. Joe was frisked and he was then allowed entrance.

"Over here buddy." a man said from the kitchen. He sounded like he was in his middle thirties and his accent was as American as it could possibly get.

The penthouse was impossibly big. When you first walk in there is a huge indoor pool from which you could see most of the city. Off to the side there was the kitchen that had a bar facing outward towards the pool and doors were all around the walls, presumably leading to bedrooms and bathrooms alike.

Joe went and too a seat at the bar, which was made out of stainless steel, like most of the furniture that he could see in the room.

He looked over into the kitchen and he saw a man with short black hair mixing drinks and after a little bit, he turned around and Joe saw two cocktails.

"I hear that you like Bare Knuckle Boxers, I'm a little rusty. But I'm not a pro bartender." The man said. Joe assumed that this guy wasn't the main boss, but rather an underling or a relative.

"It's fine, I just want to get down to business. Where do you need me to go and who needs to die?" Joe said as he took a sip of his drink.

"Alright then. We need you to go to South Korea. There is a woman there that has caused us great trouble in the past year. Hana Song. Her success rates in the millitary have been raising stock prices of MEKA and our stocks are struggling because of it. I am not the actual person paying you, I am just a representative." the man said. "Well considering that the only contact I've had is with you, who am I working for exactly?" Joe asked. "Thought you would have done your research, but you are working for Katya Volskaya."

When Joe heard that he understood why they would want MEKA to fail. So, he signed a formal contract and he flew over to South Korea and he planned his assassination.

As the Chinese New Year was coming up, Joe looked at the parade and subsequent festivals that would be happening for it. He found out that Hana would be marching in a parade on a float along with her squad mates in Seoul.

Joe went and walked along the route of the parade and took pictures of several potential sniping positions and he finally found a suitable one on top of a skyscraper that was still under construction. It was about a half a mile shot from where he decided to set up and he figured it would be a piece of cake.

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It was the night of the parade and Joe was setting up on the top floor of the skyscraper. He had disposed of the security and the workers still on duty. It was around 9:00 and the town below was radiating light into the black of the night.

Joe had a silenced .338 Lapua magnum sniper rifle with a 50x zoom scope and he was waiting for his target to get in position. For some reason though, he didn't feel all that confident that his getaway would be smooth, so he had also brought along an MP5 and an M1911 with him, just in case.

As Hana's float was getting into position, he lined up his shot and he was about to pull the trigger.

"What ya doin' there love?" Joe heard in his right ear. He felt the muzzle of a pistol on the back of his head and even though he was a little surprised, he kept his cool. He got up from his prone position, all the while keeping his hands up and he felt slender fingers grab his wrists to restrain him. He no longer felt the muzzle on his head and he jerked his leg back and he wrapped it around his attacker's leg and he floored them. He turned around in a flash and drew his pistol. He turned on the under barrel flashlight on his pistol and he saw Tracer getting up. Her pistols were scattered away from her and she had nowhere to go.

"Well, then. Look at we have here." Joe said. Tracer had a fearful look on her face as she really couldn't go anywhere, even with her powers. She stuck her hands up and she slouched down a little. "So, out of anybody I expected to intervene. Talon, Vishkar, hell even Helix Security. The poster girl of Overwatch shows up. I wonder. What could possibly be the reason behind this little surprise?" Joe asked. "Well, we learned about your contract. And we figured that we could try and stop it. Because leaving D. Va alive is in out best interest." Tracer said honestly. Joe just nodded and he thought for a little bit. "Well, a failed contract wouldn't sit well with my employers, but the money I can get from Talon to hand you over might just be worth more than this contract. So, that's what I'm going to do." Joe said as he picked up Tracer's pistols off the ground.

He then restrained her and confiscated her earpiece and phone. And threw them off the edge of the skyscraper. When they were at the bottom of the skyscraper. Joe placed a device on her Accelerator.

"If you even try running, I will trigger this. If you try to remove this device, it will detonate. The device also has a tracker in it. So, I will always know where you are. If this detonates. It will disable any electrical device in a 1 kilometer distance. And if this device strapped to you does what I think it does. You won't want that happening." Joe said as he pushed her into the backseat of his car.

Tracer sighed in disgust as she righted herself into a sitting position.

The two went back to Joe's motel and they went into his room. "You can have the bed if you want, I'll take the couch. And if you even try running. You know what will happen. Joe said as he shut her in the bedroom.

Lena sat on the bed and turned on the lamp and bawled her eyes out. How had she let herself get caught by a hitman. A thug who was only motivated by money. What would happen to her when she got into Talon's grasp? What if Emily thought she was dead and moved on? What about Overwatch?

She had to escape somehow.

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Joe was on the phone with a Talon contractor working out the ransom for Tracer. Everything seemed to be going well and Joe managed to get a deal for 25 0 million dollars and he even managed to get a Talon hit squad to take her off his hands the next day. By the time he was off the phone it was midnight and Joe went to the bedroom of the motel room and he let Tracer out to use the restroom before light's out.

The next morning, Joe was up bright and early and he also woke Tracer up and the two set off to downtown Seoul.

They drove down an alley and they got out and a Talon soldier came out of a doorway and took Tracer in his custody and took the detonator for the device on the Accelerator from Joe. And he also confirmed that the money had been wired to Joe's account.

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Author's Note

Hope you liked this starting chapter. I just wanted to get back into writing action fiction because my other Fic, Read All About It! Started to get a little boring in my opinion. So, I hope this will be a new era for me. I'll try and update as soon as I can, nut there are no guarantees on consistency.

See you next time.