Ten Little Soldiers

Disclaimer: Not mine and I make no profit.

AN: From my reviewers' suggestion I decided to break my one ten-parts chapter into ten chapters. In hindsight this should have been the obvious solution.


Chapter I: Lethal Chef

Ten little Soldier boys went out to dine;
One choked his little self and then there were nine.

Cienna Moretti pulled her rusty, trusty six-year-old Fiat to a stop outside a non-descript-looking

tavern and switched off the ignition. The young Ispettore of Divisione Investigativa Antimafia took a deep breath and fingered the cross Bibiana Bologna always wore around her neck. She was Bibi now, a low-level mafia goober, a spear-head in DIA's new champagne to infiltrate the Vongola Famiglia as part of the new wave.

That was what her boss had said, the late afternoon last week after calling her into his office for one of his private briefings.

"This case needs . . . finesse and flexibility, and when I think of those words, I think of you, Cienna," he had said. She was as susceptible to flattery as the next person, but Cienna had nevertheless smelled a rat. She was newly promoted, she had never been on an undercover assignment before and this was big. She had given her boss a wry face.

"All right, Domenico, what's the catch?" So her Isapettore Capo called her by first name, she was going to do the same.

She knew there was a catch. From the beginning of its existence DIA's – as well as the National Police's and local police forces' – standard operation procedure regarding the Vongola Famiglia seemed to have been "let's look the other way and hope it goes away." It wasn't corruption, as far as Cienna could tell. It wasn't fear; while maybe THE most influential mafia Famiglia in Italia the Vongola was far from the most brutal. When she had researched the fight against the crime Famiglia she had found a curious pattern. Every ten years or so a new effort would be made to put a pressure on the Famiglia, it would last from half a year to year and then the status quo would be restored. It seemed like every generation of law enforcers would try and fail, but no reason for failure had been included on those reports.

Domenico Conti might have been described as good-looking once if not for his weak chin, but twenty five years of struggling to make ends meet on a low-paid civil police officer's salary and the recent stress of having two daughters needing college tuition had not helped matters. His voice was like it belonged to another person altogether. The first time Cienna had heard it she had listened to the soft, dark, hypnotic tenor entranced, wondering how a voice like that belonged to a man so weak-looking and in the end she couldn't remember a word he had said, only the tone and rhythm. She had been told this was a common difficulty on a first meeting. He was well aware of the power of his voice and his rhetoric skills were polished. He was a bit of a manipulator, but Cienna had a soft spot for him anyway.

"I have faith in your abilities and I also trust you to have a fresh, rational outlook on this matter. The older, more experienced inspectors seem to have an aversion bordering superstition regarding the Vongola," he had answered. And of course she had let him convince herself despite her misgivings. She was young and hungry for success. Italia was still very patriarchal country and just getting into Polizia di Stato had been difficult enough, let alone making it into the rank of inspector. She hadn't expected her big chance to come so soon.

She wasn't going to mess this up. She was good, just like Isapettore Capo Conti had said. She wasn't going to die.

As Fifi's cooling engine slowly ticked to a stop, Cienna checked her appearance one last time in her rearview mirror. Not that it would do her much good. Ever since she had been to elementary school the best anyone had said of her looks was that she had "great personality" and she would no doubt remain so till when she finally tottered into the Old Ladies Home – no, Retirement Home was what they were called nowadays. She was pretty certain they would find yet some new euphemism by the time she got there, assuming she made it that far.

She had long ago given up the hope to be beautiful, but she took great pride in being intelligent. And, taking a final swipe of the comb through frizzy dark brown hair, at least today she would be neat. The importance of looking professional on her first day could not be overstated. Her make-up was impeccable also so she deemed herself ready to go. She stepped out of the car, locked it, walked to the door of the tavern. The sign on it read CLOSED, but there were lights behind the closed curtains and when Cienna pressed the knob it turned easily. She knocked and opened the door cautiously.

Only good reflexes allowed her to duck in time to avoid the banana cream pie that had flown towards her face.

Cienna took in the scene: seven men of varying ages in identical black suits and dark glasses, taking cover behind various tables and other pieces of furniture, and a woman with pale red hair in a sleeveless shirt that showed off a tattoo of what Cienna thought was either a stylized scorpion or a Chinese character held a plate of pasta in her hand, ready to throw. She was quite sure pasta wasn't supposed to be that shade of green… unless it was pesto sauce that did it? No, not even then. She made a note to never eat anything in this establishment. The table clothes were red and white checkered just like the curtains and several of them had fallen to the floor, one tangled around the woman's feet in a dangerously looking way. She couldn't have been even twenty, but she certainly had presence to herself.

"Lisa was to follow me to Thailand! This is important," the woman exclaimed in a way that didn't quite count as shouting and threw the plate. It exploded midair and sickly green paste flew everywhere, some of it getting stuck in Cienna's hair despite the fact that she nimbly jumped back out and out of the doorway. It smelled electric, somehow. She clawed it quickly off and tried to not think what a person had to do to make pasta like that.

"Excuse me," she said and peeked inside. "I am Bibiana Bologna. I was to report into service here." Her voice fit into a silent moment and every person in the tavern turned to look at her.

"You," the woman said solemnly and pointed towards Cienna, "are terribly cute! Can you cook?" She stepped out of the table cloth and walked towards Cienna. Her eyes, polar opposite to the lightning effects mere second ago, were sparkling like sunlight. Cienna moved her lips, but no sound came out. She knew better than well that she was not cute, especially when compared to this voluptuous woman.

"Is edibility implied?" she managed to ask; she was the uncrowned queen of microwave dinners. The woman smiled in delight and dashed forward, grabbing Cienna's hand.

"Wonderful, you are coming with me instead of Lisa. I am Poison Scorpion Bianci' it's lovely to meet you."

Bianchi Gokudera, also known as Poison Scorpion Bianchi in the mafia underworld, an assassin who specialized in poisons. Cienna widened her eyes and breathed Bianchi's moniker with reverence; Bibi was an easily impressed girl.

"I have always wanted to meet you!" she gushed; Bibi was also easily exited. And passably clever too, if uneducated and still a bit naïve. "Of course I'll come if it is alright with Signor Capricorn," she said and looked at the men in suits, wondering which one of them was Bibi's new Don. The tallest one, with a bald patch in the middle of his head and an upper body that threatened to rip his suit – a comical effect when combined with the way he kept a table between himself and Bianchi and his head was bobbing up and down very eagerly – gave his consent immediately, waving his arms in wide circles.

"That's great, now let's go, the flight takes off in two hours. We can buy everything we need in Bangkok, you just need your passport" Poison Scorpion said. Cienna gave her car a lingering look, but her pass into the circles manhandled her into her own, a luxurious red ride that looked like it broke the speed limit when parked.

She wouldn't have time to inform Conti before they already were in Thailand, but she didn't think that was a problem. Maybe. Depended entirely what this woman intended to do in Thailand.

"Um, what are we going to Thailand for, if you don't mind me asking?" she questioned. The seat belt slipped from her hand when the Poison Scorpion accelerated and made a handbrake turn, speeding the tires screeching into the morning rush of Parma. Cienna was beginning to wonder if she would live to see Thailand, or indeed even the airport, when her driver cut in between a semi-trailer and a car full of kids, cheerfully ignoring the blowing horns.

"We are going to infiltrate the annual Underworld Beginners' Chef Tournament. I'm no beginner so I'm going in as your mentor," Bianchi explained. Cienna blinked and wondered what on Earth made it an Underworld's Beginners' Chef Tournament. She wondered if they were training future cooks for the leaders of crime syndicates. She wondered if they were cooking rare and endangered animals. Did they not have working permits? Were they in the country illegally?

"Remember that you are upholding my reputation there. If you can't cook well just sabotage the other contestants the best you can, but don't kill anyone; that will get you disqualified. I'll be dealing in secret with the right hand man of the Chalermchai boss; he is one of the judges." Bianchi ignored the lights turning red in a bid cross roads as her eyes misted over. Cienna was squeezing her seat so hard her knuckles were white and her lips were silently moving in a prayer. She barely heard what the younger woman had to say over the sound of blood rushing in her ears.

"Ah, I remember the time I was one of the contestants. I was declared the winner by default when all other contestants found their dishes had become explosive. What a funny coincidence it was." She swerved on. Cienna wondered if she was going to even survive this.

This was a good question. The annual Underworld Chef Tournaments – for beginners, advanced chefs and masters – were where the creme de la creme of the underworld cooking industry gathered. Good cooks were respected everywhere, but the cooks that dealt with crime, organized or otherwise, took the notch and cranked it up to eleven. After all it paid to be respectful to a person who not only cooked your food, but could also use over thirty different types of knives and a good amount of other sharp, pointy objects and were likely to use them on rowdy customers.

Now it was Bangkok's turn to bear witness to the ultimate test of culinary fitness. The first day would be the Beginners' Tournament, the second Advanced Tournament and the last Masters' Tournament. There were seventy nine contestants in the same tournament with Cienna, their ages varying from fifteen to thirty. Some of them had been learning to cook as soon as they could hold a kitchen knife in their hands, others went to special culinary schools and there were even a few apprentices to famous chefs. Cienna was the kind of modern woman who was seriously housework-impaired and she was suffering from jet lag. The only things she had going for her were a little bottle of purple goop she were to hide in her apron's pocket, a secret ingredient courtesy of Bianchi, and a resolve born of a discussion she had overheard when she had left the precinct the last time before her assignment.

Cienna had disliked Orsini and Brucciani from the day she had started at DIA Parma field office. She hadn't liked the look of them, nor had she liked the way they had casually barred her access to the front door as she tried to get past them on her first day and speaking loudly of how law enforcement was no occupation for women who were naturally nurturing, unless their period was permanently haywire of course.

To their credit, this time they hadn't realized she was at earshot, so focused they had been on their little business with the other men who had been in the DIA for over ten years.

"Three Euros to one say she'll actually last a full month," Orsini had said. Two men, whom Cienna had previously liked, had handed him a few notes.

"I doubt she lasts whole two weeks," Brucciani had said. Cienna had promptly seen red, but forced herself to turn away from them.

She hadn't remembered Orsini had been one of those sent undercover in the Vongola the last go around. She hadn't heard the sympathetic, fond tone the men had used that the skeptical words had covered and she hadn't stayed long enough to hear how they had already ordered a specially printed T-shirt that said: I Went Undercover in the Vongola and Survived. She was cranky and tired and her pride had been hurt and so she ignored the growing sense of unease, the small voice that whispered in her ear that something was wrong in this very setting. She was going to ace this assignment and if acing this cooking competition could get Bianchi give her a leg up in the ranks she. Was. Going to. Ace. It.

The cooking competition was being held in a conference center which name contestant number seventy Cienna couldn't pronounce. She had been separated from Bianci, who was sitting among the audience next to the judges' stand, and led to the floor which had been turned into a sea, or at least a good-sized pond, of kitchens. It was all modern chrome coloured kitchen appliances and a whole lot of knives, pans, skillets, pots, spatulas, spoons and mountains of foodstuff. They had one hour to make a dish with including a specific theme ingredient; this year it was asparagus shoots. Cienna had never before heard the word asparagus, but the white and green shoots didn't look overly complicated. She thought that maybe she should make pasta of some kind. Even she had never managed to fail at making pasta.

An Asian woman in a sexy dark blue waitress's uniform and a frilly white apron went over the rules one more time, which boiled down to one hour, asparagus and don't kill anyone. The contestants were eying each other with appraising and cold, cold eyes that, Cienna noted with some relief, passed her by like she was air, like they could somehow tell she was an amateur. She had seen that kind of eyes before, on people who had killed or had been about to kill, and she didn't want to be on the receiving end of a knife.

Cienna was waiting for the bell to ring and thought very hard about what she was going to do. The small bottle was burning in the pocket of the purple apron Bianchi had bought her, with small black skulls on the hem. Well, not literally burning, but she still had her doubt about it, having seen the green pasta. But surely Bianchi, who had taken part in these competitions before, knew what she was doing.

Besides, she knew she didn't have a snowball's chance in hell of impressing her impromptu mentor if she didn't do something drastic. She had reached her Godzilla threshold: using the purple goop couldn't possibly make the situation worse while it just might make it better.

And the shrill bell rang, sending the contestants into a flurry of silvery cops and streaks of white aprons and silly hats, but Cienna was eyeing her supplies with some wariness. Mountains of supplies were stacked up along on her table and the instruments in order to make them useful were piled so high walking heavily put them precariously close to falling onto the floor. The second highest on the pile was a pan that looked like it could be used to make pasta sauce, with the additional benefit of being easy to reach. She rose on the tips of her toes and took the class bottle with some kind of green chaff in one hand.

She hadn't realized how sweaty her hands were before she was trying to hold a glass bottle. Cienna could take apart, clean and assemble her trusty Beretta 8000 Cougar again with her eyes closed and her hands never shook, but now the bottle started to slip from her fingers. She tried to grab it better, but it went flying towards the equally high and unstable pile of a Chinese-looking man with long moustache a few years her minor. The pile toppled over like in a bad dream, the bottle shattered against the rim of a metal dish and both the spices and the shattered glass fell into the man's pot. An apology died on Cienna's lips as the man turned to look at her with murder in his eyes. He took a knife with a long blade and rounded tip and attacked her.

Cienna hadn't become Ispettore of Divisione Investigativa Antimafia at the tender age of twenty two by learning to crochet. She dodged, but her elbow hit the side of her table painfully. Her pile swayed like a tree in a wind, but miraculously remained upright. Instead a knife was sent clattering from the table right between the man's legs. He lost his balance and had to take several long steps to not fall down on his face. It would have been better to fall, because he crashed into the table on Cienna's left side, sending dishes flying.

Cienna watched in horrified fascination as the two cook-hopefuls started to fight using knives and frying pans and spatulas. At least I'm not having difficulties with the sabotage part, she thought and put a pot full of water on the stove.

The fight was coming to and end when the water came to a boil. She added one tablespoon of coarse salt and the spaghetti. Since no rules had been laid down about using one's own ingredients she didn't bother hiding the bottle as she fished it from her pocket. It was only after she had poured half of its contents that her mind focused enough on the task at hand for her to realize that one, she should have put it on the sauce; and two, she wasn't supposed to make the spaghetti first.

But it was already too late. And the spaghetti in the pot was oozing upwards.

Cienna stared as it rose in one great lump from the pot. There was a knot in the middle of it and ropes of spaghetti stretched in tentacles from it. She stared as it crawled across her table, her head turning to follow its motion. She stared as it stopped and while it had no nose she could have sworn it was scenting the air. She stared as it suddenly pounced through the air like a yellow flying octopus, landing on the head of the contestant whose table was in front of hers. And some where between the spaghetti monster oozing out of its pan and the pouncing Cienna's higher brain function shut down to protect her from complete mental meltdown. When the monster absorbed the chicken the tiny blonde girl had marinated she turned to follow the instructions given to her like a robot. She cut the asparagus when four tables had joined forces against the monster to protect their cooking. She cooked tomatoes in melted butter when the monster, which had at that point tripled its size, brained a man in all white with his own skillet. She added basil, olive oil and garlic salt, watching as it slurped down the vegetable soup of a woman who was trying in vain to hack it in half with the biggest knife she had ever seen.

It crawled back to her just when she had finished her pasta and put in on the plate in a manner a distant part of her mind hoped was aesthetic. It was the same size as her and her kitchenette was the only one left untouched. Tables had been turned over, but the floor was suspiciously clean. Her fellow contestants were left lying on heaps on the floor. Cienna gave it a wary stare, but as it just oozed a little she took a steak and handed it over to the monster. She could have sworn it purred as it absorbed it like an amoeba. Blood was rushing in her ears again as Cienna petted its slimy head. She took the plate in her hands and started to walk towards the judges' stand, painfully aware of the silent stares of the entire audience. Her head felt like someone had stuffed it full of cotton wool and Cienna thought she was going to faint.

She didn't, or at least she thought she hadn't, but she couldn't remember how she had gotten to the hotel afterwards, or if she had indeed won. She thought she might have since she had been the only one with a dish when the bell rang the second time.

"You were wonderful, Bibi! I am so glad I took you in as my apprentice. Reborn is going to be so impressed with my teaching skills!" Bianchi rejoiced.

Reborn, Cienna wondered, where have I heard that name before? Cooking monster? Where had it gone? Was that purple goop radioactive? Am I going to turn into a mutant?

"How did the negotiations go?" was she asked out loud. Her voice was hoarse like she had been screaming for hours. She hoped she hadn't.

"Very well. Mongkut wanted to add the special ingredient into the deal as well so I got some extra concessions out of him. Reborn is going to be so impressed with my negotiating skills," Bianchi sighed.

Cienna sat on the bed with the silk linen on a very expensive hotel, listened to the hum of the air conditioning and Bianchi's chattering, trying to form a report in her mind. I don't know what the deal pertains to, Inspettore Capo, except that radioactive purple goop that changes foodstuff into monsters was added to it thanks to a demonstration of mine. A new biological weapon, or possibly nanotechnology. Or just radioactive goop. She wondered just how she was expected to explain this to a judge and jury.