Chapter Four: It Starts with Stupidity

Hello, once again. For those of you who are confused I'll try a quick explanation:

The U.S. is at war against terrorists, no surprise there. A hitman is making sure they win, as well as an elite force of Navy Seals. Because the president's dead and the Secretary of Defense is running the war (most likely won't ever happen), the terrorists try to take his daughter. This causes the hitman and seals to meet as allies to guard the Secretary's daughter.

I hope that clears things up. Thank you for reading and thanks to those who review. Now for what you came for.

Spyro and Cynder sat in their room of the great city of Warfang. Every ally of the dragons had been relocated to with in its walls and were working to build up it defenses and to built up its troops. This cause very little private time for the young couple so they used every second they had to them selves. At this time they had been left alone for about four hours. They were using it as a time of relaxation and had slept all but the last twenty minutes away. For the past twenty minutes they had been staring out the window and gazing upon the city. The sun was going to set in the distance not long from that time. "Spyro?" Cynder called softly to her mate. "What are we going to do?" she asked. Spyro looked up to the dragon constellation of stars and his eyes became sad. Cynder, sensing his fear, nuzzled up against her companion.

"I don't know," Spyro replied with a sad exhale. "Each day more of those beasts appear and we lose troops. I fear we won't last long." Cynder gave her mate a small kiss before looking up into the stars as well. "I don't want to lose you."

"You'll never lose me. I'll always be by your side," Cynder smiled at him. Then her smile became mischievous. "Why don't we return to the bed for a few more hours?" She asked as she walked past Spyro, heading for the bed. She slid her tail lightly down his side. He could only stare at his beautiful seductress. With every step she took, she exposed the flesh between her legs as her tail swayed back and forth. Her scent was pulling Spyro to the bed. She laid on the bed and took up a seductive pose before Spyro began toward her. Halfway there though the air froze in time and he looked over his shoulder.

"Could we get a little privacy, Mr. Writer?" He asked.

"I was trying to find a way out of the scene," My disembodied voice replied.

"Oh good. Could you also shut the windows to?" he asked. So with a swish of ink the windows closed and time went back to normal as Spyro pounced on his beautiful prey.

+SEALS+

It had been three days since they had arrived at the safe house. The owner of the building had not shown himself and paranoia began to sink into every one. That was even more so for Samantha, Jeffery's daughter. The team and her had begun to ask questions about each other. It ended with the group asking questions as a whole, even Jake participated while he was on guard duty. "So where are all of you from?" Samantha asked. Johnny was the first to speak.

"I'm from San Diego, California." He smiled evilly. "No one thought I could make it as a soldier and look at me now, I'm a U.S. Navy Seal." Henry spoke up next.

"I'm from New York City, New York. I got a wife and twins to get back to when my service is up." Samantha didn't seem very surprised by any of that.

"That explains why you're nice to me. You know what its like to have children." Samantha responded while Henry nodded. "What about you, Bob?"

"I was born in Champaign, Illinois, but was raised in Oakwood, Illinois." Bob replied. "I love small towns." He nodded toward Jake. "Your up leader man."

"Born in Iowa City, Iowa. I was raised in West Chester." Jake said. "I got a wife and unborn kid waiting for me back at home." He looked to Lance, along with everyone else.

"I'm originally from Britain, but I was raised in Kalona, Iowa." Everyone, but Jake, looked surprised. "Me and Jake were hell on bullies in high school."

"That's cool how you guys wound up in the same squad." Samantha stated.

"Yeah. Jake was called Shadow even then." Everyone found that funny for some unknown reason. They continued their game for about twenty minutes till they heard a noise coming their way. Jake spun around and drew his pistol before dropping into a crouch. Samantha dove under the bed and Lance set up the 30-06 rifle in the window. Bob got set in the other window and Henry joined Jake outside while Johnny braced the door. The jeeps had been moved out of sight from all but the seals. The vehicle coming up the path didn't sound like a normal vehicle and they soon found out why. It was an ATV carrying a single rider. The ATV was completely black and the rider was dressed in black. He stopped the vehicle fifteen feet from the shed before dismounting. He had on steel toe boots, combat jeans, a tucked in combat t-shirt, a shoulder held knife, dog tags, a leather belt with a silver buckle, a Mark 23 pistol on the left side of the belt, and sunglasses. He had tanned skin and short messy brown hair. He removed his glasses to examine the seals with his blue-green eyes. Then he put his hands up.

"You all must be the seals." He spoke calmly, he wasn't scared to die. "Welcome to S.H.E.D. twenty." The team kept their weapons raised.

"Password?" Jake whispered. He knew that the man called Miller would here. The man shrugged and dropped his hands.

"We don't cower from a fight, but we'll try to avoid it. We'll kill if we must, but don't want to pull the trigger." The team put their weapons away and Jake went up to the man. "Who came up with that?"

"Bob actually. Names Jake." He held out his hand and Miller shook it.

"I know who all of you are. I've read your file." He examined the group before entering the shed. "Also, names Titeus Miller, you can call me Titeus or Miller." The tem followed him in and Samantha got out of her hiding spot and gave Miller a hug.

"Hey Uncle Miller." She smiled. "What took you so long?" Miller returned the hug before backing off and replying.

"I had to tie up some lose ends. Plus your mother and father were yelling at me because of how I managed a contract." She laughed at that.

"I heard about it." She said suddenly going pale at the memory of the blood soaked ally. Miller patted her back and walked over to the fireplace. He removed a number of bricks and exposed a number dial, eye scanner, DNA machine, and a finger print analyzer. The team stared in amazement and confusion. "He's really paranoid."

"I guess." Johnny said sarcastically as they watched Miller go through the security systems. A minute later a female computer voice spoke.

"The doors are unlocked." Miller looked at every one.

"Everyone gather around the table." Once everyone had gathered around the table Miller spoke an order. "Down." And with that the floor and table sank into the floor and down about two stories down. The walls were pure white in the shaft and a hiss sounded when they stopped. The doors were simple metal doors with no handles. When they stepped off the elevator the red carpets of the floor gave under there feet slightly. The carpet started from the middle, but ended two feet from each wall save where it went up to the doors. Redwood planks covered the last two feet. The walls were dark gray stone with torches set at five-foot intervals of each other. The room was twenty-five foot long by fifteen foot wide. Two brown, elegantly designed, and softly padded sofas sat across from each other with seven feet between. These were set in the center of the room. A table system was set up around the couches and was made of mahogany. The tables at the ends were as tall as the arm rests while the table on the back went up to the back of the couch. On the four end tables, there were old Japanese paper lanterns. Upon the back table was three flower vases each. Two short vases at the ends and one tall one in the middle. Books shelves were built between each torch and around each door. Two chairs were set across from each other in the center between the couches and lined up with the outside edges of the couches. They were built like the couches minus the back table. A single vase stood on each of the chairs tables. On the far wall was a fireplace with two doors on either side. Two more doors were placed on opposite side of the room behind the chairs. Each door was a paper-screen sliding door. The elevator doors were designed like that of a medieval castle throne room made of mahogany wood. "This is the center room. The door to the left leads to the bed rooms, the door to the left of the fireplace leads to the kitchen, the door to the right of the fireplace leads to the bathroom, and the final door leads to the in-home-gym and arsenal." He looked at everyone. "Go look around, but please don't destroy anything. The entire place is voice controlled, there's a list of the controls for each room on the bed of each room." At this the group split to look around. Johnny and Bob went to the kitchen which was modern life hiding behind the medieval times. Lance and Jake went to the Arsenal. This room was designed with weight and other exercises equipment at the forefront of the room and a library of weapons at the back. A single space in the center held a workspace for weapons or random objects. Samantha and Henry went to the bedrooms, which they found a hall with eight identical doors with numbers, these doors where wood sliding doors. The rooms were medieval designed and they picked the far two.

The group returned to the living room and started to find things to do. Bob and Johnny began a tournament with all video games and regular games they could find, Samantha began reading the thousands of books, Henry just watched TV, read, and watched Bob and Johnny. Jake and Lance went to look through the arsenal and found Miller working in the workshop. They approached him and he glanced up and went back to work. "Somehow I knew you two would be the ones to come in here." He said.

"Why?" Jake asked.

"I've read all your files," Miller replied. "So, do you boys need any help our are you just wondering?"

"I try to learn about the people I work with so that I have a good since of who they are and how they'll act." Jake responded. "We were never given a file to read on you or any information, so would you care to lighting things up?" Miller paused in his work and seemed to go into deep thought.

"I was born and raised in Deadfall Valley, Montana. That is where you are now. I was considered strange and insane as a child, but mellowed into a kind of normality, at least outside my head. My parents died before I was five and I was fostered by the church some where in this valley, I can never find it with out a damn guide." He examined Jake and Lance before continuing. "I was raised with two 'siblings' who were both older than me. I went to college through the Army, and became a cop after I got out. After two months of that I became tired of not being able to really help anyone, this lead to me becoming a government-protected hitman. That is what I am today."

"That isn't a lot." Lance said.

"It's what I can remember." Miller said. The group fell silent as Miller went back to work. After twenty minutes Jake broke the silence.

"What are you doing?" he inquired.

"I am trying to build a super weapon, preferably a fully-automatic sniper rifle." Lance looked at the gun then glanced at Miller in curiosity.

"I may be able to assist you." Lance said. This caused the others to look at him with confusion. "I took a fear years of weapons classes."

"Ah," Miller responded. "What do you have in mind?" with that Jake began to feel out of place due to the conversation between Miller and Lance. Jake looked through all of the weapons, which took at least an hour. Then he returned to the living room to find Johnny asleep on a couch with a game controller in his hand, Bob sleepily stumbling for the bed rooms, Samantha was still reading, and with his main source of entertainment gone, Henry was bidding all a good night. Jake watched this and could only wonder, 'why do I have a bad feeling about this?'

+Black Cobra Headquarters+

The headquarters of the Black Cobras was probably the simplest of the other branches. It was a network of underground tunnels and they had the simplest uniform, any kinds of black clothes and cover your face with a red mask. They were allowed any weapon they wanted and supported mayhem, havoc, and chaos. They sold drugs and helped gangs win wars so they could fund the Black Army. At that very moment every agent had gathered in the nearest outpost for the selection of the next human test subjects. This would mean that who ever was picked would be sent to the main facility and pumped full of the virus known as the D-Virus. This virus was responsible for the Blood Hunters. Today security was maximized and increased. This was caused by a series of break-ins throughout the Black Cobra branch, even within the headquarters. Nothing was taken and no new people appeared, so they thought it was just a malfunction in the security. They still didn't want to take chances though. At the moment the security room was in havoc, everyone was trying to monitor everything and was confusing themselves. The true confusing started when a signal tracker, tracking signals and communications through out the outposts, told every one to shut up. She sat for bit and listened, then turned up the volume of the machine to catch the single tone that was sounding. It was extremely faint. She then broke it down to find what it said to only find numbers that were counting down from nine to zero. This patterned continued over and over and cause her more confusion. She sat there for a couple minutes before tracing the signal to the closet of the security room. She stood and opened the closet and moved a few things around and found nothing out of the ordinary till she looked just above the door. "Oh shit!" was all she had time to say as she realized what the numbers were doing. The second the 't' fell off her lips the bomb went off. The resulting catastrophe was that the entire Black Cobra branch was annihilate within thirty seconds.

Meanwhile, Jeffery sat in his office watching the news reporting the mass destruction of the world's largest drug corporation. "Hello Love," he said as Jena entered the room. "Tell Miller that I'll pay him for the Black Cobra contract."

"I figured you would." She replied.

"How did he do it?" Jeff asked. "How did he infiltrate and destroy them in so little time?"

"Last year he did a contract for them. He weeded out a mole and learned a lot about them in the process. This was long before they started selling drugs though." She explained.

"Ah, so they devised their own demise."

+Safe house+

It was early morning of the twelfth day of hiding. No one but Miller had left the hide out. Bob and Johnny were half way through the games, Jake still had infinite entertainment, same went for Henry, Lance was constantly working on his weapons, and Samantha was getting tired of all the reading. This caused her to begin playing chess with Henry or Jake. The single issue on everyone's mind though was 'when are we going to be let out'. They were all tired of the worry of being spotted outside and they all wanted fresh air. Finally, Bob had to leave. "I'm sorry guys, but I got to go to out side," he told them before heading to the elevator.

"Lock the door when you come back," Miller called from his book. Bob nodded and took the elevator up to ground level. As soon as it came to a stop he moved across the room and out the door. He took multiple deep breaths of the cold and misty air. He let himself relax into the chair that was still sitting outside and smiled.

"The cold feels good after all that heat." He examined the area before closing his eyes and putting his head back. "I hate being under ground." He muttered before dozing slightly. After an hour he became aware of a slight rainfall. He could see the signs of an incoming rain so he stood and went to the door. As he gripped the handle a branch fell in the distance. He spun and went for his pistol, but found he didn't have it. He went for his knife and took up a fighting stance waiting and examining the woods. He slipped back into the shed and closed the door before pressing his side against it and waited listening. He stayed like that for thirty minutes waiting, when no sound was heard he looked out the window. There was nothing there, but he still buckled to fear and went back down. As soon as he moved away from the window ten soldiers lead by a single ninja like man converge on the door and once he disappeared into the ground ten more ninjas moved around from the sides of the shed where they had been waiting for the past hour and a half. The group entered the shed and waited for the elevator to return.

The elevator doors opened and allowed Bob to reenter the living area of the safehouse. "So, how was the air up there?" Johnny asked as Bob approached. The steel and wood doors closed behind him and as he examined the group before answering noticed that no one had really moved.

"It was fine till some animal reminded me I didn't have my pistol." Bob went over and collected his pistol. Not long after, Jake gave everyone their weapons and Miller gave Johnny a .357 Magnum. Everyone looked at them funny and asked what they were doing.

"I've got a bad feeling," Jake responded as Miller nodded. Miller turned his attention to the elevator then and stared intently at the doors.

"Get off the couch," He barked the order with a strange urgency, but everyone complied. He then flipped the couch onto its back with the help of Jake before ordering, "Everyone take cover. Bob you take Samantha to the kitchen. The counter next to the fridge on the left can be pulled out to expose and escape tunnel." Bob and Samantha ran to the kitchen and everyone hid behind the couch waiting and watching. As the kitchen door clicked shut the elevator doors slid opened and exposed six soldiers. They opened fire two at a time and moved to the edge of the room as the elevator went back up. It returned a few seconds later carrying six more opponents. The team had only taken out three of the first enemies under the constant hail of machinegun fire. Meanwhile in the kitchen Bob had moved the counter and he had given his gun to Samantha.

"Go, go, go," he pushed her toward the tunnel. "Get out of here. I'll hold them here if they get passed the others. Samantha looked at the hole fearfully before diving into it and crawling toward the exit half a mile away. After she had disappeared from view into the tunnel the door burst open and Bob raised his knife only to watch as Lance and Henry drug Johnny's unconscious body into the room as Miller and Jake backed in fire off all that he had left in his clip. He shut the door and him, Lance, and Jake barricaded the door. Bob ran up to Johnny and tried to wake him as Henry started yelling at him.

"You dumb ass! You didn't lock the door! You didn't engage the security system!' Miller and Lanced finished the barricade and joined the others by Johnny. "You could have gotten Johnny KILLED!" he said the last word louder than the rest.

"Henry." Miller grabbed his shoulder. Henry just caste it off and continued.

"You may have even KILLED our mission,"

"Henry!" Both Miller and Jake shouted at him.

"You may have even KILLED us ALL!" At this Lance slapped Henry in the back of the head.

"Shut up!" Lance barked. Everyone fell silent. "Listen." All sound was gone. "They stopped trying to get in." He whispered. The team moved toward the tunnel and Bob was ordered to take Johnny to the surface, but as he entered the tunnel the barricade exploded outward with a large blast. Smoke filled the room as Jake was throw against the wall, Lance was hit in the shin with a chair and bashed his head into the floor, Miller was knocked in the head by a table leg, Henry was thrown into Bob and Johnny and all three had the table top land on them after it bounced of the ceiling. Everyone was now knocked out cold. It was a number of hours later that a familiar female voice was heard cutting through the darkness and into Millers aching head.

"Miller, wake up!" it yelled, "What the fuck happened here?" Miller groaned and opened his eyes slowly he was lying on his back in the kitchen and the room was in shreds. A women dressed in a military outfit knelt shaking him. As she released him he sat up and put a hand to his head and found blood as he took it away. He looked around dazed heavily.

"What happened . . . . .?" he trailed off as he repeated the question with a whisper. He could see other armed soldiers wakening the others and standing around with automatic weapons. He couldn't fully remember. Bob went out for air and then intruders came from the elevator, an explosion? He shook his head and repeated his thoughts out loud. The girl grabbed his collar and stared him in the eye with a fearful intensity, all she felt was fear.

"Where is she?" the girl yelled, fear plagued her voice. "Where is my girl?" Miller blinked a couple of times as he tried to remember.

"She went up the tunnel, she'll come out about half a mile east of here." He muttered. Jena went cold and Miller saw it. Just then Jeffery appeared behind her and spoke.

"Samantha isn't within a five mile radius, Miller" The team who had been awoke and brought into reality froze as they all stared at Jeffery.

"We failed . . .," Henry said as he fell back onto the ground and stared at the ceiling. Bob released a yell and pulled on his hair. Lance knelt and began to pray for the girl while Jake ran his hand through his hair and leaned against a wall. Miller to a shaky breath and stood before going into the destroyed living area. Johnny shot up startling everyone.

"I know where she is!" he called having been listening and trying to wake up. "Those guys looked exactly like the guards of the Dark Wind Bank in Seadow, Adjikistan." Everyone looked at him confused and Bob shook his head.

"They ain't from that bank." After he said this, a soldier burst into the room and ran up to Jeffery.

"Sir, we found this clothe in the wreckage. It's all they left behind, sir." Jeffery took the clothe from the man and examined it.

"Johnny is right." Every one looked at Johnny as he smiled triumphantly.

"In light of recent developments, I need to form a new section of the military," Jeffery scratched his chin as he continued to look at the cloth. "This team will have a rule of no tolerance and must be able to do what is needed when it's needed despite orders." Miller raised a questioning brow, somehow seeing where it was going. "You men are now this team. I expect that you can get my daughter back without trouble."

"Do we get a cool name?" Bob asked eagerly. Jeffery stared at him before Jena spoke.

"You're all now the Black Mists." She paused and thought for a second longer. "You keep your codenames though." Jeffery signaled everyone to leave as he turned to exit the not-so-safe-house. "Miller, you'll be Commander." Miller sighed. He hated leading teams. After they climbed the ladder to the surface and looked at the burned down shed Miller turned to Jake and the team

"We'll go to my main house and get suited up." He said before turning to Jeffery and Jena. "I suppose the U.S. government can supply us with uniforms that will keep us hidden?" Jeffery nodded and started to walk to his helicopter. Five hundred feet in every direction had been burned down and fire fighters were still fighting the blaze while soldiers loaded back into there trucks and the new team moved onto the helicopter following Jeffery and Jena.

Notes:

I must thank computer recovery for this chapter being finished when it was instead of me getting pissed at the world and saying fuck it and leaving it alone for more time. The power flashed after I had typed a large portion without saving and I only lost a couple sentences. Now once again thank you all for reading my story and thank you to the reviewers and to those who have liked this story. If any one thinks something would add to the story, just tell me and it might pop up (if it can work into the story). I am always up for advice on my works of any type.

Miller Out.