I do not avoid Avengers or any of the characters.
Reemergence
William sighed as he leaned on the railing, staring down the lawn at the lake. Buying a lakeside cottage had been a great way to waste some of their combined fortune. And it came with the added bonus of being a perfect place to enjoy some rest and relaxation on their vacation.
"Here you are," Olivia smiled, walking over to him, leaning on the railing beside him.
William smiled as he glanced at her and her small black bikini. She really was beautiful.
"So, do you think we'll really make it through our entire two-week vacation?" Olivia asked.
"Not a chance," William snorted. "We'll be fighting again by tomorrow."
Olivia nodded in agreement. "Most likely. But on the other hand, maybe not. Things might be quiet for a while now that the whole world just witnessed Ultron. Probably the whole world will want a break from crazy."
William smiled, but it faded quickly. "Not the whole world, it seems."
Olivia sighed heavily, pushing off the railing and pulling one of her knives free of the railing, duplicating it to have two of them as she turned back into the house, William forming his bow as he did the same. As they stared inside, a pair of their old colleagues stepped into view. Two of the better assassins in their old organization. One of the pair wore a tight black muscle shirt, ripped jeans, and a pair of black combat boots, his black hair shaved short but starting to grow out again. On his right arm was an elbow-length row of pitch-black splints with the back of the hand bearing three claw-like blades extending level with the gaps between his fingers, each claw about six inches. He was as lethal with the claws as one would expect from one of the top-ranked members of the organization. In close range, he was actually nearly as skilled as William and Olivia. The other assassin was a fan of the Assassin's Creed games and had designed what amounted to his cosplay outfit off of it. His outfit consisted of a tight black jacket, black, leather shoulder guards, a black, leather chest guard that left his abdomen unprotected, a black half-cape falling on only his left side down to about his elbow with a hood raised and falling to hide his face, impractical though it was, given the loss of vision above waist height, loose black pants, black, leather, knee-high boots, and a pair of black vambraces which both concealed retractable blades on the insides of his forearms, with which he was actually very skilled.
"Really?" William asked. "They sent the cosplay nerd, and the guy who fights with a claw that can only be used from his right arm? That's insulting."
The one with the claw, Deacon, laughed, as the other, Lorenzo, extended his blades, arms held out to his sides slightly in a pose reminiscent of the characters from his favorite video games, but one which was admitedly not all that threatening.
"This'll be fun," Deacon said. "I get William."
"I'll handle Olivia, then," Lorenzo said.
William and Olivia both rolled their eyes.
"Can we at least take this outside?" Olivia asked. "We just bought this place."
Neither of the assassins sent to kill them responded, instead simply charging, so William and Olivia turned and vaulted over the railing, then spun, avoiding their pursuers' strikes. William spun, slashing at Deacon with his bow rapidly before trading it for a pair of daggers as he avoided a swipe of Deacon's claws. Deacon spun, kicking at him before making several wide, sweeping slashes with his claws. William sighed, rolling his eyes.
"You never did pay attention to your opponent's abilities!" William said, then slashed Deacon's arm off on the next swipe.
Deacon shouted in pain before William drove a dagger through the side of his head. As he did, he looked over at Olivia, who was rapidly deflecting Lorenzo's slashes and stabs, both using her daggers and by redirecting his forearms with her own, blocking or dodging kicks as well. Finally, as he moved to stab her, she caught his forearm before spinning behind him and breaking his elbow, then drove a dagger down into his thigh before flipping him over her shoulder. She ripped the dagger back out and drove it into his other arm, pinning it to the ground as William joined her beside him.
"Bullseye's dead," William said. "Who sent you?"
Lorenzo spat at him, and William rolled his eyes.
"Classy," William said, driving an energy dagger down into his thigh. "Let's try this again. Who ordered our assassination?"
"You know we don't know the client's identity!" Lorenzo shouted, partway in pain and partway in anger.
"True," William said. "But what I meant was, who's head of the organization? Who's taking the money and passing down the orders?"
Lorenzo shouted in pain as William stabbed his other leg. "Torture me if you want, but I won't tell you shit!"
"I believe you," William nodded, then drove his dagger up into Lorenzo's head, killing him.
"You think they really only sent these two to kill the two of us?" Olivia asked.
"Oh please," William snorted. "They weren't sent to kill us, they just thought they were. They were sent as a message. It's time to go home."
Olivia rolled her eyes. "I was looking forward to time off. Fine. Let's go clean house."
William nodded, and they headed for the Quinjet they had borrowed from the Avengers facility, heading back toward home. Not the one in the city where their master had died, though. The real headquarters, located in an ancient ruin in the Himalayan mountains. After a few hours, of flying, they landed about half a mile from it and stepped out, only for golden light to spiral into existence ahead of them, forming a portal before a bald woman dressed as a monk with pale orange robes stepped out, a two-fingered ring with the face being a block of gold on her left hand.
"Come with me, if you please," she said. "I would like to speak with you for a moment."
William blinked twice before looking to Olivia, who shrugged, nodding. They followed her through the portal and into a library. As they followed her through it, they looked around at the books flying themselves between shelves, the people forming portals to travel to and from the library quickly, all of them dressed like monks, and some items, like a suit of armor, turning with William and Olivia's passage, as though watching them. They shared a knowing look. Not the weirdest thing they'd seen.
"I should thank you for interrupting your quest for closure," the woman they were following finally said, just before they reached a small room with a stone table in the center, two monks standing beside it, one wearing brown robes and the other wearing dark green. "I promise you, this conversation will be well worth your time."
"Well, we're actually supposed to be on vacation," William said. "But someone sent our old colleagues to kill us, so we're really just trying to protect our time off."
"Indeed," the woman said, not sounding convinced. "Recently, I've noticed something a bit strange. I've been monitoring threats to this world, or beyond, but as I was doing so, I noticed a trend. A face, reoccurring across multiple passing encounters among multiple individuals, not least of which are your Avengers. A single face encountered multiple times by each, though only for an instant, and never once noticed as having been seen before. I began to search for that face through the lives of a great number of either very powerful, or very important individuals, and I found a rather shocking number of occurrences of the same face. And then, I found the two of you. You two were both raised and trained by someone bearing the same face I'd now seen countless times."
William and Olivia's head snapped around to each other before their gazes returned to the woman. "Our master!?"
"That's right," the woman nodded. "However, neither of you remembers your first encounter with him."
"I do," William said. "It was the day my powers slaughtered my entire family."
"Not so," the woman said. "It was the day your powers first manifested. There was a time before what you remember as the first. A man with your master's face had met your mother in passing as she carried you as a newborn infant, seemingly a harmless meeting of chance, and yet seconds after the meeting, your power manifested and caused a state-wide blackout that lasted three days." Her gaze turned to Olivia. "And the first time you met him, you were a toddler. He gave you a toy for free as the owner of a store, but as you walked away, an exact replica of the toy was still with the store's owner. Then, the day each of you met the man you know as your master, the face reappears. From there, you two are raised by this being for years, and yet you know nothing about them. Then, one day, you see him ambushed, he tells you to flee, and you assume that he is dead, and are told such later, only to see the face again shortly before Ultron awoke. And that was far from the only occurrence since your master's supposed death. He's been a neighbor here, a rich pervert there, a drunk, an old man on the news. I've witnessed his face in the lives of countless other people. And yet, this is impossible. If he were human, he'd have to be living in countless different places at the same time."
"What are you saying?" William asked. "That our master's alive, and isn't human?"
"I'm saying that your master is most definitely not human, and is most definitely alive," she said. "However, I don't know what he is, or what he intends to do. But I do know where you can find him."
"Where?" William asked.
"This book contains a ritual to open a portal into a pocket dimension, a sort of expanded space, where you can find your master," she said, holding out a book, which William accepted. "Your powers can open the gate, which, as coincidence would have it, lies inside of the same headquarters you were heading for before."
"Coincidence, or someone's specific intention," William said. "Why should we trust you?"
The woman considered for a moment. "Whether to trust or not is your choice. However, even if you do not trust me, you wish to know if your master lives, and you both have a great many things you wish to discuss with him in regards to his treatment of William."
William glanced at Olivia, who nodded. "How does the ritual work?"
"You light several candles, then follow the instructions on how to manipulate your energy," the woman said. "I've had the book translated into English for you, and unlike when you mimicked the energy of the Tesseract, this will not have any negative side effects with regards to your powers."
William nodded, then looked around. "I don't suppose you could hold onto this while we deal with the assassins waiting in the headquarters?"
"No," the woman said, waving the hand wearing the ring in a circle, forming a portal. "Off you go, then."
William and Olivia sighed and nodded, heading through the portal. Once they were standing on the slopes of the mountain again, both of them groaned, staring at the headquarters.
"I forgot there were no good sniper positions," Olivia sighed.
"Or easy stealth entrances," William sighed. "I hate full frontal assaults."
"Agreed," Olivia nodded. "Range and stealth are much better."
William nodded in agreement before forming his energy bow. "I'll knock. Know which gun you're going to use?"
Olivia nodded, drawing her G36. "If we're going in loud, I'm just going to flood the hallways with bullets."
William chuckled, nodding, and drew his bow back. "Knock, knock, mother fucker. You have a lot of explaining to do!"
The arrow streaked across the short distance to the massive gate into the hideout and exploded, blasting a massive hole into the wall. Then, the battle began less than a second later.
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