A/N: I'll just clear the air on this now. I'm not Tom Clancy. If you're looking for realistic, thought out military plots of actual realistic targets with sensible gameplans, this is not that story.

I'm writing like, pure Action Movie Stuff that focuses on the characters overall. Just so you don't get the wrong idea that you're getting a realistic stakeout. This is Grindhouse Die Hard/Commando/etc stuff, not Rainbow Six.

AND with that, onward! Gets kinda violent in this chapter.

Scoping out the area with his night-vision binoculars, Ralf could see a few men scattered about the building...but none around the garage. They were near the outskirts again, where the more...nefarious types tended to hang out, due to their distance from everything.

Which was exactly where they wanted to be.

"How is it?" Clark asked.

"Clear. Let's move in." The two started to make their way in between the abandoned buildings, heading down through a basement they knew existed. The lights were on down here, and the smell of oil and petrol was strong, as it was in these places, despite there not being too many vehicles. It basically permeated the concrete.

"So...how do we know what's what?" Clark asked.

"This place, according to everything, is only used by the particular individuals we are dealing with. Having looked out over everything before we even got Adel involved, their movements have all tracked. Unless someone decides to sneak in unseen, any vehicles here will belong to individuals from the syndicate."

The blonde smirked. "I guess this is your job."

"Well, both of us. I need you to see if there's anyone around. This building is just a garage, a warehouse, and some other odds and ends. But we will likely run into at least a hostile or two."

"Or more," Clark said as he removed his computer, starting to set up the various motion sensors.

"Uh oh," Ralf whispered. "How many?"

"A dozen or so?"

"Oh, pfft. Thought you meant the entire group would be here, instead."

"We don't know how well they're armed. Keep in mind anyone associated with the Bernsteins in the past could well have a black-market weapons pipeline."

"This is true," the brown-haired soldier replied, as he checked the sensors with Clark. "I'm thinking if you jam their communications while I sabotage the immediate vehicles-the ones closest to us-we can then deal with them easier, without a chance of them escaping."

"Then when it's clear, we'll send the news to Leona for them to begin, and let Adel and Whip know that they'll be on standby and to keep watch."

"And to let us know if anything goes weird." Ralf adjusted the pack at his side which held some of his tools. "Cover me. I'm gonna go mess up some vehicles," he said. Looking around, he went over to the first car as Clark kept watch, both on his one computer and with his own eyes. He still heard nothing; this was good.

Making his way over, the car was a large luxury sedan. Glancing around, he saw that there was, indeed, an alarm on the car. Shaking his head-he would have to wait to do the alarmed ones, since he knew that likely popping the hood would set it off and even if he killed it within a couple of seconds, it'd be noticed-he moved onto another, seeing it didn't have one. He popped the hood and cut the necessary wires.

Clark kept an eye on him as he continued, sabotaging as many as he could that were not alarmed. Eventually he headed back, repositioning next to Clark.

"Seven vehicles sabotaged. Three had alarms. So we have an option-I'll trip them, and then we take them out when they run down. Or we sneak in and get the drop on them."

Clark rubbed his chin. "Still about a dozen. No new blips on the radar. Might be better if they come down, since they'll have to come through here. We can head near the door behind the other cars, and start neutralizing them as they come."

"I think that's what we'll do. I'll start at the end, pop the hood, rip the battery out, and by the time I get back...well, just be ready by the door in case they're fast," he grinned.

Clark packed up his communications gear, tucking it safely back into the bulletproof backpack. "Right, then. I'll be ready." He crept over near the door, probably ready to twist one into a pretzel the minute he stepped out.

Heading back over to the furthest car first-luckily, two were near each other, and then he could dash toward the one closest to Clark, take care of it, and then rush in to help him.

Assuming everything went according to plan, of course.

Giving Clark a few moments to get into position, he got his necessary tools ready; by which he removed a big crowbar, ready to just pry the hood open with his own brute force.

Which he did. Sure enough, the alarm started wailing but it only took Ralf a split second to rip the battery out to silence it. Moving quickly to the second he repeated the process…but the third, closest to him, was silent. He ripped the cords out anyway...but quickly saw this wasn't it.

Punching his massive fist through the window, he reached in and ripped the alarm out from the inside.

Running back over to Clark, he nodded toward the last one.

"That one probably notified them," he said.

Clark checked his sensors. "Yep. The first two were no issue."

"It's always the silent ones," Ralf grumped.

"Don't be hard on yourself," the blonde said. "You knew we were gonna have to deal." He grinned. "I'm proud you managed to keep quiet so far."

Flipping him off-with a grin-he sat tight, ready to intercept the first man who came through the door.

Sure enough, they started to hear voices, mostly mumbling about something happening, along with a few swears. They sounded fairly alert; they grew louder and louder until one opened the door…

...and Ralf immediately stood, staring him down. He decided to make sure that these guys were hostiles.

Judging by the fact the man began to pull a gun out, he indeed was. It didn't take Ralf long to lay into him with a furious, high speed flurry of strikes to the man's head and chest, barreling him into the car, as he let loose with one more massive one to the side of his head, ending him. He slid off the car as Ralf turned around.

"They're hostile."

"No shit," Clark said, running at the next man who had stepped out, surprised. Before the enemy could react, Clark had him in a hold that looked awfully unnatural, which only lasted a few moments until he dropped him, his neck at an angle they usually were not at unless they were broken. He looked over at Ralf who had proceeded to drop kick a man in the chest so hard he went flying into one of the cars at a speed that ended up caving in the door; the blow shattered his ribs and spine as blood shot from his mouth in a stream, hitting the concrete. Needless to say, he expired quickly.

"You're taking them all!" Clark yelled, squaring up against another.

"Well, better hurry!" Ralf yelled back to him, charging yet another foe.

The opposition was quite surprised at the two large and well-coordinated men waiting for them in the garage. Already, they had taken down three in mere moments, and had two more in their grasp before the rest of them could even get into place. There were still more that could come in, that one swiftly started radioing for, seeing that seven were not going to be enough, but they swiftly realized they had made a mistake.

Ralf kneed the one in front of him in the stomach so hard he practically started to vomit; meeting him with an uppercut, a straight punch, and a roundhouse, he staggered to the wall, spitting blood, where a quick, vicious shoulder-charge crunched his midsection against the concrete. Smashing his fist into his nose from below made sure he was not getting up again.

Clark, on the other hand, had to deal with a man who had managed to slide a knife out; thankfully, he managed to twist in him such a way that he only managed to poke it into his armored vest and not into anything else. Hoisting him onto his shoulders, he heaved him into the air, smashing his spine down into his shoulders before heaving him head-first onto the ground with a sharp, sickening crack.

The other two had drawn guns and tried to fire; but given the high movement and the fact they were more on the level with grunts than someone of Ralf and Clark's caliber, the shots mostly missed. One hit Clark in his vest, but the fact it was good against small arms fire simply caused the man to stumble back, grunting. Kneeling to catch his breath-he would have a good bruise there, at least, he looked up to see Ralf run at the man, catching him in a jump-kick to the neck as he stumbled back and down, hitting his head on the concrete on top of it. If those two things hadn't been enough, a swift punch to the temple from the large man definitely ended him, as Ralf looked over to slide a throwing knife from his pouch.

This was not needed, as Clark managed to recover, rush and catch the other man in his patented Frankensteiner; one moment later the unfortunate enemy was getting his head slammed on the ground swiftly as the blonde caught him with his legs. A crunch was heard, and Clark rolled away, over to Ralf.

They heard more coming, seemingly trying to surround them.

"The hell are they coming from?" Ralf asked, taking a position.

"Some side door we didn't map. Don't get pincered."

"Yep." Ralf instead went to head over behind one of the vehicles nearby. Upon seeing one turn the corner, he heaved the throwing knife at him; somehow he managed to stick it into the man's arm and shoved him against the wall. Clark saw this opening, ran up, and got the man in a Cobra twist, quickly ending him by breaking several important bones in one go, including his spine.

The two had always been excellent at teamwork, which is why they were rarely, if ever, split up.

The enemy was now dwindling. Having plowed through half of their number already, the men tried to figure out a coordination tactic to take the seasoned pair by some sort of surprise, though their morale was long wavering.

To give them some credit, they tried to lay down suppressive fire with their semi-automatic handguns; this made it more difficult for the pair to close in. Unfortunately, it also gave their own men a bit of a harder time closing in, but it had become apparent that fighting these two in close was not the way to go.

Ralf nodded over at Clark; he aimed and quickly let loose with another throwing knife, and followed with a mad charge toward one of the men. The knife hit home in his shoulder, causing him to scream and drop the gun; a swift barrage of fists to the man's head pulverized him and put him down, several feet away.

Clark, meanwhile, rolled over to sweep another man down, dashing from side to side on his way, never giving him a clean shot. It was dangerous, but he knew he had to take the other man with the suppressive fire down at this point. Shockingly, the man didn't drop his gun as he fell, and instead went to turn it on Clark; the grappler grabbed his arm when he felt it tense, and aimed it at one of the other still-standing men.

Two bullets ripped through his neck and chest, dropping him on the spot as Clark then cleanly snapped the man's neck.

Just like that, there were now four left, and Ralf had grabbed one of them.

Clark managed to spring to his feet and catch the large man nearby who had reached for something; tangling with him and managing to get him into a vicious hold. The guy was fairly big and tough, though, and tried to fight him on it. At the same time, Ralf cracked the neck of the man he had in his grasp, just as he saw a third man running up, something small and round in his hand.

Something small and round that he had just pulled a pin on.

"Clark!" Ralf shouted. "Grenade!" he dashed forward toward the man who was dashing in to slide the device on the ground toward them.

"YAAAHHHH! " the big man yelled, letting loose with a giant, charging punch to the unfortunate man's head. When it connected, his skull nearly folded around his fist, as he flew back all the way to one of the cars he had sabotaged, crashing into it and leaving a massive crater in the vehicle's trunk. Turning back around, he saw the item the man dropped...too close to Clark.

Running, Ralf gave the rolling grenade a mighty punt; it indeed went flying...and it exploded in the air. He covered his head and curled up; luckily, the last unoccupied man took the brunt, getting horribly shredded by the explosion on contact, decorating the parking garage rather brutally.

Unfortunately, Ralf was close enough to take some of it to his side. He wasn't sure what got hit, but he ended up being pushed backward somewhat by the blast, rolling. He came to a stop, fairly dazed.

Clark, seeing his friend hurt, ended up completely breaking the spine of the man whom he was grappling with in two almost instantly, ramming his head into the wall to make sure he was dead. Throwing him aside-the man seeming rather boneless at this point-he raced over to Ralf. His ears somewhat ringing-even with the protection they always wore when on the field-he shook him, making sure the dazed man was alright.

"Yeah?" Ralf said, rubbing his head. "Damn, I'm glad you made us wear this shit," he said, pulling out one of his earplugs.

"Look, I had a feeling these guys would be packing ordinance. Also, what the fuck possessed you to punt a grenade?" He checked his friend's eyes.

"You did."

Clark chuckled. "Come on. Let's gather our shit up and get in there. Lock the door. We'll go from there. You okay to walk?"

"Of course," he said, standing just to show him. He was a little dazed, but he'd dealt with worse. Far, far worse.

Gathering up everything they could-their packs that they had stowed safely behind one of the dead cars, which were fine after the rather large tussle-they went to go sort through the dead to dig up any communicators, identification, or anything they may have been foolish enough to leave on themselves. Clark noticed Ralf sort of wincing-he knew he had some shrapnel in him from it-and tried to hurry along.

Finishing after about ten minutes, Clark unlocked the door with a keycard that had been on one of the men and let the two of them in, unloading everything into the corner, which he'd sort through later. For now, there was something more important. He removed his first aid kit, nodding over to the other corner that had the most light, after making sure both doors were locked.

"Alright, idiot. Get over there," the blonde said, nodding toward the spot.

"Way to talk to your savior." He sat, stretching himself out. He could use a little break, to be fair.

Clark simply shook his head, opening the kit. "We gotta get the shrapnel out, first."

"Of course. Been through this."

"You think you'd have learned by now."

Ralf just snorted, looking up at his friend. "That was a good punt, you have to admit."

"Hell yeah, it was. It just came a few seconds too late."

"It put me ahead. Ended up one up on you."

"Lucky."

Grunting, he sat, positioning so Clark could reach his arm. His vest caught most of the shrapnel; bulletproof vests were good against things like shrapnel or flechette rounds in particular, but he ended up close enough to the blast that his jacket's arm was torn into. Setting his coat aside, he sat back as Clark started by dumping some antiseptic over the wound, causing Ralf to hiss, though it wasn't all that bad.

Not nearly as bad as being hit with the thing. Or as bad as what was about to come.

"Alright, here goes."

Gritting his teeth, Ralf looked at his friend as the blonde man worked with the tweezers to remove the shrapnel from his arm.

"You better not make a mess of this like I do," he grunted, though grinned at him.

Clark looked up; his sunglasses now off to the side, he grinned back. "I paid more attention in field classes, remember?"

"That was a long time ago, asshole."

"Hold still. Bite on something."

"Whiskey would be great right now."

"Gotta stay sharp."

"Yeah, I know...yikes! How many pieces are in there?"

"Not as many as you'd think. Luckily you didn't take the full brunt. You can still punch everything."

Snorting, he leaned back to let the blonde work. "You alright?"

"Yeah, thanks to your daring act of idiocy," he said, though smiled back at him. "And I mean it. Thanks. I don't think I've seen you hit a guy that hard in a long time."

"You were distracted again."

Digging around some more-as carefully as he could-he snagged it, before looking at him. "I was busy."

" Taking your time wrestling a guy, apparently."

"Shut up and grab something that you won't break in your fist. I found the big piece."

"I'll just punch the floor."

Yanking suddenly, Clark extracted the rather large piece from his shoulder, causing Ralf to growl and indeed punch the ground with his bloodied fist, leaving an ample crater in the tiled floor. Panting, he looked up as Clark held the thing in tweezers out to him.

"Here ya go."

"I don't want it."

"You sure? You saved me this time."

"What do you mean, this time?"

"I mean, usually it's the other way around."

"Usually. That said, I'm sure you'll just do it for me again at some point."

Clark grinned, dumping some more antiseptic in, cleaning it off as well as he could, and wrapping it up. "You gonna be alright?"

"Of course I'll be alright, what the hell kinda question is that? Don't you go trying to jump on grenades, now."

"And have to deal with you taking this shit out of me?"

Ralf grinned, wrapping his trademark bandanna around his head as he handed Clark's shades to him. The other man put his hat back on, and the two went to the corner of the building to grab their pocket computers to go see where the rest were.

"Adel!" he called.

A few moments passed before he got an answer. "Yeah?"

"We're secure here. No casualties. Only hostile deaths. As you could guess, these aren't the surrendering type. You remember what we told you guys to do, right?"

"Yeah. Seirah's got the lead."

"She's good at leading muscleheads," Ralf joked. "I should know. You just hit what she points at."

"Got it," he said, Ralf hearing him chuckle on the other line. "Wait, don't you boss them around?"

"Of course. But I'll listen to good advice sometimes."

"Sometimes," Clark said in the background.

"Hey!"

Adel was standing in the building across the way, pacing like a big cat in a cage. Whip looked over at him softly, her arms folded.

"You look so restless."

He turned toward her, the...look in his eyes one that she was familiar with. "I am," he said, plainly.

"You feeling alright?"

"Oh, yes. I feel fine. I'll feel even better when I send my boot through their heads."

She walked over to him, beginning to rub his back. She knew when this side came out, he could start talking rather aggressively; to someone else, he'd have probably sounded frightening. Terrifying, even.

He exhaled, sighing at her touch. She pressed her forehead between his shoulder blades.

"Sit tight. The guys know what they're doing."

"I know," he said, allowing her to calm him somewhat.

"You can let loose on them when we get in there," she said plainly. "I'll watch your back."

"It has been awhile."

"I know, hon. I know."

She stood there, leaning on him as he placed his large hand over hers. He closed his eyes, remembering again how lucky he was that someone would accept that side of him like she did.

"Alright," Ralf said, feeling better with the bandage around his arm, though he knew he'd have to get things checked better when he returned. "What are you finding on your stuff?"

Clark looked over the pocket computer that he had liberated from one of the dead men, and was nodding. "Quite the mother lode." He had used a few of his tools to easily hack in-they were basic phones and pocket computers, and these guys were apparently not the sharpest tools in the shed. They had a couple of layers of security, but it was easily defeated. "A lot of emails, several of them mentioning Furze."

"Christ," Ralf said, shaking his head, looking at one of the other things he had pulled off another guy. "Nothing here, but with other names and emails, we can probably end up bringing even more of these down like we suspected."

"I'm of a mind to try to go further into this building," the blonde said thoughtfully. "Try to see what we can find." He looked at his partner. "You gonna be alright if there's more we don't know about?"

The big man snorted. "Of course."

Packing everything up-being particularly careful with all the stuff they collected off the guys, placing them in various pouches and pockets, Clark prudently manned the sensors to see if anyone else was hiding about. So far, it was clean.

Moving inside slowly, they were on a long corridor; it was sort of T-shaped, and as they explored either side of it, they wondered what it led to.

"Remember what this used to be?" Ralf asked.

"Nah, maybe a hotel, once? Hasn't been used for that though since we've been here. Probably just bought off by the syndicate."

"Seems like it." He poked in another couple of rooms, eventually reaching the fire exit. "We okay?"

"Yeah. Still nothing."

Opening the door-no alarm went off, thankfully, so they didn't have to deal with trying to dismantle that thing-they started heading up to the next floor, to see what they would come across. Opening the door, they found the building was nothing more than a sort of small, dingy office setup. It was clearly only used for nefarious means these days-it probably had been paid off and taken over.

"Huh. Weird place," Ralf said, poking around an office. "Files?" He opened a drawer, ruffling through some folders.

"Hard copies," Clark said. "Wonder why they'd keep them."

"Guess they figured no one would come poking around this place."

"Since this building is privately owned, no one probably thought to look around."

"Wait a second," Ralf said. "Back...earlier this year. When Adel and Seirah went to clear out that one place...didn't they have a bunch of hard copies, too?"

"They did," Clark said, sitting in one of the chairs that was in the place. "Don't think the groups are connected, do you?"

"Those were practically cleared out root and stem. All that was left were a few stragglers."

"I heard our assassin friend had taken care of some of those, even." The blonde shuffled through the papers, looking for anything interesting. "Some of these are dated back."

"Written in German, it looks like. At least some. Others are in English." The two were somewhat proficient in several languages; this was very useful for how much travel they had done. While they weren't fluent in all of them, they were considered probably more than conversational in them.

"A lot of arms stuff. Nothing too out there?" Clark said, almost sitting back. While they may have looked almost relaxed, they were still prudently keeping watch on their small computers-complete with the sensors-just in case something weird happened.

"Nah-standard weapons. Which is kinda weird, since a lot of these aren't even hard for the underworld to get a hold of."

"Hm."

Ralf looked at his friend. "Which of course means...you think they were covering something worse up?"

"Could be."

"Okay...let's replay this whole mess. Starting from back in March." Ralf had a folder in his hand, which he passed over to Clark to shove into one of his packs to take back. "Adel takes care of the two syndicates. One of course was going undercover."

"Yeah."

"The commander made sure a few of the remnants were cleaned up. A little dust-up happened in Frankfurt over the summer-but those were other remnants. Duo Lon took care of them."

"And now, this guy. About three months after the Frankfurt incident. A little more than that." Clark took his hat off a moment to smooth his hair back before replacing it. "It could simply be this guy heard about the competition being reduced to nothing, so he decided to step in. And since it's probably no secret the Bernsteins were behind it…"

Ralf sighed. "They decided to try to get smart and set it up to try to stay Adel's hand, since they know he'll come after them. I'm glad we found out about it. He...has some things in common with me, I think, in that he likes to run into things, especially when it comes to cleaning up his family's messes." The big man cracked his knuckles, standing. "Let's load up and finish searching the building. We can deal with these later. I think we need to kill a few more communications."

Once again the pair stood, collecting everything they could, their packs they brought quite full with stuff to run through. Heading back out into the hallway, they started combing around other rooms, of which seemed relatively benign.

Finally, they reached what seemed to be a last one; this one had a piece of paper on it, the penciling seemingly relatively fresh. It almost seems like-the way the room was-that this was something that had been written before the car alarm had gone off, and whoever had been writing it stopped suddenly and took off.

"Huh," Clark said, picking it up. "It's an address. And a couple of names."

"Where's the address?"

"Not far from where Adel and Whip are."

"Huh. You know, I think we'll go there next. They still have the same job, but we'll give everyone a head's up. I don't like this, somehow."

"Getting that little gut feeling too, eh?" the blonde asked.

"You know it."

"Wonder what we'll find?"

"Maybe nothing. Maybe something big. But I ain't gonna leave it." He looked at his radio. "If I stay here and let the others know, can you go kill any comm devices they might have here?"

Clark checked the sensors. "Yeah, we're alone. I'd go anyway, but it doesn't hurt to check." He checked his gear, heading out to go poke into a few of the rooms again.

Ralf nodded, first giving Leona a call.

"Yes?"

"We're gonna need you to move in soon. We're going to a place a few blocks from Adel and Seirah, though."

"Change of plans?" she asked.

"Negative," he said. "Not for you, anyway. We're doing some extra."

"Roger. Will let my partner know."

He repeated the call to Seirah.

"There's something else?" she asked.

"Don't know. We found an address, and we're going to check it out. Sit tight until we give the signal."

"Roger. Out."

Finally standing, gathering up anything else he had, he checked his shoulder; he could still move it perfectly fine. It was sore, but he had taken worse. The shotgun blast was worse. The myriad of bullets and knives were even worse. He had taken other shrapnel in his days that was worse than this.

Eventually moving back to meet Clark, he nodded, peeking into the room. "Get everything done?"

"Yeah, killed what communication I could, if someone should head back into this place."

"Let's bolt, then."

The two made their way back out from where they came. Carefully checking, they made sure the garage was secure and that they were not being followed; heading back out of the basement-making sure it was locked up tight, as they would radio in for cleanup when this was all done-they made their way quietly down any alleys and back areas, trying to get to the address of the building that was on the small piece of paper, about three or so blocks from where Adel and Whip were stationed.

Clark thought for a moment. "Think we could have sent Adel and Whip here, instead?"

Ralf shook his head. "I considered it. But I wanna keep them there. Figured we're not busy, so we could handle one more." He moved himself into a secure corner in one of the alleys. "Can you check for problems?" he said.

"Of course." He smiled.

Ralf lightly punched him on the shoulder as he took his sensors out. He looked over at the screen as Clark fiddled with it. "Looks empty."

"Yeah, seems so. I don't think these guys are the type with cloaking devices."

"I somehow think dudes writing notes on yellow notebook paper don't have access to that yet."

"Good point."

"Heh, lemme at this."

"I knew you couldn't resist kicking down a door at some point."

"Oh, shush." Ralf stood, wandering over to the side door of the place. Winding back, he hit it with a mighty boot, putting a huge amount of his power behind it. No one knew where Ralf and Clark summoned their vast reserves of strength from, but it came from somewhere.

The door shot open with a crash. No voices were heard; it was loud enough in there that surely, had anyone been around, they'd have raised alarm and come running, so the sensors seemed to be accurate. Turning toward Clark, he simply grinned, sliding his night-vision goggles on-the building was dark, as was the outside, by now, and this area was devoid of lights-and moved in. Clark followed, keeping watch from behind.

This place was a lot more scattered; it was seemingly a storage area. Searching around-not putting on any lights, but instead taking out heavy-duty flashlights and shining them around, they quickly made their way around the couple of rooms.

Boxes were scattered about; some empty, others indeed seemed to have some arms in them, though nothing terribly heavy-certainly some sort of shipment, though.

"Ralf," Clark suddenly said after a few minutes of searching in a corner.

"Yeah? There's a whole bunch of boxes of crap here. Not-"

"Get in here." His voice was flat.

Blinking-knowing how his friend would talk to him normally-he quickly moved toward where he was, looking where the beam of Clark's flashlight was pointing. Walking a bit closer, he moved his goggles up, and exhaled.

"Ah, shit. Call it in."

A/N: Well this was a bit of an adventure. Some fighting, sabotage, and planning for what's next. Gotta wonder what they're going to find in that building coming up, perhaps.

These two are good, though. In and out, and this probably didn't take all that long. They can even handle something without blowing it up!

Adel's 'Other Side' is first seen way back in Etudé of Revolution, again somewhat in Blood Bond, and is dealt with in greater detail in Nocturne. In short, he does have some remnants of the power his old man had(what Goenitz gave him), and it comes out in sort of violent ways sometimes, though after Nocturne, he has a much better grasp of it.