Cool, I managed to finish this in less than 30 days.
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There was a saying: keep your friends close, but your enemies closer. There was also common sense in not getting close to your target, lest you think of them as anything more than a contract.
Unfortunately, Martin Kane wasn't one for common sense, his sheer lack of it had cost him two weeks and 10 lien to buy a copy of "Bartender's book to everything" supposedly it had 1001 drinks to try. Having that many options of drink made Kane rethink being sober.
"Excuse me." A voice rang out amongst the general chatter of the bar.
Kane looked up from wiping down the bar, there stood a middle aged man.
Lester Mcfields stood alone trying to get Kane's attention for a drink. He frequented this very club every Friday at 7:00 pm, always showing up just when the after-work rush hit its peak.
Mcfields was a senior software developer from some software firm a couple streets from the bar. The man had seen better days as of late, as he had been recently fired on the grounds of intentionally sabotaging the company and embezzling funds. His boss had tried to get him arrested by the police after not backing down from his goal, but Mcfield's wasn't a senior software developer for nothing. He had successfully covered his online tracks, making his crime practically nonexistent.
Mcfield's soon retaliated with automated cyber attacks which left the companies servers open to viruses and malware. The CEO of the software company had had enough of Mcfield, he wanted him gone.
"You're excused", Kane responded.
Lester was unimpressed with the sarcastic comeback. This highly offended Kane, but he chose to ignore it.
"So, the usual?" Kane asked.
There it was, the key that the entire operation was based around. Lester Mcfield's life ran on a schedule. Monday's he'd see his estranged kids, Wednesdays he'd stay overtime at work(well, not anymore), and Fridays he'd go to the same bar at the same time without failure. Kane was pretty sure this guy scheduled his sips between his drinks as well. It'd been a miracle nobody had memorized his schedule to mug or harm him, well, other than Kane of course."
"Yeah."
Kane proceeded to set a crystal tumbler on the counter, dropping 3 perfectly cut ice cubes in the glass. This was followed by a generous pour of Four Roses bourbon, he pushed the glass towards the man hunched over the bar.
"Something bothering you?" Kane questioned. He resigned himself to wiping his hands on his utility apron, then dutifully wiping the counter with his rag. He only received a tired grunt as a response from Mcfields.
"Well suit yourself, you know where I'll be." Kane pulled a can of soda from under the bar, he obnoxiously cracked it open to try to get a reaction out of Mcfields.
"Don't tell the boss I'm drinking the mixers." Kane took long slurps out of the can, he patiently waited until Mcfields caved.
"I lost my job!" Mcfields blurted out. "I lost my job, my boss accused me of stealing money!"
That was a lie, Kane had seen the company records.
Playing the victim, alright. Kane set a coaster for Mcfield's drink, he wiped off the ring left by the glass.
Mcfields raised his glass and took quick, long drinks. "I just don't know what to do, it's unfair." He slammed his fist down on the table. Kane might've felt threatened if Mcfields wasn't whining like a petulant child.
"Did he have any proof?" Kane hoped sometime in the conversation, Mcfields would accept his mistakes.
"He just compiled some bullshit numbers together and blamed me for what was missing!" Mcfields slammed his drink on the table, it's heavy thunk on the bar startled a nearby patron. The first of three drinks had been finished.
Kane set to work fixing his target a second drink, hands floated about for the whiskey and a new cup. He slid the brown liquor towards Mcfields. Kane watched as his customer snatched up the glass holding it close to his lips.
"What does it matter? The money wasn't affecting him." Mcfields complained.
The money was affecting people, anymore taken would halt new projects. If it had continued, the company would have declared bankruptcy. Thus leading to hundreds unemployed, but not Mcfields, he had a cushion of money stored on offshore accounts.
How does someone become an entitled prick?
Kane was internally seething, he didn't dare show it. Having to take care of his family when he could barely keep the fridge stocked stung in a way he couldn't describe. Knowing that some Ivy League dickwad was intentionally leading others to the same fate made Kane less inclined to play his part as the wise bartender. Kane just resigned himself to wiping down the countertop in his lonely corner of the bar.
"He said he would even try to get me arrested! Can you believe that?" Mcfields crashed his glass against the bar, the tumbler of whiskey shattered. Splinters of thin crystal glass splayed over the modern looking bar, amber liquid seeped between the shards and onto the club floor.
"Does this mean you'd like your third drink now, Lester?
Mcfield's grumbled harshly, a hand waving for Kane to go ahead.
The final stage of his execution had begun, what's worse is that Mcfield's was the one who orchestrated it. Kane set to work on Mcfield's preferred third drink, Kane once asked the bartender what each and every patron drank. Mcfield liked to have a toasted almond cocktail right before leaving.
Kane poured coffee liqueur, amaretto liqueur and cream into a stainless steel shaker. He intentionally dropped the shaker lid just as he was about to seal the cup, the rounded lid bounced off the table towards Mcfield's.
"Can you get that for me?" Kane was reaching for his shirt pocket for a clear glass vial, he made sure to keep the motion hidden.
"Sure, I guess." Mcfield's crankily muttered, he crouched down to look for the lid.
Kane slipped the contents of the vial inside the shaker, it smelled of bitter almonds, perfect for disguising as an almond cocktail. He started shaking up the contents after putting the stainless steel lid on the shaker. With a quick mix, the contents of the shaker would mingle and create the single cocktail.
The cyanide Kane had mixed in would be among the ingredients.
When Kane learned that Mcfield's always ended his night with an almond cocktail, he just knew this was the way to do it. Poisoning someone discreetly employed the same principle as espionage, be subtle and hide in plain sight.
The thick aroma of the amaretto would mingle with the bitter almond odor of the cyanide, as would the flavors become bitter with a hint of sweetness.
Martin Kane may have been a master assassin, but it turns out he was a horrible bartender.
Mcfield's ended up spitting out the concoction onto the bar floor, his drink-addled mind thought it best. "What the hell was that!"
"It was your drink." Kane calmly responded, his hands tensely wringing the towel. "Did I add too much cream?"
"This is disgusting!" Mcfield's gathered up his jacket, he slid the cocktail back to Kane. "Don't even know why I expected this place to not go to shit when the rest of my life already has!"
You honestly have no idea. Kane thought grimly, he gave it 3- maybe 5 minutes until the poison started taking effect. Despite the drink being spit up, the cyanide had still come in contact with his insides.
"You think anyone's gonna notice?" An exceptionally tall man wearing white dress shirt under a black vest. This man allowed Kane to do his job in his nightclub, the owner, Hei Xiong.
Most people called him Junior.
"Nobody is going to push for an autopsy, if that's what you're asking." Kane set to work on mopping up the cocktail Mcfields spit up, he was careful not to touch the cyanide infused drink. "His wife divorced him on bad terms, his boss and coworkers hated him, and he had no friends. I'd say the Vale police would rule this as alcohol poisoning. Thanks for letting me borrow your place for that, Junior."
The nightclub music blared on in the background as the assassin and the crime lord had a chat.
"I see business has been booming recently." Kane calmly surmised, it definitely had been doing great since he last had been here. The assassin used to have a drink here after every operation, at that point Juniors was nothing more than a ratty old tavern. Now it was a modern nightclub for those wishing to dance the night away.
"I just got into expanding my business ventures. From there the cash started rolling in by the truckload." Junior quite liked Kane, he used to be the bar owner's biggest customer. Junior even knew about his occupation, it was when Kane had drunkenly offered to pay with a free contract one night, after all. "You still work for your company, Star sign investments, right?"
The investment firm was really only a temporary front used by Scorpio assassins to freely take contracts in the comfort of their own domain. You could presumably buy shares in prominent companies, or hire a contract killer to eliminate anyone of your choosing.
"I switched investment firms, better pay and more benefits. You get the idea." Kane removed the vest he borrowed off of one of Junior's people. "I was just running a job for a client while I was here in Vale."
Junior only nodded, he was perfectly aware of the criminal organization named Zodiac. He'd never considered using their services since he had not needed them at the time. Junior often wondered why an assassin of Kane's caliber even hung around his bar when it first opened. Then there was the statement of having switched investment firms was pretty vague, could that have meant that he started working with the government?
"Can I interest you in a drink, Marty?" Junior snapped his fingers, one of his employees walked up with a tray with a glass of amber liquid inside.
"No thanks, I don't drink anymore." Kane had eyed the people down on the dance floor, countless people grinding against each other. "Don't worry about it though, I'm sure it won't hurt your business."
Another snap from Junior sent the server to other parts of the club. "How long have you been working with this new company?"
"Bout two and a half years, give or take." Kane grabbed another can of soda from the bar, it cracked open to reveal carbonated bubbles. "How bout you? I'm sure you really hit it big as mob boss."
"Ah well, we've been in a bit of a bind lately." Junior crossed his arms, his satin vest crinkled slightly. "Some rival gang is moving in on our turf, the thing is though, the Vale police department are keeping their eyes on us. Some of my men were arrested at a heist they were hired for, so I've been under surveillance since then. This makes it harder for us to fight back while the Silver Blades- that's the other gang, they take potshots at our businesses. The Silverblades are also relatively weak, so they fly under everybodies radar while they pick us off one by one." Junior paused, as if to continue, but Kane beat him to the punchline.
"If they take you out, they'll leave a power vacuum. Since they won't be able to reach your level of influence, all other gangs will see control of Vale as up for grabs." Kane checked the time on his scroll, it was nearing 9:00 in the evening.
"All the other gangs will take to the streets to claim what doesn't belong to them, they don't care if Vale gets caught in the crossfire." Junior finished grimly, all that he had built might crumble.
"We can't have that can we?" Kane now removed the vest he borrowed from one of the bartenders. "If you want, I can take care of it." Kane said as if he were offering to help lift some boxes, this only highlight his unconcern with murder.
"I don't know, Marty. If the police catch wind of this-" Junior was cut off by the contract killer.
"The police aren't gonna find anything that connects us, trust me, I'm a professional." Kane stuck a hand out for Junior to shake. "Plus I still owe you for those drinks four years ago."
Junior thought for a moment, accepting Kane's help would prevent a gang war from happening in Vale. Many would be spared from the cruel violence between crime families, it would all be okay if the Xiong family kept everyone else in check from their throne at the top.
The decision was made, Junior shook Kane's hand.
/-/
"I want this classroom sparkling by the time detention is up."
"Yes Professor." Kaiser replied, he robotically went off to gather cleaning supplies. It was times like these where his mind went on autopilot, he had a history of following orders. He worked best when the actions he performed were not his own, much to the spy's chagrin.
That really wasn't the point though, the point was he had to serve detention for a while. After getting caught ditching class, Kaiser had been assigned any odd job that Goodwitch had deemed fit to serve his sentence. Some days he'd work on something outside like trimming the bushes, other days he'd work inside like mopping the floors of the lecture hall.
Today was one of those days where he mopped inside the lecture hall. Kaiser was determined to undo the mess that the other students had made that day.
"Imma go grab a broom to clear the floor of trash, yeah?" Yang made her way to the supply closet looking for the bigger cleaning tools.
Serving detention wasn't all that hard, as selfish it seemed, Kaiser was glad Yang was also here helping him. Before, he only thought of Yang as someone he owed for the simple fact that she extended her hand to him at a low point. After convincing him to ditch, he'd fallen into a state of complete comfort with her. He could let his guard down with Yang, she already knew everything important about him after all. If she was out to hurt him with the information she knew, then she would've done it already. It was hard to admit now, but Kaiser fully trusted Yang. From now on, Kaiser would always have her back just as she had been having his.
Just like… just like the same way Kane had his back.
"We can take it easy for now for a couple minutes before Goodwitch comes back." Yang had said in response to Goodwitch leaving them, she leaned up on the wall.
Yeah, just like Kane.
/-/
Martin Kane liked to enjoy the finer things in life, well, now that he could afford them. Like his new luxury car for example, a bright red Lexus LC 500.
Kane whooped lightly as he watched the most recent James Blond film on his scroll, he didn't care what Kaiser said, this was the greatest film franchise of all time.
His thoughts immediately went to the underage spy, actually, the boy might've just turned 18 by now. He idly wondered what Kaiser would have thought about the movie, one thing he could always count on was the boy heavily criticizing anything that annoyed him.
The touch screen car stereo Kane had displayed a list of contacts from the assassin's scroll. Kaiser's scroll number was in the middle, he had yet to answer his scroll. Kane now knew that the boy had left the IPS for just over a year now, he was proud of the boy for advocating for himself. The only problem was Kaiser could've left a way to contact him, but then again, who expects a dead man to call?
Right below Kaiser's contact was Sebastian Kane: Martin Kane's younger brother. The entire reason he joined Scorpio was for his little brother, the money was too much to refuse. Sebastian Kane lived with Martin and their parents until child protection services took Sebastian for being in unsafe living conditions.
Well… as unsafe a one room trailer in the middle of Mantle could be.
Eventually, Sebastian was adopted by a good family in the capital. That was alright with Martin at least he would know where Sebastian was when the time came to bring him home. In the meantime, Martin did work for the local mafia that ran a couple areas in Mantle. He'd sometimes find time to visit his younger brother in between jobs, oftentimes having to juggle doing contracts and helping his brother with personal issues.
Sometime later, Sebastian was at the age where he would apply to college. By some miracle, Sebastian was accepted into the most prestigious university in all of Atlas. The problem lay in the tuition, scholarships could only cover so much, especially when the school was meant to only accept children of billionaires like the Schnees or the Marigolds.
Suddenly, Sebastian's adoptive family could barely afford the tuition every semester. Sebastian would have to turn down his third year at High Point University, which was a shame since Sebastian seemed to like it there.
Martin wasn't willing to let Sebastian lose his chance to live a great life like that, and he knew exactly how to solve his problem. He used some of his contacts to connect him with a higher paying client, that was when he caught the eye of a Scorpio assassin. His raw fighting talent and innate killer instinct had impressed the organization of contract killers. So they inducted Martin into Scorpio, and they trained him to be a ruthless assassin.
Suddenly, Sebastian was able to attend High Point for the next two years.
Kane had been Scorpio's top assassin, until he had an unfortunate run in with a persistent 14 year old. Some of his superiors were in talks of assassinating the young boy as he'd been involved in disabling one of their major branches two months prior.
This boy, of course, had been Kaiser.
It was after an assasination in Vacuo that Kane's superiors had realized that Kaiser was within reach, so they sent Kane to go take care of him.
Kaiser and the people he worked for had known that he was coming, because he had utterly failed to kill Kaiser.
After being forced to retreat and left to lick his own wounds, Scorpio gave him an ultimatum. They knew for a fact that Kane hesitated for a moment in the operation because Kaiser was a child. They used Kane's one point of weakness to motivate him.
Either Kane brought Kaiser to Scorpio, or Sebastian would be killed. The assassin didn't think much of it until he had answered a call, behind it was a very nervous sounding Sebastian. They would give Kane a week to kill Kaiser.
The most peculiar thing though, a contract came in ordering for the assassination of young boy with black hair. It had come with instructions on where to find the son of an aristocrat, a restaurant with a ballroom in the center of all the tables.
It didn't take Kane long for him to accept the contract to take his mind off things, it took even less time for him to figure out it was all a trap.
He hadn't even taken five steps towards the target before the young boy took a gun and proceeded to shoot at the bottles of expensive alcohol situated at the bar next to a water fountain in the corner of the restaurant.
Naturally, everybody fled at the prospect of getting shot at.
It wasn't long until the gun was then aiming at Kane's direction, it never landed because of the time the kid wasted on focusing his aim on Kane.
Instinctive shooting, a very useful technique to have in the field. It was taught to all Scorpio assassins as part of their curriculum, you never focus your aim, you just point and shoot at your target. Evidently, the boy was not knowledgeable on this trick, so Kane was able to avoid every shot.
From there, it was a fight for survival for the boy. Kane had dunked the boy's head in the water fountain. It was a complete shock to see the boy come up with white streaks of hair, it was the second of many surprises he would see that day.
Kaiser had fought even harder after being found out, Kane was trying to come to terms with having to fight with Sebastian's life on the line.
Kane hoped he could kill Kaiser in a quick, painless manner.
The young spy was quickly tired out, he had yet to have the same stamina as an adult. All Kane remembered was a shimmer of satisfaction in Kaiser's eyes before feeling something pierce his back and pass out.
Kane woke up handcuffed in a hospital looking room, beside him on a hospital bed was Kaiser. It seemed the little twerp managed to get himself hurt too, both man and boy had white gauze bandages wrapped around their stomachs.
Deep panic set in the man when he realized there was no way he could finish the job before the deadline. Kane remembered wildly howling to let him kill the boy, his voice had gone hoarse by the time a sharply dressed elderly man walked in the room. The way the man exudes power, Kane assumed that this must have been Kaiser's superior.
Kane pleaded to the man that he let him go, all he wanted was to save his brother. The man in the charcoal grey suit expressed great desire in putting Kane away in a secret prison facility not known to the public, adding that he would like to press the assassin for Scorpio secrets.
It must've been the sight of the smartass assassin reduced to a quivering mess of despair that fueled the next decision made in that infirmary room.
Surprisingly, it was Kaiser who made a suggestion presenting himself to the head of Scorpio with Kane acting like he captured the boy for the head to execute personally. The real plan was to capture the head to get information on the other Zodiac branches, Kane could get his brother away in the aftermath.
There was the matter of Kane just killing Kaiser once he was freed, but that idea was shut down once the boy suggested a sniper be trained on Kane in the event that should happen. The plan was set, and Kane could hardly wait until Sebastian was out of harm's way.
Surprisingly… the plan had worked, with a couple minor complications. Kaiser had been shot in the back protecting Sebastian, Kane had managed to shoot the Scorpio head's legs. That was only after finishing off two assassins acting as bodyguards.
Martin Kane was then inducted into the IPS, with Albert Ross promising suitable protection for Sebastian until Scorpio was no longer a threat. As part of his protection, Martin cut all manner of communication with his brother.
Maybe after all of this was all over, and Scorpio- no… and Zodiac was too weak to go on, Kane could sit down and watch a football game with Sebastian. He didn't really care if he was old and wrinkly by the time he'd get to see Sebastian, knowing that his brother was safe was all that mattered.
The touch screen on Kane's car stereo flickered to the cameras he had set up, they displayed different sections of the dockyard. Kane had set up some motion tracking cameras all around the dockyard, if something moved, his cameras would forcibly switch any screen his stereo was on to a live feed of the docks.
Stepping out of a large warehouse, a rather unassuming man had walked into the confusing maze of the dockyard. He wore a silver vest over black dress shirt, the vest seemed to almost shimmer in the moonlight. A pair of ninjaken strapped to his back, he was clearly part of the Silver Blades.
Kane hit the ignition in an instant, the engine of the Lexus purred to life. The assassin drove his car along the empty lots of the dockyard; he avoided many hidden forklifts and shipping containers.
The assassin eventually managed to find who he was looking for, he slid to a stop right in front of the gang member. Kane had been mistaken, the gang member looked to be a young man of about 17, not the older man he thought he saw in the live feed. Maybe his cameras added 10 pounds rather than 10 years, that didn't really matter right now.
A low whistle was heard from the boy in Silver Blades attire, no teenager could resist admiring his luxury car.
"Where'd you get this beauty?" The teen was close to running his hand over the car, but refrained from doing it out of respect.
"Go ahead, feel it, it doesn't bite." Kane revved the engine for three seconds. "It does roar though."
"How much did this cost you?" The teen asked, his eyes had a shine to them.
"A lot less than what your bosses make, a lot more than what you make." Kane gestured to the warehouse behind the teenager. "Even if you made enough money, you still wouldn't be able to buy a car like this. How would you imagine explaining to a car dealership why you've showed up with 92,950 Lien in envelopes? I'm pretty sure you can't list gangster as your occupation without setting off some sort of alarm."
The teenager had visibly stiffened up, he knew that something was up with this man and his cool car. He grabbed his pistol that everyone in the Silver Blades were required to carry, he pointed it at the man in the car through his window.
"I feel like I should mention I'm deathly allergic to bullets." Kane said. He seemed content to do nothing to deescalate the situation.
"Who are you and what do you know about us?" The teen screeched, his hands steadying the gun in his hands.
"What's your name?" Kane asked.
"That's not important, what are you here for?!" The teenage gangster swung the gun in the trajectory of Kane's head.
"Your bosses over there." Kane pointed past the teenager, the boy hadn't taken his eyes off Kane. "I was sent to take them out, I can't have them continue what they're doing."
A shot rang out in the dark, a shattering noise accompanied the deafening blast.
The teenager roared as he pulled the trigger multiple times. Bullets slammed forwards, going in Kane's direction. The teenager cracked an eye open, fully expecting to see a mess of brain matter and blood in the front seat of the Lexus.
"You done yet, or do you want to cause more damage in repairs? I didn't get insurance for this car yet so I have to pay in full for the repairs." Kane went on, amusement clear in his voice. The glass of his car was cracked in the areas where the bullets hit his window, but it wasn't completely broken, that was thanks to the reinforced glass he had installed.
Kane wasn't a fool, he had his car fitted with great modifications. Along with reinforced glass, the car was boasting armored plating, making bullets useless against the Lexus. The wheels of the car could adjust to any terrain, making it extremely versatile.
It's offensive capabilities were just as impressive, Kane made sure to ask the technical department of the IPS to cram an entire armory into the car. Machine guns and missiles were hidden in many components of the car, spike strips and hubcap spikes were ready to be deployed all at the press of a couple buttons.
Visibly panicked, the teenager hastily tried to reload his gun to shoot Kane again.
The assassin simply rolled his window down and yanked the boy's shooting arm before the teen managed to load his gun, the arm was pulled inside of the car while Kane rolled the window up.
Grunts of effort escaped the gangster as he tried to pull free, but his arm was effectively trapped between the window and the car frame.
"You wait here while you think about what you've done." Kane gingerly swung the door open, causing the teenager to step back. He pointedly ignored the cry's of frustration from the boy stuck to Kane's car.
Kane approached the door of the warehouse, he was aware of every weapon he had on him. The assassin made a mental check that he had everything he needed, Kane was ready.
Upon entering, Kane spotted rows and rows of lumber that were used in construction. Other important figureheads of the Silver Blades gang were pouring over blueprints of some sort. None of that mattered now, they'd all be dead in a couple minutes.
Unlike Kaiser, Martin Kane liked to go in without thinking. He would be gunning for the leader, Sal Silver.
Before any of that, Kane snuck up on one of Sal's lieutenants. Kane's knife, a KA-BAR 1214, dragged smoothly across the lieutenant's neck. Warm blood spilled out of the slit neck, it certainly caught everyone's attention when the lieutenant's body hit the floor.
One of the gang members came running at him while the others trained their pistols at Kane, the assassin kicked out at the approaching member's knee. A sickening crack sounded out as Kane effectively broke the man's leg, he held the man steady before he could fall.
The rest of the gang started opening fire, Sal Silver hung back expecting the situation to sort itself out.
All the bullets hit the body that Kane held in front of him, he closed in on one the men firing. Once in range, Kane threw the body, then swiped the firearm one of the gunmen held.
Without stopping to aim, Kane shot three of the gang members somewhere in the torso. Three bodies crumpled down to the floor.
All that was left was Sal Silver, the gangleader grabbed one of the ninjaken off one of the other higher ups of his gang. Silver swung the blade down on Kane, the assassin only sidestepped.
The blade came incredibly close to severing Kane's head if he hadn't ducked, Kane calmly dodged every slash that Sal started.
Sal left himself open in a critical moment, Kane unleashed a devastating ankle kick.
A pained roar was all that was heard from Sal, Kane stood back amused. "Stings? I hope it does." Kane was openly taunting the man before feinting a punch to the head, Sal defended his face, but received another ankle kick instead.
"It's hard to keep your weight on that foot, isn't it?" Kane struck out with a powerful front kick, Sal fell backwards. He walked over to the man, preparing for the kill.
"Who hired you, I'll pay double what they're paying!" Sal blubbered, panic set in his voice.
"Sorry, client confidentiality and all that. Also I can't take your bribe, this is more a favor for a friend." Kane took his gun, aimed the pistol at Sal's chest. "Even if this wasn't a favor, I wouldn't take your bribe. Above all else…"
Kane shot two bullets into Sal's chest, then one in the head.
"I'm a professional." Kane sighed, the assassin made his way to the exit.
Kane stepped out of the building, he saw the teenager preparing to sever his arm using the ninjaken.
"You won't believe it! They've got a shit ton of lumber in there!" Kane waved his hands around at the teenager. "Do you know how much that goes for these days? If I was actually handy with tools, I'd take some of it and build a deck for a nice house."
Kane unlocked his car door and lowered the window, freeing the trapped teen. "Now you won't have to slice your hand off."
"What makes you think I won't kill you?"
"You have no reason to be loyal to dead men." Kane finished flatly. "Also, better people have tried, and I'm still alive." Kane started his car, once again purring silently. "So, keep quiet about tonight, yeah? Find yourself a better occupation, if all goes right, you'll never see me again."
The teenager, shocked and confused, turned around and started walking out of the dockyard.
"Hey!" Kane shouted, causing the teen to turn around. The assassin held out a wide stack of lien chips. "I grabbed these off your bosses, I don't really need them. Go ahead and use these as a cushion until you find a good job."
The teen nervously accepted them from the assassin, the nerves disappeared when he noticed how much had been handed to him. It was more than enough to support himself and his family!
The scrawny teen scrambled away before the contract killer changed his mind.
"Kids." Kane thought, shaking his head. He was already on the streets, sending a message to Junior that he had finished the job. The car stereo chimed to alert Kane of a voicemail left on his scroll.
"Mr. Kane, I would like to see you in my office at your earliest convenience. I would like to discuss some things concerning your recent mission in Argus." The professional tone of Mr. Ross droned.
Kane had finished an under-the-table assignment, now that the fun was over, he'd have to go back to his real job.
/-/
Kaiser settled himself into his desk chair to use a computer he had borrowed from the library, he was already in a bad mood today. Dr Oobleck had made the class do an introductory quiz on the Great War, it was supposed to gauge how much each student knew about the war before going into the lesson
It wasn't that Kaiser had failed, he passed easily enough, but it was where he had gotten the knowledge from that had irked him a bit. All of it started with an aristocrat named Chrysan Marigold.
Chrysan Marigold was the grandfather of current heir, Henry Marigold. The elderly man believed in the superiority of Atlas and that it should have rule over the four kingdoms, so he decided to stage a terrorist attack on a summit between council members of the kingdoms. When Kaiser did come face to face with Chrysan, he was given an entire history lesson of the Great War and on how Atlas "deserved better". Suffice to say that Chrysan never saw his goal be achieved, neither did anyone else for that matter.
Because of Ooblecks quiz, Kaiser couldn't stop thinking about what happened during that particular operation. The spy decided to drown himself in the most tedious part of his research, the tattoo on Edwin Morris' arm.
The night that Kaiser was beaten by Jasper had only started when the spy was searching for Edwin Morris, it led to a destructive chase across the streets of Vale. When the Van that Kaiser and Morris were in crashed, the spy was able to snap a picture of a tattoo of a muzzle on his arm.
Kaiser had poured hours into inspecting the tattoo, he went over numerous websites about the history of muzzles and even put the picture he took into a reverse image search. After a tremendous amount of time he poured into his research... he found absolutely nothing that helped. The reverse image search only showed even more muzzle tattoos that people wore on their body, none of it made sense.
The spy was very close to swiping everything off his desk when there was a knock at the door.
"Thought you would've had enough after last semester." Kaiser couldn't help the venomous tone he adopted, especially when he opened the door to see Cardin Winchester in his doorway.
The larger boy clenched his fist, Kaiser readied himself for a brawl in his own dorm.
To his slight surprise, Cardin had loosened his fist and deeply exhaled. "Can I come in?"
"It's may I."
"What?" Cardin asked.
"It's "May I come in?" Not "Can I come in?" Since it didn't seem that Cardin was going to start a fight, Kaiser scrounged for any other sort of control, even if that meant being petty with grammar.
"May I come in?" Cardin calmly asked, clearly he was exerting self-control that mistralian monks would be jealous of.
"Sure." Kaiser dismissively said. He left the door open in the likely event he wanted to kick Cardin out.
"God! You're with those psychos?" Cardin suddenly blurted out.
Kaiser already felt his temper flaring up, almost blinding him to the fact that Cardin was referring to the tattoo.
"What's it to you?" Kaiser had taken a more aggressive tone.
"Nothing, it's just that those guys do some messed up stuff."
Cardin seemed to know about the tattoo, more importantly what it signified. "Just out of curiosity, who are they?"
"Animal control, they're a human supremacy group." Cardin reluctantly paused for a moment. "I don't like the faunus, but at least I wouldn't do the fucked up shit they do."
"Elaborate, what do they do?" Kaiser had locked the door, better for everyone that nobody hears what they were discussing.
"They sometimes go to faunus neighborhoods to destroy most of the property in the area, just for the fun of it. They drag them out on the streets to hospitalize a bunch of them, so they can bury some families in hospital debt. They do a lot of worse things, trust me, I wouldn't want to get caught with them."
"How do you know about them?" Kaiser inquired, this was the missing piece of the puzzle that he needed. He already knew who was supplying the Hercules, it was Jasper. Now he knew who was buying a good portion of the steroid, he could go poking around Animal Control to find where Jasper was and where the supply of Hercules was moved.
"My uncle used to be part of them, he got cut off from my family when he got arrested to save face for our family name."
Kaiser immediately set out on searching Animal Control on the internet, but could only find emergency numbers to animal control services, the actual people who take care of animals. Kaiser tried a word filter on the search engine, he used the key word: Faunus. Still, the search had come up empty. This gave Kaiser one useful hint, the hate group wasn't something that could be found by public or conventional means. If Kaiser was to find anything substantial, then he'd have to go searching for clues on the Darknet.
Cardin standing awkwardly in the middle of the room did not go unnoticed by Kaiser.
"I will say that you have provided me with something very useful today, you can go ahead and walk yourself out instead of me kicking you out." Kaiser called over his shoulder, his fingers deftly clacking away at the keyboard.
"Actually, I wanted to talk to you about something." Cardin straightened up, his voice becoming just a little more adamant.
"You're here, I'll try to listen" Kaiser's voice held no malice, it held no pleasure either, "So talk."
"You know how I've had behavioral rehabilitation, right?"
A light chuckle escaped the spy, he was trying to keep civil. "Yeah, thank god they didn't stick us together in therapy, I would've died!"
"Well, my therapist wanted us to talk so we could hash things out. I want to say that I am sorry for the stuff about your secret, I should have never used your secret to expose you to everybody."
A slightly darker chuckle was heard from Kaiser as he swiveled his chair around to face the boy. "What do you want me to say? That I forgive you? Because that's not happening, I've got a lot of problems and most of them lead right back to that day!"
"And I'm sorry about that, I just wanted to get one over you." Cardin faced the floor. "My therapist tells me that I'm trying to make myself feel superior by putting others down. I couldn't put you down in a physical fight, so I had to fight you a different way."
"So you went and accused me of murder in front of our entire year, sounds pretty logical" Kaiser thought about it further, he fled Beacon the day Cardin revealed his secret. This led to the startling discovery that Hercules was back in production, sending the boy back into espionage work. He resented the fact that he was back under Albert Ross' control, all happening because someone let a couple words slip. "Did you know that some people avoid me entirely, they'd be really reluctant to be a friend of a murderer. Everybody else just sees me as some broken person that they need to help put back together to make themselves feel like a better person."
"Then show them that they're wrong, Jaune and his team seem to see you alright, so does Ruby's team." Cardin started pacing around Kaiser's room. "You can't just sit around and blame all your problems on me. Look, I'm sorry ok. I'm sorry about what I did, but you act like you're some hardened criminal in the hallway that you end up scaring most people away!"
An awkward silence fell over the room, the larger of the two boys began first.
"Sorry." Cardin gruffly said.
"It's- it's fine." Kaiser muttered, confusion set in his voice. "I guess you have a point." A couple more seconds of thought brought Kaiser to another conclusion, he would've ended up in Ross' clutches no matter what he did. Just like he found in the IPS data-banks, Ross had been keeping tabs on him since he joined Beacon. He was unfairly blaming the world for things that were simply out of everyone's control, but it was still Cardin that had wronged him.
Honestly at this point Kaiser just wanted to be left alone, there was no need to bring up his past again. "I don't think I could ever forgive you for what you did to me… but for my own sake, I should move on from it."
A while later, Cardin had left the room without so much as a word. That suited Kaiser just fine, he had something much more important to do. He'd have to call one of the computer specialists from the IPS, there should be at least one person there who would know how to access the Darknet.
Kaiser was hot on Jasper's trail, little did the boy know that he was entering the lion's den.
/-/
Thud
Another body fell to the ground, a groan of pain emanated from a soldier. His hands rubbing against his throat, above him was a man with a brown buzz cut.
"As you can see, throat punches work best to stun the enemy and incapacite them in a fight. If you put even more force behind the strike, you can leave a tracheal rupture. The target will then proceed to choke on their own blood." Jasper concluded, he held a hand out to the man on the floor.
"You have to keep out of range if you don't want to end up on the ground, son. Other than that, good work." Jasper had spent a good portion of time getting acquainted with the hired muscle that Hank Hammers had brought for him.
These men were part of Capricorn, Zodiac's private army. They were primarily used for quick and easy takeovers of organized crime operations, making Zodiac's reach of the criminal underworld just that much deeper. In between those jobs, they'd mostly get assigned to security duty. The Capricorn soldiers were masters with machine guns, put a whole squad together and you'd have an unstoppable force on the battlefield.
Jasper had been using the Capricorn soldiers as practice for hand to hand combat, honing his skills after realizing that he had let himself become too reliant with his Hercules. In return, Jasper taught them a couple of things that were part of Scorpio's curriculum of assassination. It helped the Capricorn as they were trained to have a combat style more akin to fighting a war than killing a target.
"Do a perimeter sweep, after that, go ahead and just stand guard." Jasper dismissed the three soldiers that were in the warehouse with him, the others were outside standing guard.
The Scorpio assassin walked over to his work station, atop it was his gear. A large hunting knife was stabbed into the table, his custom made dust revolver ready to destroy anything in its path, and Jasper's metal sleeve that injected a special mix of Hercules into himself.
He chose to ignore these items though, as Hammers had sent something even more valuable to Jasper.
Knowledge
The file that Hammers had promised finally came through, Jasper was curious as to what the file contained.
Advanced information gathering. That was apparent as the boy that the document referred to as Kaiser had managed to track down Morris and had him led all the way to Jasper. It was a good thing they weren't too close to the supply of Hercules, or else Kaiser would have found and reported it.
Proficient in armed and unarmed combat. That was obvious from the start, Jasper would've lost his life that night if he didn't have his Hercules on hand by either the boy or by Gemini.
Gemini did not tolerate failure.
Jasper clicked on the next page for information on the type of training he had gone through. It seemed that Kaiser had made it through Atlesian basic training, very few people passed when compared to the number of people who applied to join the Atlesian army. This told Jasper that the boy was rarely shaken, as he had gone through the worst of what any trial could provide. They've even put the boy through Resistance to Interrogation training for God's sake, they must've had to torture the boy for hours to mold him into the perfect weapon that the file made him out to be. As if to add more fuel to the fire, there was one category of his feats that required a full page of its own.
Scorpio training, and planted in the middle of the file was a photo of Martin Kane.
Jasper only seethed, that damn worthless assassin sold them up the river! Worse than that, he had taught advanced Scorpio tactics to a child no less! The combination of psychological warfare, instinctive shooting, and crippling combat techniques were now instilled in the brat that Jasper had let live.
His fist banged on the table, shock had set in. The Scorpio assassin had resolved to make sure that the boy died painfully.
This had now become personal.