Reborn starts pushing Colonnello's shoulder to lead him outside, and thankfully the others follow. In the large driveway that circles a huge fountain, Verde is standing next to one of his fancy high-tech cars and Skull is in the driver's seat. There's a huge radius of people standing around, holding guns but waiting for a signal from the Don before they take action.

Verde holds up his hands. "I made one perfectly clear phone call to explain the situation and they all panicked."

"Why would you ever tell these people anything?" Reborn complains as he shoves Colonnello into the back seat. "By the way, you're all useless and have awful timing."

Fon chuckles softly and Reborn shoves him into the car as well. The car that is now somehow expanding.

Lal crosses her arms. "Do you really think you would have walked out of there without us backing you up?"

"Yes." Reborn shoves her in too. "I had it handled. You are all adults, calm down and think instead of throwing yourself in head-first with only testosterone backing you up. Or whatever the hell you have, Lal."

Reborn glares until Verde gets into the car before sliding in himself. He slams the door shut and Skull pulls away. No one tries to stop them which is great but also Reborn needs to gets this stress out somehow so maybe a fight would be nice.

Actually, he just really needs a nap.

The country side passes by in a blur, because Skull really doesn't understand the concept of speed limits. The back of the front seats have grown another row of chairs to fit everyone, so Fon and Lal are facing Reborn and Colonnello respectively.

The others quietly discuss tactics for wiping out an entire famiglia, for the next this inevitably happens. No one can quite decide on taking hostages or outright massacre, so their voices gradually grow louder as the argument progresses.

"Why don't we make friends with them?" Skull chimes in, looking at them through the rear-view mirror. "And then Reborn can do the Sky thing and then we have minions."

Everyone contemplates this.

Reborn steps on Fon's foot and sighs. "Okay, backtrack a bit here. We're lucky we ran up against the Sfondo first. They're politically inclined so they have contacts and money but not much else in the way of firepower. There's the still the threat of them spreading information on us though."

Fon bounces his foot, and that shakes Reborn's. "I'm going to be honest; it would have been difficult for us to hide it, even if the Sfondo hadn't come into the picture."

Colonnello offers up a sympathetic look. "The good news is that they're unlikely to spread that information considering how passive the Sfondo are right now."

"Colonnello's right; they could have tried to stop us but they let go too easily," Viper points out. "I think there might be something more to it."

Everyone slowly turns to look at the Mist, sitting in between Fon and Lal.

Reborn blinks. "When did you get into the car?"

"When you were bitching about Lal being too manly for you," Viper reminds the hitman. "I'm not sticking around to get murdered by a whole famiglia. If they think I'm with you, I'll get less trouble."

Reborn hums. "I'm thinking about shooting you. Or throwing you out and having Skull run you over."

"Is killing the only thing you people can do?" Viper mocks. "You don't even try to control your Guardians, I see you smirking when they do dumb, chaotic shit. Back there, you were genuinely thinking about razing that place to the ground as some sick form of bonding time."

Verde turns around in the front passenger seat. "Before we get into the psychology of a hitman, we'll need to deal with the roadblock waiting for us."

He holds up the flat screen and everyone sees a drone shot with a line of huge off-road 4WDs, absolutely massive cars with giant bull-bars on the front and huge wheels, lined up across the quiet country road, bordered either side by fenced off farmland.

People are outside the cars, standing behind open doors as shields and holding guns in resting positions. Not threateningly but definitely gearing up for a fight.

"Skull, ram them," Reborn orders.

"Okay!" Skull chirps and stomps down on the accelerator.

Colonnello instinctively braces himself along with most of the other occupants. "Correct me if I'm wrong but I...don't think this car is built for playing tag?"

"If it isn't, we're not trying hard enough," Skull says solemnly, currently going two hundred an hour and climbing.

"Let me get out of the car first and then you can play," Colonnello negotiates.

Viper tsks at them because now isn't the time for jokes (Colonnello was not joking). "My best guess is the Sfondo set up this 'greater threat' to drive you back to them. They can play hero and you'd be grateful enough to at least negotiate. That's what I would have done at least."

Lal already know what she would do but she's trying to involve others because this isn't COMSUBIN and she's not their boss. Lal turns to Reborn for a decision. "At this point the information is out no matter what we do. You want to play nice, or show them how fast you can empty your pretty fifteen-round handgun?"

Reborn raises a hand to the shoulder holster under his suit. "My gun is very pretty," he muses.

Skull seems rather sad when he has to slow down and eventually stop because he really did want to ram them.

The roadblock seems to be made of only one famiglia, and Viper mutters that it's a smaller, more protection-fee based one operating out of northern Italy. Basically, a disposable minion for the Sfondo, and therefore no one is going to throw a tantrum if these people never make it back.

Reborn gets out of the car, soon followed by the rest, and unholsters his gun. He gets some wary stares but the general consensus from the famiglia is that they have the upper hand over Reborn because this is a civilised ambush.

Colonnello moves around to the trunk and pops it open, retrieving his two-metre-long anti-tank rifle. The people standing behind car doors for protection start looking very nervous. Bullet-proof is a weak reassurance when facing off against something like Colonnello's beast of a gun.

"Reborn," the leader greets easily. Definitely not the Don, who is smart enough not to be in range of a hitman's bullets. This is probably a right-hand man. "We've come to challenge for your Guardian positions."

Skull starts laughing and Lal hushes him but also has an amused expression on her face.

The right-hand man glances over the Guardians when he hears the giggle and raises an eyebrow. "If you attack the challengers outside of an arranged fight then you'll be freezing in Vendicare for breaking tradition."

Reborn smirks. "So I'll just kill the audience instead. That's not against the rules, right?"

The man huffs dismissively. "Bring out your Lightning."

Viper frowns. "You have a Sky boss, why are you bothering with this?"

"Yeah, we have one, but she wants a husband," the right-hand man says like that's a perfectly valid reason.

Reborn is a little smug. He is very handsome, it's not surprising. Fon bumps him with a sleeve when Reborn starts preening too noticeably.

The other Lightning steps up, an older woman in a severe looking pencil skirt and blazer. She pulls a solid cylinder of metal out of her suit jacket and with a swing of her arm, it snaps out into a full-length police baton and lights up in crackling green energy.

She smiles, a bland pleasantry. "Shall you go first, or should I?"

Verde pulls out a little remote control from the pocket of his lab coat and pushes a button. The vacated limo-car jerks forward, rams the woman, and she goes flying over the famiglia roadblock before splattering on the ground.

A laugh is startled out of Reborn.