Foxx Hunting

by Phantomchajo

((A/N: No, I haven't forgotten about my other stories. Just waiting on one muse to step back and let others have some time.

A wonderful thanks to my friend Lady Moonhawke, who is also my co-writer, co-conspirator, Idea tester, plot hole finder, monkey wrench thrower, and ghost editor.

Italics usually means another language that I'm too lazy to have translated into that language))

Chap 4

Mid-March, somewhere in North Eastern China...

Foxx is glad he has on some of his heavier gear as the night falls and the temperature drops even further, almost to the freezing point. He still has at least an hour, give or take, on foot before he will get to his target location. If he's lucky he might be able to catch a ride and make it there even faster. He didn't have a deadline per se, but it was a general consensus that the faster he got in, took care of business and got out, the better it would be for everyone involved. It was a damned good thing he'd been in the area (generally speaking) doing a job of tech retrieval/disposal for Tony when he'd gotten the call.

48 hrs previously…

"Alright boss man, that's the last of the chips. The virus has been uploaded to the production servers, the quality control has been sabotaged, all the financial records downloaded, and I have the ledgers. Anything else?"

"No, just the usual. Get out safely and meet at the rendezvous point."

Foxx made one last survey of the area then departed just as silently as he arrived, bypassing security as if it was never there. "Hey boss, how the hell can someone, who is locked up in a federal pen, still cause so much headache?" he asked.

"I have to think on that one so I'll get back to you on that-Hold."

Foxx froze, his stealth suit allowing him to blend in seamlessly with his surroundings. He let his awareness expand, searching for anything that might become a problem. He'd been doing this work long enough to know when and when not to start asking questions. Right now was not a good time, especially when text started scrolling across the lower part of his mask's HUD. As he waited, he rotated his left shoulder as best he could without drawing any attention to himself. Though healed, it still was fresh enough to cause occasional twinges if he overused his left arm.

"Well shit."

"Boss?"

"You're skills are being requested. You can still say no. You have the final say in it."

"What's the job?" Foxx asked.

"Retrieval of highly valuable…. really? 'Assets'? You're calling them 'Assets' still? They-"

The comm went dead as text started scrolling again. Apparently the boss forgot (maybe but highly doubtful) that his end of the line was still open. Foxx waited patiently for the comm to be re-established.

"Anyways, the pirate needs your skill to play rescue. Again, you can say no if you want."

"Who needs rescuing?"

"The Avengers."

He could hear the smirk in the boss's voice. Foxx sighed as he tapped his head against the tree he was crouched next to. "You know I owe them. Tell One Piece I'll do it."

"You sure?"

"Yeah. Apologize to Doc and give the kids my love. Let em know I'll call them before bed tomorrow. I've also got souvenirs for everyone too," Foxx said as he stood up and stretched. "Same meet up point?"

"Yeah, drop off the goodies and I'll fly the bird home. We really need to get you flying lessons. I can't always remote pilot it for you."

"Yeah yeah… one day."

Present...

Foxx arrived at his target location far quicker than he expected due to some local assistance. That assistance was how he found himself sitting in the elder's hut, having tea, and learning of the village's problem with the outsiders. When he pointed out that he was also an outsider, the elder laughed and claimed he was sent by the spirits as an answer to their prayers.

It turns out that base was completely underground and the group, some alphabet soup wannabes (no one was sure if it was HYDRA, AIM, or a mix of the two), had decided to move one of the local villages on top of it as a means to further disguise it. The problem was, the villagers didn't agree to it and wanted no part of the group's activities. So any chance the villagers got, they caused trouble until the group started taking hostages as insurance for good behavior. Patrols would go in, pick out someone (usually a female) then cart them off. Whether or not the person was returned depended on the patrol. It was one such patrol that he had come across. And while he himself didn't kill (except in the most dire of situations), he wasn't averse to someone doing the killing while in his presence. Especially if the scumbag deserved it.

Foxx mentally thanked all the gods for learning how to sit through a proper tea ceremony. Once the pleasantries and rituals were out of the way, he got down to business. He also thanked FRIDAY (thus Tony) for the translator program, as he slid the mask back in place. "Honored Elder, what can you tell me about these outsiders?" he asked.

"Two growing seasons ago, the outsiders started appearing. The men of our distant sister village to the north were first to vanish, then the women, leaving only the elders and the children behind. All of our sister villages from the surrounding lands helped as they could by taking in the elders and children. We did our part as well," the elder said, telling the story in a sing-song quality. "Every week, we would host travelers from our sister villages, but soon after the number became fewer and fewer. We sent people to those villages, but they came back with tales of people going missing. Some claimed it was the spirits taking revenge for not following the old ways. Others say it was outsiders, jealous of the gifts the spirits gave us." The elder paused, sipping their tea and looking the Fox Spirit's servant in the face. "We had planted this seasons rice, looking over our shoulders at the shadows that prowled the edge of our village. No travelers came to us anymore and we feared to send anyone, in case the shadows took them from us. We had thought we escaped the notice of the outsiders, but we were wrong. Not long after we harvested the rice, they came. Taking our men and our women. Taking our food and our animals. Finally they took everyone and forced us to move here, to this land. Land that is sick from their poisons. We hear it moan and call out but cannot do anything for the spirits of the land except pray and give offerings." The Elder smiled. "The spirits have answered our prayers and accepted our offerings. They sent you."

Foxx sighed, wishing these people didn't see him as some spirit blessed servant. But if that meant he had help, then he'd take it. "I will do what I can Honored Elder. Can you or one of your people show me where these outsiders come and go from?"

A young woman by the name of Yong was summoned to the elder's hut, to act as Foxx's guide around the village. Even though she had a low IQ, Yong was very smart in other ways. She was overlooked, because the outsiders thought her both plain and simple minded, but in truth she was a savant and well cared for by the village as a whole. Over the next day, she showed him the locations of the main ventilation shafts, the main entry and the back door entry. She was even able to describe the hectic activity several days prior when the outsiders brought in a large crate that was heavily guarded. When asked why the crate stood out, she said it had holes along the top and she could hear yelling coming from it.

Later that evening, Foxx was once more sitting across from the elder. Yong was present along with several other people. The decision was made to make his way into the base via one of the ventilation shafts. As he was doing that, the villagers would be dropping smudge pots down the other shafts to create a little chaos. And if some of the outsiders happened to disappear at the same time, no one had any problems with that. Sometime in the dead of the morning hours before dawn, the entire village left their huts, dressed in dark clothing and went to work.

Foxx wasn't sure if he should be surprised or worried when everything went off without a hitch. Usually that meant something would bite him on the ass later. As he made his way silently through the base, he took out everyone he came across. 'Gods bless whomever came up with the dendrotoxin ammo,' he thought to himself as he checked how much he had left in his current cartridge. Even though he carried a pair of custom colt .45s as backup, he rarely had to use them. Instead he used custom created flechette pistol that used compressed gas cartridges. Upside was each clip held about 30 flechettes with enough dendrotoxin to drop a large man. The downside was the maximum range was greatly shortened and effect only lasted, at most 20 minutes. But that was what the zipties and duct tape was for, to secure and silence the person.

Prowling through the base, Foxx comes to the conclusion that the base is only two and a half stories underground. The half story is probably a sub basement where the generators, environmental equipment and fuel is stored. The floor he arrived on seemed to be living quarters, the mess, any administrative offices the place might have and the communications center. He hasn't made it down to the next floor yet to find out what it holds. He's starting to think that either the base is really woefully understaffed since he's come across only a handful of people, almost like night security. Or else there was something more in those smudge pots the villagers dropped into the ventilation shafts. He doesn't take his mask off to find out. He slips into the communications center with an easy that's making him uneasy. When he slips back out again, he's back in contact with the Boss.

"Took you long enough."

"Yeah yeah, kinda of got side tracked with the villagers forced to live above the base," Foxx commented in reply. "By the way, has anyone made headway in figuring out who this alphabet soup group is?" he asked as he ghosted along the main corridor that lead to an elevator and a dumbwaiter. He bypassed them for the moment to check where the stairwell for the area was located. "What the hell?" he muttered as he did a second check on the stairs. "Ok, this place is just getting weirder and weirder. Has FRIDAY dug up the blueprints for this place by any chance?"

"I'll have her check with the local code enforcement board. Everyone has to file with them before construction can get started." Came the sarcastic reply.

"Boss.. any chance you can get that insect fellow on the line?"

"Ant-Man?" The tone is of curiosity. "Why do you need him?"

Foxx looked through the window in the stairwell door once more. "Because I think this just might be his area of expertise…." He activated the micro-cams in the eyes of the mask to transmit the images back to the Boss.

"Ohhkay..Get back to the comm center and see if there's a way to lock that base down from the inside."

Twenty minutes later, Foxx is sitting in the comm center, listening to the Boss and Dr. Pym discuss (read: argue about) what's going on. Apparently a few years back, Ant-Man somehow lost a diluted batch of whatever it was that allowed him to shrink and grow, that they'd been experimenting with at the time. He's got the live security feed being transmitted back to the boss so he can see what's going on as well. It's probably being relayed to Dr. Pym also from the sound of things.

The floor below is mostly open space, like a warehouse. Roughly 10 foot from floor to ceiling with exposed pipes and conduits lining the ceiling. Around the walls are what looks to be a shelving units. Except they are not. It's a cross between prison cells and small animal cages, stacked two high. Some sections are dark while others are lit up. Towards the middle of the floor is a miniaturized production line, complete with equally miniaturized people. Guards patrol the entire floor as lab coated men and women move back and forth, adding material to the production line, taking the finished products or shuttling the tiny people back and forth via carts. And sitting in the middle of the floor is a table with a large glass cube made up of cages, three high by three wide. Inside of those cages were the Avengers.

Foxx watched as the people on the floor below finally figured out that they were now locked in and had no means of leaving the floor. After what looked to be a bit of a heated debate, the production line was shut down and Lilliputians were returned to their cell/cages. After they were put away, crates were moved about so that they created barriers on either side of the cube. Due to either poor or purposeful design, the only way off that floor was via the elevator, the dumbwaiter or the stairs, which were all on the same side. And from the look of it, these people were prepared to shoot first, shoot again, then maybe demand answers, bypassing the ask part completely. He poked at the video feed controls a little, finding the one control that allowed him to zoom in some. He was able to get a little better look. It seemed that everyone had objected to being caged. The damage done was dependant upon the person's nature. As for the cages the local villagers were in, he could see they were gathering at the front, watching the outsiders with interest. After some searching, he found the master override switch to the cages, including the ones the Avengers were in. He now had the ability to open one, several at a time or even all of the cages at once.

Since the Boss was busy, Foxx consulted with FRIDAY. The AI was able to find the Avengers' comm frequency and patch him into it on the second channel. Keeping his end of the line muted, he listened to what little conversation was currently going on. "Tell the boss, when he'd done arguing with bug boy, I'll be down stairs dealing with things," he said as he left the room. Backtracking to his original start point, he hauled the two men out of the supply closet and proceeded to drag them to the elevator. Neither one was conscious, which just confirmed to him that he did not want to take off his mask. He opened the stairwell door and shoved the first one through with enough force to keep him moving until he reached the edge of the first step. By the time the man reached the landing, he was half his original size and still shrinking. "Yep, stairs are a no-go," he muttered. He shoved the second man into the dumbwaiter, then sent it down. The echoing hail of gunfire was the answer to whether or not it was safe to use.

Returning to the com center, Foxx examined the security feeds again. He unmuted the second channel finally. "Sitrep, Captain."

Everyone of the Avengers stilled as a new voice came over their comm. It only lasted for a few seconds before they went right back to what they had been doing, as if nothing had changed since the guards had opened fire on the dumbwaiter and its occupant.

"A dozen guards with almost twice as many in lab coats, even split of the guards, more lab coats to the right side," Steve answered, sotto voce.

"When the cages unlock, is there any noise? Yours or theirs."

"Negative on the others. Ours haven't been unlocked yet."

Foxx contemplated his next move with care. A lot of lives were at stake. Leaning forward, his fingers danced over the keys as commands were entered into the system. "Is there a clear line of sight between you and the elevators."

"Affirmative."

"On my mark, your cages will unlock in 5 minutes. The other cages will unlock 1 minute later. I'll be dropping in about the same time," Foxx said as he hit enter then was up and moving to the elevator. "Mark." He checked his weapons once more. He would have to go with his pistols then close range to avoid collateral damage. "Once you're out, get everyone to ground level as fast as possible."

"Roger that," Steve replied as he glanced at the others.

The clock was ticking away in the corner of his HUD as Foxx, steadily made his way to the elevator. Once he closed the doors, he didn't immediately hit the floor button. Instead he looked up and found the ceiling hatch. He eased it open, scanning for security measures. Locating none, he flipped the hatch completely open but didn't climb through. Reaching over he pushed the floor button then stepped back so he could look up through the hatch as it made its descent. Before the elevator completely stopped, he dropped and rolled to the side, activating the stealth system as he did. As he lay there listening to the rattling hail storm of bullets as they ripped through the opening doors, he shifted his focus into that place where he's hyperaware of movement all around him. (Tony had jokingly called it a jedi battle meditation trick and the term stuck.) "Party time," he said as he opened his eyes and went to work.

When the fight was finally over, the casualties were minimal. Not including the dead guard in the dumbwaiter, two other guards were dead and several of the lab coats were injured when a third guard went down with his finger on the trigger. The rest were currently unconscious, zip tied hand and foot, and silenced with the duct tape incase they came to earlier than expected. The villagers were all gathered together, only minimal injuries amongst them when part of a cage section had collapsed after being torn apart by bullets. If FRIDAY was translating properly, there was a bit of a debate going on as to whether or not the remaining outsiders should be allowed to live.

Foxx did not want to get into the middle of that right now. He'd leave it up to the village elders, the local authority and SHIELD to work out. Right now, he was down on one knee in the elevator with Rhodey perched on his shoulder working on getting it up and running again. "If we can't get this going, I can always go out and get rope to rig a pulley system to bring everyone up top," Foxx said as he carefully patched several wires together in the order Rhodey indicated.

"I don't know," Rhodey commented. "That's a lot of hauling up and down. There's easily close to two hundred people in there." He jumped off Foxx's shoulder, igniting his repulsors and making a closer inspection. "That should do it, if it work that is."

"Do you want to load as many into the elevator and give it a try, in case it's a one way trip?" Foxx asked as he stood up and dusted his hands off. "We should be able to get them all in. Use a couple of those carts like double deckers or something." He looked out the doors to the gathering.

"What about the prisoner's?" Steve asked as he easily hopped the gap between the floor and the elevator.

"What about them?" Foxx asked back as he looked up at the ceiling's hatch. "They won't all fit in here, even standing. SHIELD or whomever claims jurisdiction over them can come get them. A day without food or water won't hurt them in the least." A flashing text in the corner of his hud grabbed his attention. "Got a call coming in," he said before switching to his primary comm channel. "Yes?"

"I take it you took care of business?"

"Yeah, I did," Foxx replied as he jumped up, grabbing the edges of the hatch, then pulled himself through so he was on the roof of the elevator. "What's ETA on retrieval?"

"When you open the front door."

The distance between the floors were about 8 foot, so it didn't take much to climb far enough up the side of the shaft to trigger the door release and get them open so he could crawl out. "Who?"

"The Pirate and his crew."

"That was… fast," Foxx commented as he looked at the time. He'd spent less time down below than he originally thought, it was just past mid-morning. He made his way to the communications center, took the base off of lockdown then returned to the elevator to drop down once more.

By the time everyone was brought up from below, prisoners sorted out, and the SHIELD crew was picking through everything in the base, it was a bit past noon. Foxx was sitting on the porch of the elder's hut and sipping tea, the remains of his lunch next to him. Inside was the elder of this village plus the elders of all the other's that had been taken along with Fury, Steve and a translator. The rest of the Avengers were scattered about, doing whatever they did during post mission clean up. He only listened with half an ear to what was being said, instead he was paying more attention to a group of children playing with traditional diabolos (yoyos). It didn't take long before he was amongst the children, learning how to work the diabolos and joining in on the fun.

When Fury exited some time later, he wasn't in the best of moods, but neither was he in a foul mood. SHIELD's offer of assistance was turned down, including seeking a means to return the people to their former size. Due to the Accords, he was forced to accept that decision. The medics and science techs were highly disappointed that they didn't have all the people under their care, but they did have the one miniaturized guard to examine. That was all they were getting. They thought they were getting the Avengers as well but Steve and Company had other plans.

Towards late evening, Foxx's ride home had landed. It was a smaller version of the original Avengers' quinjet, complete with stealth technology, that Tony or FRIDAY remote piloted. It was only used on jobs that required him to travel to places commercial airlines didn't (or couldn't) go. The entire village was out to see him off, giving traditional well wishes along with some parting gifts, such as tea leaves and diabolos of his own.

Using Foxx's unintended distraction during his leave taking, the Avengers stealthily made their way onto the mini-quinjet and stowed away. The decision to not return with Fury and SHIELD was an easy one to make after seeing the look the medics and scientists were giving all the shrunken people. Several of the Avengers did not have the best experiences with labs after all.

Half way over the Sea of Japan, Foxx finally pulled his mask off completely. "You might as well come out," he said after rubbing his face for a few moments. Swiveling the chair around, he got up and moved to one of the cases near the mid-section. He slowly divested himself of his weapons, stowing them away after checking each one over. "It's going to be a long trip. Might as well get comfortable while you can. Tony and Dr. Pym are working on a means of returning you back to your proper size. And since you're here with me instead of back with One Piece, I'll presume you won't mind staying with me until then." Once his gear was packed away, he turned around to another case, opened it and removed the lid. He pulled out a blanket from a compartment and padded the interior of the case with it, leaving enough to cover the lid, which he had secured to the floor next to it as well. Sitting back on his heels, he surveyed the men and women before him. "Hope no one objects to becoming the only living action figures in the world, because Alexei and Riley will definitely want to play with you."

"Hey Punk, this might be the best time for you and 13 there to play house," Bucky said with a snicker. The punch was well worth the look on Steve's face.

Johnny just shook his head and returned to the pilot's seat. It didn't take long before Nat and Bucky climbed their way up, to find comfortable places on his shoulders and relax for the rest of the flight home.