To superpierce, when it comes to the "differences" between the House of Secrets and the House of Mysteries, apart from the aesthetic cues, those very differences are meant to be "nebulous"; like how Secret and Mystery mean similar things but they're also completely different.

To Thefallenjedi66, "Outer Heaven" as a team name is a no-go because there's too much bad blood associated with that name. As for the House of Secrets being his "birthright", ehhhhh… It's more like the keys for that and its sister house just happened to make their way into interesting people's hands; I never did find out why and/or how the House of Mystery came into Constantine's ownership. If it even counts as such. As for Virgil surpassing David/Snake, the Nanosuit is meant to make up for the age difference, so really, it all comes to a technical use of his abilities. Only thing separating him from Batman's training montage is the fact that someone else is footing the bill and he has a better suit.

To Raidentensho, while the "House of Intrigue" has a nice ring to it, the House of Mystery and the House of Secrets are meant to be "two sides of the same coin", thus, I won't make the duo a trio.

To LuckyShadowWolf… I'll admit it, "The Interlopers" is my new leading name for Virgil's (legitimately) Spec Ops team. It has such a nice ring to it, especially since there's teams in DC Comics like the "Outsiders", the "Outlaws", the "Legends", and "Wetworks". It really, really sounds like something that could be Canon in the DC Universe~
As for Launch, that was her name in the Anime, which I saw before the Manga (where her name is "Ranchi" lit. "Lunch"); back when I saw the anime Dragonball was way back before scans of manga online were as-prevalent as they are now and I caught it on Toonami.
WOW I feel old...

So yeah, the leading contender for Virgil's spec ops team when it makes its debus is "The Interlopers" as their callsign. I'm not 100% sure when I'll nail that down, but I have a really good feeling about LuckyShadowWolf's suggestion.

But enough fanmail, let's get to the first update of 2024!

*HUB CAPPED*

The Bunker
February 19, 16:21 EST

It was official. The Guns of the Patriots Incident was a colossal mind-fuck.

"Well maybe if you weren't doing it on loop for days straight…"

"Oh shit, did I say that out loud?"

"Yup," Emerald hummed.

"Ugh, maybe I have been spending too much time in The Matrix…"

"Yeah, you should probably do something about that," the greenette said patting his shoulder.

"You could always take the day off," Mercury added helpfully.

" . . . "

*HUB CAPPED*

Moxxxi's Red Light
February 20, 12:01 EST

"And that's what happened."

The 'that' of course being that he was "over-working himself during work training" and decided to take a day or two off.

"Well, at least you stepped out before you started seeing things," Athena hummed.

"What's wrong with visual hallucinations?" Gaige asked with a raised brow.

" . . . "

" . . . "

" . . . What?" the ginger blinked.

" . . . So remind me again who we're setting this up for?" Virgil asked as he helped prep the Red Light for a private get-together.

"Some merc friends of mom's and Balalaika's," Athena answered. "Really hit their stride back in the 90s, though as of late they've been slowing down, taking less-dangerous jobs as more people hire Metas under-the-table."

"Of course, what the Lagoon Company still does is pretty damn dangerous," Lilith hummed as she did her part.

"Lagoon Company… You mean Balalaika's old friends?" Virgil blinked.

"More like 'frequent hires'," Moxxi hummed taking stock. "Dutch always was a discrete man with integrity."

"Huh. Guess that's a rare combination," Virgil hummed as he worked.

*HUB CAPPED*

The Lagoon Company was the very definition of a "motley crew".

Dutch, leader of the Lagoon Company and a former U.S. Vietnam War veteran, at least allegedly, was a huge black man and the quintessential "soldier of fortune"-type with his dark shades, bald head, and expertly-trimmed facial hair. Clad in muted military colors, though aforementioned facial hair was getting speckled with gray, the man was still just as fit as Roland who was markedly younger than Dutch's… 50s if Virgil was taking estimates.

Revy, a Chinese-American who by now was in her mid-40s barely looked out of her early 30s, had slightly-tanned skin and upper back-length burgundy hair kept in a low loose ponytail, rather large bangs falling onto her forehead with shoulder-length sidelocks framing her face. Her amber-brown eyes were fierce, the tribal tattoo on her upper right arm reaching all the way up to her neck, and she had a slightly muscular build that her black tube top and denim short-shorts did little to hide her fierce "pirate woman" beauty. Her weapons of choice which she wore openly on twin shoulder holsters were a pair of modified Beretta 92Fs, engraved with the words 9mm Sword Cutlass on both sides as well as the Jolly Roger of the infamous pirate Calico Jack inlaid into the ivory grips. From all the stories, Virgil also knew her by the moniker "Two Hands".

Rokuro Okajima, colloquially known as "Rock", was a former Japanese desk drone who according to the stories had been abandoned by his prior company of employment and had been a pirate of the Lagoon Company since for the last two decades. The man was presently in his early 40s and looked it, yet with his creased pants, dark shoes, and button-up shirt you'd be hard-pressed not to mistake him for yet another Japanese "wage slave". He and Revy were actually an item in an "opposites attract" kinda way, and though Two Hands wasn't overtly feminine, Virgil could tell there was a genuine love and respect between the two of them; shocking since at the start they could barely stand one another according to the stories.

Benny seemed like one of the more-stable members of the motley group, actually married to his current partner. A Caucasian-American of Jewish descent, he was originally a university student in Florida until both the FBI and mafia chased after him sometime in the early 90s, with Revy saving him from certain death. The man was skinny, nearing six feet in height with pale skin, green eyes, very thin facial hair around his jaw and blond hair styled in a short mullet. Thin squarish glasses donned his face, and he sported a loud orange Hawaiian shirt with a green leaf pattern over tan pants and white sneakers. Virgil assumed he was somewhere between his mid-40s to early-50s.

Janet Bhai, Benny's wife for more than a decade, was a pretty woman of Indian descent with thick shoulder-length blond hair, light brown skin, and a skinny build. Her oval glasses and headband to keep her hair back made her look far more "ordinary" than Revy, though she was still fit-enough to make her loose orange jacket, strapless bra, and skinny jeans look damn a professional money counterfeiter and cyberhacker, she was the leader of an international counterfeiting group and a member of the Highwaymen Forum, an international hacking group. She'd arrived in Roanapur to make money plates for the Nuevo Laredo Cartel but flet with the help of the Lagoon Company, becoming Benny's girlfriend in the process; later wife.

The Lagoon Company member he knew the least about was La Majeur, which funnily enough he knew was French for "Middle Finger" thanks to one of his data packages courtesies of SECOND. A pretty Japanese woman of French nationality in her early 40s, even at her age she was pretty-enough that her two rabbit-style twin-tails didn't look too out-of-place. She was clad in a black pantsuit with a white button-up and black tie, a prosthetic eye in her left socket. Back before joining the Lagoon Company, she was a member of the Les Cinq Doigts (French for "The Five Fingers"), a five-member unit of France's Service d'Action Civique (French for "Civic Action Service"); a French militia which wanted to maintain France's neocolonial influence in Africa meant to operate outside the jurisdiction of the French government.

Given the way they carried themselves, as well as the later addition of Hotel Moscow to the festivities, Virgil was pretty sure that even if Moxxi hadn't reserved the Red Light for a "private party", none of the regulars would've set foot in the door after a cautionary glance, let alone stayed.

"So, I hear you're Fry Face's newest boy-toy."

*Spurt!*

"So, how'd you get into bed with the Russians?" Revy asked throwing an arm around Virgil's neck, cutting off his escape and smothering him in the scent of booze.

"A fat Russian arms merchant," Virgil answered. "Is she always like this?" he hummed in perfect French, causing La Majeur to blink at him.

"You speak French?"

"Quite fluently, I'm told~"

"Oh great. They're multiplying!" Revy groaned. "Speak English, dammit!"

"You'd think after all these years she'd pick up on enough French to get by," Rock hummed at Balalaika, the woman letting out a chuckle before her expression grew serious.

"Virgil, step over here for a moment. I have a job for you."

*HUB CAPPED*

Taken into a corner of the Red Light by the wrist, Balalaika led him toward a quartet of surly Russian teens who, surprise, surprise, were sporting vodka.

As for the exact nature of why he'd been pulled aside, as it turned out, the current leader of the Russian Mob in Hub City, Illinois, had gotten sick of things as of late; his idiot son and sweet daughter-in-law had both been killed by rival gangs, leaving his innocent granddaughter with no other family in the world apart from him. Having reached out to her, Balalaika had arranged for the two of them to put down roots in a "safe area" close to Bludhaven, in exchange for all of his Hub City assets being transferred over to Hotel Moscow.

Sokolov had already sold most of the physical merchandise from his legal businesses, whereas the illegal side of things came from gambling, smuggling, loan sharking, and money laundering. The business owners had already left Hub City and scattered to the four winds if not put roots back down in Bludhaven, but the Big Move had been going on for months; slowly and steadily in secret so as not to alert the other crime families, officials, or law enforcement.

This move in of itself, once completed, would cause a massive paradigm shift in Hub City's criminal underworld, since that many finances moving out-of-state would cause the local economy to implode as well as exposing the other gangs to outsiders with the sudden loss of equilibrium.

While the men of Hotel Moscow under the guise of "Diamond Dogs Delivery" would take on the more-visual task of carting away some of the hard goods that remained, drawing the gaze of potential vultures, it was up to the "young blood" to sneak into the city, discretely grab the old man and his granddaughter, and get back across state lines without alerting the powers-that-be to the snatch-and-grab.

"If I could be so bold… why am I being assigned to a mission of such importance?" Virgil asked in perfect Russian, causing the other teens to double-take.

"You struck gold in Gotham. Figured we could use a little of that 'Valentine Luck' to help things go smoothly," the head of Hotel Moscow replied.

"Believe me when I say, my 'Valentine Luck' will do the exact opposite," Virgil deadpanned. "But… I'll still help save this darling little angel," he said looking down at the picture Balalaika put down.

Sofiya Sokolova, age 7, was a sweet little white-haired girl, the sight of which made his magical neck-hairs do corkscrews; whether she was magically-trained or just -inclined had yet to be seen as far as he knew. Mikhail Sokolov, "the Falcon" when ironically, he looked more like a bear, looked every part the old soldier who had inadvertently become a Russian mob boss in the American heartland. The sight of him also made Virgil's magical neck-hairs active, but nowhere near the extent that Sofiya's image did.

On-paper, the mission was supposed to be simple, but Virgil just knew it would all spiral massively out of control like it always did whenever he was involved in literally anything.

No way was he going to leave his Cantrips at home.

*HUB CAPPED*

Interstate 76 W
February 20, 19:18 EST

There were three states separating New Jersey from Illinois, and apart from Hub City which was almost as ill and insipid as Gotham, the fourteen-hour drive should've been relatively simple. Thanks to the weeks on end of simulated stealth infiltration and combat missions against the mercenaries, terrorists, and cyborg ninjas of Snake and Raiden's previous adventures, a bunch of surly Russians and their next-of-kin barely made him bat an eye.

While they were all on the same side, Virgil was under no illusion that he wasn't some sort of "outsider" to the other Russians who thought him too far below them to give out their names to. It also didn't help that they thought him Balalaika's "pet", and that he was being given the cushy job of driving the "real men" to their destination.

Of course, even though they couldn't disparage Balalaika to her face without getting fitted for cement shoes, it didn't mean there weren't more roundabout ways of ostracizing the foreigner they considered an "interloper". It largely consisted of making him drive the mind-numbing interstate through Pennsylvania and Ohio for hours on end, and only giving him an hour's rest through the night before making him resume his duties.

"It's for Sofiya. It's for Sofiya. It's for Sofiya." -he told himself, enduring the backhanded compliments and under-handed abuse if only for the sake of a small child who had no way of knowing her parents hadn't been just "rich businesspeople".

As for why he'd been brought in last-minute, it was just a coincidence that the exact moment to strike had coincided with Virgil taking a day off from his "work training" at "the modeling agency".

Given Sofiya was possibly-magical if his neck-hairs had anything to say about it, he'd just blame Hecate.

People certainly didn't shy away from blaming Jesus when something went poorly for them.

*HUB CAPPED*

Hub City
February 21, 2:20 EST

"Hey, wake up. We're here," Virgil said slamming on the brakes and making the sleeping Russians jerk forward, blinking bleary eyes at the Welcome to Hub City sign arrayed before them at two o'clock in the morning.

"Glugh. Is worse armpit than Gotham," the Russian teen sitting shotgun spat as they beheld the once-pristine sign covered in graffiti and bullet holes.

To make matters worse, the city beyond, even at a distance looked like a no-man's land, with movies like Mad Max and Judge Dredd with a splash of Robocop coming to mind. Only thing it was missing was a morally-questionable megacorporation like Omni Consumer Products and it very well could've been the world of Robocop out in front of them.

"Well, you're the guys with the flex account and the where-to for this mission. Where you wanna put down for a few hours?"

Only reason he was speaking Russian was so they couldn't pretend not to understand him.

Of course, it also helped cement the idea in their minds that they couldn't insult him in their mother tongue without him actually knowing what they were saying. Kinda took half the fun out of it if the subject of ridicule understood the only language you spoke outside of English.

*HUB CAPPED*

Hub City
February 21, 15:18 EST

As it turned out, it wasn't only Balalaika's "young blood" that would be absconding with Sofiya and Mikhail. Mikhail would send some of his own trusted men to pick up Sofiya from her school, with the "young blood" helping to break up their "silhouette" from the rival gangs; a number of "fathers and sons" was more obscure than "fathers or sons".

As for why they had to hide their actions from rival gangs… While the others were sleeping, Balalaika explained to him via Bluetooth some of the details that the more-headstrong Russian teens didn't care to learn or just didn't absorb. "Compartmentalizing" she called it.

As it turned out, the private academy Sofiya went to, located in the part of Hub City reserved for the rich and well-to-do that didn't look like a dystopian hellscape, was where the children of the other mob bosses also went to school. In an even stranger twist, Sofiya's best friends were those other heirs; the granddaughter of a Yakuza boss, the daughter of an Italian Mafioso, and the son of a Hispanic Cartel leader. There wasn't anything about their countenance to imply that they thought their parents were anything other than rich businesspeople.

The more-paranoid, conspiracy-dampened part of Virgil's brain immediately sussed out why the children of Hub City's crime families would all go to the same academy.

First reason that came to mind was a show of peace; if the kids could play together, the adults could at-the-least tolerate one another. Second, if the kids grew up as friends, when they if not their spouses eventually took over, maybe they'd be more-staunch allies in the future less-prone to in-fighting. Third, with the school located in the most-neutral, crime-free area in Hub, it was literally the safest place for such diverse groups to leave the next generation. Fourth but notwithstanding, was that the academy was the most well-funded in Hub City, a "only the best" kinda thing.

Of course, the real kicker had been what Balalaika entrusted to him that the other "young bloods" didn't know about.

Alongside the keys to the blue armored SUV they were given, blue being less-conspicuous than black, Balalaika had also given him a USB with encrypted access codes to the fiscal institutions that Sokolov was meant to transfer his digital assets into. The most-valuable physical merchandise had already been sold, with just enough left over so the Diamond Dogs could "put on a show". The whole thing was rather "hush hush" so the other gangs wouldn't notice the growing instability in Hub City's criminal economy until it was too late.

Not that the city could actually look any worse, as it were.

The biggest issue to the whole thing was Karlo Komarov, "The Mosquito", a lieutenant in the Hub City mob who was a strong contender for Sokolov's successor. Obviously, the man would take exception to his future assets being absorbed into Hotel Moscow instead of falling under his purview-

*BOOM*CRASH!*

"AH! FUCK! SHIT!" Virgil swore as his and Sokolov's trucks were sidelined by twin RPG shots, the two vehicles sent tumbling sidelong before landing on blown-out tires. "Roll call! Give me a holler if you're not dead!"

"Хуй…"

"Cyka!"

"Гавно…!"

"Пиздец…?"

"Faaantastic…" Virgil muttered after realizing, he was the only one who'd been wearing a seatbelt.

To make matter worse, rivalling vans in all black began to hem them in. Doubly-worse once the bullets started flying.

"Hey, outsider," the burliest of the teen Russians spat out as he thrust a piece of paper into his chest. "You're the most-invisible out of all of us. Go to the school, get the girl. We'll hold them off."

"Because I'm not Russian or because I'm not covered in blood?"

"Мудак… You gonna go or not?"

"Just try not to die. You aren't the only ones that'll look stupid if I don't get back to Bludhaven with the same amount of guys I left with, old guy and granddaughter notwithstanding," Virgil said as he slashed his seatbelt and scrambled away from the hail of bullets.

*HUB CAPPED*

As it turned out, Virgil really was the most-invisible out of all the Russians getting shot at. With all the screaming people scattering in all directions, it was almost too easy for him to blend into the fleeing crowd and run for the fancy academy Sokolov's grandbaby was going to.

Problem was however, whoever was attacking the exfil group was also targeting the school. As soon as he got there, not only were there Russian men absconding with Sofiya, but also with three other children in cobalt-colored school uniforms who'd been standing immediately around her. Virgil suspected they were the other crime family's progeny and the hired help just didn't know them on sight and were only kidnapping them so Sofiya would stay in line.

The whole thing had "Komarov" written all over it. Even if it was the most-obvious answer and was probably completely wrong…

'Can't fight them off. Too much that'll go wrong…!' Virgil cursed at himself, eyes darting and adrenaline making the world slow to a crawl before he slinked into a nearby cab. "Follow that car."

"You got it, mac," the ginger-haired driver in a gray hat and overcoat hummed as he pulled out of his spot, following after the black vans.

" . . . Shit."

"Hm?"

"Nothing. Just left the lights on," Virgil answered pulling his eyes away from the registration plate where a completely different ID was shown.

"I see," the ginger driver hummed as he followed the black vans at a discrete distance.

Moments later a yellow smoke spilled up in the driver's compartment, the man's gray clothes turning blue, his hair black, and his face blank in the rearview mirror.

In other words, The Question, Hub City's "poor man's Batman".

"Nice to meet you, Mr. The Question," Virgil hummed, relieved it wasn't another rival mob man he'd climbed into the car of.

"And you're Virgil Valentine of Hotel Moscow, sub-sub-contracted to Diamond Dogs Delivery; Diamond Dogs also being the eighth studio album by the English musician David Bowie and splinter organization made from the MSF's surviving remnants under Venom Snake's command."

'Yup. Total conspiracy nut…' Virgil deadpanned, having acquainted himself with the movers & shakers of Hub City in the time he'd been allotted to prepare for an overnight op.

"Diamond Dogs' former Russian members making the transition to Hotel Moscow makes sense after the fall of Outer Heaven, but what's someone like you doing working for them? A soldier disguised as a courier? A courier disguising himself as a model? Facial recognition tagged you as the model Vincent Valentine of Real Fashions. Big Business involved with mercenaries, possible government connections. Car swiped from Tony Stark, former big weapons developer for the US government. A soldier that tests weapons? Weapons against who? Decrease in major world conflicts due to government control of smaller nations. Weapons against extraterrestrial threats. Aware of Komarov as possible connection to magical community."

'Hold on, you just said something really crazy there.'

"Ah, probably shouldn't have put my work face on," the Question said aloud as the vans they were tailing suddenly turned evasive, the man leaning out of a bullet that came in through the windshield. "Hang oooon!"

"FUUUUUUCK!"

*HUB CAPPED*

"Well this has completely spiraled out of control," Virgil deadpanned as he and The Question avoided getting lead sandwiches.

Of course, as a consequence of such, they'd completely lost the vans, and the girl!

"Don't worry. I know exactly where to find Komarov. Whether I can protect myself from his magic… debatable."

"Oh, so he is magical."

"After the death of Nikolai II Alexandrovinch Romanov in 1918, the Sokolov family and others escaped from Russia after correctly predicting that the future government would attempt to exploit their population of Homo Magi instead of adhering to past contracts and vows pertaining to non-involvement. The Sokolov line are masters of wind magic and commonly have avian familiars."

"And Komarov?"

"His bloodline specializes in Blood Magic, which he uses to heal and strengthen himself like some depictions of Vampires."

"And I'm fourteen hours away from home by car, maybe two by plane, so it's not like reinforcements are forthcoming…" Virgil muttered to himself. "SO! You're pretty well-informed about this town. What do the crime kiddos think their parents do for a living?"

"Sofiya believes her grandfather is a shipping magnate, Himiko thinks her family sells electronics, Beatrice thinks her family are real estate and construction, and Tomàs thinks the family money comes from avocado farming."

'Didn't actually think you knew, but okay…' Virgil thought to himself. "So where're we going?"

"A safe house. If we're going to facilitate Sokolov's withdrawal from Hub City, we'll need supplies."

Said safehouse was in a wholly unremarkable part of town in a building that'd been marked as condemned for literally fifty years. The interior… wall-to-wall-to-ceiling-to-wall-and-wall-again conspiracy boards with several miles of colored yarn, arranged in a language only someone with a diseased mind could even hope to interpret.

Which didn't really fill Virgil with confidence about his own mental health if he was able to decipher the real estate dedicated to theories about Oreos being created as weapons against extraterrestrials, Genghis Khan making an alliance with alien gods before founding the Illuminati, how the avocado industry was being ruled by the South American Cartels, and how the little plastic tips on shoelaces in tandem with corporate pre-packaged pop was being used to create social upheaval in third-world countries to distract people from how so-many actors were taking public office (also at the behest of the Illuminati).

'I'm going to make some shrink veeeerrry rich someday…' Virgil thought to himself before he turned his attention back to the least-distracting part of the room. "I'd think helping a Russian mob boss is the last thing a Hero would want."

"Sofiya Sokolov is innocent in all this. I'm doing this for her. Once Sokolov's assets are absorbed into Hotel Moscow, the chances of Sofiya assuming any form of leadership in the future are nil," the Question said digging through a weapon's trunk, most of it still bearing police evidence tags.

Because of course it did.

"It isn't stealing from police if you steal it from criminals after they steal and/or buy it from police."

"What, can you also read thoughts?"

"No. Just faces."

"Ironic."

"Ironic, or unironic?" he said peering over his shoulder with his non-face.

Only reason Virgil was so-chill about that was because Morris also didn't have a face in the conventional sense.

" . . . Whatever. This is all for Sofiya," he said slipping on his Ring Wand before drawing his Thunderbird Core Wand. "S'tel teg suoregnad."

A swirl of smoke changed him into his Wildcard attire; more-specifically, for the Sneaking Suit he wore underneath.

"Oh, so you change clothes with colored smoke too," the Question hummed aloud, appreciatively, as he slipped a rubber chicken into his coat.

"Just for the record, I'll probably have to make some mobsters disappear before the day is out."

"It's only a crime if there's a body left behind."

"Oh, so you are morally flexible. Good to know."

*HUB CAPPED*

Bludhaven
February 21, 17:01 EST

"Virgil. Athena will be happy to hear you're still alive," Balalaika hummed once she received his call.

"Still happy to be alive," Virgil replied four states away, sounding exhausted, but determined. "Did the rest of the young blood make it?"

"They did, but Sokolov's men did not. To make matters worse, the other crime families are starting to catch wise that something is going on. I mean, they were always going to find out eventually, but I had hoped we'd pulled our people out of Hub before they did."

"I guess it's probably a bad idea to tell you I couldn't grab Sofiya in time."

"Perhaps, but did the same person also run off with the heirs of the Yakuza, Mafia, and Cartels?"

"I assume. Something I need to know, was it really Komarov behind it, or is he just the red herring and there's some 'twist villain' around the corner nobody knows about?"

"Mikhail tracked down the boy of his that 'called in sick' and wrung it out of him that it was Komarov. Of course, as soon as he divulged that, the poor sap exploded like in that sci-fi movie from the 80s. Scanners? I think it was Scanners."

"Probably Komarov's Blood Magic then. 'Course, Sokolov also being magical is probably how he kept him in line for so long."

"Oh? How'd you find out about that?" Balalaika asked raising an eyebrow.

Hub City having legit magical Russians wasn't openly-known. In fact, when most people heard the words "magical" and "Russian" in the same sentence, most tended to think Grigori Rasputin and only Grigori Rasputin, assuming that he was a one-off while an entire secret magical world hiding in the modern one was the purview of children's popular fiction.

"I've cultivated a… local source," Virgil answered after a moment. "The guy's brain is a bag full of cats, but that doesn't mean he's wrong."

"I see. Thank you for passing this along."

"With your permission, I'd like to go after Sofiya. Leaving this armpit without her would leave a bad taste in my mouth."

"Hm. Going awfully far for some kid you don't know. Makes me wonder what you'd do for your own kid~"

"Probably pile up bodies like a Chaos God in Warhammer 40K."

"Not even gonna pretend to know what that means," Balalaika said rubbing the bridge of her nose. "I can arrange for you and the young blood to meet Mikhail, but Karlov's dug in like a tick. And if he doesn't already know his goons pissed off the Japanese, the Italians, and the Hispanics, he'll know very soon. Whether he's smart enough to hand them over or dumb enough to double-down… The over/under is 50/50…"

"Well, glad to know I'm not doing this on my lonesome, though you'll understand if I'm hesitant to go 'panning for gold' for you any time soon."

"How about we just blame this one on the giant squid and put a pin in that for later."

"I'm never going to live that one down, am I?"

"Probably not. Then again, how many boys your age almost get killed by a giant squid?"

*HUB CAPPED*

As it turned out, Komarov was dumb-enough to double down and "keep the kids", because by the time "Wildcard" and the Question met up with Sokolov, the magical Russian bear of a man had already told the Triad, Mafia, and Cartel heads what happened.

Though their criminal organizations may've been rivals with radically different nationalities, the one thing they could all agree on was you don't fuck with the children. Whether Sokolov could keep it quiet that he was ditching Hub City until after the other crime families finished with Komarov, had yet to be seen.

Of course, then there was the question of how to explain the absence of Virgil Valentine and the sudden appearance of Wildcard, the newest teen vigilante who'd somewhat recently appeared with the young wards of Zatara and Martian Manhunter.

As it turned out however, Virgil didn't have to be forthcoming with any sort of crazy explanation. Sokolov all by his own made the assumption that "the foreigner" was keeping his magical crime-fighting identity separated from his civilian identity, so that he would segregate any enemies he made in the magical world strictly to the magical side of things. As such, he swore Hotel Moscow's young blood to secrecy on account of being magical himself, on top of being a Russian mob boss.

Given they'd been talking shit about him the entire time on the trip over without realizing he was magical, and how apparently magic could be used to make people explode "like out of 80s science fiction movies", they were more than eager to make new inroads with "the foreigner". The more-paranoid part of Virgil's mind on the other hand, assumed that they thought Balalaika was cultivating him as a resource because of his magic, and that was why they were folding so-easily.

Virgil didn't see fit to correct any of them on this. If they wanted to make asses out of themselves, more power to them.

*HUB CAPPED*

Komarov's quote/unquote "private" residence was located outside Hub City proper. The air still stank of the Hub City rot, but at the very least you didn't have to worry about your hubcaps being stolen if you didn't park your car in a sealed garage with a dedicated security detail sporting automatic weapons and tear gas.

And though the heads of the Japanese, Italians, and Hispanic crime families had also sent their best "fixers" to the party to get their kids back, as well as they themselves, there was soon a stalemate as to who would go in first. "First" being the operative word for after each of them sent in their stealthiest members to do recon only to have them explode like gelatin heads on the business end of a special effect artist's shotgun as soon as they got caught.

The only real edge they had over Komarov was the fact that when his own staff recognized the crime family heirs, they were either able to slip away so as to not get caught in the crossfire, or were just killed outright when they were caught running away.

"This is a real fucking mess…" Sokolov grumbled as he furiously rubbed at his hair.

"Perhaps, but the kids are still alive," Wildcard said holding up a hand mirror, the young blood looking on in rapt attention as the hazy image of three girls and a boy of mixed ethnicities duct taped to chairs in the dining room was shown with a Scrying spell.

"I'm surprised he didn't ward his place better," Sokolov hummed before the mirror imploded. " . . . Nevermind."

"You know what? Fuck it. I'm borrowing the Yakuza's smoke bombs."

"Isn't it kind of racist to assume they have ninja smoke bombs?" one of the young bloods asked.

"Remind me again what you were drinking at that party we met at?"

" . . . "

"Yeah, I thought so."

*HUB CAPPED*

As it turned out, Virgil didn't get egg on his face because the Yakuza did happen to have smoke bombs. Whether it was because they'd been asked such so-many times they'd become inured to it or they just had thicker skin, Virgil didn't know, but he accepted their entire stock and reconvened with Sokolov.

Minutes later, the other crime families watched on in awe as a rolling dome of perpetual smoke descended upon Komarov's residence, the front gate turned into chalky rust-colored powder in its wake, the roiling cloud of smoke moving like a thing alive to the front doors.

Amazing what you could do with a little Wind Magic and an avian familiar.

*HUB CAPPED*

Virgil, along with the young blood, made their way into Komarov's home under smoke-filled cover, Sokolov using his magic to stop the smoke from dissipating and shaping it into moving cover. To create the illusion that a small army was pouring in, the four Russian teens stomped their feet like fans at a ball game. Of course, once they were through the foyer, it was up to them to fan out and grab the kids while "Wildcard" made a complete ass of himself and held Komarov's attention.

"Karlo Komarov! I've come to bargain!" Wildcard announced with a flourish, little Sofiya's eyes going wide at the magical superhero that'd come to save her.

"You little shit…! How much is that traitor Sokolov paying you?!" Karlo Komarov, a gaunt-face Russian man in a maroon suit with a gnarled wooden staff clutching a blood-colored ruby the size of a bananna growled.

"Mikhail isn't the one footing the bill," the French-sounding teen suddenly replied in perfect Russian, shocking the Blood Mage. "Now, let the children go, and maybe I won't have to turn you into a ferret."

"Upstart magi these days…! Watching too much fantasy fiction!" he growled flexing a crooked hand at a nearby body, the children letting out terrified cries behind duct tape gags as it was suddenly drained of blood like something from a horror movie.

The Blood Mage throwing out his staff and shooting out spears of blood with the force of a water cutter, the teen hero called out- "Allerbmu!" -with a thrust of his wand, an eight-part barrier appearing before him and spattering blood away from himself.

"Logomancy. How pathetic. The poor man's excuse for true sorcery!" Komarov spat as he began to gather the spattered blood above himself in a dramatic fashion.

"Secal eit rehtegot!"

Suddenly and to Komarov's shock, the laces of his expensive Italian loafers suddenly undid themselves from the immaculate knots they'd been tied into before all binding themselves together like an orgy of snakes.

"Etartsenefed!"

Still dumbstruck at what his opponent had used his magic for, Komarov was caught completely unawares as he was hauled toward the nearest window like in a Hollywood wire stunt.

Instead of being cast through the tall Palladian window however, he struck it with a loud *Thump!* looking quite comical in the process.

Virgil cursing himself as he felt his magic slowly draining away in its attempt to cast the Russian Blood Mage through what was undeniably a bulletproof window, to his surprise and relief the intent of the magic was being adhered to, because instead of simply sticking to the glass, Komarov was being pressed into it, quite painfully it would seem as the invisible force pulling him to the outside didn't seem to care there was a bulletproof barrier there.

In a contest of which would give out between Komarov's body or Wildcard's magic, Komarov's body caved first because when the pain became too much, the Blood Mage tightened his hold on his staff and blew out his own window with a pulse of crimson magic, the built-up momentum flinging him far into the adjacent courtyard like a slingshot.

"Go! Get the kids out of here!" Wildcard called out the moment Komarov was gone.

Without missing a beat, Balalaika's young blood stormed into the room, picking up the abducted children chairs and all, and immediately vacated in the opposite direction to put as much space between them and the "Koshchei Bessmertnyi" as they physically could.

Now, if Wildcard were any other half-wit teen hero, he'd have flung himself out the recently-broken window to fight the villain head-on.

However, since Wildcard had more than two braincells to rub together as opposed to other headstrong teen egos like… yeah, Kid Flash, instead of leaping into the fray himself he instead levitated the body of one of the Japanese fixers from earlier before the yawning portal.

A clever move it would seem because as soon as the sunlight hit it a blood-colored magical blast eviscerated the lady's entire torso like a point-blank shotgun blast, bits of bone and entrails spattering all over his nice shoes.

Opening the windows with another spoken word, with a sweep of his Ring-Wand he sent a barrage of furniture and deceased mansion staff flying. A volley of blood red magical bolts rising to meet them in the middle, as wood and viscera scattered around the Blood Mage, a smoke bomb Virgil held in reserve was tossed out a far window. Of course, as opposed to using that window as his egress, the most-logical choice, he instead bolted for the next room over and defenestrated himself from there.

A smart move on his part because Komarov did exactly what he expected him to in expectation to what he expected; to blast magical energy bolts at the cloud of smoke in anticipation of it being used as cover with the force of a machinegun.

Right as the chalk-colored smoke cleared, Wildcard whipped up his wand at the mansion's east wall before bringing it down, the bricks launching themselves with a *Thock-Thock-Thock-Thock-Thock* trailing bits of mortar like a missile salvo.

"Insipid child! You think you can overcome my decades of experience with mere parlor tricks?" Komarov demanded confidently as he hid himself behind a blood-colored energy barrier, tanking half the mansion's east wall without breaking a sweat and looking him dead in the eye. "I mean look at you, you're already exhaust-"

*BANG-SPLAT!*

His face exploding as a rifle round flew through one cheek and out the other, his jaw and tongue flying in the opposite direction, with widened eyes Komarov realized he'd completely forgotten about the Yakuza, Mafia, and Cartel he'd managed to piss off in a single day as the fixers from the other crime families began to pour in, Sokolov leading the charge in his billowing gray coat. The gaunt man extending his shield into a dome to protect himself from the volley of gunfire to come, as he willed his tongue and jaw to levitate back into place within his skull, the teen Hero slipped away once again.

As the last of the liquefied flesh solidified into scar tissue, the deluge of lead a mere footnote in his day, the roaring of a monstrous engine caught his and the other crime families' attention. All eyes turning to a garage on the edge of the property, a moment later the doors exploded outward as a T-54 main battle tank exploded through the doors like something from an action movie, its main turret leveled at the Blood Mage.

"From Russia with love, MOTHERFUCKERRRR!" the interloper whooped in French up through the open hatch before a loud *BOOM!* sounded, Komarov's eyes turning the size of saucers as the muzzle of the 205mm barrel flashed.

Though the Blood Mage's barrier didn't break, the sheer staggering kinetic energy imparted by the 205mm armor piercing round had to go somewhere. As a result, the Blood Mage was sent flying, barrier and all like a football, zipping through the empty space the crime family fixers had been smart enough to vacate as soon as they saw the first-generation Russian main battle tank. And it was a credit to the contractors he hired to build his "summer cottage" because instead of punching a hole through the outer wall, it merely buckled before he weakly rebounded.

The Blood Mage upending the contents of his stomach from the sudden changes in acceleration, inside the T-54, Wildcard levitated another shell into the bore and adjusted the main turret's aim.

"FIRE IN THE HOLE!" he called out in the universal tongue, the crime family fixers staying hunkered down before he hit the trigger and fired another AP shell, Komarov letting out a howl as he pulled the blood from his own body and made an angled kite shield, the 205mm shell creating a line of sparks as it hit the shield like a ramp and flew up into the wild blue yonder. "Oh merde…"

"YOU THINK YOU CAN COME INTO MY HOUSE, TOUCH MY THINGS?!" Komarov howled bloody murder as he pulled his blood back into himself, while that which was too dirty to reuse was hurled as a javelin positively thrumming with magic.

"MERDE!" Wildcard cried in expletive as the magically-saturated projectile flew towards him. The Sneaking Suit giving him the extra oomph he needed to leap free like one of Captain America's propaganda films, a moment after the javelin leapt down the barrel, a litany of crimson spikes erupted from the inside, leaving little doubt as to what would've happened to him had ne not leapt clear.

A second later like something out of a horror movie he was physically dragged across the ground by an unseen force, Komarov's crooked hand pointed right at him.

The other crime family fixers rose up in his defense with firearms leveled, but with a wave of his scepter the gathered Yakuza, Mafia, and Cartel members all froze in place in an agonized rictus, firearms falling from splayed fingers as their blood shone through their skin.

"Any final words before I drain you dry?" Komarov asked as he planted a boot on the teen hero's chest.

"No homo."

" . . . I am going to enjoy this a lot more than I should."

"You and me both."

*Slash~*

"EYAARRRRRRGH!" Komarov howled as his crooked hand was severed at the wrist by an invisible blade, a rubber chicken with its belly cut open pulled down over his head a moment later before the Question in his cab driver persona socked him in the face with a non-magical punch to the face.

"KOMAROOOOV!" Mikhail howled furiously, walking stick extended and thrumming with wind magic.

"SOKOLOOOOV!" Karlo raged ripping the rubber chicken free.

"RAIDED YOUR FRIDGE!" the Question raged as he struck the Blood Mage across the face with a frozen trout which exploded on impact.

"WILDCARRRRD!"

"SOFIYA, STAY BACK!" Mikhail cried as his granddaughter ran up to the new hero she'd started idolizing after thinking he were a long-lost cousin.

"BALL TAG!" Wildcard cried from his place on the ground as he uppercut Komarov in the scrotum, the gaunt-faced man going even more gaunt before the Question smashed a flower pot over his head and sent him staggering.

"I'llleaveyoutwotosolveyourdifferenceslikeadultmen!" Wildcard jibbered as he scrambled to his feet, scooped up the adorable whitette in his arms like a princess, and ran like hell.

A bombastic series of magical explosions going off behind him, this of course had the unintended side-effect of painting him in the same dye as the action heroes from Sofiya's parents' favorite American action movies.

*HUB CAPPED*

"I'm getting reeeeal tired of this this…!" Mikhail raged furiously.

"You and me both!" Karlo raged as he defended himself from both Mikhail and the crime family fixers. "EENOUUUUUGH!"

Furiously ripping an amulet from his throat, the cornered animal threw it against the ground shattering the blood red jewel on impact.

A ripple of magical energy spreading outward and making all of their neck hairs stand on end, the hail of magic and gunfire momentarily ceasing, the huge padlock on the cellar door over Karlo's shoulder burst, allowing a tide of horrible eyeless pale-skinned mutants to spill out into the light of day. Tall, short, fat, skinny, inhuman cries tore through countless rows of shark-like teeth as a veritable tide of hideous deformed freaks washed over the estate grounds toward the now-terrified Yakuza, Mafia, and Cartel members.

"KARLO! WHAT HAVE YOU DONE?!" Mikhail cried as he sent the first wave of them tumbling with a blast of hurricane-force wind, this one act galvanizing those behind him into firing once again.

"YOU KNOW EXACTLY WHAT I HAVE DONE!" Karlo cackled giddily as the feral ghouls parted around him like rapids around a boulder, the creatures' homonculitic flesh soaking up lead rounds like a sponge; even those that took root between non-existent eye sockets.

"RETREAT! WE NEED TO REGROUP!" one of the Yakuza cried to his brothers.

"YOU TURN YOUR BACKS AND THAT'S WHAT'S GOING TO GET EATEN FIRST! STAND YOUR GROUND!" Mikhail howled as he buffeted another wave of feral ghouls, his actions a futile as fighting the tide with a bucket.

*Bzzzzzzzzzt*

*CLAP!*

The next moment a jagged lance of azure light touched down in the center of the feral ghouls, the scent of cooked hot dogs filling the air as all eyes turned to the roof. Standing upon the precipice, black coat billowing, white hair whipping, crimson eyes glinting balefully and Desert Ironwood wand extended, was Wildcard, nature's wrath incarnate pouring out of his foci like water from a garden hose.

Like the finger of an affronted god raking through the sand, Wildcard's continuous burst of lightning fried countless feral ghouls. Mikhail, as a master of wind magic, created channels of airless space for the excess lightning to branch off into, frying those in the lightning's wake that were missed.

After several impossibly-long seconds, the air filled with a putrid stench of cooked meat and ozone, amidst a sky burial of charred bodies that even the vultures wouldn't pick at was Karlo Komarov, eyes wide and incredulous at the complete destruction of his life's work.

"You… You think this changes anything…?" Karlo whimpered out in Russian, trying to hold onto some measure of pride. "You think I'll stop…? That I'll rest…?"

"Just because evil never sleeps… doesn't mean it can't be made to bleed," the French-spoken teen said in flawless Russian as he leveled his wand once more. "Tlobgninthgil."

The last thing Karlo Komarov saw before the lightning struck him, flaring out around the teen hero's back, was a shadow in the clouds shaped like spread wings alight with thunder

*HUB CAPPED*

Hub City
February 21, 18:25 EST

"Heh. Guess a custom-tooled wand really does do wonders…~"

Back with just a Ring-Wand, a single burst of lightning less than a second long and strong-enough to take out a soldier in meta-materials dropped him like a lead weight. Now though, he could fry a bunch of fake vampires and their master like he were wielding a Neutrona Wand from Ghostbusters.

Didn't mean he wasn't still exhausted though. In fact, only reason he was still standing now was because of the Sneaking Suit, propping up a body that was running on less than fumes. And it was only thanks to Sofiya fretting adorably over him that he was able to conceal this exhaustion from the gathered criminals.

By the time he got back to Mikhail, the heads of the Yakuza, Mafia, and Cartel in Hub City were all giving the man begrudging nods of respect for services rendered, their young wards and successors well in hand. They were certainly traumatized from the ordeal, but that the whole thing played out like a Hero/Villain battle would help ease the burden on their prepubescent minds.

In fact, Virgil was pestered for his first autographs that day.

He never expected that to be asked of him by the children of crime families, but thankfully he had a notepad and pen in his coat pocket, as well as excellent cursive.

This (on top of the rescue) also seemed to ingratiate him to the Hub City's Yakuza, Mafia, and Cartel. Not enough to repent their sinful ways and turn away from a life of crime cold turkey, but certainly enough that he received a "Marker" from the three heads; signifiers of three indelible blood oaths formally witnessed and recognized by the Russians, Japanese, Italians, and/or Hispanics.

A useful thing to have if he ever needed it, to be sure.

The children were given a brief respite to hang out and try to come to terms with what happened, but eventually the three other crime families departed for Hub City, a united convoy as a sign of solidarity and continued goodwill between their households.

" . . . How did you know those people couldn't be saved?" Mikhail asked as he glanced sidelong at the charred bodies through the estate gates.

"I could tell by the look of them," Virgil deadpanned, also giving the bodies a sidelong look.

Even down to the bone they'd been horribly mutated by what Komarov did to them.

"I'm surprised you killed him," he said turning to the half-standing body in the middle of the sky burial, the bones shiny and red compared to the charcoal of all the rest.

"There were kids in there," he said tearing his eyes away from the smaller bodies.

He'd need a lot of alcohol and/or sex to make this moment "okay".

" . . . Probably debtors and their kin," Mikhail sighed, glad Sofiya was being shielded from their heavy talks by a weak glamour. "Thank you for saving her."

"I did it for her, not for you," Wildcard replied, Sofiya half-asleep on her feet as she held his hand.

"Even still, you have my gratitude," Mikhail said rolling the encoded thumb drive in his hand. "It isn't just Balalaika I owe for today."

"How about we cut traveler's checks after we're home."

"Right... Home," Mikhail hummed aloud as he ruffled his granddaughter's hair, pocketing the drive. "Come on. We'll hit the bank on the way to the airfield."

*HUB CAPPED*

Moxxxi's Red Light
February 21, 20:37 EST

"I didn't know you could drive a tank."

"Really? That's your takeaway from the whole thing?" Athena deadpanned.

"What? It's something to be legitimately shocked about," Gaige replied, she and Athena having kept the lights on for him once they heard he was taking a plane back like a VIP.

That the guys talking shit about him on the drive over had to carpool back was just the icing on the cake.

"To be fair, I don't; I used… 'Analogue Techno-Magic' to make it do what I wanted," Virgil replied with air quotes.

"So like cheating on a test you didn't study for?" Gaige blinked.

"I mean… I guess it does make sense magic could be used as a shortcut," Athena nodded.

The existence of capital-m Magic was still a bit difficult for her to swallow since she made her living on Hard Science, but it made a little more sense if she treated Magic as something that exploited the Square Root Law; the statistical law where, if on an area where there are 100 particles, the square root of them will move with quote/unquote "exceptional behavior". Magical flight for example could exploit the minority of "10 particles" that would stop in mid-air or otherwise ignore the laws of gravity while the other 90 act with "unexceptional behavior". In essence, turning the minority into the majority.

Of course, if she started down that rabbit hole, she'd lose an entire day to it like she almost did when Virgil showed her and Gaige his magical summer cottage (replete with quasi-immortal butler), so she'd leave the magic to her boyfriend.

And maybe her Gruncle if his drunken ramblings were even remotely factual.

"Although… How did you know about the tank in the first place…?" Athena inquired.

"The Question rambled about all the machine parts and equipment Komarov had been ordering over the past few years and coincided it with ultra-heavy shipments from specific World War I battlefields during the drive over."

"Oh, okay, so there's some method to the madness," his polyamorous primary hummed aloud.

"Soooooo… There going to be a cute Russian magical girl pining for you in ten years~?" Gaige grinned with a brow waggle.

"I really hope not…" Virgil sighed, remembering the way Sofiya had looked at him on the flight back in one of Balalaika's jets.

It certainly didn't help when Balalaika spoke for him in regards to potential future house-watching requests once Mikhail settled in and wanted to hang out with the men of his that'd crossed state lines. Some had opted to join Hotel Moscow, but others had taken the out and "retired" altogether.

"Hey, you might change your mind someday," Gaige hummed throwing an arm over Athena's shoulder. "You certainly changed your mind about this so-and-so~"

" . . . If I weren't so completely exhausted, I would be so turned on right now…"

"They have a pill for that," Gaige chirped matter-of-factly before Athena flicked her on the nose, earning an adorable squeak from the Mechromancer.