AN: Story's Shadow and I are back. We both wrote this amazing chapter. He wrote the intro with the assassin and edited my portion, while I wrote the second half of the chapter. We hope ya'll enjoy. Unto the show.

PS: Before I forget, there are some suggestive jokes and references this chapter. There's nothing to graphic, wanna keep it a 'T' rating, but you can definitely tell what's being referenced and joked about. Those references come in my part of the chapter. I wrote them and Story's Shadow edited them as need be. Just wanted to let everyone know.

-Throne Room Of The Dragon Emperor, A Few Minutes Later-

From the spiral of energy Imperious summoned, a lean, athletic figure appeared and walked through it into the throne room before the spiral disappeared. Imperious smiled a little as hi servant stepped up to his throne and bowed, the hood of his jacket hiding his face.

"Welcome to a new universe."

The servant grinned as he looked up, revealing a young unshaven face of someone no older than 19.

"Thank you, master."

Imperious motioned for his servant to rise to which he did. The young man chuckled as he crossed his arms.

"A new universe, soon it will be yours."

"In time, yes."

"It will be a pleasure to make it sooner, sir."

Imperious chuckled.

"Your confidence is reassuring, but you know things aren't always simple with shaping reality into a perfect regime of order."

"Of course, sir. I only meant to say I will do my part."

The emperor nodded.

"I know. Just do not underestimate the people of this universe and this Earth."

The Dragon Emperor waved his hand, two swirling columns of mist rose from the floor and then vanished, revealing a visage of a person each. The servant's eyes narrowed at one of them.

"So, this universe has one of her too?"

Imperious nodded despite knowing his servant's statement being rhetorical.

"You know a Squirrel Girl and you know her strengths: Superhuman reflexes, strength, smell, the ability to communicate with squirrels. This one though wields a weapon gifted by my greatest enemies."

The servant frowned.

"So she's even more of a threat than the one I knew."

"Indeed. She does have her weaknesses: Stalker's strikes to her knees dealt considerable damage and inflicted severe pain, she is also vulnerable to the cold. Your unique ability would be most useful at exploiting the former."

The young man chuckled, his frown morphing into a grin.

"I agree."

Imperious then motioned his hand to highlight the second.

"Your other target."

The assassin looked at the one his master directed him too. His eyes locked on the image of a young black woman in red and gold armor. Imperious turned to his assassin.

"Riri Williams, the Secret Warrior known as Iron Heart. She also wields a weapon gifted by the Continuum. Like Tony Stark, she has her own armor with the same kind of weapons and defenses. A genius level intellect and inventor. Of course, without the armor she is only an untrained human."

The assassin nodded.

"Seek and destroy?"

"Study, strategize, and slay. Follow them, discover mannerism and schedule, discover any and all mental and emotional weaknesses. With you acting as my scout we shall obtain a more personal understanding of a few of our foes as we prepare to defeat them."

"And once I've discovered all there is?"

"Then you shall use your ability at the best opportune moment."

"Yes, master."

Imperious snapped his finger. A mist moved in a circle before the assassin and within it revealed an alleyway.

"This location is near the stronghold of my youngest enemies. I shall contact you on your progress. Now go."

"With pleasure, Mater."

The assassin walked through the portal. As he entered the alleyway the portal vanished behind him. He straightened his jacket and cargo pants. He looked around to see civilians walking through the streets. The servant of Imperious chuckled as he put on sunglasses before he walked into the crowded streets.

-Meanwhile, Secret Warriors HQ, Training Room-

Doreen could be found sitting on the floor in the training room, catching her breath after a long period of private training. While she always enjoyed training with all of her friends, sometimes she needed to practice alone just to clear her head, or blow off some steam if needed. She had just done multiple sets of sit-ups and weight lifting, and she had stopped to catch her breath. Even with her hyperactivity, she had limits as to how much energy she could exert before needing to recharge.

Once her panted breathing had returned to normal, she stood up and walked over to her jacket which she had laid down near the weight lifting equipment. She proceeded to take several slow sips of the refreshing ice cold water before realizing that she needed to do something else, something that she had accidentally caused herself to need.

Even though she knew the rest of her friends were currently out doing an open field exercise with Meta and his students, something about defeating an enemy combatant in an environment where they would have the upper hand, she looked around and listened closely just to make sure she was alone. Upon being certain she was alone, she reached into another pocket in her jacket and pulled out a small bottle of prescription pain killers.

She frowned at the sight of them, grumbling as she took them.

"Hopefully I don't need these much longer. Gotta make sure I pay attention next time I do that move. I do that move countless times and the one time I get lax I–"

Doreen stopped herself from continuing upon hearing approaching footsteps behind her, familiar footsteps. She chuckled and turned in the direction of where the individual was about to walk in to. Doreen grinned as she spoke.

"Thought you were training with the others?"

Rayshaun smiled as he walked over to take a seat beside her.

"I was for a short time, then I decided it would be a good moment for us to have some privacy. You know without lingering ears."

"You afraid they'll catch us and embarrass you again?"

Rayshaun couldn't help but blush as he knew what she was talking about. But he decided to joke back with her, so she'd share in some of the initial embarrassment he had felt. He scoffed with a smile as he spoke.

"You're technically to blame just as much as me for that incident. I told you to wait until we got to the car outside of the garage, or at the very least until we got somewhere private...you're the one who couldn't wait and choose to tackle me into a nearby closet."

It was now Doreen's turn to blush, possibly more so than Rayshaun as he continued.

"You're lucky that Cassie both knocked upon hearing us in that closet, and that she chose to not open the door even after knocking, otherwise you'd be, well-"

Doreen blushed madly while she frowned.

"Umm... no comment."

Rayshaun decided to playfully tease his girlfriend one more time before bringing up a slightly more serious topic.

"Hey I'm not judging. But hopefully next time we have a shared intimate moment, you'll make sure we're actually alone before your top comes off–"

"Moving on please?"

"Just one more thing: while I'm kinda nervous and uncertain about finally doing 'it'...I'm glad you trusted me with your-"

Doreen lightly punched his shoulder. Rayshaun gasped at this. She smirked slightly.

"That's payback."

"To get back on track Doreen, that wasn't the reason I wanted to have this private talk away from eavesdropping ears. It's about something else... something I noticed you've been hiding from the group for about a week now..."

Doreen tried to mask the look of surprise that would've formed upon her face otherwise.

"What have I been–"

"Doreen I was trained personally by Cap, he taught me to be very observant. I now notice little details that I normally wouldn't have recognized before: that fact that you walk gingerly, borderline limping on your right foot, and that you barely suppressed a pained hiss when Dante grazed your hip the other day in training when he almost landed that right jab."

"Hate to sound cliché, but that doesn't prove–"

"I also noticed you have a bottle of prescription pain killers in your jacket. I saw you the other day at the drug store when you asked for the day off. I was on patrol in the area and I honestly just happened to spot you walking into the store. Doreen you walked out carrying the bottle in your hand and were reading the instructions while you walked down the sidewalk back towards here. Plus... I saw you take some when I walked into the room..."

Doreen couldn't help but look both shocked, cursing under her breath. She sighed.

"No point in lying. Yeah, I've been taking pain killers for about a week now. I just didn't want anyone to know right away."

"Is something wrong? You wouldn't take pain killers so regularly otherwise."

Doreen sighed before answering.

"I... sustained two minor, and they are minor, injuries last week during our training."

Rayshaun was listening intently in silence. He suspected, but was still surprised to hear her say it.

"Remember when I tripped while doing that one mid-air jump kick?"

Rayshaun simply nodded in silence.

"Well I landed awkwardly on my right angle, and my hip made contact with the ground rather painfully. At first I shrugged it off, but after two days my hip was starting to feel better, yet my ankle still hurt like hell."

"How bad is it, your ankle I mean?"

"I honestly think its just a medium grade sprain. I did a couple private evaluations, and went to the family doctor, even he said it appeared to just be mild. My doctor was the one who prescribed the pain medicine."

"I'm glad its not serious. But still I gotta ask: why didn't you just ask Metatron to heal you like he did before?"

Doreen paused for a moment so she could accurately word her response.

"My injuries are to minor to ask him for that healing ritual. I don't want to ask him to heal me every time I get a minor injury. If it were more serious: say I fractured my ankle, then I would've asked him. But I don't want to bother him over something this small."

Rayshaun was about to speak when Doreen cleared her throat, realizing she forgot to say something.

"I promise you if I ever receive a bad injury, a real bad injury, I'll ask him right away. I promise."

His response was to just nod silently.

Doreen looked around then turned to him, grinning.

"Hey I just realized something...With the rest of the team being out for training right now, possibly for hours... we could finish what we started last week before we were so, criminally interrupted..."

Rayshaun blushed as Doreen leaned in for a kiss... and their phones both went off at the same time. They both pulled away from each other and pulled out their respective phones.

Doreen cursed loudly. Rayshaun's eyes widened a little at this before returning his gaze to his phone. Rayshaun couldn't help but laugh as he helped Doreen to her feet and they both started to head towards the rec room to turn on the TV and watch some breaking news.

"I promise you D, we will finish that at a later date."

Doreen couldn't help but grin at that promise as they reached the rec room and turned on the tv... and were greeted by rather shocking news that they didn't expect to see. News not seemingly related to Imperious, but news that could have it's own global consequences...They both shared a look, their eyes wide and jaws nearly dropping.

To Be Continued...

AN: Shocking National news, seemingly not related to Imperious. What do you think it is? Please let us know, and be prepared to find out next chapter. Also what did everyone think of the suggestive jokes? Did you like them, dislike them, or just find them ok? Please let us know. Until next time.