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AvalonReeseFanFics
A/N: Well hello there my wonderful readers! I'm glad you're enjoying this new season so far! You guys have already basically guess what Steve hasn't, though, to be fair, she doesn't know it yet either. Any guesses on how long it'll take for them to actually figure it out? Anyway, enjoy this chapter, it's supposed to be funny, so hopefully it makes you laugh. See you guys next week!
Chapter 408
At first Steve was happy he had another case to distract himself from how much he missed Rowan. And doubly happy because it distracted Danny from why Steve hadn't been excited to be his partner in the restaurant.
Then he found out what his case was and he was distinctly less happy.
Duclair had gotten out of prison. Again. The man just wouldn't stop escaping.
This one, had been impressive though. The prison had been hacked and Duclair essentially just walked out of the prison and the guards were powerless to stop him. Seeing as they had been locked in the prison when it happened.
Now obviously he had help, so it wasn't entirely surprising when Duclair just up and vanished. They had no idea where he was or who had hacked the prison. However, a couple of hours later a dead body showed up. A burnt one.
Wanna guess who did that?
Well they thought it was Duclair but it was too messy to have been him. They figured it was someone else.
By the time they got back to the Palace, they had two things.
One, they figured out that the burned body was executed. Shot in both knee caps so he couldn't escape the fire. He died of smoke inhalation before he got roasted though, they weren't sure if that was a blessing or not, either way the man was dead.
However, the guy was the number one suspect in an arson case that took down a home that belonged to Randy Tao. Randy Tao was a drug trafficker, and that home had been a lab. He lost a lot of product and one of his top lieutenants in that fire. So he was obviously not very happy.
The running assumption was that Randy Tao had broken Duclair out of the prison to investigate and figure out who was being that arson fire. Duclair told him who it was, and Randy Tao went and burnt the guy back as punishment.
Since Randy Tao was the one who most likely knew where Duclair went Steve had sent Grover with HPD and SWAT to go pick the man up.
Steve had also called Con at that point. He had no better leads and he didn't want anyone else to die at that point, so he had asked if he could help him track down Duclair. Con had not been receptive, apparently he had fallen asleep after Steve had dropped him off and was not happy to have been woken up from his nap.
He said that he had promised his sister he'd babysit, not do Steve's job for him, and then he hung up.
Steve should have reminded him that he owed Steve favours still, but he also wanted his brother-in-law to kind of like him. So forcing him to do his bidding would not have been a nice move. Besides, he didn't need him anyway.
Two, Eric had not only figured out where the cyber-attack on Halawa originated from, he figured out who had been behind it. The attack had come from the Aloha State Campus, and from there they managed to pin point the person who was out of place.
With facial rec, they had gotten a file.
The man didn't look familiar but everything else about him did.
"Why does that name look familiar?" he asked and then read out: "Aaron Wright."
Danny nodded. "Didn't some bastard named Ian Wright kidnap Lou's daughter?" he asked and Steve nodded. "Yeah, Ro had Fat kill him, right? Cause he took down Sandy?"
"Yeah, that's the one. Is this perp related to him?"
Eric nodded. "He's his brother."
"Okay, so we've figured out that this guy was working for Randy Tao now we gotta figure out where he is so we can ask him where Duclair is."
"The question isn't where Duclair is, it's what is Duclair gonna do now that he's escaped?"
They all turned back to the screens to find that Wright had hacked them. It was his smug face staring out at him from all their screens. Well, great, he hadn't really wanted to track him down, but he didn't want the kid on his goddamn smart computer either.
Jerry and Eric were trying to get the computer back into their control but he had locked them out of the system.
God he missed Sandy. This wouldn't have happened with Sandy on the watch.
"What do you mean he's locked us out of the system?" he cried but got no answer so he turned back to face Wright. "Do you have any idea what you've done? Who you've set free?"
"Yeah. I do. I've unleashed hell."
Yeah that was accurate.
"If this is about your brother, we didn't kill him."
"No. Fat did," he said and then turned to Steve. "And you married his sister."
Steve nodded. "So what? Too scared to go after Fat and my wife yourself, so you figure messing with me is a better shot?"
Wright shrugged. "Eh, yeah. And I figured it'd be fun."
Yeah it was probably going to be the death of him too. If this ever got back to Rowan, which it probably would, she would not be too pleased. And with her mood swings she probably would contract someone out to get back at Wright. Probably Con.
"Alright, where's Duclair?"
"Honestly, you two would have a better chance finding Waldo." Steve and Danny exchanged glances, wow, they had a comedian here. "That pyro's got a very busy schedule and I don't think it includes re-incarceration. Wait a minute is that even a word?"
"Right, I'm done with this," Steve said pulling out his phone. "You'd clearly like to meet my wife and her brothers so I'm going to go ahead and give them a call."
"Aww… the big bad Navy SEAL needs his wife to help him fight his battles."
"No, but I'm annoyed and it's going to fun watching them take you apart. Specially since one of her brother's is super bored."
Wright just laughed. "It's nice to know that Five-0 outsources its work to criminals."
Steve's eyes narrowed, not because Wright was right and that was weird, but because something was wrong.
The first sign that something was wrong was the shadow that moved across the back wall. And then it was the way the hacker's eyes darted over to something to the left.
Then of course Wright suddenly jumped to his feet, which did nothing for him because the person on the other side of the laptop lashed out. One good hit to the face that knocked him flat on his ass and then the person walked around the camera and just went about kicking the shit out of him.
Just smashing his foot down onto what Steve was assuming was Wright's face. He wasn't sure, of course, because all of that was off screen. All he saw was the thing bobbing up and down, and, of course, he could hear the soft and squishy thump of the boot landing on skin.
"Get—" kick "—that—" kick "—smug—" kick "—look—" kick "—off of—" kick "—your—" kick "—face!"
Steve didn't have to guess who that was, he recognized the jacket.
He tried calling his name to get him to stop but it didn't work. Steve had to practically shout his name to be noticed.
Eventually Con stopped kicked and then stooped down so that his face could be seen by the camera. He was wearing his white rabbit mask, which meant he had gone there meaning business.
"Oh, hey McGarrett."
"What are you doing?"
"Well… you asked me to track down this guy… so I did… and…"
Yeah, but he had only asked him to help like… an hour ago. How had he found him so quickly?
"Firstly that's not the right guy. And… what was your plan here? Were you just going to kick him until he was dead?" Steve asked drily. "Wait… is he alive? We kinda need him to find Duclair."
Con glanced down to the man at his feet seemingly took him in for a moment and then said: "Uh… I might have… oh… nope… he's breathing! It's good! We're good!"
"Look, we think he's working with Randy Tao… when he wakes up…"
"Oh… yeah, Randy. Poor bastard. He's dead. Burnt to a crisp actually," Con said absently as he signed the cross over his chest. "Brutal way to go…"
"Wait… how do you know that?"
"You told me track him down, McGarrett!" Con cried pointing down to where this poor guy was probably out like a light.
"No, I asked you to track down Duclair, not the hacker."
"Well, word on the street was that this dude got Duclair out so that Tao could figure out who burned up his residence. I mean, he asked me to help, but like… he couldn't afford me. Don't know how he afforded this if I was too expensive. Anyway, I went to talk to him and him and his sons were already up in flames so I just… peaced on out of there. Didn't want to watch the whole thing, you know? Besides, the guy you wanted me to track down wasn't there. But, I got to thinking and I figure Duclair is killing everyone who was involved with his break out and if I'm right, it was only a matter of time before he went after the computer nerd. So I put out some feelers about who this dude was and here I am."
"I thought you said it wasn't your job to do mine?" Steve asked and he swore he could feel Con's scowl through the mask.
"You want my help or not?
"Yes!" he said quickly. "Yes I want your help, I just…" he paused and realized there wasn't any point in arguing. "Can you sit on him until we get there then?"
"Aces," Con said flashing Steve the signal for okay. "I got this."
And then he just ended the call.
"Yeah he didn't tell us where he was," Danny said and Steve bit back the desire to groan.
Honestly, her brother was probably more of a hindrance than a help at this point but at least he knew how to get a hold him.
H5O-H5O-H5O-H5O
Aaron Wright wasn't having a good day.
He had thought with Wo Fat working for the FBI out in California, and Rowan being out there as well for a movie premiere, that he'd be safe. Yes, that left one brother unaccounted for, but this was the brother who he reasoned he could pay to leave him alone.
When that brother then showed up, he didn't even get a chance to say that he'd pay him to go away, the man just went at him.
He had been knocked out, but when he woke up he wasn't with the Rabbit mask wearing psycho that was Rowan Pierce's other brother. He was tied to a chair and very, very wet, but the psycho who had knocked him out wasn't there.
But Duclair was.
And he was covering him in accelerant. It took a minute for Aaron to figure out what exactly was happening but as soon as he did that adrenaline kicked right in and he was awake and freaking out.
"Whoa, whoa, whoa, whoa, whoa! Hey listen, man! Listen, whatever you want, I can help you with this, okay? I got a lot of money. Alright? You could… you could have it all, okay?"
But Duclair wasn't listening.
Why was he even doing this? The whole reason he got out of prison in the first place was because Aaron had got him out. How could he be this ungrateful?
He finished upending the can of gas all over him and then crouch down beside him. He lit a single match with his own calloused finger and the two stared at each other.
Dear god he was going to die.
And then someone knocked on the door.
Oh thank god!
He opened his mouth to shout but Duclair shoved a rag into it. Jesus where had that come from? The door opened just as Duclair moved into the shadows of another room to hide.
The woman that came in looked around and calmly took in the tied up, soaking wet Aaron who was gagged with a rag. You'd think she be more freaked out, but nope.
Tani didn't care.
She had spent all day tracking this MiZchief guy down, and she wasn't about to be dissuaded simply because it seemed she had walked in on something.
Aaron tried to tell her something through the gag and though she didn't understand what he was saying she got that he was panicked and gesturing at something behind her. She also felt the presence of someone else coming up on her quickly so she ducked out of the way.
He came at her and she used the couch to vault over him, get her legs around his neck and shoulders and then flipped him to the ground. When they got detangled he got up and said something like: "Wow, you're going to look really pretty when you burn."
Yeah thanks for that, you complete psycho.
She didn't want him to talk anymore so she launched forward. They exchanged blows for a bit before he got her up in his arms and slammed her into the coffee table.
Yeah that hurt.
When she got up it happened again. They went back to trading blows, she got some good ones in, but then he grabbed her and slammed her, this time into a bookcase.
That one really hurt, like she had a hard time getting up from that one, but she had to because he came at her again.
She struggled with him, but he got her pinned, was strangling her a bit when someone grabbed him by the shoulder and threw him off.
The person now standing between him and Tani was in a black leather jack, black jean pants, combat boots and what looked to be a white tee-shirt. The way he moved told Tani that he was packing quite a few weapons, but that had to be the norm because he moved with ease despite the bulk he had concealed on his body.
The weirdest thing about him was the white rabbit mask he was wearing. She had no idea why he was wearing that.
Duclair ran at him and the Rabbit mask man punched him, hard. And while the punch landed, and it knocked Duclair back, it did not knock him down like it should have.
The Rabbit mask man shook his hand like it hurt.
"Fuck your face is hard."
Duclair came at him again, trying to get him into the same hold that he had gotten Tani in to begin with but the Rabbit mask man was faster and quicker. With each lunnge he'd dodge and then lash out. He must have punched Duclair at least four times before he tripped the man up and then pounced on his back.
He got one arm behind his back and then practically slammed him to the ground, taking the feet out from under him and tripping him up so they both went down.
"Stop struggling or I start getting stabby," the man said. "And trust me, I'm an artist with a knife like you are with fire."
And Duclair just… stopped struggling.
Tani got up from where Duclair had been strangling her and then just took in the whole situation. Wright in the chair, the man wearing part of a Halloween costume basically kneeling on Duclair's back and realized that well… this was all very, very weird.
She approached him cautiously because she had no idea whose side he was on. Yeah he had saved her life, but she didn't know if he was a good guy, a bad guy or just plain crazy. Good guys didn't run around where plastic masks like that, so she was leaning towards crazy.
"I… uh… Hi… What the hell… who are you?"
That white plastic rabbit mask swung in her direction and she swore she could see light brown, almost yellow eyes staring back at her.
The man behind that mask wasn't even breathless. It was like the fight he had just been in had been nothing.
"Uh… You can call me Sin Nombre. My brother-in-law asked me to help find this guy… and now I have… which means I can finally get something to eat…"
Brother-in-law. She wondered who that was.
She glanced over to where MiZchief was still tied up and then turned back to the man wearing the mask.
"So… were you here the whole time… or?"
"Yep. Set myself a trap for the fire bug here…"
"And you were just going to let him set this guy on fire?" she asked.
"Maybe," he said with a shrug.
"And you were just going to watch him beat me up?"
"Well, you seemed to be holding your own, didn't want to get in the way or nothing," the man said with a shrug and Tani nodded.
Most men didn't have that sentiment. Most would just step in to help because she was a lady. She liked that he felt she was doing fine without him and therefore didn't need help… until she needed it.
She looked back to Aaron who looked like, now that the danger of the situation was no longer directed at him, he was about to pass out. He face was starting to swell and his nose was bleeding, she wasn't sure why Duclair was so mad at him that he wanted to beat him up and set him on fire. Unless it wasn't Duclair that did it.
She turned a wary gaze back to the Rabbit mask man who had fished a phone out of his pocket and seemed to be trying to text someone.
"What happened to his face?"
The man with the Rabbit mask looked up to her, followed her gaze to Aaron and then said: "I uh… I had a little fun before y'all showed up."
Oh so it was him who did that? Why?
"And… you're wearing a mask because…"
"You ask a lot of questions," the man said and when she just stared at him he said: "Well it's kind of my…" The door was kicked open and the man turned to it. "Really? Really, McGarrett? You couldn't open it like a regular person?"
So he knew Steven McGarrett. So he was a good guy… or his brother-in-law.
Duclair took this moment of distraction as a chance to escape. He elbowed the masked man in the face, the crack she heard could have been the plastic of his nose, but Tani couldn't tell. The blow knocked the masked man off of him and then he got up and took off before anyone could stop him, slamming a door shut and locking it.
"Fuck! Look what you made me do!"
"How is this my fault?!" Steve cried and then turned to Tani. "You okay?"
"I'm fine," they said together, but the masked man was moving towards the door. Danny had been trying to kick it down, the masked man shot the knob off it.
Right so he was packing heat. Why didn't he just shoot Duclair in the first place?
"He's running," the masked man cried and then just took off, following after Duclair. Even Steve swore and took off, both him and Danny choosing to go around the house instead of out the back like she was going.
They all collided together at the same fence, quite literally. Steve practically tackled the masked man, and then grabbed onto her before she could jump over the fence.
"Let me go McGarrett!" the masked man had said but Steve was ignoring him and instead looking at Tani.
"Hey, hey, hey, what the hell were you doing here, or now for that matter?"
"You told me to identify MiZchief and report back."
"Okay… go back to the house," Steve ordered just and the masked man vaulted over the fence with relative ease making a bee-line for Duclair. "And don't kill him Con!"
Yeah he wasn't going to listen and neither was she.
She shook off Steve's grasped and hopped the fence, chasing after Duclair and the masked man.
As soon as she was over Danny turned to Steve and said: "That's funny."
"What's funny?"
"Unpredictable, stubborn, crazy. She's the female you!"
Then he just jumped the fence like he hadn't just said the most insulting thing every to Steve. With a huff, Steve followed after his partner, his brother-in-law and the woman who was starting to wear on his nerves.
But all of them were too late. Duclair had hijacked a car.
Now it was a car chase. Things couldn't get much worse from here.