Chapter 7. Weekend Warriors

"Hahaha! Look! That guy got hit in the head with a coconut, Gentle!"

Manami Aiba, AKA La Brava, leaned back on the computer chair and let out a resounding belly laugh without end.

Danjuro Tobita, AKA Gentle Criminal, permitted himself a gentle chuckle at the antics playing out on his laptop's screen as he stood next to his comrade in crime.

"Hahaha! Such comedy! What an outrageous vid selection! Bravo, Brava! Bravo!"

The usual business was slow as had become, well–usual–as of late. So, in between all the present downtime between him and his latest, greatest caper, Gentle Criminal had elected to sit back (figuratively, at least at the moment), relax, and permit La Brava to amuse, bemuse, and occasionally ensorcell him with all of the funny internet videos she was a right proper bloodhound in sniffing out.

Monsieur of considerable culture such as he was, he was quite partial to the slapstick stylings both unfortunate and all too intentional that were so thankfully common in 'Epic Fail Compilations', such as the one he and his diminutive sidekick were currently halfway through watching. Mademoiselle of considerable culture as La Brava was, she too obtained much mirth from them, to his joie de vivre. Much more mirth, even, than what Gentle Criminal would ever permit himself to show, even in the company of a mind of such delightful resemblance to his own.

And yet… attuned to the same cerebral frequency as they were, complimentary as blue and gold as they were, like two snow peas in the same verdant pod as they were, sometimes there could be no circumnavigating a single, simple, straightforward fact even a first grader could enumerate upon a single, simple, straightforward glance at him and her.

Gentle Criminal and La Brava ultimately came from two markedly different worlds.

More expressly, Gentle looked like a gray haired, middle aged–maybe even outright old–man. A dapper, dashing, and downright dignified middle-aged or old man, yet still very much either of the two.

Whereas Brava with her two high magenta pigtails was the picture perfect pixie of juvenility with the slightest, saddest touch of jejunity.

True, Danjuro at age thirty-two wasn't actually that much older than her despite his appearance, and La Brava was actually just eleven years his junior rather than actually being eleven years in age despite her appearance. But as easy and easily abused as a single, simple, straightforward glance could be to harness, in this case, at least, it proved more on than off the money. A crude heuristic, maybe, but one most meritorious in their case.

Gentle Criminal loathed Pumpkin Spice Challenge videos and had just seen one of those contemptible recordings out of the corner of his eye in the recommended videos sidebar.

La Brava, on the other hand, loved such trivial, trendy rot and fell for it hook, line, and sinker on an all too common basis.

Gentle silently hoped, prayed, that his petite compatriot had not seen the dread menace Pumpkin Spice in the suggestions and that he could figure out some roundabout manner to use his powers and his conniving genius to distract her long enough to change the video to one where no Pumpkin Spice would ever been found in said suggestions.

But unfortunately, Lady Luck was not with him that day.

For as soon as the Epic Fail Compilation was over, La Brava suddenly finished holding her sides in laughter and closing her eyes with her head thrown back, and sat and looked normally at the screen again just as Gentle's hand was about to reach the trackpad to covertly change the video.

'Confound it! I knew I should have turned on Autoplay!'

"Hey Gentle! Lookie, lookie!" La Brava said, moving the stupid trackpad cursor of doom to the very same suggested Pumpkin Spice video he'd been so looking forward to remaining blissfully unaware about. "Jake and Sven have a new vid out on their collab channel! Pumpkin Spice Travel Challenge Gone Horribly Right Pt. 1!"

"Oh… oh what joy. I am so… elated for you, La Brava."

Ennui. Such, such ennui, was Gentle preparing himself for.

That and baka gaijin.

Such, such baka gaijin.

"Yippie! Let's see! Let's see!"

She clicked on the stupid video, the inferior video, and thankfully, there were no childish frivolities.

At least to start.

Apparently, it was a livestream that had just concluded. One with the unexpected blessing of a TO BE CONTINUED splash screen at the end. The reason for it being such an unforeseen gift had less to do with the welcome reprieve from nonsensical orangey, powdery nonsense and more to do with said splash screen enticing Criminal with the most delicious… idea.

A wonderfully delicious idea.

A wonderful, horrible, delicious idea...

"Say, La Brava… how would you like to meet these propres-a-rien you idolize… in person?"

La Brava gasped, instantly catching on to what he was saying without another word needing to be uttered. Hearts in eyes, finger a click away from refreshing the video from the start, she twisted around in the computer chair to face him and say, "Gentle, this is why I love you."

MHA-MHA-MHA

"Aaaaahhhhh…" Ron Stoppable said as he entered the bubble bath he'd set for himself in his room's jacuzzi. "Now THIS is high class living!"

Kicking his feet up, he turned the dial and let the soap bubbles oh so relaxingly soothe his aching muscles, still oh so sore from the rigors the OP had forced him to endure yesterday at the USJ. He had to hand it to whoever was responsible for it, but his stay so far in the Mitsui Housing Compound of the American Embassy in Tokyo was lovely. The jacuzzi especially was his hard earned tax dollars at work. Both in the brief time he spent there before going to UA for the first time the day before and especially now in the early morning hours of the Saturday after.

Without even needing to ask, as Ron leaned the back of his cranium in the headrest behind him, Rufus scurried on the flat part of the tub behind that and spread a nice Dead Sea mineral mask of mud on his face and two heirloom cucumber slices on his eyes.

"Yep, this is the life," he sighed, totally lost in comforting bliss. "Indeeeeeeeed."

T-T-T

Meanwhile, at the same time, in another room down the hall, Peter Parker was still in his jammies on his very comfortable bed, watching a normal, boring, local news hour WITHOUT having a certain haranguing news mogul with triple J's in his initials hanging burglary, larceny, and the illegal height of his web-swings on his head.

In the latest commercial break between segments, he weblined a soder from the nightstand to his left and took a sip. He didn't really pay any of them any mind–really just hoping to brush up on his grammar and lexicon since he hadn't lucked out and getting any of Japan's famously weird, whacky, and memeable ads. Sadly, he still didn't luck out before the final segment of the early morning news report began to play. It was okay though. He'd at least learned a couple of official vocabulary words and a few he was fairly certain were popular slang terms, which in his experience, were probably worth their weight in gold when trying to hold a conversation or gather crucial info.

When the program ended, Peter switched off the tube, brought his head back onto his very comfy pillow, finished his drink, tossed the can away in the nearby trashcan, and went, "Aaahhh! Japan's the best! No Jameson! No hating on dashing and daring teen heroes clogging up the news cycle twenty-four/seven! No Nova hitting on Aunt May! No breathing difficulties because of SOME people burning incense in my room! THE. BEST!" After ten seconds of some very comfortable stretching and yawning on his bed, his stomach started to grumble like an angry caged tiger spider. A very angry caged tiger spider. And a very hungry one too. "Hmmm… could use a snack tho. Should've known to get to the spread before Rick did yesterday. Ah well. I'll just have to man up and give the dough to the vending machine out in the hallway I guess… gonna get myself some yummy matcha pocky sticks…"

He stepped into the hall, and was instantly assaulted by the scent of frankincense wafting out from the room immediately to his left.

"Hey Zen-Kwan-Do!" he hollered at the door next to him. "Are you trying to set off all the fire alarms in there?! Put 'em out, man!"

He retreated back into his room, hand over his nose, as he decided to opt for getting the frozen noodle thing that was taking up residence in his room's freezer rather than brave the nauseating stench that surrounded the vending machine. However, he neglected to retrieve his web canister that he'd dropped after covering his face… so out into the stinky hall he went.

"Pssssssst!" There was a slightly exaggerated and very loud pssst coming from one of the rooms, the one directly across from his. "Yo, Human Spider! Get in here!"

The teen sighed and slowly went over, slightly annoyed. "What do you want, The Wall?"

Instantly, the door to Cyborg's room opened and extendo-arms snatched the bug boy right out of the hall before dropping him down on the rug and closing the door behind him.

"I have a teeny tiny plan, but we need absolute secrecy," Cyborg hissed. "I asked Static to create an electromagnetic silencer in ten minutes. Make sure you're ready!"

"What? I don't understand… I just wanted to chill and–"

"-Sit on yo butt and be bored while all of grorious Nippon awaits?! No way, man! We are gone! I've been here before, man, and I only scratched the surface of the mountain of awesome this beautiful country (and all its eateries that hide its greatest delicacies) have…to…offer!"

"But all I want is to relax, man! We can get all we can eat here… and it's FREE!"

"Boo-duh! Free is BORING! Come on little spider!" Cyborg said, grabbing Spidey and dragging him to the main hall lounge, where nine other Legionnaires were chilling out. "It's almost time…" He communicated telepathically to four of them.

"Dude, time for what!?" asked Spider-Man mind to mind. "Could somebody PLEASE tell me what's going on?"

"Somebody PLEASE. Get. This. Man. A gun," Cyclops telepathically said from his recliner, hands pressed together like some sort of Bond villain as he watched, fittingly enough, what looked to be the japanese dub of Goldeneye on the TV.

"A gun!?" Spidey mentally said incredulously. "Alright king of the Belfry! Somebody better start giving me some answers here, or whatever you guys got cooking up I'm gonna stop by screaming like a maniac!"

"Whoa man, hold your horse-head spiders!" Static mentally said from his spot leaning against the wall. "Cycs here is just playing! At least… I hope he is."

"I can neither confirm nor deny your take," the X-man in question said, smiling in sync with the start of the iconic and era-defining tank chase through St. Petersburg.

Spidey's eyes widened.

"Scott, behave now," Jean said from her spot next to him, placing a hand on his. "Don't mind him. He's still just a little ticked from last night's psychic phone call with Fury and is still dealing with it in his own, needlessly cryptic way."

Spidey huffed. "What? Like getting Cy here to yank a guy out from one the most cozy mornings he's had in the longest time for some plan of his!?"

"Yes," Cyclops took a sip of his tea right as the TV went to commercial break. "Pretty much."

Spidey glared at him.

"We're holding a group meeting. A TOTAL group meeting, right here in the main lounge. However, since we don't want the grownups higher up to know, we need to make sure they don't. Your mission, should you choose to accept it, is to crawl through the ventilation system until you wind up in the main security hub for this building. Once there, you will upload a virus that Cyborg baked fresh and ready to play an audiovisual loop on all the bugs in this place. Should be good for about… say… ten odd minutes before somebody gets suspicious and we have to start answering some VERY uncomfortable questions."

"Hmmmm…" Peter said, hand on his chin as he sat on a recliner right next to the X-men's power couple, making sure to look good for all the hidden cameras by looking at the absurdly over-the-top japanese ads running as though they interested him. Which wasn't that hard to do to be honest. They were REALLY entertaining for thirty second blurbs that only existed to sell him ramune or hamburgers or mopeds he couldn't afford. "I can't say I'm not disturbed by all this… but I'm certainly… intrigued."

Cyclops smirked as an ad for Tokyo Disneyland popped up.

"Care to tell me more? Like what our little powwow's supposed to be about, for starters?"

"No. Not right now," Cyclops said, stretching out his leg and stifling a yawn. "You'll know along with everyone else once all the Avengers have assembled, as it were."

"I will, however, feed you all the navigational data you need to make sure you're going the right way," added Jean.

Peter nodded as the TV showed Mickey, Donald, and Goofy together, waving at the camera.

"So… that nod mean you in, man?" asked Cyborg, pouring himself out a cup of joe from the nearby coffee station.

"Yeah. Yeah, I guess I am. Curiosity killed the spider and all that."

"It better not, or else you won't be able to see all the sights, man!" Cyborg said, gulping down his cup in one go before belching. Turning around, he said, "Yo, Toby! Come on over here! You gotta try this stuff!"

Taking the hint, Peter walked up to him.

Cyborg grabbed a fresh cup and said, "Here, let me!" He then poured out some coffee into said cup and handed it over to him. "Careful. It's hot and loaded with rich, homegrown, Japanese goodness!"

Mentally rolling his eyes, Peter mentally said, "Subtle. You REALLY should quit your day job and pursue that acting career of yours, Cy."

"Thanks. I do be out here giving it my best." Cyborg gave a thumbs up.

Letting it simmer down a little and giving it a good sniff, Peter looked down, eyes narrowed a bit, before shrugging and taking a sip right as Goldeneye came back on the TV.

"Now, I know youse be out here ragging on coffee cuz you don't like it that much, but can't you see how good this brew is, Toby?"

Taking another, longer sip, and then another, longer one after that, Peter sighed and said, "Ya know what, Vic? You're right. Stuff's not half bad. Actually kind of good for being heated up bean juice."

Cyborg clapped and then beamed, but then frowned as Spidey's stomach started to grumble in a bad way. "Your stomach don't sound like it's agreeing with your taste buds."

"Whoa boy!" Peter suddenly cried out, clutching his sides, his stomach grumbling even more fiercely and badly now. "You're right! Looks like I gotta make it to the itsy-bitsy-spider boy's room, stat!"

Without another word, Spidey leapt left and sprinted for the nearest bathroom, stat, which was down the hall behind the front of the lounge and to the right.

"All according to plan," Cyclops said, fingers pressed even tighter together like a Bond villain. "Muahahahahahaha!"

"Dude! Keep it down! I'm trying to enjoy the flick and maybe pick up a couple Japanese phrases here and there!" complained Static.

Mentally, Cyclops coughed into a fist and said, "Right. Sorry. Carry on. Won't happen again… much."

Mentally, Jean sighed. "Scott, honey, we talked about this…"

Meanwhile, once the door was shut behind him, Spidey promptly drank the rest of the coffee, gave a pleased, "Mmmmm…", and spat out the USB carefully wrapped watertight in a little plastic baggie Cyborg had oh so gently hinted at being in the coffee cup. "Delicious and informational."

He then found the vent Cycs was talking about, shot out an allegedly organic web line at the grate allegedly out of his wrist, pulled the grate off with the proportional strength of a spider, hopped in, and crawled his way through the ventilation system to the main security hub, mentally telephoning Jean for the right directions.

T-T-T

"Top o the Mornin' to Ya, Laddies and Lasses!"

"It's The Irish Sweeeeeeeeeeeeeeeede!"

"An' we came alawey out here to the land of the rising suun ta complete that challenge dontcha know!"

"Very many challenges with very many videos! Nord VPN likely."

"Nord VPN! Best VPN!"

"Please like and subscribe."

Gentle Criminal, La Brava at his side, grinned outside the same 7-Eleven as Jake the Irishman and Sven Swan as he waited for the opportune moment to strike… and decided as soon as the infernal, sorry excuse for an intro was over, he'd hijack both the spice, and the cameraman, and make his own challenge.

The Pumpkin Spice tea drinking challenge!

For, as a good–if scenery chewing–film Gentle once had watched as a young lad said, 'He who controls the spice, controls the universe.'

In a couple of classy seconds, the intro was over.

From his stance amidst the front of the crowd of fans the two Ruffians had fawning over them, Gentle shouted, "La Brava! I believe one of the actors has played his part! Now play YOURS!"

Most everyone's eyes on him, the two influenceurs especially, no one caught La Brava leaping out from the trashcan next to the door of the convenience store, piko-piko hammer held aloft, until it was too late. Far, far too late.

Shouting out, "Ei, Ei, Oh!" she brought the mighty toy looking mallet crashing down upon the noggin of Jake and Sven's most unlucky cameraman. As he fell unconscious to the ground, La Brava deftly caught the camera he held and then held up a thumbs up, saying, "On it Gentle! Ready to show the world your brilliance!"

"Only if it is fi"Hey now! Leave Bernie alone!" The Swede demanded as the cameraman grumbled on the ground. "He deserves your respect, Pink haired fartansikte!"

"Sorry, Sven, but Gentle REALLY needs the popularity boost more than you do right now, okay?" La Brava said, pointing the camera at the two Yap!Tubers. "Oooo! When this is over, can you and Jake sign my shaky cup!"

"Only if it is filled with epic Gamer flavor and you apologise to Bernie right this second. Also, please like and subscribe and join the Patronizer App as a seventh tier!"

"But I'm already a seventh tier!" La Brava said.

"Then big brain idea…go EIGHT tier!"

Gentle shouted, "Enough of this puerile prattle!"

With elegant, twin gestures of his hands, he ushered them into the establishment. He accomplished this by gently creating a wall of air around their fronts to cushion them from the harsh, unyielding and cruel glass of the doors with his first swift motion. With the other swift motion, he gently shoved them with a wall of air INTO said unfriendly glass with all the force of an air cannon. Right into the large, open pile of pumpkin spice resting on a comically oversized container in the center of the store flanked by pumpkin spice lattes, pumpkin spice candles, and white pumpkin spiced pumpkins.

Readjusting his royal purple scarf, Gentle and La Brava regally sashayed into the store and drank in the stunned silence of the occupants therein, especially the quite surprised cashier behind the counter that he stopped before.

"Hello, my fine person of the workplace! I, Gentle Criminal, have no desire for poultry wealth, so you may keep your yen. However, there is no saving the cache of pumpkin spice I see you've managed to accrue. I shall be repossessing it, and using it to my own ends."

"What ends Criminal?" La Brava asked rhetorically for dramatic effect at his side.

"Why, I am happy you asked, La Brava! I Gentle Criminal, shall host my own, superior, dignified, SOPHISTICATED challenge! The Pumpkin Spice Tea Drinking Challenge! And I request, nay, REQUIRE, Jake the Irishman and Sven Swan partake!"

A moment later, the two influencers in question spat out the combination of cinnamon, nutmeg, ginger, cloves, and allspice out from their mouths as they removed their heads from the pile of tasty dust.

"Ach! You better let us goo! Ifn ya don't, We'll be calling in MagsNotClips on yer arse!"

"Actually, is good idea. Fine! You are a very crazy man. But we are more crazy! So, we will take your challenge. Our fans will be happy to watch us woop the ever loving crap outta you!"

"Ya! And the piss too! We're baggin' the W on this here random encounter, ya know! I didn't come halfway across the world to lose anythin' anywhere!"

"Hahahahaha! Very well! We have a bet!" Gentle declared, finger pointed high into the air "Nay! Nothing so crass! A gentlemanly wager! In an hour's time, whosoever has ingested the most pumpkin spice tea without a spilling a single, solitary drop or soiling themselves–"

Just then, a toilet flushed.

The men's bathroom opened and out strode a rather… uncanny individual.

MHA-MHA-MHA

When Spidey got back not too long after completing his clandestine mission, he hopped back out the vent, put the grate back into place so pristinely that one would need enhanced vision to tell a single screw was even a little out of place, leapt back to the bathroom floor, turned around…

"Excuse me! Can I PLEASE get more privacy than I would on the Gummi Ship?!"

…and found the bathroom had been rendered ocupado by Sora in the brief interval since he'd been gone, the spiky haired teen washing his hands and looking at Pete rather crossly through the mirror just behind the sink.

Well, at least he didn't drop back in when Sora was dropping… something… in one of the toilets in the stalls… or one of the urinals.

Chuckling nervously, Spidey massaged the back of his head and said, "Hehehe… sorry. Forgot to lock the door. And that there's, like, thirty-three other people running about."

Sora shrugged. "Eh. It's alright. No worries." He dried his hands with a paper towel. "At least you apologized. Can't say the same about a certain billed friend of mine. You do know that I could just unlock it anyway, right?"

Spidey slapped himself a little in the face. "Oh. Right. Keep forgetting you have a literal skeleton key perched in hammerspace somehow in your powerset."

Sora tossed the spent paper towel away, turned around, and asked, "What exactly were you doing up there anyway?"

Spidey opened his mouth to speak but then stopped, slapping himself again before saying, "Hold that thought. It'll all be explained soon." He had forgotten to tell Jean the deed was done when he did it, so he contacted her again over the psychic hotline and said, "Yo! Red! It's go time!"

Immediately, someone called back and said, "Excellent. Muahahahahaha!"

Spidey rolled his eyes, physically and mentally, much to Sora's apparent confusion.

"Not you, Kim! Quit wire tapping the line!"

"Not wiretapping, Spidey… this time. Muahahahahaha!"

Spidey grimaced, in his head and without, making Sora take a slight step closer towards the door. "I'm trying to talk to the other red. Or… the other other red. Or… the other other other red. Or–" Spidey shook his head and said, "Great. Now I'm starting to sound like Deadpool, and I hate that guy."

"Oh. You've met him too?" Jean suddenly asked, Spidey somehow feeling the psychic link between his and Kim's mind dissipating. "Sorry about that. Kim strolled into the lounge, me and Scott got to giving the gist, and we were sharing plans and I guess I sort of forgot to keep the line just between us when you called. But anyways, back to a certain regenerating degenerate: was he every bit as pushy, showy, and annoying to you as he was to us?"

Mentally and physically, Spidey sighed, again confusing Sora greatly. "You don't know the half of it."

"I think I know the full of it, actually, considering he tried REALLY hard to join our team and convince us being hyper-lethal, mercenary assassins for fun and profit was the in-thing to do."

Spidey blinked. "Huh. Sounds like you do know the full of it, actually. Though in my case, he wasn't trying to join my team, he was trying to get me to join his: his own little army of one." He shook his head psionically and in normal space. Ignoring Sora's varied and humorous hand and facial gestures to get him to stop staring off to the distance at his side and pay him any regard, Pete said next to Jean, "But forget about Mr. Wilson for a sec–errr–the other Mr. Wilson–and rally all the troops now or whatever before the guy manning the security hub wakes up and realizes I just lent him an extra SanDisk in his computer."

"Ten-four, Spidey!"

Not a split second later, Peter heard Jean announce over the psychic rapport for all legionnaires in the building to report to the lounge for a friendly chat about their plans for the day.

Sora suddenly stopped sillily trying to get Spidey's attention and scratched his head. He was used to hearing ONE voice, but he was curious as to how all the other ones got in there. Did they throw hands to see who got top speech billing? He wondered…if they got crowded. He focused–a rare thing for him-and transmitted haphazardly, as he had been taught how to send his own voice by the only person on hand who had the patience to teach him, "Raven …are you sure everyone is ok in here? I mean…what happens if too many people get in my head? My heart already has enough people trapped in it…I don't want my mind being a prison too…"

"Hey, walking eye hazard! We can ALL hear you," Raf growled mentally.

"And for the record, you're pretty loud," Peter physically said, rubbing his temples in agony. "Like, seriously, if I could, I'd be directly massaging my brain now to get it to stop ringing."

"Sora, just get to the lounge," Raven said psionically. "And seriously, STOP the telepathy until you get more practice and STOP. BROADCASTING. TO EVERY. PSYCHICALLY CONNECTED. PERSON. IN A THIRTY MILE. RADIUS!"

"Sorry!" the keybearer said sheepishly, rubbing the back of his neck as he was want to do when he was being a lovable dork. "I…didn't mean it! Gosh, I nearly gave our whole plan away, didn't I? Hehehe."

Peter patted him on the head like a good little boy. "Don't worry. If at first you don't succeed–"

"Try, try again?"

Peter threw his head back and laughed. "No, no, no. You'd give everyone massive migraines and make them all hate you if you try, try again. Instead, just focus on the fact that there are at least three to five people here who will beat you up if you do it again."

Sora gulped. "Thanks…I think…" before looking quite nervous and causing the keyblade to summon itself for an instant, before the boy speedily retreated out of the bathroom, leaving behind a very satisfied Peter.

"Glad we had this talk!" Spidey called back to him before strolling out of the bathroom himself.

A few seconds later and Peter was back in the lounge, all forty of their little foreign expedition assembled all about the room.

Specifically, all around Cyclops and Jean, still in their seats.

"Friends, humans, inhumans, magical humans, cyborgs, mutates, mutants, mutant turtles, aliens, magical aliens, dragons, ghosts, half-demons, animal sidekicks, countrymen! Lend me your ears!" Cyclops called out, hands gesturing like he was reciting a famous bit from a certain Shakespearean play concerning a certain famous Roman politician.

"Oh gawd! Scott jus' get on vis it already! I haf to pee in an hour!" Kurt complained, thrashing his tail.

"Do you wanna make it two?!" The dark tone indicated that he was quite serious and would carry out such a threat.

"Shutting up…" The blue fuzzy one said hurriedly, legs twitching. "Continue, please…"

"Beast would, like, so approve if he was here, though!" Kitty said.

"Totally," Kurt, Rogue, Toad, and Spyke said in unison.

Scott nodded and said, "Thank you." Then, getting back into the theatricality of the moment, continued with, "We stand here on the eve, nay, the precipice of a grand adventure that will get us all grounded if we get caught!"

"What? Did my petition to all go out into the courtyard and go crazy with the stankball get enough yays? Because if that's the case, sweet!" Beast Boy said, fist raised in triumph.

"No," Scott said, head hung low in shame. "Sadly."

"Uh, I think you mean, gladly," said Jean, gladly holding firm to her position as the deciding vote on the near split 19-21 decision.

"Awww, DUDE! No fair!" Beast Boy frumped.

"Would've been rad if it did tho, dude!" the orange decorated turtle said to the Titan who shared his lingo.

"Dude yeah!" BB said in agreement.

"Dude Totally, Dude!" Mikey answered excitedly, high fiving the green chameleon.

"I'll 'dude' ya both right into the toilet if you don't shut up!" the angry red turtle growled, raising a sai menacingly.

"BB's unambiguously right about one thing though that everyone in this room can all agree on, Rapahel: it's not fair. It's so not fair that everyday for some amount of time only Fury knows that we have to get up early and take a train ride an hour to UA. So, I propose a little… mutiny of sorts. For those of us willing to, of course. Completely voluntary. Some gamers amongst us might even say it's a bit of a skippable, if enjoyable, sidequest. No shame if you just want to chillax for the rest of the day."

"A mutiny? Sidequest?" Starfire asked. "Ooooo! Ooooo! Are we playing The Pirates of the Caribbean now?"

"Star, honey, no, no," Kim said, grabbing Star's hand and patting it gently.

"He means that he wants us all to play hooky," Robin said from his spot leaning against the wall next to the TV.

"To get back at SHIELD's shellish housing arrangements," Leonardo added.

Cyclops clapped and said, "Give the man a silver dollar and the turtle a slice of pizza. Anyway, I'm thinking it's best for those of us who want to split to start splitting up and go tour the town within the next, oh, seven minutes or so before the free-trial of Cyborg's virus runs out and the hidden cameras and mics crawling all over this place are back to normal."

"Wait, why seven minutes?" Danny (Phantom) asked.

"Yeah, I'm with ghost boy on this for once," said Jake. "Why couldn't you have the virus run for like an hour?"

"Uh, yeah, same boat," said Ron. "As in the one I'm SORELY missing in the bathtub that I was soaking in to deal with all the SORENESS and the BRUISES and the OUCHIES I got yesterday! I mean come on! You couldn't give a guy like, thirty more minutes to enjoy a nice relaxing bubble bath!"

"Or give the spirit time to recoup during much-needed meditations, that are best done in the sanctity of the early morning…" Danny (Rand) said, in a tone that was more sadly disappointed than accusatory.

"Sorry. Wish we could, but we can't," Cyborg said, shrugging. "The loop's up for ten minutes total. Any longer and they'd start getting suspicious, and the odds of us having some 'splainin' to do go through the roof."

"And why couldn't you just, I dunno, tell us over the mental IM so that way we'd have all the time in the world to set that virus up for this early bird group huddle?" asked Gear, still combing his bed head of hair.

"Because Scott here has a penchant for dramatic urgency," Static said. "And stop messing it with, Gear. You're never gonna fix it! Just grow some locks like me."

"Guilty as charged," Scott said, hands up in surrender.

"Ja. He gets it from professor Hank," Nightcrawler scoffed, rolling his eyes as his potty dance intensified.

"Great. So now we all have to speak or forever hold our peace and wonder what could have been," said Kevin, rubbing the sleepy sand from his eyes.

"No. You'll have plenty of time to mull it over," said Scott.

"But Cy just said–"

"I said we only have ten minutes before the folks behind the spyware this housing block is loaded with will increasingly start thinking we're playin' them for suckas," began Cyborg, "but I didn't say nothin' about using my little malicious code baby throughout the day for a lot less time than that."

"Cy's right, as I'm sure he usually is," Cycs said, smirking at Robin, who frumped. "Let me explain the exact tactical deets of Operation TMH as it shall be known as henceforth-that's Teen Mutiny Hookie.

"At different intervals during the day, only a few of us at a time–tour groups if you will–will clandestinely exfiltrate this overgrown motel for municipal drones and go on our merry way to enjoy our foreign post however they see fit. To help this along, a volunteer from whoever's sticking around will reupload the virus when it's time so that the departing tour group has time to comfortably gather and get their bearings before they leave and so any incoming tour group that's had its fill of AWOL fun fun fun in the land of the rising sun sun sun can comfortably return to their rooms and roam about the halls here as they'd normally do to help sell the illusion.

"Simplicity itself. Sort of like how we got off the tri-carrier back in Okinawa, only a lot less taxing for those of us with the cloak-and-dagger and logistical inclined powers."

Cloak and Dagger smiled, appreciating the pun.

Yawning, Gwen said, "Ya know, there are other ways to get back at eye patch McGee than waking me up from my beauty sleep to play tourist."

"True, but–"

Before Cyclops could finish, Ben let out the mother of all snores from his spot in a corner where he sat and had dozed off back to sleep.

"Uh! Can someone PLEASE cast a mute button spell on him or something! I would, but I can't bring myself to care enough to do so I'm. SO. SLEEPY!" Gwen groaned.

"I could gag him with my powers," Raven said.

"Puh-lease," Kevin said, hands clasped together as though in a begging prayer.

With a wave of her hand, Raven summoned an X of dark energy that wrapped around Ben's mouth and muffled his decibels to that of a church mouse.

"Oh thank you so much, Rae," Gwen said, sighing in relief.

"You're welcome."

"Ya know Scott, I never figured you for a pantser," Robin snarked, smirking.

"Normally boy wonder (emphasis on the 'boy'), you'd be right on the money. But as any good leader should know, and more importantly, any good teen who's really mad at the short sightedness of adults that we have to live with… sometimes it's good to be off the cuff, hyper but not stupidly reactionary, and deal with any mishaps later."

"Especially if you want to beat the lines at Tokyo Disney and Universal Studios Japan by eight! Personal experience!" Cyborg added.

"Mostly awesome personal experience!" Beast Boy chimed in with a thumb's up.

"Wait! Theme Parks! In Japan!?" Toad asked. "Man, I thought that was only an American thing!"

"Your stupidity knows no bounds," said Raven. "I feel sorry for your body that your smooth brain inhabits it."

"Hey! My brain's alright and all ridgedy and wavy, I'll have you know!"

"No. It's smoother than a baby's bottom. And it inhabits your body."

Robin groaned and said, "Look, I get it. You're angry, I'm angry, EVERYONE's angry over the oncoming morning school crunch, but you really need to do what I pegged you for being want to do."

"What? Be obnoxiously bossy?" Danny Phantom asked.

"Huh. Heard that," Jake song.

"Being a plotter," Robin continued. "Being in control. Being responsible. Think about it Scott. We're in a foreign country. And we're not here on vacation, we're on the clock."

"Sadly," said Ron in his bathrobe, head hung low, rubber duck in one hand whilst eating with his other hand one of the cucumber slices that had previously been on one of his eyes before he was so rudely taken from his relaxing morning tub time and summoned here.

"We're supposed to be on a covert mission hunting down what amounts to effectively superpowered terrorists!" Robin continued. "We don't know who's on the straight and narrow and who's fake and on the take. We don't know who has eyes and ears and where. And most of us here don't even know how to speak the language that well yet without technological assistance. I've been here before with Raven, Starfire, Beast Boy, and Cyborg and most of us at the time couldn't tell kanji from katakana if our lives depended on it and that caused problems, Scott. BIG problems. Trouble. In. Tokyo."

Starfire sighed. "Oh, if only humans had the language transfer ability of we tamaraneans. Then they could learn all the tongues on this planet! All it would take would be a simple kiss!"

Toad rubbed his chin in thought and said,"Hmmm… well actually, that's not a bad idea. I kind of like it." He then made a bunch of kissy faces and the accompanying noises.

Everyone groaned in disgust. Even Starfire. And she once ate an entire mustard factory. The entire thing. Masonry, wiring, metal machinery, and all.

Coughing into his fist to get everyone back on track, Robin continued by further asking, "What if someone gets lost, makes a scene, gets grabbed and nabbed or worse? What happens if Fury ever gets wind of our little mutiny?"

"Well, to your last point, obviously we make sure he doesn't. I mean honestly! You were trained by the World's Greatest Detective. You'd think you'd have figured out that part of the plan by now," Scott said condescendingly.

Ignoring him, Robin pointed to Gwen, Kevin, and bunch of other bleary eyed, baggy eyed, and generally disheveled and sleep deprived looking Legionnaires and said, "And another thing: nearly half of the people in this room, even the ones I suspect are chomping at the bit to take your offer look like they need a week's worth of rest to get their full eight hours after some very recent events."

"Can confirm," said Ron, raising an index finger to the air to the affirmations of various of the others.

"Hmm, Robin's got a point, Cyclops. Maybe we should hold off on this...misadventure, until we're all in tip-top shape and know the lay of the land better?" suggested Peter, not quite hiding his yawn.

"And can speak hyojungo perfectly fine on our own?" added Leonardo.

Cyclops' expression grew thoughtful. Genuinely thoughtful, and by Peter's estimation, the clock ticked to minute five ever since they all assembled before Scott spoke again. "Look, full disclosure, I see where you're coming from. But we can't let the fear of the unknown hold us back. Besides, we're not exactly inexperienced in this kind of thing, are we? Even if we aren't exactly the Fantastic Four when it comes to charting terra incognita, right?" He looked around the room, his gaze lingering on the more seasoned members of the group.

All were silent, the air of adventure and that very fear Scott spoke about hanging and clashing amidst everyone.

The silence was only broken when Cyborg coughed into a metallic fist disguised as his old hand before his life altering car accidents all those years ago and said, "Well, about Robin's first point about people here possibly losing their way, making big stinks, or getting kidnapped or worse: obviously, tour groups would be blind, death, mute, ageusic, hypoesthesiatic, and just plum dumb without tour guides, man!"

Perking up, and regaining a bit of confidence as Cyborg waved his arms exaggeratedly, Cyclops said, "Right again, Cy! I propose each group has at least one person who speaks fluent Japanese without Tony Stark's latest and greatest revolutionary consumer product–and quite possibly most likely to be stolen or tampered with by people outside this embassy–whose sole responsibility is to make sure everyone in the group gets back safe and sound and in as many pieces as possible while maxing out the tonnage of their funnage."

EVERY X-Man groaned at that, as well as several others.

"Ideally," Cyclops began, "the tour guide in each group would also be someone with intensive experience operating on Japanese soil and who would also be highly motivated to ensure his or her tour would go swimmingly. Like you, boy wonder."

Robin's eyes narrowed at the subtle jab.

For a while.

A long enough while that Cyborg felt he had to shout, "Seven minutes in guys! First tour group's gotta roll in three!"

Not long after though, Robin sighed and finally said, "Fine." He folded his arms. "You've sold me. But if anything happens to any of us, it's on you, Cyclops. I won't stand in the way of Fury's fury, and it's my sincerest hope no one else here does either."

The room was silent again as Robin's half domino mask scanned the eyes of everyone else, silently prodding their various reactions running the breadth of the emotional spectrum and the fight, flight, or freeze gradient.

Cyclops remained one of the few who remained as unreadable as a rock statue with the runes of the various esoteric languages the more knowledgeable magic users in their midst were well acquainted with.

But if what little Peter knew about the head X-Man was accurate, and he had no doubt it was, his ruby red eyes beneath those ruby red glasses of his were just as analytical as those of the Dark Knight's former protege.

"I am willing to bear full guilt, liability, and responsibility, Robin." Cyclops outstretched his hand and Peter had to admit, there was something… noble about the gesture. Like, genuinely heartfelt and genuinely, well, genuine about it. "Whatever that winds up being."

He smiled. Not smirked. Smiled. No hidden barbs or agenda or anything. Just a normal, open, smile.

Robin's expression mirrored his, and he quickly clasped Cyclops' hand and shook it.

The ensuing exultation of joy amongst those really wanting to go were immediate.

"Boo-yah!" said Cyborg before high fiving with Agent Venom.

"Four Seasons of Tokyo and your giant chocolate fondue fountain, here we come!"

"Dude, sweet!" Beast Boy and Michaelangelo and Donatello and Nightcrawler and White Tiger and Toad and Spyke and Nova and Powerman and Rick Jones and Static and Gear and Cloak and Dagger and Blue Beetle and Sora all shouted as they simultaneously jumped and high fived each other.

Peter and Leo sighed, glad that a major Crises on Infinite Egos (the Living Planet and the… well… their egos) between Robin and Cyclops was averted.

For the moment, anyway.

All of the hoo-rahs, hoo-rays, and the hooting and hollering, however were interrupted when Ben, awoken and frustrated by the noise, broke in obnoxiously, "Excuse me! What's a guy gotta do to get some Z's around here?!"

He wasn't the only one disturbed by racket.

Because apparently, Ben Tennyson did not heed the old Chinese Proverb: 'Let sleeping saber-tooth tigers lie.'

For he had disturbed the napping kitty with overly grown fangs to the point of contention.

Zabu pounced, roaring his annoyance right into the alien master's face, spittle landing in the brown locks of the hero of ten faces.

"Eaaaasy kitty! Down boy! Kazaar! Where do you keep the leash for this thing?!" Ben hollered.

Kazaar shook his head. "Zabu requires no leash, strange green kid. He requires sleep. It is you who have awoken him. Therefore, he has deemed you food."

"Well tell him I'm NOT food, please! Por favor! Kudasai!"

Kazaar sighed and clicked his tongue, "Zabu, release. You don't know where that has been."

The tiger instantly let go and went back to his master, pouting and lying back down to resume his sleep.

"One minute remaining! First tour group's gotta leave, now!"

"What? Tour group?"

"Go to sleep, Tennyson. You can go later," said Kevin.

Ben shrugged after getting his tattered jammies as back in order as they could. "Eh. Okay." He then promptly went to sleep while the others scrambled to decide who got to play tourist first.

T-T-T

Bakugo was not happy. Not only was his hair looking like a stupid pansy loser, he was also being forced to do covert store security for his mentor's shop that sold not only jeans but designer clothes as well. The blond snarled, all his teeth showing on one side of his mouth. This was an absolute ass way to spend a Saturday.

It didn't make him happy to see five tourists entering his sight, nor did it really concern him. 'Baka Gaijin,' he muttered, one lip curling in absolute disgust. He frowned and scowled then turned away, focusing on a local who was messing up what another undercover sidekick had done.

"HEY! You extra! You mess it up, I mess YOU up! Now scram!"

The lady ran off, masking the entrance of three teens with outrageous but weak quirks. One was a skinny, shark-headed male. One was a plantimorph that resembled a cactus, and the third was a pink haired girl whose hair was actually bubble gum.

Bakugo barely had time to react before his arms and legs were gunked up worse than Iida's sense of justice, and he fell to the ground furious as the three hoods began to stuff items in their pockets. The hero-in-training growled like an enraged panda and drenched the restraints in sweat, getting ready to cause a mach 14 explosion.

He never got that chance.

A filament tripped up the shark, and he came crashing down on top of his mates. They groaned and smacked him away. "Dammit, Bruce! Get off and let's GO!" the girl snarled, heading for the door as soon as she shoved him off.

Unfortunately… the door refused to open, and so the thieves found themselves trapped inside the store. A ghostly wail split the disgruntled yelling and knocked the three out the door into a heap, the girl's hair sticking to her comrades bodies, and being bedazzled with shards of glass.

Bakugo looked around for the people responsible for his humiliation, but only glimpsed five shadows disappearing into the nearest alleyway. Free at last thanks to his sweat loosening without having to explode, he turned his attention to the villains, cracking his knuckles and sparking his hands, a sadistic grin on his lips as he slowly towered over the helpless victims.

"I don't know who those extras were, but they sure did piss me off. As did you. Now….DIEEEEEEEEE!"

T-T-T

The five teens looked up to see a mushroom cloud erupting from the store they had liberated.

"Huh. And here I thought clouds like that were illegal here because of, you know, obvious sad and unfortunate historical reasons," Ron said, chuckling nervously.

"Ummm, dude, you do realize even normal, mundane, everyday explosions can form mushroom clouds if the conditions are right, right? What's the Japanese government gonna do, censor the laws of physics?" Danny (Phantom) asked, rhetorically.

Spider-Man, promptly ignoring their conversation and all the can of worms it might bring, looked at his crew and said, "Well, you guys were right. This WAS pretty fun. Great job on that door, Kitty!"

"Awwww, shucks Spidey. It was nothing compared to your stealth takedown on that shark!" Kitty grinned.

"Ahem, I think I should be grabbin' a Grammy for my performance!" Danny boasted, his chest puffed out like a rooster who had finally mastered the sacred art of crowing. "That wail isn't so easy to fine tune like that, you know!"

"Could have fooled me," said Ron, twisting his fingers into his ears to try and hear properly again.

"Hmmmm. He fooled you!" Rufus said, petting his adorable little ear muffs.

"Man, Jake was right," Peter said, pointing at Danny. "You DO have an ego problem!"

Danny growled and, arms tossed in frustration in the air, shouted, "WHY DOES EVERYBODY KEEP TELLING ME THAT!?"

The other four teens plus one naked mole rat were taken aback by his yell, looking shook, though for various reasons.

"You're a real smooth operator, Danny, you know that?" said Kim, dripping with sarcasm.

"Yeah. REALLY great at stealth action, redefined," Ron joined in, just as soaked in sarcasm.

"Hmmmm. Noisy!"

Speaking of, a tapping noise interrupted the teens, and Bakugo stood upon on a building above them, having 'flown' with his explosions. "Baka gakis…You know the rules. I'm going to kill you slowly for this! And you interrupted a perfectly miserable day!"

He charged them then, but was far enough away that they weren't descript enough to truly identify with their clothing and headwear.

Danny made them invisible and Kitty had to make everyone intangible still, because the rate of speed their pursuer achieved would have sent him straight into the group.

"The HELL?! Cowards! Give up and die already!" he raged and ranted, looking around. He finally did spot them… miles away. He geared up, getting ready to pursue. The mad teen snarled, "Oh no you don't! I'll–"

A hand fell on his shoulder and the threads on his clothes tightened. "You will DO nothing. "

"Ahhhh! Let go! Those extras were clearly students! I'm going to kill them for using unauthorised quirks!" Bakugo tried very hard to get free, but the threads just tightened, immobilizing him. "DAMMIT!"

Best Jeanist shook his head, guiding the young pupil back to the store. "Now, we must discuss how you handled the villains in question, and why it was so unsightly, lacking finesse in every possible way."

Bakugo frumped.

T-T-T

Nova and Beast Boy were busy on the Gamestation 6 when the escapees came back. But they never noticed. Iron Fist and Raven were meditating in the room adjacent to the TV room with Jean as well.

Cyborg and A-Bomb were having a blast wrestling and pumping iron in the mini gym, while Starfire and Donny shared information about living in different environments–the irradiated sands of Tamaran and the irradiated sludge of the New York City sewers respectively.

Static was the first to be greeted by Spiderman, and sent Cyborg a silent nod to let the next tour group go out. Cy nodded to Static, who made the TV glitch, which sent a signal to Raven, A-bomb, Iron Fist, Sora, and the Turtles.

On the way to her room to pick up some water bottles and snacks to stash on her person to avoid any unnecessary exorbitantly expensive theme park prices, Raven pinched Beast Boy on the ear.

In addition to annoying him and making him go, "Awwww, man!" since the momentary distraction caused him to lose his game with Nova, Raven's action also signaled it was his turn to re-upload the virus to the security hub. He got up, shoulders slacked, mouth grumbling like a stalled motorboat, and made for the bathroom. Once inside, he fished out the USB, turned into a rat, grabbed it in his little buck teeth, and crawled through the vent to do his duty.

Cyborg soon gave the all clear.

"So…how'd it go?" Raf asked tour group 1 as he lounged on the couch.

"Dude, who cares?! We can small talk all we want later! Come ON! Let's just go see! I wanna get going already! Get a move on, Rae!" Mikey said, already heading out.

"Hold your shell! You'll thank me later when you've avoided all the price gouging," Raven sighed as she finally returned, opened her cloak, and nodded to the rest of tour group 2. "Come on."

One teleport later and the small group of heroes found themselves in the crowds of Tokyo, free to be as explorative as possible. On arrival, the Turtles instinctively looked for a place to hide. Unfortunately…there were no hiding spaces, because this wasn't just in the middle of Tokyo. In fact they weren't technically in Tokyo proper at all, but the municipality of Urayasu, in the greater Tokyo metropolitan area.

This was the Happiest Place on Honshu Island.

Tokyo Disney.

Sora's eyes went wide as he looked around. "I see…King Mickey…EVERYWHERE! We must be in Disney Town. Donald told me about this place…it's part of his world…the same as Disney Castle. Wait…." His eyes drifted to a nearby vender…and the Roxas inside him leaped for joy.

"SEA SALT ICE CREAM!"

Bolting forward, the Keywieler made a mad dash to get the salty-sweet treat, A-Bomb hot on his heels in hot pursuit.

"Yo, keyboy! Wait up! Don't eat 'em all! I want to see if they're all the rage too! Plus I'm a growing boy… hulk!"

Raven sighed. "Happiest place in Japan. I am sooooo happy right now. Hu-raaay. Hu-zzuuh. Yay. Everybody loves me." She tied her hood tighter and sought shelter beneath a fake tree, blissful in the shade.

The Turtles, however, were still in awe that they were walking around in the crowd and no one batted an eye. Even when they stood in line for Splash Mountain, they had literally no one caring that there were four teenage mutant turtles standing in broad daylight. In fact the only problem was that when they finally got to the front of the line, the most disastrous thing happened…

The.

Worst.

Possible.

THING!

Their shells would not fit in the log flume.

"No….No…NO! CURSE YOU BIOLOGYYYY!" Donny screamed into the wind as his siblings all looked despondently to the ground. "WHAT HAS SCIENCE DOOOOOOOONNNNNNNNNNEEEEEEEEEE!?"

"Sir. I'm sorry. But you and your brothers have to get out now. Please stop making a scene," the bored teen cast member in charge of boarding operations said.

"Man, I wanted to get wet!" Mikey lamented as they left the line through the emergency exit.

"Sux to be you," Raven said as she went down the drop "Aaaaaaaaagh. Wooooooooo. Yaaaaaaaaaaaaay."

"I am sorry for your loss, terrapins," Iron Fist lamented, wearing a black mickey hat with a black mickey balloon in hand. "Come. I will treat you to some overly priced, but very delicious pretzels."

"Yeah, that's not exactly a consolation prize, chi-head." Raf spat out. "But we'll take it."

"Most graciously," Leo said, bowing politely. "Especially because of the hurt to your wallet."

"Fantastic. I happen to have brought along sufficient yen. Perhaps we may eat while waiting in line for the Haunted Mansion." Iron Fist remarked. "I've wanted to go ever since hearing the name. Once Raven gets back, perhaps we can commune with the spirits within together."

"Uhhh, dude, you know the house ain't actually hau–" began Donatello.

Mikey pulled him aside and loudly whispered, "Duuude. There have been legends. Like that one cast member who died while the carousel thingy for the party scene was going off. In the middle of the night. During maintenance. When everything was supposed to be off."

"Ohhhh yeah," Raf interjected, nodding with a wink.

A few hours passed and most of the rest of the group found themselves sitting at a bench right in front of Disney Castle, chilling after a relaxing day of teenage ribbing, thrilling rides, admittedly much more thrilling theming, and eating delicious, if tremendously overvalued park food stuffs despite also eating Raven's smuggled snackage, much to her omnipresent chagrin. Park food like A-Bomb's pile and pile of handwiches–upon which he was gorging himself very, very happily and hulkily.

Then, Sora suddenly came running back to the group, shouting, "Guys! Guys! They're after me! They're after me!"

"Slow down…who's after you?" Raven asked, eating a turkey leg. "This is actually really good, guys. Shame it cost you an arm… and a leg."

"But the…but they…they're after me!" Sora said. "I've been accused of something called A Salt, and I didn't take any salt!"

The group looked over Sora's shoulder to find a sea of cast members barreling down towards their location, one in a Mickey Mouse costume shaking his fist angrily as he went and another one dressed as Captain Jack Sparrow shouting, in Johnny Depp's british accent no less, "We'll teach you mate to mess with one of America's most treasured national icons, even if we are Japanese, savvy!?"

"Oh shell no! We gotta get him outta here!" Raf said. "Raven, we gotta cheese it! Vacation's over!"

Raven quickly dropped enough yen for six adult tickets and two child tickets (for Mikey. And Sora) and spirited them away with haste.

As the blackness of the teleportation enveloped the group, Sora twisted his hands together nervously. "So um, yeah guys…I forgot to mention that I'm kinda banned. Sorry…."

Raven joined in the groaning, before alerting the hackers telepathically. "Sparrow to Eagle, commence entry and exit. Returning to nest."

T-T-T

"This place… it… it… it speaks to me."

Dagger was in weapon wonderland, blade bliss, katana nirvana.

Homicidal heaven.

The Japanese Sword Museum at Sumida City was everything she had ever dreamed–could ever dream.

Her eyes were as wide as a fatboy's at a buffet line at Vegas, reflecting the gleaming steel of the ancient cutting, slashing, and stabbing implements displayed in such glimmering array before her.

"Ah. Got that kid in a candy store feeling, I see, Tandy," said Cloak, floating on over to her in the central atrium.

"Yes. Yes I do, Ty. Only these sweets are made of metal, and a single taste could mean–" a single tear fell down her eye, "Death." She started welling up in earnest, the tears flowing uncontrollably, leaning on Cloak for support as she swooned, holding the back of her wrist against her forehead, and promptly passed into unconsciousness.

Behind the two, Nova and White Tiger groaned before each taking a sip of their individual bottles of ramune to cope with what they collectively concluded to be copious amount of cringe.

"Man, can you believe her?" Sam asked.

"I know. Who faints at the sight of a bunch of swords?" Ava asked. "I mean, they're cool and all, but they're not that cool." She and Sam took another sip of their delicious Japanese soft drinks. She turned her head around for further validation from the rest of tour group 3. "Right guy–?"

"Blaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaarhhhh."

Her eyes widened and she raised a brow as she noticed Leonardo and all his brothers, Robin, Triton, and Powerman all lying on the floor, knocked out, with drool coming out of their mouths.

"Well… I'll give this to Cloak. She handled it with way more style, poise, and grace."

Next to White Tiger, Nova burped.

She groaned.

T-T-T

"The cannonball!" Starfire shouted as she leapt off the diving board, performing twenty consecutive front flips before diving open mouth first into the mouth watering milk chocolatey waters of the colossal chocolate fondue fountain of the Ritz-Carlton, Tokyo.

Though the former high princess of all Tamaran received five straight 10's for her perfect and flawless and graceful form from the scorecards that Squirrel Girl, Bana, Khazar, Zabu, and Spyke were all holding up, the ensuing tsunami of sugary sweetness straight from the cacao bean washed them all away quite violently. Them as well as Cyborg, Agent Venom, Kurt, and Toad.

After the massive tasty tidal wave calmed down, the group once again relaxed.

"Yo guys! Got an idea! Let's all stir the spot!" Cyborg proposed.

The others nodded and soon everyone in tour group 4 proceeded to jointly churn the chocolate until it frothed fantastically. Someone thought that the fountain had a jacuzzi function, and settled down on the edge while the bubbles frothed like milk duds around them. This lasted until Toad exhaled mightily and relaxed, then stretched, "Welp, guess I'll turn in for the day. Catcha later, fellow fondue freaks!"

He got out, shook off, and hopped away.

With his exit, the bubbles mysteriously disappeared.

So did the smell.

And the warmth.

Everyone stopped. Everyone looked at the still, chocolatey water, then to the disappearing Toad, then to the water again, looks of horror collectively lighting up their faces as panic set in.

"I'm out!" Squirrel Girl shouted.

"Right behind ya!" said Spyke.

"Jah, me too!" said Kurt. "Accccchhhhhh! And this vas authentic too! Just like they used to make back home in Deutschland!"

As the last of tour group 4 left the room, Eddie Brock went, "Pfffffttttttt. Whatever. More for me!" and then proceeded to engorge himself on all the chocolate he could as if it was his last on earth.

The venom symbiote wasn't picky, and at the moment, was very, very happy.

T-T-T

"Woohoooo! USJ…USJ…USJ!" Ben chanted as tour group 5 filed into the park legitimately.

Beast Boy held up his hands. "Ok, everyone: we can split up, but in groups of no less than two! Now, as much I love me some Hollywood Dream, I'm actually feeling some Amity Village to start off my Universal Studios Japan experience the right way today. Who's coming with me?"

"Amity Village…does that mean…does that really mean what I think it means? Is the greatest ride ever to be conceived by the human mind still alive and well in the land of the rising sun?" Ben asked, his voice getting quite high in his excitement.

Beast Boy chuckled. "Yeah, Ben. Jaws the Ride is still here. And as jawsome, as ever dude." Beast Boy emphasized his point by partially transforming his head into that of a great white (even if it was a green great white) and taking a bite out of his extra cinnamony tofu churro.

"YYYYYYEssss! Childhood restored!" Ben shouted triumphantly. "Though why they don't call it Amity Park is beyond me. It's what they called it in the movie and I think the book." Ben shrugged.

"Actually, Amity Park is a real place, somewhere in New England." Jake said. "Phantom lives there. Amity Village is the town from the movie and the book, though they mostly just call it Amity."

"And you know this… how?" Ben asked, raising a brow.

"I have a know-it-all sister who helped me with a book report once."

"Well, as much as I'd love to see Tennyson get eaten by Bruce's cousin, I think I'll go ahead and get in line for a real ride. I'm going to live the Hollywood Dream, baby! Later," Kevin said as he kissed Gwen on the cheek and took off like his pants were on fire… which they were after Ben quickly asked Jake to covertly light up his back pocket with dragonflame.

Cyclops sighed. "I'll keep an eye on him. And make sure he doesn't burn anything down."

"Please do, Scott," said Jean.

"Yeah. It's only my second time here, dude," added Beast Boy.

"Well, not to seem cliche, but I'm ditching all you guys and taking my group to Harry Potter World," Gwen said, leading Cho and Jean to the Wonderous World of Harry Potter, where at least one of them engaged in trying to get drunk by consuming copious amounts of Butter Beer.

"Forget them! Jaws! Now! We go! Yes!" Ben said, dragging Beast Boy and Jake with him. He forced BB to ask the closeby photo taking USJ cast member to get a picture of him getting his head eaten by the giant, mock, fiberglass shark. Afterwards, the green one retaliated by shoving Ben's entire body inside his mouth while transformed and posing as said shark. Jake, all the while, rolled on the floor, laughing.

Then the three got in line. Ben could barely contain himself and stomped his feet to the most famous part of the theme song as they entered the queue. Funnily enough, though, the queue then began playing the more low-key, 'fun and games' part of John Williams' music as well as similarly low-key stuff developed specifically for the queue.

"Oooooooo….scarrrryyyyy!" Jake teased. "Kinda disappointed. I came here for Jaws, not happy go lucky Pirate Shanty."

"Respect the classic's man. This ride's been around longer than you've been alive!" BB shot back, tapping his foot in impatience.

"Uh, BB, I'm pretty sure this ride's older than all of us put together."

"Which is why you should respect it," Ben snapped.

"Also, I'm older than you," Jake continued, ignoring Ben as he still addressed Beast Boy.

"I am your hero senior, so silence your face," BB said. "Also, do you really want to argue with a guy that can turn into a tiger?"

"Uh, how is that relevant again?"

"Dude! You've foughten how many magical creatures from both east and west, and yet you don't know anything about Japanese mythology?"

"Hey, I fight 'em, I don't dive that deep into their lore, dude."

"And you call yourself a student of the magical arts… My cousin would shake her head if she was here." Ben shook his head in her stead, before getting excited again as he realized they were at the front of the line and the doors to the boat opened up, "We're going on! And it looks like we're gonna need a bigger boat! Oh boy, oh boy, oh boy, oh boy, oh boy, oh boy, oh boy, oh boy, oh boy, oh boy…"

T-T-T

"Did you get it all outta your systems now?" Spidey asked, giving the last tour group a stern eye that might have seemed weird to all the bugs as they entered the lounge, but otherwise gave nothing about all the hooky going on away. "Yes? Good. Now… let's all get to bed so we don't accidentally say that we broke nearly every single rule of our curfew and our being here."

"Who died and made you leader?!" Ben demanded. "Last I checked, we still hadn't decided who got to play supreme overlord over our little power splatoon."

"Power platoon, Benji," said Peter. "There's a difference. I am neither a squid nor a girl. Though I have fought octopuses and chicks before. Cute ones too."

"Whatever. That too, man."

"It makes perfect sense, though," Robin noted fairly. "He really has the most experience when dealing with SHIELD AND leading others under it. Plus, we're all here under their supervision."

"Well look who grew out of the scaley under-roos and put on his big boy pants," Cyclops dug at the Teen Titan.

Robin sweatdropped, but chose to keep his temper as he cocked his head, "I also agree that we should elect at least four more leaders who will be subordinate to the platoon lead. Squad leads, if you will, since we're all here."

"Same," said Cyclops.

All the others telepathically echoed the sentiment.

In a minute, they and everyone else in the lounge were drawing psychic short straws to decide who got to be the lucky teen to go into the bathroom, crawl through the ventilation system, and plug in the virus again into the security mainframe.

Eventually, it was decided the virus job should befall Powerman. He went, "Sweet Christmas! Just my luck!" but nevertheless went into the bathroom and did his duty as any good and long standing member of SHIELD should.

When he exited the little superboy's room, Jean once more made a telepathic call to get everyone to the lounge where Spidey, Robin, Cycs, and Leo all explained the situation, receiving nods and murmurs of affirmation all around.

"I believe it will be most fair to vote with the arms raised…or was it arms off?" Star said innocently.

"The former, hun. The former," White Tiger said, patting her on the head like a good little girl.

"Oh. So we are not required to cut off our hands. Joyous! Tamarraneans are not known for our extreme regeneration. Or our detachable limbs."

"Neither are humans, Star. Neither are humans," said Cyborg. "Except for me, but I'm part robot."

"We Turtles are in the same boat," added Leonardo. "About the first part, not the second." Leo regarded the entire assembly. "I think it should be Spider-Man who conducts the vote. He seems a fair individual," Leo said confidently.

"Except at cards. Cheater, cheater, pumpkin eater."

"I told you, Nova. I didn't cheat. You just weren't paying attention.

"Cheater. Cheater. Pumpkin eater." Nova frumped.

"Pay. Attention. Next. Time. Bucket Head."

"Okay," Leo said, clapping his three fingered hands. "Would you kindly start, Spider-Man?"

"Oh. Right." Spider-Man calmly coughed into a fist and went, "First, we'll determine who's platoon lead.

Robin snorted. "You obviously. ANY complaints to the contrary?"

No hands were raised, no voices voiced contention, and all heads swiveled side to side, collectively uttering a momentous, 'Nope.'

Spidey, despite himself, was so touched that he sniffled and shed a single tear. A manly tear.

"Wow. Thanks you guys. I'm so moved that you all, despite our differences and all the pranks and joshing that you have enough faith in me to lead all of–"

"Yeah, yeah, yeah," Raphael interrupted. "Look webs, let's get something straight here: I love ya, but I ain't doin' this cuz I think you're Patton. I can't speak for nobody else, but I'm doing it cuz I think you're the best option. Not cuz I think you're a great option."

A lot of the rest of the time nodded and went, 'Yeah, basically.'

Spider-Man felt the wind get knocked out of his sails a little at that, but steeled his resolve as most of the group by a wider margin remained stoic, which he interpreted to mean that they thought he wasn't just the best choice, but a great choice. They just didn't want to say or give away anything in front of the others.

Yeah.

Yeah, that HAD to be it.

This made him happy and stopped him from being a grouch like Raven for the rest of the proceedings.

No one wanted to be a Raven.

Even if they had good reasons to.

"Now let's move on to the real meat and taters!" Raf continued, rubbing his three fingered hands together. "I vote myself for squad lead."

"That would be disastrous on so many levels, Raph," Donnie said. "Let's not tip the bucket here. Everyone knows Leo is the better leader."

"I concur. Raphael leading ANYONE would be an apocalyptic crisis from the heights of Asgard all the way down to the pits of the negative zone. And the quantum realm. Leonardo all the way!" said Amadeus.

"Oh, who asked you guys! What is this? Revenge of the Nerds?!" Raphael asked angrily.

"I nominate KP!" Ron hollered.

Absolutely no one contested this fact.

Except Kim herself. "Ron! What are you doing?! I don't know how to lead an entire squad of superheroes!"

"What? All I'm saying is your natural Kimness means it's your natural state to be a leader. I mean, come on! We're in college now and you're still finding time to effectively lead an entire cheerleader squad while we're halfway around the world on hero biz! Hello! Think, KP! How much better a leader of a squad here would you be when you're actually, ya know, fully here? Freaky cool powers or no freaky cool powers?"

Kim made to rebut her boyfriend, but after some quick thought, could find no fault in his words or their attendant logic. "Huh… you know… you really got a point there, Ron."

"Plus, they all dig you to the point where none of them even hesitated. None of them. Hesitated. Your squad would probably jump off a bridge to stop the bad guys if you ordered them to and only ask, 'How high?' You couldn't pay for that kind of trust and loyalty!"

"Yeah. Huh. I guess you're right."

"Actually, I vouldn't go zat–" Kurt started in a protest before getting cut off.

"Dude! What are doing?! Do you want Kim Possible, THE Kim Possible to be your squad lead or not?!"

"I… yes…I vould."

"Then chill, my creepy, nighty, crawlie dude. I gotchu. I gotchu."

"I nominate Robin for next squad lead!" Starfire suddenly said excitedly. Again, no arguments there. The Boy Wonder was known to be the most experienced in general. Rumor has it he even led the Justice League at one point. Although it was never really confirmed, it was also never debunked.

"I actually vote for Cy," Robin said humbly. "He led Titans East like a real pro, and he's got more than enough qualifications."

"Same!" Cyclops agreed.

"I vote Iron Fist, actually," Luke said. "He's literally the king of an entire dimensional kingdom."

Iron Fist raised his hand in the universal 'hold' gesture and shook his head. "Wisdom dictates that the one best suited for such a task must be a fight-minded individual. I prefer diplomacy rather than violence. I am not suited."

"Well, lucky for you both, I myself–in addition to loving a good scrap–am also literally the king of an entire dimensional kingdom, so maybe I should throw my proverbial political hat into this metaphorical ring," said Danny Phantom.

"I'm sorry, but all I heard was loving a good crap," said Jake. "And honestly, I wouldn't trust you to lead an ant to a piece of cake, bro. Not even that stanky fake bread they got at subway."

"Wait… what's wrong with the bread at subway?" A-Bomb asked. "I knew it! They really HAVE been adding that yoga mat chemical to increase the fluffiness of their bread! No way you get bread that poofy when you're the mass market McDonalds of sandwiches! No way!"

"Well, yeah, that too," began Danny (Phantom), "but what Jakie Wakie mainly means is that the FDA classifies their bread as cake because it has too much sugar in it. He's also a big, dumb, lizard who smells like charcoal and stinks the place up and–"

"Enough you two!" Cyclops snapped. "Jake, in the back. Danny, sit in the chair. This is ridiculous!"

The undynamic duo stared at the mutant mastermind and grumbled and then looked back at each other and grumbled, but eventually relented and did as commanded, though of course, with lots of grumbling and sideways, cross glances.

"And that is why I nominate Cyclops for our final candidate," Jean said, folding her arms.

"It appears as though the nominations have been cast, platoon leader," Iron Fist said, turning to Spidey. "It's up to you to determine the form of voting and to officiate."

"Goodie. I surmise sticking with Starfire's simple show of hands idea will suffice, my good man."

Spider-Man cleared his throat and asked, "All in favor of Mr. Cyclops?"

Cyclops got ninety percent yays, ten percent nays.

"Alright! All in favor of Mr. Cyborg?"

Cyborg got seventy percent yays, thirty percent nays.

"All in favor of Ms.–soon to be Mrs.–Kim Possible?"

Everyone raised their hands, so, a hundred percent yays and zero percent nays.

Ron and Rufus gave two thumb's up–one to Spidey and one to Kim.

"All in favor of Mr. Robin?"

Much like with Scott, Robin earned ninety percent yays and ten percent nays. From the same four holdouts no less.

"All in favor of Mr. Leonardo?"

Again, another candidate received ninety percent of the vote with ten percent against. Even down to the same four rejections.

A quartet that included, of course, the final candidate.

"All in favor of Mr. Raphael?"

No one raised their hands, zero percent yays and a hundred percent nays.

"Man, I thought I only had three siblings who never wanted me to have any fun or nuthin nice, but now it looks like I got thirty-nine! Why I oughta–!"

"Approved!" Spider-Man interrupted, banging a gavel he just pulled out of hammerspace against the coffee table. He then web-reeled in his four brand spanking new sergeants and shook all of their hands furiously at once. "Welcome aboard, guys. I'll have you know that the benefits of being an officer in this Spider-Man's army ain't much, but at least you get free eye care, free line for your hairdryer grappling guns, free line for your regular grappling guns, and a sincere, heartfelt promise to keep any turtle soup jokes to a minimum of once per day even if the context is REALLY pushing me to say more. "

"Lucky us!" the four shouted in unison as they were continually rattled like human sized maracas.

T-T-T

Feeling cheated of a dramatic moment for his fans, Gentle made it a point to glare at the unforeseen intruder into this sacred space of honorable bets.

"Excuse me, my good sir, but do you mind?!"

The individual stopped his stride towards the sesame tea cakes sold nearby in aisle ten once he realized he was suddenly the center of attention of everyone in the store. Clearly confused even behind his ruby-red Ray-Bans, the man turned to face him and cocked his head. "I do apologize… have I interrupted you and your friends' shoot?" He tucked his white hair behind his ear. "Please, do not stop on my account. Carry on. Pretend like I am not here. I shan't be but a minute or so."

Grumbling, his veins cross-popping, Gentle declared, "No! You must stay to witness my ultimate triumph over the faineant youth of this generation! Absolutely no one may leave until I have finally achieved so lofty a goal! Not even you, old man!"

The old man in question, however, simply went about his way to the sesame tea cakes, picked up a pack, and leisurely walked to the cashier, casually leaving a thousand yen there. "Keep the change. I do not require it." He then turned towards the doors. Yet right as he was about to step in that direction, he regarded the broken state of the glass as if for the first time. "Hmmm… that is… quite peculiar."

"Well duh!" La Brava said. "Gentle's entrance wouldn't have been dramatic otherwise. Not nearly as entertaining if it wasn't a little bit chaotic. I know old people aren't as smart as they used to be, but still."

"La Brava!" Gentle scolded. "Just because this old man has been most uncouth, I will not stand for such fragrant verbal elder abuse!"

The old man chuckled near imperceptibly to himself. "Fragrant, not flagrant? Hahahahaha!" He then proceeded to laugh out loud, much to the sweat drops of Gentle, La Brava, and everyone else in the store. In between guffaws, he said, "That takes me back to the heady days when I first learned your people's tongue and was making such linguistic faux paus left, right, and center. One slight mispronunciation making such a world of difference. Yatta was killing me more than the giant hornets constantly stinging my lower back side!"

A groaning sneer escaped Gentle's lips.

A guffawing snicker escaped La Brava's.

His back still turned to them, the old man then asked, "Pardon the presumption, but… you there in the thoroughly… bourgeois attire. You're not with the… other two… are you?"

Gentle huffed indignantly. "What gave it away? My stately stature? My glorious moose-tash? And for your information, my raiments are quite aristocratic, thank you!"

"Well duh! Gentle's in a totally different league!" La Brava quickly turned to Jake and Sven and quickly threw in, "No-offense-guys-I-still-love-you-I'm-your-biggest-fan-please-don't-forget-to-autograph-my-cup-and-stuff-please!"

"Remember! You owe us ultimate tier!" Sven said.

The old man chuckled and then continued. "No, no. Your nose is far too… upturned in comparison to theirs. As if you hold yourself in such high regard above them that you'd only grace them with your illustrious presence if you deemed it fit to take something from them you thought by right should be yours." The old man swiveled around and regarded Gentle, all smiles. "You're a criminal, aren't you?"

Gentle smirked. "A Gentle Criminal."

"And his kawaii partner in crime, La Brava!" Index fingers swiveling around on her cheeks as she smiled exaggeratedly wide.

"And if you do not return here this instant and bear witness to my greatness, we shall ensure you will remember our noms de guerre the rest of your days!"

"Yeah, old timer! You ain't blowing this popsicle stand even if we have to put you in a cage."

In the ensuing, eerie, downright uncanny silence that ensued, the old man remained all smiles.

And then, all of a sudden, he frowned.

Deeply.

Diligently.

Angrily.

And then, Gentle and La Brava frowned, though far, far more, of fright.

"You know nothing of cages, little bird."

And then, just like that, he turned around and walked out the door–which, to Gentle's eyes, seemed to open just slightly before his hands even touched it–neither ne'er-do-well even doing so much as lifting a finger against him.

"Count your blessings. And while you're at it, go home and rethink your lives and pray that you never see what a cage looks like from the inside."

With that, the old man took his leave, stage left, and out of their sights.

Gentle and La Brava and the influencers and everyone else in the room let out breaths none of them knew they held until that point.

Cautiously, La Brava grasped Gentle's hand and turned to him and asked, "Gentle?"

"Yes, La Brava?"

"Who… who was that man?"

"Dangerous, La Brava." Sighing, Gentle made for the door, La Brava still in his grasp despite her protests.

"Wha! Gentle! Where are we going?! We haven't finished the video challenge!"

"The time has passed, La Brava. Come. We go home now. Time enough to vanquish the trifling evils of pumpkin spice… another day."