It was not to say that all of the Shareholders had been wiped out, unfortunately. However, it
was accurate to say that most of the Shareholders
as the keepers of the multiverse's peace knew them were wiped out, in just one covert operation.
Perhaps the most amusing part -- at least from the point of view of the director of the operation -- was that for all they prided themselves in being one step ahead of their adversaries, it seemed that they weren't quite as clever as they thought they were. It had went so smoothly and easily, he'd almost thought it was a trap, but everything proceeded without a hitch.
To recount the story, where would one begin?
...
The Board of the Shareholders were an enigmatic crowd. As mysterious as the Man in White seemed to the Suicide Squad, the former himself was little more than just a representative for them while dealing with those who could only understand the mortal tongue. As Locus dryly thought to himself, a grunt who was allowed to command the other grunts. He had no true love for the Shareholders, but jobs were jobs. His situation was
unfortunate, but he had gotten worse deals.
Low level grunts like the Suicide Squad -- along with the Man in White, who had been assigned to accompany them like a master walking with his leashed dogs -- weren't privy to the finer details, but as he'd roughly understood it, they'd been reassigned to take up shop at a new base in Silent Earth. The Order had reportedly grown more volatile in days of past, wishing to take back their land after the Shareholders had somehow taken a hold of it. As the Man in White described it, it was a "tax write-off," though that didn't quite make much sense to Locus. Did he think, where the Coalition and United Universes had failed to take them down, the multiversal IRS was going to come and track them all down?
Still, it seemed something they truly believed was a worthwhile endeavor, considering they supposedly rented such territories of the world out to other clients, though what clients could possibly want to do here. In his head, Claire Stanfield -- another member of the Shareholders' Suicide Squad -- likened it a bit to imperialism. Even if they were crazy either way, he couldn't help but think of the history of his own world; their own land taken from them, parts of it divided for other people to inhabit?
Maybe a bit on the nose, but still.
What was next, making malevolence drugs? What did they even need with such malevolence in any case? Of course, Locus was not the one wondering all these questions. Claire would sooner muse on them; he was also mostly along for the ride, though he was pensive in a much different way than Locus was. Krieg wasn't pensive at all, and he dared not even fathom what went on in Sabbat's head. He'd ask Azula what her two cents on it was, but for some reason, she was commanded to stay behind, as the higher-ups had other plans for her or something, mumbles of a contract being heard here and there.
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Anyway, basically, here was the scene.
Claire Stanfield, Locus, Paladin Jackson, Krieg, and the Man in White himself walk into a bar. Except it wasn't a bar. It was more a decrepit, abandoned warehouse.
A lot of empty space, and in the perpetually dreary landscape of Silent Earth, the whole interior was bathed in shadows and darkness, the closest thing to a source of light being the once brightly burning Sun in the sky, now struggling to even permeate through the thick clouds that never left.
Though not a part of the Suicide Squad, Paladin Jackson was filling in for Azula's place, as well as a co-conspirator for the Man in White to help oversee the organization's settling in this base of operations. Wasn't much of a base even, but working in the shadows meant having to adapt. As usual, Krieg was drugged up; his unpredictable and volatile personality meant he was liable to freak out at any given moment if he wasn't manipulated into bending to the will of the Shareholders. Claire really had to wonder why they'd make him a part of the squad, and what real purpose he served considering it seemed like he lacked any upper brain function, but whatever. Not to flatter the Shareholders, but as they said, God works in mysterious ways.
Yeah, right.
While the Man in White walked to an upstairs platform, apparently to communicate with his superiors in private, the rest of the squad was left to their own devices as the sound of a door slamming shut upstairs indicated the Man had no intention of being disturbed. Not that they really had much to do here, try as Claire did to get
some reaction out of the real buckets of rainbows here. Locus had gotten really good at ignoring him, Krieg didn't even seem to know where he was either way, and Paladin Jackson seemed like he'd much rather be with the Man instead rather than the small fry.
Letting out a whistle as he sat upon some rubble, Claire decided to try his luck again anyway, just to see what kind of reaction he'd get. Again, literally what else could he do here? It wasn't like they'd been sent out on assignment in a while anyway.
"So, anything new with you guys?" Claire asked, the redheaded man swaying his legs back and forth idly as he looked toward the other three. None of them really gave any response, other than a grunt from Paladin Jackson that seemed somewhere between irritation and pity. Pursing his lips, the man continued on.
"No, I guess not. I couldn't imagine any of you guys getting lucky with ladies... if only because you guys don't put yourselves out there," he said, before gesturing his hands to point at himself with his two thumbs.
"Me? Things are a little rough with Chane, I think. She hasn't really been responding to my letters. I mean, she's never been the chatty type, 'cause..." Claire tapped at his own throat twice, as if that was supposed to explain everything, before proceeding to slide off the rubble and stand on his own two feet again.
"... but I mean, do any of you suppose my letters are even reaching her? Or is there some Shareholders voodoo preventing me from reaching out to her? Like oooh, what if she reads words?! Can't have that! She might be able to track us down on this goddamned rock of a planet where it never gets past the ass-crack of dawn!" Claire exclaimed, letting some frustration sink out of his mouth as he seemed to ramble to an otherwise unresponsive audience, before sighing as he composed himself again, suddenly letting out an excited gasp like a child hopped up on sugar, slapping his fist against open palm as his eyes widened.
"Ooh! Maybe she's doin' that thing where she does have all my letters! How much ya willin' to bet, when I get home, I'm gonna see a whole buncha unsent letters in a drawer or something, a collection of all the feelin's she'd felt, missin' me and all that! Broads do love doin' that, but heh, my Chane... She's cooler than that. She ain't your typical woman, lemme tell ya," he continued to ramble, before suddenly being met with a response from an unexpected source giving an unexpected answer.
"... Maybe it's because you don't have a mailbox," Paladin Jackson uttered, resting his rifle over his shoulder.
"... What?"
"If she were to try and send you a letter, what address would she make it out to?" the man grunted.
"Come to think of it, how are you sending letters to her at all? Who is out there, delivering mail from you to her?" Jackson continued. Just as he said, he couldn't fathom the idea of a special mailman hopping through different worlds to deliver some lousy letters from star-crossed lovers separated by space.
"Yomi told me she'd take care of 'em!" Claire exclaimed without a hitch, snapping his fingers as snappily as he spoke.
"... Isayama sends your love letters?"
"Yep yep yep! Guess she's more of a hopeless romantic than she lets on! Showed me a recordin' of her song when she an' Sweet performed at the Multiverse Hotel! Stuff like that comes from the soul, man!" The redhead exclaimed with an enthusiastic grin, eating up the incredulous response from the otherwise stoic Jackson, though it seemed such a revelation wasn't enough to shake Locus.
"I'm not even sure that's allowed. I'll have to give her a call later..." Paladin Jackson muttered. "Later" seemed to imply "now" though, as the man wasted no time turning around and walking off, climbing the stairs that the Man in White traveled up before, but staying atop the platform rather than leaving the room entirely, and so left Claire with Locus and Krieg.
Turning to the others with a more conflicted expression, Claire pursed his lips, resting his hands upon his hips.
"Hope that don't mean the end of my literary trysts with Chane, know what I'm sayin'?" He said, gesturing his arm back toward the direction that Jackson went off to.
"Not that either of you's would understand what it's like to lose someone important to you, eh?" Claire uttered, slapping his own elbow for seemingly no reason.
Krieg didn't respond, as per usual, but conversely, it did garner a reaction from Locus, who only gave Claire a piercing glare, even from under his mask.
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"... Stanfield," he only said.
"Yeah?"
"Shut up," the mercenary grunted, and with that, began to walk off as well, in the opposite direction as Jackson. He wasn't the sentimental type, but he'd be lying if the absence of Felix these days didn't get to him in some manner. Who coulda thought without Felix yapping in his ear all day, it made dealing with someone like Claire all the more tedious? At least Azula wasn't here to enable that kind of obnoxious behavior, whether deliberately or not.
And so, with a soft sigh, Claire clicked his tongue as he was finally left with only the drugged-up Krieg. He silently gave the psycho -- as his world classified him -- a pensive look, before shrugging in exasperation.
"Uh, Krieg, ol' buddy, ol' pal, why dontcha go stand over that wall? Guess I'll go take a walk or somethin'..." The man sighed. Surprisingly, Krieg complied easily, signaling that he was fully well capable of hearing and obeying orders, walking off to the nearest wall and... literally just standing there.
That totally wasn't creepy at all, but then, no creepier than this entire world in general.
With nothing left to do and no one left to bounce off (not that you could bounce very well off three brick walls), Claire let out an exasperated breath, shrugging with his arms out to no one in particular as he turned around, his black coat wavering in the air as he began to make good on his word and go for a walk. It would probably have been nuts to even think about venturing outside, between the malevolence in the air and the likelihood of being attacked by one of those crazy Order cultists, but this place really was stifling. He needed some fresh air, at least, the closest thing to it.
With that, he began to walk, making his way around a corner. However, the moment that he'd left Krieg's field of vision, that was when a certain something peculiar happened.
Crash!
Suddenly, a loud crashing sound rang through the air, almost causing a stir within the decrepit warehouse as a whole. The redheaded man gasped in surprise as he spun around, facing the direction of where the sound had come from; the direction that Krieg was at. Clicking his tongue once he'd realized it, Claire pocketed his hands and sauntered back over to where he'd left the psycho.
"C'maaaan, Krieg. I can't even leave ya'lone for five stinkin' lousy minutes? If you really want, you can come with me, but only if you got a leash for--" Claire began to mouth off as he turned round the corner once again, only to stop in his tracks once he saw what had actually happened.
At the wall Krieg once stood, there was now a massive crater in the wall, and Krieg was on the ground, lying on his back. Eyes widening in urgency, Claire instinctively dashed over to the scene of the crime until he'd reached Krieg's body. Even just a cursory glance made it clear, his neck was broken. Krieg was dead. Someone had broken from the other side of the wall to do it.
His brow furrowed as he was mystified about who could have done this, and who could have found them here. However, the once Rail Tracer wasn't afforded such time to collect his thoughts, as the urgent footsteps of Locus quickly came running from the other side of the space.
"What happened?" He asked, his voice disturbingly calm, even at a moment like this, but then, a soldier like him had probably been conditioned to keep calm in moments like these, even when a "comrade" was killed. Not that any of them even seemed to like each other that much anyway. Still, he held his rifle tightly, as though ready to shoot anyone -- even Claire himself -- at any given moment.
"Looks like our secret hideout ain't as secret as we thought," Claire only responded. However, it seemed the perpetrator didn't intend on slowing down his assault. With Claire and Locus downstairs, the next target was obvious.
"Nngh...!" The faint groan of Paladin Jackson could be heard from upstairs, followed by an audible struggle. Loud clanging and bashing sounds, as though the paladin was attempting to hold his own. Claire felt his body move faster than even his advanced mind would process, and before he knew it, he began rushing to the stairs and climbing upward, Locus in hot pursuit trailing behind him!
The sounds of the struggle continued, followed by more crashing and slamming sounds along with Jackson's labored grunts, but by the time Claire had reached the top, the deed was already done.
As he reached the upper platform, the man was met with the sight of Jackson's unmoving body, slumped against the wall. Visible dents were visible all over Jackson's armor, as though he had been met with either end of a sledgehammer, but as Claire recklessly braved to walk forward -- the killer nowhere in sight, mysteriously enough -- to get a better look, the blunt trauma wasn't what killed him. There was a thin yet visible cut through the helmet, made more visible by a fresh blood trail. He was beaten badly, but a stab to the head was what had done him in.
As Locus reached the top as well, he only gave a grim look underneath his helmet as he was met with the sight of Jackson's corpse. Whoever was behind this was good. First Krieg, and now Jackson, in just a matter of seconds. Begrudgingly, he had to admit it; whoever they were dealing with was a professional.
Though the mercenary said nothing, Claire gritted his teeth and clicked his tongue, rushing over back to the other side of the platform, putting his hands over the railing and looking over the warehouse as though figuring the killer had to have somehow made his way back down if he wasn't here.
Then... he heard something right behind him.
Huff.
A breath. Someone was standing right behind him, but it wasn't Locus.
"Who the--?!" Claire began to utter, spinning around just in time to see a man in black suddenly materialize right in front of him. The unknown man lurched his hand forward to grab Claire by the neck, easily picking him off his feet like a rag doll. The man's hand was cold to the touch, almost metallic feeling, but before Claire could even get a good look at the man's face, he found himself thrown off the railing, his body falling a whole story down until his body collided into the ground below with a loud
crash as he slammed into some empty crates below.
Locus wasted no time in taking aim with his rifle, but before he could even get one shot in, the man -- moving as swift as the wind -- was already right in front of the mercenary, a hard shove from the man sending the rifle flying right out of his hands! Forced to adapt to close quarters combat instead, Locus clenched his fists without so much as clicking his tongue, putting up his dukes. Electing to do the same, the unknown man put up his own fists, and so the brawl began.
Locus had made the arrogant assumption that because the man relied on stealth before, he would have been easy to take down in a direct fight, but the advantage he held wasn't quite as great as he'd hoped. The man threw two punches, a jab followed by a cross, and Locus in turn did his best to block the coming attacks, but even just feeling the man's fists slam against his own wrists pained the hardened mercenary, even through his armor. This guy hit hard, harder than any normal human could hit. He was more than human.
With a lingering sense of numbness in his wrists, Locus nevertheless attempted a counterattack, raising his leg up and performing a roundhouse kick aimed right at the man's head. It was too little however as the man easily ducked under, sinking to the floor and sweeping Locus off his feet with a crouching kick. Locus landed on the ground with a loud crash, but he'd suffered worse. As the man attempted to follow up with an overhead kick intended to crush Locus's head, Locus deftly rolled out of the way until he'd gotten enough space away to safely hop back to his two feet.
As the assassin dashed forward to rush down Locus, the unknown man threw a wide hook toward Locus's head, but the mercenary was ready this time. He leaned backward, just enough to evade the hook, and come around again with his own attack, a punch aimed at the man's gut, and though it connected, it was met with a blunt sound, as though he had just punched a brick wall. It certainly felt as hard, the punch barely able to stagger the man. On top of the armor, this man's skin was just fundamentally beyond that of a normal human's.
It was precisely that maneuver that cost Locus his edge, as the man only reacted by delivering a powerful kick toward Locus's body, sending him staggering into the wall, mere meters away from Jackson's own corpse. The impact threatened to knock the wind out of Locus, enough to stun him for a second. A second too much.
Before he could recover his bearings, the man took his chance and sent a devastating punch right into Locus's face, hard enough to create a crater in the wall. His fate was sealed there.
BAM! BAM! BAM!
Without mercy, the man slammed his fist into Locus's face three more times, each making a deeper crater in the wall than before, each punch as hard as a sledgehammer's full force. After three such displays of brutality, Locus's body went limp, and fell down before the man could punch him a fourth time. A sizable dent was visible on Locus's helmet, but it wasn't the only thing that the man's punches caved in.
The man finally let out another breath, staring down at Locus's corpse. The operation was finished now, or so he thought. To his credit, if all three of his targets were "normal" humans, he would have been correct, but there was just one thing.
Claire Stanfield wasn't entirely a normal human.
"Hey, asshole! Over here!" Claire's voice suddenly called out behind the man. Having thought that the redhead was as good as dead, the man could only gasp in surprise as he spun around to see...
... Claire Stanfield, alive and well, having found a metal pipe through the rubble of the warehouse, and throwing it right at him.
CLANG!
The man's surprise had rendered him unable to react in time, the metal pipe slamming right into his face, eliciting a pained grunt from him as he staggered to his knees. It hurt more than expected; the pipe had come at him so fast. No normal human could have thrown something like that at him that hard, but then, it took one to know one.
Eerily, almost like a boomerang, the metal pipe perfectly bounced off the man's face and back into Claire's hand. With the man on his knees, Claire wasted no time getting his own personal revenge, a sadistic grin plastered on his face as he stepped forward and raised the pipe and slammed it into the back of the man's head, causing him to fall back to the ground after he'd tried getting up.
"I dunno who the hell you are, but you're pretty good, I'll give you that. Three kills in just a few minutes. You're almost as good as me. Almost," Claire ground his teeth eagerly, repeatedly bringing the pipe up again to brutally slam it into the man, harsh crashing sounds ringing through the entire warehouse as even the platform almost threatened to give way from the sheer power behind his swings.
"But you think you can just waltz on in and do what you want, chum?! Huh?!"
CRASH! BLAM! BLAM!
"You're pretty hardy, arentcha there, buddy boy?!" Claire said through labored breaths, continuing to slam the pipe into the man.
"If you were a normal guy, I think the third hit woulda crushed your organs already, but it's like hitting a pile of rocks! A real tin man, aintcha?! I love me some real freaks of nature!"
"Then you're gonna love me," a new voice said from behind Claire.
"Huh--?!"
Before he could hit the man again, suddenly Claire felt his feet leave the ground as he was lifted up by his head, a wide hand grabbing his scalp tightly, fingers digging into his head. Claire gritted his teeth tightly, his legs dangling into the air, before suddenly...
BZZZZZT!
"Gaaarghh!" Claire screamed out in agony as a loud buzzing sound rang out, electric energy surged within his body, concentrated entirely in his head. The redhead writhed helplessly, his legs kicking uselessly at the air as his brain was overloaded with a surplus of electricity. In no time, however, he stopped screaming, and his body went limp.
As the second unknown man finished his work, he tossed Claire's body aside like a useless rag, before stepping forward and looking down at the first man, his ally.
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"Looks like I showed up in the nick of time," the second man -- an operative of ODMA named Hei -- dryly said to his associate, not even offering a hand up.
With a labored grunt, the first man struggled to his feet, bloodied and battered, but still able to keep a focused head. The man, Adam Jensen, wiped some such blood from his chin, letting out hard breaths as he looked to Hei.
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"Yeah, well... I could have handled it," he grunted. When his words failed to elicit much reaction from Hei, Jensen spoke again.
"I take it you managed to finish your homework early?"
Hei nodded to that.
"Sabbat the Necromagus and Cornelius Alba have been neutralized. However, Azula and Yomi Isayama were not present at the scene as the intel indicated. They may still be at large."
"What a shame," Jensen spat sarcastically. He wouldn't admit it aloud, but in a way, he was a bit relieved. He may have just murdered three men here, but involving children -- even if they were trouble kids -- was one line he didn't want to touch with a ten foot pole. In any case, their work wasn't done just yet. There was just one more loose end that needed to be taken care of.
The door to the side slammed open, the despondent face of the Man in White looking out in irritation.
"Just what is that ruckus anyway? Are you children--?!" He began to utter, only to stop mid-sentence at the sight of Claire, Locus, and Jackson all dead on the ground, two unfamiliar men standing atop them.
Betraying his always calm and cool exterior, the Man in White gasped and instinctively made a run for it, running to the nearest stairwell to his side that led him up the next floor to attempt some sort of escape. However, neither Jensen nor Hei so much as made a break for him. He may not have realized it, but he was already dead.
As the Man in White reached the next floor, he made a break for the next door at the other side of the platform, only to unceremoniously trip over an unseen obstacle.
A cardboard box.
Looking back over from where he'd tripped, the Man in White grunted in confusion to himself, only for the box to suddenly spring in the air, and where it once stood... an eyepatched man now appeared, looking down at the pathetic sight of the Man in White.
The man was Big Boss, one of the leaders of ODMA.
Usually, he didn't partake in personal field operations like this, not that he didn't have extensive experience on the field, but Fury and Waller often kept him so closely tied up, it was almost refreshing to get back to the field.
"Y-You...?! You're...!" The Man in White could only utter incredulously, but found himself unable to finish his sentence.
Big Boss aimed his pistol right at the man's face with only one word.
"Checkmate," he uttered, and pulled the trigger.
With a loud
BANG, it was all over. The Man in White was dead, and the Shareholders as everyone knew them had surely been crippled, with the Suicide Squad having lived up to their name and some of their most prominent board members taken out of the equation. The Man in White had survived worse than a bullet to the head, but he didn't account for the technology that ODMA had at their disposal, and the kind of destructive power that could be put into the bullet shot into him.
As Jensen and Hei casually made their way up the stairs to reunite with their superior, they said nothing. As Big Boss turned around to face his operatives, he cleared his throat softly.
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"Looks like the operation was a success. The intel turned out to be mostly on the money," he said flatly.
"Maybe so, but something's still bothering me," Jensen responded, folding his arms.
"We still never managed to trace back who that anonymous tip was. If there's one thing that concerns me than a false anonymous lead, it's a true one."
"Maybe we have a friend. Or an enemy of our enemy," Hei postulated briefly. Either way, this was undeniably the best possible outcome. The Coalition didn't have the intel, nor did they have the stomach for an operation like this. The same could be said for the United Universes. This was a job that only ODMA -- the Office for Defense of Multiversal Assets -- was capable of pulling, in more than one way.
"We'll have to keep looking into it. Checkmate White is still working on it, after all," Big Boss said. He understood Jensen's concerns, but there was little they could do about it right now.
"In the meantime, let's get out of here. Malevolence doesn't wash off, you know."
Underneath his spectacles, Jensen gave a furrowed look toward Big Boss. Did he just crack a joke?
Little would any of them realize, at least at that time, that the intel was in fact provided from the upper echelon of the Shareholders themselves. For what reason? To clean house, more or less. The new guard had stepped in, and was prepared to make a name for themselves.
All they needed to do was take out the trash, and ODMA was more than happy to carry it out.
But that all was a story for another place.