Avenging
Act II
Chapter 1
Revenge of the Killer Hornet


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anime characters that appear within.

xxxxxxxxxxxx
"...And so I said to her, 'Just bring your friend along to the hotel, and
we'll make it a threesome.' And you know what she did?"

"No. What?"

"She kneed me in the groin."

"The frigid bitch."

"That's enough out of you two!" Lieutenant Kaori Makimura shouted, slamming
her fists on her desktop in rage.

Twin brothers Ryo and Kyo Saeba stared at her in surprise. Kyo then
whispered conspiratorially to his brother, "Sounds like it's that time of
the month for a certain you-know-who."

"That's not why I'm yelling at you, you misogynist pigs! It's your sexist
attitudes that are driving me crazy and preventing me from finishing my
reports!"

Ryo whispered, "Looks like you-know-who's not getting any."

"Out! Out now!" Kaori began throwing everything at her desk at them,
including the laptop she had been using to write her report.

The  pair abandoned her office before she actually connected with any of the
objects hurled at them.

Eyes rimmed red in anger marked the pair's progress out of the office and
toward the relative safety of the front of the station. Kaori briefly
considered pursuing the brothers and making them pay for their comments, but
regained enough control to stop herself. It was times like this she hated
the fact she couldn't just shoot them out of hand. As much as she despised
superpowered beings, maybe having the ability to geld idiots wouldn't be so
bad.

Instead, revenge could take the form of assigning them to undercover work in
'The Blue Oyster' bar, a known pick-up place for homosexual men. The suave
pair wouldn't have to complain about a lack of romantic attention there. It
would be them right for their endless harassment and being the bane of her
existence.

She was still fantasizing about the duo squirming in discomfort as they were
felt up in the bar when the men in question ran into her office, looking
more terrified than when they left. Each crouched behind Kaori's desk, guns
drawn as they peered warily over the edge of the desktop.

Kaori grabbed her shoulder holster and ducked behind a chair. "What is it?
What's going on?"

Ryo's wary eyes were focused on the door. "We're under assault."

Kaori drew her revolver. "What is it? A lunatic with a gun? An angry mob?
Some SPB trying to take us out?"

"Worse," Kyo said. "A gang of lawyers."

Kaori shuddered. For once she was inclined to agree with the Libidinous Duo.

Xxxxxxxxxx

The sergeant at the front desk of the station would have seconded his
superior's opinion had he known her thoughts. As it was, he was left alone,
abandoned as the rest of his comrades suddenly decided to raid the nearest
empty building in search of contraband.

Preparing himself for the most dangerous encounter of his life, the sergeant
regarded the dozen men standing before him. They appeared identical in every
way, both in height, weight, oily slicked back hair. They could have been
clones. The black business suits they wore cost more than he made in a year.
The way they stared unblinkingly at him reminded him of the way his pet
snake would gaze at the mice that were put in the cage with him during
feeding time. He gulped nervously.

"And what are you," the sergeant couldn't force himself to refer to them as
gentleman, or in any sort of term applying to humans, for that matter. "Here
for?"

The man at the forefront pulled out a business card and flashed it at the
sergeant. In bright gold lettering it stated they represented the legal firm
of Multi-Headed Serpent Unlimited.

"You're from Hydra!' the sergeant gasped.

"You just earned yourself a slander lawsuit, Mister," one of the men toward
the rear of the pack stated in eager tones.

"We represent a legitimate business interest," a second said.

"That specializes in the importation of Peruvian goat's milk and the clear
things that are fitted on the ends of shoelaces," a third finished.

"And we do pro-bono legal cases from time to time, as in this instance," the
man who had shown the business card said as he returned it to his jacket
pocket. "We demand the  release of two innocent civilians that have been
illegally detained by you jack-booted thugs: Hiroshi Karigari and Kyosuke
Kasuga."

It took a moment for the sergeant to recall the names. "You mean Mentello
and the Fixer?"

"That's another slander suit!" the man in the back said.

"Our clients have not now nor ever gone by those names, and that you would
dehumanize them in such a manner indicates that you are administering to
them cruel and unusual punishment, another reason for them to be released
immediately."

"That's what they were calling themselves right after we arrested them," the
sergeant pointed out.

"They were confused from concussions they sustained after having been
assaulted by two criminals, who, I might add, you never bothered to
interrogate, let alone arrest, for their felonious acts. You can be assured
our clients will be suing for that as well. Now release them," the head
speaker demanded.

The sergeant shook his head. "No way. They were caught tampering with the
minds of everyone in the neighborhood, and under section 8 article 4 of the
recent addendum to felony code, that constitutes an invasion of privacy.
They also racked up destruction of property counts and illegal weapons
charges. They aren't going anywhere."

The lead man said, "You have no proof they tampered with anyone's minds. No
one remembered anything."

"We had a licensed telepath conduct tests that discovered the mental
connection between Mentello and his erasure of their memories using a brain
boost device found at the scene of the crime."

"Which means you have no physical proof, and only this mystery telepath's
word to go on, which is hearsay" the man pointed out.

"And no witnesses that they destroyed the property in question since no one
could remember a thing," a second said.

"And they had no illegal weapons. All of the equipment was destroyed, so you
have no proof they were anything other than what our clients claimed:
environmentally sound geothermal sensor arrays. You see, our clients were
merely conducting an investigation into a safe and clean energy source when
they were assaulted by those self-proclaimed superheroes, Giant Man and the
Wasp. Those two vigilantes are the ones that did all that you claim, yet you
never bothered to investigate them. You have no case, drop the charges
immediately and we'll go easy on you."

"Only one slander suit instead of two," one of the men said.

"No!" the sergeant insisted.

Another shouted out, "Also you need to cease and desist with the violations
of Mentello's rights and remove the torture device hooked up to him."

"That's a psionic inhibitor. It's the only thing that prevents him from
dominating the minds of everyone in the station!"

"He can't even think straight and is unable to defend himself from the
charges that have been brought against him. We demand you remove it or we'll
bring in Amnesty International to help out. You'll be looking at
international publicity regarding your cruel and inhumane treatment of our
clients. Release them now before it's too late."

"Never!"

Xxxxxxxxxxxxxxx

*Zakk*

"Ow!" Mentello cried out as he tried moving the metal band affixed to his
forehead.

In the cell across from him, the Fixer said, "Why do you keep trying to take
that off? You know it shocks you when you do."

"I have an itch and it's right under the band, and I can't scratch it. Ow!"
Mentello shouted as he was shocked again.

"Definitely cruel and unusual punishment," the Fixer grumbled. He was still
pouting when a guard passed by. "Hey!" he shouted, waving his hands in order
to get the man's attention.

The guard stared at him through droopy eyes. "Leave me alone. This is the
end of my second shift and I'm too tired to deal with your crap. I only got
to watch you guys two more days before you get transferred to that special
facility with the cells designed to specifically hold the two of you."

The Fixer pressed on. "Since this makes it a last request kind of thing, do
you think I could have a couple of Tic-Tacs and some duct tape?"

The guard pulled out a list from his shirt pocket and read it over. "Nope,
it says that with those things, combined with the toilet lid and your
bedding, you could make a bomb big enough to pop out the bars on the
window."

The Fixer sighed as the guard walked away. That was exactly what he had
planned to do with the items in question. They had that American genius,
Reed Richards, develop a list of items to keep out of high-tech masterminds
hands' for fear of them creating dangerous items from mundane objects to
facilitate said masterminds from escaping. The Fixer was forced to admit,
the man really was brilliant. There were items on the list whose
combinations the Fixer couldn't begin to fathom.

Suddenly the wall of the Fixer's cell that faced the outside exploded,
pelting him with small pebbles and covering him in a cloud of dust. He
hacked and coughed as he wondered what had happened. Had Hydra come to break
him out, or finish him off? They didn't respond well to failures, tending to
kill personnel that were deemed "too stupid to be of use." The more
spectacular the failure, the more spectacular the death. But Hydra was short
on super agents, so he and Kyosuke might have some further use for the
organization, besides target practice.

The cloud settled, revealing an attractive girl in her late teens with pink
hair. She wore a sedate white blouse and blue skirt that traveled most of
the way down her legs. She held a picnic basket carried in the crook of her
arm, and stood amongst the rubble as if it was the most natural thing in the
world.

"Marie!" the Fixer gasped out, coughing slightly on the remaining dust.

The instant Marie's eyes fell upon the Fixer, she smiled. "Hello, Big
Brother. I was worried about you. I heard a special on television that food
in prison was substandard, so I brought you lunch." She held up the picnic
basket.

The Fixer brushed some of the dust from his prison uniform. "Yes, well, I
think I'll use this opportunity to break out instead. We can eat on the
way."

"Okay," Marie said amicably.

"What about me?" Mentello wailed from his cell across the way.

"Oops, sorry." The Fixer turned to Marie. "Break him out, too."

"I can't do that," she said.

"Why?"

"He's a criminal," Marie said as though even a child would understand.

"He was falsely accused, just like me."

"Oh, that's okay then." Marie walked forward, casually ripped the door off
the Fixer's cell, then walked across the hall and did the same to
Mentello's. She helped him to his feet and escorted him out.

Alarms wailed through the jail as she led the pair of released supervillains
down an alley and to a waiting car. A small flag baring the proclamation
'Itsa Great Pizza' hung from the antenna.

"What's that doing on my car?" the Fixer asked.

"I've got a part time job to help," Marie said. "I also have to make a
couple of stops before we return home. I sort of came by in the middle of my
deliveries to drop off your food." She opened the passenger door and ushered
the Fixer inside. She opened the rear door for Mentello, then ran around the
car and jumped in. As she sped off, she chatted incessantly with the Fixer
and informed him of what had happened during his absence.

Mentello interrupted their conversation. "Excuse me, did you say Hiroshi is
your big brother?"

"Yes," Marie said.

"Actually she's the robot I told you about," the Fixer told his partner.

"The one that leaks radiation?" Mentello moved as far away as he could from
the robot, which mostly entailed of rolling down the window and leaning out
as far as he could without falling off.

The Fixer said, "I got a cash forward from Hydra and fixed her shielding
right before we were summoned by the boss. She's fine now. I think."

"You think?" Mentello began looking around for any stray pieces of lead that
could be used to protect him

Marie said, "I'm all right. May's been taking readings on me, as well as
helping me with regular maintenance. My radiation levels are well within
acceptable human tolerance. Also, none of the new neighbors have been
vomiting and losing their hair in the past few weeks, like the old ones did.
I'd say the readings are accurate."

"Who's May?" Mentello asked.

"My maid. You'll meet her when we get to my place," the Fixer explained.
"We'll get that psionic inhibitor off you and tap into headquarters'
computers to make sure we're not on their 'to kill' list. Once we know they
won't shoot us on sight, we'll report back in and get our next assignment."

"Good." Mentello began to scratch at his scalp, then gave a shout as he
shocked himself again.

xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx

[That's all for now. Haven't had much time to write, so it might take a
while to get to the rest of it. After this it'll either be a one shot
Azumanga fic, or the next chapter of Should Old Acquaintance. At least
that's what the muse is telling me now. I'm hoping it'll be constant, as I
want to finish SOA.]

Thanks for reading.

DB Sommer





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