22 [ Fenris ] I wonder if they are going to do the coin thing too?

  At the very least, Lady Deathstrike had some claim to the whole adamantium on your bones motif.

  Her dad had invented the process.

  Then she became obsessed with killing Wolverine because somehow having the process done to him against his will offended her family’s honor.

  Such a victim blamer. I guess he shouldne’t have had a healing factor. The guy was just asking for it.

  So she went after him, to try to take him out, and lost. Over, and over, and over again. Each time selling off a piece of herself to become stronger, selling her services as a mere flunky for just one more shot at beating someone she never stood a chance against.

  Sad really.

  She even died and came back. Real original. Ha!

  Now she was stuck as a virtual slave working for someone who poisoned her with a drug that would kill her unless she received an antidote on a regular basis.

  Stupid woman. You already died once, and as long as they need someone to annoy Wolverine, death won’t stick. Why let some third rate mutant with the ability to make chemicals and inject people with finger syringes make you their bitch?

  Frankly, taking her down was going to be a mercy.

  The Atelier was a sort of guild of assassins that had been around for a while. But it was one that no one had really ever heard of, and it was made up of fancy dressed killers no one ever heard of, or cared to remember their names if they did.

  Their leader was some sort of immortal who took possession of whoever killed him and had kept the thing going for centuries until the syringe woman offed him and Deadpool annoyed him in giving up the whole come back to life thing by sheer annoyance.

  Ha! The guy is good at that.

  Now syringe woman, who didn’t even have a super name, just going by Valentine Vuong was rebuilding the organization with an open audition using an old hotel refurbished as a private clubhouse just for assassins.

  Someone had watched a few Keanu Reeves movies.

  I don’t like the idea of professional nicknamed assassins. If you got that much style and ability, why are you killing strangers for money? Take over a country, run a criminal organization of your own. Settling for being little more than a hired thug is just so… Skeevy. Ha!

  For named villains anyway. I have nothing but respect for minions and henchmen. Good working class people.

  Be a real man or woman. Let them know your name rather than strike from the shadows.

  Which is how I ended up in Italy at the Hotel Aegis, which you would think had been a secret SHIELD place but was it far older then that, and one of the entrances to the undergound city below Rome.

  I’m not sure if the syringe woman even knew what she was squatting on.

  Walking in the front door’s I was immediately made by some guy who was either dressed as a masked luchador wrestler or liked kabuki masks. The camera in my mask identified all sorts of high tech goodies on him as he moved toward me, his hands gripping at he air as if preparing to have some sort of weapons appear in them.

  “HA!”

  My powers are from a woman that can throw down with a hulk. Hi tech assassin. Please.

  But still, it would be undignified to let him even take a swing at me, so… “I do believe in fairies!”

  Let’s hear it for the boy. I gave him a big clap of my hands with ninety tons of force crashing together.

  The mysterious masked man went flying backwards through a wall with a spray of blood flying out of his mouth and nose. From the sound that followed the first wall wasn’t the only thing I sent him flying through.

  Hopefully, I didn’t damage his tech too much. I can always use more toys.

  “Boys… come in and start stripping people down. We’re going shopping.”

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  People come running. Pointing advanced hi-tech weapons at me as larger guns mounted on turrets dropped down from the ceiling, and out of the center of the ffountain in the middle of the lobby. Even as the forces gathering to defend the hotel braced themselves to face off against me, four large figures appeared around me in a diamond formation shaped by the single use teleportation array mounted on the harness over my Blood Iron armor.

  “I am the Iron Tsar, and I am here to kick ass... and kick ass. And I’m not about to run out of asses to kick. Ha! Introduce yourselves boys-”

  How rude. The security staff begins shooting before the Brothers Koshei can announce themselves, and we worked so hard on their villain names.

  Those kind of things stick to you. They can free you from jails, and even bring you back to life when a writter needs a throwaway villain.

  I had put Chekov, my tech guy, in the former Thing bot, with much of the original stone skin replaced with layers of ceramic polymers and metal replicating the original surface. Along with a layer of ice on his head and shoulder, constantly being generated by the Iceman power simulation tech.

  Elbrus, named for the tallest mountain in all of the Russias begin sealing the armed security guys in blasts of ice. He can’t really form constructs like the real Iceman, but he can layer the stuff on people to trap them while avoiding their mouths.

  I told him to avoid suffocating the faceless mooks. It doesn't impress anyone and they are like the blue collar workers of super villainy. Besides, I might want to hire them later on. I will soon be in need of many faceless mooks. Ha!

  Pavel is in what once was the Rhino bot because while the man has a certain sleazy charm to him, he is useless in a fight. The Smerch, named for the military vehicle, has rockets mounted to tubes on his back that he can fire using a targeting computer in order to hit something, and he is armored well enough he can aim the bot at what he wants to smash into headfirst using preprogrammed motions from the Quicksilver bot to propel snd direct him at high speeds.

  I had to give him something, and he does well launching himself into and through the fountain turret once I pointed at him and then at it.

  Sasha is in the former Colossus bot now named Bismarck, after the great war hero, and he is already taking down the ceiling turrent with the Cyclops force beam power simulator, with a appropriately red colored bean, mounted on his head above the plate covering his eyes.

  Fyodor clears a path in the former Hulk bot. Bogatyr wears armor modeled on traditional Russian armor from the reign of Vladimir the Great, and as the largest of the suits the Brothers wear, he clears the path into the large bar room very well.

  But right into a crossfire. I’m glad he went first. Ha!

  His armor will hold up against the more exotic weapons being fired at him for a few moments, but then I would have to put in so much work to repair it. Why let these twits in fancy dress make more work for me?

  I plow into Bogatyr’s back and push him through the crossfire and out the other side. Then I turn and begin clapping my hands together over and over as I turn in a slow arc.

  These are the slow ones, the expendables sent out to let the experienced ones see what all I can do, so why show them anything new. At least we all found out that the building whose bones had been designed by Leonardo De Vinci held up pretty well to multi-ton concussive force.

  Then the boss of the place finally sent out her big gun.

  She enters the ruins of the ballroom. Throwing out her hands to show off the nearly foot long claws that are permanently mounted to her fingertips as they slowly stretch out to their full two feet in length. I hold out my arms as if welcoming her to come in for a hug.

  “Lady Deathstrike, before we begin… I have a question for you.”

  The former rich girl twisted her nose up in disgust. “Why would I answer to you Gaijin?”

  “Rude! Ha! But serious. I am not the only one who wants to know, many people must have wondered... How the hell do you wipe with those claws? Ha!”

  Her eyes go wide as her face twists up in anger and she runs, low to the ground for traction against another clap, only rising up as she gets near and begins to sweep her hands up to gut me as I still stand with my arms out, wide stretched.

  Wide enough to hold my wrists to either side of her, With the Magneto power emulators mounted on the inner wrists of my gauntlets.

  These things will never hold up in a fight, but interesting fact. Adamantium is affected by magnetism.

  Seriously, the real Magneto stripped the stuff right off of Wolverine's bones when he had enough of that guy's shit.

  All I can do is hold Deathstrike suspended in midair, frozen in place as Chekov come up behind her and hold his ice emitiers to either side of ones of her hand, set to simply create an area of intense cold rather then to gather up water molecules from the air and freeze them.

  Her face twists up again, this time in pain as her entire right lower arm and hand freezes solid.

  Elbrus gives it a sharp tap, snapping if off before collecting it into an external storage compartment build into his armor as she let out a frustrated grunt rather then scream.

  “So… Will you answer my question, or should we go for the other hand?”

  Don’t feel bad for her, it will grow back. And she deserves far worse.

  The ruthless assassin grits her teeth, then hisses out. “Nanocytes. They break everything down before it leaves my system. I don’t need to… wipe.”

  I stare at her for a moment. “HA!” That shit does everything.

  Then I shake my head at her and let her fall to the ground and curl up into a bag clutching her stump before I join the Brothers as they head out the front door with a laundry cart, a serving cart, and a curtain thrown over Bismarck’s shoulder as a large sack full of hi tech goodies stripped off of the disposable assassins whose names no one ever heard of, or cared to remember if they did.

  “Stick to trying to kill Wolverine Miss Yuriko. You suck at it, but at least it’s steady work.”

  Such a lovely day in historical Rome. Perhaps I could send the Brothers on ahead and take in some of the sights. Meet the pope. What kind of heroes do they have hear anyways?

  Oh, those kind.

  A stern looking Reed Richards along with the rest of the Fantastic Four, and She Hulk, stood outside the Hotel Aegis. All of them waiting for me, and none of them looked happy.

  Well… Smashing my left fist into my right hand, I shouted out. “Now this is what I call a Debut! HA!”

  Looks like I won’t get a chance to kiss a ring today. But this will be better, and I got five adamantium chisels. Is good day. Ha!