[68: Safehouse]
(A few days later)
"Make sure your math is correct, Kaina. Did you adjust for wind speed, direction, temperature, barometric pressure, humidity, distance, angle to the target, bullet drop, and your sight settings? I gave you all that fancy stuff for your rifle, so please don't waste it. It was hard to get all of it." Lady Nagant listened to Eleanor's voice through her earpiece.
"Yeah, yeah, I got it all down, Eleanor. Don't you think it's a bit ironic, though? I'm still here carrying out assassinations. I thought I was supposed to change," Lady Nagant whispered as she looked through the scope of her rifle.
"Hey, I'm just having you do what you do best, Kaina."
"Yeah?" Lady Nagant smirked a bit. "And what am I best at?"
"Hunting."
Lady Nagant laughed a bit. "That's one way to put it, Eleanor."
"Is that a smile I hear? Shouldn't you be more serious when you're about to assassinate someone?"
"You don't sound so serious yourself either, Eleanor. I can hear your smile through my earpiece," Lady Nagant said. (A/N: Are they seriously flirting or something? Romance is so weird sometimes.)
Eleanor laughed a little, not bothering to hide it from Lady Nagant. "Well, it's hard to be serious when I talk to you." (A/N: Whoa, whoa, whoa, there now. It's only been a few days; chill a little bit.)
"Is that your way of flattering me, Eleanor?"
"Just focus on killing your target, Kaina."
"Alright, alright. So, is this some bigshot in the League of Villains?"
"Kind of. Not yet, at least. My source says that the League of Villains is attempting to recruit some more people. Again. But it seems to be a really big effort this time. Anyway, we can't really get them all without causing unnecessary attention, but we can kill a few. Starting with the green, reptile-looking one," Eleanor said.
"His name is Shuichi Iguchi, right? Why are we killing him?"
"Yeah. Also goes by Spinner. We're killing him because we're nipping something in the bud before it grows too big. Plus, with this recruitment effort by the League of Villains and some stuff going on in Deika City…stuff is about to go down, and maybe sooner rather than later, since the League of Villains are acting kind of desperately. And All Might alone won't be enough. Not anymore."
"Kind of vague, Eleanor."
"I'll tell you more later, Kaina. Just kill Shuichi first."
"All right."
Lady Nagant looked through the scope of the rifle
⁂
"The League of Villains? Why should I join? How do I know I won't be treated like I always have?" Spinner said.
Spinner was currently in a private, or so he thought, location. He was meeting with someone from the League of Villains who contacted him and wanted him to join them. It wasn't an important person, since most of them were targeting some more established villains.
"Listen, we're a diverse group; we have multiple people with mutant-type quirks. We can give you a shot, give you a place where you can be accepted. We care about how good your talents are, not what you look like," the League of Villains representative said.
"Nice words, but they're just words. I can't rely on that alone," Spinner said.
"I can show you some people we've recruited with mutant-type quirks." The representative started to take out photos to show them to Spinner.
Spinner saw the photos and looked at them. He picked one up. "Are these staged photosho—" The meeting was interrupted when the sound of glass breaking was heard. The representative took cover under the table where they were meeting Spinner.
"You okay?" There was no answer.
"Can you hear me?" Again, no answer.
The representative slowly stood back up, only to feel sick to their stomach as they saw the scene. The window was completely broken. But that was the least of the scene. Spinner's body, or at least the part of his body still remaining, was on the floor as if it had been pushed from the side. But the worst was the part of his body that wasn't there. Everything from the shoulders up had been destroyed.
A large pool of blood formed where Spinner's body was. Muscle, tissue, and organs were visible where Spinner's body was. There was still activity going on in his body. Some of the muscle and organs still twitched and moved, pumping more blood from his body, but it was very quickly fading as the last electrical signals stopped. Spinner's head, or lack of one, was also obvious. There was no sign of any of it. The only sign left was blood splattering on the walls and ceiling. Pieces of flesh clung to the surfaces; blood stained all of it. It was like a watermelon had exploded in a blast of gore.
The representative touched their face. When they pulled their hand away, they could see blood and a piece of green skin on their fingers. Their breathing grew hard as their eyes widened even more at the brutal and gruesome scene. The representative left immediately, running as fast as they could. (A/N: Valid reaction or nah? Probably overexaggerating a tiny bit, no?)
⁂
"Well, Eleanor, that's mission accomplished. Wasn't too hard." Lady Nagant placed her rifle aside as she returned to the base. Eleanor already had her new setup. Computers and monitors all over the place. They were running constant surveillance on the League of Villains and the HPSC, and now Deika City was added to the list.
"Good job, Kaina." Eleanor looked at the screens.
"Any update on the commission?" Lady Nagant, said, walking to stand by Eleanor.
"They're still going nuts. The worst of it hasn't even been leaked yet, and they're already running like chickens with their heads cut off. Makes sense, I guess. It's obvious that the leaks will reveal more and more information about the files, so they're doing everything they can to contain it. Not like it'll work in the first place. They're still trying to do their thing in the news, but it's not so effective anymore," Eleanor said.
"When will the next leak be released?" Lady Nagant asked.
"Soon. Once it goes out of the news cycle again, the third phase will be released," Eleanor said. "Quick question, Kaina. How do you feel about assassinating people of the HPSC? This is…purely hypothetical, of course." Eleanor glanced at Kaina. "When that third phase releases…people are going to start demanding things get done."
"Hmm…well, in this purely hypothetical scenario, I'd only assassinate the leadership and management, as well as those who follow their orders knowing what they're really doing," Lady Nagant said.
"I see. Well, we're going to run more and more missions like this. Not assassinations. Well, assassinations, but also sabotaging and stuff like that. It's not time for a large use of force yet," Eleanor said.
"And when will that time arrive?"
"If these movements by the League of Villains keep up, we'll have a lot of opportunities." Eleanor's tablet buzzed. She looked at it. Another message.
"Your source?" Lady Nagant asked.
"Yeah. Say, are you up for getting rid of a few villain cells? There are some smaller groups the League of Villains are trying to absorb. They're really trying to bulk up their numbers quickly. Hmm…" Eleanor thought of what it could be. She had a strong feeling, but she wasn't going to follow things blindly at this point.
"What are you thinking?" Lady Nagant asked.
"Kaina…we might have to go to Deika City. Jin and Toga can easily take care of the smaller villain groups. But…if what I'm thinking is right, we'll need to go to Deika City. And we'll have to be hidden. Really hidden. We'll have to be 'all ghillied up,' so to speak," Eleanor said.
"How sure are you?"
"I'll need to gather more information. But if you're a believer in gut feelings, then I'm 99% sure about what I'm thinking. And that means being able to inflict a loss so great to the League of Villains that they won't be able to recover."
"I hope you know what you're doing, Eleanor." Lady Nagant was skeptical about what Eleanor was saying. She didn't feel comfortable going with just a gut feeling.
Eleanor smirked. "Of course I do. And didn't you hear what Toga said about me? I'm lucky."
⁂
(A/N: Just a quick assassination, maybe romance kinda, chapter that I put together since school is "breaking my balls." Nothing too serious or with any kind of foreshadowing at all. Nope. None at all. Ignore the reference that came up in the chapter. It totally won't come up. Ever. Trust me.)