Marvel: The Super Player

The soundproofing of the panic room was exceptional.

With a polite smile, Locke gestured for Mrs. A and Mr. C to take their seats. His gaze drifted briefly toward the display monitor, checking the forces currently breaching the perimeter outside. Letting out a soft chuckle, he reached over and picked up a bottle of whiskey sitting nearby.

A few moments later.

Locke took a small sip from his glass, nodding in approval before turning his attention back to Mr. C, who was now bound tight on the sofa alongside Mrs. A.

"You were the one speaking to me over the comms just now, yes?"

Mr. C's voice no longer possessed a shred of its former composure. He blurted out instantly, "Fifty million..."

"For what?"

"To buy my life."

"To buy *my* life!"

Mr. C stared intently at Locke. "Mr. Peerless, just give me an account number. Fifty million dollars will be transferred to your name immediately."

Locke nodded slowly. "A very reasonable bargain."

A flash of joy crossed Mr. C's face.

But...

Locke's tone shifted seamlessly, accompanied by a cold chuckle. "Since that is the case, why should I bother letting you go? If I simply kill you, your assets will still belong to me, won't they?"

Mr. C froze instantly.

Sitting right beside him, Mrs. A let out a disdainful sneer. "Save your breath, C. Haven't you realized it yet? He has absolutely no intention of letting us walk out of here alive."

"Correct."

Locke looked at Mrs. A. She possessed reasonably fine features, though she was a bit past her prime. His expression remained entirely candid.

"Indeed. I take people's money to eliminate their problems!"

Mrs. A sneered again. "I suspect there's more to it than just a simple contract."

Locke stood up, stepping directly in front of Mrs. A. He looked down at her with a calm smile. "Do tell."

Mrs. A cast a fleeting glance at Locke, then tightly closed her eyes, adopting a posture that practically invited execution.

Locke smiled.

The next second.

*Bang!*

"..."

Mrs. A flinched violently. Trembling, she forced her eyes open and looked to her side. Horror struck her as she witnessed Mr. C's body slumping directly into her lap, a massive cavity in his forehead rapidly oozing fresh blood.

'Didn't they say he avoids taking the lives of individuals like us?'

'Just like how he refrained from dealing a fatal blow to Director M.'

*Click!*

Before Mrs. A could parse her thoughts any further, she looked up at the expressionless Locke, who had smoothly brought the Golden Dancer back to bear on her position. She shivered instantly.

"I surrender!"

Locke's finger on the trigger loosened slightly. He tilted his head, staring at Mrs. A who was shouting her surrender with her eyes squeezed shut, and couldn't help but laugh out loud.

He had genuinely assumed that an organization of this nature would maintain a relatively high standard of operational security and willingness to self-sacrifice.

To think they were all exactly the same...

Very quickly.

Locke extracted the entire sequence of events from Mrs. A's mouth.

"So, this entire operation was Mr. I's initiative?"

"Yes."

After spilling the first admission, Mrs. A seemed to ease up considerably. Since the first sentence had crossed her lips, the second followed naturally.

"Even back then... his orchestration of how we should leverage MI6 to assassinate Lorraine Broughton to avenge Mr. M... that was entirely Mr. I's design as well."

Locke smiled faintly. "I have no interest in why he targeted Lorraine Broughton. I am far more curious as to why he deployed operational assets to assassinate Locke Broughton."

"Because Lorraine Broughton isn't dead."

"..."

Locke blinked, staring at Mrs. A.

"I'm sorry, what did you just say?"

Lorraine Broughton wasn't dead?

Then where on earth did she go?

No, wait.

If Lorraine Broughton was still drawing breath, how did this massive logistical nightmare manage to land squarely on my head? Was this yet another classic case of picking on the seemingly weaker target?

Mrs. A explained, "Following that particular ambush, we recovered absolutely no definitive intelligence confirming Lorraine Broughton's demise."

"...Then do you possess definitive intelligence proving she is alive?"

"Yes!"

Mrs. A nodded, her eyes shifting to Locke. "However, that data is stored inside my primary terminal."

Locke paused for a fraction of a second, then smiled smoothly. "What a shame."

Mrs. A frowned deeply. "I maintain an encrypted backup at my personal residence."

Locke glanced back at the monitors displaying the tactical units outside the panic room, who were currently scrambling to figure out their next move. He smiled and said without looking back.

"So, the sole reason you targeted Locke was because you assumed he possessed actionable intelligence regarding Lorraine Broughton's current whereabouts?"

"There is also a flash drive!"

"...What flash drive?"

"The intelligence drive that Lorraine Broughton exfiltrated from our servers back when she initially infiltrated our organization..."

Reaching this point, Mrs. A abruptly sealed her lips. "Grant me asylum, and I will hand over the coordinates. I can even—"

*Bang!*

*Thud!*

A sharp gunshot echoed clearly within the confines of the panic room, though the personnel frantically working outside the vault doors registered absolutely no audio feedback on their monitors.

With a heavy thud, Mrs. A's frame collapsed limply to the floor. Her falling arm struck a bottle of red wine sitting nearby, shattering it. The liquid glugged out rapidly, and within moments, it became entirely impossible to distinguish between the pooling blood and the spilled wine on the carpet.

"Heh."

Locke looked down at the whiskey remaining in his glass. "Coercion, ultimatums... I have never taken well to either."

Trying to use intelligence to barter for a life?

A fine concept. Under standard parameters, Locke might have entertained it.

But...

Ten minutes later!

*Boom!*

Yet another spectacular detonation shattered the London skyline. From the initial strike at MI6 this afternoon to the current installation, this marked the third major explosion today.

Scotland Yard personnel deployed across the sectors in full force, armed with sketches of the Peerless Assassin while keeping their eyes glued to every single Audi R8 in transit—especially the silver variants.

*Screeech!*

Locke pulled the car door open and slipped into the passenger seat of an unassuming black Volkswagen.

Red looked at Locke as he buckled in, taking a moment to choose his words. "The complication has been resolved?"

"The vast majority of it."

Locke smiled faintly. "There is still one rogue element who wasn't at home."

"Where is his station?"

"Nevada."

"Specific coordinates?"

"My apologies!"

In truth, back when Locke was engaging Mr. C in the corridor, his clone back in New York had already leveraged the plugged-in USB drive to successfully breach their mainframe. The clone smoothly traced the origin signal of the communication patch Mr. C had initiated immediately following Locke's staged demise.

"Right."

Locke reached into his breast pocket, withdrew a clean USB flash drive, and slid it over to Red.

"I don't enjoy carrying outstanding debts, especially when it comes to the CIA. Inform them that this intelligence is available for purchase, and they have exactly twenty-four hours to make a move."

By the time he returned to the US and relocated to Nevada, it would take roughly a day. If the CIA failed to neutralize the target within that operational window, he would simply step onto the field and handle it himself.

At this juncture, Locke finally grasped the underlying premise of this mission.

'The Inevitable Demise.'

It didn't apply to Locke, nor did it apply to secondary elements. It was directed entirely at the ICA!

Mrs. A was dead.

Mr. C was gone.

No matter the variables, you have to join them in the grave, Mr. I. Otherwise, my mission parameters cannot be fulfilled.

Locke turned the thought over in his mind.

Half an hour later.

Within a localized, private airfield situated on the outskirts of London.

"Incredible!"

Locke stared at the dilapidated aircraft sitting on the tarmac, which looked like it belonged in a World War II crop-dusting squad. He turned an incredulous gaze toward Red.

"You expect me to navigate the Atlantic in this absolute monstrosity?"

Red gestured toward his watch. "You explicitly stated that your operations would likely conclude around noon tomorrow. Consequently, you managed to run far ahead of schedule."

Locke opened his mouth but found no immediate retort.

He had indeed laid out that timeline. Who could have foreseen that the ICA infrastructure would prove so utterly fragile and easily dismantled? He hadn't even exerted his full capabilities before the entire apparatus collapsed.

But...

Locke looked back at the rusted aircraft, shaking his head firmly. "Procure an alternate vessel, otherwise I would quite literally prefer to swim back."

Come now.

He was the Peerless Assassin who had just compromised MI6 and systematically erased the leadership of the ICA. Even if a luxury private jet wasn't immediately available, he certainly couldn't crawl back inside a machine where buying a standby ticket would be considered an absolute embarrassment.

Red let out a hearty laugh. "My friend, the sheer fact that we managed to clear the London perimeter is entirely due to me leveraging substantial political favors and activating deeply embedded contacts. Are you truly completely oblivious to the scale of the chaos you left behind?"

It was a stroke of absolute luck that the Peerless Assassin hadn't executed Director M outright; otherwise, the resulting geopolitical fallout would have been exponentially worse.

Though the current reality wasn't far off.

London had entered a state of absolute frenzy.

The media apparatus had descended into complete madness.

One moment, the Peerless Assassin was active within the New York sector; the next, the man materializes directly in the heart of London, initiating a sequence of staggering, high-profile engagements right out of the gate.

A substantial volume of surveillance footage had already leaked onto global networks.

Furthermore, public demonstrations were already beginning to manifest. The stated objective of the protests? Condemning the establishment for actively concealing the existence of the ICA.

After all, if the Peerless Assassin's calling card was explicitly served to the ICA, why had his trajectory led him straight into the teeth of MI6?

And the ripples didn't stop there.

Red felt an impending surge in his business ventures. As he waited for the alternative flight arrangements alongside Locke, he remarked.

"I have already received inquiries from three separate high-net-worth clients, all requesting my logistical assistance to secure immediate entry into the London sector."

This was the intrinsic cost of exposure!

Or rather, this was the exact blowback from operating with absolute impunity in the shadows, relying entirely on operational anonymity, only to have that veil completely shattered.

In the past, the underworld recognized the moniker of the ICA, but that recognition carried little functional utility due to the absolute secrecy surrounding their administrative hub.

Even if the associates or families of assassinated targets wished to seek retribution, they lacked an actionable adversary.

Right now?

Locke's strike had completely stripped away the ICA's armor.

After all, the Peerless Assassin accepts a contract, and his immediate follow-up is a direct assault on MI6. If the establishment attempted to claim that the ICA shared absolutely no operational overlap with MI6, not a single soul would buy it.

Then there were the massive explosions that occurred in rapid succession.

Without a shadow of a doubt, it wasn't just Scotland Yard executing counter-measures; elements within the global criminal underworld were mobilizing as well.

In short:

Vengeance is mine; every debt shall be paid in full!

Previously, the consensus dictated that the ICA operated without state affiliation, so aggrieved parties never considered directing their wrath toward a specific sovereign territory.

Now that the compass pointed unequivalently to London, the active field agents of MI6 deployed across foreign sectors were bound to face immediate peril.

This was especially true for embedded assets and informants who had agreed to cooperate with MI6, only to discover through this exposure that the sole reason they lost a brother or an associate in the past was because an ICA operative had pulled the trigger—and the ICA was an extension of MI6.

In an instant, those assets saw absolute red.

*Ring, ring, ring!*

As night fell and Locke finally boarded a properly vetted aircraft, the incoming communications lines at MI6 headquarters were experiencing an exponential, geometric surge in volume.

Simultaneously...

Deep within the Nevada sector, inside a regional field office of the FBI, a tactical operation began to unfold the exact moment Nobody and Agent L touched down on the tarmac.

***

We're at 297 stones rn, I'll post bonus anyways since it's just 3 stones.

Thanks for reading

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