Marvel Reborn: Gems Of Infinite Potential

It was approximately three in the morning and Natasha and I were flying around the apartment building that Harold Meachum called home while Elektra was renewing her relationship with her boy toy. I wasn't exactly sure how I felt about Matt Murdock, oh nothing about him personally but his pesky morals made him a serious potential weak point for Elektra. Would the plans I had put in place to co-opt him, work or would I find myself losing Elektra to retirement in time?

Well, as they say, time will tell and I have done all that I can.

"I think this whole building is full of Hand operatives, Octavian." said Natasha over the com. "I'm finding weapons in every apartment, tons of hidden cameras and microphones, and the whole building seems like a fortress under the surface."

"Not surprising, I've found watch posts in every one of the surrounding buildings. How do you want to play this?" I replied, taking my lead from the woman who was far better trained and far more experienced in this than I was.

"We Killgrave the watch posts first, see what they know and then order them to report that everything is as it should be. Put trackers on each of them and then use the x-ray sniper drones to take them all down concurrent with the assault." she said, referring to the fly sized drones that had two Arc Reactor powered X-ray projectors inside them along with a lot of computer support to handle targeting. Tuned and targeted just right you could get the two lasers to destructively interfere with one another, and so a sniper that was silent, invisible, and could shoot through walls with precision was born. At least if you could accurately place your target in relation to the firing platform.

"And for the building itself?" I asked next.

"We use both Thorn teams, one coming in from the ground and the other does a helicopter assault directly into the Penthouse. The windows are armored but we can place explosives and blow them in just before the assault team hits. Team 1 hits the Penthouse with me ready to step in if things go bad, Team 2 in the front with you as backup. Once Meachum is on-board team 1 extracts as planned and I go with them incase the Hand has a surprise. Team 2 finishes clearing the building and places the charges before being extracted from the roof by the second chopper, blowing the building once they are out. Then you come and take Meachum to his new home." she explained.

I thought it over and said "Seems fine with me, at least the general plan. So what do we do first?"

"Come join me in placing our own spy cameras throughout this building. Having accurate maps and enemy positions will make the teams job much easier, then we can get started on the watch posts." she sent back.

We were finishing up with the cameras when a glance at the time showed it was nearly five in the morning. "I think we are going to have to postpone the op until tonight, I don't want to hit it in daylight." I said.

"Agreed, want to send me back to base before you go and prepare things for Ward?" she asked.

"Sure. Oh, how do you feel about puppies?" I asked as we headed down through a manhole vent and I opened the portal.

She was quiet for a long moment "Puppies Octavian? That was random. And I don't know, I've never thought about it before."

"Hmm, well I was thinking about getting one. And your portal awaits my'lady. " I answered, waiting until her chuckle died off before closing the portal and opening my own to Ward Meachum's house.

It was the work of only a few minutes before I had released the two little fly drones and put his miniaturized present in the cabinet under his bathroom sink. With that, I sighed, opened my own portal, and emerged in my official residence half the continent away before heading off to the office.

After a long day of conducting Raith Industries business, it was back to my real job. Thank god for Bruce and his Chi Pills I thought as I popped another, without them I would just have to sleep way too much to keep everything running smoothly.

Eventually, though, it was go time. Natasha timed it to perfection, the four SUV's with Thorn Team 2 holding onto the outside came screaming in even as the lobby doors were blown in with the preplaced explosives, the sniper drones literally melted the brains of their targets, a helicopter came dropping out of the sky, and the Penthouse windows all blew in.

Team 1 fired guide lines from the chopper into the room and were roping in even as Team 2 was jumping off their rides. The elevators made a massive bang as they slammed into the bottoms of their shafts as the charges planted on their mechanisms blew.

I followed along, currently not having anything to do, as Team 2 smoothly worked their way up the twenty story apartment building moving room by room, killing anything that lived, and planting explosives as they went. By the time they hit the second floor Harold Meachum, having fallen to half a dozen taser blasts, had been put into a harness and pulled back into the chopper. By the time Team 2 hit floor three, Team 1's chopper was already over a mile away.

The team operated with smooth clockwork precision and even as the first police response was on the way, shutting down 911 as we started the assault had certainly slowed things down, we were making our way onto the roof even as our ride descended from the sky. A minute later we were flying away, our transponder saying we were a medivac bird, even as the building imploded behind us.

Within fifteen minutes we were landing in a New Jersey warehouse where the choppers were rolled inside and the Thorn teams stripped n.a.k.e.d, tossing all their gear into the birds, before putting on the bagged clothes they had pre-placed in the warehouse and heading to the SUV's that would take them back to our base in the city. After they had left, leaving Meachum handcuffed and sitting on the warehouse floor, Natasha and I returned to full size and I opened a portal to a holding cell and pushed Meachum through as Natasha tossed Quantum Grenades into each of the choppers and suddenly they ceased to exist.

We walked through the portal and it was done. Now it was time to commandeer a company and, look at that, Ward Meachum should be waking up right about now.