Jack Cochran, the hero and assassin known as Red Jack, smashed a half-empty bottle of sake into the window, spoiling the magnificent view with shattered glass. Jack cursed the television in Elvish, flipping off the talking heads on the screen. It seemed no matter what channel he tuned to, everyone was talking about Nagoya. It was all collateral damage this or excessive force that. They said the Champions should have been more careful. Despite the fact that they had worked day and night with the police, against Jack's wishes, to plan everything down to the last detail. They suggested the Champions should have known there would be supervillains. Except none of their intelligence had suggested there would be any superhumans at the meeting, intelligence supplied by police informers. They declared that the Champions were too aggressive. Ignoring the fact that the mobsters had fired the first shots. All day and all night, these armchair tacticians and know-nothing commentators dissected every little thing that the Champions had done. Every day, Jack had to look at the crater where it all went wrong. And every night he had the same nightmare. The same shadow with the same green eyes.
Every day, he saw the protesters and hecklers with signs outside on the streets far below. They placed the civilian deaths on their shoulders, even though crowd control was the province of the police. They blamed the destruction on them when it was the supervillains who kept attacking willy nilly. They bemoaned the deaths of violent murderers when it was a situation of life or death. They couldn't even leave them alone to grieve for all the friends and comrades the team had lost. Ingrates. Morons. Halfwits, the lot of them. How many criminals put behind bars? How many lives saved? All that swept away in an instant because a few civilians too slow or stupid to run had gotten caught in the crossfire. All because the Japanese government wanted to shift blame from their incompetent officers to the evil destructive foreigners. First they had loved them, singing their praises and warming their beds. Now they cursed them. Hung and burned them in effigy. All over the world, the mindless fickle stupid rabble projected all their troubles and displeasure on their betters. Well hang them all, Jack thought. He didn't need their love. He was done trying to inspire them, they should be happy he still protected them.
And hang the Champions. Arguing day in, day out about what they should have done differently. The endless debates. The arguments that went nowhere. The bitterness, the shouting, the fighting while the souls of their friends looked down from above. The empty chairs in the meeting rooms and phone calls from family that either cried or shouted too much to respond to. Well he had had enough. They could waste their lives trying to appease a world that would always turn on them when convenient. Jack had led the break-away group, the splinter team. Comrades who were sick of the Champions too. The Champions would always be friends and allies to Jack, but they couldn't do what needed to be done. Which was screw the consequences and take out the gangsters that caused this whole mess. Jack had spent his days cursing the humans, drinking terrible spirits, seducing servants, and planning his revenge. The end was coming for all of them. The Yakuza. The Mafiya. The Triads. The Kkangpae. All their days were numbered. He just wished they weren't all on the same floor of the same hotel. It was incredibly annoying to plan bloody revenge in such a setting.
A knock on the door. Jack sniffed, perked his pointed ears. He didn't recognize the scent or the heartbeats of any of those outside his door. The hotel wouldn't send more than one staffer for anything and he heard four heartbeats. The upper floor was completely blocked to press or civilians. All those things together could only mean either government stooges or assassins. Jack hoped for the latter. It had been a while since he had beaten someone to a bloody pulp. Wearing nothing but a knife behind his back, Jack looked through the eyehole and sighed. Stooges it was. Jack tossed the knife into a drawer and inched the door open, "Yes."
The stooge and his three uniformed lackeys nearly all gaped as they saw him standing there naked. Jack's expression did not change at all and he offered no apology for his appearance as the stooge recovered himself and apologized for the disturbance. Then he said something about some Ministry or other. Jack mostly tuned it out, he pretty much knew what was going on, the television had talked about some hearing or other in Tokyo to discuss the event. Instead he thought of all the myriad ways he could kill the four men where they stood. It was a nice brain game for him. He saw virtually no way three vanilla officers and a stooge could harm him, honestly it was insulting. It had been a long time since he had scratched the itch for violence, and bedding the occasional maid barely took the edge off. Jack had a faint hope that they would try to arrest him or attack him, but the excessively polite and formal tone told him that likely wasn't going to happen. Jack took the papers the man handed him, and tossed them over his shoulder without even glancing at them, and the stooge to his credit did not react to the disrespectful gesture.
Jack's ears perked up at the news still on the television, the talking heads were saying Tinhead Ned was loose in Australia. Jack smiled with his perfect white teeth at the stooge as he listened. The man looked utterly confused as he tried to continue explaining the situation while Jack completely ignored him. Then suddenly Jack slammed the door in their faces and hurriedly got dressed, slipping into his armor and strapping on his weapons with quickness and ease borne of skill and experience. Jack keyed the comm on the private channel that his little group shared, "Friends, I'm sure you all got a similar invitation to go to Tokyo and appear before some kangaroo court. Well you can go and be the victim of a witch hunt if you want. I'm taking myself and anyone who wants to join me to Australia. Our old friend Tinhead Ned is on the loose. And I'm sure we're all itching for some action. The Cochran family jet is at the airport, if you want in on this, meet me there. We leave within the hour." Jack chuckled. The jet was for him to travel in privately with whatever group of fangirls or fanboys he had attracted. Now it would let them get there without relying on the Champions. Time to have some fun.
Chev