Chapter 5

15 year old Xu Xialing was sitting in her courtyard as usual looking at the fish swimming in the pond. She had been waiting for her brother to return for 5 years since he had taken a mission from their despicable father. Tonight was a regular night, nothing unusual or interesting ever happened at this place as it was guarded by hundreds of intensely trained assassins, not to mention her father who was a monster in his own league. After a few hours, she stood up ready to go to her room for some sleep when she noticed the sky tearing up. Two figures jumped out of the tear in the sky and started accelerating towards the ground. One of the figures strangely started to glow red when suddenly a giant red skeletal hand appeared on the glowing figure which punched towards the ground.

*BOOM*

Soon all the members of the Ten Rings started running towards the explosion, even the ones that spy on her everyday headed towards the explosion. Unable to contain her curiosity, Xialing left the perfect escape opportunity and bolted for the explosion. She wanted to know what that giant red hand was.

-Ten Rings Secret Headquarters-

"Did you really have to make such a loud entrance, we are now already surrounded" asked a smiling Thena as got into a combat stance while she formed a spear and a shield.

"What did you think I meant when I said we were going to storm this place" replied Maria while she did some hand signs while under the cover of the smoke screen created by the susanoo punch. Maria spew out an enormous ball of fire that headed for some unlucky assassins who weren't able to dodge the giant speeding fireball which consumed them and razed the walls that dared stand in it's path.

Seeing their comrades getting roasted, the rest of the assassins started firing bullets randomly into the smoke. They stopped after a few seconds and waited for a response or reaction from the unknown assailants. A giant red skeletal hand suddenly swung out of the smoke, blowing away the smoke screen revealing two women standing inside a glowing giant red ribcage with one arm sprouting out of it. The two women were a pretty Asian girl with long black hair tied into a low pony tail and a beautiful white woman with long wavy blonde hair. Both women were wearing long black coats with red cloud patterns on them, a high collar and long sleeves.

A man with a blade for an arm, who seemed to be in charge of the assassins shouted, "AIM!!" and the rest of the armed assassins aimed at the two women ready to fire at the man's command.

"Fire!" continued the man and gunshots filled the whole area. The bullets seemed to bounce of the giant ribcage, and after firing multiple rounds at the unscathed women the assassins finally stopped. The ribcage quickly formed another arm, a neck and a skull, further surprising the now nervous Ten Rings members. The susanoo raised one of it's arm and 3 spinning giant tomoe appeared floating above it's opened boney palm.

"Yasaka Magatama" Maria said as she willed the susanoo to throw the beads at the Assassins.

***BOOM***

An explosion dozens of times more powerful than the first one hit the assassins, wiping out all who were near the explosion and blowing away the rest. The whole compound shook at the power of the explosion. A few seconds after the explosion, the smoke and dust had disappeared leaving a horrible crater at the spot where the blade-arm man was standing. The susanoo raised it's hand once again and more spinning beads appeared above it's open boney palm.

"Wenwu, stop hiding behind your men or we will destroy your 1000 year old hard work" said Maria whose susanoo was threatening to throw the highly explosive beads in it's hand.

Suddenly multiple purple beams blasted into the susanoo, but they bounced back and the giant rings inside the beams started to float back to an angry Xu Wenwu, who was wearing his black armor and ready for combat.

"Father!!" shouted a worried Xu Xialing who was hiding in a tree near the fight. This got everyone's attention as they turned to face her.

"Thena you wanted a fight right, go beat up the thousand year old warlord while I go recruit our other teammate" said Maria as she deactivated her Susanoo and Sharingan, and started walking towards Xu Xialing. Seeing this, Xu Wenwu's fatherly instincts were activated as he shot 5 rings at Maria who was walking towards his daughter. Thena formed a golden sword and shield and blocked all of the rings fired at Maria.

"Boy, your opponent is me" said Thena as she approached Wenwu while her weapons disappeared and a halberd formed in her arms.

"Who are you people?, What do you want with me and my daughter?" asked Wenwu as he got into a fighting stance with the rings on his arms glowing. Seeing the man take a stance, Thena sped at Wenwu at superhuman speeds while swinging her halberd, which Wenwu blocked with his ring filled arms.

"I think she wants to invite your daughter into our organization" replied Thena as there were there currently at a standstill. This made Wenwu think of the reasons why they would want his daughter and in that moment of distraction, Thena used her superior strength to throw Wenwu into the wall a few meters away.

Maria, slowly approached Xialing who had gotten off the tree and was in a martial artist stance waiting for her.

"Don't bother trying to fight me. You currently can't win" said Maria as she continued walking towards her.

"So what should I do, patiently wait for you to kill me" replied a clearly scared Xialing who was shaking in fear. She knew she could not win, after witnessing the power of the woman in front of her, she did not think anyone could win.

"fair point. But don't worry we aren't here to kill you, we're for the opposite actually" Maria said as she finally stopped her advance due to a loud noise from the fight behind her where Wengwu had been smashed into a wall. Xialing had stopped concentrating on the outside and fully put her focus on the woman standing a few metres in front of her so she did not check up on the noise.

"What do you mean the opposite of killing?" asked a confused Xialing as she softened her stance a bit.

"We are here to recruit you, precisely you and the rings" answered Maria as she took out an Akatsuki cloak and threw it at Xialing who caught it and started to inspect it.

"What do you mean me and rings?" asked Xialing who had now lessened her caution with the cloak in her hand.

"The fight is about to finish, quick let's take a look" said Maria as she turned to look at the fight. Xialing also focused on the fight to see her father being beaten into a pulp even with him using the ten rings. The beat up Wenwu stood up from the ground again, his rings were totally ineffective against the woman in front of him. She was faster, stronger, more versatile and more durable than him and she even had more experience than him. All in all, she was better than him at everything. In these few moments he was analyzing his unfortunate situation, the blonde woman appeared in front of him and threw at punch at superhuman speeds at his chest. Using the rings around his arms he blocked the punch but the force from the punch hurled him into the wall behind him head first. The great Wenwu was again beaten by a woman.

"Father, why are you doing this to him?" Xialing said as she ran to her unconscious father. Maria then walked until she was a few meters from Xialing and her unconscious father.

"Well he wasn't going to willingly give up those rings" said Maria jokingly as an unscathed Thena moved besides her.

"Why should I join you after you have done this?" spitefully asked Xialing.

"We will take you to see your brother" replied Maria nonchalantly. This reply surprised Xialing as she wondered how these people knew so much about her.

"Why me? I am weaker than even my father, how could I possibly help you if I join this organization of yours" asked Xialing who was clearly very interested in meeting her brother again. Thena suddenly looked into the sky and her expression turned dark.

"Their about to arrive, make this quick" said Thena with a grim expression. Knowing who Thena meant, Maria's expression also turned serious.

"You will know once you join. Take the rings from your father, we're leaving" Maria said as she took out a small circular device from inside the of her cloak. Xialing quickly pulled off the rings from her father's broken hands as Maria threw the device on the ground. The device suddenly started expanding until it formed a small platform which Thena and Maria quickly climbed on.

"Come on" said Maria as she extended her hand to Xialing who was still kneeling next to her unconscious father. After a picture of her brother appeared in her mind, Xialing hardened her resolve and took Maria's hand who pulled her onto the platform. The platform started to quickly ascend into the sky towards the still opened wormhole. A few seconds later, a Giant black triangular object appeared in the sky. Ikaris, Gilgamesh, Kingo, Mekkari and Ajak descended the ship through beams of light only to see Thena and her two companions entering the worm hole, which started to close quickly. Ikaris blasted off the ground at blinding speeds towards the closing wormhole but was too late as the wormhole closed before he was even close.

"It seems, they were expecting us" said Ajak who looked into the sky at where the wormhole once was. An annoyed Ikaris flew down and landed next to the other Eternals.

"Sorry, I wasn't fast enough" apologized Ikaris to Ajak who started consoling him. The rest of the other Eternals were looking around at the bodies and destruction left behind.

"Let's leave, some humans are approaching this location fast" said Sersi from the ship through their communication. The Eternals boarded their ship and left the area.

A Ten Rings member dressed in a ninja outfit with a white mask who was pretending to be dead, making sure that there were no more enemies left stood up and went to the unconscious Wenwu. After checking his vitals, carried him off to the emergency escape route.

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-A few hours later, in the Helicarrier-

"Sir, once we reached the destination of the tesseract readings, we found a large compound hidden on top of some small mountain with 113 dead bodies and 92 injured, they were all armed. None of these people are in the global database" said Natasha to S.H.I.E.L.D's director, Nick Fury.

"Did you identify the men" asked Fury as he was looking at the pictures of the site on a large holographic screen.

"Yes, they all had this sign on their bodies sir" replied the Black Widow as she showed Nick Fury the picture of the sign.

"The Ten Rings, huh" said Fury as he analyzed the sign.

"We also found a lot of documents in the compound which show their dealings and we found Trevor Slattery locked up in their basement" said Natasha again as she showed Fury the documents.

"Did anyone else see these documents" asked Fury as he browsed through the documents.

"No sir, I personally retrieved them and showed and told no one about them" replied Natasha.

"Good, keep it that way, now go question the injured men when they wake up, I'll go study these documents" Fury said as he walked out of the room

-The following day, in San Francisco-

On top of a building next to Z high school, Maria and Xialing were sitting on the edge with binoculars.

"Why are we here again?" asked Xialing confusingly.

"You were nagging me to see your brother, well here we are" Maria said as she handed some binoculars to Xialing who looked even more confused.

"Why would he be here?" she asked while the bell rang at the school and a bunch of teenagers started walking out of the building, some heading to their sports and some home.

"Look there" said Maria as she ignored the comment and pointed at a pair of Asian teenagers who were now exiting the building. Xialing aimed her binoculars at the direction Maria was pointing at.

"Why is he here?" asked a now serious Xialing with her binoculars glued at her brother. Seeing the chance to make Xialing loyal to the group, Maria immediately started to capitalize.

"He has been going to this school for 4 years now." She replied as tears started falling from Xialing's eyes.

"He was never going to come back" Xialing said with a low voice, "He abandoned me and started a new life here"

"Well, it's not like you need him" encouraged Maria as she pulled the girl into a hug, "You got us now"

"Yeah, show him and your Father that you don't need them" said Maria as she patted the crying Xialing's back while resolve filled the heartbroken girl's teary eyes.

'She's right I don't need a family that ignores my existence or a brother that abandons me' thought Xialing as she clenched her fists. Unknown to both the girls, the rings around Xialing's arms started to slightly glow red.

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-A few weeks earlier in Nick Fury's office, in the Triskelion-

'So Pierce is also HYDRA.' thought Fury as he looked over the files in the drive. After confirming HYDRA's growth inside Shield from the files from the Ten Rings which had dealings between HYDRA and The Ten Rings that were made over the years, Nick had sent Clint, Cap and Natasha on a secret mission to the SHIELD vessel called the Lemurian Star to get data which was classified for even him. Luckily, the mission was a success and Nick obtained the information on HYDRA's plan and all it's agents inside SHIELD.

After he had finished going through the data, Nick's expression was grim. If he had not gotten the files from the Ten Rings compound, he would have no idea what HYDRA was planning until it was too late. Luckily, he had gotten this information with a few months to spare before Project Insight's completion meaning he had time to plan things through and HYDRA would have no idea what hit them.