Disclaimer: whatever it says in the last chapter.

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Parasol headquarters, Annette Ashford's office.

Sitting at her desk, Ms. Ashford busied herself with sending administrative orders through e-mail on her desktop computer. It was late in the afternoon and she was two hours away from quitting time though she was not eager to call it a day. She felt more at home in this large office than she did in her eighty million dollar penthouse. Maybe it was that seat of power she enjoyed so much.

It had been two days since the incident with the Red X ended. The press raved about the incident of the island's explosion and the possible involvement of meta-humans. Of course, Parasol was never mentioned throughout all this. Ms. Ashford was no fool. She planned ahead for things like this and all those plans came through. She was safe though all those contingency plans did take up a large chunk out of their budget.

She'll have to come up with an excuse for Wall Street about that later.

It was around that time her secretary called through the intercom. "Ma'am, the representatives of GothCorp have arrived for their five o'clock."

She reached for the intercom and pressed the call button. She was about to tell her secretary to send them in when she looked up from her computer, did a double-take, and frowned. After a short silence she said "Tell them to wait."

"Ma'am?"

"I said tell them to wait. Don't bother offering them coffee."

She looked straight ahead, placed her elbows on the table and she rested her chin on her knuckles.

"I prefer you make an appointment."

"You should know I love to make unannounced entrances," said the Red X who stood in the middle of the room with his cape draped over his body, covering most of it from view.

"What do you want?"

"Straight to business?"

"Always."

"Well, first of all, I wanna know how's it been hangin' for you guys."

"It's no ideal situation, thanks to you. Though nothing I can't handle."

"Oh, I have no doubt of that Ms. Ashford."

"There's nothing you can do here. Our deal with you is over. You don't have to worry about us coming after you anymore. The project was a failure and a costly one at that. It's over. Get out of here before I call security."

Red X was silence for a bit.

"You think it's over just because you say it is?" said Red X with a hint of humor.

Ms. Ashford raised an eyebrow. Red X then lifted his arm out from under his cape to show her that he was holding a computer hard disk. Ms. Ashford recognized it in an instant and her eyes narrowed.

"It took me a while to break the encryption code," he said. "I've been checking this out for a while now. There's a lot of interesting data on here which include most of your…'pets'."

Ms. Ashford hesitated in answering back. "…You'll never find anything in there to tie it to me."

"I know that. But did you really think I'll turn this thing in as evidence to the police. No way. That would be a waste of my time, your time, and theirs as well. However I was thinking that maybe LexCorp or Amertek might like to take a look at this stuff."

Ms. Ashford's eyes twitched slightly. Red X noticed and smiled under the mask.

"Aside form he considerable check I might get…Tell me Ms. Ashford, are you good with competition?"

"You wouldn't dare."

Red X tucked the herd disk back under his cape. "I would, just to show you what it means to cross with the likes of me," he said with a more serious tone. "If you think you can play games with me the way you did last week, you ought to be ready to face the consequences if you lose because as you are about to learn, I can hold a grudge for a very long time, Ms. Ashford."

Ms. Ashford did her best to keep her composure throw her brow was obviously straining.

"I won't be doing anything to you or your precious company for the moment so don't worry your butt off just yet. That is simply because I don't believe you're worth my time. I have better things to do than to mess with you. Just make sure you remember that if you ever mess with me again you'll be playing into a game you'll never win."

Red X pulled something else from under his cape. "Consider this a reminder."

He tossed it towards Ms. Ashford and it landed on her desk. She looked down at it and slowly reached to pick it up. It was a wrist tag with the word "KAPRE" written in bold black letters which she recognized immediately. Her eyes lingered on the tag for a moment.

Ms. Ashford looked back up. By then the Red X was gone.

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Author's Note: I am now finished with yet another disaster of a fic. There you have it. Red X's latest adventure over and done with. A deeply felt thanks to all who took their time to read and reviewed this story and gave me some good feedback.

See you guys next time!

Peace out!