fiction | Part of the journey is the end

Book 11 - Shang-Chi and the legend of Ten Rings | 1. The Ten Rings

The Ten Rings' army was on a field, facing their enemy. The army was holding the flag of the Ten Rings.

Tony and Rhodey's faces tightened as they saw the Ten Rings flag, the color drained from Shang-Chi's face, and the rest of the Avengers stiffened.

"The Ten Rings?" Tony said in a strangled voice.

Rhodey's face soured. "What exactly do you have to do with the Ten Rings?" he asked Shang-Chi, who suddenly felt ill. Of course, the Ten Rings would come into this. His luck has never been that great.

"Uh, well," Shang-Chi shifted uncomfortably. He didn't want to tell them the truth, but he didn't think lying would be a good idea, especially to Iron Man and War Machine's faces. "My dad sort of founded the Ten Rings," he mumbled.

Silence.

"Your dad did what?" Bruce said, aghast.

Tony and Rhodey stared at Shang-Chi in shock. "We've tried to track down your dad for years. Tony and I have spent a significant amount of our time trying to find him and dismantle the entire organization," Rhodey said.

Shang-Chi grimaced. He didn't think they would be able to beat his dad.

"What's your dad's name?" Natasha asked.

"Xu Wenwu." His father was the last person he wanted to think about. He was happy with his life in San Francisco since he had great friends, and Katy's family was like a second family.

Tony and Rhodey went cold at hearing the real name of the leader of the Ten Rings. They both knew the scope of the Ten Rings was much larger than what they had seen and they had searched for the leader for years with no result. Tony had taken down the Afghanistan cell, but there were still many more active cells.

"Do you know how exactly I became Iron Man, Shaun?" Tony asked in a cool tone.

Shang-Chi's stomach dropped. Everyone knew the story of how Tony Stark became Iron Man. "The Ten Rings kidnapped you and you escaped by creating the Iron Man suit," he answered in a tense tone. "But my dad wasn't involved in that!"

Rhodey and Tony looked at Shang-Chi, confused. "You just said that your dad is the leader of the Ten Rings," said Tony.

"The cells work independently of each other," Shang-Chi explained. "My dad stopped being a criminal warlord from the mid-'90s to the mid-2000s when he got married and had my sister and I. By the time you were kidnapped, there were a lot of Ten Rings splinter cells that were leaderless and left to their own devices. By 2008, my dad was in full control of the organization again but he wasn't involved in your kidnapping. Your kidnapping made him furious because the Ten Rings are supposed to operate from the shadows and your kidnapping placed the organization all over the news. I'm not saying he's a good person—because he's not and he runs a terrorist organization—but he wasn't involved in that."

"The Afghanistan cell was operating under the radar," Steve realized. "There were a bunch of HYDRA splinter cells so maybe there are Ten Rings splinter cells too. The Red Room still survived when Natasha and Clint tried to take it down the first time too."

"That's a possibility, everything involved in my kidnapping was under the radar," Tony said, clenching his jaw.

"Your dad trained you," Clint realized, hearing Shang-Chi speak. Natasha and Bucky studied Shang-Chi with keen eyes.

Shang-Chi's blood ran cold. "H-how did you—uh, what?" he said faintly. How did Hawkeye figure that out so quickly?

"I can tell when someone's been trained."