The Dragon Avengers

Piccolo's Recruits

Awhile Back in 2017

"GAH!" Spider-Man exclaims as Piccolo was standing on the side of the same building he's on but he's actually just hovering just centimeters off the surface.

"Mister Piccolo what are you doing here?" Spidey asks nervously, getting PTSD flashbacks from his intensive training under the Namekian God.

"Checking to see what you even do on a daily basis, hope you're keeping up with your training?" Piccolo asks, sending a chill down Spider-Man's spine.

"Well I had to change my entire schedule around since you began running the Avengers but I've been doing my best to keep up with your demands."

"Well it's not like you're fighting a lot of strong people around this city." Piccolo says, eyeing around his noisy surroundings.

"Well it's been nice talking with you Mister Piccolo but-"

"I'm not done." Piccolo cuts off Spider-Man off and he immediately apologizes, sweating underneath the suit.

"Me and the team decided to cut you out the team." Piccolo reveals to him, Spidey's lenses go wide as possible.

"What? Why!?"

"You're not ready to be an Avenger kid, plus you should just focus on your studies and keep the streets clean. You're a potential candidate for an Avenger kid but you should enjoy the fruits of your time here while you can."

Spider-Man looks down disappointed, feeling rather hurt the team collectively decided to let him go for the time being but perhaps it was for the best. He looks up and sees Piccolo offering out a card with the Avengers logo and a number on it, Spidey taking the card.

"You'll always have allies kid, just give them a call when you need their help." Piccolo tells him and flies away from New York City, Spider-Man looking down at the card and tucking it away underneath his suit.

San Francisco

"You want me to join?" Hope Van Dyme recoils back in surprise at the large alien's request, not excepting such a drastic change in her day today.

"You're a highly more efficient individual than your counterpart Lang. You're smarter, more refined, and I'm pretty sure your suit has a more advantages." Piccolo explains to Hope, hoping the intelligent woman will choose to join.

"I'm flattered, Piccolo was it?"

"That is correct yes."

"Well I'm glad you see my potential in joining the Avengers but I'm not exactly sure if I really should."

"It's your tech right? Don't want nobody like Stark to get any ideas?" Piccolo asks and Hope quietly nods, Piccolo scoffs at this notion.

"If it's any consolation I can keep an eye on where Stark places his troublesome hands, plus I'm sure stealing other people's tech is a low blow. If he's so intelligent then he would've figured out how to make shrinking tech long ago."

"You're really determined to have me join aren't you?"

"I'll be honest you remind me of a friend I once had in my own universe, she was a intelligent woman named Bulma and she was the smartest person on the planet. She create technology that's leagues ahead of your own, heard she even made a shrinking device at half your age."

"She did!?" Hope exclaims awestruck, wondering how advanced this other woman truly was and partially wanting to meet her but that would be rather impossible.

"Oh yeah, Bulma has been this way since she was a mere child and I don't see her stopping anytime soon." Piccolo smirks nostalgically, it's already been years since he's seen the blue haired woman but he hopes to see her again soon.

"She sounds like someone I'd look up to. Alright Mister Piccolo, I'll consider joining the Avengers but do you guys have a way I can contact you?"

Piccolo pulls out a business card and hands it over to Hope. Hope looks at the card and tucks it away in her jacket pocket.

"Hope to see you around Hope." Piccolo tells her and walks out of her lab, bending his body down as he exits the door. Hope pulls out the card again looking at the A on it, pondering her decisions.

A Few Miles Away

"First off you don't crash into a man's sanctuary unannounced and secondly I left that life for a reason." Shang-Chi tells Piccolo as he gets up from his bed and begins to do his pushups, Piccolo unamused by his response.

"Look Shawn our last encounter in Toronto didn't end very well and that's on me but your abilities can greatly benefit the world if you gave being an Avenger a chance."

"And if I say no again?"

"I'll just be really disappointed but upset you'd be selfish as to not help out plenty of lives." Piccolo tells him, Shang-Chi stoping his pushups and standing back up to face Piccolo in the eyes.

"Really dude, guilt tripping me with the planet?"

"Your father and sister were not the easiest people to talk to you know. You have the most righteous sense outta all of them and also came by to give you these." Piccolo pulls out a capsule and clicks it, opening it up to reveal a box containing the Ten Rings and Shang-Chi frowns at them.

"I don't want them."

"I don't want them either but I can trust you with them more than anyone else on the planet Shawn. You're not your father, you're more your mother than anything else." He tells Shang-Chi, who looks up at him at the mention of his mother.

"Your father spoke highly of her although rather obsessively but more than anything else, she was the very thing that turned a tyrant like him into a decent human being. You could wield these rings better than he can and I'm sure deep down inside him he probably would say the same."

Shang-Chi was lost for words, the tall alien man was making unarguable facts about himself and his family. His father was just a conquerer with those rings but his mother actually showed him a better way of life with just her compassion.

Without his father in possession of the rings perhaps they can be put for better use in the world for once. He takes the box in his hands and looks down at the rings before closing the box and placing them on his bed.

"Thanks. Call me Shang-Chi by the way."

Piccolo smiles and shakes the martial artist's hand, slipping him the Avengers card at the same time before departing away from his home.