A bit of background: This story takes place over a year in the future where Fitz and Simmons are together and takes place after Loch Ness Monster but all you need to know is that, and that Skye has superpowers (telekinesis).
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Half an Hour Earlier
Classified Underground Location, Somewhere in the Himalayan Mountain Range
Jemma, Leo and Skye were descending the ancient, crumbling steps of a narrow passage, hidden in the side of one of the many mountains of the Himalayas which stretched 2,400 kilometers, separating the Indian subcontinent from the Tibetan Plateau.
"Do you think we'd ever be able to climb Mt. Everest?" Jemma wondered cheerfully, stepping carefully behind Leo, the beam of her torch lighting the backs of his feet in the darkness.
"No," Leo answered honestly and she frowned at his lack of enthusiasm.
"It would be an adventure," she pressed, attempting to sway him though she knew her chances were slim. "We'd have so much fun."
"Undergoing strenuous exercise in an atmosphere so thin you need an oxygen mask, risking an avalanche, possibly falling hundreds of feet to your death and freezing your fingers off," Leo listed pessimistically. "It doesn't really sound like fun to me Jemma. You can scratch it off the honeymoon list right now because there is no way I'm-
"I didn't mean climbing the whole way up," she protested, shaking her head impatiently at him, even though he couldn't see. She wasn't naive enough to think they were in any condition to reach the summit. "I'd be happy just to visit base camp."
"Oh," he answered, still not sounding overly thrilled with her plans. "I guess... maybe someday."
"I bet May's done it," Skye chuckled behind Jemma.
"Yeah," "Probably," they agreed. Nothing about the other agent would really surprise Jemma at this point. Their friend was practically unstopable.
"How much further down do we need to go?" Skye wondered and Jemma craned her neck to look over Leo's shoulder at the glowing screen of their tablet.
"Twenty-" she began.
"Two feet," he finished.
"Did you guys seriously need to share that sentence?" Skye teased. "It was like, four syllables."
"Someone keeps reading over my shoulder," Leo explained, more affectionate than irritated.
"Someone hogs the tablet," Jemma countered playfully.
"Someone is too busy sticking her adorable nose into icky, squishy dead things to hold it," he shot back, his tone surprisingly warm considering his aversion to said icky, squishy, dead things.
"Someone needs to start storing the actual names of decaying organic matter in that gorgeous head of his," she replied, stressing the last part and grinning widely at him from behind.
"Someone needs to get you two a room," Skye groaned, giggling at them. "Simmons, Fitz, please, your flirting is improving but it's still painful. What is with you and people's heads?" she incredulously asked Jemma who shrugged. "Just save it for the honeymoon. Or the wedding," she added, brightening. "Have you finished fighting over who gets me yet?" She laughed. "Am I a maid of honor or a best-woman? I need to know before I pick out my dress."
Jemma wasn't sure if she was joking about the dress or not but they hadn't decided yet. Aside from each other, Skye was the best friend of both of them and they were having troubles sorting out exactly who got to have her by their side. They weren't fighting about it, nothing so simple. No, they were having a debate, a written one over a series of emails, each clearly stating the key points of their argument.
"We can't talk about it outside our emails," Leo informed her.
They were nearly at the bottom, a large, round stone door etched with ancient-looking symbols, stood impressively before them.
"Seriously?" Skye questioned.
"It might affect the outcome of our debate," Jemma explained.
"Weirdos," Skye chuckled, her fondness for the pair of them clear despite the feeble insult.
She helped them slide open the door, it was heavy and it ground against the stone floor, friction working against them, but they were able to push it far enough aside to squeeze past it.
The place they entered was not at all what they had expected. A long, white hallway stretched away from them, and bright, artificial lights flickered on, illuminating it harshly so that the three of them needed to pause for a few seconds, blinking, while they waited for their eyes to adjust.
"I thought this place was suppose to be ancient," Skye commented, curiously looking over the wires which threaded between the long line of pipes near the ceiling.
"It is, at least the outside," Jemma answered, marveling at the mystery of it. How had all this ended up beneath a mountain? Who had built it? Why? "The writing up near where we came in was dated back five thousand years."
"It's been translated too, by the team of archeologists who found it," Leo added, frowning. "It doesn't make any sense though, it says 'a demon's twist rusts.'"
"Probably a miss-translation," Jemma dismissed. "They also told us that the word for twist in the language it's written in could also mean bracelet."
"And it's old, worn away," Leo agreed. "There might have be an inflection over the word for rust at some point, I think I saw an outline of it when we came in. Trip said that would make it mean 'not rust', or 'doesn't rust'." The other two raised their eyebrows questioningly at him. "The guy's a swiss army knife," Leo sighed, shaking his head, almost annoyed. "I'm pretty sure he can also transform into a fighter jet and preform emergency surgery on his own liver."
"Blindfolded," Jemma added and they giggled together. Leo was exaggerating, but their friend was certainly full of surprises.
"So it might also mean, 'a demon's bracelet doesn't rust'? Sounds ominous," Skye worried.
"No it doesn't," "It doesn't sound like anything," Leo and Jemma objected.
"You guys really need to learn to have an imagination," Skye told them. "Think outside the box, whoever built this did. I mean, hiding a super secret... whatever this place is... underneath a mountain and a creepy staircase, points for creativity."
"Why is it here though?" Jemma wondered.
"Let's find out," Leo said, motioning them forward.
Together they walked cautiously down the well lit hallway, footsteps echoing off the walls of the large, silent space.
"We're getting closer," Leo announced, staring down at his screen. "The pulse is coming from only about a hundred feet away."
Skye let out a startled yelp and the two of them spun around, alarmed, to find she had disappeared.
"Skye?" Jemma called, anxiously searching around for their teammate.
"Down here," she replied, muffled, and Leo and Jemma stepped forward to find she had fallen through a trap door into a smooth square about eight feet deep. It would have been easy for her to climb out, except that a glass panel had slid over the top, sealing her in.
"It wont budge," Leo grunted, attempting to pull it open like the door of a corner store refrigerator.
"Umm... I don't mean to rush you..." Skye said nervously. "Well no, I do. There's a timer, counting down. It says transport in 65, 64, 63- guys I only have a minute."
"What?" Leo exclaimed.
"Transport where?" Jemma demanded.
"It says 'entrance,'" she read. "Oh, that doesn't sound so bad," she commented optimistically. "It'll probably just bring me back to the top of that old, crumbly staircase right?"
"We need to get you out of there," Leo asserted worriedly.
There was a touch screen in one corner of the glass panel and he tapped it hastily.
"You speak English, correct?" Appeared across the screen.
"Yes, English," Jemma answered quickly. "Abort transport."
"Operation denied," it informed them. "Transport cannot be aborted."
"Open the door!" Leo ordered angrily.
"Operation denied," it repeated.
Leo swore and tapped irritably at the screen but neither of them understood the controls. There didn't appear to be any sort of off switch, all they could manage to do was change the language several times. Greek, French, Japanese, Yoruba, Arabic, all likely displaying the same message.
It switched back to English. Transport in 4, 3, 2, 1...
A blue light flashed, so bright Leo and Jemma had to squeeze their eyes shut to stop it from hurting them, and Skye was gone.
The pit hadn't moved, it wasn't an elevator or a cart, it was just empty.
"No," Jemma breathed concern fluttering in her chest like a flock of moths.
"Where did she go?" Leo gasped.
"Hello?" Skye's voice sounded in their ears over the coms.
"Where are you?" "Thank God you're alright," They exclaimed, relieved.
"I'm back at the entrance," Skye told them. "Go figure, it actually brought me where it said it would. That was weird, and strangely... tingly..."
"Can you come back?" Leo asked.
"On my way," she promised.
"We'll go on ahead," Jemma told her. "We're almost at the 084."
"I thought I was the 084," Skye kidded.
"You're our favorite 084," Jemma chuckled.
"I'd better be, don't get too friendly with this new one," she warned playfully. "And be careful OK?" She added, turning serious.
"Don't be jealous Skye," Leo teased before he mirrored her tone. "We'll be careful," he vowed.
They followed the pulse into a small, square room. A table in the center held a pair of thick, flat, gold colored bracelets. The rest of the room was empty, the walls white and smooth except for a rectangular screen near the ceiling.
"That's it," Leo announced, hovering the scanner over the bracelets. "They're sending out incredibly large bursts of energy."
"Is it safe?" Jemma asked, peering curiously at them.
"There's no harmful radiation," he told her.
she shuffled over to look at the screen with him. "What are they?" She wondered.
He grinned at her. "Let's find out."
They began loading them into the carrier they'd brought, careful to add padding around them so they wouldn't be damaged on the return trip.
"We'll need to come back here after to explore," Jemma decided, gazing around. "What a strange mystery this place is."
Leo smiled fondly at her. "Maybe that could be our honeymoon," he chuckled.
She laughed with him. "What do you think Skye?"
Static.
"Skye?" Leo called, frowning. "I can't reach her."
"Maybe it's the room," Jemma guessed, raising her eyebrows.
"I'll try outside," Leo told her, stepping into the hall.
The second he'd left, a thick glass door slid behind him and sealed Jemma into the room.
A timer clicked on on the screen. '70 seconds to transport, 69,68,67...'
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I usually leave a reference to the science fiction series Fringe in each chapter of each of my stories. In this chapter it is the phrase 'A demon's twist rusts' which is written on a blackboard in the episode Over There and is an anagram for 'Don't trust Sam Weiss' (a character in the show).
There was actually no Fringe reference in the first chapter because it was so short but the 2 minutes and 17 seconds was a reference to the novel Flashforward by Robert J. Sawyer.