Professor Iye

Chapter Seven

Rhodey enjoyed flying the Jumper. A fighter pilot by training and inclination, he found the smaller, faster, more responsive plane a relief from the relatively ponderous 'bus'. It helped that his passenger also seemed comfortable with this kind of flight. Another revelation about the Boss.

Last night had been the same. Draco had clearly felt out of place among the convivial group, but had made an effort. His instinctive courtesy and dry humour had served him well enough to at least survive the evening. He can do the people thing, Rhodey mused, but it ain't natural or easy for him. Of course, Dracos' stock had received a considerable boost from his contribution to the hospitality. Rhodey was not a wine man, but he gathered from Gabbi and Bruce that the Marsanne the Boss had provided was as good as such things got. For himself, Rhodey had been mightily impressed with the rich, complex flavours of the dark English beer Draco had also brought -and he wasn't the only one.

Now, though, it was time to get his head back in the job. They were a few miles out from Iye's island, so Rhodey dropped the jumper to subsonic and went into Stealth mode. Silent and invisible, they quartered over the island, finding it ruggedly mountainous and heavily forested, apart from one deep cove on the Northern coast. At the centre, however...

"That looks like an active volcano." He told Draco.

"It does." Draco agreed. "Which is strange, because the satellite imagery SHIELD provided indicates no such thing. We should conclude, Rhodes, that this is some kind of illusion, either a hologram or a spell.

"Am I right in thinking that, given its VTOL capacity, our large aircraft could comfortably land in that caldera?"

"Easy." Rhodey stated. "You want to change plans and go for a full assault, Boss?"

"Not at this juncture." Draco replied. "That disguise may conceal heavy defences of one sort or another. It would be best if I can disable them before you attempt to land.

"Ah! There!"

Rhodeys' jaw dropped. A real, live dragon had just emerged from the apparently lava-filled caldera and set off on what appeared to be a patrol.

Draco focussed the Jumpers' video camera on the beast. "Scarlet, smooth-scaled, yellow spikes around the face." He noted. "Snub snout, large eyes, about 20-25 feet overall. Chinese Fireball.

"That makes sense. Fireballs are not the most powerful of dragons, but are among the most intelligent. Intelligent enough to be trained, given the proper techniques and a young enough hatchling. Powerful and dangerous enough to see off civilian aircraft and scare fishermen, but should be no match for the weaponry of our large aircraft."

Draco admitted to himself, if not to Rhodey, that he had been concerned. Islands such as this were known to be the favoured dens of dormant daikaiju, the giant monsters that had so frequently plagued Japan in particular and which many believed to the the products of Kree genetic engineering, designed to keep Earth from growing too powerful by causing regular disruption to human civilisation.

The Japanese authorities had corralled a number of them on Monster Island, behind sophisticated technological and magical barriers. During the Dalek Invasion of 2008, they had been released in a last-ditch attempt to ward off complete Dalek domination of Japan. True to previous form, the mighty Gojira and his allies Anguirus and Rodan had made straight for the mainland to join forces with Mothra -summoned from her own sacred island. King Ghidorah -a three-headed dragon of non-terrestrial origin – clearly had knowledge of the Daleks, because instead of fleeing, he too had attacked them. He had, however, declined to co-operate with his fellow monsters and despite doing a great deal of damage, had eventually been overwhelmed by numbers and fallen into the sea, apparently dead. But his body had never been found, and his regenerative capacities were unknown. Had the dragon of local legend turned out to be Ghidorah, nothing less than a full UNIT Strike-Force would have been required.

The Chinese dragon had meanwhile set off for the opposite end of the island, clearly on a pre-set route.

"Time for me to go!" Draco announced. "Return to the large plane, Rhodes, and await my signal."

"You sure you want to do this, Boss? Alone?" Rhodey asked.

"What? Let someone else have all the fun?" Draco asked. "I rather think not, Rhodes! That said, I would appreciate a prompt response when I call!"

"Prompt enough to make your head swim!" Rhodey promised. "You really don't want a parachute?"

Draco had moved to stand on the belly hatch, broom in hand. "My dear Rhodes, having spent a hugely self-indulgent amount of money on a Firebolt X, it would be an insult to my bank balance to use a parachute! In your own time, Rhodes."

"OK, Boss. Three, two, one, mark!"

The hatch opened and Draco dropped out of sight. Rhodey closed the hatch and checked the belly camera. Draco had casually swung himself astride the broom as he dropped, and was now descending in a tight, fast spiral that made Rhodey feel faintly sick to watch.

He sighed, forcing himself to recall that he was an XO, not a baby-sitter, and that the Boss could handle himself. Then he swung the plane away and headed back to the rendezvous.

Draco got himself into the canopy of the forest, then played slalom among the trees for about a mile. He was not quite the flier Harry Potter was, but he'd been a Seeker, and was no slouch on a broom. He spotted a broad branch and landed gently. Then he shrank the broom down to about an inch long and tucked it safely into his boot. Time for some climbing!

Before Harry 'took him in hand', Draco had never really bothered about physical fitness. Despite their wealth, the Malfoys had followed a rather Spartan lifestyle, eating well but not excessively, relying on an elegant sufficiency of very good food as opposed to larger amounts of lesser quality. As a result, Draco had never run to fat, unlike Crabbe and Goyle. However, the gruelling regime to which Harry had subjected him had hardened his slender frame so that at the age of 35, he was in better physical condition than he had ever been.

He made the descent without trouble, then oriented himself and set off toward the volcano – that was where the main headquarters was likely to be, given the attempts made to warn people off it. This was the tricky part. He had to try hard enough to be convincing, but not so hard as to defeat the object. Avoiding the obvious snares and surveillance – both technological and magical – he nonetheless managed to, apparently accidentally, trigger a few of the subtler ones. By the time he had reached the rugged lower slopes of the volcano, they were after him, he noted. Making only slightly more noise than a herd of drunken elephants, in Dracos' opinion.

He let them catch almost up to him, before starting a running fight that roamed across, rather than further up, the slope. He didn't want to give them a reason for shooting to kill. For the same reason, he steered clear of the Killing Curse himself, instead unloosing a variety of the more entertaining hexes he had learned as a schoolboy. Eventually, he let them corner him in a clump of bushes with his back to a ravine. After a few preparations, he bounded out, levelling his wand, into a fusillade of warning shots that sent him diving to the side, cursing loudly as his wand slipped from his hand and skittered over the edge of the ravine.

He rolled over and pulled his SHIELD sidearm, sending an incendiary round into the bushes close to where he knew his hunters to be. That had the effect he wanted, as he felt the downdraught of great wings and smelled the musk and sulphur odour inseparable from dragonkind.

"That's enough!" Somebody yelled. "Throw down your weapon or get fried!"

They took his gun, his belt with clips and grenades, and the obvious comm unit. They patted him down and passed a Secrecy Sensor over him. Then they cuffed his hands in front of him and led him – without undue roughness – up a defile where a clump of bushes proved to be a holographic cover for a steel door. A short corridor led to a lift which descended for some distance before opening into some kind of control room.

This room was full of men and women in HYDRA uniforms, working diligently at panels and keyboards. There were monitors around the room, with differing views. One showed the dragon on its leisurely patrol. Another showed a room like a dojo in which a number of black-clad wizards appeared to be practising katas with wands. At least three of them, however, showed differing views of the same room. A wet dock in which floated, surrounded by equipment and technicians, a shape familiar to Draco from Professor Arronaxs' sketches. The Nautilus.

Dracos' main interest, however, was in the middle-aged Japanese gentleman seated in an elevated control chair in the centre of the room. He was wearing a formal kimono in red and white and was gazing at Draco out of dark, unreadable eyes. His expression was serene, but the lines of the face itself were harsh and bitter. He wore his hair in a traditional samurai coiffure, and though there was a wand in his right hand, Draco noted that he kept a katana in a stand by his chair, close enough to reach.

The leader of Dracos' captors stepped forward. "We have him, Professor. He's SHIELD, no doubt abut it. Uniform, weapons, all SHIELD, including one of those new multi-ammo guns. He's a wizard as well, he had a wand. It went into a ravine, but I've got men looking for it."

The man addressed as 'Professor' nodded.

"Good work, Sturmfuhrer." He said. His voice was harsh, guttural and as he moved, Draco noted heavy scarring across his throat. A past encounter, perhaps? Clearly the man was not invincible. He turned to Draco again.

"Your name?" He asked.

"Draco Malfoy," was the reply, "Agent of SHIELD. If I don't check in soon, my team will come after me, you realise."

The Professor shook his head. "I think not, Malfoy-san. The only SHIELD agent allowed to operate on her own is the Black Widow. All others must work in a team of at least two. Whatever you are doing here, it is not an authorised SHIELD operation, and you will have no back-up.

"But I am remiss. I am Tokugawa Hiro, better known as Professor Iye, and no doubt you have sought me out for some foolish vendetta of your own."

Draco shrugged. "Sorry, old chap, never heard of you." He said. "I was looking for a fellow called Piet van Roek. Seen him?"

If Iye was surprised, he didn't show it, merely nodding. "So, a vendetta nonetheless, though not addressed to me. Gruppenfuhrer van Roek was here recently, but has returned to HYDRA base. Was it you, Malfoy-san, who inflicted those scars on him?"

"Might have been." Draco allowed. "Last I saw of him, he was bleeding like a stuck pig, just before he ran for it."

"Ah so desu ka?" Iye replied. "Fascinating. Did you know, Malfoy-san, that scars from a Sectumsempra curse can usually be removed with dittany?"

Draco nodded. He had suffered such injuries himself, and been healed of them.

"It may interest you to know, then," Iye continued, "that no potion or charm can remove or hide the scars you inflicted upon van Roek. He is now a marked man to his dying day. Which means, Malfoy-san, that you either have a very particular wand, or are very skilled in the so-called Dark Arts.

"Your wand we will find, in due course. I may add it to my collection. Your skills might well be useful to HYDRA, but I have now recalled your name. I would hesitate to recruit a scion of such a noted family of turncoats to the HYDRA cause."

Iye rose from his chair, slipped his wand into his sash, and picked up his katana. "Bring him." He told the guards. They went along a corridor that seemed to curve round the outside of the base – all the doors, Draco noted, were on the inner curve of the corridor. They paused at one marked 'Armoury', where the leader of the guards typed a code into the door to open it. Beyond it, Draco caught a glimpse of a large room with two or three technicians, a couple of workbenches, and racks of weapons. He saw his weapons and equipment placed on the nearest bench.

A few doors further along, they came to one which was slightly sturdier and apparently airtight, judging from the hiss it made on opening. Inside was a large, circular chamber that extended at least four storeys down. The door opened onto a circular catwalk that ran round the room. In front of them a short walkway extended over the void, while above the walkway was a gantry along which ran a crane arrangement from which a large hook hung by a metal chain. The air was full of the whoosh of fans and a peculiar sharp odour Draco recognised. At the bottom of the chamber was a pool, some twenty feet deep, of a colourless, slightly oily liquid.

"Concentrated sulphuric acid." Iye supplied, confirming Dracos' suspicions. "We use it in various chemical processes. You will note those extractor fans, Malfoy-san. They draw out the bulk of the vapour to be condensed and cycled back into the storage tank. Waste not, want not. Also, without them, this room would be uninhabitable, of course.

"The acid is also a convenient and instructive method of disposal for unwanted individuals such as yourself. In a moment, you will be suspended from that hook, and slowly lowered into the acid. There will be several interesting aspects to the process. How well, and for how long, will your SHIELD gear protect you against the acid, for instance? Will the pain and shock of having your lower limbs eaten away kill you before you are deep enough into the pool for the fumes to finally overcome you?"

Iye put his head on one side and considered Draco. "Your family is considered a noble one, Malfoy-san. Had you been Japanese, I would have offered you the option of seppuku, but I understand the English do not consider such a death a noble one. I will, however, be interested to observe if your nations' reputation for stoicism in the face of death is deserved.

"Put him on the hook."

The guards looped the handcuffs over the hook, then bound Draco's legs and began to winch him out over the pool. He noted that he was only a couple of feet from the end of the walkway. Iye was still speaking.

"My men and I have much work to do, Malfoy-san, so you will be assured of privacy. There is no escape, so your demise will be recorded, but not monitored. I will study your manner of dying later, in private."

The crane began to lower Draco slowly toward the pool. For forms' sake, he called, "I suppose you expect me to talk, now?"

"No, Malfoy-san," replied Iye, "I expect you to die."

They waited until he was too far below the walkway to swing himself back onto it, then left. Draco gave them a few more minutes to clear the area, then grasped the hook firmly and pulled himself up. He pressed the side of his face to the handcuffs and concentrated. After a moment, they sprang open and dropped into the acid. Draco swarmed up the chain hand over hand and swung himself onto the platform, where he promptly fell down. He didn't need his legs to climb the chain, but standing or walking without them would be awkward!

He probed with his tongue up into the crevice between gum and cheek, finding the small sliver and carefully dislodging it so he could spit it into his hand. He murmured a word over it, and his wand sprang back to full size. He grinned – they could search that ravine till Doomsday and all they would find would be a rather straighter, blacker stick of wood than usual. Wand in hand, the leg bonds were no problem. Draco sat up and twisted a boot-heel. It was, of course, hollow and contained two of the black ceramic suriken.

He approached the door, looking through the glass observation panel and casting a Freezing Hex on the CCTV camera opposite. It would now show the same image until the Hex was removed. Draco slipped out into the corridor and made for the Armoury, freezing cameras as he went. Though he had noted the code the guard had used to open the door, he had an inkling that such things might be logged, so he used alohomora instead. Slipping inside, he took down the three technicians quickly and quietly, and reclaimed his muggle weapons.

Now things ventured into an area Draco was not wholly comfortable with. Sitting down at the supervisors' station, he noted with relief that the man was still logged in and began to access files before the machine could lock itself.

Harry had done his best, as had the SHIELD trainers, but Draco was never going to be a computer nerd. It took him a few false starts to locate the information he wanted. Fortunately, even HYDRA used Windows and the Armoury supervisor had clearly been a man of rank. Draco was able to locate the information he needed.

He took out the SHIELD communicator and pulled the back off it. Inside was a magic mirror. Not one of the commercial ones tied to a wizard network, but an old-fashioned one-to-one mirror. One that could not be jammed or eavesdropped or even detected in use.

"Willow Rosenberg." He said clearly. A moment later, Willow was looking at him anxiously out of the glass.

"You OK, Boss?" She asked. "We were getting a little worried."

"So far, so good." Draco told her. "But events march. Now, listen very carefully, I shall say this only once."

Some twenty minutes of cautious movement later, Draco crouched, covered by a Disillusionment Charm, at the entrance to a middle-sized room. Opposite him was a door, a wooden door studded with iron nails. On the computer schematics of the base, this door was shown as the only entrance to a large, subterranean area, unmapped and flagged as "No Access to Muggle Personnel".

This, Draco guessed, was the location of Iye's wizard ryu. There were things he needed to determine, but his immediate problem was the guards stationed at the door.

They were not HYDRA troopers. One was clearly Japanese, but the other had a Slavic cast of face. Both, however, wore red and white kimonos similar to, but less elaborate than, the one Iye wore. The Japanese wore his hair samurai-style, the other had his cropped short. Neither had a sword, but both had wands tucked into their sashes.

Graduate students, then. Draco thought. At this point, he supposed, a Gryffindor would have darted out and engaged both of them in a wizard duel. Draco was not so foolish, and he was on the clock, so to speak.

He took out the suriken and depressed the centres of the stars. Inside each, a small reservoir broke open, allowing a potent neurotoxin to seep along capillaries to the points. With a deft double flick, Draco sent the star-darts spinning through the air to slam into the chests of the guards. They barely had time to register surprise and pain before the fast-acting poison killed them.

Draco stepped out into the chamber, faced the door, and tried to apparate beyond it. He was blocked, not violently, but firmly. He recognised the charm. It was one that prevented apparation both into and out of the area it was cast on. Clearly Iye was as anxious that his wizard students stay put as he was to prevent others getting in. Good.

Dracos' main concern had been the possibility that his team might face a large number of highly-trained wizards as well as the HYDRA garrison. Now he was in a position to remove that threat. He cast the strongest Sealing Spell he could on the door that was the only entrance or exit to the wizard section. Then he stepped back out of the room, loaded the HE clip into his SHIELD sidearm and collapsed the chamber with a couple of well-placed shots.

That, of course, set off every alarm in the place. Just as Draco wanted. Within a few minutes, HYDRA would have their hands very full indeed!

"We just got a bang." Bruce said in Rhodeys' ear. "Guess the Boss did his thing."

"Roger that." Rhodey said, ran down the ramp and jumped out of the plane. It was good to be back in the War Machine suit. The few months Rhodey had spent doubling for Tony as iron Man had been a lot of fun, and he'd developed a taste for this kind of fighting.

Admittedly, War Machine armour was not as fast, agile or sophisticated as the Iron Man suit, but it had its own advantages. The VR software gave him 360-degree vision, for instance, and the suits' modular weapon systems were slaved to his eye movements. Right now he had an assault rifle mounted on his right forearm, a grenade launcher on his left, while on his back was a new toy. A large, thick disc containing hundreds of homing mini-missiles.

Rhodey dived into the caldera, through the holographic 'lava', seeing below him a large landing area. Built into the walls of the caldera was a massive array of cannon and missile launchers, all computer-controlled and activated by unauthorised entry past the hologram. Unfortunately, they were programmed to deal with large groups of men and the aircraft which would land them. A man-sized, flying object darting about at random was nothing they could handle.

Software did what software could, loosing fusillade after volley. Most of the ammunition was expended on rock, but rather a lot of it caused 'friendly fire' damage to systems on the opposite wall. In the middle of the chaos, War Machine swooped, dived and circled like a swallow in a summer sky. From the disc on his back came a constant stream of small, fast projectiles programmed to home in on the sources of enemy fire and explode with devastating effect.

At some point – Rhodey didn't notice when – some of the holo-projectors must have been hit, because the false ceiling vanished. Then it was over. The enemy guns fell silent, either destroyed or deactivated, he couldn't tell which.

"War Machine to Condor." He said. "Come on down!"

In the planes' Weapons Control booth, just above and behind the flight deck, Clark Kent spotted something on his scope.

"Something big coming in fast on our ten o'clock." He reported to Bruce.

"Roger that, going to intercept." Bruce replied.

Dragons are almost invisible to radar. However, by their nature they have a disproportionately large heat signature. Summoned by who knew what arcane means, the Chinese Fireball was on its' way to defend the nest. Bruce placed the big plane directly in its' path.

Clark waited until just the right moment, then said "Ace the cloak."

The sudden appearance of an airborne opponent larger than itself caused the dragon to backwing in confusion, leaving itself exposed for just long enough. Dragonhide is one of the toughest materials in nature, but was no protection against the depleted uranium ammunition fired by the planes' Vulcan cannon. The unfortunate beast was virtually shredded by a two-second burst.

"Hologram's gone!" Cypher reported from Observation.

"Roger that, heading for the caldera." Bruce responded.

They had just arrived when War Machine called them in. They descended through the smoke of battle and touched down to see Rhodey pelting across the concrete toward them.

"We got company!" He yelled.