I apologize for keeping you all waiting for an update on this chapter. I'd give you a few excuses or reasons to defend myself, but you guys probably don't want to hear that stuff. So, let's just get on with the program. Now, this chapter was originally intended to have been longer, but I couldn't really figure out the other part of the chapter so I'm splitting it into two, allowing for the next chapter to be better written that the randomness I came up with…
Anyways, off to Cambodia! Enjoy :D
Disclaimer: Disney owns it, there.
Chapter 9: A Familiar Face….
*Deep in the jungles of Cambodia, Southeast Asia; same time*
The foliage rustled as the trio of armed men made their way through, heading north to their current base location. They weren't really anyone important, just some expendable muscle. They were finishing their patrol duty, and were returning to base to exchange for the next patrol squad. Each of them took a whiff of the opium one of them pulled out as they continued to make their way. Their cartel, quickly becoming one of the fastest growing criminal syndicates in Cambodia, specialized in the illegal transport and distribution of opium for…"recreational" uses, and they also specialized in illegal weapons and the occasional human trafficking deal. Their syndicate leader's plan was to expand further into southeastern Asia and swallow up the other criminal organizations, thus strengthening his own empire and making them rich beyond their dreams. All members of his syndicate were working across Cambodia to make this a reality. The Cambodian government was doing its best to combat this, but they were out of their league.
For that, they had apparently called in foreign help. And that was the reason why here, in the deep isolated parts of Cambodia's jungles in their most secure base of operations, their syndicate held a prisoner, probably from America's FBI or CIA. She wasn't going to survive what they had in store for her, especially after her last week as their prisoner.
As the trio came to a clearing near the mountainside, they came across a small looking cave. In reality, it wasn't so small at all. Like they've always done, they squirmed through the opening into a large cave area, where three guards armed with AK-47s sat as they kept their post. "Good, you've arrived," one of the guards said in their native language. "The big man is here."
"He's here-now?!" one of the trio gasped.
"Yep-he wanted to handle the prisoner himself again," another guard sneered as he and the other two stood up. "He's being nice today, too-everyone' going to finally be taking a crack at her. After he's done with her, of course."
"Oh boy, this is going to be a good day!" the patrol trio exclaimed in perverted and sinister joy. And with that, the group of syndicate grunts left their posts and proceeded to walk deeper into the cave. As they went further in the cave, wires and cables started lining up the walls, growing in numbers by the meter. They all were connected to six satellite dishes placed in hidden locations across the mountain, which were all hooked up to various monitor screens in three carved out watch rooms in the mountainside cave infrastructure, which all were connected to various hidden cameras across the jungle, which was how they captured their prisoner in the first place. Speaking of their prisoner, the group continued deeper into the cave until they reached an opening in the cave floor large enough for a man and some crates to travel down through. Each of them began descending through the hole via the two rope & chain ladders that had been hooked up there. Within a little more than a minute, they had gotten down to their destination-a wide cave passage. They were able to hear dozens upon dozens of cheers and yells and laughs as they walked deeper through the passage, and then they reached its end, which led to a massive cavern filled with light thanks to dozens and dozens of fluorescent, rechargeable and oil lamps. On its high up ceiling, there were two drilled tunnels, each leading to an opening on the mountainside for allowing air circulation and easy respiration. The massive cavern was usually used to store the syndicate's massive stock of drugs and illegal weapons, safe from the prying eyes of the Cambodian government and their own rivals in the game. Today, however, it was also filled with more than 30 Cambodian men armed with various firearms and who were also the source of the laughter and cheers and yells, liquor and beer and opium in their hands. The group that arrived soon was absorbed into the mass, faceless as they were, and grabbed their own drinks and drugs as they joined in on the cheering and their view of the spectacle before them.
Their focus was on their leader-a lean and well-built 5ft 9in tall Cambodian man with a slick head of black hair and a goatee, along with a dragon tattoo on his neck. At the moment, he was shirtless, allowing his well-defined torso to be seen as it glistened with a thin sheet of sweat, while he wore black cargo pants and combat boots. He then turned to his followers and yelled out in Cambodian, "We're going to be having fun tonight, boys! After we're through, she'll be begging to please us night and day!" They laughed and cheered as her turned back. He was smiling as he continued to use his black belt mastery of karate to beat their prisoner senseless. In a thick accent, he said to the prisoner in English, "You really shouldn't have come here, whore. Now we use you for our fun…after I beat you." And he delivered yet another punch to her stomach.
"AUUGGHHH!"
The prisoner was roped to a thick chain that was coming down from one of the tunnels on the cavern ceiling, her hands forced above her head because of the restraints. She was a very pretty and slender young woman with platinum blonde hair and an athletic built. Her skin was creamy and fair…well, at its prime it usually would be. At the moment, her arms and her face sported bruises of black and blue, and her mouth was dripping with blood, and a few dry stains of blood were already on her chin. Her eyes appeared to be dazed and unfocused, showing just how much of a beating she had been getting. When she had been captured, she had been wearing a pair of khaki cargo shorts, a blue button-up shirt, sunglasses, brown hiking boots and a combat belt with her gun, knife and a few rounds; it was only a scouting routine she was going to do. But she had been seen and captured, and now, her shorts were stained with drops of blood, her smooth and slender legs were also covered in drops of blood alongside some bruising, and her shirt had been ripped open, the buttons gone, revealing her bra and her breasts and even more bruising from the many blows she had gotten, and her boots lay on the floor a few feet away, leaving her barefoot, and God knows where her combat belt was. The only things untouched were two metal bracelets on her wrists, under her ropes binds. The leader's orders were absolutely no sexual violations of her-no penetration, no oral, nothing until he had arrived to deal with this himself. But now, he was having his fill-groping her breasts and smacking her shapely buttocks, rubbing her hips & curves and even rubbing her shorts where her womanhood would be. He was really enjoying himself, and enjoyed the moans that were a mix of anger, pain and pleasure that enticed from her lips when he did such things. Of course, he also enjoyed delivering a beating to her. But that was just the beginning of what was going to happen to her.
"You're weak," he spat at her with a sneer as she screamed again when his fist connected with her solar plexus again. Tears were slipping from her eyes and her breathing was raspy and shallow; they had given her just enough food and drink to stay alive. "It amazes me how you Americans use women to do a man's job. Your intelligence may have been good to start off with, but you obviously have no skills in covering your tracks. Your little searches and hunts and digging for information…the work of an amateur. And the way my men subdued you so easily when you were discovered…" he laughed again as he took a swig from his liquor nearby, "pathetic. You deserve everything I'm doing to you, and more."
"Please…" the woman begged with a weak voice, her eyes filled with pain and pleads for mercy. "No more…please, don't hurt me anymore…I won't bother…you again. Just please, no more…" she begged as she began to cry, tears pouring out of her eyes even more.
"Just like a woman," the Cambodian laughed merciless as he smacked her on the cheek, enticing another cry of pain. As she hung her head, he then began to fondle her left breast through the bra and began rubbing her womanhood under her shorts. "I am going to enjoy making you my whore, American," he sneered. "And then, when I'm done with you, so will my men. And then the real fun will begin." He then took out a knife from his belt and cut the rope on her wrists from the chain, making her fall face flat on the ground. Upon impact she screamed in pain, even more so when he harshly placed his boot on her back. The prisoner moaned as she tried to get up, but collapsed again, crying even more.
"Please," she begged, "please, don't…"
"Shut up," the leader snapped.
"Don't rape me…"
"Pathetic," he said as he kicked her side. Turning back to his men, he yelled in their native language, "Ok, boys! Now's the time! Get the cameras, get the videos and get yourselves ready, because the fun times begin! All American tits, ass and pussy, fresh and all for us!" The men cheered wildly as they began to ready themselves. "We'll make her suffer for her interference, and punish her viciously! We'll show these Americans that they will pay with their people's lives for interfering with-!" He was suddenly interrupted by what sounded like a ring tone, and it was. One of his lieutenants, a Cambodian body builder-like man with a ponytail, looked down to his belt and brought up his satellite phone, one of the newest models from Stark Industries that had managed to get onto the black market, made to look just like a cell phone and able to get calls from even below mountainous surfaces. Everything went silent as the lieutenant looked at the screen and frowned in confusion. The leader looked on in curiosity and the men looked on also as the man slowly brought the phone up to his ear in answer.
"Hello?" he asked in their language. He was silent for a few seconds before looking at the leader and walking up to him, extending the phone to him. "It is for you, boss."
Confused, the syndicate leader took the phone, and taking one last look at their bloody and weeping prisoner, he brought it to his ear. "I want to know who-!"
"Your name is Lo Chakara, and you are the leader of one of Cambodia's newest syndicates. You are currently located within a large cavern within the mountains in the Cambodian jungles, and you have about 30 to 40 well-armed but insufficiently trained men with you in that cavern. There are four squads of five SHIELD Warbird KL-44 attack choppers heading in your direction along with two airborne transport choppers with two dozen tactical strikers in each chopper heading to your position. Put the woman on the phone or you will all be buried alive inside that mountain after those men turn you into mincemeat."
Whoever this man was, his threat caught the leader, Lo, completely off guard, and actually put a bit of fear into him. Staring at the phone in shock, he took one look at all his men, who stared at him in confusion. Lo could be a sick man, but he wasn't about to condemn his men to death so easily. So, with uncertainty, he crouched down and placed the phone on their prisoner's ear. "Um…it's for you."
She shivered and shook, and her weak voice was barely heard. "Hello…help me, please…they're-…"
"Cut the act, kid; this is Agent Quartermain. New orders-we need you to come in, now."
And all of a sudden-much to the shock of her Cambodian captors-the woman changed completely; her shaking disappeared, her weak voice and her tears completely disappeared, as she changed her deceptive façade and instantly went back to her usual style.
"Are you kidding me?! Quartermain, I'm working here! Under Fury's orders!" She ignored the stares she got from the Cambodians.
"Fury himself wants you, now. Orders have changed; what's going on now is taking precedence."
"I am in the middle of stopping one of the most dangerous syndicates in Asia! I have information galore-these guys have told me everything! You can't just-!"
"Mad Dog!" Quartermain's voice was firm and full of authority, silencing the woman. "We just discovered who HYDRA X is. You're not going to like this…"
And she didn't. When she heard that name, her eyes widened in shock and horror….before narrowing in anger. "Let me put you on hold." And with that, the SHIELD agent looked up to the crime leader and gestured that she was done with the phone. Bending down to get the phone proved to be a fatal mistake for Lo Chakara. The instant his finger touched the phone, the woman's teeth suddenly found themselves embedded into the flesh of his hand. Lo screamed out in pain and jumped back, giving Mad Dog her chance. With the training she had received in the last four years, she went from pitifully hurt spy to assassin. Jumping up from her sprawled position, she made a mad dash for the mass of 30-40 flabbergasted criminals, who couldn't react in time to get their weapons. Thankful that they didn't think to bind her legs, Mad Dog did a perfect somersault, her bound hands giving her the perfect leverage as she rammed her legs into the nearest two grunts, slamming them into the ground where they fell unconscious. She didn't stop there, though, and it was this motion that finally got the syndicate members into action. With yells and the brandishing of their weapons, they finally reacted and tried to fight back. This was what became their downfall; the man on the phone, Lo saw as he kept his distance, was right in saying his men had no training at all. Mad Dog utilized various martial arts techniques to mow down the mass of grunts throwing themselves at her. With flips and kicks and backhands and headbutts, Mad Dog fought a vicious close quarter's battle with her enemies. From an outside perspective, she was a goner against so many foes, but facing so many foes was exactly what SHIELD training prepped her for, and she wasn't about to let Natalia Romanova's grueling training sessions go to waste…not that she could; she was just too well trained and skilled. As she evaded a sloppy right hook and used her legs to bring another grunt slamming onto the ground, she noticed another grunt throwing a knife in her direction. Mad Dog smirked as she did a backflip, and with a quick movement of her wrists, the knife flew right through the ropes that bound her wrists, freeing her hands once more. Now, she smirked, the gloves where coming off. She quickly pressed a small and almost hidden from view button on one of her metal bracelets. Instantly, both metallic bands began to expand into metal gauntlets, encasing the lower half of her forearms. After that, a flat sphere shaped object came out from the bottom of each gauntlet and slapped themselves onto her palms. As that happened, several thin but strong appendages snapped out from the gauntlets encasing themselves over her fingers and thumbs in a way that they covered the middle of both the top and bottom of each finger and thumb while leaving the rest of the skin exposed, all connected to the spheres on her palms. Once the metal formed, a sharp point ejected from each metal piece covering her fingers, and then the sphere objects on her palms started coming to life, snapping and crackling with vicious bursts of electricity.
The syndicate members that could still fight looked at her in shock and fear.
"Go, Mad Dogs," Mad Dog grinned.
With a yell, she did a superb leap into the air with a midway somersault, and jumped right back into the fight, her newly added electrically charged claws hacking away at the grunts. They were extremely shocked at what had just transpired before their eyes with their prisoner, and yet even if they weren't, they never would've stood a chance at beating her and recapturing her. As they were all being slashed and electrocuted and punched and pummeled, a few of them managed to wonder just how they managed to capture her in the first place.
Mad Dog focused all her concentration into the fight before her. Sure, it wasn't much of a fight, even with all the odds stacked against her favor, but she still had to make sure she didn't slip up. She may have been one of SHIELD's best, but she was still human and her energy reserves weren't exactly full after being a prisoner; she needed to make sure all her hits counted. Mad Dog dodged yet another sloppy kick from her flank and retaliated with a vicious claw of electricity. Her bare feet found themselves embedded into another grunt's ribcage as she jumped to ram her other electrocuted fist right into the head of a third grunt. Up until now, her unexpected blitz attack had managed to ensure that none of the grunts use their guns and other projectile weapons. Unfortunately, one would expect at least, those moments of surprise seemed to be fading as a few of the grunts seemed to be coming back to their senses and making to move Mad Dog down with bullets. For a SHIELD agent as highly trained as she was, though, she was not fazed at all. From the corner of her eye, she could see them try to aim their guns, and she replied in full by jumping up, dodging a ramming tackle from another grunt, and aiming her clawed electrocuted weapons at them. From the palms, two spheres of electricity shot right at them and consumed them in a vicious but nonlethal blast of electricity. They crumpled onto the floor, jittering with electricity, as Mad Dog made quick work of the last bunch of grunts, serving a vicious sideway ax kick and somersaulting punch into two of them. They collapsed, and then she turned, her body in a ready battle stance and her blue eyes dancing with a raging fire as she snarled in the direction of the syndicate leader, the only man left standing.
"…" Lo Chakara was at a loss for words, as he was mortally terrified right now.
"Go, go, Mad Dogs," Mad Dog said as her snarl formed into a smirk. Lo Chakara pissed himself.
Screaming, he turned and ran, trying to high tail it out of here, completely forgetting the two guns that were strapped in their holsters on his legs. He didn't make it very far, though, as he felt something ram into him seconds before his faced met the cave floor, making him yell out in pain from both impacts. Mad Dog jumped off the man, and grabbed the very same chains that had held her prisoner for quite a while. Grabbing Chakara by the hair, she pulled him up and quickly wrapped the chains around his wrists, ensuring that he didn't get out unless someone came and broke the chains apart with some tools. And for that, she bound them rather tightly.
"Auugghhh!" the man yelled in pain. "Let me go, dammit, you American trash!"
Famous last words.
"Yeah, don't think so," Mad Dog replied with a cold face as her electricity-shooting claws suddenly were aimed at his crotch, and the man yelled out in pain like never before in his life as a few hundred volts of electricity went running though his crotch area, him feeling his member in the agonizing attack squirm and writher. "Payback for groping and molesting me, you fucking sick pervert," the SHIELD agent snarled hatred in her eyes. She continued her attack, not relenting as the man screamed and writhered in his captive position. Finally after a full two minutes, Mad Dog ceased her attack, as Lo Chakara was crying and tearing in pain. She turned to walk away, only to stop and turn back and deliver a jumping roundhouse kick to his face, knocking him out and knocking a few teeth out of his mouth.
"Asshole," she huffed as she started buttoning up her shirt again, her claw weapons retracting back into the metal bracelets on her wrists. She stopped to grab her discarded boots and the phone that Quartermain had called from, which had somehow miraculously survived the entire battle. "Ok, Quartermain, how did you figure-?!"
"What was that screaming I heard?"
"Nothing to be concerned about; don't avoid the question. You are going to be very sorry if it turns out you're wrong about this, Quartermain, my superior officer or not. Are you sure it's him?"
Silence…then…
"Yes…security footage confirms it," Quartermain replied, and Mad Dog, climbing the rope ladder up to the cavern that held the cave's entrance, could definitely hear the resignation and truth in his voice. "It's him, Agent Strong. Our recovery of the grave also proves it; it was never his body, but an authentic look alike."
"So…it was all a lie for all these years," the SHIELD agent remarked quietly as she came out of the cave, which was when she saw the distant spots in the sky signaling the arrival of the SHIELD choppers. "I can see the choppers." She stood in silence for a few more seconds. "His powers were untapped before the Incident, and if he's been trained for the last four years by HYDRA's best assassins and killers, then what we thought about him before isn't even scraping the surface."
"We know that," Quartermain responded.
"So then how are we responding to this?"
"We're bringing in an old friend of yours; Fury's orders."
It took a few seconds for Mad Dog to understand exactly what Clay Quartermain meant, and when she did, she didn't like it a bit. "Is that…really a good idea? I mean, she's been a wreck all these years, and, well…"
"Coulson thinks he's getting through to her."
"…does she even know why she's being brought in?"
"No."
The platinum blonde's eyes flashed with anger as she gripped the phone tighter. "And why is that?"
"Fury doesn't want her to know until she's on the Helicarrier."
"Typical Fury," the agent replied. "I'll be back in base ASAP…oh, and Agent Quartermain…"
"Yes?"
"…Is Eugene on base?"
"Yes he is; he just came back last night from Tokyo from the Yakuza and Hand operation. Why?"
"Can…can you ask him…well-…"
"I will, kid. Don't worry."
"Ok, good. Mad Dog out." The young woman hung up the phone and chucked it as far as she could. All she could do now was sit on the jungle floor and wait for those choppers to get closer, which would then take her back to one of the three Cambodian SHIELD bases and from there she'd be heading on back to the Helicarrier and meet up with the rest of her fellow Secret Warriors and from there, they'd figure out a battle plan. And not only that, she'd be seeing her old friend from high school again, but she was afraid of how she'd take the news. Living the last four years thinking one think about someone only to find out it was all a lie…
"Oh, Kim…"
XXXXX-A/N-XXXXX
Ever had one of those moments when you put so much work into the chapter and you are done and proud, yet feel that there's something more you could've done, yet can't figure out what? Yeah, that's what I'm thinking right now. Well, anyways, here we finally see Mad Dog, and now hopefully you all know who she is, but in case you don't, sorry to say but her full name isn't going to be revealed for another…three…four chapters? About that time frame, I guess. We do see she's a friend or Kim's so that should help out with the hints, at least.
Yes, this scene was pretty much inspired by the Black Widow hostage scene in The Avengers. And what do you think of Mad Dog's skills and signature weapons?
Next chapter coming sooner than this one, now that this semester is done! Also, check out my other updated stories, "Earth's Mightiest Heroes," and "Chaos & Spiders." And if there are any Pokémon fans out there, check out my Pokémon Fic, "Dawn's Johto League Adventure."
That's all for now. Until next time, readers.