As the title indicates, some bits of dialogue have been taken directly from the Season 3 Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D. episode Inside Man, since the plot is relatively similar.
Chapter 10: The Inside Man:
Earth – Taipei, Taiwan; October 18th:
"Good afternoon," Coulson called out as the various delegates all took their seats around the table. After the exposure of the magical world and the Inhumans coming out of hiding, the international community had scrambled to arrange a symposium on how to respond to these sudden revelations. Taipei had been chosen to host the symposium, and S.H.I.E.L.D. had been asked to moderate the conference as a neutral party. Now, it was finally time for the conversation to begin.
"Thank you all for coming out here on such short notice," he went on. I'm Phil Coulson, deputy director of S.H.I.E.L.D., and it's nice to finally put a face to everyone's names. As I'm sure you're all aware, this past week the world was rocked by the revelation that magic, evles, fairies, dragons… things we thought of as mere myth and legend have now been confirmed as real, tangible beings. And then a few days later, the world got even weirder, when a secret community of gifted individuals sent a representative to the United Nations. The governments of the world have organized this meeting in the hope that by working together, we can come to a consensus on how to respond to these revelations."
"Before we begin our conversation," General Talbot interjected once Coulson had finished speaking. "Let's start by establishing our baseline of what we know about these communities and their intentions."
"We don't know much about the magical community," Coulson replied. "But we do know that the enhanced individuals call themselves Inhumans."
"What kind of a name is that?" the Australian representative retorted. "Is it mean to intimidate us? Mock us?"
"Not at all," Coulson answered. "In fact, once the community came out of hiding we learned that a handful of our agents were secret Inhumans, and they gave us an in depth explanation of Inhuman culture. Thousands of years ago, the Kree Empire came to our planet looking to genetically engineer slave soldiers for their armies. The Inhumans were the humans chosen to be lab rats, only to turn against their tormentors. Under the leadership of the Boltagon dynasty, the Inhumans an empire that spanned all of Asia before the capital and much of their leadership were wiped out in a coup. With the loss of their leadership, prejudice and persecution from mundane humanity forced the remaining Inhumans into hiding."
"Their descendants now live in an isolate compound known as Lai Shi," he explained. "It functions as a halfway house and haven for Inhumans. Their abilities can only be activated by the Terrigen crystals used by the Kree in the original experiments, and any Inhuman descendant who wants to awaken their dormant powers undergoes a strict physical and psychological evaluation. They're as human as we are, just with a little something extra."
"That something extra could destroy us all, Agent Couslon," another delegate commented.
"Only if we make them our enemy," Coulson rebuttled. "General Talbot and I have met with their leaders, and for the most part they just want to be allowed to live in peace. Humanity's fear of the unknown is why they've been living in hiding in the first place. The exposure of the magical community made them decide that it would be better to reveal themselves on their terms rather than wait for others to drag them into the spotlight."
"Speaking of which," Gideon Malick added, causing Coulson to grimace. Because of his connections, Malick was able to avoid being prosecuted as a member of HYDRA, and had managed to snag himself a seat at this symposium as an independent advisor. Since HYDRA was allied with Maleficent, there was no way Malick's presence at the conferece could possibly mean anything good. "Let's talk about the elephant in the room. Magic. Is. Real. Inhumans are one thing. As Agent Coulson said, they want to be left in peace and are primarily only gathered in one main settlement. But does anyone else in this room feel safe knowing that a fire breathing dragon could fly overhead and burn this building to the ground at any time?"
While the Australian representative voiced similar fears, Coulson (and by extension everyone at the Playground listening in over the comm device in his ear) was heartened to hear most of the delegates in the room disagreeing with Malick's attempt to play on mankind's fear of the unknown. The Taiwanese delegate pointed out that if dragons were a threat to the public there would have been more dragon attacks by now and the supernatural community would have been exposed that much sooner. The Russian delegate Anton Petrov's proposal for a sanctuary state was deemed redundant since the Inhumans and supernatural communities had their own settlements already established.
Immediately after the sanctuary idea was shot down, Malick proposed a census of each nation's magical and Inhuman populations. As much as every S.H.I.E.L.D. agent present wanted to punch the HYDRA leader in the teeth, the idea itself was a reasonable one. Governments needed to be able to know how high their population was for things like surveys, taxes, etc. Coulson just wished that it hadn't been proposed by Gideon Malick, since they could all tell that he didn't propose it for altruistic motives, no matter what anyone ignorant of his connection to HYDRA would believe.
Coulson was about to call for the delegates to wrap up the discussion and move on to drafting a formal agreement on their respective nations' responses to the magical and Inhuman population when a Corridor of Darkness opened at the entrance to the room. A dark-haired man with a seemingly bird like nose emerged from the swirling mass of darkness, accompanied by two dozen Leroys and a squad of Dark Elves. Coulson's S.H.I.E.L.D. team took cover behind columns and desks as the Hellfire Club troops opened fire on the symposium's security guards.
"Good afternoon to you all," the raven-like man greeted with faux cheerfulness as he blasted Coulson away from the podium at the head of the Hellfire Club. "My name is Diablo, and on behalf of the magical peoples of the world, you are now our prisoners. For too long our kind have lived in the shadows, afraid to bring down the wrath of humanity upon our heads. But no more! The time has come for us to take back the planet that was rightfully ours!" The shape-shifting bird's speech was cut off when Melinda May emerged from behind her cover and opened fire on the bird, forcing him to dodge out of the way to avoid a lethal shot.
From there, chaos ensued as the delegates ducked under the table to avoid getting killed in the crossfire as the rest of S.H.I.E.L.D.'s agents began to fight back against the intruder. The Leroys were relatively easy to subdue, as while the creations of Jumba Jookiba were all bulletproof, the gunfire served to distract the red Stitch knock-offs long enough for Bobbi and Hunter to get close enough to knock them unconscious. As Diablo surveyed the scene before taking flight out of a newly smashed window, Coulson spotted Gideon Malick and Anton Petrov "fleeing" out the back door, sneaking low to the ground to "avoid" gunfire.
Yeah right, Coulson remarked as a Dark Elf was knocked over by a blast of fire from the Taiwanese Dragon, who had been monitoring the building in case of emergency, as she dived in through the windows. More like this whole thing was planned so that Malick could get at least one politician in the Hellfire Club's pockets. Behind the Taiwanese Dragon, a small militia of local magical creatures burst in through the main entrance of the room to help fight off the Dark Elves and Leroys. It was almost embarrassing how quickly the battle was over, in retrospect. The entire skirmish had taken less than an hour, and yet Petrov and Malick managed to sneak past security. Where the hell did they go? Coulson thought to himself as he did a head count to see who was still alive. Wait a minute… We're missing two.
"Hunter, Bobbi, are you there?," Couslon called out over the comms. "Come in. Over."
"Sorry," Hunter whispered back, a faint rumble in the background. "Can't talk right now, boss. We're in the belly of the beast. We'll call you when we land." Wherever that may be, the British-accented S.H.I.E.L.D. agent added mentally as he turned to face his wife as they sat in the cramped cargo hold of Gideon Malick's private jet, bound for Russia.
Since S.H.I.E.L.D. is still a public and legitimate organization in this universe, I decided that it would be fitting for Coulson to be the one chosen to take the lead at the whole "magic/Inhuman" symposium thing, since he'd be able to keep things running smoothly while also keeping the conversation unbiased. I'm having the global reaction to the Inhumans (and magic) in this universe be more positive than it is in MCU canon because I don't want to just copy the storylines of the Marvel Cinematic Universe for this story, even if I may quote or reference specific scenes that aren't part of this timeline.
As you can guess by the way this chapter ended, yes. I will indeed be adapting the Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D. episode "Parting Shot" into this universe. It's been part of the plan since I decided to include the "Inside Man" episode, although I will naturally be adapting certain elements to account for the lack of a Terrigen outbreak in this saga. While I'm disappointed that Bobbi and Hunter's planned spin-off Marvel's Most Wanted never got off the ground, I felt that having them leave the show the way they did was better than killing them off for shock value (and it leaves the possibility for them to show up in other MCU movies or shows if they never come back to Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D.).
As for whether I'll have them leave the team like they do in canon, you'll all just have to wait and see. After the next two chapters, we're going to switch over completely to focusing on the Unchained Legion. And to clear up any confusion, yes. Diablo and Malick did just pull off a false flag operation. By keeping the various factions and nations on Earth constantly at each other's throats, nobody will be able to effectively battle Maleficent's plans for invasion.