Welcome back everybody. I'm sorry it has taken me so long to update, but this was a big chapter to write out. A lot of things happen in it, and it's a bit intense sometimes if you ask me. And of course, it'll have a nice juicy cliffhanger at the end.
So in this chapter, you get to see Skye's powers sort of come out a little bit. I've figured out what I want to do with her powers, but I don't know what Raina should have as powers. If you have any suggestions for her, please leave them in a review or PM them to me!
Also, there are two codes given in this chapter. Both have can be worked out into words, but the correct code's translation is connected to the story. If you can figure it out, cookies for you!
Now sit back, relax, and enjoy the chapter with all the twists and turns.
Chapter 13: The Escape Begins
"She's here!" Skye whispered in excitement at the sound of keys jangling outside of their sell.
Leo sat up on the cot, rubbing a hand over his eyes. For the past two days, they hadn't been taken anywhere at all, which made him uneasy. He knew he was slated to be injected with the serum Skye had told him about, but Leo hadn't told her this. Even though it had been two days since Simmons had revealed to him that he hadn't woken up from the coma on his own, Leo was still reeling in shock from it. Since the day he's woken up, he'd been proud that he had survived, but also grateful as well. Now it felt false and another thing he thought was stable in his life was crashing down. At this rate, he was going to be a broken man with nothing to live for in a matter of weeks.
"This is your sister, right?" he mumbled, swinging his legs over to the floor and standing up. Skye hadn't said very much regarding her sister, but she had told him that she would explain it all later. What she had told him was that her sister was alive, and that she was going to get them out of here.
The cell door opened up, and four people entered. One of them was Simmons, and the other three had clearly been injected with the serum. Leo recognized the lady with cat-eyes, who stood by a guy whose face and arms were covered in black spikes. He also remembered the third person, a tall, buff man with icy white eyes that had a glazed expression, as the one who had shocked him using his bare hands when he refused to answer Cat-Eyes's question.
Skye gaped at the man with white eyes. "Brigman?"
Leo looked at her. "You know him?"
"He's the one that I saw Simmons and Darwin give the serum to," Skye explained, moving over to him. "Brigman!"
As she drew closer, Brigman turned and shoved her to the side. The force of this action made Skye slid over beside Leo. He bent down to help her up, but she'd already risen to her feet.
"Brigman, it's me," Skye pleaded the man. "Don't you remember?"
"I'm afraid Agent Brigman isn't going to pay any attention to you," drawled Simmons. "And I know he won't be helping you at all."
"You…," Skye hissed angrily. "What else did you do to him?"
"Brigman was uncooperative, and we simply made him cooperate with us," Simmons told them, smiling loftily.
Leo sucked in a gasp as he understood the implication of her words. "You brainwashed him."
"That's another term for it," Simmons replied. "But basically he obeys us now. All thoughts of resistance are gone. He's the perfect soldier."
"So that's why you came down here with your little gang?" Skye snarled. "To show us how you brainwashed a man to serve Darwin, you, and all your other sick friends?"
Simmons shook her head. "That was an unexpected bonus, but not why we've come. See, we're here for Fitz. You got moved up two days earlier."
A shiver ran down Leo's back as his eyes met hers. He knew what she was talking about. They were going to give him the serum. He was going to change. He was going to become…something else.
Cat-Eyes and the man with spikes yanked him to his feet as Skye's eyes widened in understanding.
"No!" Skye cried out. "Let go of him."
"Skye!" Leo lunged forward against the grip of the people holding him back. "Skye, you need to find a way out! There's no hope for me. You need to listen-"
"No, you're not going anywhere!"
Leo watched as Skye whirled toward Simmons. He knew what she was going to do by the murderous rage that was blazing in her eyes. She charged toward Simmons, preparing to attack the biochemist. Before she could strike, Brigman stepped in front and raised his hand. Leo's eyes widened as he saw electricity crackling at the tips of his fingers. As Skye ran into him, he held onto her shoulder. A pained scream issued from her mouth as she fell to her knees. After a few seconds, Simmons gave him a nod, and Brigman kicked Skye across the floor.
"Noooo!"
Leo broke free of the two gifted holding him and ran over to Skye. A sigh of relief fell from his lips as he saw she was still conscious, although she looked worn out. He helped her sit up just as she grabbed his arm. "Leo…"
"Skye," he murmured gently. "There's no saving me from this. You have to let me go."
She shook her head vigorously. "You can't do this, Leo."
"I don't want to, believe me, I don't," he admitted, brushed a strand of her hair to the side. "But no matter what, they'll do this anyway. I need you to do something though."
Skye gazed at him, tears streaking clean lines down her dirty face. Leo swallowed. "You have to get out of here. When the team comes, you get out of here. If they don't come, you get out of here. Forget about me. You have a better chance of getting out of here as yourself than I do. But whatever happens, you tell the team. You tell them everything that has happened."
Skye leaned forward and hugged him fiercely. Leo returned the embrace, well aware that this could be the last time he ever saw her.
"Alright, that's enough for goodbyes," Simmons's voice cut in as Leo felt himself be pulled away from Skye.
As he was taken out of the cell, he looked back one last time at Skye. She was crying silent tears, and seeing them felt like a punch to the chest. Then the door slammed shut, and Leo found himself staring at its cold steel. He closed his eyes, feeling something wet trickle from his eye down his cheek.
"Good-bye, Skye."
"Everybody in position?" Blake's voice crackled out over the comms.
Melinda looked over at Izzy, who nodded. "Unit one in position."
"Unit two in position," Phil called in.
"Unit three in position too," reported Bobbi. "Looks like they brought the big guns."
"How big we talking?" Trip, who was on Phil's team, asked.
"Try a launcher big with enough firepower to blow enough holes in the building to make it look like cheese."
"You wanted to see me?" Jemma asked as she stepped into the surveillance room. Darwin was facing away from her and towards a monitor in the front.
"Agent Simmons," Darwin said, turning and smiling at her. "Take a look at the screen, and tell me what you see."
She nodded, and obeyed calmly. Her eyes widened.
"No!" Jemma muttered, her brow furrowing. "They shouldn't be here!"
"I'm afraid they are," lamented Darwin as Jemma continued to stare at the grainy feed of one of the tree-cams that showed Agent May with another woman in tactical gear. "There's an entire SHIELD team lurking in the shadows, waiting to strike."
"But I covered my tracks! I know I did! How are they here?!" Jemma shook her head in disbelief. This wasn't supposed to happen at all! Had the rest of SHIELD found out that she wasn't on their side?
"I know you did, Agent Simmons. And I don't think they found this place because of you," Darwin handed her a tablet with a picture of a blonde woman. "Meet Barbara Morse, agent of SHIELD, and former security manager of Hydra."
Despite her current panic, Jemma had to smile. "Looks like Hydra received my little gift of her after all. I'm surprised she's still alive. I thought they would have killed her on sight."
"Morse's time undercover at Hydra allowed her to access a lot of their cases, including," Darwin paused. "The disappearance of Silas Brigman and his team."
"Hydra's here too, aren't they?"
Darwin nodded, tapping his own tablet. On the screen in front of them, a new series of feeds appeared, all showing Hydra agents decked out in full tactical gear. Jemma's eyes fell on the bottom corner feed, and her smile fell at the sight of the rocket launcher. A set of calculations in her head determined that it could easily blow a hole in the side of the building and bring in a wave of invaders.
"You're smart, Agent Simmons," Darwin told her. "You can figure out that Hydra can take out a wall, get in, and ransack us. We were able to stop Brigman and his team. But this time, we'll need to abandon the base and move to another. Start getting people prepared for evacuation."
"Evacuation?" Jemma frowned as she continued to work out his cryptic speech. "Sir, surely we can stop them."
"Oh, we could," replied Darwin, his voice calm and collected. "But soon enough, SHIELD and Hydra are going to cross paths. Two powers who despise each other with a burning passion and feel a need to crush the other into obliteration. I'd rather our people get out and avoid the carnage that's coming. Let them fight and battle and destroy each other."
Jemma nodded slowly as a new worry creeped into her mind. If she was helping with evacuation, then the chance she would be spotted by the team increased. They were currently under the assumption that she had been kidnapped, and she wanted it to stay that way for as long as possible. "What happens if SHIELD somehow gets through and sees me?"
Darwin turned to her and smiled. "Prepare to go back undercover, Agent Simmons."
"Where have you been?" Skye demanded as Raina entered her cell. "You said two days. I waited all day, and now it's probably almost tomorrow."
"I had to set some things up," her sister explained, tossing her a backpack. "Get dressed as quick as you can. We need all the time we can get."
Skye nodded and unzipped it, pulling out a bundle of dark clothes. A tiny moan escaped her as she replaced her dirty, torn shirt with the clean one in the bag. Bathing hadn't been offered at all, and even though she was in desperate need of a shower, clean clothes were still amazing. It was a refreshing change that she never realized how much she needed.
Raina waited beside the door patiently, although she kept a constant lookout. For once, she was not wearing one of her flower dresses. Instead, her outfit consisted of dark jeans, sneakers, a black t-shirt, and a dark zip-up hoodie. Her hair was tied back from her face in a small, slightly bulky braid. There was a bag slung over her shoulder, and another was held in her hand. Skye hurried to put on her new clothes, which were darker and less likely to stand out than her grimy violet shirt. The new clothes were similar to Raina's, except the shirt was more of an olive color.
"I thought you told me there was someone else with you," Skye heard Raina ask. "Where are they?"
Skye stopped midway through zipping up the hoodie. It had been maybe seven or so minutes since she'd last seen Leo. She knew that he had told her to leave him behind. While her brain told her to obey his request and just get the heck out, her heart urged her to think otherwise. Since he'd woken up, Leo had become closer to her. They'd trained together under their SOs, and she'd come to know him better. Leo was her best friend, her partner in the field and pranking. Maybe even something a little more than a friend, if she could work out her feelings.
"They took him," Skye answered, turning to look at her sister. "They took Leo to the labs to give him that serum. Raina, we have to go get him out."
"I don't know if we could get to him in time," Raina whispered. "We need to get out of here as quickly as possible."
"No, we have to try," Skye snapped, slinging her backpack over her shoulder. "What's the plan you made to get us out of here?"
"We're going to need a distraction to keep Hydra occupied so they don't spot us as they go through here," explained Raina as they left the cell and ran down the hall to the elevators. "You're apparently on their kill list, and I am too."
"So what do we do to prevent them from crossing us off?"
"We're going to open up every cell and free everybody inside them."
Skye nodded as the doors to the elevator opened up. As she took a step forward, she was thrown forward by the base shaking. A loud, muffled boom made her swallow as the doors closed and the elevator began to rise.
"Hydra just fired on the base," Coulson's voice said over the comms. "They're preparing to move in. All teams follow, go go go."
Grant looked up at Blake and Mack as Coulson's message came through. He'd been ordered to stay on the Bus with them keeping an eye on him while everyone else was going in to raid the base. Neither of them had spoken a word to them when he tried to make conversation, unless he asked a question that was related to the mission. No one he'd been with since he had been released had even talked to him except for Coulson. Grant didn't blame them for their silent treatment, and he understood their reasoning. Still, he felt lonely and useless.
As he stared down at the map on the table in the mission room that showed the team's trackers slowly converging toward the mysterious building, Grant hoped that they would find Skye and Fitz quickly. He also hoped that they would be able to see Simmons's dark side in action. Until he saw the pictured of the dead woman with her thoughts written on her skin, Grant had believed Simmons's organization to be just a bunch of power mad people. But now he could see that it was deeper and darker than his initial thoughts.
When the explosion hit, Leo had just been strapped to the messed-up dentist's chair. The force of it ripped the chair from its base and sent it tumbling to the side. A few chunks of the ceiling above him dropped to the floor, but they all missed him. He couldn't hear any sign of the two scientists who had been preparing the serum to give to him. If they were still alive, then he needed to get out fast.
Leo blinked his eyes a few times and studied his surroundings. Many scientific and medical instruments had fallen off the counter, and a cart had tipped over beside him. There was a scalpel close to his right hand, but he couldn't reach it. He could barely brush his finger against it. If he wanted to get out, then a new plan was needed to break out of the restraints.
An idea hit him as he thought back to a memory of May breaking out of restraints so long ago, and he knew what he needed to do. Sucking in a breath, Leo jerked his wrist to the side as hard as he could. The awful noise, along with the intense pain that followed, made him scream and almost blackout. Regaining a little control over himself, he began to slowly wriggle his dislocated wrist from the restraint. It was one of his stupidest ideas, but it was working.
The environment around him was a mess. He could see chunks of the ceiling that had cracked tiles on the floor and the clouds of dust that had risen up from them. In the distance, there were shouts of 'attack', 'evacuation', and 'Hydra'. All of those, especially the last one, motivated him to move faster. He now had the chance to get out, to go back to Skye. Together, they could leave, run to SHIELD, and warn Coulson about Simmons. His former friend could not be permitted to escape unpunished. She had to be brought to justice for her actions.
His wrist slipped free of the strap, and Leo quickly jerked it back into place using the floor. A gasp of relief fell out of his lips before he turned his attention to unbuckling the strap on his other arm and the one across his waist. Tumbling to the ground, Leo grabbed the scalpel and jumped to his feet, scanning the room to evaluate the rest of the damage. The wall of what must have been an observation room had fallen inward, and he could see an arm lying under the rubble. It was holding one of the evil Night-Night guns, as he'd come to call them. He tried not to vomit.
Something buzzed behind him, and Leo whirled around, narrowly dodging the other scientist, who was armed with a Taser. Using a disarming move that Skye had once taught him, he relieved her of it and aimed it at her. One press of the button on the side, and the woman fell to the ground shrieking. After a few seconds, Leo took his fingers off it and examined her. She was unconscious, leaving nothing to stand in his way. Now he just needed to find Skye.
"Oh Fitz."
Stiffening, Leo turned around to see Simmons standing in the doorway. Her clothes were different from earlier, but the torn and dirty appearance of them set off alarm bells. Not to mention that her hair was unkempt and there were streaks of dirt across her face. Maybe she'd been caught in some nasty scuffle with Hydra, but knowing how she really was, there was a darker reason. He aimed the Taser at her, but it sputtered weakly. The last of its charge must have gone into the scientist he took down.
"You could have done so much for us," Simmons murmured, pulling out a gun. "But you're too dangerous now. I've got orders. Sorry Fitz, but you need to be…erased."
As she raised the gun, Leo flung the scalpel at her, knocking the gun out of her hands. She stumbled back against the wall, and Leo threw another scalpel at her sleeve, pinning it to the wall. He was about to run when she swung her leg up and drove it into his chest. The kick sent him sprawling while giving her enough to time to wrench the blade out of her sleeve.
"You want a fight, huh?" she said, laughing a little. "Fine by me. Either way, it's your funeral."
"WHERE IS HE!" Skye demanded, slamming the guy with black spikes covering him against the wall and leaning in close. "Where did you take the guy who was with me?"
"Not. Telling."
"If you don't tell her right now," Raina said slowly as she punched four numbers into a keypad close to them. "I will press this last number and release everyone who has been imprisoned in this hellhole. Darwin's made a lot of enemies, you know. I'm sure many of them wouldn't hesitate to tear one of his followers apart for what you've done to them."
"Go ahead and do it then," The guy taunted, smiling. Skye figured he couldn't have been older than nineteen. It was sickening to think about how many people her father had twisted the thoughts of and turned into people with gifts. Now she wondered how young he was getting them at.
As she turned toward Raina to tell her to go and press it, her eyes settled on the keypad. Something surged through her as she looked at it, and a bad feeling came over her. The code Raina had keyed in was wrong. It had been the right code an hour ago, but the code had been changed since then.
"Don't press it!" she cried out. "It's the wrong code, it changed!"
"No, this is the code," Raina protested. "I saw it earlier two hours ago, and it's changed every week. There's not supposed to be a new one for four more days!"
"Well they changed it earlier," Skye told her sister. "It's not 11295. It's 13512!"
Raina cocked her head and frowned. "How do you know what it is now? How do you know they changed it?"
"I don't know how I know it, but I know it's changed because Spiky here isn't breaking a sweat at the prisoners breaking out." Skye gave the guy a shake. "Type it in. Now."
Raina nodded quickly, her fingers moving to clear the old code and type in the new one.
1351-
"LAB SEVENTEEN!" Spiky shouted, now panicking. "He's in Lab Seventeen! Don't do it. Please, I'm begging you!"
-2
All the steel doors swung open as Raina pressed the enter button. A moment later, people began to emerge from them. Some looked normal, and others had features that ranging from odd to borderline monstrous. Skye hauled Spiky off the wall and threw him down the hall. A small grinding noise came from his spikes grating against the floor as he slid out into the middle of the hallway. Raina grabbed her hand, and the two sisters ran back to the elevator as angry shouts went up and mixed with Spiky's screams.
"We need to get to floor 91," Raina told her, pressing the button and leaning back against the handrail as the doors closed. "How did you do that?"
"I just could tell something was up. He wasn't even worried when you first typed in the code-"
"No, not that," Raina shook her head. "The code. How did you know it?"
"I…I don't know," Skye murmured. "It just came to me when I looked at the keypad."
Before Raina could ask her anything else, the doors opened onto the ninety-first floor. Skye stepped out and felt the cool night air on her back. She turned around and gasped at the large space fifty feet from her that used to have a floor. Something orange glowed in the distance, growing closer toward them.
Skye's eye widened, and she pushed Raina back. "GET DOWN!"
They ran away from the hole and dove to the ground moments before the missile struck. Skye felt the entire floor shake, and covered her head to protect herself from falling debris. She peered out around her through the cracks in her fingers. The hole was now larger, and dangerously close to the elevator. Small fires were burning all around them, and the entire scene felt more nightmarish.
A hand grasped hers, and Raina hauled her to her feet.
"We need to leave now!" She shouted as explosions and gunshots sounded out below them. "I'm sorry, Tian Kong. We can't get to your friend. We have to go."
"No, I can't," Skye said, shaking her head vigorously. "I can't leave Leo. I won't do it. You go ahead, and we'll catch up. We'll find another way to get out."
"I lost you for twenty-four years," cried Raina angrily. "I am not leaving without you!"
"And I'm not leaving with Leo!" Skye yelled back. She turned and ran down the hall, dead set on finding Lab Seventeen and Leo.
Leo kicked Simmons off of him and sat up. He grabbed the evil Night-Night gun from the dead man in the rubble. Both he and Simmons had been at each other's throats for a while now, fighting ferociously. Gone were the two scientists who had failed their field assessments terribly. Leo knew that training with Trip had distanced him very far from those days, but he was surprised at Simmons and how evenly matched she was with him. She'd dealt him a nasty slice on his upper arm, and his chest was probably going to be black and clue tomorrow if he got out of this alive. But she hadn't escaped unscathed, evidenced by her bleeding nose and the cut on her cheek that reminded Leo of Ward's when the traitor had arrived at Providence.
Raising the pistol, he clicked the safety off and pointed it at her. Simmons had barely risen to her feet and now raised her arms over her head. Leo backed her against the door, breathing heavily in exhaustion and anger.
"Anything you want to say for yourself?" he growled, taunting her. "Anything else you want to hurt me with? Well, guess what? It's not happening, not anymore. I'm going to show people who you really are, Simmons. Then you're gonna have a nice little cell next to Ward for it."
Simmons opened her mouth like she was about to say something. Leo placed his finger on the trigger.
Suddenly, the door burst open and Skye stopped short after entering. She was right next to Simmons, and the biochemist lashed out.
"No!" Leo cried, but it was too late. In an instant, she grabbed Skye, pinning her arms behind her back with one arm. With the other, her hand snatched up a scalpel and pressed it to Skye's throat. The other girl gasped and tried to get out, but Simmons held her firmly.
"Drop the gun right now, Fitz," hissed Simmons, a twisted smile on her face. "Or she dies right here, right now."
Intense, huh? What do you think will happen?
Please review!