"Gas masks!" Nat quickly put on one and ran off into the crowd as mist engulfed her in. As shown in the video, the gas was driving people to insanity but the sad part was that none of the people who have been hypnotized even bothered to scream in pain. They just snapped at each other and started clawing at one another like a pack of panthers over a gazelle.
"Let's go," Rappaccini said. She didn't need a gas mask on and neither did Rose. They jumped into the crowd and started shooting anyone who tried to attack them. "Victory could not have tasted any sweeter than it already does, Rose."
"But what about Taskmaster?" Rose almost cried. She thought of her idol and imagined him defenseless in a crowd of insane people. She knew without even putting too much thought into it that Taskmaster was here and he was the one who shot the fake detonator in her hand.
"Start worrying about yourself," she scolded her right-hand-woman, "Taskmaster is an enemy. Both Taskmaster and Natasha Romanoff are here."
Rose gasped and stuttered in her speech. "What? How? I hypnotized her."
I thought you just saw her. "Rose, you don't have any superpowers. You're just someone who can hypnotize people. You're a serial killer and a monster but fallible. Of course, someone is going to break through hypnotism. I just hoped that it wasn't going to be Nat Romanoff. Not this early at least."
A battle cry was heard and a fist plowed Rappaccini in the face. She stumbles back and falls into the crowd. One of the insane people bit Rappaccini in the shoulder. Rose pulled out her gun and shot this man but it was already too late.
Rappaccini grabbed her shoulder and looked at her wound. Just a bite mark with blood gushing through her wounds in small volumes. She looks to where she was standing previously and her eyes lit up with anticipation as she saw Nat Romanoff in a gas mask. "You were supposed to die."
"I did die," Nat spoke, her voice muffled by the gas mask. "I died and came back to life." She punches Rappaccini across the face before throwing her into the crowd.
Rose kicks Nat in the face and pushes her back. She aims the gun up but Nat kicks the gun with her feet and uppercuts Rose in the jaw with her foot.
Rose put up a fight and shoved Nat back before attacking her.
Blows and kicks were exchanged but each one held their own. Each punch was delivered with as much effort put forth, nothing held back. When Rose ducked and Nat punched an insane man out, she slipped into the crowd and out of sight.
Rose took out a spare knife and used it to swing across Nat's face. Nat jerked her head back and stepped back to analyze her opponent's fighting style.
Without a doubt, Rose has had real combat experience. She didn't know much about the female serial killer but she knew enough to copy down Nat's moves to perfection.
Nat moves across the crowd before taking out her own knife. Rose copies her to the exact detail. Nat holds her knife hand high above her head like she was doing a pull-up, Rose was copying her.
What, she's copying me down to the exact detail. It's almost like she is Taskmaster 2.0.
Nat puts her hand down and grips it with both hands. Rose follows this motion exactly like she was a mirror.
Down to the perfect-
"Detail?" Rose said.
What, she can read my mind?
"No, I can't read your mind," Rose said.
Oh my god, she can read my mind. Unless…
"Let's dance," Both Rose and Nat said at the same time.
Nat's eyes widened and she almost forgot to breathe before Rose took the knife and put the tip of the blade to her throat. Like she was a puppet, Nat followed along.
"Take the knife, Widow," Rose said and Nat copied.
She hypnotized me. This entire time, I was hypnotized into copying what she does. Not a single motion since I fought her had been on my own free will. No wonder I was slacking off.
"The throat is a good place to start. Let's see some blood, Widow," Rose ordered.
"No," she spat. Unfortunately, Nat couldn't resist and with light pressure, dragged the tip of the blade across her throat.
"Do it!" Rose cheered.
Tony jumped out of the tree and shouldered his sniper rifle. He put on a gas mask and called Nat.
From behind, he kicked Rose in the back and sent her flying forward. Nat is also moving forward like she was pushed because she was still under the copy trance. By accident, the knife buries into Rose's shoulder and she gasps in pain.
Rose grabs her shoulder and cries in pain. She turns around to meet her unmaker, Taskmaster. The pain suddenly became less painful as she moved forward and reached a hand out towards her soulmate... "Sometimes," she gasped. "Sometimes…" she gasped again. "Sometimes...I can almost….hear myself….trying to….get out." Unexpectedly, she delivers a kiss upon the mouth area of Taskmaster's mouth.
Taskmaster doesn't seem to oppose or even attempt to reject this kiss because this kiss could be the only thing that calms Rose down.
With FitzSimmons and Jeanne
The aerial firefighting plane that had the water replaced with the cure had been flying overhead. The pilot was Simmons while Fitz and Jeanne were in the back. Simmons steadied the plane while Fitz opened the back door and looked down at the city five thousand feet below them.
"What's going on, Uncle Leo?" Jeanne asked. She was strapped down in a seat with her seatbelt strapped as tight as a noose.
"We're going to be dropping the Flower Killer onto the city." He kept a straight face even when he saw mist spread all over the Washington Monument and hid the crowd from sight. "Simmons, take us back around."
"Just get the drop ready!" Simmons said. "Pulling around."
Fitz clutched the nearest bar to him and held tightly as the plane turned clockwise. He held up a detonator and turned off the safety. Just one click of the button and a couple of thousand pounds of water that had been heavily contaminated with the cure to Flower, the Flower Killer, will be dropping on the Washington Monument. No need to inject each person one by one with the serum, all they needed was to spread the cure in mist form and everything should return to the status quo in only ten minutes or so. They had more than enough to drop on the country's capital at least three times in a row, which may be the case until Mercedes can find the source of what was going the water to evaporate. "Three, two, one!"
Nineteen thousand pounds of water came raining down from above and striking the poor city in a mountain of water. It was like a giant bag filled with water had exploded on them and a tsunami came at them like in that movie The Day After Tomorrow except on a slightly less fatal scale.
Nat is hit with the water. As soon as she comprehends what's going on, she slips and falls on her slide. She fell right onto a kid who had gone mad. He bit into her side and caused Nat to gasp in pain. She pushes the kid away and looks at her bite mark. It didn't penetrate through her skin but it felt like her stitches were once again open. She decided that now was not the time to check and continued running in the path after Rappaccini. She steals one glance at the sky and sees the aerial firefighting airplane taking off and the mist slowly starts to fade away, the crowd violence slowly dying out.
She gives the plane a thumbs up. "Good job guys."
Rose pushed herself up from that sudden attack from above and coughed. "You've got to be kidding me," she cried like a little girl. "I hate getting wet!"
"That makes two of us."
"Taskmaster," Rose said. "Please, get this knife out of me!"
Taskmaster did indeed yank the non-fatal knife out of her shoulder as fast as he could before he grabbed Rose by the throat and started choking her.
"I'm going to ask you a question and I want you to answer honestly." He holds her up and puts his mouth to her ear. "What did the detonator set off?"
She cringed at the warm feeling of his breath, despite wearing a mask. She licked her lips and mustered enough courage to look him in the eyes of his skull mask. If she wasn't careful with what she said, that skull mask could become the Grim Reaper. "It sets off a device that Rappaccini set up to vaporize the water supply in the sewers. I can take you there?"
"That would be very helpful indeed," Tony said. "Tell me all about this water vaping device and I need to know how many more there are. Someone like Rappaccini doesn't plane for just one target, she always thinks three steps ahead, right?" He paused to look around. "Your plan has failed. You're not going to be making America mad anymore."
"I don't care about America," Rose said quietly. "I did all this for you, Tony. I really wanted to show you that I was your biggest fan."
"By poisoning America with a biochemical weapon?" He squeezes tighter on her throat.
"I'm sorry," she choked. "Please don't kill me. I'm really sorry!"
Tony contemplated his actions before he let her fall to the ground. "I have a teammate hanging out in the sewers and she says that Flower is in the town's main water supply. She must've dispensed it into the water supply somewhere. Tell me where and maybe I'll give you an autograph."
A wide smile instantly formed on her face. "Really?!"
Rappaccini had fallen when the water hit and she barely managed to catch her head before it was bashed against the street. She wasn't out of the woods yet because there was a car blinded by the dissipating mist and swerved to avoid her.
"Learn how to drive you goddamn women driver!" She quickly sprints off, running down the road.
Nat was almost run over by the car but in the heat of the moment, she jumps as high as her legs would allow it and she missed the car by half an inch. She lands on her feet and continues to run after Rappaccini. When she was within range, she pulled her pistol out and aimed it for her back. She pulled the trigger and watched Rappaccini fall to the ground.
"You little bitch," Rappaccini groaned as she picked herself up. "I expected you to aim high and not hit me in the bulletproof vest."
"What makes you think it was my goal to kill you," Nat said to herself. "I was aiming for your collarbone." She sprints for it as Rappaccini is on the ground. She is coming up on the injured woman. She crashes into her like a bullet to the wall and shoves her with such force to the ground like she was about to kill her with her bare hands.
Nat was on top of her and gripped Rappaccini's temples. "Never say die, right?"
Rappaccini gasps for air, the eyes rolling to the back of her skull as she struggled to maintain consciousness. Her hand travels down to her pocket where she had the detonator and she pushed a second button.
A manhole cover flies up into the air and hits Nat on the back. Nat yelps in pain and falls forward, giving Rappaccini time to run. Nat was about to chase after her once more until she realized that she could see clearly with her left eye. She realized with horror as the mist came that her gas mask had its left eye cracked open and had been compromised. "Fuck!"
She takes in a deep breath before chasing after the Rappaccini with only one breath of air. As Rappaccini moved, the more water pipes from below began to vaporize. It was like she was some kind of ghost who made the lights flicker on and off except with water.
Nat finally let out a breath of air before she yanked off her gas mask, seeing it as dead weight now. The vaporizing mist was spreading down her path and causing cars to crash as a result but she remained persistent. "Rappaccini, come back here. You coward!"
Rappaccini turned a corner into an alley where the pipes continued to vaporize. The manhole cover that her target ran overshot up into the air and sprayed smoke out. Nat had to hold her breath and jump over. "It's going to take more than that to stop me."
Rappaccini jumps over a fence and out of sight.
Nat jumps over the same fence but when she gets on the other side, a car swerves out of control and was about to hit Nat with the grille.
For only a split second to react, Nat takes out her pistol and shoots at the window, aiming for in between the driver and passenger's seat. With only one bullet, the glass shatters and she dives headfirst through in one fluid motion. She rotates her body so she would fly between the seats and shoot out the window in the back as well.
The car slammed into the wall but Nat was already on the other side and in a kneeling position. "Wish I got that on camera." Without breaking from her position, she searches for Rappaccini, looking specifically for a woman running. If memory serves her right, wherever this woman ran, the subterranean water would vaporize. It had to be the detonator.
It was Rappaccini's father's car who almost hit Nat had she not shot the window and dived for it. He perished in the crash along with his girlfriend.
Rappaccini observed this detail from afar and made clicking sounds with her tongue like she was trying to sing a song differently. "Goody, father," she whispered. "Die, die, and continue to die until you've reached Hell."
I have to get that detonator.
She calls in Mercedes as she runs, pulling the shirt under her catsuit up to cover her mouth and nose. "Mercedes, progress report?"
Mercedes breathed heavily through her gas mask. "It's not a detonator, not in an explosive way. There is some kind of signal that is causing the water to vaporize. Most likely some kind of detonator that is emitting forced microwaves. Like a Directed-energy weapons sourced detonator. Which means…"
"Wherever Rappaccini goes, the water vaporizes. She is going somewhere with that microwave emitter. I'll hunt her the entire way there if I have to."