#LetsGetMarveled!
The Office Of Naval Intelligence, Suitland, Maryland, December 13, 2012
Author's Notes: I think I'm going to call this the Clusterfuck Chapter. When you can't tell friend from enemy? That's a clusterfuck.
Prepared to be #Marveled!
Phase Three was in effect; to distract HYDRA Agents and the omnipresent Artificial Intelligence that inhabited the Office of Naval Intelligence in order to infect it, steal its data, or destroy it.
So Kamala Aisha Khan had come up with a plan involving holographic technology, Pym Particles, and an idea from a sequel in a Sci-Fi trilogy involving another computer overlord.
Captain Steven Grant Rogers pulled out from his pocket a small disk about the size of a pinhead before pressing a button that enlarged it to its normal size, his vibranium shield returning to its four-foot diameter before sliding his left arm into the power glove that was already attached to the brace and grip of the shield. In order to get it pass by security, they had to shrink his shield down, which had some… unforeseen consequences the first time they had tried the standard method, accidentally sending a Pym Disk's activation ricocheting off the invulnerable shield and turning a crate of food into something the size of a grain of sand. That had been a learning lesson no one had needed. Still, Doctor Hank Pym had figured out how to shrink Captain America's iconic shield for infiltration purposes, and now it was back to its normal size. He tore off the jacket and dress shirt that he was wearing to reveal his uniform underneath as James Buchanan 'Bucky' Barnes did the same, the facsimile over. As for Lieutenant Commander Nathanial James 'Nate' Dugan, he merely pressed a button on his wrist to shut down the Life-Model Decoy harness he wore, losing the visage of Senator Gerald Stern and instead appeared as he was meant to be; a Navy SEAL wearing Dragonskin armor and carrying a Colt M-14 Sage Enhanced Battle Rifle in his hands, ready for war.
"Avengers! Phase Three is go!" Captain Rogers called out over his comms, connected by an encrypted frequency made by Doctor Henry Jonathan 'Hank' Pym that utilized the electromagnetic wavelength he used to control ants. In his uniform, with his shield on, he turned to look at the digitized facsimile of the Swiss scientist he had personally captured in 1945 on-board a HYDRA transport train, having survived long after the war. The digitized face looked at him with a gloating smirk, as if he knew something they didn't; that he would win.
[I am beginning, I am end], ZOLA spoke, no longer sound quite like the Swiss scientist he knew, the voice growing stronger, more authoritative. [I am one, from vhich zere are many. Through me, perfection shall you achieve] The holographic eyes narrowed as they stared at Rogers.
[To resist is futility]
"Zephyr, Robin? Hit it." Captain America called out with a smile.
The lights went out in the building known as the Office of Naval Intelligence, an abnormally strong private detective and an archer with a perchance of crafty arrows having placed themselves in the early foundations of the building where the root power line for the facility existed. The metal sheath had been ripped off by a pair of abnormally strong hands and the wires melted by means of a welding arrow to avoid electrical shock as the power died… and the back-up generators kicked on.
According to plan.
"Bad Penny, Ant-Man, Wasp, do your thing." Steve called out as he watched the digital facade of Doctor Armin Zola disappear with the loss of power, emergency lighting coming back on. Kamala had theorized that the back-up generators would only have a certain output, enough to keep the lights on and a minimum amount of the data servers on. With the loss of prime power, the Artificial Intelligence would lose a great deal of its processing power (which the teenaged woman assured him was vital for a computer) and thus its effectiveness. While they couldn't kill it completely, they could hurt it. And while Plan: Agent Smith was in effect, tying up the human element, the AI would be suffering a rather devastating digital two-prong attack in the form of three dozen computer viruses of multiple means (thanks to Mentor coding them and loading them into a 'datastick' handed to Natasha Romanoff) while simultaneously having its databanks connected to a wireless-fidelity router that would have its servers broadband connection to public internet access to download into something called a 'cloud' and published through some sort of onion router and distributed to every news agency in America, from internet, to television, to radio, to even print media. While no one would get 'everything', there would be more than enough loose evidence to inform the public (and the press) that something had been brewing under their noses and bringing it out to light. HYDRA had thrived under a veil of shadows; the Avengers would be bringing them and their secrets into the light, putting the power back in the hands of the real Government officials that could stop PROJECT: INSIGHT with a phone call and a word.
Rogers was rather glad he was working with such capable people with the brains and the skills to face such a foe. It reminded him a great deal of the Scientific Strategic Reserve.
"Bucky, Nate. Let's walk out that door and sow havoc." Captain America ordered, heading towards his part of Phase Three; to commit against the enemy and cause as much confusion as possible while escaping, to by Clint, Jessica, Sam, Hope, and Nat time to finish their parts and exfiltrate the facility. Since everyone in the facility looked like one of the Avengers (along with a few dozen extras that were merely holographic ghosts), whatever HYDRA members and guards their were would likely be shooting at their own people. Sooner or later, someone would figure out a method to discern fact from fiction, but by that time the Avengers would be gone and HYDRA would be left with the mess for a change.
"The geniuses did their part. Now it's time to do ours." Dugan smiled as he hoisted his M-14 rifle, holding it close to his chest. "We pull this shit off, I will make sure that Edward never has to buy a beer again in his life, and I'll personally escort Kamala to Mecca with a smile." That had Bucky snort. Steve only vaguely knew that there was some special rock in a city called Mecca that was important to Muslims.
"Keep close, don't attack unless attacked, and stick to our mission's codenames if we get separated." Rogers told the two men, knowing that the holographic images would work mostly in their favor, but the ones that were people who holographically represented them could be (and likely would be) a threat. It wasn't a perfect plan, but it would keep anyone from responding to just the three of them and their five concealed members if the Avengers were appearing everywhere. Not a perfect plan, but a damn good one.
"Let's move out."
Commander Broderick Franklin 'Brock' Rumlow knew that shit had gone sideways when the power went out.
The past few days had been ones of stress and heavy-lifting for a wide variety of reasons. First, the deadline for PROJECT: INSIGHT was literally a few days away, and last-minute changes, adjustments, moves, and preparations needed to be made, just like with any major mission or operation. Second, with the deadline coming soon and all the legwork that needed doing, small discrepancies were coming to light; people discovering a fraction of the truth, loyal agents getting the jitters, conspiracy theorists actually getting something right, the normal thing that happened right at the doorstep to a revolution. Several teams had been deployed to quell those little problems with few issues save one.
The successful escape of a cyberdefense hacker by the name of Edward Joseph Snowden. That was the current pain in the ass.
That a white hat hacker working at the Kunia Tunnel in Hawai'i, responsible for American Cybersecurity with Booz Allen Hamilton, had tripped over something was to be expected. His reports and e-mails had gone through a HYDRA server and sent out sanitized to a legitimate Central Intelligence Agency handler while the actual e-mails were handled by ZOLA. The prediction analysis stated that the man was not only a threat and needed targeting by PROJECT: INSIGHT (meaning he wouldn't be psychologically partial to HYDRA and its goals, nor would money or threats do the trick), but that he would likely do something stupid before December 15. So the Asset had been sent to eliminate the man.
Somehow, a computer nerd had gotten the best of the Winter Soldier and fled the island state by means of a cargo ship.
That was just the first falling domino. There had been others.
Snowden had somehow contacted the Avengers and pleaded his case at the same time HYDRA was sending its own team to collect the man and his briefcase of purloined intelligence in the form of two members of PROJECT ARGUS; Agent Beastmaster and Agent Venom along with the Winter Soldier. The Avengers were going to rescue Snowden, and any information that he had would be detrimental to their plans. So ZOLA had sent the best.
Not only had the Avengers collected the hacker and his briefcase, they had defeated both James and Jessica and abducted Doreen.
Things had kind of gone downhill from there.
"Jack," Brock looked to his second-in-command, Lieutenant Commander Jackson Victor Collins, "get on the horn and figure out what the fuck is goi-"
Standing right before him was Clint Barton.
[Attention Facility members! Attention Facility members!] A digitized British feminine voice began to broadcast over the 1MC of the Office of Naval Intelligence as Brock stared at where Jack Collins use to be to see Clint Barton. A look to his left showed him Captain Steve Rogers, who looked surprisingly shocked since ten seconds ago Staff Sergeant Eddie Fernandez had been in that exact same spot. There was Natasha Romanoff not five feet away where Sergeant Ricardo Chacon had stood, and next to the red-head was a black man with some apparatus strapped to his back and a pair of futuristic-looking goggles over his eyes instead of Corporal Davis Aguila. [Arrest and detain all unauthorized members! Arrest and detain all unauthorized members!]
"Freeze, Stark!" Clint Barton exclaimed by pulling a bow and drawing an arrow, its point not even two feet away, Rumlow the host to very sharp blue eyes and an even deadlier broadhead. Wait, Stark? He saw that Captain Rogers was hoisting his shield and aiming his own pistol, a Colt 1911A1 .45, at Natasha Romanoff, who was aiming her Walter PPK at him as well, while the black guy who was the flying one from the Lemurian Star and Camp Lehigh was aiming a Heckler and Koch UMP-45 at the Black Widow.
"Jesus! That little Muslim bitch!" Brock fumed at the audacity in it. What better way to infiltrate a facility than to have everyone look like the enemy? "Collins, Fernandez, Chacon, Aguila, stand down and use your brains. That hajji girl has holographic technology on her side, and she's using it to make us shoot at one another while the fucking Avengers prance their way in and out while laughing at us!" Pity they couldn't have taken the technology for themselves, but the servers and databanks in Avengers Tower was behind a door that could probably survive a bombardment, not to mention it wasn't connected to anything outside the facility; electronic, wifi, hardline… a massive stand-alone complex. Thankfully, the four members of his five-man team came to the same conclusion; the Avengers didn't just materialize in front of them. Hell, that voice on the 1MC wasn't even the announcement voice that the facility used for emergencies, now that he thought of it! Damn that spunky teenage raghead! "Guns out, stick with me, and shoot anything that doesn't stand down." Rumlow ordered as he pulled out his Springfield XD .45 pistol. He briefly wondered if he looked like Iron Man with a gun in his hand. "Wait? Am I holding a pistol?"
"No, your hand's up and your palm repulsor is glowing." Captain America replied, his voice pure Steve Rogers. So not only did the holograms mimic the looks of the Avengers, but also provided a facsimile to their actions. Well, Staff Sergeant Fernandez was holding a red, white, and blue shield with a white star in the middle of it. Just like Captain America.
"Clever girl. Time to change the song to this party. Follow me." Rumlow ordered as he moved down the corridor where he had been, on stand-by to quell any other discrepancies that might have arisen with the the deadline so close. He hadn't gone ten feet with another Captain America came out of a side door, looking around, confused. Then the blue eyes of Steve Rogers went to Brock as the shield and the 1911 came up.
"Stay where you are, Sta-"
Brock shot the man through the shield and into his chest. Captain America fell to the ground with a shocked look on his face as he began coughing up blood.
"That was probably one of ours." Barton, who was really Jack Collins, surmised.
"If he was stupid enough to be fooled when we have a Captain America standing right next to us, then he's too stupid to live. I'm not wasting my time explaining this to every idiot along the way." The Commander replied, the former Navy SEAL told his men. "We're moving to the Cell, post-haste. And don't stop for nothing. They point a gun at you? Shoot them." This was going to come back and bite them in the ass, but Rumlow knew the value of a good defense and a better offense. Trying to stop this with words just wouldn't do, so he was going to go on the offensive. His five-man team stalked down the corridor of the ONI building where Brock lead them to a staircase, not bothering with the elevator. The last thing he needed to find out was that somehow the Avengers got control of the device or that there was a fake car that would have someone fall down the elevator shaft; he wasn't about to take chances. It took them a few minutes to go from the eighth floor to the thirteen floor, scampering up the stairwell and its turnbuckle path upward to bring them to one of the few floors mostly dominated by their people. The STRIKE Team DELTA Commander walked out of the stairwell to see Doreen Green standing there looking at him with shock for a moment before her face broke out in a smile.
"I knew you were still alive, Iron Man!" The auburn-haired woman gushed as she looked at him. "I think there's something very wrong goi-"
Brock shot her.
"Not one of ours." The Commander told Barton/Collins, who merely snorted as Green/whoever laid upon the ground with a bullet in her gut, blood seeping through her fingers as she held her belly, whimpering in pain. The real Doreen Green was invulnerable to pistol rounds, so this was likely just a normal member of ONI. About a third of the facility was HYDRA, mostly dispersed on designated floors with only a sprinkling of others designated partial to joining or just being quiet. Whoever this woman was (and likely it was a woman) wasn't one of them. "Keep moving." Brock growled, already irritated as hell as he heard various gunshots and cries of pain happening on the floor. It would be impossible to tell who was who amongst the ONI personnel, HYDRA personnel, and the few people that did actually happen to be the Avengers. Clever girl, that was the whole point, wasn't it?, Rumlow thought to himself as he moved down one hallway where a door indicating AUTHORIZED PERSONNEL ONLY laid. He scanned his badge on the reader, and frowned when it didn't give the green light of authentication. "What the hell?"
"Shit, the power outage." Romanoff/Chacon pointed out, the redhead frowning. "There's a reset, and the back-up generators don't allow complete access, just common access. We can't get into the armory, the server room, the Cell, the Lab, or even the Command-and-Control Room. We're practically in full lockdown."
"They're making a play for ZOLA." Wilson/Aguila answered, shaking his head. "About half of the defenses are high-grade, and require high power. Back-ups don't provide for it. We're sitting ducks and they're going straight for the dataroom we don't have access to."
"Anyone got anything that will get us through this door?" Rumlow asked, looking at the security lock. The door was made up of one-inch ballistic steel, and the physical lock was a steel-and-titanium allow. Grenades wouldn't blast it open. Thankfully, they were already in their tactical gear, at REDCON TWO in case a quick lift-off was needed.
"I've got an incendiary grenade." Rogers/Fernandez offered. "Put that bitch on top of the lock and pull the pin. Should melt through it in ten to fifteen seconds."
"Do it." Captain America nodded as his hand went to one of his leather pouches at his star-spangled waist, pulling out… nothing. Oh, his hand was cupped like something was there; a flaw in the designed. That little bitch, Kamala Khan, had done images of predictable movements and actions based on the Avengers, but hadn't gotten everything. "You're not actually holding something in your hand. If we get split up and confused, do an action that an Avenger wouldn't do. Like holding a grenade or taking something off." Fernandez moved towards the locked door and placed something on it before pulling out something else unseen and pulling a strip, the sound of duct tape coming over. A few seconds later, the star-spangled hero moved from the door and the grenade appeared as soon as he stopped touching it, affixed to the metal door with duct tape with its pin missing and the spoon gone. "Move back and cover your eyes."
Actually, everyone turned and faced away from the door as the incendiary grenade ignited into a liquid slag of activated aluminum and ferric oxide to heat the chemical reaction at twenty-five hundred degrees Celsius while a blinding white light like a welding torch emanated from the grenade. As Brock faced down the opposite end of the corridor, he saw the Incredible Hulk enter further down the hallway, looking at them and roaring in rage.
"Please don't be the actual fucking Hulk." Barton/Collins said as he lifted his bow and let loose an arrow, a gunshot sounding off loudly as the Hulk jerked and stumbled backwards, clutching at its right shoulder before toppling backwards. "Thank fucking God for that." The archer breathed out, shaking his head. "Makes me really glad we executed the parents."
"Yeah, but we got only half the job done, and now we're paying for it." Rumlow replied as the blinding light behind him began to fade, the STRIKE Team DELTA Commander risking a small look with his non-firing eye to mitigate radiation damage to his vision. He saw that the phosphorous had done its job and ran out, the chemical reaction finished, leaving a hole where the lock once was, melted into slag. "Help me open the door." The five men went to the door that would slide open upward, the each of them stooping down to dead lift a metal door. Thankfully, it only weighed about a thousand pounds; something that five athletic men working together as a team could do, and every single member of the STRIKE Team was an avid gym nut. The door lifted open, the hydraulics to lower it off as it remained open without further assistance as they pulled out their guns (well, in the physical sense) and moved into the containment area that was known as the Cell.
It was there that HYDRA kept their metahumans.
The laboratory wasn't what one might expect for a secret containment unit for superpowered persons; each member of PROJECT ARGUS had been touched by the Scepter and was instantly loyal to HYDRA and its members who held a certain rank, told to them by the person holding the Scepter at the time. Someone had figured out how to at least make the Scepter work as a mind-control device and what its' limits are; was the affected person loyal to the person who touched them, who held the Scepter, or could that authority be extended to others? All who were affected were to obey those with the rank of Commander and above amongst HYDRA personnel or who knew the 'safe word' (Brock was amused that someone used a term for those with a taste for bondage to gain access to the fettered; irony itself). Thankfully, he was one of those individuals both by rank and by command code.
"You," he pointed out to Thor Odinson, the Asgardian demigod looking wary, a clear sign that it wasn't the God of Thunder, "I need you to prep ARGUS and have them on-line. The Avengers are here, they're fucking with everything, and we need a wild card."
"And you are?" The deep tone of Thor came back, wary as his hand dropped to the shaft of Mjolnir. Shit, he's smart enough to know I'm not Iron Man, but he doesn't know who I really am.
"Commander Broderick Franklin Rumlow, Commander of STRIKE Team DELTA, and…" He paused, turned to look at where he came from, seeing only Clint Barton, Natasha Romanoff, Steve Rogers, and… it was Sam Wilson in the flying rig, right? "Hail HYDRA." The former Navy SEAL replied after seeing that the coast was clear and no one would overhear him. The one that looked like Thor was actually a science technician by the name of Michael Barrow, who was the only one authorized to work in the Cell and a member of HYDRA.
"Hail HYDRA, Commander. I will prep them now." Brock looked to the four QuadCon containers in the room, the small transportation containers looking everything like the shipping containers that they were. It was what was inside that was different, what they contained. The technician went to his computer as Thor typed something on the keyboard (eliciting a snort from Clint Barton) as the locks on the containers disengaged and the doors opened.
Inside each container was a member of PROJECT ARGUS; four superpowered persons who were developed to take on the Avengers.
"Listen up!" Rumlow addressed the personnel standing in their container cells, looking at him, realizing that he looked like Iron Man. "Habakkuk." The four members shifted, no longer looking as if they were about to commit acts of violence. Which was good, considering what they were and what they could do. "I want each and every one of you to stand outside the front door of the ONI building and kill anything that tries to leave." Likely there would be HYDRA losses, but a few dead members was much more preferable than losing the element of surprise of PROJECT: INSIGHT or the success of the Avengers. "Listen to no one unless they know the safe word, those you obey without question."
He looked over the personnel, each radically changed. One man had mutated into a massive version of a hybrid man-rhino, with very thick, very dense skin and a no-bullshit big-ass horn coming out from the center of his forehead. The other man had grown a chitinous outer shell over his skin, making him practically impervious to most any conventional weapon like Aleksei, but with the addition of a fully-functional prehensile tail that was five feet long and ended with a sharp barb that contained a lethal toxin like that of a scorpion. One woman had somehow developed the ability of pyrokinesis, able to immolate herself and burst into flames as well as dispersing it like a flamethrower from her hands. The other woman had turned into a living conduit of electricity that could also fly to a fair degree while being able to flash-fry targets with bolts of lightning. Rhino, Scorpion, Firestar, and Venom had been their issued names, a few of the surviving thirty-seven members of PROJECT ARGUS and the most powerful of the metahumans that HYDRA had made.
"Hail HYDRA." Rumlow spoke to the mind-controlled individuals, seeing their ice-blue eyes as he turned to leave with his team to hunt down the Avengers as he heard the metahumans parrot him with their own Hail HYDRA, not even bothering to stay to see if they complied or not. They had been touched by the Scepter, after all.
Their loyalty was without question.
While the members of STRIKE Team DELTA left the room, the words Hail HYDRA echoing from the members of PROJECT ARGUS that had been experimented on (and survived), each one of them began to file out starting with the largest of them, the hybrid man-rhino, followed by the one that looked somewhat akin to a scorpion, and then by a woman with fiery tresses. When the last one followed to comply with her orders, her arms decorated with a web of green veins traveling down from her elbows to her wrists, a hand went to her shoulder, making the mind-controlled woman pause as the others filed out, dead intent to take position at the front of the building and kill anything that came out the front door. The dark-haired woman stopped and turned to Thor Odinson, ice-blue eyes narrowing.
"Habakkuk." The Asgardian said softly, the pupils within those controlled orbs shivering slightly as the safe word was said and the order given; to obey any who said the safe word. The bearded blond man frowned at the sight of the woman in a tactical vest and military-style cargo pants standing as still as a statue, without the little movements of impatience or personality that made a person. "Oh, look what they've done to you, dear." Thick finger brushed slightly against the woman's cheek as Thor's knuckles gently caressed the woman in front of him. "You didn't deserve this, and they don't deserve you." The bearded man sighed as he looked to the woman standing before him, so radically altered from before. "Jessica, I want you to fly to these coordinates," Thor gave the location, "and there you will find a plane. Board this plane and wait for further instruction. There will be members upon that plane disguised as the Avengers, and others you may or may not recognize. You are to wait upon that plane, and harm no one within it. Understood?"
"Yes." Jessica Miriam Drew replied with a simple nod as she turned to leave the Cell, leaving Thor Odinson standing there alone as the Asgardian looked over to a portion of the cell where, behind a table, the unconscious form of a male technician who had been tazed into oblivion by means of a Widow's Bite.
[Nat? THANK you], came the voice of Jennifer Susan Walters, Esq. over the earpiece that couldn't be seen thanks to the holographic projection of the God of Thunder over the form of Natasha Alianovna Romanoff, the bearded face smiling sadly at the throaty gratitude given to her over her communication piece. No doubt that Kamala had caught the act on one of Gungnir's monitors, and the lawyer had seen what Nat had done.
"Attention, Avengers," Thor said as he grabbed Mjolnir from his hip, holding the Grinder in his hand, "if you spot a controlled member, the password is Habakkuk. Like in the Bible." It made sense to use a word so hardly use, and the Book of Habakkuk was in the Old Testament. If she remembered correctly (not that Soviet Russia or that room had any room for religious teachings), Habakkuk had originally questioned the wisdom of God when seeing injustice done to the Israelites but asking why God took no action. That seemed decisively… HYDRA.
[They stain the name of the Prophets. Jerks], Kamala groused, her tone harsh. [Avengers, this is Little Sister. Be advised that when you return to the plane, we're going to have a controlled member of HYDRA on-board, hopefully doing nothing. You can thank Bad Penny for securing… Tempest. Momma's doing backflips and cartwheels at the same time] The blond Asgardian, who was really the Black Widow in disguise, snorted at the impossibility but knew that Jenn was probably a bit of an emotional train wreck right now. Doreen had confirmed that they had been held in ONI on a few occasions, and even given Nat the location of the Cell, though she didn't know much more than that. Romanoff had added to the plan the possibility of a rescue mission; to get Jessica Drew out of the hands of HYDRA. Whatever they had done to her had made her more than powerful enough to take on at least a few of the Avengers at once, and pulling her from their grasp would relieve them of a weapon, not to mention bringing a young woman home where she belonged. No one knew what kind of emotional state Jess might be in once freed from the Scepters' grasp, but getting her from under the squid was something that a great many of them had wanted.
The Avengers looked out for their own, after all.
[All team members, this is Big Momma], Walters voice came over the communicator, [Phase Three is successful. Exfiltrate ONI by any means necessary]
"Be advise that there's a superpowered welcoming committee at the front door consisting of a man-rhino, a guy with plates and a scorpion tale, and some redhead that I'm sure will make our lives difficult." Nat distributed over the radio, having seen what was known as PROJECT ARGUS, obviously what Jess and Doreen had been through. "And Clint? If you run into Brock Rumlow or any of his friends? Put an arrow in him. He's HYDRA through-and-through."
[Alexi, Mac, and Angel were all there?], came the voice of Doctor Doreen Green. [She's a pyrokinetic. She can literally immolate herself in fire and shoot it out at a fair distance of about twenty-five feet. Not someone you wanted to get into hand-to-hand with, her hands can melt iron]
[Artemis?] There was a pause in the voice of Jennifer Walters, something happening on the Gungnir; perhaps a thought, perhaps a threat, perhaps something else. The pause only lasted five seconds before her voice came back to them, sounding resigned.
[First and goal]
[Understood, Big Momma] The voice of Doctor Doreen Green came as Nat noted there was a bit of a excited tone in her voice. For a woman who had been under the mental slavery of HYDRA, experimented and tortured, and forced to kill in their name? Revenge wasn't going to be a dish best served cold for her.
[Marshal is just going to love my idea of a thundering herd]
Commander Brock Rumlow had finally fought his way to the lobby. And by 'fought', that meant that he had shot at least twenty people on his way down, either because they thought he was Tony Stark and were trying to stop him, because they thought he was Tony Stark and were trying to help him, or because of ensuing gun battles and he needed to get his way through the mess to make sure the actual Avengers didn't leave the facility. Not that he had a real hope of finding said members, but he wasn't about to stand around with his dick in his hand and come up with excuses. The whole holographic debacle had been more than just people changed to holographically represent the Avengers; there had been holographic ghosts, too. Rumlow was pissed, having gotten bettered by some raghead bitch nearly a third his age with stupid-ass illusions that made him kill either members of ONI, members of HYDRA, or just plain wasted bullets. A clinical part of him marveled at the ingenuity of it, to so chaos and discord amongst an enemies' ranks where no one could tell friend from foe and maximizing upon a missions' success by thinning the herd without having to fire a shot. As a former SEAL and as a STRIKE Team DELTA member, he had to admit that it was a brilliant play.
If he ever found Kamala Khan, he was going to fucking choke the life out of her with his own bare hands with a smile.
The lobby was a mess of bodies, some made by him, but there were clear signs that a furious yet short-lived firefight had existed amongst those in the large room had drawn weapons for whatever reasons when everyone had turned into the Avengers, and the round had began to fly. At least fifty people were dead or dying upon the faux-marble lobby floor, the walls and columns littered with gunshots and the splatter of of blood from gunshot wounds. In short, it was a fucking massacre where no one won.
That fucking hajji bitch one-up'ed us good and hard, Rumlow thought as he looked to his team.
"I doubt the Avengers are stupid enough to just walk out the front door," Brock told Clint Barton, Steve Rogers, Natasha Romanoff, and Sam Wilson, who were really Jack Collins, Eddie Fernandez, Ricardo Chacon, and Davis Aguila, "but with this mess they might just do that. Plus they need retrieval, and the parking lot is right there. If somehow someone gets smart and manages to pass by our freaks outside, they're going to make for a vehicle to get away. Disable the vehicle and try to ignite the fuel tank. I doubt any of them will like the idea of being set on fire." There was no way in hell he was going to explain himself to Pierce how this debacle went down without some sort of plan that might work despite the difficulties. Everything had gone to shit, the prediction analysis of ZOLA way off.
The Artificial Intelligence had predicted that the Avengers would likely go for one of the Heads of State in the American Government with evidence to stymie HYDRA's efforts, someone like the President, the Senate Majority Leader, the Secretary of State, or perhaps even one of the World Security Council Members. Rumlow had to chide himself for being a fool for thinking a computer could predict a person like that based upon the responses of others; ZOLA had assumed that Jennifer Walters would do what other whistle-blowers and whatnot did in such things. But this was the woman that had defended Thor in a courtroom in Norway, launched a website that depicted and demonstrated what the Avengers did with a great deal of transparency, went and somehow found more Avengers to be had, discovered a teenaged genius in New Jersey (and supposedly recruited Kamala Khan herself by visiting her home and her parents), and had even disappeared along with several of the Avengers at the same time some hacker in Hawaii had absconded with terabytes of information of HYDRA's dealings. The lawyer from Southern California who had more pro bono hours than any other practicing attorney who did cases for both sides of the court didn't shy from a fight she thought worth it.
She handled her own shit and went right for the throat. Why couldn't she have been another five-hundred buck-an-hour sleezeball like had been suggested when Director Nick Fury had looked into getting a legal manager for the many lawsuits and charges for his team of weirdos?
"Do you think they came to shut down ZOLA?" Sam Wilson/Corporal Davis Aguila asked, maintaining his position behind the front desk for any threats coming from deeper in the building. "It's the obvious play for them."
"If they came to this location, it's likely." Rumlow figured. How they had known was simple to figure out; Barnes. James Buchanan Barnes had practically been paraded through the facility when ZOLA became self-aware four months prior, the previous edition having been assimilated. That asshole Gerald Stern had put the Winter Soldier right at his side and gave the Asset an all-access pass. When the Avengers had defeated and collected Barnes in New Jersey, he had the information they needed to reach just that conclusion. "But Barnes doesn't know that this was only one part of ZOLA. Neither he nor Doreen knew of the servers in the Helicarriers. If they shut the ONI site down, oh well for them."
"We… might have a problem." Captain Steve Rogers/Lieutenant Jack Collins said as he looked outside. "Why the fuck are there only three of our freaks outside?"
Rumlow turned to see Alexsei Sytsevich, a Russian Mob thug brought in from prison who was now known as Rhino, MacDonald 'Mac' Gargan, who was a convicted murderer that was now known as Scorpion, and Angelica Jones, who had graduated from Quantico a couple of months back and was known as Firestar. All three of them were standing outside facing the building on his orders; to kill anyone leaving the building if they didn't know the safe word.
Where the fuck was Venom at? Where the hell was Jessica Drew?
"Shit." Brock cursed himself as he realized he might have made a major mistake. "Thor. I just assumed that was Burrow. It literally could have been anyone under that hologram." And he had fucking blurted the safe word and orders right in front of whoever it was. That could have been an ONI Agent, a low-level HYDRA Agent, or… or…
"Oh shit." No low-level HYDRA would know of the Cell. No ONI Agent would have repeated Hail HYDRA to him with a straight face, either being confused or vengeful. That left one very startling possibility.
"That fucking redhead."
Brock could practically taste what happened. Natasha Romanoff, one of the best covert agents and espionage agents to have ever lived, a master of disguises and silent strikes, had information of the Cell thanks to Doreen Green. She had gone straight for the metahumans… and waited like a spider in its web. When Brock had showed up and given his name, the Widow had immediately accessed the Cell, no doubt gotten it from Michael Burrow, the science technician who worked there. She hadn't known the safe word, so she waited on the possibility that someone who would know how to control their PROJECT ARGUS members did. And he had walked right into the trap. Like a fly to the web. She didn't rescue all of them, but she had certainly gotten the most powerful of them; Agent Venom. The woman who could fire lighting and fly, who was stronger than the rest of the converted save Alexsei, who was more durable than practically all of them, too. Jessica Drew was practically on the same level as Iron Man but without the need for a suit. HYDRA had gained a powerful asset in the CIA Trainee.
Who just so happened to be Jennifer Walters' adopted daughter, too.
"Motherfucker!" Rumlow turned to leave the building, heading right towards the freak show that was standing just outside, waiting to kill anyone who left the building. "Habakkuk." He ordered as soon as he got within decent range, all three of the Agents' ice-blue eyes snapping to his. "Where the fuck is Venom at?"
"Following orders." Came from Mac Gargan, the shelled-carapaced form of Scorpion looking back at him. Brock grunted as he realized that mind-controlled meant not-intelligent. The Agents practically had to be spoon-fed orders to be effective unless one wanted them to follow the last order given permanently. HYDRA hadn't figured out how Loki had been able to control Barton, Selvig, a dozen SHIELD Agents, and something like fifty others with just his mind alone. So far, HYDRA had figured out how to control fettered directly, but that was it.
"Whose?" This was getting to be a headache; no one liked twenty questions.
"The last person to give the safe word." That was Angelica Jones, dressed in a fireproof one-piece that left little to the imagination. Unfortunately for her, while she was immune to her own flames, her clothing wasn't. It was still touch-and-go with that. Not that Brock minded that much.
"And who was this person?"
"Thor." Jones answered again, her voice without real inflection. That only happened if someone were actively holding the Scepter and directing Agents mentally. Only a few people could manage. Rumlow got the confirmation he needed; none of the Agents stopped the discrepancy because they were still following his orders while Venom was getting a new set. His first thought was that they might use Jessica to attack them, but… no, Jessica was influenced by the Scepter. One safe word later, and she would be theirs again. No, they wouldn't be using Walters' daughter to fight them.
They were going to free her.
"Collins? Scrub the plan!" Rumlow knew what would happen next. It wasn't just that Jessica would be a powerful addition to the growing roster of the Avengers (though there was that). No, because she was likely the most powerful individual created using the Kree Genetic Modification and its combination of the Terragenesis Catalyst, she had been used as a protective detail for fucking Alexander Pierce himself! Jessica had been places that neither Green or Barnes had been, had seen the fucking servers on the Helicarriers, had been there when they were connected and turned on. "Agents! New target is Agent Venom. Find her, kill her." The last thing they needed was to practically hand the Avengers a Goddamn welcome mat and a cross hair to the right location. "Delta! You see any sign of the Avengers or their ride? You put bullets into it." It would be more effective to shoot up their ride than the Avengers themselves-
Something pulled at his attention, something coming from the Parkway.
Brock looked over to the expressway where traffic was non-existent on Interstate-485; an impossibility at this time of day, or any time of day, really. What he did see was something moving down the Suitland Parkway, but it wasn't cars, trucks, or semis.
"Oh, you have to be fucking kidding me." Rumlow said as he saw what looked to be a river flowing down the highway and off-ramp that would lead right to the street that would lead to the Office of Naval Intelligence. His eyes went down the off-ramp and to the street where that river was flowing… right towards them.
The thundering herd; a stampede of animals.
Commander Brock Rumlow felt fear inject itself into his heart for the first time in years as he saw a tidal wave of beasts coming right for the parking lot he stood in, animals of all shapes and sizes coming at full throttle. Rhinoceroses, hippopotamus, bears, lions, jaguars, deer, panthers, dogs, rodents, monkeys, and even elephants were coming in a mass stampede without issue, predator and prey working in concert. Hundreds, no, thousands of creatures ranging from mountains to plains to deserts to forests were bearing down on them at a high rate of speed, the shrieks and growls and calls of the animal kingdom shattering the air.
Doreen… Doreen has the power to control animals, Rumlow thought as fear gripped him hard at the sight of being outnumber by about a hundred to one, damn near every species running right at him fully qualified in being able to kick a human's ass and turn him into lunch. "Agents! At-"
Something hard hit him in the back of the head. Something round, disk-shaped, and made of metal.
The STRIKE Team DELTA Commander fell forward on his hands and knees, losing his pistol as it felt like a gong of pain had rung inside his skull, unconsciousness threatening to seize him as he fought off the pain and encroaching darkness as he got up to his feet, seeing his team down nursing their heads. As he stood, something up in the air caught his attention as he saw a shimmer vibrate through the air as a Boeing C-17 Globemaster III Cargo Aircraft appeared, hovering in the air like a Vertical Takeoff-and-Landing aircraft. He could see the famous 'A' monogram denoting who owned that plane, seeing the cargo ramp in the back opened for access as his eyes found the presence of nine people standing on the ramp looking down at him, one of them giving him a cocky wave while holding a bow while another gave him the finger, her red hair framing a furious face. Yet what grabbed his attention was the one in the center, the one dressed in the colors of the American flag, no mercy in those eyes whatsoever.
The Avengers.
"Sonofabitch…" Brock looked down to where his Springfield XD .45 pistol was, stooping down to collect it. By the time he had stood up and aimed it to where the plane was, it was already rising up to the sky like a VTOL, gaining altitude rapidly and completely getting out of range from his pistol. Everything about this fucking debacle had gone as wrong as wrong could be as the ground began to vibrate and the roars approached, and Brock remembered the other threat that had been bearing down on him.
Rumlow turned and ran as fast and as hard as he fucking could back into the building before he got ran over by what looked to be the entirety of the Smithsonian National Zoo.
Doctor Doreen Allene Green, (DVM) stood aboard the Gungnir, releasing the mental control of the animals that she had procured from the National Zoo and turned into a living tide of claws and teeth as she panted slightly from the exertion, her forehead beading with sweat her her skin somewhat clammy. Yet she was proud of herself, proud for what she could be able to do as well as what she had done. It wasn't the fact that she had practically raised an army all on her own, though that was a sense of satisfaction for the Veterinarian. It wasn't even the fact that had dumped about five thousand animals right onto HYDRA's lap with a smile and a hearty fuck you, though there was that, too. No, she had pushed herself to master her own new-found abilities, farther than HYDRA had ever done, had taken control of what she could do and made it her own. And then took a shit right on HYDRA's front lawn.
She felt like an Avenger now.
That feeling fought back the grief and pain and tears of what HYDRA had done to her, the pain and agony of being changed, the torture of finding out what she could do and what she could stand, the God-awful feeling of screaming silently in her own brain, powerless to do anything else but watch life go by like a horrific movie. Now she had her free will back, she had a choice in the matter, and she was going to take that pain and grief and rage and she was going to shove it right into HYDRA's throat and watch them choke to death on it.
And damn it had felt good.
"Doreen? Damn good work." Clinton Francis Barton, the Hawkeye and archer extraordinaire complimented her with a friendly pat on the shoulder and a smile on his face; a job well-done, a mission success, and she had played her part well covering the retreat of the rest of the team while giving something for HYDRA to worry about. When the Battle of New York occurred, it had been six people slapped together in a last ditch effort for a desperate defense to protect Earth from an alien invasion, according to Hawkeye. Now they had more members, teamwork, trust, and a growing list of experiences and talents under their belt that was getting better every day. HYDRA was prepared… but so were they. They were racking up the victories one-by-one, freeing her and Bucky, finding the locations where they could do the most damage, and now the strike against ZOLA at the Office of Naval Intelligence. While Plan: Agent Smith had been in effect, Hope van Dyne and Sam Wilson had been downloading a plethora of computer viruses into the AI's mainframe while the power was down and the Artificial Intelligence vulnerable. Then the Falcon had decided to leave a parting gift by leaving a grenade supersized by Pym Particles to blast the servers into pieces to make sure the job got done.
Victory was a wine more intoxicating than any.
Doreen looked into the plane, and her eyes fell upon someone who was standing in a corner, facing the wall as if in time out. Her breath caught in her throat as she saw the sight of combat pants, a tactical vest, muscular arms on a feminine body, and green vein-like tendrils crawling up the womans' forearms, ending at one end at her elbows and at the other side at her wrists.
"Jessica." The Veterinarian whispered, seeing her best friend at the far end of the craft, facing the wall. She was about to move forward when another hand went to her shoulder to stop her, Doreen seeing Natasha Romanoff looking at her with a wary expression while shaking her head.
"She's still under the influence." The redhead told her quietly, her voice filled with concern. "We need to be careful with what we say and what we do. This is the last place we want to set her off." The Widow's eyes went to the other members of the Avengers, making sure they understood. "We only know of one method that's proved to work."
"She isn't like me or Bucky." Her eyes went to Barnes, still sometimes shocked that it was none other than James Buchanan Barnes. "She's very durable. She could take more punishment than I could. By a lot."
"I'll do it."
Everyone turned to look at the other World War Two Veteran once thought dead for sixty-six years as Bucky rubbed the knuckles of his metallic fist with his human thumb, not exactly looking pleased with the thought of what needed to be done, but willing to do it anyhow. If anyone understood the need to feel free, it was most certainly Bucky Barnes.
"Buck…" Captain Steve Rogers began, but the long-haired man shook his head, indicating he didn't want to hear it.
"Hated guys who thought hurting dames was right and proper, cowards one and all." The veteran replied, looking at his prosthetic arm. "But Doreen's right; she'll be hard to knock out. I'm probably the only one on the plane who can, and I wouldn't want any of you having to hate yourselves for having to do it. Besides," he looked up and right at Captain America, "I know you too well, punk. You'd do it because it's you, but you would hate yourself for it. I'm not allowing that." It probably didn't happen very often when someone told Captain Rogers flat out no. "Getting another person out of their control… I need this."
"Alright." Steve sighed, resolved at the fact that Bucky wasn't going to budge. No one like the thought that they were going to have to hurt Jessica to free her, but they all understood the necessity of it.
"If you could all go to the loft? It's pretty damn uncomfortable to have everyone watch what's going to happen." Slowly, the Avengers nodded their consent as they made their way to the upper deck of the C-17, only Doreen staying behind with Bucky as he looked at her for a moment. She didn't tell him why she had remained behind. She didn't need to. "You ready for this, kid?"
"She is, so I am." The Doctor replied, readying herself for what was to come. "If it were me, I'd forgive you long before your knuckles ever touched me."
"Yeah, me too." The ninety-three year old man replied with the briefest of smiles. "We do this, and then we make sure it works." Bucky turned to face Jessica, her back towards them as he walked towards where she stood, stopping at arms' length away as Doreen stood at his side.
"Agent Venom."
Slowly, the dark-haired woman turned to show an emotionless face and ice-blue eyes, looking right at Barnes without any thought or expression on her face. The sight of it broke Green's heart. I was like that, so cold and emotionless on the outside, Artemis thought with a shiver as she prepared herself for what was coming next.
Bucky's metal arm struck out viper-fast, his knuckles meeting the underside of Jessica Drew's chin with a dull clang as the woman's head snapped back and toppled over onto the deck of the cargo plan, her body falling bonelessly to the ground. Barnes took a step forward and got to one knee, placing his flesh-and-bone hand on Jessica's collarbone to hold her down as his artificial limb raised up ready to strike once more if necessary.
"Check her."
Doreen went to Jessica's side as her clawed fingers went to Drew's eyelids and gently opened them, seeing her ice-blue eyes halfway rolled upward from the blow, the younger woman obviously losing consciousness. They rolled back down for a moment, the white sclera surrounding the ice-blue iris as the black pupil grew larger, dilating before shuttering and shrinking.
Doreen had to blink her eyes to see it again for herself, but the blueness was becoming lesser.
The Veterinarian gasped softly after watching for about ten seconds or so as the ice-blue appearance faded away, melting from view as the emerald green color that Doreen remembered became more prominent until the blue was finally gone. And then the eyes rolled back up to the top lids as Jessica went limp on the cargo bay floor, completely losing consciousness.
"We did it, Bucky." Artemis sobbed as she gently cupped Jessica's head and brought her to her breast, cradling her best friend to her bosom as she sobbed again, the grief and the anguish she once felt coming back hard as she held Jessica to her chest, holding her tight. But that grief was fought back as she held her best friend, knowing what had happened. Doreen had made a promise, and she had kept it.
"She's free."
Author's Notes: Technically, since I used Kree Material (seen in Agents of SHIELD, the Earth-616/Marvel Comics, and the new Avengers game), Jessica, Doreen, and the others are Inhumans. I haven't used this term… yet. But I think some of you will see where this will be leading to when the SuperARC: WINTER IS COMING is over. (As a hint? Humanity needs a friend)
I have ZOLA deliver my version of the Borg Quote (Resistance Is Futile) that I used in Mass Effect: Of Lions And Angels during ARC: A FOREST OF SPINES, III. The full quote goes "I am beginning, I am end. I am one, from which there is many. Through me, perfection you shall achieve. To resist, is futility." I really wanted to amp up the creepiness factor with the thoughts of a digital overlord that will enslave us all and force us to solve Pi to the millionth decimal.
I do apologize for the bigoted words that Brock Rumlow uses for Kamala Khan. Rumlow was never explained as to how he became the commander for SHIELD's Strike Team, so I went with the obvious route; a former SEAL. Some of the terms are more military-related (technically, a Hajjie [spelling?] is someone on Hajj, or Pilgrimage to Mecca… but also the name of Johnny Quest's friend) with the inclusion of the more stereotypical one; the use of the Hajib to cover one's head in respect to God. I only include this as we already know Brock is a HYDRA villain and not exactly someone seen in a favorable light. I thought this would work well with his character; a violent professional.
Yes, Brock and crew were the ones that killed the Khans.
I identify an incendiary grenade as using aluminum and ferric oxide (the cute term for 'rust'). Yes, Thermite is a chemical reaction of shaved aluminum and rusty iron that needs a high-temperature igniter (usually magnesium) to start the reaction. Incendiaries don't blow up; they burn, and will continue to do so until the elements have ran out or there is no oxygen. Even then, they smolder and can reignite if it comes into contact with air.
Rhino (Aleksei Sytsevich), Scorpion (MacDonald 'Mac' Gargan), and Firestar (Angelica 'Angel' Jones), are Earth-616 characters as well as in other medias. Rhino is a part of Spider-Man's rogue gallery, and was seen at the beginning and end of The Amazing Spider-Man 2, though in the comics he had an experiment ran on him to become more powerful while in the movie the Rhino suit was big metal suit. Scorpion is also a part of Spider-Man's rogue gallery (Webhead has the best villains) who had a specialized suit, but Mac Gargan later becomes the new Venom. Firestar is actually a mutant with the power of pyrokinesis (firestarter), and originally developed for the Spider-Man and Friends cartoon from the Eighties, and a part of the New Warrior in the comic books. In this, she is HYDRA-controlled and no longer a mutant.
Having Nat save Jessica was a last-minute change of plan. Originally, she was going to fight for HYDRA at the climax. Instead… I changed my damn mind.
Marshall University's team name is known as 'the Thundering Herd' (which is depicted as a bison).
I gave Jessica Drew's HYDRA codename as Agent Venom for two reasons. First is that Spider-Woman's electrical powers is known as a 'venom blast' (though it isn't toxic at all). Second is that there is an Agent Venom in Earth-616, Eugene 'Flash' Thompson; the kid who picked on Peter Parker in High School but admires Spider-Man, not knowing that they are one and the same person.